Intel Capital, chipmaker Intel’s venture capital investment arm, has announced two new investments; in cloud gaming platform developer Beijing Cloud Union Co and fashion content aggregation platform Fashion Republic. The amounts invested in both companies have not been disclosed. Both investments have been made from the $500 million Intel Capital China Technology Fund II, which was raised in April 2008. The Fashion Republic and Beijing Cloud Union deals are part of a posse of 13 deals that the venture capital investors closed in 2011, totaling an investment of $90 million for the year, said a press release.
Beijing Cloud Union, which employs more than 60 people based in Beijing and Hunan, was founded in 2009. Founder Deng Di earlier co-founded peer-to-peer live video broadcast startup MySee, which reportedly shut down operations in 2007. The Intel Capital investment is Cloud Union’s second round of institutional funding. It reportedly raised $2 million in a Series A round from Softbank China Venture Capital in 2010.
Intel Capital has been investing in China since 1998 and has deployed approximately $650 million across over 100 Chinese companies. Its 13 deals in 2011 include vertical search engine Makepolo, healthcare information technology solutions provider B-Soft and Android software integrator Borqs. The venture capital investor’s areas of focus in China include consumer Internet, mobile applications, storage and health.
