Asia Vc Cast

This week’s special guest is Jeffrey Yuwono, Co-Founder and CEO of Sorabel.  Established in 2014, Sorabel is changing the way middle class Indonesians  shop online today by providing affordable and accessible fashion to them. Located in the fastest growing ecommerce market in the world, Sorabel has become a notable homegrown player in the ecommerce fashion industry offering quality products at affordable prices and a safe experience of online shopping. Jeffrey shares his perspective on the current fashion e-commerce landscape in Indonesia and how they are differentiating themselves within this competitive vertical.  He also shares his insights on the emergence of social commerce and D2C fashion brands and how Sorabel has integrated those aspects into their business model.  Hope you guys enjoy this one!

This week’s special guest is Samir Chaibi from STRIVE. Samir is an early-stage investor at STRIVE, a pan-Asia venture capital fund headquartered in Tokyo and investing across Japan, India, and Southeast Asia. Samir heads the fund's investments in Indonesia while also managing investments across Southeast Asian countries. Samir serves on the board of Healint, Ayopop, Pintek, and Crowde and work closely with Berrybenka, Saleswhale, and Vouch.     

This week’s special guest is Kalsoom Lakhani from I2I Ventures.  Kalsoom is the Founder/CEO of Invest2Innovate, , which supports startups and the broader entrepreneurship ecosystem in growth markets. i2i has been operating in Pakistan since 2011, and has accelerated 41 startups that have gone on to raise over $6.5M in funding and create over 1500 jobs in the country. Kalsoom is also a partner in i2i Ventures, a venture capital fund for Pakistan, and is the country's first female led in institutional fund. 

This week’s special guest is Victor Chua, managing partner of Vynn Capital.  Victor was formally the Vice President of Investments for Gobi Partners and managed two Southeast Asia focused early stage funds. Prior to that he was with the venture capital arm of Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance,  managing direct and indirect investments. Some of his notable investments are Carsome, Travelio, Triip, Hermo, and Jirnexu. Victor has invested in over 20 companies in Southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Together, we discuss why Victor is so bullish on “female-focused economics” and why there’s so much more excitement in startups serving the female consumers.  Also, he shares his insights on increasing trend in family offices & corporates making direct investments and why he believes it’s important to create more vehicles for corporates to bring complimentary values for startups.  Hope you guys enjoy this one!

This week’s special guest is Chad Tangsriwong from CyberAgent Capital.  Chad is a Chief Representative of Bangkok Office of CyberAgent Capital, leading an operation in Thailand for a Japanese-headquartered VC firm who actively invests in all major cities across Asia Pacific.  As one of the very first native Thais who work for international fund, Chad has made the investment into many top-tier Thai startups, with ClaimDi, Fastwork, Getlinks and SkillLane among others. He has also had a few exits under his belt in Priceza and aCommerce. Together, we discuss the current state of Thai startup ecosystem and the significant market opportunities that are yet to be exploited.  Chad shares his thoughts on the importance of becoming a regional player in Southeast Asia and why Bangkok is one of the best cities for founders to acheive that goal.

This week’s special guest is Gilang Praditiyo from Mandiri Capital Indonesia.  Gilang is the Head of Venture Fund at Mandiri Capital, Corporate Venture Capital  arm of Bank Mandiri which is one of the biggest state owned Bank in Indonesia. Mandiri Capital is the first Banking CVC in Indonesia with investment focus in Financial Technology that can bring innovation to Bank Mandiri Group. Prior to that, he worked for one of the oldest insurance in Indonesia with responsibility in Capital Market Investment, Subsidiary Management and Corporate Restructuring. 

Aditya Mathur is the founder and MD of Elev8.VC, which invests in early stage deep-tech founders. Focus verticals include autonomous vehicles, IOT & AI, communications, and medtech. Prior to Elev8.VC, Aditya operationally helped grow two multi billion-dollar tech companies, both acquired, one in each of the hardware and software industries. Aditya follows his passion, and supports founders in the B2B Deep Tech space to realize explosive Sales growth.  He has a B.Sc. in Engineering from Stanford University.

This week’s special guest is Shiyan Koh from Hustle Fund. Shiyan is an experienced operator and investor. She was most recently  VP of Business Operations & Corp Dev at NerdWallet where she was the employee #10, growing annual revenue from $1M to $150M+. Prior to NerdWallet, she was an investor at Institutional Venture Partners and Bridgewater Associates. She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.

This week’s special guest is Jong Yoon Kim from Yanolja.  Jong Yoon is the CEO of Online Business & Corporate Strategy at Yanolja, the biggest online leisure and accommodation booking platform in Korea.  Yanolja has expanded its businesses into global hotel chains and system businesses as well as the leisure and activity market.  Prior to joining Yanolja, Jong Yoon worked as a team lead of online sales and operation at Google, and then served as an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company as a digitization expert. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and studied chemical engineering at Seoul National University.

Ian Goh is a Founder and General Partner of 01VC, a venture firm building on China's untapped potential in enterprise and transaction platforms.  He is a seasoned investor in the technology space with 18 years experience, an early participant in China's tremendous evolution to today's Internet powerhouse. He was previously a partner of Matrix Partners and was heavily involved in consumer internet and transaction platforms. Prior to that he was a partner with Kleiner Perkins based in Shanghai and a partner in TDF Capital / Venture TDF.

This week’s special guest is Nicko Widjaja from MDI Ventures.  Nicko is the President Director and CEO of MDI Ventures, a corporate venture arm backed by Telkom Indonesia.  Nicko is responsible for leading various digital transformation initiatives of Telkom Indonesia ahead of the curve on high impact emerging technologies and business opportunities.  Prior to MDI Ventures, he launched Systec Ventures, one of the first Indonesia’s venture funds dedicated for early stage startups from 2009 to 2013.

This week’s special guest is Hussain Elius from Pathao.  Elius is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pathao, a Bangladesh-based technology company providing on-demand ride-sharing services, logistics, and food delivery on its platform. Elius started Pathao to address the notorious traffic in Dhaka, the most densely populated city in the world. With only five bikes then in 2015, his friends would call him for their delivery services that were manually scheduled on an excel sheet. Located in a city without a bike or cab culture, Pathao thrived under the pent-up demand for such a service. Today, Pathao is seen as a pioneer in the Bangladeshi startup scene and has expanded to Nepal, handling more than 40 million transactions since it was founded in 2015. Under Elius’ leadership, Pathao has grown from a lean team of five people when they started to over 600 employees and 200,000 registered drivers as of 2019.

This week's special guest is Helen Wong from Qiming Ventures.  Helen was ranked among Top 100 VCs in China and Top 25 female VCs in China in 2018 by Forbes. Past investments/ exits include Mobike (acquired by Meituan), Lagou (acquired by 51jobs), Ruhnn (Ticker: RUHN), Luojisiwei (audio platform). She is currently responsible for investments targeting overseas markets including Clubfactory (cross border ecommerce focused on India), Pratilipi (online literature in India), Akulaku (SE Asia consumer financing), RedDoorz (SE Asian budget hotel chain), and Chinese investments such as Jingling (social ecommerce) and Motianlun (secondary ticketing platform). Helen is a long time venture capitalist and spent 11 years at GGV Capital. She was an early investor in Tudou (merged with Youku).  She was also involved in the investment of Alibaba. She received degrees from Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, INSEAD, and Oxford University.

This week’s special guest is Sonat Yalcinkaya from SoyakaAI.  Sonat is founder & CEO of Soyaka AI, which is building Shox, the first social commerce app of Southeast Asia powered by Artificial Intelligence.  Prior to starting SoyakaAI, Sonat was head of global eCommerce for Midea Group between 2015-2018 and Amazon key account manager for Philips 5 years before that. He is also the author of the book " 3-Months Online Store: Build Enterprise Level Online Store Under 3-Month.

This week’s special guest is Herston Powers from tryb Group.  Herston is a Principal at tryb focused on investments, portfolio management and investor relations.  Prior to joining tryb, Herston was Head of Southeast Asia and India Business Development for The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) in their Investment Services division. In 2015 he was relocated to Singapore to establish their presence and lead their Southeast Asia and India strategy. Together, we discuss how APIs will impact fintech and the growth of services in Southeast Asia.  He also walks us through the evolution in both distribution and acquisition in the rising tide of new fintech and how it has impacted the valuation of startups.  Hope you guys enjoy this one!

This week’s special guest is Joel Leong from Shopback.  Joel is the founder and heads the merchant partnership at ShopBack, a one-stop lifestyle portal that powers smarter purchase decisions for consumers.  A go-getter and a world class negotiator, he is responsible for driving deals and partnerships to bring the most rewarding shopping experience for ShopBack's users. Joel holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the National University of Singapore and hailed previously from Zalora and the Economic Development Board of Singapore.   Together, we discuss how Joel came to found Shopback and how the business has evolved over the years. He shares why data-driven, customer-centric mentality is at its core at Shopback and how they measure everything that matters from the perspective of return and certainly the perspective of their customer.

This week’s special guest is Lee Bagshaw, a partner at Simmonds Stewart, a leading boutique law firm providing corporate and commercial advice to technology companies and investors in New Zealand, Australia and across Southeast Asia.  Lee is one of the most well-known venture capital and tech lawyers advising start-ups and VC funds in Southeast Asia. He has advised on over 300 financing and M&A transactions in the region in the last few years and before that worked in London for a global law firm. Lee has considerable expertise on seed investments, series A, B and larger financing rounds, and therefore has great insights on regional trends when negotiating equity investment documents, convertible notes or venture debt financings. Last year, Lee released an interactive video series on how to negotiate a series A term sheet in Southeast Asia In this podcast he shares his perspectives from both sides of the table having advised startups and VC funds in Southeast Asia. He also explains also how Simmonds Stew

This week’s special guest is Vikas Nahata from Validus Capital.  Vikas is the Executive chairman and co-founder at Validus Capital,  a leading peer-to-business lending platform backed by Vertex Ventures that connects growing SMEs to accredited investors and financial institutions. Before starting Validus Capital, Vikas served as the Joint Managing Director of Urbana Bengal NRI (BNRI). Additionally, he co-founded four different start-ups in the financial services, telco and manufacturing sectors. Together, we discuss what about the peer-to-business lending sector that excites Vikas so much and his take on P2P lending in Southeast Asia and where it's headed.  Also, he shares his story on establishing partnership with Visa as an early stage startup and his advice for founders when seeking corporate partnerships early on.  Hope you guys enjoy this one!

This week’s special guest is Jussi Salovarra from Antler.  Jussi is the co-founder and managing partner at Antler, a startup generator and early-stage VC that turns the world's top talent into great founders of great companies. Their hands-on approach enables top talents to team up with the right co-founders and develop and scale their ideas. Before Antler, Jussi was the Vice President at Nokia’s headquarter in Helsinki and also had his experiences built across working with promising international companies such as McKinsey, Deloitte and Morgan Stanley. Together, we discuss Antler's unique approach on accepting applicants as individuals, not a team to their 6 months program.  After having to meet hundreds of aspiring founders, Jussi shares his thoughts on why having a co-founder is like a marriage and what qualities to look for in a co-founder.  Also, he gives advice to entrepreneurs who are struggling to find that one perfect idea and emphasizes his belief on why Execution eats ideas for breakfast!  

This week’s special guest is Ambar Machfoedy from Rekanext.  Ambar is the Managing Partner at Rekanext, an  early stage VC fund focused on regionalising startups across Southeast Asia through their experiences and network.  Previously, Ambar was a consultant with Massachusetts-based Monitor Company and before that, with Accenture. Also, He has been an Adjunct Professor in Marketing, initially at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and since 2008 at the NYU Stern School of Business. So please join me in welcoming Ambar from Rekanext. Together, Ambar walks us through Rekanext’s investment thesis as well as his outlook on investment interest from China and his observations on the Philippine startup scene. Also he shares his unique approach on holding round table discussions with founders and how VC firms can implement investment decision process that is both rigorous yet innovative. Hope you guys enjoy this one!