Speech by the Chief Executive Officer at the International Forum for Patient Capital (22 May 2025)

The IPC is the short form for “International Forum for Patient Capital”.  The 3 letters, namely “I”, “P” and “C” nicely summarises the 3 core elements of our event today.  “I” for “Investment”, “P” for “Partnership” and “C” for “Cross-Jurisdictional Dialogue”. 

The IPC aims to create an open and trusted platform that could unite the power of the global Patient Capital community, and maximise the synergy of our respective wisdom and actions in the midst of the fast-evolving world.  The programme today has been structured in a bespoke manner having regard to two key considerations.  First, the low profile and action-oriented nature of many of our Patient Capital friends who really want to have candid and apolitical discussion about growth trends and opportunities.  Factors such as geopolitics, interest rate, inflation, supply chain reconfiguration all form the backdrop of the IPC but are not our focus today.  These known factors present both challenges and opportunities, but today we will focus on the basics, which is what, where and how to plan our capital deployment to meet our mandate which transcends cycles and generations.  Second, due to the long-term horizon enabled by the nature of Patient Capital, many of our friends have indicated their interest to get to know more about innovation and technology (“I&T”) such as artificial intelligence (“AI”) because it is going to be the game changer for the whole world.  This interest is particularly strong for understanding I&T development in Mainland China and Hong Kong.  Therefore, we will also cover that in our programme.    

With this very full agenda for the day, let’s get started.  

Investment

As Patient Capital, we carry with us our forward-looking vision and resilient investment strategies that could withstand the test of time.  Long-term trends and structural opportunities particularly those relating to I&T tend to be borderless.  Therefore, we need a global perspective and liberal approach to identify and select our paths.  At the same time, we need local knowledge to act on opportunities and guide the positive outcomes to benefit local economies and societies.  

Hong Kong, with our role as “super connector” and “super value-adder” is best placed to support the Patient Capital community to achieve these objectives.  With our attributes as an international talent hub, international I&T hub, and international financial centre, we could efficiently connect 3 important elements to capture future growth, namely talents, I&T opportunities and finance.  If we believe in I&T as the key impetus for future growth, then talents and finance are of great value as they are the determinant for the sustainability and scalability of I&T development.  Hong Kong is a well-established epicentre for both, which is increasingly evidenced by the strong velocity of international talents, companies and capital flow into Hong Kong, or via Hong Kong to Mainland China.  All these translate into a pipeline of high quality I&T companies across financing stages, that are accessible and investable by international investors via the well-established capital market of Hong Kong.    

The HKIC has benefited from this backdrop in taking forward our dual mandate, namely to invest for long-term financial return as well as for supporting local economic and social development.  We have announced 3 investment themes, namely Hard & Core Technology, Biotech, and New Energy/Green Technology.  Out of the more than 100 projects that we have invested in, I&T is always our focus, and areas such as AI and robotics are leading the growth.   

You will soon be hearing from 8 companies from the Hong Kong ecosystem.  They are Cornerstone Robotics, Phase Scientific, Gusto, PPIO, Guasium Robotics, NEX, Aerodyne and WeLab.  These companies were either born and raised in Hong Kong, or are seeing Hong Kong as the gateway to global markets.  They may have their roots in different industries, target different clientele, and are at different financing stages.  This spectrum of variety showcases the vibrancy and diversity of I&T that Hong Kong is able to incubate, groom and enable.  

Partnership 
 

As Patient Capital, we invest with speed and scale to maximise long-term value for our stakeholders.  On this front, the HKIC believes in partnership.  On the financial side, partnership allows us to have professional cross-validation among peers, optimise portfolio construction, diversify exposure and mitigate risks.  On the strategic side, different partners could bring different value to the table to perfect a project.  The HKIC is open and welcoming in joining hands for investment.  

We are pleased to share a few investment partnership programmes that we have created, regarding which our partners will share more details later.  

• Gobi Partners is a General Partner (“GP”) with deep roots in Hong Kong, and is now dual-headquartered in Hong Kong and Malaysia.  They will provide an overview of the I&T ecosystem in Hong Kong and discuss the exciting investment opportunities that the “Patient Capital Strategic Fund”, which is jointly created with the HKIC, could offer to overseas capital; 

• Lanchi Ventures is an early-staged and technology-focused GP with Hong Kong as their strategic global centre to capture global leading technology companies leveraging Chinese advantages.  They will share with you the “Co-investment Partnership Programme” jointly created with the HKIC to support Chinese technological entrepreneurs with global vision and leading technologies to achieve global impact; and

• Gaw Capital is a multi-asset class home-grown manager.  They will talk about the “International Strategic Expansion Platform” jointly created with the HKIC to accelerate the commercialisation and application of R&D outcome, with the initial stage focusing on facilitating Hong Kong brands and companies to expand and deepen development in the Global South markets including the Middle East.   

Cross-Jurisdictional Dialogue