In the aftermath of Sequoia Capital’s big reveal earlier this week that its China- and India-based affiliates are spinning off into independent entities, we reached out yesterday to someone who we thought might have an opinion on the development. Erik Lassila is a former VC whose Silicon Valley-based fund of funds business, Peakview Capital, was — when we last spoke with him in 2016 — backed entirely by a Chinese investment firm that wanted to park some of its own money with venture managers in the U.S.
Lassila took a pass on analyzing Sequoia’s decision, but he let us know that in April, eight-year-old Peakview closed its fourth fund with $150 million in capital commitments — with none from mainland China — even while he insisted that Washington’s increasingly strained relationship with the Chinese government isn’t the reason why.
While we don’t entirely believe him, …
