Gaocheng partner joins SoftBank Vision Fund

Cai - whose Chinese name is Wei Cai - confirmed the move on her LinkedIn profile. She joined Gaocheng on its inception in 2018 and was responsible for deal sourcing and fundraising. Cai also served on the investment committee.

Prior to Gaocheng, Cai was a managing partner at Baidu Capital and Baidu Ventures from 2016. She focused on the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector and was a board member of portfolio companies such as Yixin Group, Tuhu, and Dynamic Yield. Cai worked on China investments for TA Associates between 2015 and 2016, having previously spent five years at Goldman Sachs as an executive director focusing on VC and PE investment.

Gaocheng, a spin-out from Hillhouse Capital, recently closed its first US dollar-denominated fund with $300 million in commitments. The GP now has more than RMB4 billion ($560 million) in assets under management across US dollar and renminbi strategies. It targets growth capital investments related to technological innovation and enterprise services.

SoftBank closed its debut Vision Fund at $100 billion in 2018 and the firm announced last year that it had $108 billion in commitments for a successor vehicle. Since then, however, Vision Fund I has struggled with high-profile bets like WeWork going awry. Last month, SoftBank said the fund would book a loss of $16.5 billion for the current financial year.

China portfolio companies include Koubei, ByteDance Technology, CloudMinds, Didi Chuxing, Full Truck Alliance, Guazi, Ping An Healthcare & Technology, OneConnect, Ping An HealthKonnect, and ZhongAn Insurance.

Cai is not the only recent recruit in the country. Arthur Zhang, a managing director at Zhenfund joined the Vision Fund last December. In addition to the Vision Fund, SoftBank is active in China through SoftBank Ventures Asia. It operates independently from the Vision Fund and invests in earlier funding rounds.

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