Taihill Venture


Bring Present to the Future

About Us

Taihill Venture is based in Boston and Silicon Valley. We invest in early-stage companies with disruptive technologies. It stems from Skylight Investment and Backhill Venture.

We are industry-agnostic, but primarily focus on Robotics, Biotechnology, Semiconductor, Artificial Intelligence, VR/AR, Big Data, New Material, Hardware, Automation and other advanced technologies. We actively seek entrepreneurs with a track record of success and invest in companies that will shape the world.

Our mission is to promote technologies that will have a major impact in the world over the 21st Century. Among them are Pipeline Transportation, Gene-editing, Neuroscience, Blockchain, Aerospace, Nano-tech, etc. We actively collaborate and co-invest with top players in the industry, and use our systematic method to identify the next wave.

We even wrote some science fictions to better visualize our perception.

Taihill Venture is supported by well-established Chinese partners Taiyou Fund and New Oriental (NYSE:EDU) We strive to assist our portfolio companies in reaching a global market.

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Previous Exits

Previous Portfolio

EasyTransfer

EasyTransfer helps China's outbound students pay their tuition fees more quickly and at cheaper foreign exchange rates. EasyTransfer processed $140M tuition in 2016.

Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One (previously known as Hyperloop Technologies) starts to research and building the hyperloop into real.

Lightelligence

Lightelligence builds optical chips that offer orders of magnitude improvement in terms of high speed, low latency, and low power consumption compared to traditional electronic architectures.

Manus Bio

Natural ingredients for a sustainable future.

Kula Bio

Kula Bio super-charges natural nitrogen-fixing microbes with renewable energy in order to deliver reliable, low-cost organic biofertilizers.

Kebotix

Kebotix is an algorithm-driven materials discovery and production company. Its self-driving lab combines data and AI with robotics to discover and create advanced chemicals and materials at a faster rate and lower costs.

Proteowise

Proteowise invented a proteomic technology that’s 50x faster, 50x smaller, 10x cheaper and gives 100x more data per sample. It will enable researchers to finally move beyond western blot and into easy, high-throughput bench-top proteomics.

Cambridge Electronics

CEI has been working since 2012 on developing the most advanced and high-performance GaN power electronic chips in the market. With them, we have been able to reduce the the volume of many power electronic systems by x10, while cutting the power losses by at least 50%.

Relativity Space

Relativity is the first and only company to automate aerospace manufacturing by integrating intelligent robotics, software, and proprietary metal 3D printing technology.

AltrixBio

LuCI™ is a repurposed pill that adheres to the gastrointestinal (GI) track for controlled GI targeting, especially for treating Type 2 Diabetes (T2D).

zGlue

zGlue provides single chipstack solution for IoT (Internet of Things) devices, powered by its innovative hardware technology portfolio.

Signet Therapeutics

Signet Therapeutics is developing two classes of cancer therapies that are focused on the molecularly related cancers of diffuse stomach cancer and lobular breast cancer.

Elisify

Elisify is an à la carte data marketplace for financial industry. Customize your financial data set, get pricing in real-time, and pay for only what you need with Elisify's Datapack.

WeTravel

Wetravel is the online platform for anyone organizing a group trip. Built to simplify large group trips, their platform provides organizers with pre-departure tools to collect funds and organize logistics.

Citon

Citon makes integrating Alipay and WeChat Pay for U.S. merchants easy. It helps brands tap into the rapidly growing Chinese market, without the costs and hassles of establishing a business in China.

OnePiece Work

OnePiece Work offers serviced space, private phone booths, conference and meeting rooms, and cross-border co-working office spaces.

Cabin

Cabin is the first hospitality transportation company on a mission to make the most of every waking and sleeping moment.

Valitor

Valitor, Inc. has developed novel methods of modifying therapeutic proteins to achieve substantial control over their pharmacokinetics, target specificity and bioactivity.

Cam Med

Cam Med is developing a bandage-like patch pump, the Evopump, to deliver one or multiple injectable medications subcutaneously. Evopump can improve patients' compliance with personalized treatment and realize better health outcomes.

ZSFab

ZSFab is a Medical 3D printing company that provides modeling optimization and 3D printing of patient specific surgical guide & biocompatible, biomechanical fit implants, surgical guides and anatomical models.

Woobo

Woobo Inc. is working on the next generation of AI powered speech interaction engine that has personality. Woobo has been selected as one of Top 50 consumer robots startup by CB Insights

Orimagi

Orimagi is dedicated to inspiring next generation of doers, dreamers, inventors, innovators. The origami-Inspired robot is an innovative robot fabrication system, which combines aesthetic and engineering value of origami with robotics.

SandStone

Whether it’s immediate, clean plasma at the point of blood collection or accurate sperm counts delivered in the privacy of a user’s home, Sandstone’s lightweight and battery-powered centrifugation is fast, easy to use, and radically portable.

Mindshare Medical

Precision medicine through image driven intelligence

Landsdowne Labs

We are focused on developing advanced materials for injury prevention, to bring solutions to a set of patients that are often overlooked: children.

TheraDep Technologies

TheraDep™ Technologies addresses the profound medical need for an entirely new method of local, targeted, non-systemic delivery of a broad range of pure, active biologic materials or drugs.

MuMec

MuMec is building new wireless transceiver technologies that enable drastically lower operating power for use with Bluetooth LE (BLE) and LoRa/Sigfox protocols. MuMec integrates Radio Frequency MEMS technology with CMOS design, offering a 10-100x reduction in power consumption.

Our Team

Tianyi (Sky) Yu

Founding Partner | Boston

Sky was previously an investment manager at Taiyou Fund, founding partner of Skylight Investment. Invested in Easy Transfer(20X), Sandymount(6.6X) and Manus Bio(8.7X).
2019 AACYF "30 Under 30", LP of Berkeley Catalyst Fund, Member of MIT Alumni Angels Boston.
BS in Math @BU, MBA @NYU Stern.
sky@taihill.vc

Xuechen (Robert) Zhao

Founding Partner | Beijing

Robert was the founding partner of Backhill Venture, and a series entrepreneur in TMT and Biotech industries. Invested in Youxi Hotel(12X), Bioscience(4.5X), Xtalpi(2.8X), JDL, Resolute Bio, Kula Bio.
CEO of Regenerative Bio. MS in Entrepreneurial Leadership @Babson College, BS in Finance @University of Nottingham.
robert@taihill.vc

Hongkai He

Managing Partner | Boston

Hongkai was the general partner of Skylight Investment, and a series entrepreneur in tech industry. Invested in Kula Bio, Altrix Bio, Kebotix, Kebotix, Pointcloud, Databento.
VP of U.S.-China Health Summit.
MS in IEOR @Columbia University, MS & BS in Computational Math @Sun Yat-sen University.
hongkai@taihill.vc

Tianmeng (Tem) Xu

Managing Partner | New York

Tem was the founding partner of Backhill Venture. Invested in Transcenta Holding, InnoCare, Pharma, BioKangtai, OurGame, Huishan Diary, XtalPi, Kula Bio.
Member of Mises Institute. Holder of China Fund Qualification Certificate and China Securities Qualification Certificate.
MS in Econ and Political Development @Columbia University.
tx@taihill.vc

Ricki Huang

Partner | Boston

Ricki was the investment manager of Skylight Investment, portfolio analyst at Babson College fund. She is working in Financial Service Sector at EY with solid financial and risk management background.
BS in Entrepreneurship & Finance @Babson College
ricki@taihill.vc

Yubo Ruan

Partner | San Francisco

Yubo was a partner of Skylight Investment. Yubo is a successful entrepreneur, he previously founded Alisimba Education, which was acquired by Tophacker Group.

He is the recipient of 2017 AACYF 30 under 30. Yubo also has engineering background. He has 4 patents in China, and won 5 national robot invention awards.
yubo@taihill.vc

Advisors

LongWen Yu

Advisor

Mr. Longwen Yu is the founder of Taiyou Fund and co-founder of Tsinghua Alumni Capital. Mr. Yu received his PhD from Tsinghua University and currently serves as the Deputy Secretary General of China Young Entrepreneurs Association. Mr. Yu has invested in over one hundred elite early-stage technology startups and bridged his portfolio companies with extensive resources in China.

Cynthia Yu

Advisor

Cynthia is currently the CEO of Taiyou Fund.
Cynthia was previously the general manager of investment banking division at China Citic Bank, Tianjin Branch.
Cynthia is an experienced investor with a thorough understanding of capital markets including investment banking, securities trading, and fund management.
byyu@skylightinv.com