Cici Yang

Cici Yang is a Vice President at Lightspeed China Partners, which she joined in 2018 and where she works out of the firm's Beijing office. Lightspeed China Partners is a leading Chinese venture firm investing across early and growth stages and operating as the China partner to Silicon Valley–based Lightspeed Venture Partners, with offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong (the firm has more recently rebranded as Luminous Ventures). At the firm she concentrates on early-stage deals in AI applications, consumer, social media and entertainment, and startups building products aimed at overseas markets.

Before Lightspeed, Yang was a Vice President of Investments at ChinaRock Capital Management (CRCM Ventures), where she spent roughly two years focused on early-stage startups in media and frontier tech. Earlier in her career she worked at WisdomTree Asset Management with a focus on equity research, giving her a public-markets and finance grounding before moving into venture capital. Various sources credit her with around eight years of venture experience.

She holds a B.S. in Finance from The Ohio State University (with a minor in Computer Information Systems). In 2022 she was recognized as one of the "Top 20 Most Potential Female Direct Investment Fund Investors" by China FOF and named an "Up-and-Coming Investor" by ChinaStarMarket.cn.

• Invests at the early / seed–Series A stage in China, sourcing and backing emerging tech startups.
• Core themes: AI applications, consumer and consumer SaaS, social media & entertainment, content communities, and — a recurring emphasis — Chinese teams building for overseas/global markets.
• Track record spanning consumer social apps, medical/enterprise AI, gaming content, and consumer brands suggests comfort across both consumer-internet and applied-AI opportunities.
• Firm-level, Lightspeed China backs founders across enterprise, consumer and deep-tech; Yang's own deals skew toward consumer-facing and AI-driven products with community or content dynamics.