US venture firm GGV Capital to separate China business amid geopolitical tension

(Reuters) – U.S. venture capital firm GGV Capital said on Thursday it plans to split its business into two, with one focused on Asia and the other on the U.S., as political pressure mount on American companies to limit investments in Chinese technology.

This comes after Sequoia Capital in June said it is splitting its businesses in China as well as India and Southeast Asia into two independent firms. The spilt, which will see the two new firms adopt their own brands, is expected to finalise by March 31, 2024.

GGV Capital was one of the companies under review by a U.S. congressional committee in July that aimed to investigate American firms over their funding of Chinese technologies companies, the Wall Street Journal had reported. GSR Ventures, Walden International and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:) Ventures were among the other names under review.

Venture capital firm GGV said the separation of its Singapore arm that would solely focus on investing in China is expected to finish by the first quarter next year.

GGV Capital, which has around $9 billion in assets under management, has backed companies such as Airbnb, ByteDance and Alibaba (NYSE:) to establish itself as a cross-border venture capital company.

China-focused firms only raised $5.5 billion in U.S. dollar-denominated funding in the first half of the year, Preqin data showed, a far cry from its peak of $27.6 billion raised in the same period in 2021.