纽约时报中文网 - 英文原版-英Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists Are Breaking Up With China
February 22, 2024 2 min 331 words
这篇报道揭示了硅谷风险投资家与中国渐行渐远的现状。这一决裂表明全球商业关系面临调整，背后或许是日益复杂的政治经济环境。硅谷一度将中国视为潜在的独一无二的市场和创新伙伴，但随着两国关系紧张，风险投资家开始谨慎回避。这或许是出于对风险的担忧，但也可能反映了政治因素对商业决策的深刻影响。这种分道扬镳的现象不仅影响投资者，也对全球科技产业格局产生深远影响。硅谷与中国的关系再次成为关注焦点，值得继续关注其发展趋势。
DCM Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, began investing in China’s start-ups in 1999. The move reaped such blockbuster returns that in 2021, DCM said it planned to “double down” on its strategy of investing in China, the United States and Japan.
Yet when DCM set out to raise money last fall for a new fund focused on very young companies and promoted its “cross-Pacific” expertise, the firm described plans to invest in the United States, Japan and South Korea, according to a fund-raising memo that was viewed by The New York Times.
China was not mentioned.
DCM’s messaging is one example of an industrywide shift happening between Silicon Valley investors and Chinese start-ups. U.S. venture capital firms that once saw China as the next frontier for innovation and investment returns are backing away, with some separating their Chinese operations from their American business and others declining to make new investments there.
The about-face stems from the tense relationship between the United States and China as they jockey for geopolitical, economic and technological primacy. The countries have engaged in a trade war amid a diplomatic rift, enacting tit-for-tat restrictions including U.S. moves to curb future investments in China and to scrutinize past investments in sensitive sectors.
“It was an incredibly fruitful partnership for a long time,” Tomasz Tunguz, an investor at Theory Ventures, said of how U.S. venture firms had invested in China. Now, he said, most investors are “looking for places to invest those dollars because that market is effectively closed.”
A spokeswoman for DCM said that its strategy had not changed and that investments in China had always been “a smaller component” of its funds focused on very young companies. The firm is monitoring U.S. regulations on China to comply, she added.