Granite Global Ventures, a venture capital investor in Alibaba, said yesterday it will expand its latest fund, which focuses on investment in rapidly-growing firms in the United States and China, by 50 percent to US$600 million.

GGV also intends to push one of the firms it invested in for a listing on China's Nasdaq-like growth market which is expected to open as early as next month in Shenzhen.

An original investment of US$400 million was pumped into the GGV III Fund in October, 2006. The latest expansion will bring GGV's total capital under management to more than US$1 billion.

GGV will use the additional capital to extend its investments in technology-based companies and in the services and emerging sectors, with an increasing focus on investments in China.

Jenny Lee, managing partner of GGV, believed that now is the best opportunity for VC firms to speed up investments. "The question is that we should have enough bullets,'' Lee said.

The Chinese firms that GGV has invested in included Alibaba Group, hiSoft and AAC Acoustic Technologies.

Meanwhile, Summit Lifescience, a Guangzhou-based medical materials and device provider, has canceled its plan for an initial public offering overseas and instead will launch the IPO in the new growth market in Shenzhen, according to GGV, one of the major VC investors in the company.

(Shanghai Daily March 27, 2008)