Charles Li’s Venture Raised $70 Million From H.K. Tycoons
Thursday, March 31, 2022
(Bloomberg by Kiuyan Wong) – Charles Li, the former head of Hong Kong’s stock exchange, raised $70 million from investors including local tycoons Li Ka-shing and Adrian Cheng in the latest funding round for his new venture.
Micro Connect, a platform to link international capital to small businesses in China co-founded last year by Li and Gary Zhang, has completed its Series B round, taking the total amount raised over the past year to $120 million.
Sequoia China carried on from its previous financing round, joined by Cheng, the chief executive officer and heir of New World Development, as well as Horizons Ventures, a private investment firm controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing. Other investors included ABC International and Lenovo Capital.
The platform offers a “daily revenue contract” that allows investors to collect returns from smaller firms during their “healthy life-cycle,” Li said in an interview on Bloomberg Television Thursday. This model is “fundamentally different” from the country’s past experience with micro lending platforms which had been cracked down on, he said.
