China’s CSC Group backs UK AI incubator

The size of the transaction was not disclosed but the Chinese group said it has invested multi-million pounds. Dania Zhou, CSC's senior managing director, will join the Founders Factory board.

As part of the five-year deal, Founders Factory will invest in and scale five early stage AI start-ups and co-create two new companies a year. The in-house team at Founders Factory, many of whom are entrepreneurs themselves, will provide hands-on support and advice to participating startups.

"This is just the beginning of a long-term relationship with Founders Factory; a relationship that will give us access to the best European talent through its unique model backed by other large corporate partners," CSC's Zhou said in a statement. "The founding team has a great track record at building businesses; something we now want to do together with a focus on artificial intelligence."

This marks Founders Factory's fifth such partnership in the last 12 months, following arrangements with Aviva, l'Oreal, the Guardian Media Group and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. The incubator plans to develop 200 early-stage technology companies over the next five years across six sectors.

CSC, which has more than $12 billion under management, listed on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ), an over-the-counter market in China, last March. Within six months, it raised approximately $1.7 billion through private placements. Since its inception in 2000, CSC has invested in around 400 companies and made more than 70 exits, of which 40 were through IPOs.

Last year, CSC launched a $400 million early-stage focused fund, called CSC Upshot, to invest in seed-stage companies on US funding platform AngelList. 

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Europe
• China
• TMT
• seed
• LPs
• United Kingdom