Exclusive | Li Ka-shing’s bet on the future is synthetic biology, with Horizons’ investments in faux meat, plant milk and molecular whiskey

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With an uncanny nose for sniffing out stars, co-founder Solina Chau had been among the earliest investors in Facebook, Spotify and Apple’s digital assistant Siri

The biggest coup in nearly two decades of investments was Horizons’ funding of Zoom Video Communications, valued at US$11 billion in September

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Solina Chau Hoi-shuen, co-founder of Horizons Ventures. Photo: Handout

Peggy Sito

Published: 10:18am, 22 Nov 2020Updated: 2:55pm, 23 Nov 2020

Impossible Foods’ vice-president Nick Halla had the tables turned on him in early 2014 during a pitch of his three-year-old start-up to one of the world’s most powerful venture capital investors.

Solina Chau Hoi-shuen, the co-founder of Horizons Ventures, was visiting Impossible Foods’ office in Redwood City in California. As soon as she arrived, Chau took control of the demonstration, and proceeded to stir fry a plate of meat balls made from genetically modified yeast.

The show-and-tell impressed Chau enough for Horizons to invest in Impossible Foods. A year after the pitch, Horizons joined Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates in a US$108 million investment round, followed by two more rounds in 2019 and March 2020 that included such celebrities as the tennis champion Serena Williams, and the singers Katy Perry and Jay-Z. That made Horizons, with 125 active investments in its portfolio, the second-most active investor in the US$4 billion producer of meat alternative, behind only Singapore’s Temasek Holdings.

Backed by the capital and business acumen of Hong Kong’s wealthiest man Li Ka-shing – dubbed “Superman” for his deal making prowess – Chau has turned Horizons, established to finance Li’s philanthropy, into one of Asia’s most formidable venture capital funds. With an uncanny nose for sniffing out stars, Chau had been among the earliest investors in such companies as Facebook, the music streaming giant Spotify and Apple’s digital assistant Siri. Li’s foundation even backed the research by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, the French-US duo who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry last month for their gene-editing work.

Chau frying faux meat balls produced by Impossible Foods during a 2014 demonstration at the start-up’s office in Redwood City, California. Photo: Handout

“Li is a true believer in building science for good,” Chau said in an emailed response to South China Morning Post. “We are always thinking about the next normal, and eager to be a part of the founder’s journey to make it happen.”