Impact SEA

According to a 2019 UBS Global Family Office Report, a quarter of family offices are engaged in impact investing. Over a third are expected to increase their impact allocation to as much as 24% over the next five years.

The most popular investments were direct private equity (76%), real estate (32%), and private equity funds (24%). And the industries of interest are education (45%), agriculture/food (45%), and energy and resource efficiency (43%).

This sounds like a positive development, but how involved are family offices in impact investing,  and are they truly making a difference through their investments, in particular to SEA? 

To answer this question, I speak with Stephanie Choi, Sustainable Investing Strategist, UBS Wealth Management in Hong Kong, for her insights.

It was once said that if there is magic on our planet, it is contained in water. 

Today, one out of six people (that’s more than a billion people), do not have adequate access to safe water. By 2050, The UN estimates that as many as three out of four people worldwide could be affected by water scarcity. 

The water crisis is particularly prevalent in Asia. Asia is currently home to more than half of the world's population, and the population in Asia is expected to increase by nearly 500 million people within the next 10 years. And yet, Asia has less freshwater than any continent besides Antarctica. As population increases and urbanization explodes, stress on the region’s water resources is at a breaking point. And climate change is expected to significantly worsen the situation. 

While the situation is bleak, now is the time to unite and to rise.
 Solutions are definitely possible, but make no mistake about it, it will be a proper challenge. Solutions will require commitment and contribution from all pillars of society: people, businesses and government. 

To talk more about how we can sustainably and responsibly restore our world, I speak with Amrit Nayak, co-founder and CEO of Indra Water, for his insights. 

Nanyang Realty is a real estate and investment holding company that has its origins in Singapore. 

Founded in 1968, it has, over the last five decades, garnered valuable experience in property development and management, marine and shipbuilding, hospitality and financial investments. 

Ken Ang is Current Director of Portfolio and strategy and a third-generation member of the Ang family, we speak with him about the importance of sustainability as well as the challenges of a leading multi generational family business.

Building the ecosystem for impact startups in underserved markets

According to the Global Impact Investing Network, more than US$900mil of impact capital had been deployed by non-Development Finance Institutions into Southeast Asia over a 10-year period under study. In comparison, South Asia has more than double the population of Southeast Asia, but saw only around US$823mil of impact investments.

Given that India attracted more than half of the impact investments in South Asia, how do we characterize the funding situation for impact-driven startups elsewhere in the region? How do investors look to Southeast Asia for support and inspiration to draw in more capital for the emerging South Asia countries?

In this episode of the Investor Series, join me, Theodore Pang, Senior Investment Manager of SEEDS Capital, as I speak with Sonia Bashir Kabir, CEO of SBK Tech. Sonia started SBK Tech Ventures in Bangladesh in 2017 and has invested in 38 startups since then. Her new VC fund, SBK Tech, was recently set up in Singapore to focus on technology inclusion in underserved markets.

So stay tuned, as I interview Sonia on how VC funds can go beyond financing to support the startup ecosystem, why she believes social impact and commercial scale go hand in hand, and her views on catalyzing investments into some of the more underserved markets by leveraging Southeast Asia’s position as a VC hub.

The Rise of Robots.

According to BusinessWire, the robotics industry is projected to register a CAGR by more than 25% from 2020 to 2025.

According to a report done by Mckinsey, robots now exist for most applications from materials handling to assembly. Furthermore, improvements in sensors technologies, such as tactile and vision systems, make robots even simpler to implement, making it even more accessible to various markets, helping countless of people around the world. There has also been an increase in computing power, giving robots artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. 

With the penetration of robotics and automation in every industry, how will industries change to adapt? How is impact measured in robotics companies? What problems could hinder the growth of the robotics industry?

To answer these questions, I speak to Chorch Ang, CEO of Sesto Robotics, for his insights.

According to a 2019 UBS Global Family Office Report, a quarter of family offices are engaged in impact investing. Over a third are expected to increase their impact allocation to as much as 24% over the next five years.

The most popular investments were direct private equity (76%), real estate (32%), and private equity funds (24%). And the industries of interest are education (45%), agriculture/food (45%), and energy and resource efficiency (43%).

This sounds like a positive development, but how involved are family offices in impact investing,  and are they truly making a difference through their investments, in particular to SEA? 

To answer this question, I speak with Cindy Ko, Head of Asia-Pacific at Toniic, a global community of asset owners seeking deeper positive net impact, for her insights.

The Prosperity Paradox

Since the mid-1960s, Asia has achieved remarkable economic growth and has seen hundreds of millions of people rise out of poverty. However the fact is, Asia is still some way away from completely eradicating poverty. At the end of 2020, there were still over 500 million people affected by poverty in Asia.

Poverty is typically looked at as a lack of resources. So it makes sense that to solve the poverty problem we push resources that a country lacks. For example, if a country lacks sufficient health care, clinics are pushed. If education is the missing resource then schools are pushed. But history suggests that this way of doing things, while well-intentioned, has simply not been successful.

But if the problem of poverty can’t simply be solved by an injection of passion and resources, then what to do instead?

To answer these questions and more, I speak to Efosa Ejoma, Global Prosperity Lead of the Christensen Institute, for his insights.

According to statistics from the World Health Organization many countries in Southeast Asia have a significantly lower ratio of doctors to    general population when compared to countries like the U.S.A. and China, only Singapore comes close with 2.3 doctors per 1.000 people.   

However Indonesia and Thailand have a ratio of just 0.4 doctors per 1,000 people whilst other Southeast Asia countries are higher, with Vietnam at 0.8, the Philippines at 1.2, Malaysia at 1.6 per 1,000.

With increasing life expectancy and challenges such as the Covid 19 pandemic is healthcare in Southeast Asia heading towards a crisis? And how can advancing technology such as Health IT and Telehealth alleviate the pressure and increase the impact of the human workforce. And what can startups do to support the healthcare industry in S.E.A?

To answer these questions, I speak to Dr Tan Hui Ling, Managing Director of Bagan Specialist Centre (BSC) and Oriental Melaka Straits Medical Centre (OMSMC), for her insights.

What is Impact Investing and how does it differ from traditional investing?

According to the Global Impact Investing Network, impact investments are made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact, alongside a financial return. A report by the same organization stated that more than US$900mil was deployed by private impact investors into Southeast Asia between 2007 to 2017. The region was described as having the fastest growing impact investing market in the world for the latter half of that decade.

Amid the flurry of activity in the region, are there specific areas of interest for impact fund managers in Southeast Asia? What are some key considerations for these investors? How do impact funds make investments with commercial sense, while staying true to the mandate of helping vulnerable communities in the region?

In the Investor Series of IMPACT S.E.A, join me, Theodore Pang, Senior Investment Manager of SEEDS Capital, as I speak with impact investors to address these questions. We look at impact case studies and discuss topics such as intentionality, impact measurement and areas of opportunity.

For the first episode of the Investor Series, we have Mason Tan, Director of Impact Investing at CBP Quilvest Wealth Advisory, or CBPQ. Based in Singapore, CBPQ launched the Garden Impact Fund to focus on social enterprises that serve vulnerable groups in Southeast Asia. So stay tuned, as I interview Mason on some of the investments he has made in the region, and why technological disruption in agriculture could be of great interest to the Garden Impact Fund.

The Indonesian Healthcare industry is facing a massive problem.

The lack of necessary medical equipment, supplies, doctors, and beds are some of the main concerns with the Indonesian healthcare industry. There is one hospital bed per 1,000 people in Indonesia, well below the world average of 3.6 per 1000 people. There are also only 25 doctors per 100,000 people.

A report done by Oliver Wyman shows a vast disparity of health results due to geography and income. The report explains that there is a 15-year difference in life expectancy between urban and rural areas, illustrating Indonesia’s

Incredible geographical healthcare challenge. This is an almost uniquely Indonesian challenge: The country’s archipelago structure and a wide income distribution create regional issues that compound other factors.

So what's being done now? Today’s traditional healthcare ecosystem model is inconvenient for patients. It is a traditional supplier-oriented, volume-driven, high-touch model. In addition, unique Indonesian characteristics pose their own challenges.

How do we solve Indonesia’s problem of geographic disparity? What are some of the challenges that Indonesian healthcare startups face when tackling these problems? What should be the main focus moving forward? 

To answer these questions, I speak to Pak Danu Wickasana, MD of Good Doctor Technology, a digital healthcare joint-venture between Grab and Ping An Good Doctor, for his expert insights.