Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

"Southeast Asia is a very exciting market and I think lots of folks, and probably guests have talked about it, but let's just rattle off the list; obviously you have a rising middle class, you have that openness to trade, openness to immigration, and openness to keep growing from a policy perspective. Of course, there's the urbanization and the internet technology digitalization wave. So these are all the first three slides of every VC fund and LP deck, but also the first three slides of every market report. There are so many great ones out there. But I think when we double click a little bit further, what we're also thinking about is what are the industries that are ripe for change. You can call it disruption, you can call it digitalization, but I think that's the crux of it. When we look at venture capital, how do you build that a hundred million dollar revenue business within 10 years and create that 10x multiple? I think that's the home run that VC funds are geared towards.  That's something that is currently still in motion. 10 years ago it didn't exist." - Jeremy Au Fresh out of the studio, Jeremy Au, chief of staff & venture capitalist from Monk's Hill Ventures joined us in a conversation on how to navigate the challenging investment landscape in Southeast Asia. The conversation began with his career from an entrepreneur to now venture capitalist & podcaster. Jeremy drilled down specifically on the venture capital and angel investing scene and dived deep into the emerging trends shaping the different key markets from Indonesia to Vietnam, and elucidated startup expansion strategies driven by changes in technology, language and markets. Last but not least, he offered his take on what great would look like for a successful venture capitalist in Southeast Asia. Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).  

"You talked about the market opportunity. When you look at the landscape of the billionaire population today, statistics show that you expect that population to grow by about 34% in the years to come. And from that population, at least a third is going to come from Asia Pacific, and in the next five years time, we expect Asia Pacific to be growing by about 40%. So the market is large in relation to the space of wealth to be managed. And we look at the growth of family office space in Singapore has been exponential. So between 2017 to 2019., according to the statistics, the family office space grew by five times. In 2020 at that time they were looking at around 400 family offices. By the end of 2022, it has grown to more than 800. So if you look at today, I think it is actually a very conservative estimate to say that the number of family offices in Singapore has crossed a thousand. you can easily expect it to be much more than that. So I think it's a very exciting area to be in." - Lee Wong from Lombard Odier   Fresh out of the studio, Lee Wong, head of family services from Lombard Odier and Co, joined us to discuss the firm's footprint in the Asia Pacific and the key trends in family offices across the Asia Pacific. We began with Lee Wong's background and how she entered into the private banking sector as a lawyer, specializing in the family offices industry. From there, she provided a comprehensive background on how family offices are built in the Asia Pacific, their purpose and structure with the right governance and framework to ensure their longevity. Last, but not least, Lee Wong shared the key trends in how the family offices market is growing in the Asia Pacific and what it means for the future due to the current geopolitical volatility Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"With both Web3 and VR, if you thought that was interesting a year ago, it's still interesting. Nothing's really changed. Like 98% of all the nonsense has gone away. But if it was early 2022 and you thought VR headsets are going to be a device that two or 3 billion people own, well nothing's changed in the last year to change that.  If you think that we might build a billion-scale, consumer software, consumer internet service on a blockchain. Which is really what Web3 means. Yeah, ok.  If you thought that a year ago, fine, but you should probably think that is still five years away, but it's just as interesting now as it was then. But it's five years away. Whereas this second wave of AI had been kind of bubbling away very quietly for five years. I mean, the first demo is using generative networks to make faces and things in 2014. And they look terrible. They don't look very interesting. And then suddenly in the last six months, as I've said, suddenly this has worked. Or something's working. And then the growth thing. Well, what is it that's working and what will it become?" - Benedict Evans   Fresh out of the studio, Benedict Evans, the independent analyst and venture partner from Mosaic Ventures & Entrepreneur First, joined us to talk about his recent annual presentation on the technology business: The New Gatekeepers. Benedict shared his perspectives on the evolution of Web3 and AI given the major shift from the metaverse to generative AI. Last but not least, Benedict delves into the exciting possibilities and potential outcomes for the emerging wave of AI startups and explains what success would really mean for them.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"Here in the US and to your US listeners at least, I think what maybe is lost is that despite the US's very aggressive stance against crypto, the totally opposite attitude is being adopted by governments on the other side of the world. Jin talked a little bit about Japan.  I would just highlight Hong Kong as a proxy to China, mainland China. It's very clear that China is opening up to crypto through Hong Kong. This is a total about-face from less than two years ago when China banned crypto trading and mining in 2021, and all of a sudden it's reopening to retail in Hong Kong in June, like coming up. I think China's reopening up to crypto is in response to a few factors, which gives me confidence that this isn't short-term or short-lived kind of thing. First, China is really increasing the priority of economic growth over social control in their economy. I mean, a totally different issue than Japan, which has been dealing with 0% growth for 20 years. But China going from six to five is really scary, or five to four is really scary for other people. And so, in particular, its tech giants have slowed a lot because of regulation in China and so they're trying to get that back right by looking at crypto. Second is that China's really trying to regain lost mindshare from the last few years in Asia, the centre of gravity for capital in Asia has very seriously shifted towards Singapore after the Hong Kong political issues, after China's extended covid lockdown." - Cosmo Jiang, Global Coin Research Fresh out of the studio, Cosmo Jiang, Jin Kang & Junney Kang from Global Coin Research joined us in a roundtable to share the key takeaways from their market and investment report for Q1 2023. We looked at how the builders and venture capital in web3 and crypto are surviving through a tough bearish market despite the rebound of Bitcoin and Ethereum from the trading front. We continued the conversation to address whether Asia from China to India is now leading the resurgent activity for the web3 and crypto market with its crypto-friendly regulations and the potential to take away the lead from the US due to the recent aggressive anti-crypto regulation from the SEC in the US government. Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"I would say first of all Indonesia is probably one of the remaining opportunities in a huge market, that's more or less homogeneous with a population of 270 million. You have to look at the G D P per capita is around 4,000 and then the GDP (gross domestic product) growth itself: it's about 5%. So I think you are hard-pressed to find any other country that matches these three very promising criteria. I would say that secondly, on the technology side, a high level of digitization has taken place and internet penetration has grown very quickly, especially during covid. So we are about 70% internet penetration and the whole digital infrastructure is ready for companies to take advantage of them, by that I mean things like payments and logistics. Then I would say that there are other factors that make this market attractive more for the venture capital ecosystem. One is talent. I think you'll find the most number of entrepreneurs in Indonesia in the Southeast Asia region. Number two is you can find follow on capital. for early-stage investors, that's really important, right? Thirdly maybe most importantly, you can find a local exit market. So the IDX is open for iPOs and we've had three IPOs in the last two years. so I think those are the most attractive factors when you think about Indonesia as an emerging market." - Helen Wong   Fresh out of the studio, Helen Wong, managing partner from AC Ventures joined us in a conversation about AC Ventures and the firm's investment thesis onto the largest economy in Southeast Asia: Indonesia. Helen began with her background story from how she started in Silicon Valley, then moved to China and witnessed the rise of the Chinese tech scene. Following on, she explained her mental model in how she evaluates and invests in founders from the Indonesian tech scene. Last but not least, she discuss what great would look like for AC Ventures in Southeast Asia.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"But if you look at Generative AI, that is fundamentally a different way that technology came about and it required a lot of investment without knowing what was going to transpire. So I've talked to a couple of people who are affiliated with various top AI labs in China, and I asked them the same question 'Well, why didn't you guys not create this?' And the universal answer was... honestly OpenAI themselves probably had no idea what was going to happen." - Rui Ma   Fresh out of the studio, Rui Ma, China tech analyst and creator of Tech Buzz China, joined us to discuss how the China tech giants are evolving after the regulatory crackdown in the past three years. We start the conversation by examining why China missed the boat on ChatGPT with the tech giants now chasing after the same technology with their own variations. Next, we start to examine the key questions that everyone from the rest of the world wants to know about China tech from the possibility of a Tik Tok ban in the US to Tencent might follow suit from Alibaba in splitting their current conglomerate structure into different companies.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"Yes a lot of the blockchain companies don't know how to make games, and a lot of the game companies don't know how to incorporate blockchain into their games properly; there's really some truth to that. And there are some companies that put together both things like Animoca Brands for example, which started also as a gaming company and then morphed into a crypto gaming company. So they're trying to put these areas of ex expertise in together." - Serkan Toto   Fresh out of the studio, Serkan Toto, CEO & founder of Kantan Games joined us in a discussion to discuss web3 gaming after the three eras of gaming in the Asia Pacific: console, desktop and mobile. Serkan explained what makes web3 games different from the past and explained why the next breakout of web3 games would likely be from Asia. He also explored the debate that divided the traditional hardcore gaming and web3 gaming community and elaborated on the strengths and weaknesses of web3 gaming in the Asia Pacific. Last but not least, he offered his perspectives on what a great web3 game would look like.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"So at the Asia Pacific level, this study looked at several countries. But you know, we looked at a country level because that's the information that our customers and partners are interested in - whether they're in the government sector or in the private sector. So the countries include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and India. In the ASEAN space, the four countries I mentioned before - are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. So in this case, the first takeaway was that, again, digital fluency yields massive economic benefits. For example, those with advanced digital skills raised the Asia Pacific GDP by an estimated 934 billion. So it's pretty close to a trillion." - Emmanuel Pillai from Amazon Web Services   Fresh out of the studio, Emmanuel Pillai, Head of Training and Certification from Amazon Web Services, ASEAN, joined us to share how companies can build a tech-savvy workforce from building their startups to digital transformation with enterprises. Emmanuel began with an overview of AWS training and certification in the Asia Pacific. Then he dived deep into the recent report on building a tech-savvy workforce with Gallup and explained how economies and companies benefitted economically with the implementation of training and certification initiatives targeting to uplift the digital workers with modern technologies from AI/ML to 5G. Last but not least, Emmanuel shared what great would look like for AWS training and certification in the Asia Pacific. Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"The first thing is that the crypto market is still quite small compared to the equity [market]. [The size of the crypto market to equity market is about] one to 120, less than 0.8%, not even 1%. So, some smaller projects are very manipulated. [It is a] tough market, and second thing is that a lot of people say the variation for crypto is Twitter driven. So when Elon Musk or CZ send out a Tweet, it can pump up the project by about 5% to 10%. Because each [crypto] project is like religion, people believe in you." - Chris Lee   Fresh out of the studio, Chris Lee, co-founder & partner of TKX Capital joined us in a conversation about TKX Capital and his perspectives on how to invest in crypto projects and protocols globally in an uncertain era. Chris began the conversation with his background as the former CFO for both cryptocurrency exchanges: OK Coin and Huobi, and what he learned from meeting Warren Buffett in person. Next, he deep-dived into the mission, vision and investment thesis of TKX Capital and shared his thoughts on the current crypto market. Last but not least, he offered his thoughts on what great looks like for TKX Capital.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Fresh out of the studio and on the 2nd emergency podcast within the week, Cosmo Jiang from Nova River and host of the Global Coin Research Liquid podcast explained the implications of USDC depegging due to the bank run triggered by Silicon Valley Bank over the past weekend of 11 March. We dived deep into the implications of how it nearly destroyed the global web3 and crypto economy and what it means for the startups moving forward in an uncertain regulatory environment in the US. Last but not least, Cosmo shared his after-thoughts on the recent DCG settlement with Gemini and the other creditors on Genesis' bankruptcy.   Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).