Cyberport Venture Capital Forum (CVCF), Cyberport’s annual tech investment event, will return on 3-4 November and will be held in a virtual and interactive format for the first time.

This year’s event will cover how the tech venture ecosystem has been reshaped under the new normal for investors, enterprises and technopreneurs. The two-day virtual forum will gather more than 50 global venture capital (VC) experts to examine key silver linings through a plethora of illuminating keynotes and panel discussions.

Furthermore, over 80 virtual booths will be set up for startups to showcase innovative tech solutions. It is part of a comprehensive platform to connect startups with investors for power pitching and provide extensive opportunities to explore tech venturing dynamics.

As the digital tech flagship in Hong Kong, Cyberport is dedicated to facilitating deal flows for startups and enriching the regional VC landscape. Echoing the event’s overarching theme, “Navigating New Normal of Tech Venturing”, over 50 international and local experts from major industry players will be taking part.

This includes Qiming Venture Partners, Alibaba Group, IESE Business School, PayU-Prosus, Vickers Venture Partners, Golden Gate Ventures, Genesis Alternative Ventures, Sino Group, Rethink Education, Blue Elephant Capital, HashKey Digital Asset Group, Angelhub, Radiant Venture Capital, Asia GreenTech Fund, Lingfeng Capital and LEGO Ventures.

They will discuss the latest global paradigm shift in the tech venturing landscape that has stemmed from the current macro-economic outlook and mega trends, covering topics such as the latest strategies from VCs and corporate ventures, new investment spaces like venture debt, the development of education technology (EdTech), the geo-political impact of cross-border capital flow and investor orientations with regards to the China-US trade war and Asia market dynamics, digital transformation in high potential verticals, funding strategies for startups, and more.

Cindy Chow, Chairperson of the Cyberport Investors Network and Executive Director of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, will also be highlighting startup fundraising updates and plans for investor engagement while celebrating the third anniversary of the dedicated investment platform.

Global events extending the frontier of tech venturing

This year, two spotlight events under CVCF will further enrich insights in the wider tech venturing space.

To enhance support for startups and connections with the EdTech sector, CVCF is pleased to co-present the Edventures Global Business Acceleration Summit together with Esperanza, a startup NGO founded by Mr John C Tsang to catalyse the development of Hong Kong as an EdTech innovation hub in the GBA.

The event looks into the developments and trends of the EdTech market, which is one of the most promising markets under the new normal and a key sector for development within Cyberport’s smart living application cluster.

CVCF will also partner with international tech investment event, Silicon Dragon 2020, to bring in more international investors and startups, and explore more tech venturing dynamics, all whilst connecting capital, innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth.

Peter Yan, CEO of Cyberport, said,

“The challenges brought about by the COVID-19 epidemic to the economy have at the same time accelerated the digital transformation of enterprises and the wide adoption of various digital business models like online-to-offline, virtual events, work and learn from home. There is also an increasing demand in tech-assisted healthcare and other contactless lifestyle applications. All these translate to an unprecedented conducive business environment for our tech startups to grow and more than ever, a strong need for investors to leverage the Cyberport platform to identify quality companies with strong talents and promising business models.

Cyberport remains committed to spring-boarding startups to success, and the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum (CVCF) is the key event for us to bridge investors with our tech community as well as the annual destination for our Cyberport Investor Network (CIN) to gather, share their views on the latest developments and exchange insights on coming trends. I look forward to another year of illuminating sharings by industry leaders and productive exchanges and matchings between the tech community and investors.”

First month-long CVCF virtual experience live from 21 October

Starting from 21 October, CVCF will kick off its very first month-long virtual experience with conference and workshop content available 24/7 on its dedicated event platform.

The Innovator showcase will feature virtual booths of tech solutions and allow investors and audience members to interact with the most enterprising innovators to explore collaborations. At the Founder Stage, short pitch videos will be streamed where promising startups across different fields are able to present their projects to investors and to gain exposure.

These will also be available to view on-demand on the event platform. Investor matching sessions will allow one-on-one investor meetings with startups based on tech sectors and investment appetite between late October to early November.

Extended international engagement to enrich and facilitate investment matching

To reach a wider global audience of investors and startups, this year is the first time CVCF is partnering with the Consulates General of Canada and Israel respectively, Macau Young Entrepreneur Innovation Centre, and leading co-working spaces in Hong Kong to bring in startups and investors.

The Edventures Global Business Acceleration Summit on the second event day will gather innovators, investors, educators and talent development professionals who are looking for solutions and opportunities in the education technology space.

Renowned speakers of the event include Richard Culatta, CEO, International Society for Technology in Education, Kamran Elahian, Chairman and Founder of Global Innovation Catalyst and Matt Greenfield, Managing Partner of Rethink Education.

During the summit, 10 finalists of the Edventures GBA Fellowship, a global competition to help growth stage EdTech startups expand internationally, will compete for the chance to connect with business matching and market expansion consultancies.

The finalists from Hong Kong, Finland, Mainland China, the UK and the US, will be showcasing their ventures, ranging from early childhood education to lifelong learning solutions. Among them are two Cyberport community startups, Mandarin Matrix, which operates online Mandarin learning classrooms for K12, and Xccelerate, which provides enterprise training in skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

These finalists together with EdTech startups at Cyberport will also exhibit at the concurrent Virtual Global Edventures Expo from 23 Oct – 22 Nov.

CVCF is a highly anticipated flagship tech venture event for investors and entrepreneurs in the digital technology domain.

This year, to further enrich industry and market insights of the forum, a series of pre-event webinars have been held since July in anticipation of the main event to allow industry leaders to share their insights and fresh perspectives on smart investments and digital transformation, and to help enterprises pivot in the new normal. Featured programmes have been uploaded to the event’s platform.

For more details about the webinar, the CVCF 2020 programme schedule and full speaker line-up, please visit: http://cvcf.cyberport.hk/