BRIEF: Hillhouse founder meets with Shanghai’s Communist Party chief

Zhang Lei, founder of Hillhouse Capital, met with Shanghai’s top Communist Party official on Oct. 12, as his company charts a new path forward from its roots as a China-focused investment company to a major regional player. Zhang was part of a group representing the foreign investment community that met with Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining, according to numerous Chinese media reports.

The reports quoted Chen saying Shanghai welcomed foreign entrepreneurs and investors to the city. Before the meeting, Zhang expressed his confidence in China’s development, and said Hillhouse would focus on strategic long-term investments in China in areas such as integrating digitalization, intelligence, and green transformation, the reports said.

Hillhouse previously relocated its headquarters from China to Singapore as part of an effort to reposition itself as an international private equity and venture capital firm, following a broader diversification trend among such investors. The latest meeting, in a high-profile manner rarely seen in recent years, shows the company is swinging back to China again, reaffirming its commitment to its country of origin.

Around the same time as the visit, Hillhouse also joined the angel funding round for Xense Robotics, a developer of robotic sensing technology seen as an important player in the embodied artificial intelligence sector that integrates AI into physical products like robots.

Ongoing geopolitical tensions have made some previously China-centric investors like GGV and Hillhouse reconsider their strategy over the last two years and try to rebrand themselves as more regional players. The company is positioning itself as a foreign investor, though it continues to leverage its China expertise to capture opportunities in companies like Xense.

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