Business gurus of Taiwan, China finance new biz by former Google executive.

Taipei, Sept. 8, 2009 (CENS)--Kai-Fu Lee, who has recently resigned as founding president of Google China and the search engines vice president, yesterday announced he had won financial supports from Hon Hai Group Chairman Terry Gou and Lenovo Group Chairman Liu Chaunzhi for his new business in Beijing.

Lee left Google last week amid a legal dispute between Google and Microsoft, in which he was the focus. He plans to open a business in Beijing to incubate innovative talents and next-generation high-tech enterprises. He announced yesterday he had raised a total of US$15 million for his business with iconic business leaders in Taiwan and mainland China including Hon Hais Gou, Lenovos Liu, YouTube Founder Steve Chen, New Oriental Education & Technology Group Chairman Yu Minhong.

The investors will put a total of 800 million Chinese yuan (US$117 million at US$1:NT$33) into Lees new business in five years.

Lee said his new business would employee 110 specialists to select five innovative startups out of 20 cases they locate every year and finance them until they are listed or acquired. He noted the new business will mostly watch startups specializing in Internet, electronics-game, and cloud-computing technologies.

He stressed his company will begin with the mainland and transplant its success experience in the mainland to Taiwan. However, he did not say when his company will do the transplanting.

Peter Liu, chairman of venture capital firm WI Harper Group, noted that the mainlands environment for business founding is relatively primitive, lacking startup capital, management experience, and making it unattractive to innovative talents. Liu attended Lees press conference yesterday.