Is there Life (And VC) Outside of China?

While it’s almost impossible to get anyone to say anything about venture investing in Asia without hearing the word China, venture investing across Asia, outside of China, is making a comeback. That’s good news for Asian countries that have not had much interest from private equity investors since the 1996-1999 financial crises when the values of currencies fell as much as 80%, banking systems neared insolvency and widespread political instability racked the region. Surprisingly, in the private equity arena, the interest is coming from several of the firms’ that were the first to plunge into Asian investing in the early 1990’s. H&Q Asia, Walden International, and IDG Ventures are among them. Pat McGovern, founder of IDG and IDG Ventures which announced a $120 million Venture Capital Fund for Vietnam last March and an experienced investor throughout Asia with his publishing and research companies (IDG for example publishes 14 magazines in the People’s Republic of China, 12 in Australia, and others in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Malaysia) says IDG will focus on Vietnamese IT outsourcing firms, telecommunications and software producers and on IT publications in the country.

Source: Technology & Investing

For more information, please contact:
Howard Sholkin
howard_sholkin@idg.com
617-239-7882