Funds

Vision Knight closes $550m China fund

David Wei’s fund has hit the hard cap on its second vehicle after four months in the market.

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Shanghai-based Vision Knight Capital has raised $550 million in capital commitments towards its latest private equity fund, according to a statement.

The vehicle, Vision Knight’s second offering, made a final close on its hard cap after just four months of fundraising, gaining support from both new and existing investors.  

Its debut vehicle closed on $250 million in August 2012, according to Private Equity International’s Research & Analytics division.

Vision Knight, which was founded by former Alibaba.com chief executive David Wei and co-founder Daming Zhu, formerly a partner at DT Capital Partners, focuses on China’s retail, consumer internet and e-commerce sectors.

The firm joins a number of China-focused funds that have closed recently, including the CDH Investments $2.55 billion vehicle, which closed in February oversubscribed, PEI reported earlier.

The same month, ClearVue Partners raised $262 million for its first fund, just at venture capital firm GGV launched a $500 million cross-border vehicle.

However, while there is a seeming uptick in investor sentiment in China, helped by the resurgence of the Chinese and Hong Kong stock exchanges, industry sources continue to worry that too much capital is chasing too few deals.

The level of dry powder in China rose 20 percent during 2013, the country’s private equity firms holding around $65 billion of uninvested capital at the end of the year – the largest amount of any emerging market country, according to data from Bain & Co.