03 Aug 2021

Micro Connect Announces Launch of a New Platform to Invest in Small Businesses in China

HONG KONG, August 3, 2021 - Micro Connect Investments Limited (“Micro Connect") today announced the launch of a platform to connect China’s small businesses with global investment capital. China’s small businesses represent vast investment opportunities that have not yet been accessible to global investors. Leveraging China’s digital isation and valuing precision and scale, the Micro Connect mission is to pioneer the access to such opportunities by providing small businesses with funding that will support their growth, while enabling global investors to fuel and share in their success.

While investing in small businesses is often perceived as risky, the sector has been thriving as a whole and serves as one of the most important contributors to China’s economic development, fiscal revenue and employment. However, such enormous cluster of investment opportunities was previously difficult to reach for global investors given the highly fragmented nature and poor data transparency of the sector. Thanks to China’s massive digitalisation at the grassroots level of its economy, investing in small businesses has finally become practicably and economically feasible. Recent development in China’s digital economy has opened up the possibility to digitally record the operating activities and financial information of small businesses, and has alter ed the overall risk profile of the sector, facilitating a new way to invest in small businesses with transparency.

Micro Connect is heralding a revolutionary way of investing to help entrepreneurs succeed while delivering to investors sustainable, highly diversified and quality returns. To achieve this, Micro Connect has developed an investment strategy with the acronym "SHARPE", under which it intends to build highly diversified portfolios by making small investments in a huge number of targets across a wide range of industries in China. Micro Connect will connect to and collect investment returns from its investment targets through partners with strong digital payment controls (also known as ARM or automated repayment mechanism). It also seeks to adopt RDR (revenue distribution right) as a new equity like investment product, through which it will receive an agreed percentage of a small business’s future revenue that is digitally collected at pre determined intervals. Micro Connect has also developed a pro gressive and intelligent position allocation strategy, and will ultimately seek to list and trade the invested RDRs on a new exchange platform for small business investing.

Charles Li, Founder of Micro Connect, said: “Micro Connect unites a global community of investors with a valued ecosystem of small businesses in China. Our revolutionary ‘drip irrigation’ inspired investment model seeks to cultivate local economic development and enhance the vitality of the broader Chinese economy.”

Gary Zhang, Founder of Micro Connect, said: “We strive to empower numerous small businesses and support aspiring entrepreneurs in their value creation process, delivering growth capital tailored to their development needs and enhancing their cash flow visibility.”

Together with its parent Numa Group (“Numa”), Micro Connect strives to be the long term partner of China’s small businesses. In addition to providing small businesses with access to growth capital that is fit-for-purpose, Numa will empower small businesses by de veloping a platform to facilitate mutual support and exchange of knowledge among entrepreneurs.

About Micro Connect

Micro Connect is the investment platform of Numa, connecting global capital with a large number of quality small businesses in China. With funding solutions tailored to the development needs of small businesses, Micro Connect empowers aspiring entrepreneurs while pioneering access to a new investable market.

About Numa

Numa is a market infrastructure group. By connecting small businesses, global investors and leading industry partners, Numa aspires to build a network for entrepreneurs to access funding, operational expertise, strategic partnerships a nd mutual learning. Following the establishment of its investment platform - Micro Connect, Numa is currently building a new digital exchange platform (“NumaEx”) to pioneer a new way of capital formation for small businesses and a 2E (to entrepreneurs) “social media service platform” for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Numa was founded by Mr. Charles Li and Mr. Gary Zhang, seasoned capital markets professionals with experience across China and the world. As former Chief Executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (“HKEX”), Mr. Li orchestrated the launch of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect and Bond Connect cross-border trading schemes. Mr. Zhang is Founding Partner and CEO of Oriental Patron Financial Group (“OP Group”), a diversified financial services group in Hong Kong. Mr. Zhang is experienced in China’s financial market reforms, Chinese enterprises’ offshore listings and cross-border asset management, having orchestrated the establishment of CSOP Asset Management jointly with China Southern Asset Management. Together Mr. Li and Mr. Zhang lead a team of experienced investment professionals to pioneer a new approach to small business investing.