Andrew Chung hasn’t had the easiest job in venture capital. For the past ten years, the investor has maintained his focus mostly on cleantech startups when the majority of his VC peers have long since abandoned that market for companies that don’t burn through so much cash. He began first at Lightspeed Venture Partners and most recently at Khosla Ventures.
Now he’s moving on from Khosla and starting his own venture firm, 1955 Capital — named for the year when influential technology figures like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Vinod Khosla were born. Starting out with a $200 million fund, Chung will invest in energy, food, agriculture, health and education. But more importantly, Chung hopes to help Western entrepreneurs bring their technology to China.
While at Khosla, Chung spent a lot of his time helping the companies he invested in get traction in China. For example, he helped biofuel startup LanzaTech land key pilot projects with giant Chinese steel manufacturers. Now with his own fund, he will have more flexibility to pursue that strategy.