Hong Kong’s Morningside Group (Holdings) Ltd. and its founder and non-executive director Dr. Gerald Lokchang Chan believes in Israeli science and Israeli start-ups. He says, “Science here is at the global cutting edge!”
Morningside Group invests in start-ups through Morningside Ventures. The company was founded in 1986. As a private company, Morningside Group does not disclose how much money it manages, but it is possible to imagine, since it is backed by the Chan family, one of the wealthiest in Hong Kong, controlling both Hang Lung Group Ltd. (HKSE:0010) and Hang Lung Properties Ltd. ((HKSE:0101), which has a market cap of $116 billion. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Morningside Group has offices in Shanghai and Boston, and over the years has made numerous investments outside of the Far East, not only in the US and Europe, but also in Israel.
In June, Chan attended the the ISLI-Biomed 2007 conference in Tel Aviv, organized by Israel Life Sciences Industry, where he participated in a panel on the activities of Israeli biomedical companies in Asia.
Morningside Ventures has a clear preference for very early stage companies, sometimes investing in ventures while they are still within universities. Nor are these investments necessary small scale. Chan says, “We can make investments from $500,000 and up, but we usually invest make larger investments of up $15-20 million, even in quite early-stage companies.”
Among Morningside’s investments in Israel, Chan mentions an investment in Metacue Ltd., which develops non-invasive diabetes diagnostic devices, Metacure is a spin-off of Impulse Dynamics founded by Prof. Shlomo Ben-Haim, which was sold to Guidant Corp. (NYSE; XETRA: GDT) for more than $100 million. Until now, Morningside has never disclosed its investment in Metacure.
Chan said, “We made a major investment in Metacure. I don’t remember the precise amount, but it was around $10-15 million. We invested in the company after it was already established, but its product was in the very early development stage. There was very little clinical information. I am a good friend of Shlomo Ben-Haim. This is very innovative technology and he’s a great scientist.”
Chan said that Morningside has also invested in New Generation Technology (NGT), a joint Jewish-Arab incubator. “We invested in Sharon Dvir’s incubator and we’ve also made direct investments in some of the portfolio companies. How did we find them? I have many friends in Israel and they introduced me to people who mentioned this very nice idea of investing in Israeli-Arab companies. They’re very talented scientists, and I was very impressed by their companies and felt that this was a wonderful opportunity to support the venture. They can be a model for emulation by others.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 2, 2007
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