HKVCF2017: Startups going global

The fourth annual Hong Kong Venture Capital Forum (HKVCF), organized by the Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (HKVCA), was held on Monday, July 10, 2017. Hosted at KPMG’s impressive conference rooms at Hysan Place, the Forum proved to be an overwhelming success with over 230 industry professionals in attendance.
  
Welcoming remarks were delivered by Darren Bowdern, Partner, Tax, KPMG Hong Kong, while memorable keynote address was provided by Matt Dill, Senior Vice President for Innovation & Strategic Partnerships in Visa.
  
The first panel of the day was on India, with a panel that featured Varun Bery, Senior Advisor at Latitude Capital; Annand Prasanna, Managing Partner at Iron Pillar; Amit Annand, Founding Partner at Jungle Ventures; and Ben Mathias, Managing Director & Head of India at Vertex Ventures.
 
The second panel discussed the venture investment trends in ASEAN and featured KO Chia, Director at Grace Financial; Amit Anand, Founding Partner at Jungle Ventures; Kay-Mok Ku, Partner at Gobi Ventures; Peng Ong, Managing Director at Monk’s Hill Ventures; Markus Gnirck, Co-founder & Managing Director at tryb Capital; and Jeffrey Chi, Vice Chairman at Vickers Venture Partners.
 
The third panel of the afternoon focused on Japan and Korea and featured a lively discussion with Melissa Guzy, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Arbor Ventures; Han Kim, Managing Director at Altos Ventures; Emre Yuasa, Principal at Globis Capital Partners; Yo Nakagawa, Executive Director at Monex Group; and Ben Takeuchi, Vice President at Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia.
 
The fourth panel was addressed technical issues in Hong Kong and featured James Savage, Founding Partner at demetr Ventures; Darren Bowdern; Partner, Tax at KPMG Hong Kong; Rocky Lee, International Partner and Head of the U.S. Corporate Practice at King & Wood Mallesons; and Stephen Tang, CFO at Lunar Capital.
 
The final panel discussed the LP sentiments and featured Eric Mason, Managing Director – Asia Investment at The Church Pension Fund; PV Wang, Co-CIO at Noah Holdings; Jie Gong, Partner at Pantheon Ventures; and Pokman Yiu, Executive Director at Royal Fund Management.
 
Apart from the panels, there were two fireside chat sessions: Introducing HKSAR Venture Co-Investment Program by Annie Choi, Commissioner for Innovation and Technology, HKSAR and Denis Tse, Managing Partner at Asia-IO Advisors; and Lightning Round: HK Startup and Venture Capitalist by Duncan Chiu, Managing Partner at Radiant Venture Capital and Steven Lam, Co-founder & CEO at GoGoVan.
 
The Forum ended with a lively cocktail reception, hosted by our sponsor KPMG, and all the participants – investors, advisors and entrepreneurs – were able to be part of a valuable networking opportunity.
 
We would like to thank most sincerely our generous sponsors, specifically our Platinum Sponsor, KPMG; and our Venture Forum Sponsor King & Wood Mallesons. Finally, we would like to thank the Association’s Venture Committee and all the participants for their continued support and contributions that helped make this special event possible.