Participated · Series A · May 2021

Akrostar Technology, founded in June 2020, develops and offers intellectual property (IP) to chipmakers in areas long dominated by foreign players. The company has quickly brought advanced IP products and services to market. Over the past year it has raised nearly CNY1 billion (about USD155.6 million) and has exceeded its 2021 sales target. Akrostar secured over CNY500 million (USD77.8 million) in its Series A round to support growth. The proceeds will be used to attract cutting‑edge R&D talent and accelerate product roll‑out. Chairman and Co‑CEO Zeng Keqiang said industry recognition gives the firm confidence to strive to empower China’s integrated circuit industry, and Gaorong partner Yue Bin highlighted the importance of IP to China’s chip design sector.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2017

Lynk operates a knowledge-as-a-service marketplace that uses machine learning algorithms to match users with more than 840,000 experts. The platform serves clients including financial institutions and government organizations, aiming to surface experts not easily found online or via traditional consultancies. Lynk has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, Shanghai and Toronto and was founded in 2015 by CEO Peggy Choi. As part of its commercial strategy it partners with institutional clients and research teams to integrate expert access into their workflows. The company is expanding a collaboration with UBS to give UBS research analysts and institutional investor clients access to Lynk’s database and tools. Financially, Lynk has raised a total of $35 million to date, with a $29 million Series B that was recently increased by UBS’s strategic investment. Lynk is a knowledge-as-a-service platform that connects clients with more than 840,000 experts and uses machine learning to match users to specialists based on what they know. Its flagship product, Lynk Answers, is used by about 200 enterprise clients for research on geography expansion, product-market fit, due diligence and supply-chain issues. The platform includes SaaS collaboration features such as auto-transcription and organized, searchable expert interviews. Lynk monetizes by charging enterprise clients a subscription fee. The company has more than 200 employees and operates offices across multiple cities including Hong Kong, New York City, Singapore, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, Hyderabad, Toronto and Manila. Planned use of funds includes product launches and expansion in North America and China. Lynk operates a Software-as-a-Service platform built on an expert network that lets customers access expertise and insights from advisors to innovate, enter new markets, and evaluate risk and opportunities. Its KaaS technology leverages natural language processing, conversational AI analytics, and machine learning with human-in-the-loop to enable expert knowledge acquisition and sharing at scale. The company gathers and structures data from diverse sources, curates and validates them, and organizes information via a knowledge graph that objectively scores experts. Customers include Fortune 100 companies, top-tier consulting firms, global private equity funds, hedge funds, media, government agencies, multinational enterprises and start-ups across more than 60 countries. Led by CEO and founder Peggy Choi, Lynk has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai and Shanghai. The company closed a funding round of undisclosed amount and says it will use the proceeds to continue expanding its business reach. Lynk provides a SaaS-based curated platform enabling enterprise users to find, compare and engage experts across a wide range of sectors. Users can connect with experts via phone calls, in-person meetings, teleconferences and consulting projects. The platform features over 35,000 experts across 70 countries, covering sectors such as tech, logistics, banking and finance, healthcare, media, legal, education and consumer goods. Founded in 2013 by CEO Peggy Choi, Lynk serves enterprise clients seeking on-demand expertise and knowledge. The company intends to use the new funding to expand its market reach and continue to develop its platform. The articles report the company raised a Series A round of US$4m.