We Want You! FreeS Fund 2019 Spring North America Roadshow
You're the next star-picker in venture capital.
Looking to get a head start on internships, full-time roles, or founding a company?
Hoping to meet kindred spirits who want to build something — people you can code with and also queue up for Dota with?
Curious about the buzz around space exploration, the IoT wave, AI, and the disciplines where they all intersect?
Four months after the last FreeS Fund North America campus recruiting tour, founding partner Li Feng is back in North America — this time to find the most interesting, most impressive among you.
In 1988, a proposal by Cheng Siwei, widely regarded as the "father of venture capital" in China, set the country's VC industry on a rapid growth trajectory. Since then, successive waves — traditional industries, the internet, mobile internet, and now AI — have shaped Chinese venture capital into a mature force. Technology and capital have become the twin engines driving the economy toward its defining moments and hatching vertical unicorns.
As a dual-currency early-stage fund, FreeS Fund has been rooted in both China and North America since day one. Li Feng brings nine years of cross-border investment experience and a strong track record of spotting entrepreneurial talent in North America. He has repeatedly talked overseas students into (and out of) starting companies, and has backed a roster of promising startups built around teams from top North American universities and industry veterans.
Beyond its decade-plus of consumer investing, FreeS has built a technology portfolio spanning chip sensors, medtech, new energy and materials, and AI. Notable investments include:
Unity (a world-leading VR/AR content creation engine, having raised nearly $600 million to date and the engine behind Pokémon Go);
QingTao Development (a frontrunner in solid-state battery technology);
NextVPU (one of the leading AI chip companies, having completed a RMB 200 million Series A);
XtalPi (founded by MIT postdocs, a global leader in computationally driven drug discovery);
Lightelligence (the only company in the world using photonic technology for AI computing, founded by MIT PhD Shen Yichen);
Kolmostar (founded by a team from Harvard and MIT, offering low-cost, low-power, high-precision positioning solutions for IoT nodes, mobile devices, and autonomous driving systems, having raised $10 million in Series A funding);
ChangMuGu Medical (assembled in the Longwood Medical Area near Harvard Medical School and Silicon Valley near Stanford, a leader in medical imaging diagnosis and precision surgical assistance);
Xinyi Information Technology (focused on the design and sales of IoT communication chips, especially NB-IoT chips; founder Xiao Jianhong earned his PhD from Texas A&M University and was formerly a senior principal scientist at Broadcom);
Maihai Environmental Protection (a high-tech environmental company originating in Seattle, applying revolutionary water treatment technology to ecological restoration in China);
CoreXVision (a provider of solid-state LiDAR chip-level solutions, with a founding team of returning talent from Harvard, MIT, Brown, and other top overseas universities).
Uncle Feng — as he's known internally — departs for North America today. Over the next eight days, April 11–17, he will be at CMU, JHU, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell to meet those of you interested in startups and investing, sharing frontier thinking on the venture capital world. He will take part in four campus VC summits and three closed-door industry sessions. For the full itinerary, see the image below.
This trip carries another purpose: Uncle Feng is inviting North American students who aspire to bridge science and business to come intern at FreeS Fund's Beijing office this coming summer.
The program, which we half-jokingly call the "Feng God List," is now in its fourth cohort. We have always believed that stepping outside your research topic and discipline — into the broader world of business — is how you develop sharper industry instincts and plan your career path earlier.
This year, we plan to hire 3–5 interns to work alongside our investment colleagues in consumer, deep tech, and healthcare. They will conduct in-depth industry research, participate in due diligence, and visit outstanding portfolio companies in the FreeS family for an up-close look at the startup ecosystem. Details below:
| Focus Areas:
Consumer upgrading, artificial intelligence, chip R&D and manufacturing, biomedicine, new materials and new energy, fintech, IoT, and related fields.
| What We Look For:
- Master's degree or currently enrolled in a master's or higher program in a relevant field;
- Genuine interest in venture capital, with a habit of thinking deeply and researching thoroughly;
- Strong data analysis and written reporting skills; prior experience in industry or academic research is a plus;
- Prior internship experience at primary or secondary market investment institutions, or founding experience, is preferred.
| What You'll Get:
- Work side by side with founding partner Li Feng and seasoned investors with top overseas academic backgrounds, learning from them face to face;
- Conduct deep-dive industry research alongside frontline investors and write industry reports;
- Visit startups and experience the unicorn-building ecosystem firsthand, meeting outstanding founders in person.
| How to Apply:
- Intern at FreeS Fund's Beijing office during the summer (mid-May through September) for three months or longer; start dates can be adjusted slightly based on your school's calendar;
- Submit your resume to hr@freesvc.com by April 25. Please use this exact format for the email subject line (in Chinese): Name + School + Research Focus, e.g., Zhang San + Stanford University + Artificial Intelligence;
- To help us understand your thinking about the industry, please attach a recent research proposal, or the paper or research report you're most proud of, or a business plan if you have one;
- If you have any questions about the internship program, feel free to reach out to qiuqiu@freesvc.com.
(Click "Read More" to learn about previous "Feng God List" cohorts and hear what past North American interns have to say.)
FreeS Angel-Round Portfolio Company Kolmostar Raises $10 Million Series A | FreeS Funding News
▲ Coffee Brand "Saturnbird" Completes Tens of Millions of RMB Pre-Series A | FreeS Funding News
▲ FreeS Fund Is Hiring Investors | Doing What's Right, Not What's Easy
▲ Spend a Summer Mastering VC Skills | "Feng God List" Cohort 3 Recruitment
