On October 16, 2008, Gavin Ni, Founder, CEO & President of Zero2IPO were invited to attend the IBM China Venture Partnering Symposium, where he made a keynote speech titled "China Venture Capital and Private Equity Market in the Context of Global Financial Crisis".
According to the Zero2IPO’s statistics, with the accelerating deepening of the international financial crisis and the slow-down of the world economy growth, China's VC industry resumed to be rational during Q3'08 due to the investors' declining interest in raising new funds, the significant decrease of investment level and the narrowing of exit channels. A total of 17 domestic and foreign VC firms established 20 funds during Q3'08. This figure represents only US$492.21M of new capital available for investing in Mainland China; 109 Chinese enterprises received venture capital with disclosed amount totaling US$787.73M. In comparison with Q2'08, the number of deals reduced notably by 50, and the disclosed investment amount reduced by 34.6%. As for China's PE industry, 13 funds targeting Asia (including Chinese Mainland) raised US$18.75B in Q3. Wherein, the ratio of capital raised by RMB PE funds rose considerably, causing RMB to become the dominant currency for the first time. Moreover, 27 domestic enterprises received PE investment, and 24 out of 27 domestic enterprises disclosed a US$2.65B investment amount in total.
Mr. Gavin Ni holds that the current global financial turmoil will affect China's economy to some extent, but the situation in China will not be as serious as that the United States are facing. As the largest developing country, China remains the world's most attractive venture capital and private equity investment market.
In the symposium, IBM's business partners, government departments, venture capital firms, and emerging businesses and IBM’s leaders get together, voicing their opinions and discussing such issues as technological innovation, market trend and investment efficiency. This symposium provides the participants with the chance of directly contacting IBM's senior business leaders and even becoming its market potential partners.
