Top 15 Education Angel Investors in China in December 2024

Minhong Yu is the founder, Chairman and CEO of New Oriental, a company providing a comprehensive range of educational services. Yu is also the Vice Chairman of the Beijing Young Entrepreneurs Association and Vice Chairman of the Committee of Education of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League. Prior to founding New Oriental, Yu was anEnglish instructor at Peking University between 1985 and 1991. Yu received his Bachelor’s Degree in English from Peking University. Minhong Yu is the Director of Kidstone.

Bob Xiaoping Xu is the founder of ZhenFund and one of China's most celebrated angel investors. Established in 2011 as a joint fund with Sequoia Capital China, ZhenFund is China’s foremost angel fund. Managing USD 600 million, ZhenFund has 500 portfolio companies and offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Palo Alto. It has played a leading role inChina’s rise as a “startup nation”, and is widely considered a beacon of light in China’s vibrant startup environment. Prior to founding ZhenFund, Mr. Xu co-founded China's largest private English training and test preparation group, New Oriental Education, along with Michael Yu and Victor Wang. New Oriental became listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006 and currently has a market cap of USD 11 billion. The founders’ endeavors, which helped drive Chinese education toward a new global era, was featured in the box office hit “American Dreams in China”. The movie ranked as the #3 Chinese domestic box office hit in 2013. Mr. Xu’s success as an educator and an entrepreneur led him to angel investing, where he has pioneered a unique investment philosophy of investing in exceptional people. He became one of the most prolific patrons of entrepreneurship, as well as a leading mentor to young business leaders. Forbes Magazine has honored him on the Midas List as one of the World’s Top 100 Venture Capital Investors for two consecutive years (2016 and 2017). Mr. Xu currently serves as the Chairman of China Angel Investment Association. Mr. Xu has more than 11 million followers on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. He is also a prolific author who has published seven books on career growth and education. His writings, speeches and interviews on entrepreneurship, investment and education have had an immense impact on China’s emerging business leaders, and particularly on those who have studied abroad. He is the president of Committee 2005, an institution that gathers the most influential Chinese overseas returnees, including the likes of Robin Li, Neil Shen and Lee Kai-fu. Mr. Xu is deeply committed to philanthropy. He is a founding donor and the Committee Acting President of the Future Science Award, an annual award of USD 1 million for scientists who have made significant contributions to life sciences and physical sciences in Greater China. Mr. Xu graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music, the Chinese equivalent of Julliard School of Music, with a bachelor’s degree in music. He received his master’s degree in music from the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to that he was a counsellor at Peking University for five years.

Yinan Li is a partner at Plum Ventures and is known for being the founder of luxury electric bike maker Niu Technologies Group.

Richard Qiangdong Liu is the founder of JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) and has been their chairman and chief executive officer since the company’s inception. Born in a small rural village and raised in relative poverty, Liu’s commitment to operating his business with honesty and integrity has seen it grow from a tiny stall in a shopping bazaar to the thirdlargest retail company globally by revenue. The company reported an annual revenue of $82.9 billion for 2019, and while Liu’s net worth himself is estimated to be upwards of $12.7 billion he remains humble -- when Fortune magazine identified him as one of their “World’s Greatest Leaders” they singled him out as having “few of the trappings of a celebrity CEO.” With heavy investments in technology such as AI, big data, and drones, Liu’s vision for the future of his company is one that continues to break the mold of traditional retail and ecommerce businesses while staying true to its roots in customer loyalty and trust.Liu was born and raised in a village called Chang’an in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, China. A part of the Suqian prefecture-level city system in the northern area of the province, Liu’s family had been forcibly resettled there after the rise of communism in the late 1940’s. In fact, prior to the revolution his family had been wealthy shipowners who transported goods along the Yangtze river and the ancient imperial canal from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in the south. However, by the time Liu was born his parents were poor farmers, struggling to make ends meet and support both him and his grandparents who lived with them. Although Liu was born in the 1970’s, his village still lacked the modern day conveniences that were readily available in other parts of the country such as running water, electricity, and even paved roads. Nutritious food was also scarce, and from June to September they had access to corn which they would stretch to make meals such as cornmeal porridge, corn pancakes, and dry cornbread, all of which were so tough that Liu has said they could make your throat bleed. The rest of the year the family would eat sweet potato, either boiled, formed into pancakes, or dried. In his final year of secondary school, Liu applied to universities located in Shanghai and Beijing, believing only large cities would give him the platform he needed to do more and see more. He excelled in the rigorous college entrance exams he took, and was accepted to Renmin University -- then known as the People’s University of China -- in Beijing. However, the trip to Beijing was going to cost him around $75, an exorbitant sum to rural farmers at the time. His family was unable to afford the train ticket on their own, but thankfully his friends and neighbors had full faith in his ability to achieve and contributed whatever they could spare towards his education.At Renmin University, Liu studied sociology with the thought that he may enter politics, but he soon found that even with his classes and homework he had a considerable amount of free time in Beijing. He got a job at a small business who couldn’t afford a photocopier hand-copying letters, and also began to teach himself computer programming. The latter endeavor turned out to not only be a fun way to pass the time for Liu, but also one of his very first entrepreneurial ventures. The recent policy shift in China toward market reforms and embracing some aspects of capitalism created an influx of businesses that needed computer programmers. With Liu’s calm demeanor and trustworthy nature, he quickly became a popular choice and had soon made more money than he had ever dreamed of in the lucrative business. With the funds, he purchased a personal computer and cell phone -- two very expensive items at the time -- and was even able to have a new house built for his parents in the village. On June 18th, 1998, Liu took his 12,000 yuan (about $1,760) he had saved during his two years at Japan Life and used it to purchase inventory and rent a 4-square-meter booth in one of the many technological bazaars in Zhongguancun. Calling the company Jingdong, this was the start of what would eventually become JD.com, and the date on which he opened up shop has become known as “618” day and accompanies a promotional blitz that has become a nationwide phenomenon rivaling the United States’ Black Friday. Before all that though, he was simply a one-man booth selling magneto-optical drives, a type of optical disc drive similar in appearance to a floppy disk capable of having data written and rewritten upon it. In 2003, Liu’s business hit a snag when the SARS epidemic caused widespread fear and panic, with most consumers electing to stay home in order to avoid catching or spreading the virus. This had a devastating effect on China’s economy, and many retail stores including Liu’s were forced to temporarily shutter. In an effort to continue generating revenue and keep himself in business, Liu began posting his products to online bulletin boards, and after one of his customers happened to find him and vouch for his decency and honorableness he was able to keep his business alive by selling his electronic goods online. After Liu was able to re-open his stores, he also designated one employee to work full-time posting his products on the internet. By the time the year was over, it was clear to Liu that the burgeoning e-commerce industry was the perfect match for his business aspirations, and began plans to move his company entirely online. At the time, the internet was still a place people were wary of purchasing items from, but Liu’s work building a trustworthy brand enabled him to get a head start in gaining the trust of the consumers. Nonetheless, he worked extremely hard to build JD.com into a premiere e-commerce service, launching JD.com in early 2004. He elected to live in his office in order to save money on rent, and wrote the initial code for the website himself. He wanted to get to know his customers and their needs as closely as possible, and so he alone answered all of the customer inquiries that came through. In order to make sure no questions went very long unanswered, Liu would set an alarm clock for himself to go off every two hours during the night so that he could wake up and answer any questions that had been asked. He even handled much of the deliveries himself. For Liu, having control over the quality of his service was one of the key differentiators between his business and his competitors. Liu extended this idea in 2007, when he made the decision to take his entire logistics network for the e-commerce site completely in-house. For Liu it was an imperative step towards not only being able to curate his e-commerce service to tailor-fit his customers, but also open up previously untapped markets such as third and fourth-tier cities whose consumers previously had to travel miles in order to purchase the goods they needed. This strategy has proven to be a key to the company’s atmospheric rise, with 90% of its deliveries now arriving either the same or next day. Liu has frequently been recognized for his work on JD.com and the Chinese online ecommerce industry as a whole. China’s largest television network CCTV awarded him the “2011 China Economic Person of the Year” and he has also been named the “2011 Chinese Business Leader” and was noted as one of Fortune China’s “2012 Chinese Businessmen.” According to Forbes, Liu is currently #165 on the list of 2020 billionaires, #40 on China’s Rich List of 2020, and #25 on the Richest in Tech 2017 list, and was also ranked #48 on Fortune’s “World’s Greatest Leaders” list. In reference to Liu’s ranking, Fortune remarked that Liu had “few of the trappings of a celebrity CEO” and little corporate ego. Liu is often invited to speak at some of the largest forums in the world such as the World Economic Forum in Davos on topics such as the ecommerce industry, technological advancements, and to share his business development story as a means to inspire others, but even with this and working 16 hour days, he still spends one day a year working as a delivery person for JD.com.

Zhang Aizhi is the founding partner of Taoli Capital.

Lin Hsi-Lei is a Taiwanese actress and model who has appeared mainly in Hong Kong films.

Zhi Tan joined NLVC in 2009. He brings extensive management and operational experience to the team. Starting from 2004, Dr. Tan was the President of Shanghai Framedia Advertising Development Ltd (Framedia) one of the largest community advertising networks in China. Under his leadership, revenues grew from RMB 36 million to RMB 1.2 billion in 3years. The company was later acquired by Focus Media for US$ 183 million. Prior to Framedia, Dr. Tan served as senior advisor to Chinese media company Tom Group Limited on strategic development as well as mergers and acquisitions. From 1999 to 2002, Dr. Tan served as the CEO of 8848.net, notably the largest online e-commerce company at the time in China. Before joining 8848.net, Dr. Tan was the vice president of Microsoft China and oversaw sales channels and business partnerships. He also served as the senior vice president of UTStarcom, China. In the early 1990s, Dr. Tan joined Chipcom as its General Manager of China Chipcom, a leading manufacturer of networking products, was later became part of Nortel Networks.Dr. Tan graduated from the Computer Science and Technology Department of Jilin University in China in 1980, and received his Ph.D in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute of Massachusetts in 1987.

Gang Wangis the Founder, President & CEO of Anterra Energy.

Wang Qiang (Victor Wang) is a Co-Founder of ZhenFund and New Oriental Education & Technology Group (NYSE: EDU). He designed the oral and practical English and computer science courses. Prior to co-founding of ZhenFund and New Oriental, he was an engineer in the software division of Bell Communications Research and former lecturer of Englishlanguage and literature at Peking University.He received an M.S. in Computer Science from State University of New York, and a B.A. in English from Peking University. He is the Chairman of the Board of Juzi Entertainment.

Yong Wang is the Chairman of CrestValue.

Eugene Zhang is the founding partner of TSVC (formerly TEEC Angel Fund) since 2010. Eugene is an entrepreneur himself, his investments include ZOOM in 2011, Carta in 2013, Ginkgo Bioworks in 2014, Quanergy in 2014 and other 70+ startups.

Gang Wang

Jacob Feng - CEO and Founder @ ArtPlay

Jed Rose

Wang Huai is the founder of Linear Venture.