Silicon Dragon News 
January 2011 
 Featured Event:
China, India & the Next Frontier
Ajit Nazre
 Panelist Ajit Nazre of Kleiner Perkins
February 9, 2011 
Rosewood Sand Hill
Click to register:

Featuring top China and India startups Suntech and MakeMyTrip  plus lead investors at Kleiner Perkins, Intel, Draper, Lightspeed, Charles River, IBM and Kai-Fu Lee's Innovation Works.  
 
Thanks to our sponsors
Morrison & Foerster KPMG, Wells Fargo, NASDAQ
and reception host:  K&L Gates

IPOs, Exits 

  Citi VC sells its investment stake in Camelot as outsourcing firm breaks into best-performing IPO class

 

BCD Semidconductor files for

second IPO bid with aim to raise

$86 milllion on NASDAQ

 

 DEALS

Lightspeed Venture and IDG Capital pour $11 million in

SNS and e-commerce site

ihaveu.com founded by

former Taobao exec

 

Gobi Partners and EDBI Investment  inject $6 million in

Singapore's Cloudpic Global for

digital studios in the "cloud"

  

Online shoe retailer Letao nabs

 $30 million from DT Capital and Ceyuan Ventures 

in a third round of finance  

 
 PEOPLE   

Victor Leung joins Shanghai office of Kleiner Perkins from

HSBC Private Equity Asia   

FUNDS

 Taiwan's Development Financial eyes RMB fund for venture investment in Mainland China

 

EVENTS

VC look-out for 2011,

Jan. 18, Palo Alto 

CSPA

 

Banquet and Hall of Fame induction,

February 24, San Jose

SVEC


 

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China startups light IPOs
Gary Wang

Gary Wang is set to take Tudou public.  

 
No surprise that Asian Internet and tech market leaders  led the IPO surge on NASDAQ and the NYSE in 2010, as China weighed in with 22 of 61 venture-backed startups that 
went public in the U.S.  Video sharing site Youku ranked second among China IPO stocks, up 173.5% at yearend over its trading price debut.
Online books-plus seller Dangdang
placed seventh with a 69.2%gain.  China outsourcing startups shone too. HiSoft Technology was up 202% and Camelot Information Systems by 117.4%. India muscled in with online travel startup MakeMyTrip among eight top tech IPOs.
Not all were hits. Four of the ten worst performers were small-cap China stocks: Sky-Mobi (-33%), Mecox Lane (-32.6%), Bona Film (-35.7%) and China Hydroelectric (-50%).
See IPO report by Renaissance Capital.

Heard of Canasonic? 

  • If you think the copycat era is over and done with among China tech startups, think again. Check out this article in The Atlantic magazine, Best Brand Name Ever, about a new camera company from China, called . . . you could never guess! Canasonic. How's that for a blend of Panasonic and Canon? It had its debut at the Vegas CES show. Anyone tried it?

Suntech Reverses U.S.-to-China Trend

Suntech founder

Suntech founder Dr. Shi & Silicon Dragon

 

For 20 years, U.S. manufacturers decamped to China in search of cheaper labor and parts. Now Chinese companies such as Suntech Power are investing in the U.S.  Steven Chan, president of Suntech America, will tell Silicon Dragon Frontier guests how the Chinese solar producer's new plant in Phoenix is benefitting from tax credits, lower shipping costs and a foothold in the U.S.

Facebook to enter China? MySpace exit? 

Joe Chen
Joe Chen

Oak Pacific Interactive founder Joe Chen may have been right not to worry that MySpace's entry to China would derail his startup Renren.  His reasoning? Well-entrenched, fast-moving local startups have the advantage over overseas newcomers to the market. Now, we hear that MySpace China has laid off two-thirds of its staff and the CEO has left. 

 

Who doubts Facebook has serious intentions for the Chinese market? Founder Mark Zuckerberg was recently on a tour of China and visited Robin Li of Baidu and Jack Ma of Alibaba. Maybe they told him American web brands haven't gotten the upper hand in China. But likely they told him it would be crazy to resist figuring out how to connect to the world's largest market of Internet users.

 Unleashing China Innovation 

None other than McKinsey & Co. has discovered that China is making progress toward becoming an innovative economy. McKinsey director Gordon Orr in Shanghai gives credit to Huawei for breakthrough tech, but argues that China's home-grown telecom standard has not caught on.

He sees electric cars as an important test of how China will rise to the challenge of delivering global products for the global market. See McKinsey Quarterly.

Follow Silicon Dragon on Twitter  @rfannin

Bill Draper

VC Panelist

Bill Draper

 
Silicon Dragon is in the Valley this month writing and prepping  for the BIG EVENT on Sand HIll Road, February 9 
Click to register at subscriber rate:
 
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For Speaking Engagements and video clips of presentations, see
See her schedule at Talks
This January, she is speaking at Drinks & Demo, hosted by SFentrepreneur.