Jonathan Larsen is chief innovation officer of China-headquartered insurer Ping An Group and chairman and chief executive of its Hong Kong-based $1bn corporate venturing vehicle, Ping An Global Voyager Fund.
Formed in May 2017, the Global Voyager Fund focuses on digital health and financial technology developers with a typical cheque sized between $15m and $30m. Larsen was brought on board upon its launch, having previously worked at financial services firm Citigroup where he had several Singapore and Hong Kong-based roles for nearly two decades.
A senior executive at Ping An Insurance Group told CNBC in October in 2018 that the fund had the international focus because it wanted to compete with China-based tech majors that have invested abroad – e-commerce group Alibaba and internet group Tencent.
Larson also told CNBC that the fund had targeted areas that were relevant to the health sector, such as digital imaging, brain scans and X-rays, adding: “We are working with a company right now that can identify 30 diseases with an AI (artificial intelligence) algorithm by scanning the back of your eye. These technologies have transformative power, not just in emerging markets but actually all over the world.”
Larsen was quoted by CNBC in a November 2019 interview as saying: “Pushing companies to profitability too early isn’t the answer, but having a coherent story and a coherent path to profitability is the answer.”
Donald Lacey, managing director and chief operating officer of the Voyager Fund, said at GCV’s Asia Congress in Hong Kong in 2018 that the Voyager Fund had a history of building fintech and healthtech businesses at scale, such as Ping An Good Doctor, a telemedicine platform listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange, on which some 200 million digital users could consult doctors.
Ping An said it has already built digital service ecosystems in four areas – financial services, real estate finance, healthcare, and automobile sales and servicing. Internet finance platform Lufax is an example of fintech innovator.
The fund most recently led a $146m funding round for alternative investment technology developer iCapital Network in March 2020. Lacey told GCV at the time: “There are a few companies around the world that are trying to democratise access to alternative investments, but no one else has nearly the scale of iCapital, or the same depth of institutional support from fund distributors and private equity firms.”
Before joining Ping An, Larsen spent 18 years at Citigroup where he was most recently the Hong Kong-based, global head of the firm’s retail banking and mortgages businesses, that had about $12bn in revenues and spanning 19 countries.
He has been at the leading edge of the financial services industry for the last 29 years across the Asia-Pacific region and globally.
Before Citi, Larsen was a principal in the financial services practice of global management consulting firm Booz Allen & Hamilton where he spent eight years advising large banks and other financial institutions across Asia, Australia and New Zealand and in the US and Europe.
He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Banking and Finance, Singapore, and was named Retail Banker of the Year in 2011 by Asian Banker magazine, after gaining a bachelor honours degree from University of Melbourne.
