China VCs back See Fund's debut vehicle

LPs include Sequoia Capital China, Hillhouse Capital, Matrix Partners China, CPE, ZhenFund, FreesFund, Ant Group, Zhongguancun Science City Science & Technology Fund, ByteDance, Tsinghua Holdings, and Chinese enterprise data firm Tianyancha, 36Kr reported.

Song Yao established DeePhi Technology in 2016 and served as CEO until its acquisition by Xilinx in 2018 at a valuation of $1 billion. The company's backers included GSR Ventures, Gaorong Capital, China Growth Capital, China Merchants Innovation Investment, and Ant Group.

See Fund will focus on deep technology, especially within semiconductors, pan-electronic information technology, and the industrial internet. It will support 10-15 start-ups, typically in the pre-Series A rounds. The goal is to build an ecosystem of 100 companies within five years.

Born in 1992, Yao graduated from Tsinghua University's department of electronic engineering in 2015. See Fund plans to back cutting-edge technology companies founded by staff and alumni of Tsinghua and other top universities, promoting technological innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. It will donate 30% of the Fund I management fee to Tsinghua.

Tsinghua alumni have founded many tech start-ups, notably video-sharing and social networking platform Kuaishou, which recently listed in Hong Kong with a market cap of about $140 billion. The university also has investment arms that support deep tech start-ups.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Renminbi fund
• Venture
• Technology
• GPs
• LPs
• China
• Sequoia Capital
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• Matrix Partners
• ZhenFund
• See Fund