Yimin (Peter) Fang, senior director of corporate investment and mergers and acquisitions at China-headquartered internet company Baidu, has rejoined former colleague Kai-Fu Lee at venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures.
Fang, ranked eighth on 2016’s Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist, worked under US-based internet technology provider Google’s first China president, Kai-Fu Lee, as an investment director at Innovation Works, the China-based investment firm since rebranded as Sinovation, from 2011 to 2014.
Fang joined Baidu in 2014 after a few months at financial services group Fidelity’s Asian corporate venturing unit, Fidelity Growth Partners Asia. At Baidu he covered strategic investments and mergers and acquisitions in areas such as adtech, big data, mapping, fintech and deep learning.
Baidu’s US deals include Uber, Velodyne, Cloudflare, Taboola, Planet Labs, ZestFinance, GraphSQL and SoundAI.
Fang’s team led several strategic acquisitions to complement Baidu’s technology and product capabilities, including Kitt.ai, Raven Technology and xPerception, all of which are AI related. His team also handled spin-off projects of Baidu assets including Baidu Music, Baidu Literature and Baidu Games.
However, most of Baidu’s deals still take place in China, and the group has set up Baidu Capital to potentially invest billions of dollars. Melissa Ma, the wife of Baidu founder Robin Li, is now head of corporate venturing at the firm.
Fang’s experience has been broad, covering areas such as electronic payments, gaming and communication from the mid-1990s onward, taking in stints at public relations firm Edelman, online services provider NetEase and mobile payment platform 99Bill.
– Photo of Peter Fang courtesy of LinkedIn.