Dang Dang, the Beijing online retailer that boasts it has just overtaken Joyo.com to become the biggest e-tailer in China, has raised $27 million in a round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Doll Capital Management.

The deal is significant in part because it was put together by two women: Peggy Yu Yu, chief executive of Dang Dang, and Ruby Lu, venture capitalist with Menlo Park's DCM.

Peggy Yu Yu

In many Asian countries -- in particular Japan and Korea -- women play a lesser role in business than they do in the U.S. But in China, women show signs of being more liberated than in the U.S. If you find this provocative, let's argue the point in comments below.

But it has to do with China's secularist society. David Chao, partner at DCM says. "There's definitely less of a glass ceiling in China....It's one of the benefits of the whole communist movement, rightly or wrongly."

Ruby Lu

The deal continues DCM's tour-de-force in China. DCM has been among the most aggressive Silicon Valley firms in China, though Sequoia is giving it a run for its money. For decades, US investment efforts in China failed. DCM arrived just when China liberalized its economy, and scored big by backing job company 51Job. It has since invested millions in Legend, the company that owns the country's largest PC company, Lenovo. It has also backed China's media portal Oak Pacific Interactive and IT outsourcing company, Worksoft.

Meanwhile, Dang Dang says it is now China's largest online seller of books, movies and music. Like Amazon in the U.S., Dang Dang in China has moved from a large seller of books to include everything from digital products to cosmetics. Amazon, though, bought Joyo.com, the largest Chinese online retailer until Dang Dang surpassed it recently, according to Chao.

Dang Dang was founded in 1999. Walden International and Alto Global Investment also participated in the round.

Chao says ecommerce in China has been a complicated affair, and hasn't taken off as quickly as some other China industries. Less use of credit cards means e-tailers still deliver products to customers' doors, and collect payment in person. "Is it a primitive form?," asks Chao. "Yes." But he said credit card usage is growing. "We're at an inflection point," he said.

Ideally, we'd have talked with Peggy or Ruby for this post, but schedules didn't work out on both sides.

Separately, Sequoia Capital, another Silicon Valley firm, is also getting aggressive in China. It has invested $7.5 million into Great Dreams Digital, an animation company, reportedly its tenth investment, according to VentureWire.

Another Silicon Valley firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, hit big while backing Chinese search engine Baidu, but the firm changed its China team, and may have to regain footing. We'll see if Sequoia and DCM emerge as the two top (U.S.) dogs in China -- it will take a few more IPOs before we know.

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