China’s dual-currency, early-stage venture investor 01VC has brought its new 500-million yuan ($68.6 million) RMB-denominated fund to a first close, according to a company release on Monday.
The RMB fund roped in state capital investors, listed firms and fund of funds (FoFs), which are backed by state capital but have a market-oriented approach. However, the firm did not disclose the names of the backers.
The RMB fund targets to invest in angel to Series B stage opportunities across supply chain, industrial automation, business-to-business solutions, and cross-border industries, with a ticket size ranging from 5 million yuan ($0.7 million) to 50 million yuan ($6.9 million).
The fundraising is led by Grace Yu, managing partner of 01VC. With a decade of experience focusing on early-stage opportunities in supply chain technology, Yu has had stints at Meridian Capital China focusing on Internet and software-as-a-service (SaaS) investments.
Besides the latest RMB fund, 01VC manages four USD funds and one RMB-denominated fund. Both of 01VC’s maiden and second USD funds generated a Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) of 2x. DPI is a financial metric used to gauge the total capital a private equity or venture capital fund has returned to its investors.
01VC was founded in 2015 by Ian Goh, who previously served as a partner at bluechip venture investment firms such as MPCi (formerly known as Matrix Partners China) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) China, together with Yong Zhao—previously co-founder of Shenzhen-listed mobile game developer Shanghai Kingnet Network and vice president of KPCB China.
Some of its portfolio companies include Hong Kong-based on-demand logistics firm Lalamove; Chinese cross-border fintech unicorn XTransfer, Indonesian fintech unicorn Xendit; and Chinese hair styling product maker TYMO BEAUTY, among others, according to its company website.
China’s private equity and venture capital ecosystem is now heavily dominated by state capital, and dealmaking locally is less correlated to single political events. Despite that, venture capital and private equity funds had yet to record a major rebound in 2024 in terms of fundraising as geopolitical tension and macroeconomic uncertainties continued to loom.
China saw 3,981 VC and PE funds hitting the market to raise an aggregate of around 1.4 trillion yuan ($197.3 billion) in 2024. The number of funds and proceeds marked a 43% and 20.8% year-over-year (YoY) drop, respectively, according to industry data provider Zero2IPO Group.
