Bill Liu

Following a stint as a research scientist at International Business Machines Corp. in New York, Liu moved to Shenzhen China and founded Royole with two other engineers with Stanford backgrounds. Now in its sixth year, the startup was valued at $5 billion in its latest Series E round of funding. Many of its 2,000 employees are working to mass produce the displays at a Shenzhen production campus built with Royole’s cache of VC money. Royole’s investors include Knight Capital, IDG Capital, Poly Capital Management, AMTD Group, the funds of Chinese tycoon Xie Zhikun and the venture capital arm of the Shenzhen government. Liu is one among a growing number of Chinese billionaires including biotech tycoons Lou Jing and Frank Zhang who earned degrees in the U.S. before returning to the homeland to do business.