Nov 6, 2025

backing artificial intelligence (AI) startups as it places AI alongside Web3.0 and digital assets at the heart of its growth priorities. Cyberport, which hosted a community of over 2,300 startups and tech companies as of October, announced the launch of the ‘AI Investment Circle' in the same week as its Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2025 (CVCF) to connect AI startups with global capital, after the accelerator recorded a significant investment growth in its network of tech developers over the past 12 months. Despite fundraising challenges globally, Cyberport's community of startups and tech companies have collectively raised almost HK$3.4 billion ($437.3 million) from October 2024 to September 2025, bringing the cumulative fundraising total by the community to HK$46 billion ($5.9 billion), according to Cyberport's data. The past 12 months saw Cyberport book 10 public listings within its community, including, most recently, the Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) of Tencent-backed AI data intelligence company Mininglamp Technology. The government-owned incubator, which operates a waterfront park on the western side of Hong Kong Island, also recorded two newly minted unicorns in the 12 months: neurotechnology company BrainCo, valued at $1.3 billion, and Inspur Cloud, a cloud migration service provider valued at $2.5 billion. The AI Investment Circle aims at “uniting AI-focused venture capital firms and fund partners to support the next generation of AI startups, facilitating AI-specific funding, and strengthening Hong Kong's rapidly growing AI ecosystem,” said Hendrick Sin, chairman of the Cyberport Investors Network (CIN), at the CVCF 2025 at Cyberport in Hong Kong on Thursday. CIN is a Cyberport platform that facilitates fundraising for Cyberport startups from angel investors, venture capitalists, and private equity firms worldwide. The strong fundraising growth of the Cyberport community shows its network of external funds and investment partners is becoming “even more active” as its startups are becoming “increasingly attractive to quality investors worldwide,” said Sin. He said that the goal of the CIN is to foster “a win-win ecosystem” that accelerates the growth of Hong Kong's innovations. Since 2017, the CIN has facilitated a total of over HK$4.258 billion ($547.7 million) financing into 109 Cyberport projects, including an additional HK$1.66 billion ($213.5 million) into 13 startups during the 12 months ended September 2025, representing a threefold increase year-on-year. As of today, CIN comprises over 220 funds and investment parties spanning venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms, corporate investors, angel investors, family offices, accelerators, and individual investors, among others. Under CIN, Cyberport introduced its “Web3.0 Investment Circle (W3IC)” in May 2024 under a similar mandate of connecting investors with Web3.0 projects. Cyberport's launch of the AI Investment Circle comes after the Hong Kong government announced in its Budget Speech in February 2024 to allocate HK$3 billion ($385.9 million) to Cyberport for a three-year AI Subsidy Scheme (AISS) to support local universities, research institutes, and enterprises to leverage the hub's high-performance computing power for AI model development and R&D. On top of that, Cyberport also runs the HK$400-million ($51.5 million) Cyperport Macro Fund (CMF), an early-stage investment platform that has backed 29 projects as of October since its creation in the summer of 2016. According to Cyberport, the CMF has maintained a co-investment ratio of 1:9.3, which means that the fund has managed to attract $9.3 in external financing for each dollar that it has invested out of the government's pocket. Bring stories like this into your inbox every day. The Daily Brief