[v157] Cyberport Venture Capital Forum brings top-notch speakers, innovation marketplace and funder-founder engagement with hybrid experience

The Cyberport Venture Capital Forum (CVCF), Cyberport’s premier annual venture forum, returns on 2-3 November with the theme of “Venturing for Success: Resilience, Growth & Opportunity”, bringing together industry leaders, top-notch investors, enterprises and technopreneurs to offer insights into the latest fundraising strategies, market dynamics, value creation as well as on the tech and venture ecosystem. Amidst promising market dynamics and rapid emergence of unicorns in the post-covid era, these experts will discuss and share insights on trends in the global I&T sector and venture capital, investor strategies, emerging venture avenues, opportunities and prospects in the Greater Bay Area, and more.

This year’s event will take a brand-new hybrid format with a unified experience of online and offline engagement, allowing start-ups to interact with potential investors at the physical forum or via the virtual event platform. This multi-channel set-up enhances global exposure, facilitates deal flow and provides extensive opportunities for start-ups to explore fundraising opportunities.

The main forum of CVCF gathers more than 70 international and local experts from major industry players, including Alibaba Group, HKEX, Founders Space, Two Sigma, Verizon Ventures, Lever VC, Vertex Ventures, Gobi Partners China, Blue Pool Capital, SOSV Chinaccelerator MOX, and IESE Business School, who will give fresh perspectives on popular areas of the tech venture landscape, covering topics such as disruptive technologies, FinTech, 5G, family offices and more. Also prominent will be emerging investment themes including the new space economy, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), and the topic of environmental, social, and governance (ESG).

Cyberport unicorns Klook, Animoca Brands and Welab will share their unique entrepreneurial journeys, while successful fundraising cases led by Cyberport’s strong investor/enterprise networks and Cyberport Macro Fund would also be highlights of the programme.

As the digital technology flagship of Hong Kong, Cyberport is dedicated to driving impact through deal flows and exposure for start-ups. While onsite participation might be limited under social distancing practices, attendees are most welcome to leverage the event’s integrated platform to view forum and workshop sessions, visit innovator showcases, schedule/conduct deal flows with our MatchEasy investor matching tool, join start-up clinic and P2P networking. All attendees, whether onsite or virtual, will have seamless access to the event platform that opens month-long from mid-October till late November, enjoying 24/7 on-demand contents and engaging in our scheduled activities during the period.

Peter Yan, CEO of Cyberport, says, “The COVID-19 pandemic has lasted more than a year, yet the strong resilience of the I&T sector has led to major fundraising deals, driving the venture capital market to record levels. Three unicorns were born in Hong Kong within the span of two months this year, including Animoca Brands from Cyberport, reflecting investors' confidence in Hong Kong's start-ups. At the same time, the National 14th Five-Year Plan has clearly raised the support for Hong Kong to develop into an international innovation and technology centre. Coupled with the vigorous development of the Greater Bay Area, we believe that Hong Kong’s venture capital atmosphere will become increasingly encouraging. More high-quality start-ups will attract more funding to help Hong Kong develop into an innovation and technology hub. Cyberport will continue to forge ahead through CVCF and the Cyberport Investor Network (CIN), to actively promote the venture capital ecosystem, and facilitate the integration of industries into the promising overall development of our country.”

For the first time the forum will also invite the Asia Technology Entrepreneurship Conference (ATEC), which is composed of Ivy League university alumni clubs, for discussion sessions. This will attract international investors to learn more about Hong Kong start-ups.

CVCF is a highly acclaimed flagship tech venture event for investors and entrepreneurs in the digital technology domain. The virtual edition in 2020 attracted more than 1,700 participants, with a total of more than 110,000 online views. 270 investors participated and more than 300 deal flows generated. The event presents a unique platform that successfully connected start-ups with investors and provided extensive opportunities for unfolding venture investments.

A pre-event webinar on “Succeeding in Sustainability in the Private Market” will give a topic warm-up in one of the key CVCF areas on 20 October, where Frederick J. Long, Founding Managing Director of Olympus Capital Asia and Asia Environmental Partners will give insights on sustainability issues that matter to investors, how to address ESG issues in due diligence process and how start-ups should position themselves to capture these benefits. Details and registration click HERE

CVCF 2021’s full agenda and speaker line-up are announced, details see HERE.

More news on CVCF’s spotlight events (CVCF spotlight event).