Chinese incubator Innovation Works (IW) recently announced that it has completed raising US$ 150 million for its second fund “Innovation Works Development Fund II”. Last September IW finished its first internet-focused fund, obtaining a total of $180million. IW also revealed that its Shanghai branch will be opening soon.
Innovation Works was set up in late 2009 by former Google China head Kai-Fu Lee, focusing on early-stage high-tech investments. Out of its 50 investment portfolios, 18 secured Series A funding with two approaching the end of raising Series B. Currently there were 3 projects were deemed as failure, that’s how IW came up with a “95% of success”.
Days ago, Kaifu Lee was busy rebuffing the rumor that the incubator held too much stakes in the startups it invested into. Lee claimed that IW holds an average 17.6% of shares in its 50 investment portfolios.
Lee has always thought that the biggest trap for Chinese start-ups is that angel investors taking too much stakes, which would limit entrepreneurs’ control over their company and close the doors to excellent VCs. For example, Lee said on its Tencent Weibo recently that, “I found two very nice projects who have already got angels investments. They reached out to us for Series A round. We were so happy in the beginning until later on we found that the angels haven taken up to 75% of these two projects and refused to dilute their stakes. I think this is not an angel move, but a devil thing for the entrepreneurs. “