Soaking up the morning sunshine outside a coffee shop in Beijing, 34-year-old Harry Man bears the signs of overwork: swollen eyes and an abstracted air.
The Hong Kong native is showing the strains of hunting out investment opportunities on the mainland as a venture capital partner.
It may seem an easy enough job to find enticing targets in an economy that is the world's third largest and growing. But competition is fierce. Since the 1980s, overseas venture capitalists (VCs) have been flooding the mainland in search of promising companies to invest in and cash out of after an initial public offering. Hot on their heels came local VCs, just as soon as they had learned the business themselves.
Man works with Matrix Partners, a venture capital fund that counts among its successful picks Apple Computer Inc, which floated its shares in December 1980. Now Matrix is in search of similar successes on the mainland. Its mainland operation was set up in 2008 with an initial investment fund of US$275 million.
In 2008, the more than 300 VCs operating on the mainland invested a total of 34 billion yuan (HK$38.70 billion) in 506 mainland companies, according to the China Venture Capital Research Institute.
When other VCs were cautious as the financial crisis swept across most economies, Matrix was more aggressive. It invested in about 10 mainland companies that year, ranging from translation service providers to insurance intermediaries and a job-hunter website, said Man.
