Cyberport’s annual flagship tech investment event, Cyberport Venture Capital Forum (CVCF), is slated to take place on 3-4 November.

During a media briefing, Peter Yan, CEO of Cyberport; Eric Chan, Chief Public Mission Officer of Cyberport and Cindy Chow, Chairlady of the Cyberport Investment Network (CIN) shared their views on the latest trends in global venture capital investing and provided a preview of the upcoming event.

Meanwhile, representatives of three startups incubated by Cyberport – Redsip, Snapask and MediConCen – shared on their latest developments and the fundraising efforts for the blockchain, insurtech, smart living and edtech industries under the new normal.

Peter Yan, CEO of Cyberport cited recent studies to suggest that the venture capital market has shown signs of slowly recovering in recent months despite having the initial slowdown due to the epidemic and global economic downturn.

Venture capital investments around the world saw an uptick in value to defy expectations of a decline. Fundraising within China’s venture capital market also saw increases in activity with growth in both the number of deals and the amount of capital committed.

Several start-ups incubated by Cyberport, including Aqumon, Quantifeed and Rice Robotics closed fundraising deals in October 2020.

This trend can also be seen within the Cyberport Macro Fund (CMF) programme. CMF has invested US$4.14 million (approximately HK$32 million) in five start-ups – Aqumon, GetLinks, OneDegree, CapBridge and MediConCen. During this period, the co-investment ratio has improved to 1:12 from the overall 1:6 ratio throughout the years.

Peter Yan, CEO of Cyberport said,

“We have witnessed an increase in market demand for innovative technology solutions and the rapid development of related industries amidst accelerated digital transformation. We encourage our startups to show agility and versatility to grasp market opportunities and utilise Cyberport’s platform to seek business opportunities and connect with investors all over the world.”

CVCF introduces brand-new experiences to drive deal-flow

Cyberport has continually endeavoured to broaden the pool of smart capital and facilitate deal-making opportunities for startups.

Held as a virtual event for the first time, beyond the two days of live content, the event platform will be open to participants for a full month, providing startups with broader exposure and higher chances of being matched with suitable investors.

It will also include two international partner events – Silicon Dragon HK 2020 and the inaugural Edventure Global Business Acceleration Summit. 100 startups from all over the world have also been invited to showcase their solutions at CVCF and the summits, establishing a platform for information exchange and investment exploration.

This year is also the first time CVCF will be partnering with Jumpstart to conduct “in-depth matching” for startups to help them find investors across Asia.

It has already successfully arranged over 100 one-on-one meetings with investors from Asia, including India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Details about the webinars, the CVCF 2020 programme schedule and full speaker line-up can be found on their website.

Featured Image: The first month-long CVCF virtual experience has been live from 21 October, with over 80 virtual booths set up for startups to showcase innovative tech solutions