An investment fund backed by smartphone maker Xiaomi has hit its target of 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) to back companies in the area of integrated circuits.
The vehicle — Beijing Xiaomi Intelligent Manufacturing Equity Investment Fund Partnership — has seen LP contribution increase by 970 million yuan ($133.3 million) to reach the corpus of 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), according to an exchange filing dated July 19.
State-owned Jintou Jinshun Fund, under Hong Kong-listed China Everbright, and two semiconductor firms – JoulWatt (Hangzhou) Technology and Southchip Semiconductor – are the new LPs that have chipped in 250 million yuan ($34.4 million).
Existing LPs including a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaomi contributed 600 million yuan ($82.5 million) and Nano Star Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Shanghai-listed chipmaker NOVOSENSE Microelectronics, re-upped by chipping in 120 million yuan ($16.5 million), per the filing.
The fund targets opportunities in new-generation information technology, intelligent manufacturing, new materials, artificial intelligence, and display and display devices, among others.
With Beijing Xiaomi Enterprise Management, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaomi being the general partner, Kingsoft Wuhan, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Kingsoft Corporation, injected RMB 500 million ($72.5 million) into the fund in March 2023, bringing the total fund size to 9.03 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), according to the exchange filing.
The fund comes at a time when investors have been ploughing massive funds into chipmaking companies vis-à-vis their counterparts in other industries as China ramps up its efforts to strive for self-sufficiency in chips amid intensifying tension between China and the US.