Meet Jian Kang, Bridgewest Venture’s new Investment Manager
Responsible for building Bridgewest Venture’s investment pipeline, Jian brings a wealth of experience working with startups in China and the US. Her expertise in technology, her market knowledge, and understanding of what it takes for deep tech ventures to be globally successful, make her a powerful addition to our team and to New Zealand’s innovation ecosystem.
Jian will be working with universities and research institutes to identify new investment opportunities. Her role is to support the progress of early-stage deep-tech commercial ventures. She’ll be helping founders build connections with funders and advisors in Bridgewest Ventures’ global network, and she’s looking forward to meeting tech transfer officers, researchers, and commercial managers, to learn more about exciting deep tech startups on your radar.
Bridgewest’s global perspective is particularly attractive to Jian because of her venture capital experience in China and the US. She sees Bridgewest’s worldwide network as its major competitive strength, and explains,
“Bridgewest has advisors who are international experts in hi-tech and deep-tech, strong connections across the globe including Australia, China and USA, and significant experience helping startups to succeed, with involvement from the very start of a venture.”
She’s excited about leveraging her past experience and network, while building even more diverse connections around the world.
Insights that help people live longer, healthier lives
Enrolling at one of China’s top universities, Tsinghua University, Jian majored in industrial engineering. She led several healthcare economics projects and became interested in quantitative analysis for the health industry. Continuing her studies at Harvard School of Public Health with a master’s in health data science, she saw how machine learning and statistics can help solve public health issues for the healthcare and biotech industries.
Jian is particularly motivated by the big societal benefits of healthcare statistical analysis; unlocking insights that help people live longer and improve their quality of life. Her driving passion is her belief AI and biotech will create world-changing, positive impact in the future. She wants to contribute to that development and witness that shift.
Supporting China’s COVID-19 response
As a new graduate, Jian figured consultancy was her best route into organisations tackling challenging topics with real social impact. In 2019, she joined McKinsey & Company as one of the core members of their China healthcare and life science team.
There, she worked on projects related to biotech, MedTech, healthcare policies, and systems.
“A highlight of my time at McKinsey was working with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on their national planning managing the COVID-19 outbreak and helping to design their emergency response system. It was very meaningful working together with the government on a project of that importance. I really enjoyed the challenge and teamwork.”
After two intense, exhilarating years at McKinsey, Jian decided she wanted more involvement in businesses than the role of third-party advisor and the structured frameworks of management consultancy allowed.
Understanding what makes early-stage ventures succeed
Keen to immerse herself in industry operating at the forefront of tech development, Jian joined 5Y Capital, one of the top tier venture capital firms in China. Her focus was on biotech, healthcare and artificial intelligence. She explains, “I identified and invested US$60 million in four diverse startup companies. Two were focused on mRNA vaccine technology, one on synthetic biology, and the other on lab automation.”
Jian started from the ground up, meeting with over 300 startup teams a year, researching and assessing their potential. She recalls,
“If I was convinced a startup was a strong investment, I proposed them to 5Y’s investment committee, then led the due diligence and negotiation. I took full responsibility for managing my portfolio’s performance because I made the investment decision with our committee, so it was super exciting and very stressful.”
New Zealand founders have to lead the world to succeed
In 2023, Jian moved to New Zealand. Jian didn't expect to be able to continue her career in investment at the forefront of tech development. She says, “I didn’t know much about New Zealand investment models, or even if there was a thriving deep-tech investment sector here. So, when I saw the Bridgewest Investment Manager opportunity and realised my experience at 5Y was perfectly aligned with Bridgewest’s focus, I was very excited.”
The most significant difference between the investment ecosystem in China and New Zealand is the colossal disparity in scale between China’s vast venture capital sector, and New Zealand’s more modest opportunities.
However, that disparity doesn’t necessarily manifest the way you’d expect. Jian explains,
“In China, the domestic market is big enough to invest in tech following global trends, but here in New Zealand, we must invest in world-leading tech. We target the global market because the local market is too small. So, it’s more challenging for founders in New Zealand because they have to offer cutting-edge tech that disrupts their whole industry.”
New Zealand innovators’ face many hurdles including limited access to capital, market and bespoke support services. Jian believes a collective effort is needed from the public and private sectors. She would like to see both parties working together to keep talented founders here in New Zealand, instead of losing them to countries where funding is easier to attain. She points to Bridgewest’s partnership with Callaghan Innovation as a scalable model of public-private partnership fostering innovation.
If you’re a deep-tech start-up founder and you’d like to talk to Jian about your business idea, you can email her at Jian@bridgewest.ventures or connect on LinkedIn