
HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong venture capitalist fund credits a single member of its management team with pulling it back from the brink of bankruptcy. But the executive is not a seasoned investment professional, nor even a human being. It is an algorithm known as Vital.
Dmitry Kaminskiy, managing partner of Deep Knowledge Ventures, believes that the fund would have gone under without Vital because it would have invested in "overhyped projects." Vital, which stands for Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences, helped the board to make more logical decisions, he said.