China's Lenovo launches $500m corporate VC fund

The vehicle, which will be managed by the firm's newly-created unit Lenovo Capital Group, is looking to invest in areas such as cloud computing and big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and robot, internet and consumer, said Zhiqiang He, a senior vice president at Lenovo, in a press conference in Beijing. He will be also in charge of the new VC unit.

Lenovo Capital will invest across the entire venture capital spectrum, from accelerators to traditional early-stage VC investments to strategic acquisitions.

Previously Lenono Group had established a $100 million VC fund - Le Fund - to invest in early-stage technology, media and telecom (TMT) companies. That entity will now be consolidated under the umbrella brand Lenovo Capital. It has backed more than 40 start-ups, including mobile games developer iDreamSky, fascial recognition technology firm Face++ and e-commerce platform StyleWe.

Lenovo is the largest PC maker in the world, with a more than 20% market share, according to industry consultancy firm IDC. Like other computer makers, the company is looking for new avenues of growth as global demand for PCs slows. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million for the first quarter of this year, down 11.5% year-on-year.

Lenovo's parent company, Legend Holdings, is already active in the venture capital and private equity space as sponsor to Legend Capital and Hony Capital, respectively, as well as through incubator Legend Star. Legend Capital closed its sixth US dollar-denominated fund last year at $500 million, while Hony is understood to have raised $2.7 billion for its latest fund.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Fundraising
• Venture
• Technology
• China
• TMT
• Venture
• Fundraising
• seed
• Growth capital