A Chinese venture capital business raised $648 million as it held the first-closing of a dollar-denominated fund.

Qiming Venture Partners, a Chinese venture capital firm, has announced the first closing of Fund V, its fifth dollar-denominated VC fund, with $648 million in commitments. 

The fund continues Qiming's strategy of funding innovation through Chinese entrepreneurs in the information technology, internet and consumer, healthcare, and clean-tech sectors, the firm said. Qiming's assets under management are $2.5 billion, it said in a statement yesterday.

Qiming's portfolio includes over 160 investments distributed among its targeted sectors. Qiming Venture Partners invests in early-stage and expansion-stage deals, with more than half of its investments in early-stage companies.

Managing parters at Qiming are Duane Kuang, JP Gan, Gary Rieschel, Nisa Leung and William Hu. They are joined by partners Yong Zhang, Grace Lee, Janet Yu, Helen Wong, Jing Wu and Kuantai Yeh as the leadership team for Qiming. With the fund closing, Peter Yin, Stella Zhou, Shiyu Wang, and Jay Yin join the senior investment team as principals.

The firm has more than 50 staff and was founded in 2006; it has offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Hong Kong. As well as the dollar funds, the firm also has three renminbi funds.