Wong Jeh Shyan - Malaysia Ventures

Malaysia Ventures

Wong pushed the investment and venture funding community around him towards 'green urbanism'. His investment focus leans toward large-scale community projects including water filtration, waste recovery and recycling, top-soil recovery and rehabilitation techniques and energy saving gadgets and fittings. He initiated feasibility studies into large-scale topsoil rehabilitation programmes. He aims to reverse desertification after seeing sandy barren ex-mining land sprinkled all over his hometown. He further resolved to transform arid regions into arable land after the arid exposure to outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan and vast deserts of Inner Mongolia, China, and the Karoo of South Africa. Wong is interested in agriculture, including vertical farming. Early pilot projects include one aimed at transforming Lanzhou's barren soil did not yield any positive results. He implemented further application testing, using a formula of water retention gel mixture with barren soil. Critics pointed that Wong's 'fanaticism' towards environmental projects blinded him and often alienated him from other arising opportunities.

Wong's associates include founders of Yee Hup; Kinta Switchgear; and especially MTrans where he helped the company in breaking into regional urban transit markets, particularly in Middle-east and South Asia. The same applies to Bufori Motor Car company in Kepong, Malaysia.

His early Malaysian ventures had ended in failures, including the early dotcom days when he invested heavily in the website www.ipoh.com under Ipohcom and Ipohcom Technologies. Critics had labeled him having too emotional attachment to his hometown that clouded his otherwise cutting-edge investment judgment, typical pattern in his early ventures. He chose Penang and the less popular Kuala Terengganu to build his Malaysian business bases instead of Ipoh, including Penang Hill and the Cameron Highlands, where he developed a series of tourism-based investments. He initiated the Global Entrepreneurs Roundtable in Kuala Terengganu, together with Terengganu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCCI), for think-tank activities. He financed his proxies in the development of high-end boutique bungalows, similar to business models he replicated in China as well as Africa. His lesser-known initiatives include several Private-REIT, with the redevelopment of older housing into investable quality housing stock in Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore.