Kramlich to source deals in China

Dick Kramlich, co-founder and general partner of New Enterprise Associates, is planning to spend the next year deal-sourcing in China, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Kramlich, 72, says that he and Pamela, his wife of 26 years, have already rented a three-bedroom apartment in Shanghai’s glitzy Xintiandi district.

NEA, which has offices in Menlo Park, Calif., and in Maryland, recruited local talent in China in the past six months. The firm has hired Songde Ma, a former vice minister of science and technology for the Chinese government, and Xincheng Yuan, who last year retired as vice chairman and chief operating officer of Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL Corp.

They will both work as senior advisers alongside Kramlich, who co-founded NEA in 1978.

NEA has invested in China for several years and was one of more than a dozen investors to back chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., which went public in 2004 in a $1.8 billion offering.