Qiming Piles on 5th Fund At $650M for More Deals Like Xiaomi

 Qiming Venture Partners has closed $650 million for its fifth U.S.-dollar fund, bringing the firm’s total assets under management to $2.3 billion across five U.S. dollar funds and three RMB funds. Previously, the Shanghai-based cross-border VC firm had raised a fourth fund with $500 million in 2014 and a third fund of $450 million in 2011, as well as a separate $75 million fund to make follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies of Fund III. Almost all LPs in the new, reportedly oversubscribed Fund V participated in the previous Qiming funds, including long-term investor Princeton University.

Since its founding in 2006, Qiming has backed more than 160 early to growth-stage Chinese Internet, IT, healthcare and clean tech companies. The firm led by Gary Rieschel (pictured) was an early investor in smartphone maker Xiaomi, and also made notable investments in companies such as group deals site Dianping (now Meituan-Dianping), social-shopping firm Mogujie, popular photo editing app Meitu and face recognition technology startup Face++.

Recent deals include a $100 million investment in biotech developer Zai Lab in January, and participation in a $50 million round for online education app Xuebajun and $100 million outlay for existing portfolio company Tuhu Yangche, a B2C auto services provider. The investment strategy of Fund V will remain largely unchanged.

Japanese investor SoftBank, gearing up to invest up to $10 billion in India over the next ten years after its $627 million deal with Snapdeal, has put an additional $15 million in Mumbai-based Housing.com, following a $90 million round in December 2014 that valued the startup at $240 million.

The Mumbai-based real estate portal, which is focused on buying and selling homes, has raised $120 million in capital from investors including Qualcomm, Nexus Ventures, Falcon Edge, Helion Ventures and Nirvana Ventures.

Founded in 2012, Housing.com claimed 85 million site visits in 2015 and 1.7 million verified listings to date. It’s been bulking up as well, including three startup acquisitions in 2015: developer CRM HomeBuy360, online community India Real Estate Forum, and real estate data analytics company Realty BI.

Housing.com has refocused its business from commercial properties and short term stays to concentrate on home sales, overhauling management and reducing employee count. The strategy shift is rumored to be a lead up to a potential acquisition by Indian online marketplace Snapdeal.

Globally, the online real estate industry is a small but growing segment despite the presence of a number of players. Within India, Tiger Global-backed Quikr acquired real estate portal CommonFloor for $200 million in late 2015. Around the same time, OpenDoor in the U.S. raised $80 million round of funding at a large $580 valuation, led by USSR-born billionaire Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries. This past week, Pakistan’s large and fast-growing online real estate portal, Zameen, raised $20 million in Series C funding.

Hyper-local mobile marketplace app 5miles, which boasts 5 million users and averages 30,000 downloads a day, has drawn a $30 million Series B one year after its January 2015 launch in Dallas and Beijing. Blue Lake Capital in Shanghai led the round, and IDG, Morningside and SIG-China were among the participants, alongside individuals with ties to e-commerce titans Alibaba and eBay.

Singapore’s Eyeota, an ad-targeting and consumer data startup, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from investors Global Brain Corporation, Infinity e.Ventures and Project A Ventures. The startup plans to add staff in international offices, expand to new territories, and grow its technology team. Founded in 2010, Eyeota has offices in seven cities including London, Sydney and Tokyo, and claims to have applied audience data to create user profiles for over 1.5 billion consumers.

HSBC has led a $10.5 million Series B investment in New York-based B2B smart CRM startup CustomerMatrix. Aster Capital, as well as previous investors Newfund Capital and True Global Ventures. The startup, which uses data analytics to recommend specific actions to client relationship managers, counts six of the top 20 global banks and insurance firms among its customers. The company established an office in Hong Kong in 2015 and has disclosed plans to open an innovation lab in Singapore.

500 Startups has made its first bet in Myanmar with participation in the seed round of mobile-focused local search engine Bindez, which provides an “alternative way of consuming real-time, relevant information.” The early-stage fund invests alongside a syndicate of angel investors from across Asia. Bindez, which currently claims 75,000 app downloads and 20,000 monthly active users, plans to use the funds to grow its Burmese language news aggregation platform, Tha Din.

Malaysian e-commerce platform Belazee (also called Bemalas) has secured a round of undisclosed funding co-led by Japanese VC firm DeNA and Silicon Valley’s Fenox Venture Capital, with participation from Singapore’s RIMU Group. The investment is the first for all three firms in Malaysia. Belazee stands out for its concierge business model and application of chat in commerce, and plans to use the “pre-Series A” funds to enhance its technology and further establish itself in existing markets: Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Manila, Ho Chi Minh and Brunei.

Cancer therapy developer CARsgen Therapeutics in Shanghai has raised a $30 million Series B to pursue an international development strategy for its upcoming series of cancer drugs. The deal was led by KTB Ventures and Jolly Innovation Works, with participation from Kaitai Capital and JIC GenesisFountain Healthcare Ventures of China. KTB Ventures, founded in 1981 and with an office in San Francisco, is the VC arm of South Korea’s KTB Investment and Securities.

Israeli enterprise mobile security company Nubo has snagged a $7 million Series A round led by Israel’s Magma Venture Partners and Chicago-headquartered Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. The four-year-old startup, which creates software that enables employees to access company files on their own mobile devices, plans to use the funds to increase marketing, sales and support, with a focus on the U.S market.

Arbor Ventures has led a $10 million, Series A investment in TravelersBox, a provider of airport kiosks for converting leftover foreign currency. The deal included prior investors PItango Venture Capital, Pereg Ventures, IPE Ventures, Global Blue and iAngels. TravelersBox’s 75 kiosks are currently present in six countries, and the Israel-based startup plans to deploy 200 new machines globally in 2016.

China Merchants Bank has agreed to invest $200 million in China’s ride-hailing app Didi Kuaidi as part of its latest $3 billion financing, and form a strategic partnership with the Chinese startup. The deal will give Didi Kuaidi exposure to China’s online payment ecosystem by allowing it to offer in-app credit card payments and co-branded credit and debit cards. CMB’s investment is alongside that of recent backers including Alibaba, Tencent, China Investment Corp, Ping An Ventures and Temasek.

— Silicon Dragon News digest by contributor Ying-Ying Lu