After Alibaba and Xiaomi, GGV Capital’s Hans Tung is looking for China tech’s next big thing
Veteran investor Tung says secret of his success is to look for the one or two bright spots in a company that are powerful enough to overcome all other problems
Exiting from an investment in Alibaba and making a killing was a “good lesson”, says Hans Tung, managing partner at technology-focused venture capital firm GGV Capital, and it’s one reason why he intends to sit on his own personal stake and related investments in Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi for longer.
“There aren’t going to be many companies as big as Alibaba and it may end up being the best investment [GGV] ever made,” said Tung in an interview with the Post on the sidelines of the RISE technology conference in Hong Kong recently. “The lessons we learned from that investment though have helped us to do many other things better,” said Tung, who ranks 20th on Forbes 2018 Midas List of Top 100 venture capital investors.
GGV invested in Alibaba in 2003 at a time when Goldman Sachs decided to sell its position in the up-and-coming Chinese e-commerce company. GGV no longer holds any stake in Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Founded in 2000 and currently with offices in Menlo Park, California, Shanghai, and Beijing, GGV manages nine funds worth US$4 billion that focus on both US and China investments. Its portfolio includes house sharing platform Airbnb, China ride hailing giant Didi Chuxing, messaging app Slack and Beijing Bytedance, owner of popular short video app Tik Tok.