Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2023, an annual premier event in the global venture capital scene organised by Cyberport, kicked off on 1 November 2023. The Forum with the theme “Venture Forward: Game Changing through Innovation’’ gathered international venture capital experts, investors, venture companies and the Cyberport start-up community for two consecutive days physically and online. The Start-up Workshop and the Start-up Clinic, as well as the GreenTech and Sustainability Venture Day, also took place, attracting over 2,500 participants and more than 120,000 page views from around the globe through the online platform. As a platform aiming to bridge like-minded founders and funders, CVCF facilitated over 300 matching meetings with investors and start-ups.
Organised by Cyberport, in collaboration with Friends of the Earth (HK), the Hong Kong Green Finance Association, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node, and GIS Academy, the GreenTech and Sustainability Venture Day gathered over 20 ecoconscious members of the Cyberport Startup Community, investors, entrepreneurs, startups, academia, enterprises, including Georgina Lok, Head (Market Development), Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Ir Dr Cary Chan, Executive Director of Hong Kong Green Building Council, Ir Dr Edward Chan, Deputy General Manager, Project Management Department at Henderson Land, Serena Mak, Executive Director, Sustainable Finance, Institutional Banking Group at DBS Bank (Hong Kong), Ben Wong, General Manager – Technology Innovation, New World Development, attended the event and shared at four impactful sessions around carbon emission reduction, sustainability and the transformative power of green technologies. Themes included “Examining the Role of Smart City and Green Development”, “Green Technologies and Sustainability: A New Trend and Opportunities”, “How technology can support better alignment and tracking of SDG aligned investment” and “How technology and emerging data allow us to navigate into extreme weather and eventually support the development of Transition Finance”.
Following a series of keynotes and panels on the first day of the forum, where industry leaders shared their insights; seasoned investors including Jenny Xiao, Partner at Leonis Capital, and Douglas Hansen-Luke, Executive Chairman at Future Planet Capital, offered practical guidance to entrepreneurs at Start-up Workshops today on fundraising strategies and options as well as advice on how to strengthen the core elements required to grow a business under the volatile global market environment to entrepreneurs, while members from AVISTA Group, Current Asia, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton Advisory Services, JobsDB by SEEK and Tiang & Partners offered tips and provided free and practical consultation services for addressing essential entrepreneurial issues of start-ups at the online Start-up Clinic.
The Investor Matching Session during CVCF brought startups and investors with similar interests and preferences together for more effective interaction and partnership; meanwhile, the Innovator Showcase served as a marketplace for startups to showcase their innovative solutions to a diverse and engaged audience – available not only at over 20 booths on-site but also through a dedicated online platform that will be active until 15 November 2023, allowing them to connect and engage with audience of potential supporters and investors from Hong Kong, the GBA and the rest of the world.
Cyberport also unlocked the potential of green technology by premiering GreenTech and Sustainability Venture Day – a centrepiece of the International GreenTech Week. Eric Chan, Chief Public Mission Officer of Cyberport said: “Cyberport is at the forefront of a greener future with our diverse environmental protection initiatives and programmes, with the community being home to over 400 FinTech companies providing innovative solutions including green finance, ESG reporting, carbon credit trading, and responsible sourcing; over 770 companies dedicated to smart living and city technologies, not to mention the eco-friendly design and energy-efficient infrastructure at the Cyberport campus, for nurturing and incubating GreenTech initiatives, as well as facilitating the realisation of innovative GreenTech solutions. The HKSAR Government has cast their vote of confidence in Cyberport and recently approved an additional funding of HK$ 265 million to boost our Smart Living cluster development. Let’s seize this opportunity to embark on a transformative journey together, forging partnerships and exploring rewarding investment opportunities to harness the potential of GreenTech in Hong Kong.”
For detailed information on related seminars and a complete line-up of speakers at the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2023, please visit the website: https://cvcf.cyberport.hk/en/index
Press release: PressRelease_CVCF_2023_En