Asia Tech Podcast

The Asia Tech Podcast was so happy to be joined by Dr. Ritu Verma, a co-Founder, Managing Partner at Ankur Capital Fund.  The Ankur team believes "great entrepreneurs coupled with the essential business building blocks leads to great companies." Some of the topics Dr. Verma covered: Beginning her career as a Physicist The excitement and challenge of moving to Vermont for school The benefits of moving out of your comfort zone at a young age The subtle change in how the world perceives Impact Investing How Impact Investing leads to a better world Seed-stage investing compared to later-stage investing Leaning into her science background to help make better investment decisions Asia as a leader in climate impact investment How the investment landscape has changed in India in the past 10 years Women in technology and STEM Other titles we considered for this episode: It Was an Adventure, so That’s What Was Great About It This Is a Sort of Space That Makes You Dive Deeper Being Thrown off the Cliff to Think The Sheer Joy of Seeing Interesting Things Come Up It’s Exciting Having the Tools for Innovation I Learnt About Telegram on a Sunflower Seed Field The episode was expertly produced by Isabelle Goh.

Asia Tech Podcast reached out to Corey Wilton, a co-Founder of Mirai Labs (Pegaxy) after reading a post he wrote on LinkedIn. Some of the topics Corey discussed: Started his first business when he was 16 years old Wanting to be a fighter pilot Learning about bias at a young age Deciding not to go to university and doing door-to-door sales His first business success in customer support focused on ICOs during first crypto boom Moving into the F1 Delta community and learning about crypto asset lending Building his own 'guild' to see what needed to be fixed Automating asset lending to allow for smoother asset transfer and profit sharing among players Intending to release Pegaxy to a small audience while building a 2 year roadmap Struggling to control demand for Pegaxy after its beta release Business fundamentals DO matter Profitability and business sustainability are more important than short-term hype Other titles we considered for this episode: I Was Trying to Harbor a Strong Mind You Just Need a Thousand Horses and One Wallet I Just Kept Telling Myself “Its the Next Door” It’s Easy to Get Jaded When You Have Still Done Nothing Hitting the Lottery Is Not Always Good Are We Also Passengers on a Train? The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.

The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Irene Umar and Evan Spytma of YGG SEA into the studio at Seven Peaks Software in Bangkok.  Irene is a co-Founder and and Indonesia Country Manager and Evan Spytma is a co-Founder and the CEO of YGG SEA. With the coming IDO of YGG SEA, we wanted to have them on the show to discuss: How Evan originally met Gabby Dizon, a co-Founder of YGG The early days of play-to-earn Investing in games and launching them on the YGG platform A Prime Brokerage model for NFTs? YGGs original investment coming from IVC Does GameFi accelerate DeFi Preparing the next generation for the metaverse The YGG SEA IDO and CopperLaunch Moving from a governance token to a utility token Semiotic.ai Irene and Evan's trip to a Buddhist temple The bonus conversation! Some other titles we considered for this episode: Can't You Feel the Love? Did You Collect Your Unicorn Milk? The Guild Really Is Just Phase 01

The Asia Tech Podcast enjoyed chatting with Kenneth Lou, a co-Founder, and CEO of Seedly.  Seedly helps make personal finance relevant and simple for the masses. Some of the topics that Kenneth covered: Growing up in an academic environment that nurtures entrepreneurs Starting Seedly in a dorm room at NUS almost 7 years ago Somehow always being passionate about finance Meeting his co-Founder in Silicon Valley Getting initial funding from East Ventures Starting Seedly as an expense tracking tool Seedly evolving into a community and content platform Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2022 A couple of other titles we considered: Is It a Project? How Do You Save and Invest?

The Asia Tech Podcast had a great conversation with Anita Jiawen Sadasivan, a co-Founder and Chief Wellbeing Officer at MindFi.  MindFi's mission is to transform the narrative around mental health in Asia.  Anita is a pretty incredible entrepreneur, mental health advocate and powerful pole dancer. Some of the topics we covered: Anita's educational background in mental health and her passion for pole dancing Winter blues and seasonal affective disorder Coming back to Singapore to take care of her father The connection between physically fit and mentally fit The signs of sliding into depression The founding of MindFi Corporate interest in the mental health of employees, but not knowing where to begin The Y-Combinator experience Using Data, AI and Algorithms Finding joy in helping others and building a passionate team Other titles we considered for this episode: That's Just Part of My Journey Companies Benefit with Mentally Healthy Workforce There Aren't Enough Mental Health Specialists to Go Around Seeking My Own Answers The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.

The Asia Tech Podcast had an exciting and in-depth conversation with Ben Harburg, a Managing Partner at  MSA Capital. He serves as the CIO of Emerging Technology Markets and leads global growth for MSA’s portfolio companies.  MSA is a global investment firm that invests from seed-to-growth stage investments across consumer, enterprise, core technologies, and healthcare. The firm was established in 2014 and manages $1.7 billion in capital across multiple funds. Some of the topics that Ben covered: Did a Fulbright for a year in Germany studying Islamic Sciences and Oriental Philology Traveled to Egypt as a 13-year-old Grew up as an ex-pat, so had a global perspective from an early age China is an innovation leader across multiple tech verticals Alibaba's expansion strategy does not work Investing in the GoJek of Iraq The difference between emerging markets and emerging technology markets How the United Arab Emirates built a platform for long-term entrepreneurial development A large and growing appetite for tech startup investment in Africa Other titles we considered for this episode: Touching Down, I Remember the Heat There Is an innovation Pendulum

The Asia Tech Podcast loved having Mario Peng in the studio at True Digital Park (We now have another studio at Seven Peaks Software!) to talk about PropertyScout.  We had Mario on the show back in September 2020 during the earliest stages of PropertyScout and with all of the changes and growth the company has experienced, we had to have him on again for an update. Some of the topics we covered this time: There were over 150,000 listings on PropertyScout at the time of the recording Multiple listings and some of the challenges PropertyScout is solving around co-broking ProperyScout's core is the transactional marketplace The importance of setting up standard operating procedures The necessity of a culture of trust and transparency Building versus buying specific skill sets Developing a technology platform for exponential growth Doubling down on property management Delivering a great customer experience requires solutions to multiple problems Fundraising can be fun!

With all of the news about ADDX launching private market services for wealth managers, we had to have Oi-Yee Choo back on the show to dig a bit deeper into the press releases.  We were not disappointed... Some of the topics that Oi-Yee covered: Being promoted to CEO felt like a natural progression as she had been part of senior management decision making for two years The maturing of the crypto sector and the opportunity to expand the asset and product base The regulatory environment locally, regionally, and globally and its potential harmonization The decline in the returns of public investments Building trust over the past two years led to more diverse partnerships ADDX Advantage and working with StashAway and CGS-CIMB Fractional access to private market products Diversifying ADDX's investor base Expanding into other markets outside of Singapore and outside the region The audio on this episode was expertly edited by Isabelle Goh.

The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Takahito Iguchi...you know who he is.  You remember his photos in those cool-looking glasses as the Japanese competitor to Google Glass.  He is back with a new product called CubeMint, an attempt at creating an offline to online audio metaverse. Some of the topics that Iguchi-san covered: His original product launch of Sekai Camera Moving to San Francisco from Japan to get better connected to the VC and startup world Raising $15MM for Sekai Camera at a Techcrunch event Leaving Sekai Camera to found Telepathy Eventually getting fired from Telepathy and losing everything Feeling depressed and considered leaving the startup community completely The realization that many people feel isolated and that audio is a great connector Creating the audio metaverse and CubeMint, currently using Polygon's Matic The merging of physical spaces and the CubeMint metaverse

The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Henry Motte-Muñoz, the Founder of Edukasyon, to the show.  Edukasyon is the go-to, online youth platform for making better-informed education, career, and life decisions. Some of the topics that Henry and I discussed: Growing up between Europe and the Philippines Listening to impact, courage, and 'giving back' conversations around the dinner table Working at Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Getting a scholarship to attend Harvard Business School The benefits of Boston being a multi-campus city Always wanting to go back to the Philippines and build something with impact, at scale, using technology Education is the largest government expenditure in the Philippines The Philippines PISA ranking Moving from large, macro investments to real systemic changes The importance of basic, foundational academic skills, making the right education choices, and soft skills Scaling content in a way that is accessible Working with partners like AWS EdStart Other titles we considered for this episode: Everyone Was Giving Back In Some Form Or Another It Took Me a Solid Decade to Figure Out What To Do All Countries Go Through Stages What Are You Really Trying to Teach? Education Is a Multi-Stakeholder Industry What’s Your Vision for an Educated Child? How Does This All Feed Into a Career? It’s Not About Catching Up, It’s About Getting Ahead Our Role as Humans Is Not Just to Be a Production Unit for Some Company