Kai Nin ‘Kenny’ Man has left his role as head of international investment at China-based financial services provider Ant Group.
Man is co-founding 01Fintech, a growth equity fund focused on financial technology, as managing partner. He had been hired by Ant, initially formed as the payment services arm of e-commerce group Alibaba, in 2015 and oversaw its investments and acquisitions outside China.
The most prominent of Man’s deals at Ant was its investment in One97 Communications, the India-based owner of digital payment platform Paytm, which floated in a $2.5bn initial public offering in November 2021.
Man also led investments in companies in South Korea, Brazil and Southeast Asia, and was named to the GCV Powerlist on four occasions, most recently in 2021.
Ant hired Man after he spent three years as a senior director at private equity fund Vision Knight Capital. He had previously spent six years at Alibaba, the last three as head of overseas investment.
Ant had been one of China’s most active corporate venturers, building up an international portfolio that also included buy now, pay later tool developer Klarna and online food delivery service Zomato.
However, the company has not publicly disclosed any new investments since November 2021. Its last foreign deal was a $150m series C round for Thailand-based digital wallet and microfinance provider Ascend Money two months earlier.
On a corporate scale, Ant remains the most public victim of China’s crackdown on its tech sector, after the government cancelled a touted $34bn IPO in late 2020 just days before it was set to take place. Reports in March 2021 stated the company had failed to supply a promised $73.5m in funding for Myanmar-based Wave Money through a deal agreed the previous year.
Photo of Kenny Man courtesy of LinkedIn.