Qiming wraps up fund II with $320M

Qiming Venture Partners closed a $320 million second fund to make early stage investments in health care, technology, media and consumer startups in China.

The firm held a first close on its second fund in November 2007, raising $123.5 million from 31 investors, according to a regulatory filing. The firm has not disclosed the name of its limited partners, except for PRINCO, the organization that manages the Princeton University endowment.

The new fund is substantially bigger than the $200 million first fund Qiming raised in 2006.

Qiming began in 2006 as a partnership with Bellevue, Wash.-based Ignition Partners when Ignition’s John Zagula and Richard Tong partnered with former Mobius Venture Capital Managing Director Gary Rieschel and others to launch the Qiming team. Tong and Zagula are partners in Ignition and managing directors in Qiming. With Qiming’s second fund, Ignition Partner Robert Headley will similarly straddle both firms.

Qiming also added Partner Hans Tung, a former vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners and Venture Partner Richard Chen, the former CEO of Yifei Investment Holding Ltd., a media and consumer investment group based in Shanghai.

Qiming has put nearly $75 million to work in 15 startups since its inception, according to data from Thomson Reuters (publisher of PE Week). The amount it has actually invested to date may be higher, as Thomson Reuters does not have complete information on investment activity in China. The firm has yet to record an exit.

So far this year, Qiming has backed three companies, according to data from Thomson Reuters: Shanghai-based advertising service Touch Media, which raised $14 million in January; Seoul-based social networking and game company Nurien Soft, which raised $15 million in March; and Santa Clara, Calif.-based biomedical outsourcing company Crown Bioscience, which raised $16.3 million in March.

The Chinese word “Qiming ”(pronounced “chee-ming”) means to start and signifies the beginning of a new day. —Alexander Haislip