It’s worth briefly revisiting the rather legendary story behind UTStarcom and SoftBank China Venture Capital.
Hong Lu, born on November 3, 1954, is a Chinese American entrepreneur. His family traces its roots to Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province,China.. He was born in Taiwan, Province of China and moved to Japan at the age of six.
After graduating from Tokyo Metropolitan Jonan High School, Lu went on to study civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was two years senior to Masa Son
@masason
After graduating, Hong Lu joined Masa Son’s startup, Mspeech System Inc, whose core business was selling portable voice translation devices.
In March 1982, Son returned to Japan to recover from an illness. Before leaving, he sold his U.S. company Unison World to Lu.
For a time, Unison maintained a close partnership with Kyocera, the company founded by Inamori Kazuo.
In 1986, the two companies formed a joint venture called Kyocera Unison and attempted to take it public. The plan ultimately fell through, and Lu exited the venture.
In 1990, Lu made his first exploratory trip to mainland China.
A year later, in 1991, Lu teamed up with his Berkeley classmate and Masa Son’s former Chinese tutor, Charles Xue
@xuemanzi8848, along with Son himself. Together they acquired Zhejiang Yutong, a company originally founded by Peter Wang(Zuguang) , reorganizing it and renaming it Unitech Telecom (UT).
That same year, Wu Ying , then working at AT&T Bell Labs, partnered with Chauncey Shey to launch Starcom in New Jersey.
The company initially operated as a technology consulting firm, essentially providing engineering talent as outsourced services. Among the temporary engineers they hired was Bill Huang(Xiaoqing ), who at the time was doing R&D at Racal Telecom in the UK.
In 1994, Bill Huang(Xiaoqing ) joined Unitech Telecom.
On October 6, 1995, Unitech Telecom and Starcom merged in a 50–50 deal to form UTStarcom. Just two weeks later, on October 19, the company secured $30 million in funding from SoftBank.
On March 5, 1996, UTStarcom China was established.
By 1999, after several rounds of major investment totaling roughly $160 million, Masa Son became chairman of UTStarcom, increasing his stake to 51%.
On March 3, 2000, UTStarcom successfully went public on the NASDAQ.
In 2001, Charles Xue exited the company, cashing out roughly $150 million.
Later that same year following the IPO, Masa Son committed $90 million, while Hong Lu,Chauncey Shey, and others contributed $10 million, forming the first fund for SoftBank China Venture Capital (SBCVC).
Brilliance of Berkeley,and with that , the wheels of fate have begun to turn.