Editing by Li Panpan

TEDA Venture Capital (泰达科投)won “The 2021 Best Industrial Investment Institution of the Year Award” from the China Semiconductor Investment Alliance (CSIA) and JW Insights for its achievement in IC investment on December 18 in Beijing.

TEDA VC is the investment arm of TEDA – the well-established technology town of Tianjin, northern China’s coastal city. Zhang Peng, managing director of TEDA VC, told JW Insights that his company achieved faster growth last year under the backdrop of more efforts for domestic substitutions of IC products.   

In 2022, with planned RMB1.5 to 2 billion ($235 to 313 million), Zhang said TEDA VC would invest into the automobile, AI, and intelligent industrial chips and equipment and materials in the upper stream of the IC industry.  

TEDA VC started to invest in the IC industry in 2009. The capital scale of IC projects it manages has reached more than RMB3 billion ($470 million). It has become a leading IC institutional investor.

Zhang Peng added, “TEDA VC’s investment in IC industry covers angels to pre-IPO rounds, with preference to early and middle stage projects.” So far the company has invested in 60 companies 70% are early-stage projects, with five companies including Rockchip gone public.

TEDA VC has invested in companies with IC products of wide-bandgap semiconductors, power management, high-precision ADCs, high-performance MCUs, high-end CMOS image sensors, RF front-end, high-performance CPUs, IGBTs, MEMS sensors, Bluetooth, WIFI, and fast charging. It also has covered the application market of 5G communications, consumer electronics, smart home appliances, automotive electronics, and IoT devices.

TEDA VC’s portfolio also includes semiconductor manufacturing, equipment and materials, advanced packaging and testing, and semiconductor services.

Geopolitical changes during the past three years have driven more investment into China’s IC industry. Investment companies like TEDA are meeting opportunities to empower the industry and improve its core competitiveness, Zhang said.