Lenovo, which operates one of its two global headquarters in Morrisville, is disclosing details about its newly established $500 million investment fund. The global tech company also is launching a new incubation group that will help fund various Lenovo subsidiaries such as its SHAREit service and “smart” technology efforts.

The fund could grow, too, with the company describing the funding amount as an initial amount. Chinese media first reported the fund on Wednesday.

Lenovo Capital has already made numerous investments from an earlier fund, including companies in Silicon Valley and Israel.

Other investors include Legend Star, Legend Capital, and Hony Capital as well as institutional backers in the U.S. and Israel, which Lenovo did not identify. 

The initiatives are taking place under the umbrella of the new Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group (LCIG) which the company says is designed “to integrate its global resources, enhance its Internet services and intelligence ecosystem via investments and foster innovation within and outside of Lenovo.”

Lenovo Capital Phase II Investment Fund’s targets include:

  • cloud computing
  • big data
  • artificial intelligence
  • robotic services
  • Internet services

LCIG is led by Zhiqiang He, Lenovo’s senior vice president anc chief technology officer.

So why do this?

“Technology breakthroughs are changing the way all of us live today,” He said in a statement. “With our long-industry history and experience of driving and developing core innovations, we’re well-prepared to shape the future of game-changing technologies through funding and nurturing start-ups and bringing incubator projects to market.”

An example Lenovo cited is Face++.

“Face++ … partners with Lenovo to provide mainstream financial and security offerings using biometric recognition using core cloud-based AI technology,” Lenovo explained. “Face++ now offers facial recognition solutions to Internet companies, including Alipay and over many Internet banks in China in addition to security and protection and education system providers.”

Among more than 40 startup investments to date are:

  • Newifi (smart router operating system newifi OS)
  • Huilicai (financial big data-based robotics asset management and investment advisory platform AP)
  • iDreamSky
  • StyleWe (big data based robotics buyer and precision marketer eCommerce platform)
  • Shopex (eCommerce SaaS platform)
  • ZAKER
  • Diting Technology
  • SMARTX (enterprise cloud storage computing technology)

Nok Nok Labs (Internet biometric authentication technology) in Silicon Valley and VC CPI in Israel also have received backing.

Lenovo incubation

Through LCIG, Lenovo also wants to exploit what it calls “rapid and sustainable development” of subsidiaries under LCIG with “subsidiary incubation.” These include:

  • SHAREit, which was spun off last year. SHAREit is a nearfield transmission app that already has more than 500 million users.
  • Lenovo Cloud, provides cloud services to 200 of the Fortune 500 enterprises
  • Lenovo Connect, which Lenovo says is the “largest virtual telco operator worldwide” with 11 million subscribers
  • Lenovo Online Biometric Authentication, which offers FIDO finger print payment solutions to Alipay, JDpay, and China Telecom Bestpay
  • Lenovo Finance
  • Lenovo Smart Healthcare, which provides cloud-based hospital solutions to hospitals
  • Lenovo New Glass

Lenovo provides capital, access to exteranl venture capital, and support from within Lenovo itself such as global research and development as well as customer acquisition.