Notable Capital’s Hans Tung on the state of VC and the upside to down roundsTo some investors, “down round” is a dirty phrase, but not to Notable Capital’s Hans Tung.
Hans is a managing partner at Notable Capital, formerly GGV Capital, a venture firm focusing on investments in the U.S., Latin America, Israel, and Europe.
Hans, whose portfolio includes the likes of Airbnb, StockX and Slack, sat down with TechCrunch’s Equity podcast to discuss the overall state of venture and why he still believes down rounds can make a lot of sense.
Of course, we dug into recent changes at his own firm, which evolved from 24-year-old cross-border firm GGV Capital and rebranded its U.S. and Asia operations to Notable Capital and Granite Asia, respectively.
GGV’s transformation is the latest in a string of changes we’ve seen in the world of venture capital, including personnel changes at Founders Fund, Benchmark and Thrive Capital.
It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week.
From layoffs to pricing changes and more, it was a week dyed deeply in Tesla colors so we had to chat through the latest.
But that was just one element of what we got into on Equity this week.
We also dug into Mary Ann’s reporting about Ramp’s latest round — and up valuation — that fit neatly next to Rippling’s own impending fundraise.
Equity is back tomorrow with a special interview between Mary Ann and Notable Capital’s Hans Tung, so stay tuned!
GGV Capital announced last fall that was splitting up its team amid growing tensions between U.S. and China, though it never cited the atmosphere as the explicit driver of the move.
The thinking in abandoning the GGV Capital brand, per a source familiar, was that because both teams are operating separately going forward, they felt it was best to develop new brands.
Oren Yunger, the newest member of GGV Capital, also remains on team Notable.
Another longtime managing director at GGV Capital, Eric Xu, who is based in Shanghai, will continue to oversee the original firm’s independently operated yuan-denominated funds.
Roughly 2.5 years ago, GGV Capital announced it has raised $2.5 billion for its new funds, marking its largest family of funds ever.
