Eminence Ventures, which invests in early-stage enterprise software and cloud computing startups in China, has reached the final close of its second US dollar fund at $120 million, bringing the firm’s total assets under management (AUM) to nearly $200 million.
The second US dollar fund attracted backing from Silicon Valley’s Emergence Capital, and Hong Kong’s fund-of-funds (FOF) platform Unicorn Capital Partners, the firm announced in a recent statement. Other institutional investors in Asia and the US, including university endowments, charitable foundations, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices, also invested in the new fund.
Eminence’s AUM has “expanded by multiple times” following the close of Fund II, said the firm. It has fully deployed its debut US dollar fund, a $37-million vehicle raised from dozens of individual investors, the firm’s executive said in an earlier interview with Bloomberg.
With Fund II, the firm plans to focus on China’s enterprise software sector, a market that is forecast to reach an estimated size of $122.3 billion in 2027, trailing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% between 2020 and 2027, according to market researcher Reportlinker.com.
It will stick to the strategy of “focusing on the best-quality businesses,” with a target to invest in about 20 startups with the new vehicle. Moving forward, the firm also plans to further expand its investment and post-investment service team.
Eminence was founded in 2017 by Peter Cheng, a serial entrepreneur and former executive at companies including Tencent and eBay; and ex-Integral vice president Simon He, who also had previously worked at Tencent.
By far, Eminence has invested in a portfolio of 20 startups, including electronic signature service eSign; creative marketing solutions provider Tezign; Recurrent AI, a startup that develops AI for sales and marketing use cases; and Duckbill, which runs a platform to match truck drivers with businesses. Fifteen of these companies have already managed to close subsequent financing from larger venture firms like Sequoia Capital China and Singapore’s Temasek, said the firm.
Shanghai-based Eminence said that the capital commitment from Emergence represents the US firm’s first bet on an external fund manager. Along with the commitment, the two parties also forged strategic cooperation under which Emergence will share its US market observations and expertise in investment tactics, fund management, due diligence, portfolio management and beyond.
Emergence is an early investor in video-conferencing platform Zoom Video Communications; California-based Veeva Systems, a cloud computing firm that specialises in pharmaceutical and life sciences industry applications; and Bill.com, which offers cloud-based software for back-office financial operations. Earlier this month, it announced the completion of two new funds at a combined $950 million.