Top 50 Emerging Leaders 2021 continued (in alphabetical order by CVC unit): Tony Tung, managing director, Gobi Partners
Tony is a managing director of China-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners who helps manage the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, a subsidiary of e-commerce group Alibaba.
Chibo Tang, a partner at Gobi Partners, said: “Tony joined Gobi in 2016 and has helped build out Gobi’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) practice as the first investment professional in the Hong Kong office.
“[He] plays an active role in building the local innovation ecosystem in the GBA region. During his tenure in Gobi, he has led or participated in nearly 50 early and growth-stage investments across various industries such as enterprise solutions, fintech, AI (artificial intelligence) and big data, semiconductor, consumer and sustainability.
“In January 2020, he also helped to realise a full cash exit of [e-commerce software provider] Shopline via strategic acquisition, which represented a four-time return, and net IRR (internal rate of return) of over 40%.
“Amongst his key contributions in building the GBA ecosystem, Tony leads all the investment activities for the [accelerator programme] Hong Kong AI Lab [through which] Tony has screened and coached over 300 entrepreneurs and startups in the AI sector, including AI experts and researchers to help with technology transfer and commercialisation.
“Outside of the HKAI Lab, he also works with the various technology transfer offices and entrepreneurship centres of top universities in Hong Kong, including Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
“He sits on the assessment panels of these research commercialisation funding schemes, providing business advice and consulting to research laboratories, and offering business and entrepreneurial training to university students.
“Since 2017, he has also played a key role in [startup platform] JumpStarter [where] he leads Gobi’s investment team to screen and evaluate all of the competition entrants and drives the investment process for the winners.”
