

Venture Capital in China - reitzensteinm
http://ventureblog.com/articles/2008/01/venture_capital_in_china.php

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iamelgringo
Having grown up overseas, I'm shocked at how unaware people in the States are
at the differences overseas. A friend of mine is neck deep in providing
hardware for two new Beijing and Bangalore branches of his company. It's a
nightmare. I'm assuming an exec just said, "let's open up branches in China
and India" without researching things fully and thinking through the
implications.

My friend is having nightmares just getting computer equipment through
customs. I can't imagine trying to invest millions in startups in a foreign
country.

I'd think that investors would be better off investing stateside in companies
that are focused internationally. There's not much to stop a startup in the US
from developing it's site in Mandarin or Cantonese.

~~~
trevelyan
Why not just buy equipment locally? Or ship the stuff through Hong Kong?

In my very limited experience, almost all of the VC I've witnessed in China
has involved imitative trend-chasing by small players hoping to cash out by
getting foreign investment. Or government corruption (multi-million dollar
investments in multi-thousand dollar projects).

Wholly-foreign entities in China have the freedom to perform well. The problem
otherwise isn't the lack of entrepreneurs or even necessarily innovation:

[http://www.danwei.org/media_regulation/supply_to_end_for_pri...](http://www.danwei.org/media_regulation/supply_to_end_for_print_on_dem.php)

