Silicon Valley is going to China

(Updated, including more on Sequoia)

The surge of Silicon Valley venture capital firms going to China has hit a bigger crest — with local firms starting to announce separate funds for that country.

Accel has launched a China fund. Sequoia is launching a China fund. New Enterprise Associates is launching one. Burrill is launching one. Here is our story in the Merc today (free registration).

We’ve heard DFJ is pretty upset that they’ve lost their guy in China, who will now take his deal flow to Sequoia. But neither firm would comment, so we can’t confirm that.

With the space provided us, we couldn’t cover every move. And there will be many more. Today, for example, word emerges from VentureWire (sub required) that Howard Lee and John Hsin have left Crystal Ventures to form…

…a U.S.-China focused fund called FarSight, and raise $150 million. Lee will stay in Palo Alto.

Update, and slightly off-point: Even Sacramento is going to China, apparently on Silicon Valley’s tab. Here’s the SF Chronicle:

High-tech leaders who may accompany Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on a November visit to China are being encouraged to avoid paying directly for the trip and instead make hefty donations to a nonprofit committee supporting the governor because the “contributions are not required to be reported,” according to an e-mail obtained by The Chronicle. The e-mail soliciting support for Schwarzenegger’s Nov. 14-19 trip to China was sent by Jim Hawley, California director and general counsel of TechNet, a prominent Silicon Valley advocacy group.

(Via Gillmor)

Update II: Finally, since our newspaper story above focused on Sequoia Capital, we link to this Business Week item about the firm, which shows Sequoia’s partners have been up to all kinds of things, including transforming Montana with newly built estates and private clubs. It also refers us to an interview with Mark Carlson, chief executive of SimpleFeed, a Sequoia-backed company that was supposedly stealth (we mentioned here), but is no longer.

Update III: For the record, someone just pointed out that Asia Venture Capital Journal (which can be found at AsiaFN.com) beat us to the story about Sequoia’s fund in China. They wrote this item (downloads PDF) way back on Sept 5.