Margaret Wang, Managing Partner, Recharge Capital
Recharge Capital today announced the appointment of Margaret Wang as its Managing Partner, leading its Women’s Health Strategy. She will lead the firm’s Singapore office and spearhead its operations in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
Prior to the appointment, Wang was the former Executive Director and Head of Bridgewater Associates Singapore. She had also served as the firm’s Chief Representative for the Beijing Office, who helped launch its fund in Shanghai.
“I’m thrilled to join the Recharge team and drive value creation across key international markets,” said Wang in a press statement.
“The firm’s thematic strategy is well-positioned to foster innovation and societal impact across the value chain, and I’m excited to tackle the crucial challenges our world faces through our unique approach to investing in and building meaningful businesses.”
Recharge Capital positions itself as a thematic-first private investment firm. In June, it launched a US$200 million women’s health fund backed by the likes of Peter Thiel, The Disney Family, The Olayan Family, and Ian Osbourne.
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What exactly is the thematic-first approach that Recharge Capital is implementing? What is their vision for the women’s health industry in APAC? Let Wang explain to you in this email interview with e27. The following is an edited excerpt of the conversation.
Can you explain more about the thematic-first approach that your firm is taking?
Recharge Capital takes a differentiated, thematic-first approach to investing focused on deploying capital into specific objectives or key themes. We aim to drive societal and technological shifts rather than traditional sector-based strategies. This thematic-first philosophy has allowed Recharge Capital to carve out regional winners across its core themes of women’s healthcare, fintech democratisation and deep-tech enablement and presents an incredible opportunity to help foster innovation across the value chain.
I will be taking a heavy focus on women’s healthcare. The firm has had past successful investments in the industry, cementing the belief that fertility and women’s health are two of the most profitable sub-sectors of healthcare investing. We’re passionate proponents of increasing access to family planning services worldwide, and we believe that this vehicle will be a crucial driver in its mass adoption.
Why is this better than existing alternatives? How did you come up with this?
The traditional asset management strategy of ‘asset class first, geography second, sector third’ is the general industry standard, yet it remains outdated and doesn’t reflect today’s more complex and dynamic economy. With our restructured strategy, we’ve built an investment philosophy to be ‘thematic first, geography second, and asset class third.’ This allows us to identify cross-sector category winners aligned with our core themes like women’s healthcare, fintech democratisation, and deep-tech earlier than others.
Recharge Capital Founding Partner Lorin Gu has assembled a highly diversified team across the firm’s different thematic strategies to emphasise sector specialisation and generate alpha in both early and late stages. He’s been instrumental in defining our investment thesis and ethos as a firm. The thematic-first philosophy provides an information advantage to spot opportunities of the future rather than looking retrospectively.
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Can you explain how you implement this approach in reviewing a potential investment?
Our thematic-first approach involves assessing company fit, leveraging specialised expertise, and making ecosystem-building investments within thoroughly researched themes. This differentiated process gives us an edge in spotting winners.
When reviewing potential investments, we first evaluate alignment with our core themes like women’s healthcare and fintech democratisation. Rigorous market research into each theme allows us to understand addressable market size and growth drivers. Our experts then conduct diligence through the lens of building integrated ecosystems within each theme.
For example, Recharge Capital recently closed the first tranche of its US$200 million Women’s Healthcare Investment Vehicle, backed with funding from esteemed investors. To close this first tranche, we researched the full fertility value chain and selected companies that strategically fit rolling up a comprehensive women’s fertility platform across target regions.
What is your big plan for 2024? Do you have anything specific for Southeast Asia (SEA)?
I’m especially eager to lead Recharge’s Women’s Healthcare strategy, which addresses a growing global issue that remains under-addressed from an investment perspective. By 2045, close to 50 per cent of couples are expected to rely on women’s healthcare services like IVF for fertility, and yet female health conditions totalled just one per cent of pharmaceutical research funding in 2020.
There are nearly 1.5 million annual IVF cycles in Asia alone, with China exporting ~500,000 cycles to other countries. There is tremendous demand for medical tourism related to family planning and women’s health, and Recharge Capital is funding a network of clinics through Generation Prime to satisfy this demand with cost-effective and cutting-edge services.
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The serviceable market for IVF and related treatments in Singapore is around US$350 million. If you take into account all of SEA, the hubs for IVF services are mainly in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand – serving across the entire SEA markets, it goes up to almost US$11 billion. This is just for fertility. If you take IVF plus other women’s health needs, it can get close to US$48 billion in market size, and this is only in SEA.
What are your targets for 2024?
For 2024, my primary focus will be on international fertility access and medical tourism, menstrual wellness, and women’s disease prevention as part of Recharge’s Women’s Healthcare strategy. Recharge Capital aims to transform the sector by creating a full-scale integration of disruptive technologies, diagnostic solutions, and seamless patient experiences through digital platforms and local clinic chains.
Recharge’s thematic model has improved family planning to be a holistic, all-encompassing, and long-term approach, and its clinics like Generation Prime ensure that patients in Southeast Asia have access to the most robust fertility services from the onset.
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Image Credit: Recharge Capital
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