Jennifer Cheng Lo
This article is part of e27’s partnership with CEO Roundtable Podcast and Asian Investors Podcast and CEO TV hosted by David Kim wherein we publish the revised transcripts from the podcast’s interviews with inspiring entrepreneurs and experienced VCs.
Jennifer Cheng Lo is the Co-Founder and Chair of NewChic Capital, her single Family Office. Jennifer is also the Founder of JennClub, a content and commerce platform empowering creators, investors, entrepreneurs, leaders, and changemakers. Jennifer is also a Founding Partner of Ace Investment Management, a women-led hedge fund.
She is also the Founder and Director, AKA CGG (Chief Glam Girl) of Glam-it, a beauty, fashion, and lifestyle technology brand; She is the Founding Advisor of Glam-it! PPE, a Social Enterprise founded by her three children. She is also the Chair of Women With Purpose (part of Society of Family Offices).
Born and raised in the US, Jennifer started a career as an actress and a model in New York City. Prior to University, Jennifer attended Boston University Academy and Brookline High School while achieving high honours in the New England Conservatory Pre-College program for Piano Performance. Jennifer holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and an MBA from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
How many hats are you wearing now? Tell us about your journey to founding NewChic Capital Family Office.
I’m wearing a ton of hats. I’m a creator, entrepreneur, investor, community builder and champion for underestimated founders and funders and impactful projects for humanity.
I started out actually as a creator because true to my Chinese name which literally means “literature” and “music”. I was a child prodigy at the piano, learning from the renowned Jean Stackhouse and Julia Bernstein at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
I was winning different international competitions from the age of ten onwards and when I was a young teenager, I became the youngest student of the famed concert pianist the late Anthony di Bonaventura who was head of the music department at Boston University.
I was also a youth writer and won a national poetry competition then too. I started acting and modelling while I was young, but also continued it on the side during high school, college and for a few years after I graduated.
During the pandemic, I recently resumed being an actress to do shooting and filming and promotions for some of my portfolio companies and projects. I also restarted my career as a pianist and won an international competition, in order to motivate my three children and be a role model for them in their music and artistic pursuits. It’s been nice to have this time to revisit various passions.
It was while performing and pursuing creative outlets since I was young, that I discovered I had the natural entrepreneurial ability and worked at and did startups with my brother and others while in college and also after graduating.
I was further able to develop as an entrepreneur and a builder in tech as I held management roles in technology companies and startups during and after business school which I did at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
After some startup exits, I decided to start my family office NewChic Capital for investing in female and diverse founders and to pursue and build other impactful passion projects that help move the needle.
Aside from NewChic Capital, I’ve started a community called JennClub.com and also alongside my partner Vivian Wang, am in the process of launching publicly a private fund, Ace Investment Management; at a later date will be unveiling a micro VC with her and our other partner, Lauren Nham with occasional opportunities showing up in my JennFund syndicate on Angellist.
Tell us about your family business and how did you come up with the idea to start NewChic Capital Family Office?
My parents’ focus when I was growing up was on technology companies and also on real estate, and I realised early on the importance of entrepreneurship, investing, as well as diversifying into both physical and virtual (digital) assets.
My father and my mother recorded so many hours of my piano and acting videos growing up as he said these would be my memories and future generations’ memories. Little did I know that the first NFT I ever minted later would be of me playing the piano, which was an NFT I made for Jin Yu and his loved ones while he was in the ICU and then passed away from COVID-19.
After being involved with startups that exited, I realised the future going forward was investing in other entrepreneurs, funders, changemakers, and community builders. That’s what I’ve done and what I continue to do.
NewChic is a play on the words “New Girl”. I’d always been the new girl at school when we moved to different cities in the US when I was growing up, and I was the new girl when I moved to Hong Kong for business school and stayed to become an entrepreneur, investor, creator, and community builder in my own right. As mentioned my main partners are women as well, Vivian Wang and Lauren Nham.
Please tell us about the investment thesis, e.g. strategy, sectors, focus geographic market, ticket size and stage, social impact, etc.
In terms of the investment thesis, we invest and try to abide by the mantra that “we are building the world we want our children to inherit”, and NewChic has many impact-focused investments from health therapeutics like Cambrian Bio with cancer vaccines and other longevity-focused medicines, to Climate-X which is focused on climate with their proprietary algorithm Spectra that has positively impacted the way people work ranging from how we eat, live, work, play. We’ve invested in Pre-seed through C, sometimes as follow ons on our early investments.
What do you look for in an early-stage investment? What do you have on your checklist?
We look for an alignment of values and vision when it comes to early-stage founders and it all comes down to the team, their ability to execute, as well as their track record. By track record, we don’t necessarily mean exits or multiple exits (although that is nice). We look at the team and the founders’ track record as people, are they good people? Do they have a track record of creating value for and helping others?
Which verticals or which businesses do you think will experience explosive growth in the next couple of years post-pandemic?
I continue to believe in Web3 and the power of decentralisation, DAO for governance and financial inclusion for all as we are empowered to utilise our own data and actions, alongside the growth of a creator economy and a more ecosystem.
Also Read: The Shark Tank of Web3: How this DAO is bridging the funding gap for women founders
Throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic (whenever that is) and this new normal, we are all forced to accept, I still believe that basic human needs will stand strong including impact tech (we are all stakeholders in our collective future and the world), climate tech, ESG tech, property tech, food tech, edutech (we need to continuously learn and grow as does our next generation), fintech, wealth tech.
Please tell us a bit about a couple of your current portfolio companies you are bullish about and why you made an investment in them and are advising them.
Runway is a company we are extremely excited about as it’s led by my friend Siqi Chen (formerly Zynga, Postmates (Uber), Sandbox AR) who is an entrepreneur and investor hybrid like me, not to mention back multiple times by the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, an amazing advisor/venture partner on our investment committee.
ClimateX is a Climate change company at the forefront of bringing actionable data to people, organisations, and communities everywhere as we are all collectively impacted by climate change and the repercussions of not taking action now and recently closed their oversubscribed Seed (We invested in the Pre-Seed and Seed rounds).
HelloAva.co is our beauty and wellness AI portfolio disrupting the way consumers interact with their beauty and wellness products.
PlayGround is a creator multiverse that is empowering the way creators and communities interact and change the world together.
Votee is a company empowering consumers to monetise their data into actionable insights by brands and organisations.
Petastic is a pet metaverse helping us take care of our pet children utilising blockchain, token, and NFT technology.
All of our companies are Web3 or bridging the gap from Web2 to Web3.
I saw you are very active in philanthropic activities. What else do you do besides investment activities? Anything you are passionate about?
I am passionate about any charity that empowers women and children. Women hold so many roles and I watched firsthand how entrepreneurial and strong my grandmothers and mother were and are. I’ve played charity concerts using my piano as my “superpower” and I’ve been giving virtual concerts to those stuck in quarantine or recovering, or to inspire them, as well via social media.
What is your big picture, the next 5 years for you and your vision for NewChic Capital Family Office and your other businesses?
Let me flesh this out further in the future, but NewChic is going to continue to collaborate with and invest in impactful technology, Web3 communities, Metaverse, underestimated founders and funders, and more.
In the meantime, we will be also launching our MicroVC Fund as well as our Hedge Fund, and building out content and community platforms to be interoperable in this open collective future which will come down to the content (substance), community, curation, collaboration, and much more.
NFTs are the tip of the iceberg. They are the culmination of art, culture, humanity, and technology but also they will be proofs of stake and ownership in an increasingly decentralised world where the best metaverses are underscored by the best communities.
We will continue to build and partner with projects with love and empathy as that is the ethos that makes us human. Web3 is a cultural renaissance as much as it is a reawakening; it is everyone currently alive right now who is truly immortalised onto the blockchain.
What are three traits you most want your children to adopt?
Resilience (grit), empathy, compassion, and moral intelligence.
What is your favourite book and why?
I have too many favourite books to count. However, at this moment I am remembering a book I read at a very young age called “The Diary of Anne Frank” as it’s very poignant and tells the story of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, speaking with the voice and innocence of a girl and the wisdom of an age far beyond her years, tragically snuffed short by the acts of a despot during World War II.
Also Read: Three books I loved reading in 2021 and the lessons they provided
It’s not hard to see the parallels to the current world situation. For a happier series from my childhood, I enjoyed reading the entire “Anne of Green Gables” series about a girl coming of age and reaching full womanhood in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
What are the things you want to change most in the startup ecosystem?
In the startup ecosystem, I wish to see more of the pay it forward mentality. It’s tempting to be heads-down on your own startup, but it’s still important to reach out a hand and help others and also, when you have that exit, or even a slight bit of success, to pay it forward and help others.
I like to invest my time and resources in others who have their hand out first to help, not take. It’s important to understand that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you also need to be an investor and vice versa, and to always think like an operator and be a doer, not a talker.
It’s also important for people to remember to put the relationship first above all else and to prioritise friendships and relationships and people over anything else. I try to treat my personal friends in a very businesslike way, and I try to treat my business friends very personally.
What advice do you hear most commonly that is given to entrepreneurs you disagree with. And why?
I hate hearing entrepreneurs being told that it’s all about the idea and the pitch. It’s not about the idea; Anyone can have a good idea, and anyone can be coached to pitch well. It is about the follow-through, the perseverance, and the overall vision and mission, as much as it is about the ability to pivot and iterate quickly, or at least evolve amidst ever-changing paradigms.
How do you evaluate your own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?
I feel like money pales in comparison to the true assets which are family, health, and time. I gave a TEDx talk on this almost a decade ago and I think it still holds true. Time is the one currency that no one has enough of. One can never spend enough time on family and loved ones, and health is something we all take for granted until it’s gone. Same for your friends and family. Do not take them for granted until they’re gone.
Who is the nicest person you have ever met? And why?
The nicest person I’ve ever met is my best friend Vivian. She has always been there for me to the point of becoming family. I met her in business school about ten years back and then I met my husband a week later. She was my maid of honour at my wedding, and she’s now the godmother of my three children.
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