Ray Chan Chin-ching (; born 1984) is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

businessman, known for being the CEO and co-founder of entertainment online platform 9GAG. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of Hong Kong-listed Memestrategy.

Education

Chan grew up in Hong Kong where he and his family lived in a public housing estate. During his university days at the Faculty of Law at University of Hong Kong, Chan was a member of the university debate team.

Career

Chan’s first job upon graduation from the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

was in the legal department of a bank. Following that, he became an anchor as well as a reporter for

Now TV Now (formerly Now TV and often stylised as NOW) is a subscription over-the-top streaming television service launched in the United Kingdom in 2012. It is operated by Sky Group in Europe, and Xfinity in the US; both owned by the American media ...

. Soon after, he worked at an

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

company as a project manager. In 2007, he joined aNobii as a product manager.

9GAG

While working for aNobii, he launched 9GAG as a side project. In 2011, Chan quit his job to focus on 9GAG. 9GAG was Chan's first successful website; before 9GAG, he established a website to share

cosmetics Cosmetics are substances that are intended for application to the body for cleansing, beautifying, promoting attractiveness, or altering appearance. They are mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either Natural product, natural source ...

and a website for information on electrical appliances, both of which failed. 9GAG secured $2.8 million seed funding from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, including Silicon Valley's startup accelerator,

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

, and venture capital firm 500Global. As at July 2025, 9GAG has 200 million users across various social media channels.

Memestrategy

In 2022, Chan launched a

NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

platform Memeland. In April 2025, Chan acquired a controlling stake in Hong Kong-listed Howking Technology International Holdings Limited and renamed it Memestrategy. Chan became the chairman and CEO of Memestrategy, and a number of 9GAG executives joined Memestrategy. The company now focuses on advisory services for digital asset projects.

Speaking

Chan was a speaker at ContentStealer, at Echelon 2014, and at the ICT New Waves Symposium in 2013. Schools he has spoken at include Hong Kong including his alma mater the University of Hong Kong, and Polytechnic University. He has also made appearances on YouTube channels such as DailySocialTV and Last Business Blog.Last Business Blog - Ab 15.02.2015
Zwei junge Gründer teilen ihre in der deutschen Start-Up-Welt und dem Silicon Valley gesammelten Erfahrungen
(n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chan, Ray Alumni of the University of Hong Kong Hong Kong chief executives 1987 births Living people