A US congressional committee is targeting Sequoia Capital after starting investigations into several other venture capital firms for their investment in Chinese technology companies.
The US House of Representatives Select Committee on China is seeking information about Sequoia Capital’s investments into artificial intelligence, semiconductor and quantum computing companies in China, as well as its recently announced split into three firms.
In the split, Sequoia China was rebranded as HongShan (紅杉).
Photo: Bloomberg
US lawmakers asked Sequoia Capital and Sequoia China to provide information about each company it had backed based in the country, or with significant operations there, that was engaged in certain technologies.
The letter also requested information on dollar amounts, business expertise provided to the companies, investment criteria and the names of Chinese government investors.
“We’ve received the letter, are reviewing it and will respond,” a spokesperson for California-based Sequoia Capital said in a statement. “Since inception, each entity operating under the Sequoia brand has been independently owned, had separate investment teams, managed their own funds and made independent investment decisions. As announced in June, we will move to completely independent partnerships and become distinct firms with separate brands no later than March 31, 2024.”
The committee’s move is a setback for Sequoia Capital, which announced its formal split from Sequoia China before an executive order that placed some restrictions on China investing by US entities.
Analysts said that acting ahead of the order could defuse the potential of harsher actions, such as an order to divest from investments in China.
That is even though the order itself was less strict than some anticipated.
“In contrast to the executive order, the letter is a warning to all investors that the Select Committee is carefully scrutinizing past investments in addition to establishing a process to prevent certain future investments,” said H.K. Park, a managing director at Crumpton Global LLC, which has been advising clients on compliance.
The letter called out investments in start-ups Eversec Technology Co (恒安嘉新), 4Paradigm Technology Co (第四範式), DJI Technology Co (大疆創新), DeepGlint Information Technolgies Co (格靈深瞳) and ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) — alleging that they are Sequoia China’s “problematic publicly known partnerships.”
The lawmakers also said that Sequoia China made as many as 40 investments in Chinese semiconductor companies since 2020.
Sequoia Capital is not the only venture capital firm being targeted by the committee, which has launched an investigation into GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Walden International and Qualcomm Ventures.
The committee is also working on a report about US-China policy that would focus in large part on US business activity in the country.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
FUTURE TECH: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang would give the keynote speech at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which is also expected to highlight autonomous vehicles Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence (AI) would once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, as vendors behind the scenes would seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US president-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show opens formally in Las Vegas tomorrow, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. AI would be a major theme of the show, along with autonomous vehicles ranging from tractors and boats to lawn mowers and golf club trollies. “Everybody is going to be talking about AI,” Creative Strategies Inc analyst Carolina Milanesi said. “From fridges to ovens
RSS