China’s Legend Star closes fourth RMB fund at $119m


Legend Star, an early-stage focused investment firm set up by Lenovo Holdings, has closed its fourth RMB-denominated fund at 800 million yuan ($119 million) in September, per its announcement on Monday.   

The fund received 25 per cent of the corpus from its parent company Lenovo Holdings while the rest was secured from tech funds of funds (FOFs), state-owned groups and private-owned enterprises.

Nearly 90 per cent of its existing limited partners, who invested in the predecessor, has re-upped in the latest vehicle, Legend Star said on WeChat. 

Legend Star will target investments in early-stage startups in advanced technology, healthcare and TMT sectors. Within tech, it looks at sub-sectors such as robotics, digital transformation of traditional industries, biotech, medical equipment, semiconductors, culture and entertainment, among others.

The latest fund has already made 16 investments as of September 30, 2020. Legend Star had along with other investors recently backed the 100 million yuan ($14 million) Series A round for Beijing-based biotech firm QL Biopharm. 

Legend Star manages as many as seven RMB funds amounting to 3.5 billion yuan ($522 million). It has so far invested in over 300 startups. Some of its previous investments include chip developer Picocom, digital finance manager Credit Life, internet security service provider Lanxiang Zhilian, biotech firm HELP Therapeutics, and Changmugu.  

Legend Star had raised a similar-sized third RMB fund, as its successor, back in 2018 from a slew of investors including the Chinese Academy of Sciences Holdings, VMS Investment, CreditEase and Hony Horizon Fund. 

Other recent RMB funds that hit their closing include Source Code Capital that raised its fourth RMB fund at 3.8 billion yuan ($567 million) and Legend Capital’s Fund VIII at a hard cap of $500 million.

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