Qiming has chosen to stick to its successfulformula with its sixth US dollar-denominated vehicle, which recently closed at$935 million
The fundraising process for Qiming VenturePartners’ latest US dollar-denominated vehicle – like the five before it – wentaccording to plan. The China-focused GP revealed its intentions at its annualgeneral meeting in November and the official launch came in February. Within amonth, Qiming Venture USD Fund VI closed at the hard cap of $935 million. Onedifference is the step-up in size. The VC firm raised $648 million and $500million for its two previous funds.
“We are seeing more and more opportunities acrossall sectors. The fund size might look a bit bigger this time, but if you thinkabout our sector focus – including technology, media and telecom (TMT) andhealthcare – we could easily raise a $500-600 million standalone fund for eachsector,” says J.P. Gan, a managing partner at Qiming. “Our TMT and healthcareteams have been working together for many years and we’re happy together. So,we have raised relatively a larger fund for both strategies.”
In line with the US dollar fund, the firm alsoraised a renminbi vehicle – Qiming Venture RMB Fund V – which also reached itshard cap of RMB2.1 billion ($334 million). It marks a steady increase from RMB1billion for Fund III and RMB1.5 billion for Fund IV. Most of the LPs in thecore China vehicles are existing investors. They include Princeton University,The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, and Commonfund onthe US dollar side, and Oriza FoFs, CDB Capital FoFs, and China InternationalCapital Corporation (CICC) in the renminbi vehicle.
The investment strategy is largely consistent withthat of its predecessors. The GP focuses on early-stage and expansion-stagedeals, with over half the capital going to early-stage companies. “We areexcited about the new consumption opportunity. People born in 2000s will enteruniversity this year and they will become the new consumers. Young talent bornin 1990s would have been working in tech firms like Tencent and Ctrip forseveral years, with some becoming mid-level managers. Now they can come out andset up their own businesses, and we’re excited to back them,” Gan says.
The firm has also been active in terms of exits.Nine portfolio companies have gone public in China, Hong Kong and the US overthe past 18 months, including photo app Meitu, animation platform Bilibili, andbiotech firm Zai Lab.
Qiming expanded into the US with bases in Seattleand Boston, which led to the launch of a healthcare fund last year. The USHealthcare Fund I, which aims to help China- and US-based start-ups expand inboth markets, also closed at its hard cap of $120 million. Most of the LPs haveexposure to Qiming’s China vehicles.
“The US healthcare fund is focusing on investmentsin the US, while the China vehicles are only in China,” says Gan. “If there isan opportunity in the healthcare sector where we can draw capital from bothChina and the US funds, that’s our advantage. But they’re not cross-borderfunds - that’s not our strategy.”
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