Fazz Financial Group Deputy CEO and Xfers CEO and co-founder Tianwei Liu, an engineer by training, founder by experience, and angel on the side, goes on call to share how gifting Kindles and a LinkedIn search led him to return to Southeast Asia to pioneer fintech infrastructure through Xfers, how a Slack message from fellow Y Combinator alum Hendra Kwik led to the formation of regional fintech group Fazz Financial, and how being early adopters of crypto led Xfers to building Singapore's first stablecoin.

Transcript

Timestamps

(00:12) Paulo recaps the Fazz Financial Group evolution through the podcast;

(02:53) Paulo introduces Tianwei;

(03:57) What excites Tianwei about Southeast Asia;

(05:46) How Tianwei decided to return from Silicon Valley to start Xfers in 2015, 2016;

(10:05) Driving the evolution of fintech in Southeast Asia through payment infrastructure;

(13:49) Three reasons why Xfers joined forces with Payfazz to form Fazz Financial Group;

(18:13) How the evolution into Fazz Financial has shaped Tianwei as a leader;

(20:08) How Xfers works to support Payfazz agents and users;

(21:35) Why Xfers ventured into developing Singapore’s first stablecoin through StraitsX;

(24:45) The value of localized ventures in crypto;

(27:13) What the future of crypto and payments infrastructure is in Southeast Asia;

(29:20) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Tianwei Liu is the CEO and Co-founder of Xfers, and Deputy CEO of Fazz Financial Group. Along with the management of Xfers in Singapore, he is currently driving Xfers’ expansion into Indonesia and engages closely with Xfers‘ banking and merchant partners to accelerate the growth of fintech and digital businesses in the region. After his receiving his Bachelors in Computer Engineering in 2011 from the National University of Singapore, Tianwei returned to Silicon Valley (having studied at Stanford University under the NUS Overseas College (NOC) Programme) as a Software Engineer working on developer tools at WIMM Labs, a start-up that built the world’s first Android-based smartwatches. His team at WIMM Labs laid the foundation for Google’s WearOs™ that powers its smartwatches (WIMM Labs was acquired by Google in late 2012). After WIMM Labs’ acquisition, Tianwei worked at Amazon Lab126 from May 2012 to June 2015, when he and his team built the big data ingestion infrastructure that allows for real-time processing and analytics of the health status of all Kindles devices used daily by Amazon’s customers.

Music: Energetic and Upbeat Rock Background Music For Videos and Workouts

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when an Indonesian pediatrician having her first kid in the midst of a pandemic and her Tokopedia alum, seasoned product and growth leader husband join forces to build a startup? Find out on our call with Tentang Anak founders Dr. Mesty Ariotedjo and Garri Juanda.

Transcript

Timestamps

(01:11) Why should you know Mesty Ariotedjo and Garri Juanda?

(01:57) How did Mesty and Garri meet Insignia?

(03:20) How did they start Tentang Anak?

(06:08) Why did they start Tentang Anak?

(08:58) How has Mesty’s background as a doctor influenced her approach to Tentang Anak?

(10:17) Why pediatricians and child care experts are attracted to Tentang Anak’s platform?

(13:27) What's in the Tentang Anak app?

(14:56) How is Tentang Anak flipping the script on scaling commerce platforms?

(17:02) How has Garri’s background as a tech leader influenced his approach to Tentang Anak?

(19:05) What attracts talent to join Tentang Anak?

(20:33) How does raising a family together impact their synergy as co-founders and vice-versa?

(22:57) What drives Tentang Anak’s product roadmap?

(25:21) Tentang Anak’s focus in the next five years;

(27:23) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Tentang Anak, which translates to “About Children”, was founded in 2020 by pediatrician Dr. Mesty Ariotedjo and Tokopedia alum Garri Juanda. Mesty is currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the recipient of Harvard T.H. Chan Fellowship Award. She was also included in Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 and a member of the World Economic Forum. While Mesty brings her medical expertise and network to Tentang Anak and Garri brings his 11 years of tech experience in product, growth, and M&A to the table. He previously oversaw Tokopedia’s marketplace, adtech, and logistics business verticals; and was one of Rakuten Japan’s first non-Japanese product managers. Garri earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Music: Energetic and Upbeat Rock Background Music For Videos and Workouts

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology, finance, fintech

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Call with Insignia is back with a new season of conversations with founders, investors, and operators leading the development of Southeast Asia's innovation landscape and digital economy, or as we like to call, ASEANnovation.

What better way to kick off our season four than with Brankas, Southeast Asia's leading and pioneering open finance tech company. We've just welcomed them to the Insignia family officially at the start of 2022 with the announcement of a 20 million series B round which we had the privilege of leading.

To talk about, not just Brankas, but also this whole wave of demand for more robust and scalable fintech infrastructure, we have really an open finance pioneer and an expert here to talk about all of that, none other than the CEO and co-founder of Brankas, Todd Schweitzer.

Join Brankas's remote-first team by checking out open roles on the company’s career page and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Timestamps

(00:28) Paulo introduces Brankas and Todd;

(02:24) Todd talks about how he connected with Insignia;

(03:04) Going from management consulting in the US to starting Brankas in Southeast Asia;

(08:33) Why open finance is compelling and exciting for emerging markets;

(12:25) How Brankas’s API menu approach stands out;

(15:22) Working with regulators and institutions in Southeast Asia;

(19:42) Four use cases for open finance;

(24:18) Approach to regional expansion;

(25:37) How building out a remote-first team has led to finding great engineering talent;

(28:09) Open Finance for DeFi;

(31:09) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Todd Schweitzer is co-founder and CEO at Brankas, the leading Open Banking technology provider in Southeast Asia. Todd has held senior roles in private equity and management consulting, spanning technology, the public sector, and financial services. Todd and co-founder Kenneth Shaw launched Brankas in 2016 to address the technology gaps that hindered fintech-bank partnerships. Launching first in Indonesia, Brankas provides Open Banking technology to banks, insurers, mobile wallets, alternative lenders, and other suppliers and users of financial services APIs. He holds dual Bachelor's degrees with honors in Economics and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government with a focus on economic development policy.

Music: Energetic and Upbeat Rock Background Music For Videos and Workouts

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology, finance, fintech

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Something new we tried for Season 3 of On Call with Insignia Ventures in 2021 was to go on call with more startup and venture investors, from angels to the Southeast Asia investment leads of global investment firms to the founding partners of VC firms in other emerging markets.

Throughout these conversations, we not only got to see the perspectives of these investors on various markets and sectors, but also got a peek into their mindsets and approach when it comes to investing in startup founders and fast-growing tech companies.

In this podcast episode, we compiled their answers to two questions: “What are the top three traits / skills of a great VC / angel investor?” and “What’s your advice for aspiring VCs / angel investors?” and just like our compilation of founders’ fundraising advice, piece apart 5 key themes across their shared insights.

Timestamps

(01:42) (1) Good investors invest in companies, but great investors work with and learn from founders.

(06:12) (2) It’s not just about finding the best company but being the right investor for a company.

(07:29) (3) There’s no one path, but the best paths build startup and founder exposure.

(10:28) (4) Investing is an education in itself; it requires constantly opening up to what’s new.

(13:37) (5) Great investors are grounded and driven by a clear understanding of motivation -- why do you invest?

Are you looking to build a career backing unstoppable founders and building great companies in Southeast Asia? Send us an email to join the team at Insignia Ventures.

On the other hand, if you're looking to learn the ropes, grow your network and gain a track record of investing in Southeast Asia, Cohort 3 of Asia's first experiential venture capital accelerator, Insignia Academy, is still accepting applications!

Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic, Cool Upbeat Background Music For Sports and Workout Videos by MorningLightMusic, Upbeat Hip Hop Background Music For Videos (Free For Non-Commercial Videos) by Elysium Audio Labs

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2021 was a record year of fundraising for startups in Southeast Asia, and even on our podcast, we made sure to ask our founder-CEO guests, all of whom have raised at least one institutional round where Insignia Ventures participated, about how they approached fundraising and their advice for fellow founders who are just about to raise for the first time.

2022 is expected to be an even greater year for startup investing in the region. With more emerging venture backable verticals, there will be more founders looking to raise venture capital, and so we compiled a list of all their fundraising advice: 18 in all.

From what they’ve shared we’ve also identified a few common themes:

1. Fundraising is a two-way street. It’s not just about getting capital or value-add from investors, but also investors looking at how they can win with your company’s growth.
2. Investors invest in people who do and the stories that come out of what they do.
3. Do you know what you are selling? It’s important to know the ins and outs around the market, business metrics, as well as motivations of customers and employees.
4. Find the right partners who understand your vision, align with what you want to build, and have the capability to support you throughout the ups and downs.
5. It may be the first round, but there are long-term implications.

If you’d like us to join your next round of funding, let us know what you’re building on our website. We also have tools on our website to help founders and investors with funding:

1. Captable Calculator
2. SAFE Note Generator
3. Term Sheet Generator

Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic, Cool Upbeat Background Music For Sports and Workout Videos by MorningLightMusic, Upbeat Hip Hop Background Music For Videos (Free For Non-Commercial Videos) by Elysium Audio Labs

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we're back with a returning guest, Flip CEO and co-founder Rafi Putra Arriyan. Fresh from announcing their US$48M Series B round, co-led by Insight Partners, Insignia Ventures, and also Sequoia Capital, Rafi, or Ari as he is called, goes on call to catch us up on what has happened since last year, give us some updates on how Flip has grown their ecosystem since then that has led to this last round. As a leader of one of Indonesia’s earliest fintechs, Ari also shares his views on the evolution of fintech user behavior, infrastructure, and regulation over the past few years.

They serve over 7 million users across Indonesia with their money transfer app, and their business solutions cater to hundreds of companies from SMEs to much larger businesses, across disbursement, payroll, supplier payments, etc. They have been recently ramping up their hiring with new initiatives in the pipeline, from business operations to product and engineering roles. Check out Flip's career page and LinkedIn for open positions.

Transcript

Timestamps

(00:28) Paulo introduces Flip and Rafi Putra Arriyan (Ari);

(02:38) Expanding interoperability of Flip’s money movement platform over the past year;

(03:45) The culture of money transfer in Indonesia;

(05:22) Listening to users and maturing fintech infrastructure;

(06:41) How Flip and Rafi gain insight into their 7M+ users;

(08:12) Evolution of fintech-bank partnerships in Indonesia;

(10:03) Evolution of fintech regulation in Indonesia;

(11:27) Evolution of fintech infrastructure in Indonesia;

(13:58) How Flip is leveraging its latest round of funding;

(15:04) Culture of fairness and remote working;

(17:56) Best practices on remote working;

(21:12) Attracting unicorn and top tech talents;

(21:53) Rafi’s biggest lesson from leading Flip in the last five years;

(23:53) Biggest gap in Indonesia’s fintech landscape;

(25:25) Next five years for Flip;

(26:36) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Rafi Putra Arriyan started Flip after he and his co-founders spotted an inefficiency in the interbank fund transfers segment in Indonesia. Ari holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Universitas Indonesia (UI), one of the most prestigious universities in Indonesia.

Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back with another episode in partnership with Insignia Ventures Academy (IVA), Asia's first experiential VC accelerator! We went on call with Andy Hwang, former Google and Facebook go-to-market leader, now angel investor and startup advisor in Southeast Asia. He’s also an alumnus of IVA, and more recently has been a mentor for the second cohort of the program. We talk not just about the program with him in this episode, but also learn more about his career transition into becoming a full-time angel investor after many years in various big tech companies, and also get his thoughts on some of these emerging technologies from working with founders. Join him and other seasoned investors and operators in Insignia Ventures Academy's growing community and apply for Cohort 3 coming this Feb 2022!

We're also happy to share with our listeners a promo package from Aspire, the all-in-one finance operating system built for fast-growing startups. They're offering the Insignia community an exclusive welcome offer for a limited period of 31st December, 2021. Startups will get a $250 cash reward when they open a new business account and make their first card purchase with qualifying merchants with the Aspire card, minimum of $5. Redeem the offer here.

Transcript

Timestamps

(00:51) Paulo introduces Andy Hwang;

(01:45) What wakes Andy up in the morning;

(02:45) How growing up in the Valley’s tech optimism drew Andy to Southeast Asia;

(05:03) Going international at Google and Facebook;

(06:29) Go-To-Market learnings from "mistakes" made at Facebook;

(11:05) Becoming an angel investor and spending a year at Stripe;

(13:58) Positioning oneself as an angel investor in Southeast Asia;

(15:34) Day in the life of Andy Hwang the angel investor;

(16:54) Finding product-market fit as an angel investor;

(19:32) Common pitfalls of early-stage startups;

(22:15) Developing investment rigor and discipline at Insignia Ventures Academy;

(26:58) Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Andy Hwang is a full-time angel investor and startup advisor, but prior to that, he spent a decade in Facebook, doing a lot of go-to-market in APAC, leading Facebook's entry and into east Asia, especially, and then prior to that, he was at Google doing a lot of, marketing work there as well in some of these emerging markets like Latin America. He took his MBA at Wharton and was a graduate of UC Berkeley.

Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we went on call with Chang Zi Qian, the CEO and co-founder of Intelllex, a legaltech startup that specializes in organizing legal and regulatory information using proprietary algorithms and platforms. Chang comes on call to talk about their recent launch of the legal knowledge platform called finreg.sg. So it's a platform for anybody who wants to explore the regulations in Singapore when it comes to fintech, especially payments and crypto, as well as for fund managers who are looking to set up shop in Singapore and learn more about the regulations when it comes to fund management. We deep dive into the platform itself, the trends that influenced its creation, and how it can evolve in the next few years.

Transcript

Timestamps

00:16 Paulo introduces Chang Zi Qian;

01:56 Trends and tailwinds that led to the creation of finreg.sg;

03:13 How finreg.sg builds upon Intelllex’s existing products for legal knowledge management;

04:43 Use cases and user journey for finreg.sg;

06:32 Chang’s thoughts on the evolution of Singapore’s fintech regulation;

08:10 The struggle to legally define new innovations and technologies;

09:55 Chang’s perspective on how legal definitions of virtual assets will arise;

10:55 Chang’s thoughts on family office influx in Singapore and pressure for VC funds to go from early-stage to IPO;

12:45 finreg.sg as a targeted distribution platform for lawyers’ thought leadership;

14:38 Future plans for finreg.sg;

17:33 finreg.sg as a platform matching regtechs / KYC, AML fintechs with customers;

19:19 Rapid Fire Round;

About our guest

Chang Zi Qian is an entrepreneur with years of law experience. He previously worked in the Singapore Prime Minister's office and law firm Rajah and Tann. From there, he saw a lot of pain points as a lawyer and decided to start his own legal tech startup Intelllex. He is also a member of the Singapore Committee for Future Economy. He was named twice as one of the 100 Leaders of Tomorrow at the St. Gallen’s Symposium, and once as the Dragon 100 Young Leaders in Hong Kong.

Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic

Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.