Micro Connect founder Charles Li hosted the "NUMA Master Agreement Launch and Micro Connect 5th Anniversary Celebration" on Monday, August 3, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong. He reflected on the entrepreneurial journey, admitting to "making countless mistakes" along the way. It wasn't until early 2026 that the company's proprietary AI technology matured, allowing it to fully integrate accumulated data, contracts, and business logic. "I think we're finally embarking on the road to success," Li stated.
Li emphasized that NUMA is a market infrastructure designed to connect the world of contract-based assets with the securities law-based capital pool. It is not intended to replace existing stock or bond markets, but rather to make investable the commercial contracts that generate cash flow in the real economy. Built on the past five years of experience, NUMA creates a financing market for the contract world, operating alongside traditional equity and debt markets.
In terms of operations, NUMA "does not touch money or goods" and does not engage in matching, clearing, or settlement. The platform outsources custody, trade execution, and investment decisions to licensed intermediaries to minimize its control over client funds and transactions, while continuously exploring ways to further reduce risk. The platform has strict access controls, only allowing foreign institutional and professional investors, such as sovereign wealth funds, private credit, insurance, asset managers, and family offices. No Chinese domestic capital is permitted to invest.
On the asset side, products listed on NUMA are called "NUMA Contracts." Li explained that these are not single contracts but are structured from three layers: the base layer is an existing real-world contract, the middle layer is a listed contract that discounts the rights, and the top layer is the transaction contract for investor subscriptions. In a NUMA contract, Party A is the party that has already provided value, while Party B is the party that will deliver returns. This means only those who have acted as Party A in the original contract can list their rights on NUMA as Party B in the listed contract to raise funds. In other words, NUMA is not a market where fundraisers directly bring base contracts to sell; it is a market where investors who have already contributed value in the original contract can discount or transfer those rights to raise funds.
The Critical Role of AI
Li candidly noted that the team did not initially foresee the need for AI. "We are not smart enough to have seen AI coming. Every pitfall we've fallen into over the past five years, in hindsight, was telling us what this market truly needs." He said, "If I had known on day one that there were so many walls to hit and that we would need something we couldn't even name to save us, I might not have dared to start." Li credited the company's survival to "half luck and half persistence," adding that without AI, "we could have groped for another 30 years and still failed." He explained that NUMA must handle millions of "fragmented, micro, scattered, non-standard, and high-frequency" contracts from the real economy. This is not a matter of speed but of scale: "Humans simply cannot do it." Even with unlimited talent, manual processing of millions of contracts is impossible. Only proprietary AI can complete the full chain of interpretation, structuring, and portfolio matching.
Halting the IPO Was the Right Call
In 2025, Micro Connect applied for a listing under Chapter 21 of the HKEX Listing Rules, aiming to use a listed fund model to launch NUMA. After several rounds of pre-listing discussions with regulators, the company increasingly realized that the resources, capabilities, and team building required for the two paths were completely different. "Building a market has always been our original intention," Li said. In November 2025, the company stopped the Chapter 21 listing process and refocused on its core mission. "Looking back, it was the right decision."
Five Hard Years and an Unknown Profit Timeline
The past five years have not been easy. Early on, Micro Connect was lucky to raise $600 million and quickly entered phase 1.0, investing in small shops one by one. The company hired a large team and deployed $4.4 billion in capital. However, the pandemic period was extremely challenging, and with the initiative still in a pilot phase, the company was unsure if all funds would be recovered. The priority became halting new investments and focusing on collecting returns. Fortunately, most investments have been recovered, with more on the way. More importantly, this experience validated the return potential of this asset class. With today's knowledge and tools, the quality of contract assets would have been even more fully realized. Regarding the most critical question of profitability, Li admitted he does not know the timeline but hopes it will be "soon."
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