Meeting with Gobi Partner's Chibo Tang
Meeting with Gobi Partner’s Chibo Tang
HKISIBC leader Oliver Tedja and Isaac Tedja visits Gobi Partners headquarters in Hong Kong and meets Managing Partner Chibo Tang
30th December 2022
HKIS Investment & Business Club
Hong Kong, China
Gobi Partners is the most interconnected Pan-Asian venture capital firm with US$1.5 billion in assets under management (AUM) across North Asia, South Asia, and ASEAN. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, the firm supports entrepreneurs from the early to growth stages and focuses on emerging and underserved markets.
Founded in 2002, Gobi has raised 15 funds to date, invested in over 320 startups and nurtured 10 unicorns. Gobi has grown to 15 locations across key markets in Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Lahore, Manila, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore and Surabaya.
As a Participant of the United Nations Global Compact, Gobi Partners is committed to aligning strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption to ensure long-term value creation and sustainability across our portfolio.
Oliver Tedja, Chibo Tang, Isaac Tedja
Meeting with Gobi Partner's Chibo Tang
Chibo Tang is the managing partner of venture capital firm Gobi Partners. Chibo Tang is one of Hong Kong’s most successful investors. He joined the company in 2009 and spent his first eight years in Shanghai before moving to Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, Gobi manages the Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, and either via Alibaba or directly through Gobi’s fund, Mr Tang has invested in an extensive line-up of Hong Kong’s most exciting new businesses in recent years, including Airwallex, Prenetics, WeLab, OneDegree, Animoca Brands, Gogovan, Qupital, Aqumon, and Sandbox VR.
Q&A With Chibo Tang
Addressing The Million Dollar Question
“Everyone is trying to get that 100x startup. The most successful Gobi story to date is Airwallex. Gobi invested when it was worth 10m not its 5 and a half billion. They look for companies that don’t have many track records or revenue. This scraps the traditional fundamentals of investing. In VC Mr Tang looks for more in the founder, team, vision, and sector opportunity.”
Southeast Asia and Other Regions
“We are excited about everywhere in that region. We have local teams in SEA. At the same time, we are very excited about the GBA and china as a whole. It depends on what fund your managing and the allocation of resources. ”
Exit Strategy
“It depends on the company. More and more we are learning it factors of the market. Although this year was supposed to be great with two IPOs, the market performance after was not great as the macro was very poor. In that scenario, if there was an opportunity to take cash in an acquisition opportunity that probably would have been a better option.”
Oliver Tedja, Chibo Tang, Isaac Tedja
Covid And Government Restrictions
“Covid obviously hasn’t been great for travel and retail, so in those specific sectors, you know it has had a drastic impact on their overall revenue growth. Generally, the capital market environment is a lot harder for companies and funds to raise money in the last year or so, even a couple of years, because just there haven’t been able to access a lot of the international investor base. I think some businesses though, like e-commerce, cross-border commerce, payments, and anything that would benefit from working at home or remote, those businesses benefited. And so, at the beginning of covid you remember in 2020, I mean companies like Zoom just really showed up. Because everyone’s like, “Oh geez, everyone is going to be working online now and doing Zoom meetings.” And so, obviously, there were is that that benefited. Other than that, I mean like my company Prenetics, they did Covid testing. So, a lot of like the Covid testing, the vaccines, that type of healthcare company. It’s really, there are always opportunities and there are always challenges. Some of our companies had to do internal bridge rounds because they were running short of cash. After all, its investor sentiment changed completely and they didn’t have access to as much capital, We had to do some recaps, general rounds and bridge rounds, so there were some difficult situations as well. “
Educating the market
“I think that even if some startups and some founders fail in the beginning at least you’re getting more talent and interest in this ecosystem. Because even if you fail a couple of times, you know, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’re still educating the market, you’re still educating yourselves, you’re getting experience, you can bring those on to your next startup experiences, and so as long as there’s more talent doing innovation activities, I think that that’s always going to be a good thing.”
Vital Strengths and Characteristics For Young Individual To Succeed In The VC world?
“I think it’s drive, persistence, and vision. If you want to be a founder, a lot of people talk about grit. I think grit is a very intangible quality, but it is something that all entrepreneurs really need. Because when you’re in a startup, you’re gonna have 100 problems thrown at you every day. Some problems are just operational, and some are just a matter of time. There are things that you can overcome when things like Covid hit. Those are Black Swan events that are massive in scale, they could completely throw your business on its head, you need to be able to adapt in a very drastic fashion if you want to survive. I think having the grit to continue in those cases and figure out what it is you need to do to survive and being able to implement those new strategies, those are you know, that’s a good entrepreneur apart from a bad one. And the bad ones will come in those scenarios and they’ll just be like, “Oh shoot, I mean I don’t know what to do,”. It’s always easy to go back to corporate, it’s always easy to go find another job. But it’s the entrepreneurs who push through because they still believe in their vision, and they still believe in their product, and they still believe in their team. And so, you know, I think having that drive and persistence, and that vision is really important for anyone who wants to be a successful entrepreneur or venture capitalist.”