Marketplace for business expertise Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) has partnered with and acquired a minority stake in Ushi, a China-based business social networking service provider.
GLG’s investment, which was part of a recent $3 million funding round, brings Ushi’s total of capital raised to $4.5 million. Earlier backers of Ushi also participated in the financing round, which is the Shanghai-based company’s second to date.
Those earlier investors include Milestone Capital founding partner Yunli Lou, Endeavor co-founder Peter Kellner and Jose Cheng, managing director of Li & Fung private equity.
Based in Shanghai, Ushi offers a social networking service that caters to Chinese businesspersons and entrepreneurs, with a member base that the company says includes over 40,000 CEO-level and 10,000 CTO-level exes and key individuals from over 85 percent of the country’s VC and PE firms.
The investment and partnership with GLG make sense on a strategic level. In China, GLG boasts a network of more than 25,000 subject matter experts who can be engaged real-time and on-demand to assist in deal sourcing, research, due diligence, etc.
Ushi members will be invited to join the GLG marketplace to expand the company’s expert network in China. GLG will advise Ushi on the commercial development of Ushi.com and Ushi Answers.
The latter is a new, invitation-only collaborative Q&A service recently launched to a select group of Ushi members. Think Quora for business topics, evidently focused on China.