Baidu Ventures (BV), the investment arm of Chinese search engine giant Baidu, announced on Friday that it has raised $400 million for its third fund, in a bid to bet on the new technology industry.
While it didn’t disclose if it’s a dollar-denominated fund, Baidu Ventures revealed that the fresh fund brings its total assets under management (AUM) to over $700 million.
In the statement, it said that BV’s limited partner (LP) Baidu continues to make capital commitments. From the latest fund, BV will continue to shore up its investments in AI-driven business ecosystems. BV claims that the fund will primarily bankroll early-stage hard technology startups, especially ones with proprietary technologies.
So far, the third fund has invested in tens of projects in technology, healthcare, and consumption, including electric vehicle test technology player Tsing Standard, intelligent driving developer Geometrical Perception and Learning, metabolic diseases therapy specialist Tongee, genomics major Gene+, and display products provider Global AI & Display.
BV, which operates in Beijing and San Francisco, was set up by Baidu in 2017 with a mandate to focus on early-stage AI startups in technology innovation, life sciences, and commercial consumption.
Now, it has expanded its scope to include sectors such as electric vehicles, corporate services, smart cities, and IoT-led living.
Some of its prominent portfolio companies include clinical-stage drug discovery firm Insilico Medicine, data services developer NextData, gene sequencing company Qitan Technology, AMP Robotics, Falcon Computing, and Engine Bio, among others.
In February 2018, BV had announced the first closing of its second RMB fund at nearly 2 billion yuan ($310 million).