Solina Hoi Shuen Chau

Solina Chau Hoi Shuen (born July 1961) is a Hong Kong billionaire investor, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She attended the Diocesan Girls' School in Hong Kong (where she was elected junior house captain, sitting her HKCEE in 1978) before continuing her education at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where she studied economics. She spent part of the 1980s working in London and Australia before returning to Hong Kong in the 1990s, where she built a decades-long business and personal partnership with tycoon Li Ka-shing. Early ventures included the 1993 Oriental Square real-estate project in Beijing and the 1999 co-founding of the mainland media company Tom.com with Li.

In 2002, Chau co-founded Horizons Ventures with her longtime business partner Debbie Chang Pui Vee. Li Ka-shing became the firm's principal backer around 2004, and because it invests his private fortune, Horizons never raises outside capital — operating effectively as a family office rather than a traditional fund. Under Chau, Horizons became one of the world's most influential early-stage tech investors, backing 200+ companies. She is credited with pitching Li on Facebook in 2007, prompting a rapid $60 million investment at a $15 billion valuation that later multiplied many times over.

Beyond Horizons, Chau serves as a director of the Li Ka Shing Foundation, which has committed more than HK$30 billion to education and healthcare projects, and she runs her own H.S. Chau Foundation. She has been repeatedly recognized on Forbes' lists, including the World's 100 Most Powerful Women (No. 81 in 2023) and Asia's Power Businesswomen. Her personal net worth has been estimated at US$2.3+ billion, driven by stakes in companies such as Celsius Holdings and Zoom.

• Core thesis (firm's own words): "Investing in the deep science and technology that can propel humanity towards a radically better future" — seeking technologies that "improve people's lives."
• Founder-first: Backs founders with "vision, instinct, and drive" to scale solutions with measurable, global impact. Portfolio founder Hon Weng Chong (Cortical Labs) said what sets Chau apart is "very clear visions of where we are today as a society… and where she wants to take us to the next level."
• Chau on her own approach: "I believe I am good at doing business, especially good at weighing pros and cons and calculating the odds."
• Stage: Concentrated in pre-seed/seed and early-stage rounds, with selective follow-on into growth rounds; occasionally invests in companies approaching scale.
• Sectors: Deep science and biotech (therapeutics, genetic medicine, cell therapy, protein engineering), AI/ML, synthetic biology, digital health, alternative proteins/food tech, and clean/sustainable technology.
• Geography: Global thesis with the bulk of deals in the U.S. and Israel; expanded into Southeast Asia via a Singapore office in 2022.