China's Sherpa closes debut US dollar fund at $200m

LPs include public pension plans, family offices, fund-of-funds, asset management companies, and other institutional investors, according to a release. Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) reportedly committed $100 million.

Sherpa Healthcare Fund I will invest in early to growth-stage investments in biotech, biopharma, and medical devices companies in both China and the US. Investments to date include Cytek Biosciences, New Horizon Health, Singleron, Epimab, NanoVision, Belief Biomed, Neurotronic, and Blissbio.

Sherpa was founded in 2018 by Xiangyu Ouyang and Daqing Cai. Ouyang established Legend Capital's health and medical investment team, while Cai was the CFO of BGI Group before joining in Legend.

Ouyang has described Sherpa as targeting leading companies in sub-sectors that are at inflection points in their technological innovations.

He believes that in the past few years, China's biopharmaceutical sector has closed the gap with overseas leaders, thanks to the emergence of local champions such as Innovent Bio. In the fields of cell and gene therapy, domestic companies are seen as almost at the same level as overseas competitors.

"These industries are very new, the gap is not obvious. We saw opportunities for Chinese companies to overtake overseas leaders,"  Ouyang said. Ouyang added that he sees great potential in the entire value chain related to genes and precision therapy, from sequencing, diagnosis, treatment to related tools and equipment.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Fundraising
• Healthcare
• Venture
• Pharmaceuticals