Launched in 2015 with the personal approval from the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Silk Ventures is on a mission is to build the most advanced New ‘Silk Road’ for technology companies seeking to expand to China and for Chinese companies seeking to ‘go global’. The VC has now raised $500 million to invest in European and US startups with a specific focus on Fintech including Blockchain (DLT) and Regtech.
While based in China, Silk Ventures is clearly a global operation with offices scattered around the world. outposts in Silicon Valley and London help with its objectives of taking a decidedly international approach to investment.
This past March, Silk Ventures hosted a delegation of Chinese corporations who came to visit London with an aim of buying or investing in later stage UK and EU technology companies. A group of early stage companies pitched their businesses to a group of 18 corporations ready to invest.
At the time, Silk Ventures stated;
“…this is a new world we live in and we might just be entering into a new investment and indeed exit paradigm which is led by China.”
Silk Ventures Founding Partner Angelica Anton told Bloomberg;
“It’s definitely a pull-based relationship and it’s always been. You’ve got startups here who need to access the market, you’ve got corporates there who are very inefficient, very old fashioned. They need to innovate, they need to compete globally, and they do that by collaborating with startups who bring the technology.”