Venture With Mo

This week we're delighted to have Shiyan Koh, General Partner at Hustle Fund, let me start by saying we dive into numerous topics, far more than what's listed below. As a taste of what to expect we discuss :

• Life at NerdWallet and bootstrapping to $50 Million

Shiyan is an experienced operator, investor and General Partner at Hustle Fund. Prior to Hustle Fund Shiyan was VP of Business Operations & Corp Dev at NerdWallet (employee #10), growing annual revenue from $1M to $150M+, an investor at Institutional Venture Partners and Bridgewater Associates. Shiyan is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.

Hustle Fund is a venture capital fund investing in fast-executing teams at the pre-seed and seed stages.

• Hustle Fund: https://www.hustlefund.vc/

• Web: https://www.shiyankoh.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/

Today we have a really interesting look at ASEAN Fintech scene with Managing Partner of 1982 Ventures, Herston Powers. The only seed fund exclusively focused on fintech and South East Asia. In this candid conversation we talk about:

• The formation of 1982 Ventures

Herston is a Managing Partner at 1982 Ventures. He is responsible for setting the strategy and direction of 1982 Ventures. He is active in investments, portfolio management and investor relations.

Prior to founding 1982 Ventures, he was a Principal at tryb Group in Singapore and created and executed their early-stage investment strategy. He led investments into Alami, a leading Indonesian Islamic Finance Platform, Gradana, a pioneer in Proptech in Indonesia and managed the investment into Maria Health, a Philippines-based insurtech. He previously held board observer roles at Alami and Gradana.

• 1982 Ventures : https://1982.vc

• Web: https://1982.vc/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/

In this episode we sit down with Dimitra from GGV and discuss:

• Life as a VC

Dimi focuses on Edtech, Foodtech, and B2B commerce. He travels frequently between China, India, and Southeast Asia to source new investments and to help portfolio companies with international expansion. He works with Udaan (India), KhataBook (India), Vedantu (India), RuangGuru (Indonesia), BLUEmart (Indonesia), Telio (Vietnam), 酷家乐/Coohom (China), and 十荟团/ShiHuiTuan (China). He is actively involved with GGV’s “Evolving for the Next Billion” initiative, a global podcast community that connects startup enthusiasts with emerging markets founders & operators, who are revolutionizing how the next billion internet users live, work, and play through tech.

Dimi was previously an entrepreneur building a digital wealth platform. Prior to that, he led deal sourcing and deal execution across Southeast Asia for a regional VC firm. He started his career in London, where he cut his teeth in consulting and private equity. Dimi graduated with an MSc Economics from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

GGV Capital is a global venture capital firm that invests in seed-to-growth stage investments across Consumer/New Retail, Social/Internet, Enterprise/Cloud and Smart Tech sectors.

The firm was established in 2000 in Singapore and Silicon Valley and manages $6.2 billion in capital across 13 funds. Today its team is based in five offices, located in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore

• GGV Capital : https://www.ggvc.com/

• Web: https://www.ggvc.com/ggv_employee/dimitra-taslim｜林新祥/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/

This week we have a truly fascinating and nuanced conversation with an investor, operating partner and all-round great guy Christopher Aw, where we discuss :

• What to consider as a first-time angel investor

Christopher is an operating adviser with Monk’s Hill Ventures, a Series A focused venture capital firm, a member of the selection committee for the German Accelerator in South East Asia as well as a mentor at Chinaccelerator in Shanghai and the MOX accelerator in Taipei. He independently advises multiple startups in varying sectors of technology and business.

Prior to joining the world of venture Chris served in the US Air Force and worked across IT and intelligence disciplines globally as a communications officer and systems engineer. He served in operational, staff, and research and development organizations. While at a DC think tank, he supported the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in a $20B per year fund evaluating technology investments in a broad array of disciplines.

• Alpha Square Group: https://alphasquaregroup.com/

• Web: https://www.pandan.vc/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/

We kick off this journey with none other than the renowned David Cohen, where we discuss:

• Investing Globally

David Cohen is the Founder and Managing Partner at Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. David has been an entrepreneur and investor for his entire life. He has only had one job interview in his career, successfully got that job but then quit shortly thereafter to start his first company. Since then, he has founded several companies and has invested in hundreds of startups such as Uber, Twilio, SendGrid, Pillpack, Classpass, and FullContact. In total, these investments have gone on to create more than $100B in value.

Prior to Techstars, David was a co-founder of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive. Later, David was the founder and CEO of earFeeder, a music service that was sold to SonicSwap. He also had what he likes to think of as a “graceful failure” in between.

David is the co-author (with Brad Feld) of Do More Faster; Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup. David also enjoys reading non-fiction books and playing tennis. He is married to the coolest girl he’s ever met and has three amazing kids who always seem to be teaching him something new. You can find David tweeting at @davidcohen and blogging on the web at DavidGCohen.com.

Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Since 2006, Techstars has invested in more than 2,200 companies that today have a combined market cap valuation of more than $29 billion.

• Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/

• Web: https://davidgcohen.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/