David Chao, a venture capitalist who has been on the ground floor of Asian companies worth a combined $206 billion, has raised money for a new fund with a China focus, a sign that rising U.S.-China tensions aren’t turning off foreign investors.
DCM Ventures, which has the backing of Softbank Group Corp. and e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc., attracted $880 million from investors including U.S. endowments and pension plans, along with European firms.
Chao, the co-founder of DCM, is uniquely placed to bridge the growing divide between the U.S. and China, sparked by trade disputes and tensions in Hong Kong. The Stanford University grad who was once recruited to be a sumo wrestler and speaks Mandarin and Japanese is as much at ease in the U.S. as China and Japan.