Former Google chief raises $180m for web start-ups

Kai-Fu Lee, the former chief of Google (GOOG.NYSE, GGQ1.FWB) China, has raised a new US$180 million fund to finance internet start-ups, a sign of continued interest in the sector despite the recent decline in share prices of US-listed Chinese web companies, the Wall Street Journal reported. Investors in the new development fund include Sequoia Capital investor Ron Conway, an early backer of Google, Facebook and Twitter, and Yuri Milner, the founder of Digital Sky Technologies, which has invested in Facebook, Groupon and Zynga. The fund will be managed by Innovation Works, a Beijing-based fund for internet start-ups that Lee founded in 2009 following a four-year stint at the helm of Google China. Innovations Works has so far helped nine companies raise an average of US$8 million each from third-party venture capital funds. The Chinese internet market is growing much faster than in the US, but investor enthusiasm for the sector has waned in the past year due to growing concerns about a bubble in Chinese tech stocks, governance risks at small Chinese companies, and the possibility of a sudden regulatory crackdown.