Joy Capital closes $700M for early-stage investments in China

Joy Capital, the venture capital firm that has backed Luckin, NIO, Mobike and other investor darlings in China, just raised $700 million for a new fund focusing on early to growth-stage startups. Launched in 2015 by a team of former investors at Legend Capital, the investment arm of PC maker Lenovo’s parent company, Joy Capital made the news official (in Chinese) on Monday. It didn’t identify the limited partners in this new corpus of funding but said they include “top” public pension funds and insurance companies. Its existing pool of investors counts those from sovereign wealth funds, education-focused endowment funds, family funds and parent funds. The fresh money boosted Joy’s total tally to more than 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) under management, with a focus on backing cutting-edge technologies and companies involved in the digital upgrade of China’s traditional sectors, or what Joy’s founding partner Liu Erhai (pictured above) dubbed the “new infrastructure” in an op-ed for the China Securities Journal. Targets can include the likes of logistics companies, online car rental platforms or bike-sharing apps.