China’s Innovation Works Adds $224 Million To Its Second Fund

Kai-Fu Lee, the big boss of Innovation Works at Disrupt Beijing last year.

Following Innovation Works’ recent $148 million second fund (aka ‘Fund II’), Kai-Fu Lee’s incubator has added another $224 million to its investment war chest. So that’s quite a bit of money to fund more startups in China, which is surely a good thing for the tech ecosystem here. The official SEC filing can be found here.

Over the last three years, Innovation Works has incubated and invested in over 50 startups with an estimated combined total worth at $615.8 million. On average, about one to two lucky companies will be invested each month. And the average valuation of each startup is about $12.3 million – which is pretty decent, I think.

Mickey Du, investment team executive, at Innovation Works told me:

Fund II keeps predominantly the same strategy as Fund I, investing in talented entrepreneurs building products and businesses first and foremost for the domestic China market. It will also be the same IW team managing both funds.

For interested entrepreneurs, you can apply to Innovation Works through its website. I recalled a speech given by Kai-Fu Lee himself last year which mentioned that the best way to get attention from investors is to get someone whom the investor trusts to give you his/her recommendation. At that similar speech, Lee also talked about how Innovation Works works which I would recommend hopeful applicants to give it a read. His other parts of the speech can be found here and here.