Veteran Chinese dealmaker Joe Zhou sent me an email to share news that his new China fund, Keytone Ventures, has raised $200 million--in the wake of a challenging fund raising cycle that has spread to once over-heated China, with first-half 2009 funds at $1.8 billion, down from the $6.6 billion raised during the first six months of 2008.
I've been closely covering Joe's career moves for more than two years now since he opted to team up with Kleiner Perkins China in 2007, and then bailed in early 2008 over incompatible deal-making styles. Joe already has seven investments in the Keytone portfolio, deals that he originally sourced while at KP China. UPDATE: The fund has 20 limited partners, Joe tells me, and one-quarter of them overlap with those at KP China. Also, China-focused fund of funds Jade Invest is one of the limited partners. So is European pension fund Industriens Pension. Interestingly, one-quarter of the LPs overlap with those at KP China's inaugural fund of $360 million.
Keytone is one of the few foreign capital funds without a link to a top-tier firm from Silicon Valley. That is probably a good thing, since many of the Valley funds in China--Sequoia Capital included--are struggling. KP China, meanwhile, has been rebuilding its team and portfolio.
Tech innovation and venture investment with a Silicon Valley view of global trends
