INCE completes $700 mln VC fundraising amid China tech crackdown

Meitu

07/01/2022 01:46

SHANGHAI, Jan 7 (Reuters) - China-focused venture capital
(VC) firm INCE Capital said it had secured $700 million in
commitments for two dollar-denominated funds, indicating global
investors were not entirely deterred by Beijing's regulatory
crackdown on the tech sector.       
    INCE's latest fundraising got strong support from global
institutional investors, including Duke University, Carnegie
Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and Kaiser
Permanente, INCE said in a statement.
    One of the funds was oversubscribed and raised $478 million,
said INCE, which focuses on Chinese tech, Internet and consumer
start-ups. 
    China has cracked down https://www.reuters.com/world/china/education-bitcoin-chinas-season-regulatory-crackdown-2021-07-27
 on the technology sector over the past year and recently
stepped up scrutiny of offshore listings by domestic companies,
roiling domestic stocks in the sector.
    "Despite the global uncertainty and challenging capital
market, we continue to believe in the innovation,
entrepreneurship in China and Chinese venture capital as a great
asset class," Edward J. Grefenstette, President and Chief
Investment Officer of The Dietrich Foundation that participated
in the INCE fundraising, said in the statement.
    INCE "will navigate through these uncertain times
exceedingly well", Grefenstette said.
    JP Gan, founding partner of INCE Capital, said the
fundraising success was a recognition of the firm's ability to
nurture fast-growing and great companies in the world's
second-biggest economy.
    INCE was founded in July, 2019, and raised $351.9 million in
its first dollar fund that year. The latest fundraising triples
its assets under management to $1 billion.
    Investors in the two new funds - INCE Capital Partners II
and INCE Opportunity Fund - also include Commonfund, Unicorn
Capital, Axiom Asia and Siguler Guff.
    Gan has over two decades of experience in venture capital.
    His previous investments include Trip.com Group
 TCOM.O  9961.HK , Bilibili Inc  BILI.O  9626.HK , Meitu Inc
 1357.HK  and Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance and
then merged into TikTok. 

 (Reporting by Samuel Shen and Kane Wu; Editing by Himani
Sarkar)
 ((samuel.shen@thomsonreuters.com;  +86 21 20830018; Reuters
Messaging: samuel.shen.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))