Award winner - Summit | Newcomer of the Year: Ruya Ventures (represented by Rick Hao)

0:00Rick Hao:Firstly, to be very honest, I think I've been lucky to raise funds during this period of time. If you ask me to raise a deep tech focus on hardware six, seven, ten years ago, it's not going to be that easy. Most importantly is we believe deep tech is a global play. So the success requires not only understanding the development within Europe, but also across international markets. This experience really enforced my belief that for deep tech investment, you really need a very highly focused investment thesis and a dedicated strategy, given how much it is different from other sectors. One notable example is actually battery technology.

0:39Rick Hao:This sector has become really less attractive for many deep tech investors or even the late stage investors as well. However, I do think this actually presents a really compiling strategy for us by approaching this problem very differently. We are live. We are live. In five. We are live. Four. We are live. Three. We are live. Two. We are live. One.

1:13Rick Hao:We are venture is a solo GP fund. basically backing pre-seed and C-stage deep tech startups across Europe and UK. We focus specifically on very dedicated deep tech sectors, such as battery technology, semiconductors, and also other areas that we have built very strong convictions from the past investment experience. And unlike others, we want to go as early as possible. And actually, we want to be normally the first institutional investors in any of those deep tech startups. And we also maintain a very highly concentrated portfolios. And we're only working with a very small number of companies that we can provide very strong and deep, deep support.

2:00Rick Hao:And most importantly is we believe deep tech is a global play. So the success requires not only understanding the development within Europe, but also across international markets. So therefore, to support this, we build a very strong network actually across global and particular with supply chain expertise with Southeast Asia. And also most importantly is we also believe that deep tech, you need a consistent scale up strategy, which will build a very unique way how we build up the scale up approach. And we kick off officially fundraising actually last year in September The fund has been oversubscribed within a couple of months We're still fundraising at the moment and for myself prior to launching Reaventures I basically build and developed a deep tech practice at speedy mest which I made more than 30 plus a deep tech investment Before that I was at IQ capital focusing on deep tech investment So overall, I think I've been doing deep tech investment when deep tech is not a hot topic like today.

3:05Rick Hao:And I've been witnessing all the up and downs across this deep tech industry. Great. Thanks so much, Rick. And yeah, we as the judges, many of us have had the privilege of already working with Rick in some capacity during his time at IQ and Speedinvest. So very delighted to see you spin out and do your own thing. But what do you think those years at IQ and Speedinvest taught you? What will you be taking from that to Rio Ventures and what will you be changing? I think I've been very lucky that I had experience working in both very specialist deep tech fund and also more generalist fund who invest across multiple sectors in Europe.

3:47Rick Hao:For example, while working at very specialist deep tech fund, I built a very strong foundation in evaluating deep tech startups. particularly when deep tech is not a hot topic, it's pretty much difficult to make an investment in deep tech. I think I have to say this experience really enforced my belief that for deep tech investment, you really need a very highly focused investment thesis and the dedicated strategy, given how much it is different from other sectors. And at the generalist fund, I had autonomy to manage the deep tech practice, setting up the investment thesis, portfolio construction, asset allocation, or even hiring the whole deep tech team at Speed Invest.

4:30Rick Hao:So also I'm sitting on the investment community across the whole investment team at Speed Invest, which I can see how other partners really make their investment decision in different sectors. I think this thing gives me a very holistic view of how basically those funds being operated, and importantly also to learn from each other how they make the strategic long-term decision. So that's actually quite unique for my background. And therefore, what I did at RUYA is I basically designed and operated RUYA Ventures to combine the best of those approaches. And then specifically, I basically tailored those approaches to fit for the really unique demands of the deep tech investing.

5:15Rick Hao:So that's, I think, something unique I learned from those two places. Amazing. Well, look, we often as LPs worry about hardware investments, right? I think that's definitely something that even though we're all getting very excited about the deep tech opportunity right now, it still plays on people's minds that this potentially takes longer, there's more capex involved. Why do you think you've been able to be successful in your fundraising to date, despite the knowledge from many of LPs that there's a slight worry about hardware? Yeah. Firstly, to be very honest, I think I've been lucky to raise funds during this period of time.

5:50Rick Hao:If you ask me to raise a deep tech focus on hardware six, seven, ten years ago, it's not going to be that easy, I would say. As part of my investment thesis, I mean, I focus significantly on hardware. And I would say probably 50 % of my portfolio company dedicated to the hardware-related investment. We basically built a very unique scaling-up strategy that particularly resolved those bottlenecks that are faced by the hardware startups. And this approach is significantly different from the traditional deep tech scaling strategy. Through this lens, we basically identified a couple of sectors that currently we believe is underinvested or undervalued in Europe.

6:34Rick Hao:One notable example is actually battery technology. As you probably heard, lots of big news happening in the battery industry in the last two or three years in Europe. And this sector has become really less attractive for many deep tech investors or even the late stage investors as well. I do think this actually presents a really compiling strategy for us by approaching this problem very differently. So, for example, by applying our approach, we think we can unlock some values that others may overlook. Our first fund's investment is in a European battery manufacturing startup. top. And this really reflects our conviction.

7:14Rick Hao:So we made this company two months ago, and the company is currently performing strongly using our approach, and they are on the right track to achieve a double-digit million revenue in the next two or three months. I don't think this ever happened in Europe, so it's going to be a unique thing that shows our approach. So overall, we try to redefine the deep tech investing in Europe by basically tackling those scaling challenge at the beginning of the journey and which can enable those startups basically to become a global leader using less capital at the same time basically have a significant faster pace to become a global leader I think that's all the unique thing how we resolve some of the bottlenecks in European deep tech