A big move from Lenovo – the largest computer manufacturer in the world announced to launch of $500 million in startups in the coming days. The company has a long history of investing in emerging companies, and its first fund was created in 2010 with an amount of $100 million.
The company has already invested in 40-plus companies including Israeli facial recognition startup Face++, publicly listed Chinese firm iDreamsky, biometrics specialist lab Nok Nok from the U.S, StyleWe, and Shopex among others.
Last week Lenovo formed a new group Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group (LCIG) to invest the fund in the areas like Internet services and intelligence ecosystem to encourage innovation that might be within its subsidiary or outside the company. The Chinese technology giant, in a press release, states LGIG will be investing $500 USD million through Phase II Investment Fund on areas like cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, and Internet services.
“Technology breakthroughs are changing the way all of us live today, With our long-industry history and experience of driving and developing core innovations, we’re well-prepared to shape the future of game-changing technologies through funding and nurturing start-ups and bringing incubator projects to market.” said He Zhiqiang, Chief Technology Officer, Lenovo.
Through its “subsidiary incubation” model, Lenovo allows venture capitals to invest in its subsidiaries, including SHAREit, Lenovo Cloud, Lenovo Connect, Online Biometric Authentication, Lenovo Finance, Lenovo Smart Healthcare, and Lenovo New Glass.
With the second funding, Lenovo aims to connect some of the first-paced technology companies and benefit from SHAREit and Lenovo Cloud, which is going independent as a subsidiary.
Lenovo is the topmost PC seller company globally. Analyst firm IDC reported that the company grew its market share from 19.4% in Q1 2015 to 20.1% in Q1 2016. But in the same year, the actual shipment numbers fell by 8.5%.
Though the tech giant is shining in the PC market it is still struggling to make space in the smartphones market. In the last month, IDC observed that the company had fallen from the world’s top five phone makers as its core Chinese market continues to contract.
Lenovo is investing this new fund when the company is restructuring after posting its first loss in last year amid a challenging business environment. Lenovo is well-prepared with its plan to shape the future of the company and bringing incubator projects to market.
