The firm is a venture capital fund founded in 1996 with offices in the US, China, and Japan. The firm has over $4.2B assets under management and has invested in over 400 companies. In 2019, the firm closed Fund IX at $780M, its largest fund to date. The firm invests mainly in early-stage technology companies (i.e. internet, SaaS, consumer-tech, etc.) with high disruptive potential and seeks to be the first institutional investor, but dedicates a small amount of capital (about 20% of the fund) to later-stage companies as well. Typically, first checks fall in the $2-5M range in Seed to Series A rounds, but the firm has made investments as small as $250K. Overall, the firm invests in over 20 companies per year across North America and Asia. In terms of healthtech specifically, the firm aims to make at least 1-2 USA-based and 1 China-based investments per year.
The firm is mainly interested in digital health opportunities and will not consider therapeutics or medical devices. The firm will stray away from anything that involves FDA regulatory approval. Previous investments of the firm include a Google Glass-powered remote scribe platform that improves the workflow of physicians, an AI engine that matches cancer patients with clinical trials, a wearable health tracker for healthy lifestyle management, etc. Companies do not need to be generating revenue prior to investment.
The firm invests in private companies with strong technology and can work with different kinds of management teams that are ideally devoted full-time to the company. The firm will almost always act as the lead investor and seek board representation, staying actively involved in their portfolio companies. The firm prefers to have a syndicate of co-investors invest alongside the firm, but this is not an absolute requirement.
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