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Bohan Liu

Bohan Liu

Partner at Chemistry, an early-stage venture firm, based in San Francisco.

Aug 13, 2026

29:46
Yeah.
29:47
You know, so on the venture side, I think the, the Chinese kinda venture scene, at least from a founder's perspective in terms of, like, the relative leverage between the investor and the founder, it's much more reminiscent of the US in the '80s and '90s or even, like, you know, Europe now, where the cap- venture capitalist is much more, like, kinda sitting on their throne holding forth, right? You know, like, the founder comes to them, and they have more kinds of villages.
30:09
They hold more of the cards.
30:10
They hold more leverage.
30:11
And so relatively, there's less capital chasing companies in China relative to the US scene, where here it's like every firm beating each other up, begging to give money to founders.
30:20
In China, of course, the best projects have that dynamic too, but it's much more pronounced that it's, uh, more favorable to capitalists, which is why I think something that shocks a lot of, you know, Western founders is that- Because of these dynamics, Chinese founders sometimes sign term sheets where they're just much more predatory in a sense, right? Like you're signing a term sheet where you say, "I must return money with a particular hurdle rate in like six to eight years." Which by the way, in the US on average we expect, you know, venture exits like be 10 to 15 years now.
30:47
And LPs have the patience, GPs have the patience, but China, they don't.

30 MINS LATER

60:21
Is there anything I didn't ask you that I should have asked you?

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