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Chinese heartthrob Lu Han has teamed up with agribusiness giant New Hope Group and Crystal Stream Capital, a Beijing venture capital firm, to set up a new fund to back start-ups.
The 26-year-old singer and actor joins a growing list of Chinese celebrities jumping into the business universe to cash in on their famous names.
Lu Han, who appeared in the blockbuster movie,The Great Wall, and China’s Lunar New Year Gala, aims to pour money into start-ups that cash in on the “lifestyle needs” of those born in the 1990s and 2000s -- who essentially make up the bulk of his fan base, according to a statement issued on Monday by New Hope and Crystal Stream.
New Hope, China’s biggest private agricultural conglomerate, is among the biggest backers of the fund, called Qinghan, as is
Crystal Stream Capital
, which funded the Singaporean car sharing service, ICarsClub, and China’s biggest gay dating app, Blued.
Lu Han, a former member of the South Korean-Chinese boy band EXO, is the latest in a growing army of Chinese superstars rushing to step into the investment world.
Previously, the country’s highest-flying star couple
Angelababy and Huang Xiaoming
both established venture capital funds. But arguably leading the pack is billionaire actressZhao Wei
, who pocketed tens of millions of dollars of gains from her HK$3.1 billion purchase of Jack Ma’s film startup Alibaba Pictures.
“The fund will be directed at platforms and groups capitalising on the younger generation’s evolving lifestyles and consumption habits,” the statement said. “Lu Han, as a prominent Chinese figure born in the 1990s, has an incredibly large influence on millennials’ aspiration of lifestyle.”
While the size of the investment was not disclosed, government filings showed that the registered capital of the entity is about 65 million yuan.
While a four-year tenure with EXO won Lu his initial popularity, the Beijing native shot to fame for his role in the Chinese reality show, Running Man, in which contestants complete missions at various landmarks. With a whopping
28 million fans
on microblogging site Sina Weibo, he was also a Guinness World Record holder for the “Most Comments on a Weibo Post.”
Testament to Lu’s growing stature, he graced the cover of
Forbes Magazine’s China edition
in 2015 as the 37th highest-earning celebrity in China with an estimated income of 28.5 million yuan.
In fact, this is not the first time the young star has flexed his muscles in the corporate world. In 2014, his tweet “Hi, Darling!,” intended to promote IDG-backed e-commerce startup Darling -- in which he also holds a stake -- became an overnight internet sensation that sparked tens of thousands of shares by his fans on Sina Weibo.
A glimpse of Crystal Stream founder Wang Mengqiu’s social media account suggests the investment guru herself is a die-hard fan of Lu Han, with most of her tweets revolving around the pop idol.
One of the new fund’s first investment targets -- a Tinder-like dating app named Pretending to be Lovers -- has sparked a public outcry over media reports that the platform is hooking up users under the age of 18, with some suspected of performing pornographic acts. Neither Lu nor anyone from Qinghan could be reached for comment immediately.
(SCMP)
