Top 15 Mobile Angel Investors in China

Charlie Lee is the Founder at Litecoin Foundation. Charlie Lee is the creator of Litecoin, the most popular alternative currency to Bitcoin. He is an engineer manager at Coinbase. Charlie earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science from M.I.T.

Young Sohn is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose passion is building businesses and fostering emerging technologies that have the potential to transform the world for the better. Currently, Sohn serves as Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board of HARMAN. He leads Samsung’s strategy forglobal innovation, investment, and new business creation, and led the company’s $8 billion acquisition of HARMAN. Prior to joining Samsung Electronics, Sohn served as CEO of two successful, public Silicon Valley companies and on the boards of Arm, Cadence, Cymer (ASML), and others. Under his leadership as CEO and board member, he took PLX Technologies, Synnex Technologies, and Inphi public. He was also a seed investor in some of the industry’s most innovative companies, including Bitfury, Fungible, Graphcore, and Zoom.Sohn is a leader of the global Tech for Good movement. He helped launch the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), the world’s largest startup competition for entrepreneurs addressing global challenges. He also serves as a North America board member at MIT Sloan, a senior advisor to the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, a board member at Cadence, and an advisor for the University of California Innovation Council. Sohn holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MS from the MIT Sloan School of Management. An avid outdoorsman, Sohn spends his personal time kite surfing, cycling, running, hiking, and competing in triathlons.

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.

Having worked on e-cash protocols since 1995, Adam is an applied cryptographer and inventor of the hashcash proof-of-work and decentralized mining used in Bitcoin.In addition to implementing credlib, he was an e-cash consultant to Nokia and later to Credentica (acquired by Microsoft). Adam was an architect and cryptographer at Zero-KnowledgeSystems working on its Freedom network, a precursor to Tor. He has also consulted for leading security companies, including oneID, Vmware and QWcap. Most recently, Adam co-founded Picorp, which was acquired by EMC and where he was CSO of the company’s consumer division, Decho. Adam holds a Ph.D. in distributed systems and computer science from the University of Exeter.

Max Keiser is an American broadcaster and film-maker. He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on RT, an English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news; presents a weekly show about finance and markets on London’s Resonance FM; and writes for Keiser is the CEO and co-founder ofMax Keiser invented “Virtual Specialist Technology,” a software system used by the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

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.

Sanjay Shah is the Chief Operating Officer at Wadhwani Foundation. He attended Virginia Tech.

Before the founding of Jiuhe Ventures, Wang Xiao was a member of the founding team of Baidu Seven Musketeers. In Baidu's first ten years, Wang Xiao built the underlying system of the first generation of search engines, served as the head of several Baidu star projects, and formed the wireless business unit in the last two years of leavingBaidu. In 2011, Wang Xiao founded Jiuhe Venture Capital and led the investment of 36 companies, the kitchen, Qingyun Qingcloud, Zepp, Fast Drug Delivery, Butter Camera, Eclipse, New Studio, and Good Residence. In the past five years, Wang Xiao has been pursuing the concept of “walking between technology and humanity” to find the top domestic startup companies, and at the same time making full use of the accumulated high-quality Internet resources of the past ten years to provide PR, market, HR and other aspects to the invested enterprises. Services; observe and promote the integration and innovation of the mobile Internet with e-commerce, healthcare, finance, education and the sharing economy.Wang Xiao holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and an MBA from China Europe International Business School. He is the Director of Oneflow.

Pradip Madan is the Managing Partner at Great North Ventures and an Advisor at Cognito Networks. He previously worked as an Advisor at Virtue Analytics, Applied Spectra, and Echelon and the CEO, COO, and Co-Founder at Rivio. Pradip attended the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania.

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.

Mingming Zhu is the founder and CEO of Rokid. He previously worked at University of Louisville as an Instructor. Mingming Zhu attended Washington University in St. Louis.

Vishal Shah

Xiaoguang Wu was named Senior Management Adviser in June 2015. He joined Tencent in 1999 and was a member of the founding team. Xiaoguang Wu led the development and product planning for the Group’s core product, QQ, and served as project manager for the QQ research and development team. He also served as General Manager of the IM product divisionand General Manager of the internet business division. He was later promoted to Senior Executive Vice President of the internet services division and Chief Executive Officer of Tencent E-Commerce Holdings Limited. Xiaoguang Wu has extensive experience in product research and development, product planning, product operations and marketing internet businesses. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Weather Dynamics from Nanjing University in 1996 and an EMBA degree from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in 2008.

Hongyi Zhou is the co-founder of Qihoo 360 Technology. He previously worked at IDG Capital as a Partner. Hongyi Zhou attended Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.

Jun Lei is the Co-Founder, Founding Partner, and Chairman at Shunwei.