Vertex Ventures China, part of Vertex Ventures’s network of global venture capital (VC) funds, has closed its second angel fund at over 500 million yuan ($69.4 million) to double down on deeptech and healthtech investments in China.
Many of the existing limited partners (LPs) from its first angel fund again committed to the second fund, alongside other LPs like industry investors and local governments in China, Vertex China announced on Tuesday.
Vertex China, founded in 2008 with offices across Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Singapore, manages both RMB and USD funds with an equivalent of about 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in total assets under management (AUM). The China-focused VC franchise currently has a portfolio of over 160 companies.
“Vertex China is optimistic about the growth potential of deeptech in China,” said Zhijin Xia, Vertex China’s managing partner, in a company statement.
Xia said that the second angel fund primarily bankrolls startups at their angel and pre-Series A funding rounds. Following the strategy of its predecessor fund, the new vehicle focuses on deeptech and healthtech startups, specifically, those in the areas of semiconductors, robotic intelligent solutions, artificial intelligence (AI), biopharmaceuticals, and beyond.
The second angel fund comes about five years after the launch of its debut angel fund, which was introduced in 2020 and has since backed some 20 startups, including chipmakers Longsailing and Guanhua, as well as robotics startups AgileX and Wisson.
Almost two-thirds of these angel-stage projects have completed their follow-on financing, according to Vertex China.
The firm said that the second angel fund makes “a strategic complement” to Vertex China’s second flagship RMB VC fund, for which it raised nearly 3.6 billion yuan (approximately $500 million) in August 2024. The flagship RMB VC fund focuses on investments in innovative technologies—such as semiconductors, large language model (LLM) applications, and healthtech—which are very much in line with its strategy at the angel stage but target more mature companies.
The two RMB-denominated funds are expected to “further enrich” Vertex China’s ecosystem of tech portfolios, as the angel fund’s portfolio can potentially grow into investment targets of the bigger VC fund.
Besides the angel fund series, Vertex China manages five flagship USD funds and two flagship RMB funds. It held the final close of its latest fifth USD fund at $500 million in October 2022.
While the company boosts its capacities in helping startups with strategic planning, talent recruitment, and follow-on financing, the portfolio of Vertex China can also benefit from its status as part of the Vertex global network that offers the sharing of market insights, value creation, and portfolio support across borders.
Vertex Ventures’s global network of VC funds across China, the US, Israel, Japan, India, and Southeast Asia are managed by independent general partners.
