As capital markets narrow their focus, Davos 2026 leaders debate how investors can embrace longer horizons to back bold, future‑shaping technologies.
At Davos 2026, “Investors and the Patience Premium” examined how to finance a “golden age of science” with capital markets optimized for short-term bets. DCVC’s Zachary Bogue argued breakthroughs are “necessary but not sufficient”: deep tech requires “techno-economics,” repeatable teams, and long-duration funding, yet “it’s actually very difficult” to evaluate both science and business, which helps explain why “there aren’t more of you.” He highlighted AI-enabled energy platforms and “tech bio,” where firms first build proprietary datasets before monetizing, creating long revenue lags.
Sino Biopharmaceutical CEO Eric Tse underscored the scale challenge: bringing a drug to market now averages “2.6 billion,” with “60%… clinical trial costs.” The hardest gap is pre–proof of concept, where capital is scarce; incumbents can add value by supplying capabilities (CMC, CROs, regulatory, clinical operations), not just funding.
Indonesia’s new sovereign wealth fund Danantara, CEO Pandu Sjahrir, positioned sovereigns as “lowest cost of capital” with no forced exit: “You want to own a great business forever.” Danantara will outsource early-stage selection to expert managers, then invest directly where it can transfer know-how to improve citizens’ welfare.
WEF’s Verena Kuhn noted founders increasingly seek arm’s-length government purchasing signals (e.g., quantum, defense) and creative financing partnerships rather than grants. The panel converged on a hybrid future: patient capital plus ecosystems that reduce the “valley of death,” with growing geographic diversity and deliberate efforts to close gender gaps.
Hello and welcome to a session to discuss the question of investors and the patient's premium. So thank you to all of you for coming along today. And thank you to everyone online for being here at a time that has been absolutely crazy and dominated by lots of short term news and dramas in the news cycle in the last 48 hours. But we're here to discuss the long term, and in particular, the question of how we're going to fund some of the really exciting innovations that are developing today. Because I said in Cambridge University, where I see the fact that we are living through a veritable golden age of science, that's not just my words. Demis Hassabis, founder of DeepMind, said that several times this week in Davos. So we live in extraordinarily blessed golden age of science. And yet our capital markets, for the most part, are structured to take only short term bets or at best, medium term bets, rather than the long term bets that are needed to really drive and fund turning this golden age of science into practical innovations, whether it's in quantum or AI or life sciences or green tech and so much more. So I have an amazing collection of people today to talk about how we can actually get the long term funding that's needed to unleash these near-miraculous discoveries on my immediate left. You're right, is Eric, who is chief executive officer of Sino Biopharmaceutical in Hong Kong, one of the life sciences companies which is part of this new scientific revolution. Next to him is a late addition to the panel who is sorry?
Karina Kuhn heading the forum Startup Communities.
Fantastic. Who is replacing Ellen Newby who was called away, unfortunately, by short term dramas. Next to her is Zachary Bogue, managing partner and co-founder of Dcvc Capital, which is one of the private investors or private capital groups trying to fund this. And at the end is Pandu Sridhar, who is CEO of Anantara Investment Management, chief investment officer of Dandara Indonesia, a sovereign wealth fund. So welcome to all of you and thank you for coming along today. And perhaps I'm going to start with you, Zachary, because you have been funding some of the breakthroughs in science. What do you see as the biggest problem right now in terms of trying to get that type of capital flowing? And if you had to pick one area where you're keen to invest right now, what would it be?
Terrific. And obviously, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. Obviously, you know, around commercializing science, that's that's a little bit different from what we do. So we obviously break through. Science is sort of a necessary but not sufficient condition. So obviously when you the you know, the techno economics is actually mission critical for us because you can't just have a scientific breakthrough, you also need to have a team and capital around it. And that obviously is how you you go the long, long distance to kind of produce returns in this area because we're obviously a for profit venture fund. And we luckily have ten year fund lives, which oftentimes we exceed. And so that actually gives us the capacity to make these long term, long term bets. But, you know, it's not our job to commercialize a technological breakthrough that folks want to exist. We actually look at it in reverse, like, can this tech breakthrough enable a viable and terrific business in the long run? So that's how we think about it.
Right.
And and you asked about an area.
Yeah. What what what part of the capital structure you like to be in and what type of sector are you particularly focused on right now.
So we are early broad mandate, early stage deep tech. That means we back entrepreneurs solving hard real world problems. So we are at the Seed and series A and have capital to sort of follow them up into the mid mid range. That's where we sit on the capital stack. Two areas that I'm most excited right now is our AI enabled energy platforms that are producing new types of energy. And also we do a fair amount of investing in in the tech bio sector. And tech bio is is sort of the reverse of biotech. These are where companies this also is a long dated problem where companies, first and foremost set out and build a proprietary highly structured data set, which then they can then run machine learning or other AI algorithms on and then go off and hit targets in pharma or in diagnostics. Again, very expensive upfront revenue lags. So you need to be, you know, have have patience and sort of really, you know, help propel them through that, that period.
And just before I turn to the others, why aren't there more of you? Why aren't there more people investing in this type of activity?
I think it's actually very difficult. It requires a diverse set of skills. Right? We need to do everything from understanding. Is this a true technological breakthrough to understanding? Where will additional capital come from? Where can we get sort of, you know, follow on capital for this fund? And is this a terrific team and sort of everything in between. So this just requires a very diverse set of skill sets. I think different from from other venture funds we have on my team. I have more published scientists than MBAs.
Wow. That's pretty unusual. Wow. Gosh. Fascinating. Well, Eric, you are one of the companies involved in trying to commercialize science at the moment. Tell us what your company actually does and who invests in you.
So again, great. And happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. So we're one of the largest, prescription drug company in China currently. And then we're focused in oncology, hepatitis, respiratory surgery and antibiotics, where right now, China focused around a 5 billion USD sales. 90% contributed from China. And it's one of our aim to, be become global to, also access the rest of the world. So, we will hope that our products can benefit and, global patients rather than just Chinese patients. So, in the course we do full R&D structure. There's 220,000 employees in our, in our group. So we do the full capacity of research and development, manufacture and commercialize. And right now, already some of our products are, are exported to over 30 countries, globally. And we're seeing more and more innovation coming out as well. So we transformed from a very generic company to a blended company. And then until the past, for the past 5 to 10 years, we fully transformed into a company that half of our revenue are coming from innovative products. And every year we have 3 to 5 innovative drugs, coming to the market, passing NDA.
Right. And so who funds you? Where do you get your funding from?
We're already a very mature company.
Who did fund you?
Actually, we're like a big pharma company that we are listed in Hong Kong market in 2000. Our market cap right now is somewhere around 16 billion USD and then still growing. So we fund others right now. Yes.
But in the beginning, where did your money come from to actually grow? Grow you?
So in the beginning, actually, we started off from a conglomerate. So, we started off as a family business of CP Group. So, we're, we're very big in agriculture, food, real estate, telecommunication, etc. and pharmaceutical is one of the, new sector that we founded by my father in the 1990s. Right. Yeah. And then I became CEO five years ago and then started the new lead of the company. So, we really experienced China from having, like, chemicals, generics only to and then the generation now that everything is innovative, driven, there's a difference between innovative drugs as well as basic care drugs or like off patent drugs. So that's the difference of it.
So basically you had, if you like, internal patient capital available for you for actually growing this up, in a way that most companies don't actually have, which is obviously great advantage.
Yes. I think it's the different gifts of generation, because when we started, we're only in the middle of R&B. So, actually we started from emanating as well, from growing like very small firms into the size of today, from, from the very start. We're only 40 million in market cap in 2000. And then there's one point that we're 500 x in return. So I think it is a mix of, of, base that we, we've building and always a transformation in a very strong team to bring forward. So just as Zachary said, is like we have we need people, we need scientists, we need a manufacturer, we need people who knows infra, we need compliance, commercialization, all of them. So we built through from the very past. And then I think it is, different from before. It's a generic generation until 20 years ago, or even, let's say, 30 years ago to what now is like, you need global funding. You need financing to bring a drug to how it is now. Right now, it's like one data is, on average, a drug to go to come to the market globally needs a it went up, up and up year by year. It's 2.6 billion in average right now and 60% of it is clinical trial costs. So a lot of like new biotechs they fill in the very start. And so it is our job right now to really incubate and and be patient to help them over. So it's not just in financial terms funding them but also helping them hand by hand. If it's just a research team of a dozen or less than 60 people, then we help them to build also, give them CMC support, give them clinical trial support with regulatory support, with BD support to access global. Right.
Well, I can see Zachary nodding nodding there because 2.6 billion is a lot of money and there aren't that many places in the private capital venture capital world which can actually easily fund that as opposed to having this long term patient family capital in many ways.
Correct. And so oftentimes for for tech, bio or biotech startup, you do at the earliest stages, spend a fair amount of money. This is sort of money that's approachable on venture capital dollars, but you really need to pick the companies that already have, you know, they're already working with with Big pharma. So the way that this is addressed, for many of my companies is preliminary partnerships and partnerships over time with Big Pharma, because ultimately you don't want to be just using venture capital dollars to run clinical trials where we have terrific pharma companies around the world, this one included, that actually specialized in running clinical trials. So that really is sort of the name of the game is make sure you're backing companies that can partner with Big Pharma once they do have a novel, best in class or first of a kind treatment in a given sector.
Just to add more in that is actually right now the hardest part is actually before POC proof of concept. So it's just like right now all the capitals are big. Pharma's would all like to invest in a validated, validated target of drug because it is like a more, securing investment and of quick wins. So we often see like right now huge deals are coming out, especially maybe last year from China of like providing like this we call it talent dividends. Drugs developing very fast, quickly and with good quality. So I think, this is one point that after proof of concept, it's easy to get funding. What is hard that we really have to, help to build an ecosystem as early on. So what scientists, like what kind of molecule that they're building, what new target and how we can help them, not only, because they usually scientists won't have the skill sets of building up a team. Yes. And so we help them to find the right labs, give them the right CMC, find the right CRO. When we provide all of these services and even, help them to find a clinical team, right. With our own.
Interesting. Well, that's what I hear again from Cambridge, because I split my time between Cambridge University and the Financial Times. And, you know, what I hear is that you can get the initial seed capital just to play around with that idea. Once you've had proper proof of concept, you can get that money. It's that valley of death between the two that is so challenging. But, I'd like to bring you in because sovereign wealth funds used to be somewhat, you know, discounted or ignored in terms of the global financial system a couple of decades ago. And now they're emerging really as a key pillar of not just global finance, but a key source of patient long term capital. Are you involved in funding this type of activity? And if so, in what way?
Yeah, I think, sovereign wealth fund now has play a much bigger role. I would say the last even the last five, six years, much more prominent. And I guess we are playing some role in that. And the good thing about this is that from a cost of capital perspective, sovereign fund probably is one of the lowest cost of capital you can find. And for us, you know, similar to other sovereign funds, we really focus on return. But the good thing is we don't really have to exit. So similar maybe to a family run business. You know, you want to own a great business forever. Same thing with us, especially things here that are related a lot to society as at large. You know, we're happy to partner up both with family businesses as well as with fund managers. So, you know, this is I mean, for us, Anantara is new, but the way we're doing it is very similar to all the largest sovereign wealth funds.
Right. And so what do you actually invest in in terms of the biotech or green tech or AI quantum landscape? Are you agnostic and you just grab whatever opportunity, or do you try and focus in particular sectors and parts of the capital stack?
Well, first we we are 11 months old.
All right. Okay. So you're not so you're not even a toddler yet.
We're not even a toddler, but a toddler with a lot of responsibility. We are about we have about 1040 companies being put into us. We're about $1 trillion of assets right away. So it's a very big toddler.
That's a.
Very toddler now.
Needs to figure out how.
To walk and run. And, the father wants the toddler to become a man right away. Right. So this is one of those things that.
You know, no pressure then.
No pressure. But we actually would like to say pressure is a privilege. So for all of us that come in. So this is good because you're also in the venture business. We started February. Only three of us. Now we are 400 people. So that's quite fast right from a scale perspective. And we just started investing, last December. There's out of that we have to invest our dividends to this, everywhere in the world. So we're about 50% domestic, 50% global. You ask the right question. We actually want to invest in businesses that can elevate also for Indonesia, Indonesian society. One of the things we want to focus on, one of it is healthcare. How can we figure out how to increase the welfare of Indonesians? We're also looking at digital infrastructure because everyone, well, at least outside the promenade, talks about AI here, talks differently, right? But AI is becoming so important and increasing productivity for our people. So we're willing to partner up globally. So this is good because here we met a bunch of our partners to we're investing in developed markets like in the US. In Europe we just started to invest there. We're also investing in Asia. But half of our investment is domestic.
Right. Interesting. And just very quickly, before I turn to you to ask you about your specific experience of the venture capital world and how it should change, I'm curious, from the sovereign wealth fund perspective, two questions. Firstly, do you mostly invest in early stage seed series A, or do you go further down the curve when it's more proven? Do you invest yourself, or are you using third party managers to do that? And do you have a specific home country bias or specific what might be called patriotic capitalism mandate? Are you trying to specifically support Indonesia or is that a kind of global? You just want to make the best returns you can for fiduciary reasons.
So we created a law for Anantara. Number one, we have to make returns okay.
So you have fiduciary.
We have fiduciary. We have to make money. And number two no politicians. Number three, we can hire both Indonesian and Non-indonesian. So we can put CEO in our companies to be non Indonesians. And then lastly business judgment rule cannot be criminalized for activities. When you ask this question, to be honest with you, in the early stage we'll outsource the amazing managers like himself. That's their job.
Scour the you can't sift through 10,000.
And also we don't have that many people anyway right to do it. So we outsource to the best managers in the world depending on where they have the biggest moat right to give it to them. Once it becomes mature, we're happy to take a stake where we can bring. The idea is that if we invest directly into companies, the only thing we ask, can you make our people better? Meaning, can I bring a transfer of technology, transfer of know how to our country? Thankfully, our country is not small. Among all the leading sovereign wealth fund, we're probably the biggest country, 300 million people, 28 years young. So very young, GDP 5.5% and most importantly, politically very stable. Our president is, you know, has a nice number of voters. Globally, 98 million individuals voted for him and he has 85% popularity rating. So this is so important now. And today when you want to allocate capital, you want to find stability and safety. So you know, that's how we we all work you know, with fund managers such as yourself.
So it's not just about the scientific risk but sorry Zachary.
No, no just go on. I have a comment for once you guys.
Please do. Please do.
And we you know, across our 16 year history, we've sort of always engaged with with sovereign wealth funds and varying degrees. And actually there's been a big evolution in those 16 years where 16 years ago it was much more about returns. Right. And there was sort of a mention of, hey, how do we support our domestic economy? And then fast forward 15 or 16 years now there is a sort of intense focus on on both. So it's returns. But also, you know, as you mentioned, sort of how does this actually benefit the core, the core population? You know, the sovereign wealth fund is actually created, you know, on behalf of and this actually, you know, luckily for us, that comports well with the deep tech business model and these long, long bets because, you know, at the core, we are, you know, backing entrepreneurs that are solving hard, real world problems with AI. And oftentimes those are some of the problems that that the sovereigns or they themselves hoping to sort of begin approaching solutions to for their local population.
Right.
I would really like to comment as well. A lot of respect on that aspect. It's like for, for, for the family business where over 100 years, years old already, we're we're the largest conglomerate in Thailand. And actually we were the number of first foreign direct investor into China in 1978. So it's just like, for myself, I'm already first generation. But in terms of pharmaceutical, maybe second generations in this aspects. So it's just like we really helped, China into transformation. By then hepatitis B was one of the biggest problem in China. So, there was like a 80 million population with it. Yeah. Right. And then population then wasn't as huge, but it was still a great number already. So we really helped develop like all the first generics in China of a lot of, different PTAs to really bring down the cost of originals, because by then China was in a wealthy country as a developing country, as well by then. So it's like we started very big, becoming very big, and grew up with doing generics. I think that was also the path, how Indonesia was experienced. Yeah. And then right now it's also in the midst of transforming from a generic based chemical, manufacturer into a more, let's say, large molecule and innovative player, especially with the population booming, growing economy growing as well. So, we we indeed looked into the market as well. And then when you say it's like one of the top line is how it can benefit the Indonesian people and how we bring is like, on in our aspect, we want allies and we want the market of entire Southeast Asia, not only Thailand but also and China, but also like Pan Asian populations. Also in terms of clinical trials, how everyone is participating, marked and like the global trials where what I just said is 2.6 billion on average to bring one drug globally. But if we just look into the size of, let's say, Asia, that cost might be cut into just 20%, 80% off, right? So it's just like if we can bring standardizing care is like what China have done in the past 20 years to having different divisions, levels of hospitals and can bring that standardizing care together in Indonesia. And with the second largest population in, in Asia. Not not, not counting India, in that bit then definitely we see there's a big synergy there. And then I think us as a biopharma, as a group and families will definitely love to participate in that infrastructure building. Absolutely.
And it sounds like you're ready to do some deals already. This is the value of Davos. With or without Donald Trump. We can all cut deals. There we go. But well I can see that you all want to get into this, but but I want to bring you in and ask. You're looking at ways I mean, what we're hearing here is that the classic financing model, which frankly, tends to dominate the pages of media groups like the Financial Times, is really not what we're looking at today in terms of trying to unleash deep tech and unleash these exciting, ventures. You've got some ideas about how we perhaps should be thinking about reimagining some of the private capital model behind this. Yes. Tell us about this.
So at the forum, I lead a community of about 400 startups, and most of them are in deep tech. And the first thing I can can notice for sure, they are all pivoting to a very small group of VCs and VC is amongst them.
So that's 400 startups linked or you're monitoring within the World Economic Forum, is that correct?
And we have 100 founders.
I just mention that because I think many people don't actually know that. So it's important to highlight that aspects of the West's work, because we tend to think it's just big plenary sessions and dramas and things like that.
So 100 of our founders are with us. And end of January, we're also closing nominations for our early stage program, Tech Pioneers. So if anyone wants to apply, you're welcome. But all of them, actually, they pivot to a handful of VCs that are able to understand deep tech. First of all, you need to underwrite not only the market risk, you need to underwrite the technological risk. And that's why you mentioned, right, you have more scientists than, than than MBAs. The other thing is also you need to structure the capital differently. Except maybe different kinds of milestones. But then also you need to have the LPs behind. I think that's also a bit of a bottleneck. And unfortunately there is not enough of these VCs. And so what we see in terms of alternatives is startups are increasingly looking yes to to big partners, to big companies, but now increasingly also to governments as a purchaser. For example, in quantum that can be a very important early signal. Also then for investors, if they know well there is a market and it's obviously big market. Another example is one that is very, very apropos is defense, right. There is a lot, a lot of defense spending. And we see a lot of our, innovators are pivoting because they have a dual use technology and there is a big market there. I also feel like, overall startups and technology is becoming much more important for sovereignty. President von der Leyen, she mentioned the number of unicorns in her speech. So so we see definitely a regional development there and the government is playing a big role. But finally, what we also see is sort of a creative new form of financing. I spoke to a company to a unicorn that is here in Davos today that is building data centers. And we asked the question, how do you, you know, where do you get the money from. And he said, well we just do it differently. So for the land they partner with the landowner. And then for the building they just partner with the hyperscalers. And it's actually quite straightforward financing method. So I think we're going to see more of these new forms. And I think that is good for innovation. And I think that is good for, for society overall because we can bring these deep tech, to market.
I mean, this is fascinating because in many ways it shows that we're living through a much bigger zeitgeist shift in that if you look back at the last 4 or 5 decades or a period that many of us built our careers, except for you, you look too young. But, the, you know, the overwhelming dominant theme was, you know, neoliberalism, free markets. Governments shouldn't intervene. Governments shouldn't create industrial policy, at least not in the so-called developed markets. And that, you know, essentially, you should have globalized approaches to things and shouldn't have any home country bias. That was a kind of overarching mantra. Now, of course, we're seeing that industrial policy, which the IMF used to call the policy that has no name, now has a name and is an absolutely everyone's lips. And there's a growing sense that actually home country bias is very justified in some sectors, you know, particularly around defense, but not only around defense. So as we move towards these growing use of public private partnerships, does that create new risks as well? I mean, you are obviously navigating those up close. How do you find it, navigating that public private aspect?
You know, our my president just gave a speech today and he says, you know, for Indonesia, a thousand friends, not enough, one enemy to many. And I think that's well said, because for us, what we do care is the growth of our people. But we also want to make sure it's always win win. No one country is the best at everything. I think we believe that no one person is the best at everything. Why Davos still works. Why does World Economic Forum is still run? Really. It's just to have a face to face, to meet people and to get to know at the end what we want to do is advance society, advance ourselves. So for us to in a sovereign fund, that's why we are willing to invest outside. The only difference is the way we approach it different. There's probably more bilateral relationship, more bilateral discussion in a way to advance each other's needs, maybe a bit different than it was even a year ago. Right now it's much more pronounced. Most of the discussion really is just one on one, right? Less of a big group going together. Let's solve this together. No, it's more one on one. How do we solve it? But at the end, I really do believe no one person is the best at everything. We need each other to grow.
So it's still about international partnerships, but a kind of rewired form of approach kind of thing.
Perhaps it's the same. I think this is, you know, one of the things that the fear that is being raised, I know a lot of the discussion, at least within the forum, has been geopolitical. But life has to go on. Business has to go on. At the end of the day, us business people, all of us adjust. But what matters is that we still have to continue to progress. And the only way to progress is through partnership.
Right. Zachary, how do you feel about this era of public private partnerships emerging in some areas? Is that good or bad in your view?
So we one of our core tenants is we really want to invest in companies that don't require government support, don't require subsidies or grants or any of.
That, or agreed purchasing plans and things like that, because that, of course, is coming in.
And obviously in areas, you know, like for instance, Earth observation, we've invested in several satellite companies. Obviously, the US government is the biggest customer on the planet for that type of data. So you would view the you know, you view governments either as an arms length customer. This is for our model or, or as an arms length investor, as Pandu has described. But we don't want to be in that the middle where there's sort of the government trying to support it. And we saw this across our energy portfolio, which luckily largely stayed out of the fray. But, you know, a handful of years ago there was the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided lots of subsidies for lots of of.
Green tech companies.
Yeah, yeah. For lots of and then obviously that turned on a dime and went away. And now there's another large piece of legislation. And we're also trying to avoid, you know, the incentives that come out of that or invest in companies that rely on that. Because again, that seems a little myopic to to rely on those. And we actually to come back to my original point, we just have to look at the unit economics. The techno economics. Does this at scale actually produce more money and profit than, than, you know, and not? And that's that's sort of how we approach it.
Right? I'm going to turn an audience in a moment to the audience asking any questions. But I'd like to ask you, as you sketch out this new model, are you confident that the financial sector and governments are going to embrace it?
I'm not sure. I actually want to also comment on something that you said, because, what I'm seeing more is I don't see startups eager to get any kind of grants. What they typically will say, I have to fill out so much paperwork, I don't even want the grant. I think they're more looking for this arm's length principle that you're talking about. And for me, the current sort of change towards a focus on sovereignty is really, really good for innovation. Because what you see is we see now in Europe, we see now in Asia, a lot of innovation that before probably wouldn't have been there because everyone would have said, well, you know, there's the US, how are we? How are we ever going to compete with them. And now in areas like space and satellites etc., there is a market for that. And that that really gives it a boost. We see that also in the companies that come to us that apply. There is more regional diversity this year. We have more European companies that are with us. So for me that's a good thing.
I just.
Want to. Yeah. Please do. Yes.
I just want to jump into that as well. So it's just like for us when we see, how we can really help, early companies to build when it's like on what stage there. But the other thing is to provide them not only on capital but also on capabilities, as Andy has just said, is like, everyone is not perfect, right? You need more friends. So what we really provide is not not only like the know how, but also with like if you need human resources sector, we give you that. You need financials, we give you the financial numbers. You need compliance. We have that. You need regulatory. We have that. You want government relationship. We provide the team to do all supports as well and medical and research in different domains. So I think it's like once we built that vertical facility, then it's like for any of the, let's say biotechs that we help or through the past decade, actually, we collaborated and or emanated over 30 biotechs and platform companies building of these infrastructure and even supporting individuals, starting their own company and then providing with all the talents or all the platforms they need. So, I think this is one of the other model that we start with, but it needs a lot of, just, as you say, into one on one in the section sectors that we can scale the right people with the right talents. This is number one. Number two is really also in playing with them. So we start some of the time. We start with small deals. For example with Lenovo last July we invested 1 billion USD to fully acquire the company. After the acquisition. Actually our market cap went up six bill. So definitely it's a very successful, M&A. But the other point is we started with leading the C round 5% only and acquiring one of their products. Crate is the first in class, one of the first in class drug, that that we saw. But after partnering with them for half a year to seeing the team capability on how they react, clinical trials, readouts, other projects, molecules, we thought this was one of the best platform that we saw that we need also can fulfill and combine and build our pipeline. So that would was the real acquisition happen. All the Didi and readouts came in in two months. And then we announced the M&A. So I think it's just like one is building for them. Number two is play with them.
Right? I mean, I want to ask you a bit about the geographical spread of what you see going forward with startup communities. But before we do, let me check. Is there anyone in the room keen to ask questions or anyone got a burning question they'd like to raise? Because I can certainly keep asking questions all day, but want to quickly ask the audience. Okay, well, in that case, let me ask a question I've been wanting to ask right from the beginning, which is sitting in Cambridge University in England. You know, there's a constant sense of both hand wringing about the fact that so much of the innovation and venture capital world is still sitting in Silicon Valley, but also a strong desire to try and diversify and build up the sector in the UK. And what is often said is that, you know, place like Cambridge, the UK has a plethora of wannabe startups. It's got a fair amount of seed capital, but it's that scaling capital that's so hard to find right now. I'm curious whether any of you think or hope that we might start to make the distribution a bit less Silicon Valley heavy going forward. What about you, Zachary? I mean, do you are you are you based in Silicon Valley? I imagine you probably are, aren't you?
I am based in Silicon Valley.
Right.
I have a an investment in a terrific, London based tech company called Relation Therapeutics. So. And they are scaling nicely, but it is with mainly with, with US dollars US venture capital dollars. But it's a good thing. And part of the magic of why Silicon Valley works is that it's not just sort of the dollars and the ideas, because obviously phenomenal ideas and technology come out of Cambridge. It's also there's just a set of entrepreneurs who have been there and done that and have the experience. And how do you take a company from, you know, from scale to scale, and that talent sort of recycles and renews itself? And so, as you know, as centers of excellence or new companies scale elsewhere, then you actually see that same, that same talent phenomenon. So that's how that's how I would think about it. And I think it is becoming more, more diversified and more democratized globally.
Right. Panda and Eric? I mean, do you see, you know, Malaysia being a new Silicon Valley and Indonesia, a new Silicon Valley hub, or how do you see that developing?
I was just in the UK for a couple of days with your government, and we had a lot of good conversation about the Oxford-cambridge corridor and the investment there. I mean, at the end of the day, the war is really on talent. If there is a war, it's how to attract talent. Maybe Silicon Valley is just Silicon Valley, maybe don't duplicate because that's where it is.
But we talk about Silicon Fen in Cambridge. What's the equivalent in Indonesia.
For example, in Indonesia there's a lot of innovation happening with respect to downstream industry. How are we thinking about Nicole and what are we processing? Critical minerals a lot of people.
Like which are now hot, hot.
Hot hot topic. Right. But it's been there for a long time. It's just separating energy and the cheapest cost because you need it for AI and other things. Indonesia is very rich at that. Every country has their own right to win, in my view. So it's Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley be. Indonesia has its own thing, probably a lot related to energy and critical minerals now, which is the hot story. And I'm sure in Malaysia and China and in Thailand, each one has their own uniqueness, right?
I can see both. Everyone wants to get in, I get excited. No, no, no. Have the Hong Kong perspective first, and I'd like to bring you in for the overarching spread. Yes.
I think in terms of this, like the other thing we really have to pay attention to is talents and clusters like Silicon Valley is one of the greatest cluster clusters of the world. The meaning of it is because US is great in education providing university. I had my university in the States, I was UPenn, Wharton all my undergrad.
Stanford. Yeah.
Like everyone. Yes. Yeah. So so it's just like when all of the talents globally world I think is moving into the States, definitely there will be a cluster of people going after the newest findings opportunities. And it is also a place where dreams come true and dream go die.
Yeah.
So so so so. But if we think of a nerve bit, it's like a lot of those are based on population. So us have the capability and ability to draw tens from all over the world. That's what make Made America strong and so strong. Right. But all other nations are building their education in terms of talents as well. Let's say in China it's Tsinghua. And so it's just like and other like other schools, bringing in a lot of capabilities, British courses, studies, concentration majors and AI and finding and implementing not just theories. Right. And then we can see that a lot of engineers, are coming through the massive base of population of China. Right? There is 1.4 billion population. So there are like thousands or tens of thousands of graduates actually in millions graduating per year. So there's are tens come from and you have that pool and cluster forms in Shanghai and Jiangsu and Beijing and Guangzhou, Guangdong, you see different clusters of different industries. I think that is what is happening with Indonesia as well, with the booming definitely in India as well, where there's population, there's always a massive base for for talents to come out. And when these people come together as a cluster, then you can develop the, the, the real frontier of pioneering one of the strengths or advantages that the domain in certain domains that the country is proud of in China is definitely energy, right? Clean energy, like what President Trump said, like, no, it's like, say the wind. Miller's joke yesterday.
There are plenty of wind turbines in China, and they're accounting for a large chunk of the power there.
So yeah, but but they do contribute to 10% of the entire energy system in China. So, those are talks that we don't want to bring that in. But but definitely there are wins and loses. And I think, there's there's always pros and cons to each different cluster across the world.
Absolutely. Now you're looking at it across the entire spread. How do you see the geographic split developing?
I see it actually a bit like Eric has just said. I think we're often too focused on Silicon Valley. Me, I just talked about Europe, but when you just look at the hard numbers, yes, the highest number of unicorns is in the US and most of that is in Silicon Valley. But the second country with number in terms of number of unicorns is China. And the third countries India. And when I look at the talent that they have and when I look at the demographics, especially in India, and I think we really need to think more about that. And I think one thing I would also mention is we're looking at valuation, we're looking at financing. But that is not always a measure of success. Right? I sometimes feel actually Asian companies are better because they have to do their funding. Getting funding there is much harder. So there is almost a more of a selection.
There's more of a hurdle rate there.
Yes. And also I know in India they say build for India, build for the world, because you have to build on a really tough conditions. Also in terms of consumers. And I think that is something that's going to make the ecosystem there very, very strong. So I feel like we all need to have that on the radar.
I just really want to jump in there. A lot of times there's complaints on like how China manufacturer goods or even in the future India manufactured goods or Indonesia manufactured goods are cheaper. And it's like doing exports, taking a lot of like economy or exports. But this is the other thing because we have huge population, there's huge bases and there's huge demand. So when you supply it, not everyone can afford a very expensive good. So that means it's like in China it's called so. So people fight for doing better, doing better, doing better, doing better because there's that much employment opportunities or businesses that survive. So in the end, it's really a real question of survival rather than having cost lower, lower, lower. Because if you don't lower the cost, you don't survive. So in the end, it's why in the end is like China might be exporting like energy, solar panels, all of these, these stuff. And then maybe profitability is not of the utmost importance, but market share or like let's say revenue, it's because people have to survive. Companies have to survive first. And then when they do happen to survive in China, they have the capability to export to the rest of the world. Right? That will also happen to all, all developing countries at one point.
Yeah. We just got a couple of minutes left. Anyone got any burning questions from this? Because. Yes, quickly. I have very quickly and related it would be.
About where innovation is happening in the world. But one of the things that we haven't really over. Oh no. Yeah. Try. So we talked a lot about where innovation is happening in the world, Silicon Valley, the Golden Triangle, etc. but one of the things that we haven't touched on, it would be really great to hear your perspectives on, is the gender parity or lack thereof, for the founders that we're seeing, and are we seeing a shift there? Sometimes they come to these events and it can be a little striking. So it'd be great to hear a bit more about if we're seeing a shift and, and what that looks like in China or in Silicon Valley or Indonesia or even Europe.
Well, since we haven't got much time left, maybe you can answer that because we have a whole because you see, the entire spectrum right.
Now we see is we're definitely not where we should be. What we see in our early stage community, we have about third female founders. Then in a growth stage that goes down and amongst the unicorns it's really about 5% only. So, not where it should be. But we do see that it's improving. And we also see that, in our community, what I've noticed is that the female founders, they tend to stick together. So I think that's also something that hopefully can help help grow the ecosystem.
Right? I can say from my perspective, by the way, that King's College, which I oversee at Cambridge and we have an entrepreneurship lab, an elab and an incubator called spark that we created about 3 or 4 years ago as the first Oxford or Cambridge College to do a fully fledged large scale entrepreneurship lab and a incubator. And it's gone absolute gangbusters. And two things we noticed is it tends to be often the non-British kids who jump in first, but then that pulls in the British kids as well. And secondly, we do actually have a lot of young female students who jump into, in fact, in some particular competitions we have, they end up being the slight majority. Now, let's hope they all stick with it. But that is one sign of both Gen Z's enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. I sometimes joke that in a place like Cambridge, it's a gateway drug for capitalism, because Gen Z often says they don't like capitalism, but they all want to run their own ventures. So they start doing entrepreneurship with great enthusiasm. But secondly, I'm hoping that in the future that will really encourage a new generation and a wider cohort to embrace this type of thing.
Maybe I'll add on this because I think for especially the guys in the room, you have to make a very conscious effort to, and this goes all the way, not just in terms of the new people you select, but in terms of promotion, in terms of board activations. It goes all the way. So I'll give you an example in Anantara to the one who runs the entire mining but mining Indonesia top ten in the world organization. The main person running it on top is a woman.
Fantastic, right.
Mining which is actually a very, you know.
Difficult sector.
Difficult sector to be in. But the main person that decided at the end is a lady, right. If you look at all the Anantara, the leadership too, but you have to force it and you have to make a conscious effort. I'm just coming from me and thank you from a guy's perspective. Right.
Well, thank you.
And that's important. You have to make a conscious effort.
Thank you Panda. That's really helpful. And that's a wonderful example to To wrap up on because this has been an absolutely fascinating discussion. Really. Thank. You, all of you, for taking part in it. I take away 2 or 3 points. One is that we do have. A huge range of technological change happening, but we need to find ways to finance it with patient capital. And as we've heard, there simply aren't enough of the zacharys in the world right now. To fund it. So we have to start getting creative and thinking of new forms, whether it's family owned, family owned businesses, private businesses that diversify through a conglomerate structure in a very creative way, as you've described, Eric, whether it's sovereign wealth funds, whether it's a type of experiments and vehicles and approaches that you're talking about, it's very badly needed. And the third point is that as this starts to spread, we may start to see more of an equal or less concentrated pattern going forward, both geographically and maybe in terms of gender as well. Anyway, let's hope so. So thank you all very much indeed. Best of luck in your ventures. And here's to surviving the rest of Davos. Thank you.
Thank you.