Yungang Huang on Maintaining a Steady, Long-Term Tech Investment Pace Through Peaks and Troughs

源码资本·June 17, 2022·0·2

MaHui

Source Code Capital invests in technology-driven innovation,

and in the creation of lasting, real value.

Recently, Yungang Huang, partner at Source Code Capital, was named to TMTpost's 2022 Top 10 Young Partners list. In a live interview, he discussed shifts in investing and emerging opportunities. We've edited the conversation for entrepreneurs on the same journey.

When the world changes too fast, we always maintain a long-term perspective, stripping out short-term volatility to keep our investment rhythm steady through peaks and troughs.

At Source Code, I focus on early-to-mid-stage investments. I've backed companies including RLX Technology, XYZ Robotics, Bota Bioscience, Sibionics, Xianglu Technology, and METiS Pharmaceuticals.

I was fortunate to graduate with bachelor's and master's degrees from Zhejiang University, in one of China's first entrepreneurship management programs. I've spent over a decade in investing, living through the entire wave from desktop internet to Mobile Internet, and now riding the surge of technological self-reliance. Technology keeps advancing — in fact, it's accelerating — though it sometimes waits for certain elements to mature. Investing in technology is our underlying logic, so our pace won't be too fast or too slow.

Within technology's broad landscape, we extract specific elements and underlying drivers, mapping them onto concrete domains — dual carbon/new energy, life sciences, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics and automation, industrial digitization. All of these apply foundational technological innovation across sectors, waiting for the right development cycle to truly achieve bottom-up innovation.

Technological innovation today is no longer singular — it's a new species born from cross-pollination across multiple fields and disciplines. We pay attention to "what's at the margins now, but will be the main channel in the future."

Present-day innovation emerges from multiple disciplines intersecting and crossing boundaries, posing entirely new challenges. Entrepreneurs must be deeply proficient in everything from basic R&D to product development to management to marketing to organization. Correspondingly, investors need more composite industry experience and insight.

Take biomedicine — an inherently specialized domain where research and commercialization demand long-term patience and conviction. Entrepreneurs in this space are mostly PhDs and postdocs who've spent years in endocrinology, oncology, clinical practice, accumulating profound expertise. MaHui member Sibionics, for instance, makes continuous glucose monitoring devices. Their GS1 Sibionics Glucose Monitoring System (CGM) lets end consumers track real-time blood sugar changes through a mobile app. You can see how their business ecosystem spans healthcare, technology, consumer products — a quintessential cross-boundary new species.

"Low tides" are the right time to focus on research and build internal strength. We've studied how to better communicate with entrepreneurs and help them solve problems — improving ourselves in the process, striving to be "all in for you."

In accompanying entrepreneurs' growth, Source Code's culture has shaped how we build relationships with founders: radical candor.

From Day One, we approach founders as entrepreneurs ourselves. I remember when I'd just started as an investor, traveling to Guangzhou to meet a founding team. My flight landed past 11 p.m. Past midnight, in a cramped office, the founder excitedly walked us through his plans, his dreams, what he needed to tackle... Even now, that moment moves me deeply. Investors are meant to walk alongside people like this, through success and failure, fully supporting them always.

We hold to our long-termism, believing technology continues advancing. Technological innovation, bottom-up innovation, applied innovation — none of these completes in a year. Great companies aren't born in a year. Some innovation factors are still waiting to mature, so we're not rushing to deploy the next 3-5 years of projects.

Entrepreneurship requires resilient, daring exploratory spirit — courageous practice that unites knowledge and action. We hope to be partners on the entrepreneurial journey.

About Source Code Capital Partner Yungang Huang

Mr. Yungang Huang joined Source Code Capital in 2017, with deep understanding of how the internet and new technologies penetrate and transform industries. In 2020, he was named to Forbes magazine's "The Midas Brink List" of emerging global investors, PEDaily's "2020 F40 China Young Investors," and 36Kr's "2020 Top 20 China Healthcare Investors." He brings ten years of rich investment experience, previously serving as Managing Director at Matrix Partners China. Mr. Huang graduated from Zhejiang University with one of China's first master's degrees in entrepreneurship management and a bachelor's degree in management.