Dr. Lewis Liu is a Venture Partner at Kiko. Based in Hong Kong, he focuses on cross-border value creation opportunities between the UK and China and supports the Kiko team and portfolio in the world’s largest cleantech market.
I always wanted to become an academic…
I had a dream to be an inventor, who pursues his own ideas with as much freedom as possible to create useful things that did not exist before, and had a decent academic track record (various Olympiad prizes in physics and chemistry at national-level). I chose materials science for both undergraduate (Tsinghua) and PhD (Cambridge).
…until the summer of my PhD Year 2
When a summer programme on technology transfer and commercialisation for young academics at Cambridge totally transformed my ambition and career path.
I co-founded CamGaN as CEO
Which was acquired by a leading semiconductor business when it was less than 2 years old. The journey was one of the most educational parts of my life. I gained so much insight on the entrepreneur side of the equation.
As an investor, I believe in supporting entrepreneurs to achieve their successes
Being a (deep tech) investor also enables creating (even more) useful things that did not exist before. Investors should however never be in the driver’s seat. Our job first and foremost is to find the right drivers.
I am dedicated to deep technologies
Deep technologies fundamentally drive the advancement of human civilisation. Equity in deep tech companies is a unique asset class and requires special expertise. An expert on one asset class may understand little on another, despite the two being apparently close to each other, and therefore may deliver terrible performance and even ruin the assets.
I see globalisation as the right side of history and focus on cross-border value creation
Technologies should ultimately work for the peace and prosperity of all human beings. Many barriers in today’s world prevent that from happening. By overcoming those barriers, a tiny step at a time, enormous economic and social value can be created and that’s where the opportunities are.