GSR Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in China, announced today that Li Yinan, the former head of China Mobile subsidiary UMessage, joined GSR Ventures as a venture partner.
Graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1993 with a master degree in optical engineering, Li joined Huawei as engineer and then made a big hop to become the lead engineer and VP of Huawei at age 27, the youngest VP in the history of Huawei. Later on he left Huawei and founded his own telecommunications-equipment maker Harbour Networks in late 2000. Huawei acquired Harbour Networks in 2006, and Li went back to Huawei for nearly 2 years before he was lured away by Baidu as Chief Technology Officer led the research and development of its next-generation search engine.
Li left Baidu in early Jan last year for UMessage, also known as Beijing Wuxian Xungi Information Technology where he served as CEO. UMessage is a subsidiary of China Mobile that operates the latter’s 12580 services.
According to Li, he was offered opportunities in other premier venture firms, eventually he chose GSR for its focus on early-stage technology startups and its ambition to help entrepreneurs build world class technology companies in China.