SAIF Won Two Laurels of China Venture Capital Annual Ranking 2004

12/17/04 - PRNewswire

SAIF Won Two Laurels of China Venture Capital Annual Ranking 2004 PRNewswire

Released by Zero2ipo Venture Capital Research Center

BEIJING, Dec 17 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- On December 17, China Venture Capital Annual Ranking 2004 Awarding Ceremony was held in Tianlun Dynasty, Beijing. Zero2ipo, the organizer of the ranking, announced that Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund won the award of Venture Capital Firm of the Year, and its president, Andy Yan won the award of Venture Capitalist of the Year.

Zero2ipo also announced Top 10 Active Venture Capitalists of the Year, Top 50 Active Venture Capital Firms, Best Investment/Exit of the Year, and Top 10 Venture-backed Entrepreneurs 2004. Zero2ipo has conducted China Venture Capital Annual Ranking for 4 years since 2001. The ranking has widely been regarded as independent, impartial and objective, and has served as an important criteria to evaluate the performance of VC firms operating in China.

SAIF and Shanda Played a Win-Win Game

On the lists of China Venture Capital Annual Ranking 2004, Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF) and Shanda Interactive were the two most frequently quoted names. SAIF won two laurels, including Venture Capital Firm of the Year and Venture Capitalist of the Year. Shanda won the Best Exit of the Year and its founder, Tianqiao Chen also topped on the list of Top 10 Venture-backed Entrepreneurs 2004. When SAIF helped create the miracle of Shanda, it also made brilliant achievements for its own.

Gavin Ni, President of Zero2ipo remarked that there was no surprise for the victory of SAIF this year. In the nominating round for Top 10 Active Venture Capitalists, a number of VC firms took Andy Yan as first choice. More remarkably, many firms put SAIF on their questionnaires even if there was no need to nominate for the awards of venture capital firms. In the year of 2004, SAIF was not only highlighted by Shanda's perfect performance on NASDAQ, but also impressed with its investment and fund-raising activities. SAIF's new portfolios in 2004 included Versa Technology, Topsec, UnionPay Merchant Service, and other leading companies of their own industries. Meanwhile, SAIF's ongoing fund-raising was also smooth. As a result, SAIF was able to top on the list of venture capital ranking when a few of indicators including amount of capital under management, amount of newly-raised capital, number of deals, amount of capital invested, number of exits, amount of capital exited and rate of return were considered.

Domestic VC Firms Lagged Behind, Mainstream Foreign VCs Came In a Big Way

In this year's ranking for venture capital firms, foreign VC firms took 6 seats on the top 10 list, 14 on the top 20 list, and 34 on the top 50 list. Gavin Ni believed that although a minority of domestic VC firms had close performance with their foreign counterparts after a few years of struggle and exploration, on the whole, foreign VCs still dominated in China. But Gavin Ni still held positive perspective for the future of domestic VC firms, "Venture capital has only a short history in China. There is still a long way to go for domestic VC firms. Some of them, such as CDH, New Margin and Legend Capital are doing quite well in internationalization and have good track records. It is expected that in the next few years, foreign and domestic VCs will be mutually penetrated. It is possible for a domestic team to manage oversea funds, or oversea fund managers manage domestic capital. In such a process, domestic VC firms will become stronger."

It was also notable that in spite of a short history of doing investment in China, prestigious foreign VC firms such as NEA, 3i, and DCM took advantageous places on the list with strong capital strength and active performance of investing and exit.

Listed Companies Shone, Focus Media and Shanda Won the Awards

Top 10 Venture-backed Entrepreneurs 2004 is a new award for this year. Gavin Ni emphasized that "the entrepreneurs" were defined as entrepreneurs backed by venture capitals, and also founders of enterprises that were listed or non-listed in 2004.

This ranking was nominated and voted by venture capital firms. On the final list, Tianqiao Chen, Huateng Ma, Jun Ning and other 3 entrepreneurs led their companies to embark on the US or Hongkong stock markets in 2004, and the remaining 4 entrepreneurs' companies are on their ways to IPO.

The Best Investment/Exit of the Year were also striking awards. They were nominated and voted by venture capital firms. Last year, Shanda Interactive and Ctrip.com won these two awards with dominate advantages, but this year's winners were not decided until the last minute of voting, according to Zero2ipo.

In the voting for the Best Investment of the Year, Focus Media and Baidu received most of the attentions with fairly close votes, but Focus Media won this award eventually with slight advantage. Other favored deals ranked as Techfaith (backed by Qualcomm Ventures and Intel Capital ), China Wolfberry (backed by Actis China), and Topsec (backed by SAIF). In the voting for the Best Exit of the Year, Mengniu Dairy and 51job.com were widely concerned though Shanda was the final winner.

In addition, Zero2ipo announced the ranking for service providers for the first time this year, which evaluated the performance of underwriters, lawyers and auditors in terms of China-based IPO business.

For any quotations, please note it is quoted from Zero2ipo-China Venture Capital Annual Report 2004 and send two copies of your newspaper to: 8 Floor, Binhe Building, No.1 Chedaogou, Haidian District, Beijing, China. 100081

Appendix: Zero2ipo- China Venture Capital Annual Ranking 2004 * Zero2ipo- Venture Capitalist of the Year Andy Yan President/Executive Managing Director, SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund * Zero2ipo- Top 10 Active Venture Capitalists of the Year Name Firm Position Andy Yan SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund President/Executive Managing Director Dongliang Lin IDG Technology Venture Investment General Partner David Chao Doll Capital Management Co-Founder& Managing General Partner Wu Shangzhi CDH Investments Chairman Feng Tao NewMargin Ventures Managing Partner Zhu Linan Legend Capital Limited Managing Director & CEO York Chen Acer Technology Ventures Asia President & Managing Pacific Ltd. Partner Guo Luwei Shandong High Technology Investment Managing Director Co., Ltd. Fan Zhang Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Director Partners Vincent C.H. JAFCO Investment (Hong Kong) Regional Investment Chan Ltd. Director, Head of North Asia * Zero2ipo- Venture Capital Firm of the Year Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund * Zero2ipo- Top 50 Venture Capital Firms of the Year Rank Firm Rank Firm 1 SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund 26 H&Q Asia Pacific 2 IDG Technology Venture Investment 27 Sycamore Ventures 3 Doll Capital Management 28 AsiaVest Partners, TCW/YFY Ltd. 4 CDH Investments 29 Baring Private Equity Partners Asia 5 NewMargin Ventures 30 DragonTech Ventures Management Limited 6 The Carlyle Group Asia 31 Qualcomm Ventures 7 Warburg Pincus Asia LLC 32 WI Harper Group 8 Legend Capital Limited Pacific Venture 33 Partners 9 Acer Technology Ventures Asia China-Singapore Pacific Ltd. Selzhou Industrial Park 34 Ventures Co., Ltd. 10 Shandong High Technology China Merchants Investment Co., Ltd. 35 Technology Group 11 Walden International Guangdong Technology 36 Venture Capital Group Co., Ltd. 12 Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Siemens Mobile Partners 37 Acceleration 13 JAFCO Asia 38 Tsinghua Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd. 14 Intel Capital 39 Gobi Partners 15 Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. 40 Canton Venture Capital Co., Ltd. 16 Vertex China Investment 41 Fidelity Capital Management Ltd. 17 China Science&Merchants Venture Shenzhen Hi-tech Capital Management Co., Ltd. 42 Investment Co., Ltd. 18 J.P. Morgan Partners Asia Pte. Ltd. 43 ChinaVest Limited 19 New Enterprise Associates 44 Hunan High-Tech Venture Capital Co., Ltd. 20 3i 45 Wuhan Huagong Venture Capital Co., Ltd. 21 Heilongjiang Chenergy Hit High-Tech Venture Capital Co., Ltd. 46 Orchid Asia Group Management Co., Ltd. 22 Venture TDF 47 UOB Investment (China) Ltd. 23 Shenzhen Tsinghua Leaguer Venture Caital Co., Ltd. 48 Milestone Capital Management Limited 24 Actis China Limited 49 Acorn Campus Shanghai Management Co., Ltd. 25 China Merchants & Fortune Assets 50 Shenzhen Fortune Venture Management Capital Co., Ltd. * Zero2ipo- Best Investment of the Year FocusMedia (China) Holding Co., Ltd.

Investor: Unite Capital Investment, SoftBank China Venture Capital, CDH Investments, Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Partners, WI Harper Group, Venture TDF, China Merchants & Fortune Assets Management, Milestone Capital Management Limited, Goldman Sachs, 3i and etc.

* Zero2ipo- Best Exit of the Year Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited Seller: SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund * Zero2ipo- Top 10 Venture-backed Entrepreneurs 2004 Entrepreneur Enterprise Investor Chen Tianqiao Shanda Interactive SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund Entertainment Limited Ma Huateng TENCENT Inc. IDG Technology Venture Investment Jason Jiang FocusMedia (China) SoftBank China Venture Capital, Holding Co., Ltd. Unite Capital Investment, CDH Investments, Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Partners, WI Harper Group, Venture TDF, China Merchants & Fortune Assets Management, Milestone Capital Management Limited, Goldman Sachs, 3i and etc. Richard Ru Semiconductor Manufacturing NEA, H&Q Asia Pacific, Walden Gin Chang International Corporation International, Vertex, AsiaVest (SMIC) Partners and etc. Wu Jun Linktone Ltd., HAW Wireless Acer Technology Ventures Asia Limited Pacific Ltd., Vertex and etc. Zhou Yunfan KongZhong.com Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Partners and etc. Mo Tianquan SouFun.com Limited IDG Technology Venture Investment Ning Jun China Finance Online IDG Technology Venture Investment CO., Ltd. and etc. David Yu Target Media Holdings Ltd. The Carlyle Group Zhang Ningxiahong Chinese Actis Jinshan Wolfberry Industrial Group China Ltd. Co., Ltd. About Zero2IPO Venture Capital Research Center

Established in 2001, Zero2IPO Venture Capital Research Center maintains the most extensive database on China private equity and M&A related activity with over 50 foreign venture capital institutions, 200 local venture capital companies, and nearly 5000 hi-tech ventures. Since 2002, we have published a series of reports on venture capital industry and high-tech industry such as "2001 China Venture Capital Annual Report", "China Venture Capital Semi-annual report", "China ERP Market and Investment Analysis Report", "Sino-Foreign Joint Venture Capital Fund (Management Company) Research Report 2002", "China Venture Capital Annual Report 2002/2003"(Chinese and English Version), "The 2003 China Venture Capital Directory" and " 2003 Guide to China Venture Capital"

About Zero2IPO

Zero2ipo was founded by Tsinghua graduates and overseas investment bankers in 1999. The company has about 40 professionals with rich experiences in venture capital, investment banking, financial consulting, market research, management consulting and other related fields.

The company targets to be one of the leading investment advisory firms in Greater China Region. Its core business primarily focuses on various advisory services in private equity including investment and fundraising advisory, IPO, M&A, financial consulting, portfolio management and management consulting. In addition, Zero2ipo also provides relevant supporting services such as research, events and training, and club networking, etc.