By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-05 11:10

A venture capital fund of $200 million, created by Bay Area executives from the US and business leaders from China's Yangtze River Delta area, will be unveiled on Friday to fuel Chinese hi-tech and biotechnology start-up ventures.

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SVB Capital China Councils Fund, managed by SVB Capital, the investment arm of California's Silicon Valley Bank, is the centerpiece of a region-to-region development project between Bay Area Council, a business public policy organization based in San Francisco, and China's Yangtze Council, led by billionaire Hong Kong developer Vincent Lo.

The fund was set up in the Knowledge and Innovation Community, a zone jointly developed by the Yangpu district government and property development company Shui On Land to create an environment that fosters technological innovation and entrepreneurship similar to that of the Silicon Valley in the US.

"The fund represents major initiatives really targeting goals of mutual collaboration between those two regions," Mark MacLennan, president of SVB Capital, said prior to Monday's signing ceremony between the Bay Area and Yangpu district, in the northern part of the city, for a memorandum of understanding to boost cooperation.

"It will focus on companies in traditional industries as well as the technology sector," he said.

The fund will focus on the areas of logistics, IT, energy and green technology, hi-tech materials and services, high-margin, high value-added manufacturing, and healthcare.

The fund, to be both dollar- and yuan-denominated, will largely target enterprises operating within the Yangtze River Delta, which consists of Shanghai and its two neighboring provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

"It was the outgrowth of dialogue that took place in a much broader memorandum of understanding between Bay Area Council and Yangtze River Council," MacLennan said.

Vincent Lo, chairman of Shui On Group, said the fund represents the first solid result for regional partnership between the two areas.