Yongfu Yu

Yu Yongfu is Chairman of eWTP Technology Innovation Fund and Chairman of Autonavi Group, and the eWTP team page also identifies him as a Partner at Alibaba Group. Public filings for XPeng state that he has been a member of the Alibaba Partnership since December 2015 and served as an XPeng director from September 2019.

Before eWTP, Yu was a venture investor at Legend Capital from 2001 to 2006, where he worked as an associate and vice president. He then led UCWeb from 2006 to June 2014 as chairman and CEO before UCWeb became a wholly owned Alibaba subsidiary. Alibaba’s 2014 acquisition of UCWeb gave Alibaba access to UCWeb’s more than 500 million users, according to PCWorld.

After joining Alibaba in June 2014, Yu held several senior operating roles: president of UCWeb, president of Alibaba Mobile Internet Division, president of Alimama, president of Amap, chairman of Alibaba Pictures, and chairman and CEO of Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group. In 2018, eWTP Ecosystem Fund and its first $600 million eWTP Technology & Innovation Fund were announced, with Alibaba Group and Ant Financial as anchor investors and Yu appointed founding partner and chairman. Yu received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Nankai University in 1999.

• eWTP Capital says it aims to become the “half-founding partner” of startups, providing entrepreneurs with comprehensive support beyond capital.
• The firm focuses on high-growth markets where technology innovation improves the quality of consumption.
• eWTP’s two stated strategies are backing Chinese startups with cross-border businesses and investing in local overseas startups tied to infrastructure that drives local economic development cycles.
• The portfolio page states that eWTP is active across early, growth, and expansion stages, with investment size between $2 million and $50 million.
• The first fund was launched in 2018 with $600 million; eWTP says it later launched a second fund of the same size to continue the strategy.
• The original fund mission was described as strategic investment to help companies accelerate international expansion and support technology innovation around the world.