Yan Ventures Yan Ventures
About

The venture practice of a multi-generational family enterprise.

Yan Ventures is a pre-seed to Series A deep tech venture capital firm, paired with an affiliated operating company that is one of China’s leading biopharma distribution platforms. A 20-year Beijing-headquartered firm that distributes reagents, raw materials, and analytical tools to over 1,000 pharma, biotech, CRO, CDMO, and research customers across the country. The combination of venture capital and a live distribution motor is the foundation that distinguishes us from generalist or sector-specialist deep tech VCs.

Partners

A small partnership. Deep operating roots across science, industry, and continents.

Founder & Managing Partner
Jesse Cheng
Yan Ventures

Jesse leads investment strategy, sourcing, diligence, and the founder relationship across the portfolio. Background spans both proteomics research and operating, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and DP Bio through founding and scaling several private businesses.

  • Proteomics research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Operating experience at DP Bio
  • Founder of an eight-figure-revenue luxury asset trading platform
  • Founder of additional businesses in real estate development, software development, and electronics importing
  • Cross-border operating fluency between the United States and Greater China
Partner & Founder, Affiliated operating company
Dr. Yan
Affiliated operating company (Beijing)

Dr. Yan founded the affiliated operating company in 2006 and has built it into one of China’s leading biopharma distribution operators, with five branches, 40+ international supplier partnerships, and a customer base spanning over 1,000 pharma, biotech, CRO, CDMO, and research institutions. She brings both deep scientific training and two decades of commercial pattern recognition in the Chinese bio industry.

  • Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Hong Kong
  • Postdoctoral research, Washington University in St. Louis Medical School
  • Former Marketing & Technical Director, Sigma-Aldrich China
  • Founder, President & CEO of the affiliated operating company, established 2006
The Operating Company

The bridge between global suppliers and the Chinese bio-industry.

Established in Beijing in 2006, the operating company is one of China’s leading biopharma distribution platforms, providing research reagents, pharmaceutical raw materials, diagnostic raw materials, instruments, and professional technical services to scientific research institutes, biopharmaceutical manufacturers, in-vitro diagnostic producers, and the procurement platforms of major Chinese universities and research institutes. It holds China-exclusive agency status for select international biopharma brands and serves as authorized distributor for 40+ supplier partners.

Its value to portfolio companies is concrete: established commercial relationships with the actual buyers of life-sciences tools and biopharma infrastructure, an internal sales and customer success team with direct lines to end users, regulatory and logistics infrastructure already built and operating at scale, and two decades of pattern recognition on what sells in one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing biopharma markets.

20
Years serving the bio industry
5
Branches across China
40
International supplier partnerships
1,000+
Bio-industry customers

“Caring in detail, delivering with strength.” — operating company value statement

How We Work

Concentrated. Patient. Operator-led.

Built by operators, not allocators.

We come to venture from the supply side of the table. The firm’s roots are in a multi-generational family enterprise. Not a fund-of-funds, not a corporate venture group, not a sponsor allocator. That history shapes what we look for and how we help.

Our edge is operational, not financial. We can validate a customer claim by walking it through a real distribution channel. We can pressure-test a manufacturing assumption against twenty years of vendor relationships. We can tell the difference between a story about Asia exposure and a real one, because we have lived inside the second.

How we work with founders.

Concentrated, not collected. We hold positions intentionally. Our active book is small by design. Every company gets real attention, and every founder has a direct line.

Patient by structure, not by promise. Family-office capital does not have a fund-cycle clock. We can underwrite long-build positions in industries where venture timing is a liability rather than a feature.

Direct. If a deal is a no, the answer comes fast and the reasoning is on the table. If it’s a yes, we move with the same speed.

Get in touch

We read every founder note. Shortest path is a paragraph.

jesse [at] yanvc [dot] com