(Yicai Global) Oct. 20 -- Vertex Ventures, a Singaporean venture capital company, has secured USD500 million in the first close on its fifth US dollar fund. Over 90 percent of the proceeds will be invested in Chinese tech startups, the Paper reported yesterday, citing a company insider.

The new fund will focus on three major areas of innovation, namely technology, medicine and healthcare as well as the new digital economy, said Vertex Ventures, which is a member of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings and has branches in China, the US, Israel and India.

The first close indicates that the fund has reached its minimum subscription target. But it remains open to new investors, and existing investors can still increase their subscriptions. Once the fund stops accepting new investments, this is the final close. It normally takes one year to 18 months for the fund to finally close.

Vertex Ventures is the latest in a number of foreign private equity firms eyeing China’s tech sector, the report said. Many believe that as an emerging market, China still has huge opportunities for speculation.

Sequoia Capital’s Tianjin branch recently launched a new fund that secured more than USD12 million, the most ever by the California-based firm, according to US Securities and Exchange Commission documents released in July. The fund has subscribers from the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia and its investments will target technology, consumer goods and healthcare firms.

And Chinese investors are also closely watching innovations in the technology, consumer goods and healthcare sectors. Qiming Venture Partners’s new fund raised USD3.2 billion in July, its second US dollar fundraising in two-and-a-half years, the Shanghai-based firm said.

Editor: Kim Taylor