Eleven sessions tracking diverse markets, themes that you should not miss

1. The Philippines catching investors’ attention but can it deliver?

Minette B. Navarrete, Co-founder, President & Vice-Chairman, Kickstart Ventures
Franco Varona, Founding Partner, Foxmont Capital Partners
Lawrence Chu, Co-founder, Oriente

With favourable demographics, policy changes, and an accelerated pace of digital adoption, the Philippines’ startup landscape is finally catching the interest of investors, particularly in the fintech and e-commerce space.

Of the 112-million-strong population, nearly 70% remains unbanked, leaving a huge addressable market for financial services. To top it, as the country’s middle-class continues to grow, about 70 million Filipinos are expected to be using smartphones by 2025, leading to the creation of a potentially new market for online consumers.

According to DealStreetAsia’s DATA VANTAGE statistics, global investors were involved in $170 million worth of fundraising in the Philippines in the past 21 months. Compare this to 15 deals that raised a total of $25 million in 2019, signalling an increase in interest in the emerging market.

This panel will explore the potential of the market and the top themes investors are betting on and why.

Our first panelist is Minette B. Navarrete, vice-chairman and president of Kickstart Ventures, Inc., the corporate venture capital subsidiary of Globe Telecom.  Kickstart Ventures is backed by Globe Telecom, Ayala Corporation, and Singtel. Kickstart Ventures manages the Philippines’ largest technology venture capital funds, investing globally in early- to growth-stage tech startups via three funds, including Ayala-backed Active Fund, which closed at $180 million last year. In 2019, Kickstart managed to secure a big exit when Indonesia’s Gojek acquired its portfolio company Coins.ph. Its portfolio includes Xendit, Zalora, Snapcart, Nextpay, mClinica, among others.

We have Franco Varona, managing partner, Foxmont Capital Partners, which invests in early-stage Filipino-focused and Filipino-founded startups. Foxmont’s portfolio includes Edukasyon, Nextpay, Booky, Edamama, among others. He is also a co-founder and director in the boutique agency Global Media Post. Prior to Foxmont, he was the founding general manager of Grab Philippines.

Our third panelist is Lawrence Chu, co-founder, Oriente, a Hong Kong-based fintech startup that has a deep presence in the Philippines. Oriente is the parent company of Finmas, Cashalo and Finizi, three online lenders based in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, respectively. Chu has over 16 years of international investment experience and founded investment company BlackPine. For Oriente, the Philippines and Indonesia are two of its strongest markets that have seen significant user traction and growth. Oriente most recently raised $50 million Series B funding. In 2018, it raised $105 million equity from the founders and a group of family offices including members of Malaysia’s Berjaya Group, the Philippines’ JG Summit Holdings, and Indonesia’s Sinar Mas.

Join this session to know more about SE Asia’s untapped market.

2. How will Vietnam rewrite its recovery script amid pandemic drag?

Conrad Tsang – Founder & Chairman, Strategic Year Holdings Limited
Quang Pham – Director, Crescent Group Capital Management
Richard Trieu Pham – President & Group CFO, TIKI Corporation

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic became a global healthcare crisis, Vietnam was among the most resilient nations to bounce back to resume business activity. While other ASEAN economies had forecasted negative growth in 2020, Vietnam’s GDP managed to grow at nearly 3%. Since then, investors have been bullish about Vietnam, backing investments in the country despite difficulties in undertaking deal due diligence. Cut to 2021, with low vaccination rates and an increase in the number of cases, local businesses have been witnessing a prolonged lockdown situation.

In the changed scenario, will Vietnam prove to be equally attractive as a destination for foreign investments by global MNCs?   What will be the somewhat delayed impact of the pandemic on Vietnam’s economy, particularly the startup space? Is Vietnam as a single-country market an attractive bet for risk capital investors backing tech startups?

Our panelists will share their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges in the emerging SE Asian market.

We have Conrad Tsang, chairman & co-founder, Strategic Year Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm that has increased its investment activity in Southeast Asia. Strategic Year has invested in Vietnamese education startup TEKY Holdings. The firm is spending more resources and time in markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and some cross-border opportunities.

Meanwhile, Quang Pham oversees Vietnam as well as other SE Asia markets for Crescent Group Capital Management (Crescent Point). In Vietnam, Crescent Point had invested $36.2 million in integrated children’s lifestyle platform N Kid Corporation in 2019. Pham was earlier the co-founder and a senior investment manager at VI (Vietnam Investments) Group, one of the largest Vietnam-focused private equity firms.

Our third panelist is Richard Trieu Pham, group president & CFO at TIKI Corporation – Vietnam’s largest homegrown e-commerce platform. TIKI is seeking $200 million in its ongoing Series E funding that has raised nearly $100 million from both strategic and financial investors including insurer AIA, Taiwan Mobile, AppWorks, CE Fintech Capital and Nextrans. The online marketplace has recently set up Tiki Global Pte Ltd, a Singapore holding company, aiming for an overseas listing.

Join this session to get an overview of opportunities in Vietnam.

3. Impact investing turns mainstream: What’s changing and what are the implications?

Fernanda Lima, Partner, LeapFrog Investments
Tan Shao Ming, Managing Director, ABC World Asia
Saima Rehman, Investment Officer, Private Equity & Funds, IFC

The private market for impact investing has grown as much as $2.1 trillion last year, according to IFC estimates. In 2019 alone, private capital firms raised more than $76 billion in funds with an impact mandate. Still, more funds are to come: Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management is in the market to raise as much as $12.5 billion for its new impact investment fund. Yet, according to IFC, only a quarter of the market is clearly measured for financial and development impact.

As interest in investing for impact continues to grow, driven by evolving investor profiles and clear development needs, how is the industry set for sustainable growth? What are the implications of the influx in capital? What drives real returns in impact investments?

The panel brings together seasoned investors focused on impact in Asia, to discuss measurable impact investing. Joining us from IFC is Saima Rehman, who brings 17 years of investment experience across South Asia, and East Asia Pacific.

Also on the panel is Fernanda Lima from LeapFrog Investments, which has raised more than $2 billion across four private equity funds from institutional investors, including from Singapore state investor Temasek. The UK-headquartered private equity firm drives impact through its investments in high-growth financial services and healthcare companies in emerging markets. Its latest investments include leading a $54 million funding round in PasarPolis, the Indonesian insurtech company; and a $55 million round into India’s MedGenome, a genetic diagnostics company.

ABC World Asia’s Tan Shao Ming drives investments at the PE fund, which raised S$385 million in 2019 to target companies in China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. The fund focuses on financial and digital inclusion; health and education; climate and water solutions; sustainable food and agriculture; and smart and liveable cities.

4. Alternative proteins: The future of food in Asia

Albert Tseng, Co-founder, Dao Foods International
Tai Lin, Managing Partner, Proterra Asia
William Koo, Managing Director, Temasek Life Sciences Accelerator

Asia is marching ahead as a hub for global alternative food companies seeking to expand to gain a leading position in some of the world’s largest consumer markets. Alternative protein startups, the nascent category touted as the future of food, have been fast garnering investor interest with deal value in the region growing to $155 million in 2020 compared to just $5.3 million in 2019.

Apart from sustainability concerns and shifts in consumer behaviour, what is driving growth in the sector? How are alt protein companies changing the economics of food? What do investors stand to gain?

Featuring top executives from Proterra Asia, Dao Foods and Temasek accelerator, this panel will explore the facets driving the sector and the challenges to the road ahead.

Proterra, which was carved out of agribusiness giant Cargill unit Black River Asset Management in 2016, has some $2.5 billion in AUM. Investments in food account for the largest share of the total portfolio. Proterra is currently raising an up to $800 million Asia-focussed agribusiness fund, and Lin believes that direct exposure to food, which forms the largest portion of the continent’s Consumer Price Index basket, is requisite for a direct connection with the Asian consumer.

Cross-border investment firm Dao Foods is targeting to back investments in about 30 China-based alternative protein startups in the next three years. Temasek Life Sciences Accelerator, a JV between Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory and Vertex Holdings, is Singapore’s first agri-bio-sci-tech incubator that aims to incubate, nurture and grow disruptive life science innovations into early-stage companies. Singapore’s Temasek is an active investor in the alternative protein space.

5. Building global life science champions from Singapore hub

XQ Lin, Chairman and CEO, Esco Lifesciences Group
ZHOU Lihan, Co-founder & CEO, MiRXES

With proactive government policies, an ecosystem that fosters innovation, intellectual property rights protection, strong corporate-academia linkages in the field of research, the presence of multinational players and a robust vibrant entrepreneurial cluster, Singapore is considered a regional hub for life science-based innovation. The city-state has channelled nearly S$4 billion in public sector research funding towards the health and biomedical sciences domain, according to EDB Singapore data.

In this panel, we feature two Singapore-based life science companies MiRXES and Esco Lifesciences, who have raised big-ticket rounds this year, have drawn up global expansion plans and are reportedly exploring listing plans.

Singapore-based cancer diagnostics company MiRXES raised $77 million in Series C funding led by CR-CP Life Science Fund. Founded in 2014, MiRXES is a spin-off from Singapore’s AStar. MiRXES will use the proceeds to double its global talent pool to 400 over the next two years. MiRXES has operations in China, Japan and the US.

Singapore-based Esco Lifesciences closed an oversubscribed $200-million Series A and crossover round led by Vivo Capital and Novo Holdings. Esco is targeting strategic bolt-on M&As, an accelerated expansion in China and setting up an innovation hub in Boston. Esco is looking at building a global life sciences ecosystem between Singapore, the US and China, with Singapore as the focal nexus.

6. Rise of the crypto asset class in SE Asia: Will the frenzy last?

Jeth Soetoyo, Founder & CEO, Pintu
Hemant Mohapatra, Partner, Lightspeed
Alex Svanevik, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Nansen

Interest in the cryptocurrency space has accelerated globally since the beginning of last year as institutional investors embrace the emerging alternative asset class. Mirroring the global trends, crypto-related startups in SE Asia have also reported increased user traction and deal activity.

In this panel, we feature two startups who have landed double-digit funding, and a seasoned global investor bullish on the crypto space.

Singapore-based Ethereum analytics platform Nansen has recently raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup focuses on Ethereum research because there is more activity on the blockchain than bitcoin, which can only be used as a currency, believes Nansen’s co-founder and chief executive Alex Svaneik, who has a background in AI and first got interested in crypto in 2017.

Indonesian cryptocurrency exchange Pintu recently landed a $35-million Series A+ funding round led by US-based Lightspeed Venture Partners barely months after it raised $6 million in its Series A financing. Launched in April 2020, Pintu is a licenced crypto broker whose platform is designed for both entry-level and experienced crypto investors. Indonesia is home to over 6.6 million crypto investors as of June 2021, roughly triple the 2.2 million public equity investors. Pintu CEO Jeth Soetoyo believes there is an immense opportunity for retail investors to gain access to diversified and dynamic investment opportunities.

Pintu-backer Lightspeed has backed over 17 crypto and blockchain companies globally. Partner Hemant Mohapatra feels crypto is at an inflection point to become an important asset class globally and will give rise to massive companies that will become regional leaders.

Despite growing investor interest, there are concerns related to the opaqueness of the crypto market, the volatility of its prices and tightening regulatory scrutiny on the nascent industry.  Join this session to get a nuanced perspective on the niche sector.

7. How the pandemic has altered consumption trends in South Asia

Jefrey Joe, Co-Founder & General Partner, Alpha JWC Ventures
Nicholas Cator, Founder & Managing Partner, Venturi Partners
Deepak Shahdadpuri, Founder and Managing Director, DSG Consumers Partners

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated digitalisation of consumer-oriented businesses as movement curbs meant people were ordering products and services online. Some of these user behaviours may well outlast the pandemic and businesses are beginning to shift towards an omnichannel approach to reach consumers across multiple touch points. How are consumer businesses adapting to this change? Which are the categories that are seeing explosive growth even during the pandemic? What are some of the pandemic-induced user behaviours likely to stay in the long-term? How are VCs assessing the investment potential and exit horizon in consumption play?

Alpha JWC’s Jefrey Joe,  Venturi Partners’s Nicholas Cator and DSG Consumers Partners founder and managing director Deepak Shahdadpuri will share their insights on how they view the consumption story unfolding in South Asia.

Singapore-based Venturi Partners has secured the first close of its India- and Southeast Asia-focused consumer fund at $100 million.  Venturi Partners Fund I will focus on investments in FMCG, education, and healthcare services. The fund made its maiden investment in Livspace, an Indian online home design firm, last year. Cator, a long-time executive at Belgium’s family-owned investment firm Verlinvest SA, launched Venturi Partners in 2019.

Jakarta-based Alpha JWC is raising a $300-million new fund that is targeting to invest in new consumer-oriented models and fintech sectors from the seed to Series B stages. Alpha JWC’s prominent portfolio firms include coffee chain Kopi Kenangan, B2B e-commerce platform GudangAda, and online brokerage firm Ajaib. The third fund will put Alpha JWC among a handful of Southeast Asian VCs that have raised over $200 million for a vehicle. Prior to co-founding Alpha JWC, Jefrey was the COO of Groupon Indonesia where he focused on technology, customer experience, and logistics. Jefrey also co-founded Alterra, Indonesia’s pioneer online bill payment aggregator company. Jefrey has been an angel investor in early-stage tech startups in Asia and United States.

Shahdadpuri, who will also moderate the session, has over 15 years experience in private equity investing. Before DSGCP, he co-founded and managed the Beacon India Private Equity Fund and GEM India.  He currently serves on multiple boards including Veeba Food Services, Raw Pressery, Eazydiner, Mswipe, Sula Wines, Impresario, Epigamia, IndoStar Capital, Furtados, Saraf Foods, India Lends and Saffronart. Join this session for a comprehensive outlook on the consumption story in the region.

8. Riding Indonesia’s mega digital opportunity wave

Soon Sze Meng, President, South East Asia, JD.com
Sachin Bhanot, Head of Southeast Asia Investments, Prosus Ventures
Aaron Tan, Founder, Group CEO, Carro

Indonesia too mirrored the growth trends in the digital economy space riding on macro drivers, favourable demographics and the pandemic-induced restrictions bringing millions of users online for the first time. Looking at 2025, the overall digital economy will likely reach $124 billion in value, re-accelerating to ~23% CAGR, per the Google-Bain-Temasek report on the internet economy. The e-commerce segment especially has driven significant growth in Indonesia at 54%. The overall 2020 GMV is estimated to have reached a total value of $44 billion in 2020, having grown at 11% YoY.

Our panelists, who are well-entrenched to capture opportunities in SE Asia’s maximum market, will further deep-dive into the pandemic-driven digital adoption trends across an array of sectors and how that is changing the landscape for tech investments in the archipelago.

In this discussion, we feature Soon Sze Meng, president (SE Asia), JD.com, China’s largest retailer that is deepening its presence in the region. Sze Meng is responsible for the Chinese tech major’s businesses and investments in South East Asia. He also serves as a member on the boards of Indonesian decacorn Gojek, JD.com’s local unit JD.ID, JD’s Thai venture, JD Central and Vietnamese e-commerce Tiki. Sze Meng joined JD.com from Singtel and has served stints at PayPal and Visa.

Our second panelist is Aaron Tan, founder of Singapore-based Carro, which recently completed a $360-million Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, making it the first automotive marketplace unicorn in SE Asia. Carro is looking to use the funds to fortify its position and expand its retail offering across Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, markets that contributed to significant growth in the past year. Aaron Tan, who helped start Singtel’s venture fund – Singtel Innov8 ventures, left the fund in 2016 and founded Carro, which was named the fastest-growing company in Asia Pacific in 2021 with revenues of over $300 million annually.

Our third panelist Sachin Bhanot is the Head of Southeast Asia Investments at Prosus Ventures, where he covers a range of sectors including consumer enablement, B2B commerce, fintech, logistics and more. Prosus’s Indonesia portfolio includes logistics startup Shipper, investment firm Bibit; and fishery platform Aruna. Prior to joining Prosus, Bhanot was a member of the investment team at B Capital Group, where he focused on venture investments in Southeast Asia. Before B Capital, he was part of The Abraaj Group’s PE team in Southeast Asia and MENA region.

Join this session for a comprehensive coverage of Indonesia’s digital opportunity.

9. The evolving deep-tech landscape in South Asia: Challenges and Opportunities

Kiran Mysore, Principal, UTEC, Japan
Venkat Vallabhaneni, Managing Partner, Inflexor Ventures

Seen as a nascent space, Deep Tech – which refers largely to companies creating a tough-to-replicate, complex and scientific solution to a problem – is slowly picking up in South Asia in terms of deal activity and investor interest. The sector enjoys favourable government policies particularly in Singapore, the hub for much of the action in the region.

This panel will explore if South Asia has it to become the next global hub for deep tech? What would it take for the region to get there? Will the region benefit from the low cost of commercialisation of a deep-tech solution? Will access to a huge market in its backyard prove to be an advantage?

UTEC Japan’s Kiran Mysore and Inflexor Ventures’s Venkat Vallabhaneni will take us through their deep-tech investment thesis, the region’s outlook and challenges and some of their most interesting bets.

The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners or UTEC hit the first close of its fifth global deep tech fund at $275 million and is targeting to invest more heavily in Southeast Asia. In SE Asia, it has invested in Singapore-based deep tech firms like SWAT Mobility, Immunoscape, OPALai and Tricog. Its portfolio in India includes Bugworks Research and the firm is also an LP in Blume Ventures Fund III.

Inflexor Ventures recently closed its technology fund at $81 million to back B2B/enterprise startups leveraging deep tech, technology IP and innovation. Inflexor has so far invested in Steradian Semiconductors, AR-based edtech firm PlayShifu; Vitra.ai, an AI-ML-based content translation platform and Kale Logistics, an AI & blockchain-enabled logistics tech company.

10. Bridging the gaping funding gap for women founders

Sarah Chen, Co-founder and Managing Partner, The Billion Dollar Fund for Women & Beyond the Billion
GV Ravishankar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India LLP
Sunitha KR, President of Early-Stage Investments, LetsVenture
Amanda Susanti, Co-Founder & CEO, Sayurbox

Data on funding for women-led enterprises reveals a rather discouraging story. Deals involving women founders or co-founders accounted for a mere 17.1% of the total PE and VC activity tracked in 2020 in Southeast Asia. If Grab is taken out of the equation, the number dips to just 4.7%, per a DealStreetAsia DATA VANTAGE report. As of 2020, just 12% of venture-backed startups in India and 20% in ASEAN have at least one female founder, per Tracxn and Crunchbase. According to a LetsVenture study, India has about 10,000 angel investors and only 1% of these are women.

Our panelists will take us through the steps that would be required to correct the imbalance, foster an ecosystem conducive for women entrepreneurs and improve access to capital. Our speakers represent Sequoia Capital and LetsVenture who have been in the news for initiatives that seek to address the funding gap.

Sequoia Capital India has launched Sequoia Spark, a fellowship programme for women founders in Southeast Asia and India. Sequoia India will offer a $100,000 fellowship grant to 15 women entrepreneurs per year. Sequoia is looking to increase the top of the funnel for all venture firms, with the Spark initiative.

GV Ravishankar from Sequoia India advises on both technology as well as non-technology investments. He’s deeply interested in technology’s role in helping to drive efficiencies, reduce costs and improve access in consumer and healthcare markets. He currently serves on the boards of BYJUs, Capital Float, Eruditus Learning, Faces Cosmetics, Five Star finance,  Rebel Foods, among others.

From the investing community, we also have Sunitha KR who is overseeing LetsVenture’s new angel investment initiative that seeks to provide access to women CXOs to invest in early and growth-stage startups. LetsVenture aims to onboard at least 100 women angel investors in 2021 and will launch at least five investment syndicates led by women.

Representing the startup ecosystem is Sayurbox co-founder Amanda Susanti who set up a farm-to-table grocery platform that is also backed by Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia. Sayurbox has also raised funding from Astra Digital International, Syngenta Group Ventures, Ondine Capital, among others.

Moderating this panel will be Sarah Chen, co-founder of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture funds that have now pledged to invest and are actively deploying beyond $1 billion towards women-founded companies. To date, the consortium consists of close to 100 VCs and LPs and boasts 6 female-founded unicorns. Do join this much-needed critical and high-impact discussion.