Zhang Fan, Founding Partner of Sequoia Capital China Fund, has witnessed the growth of many Chinese enterprises

"Zhang Fan is an outstanding venture capitalist. He is astute and smart, vastly knowledgeable and very friendly," said Li Likai, Managing Partner of IIC Capital, who has cooperated with Zhang several times on investments. "A venture capitalist would usually quiz the entrepreneur about the indicators that were of particular interest. But Zhang is different. He always listens patiently to the ‘story' of the entrepreneur."

Zhang, the 35-year-old founding partner of Sequoia Capital China Fund, is a representative figure among China's young venture capital (VC) investors. Until now, Zhang has participated in more than 50 investment projects, of which Baidu brought him the most recognition.

"Originally, Baidu was only a small company with about 20 employees, but I believe a search engine represents the proper use as well as the core technology of the Internet," said Zhang. "The most important thing about ‘search' is that it is not a flash in the pan. It will still be widely used in 10 years, 50 years or longer. I have complete confidence in the development of this business."

Frenetic and rational workaholic

"Actually, I'm not the workaholic everyone thinks I am," Zhang said. "I frenetically work in a rational fashion. I truly like this VC job. In fact, I enjoy this lifestyle."

Zhang officially entered the VC industry in 2000 when he became a member of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) ePlanet Ventures, jointly founded by Asad Jamal and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

In 2002, after working in the VC market in the United States for two years, Zhang returned to China as vice president of DFJ ePlanet Ventures and Chief China representative. In the three years that followed, people were attracted by every move he made, from Kong.net, to Focus Media, to Baidu.

Today, the market value of Baidu has reached $4 billion and Focus Media, $3 billion.

"The performance of Baidu and Focus Media has proved that my passion and stubbornness toward them at the beginning were correct," recalled Zhang. "But initially, I had to do a lot of work."

Never give up

Zhang's passion for work is 100 percent. Once he targets a project, he will never give up until the goal is achieved. This was fully exemplified in the Kong.net case.

In the summer of 2002, Zhang met Zhou Yunfan and Yang Ning, who were in the process of a second business venture. After hearing their story, Zhang decided to help them. But, because of the Internet bubble, many investors did not favor Kong.net, including the partners of DFJ. However, this did not affect Zhang's determination to proceed. He insisted on his judgment and traveled twice to DFJ's U.S. headquarters. He updated them repeatedly and submitted a report analyzing in detail the potential of the Internet market in China, the successes of Japan and Korea, and convincing cases.

Finally, after much analysis, DFJ's Chairman and Board of Directors came to the conclusion to invest in Kong.net. This investment eventually rewarded them with a 25-fold return.

Zhang has a very "picky" investment vision and believes an entrepreneur must also pay special attention to "practical value," apart from possessing the four basic qualities-passion, patience, in-depth knowledge of the industry and a strong implementation team.

"My investment principles and strategies did not get full recognition and implementation at DFJ, however," explained Zhang. "As a global fund interested in projects in China, DFJ must follow its global deployment. As a result, we missed some hot projects."

Zhang resigned from DFJ in June 2005. Strongly supported by Sequoia Capital, Zhang and another partner, Shen Nanpeng, completed the financing of Sequoia Capital China with a scale of $200 million within two months.

Practical value of product

"The strategy of Sequoia China is to get hold of good seedlings in sectors with high growth potential and promote their products to the world," explained Zhang.