From Startup Ecosystem Builder to Strategic Investor: E27 and Orvel Ventures with Mohan Belani

"If you take a step back and ask, how has the last 10-15 years panned out? The truth of the matter is that Southeast Asia has not done as well as it should have based on the reports and projections that existed earlier. There have been fundamental flaws from a culture standpoint with respect to how the ecosystem has been shaped. I think there has been too much of a mirror of what's happening in Silicon Valley and figuring out how to replicate those concepts in Southeast Asia, whereas there should have been a better, more localized, customized, regional model to suit the culture and concepts in this region. We've mirrored our fundraising, our entire ecosystem to be too much like Silicon Valley - blitzscaling style model, power law style investing which in hindsight, maybe were not the right approaches. There's also been an over-reliance on funding." - Mohan Belani, CEO & Co-founder of E27, Partner at Orvel Ventures

Fresh out of the studio, Mohan Belani, CEO and co-founder of E27 and partner at Orvel Ventures, joins us to explore his 15 years of journey shaping Southeast Asia's startup ecosystem. In the conversation, Mohan reflected on the evolution of Southeast Asia's ecosystem through different eras and offered his perspectives in how startups need to navigate the current funding winter in Southeast Asia. He also shared the spark that inspired him to set Orvel Ventures and how the investment thesis will fit better for the Southeast Asia region. Last but not least, he offered his vision what great would look like for Orvel and E27 in the next decade.

Episode Highlights:
[00:01:00] The Spark from Silicon Valley
[00:03:00] Foundational Lessons for Entrepreneurs
[00:07:00] The Origin of E27
[00:10:00] E27’s Evolution into a Regional Powerhouse
[00:13:00] Navigating the Phases of Southeast Asia’s Ecosystem
[00:17:00] Media as Ecosystem Infrastructure
[00:20:00] Building Regionally with Roadshows
[00:22:00] Hard Lessons from Regional Expansion
[00:23:00] Adapting to Emerging Tech Waves
[00:25:00] Misaligned Expectations & the Silicon Valley Mirror
[00:28:00] The Birth of Orvel Ventures
[00:33:00] The Orvel Ventures Investment Model
[00:36:00] Red Flags & Green Flags in Founders
[00:40:00] Rethinking Exit Pathways in SEA
[00:45:00] Promising Sectors in 2024
[00:48:00] Thoughts on Governance Failures
[00:52:00] The Need for Critique in SEA Media
[00:54:00] Vision for E27 and Oval Ventures
[00:57:00] Closing and Echelon 2025

Profile: Mohan Belani: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohanbelani/

CEO and co-founder of E27: https://e27.co

Partner, Orvel Ventures: https://orvel.vc

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
If you take a step back and ask right, OK, and how has the last
10-15 years panned out? The truth of the matter is that
Southeast Asia has not done as well as it should have been
based on the reports and the projections that existed
earlier. But also to me, there have been
fundamental flaws from a culturestandpoint with respect to how

(00:22):
the ecosystem has been shaped. And in in a way that has led to
why we launched Oval Ventures, right?
I think there has been too much of A mirror of what's happening
in Silicon Valley and figuring out how to replicate those
concepts in Southeast Asia. Whereas if you ask me, there
should have been a better, more localised, customised regional

(00:45):
model to suit the culture and concepts in this region.
So that's the first part of the problem, right?
I think that we've mirrored our fundraising, our entire
ecosystem to be too much like Silicon Valley.
So blitzkrieg style model, powerlaw style investing, which are
on hindsight maybe were not the right approaches.
Second thing is I think there's also been an over reliance on
funding. Welcome to Analyse Asia, the

(01:12):
premium podcast dedicated to dissecting the powers of
business, technology and media in Asia.
I'm Bernard Leong and E27 has been integral part of the
Southeast Asia startup and investor ecosystem for the past
decade. With me today, Mohan Balani, CEO
and Co Founder of E27 and partner at Oval Ventures to

(01:32):
reflect and look ahead where we are really heading with the
ecosystem. Of course, I also have to 1st
disclose that Oval VC is an investor to dodge AAI.
So with that out of the way, Mohan, welcome to the show.
Honour to have you here. Yeah, Thanks for having me here.
It's really great to be part of this.
Yes. And of course, I understand that
at the Echelon conference is coming next week.

(01:52):
So I think let's first talk about you.
In preparing for this interview,I noted that you're also part of
the NUS National University of Singapore Overseas College
programme in Silicon Valley. Maybe start off by telling how
did that experience influence your entrepreneurial journey?
Yeah. So the, I mean the programme was
pivotal in in quite a few ways, right.

(02:13):
I think the first part is in really exposing me to this
concept called startups and alsothis idea that it's small,
nimble teams with limited resources, right?
And, and, and a very tight time frame to execution that can
actually solve really big problems.
So the company that I was a partof, I was effectively employee
number 1. So it was me and the CEO the

(02:34):
whole time. And then he had an outsource
tech team. He hired a director of
engineering like a few weeks after I came in and it was just
the three of us, you know, all along.
So the exposure to doing trade shows, to doing marketing, to
doing, he was an amazing holistic understanding to what
it was to build the company, right.
So and NOC provided that groundwork fundamental

(02:58):
experience of working at companies.
And then the attachment that we had on the education side was
with respect to classes at Stanford with this with a very
reputable Tom Kosting right. And I think it was amazing to
have a balance between the theoretical classroom
understanding of entrepreneurship and the
practical, you know, day-to-day workings right of, of starting

(03:21):
up. And I even remember some of the
other professors I had in class,they had the startups of their
own right. So it was just a fascinating
melting pot of events, learning hands on experience, and of
course, the constant intermingling with other
founders in the valley, right? That really shaped my entire
world view of what it meant to be part of the startup
ecosystem. And, and, and that of course led

(03:44):
to me working on E 27 and makinglike my entire life's career to
helping work on the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia.
If you were to reflect on your journey, what are some of the
pivotal lessons you have learnedand you can share with the
aspiring entrepreneurs out there?
On on the NOC side or. Maybe you try your career and
thinking through. Yeah, so I remember on the on

(04:07):
the NOC side, right, like there were two two stories I like to
share with people, right. The first one I remember within
the first couple of weeks in in the office, right.
I was trying to tell my boss hisname is Anand, right, That hey,
we should really do something about the UX, you know, and he
basically said, look, we don't have a budget for UX person.
And by the way, you know, my friends have tried out the
product. The product works fine.
I think it's great. So there's, you know, there's

(04:27):
there's nothing to worry about, right?
So I, I, I learnt very quickly that in order to get support for
what I was trying to push, I decided to e-mail like 100 of my
friends back, mostly back in Singapore, right, And say, hey,
check out this product, that I'mpart of the company.
Give me your super honest feedback and we'll see.
Like literally 99% of the feedback was just product was

(04:50):
bad, crap, UX was bad. And, and back then we still
printed emails, right? So I literally printed the
emails, stapled the stack of them, left him on, left it on
his table the night before. And the next day he, he came in,
looked at it, you know, called me over shortly after he said,
you know what? OK, maybe we, we should I, I
hear you on, on the need to improve our UX.

(05:10):
I, I recognize the feedback. Now is not the time, but I
promise you, give me some time and I'll get a UX person in on,
on a project level. So, so sometimes, right, if you
want to push through ideas, it'snot, it's not enough to just
have it from your innate self, right?
You know, getting custom validation, customer feedback or
the, or the general community to, to support and back what

(05:31):
you're doing from a data-driven standpoint is quite, quite
meaningful and powerful. The second story, right about
opening up, asking, which I thought, which has really helped
me to today, was that I was, I wanted to go to New York to
attend conference, which my, which my boss is going for.
I didn't have the we didn't havethe budget to fly me there.
The good news is that my grandparents live in New York,
so accommodation was free, right, But the ticket costs.

(05:54):
The ticket just for the event was about 3000 USD.
Wow. Right, So my boss is like, Yep,
no way you're going, right? So I quietly emailed the company
and I said, hey, can I, I'm fromSingapore, I'm part of this
NUSNOC program. I study at Stanford.
I want to come and volunteer time and effort to supporting
the event organizer came back saying, yeah, sure, come by,

(06:15):
meet me at the registration booth and you can do some
volunteer work for us. So I was like, OK, problem
number one solve. I got a volunteer pass.
Problem number 2 was the tickets, right?
So that was simple, right? Because I scrambled some cash,
borrowed some money from my frommy roommates and managed to get
a managed to get the cheapest flight over which which had a
layoff and all, but we don't gotthat done.
Then housing was covered. The moment I landed at the

(06:36):
event, the the, the guy at registration gave me a gold
pass. He's like, this is our highest
tier pass. Take the pass, enjoy yourself,
go learn, meet great people, andI hope you have a wonderful
time. I was like, really, I was like,
really, what the hell happened? Right.
So I had a higher tier pass thanmy boss.
I was getting into the the VIP sessions.

(06:57):
I had pretty much full access and that led me to like be
pitching to some of the potential clients.
I, I had a stack on name cards that I collected, brought them
back to the company a week laterand, and, and then we started
doing demos with these clients close some of them.
But if fundamentally starting started from me just going, Hey,
can I can I do something to support that then allows me to

(07:20):
get a pass that I can cover the cost of the ticket?
Interesting. And I think that's this whole
idea of just come on, just ask, right, was something that really
opened up my mind and I would have never done that before in
the past. So I guess the Silicon Valley
environment sparked that whole initiative to just go out there
and try things out. Yeah, it reminds me of the

(07:42):
Jensen Fong story where he had to ask someone to pay him just
before the company was about thebank.
And then, you know, in the videowe have a different life story,
you know, add it all. You.
Didn't ask that question. I think the asking is the most
important for all entrepreneurs.I think you totally reflected
that lesson pretty well. So one thing, so the main

(08:03):
subject of the day is actually talk about E27 and also the
evolution of the entire Southeast Asia startup
ecosystem. I think maybe to help all my
audience, let's baseline. Can you share the story of E27
from it's origin story all the way to as an evolution of as a
platform for startups and investors today?

(08:23):
Yeah. So the, the, the company
originally started as a community in the US and it was
actually originally started by acouple of other folks, Justin
Lee Bianli and a whole bunch of individuals that are actually
all successful founders today, including the founders of Zopin
Money Spot. So if I recall correctly, there
were about 20 of them that started this as a community in
US. Yeah.

(08:44):
And when it started, I was stillin the US.
So when I came back from NOC in July O 7, I kind of got
integrated in this group and andthe the reason why it became or
got registered as a company was because way back when MDA had
the IGN program and US was one of the incubatee companies.

(09:04):
I believe you had a fund. Yeah.
That was my first fund. Yeah.
So, so NUS wanted to collaboratewith the with this group of
individuals that were very active and passionate about
startups and very close to the student community.
So that's how optimatic the parent company of E 27 started.
And then they were doing contractual work for NUS to run

(09:24):
the garage incubator back in Prince George's parks.
Yes, the bungalows at the back that led to the investment in
companies like Petsnap, Smart 2,Do Finite Media, Golden or SG
and a few others, right. So, so it started as a community
and then over the years it was doing events, it was doing
activities. In that journey I actually went

(09:48):
on to work at an Adutech companycalled Little Lives, which if
you work at it you are in a child in the kindergarten to
this iTunes the used. App Yes, I'm used that app.
Yeah. So I did the, I did the first
sales to the Moe and the kindergarten and did the iPod
training for the teachers. I worked at mid 33 for a while
and then I had a gaming company shortly after that.

(10:10):
But the honest truth is that sometime around 2011, and for
most of that period, right deep down inside, I really wanted to
get back to supporting startup companies, right?
The the core thesis that I had in my mind, and this is a thesis
that was not new because I pitched it.
I even pitched it to Saeed Ahmedi was the CEO and founder

(10:30):
of Plug and Play when I was backin the valley, was this concept
that if you look at Southeast Asia, it is riddled with
problems and also opportunities,right?
Those opportunities are not going to be capitalized by the
larger companies, neither are they going to be fixed by the
government. The one core group of people
that should be tackling these problems and can do them in a

(10:51):
scalable manner is going to be founders and entrepreneurs,
right? And the startup mindset is what
is needed, you know, to fix all the issues in Southeast Asia.
So if we as a platform could support more startups, give them
the visibility, provide them theaccess to the investors, give
them the information that they need to better be competitive, a
lot less startups will fail, right.

(11:12):
And so 20 and 2011 I, I that is,and I and I set up with that and
say, Hey, I'm going to do this. I want to do this.
You want to be part of it, right?
We went back to the original core group of E 27 folks, but
you know, restructure the cap table and basically said, look,
we have a plan to to bring this to another level.
I brought in our first Angel investor who's still on my

(11:32):
board, Nick Lim, whose fund is called 8 Capital.
Yeah. And with that first initial 25K
check, it led to what it is today.
And I think from Garage, we alsomoved to the Block 71, which is
also the part of the integral part of the startup ecosystem
within Singapore itself. Yeah, of course, block segment
separate. It's all over the world now,
yeah. And at that period, we were part

(11:55):
of the, we were, we were close to MDA and NUS to kind of like,
you know, discuss the initial seedling ideas of this concept
called Block 71. So when, when it first started,
we had the opportunity to be oneof the part of one of the
incubators, fat fish on the 2nd floor in Block 71 itself,
because there were, there were alot of stringent requirements

(12:16):
around what kind of company there.
So we managed to, Long story short, we managed to be part of
it. And then we were based there all
the way until 2018. Yeah.
And then the environment to be. Yeah, you all got all the best
like there is inside Business School, there is Visionopolis
and all the startups are there. Yeah, it was like a startup zoo,

(12:36):
right, Because you had people from all over the world coming,
visiting and it was like a central part of activities
happening. Unfortunately, didn't have much
event space back then or we would have probably done a lot
more events. But it was really like the
melting pot of the early Singapore startup ecosystem,
right, when there was barely even CVC funding, right.
So I think that that original opportunity right, to be in the

(12:58):
centre from a physicality standpoint of, of the entire
rise and growth of the startup ecosystem.
We were very fortunate to be in that place.
And then over time we had our own office on the 5th floor and
then we moved over to Science Park in in 2018.
Oh OK, but it's still very near to the centre of all the thing,
right? I think block 71 still running

(13:20):
strong these days. Yeah, yeah, I think the
community is still strong. I mean, it's very
professionalized in a lot of ways now.
It's run by JTC, multiple blocks.
I believe there's block 69, yes.I can't even remember all the
different numbers. But fundamentally, I think it's
really become a very integral part of the ecosystem.
And it's a, it's a brand name kind of known to be synonymous

(13:40):
with starting up. I guess when you think about
then to now, what were the some of the significant challenges
you face in those early days andthe growing stages of E27 and
then how do you all overcome some of them?
In the very start, right, I think the a large part of the
challenge were around fundamental missing building

(14:03):
blocks of what it had what it needed to have a a good
ecosystem, right. So there was always this chicken
egg issue around funding and investors.
Yeah. And I remember that while the
government played a really amazing role at trying to make
sure that there was capital, it never felt like there was
enough. So everything we did right,

(14:23):
there were always bigger questions around, okay, how do
you get to Series A, how do you get to Series B system have that
support of it rather than focusing back on really the
companies and what they were doing.
So I think the earlier part frommaybe 2012 to 2015, that was the
first part of the challenge right from 2015 to rank like
2018. I think those were the boom

(14:46):
days. There was capital coming in.
There were there were starting to be really good companies
coming out. I remember there was also the
period where there was so many different programs to support
founders, both on the capital, the talent, the market access
side and more importantly, rightthere were also interesting,

(15:06):
like people with good the right backgrounds from corporate that
were willing to say, hey, look, I want to leave my corporate
opportunity, jump into this startup bandwagon and and raise
capital. And I think there was also the
early formulations of interesting ideas and verticals
that have started to shape up. Like fintech was really starting
to shape up to be an interestingvertical.
Health tech was another big yeahstarting out, but I think it

(15:28):
hasn't really fully reached its full potential.
The B2B marketplaces have been starting up 2012.
That period was still very consumer centric.
And with consumer comes, you know, the need for a lot of
capital where, you know, and that's where a lot of the
thesisers would fail, right. But we need 15 to 18 was I think
a larger emergence of B2B, right?
And I remember even at the tail end, right, you started to have

(15:49):
sub micro verticals around, let's say mental health, yeah,
where you had the logistics supply chain, you know, they
started coming up. And along with these problems
and opportunities came an interesting diversity of
corporate venture funds, latest age funds, international funds.
And so yeah, that that I remember there.
But then it also just right before that COVID period also

(16:10):
there's another sort of a boom between 2020-2021.
What about that era then from from that build up?
All the way to 20/19/20, I thinkthere was a good build up,
right? In 20/20/2020, 2020, I think
there was a kind of major crash because everyone's just like, oh
crap, what do we do now, right. But I think until 20/20 to 20/21

(16:31):
was when the further just went on another level.
Yeah, majorly because of the interest rates issue and the
stock markets also, you know, going on nuts and plus all the
COVID money coming in, right. But there was also that
realization that a certain sectors are doing extremely
well. No one had a clear sensing of
when the world would open up. So maybe everyone thought that
we would be stuck, you know, watching Netflix, you know,

(16:52):
using Zoom and and consuming digital services in perpetuity.
So I think there was a massive fervor.
And then of course, the web freespace also started really
heating up and very exciting in that period, right?
Which which help, you know, alsochannel and a different type of
capital into the the ecosystem founders.
And both funds were also raisingat records levels.

(17:13):
Remember they were like funds popping up every other day
raising anyway between 50 to like $300 million funds all over
the region, right? I'm not sure how a lot of them
are doing. But you know, last I heard, I
think it's been, it's been a struggle, right?
But on the founders side, the founders that they were able to
capitalize on capital raises at that period.
I'm sure they must have done really, really well, but they

(17:35):
must have taken a massive headline on their evaluations
from that period until now. I think the startup ecosystem
lost sense of bearing. But then again, it also it was
also comparing itself with the capital markets on the US side.
And in that sense, I think everyfounder would have done what
they should do right, which is just capitalize on the
opportunity, raise capital, pushhard and see what happens at a

(17:56):
later stage. So you, so you will see from
your perspective, how do you seeyour role being both media and
also community platform where you have to support the
start-ups in through this entireperiod, these different stages
you identify, what do you feel is that is the role then and
now? Yeah, yeah.

(18:16):
So we've always, we've always played the role of ecosystem
builder, right. Media is a by product of
ecosystem building, right. The, the large reason why we
launched the media arm was simply because we, we wanted to
educate and inform the ecosystem, not to be like, not
to, not to have a journalism stance to investigate what was

(18:39):
happening in the industry, right?
So media for us has always been a, an Ave. whereby we can
uncover, feature interesting companies and what's happening
in the ecosystem. But we also realized that as a,
as an organization, right? We are not the subject matter
experts in any particular field,right?
So we, I think it was around 20/15/2016 is when we launched

(19:02):
our contributor program. And it's a basically it's a,
it's a glorified guest post concept, right?
But what we realized is that if you're a founder in AI, if
you're a founder of logistics, you've probably done enough of
research and due diligence aboutthat sector.
So then be a thought leader, right?
And again, all of this was pre LinkedIn thought leadership on

(19:23):
10 side, right? So we were very actively
engaging the entire ecosystem, founder, investor, corporate,
right to basically say, hey, canyou be a thought leader on the
platform, you know, create content and write about it.
So the tricky part is that we had to just make sure that the
content was not overly a sales pitch about what they were
doing, but was providing true value to the ecosystem.

(19:45):
And then that funneled into our events with the way we structure
the content at our our conferences.
A lot of our conference content is again, very thought
leadership driven, less about organisations or companies or,
or a critique of their business,right?
And I think that shaped the culture that we have, right?
Our core value #1 is respect theecosystem.

(20:06):
You know, we don't believe in creating content that maybe
vilifies or, you know, pushes down a particular individual or
company, right? I think constructive criticism
is important. Organizations will make
mistakes, right? And you will have some bad
actors, E fishery for example. But we want to focus on the

(20:27):
individuals that are doing good work.
We want to focus on the knowledge sharing, the thought
leadership content that we feel will elevate this vision.
So my question will be from Singapore.
You actually also go across different parts of Southeast
Asia. Yeah.
How, how do you find like say you when you go into the other
different countries, say Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam,

(20:48):
Malaysia or Philippines, What, what is the sense like when you
bring the E27 kind of community platform across?
Is it? Is it different?
There is a different vibe or different perspective?
Yeah. So in the early days we really
had not much intention to, you know, regionalize and go abroad,
right. You know, a large region is
because we did not have the resources, but also the know how

(21:11):
and how it started is that regional players will contact us
to say, hey, why aren't you doing Echelon in my particular
country? And you're like, oh, we, we, we,
do you want an echelon or how dowe do it?
Like is there an appetite? Is there a market for it?
And most of the time you'll be, why don't I help you out?
And we'll do event here. And that's how the roadshow
concept came about in our hey days.

(21:33):
We used to have 13 Echelon Rd. shows across APEC, including
Central Asia, Mongolia, Australia and every major city
across Southeast Asia and North East Asia.
And a lot of this was driven by partners, not by right.
I think we strongly believe thatin order for us to add value to

(21:54):
the ecosystem, we need to collaborate and partner with the
local communities and local ecosystem players, whether they
are investors, whether they're governments or whether they are
local equivalents of of E 27, right.
Yeah, what would you have done differently?
Let's say you know what you knownow, and then you rewind
backwards and then start all over again.
Or you may be the same decision order.

(22:16):
So we learnt a lot by, you know,really going out to all these
markets, right? I think on hindsight, what we
could have done better is to be smarter in evaluating, right,
whether an ecosystem was ready. Most ecosystems were really just
not ready. So when we went in, when we did
the activities, right, we were basically working with founders

(22:36):
or an ecosystem that was maybe 5years behind, right?
So we would, we might do an event, it might be extremely
well, but there will be no follow through after that.
And it's not, again, it's not about the founders or investors
not doing the job is the ecosystem was just too early,
right? So I think, I think on, on one
level that would have been something that we should have

(22:56):
been a bit more mindful and smarter about.
Second thing is also right, we, we, we should have figured out
how to better capitalize on the platform to support these
regions and not the events, right?
I think culturally we were always stuck right.
Are we a product company? Are we a community?
Are we events company? And I think up to COVID we were

(23:19):
very much an events mindset organization and the, and the
platform was just pure purely content and maybe to market the
event. COVID was a wake up call for us
and an opportunity to be more community and platform centric
from an online standpoint. On hindsight, if we had done
that earlier, I think we could have impacted ecosystems on a

(23:39):
much deeper and much more sustainable level.
So with like the rise of new technologies, I mean across the
entire decade, right? I mean, we have mobile then
whenever we had a bit of a crypto and then AI now.
And also the market dynamics have changed quite significantly
over this period of time. How do you think wherefore E27?
What is the thing that will makesure that you can adapt to stay

(24:02):
relevant and also continue providing that value to the
ecosystem itself? That's a really great question
because in the early days, I think a lot of the companies
would B to B to C and then that evolved to be B to B and even B
to B. There were very few verticals
that made sense. SAS, maybe marketplaces, right?
But over time, right, there weredeeper verticals that started

(24:22):
coming out. Fintech was a very, very deep
work coming out. HR was another deep one.
Yeah. Even CXA, like customer
experience was a deeper. So for us, I think what we've
always done right is to say, look, we know that there will be
a flavour of the man concept in the salad ecosystem.
I remember in 2020, the flavour of the man was food tech
companies, right? Partly because Singapore was

(24:45):
having a crisis, wanted to invest in, you know, making our
food networks a bit more resilient.
But there was a whole plant basefor, you know, and all that.
They Nobody talks about food tech companies.
Yeah, We realized if we went after or chased after a certain
vertical, it might be too risky for us.
We need to be a bit more genericand serve the larger general,

(25:08):
you know, entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Now we will miss out on certain areas like for example, if
you're a fintech company, right,Singapore Fintech Festival and
some of the fintech centric organizations might be, might
provide you a lot more deeper value, right.
But if you look, if you look at what we're doing, the general
startup landscape, the general ecosystem with some Nuggets of

(25:29):
verticalization is what we're looking at.
So AI is a vertical for example,we really cannot ignore.
And to be honest, it's not so much of A vertical, but entire
ecosystem centric integration that's going to happen.
I to me in a year or two, we will stop even talking about AI
because it's going to be a feature in, in every company.
The same way social local mobilewas something that Silicon

(25:52):
Valley was talking about like crazy in the 2012 era and no one
talks about it now because it's assumed that every company is
that way. Same to me, same way with AI,
right? But AI goes across the board
regardless of B to BB to C, regardless of fintech, health
tech or logistics, right? AI has a role to play and that's
why we kind of focus a lot more on AI in the recent echelons,

(26:13):
last year as well as this year. But we want to be agnostic
platform for startups. So what's the one thing you know
about the Southeast Asia investor and startup ecosystem
that? Very few do.
If I, if I had to tell you, I'm sure you have one thing about
that. Yeah, If you take a step back
and ask, right, OK. And how has the last 10-15 years
panned out? The truth of the matter is that

(26:35):
Southeast Asia has not done as well as it should have been
based on the reports and the projections that existed
earlier. But also to me, there have been
fundamental flaws from a culturestandpoint with respect to how
the ecosystem has been shaped and in in a way that has led to
why we launched Oval Ventures, right?

(26:56):
I think there has been too much of A mirror of what's happening
in Silicon Valley and figuring out how to replicate those
concepts in Southeast Asia. Whereas if you ask me, there
should have been a better, more localized, customized regional
model to suit the culture and concepts in this region.

(27:18):
So that's the first part of the problem, right?
I think that we've mirrored our fundraising, our entire
ecosystem to be too much like Silicon Valley.
So blitzkrieg style model, powerlaw style investing, which are
on hindsight maybe were not the right approaches.
Second thing is I think there's also been an over reliance on
funding. So markets like Philippines,
right, interestingly, right, because they've not been the

(27:38):
darling of the ecosystem from a fundraising standpoint, they've
had to be a bit more resilient to make sure that they go to
market faster and get revenue faster.
I think that's starting to show in terms of some of the quality
of the companies, right? Do you see the same even in like
Malaysia given that they have a much vibrant crypto companies?
Yeah, Malaysia has always been agreat ecosystem if you're, if
you are, if you're looking to build a small medium sized

(28:01):
startup, right. And, and again, the problem with
us in the region is our obsession on Silicon Valley like
metrics for success, which is, you know, if you're not building
to be Unicorn, you, you, you know, no one, you, no one, no VC
is going to invest in you. I, I, you know, although,
although invested in one Malaysian company and, and he's

(28:21):
a good founder, he's building a great business and he raised
capital from his previous company from Tier 1 VCs.
And when I asked him why didn't the VCs invest in a new company,
the messaging was that, oh, thisdoes not have a Unicorn
potential. And I'm like, what is wrong with
us as an ecosystem, right? Why haven't we learned that the

(28:42):
power law way of investing in this region does not always work
and probably will not work for awhile?
So, yeah, yeah. So it would be fair because you
move forward with overall ventures.
So I want to walk you a step back and say, hey, what was the
spark that inspired you to establish Oral Ventures?
I think your investment thesis is very different.

(29:02):
And by the way, I like the way you define the origin of Oval
Ventures. Maybe you want to talk about the
name, how it came about? Yeah, So, so Oval stands for
origin velocity, right? Yeah.
I never intended to start a fund.
I was, I was, you know, a lot ofpeople casually over the last
10-15 years have said, hey, you know, why do you new start a
fund, right. And for me, I, I, I, I did not

(29:24):
think that I am suited to be in the finance side of the
ecosystem. I think I'm better suited to be
on the founders side, the ecosystem building site, right?
And so I rather work with and build relationships with the VCs
and then, you know, use their capital to support the
ecosystem, which is what we've done on E 27.
We have our investor portal withover 1000 investors, the ECCO

(29:47):
business matching activity that we do, you know, a lot of
founders actually raise capital through through Echelon, right.
So that to me has been the rightfit.
But in 2022, I was doing some myusual age of investment with
Milan, right from yeah, correct,right.
Who's now with my partner at Oval.
So Milan and I, you know, caughtup over a drink because we've

(30:08):
I've done some deals with him and never met him face to face.
We started with this through thecomposition, right?
We started with this one question.
It's like, hey, if you were going to raise a start a company
tomorrow, who would you want to raise from?
So I had my list of about three or five investors who I liked
and all Milan had his list and we were comparing notes.
And as we went through the list and we were talking, right, we,

(30:28):
we started to realise, look, in our current stage, you know, us
being a bit more experienced in the ecosystem, us knowing, you
know, how do we want to build companies, right?
We realised that most PCs were not ideal for founders of our
level. That means a bit older, have
done it before, need more support than pure capital.

(30:50):
And so we started to OK, dissectthe problem, right, OK, let's
look at the founder side. What would a more senior
seasoned founder need? And, and through the
discussions, we realized capitalis something that they could
very easily get from the network, you know, and most VCs
will throw money at them, but what they really, really needed
was strategic networks that helped to open doors for them,

(31:11):
that allowed them to go to market faster, improve their
runway, you know, thanks to the warm relationships that a
strategic investor could provide.
So network driven was one key part.
The second part was on the portfolio construction
standpoint. Yeah, right.
We looked at the a lot of the funds that existed today, a lot
of them went in with cheque sizes that allowed them to have

(31:32):
1015%, you know, in, in, in ownership in the companies.
And if we realized that, you know, over time it was really
hard for these funds to exit thecompanies because unless a very
large later stage investor came in, they really couldn't sell
down and return money back to LP's.
You know, So then you needed to,to, to, to bet on the power law

(31:54):
model, which means that you would have to, let's say, invest
in 20 companies, knowing that very well that 18 of them will
either die or not return you a dime.
And you hope that the final two get a Unicorn 100 X that will
exit. So the 18 founders that you
originally support will be left to die.
And, and to me, that's the shitty thing that that I felt,

(32:14):
you know, when, when, when during COVID, right?
And I'm copying a lot of my Angel portfolio.
The one conversation they will have with me, they're like, why
aren't my investors supporting me now when I need them the
most? And I totally I say it's not
you. It's the model they are looking
for their one Unicorn exit in their portfolio.
And if you're not that, they're not going to support you.

(32:36):
It's not that they're mean or evil, right?
It's a function of them all. The last part was an LP site.
So I've been an LP in funds. I know multiple people who are
LP's in funds, right? I've had some great successes as
a fun LP. I've had some not so good
successes, right? And the one common theme if you
talk to any LP that invests in South Asia funds, the answer is

(32:58):
always no DPI. Yeah.
You know, like virtually no, there's virtually very little or
no DPI in most South East Asia funds.
Whereas if you look at some of the American funds and other
funds that I've I've invested in, there's typically some level
of DPI within the first couple of years.
Again, there are many reasons for that, right.

(33:18):
On some level is the nature of the ecosystem.
A lot more MNA happens on some level, you know, the, the funds
are better at getting out right as as good as they are in
getting in. So we, we looked at these three
issues and say, OK, how can we launch a fund that tackles this
problem deviate some of these problems.
So we started a fund that is network driven.
So the capital that we provide is up to on average 100K.

(33:41):
Yep, I can issue is that we onlytake a 1% ownership.
We increase that up to 3% over time.
But the goal is to take very small stakes in many, many
companies as opposed to large stakes in maybe 10 to 20
companies, right. And more importantly, right,
these companies at the point of investment have to be generating
revenue and our valuation shouldn't be more than 2025 X or

(34:04):
gross margin multiples, which means that our entry prices are
not at the ridiculous level thata lot of funds get in it.
So for example, let's. Say if a company, because AI
companies are quite different, II suppose if they can get
profitable then there is a DPI that you can still return your
fund, right? Yeah, it's on that, yeah.
I mean they could do share. Buybacks, they could do.
Dividends, you know, there are multiple ways to to to work

(34:26):
around that, right. But importantly, right is to not
fall into the trap of investing in the tier one founder with a
Tier 1 lead we see in a really hot market and then having a
1520 million pre money valuationwith no real product or no
revenue. So it was, it was making sure
that we were very deliberate that we wanted to go back to in
investing in companies that havegood financial fundamentals.

(34:48):
They might not be unicorns, but it could be really good, $100
million, two $100 million companies and that and.
Yeah, you're right. And I think the the ecosystem
actually missed out a lot on these companies.
Absolutely, yeah. And, and here's the thing, in
2022 when we were talking about this, the truth is we still got
a lot of blank stares from investors looking at us going

(35:10):
like, what, what, what nonsense is this?
That's not VC investing. The one group of people that
resonated very well with us werethe founders and most of the
exited founders. And that's the first bucket of
capital that we raised from founders that have exited.
They said, look, this model likeI, I want to see this model work
and henceforth I'm giving you this capital.

(35:32):
But I really wish a fund like that exited when I was building
my company. Do you think that your fund will
ever. Reach the point where you could
also do almost like a private equity where you can actually
even roll out companies there because you are looking at that
kind of trajectory. You're not looking for that the
power law type, but you're actually looking for very
sustainable, but essentially would provide a proper DPI in

(35:54):
that in that point of view. Yeah, I think to do that
effectively. You definitely need a large
amount of capital and you need ateam that has got the management
experience with with respect to either operator management or
consultancy type management, right.
But for us, right, we're dealingwith a very, very small fund.
We like small funds. We don't like funds that are
more than 20 mil, right. Even from an investment
standpoint, I generally don't invest in larger funds.

(36:17):
I made the invested mistake of investing in one or two large
funds and and and true be told the the outcomes have not been
great. So for me, smaller funds have
limited resources in terms of dry powder that they can invest
and they typically invest a bit earlier at rounds that are at a
price that is a lot more pragmatic, right?
And I think smaller funds also have a higher chance of at the

(36:41):
very least, you know, returning their base capital, which is in
my experience, the smaller fundsI've invested in have done quite
well in doing that. I I think so too.
Actually coming to think about it as a enjoy investor myself,
I'm looking quite curious to hear your point of view on this.
What are the treats that you look out for when you invest in

(37:01):
startup founders? But given it's such an early
stage as well, yeah. So I I.
I stopped actively enjoy investing, but I, you know,
interestingly, I did one deal early this year.
I, I really, really wasn't intending to, but the founder
reached out to me. He was an old friend of mine and
the the part that got me over the line was was very simple,

(37:21):
right? One is that it was a problem
that he deeply resonated in and was looking for a company to
invest in to solve the problem right.
And it's. It's in a sector I would have
never thought of, which is in the film testing sector.
Wow, that's. Interesting.

(37:42):
Yeah. So like I like.
Like if you think of sector likeI think that's probably a sector
I wouldn't even know even existed, right?
A he's deeply passionate about that sector.
He has built up like research knowledge, you know, information
repository in that entire sectorfor many years because of his
personal passion. And two is that he's been
looking actively for farmers to invest in, never found one and

(38:05):
decided, you know what? He, he just needed to scratch
that itch, right? And so he very like on his own
dime, right? Built a prototype, got a team,
small team together, got a very strong proof of concept that
started to validate potentially what the idea looked like before
he even raised the dime, right? So based on that logic, right of

(38:26):
OK, I know this founder really well and I know how hardworking
and passionate he is. And B, this is a sector he's
deeply passionate about. He's spending many years of his
life, you know, researching it and understanding it.
And C, he managed to get to a level, right whereby he has
something to show the world withhis own capital and he's put a
team together to support him in that process.

(38:48):
You know, so for me, right, I think these are the kind of
founders I would want to back. So if I reverse the question.
What's the red flags there? So the red flags.
For me, are founders whereby they're raising capital for the
pure sake of raising capital to get their product out or to get
their company going. Like they, they don't seem to
have any real skin in the game with respect to let's say,

(39:09):
putting in their own capital or at least maybe bootstrapping or
working on the product for 6 to 12 months.
And they're just purely using the investor capital to to to
get there. Do you notice that this is
actually? Becoming a big problem because I
also noticed in Star Founder some of the Star founders I
talked to seems to be very heavily reliant on raising more
and more capital but never got to a stage where they can

(39:32):
actually be revenue positive yeah I mean we've.
All drunk the kool-aid real raising capital.
And of course, it doesn't help the media platforms also glorify
founders that raise capital, right?
So do events, right? So we've done, if we've drunk
that Silicon Valley Kool-aid of BC fundraise and we should be
flipping the switch and going, hey, look, how do I make sure I

(39:55):
get to financial sustainability as quickly as possible on my
own? Yeah.
Then VC capital is a catalyst for me to get to the next level
where I know organically I can'tget there quickly, right?
I, I think that's the missing gap on me.
So VC to me, right, is really good for two things.
One, it's good to invest in the craziest ideas that no one in

(40:16):
the world will touch, right? And the founders are deeply
passionate about it and they need capital because there's
maybe a deep tax centric expertise or the market is not
ready to pay for it. Right.
So that that's where BC right. So if we look at, you know, the
plant based meat sector, I thinkthat's one good, one good
example of how VC capital was really able to unlock that

(40:38):
sector extremely well. OK.
The second part is when you havesomething you know and you want
to scale it, you know it works, there's product market fit.
Now you need to scale it to a level right that your product
can get into the hands of a large number of people.
This can be a big company, right?
And, and the and, and, and the VC money is literally the fuel

(41:00):
to the fire, right? If you're using VC money to be
the fire starter, that's wrong, right?
VC money is a fuel to the fire. Yeah.
And in that scenario, I think VCmoney is phenomenal.
You've seen. The Southeast Asia startup
ecosystem growth, I guess, I guess one question, if you were
to look back towards it, right, how do you now perceive the

(41:23):
current state of say venture capital in like, oh, I think the
recent shifts, I think some of the funds have reached their 10
year mark. And I think you rightfully point
out that the DPI problem is there.
Yeah, how, how do you think I, Istarting to see even like there
is a good there's like AMT Series B slot now.
I don't know whether a still exists.
Maybe all the capital is now starting around pre seat to

(41:46):
seat. And I think that's the only way
you have funding. And I think after that it's
probably very difficult to raiseunless like you say you really
have the product market fit, youcan add fuel to the fire.
Otherwise having it as a fire starter will not work for you
either. How would you think about how
would you think about now for venture capital within the
region? Do you think that it's going to
be very challenging or maybe it's going to be just a blip for

(42:09):
a while? Maybe you need the fundamentals
growing. I think there's some options
that you look at the Vietnam market, you look at say like for
example, you identified the Philippines as well.
I think Malaysia is interesting because I seen very good crypto
companies come from there. Yeah, yeah, I think latest.
Stage venture capital is going to have a very tough time,

(42:30):
right? Early stage venture capital
you've done right. If with with with the correct
pricing entry points, right, I think they will, they will not
have an issue. So my, my question to the
ecosystem, right, is this, OK, if you can build a company,
scale it to maybe 10 million revenue and get it to like 30
percent, 40% of Net margin on the EBITDA bullshit, right,

(42:50):
3040% Net margin to me, right, That is a very, very good
success. And with that Net margin, right,
you can buy out and, and and do share buybacks for all the early
stage investors. Yeah, that's possible.
Right. I think it's actually doable.
Yeah, it is very. Doable, but most companies just
don't think of growth and scale that way.

(43:10):
To them, I think that concept isprobably a failure.
The first, there are two problems here.
First problem is that most companies can probably get to 2
million revenue, maybe 3, right.And then at that stage, they
might have maybe 10% Net margin,but for them to get a 30% Net
margin, it might be difficult. But this is where I think AI is
a massive opportunity yeah, right.
With workflow automation and, and, and, and some level of

(43:32):
scalability using AI agents, youcan get into the 30% margin.
So if you have a company doing to the Tremill with 30% net
margins, then the question is now can you scale this to 10 mil
to 15 mil? This is where new markets come
in, you know, expansion to othermarkets in the region.
So you're essentially creating multiple markets doing to the
Tremill combined. Yeah.

(43:54):
And I think if at the next levelyou can do a 10 mil company
revenue at a 30% Net margin, youcan buy out all the early stage
BCS that came in. They will all make a multi fold
positive return and that's what the ecosystem needs.
Now some companies will get fromthe 10 mil to the 100 mil
valuation revenue. And I think that level of

(44:14):
companies are only mostly companies, right that either are
deeply entrenched in this regionor they will have to scale to
markets like Europe or or US. Like I mean, if we look at Pet
Snap for example, right, they have already like started
exploring the US market carousel.
On the other hand, deeply entrenched in this region, you
know, really pushing hard to gettheir top line closer to 100 mil

(44:35):
level, but the Net margin is always going to be an issue.
So property guru, another clear example of a company deeply
entrenched in this region, EQT, you know, privatize the company
so that they can maximize the net margins from it, right?
But that to me is another like the few great examples of
companies that can get to a significant amount of revenue,
the publicly disturbed good net margins.

(44:57):
But I think for most other founders aspire to build a 2
million, $3,000,000 revenue company with a 2030% Net margin.
First you get to that milestone,right?
You can buy back all your engineinvestors, Yeah, I think money
and everybody will be happy. True.
So if you think. About it right then what are the
sectors or technology now you think will be good for say

(45:19):
start-ups in Southeast Asia? Because it seems to me market
penetration is, is one of the clear things.
If you stay within this market, there's a challenge.
And I think even for myself, I'mthinking a lot more about the
Australian New Zealand market, which are developed markets
where I know there are clear customers there or even the US
market or European markets where, where do you think that

(45:40):
that what kind of real sectors that really makes sense within
this current, I guess 2024 batchstartups?
Because I think it's actually a good time because the more
depressed the error is actually the better startups will come
out from that error. Yeah.
Unfortunate truth is that we've just been depressed for quite a
while. You know, everyone thought that
maybe by 2024 the startup marketwill recover, but it's still

(46:02):
been depressed for a while, right?
So I think that's the only demoralizing part.
So the country matters here. So if you look at markets like
Philippines, right, what I've noticed is that consumer centric
opportunities, food centric opportunities, local brands,
those are completely missing. And I think there's a blue ocean
there for for companies to capitalize on markets like

(46:23):
Singapore, you know, Malaysia, Ithink there are interesting
vertical sales opportunities. Yes, I think AI is also, you
know, providing a bit of disruption there, but high
quality vertical sales opportunities focus on, you
know, painful manual issues, I would say document processing
for example. So one of our overall
portfolios, very stable AI, I mean they're doing extremely

(46:44):
well focusing on, you know, document processing problems
that exists in a lot of the key markets in this region.
So I think deep verticalized AI based SAS kind of companies I
think still have a very, very strong fit.
The, the third opportunity I think that we can, we can look
to capitalize on right is on potentially B to B marketplaces
in certain verticals, again in markets like Philippines or

(47:07):
Indonesia where there's enough efficient inefficiencies in the
market that tech can come in andcapitalize and make a bit
simpler. And then leverage on the on the
on the productivity improvement,right.
The last one is on talent arbitrage.
So one of our overall portfolios, right, they provide
English education talent to markets like Europe.

(47:30):
That's interesting. Yeah, so companies called Edge
Tutor, right? So talent.
Arbitrage where you are selling from a lower cost base to a much
higher revenue opportunity basedmodels that could work, right.
So I, I think at least in this part of the world, English
talent is one thing I've seen, I, I, I've heard of a company

(47:50):
trying to provide nursing or healthcare centric talent and
arbitraging it with the markets like the US and then Europe,
right, with some level of education and retraining
involved. So I think that's, that's
another opportunity to, to potentially capitalize on.
Then you have the longer far-flung opportunities like
waste management, fintech in terms of mortgage lending and
all. But I think those are fine few

(48:11):
in between. Like you, you really have to
have the good set of founders that have the experience in
their space, the right technology, and then the right
relationships with the current incumbent players.
I think what we've learned in Indonesia is that if you are
trying to completely disrupt or,or you know, go in and and try
to take away all the existing players, those things don't

(48:33):
work. But if you go in, you integrate
with the incumbents, you help them get more productive while
you also sell your product or service.
I think those are models that will make a lot of sense.
So basket in Indonesia, Rinkas in Indonesia, those are two
clear examples. Basket being in the supply chain
space, Rinkas being in the mortgage lending space, right?
They have very nicely integratedwith the current place, so they

(48:56):
don't try to get rid of them or disrupt them.
And I think, you know, the results have shown that those
two are doing extremely well. I think what happens with the
recent sort of I think I called the boom and bust in the 2021 in
the Southeast Asia that actuallygot a couple of high profile
failures. I think we looked at Selingo E
fishery and probably a couple ofothers.
What are your reflections on theecosystem on those situations

(49:20):
and do you see difficulty of actually VC firms now getting
LP's to actually invest in the region now?
Yeah, firstly I I wouldn't. I would say that they are not a
like these unfortunate incidentsare not a reflection of the
ecosystem at large, right? True.
It's an isolated one off case where whether the founder or
the, OR the teams have 0 accountability and integrity

(49:44):
over, you know, what it means torun a business, what it means to
take investor or external capital.
So, so I, I would say those are isolated, right?
I mean, if you look at building AI, right, that's another, I say
example of a, of a global American company completely
exploding same issue, right? Integrity issues, you know,
fudging numbers and all that. So I think I think I would

(50:07):
reflect that from an individual standpoint, you know, less about
the whole ecosystem at large, but the challenge is that the
reap the so the repercussion here is that the questions are
always asked in terms of what could the VCs have done to
better predict or to better foresee this?
What part of their due diligencewas this, you know, missing the

(50:28):
layer gap was not there. And so if you have Tier 1
investors that are aggressively investing, you know, how is it
that they can like their own duediligence or their own rate flex
levels were when were passed in companies like that?
And could there be many more, right?
I think those larger questions will need a bit more time,
right? But the truth is it could could

(50:51):
officially have been avoided. My honest opinion is no, because
if Gibran wanted to fudge numbers and lie to his
investors, he would have done anything and everything to get
there, right? And I think the challenge in the
ecosystem is that if one particular investor started to
get really, like, started to guide trying to be too deep in
the DD process, it would have unfortunately derailed the

(51:14):
entire fundraising plan of the company and then, you know,
cause a lot more problems for the company itself, right.
So it's a it's a tricky issue, right?
Like on, on, on some level, you want investors to be really
thorough in DD, But on another level, bad founders will always
figure out how to hide shit fromtheir investors.
Yeah, I think so too. And.

(51:34):
And so I. I I empathize with the the the
VCs that invested in the companyand I don't, I don't think it's
entirely their incompetence or incapability that led to the
situation. But I, I think what upsets me
and pisses me off the most is the fact that individuals like
Gibran and, and everyone else that has done this have taken no

(51:55):
accountability and there have been no organization that have
put them to task. Yeah, I see VCs, you know, going
on LinkedIn saying things like, oh, we should be moving forward.
You know, this is a blip in the ecosystem.
But putting them to task is, is not helpful to a fetching
ecosystem. I think that's complete
nonsense, right? The investors should sue him.

(52:16):
They should sue their auditors. Yeah, that's a.
Price cut I find it put him in jail is.
Is that it is fraught on a, on a, on a crazy level, right.
And I think the worst thing is that the media company should
stop giving him visibility, you know, stop treating his story
like a sad story of how, you know, he tried to do this for

(52:37):
the betterment of his employees and because he didn't couldn't
figure out another way out, right?
Yeah. I think from a from an ecosystem
standpoint, we have to reflect, you know, how we want to manage
these situations moving forward.So what is the one question?
That you wish more people would ask you be whether it's E27 or
Valve Ventures, ask me. Yeah, yeah.
No, you wish. People, more people would ask

(52:57):
you, oh, wow, OK. I actually wish people would be,
would be a bit more critical on the stuff they read, right, in
terms of the numbers that are raised from a fundraising
standpoint or the numbers that are raised from an exit
standpoint and whether they're the stakeholders in all of these
equations actually truly benefited.
Interesting. We've we've seen multiple.

(53:19):
You know, fundraising stories over the years where the founder
celebrates chest dumping on LinkedIn.
The article that you read on E 27 TI and DU Street is a really
rosy number. The insiders know that actually
no one really made money. Yeah.
Or, or, or there are nuances in the deal.
That is not a true reflection ofwhat people read outside so

(53:42):
much, I think. Yeah.
I think that. Level of critique is missing,
right? So you will you.
Wish people to ask actually whatis the critique of the
ecosystem? I think that's a very good
question from my point of view, yeah.
Yeah, Critic what you're readingright?
I mean, a lot of companies also share fundraising stories and
it's a like, for example, they might share that, oh, company X
raise this amount when actually it was many, many rounds over

(54:05):
the last two years, you know, put together and now they're
making the fundraising announcement to make it seem
like the fundraising was a significant amount.
Right. Yeah, I think, I think, I think
little things like that they they, they matter from an
accountability standpoint, right.
If founders can get away here and there right on all these
little things, they will start getting away on the company

(54:26):
level from a governance level, on the investor update level,
you know, and then before you know it, you have another E
fishery situation. So my traditional.
Closing question then and looking ahead, what does grid
look like for E27 and overall ventures from your point of view
in the next few years? So for E 27.
Right. I'm always aspiring to figure

(54:47):
out how can we make a larger impact on the ecosystem.
We did like our three-year plan earlier this year and we were
really trying to figure out, OK,like how do we really measure
the impact in terms of the number of stakeholders that we
really impact. And we finally came up with a
model, right, to calculate that,right, whether it's the
investors, founders and all. So our, our goal actually,

(55:08):
right, is that within a three-year time frame, we want
to be able to impact a million stakeholders across the region.
And, and this could be again, founders, investors, corporate
governments, the like. It's going to be a mix of
offline and online. But we need to be better at
measuring the, the, the, the impact of the programs and

(55:31):
activities that we do and makingsure that we are doing them in a
financially sustainable model and a scalable model, right?
Which means also rethinking, youknow, how many echelons that we
do or rethinking where we want to make investments on the, on
the product level. And also rethinking what part of
the entrepreneurship ecosystem do we want to impact?

(55:52):
Well, for a long, for a large part of our life, right, We've
always impacted the founder level in the investor level.
And then I tell my team, you know, there's an entire
organization within a startup that we don't seem to do enough
on, like people within the marketing team, the product
team, the tech team, the financeteam.
That's why we actually started Flux, which is a sister brand, a

(56:14):
couple of years ago. We rent one, I think in April
this year. Yeah, it's a pretty good event.
With the AI happy and again the.Concept is like it's not large
couple 100 people, we want to govertical.
So at a flux, the flux event that we did was for marketing AI
marketing leaders. So it's like, can we get the
deeper echelons of marketing folks at the event, impact them

(56:36):
to improve their skills so that they can become better marketing
leaders for tomorrow? Can we do the same with product
leaders? Can we do the same with HR
leaders, finance leaders? So that way, right, we really
truly impact the larger ecosystem and not just the
founders and investors, but that's the the, the goal for us
on the, on the E 27 side, on theOval side, we've actually done

(56:59):
the first round of all the firstcheck in investments, right?
Right now we, we are taking a very hands on approach to
supporting the portfolio, you know, helping them figure out,
OK, what kind of milestones theyhave over the next six months,
how can we use our network to help them get there?
And then that will allow us to start doing follow on
investments in in these companies.
So it's really a hands on portfolio centric approach that

(57:22):
we'll focus on for for the next 6 months, for the rest of the
year essentially so. Mohammed, thanks for coming on
the show and definitely two morequestions are the 1st is any
recommendations that have inspired you recently,
recommendations in terms of? Books.
Yeah, OK, Books. So the most recent book I read,
let me just pull out the the title to make sure I get it

(57:43):
correct. It's called the AI driven, AI
Driven Leader. Wow.
Yeah. So, so that book has been
helpful because it it basically changes the frame and narrative
with respect to how you use AI. And I think a lot of the AI
usage now is on OK, improving workflow or helping me with my
with my speech or my marketing content and all that, right.

(58:05):
But the opportunity that this book provides is how do you take
a step back? Like everyone says, think of AI
as a really smart intern, right?I think this book basically
says, what if AI could be a really smart advisor or board
member, right? How would you use AI to
sometimes also question you to see if your biases or your

(58:28):
assumptions are correct? And how can AI give you a more
strategic view of the work that you're doing on a more long term
level? So it's a very different
narrative on with respect to AI usage.
And I don't it's not meant to immediately Dr. outcome or make
you do something, but help you basically find gaps in your
thinking, identify opportunitiesbased on strengths or or, you

(58:52):
know, review some of the strategies that you have in
place with your teams. So very different view on how AI
should be used. That's quite meaningful.
So how can my audience? Find you and of course can you
talk about your next upcoming actual event Sure.
So we have our. Actual event coming up next
week, June 10 at 11. It's going to be held at the
Suntec city with three stages ofa few hundred a couple 100 over

(59:14):
companies that are will be present at the event.
But but more importantly, right,if you want to get the pulse of
what's happening in Southeast Asia, if you want to meet who
are the primary movers, shakers,the key individuals, whether is
it the investors, the founders, even the corporates, right?
It's a really good event to get that sensing.
Like the feedback I've always gotten from people is that the

(59:36):
moment they walk in, right? The energy and the culture
around, you know, meeting people, you know, getting deals
done, driving for business activity is something they don't
see at other events, right? And for us, right, every one of
the platforms of features that we have is meant to drive a
business outcome, whether it's to raise capital or to, you

(59:57):
know, Dr. partnerships, you know, So if this is something
that resonates with your audience, I think they should
definitely check out the Echelonevent happening next week, June,
the 10:00 and 11:00. I'm most active on LinkedIn on a
personal level. I do have an Instagram account
and Facebook account, but I barely, I really barely post it.
I mostly reshare my wife's post.So that's that's typically what

(01:00:20):
I do right? Like this utterly from.
Pure laziness and my and my happiness to have a bit more of
a private life. Yeah, I think that is really the
best way to connect with me and also Mohan Balani auto E 27 and
then you should be able to find me there.
Yeah, I also congratulations. Now you're a full time there
too, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Very happy. Full time there.
I just celebrated my second birthday, but second birthday

(01:00:41):
for my daughter over the weekend.
So yeah, super happy with that. So thank you very.
Much for coming on the show, andyou can definitely find us on
Spotify and YouTube and of course, subscribe to our
newsletter as well. Mohammed, thanks for coming on
the show and thank you for the 15 years more, even more than
that, I think even 17 to 18 years of actually working with
the Southeast Asia ecosystem. And definitely you're the

(01:01:03):
someone that actually helped to actually shepherd along this
whole entire space, hopefully for another 2-3 decades or more.
Yeah, Yeah, as long as I can. I've always told people that
it's, it's been, it's for me, it's always been a privilege to
be able to do the work that we do.
And I always tell people, right,no, no ecosystem, no E 27.
And, and that's why I think I, Ibelieve, right, as an

(01:01:24):
organization, we need to play a role in working together and
collaborating with the ecosystemfor the greater good of the
startup and investor community. So I'm, I'm, I'm really
appreciative and thankful that you have me here to be able to,
to share my story. So thank you for having me.
Thank you.