GCV Powerlist 2017: Zhiqiang (George) He

Lenovo, a Hong Kong-listed $46bn global Fortune 500 company best known for its personal computers, has developed an “investment cluster” concept consisting of four venture subsidiaries – Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group (LCIG), venture focused Legend Star and Legend Capital, and private equity firm Hony Capital.

The newest is LCIG, which was formed a year ago to invest in core technology and internet-related areas globally and pull together some existing investments and internal startups.

Zhiqiang (George) He, Lenovo’s senior vice-president and chief technology officer, is president of LCIG and plans to invest $500m in cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics and internet service projects through the Lenovo Capital Phase II Investment Fund. He reports to Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo chairman and CEO – both launched LCIG last May.

LCIG internal subsidiaries at launch included ShareIt, Lenovo Cloud, Lenovo Connect, Online Biometric Authentication, Lenovo Finance, Lenovo Smart Healthcare, and Lenovo New Glass, as well as more than 40 investments, including iDreamSky, Face Plus Plus, StyleWe, Shopex, Zaker, Diting Technology, and SmartX. Lenovo Capital has also invested outside China in Nok Nok Labs in the US and VC CPI in Israel. Its recent deals include joining the latest $87m round for the smart electric vehicle developer Nio, formerly NextEV.

He said at the launch: “We are well-prepared to shape the future of game-changing technologies through funding and nurturing startups and bringing incubator projects to market.”

Lenovo Capital supplies startups a variety of resources, including access to a global R&D structure with approximately 10,000 engineers, supply chain management, help with administrative support functions and customer procurement.

Lenovo also created the Lenovo Accelerator at Hong Kong Cyberport to serve global technology entrepreneurs in the early stages, and focuses on core technology and technology, media and telecoms. It targets startups specialising in core technologies.

The other parts of the investment cluster have also been busy. Wei Liu, the head of Legend Star, which has initiated more than 100 projects, joined Baidu Ventures, and Legend Capital’s managing director Erhai Liu left in 2015 to form VC firm Joy, leaving Wenji Jin as MD.

However, Legend Capital, the venture capital firm formed and sponsored by China-based conglomerate Legend Holdings, raised $243m for its latest fund, according to a regulatory filing. LC Fund VII raised the capital from a total of 23 limited partners according to the filing, and is targeting a final close of $375m. Legend Capital began raising money for the fund in February last year.

Legend Capital has invested in more than 300 companies and exited about 90 through public listings and acquisitions since its foundation. The firm has more than RMB30bn ($4.35bn) of assets under management. Portfolio companies currently include car servicing platform Tuhu, cloud infrastructure provider UCloud and pharmaceutical company Innovent Biologics. Recent exits include chauffeured car service provider UCar, which went public in China in July 2016 at a $5.5bn valuation.