Official Record
China's FunPlus pursues global ambition
Venture Capitalists have bet big on China's gaming industry. According to AVCJ Research, investment reached a record high of $1.6 billion last year, a massive jump on the $127 million committed in 2012. Barely three months into 2014 and gaming deals have...
L Capital looks to take Dr. Wu beyond Taiwan
While Taiwan's skincare and cosmetics brands are much more developed than their Chinese counterparts, upward potential is limited. L Capital Asia, a PE firm backed by luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, therefore needed a different investment thesis.
India start-up targets tea change
Building a business around tea was a logical move for Kaushal Dugar when he left his job as a corporate finance analyst in Singapore to become an entrepreneur back home in India. It has been part of the family business for 80 years. But tea plus e-commerce...
Zoyi secures first China-Taiwan deal
Of the cluster of China control deals to emerge in the last few years, a small but significant number can be traced back to Taiwan. These are often family-owned mid-size businesses that were early entrants into mainland China, searching for lower-cost...
DCM bets bigger on China
DCM's latest global fund is smaller than its two predecessors because Silicon Valley-based general partners, Carl Amdahl and co-founder Dixon Doll, are stepping down. As a result, there will be fewer US investments, but China is expected to play a more...
Kerogen enters PNG LNG space
Seven years after ExxonMobil began its feasibility study on commercializing gas resources in Papua New Guinea (PNG) through liquefied natural gas (LNG), the PNG LNG Project is poised to start delivering on its promise.
FidelisWorld takes the field with TechFront
The Indian Premier League (IPL) will literally enter new territory next month when the seventh season of the cricket tournament starts play in the United Arab Emirates – the first time the country has played host to such an event. The stadium chosen...
VCs keep the faith in Snapdeal
Saama Capital was one of a group of VCs that backed Indian online jewelry store Bluestone.com in early 2012. It is a vertical play in the country's e-commerce industry - targeting a particular market segment - and this might ordinarily have been a turn...
Kendall Court's mining compromise solution
Intrepid Mines was left with choice: continue to participate in the Tujuh Bukit copper-gold project in Indonesia as a minority investor, or sell up. It wasn't a choice the Australian resources company had envisaged making when it agreed to assume control...
Superangel swoops in to support Vancl
Chinese smart phone maker Xiaomi is a smash hit, valued at $10 billion in its most recent round of funding. Lei Jun, the company’s founder, is riding high. In contrast, Chen Nian (pictured), who set up online clothing retailer Vancl six years ago, is...
Jack Ma returns to school
Jack Ma was an English teacher at Hangzhou Dianzi University before he went on to found Alibaba Group. Now he has returned to the education sector to support the next generation.
Adveq buys into Australia’s king of crops
The term "real assets" doesn't generally conjure up images of almonds. And these assets aren’t widely available. California, Spain and Australia account for around 80% of a global almond market set to be worth $5 billion in 2013.
Premji tries Myntra on for size
The growth of Indian e-commerce is well documented and recent estimates by online marketplace and industry poster child Flipkart illustrate just how much farther it has to go. According to Sachin Bansal, Flipkart’s co-founder and CEO, e-commerce grew...
Catalyst completes cool exit
Throughout last year's election campaign, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott pledged to repeal the country’s carbon tax on taking office. Five months on, he has yet to do it and the debate rumbles on as to whether the drop in emissions – 0.3% for...
Equis, Partners Group bet on Japanese solar
Japan's rapid embrace of renewable energy in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has alerted PE investors. In the last 12 months, Macquarie Capital and local engineering firm Maeda Corp. launched a joint venture that will target infrastructure...
CDH to close upsized Fund V at $2.55b
Speaking to AVCJ last year, Shangzhi Wu (pictured), chairman and managing partner of CDH Investments, addressed the issue of certain China managers’ fund sizes rising with each vintage. He put the phenomenon down to a combination of rising valuations,...
EQT’s new fund goes global
The acquisition of a 65% stake in Qinyuan Bakery in 2010 was EQT Partners’ debut food service sector investment in China. Yet the deal was familiar territory for the GP, which was able draw on previous portfolio investments in Europe, including Vaasan&Vassan,...
RedMart fills Singapore’s e-groceries void
When entrepreneur Steve Melhuish moved to Asia from the UK his wife was a prodigious online shopper, having grown accustomed to ordering her groceries from Ocado or Waitrose. While he made headway in Singapore’s internet space, launching realty portal...
VC firms back Irish start-ups in China
Led by the likes of Google, Facebook and LinkedIn, US tech companies have flocked to Ireland due to its EU access and business friendly policies, creating around 140,000 local jobs in the process. This has fostered spin-outs and serial entrepreneurs across...
Vertex backs FirstCry’s O2O e-commerce push
Indian baby and kids-focused e-commerce site FirstCry.com was not the first mover in its segment when it launched in 2010. Kalaari Capital-backed HushBabies and Babyoye, an Accel Partners and Tiger Global portfolio company, were among those already operating...
CITIC Capital finally bags AsiaInfo take-private
Private equity firms have supported 11 management buyouts of Chinese firms listed in the US since mid-2011. Until last week, only two of these successful transactions - Funtalk China and Focus Media - were control buyouts, where one or more PE backers...
KKR, Affinity in Asia's largest-ever trade sale
Anheuser-Busch InBev's $5.8 billion buyback of South Korea's Oriental Brewery from KKR and Affinity Equity Partners is best viewed in the context of extenuating circumstances in which the original investment was made in July 2009.
Unitas completes Edwards reorientation
When Unitas Capital and CCMP Capital came across specialist vacuum products developer Edwards Group, the business was hamstrung by geography. Asia was responsible for 60% of revenues but only 30% of manufacturing activity; in Europe these figures were...
Facebook buys VC-backed Little Eye Labs
Within 19 months of starting-up, Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs was snapped up by Facebook to take the social network’s mobile development to the next level. Little Eye Labs was also in talks with Twitter, but Facebook ended up offering a better deal....