Hillhouse Capital – a private equity firm funded by America’s top universities and is invested in companies including Zoom and Apple – struck a $1.5 billion deal with a Chinese Communist Party-owned investment fund.
Hillhouse Capital partnered with the “wholly state-owned” Hangzhou Capitol on a billion-dollar fund “to invest in sectors including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new energy vehicles,” according to Chinese state-run media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN).
Hillhouse Capital, which was funded with $20 million in seed capital from the Yale University Endowment, is reported to be backed by America’s most prestigious universities. Following a Stanford University investment of $200 million in 2015, the fund was “investing money for at least six of the 10 wealthiest universities in the U.S.,” including Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has also invested nearly $1 billion with the Beijing-based fund.
These investments are now being used, however, to contribute to the growth of the Chinese Communist Party.
A press release from Hangzhou Capital – which pledges to be “guided by Xi Jinping’s thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era” – reveals that its partnership with Hillhouse Capital is part of a broader Chinese regime-backed effort to turn the city into a “leading and exemplary benchmark for national advancement.”
“The implementation of the “National Digital Economy First City” strategy focuses on value investment to empower outstanding enterprise development, optimizes industrial layout and accelerates the cultivation of new kinetic energy, and creates new impetus for Hangzhou to become a model city for high-quality development and construction of a common prosperity demonstration zone in Zhejiang Province,” the group adds.
Hillhouse Capital’s partnership with a Chinese state-owned enterprise also calls into question its sizable investments in companies such as Zoom, Uber, Apple, TikTok parent company ByteDance.
Article Seven of China’s National Intelligence law stipulates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.”
