GK Goh
GK Goh is a Singapore family office, founded in 1979 by stockbroker Goh Geok Khim and now run by his son Goh Yew Lin, that invests the family's capital in aged care, public markets, and science-based deep-tech university spin-outs. Water is a small slice: as of 2026 it has backed 2 water companies, both Oxford University spin-outs.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
GK Goh is not a water fund, and it has never claimed to be one. The initials are the founder's own: Goh Geok Khim built the firm as a Singapore stockbroking house in 1979, took it public in 1990, sold out of broking in 2005, and in 2023 took the whole thing private to run as the family's investment office. Today GK Goh is a single family office, not a fund, deploying the Goh family's own capital with no outside investors to answer to.
GK Goh spreads that capital across three things: aged care and retirement living (its largest bet is a near-half stake in Opal Healthcare, Australia's biggest private aged-care operator), public-market positions, and a sleeve of science-based, early-stage deep tech, much of it spun out of universities. Water shows up inside that deep-tech sleeve, not as a thesis of its own. Both of GK Goh's water companies are Oxford University spin-outs: Oxford Flow, which makes a new kind of control valve with no diaphragm or stem seal for pushing water and gas through pipes, and Mode Labs, which builds a portable real-time sensor for reading the chemistry of water.
GK Goh reaches water the way a science investor reaches anything: through the university-spinout pipeline. On both water deals it invested alongside the usual UK deep-tech crowd, Parkwalk Advisors and Oxford Science Enterprises, the patient backers that turn Oxford and Cambridge lab work into companies. For a newcomer mapping where water capital comes from, GK Goh is a clean example of how an Asian family office touches water indirectly, only when a deep-tech spin-out happens to solve a water problem rather than because water is the goal.
GK Goh is run today by Goh Yew Lin, the founder's son, who also chairs Xora Innovation, Temasek's deep-tech venture company, so the appetite for hard science runs deep. Its newest bets keep that pattern, from benchtop biotech to small modular reactors, none of them water. Whether water grows from two incidental Oxford spin-outs into anything like a theme is the open question, and for now the honest read is two science companies that happen to clean, move, or measure water, backed by a family office that will fund the next one only if the science clears the same bar as everything else.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does GK Goh invest in?
- GK Goh invests the Goh family's capital across three areas: aged care and retirement living, public-market equities, and science-based early-stage deep tech, much of it spun out of universities. Water is a small slice of that deep-tech book, with two companies working on flow-control valves and water-quality sensing.
- Who runs GK Goh?
- GK Goh was founded in 1979 by stockbroker Goh Geok Khim and is run today by his son Goh Yew Lin, the chief executive, who also chairs Temasek's deep-tech venture company Xora Innovation. Day-to-day investment is led by executive director Charlotte Yew, a former J.P. Morgan Asset Management deputy chief investment officer.
- How many water companies has GK Goh backed?
- GK Goh has backed two water companies to date, both spun out of Oxford University: Oxford Flow, which makes diaphragm-free control valves for moving water and gas, and Mode Labs, which builds a portable real-time sensor for reading water chemistry. Both sit inside its science-based deep-tech portfolio.
- Where is GK Goh based?
- GK Goh is based in Singapore, where founder Goh Geok Khim started it as a stockbroking firm in 1979. It invests globally from there, with aged-care holdings in Australia and most of its deep-tech and water spin-outs coming out of the United Kingdom, particularly Oxford University.
- Is GK Goh the same as GK Goh Stockbrokers?
- Not anymore. GK Goh began as Goh Geok Khim's Singapore stockbroking firm in 1979 and listed in 1990, but it sold its broking businesses in 2005. Today GK Goh, also seen as G. K. Goh Holdings or GK Goh Ventures, is the family's investment office, not a brokerage.