Hillhouse Capital Group, Asia-focused private equity (PE) giant led by Yale alumnus and billionaire Zhang Lei, on Wednesday announced the setting up of the Aseed+ project as it seeks to expand its bets on the seed stage.
In a post on its WeChat official account, Hillhouse said that Aseed+ will adopt its “research-driven” strategy to “dig into structural changes across technologies and industries with a goal to cherry pick entrepreneurs with insights into sub-segments.”
The project plans to provide entrepreneurs and emerging startups with holistic services covering all parts of their business development, including incubation & acceleration, market validation, industry matchmaking, and follow-on fundraising.
While Hillhouse did not detail the investment plans of Aseed+ in the post, it is said that the dedicated seed-stage investment platform targets to back approximately 100 seed-round startups in the next three years with a focus on the fields of manufacturing, new energy, new materials, biotech, and carbon neutrality, according to China’s National Business Daily (NBD), a state-controlled financial publication.
Citing official data provided by Hillhouse, NBD said that the PE firm has invested in the seed rounds for over 100 companies globally, among which 20 are new additions this year.
The launch of Aseed+ saw Hillhouse, whose limited partners (LPs) include Yale University’s endowment, become the latest investment firm to raise the stakes at the seed stage. Neil Shen-led Sequoia Capital China in August introduced a new accelerator programme, YUÈ, to focus on Chinese startups from the angel to Series A funding stage.
The nearly two-decade-old PE group is stepping up its dealmaking efforts at the early funding stage. The firm in February 2020 created GL Ventures, a dual-currency venture capital (VC) unit, to primarily invest in biopharma and medical apparatus; software services and technological innovation; consumer-oriented internet and technologies; as well as emerging consumer brands and services.
For its seed-stage investments, Hillhouse is a backer of Chinese auto chip startup Horizon Robotics, which is now a Series-C company with Intel Capital and Temasek’s Vertex Ventures among its list of investors. Hillhouse also injected capital into the seed deals of electric vehicle (EV) brand NIO, Boston-based Neumora Therapeutics, and biotech firm BeiGene, which is dual-listed on stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai.