Venture capital and private equity investments in China jumped last month, backed by investments in information technology companies, an industry report said yesterday.

PE and VC firms invested US$418 million in 46 businesses of all types through March, compared with US$292 million in 18 companies a month earlier, the Zero2IPO Research Center said in a report.

Investments in the IT sector totaled US$192 million in 20 firms, accounting for 46.2 percent of the total investments, the report said.

The biggest investment of 330 million yuan funded a television shopping program in Hunan Province.

Six health-care companies attracted a total of US$35.2 million investment while US$71.69 million was pumped into five firms in the service industry and US$48 million was invested in five companies in the clean technology industry. A total of US$69.13 million was invested in eight other businesses.

Beijing attracted the bulk of the IT and VC funds with US$148 million, followed by Shanghai with US$112 million.

Shanghai will launch a pilot qualified foreign limited partner program in Pudong New Area to allow selected foreign investors to use their yuan quota to invest in domestic PE funds, said Tu Guangshao, the city's vice mayor, on Saturday.