Asia Tech Podcast

In this week's Asia Tech Podcast, Graham and Michael discuss why Asia matters. They talk about how attitudes are shifting from a "lack of visibility" in Asia, to pioneering VCs on the West Coast turning to the Pacific for their latest deal flow. Asia tech investment stood at $19.3 billion as of mid 2017, compared to Silicon Valley $16.5 billion. Sure, SV is a fraction of Asia's population and land mass, but times are changing. The conversation covers the latest investment data on Asia, key headline figures for demographics and the role of the "Unicorn Creators" (of which Tencent has already invested in 19 Unicorns alone).

Nicola Jones Crossley is humble, yet determined. She is filled with energy and somehow appears constantly calm and in control. Nicola is also charismatic and deeply committed to her passion of celebrating and supporting women in all aspects of their lives. She has purposefully and determinedly built Akin Asia into a multi-faceted platform that allows her and like minded supporters to "create a space to connect people, share ideas, inspire and educate." The high caliber of the participants and featured speakers at Akin Asia's 'Bangkok Breakfast Network' is a testament to Nicola's ability to attract a diverse group of the best and the brightest.

We place too much faith in experts, especially when it come to predicting the future. Experts, of course, failed to predict key world events like the Trump election, Brexit and so on. Justin Wang wants to change that. Scry is an AI powered startup that helps predictors connect with people who want the predictions. There's a whole market out there for these services. Traders can make billions by being right only 51% of the time. Businesses can lose billions by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Scry is a bold attempt at helping us all be on the right side of the future.

Wayne Farmer is the Managing Partner of a boutique advisory firm and a private-markets professional with fifteen years of originating, leading and structuring pan-Asia investment transactions and selected cross-border / global deals. His focus on the Southeast Asian and China markets gives him a unique perspective on the macro drivers of growth and development in these dynamic markets.

We started our conversation with Simon Dixon back in 2006, when Simon was first introduced to the concepts of Bitcoin. After a few years in the world of investment banking and brokerage, he set out to write a book on the future of money and banking. He was introduced to the concepts of Bitcoin through the writings of Jonathan James Harrison and was immediately convinced that this was the future of money and the store of value. Simon’s knowledge of finance, economics and all things bitcoin come out in this conversation. We had a fascinating look at the ownership of your own money and, among other things how depositing your money in a bank cedes this ownership and allows banks to legally take ownership of its deposits and then do what they will with it. The implications of this are far reaching with one of the consequences being the boom and bust cycles we see in the global economy.

Is Singapore the best startup city in Asia? According to our ATP Vote Singapore is, followed closley by Hong Kong then Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai. In this week’s ATP Graham and Michael discuss what makes Singapore a world leader in tech ecosystems as well as plans to take the radio show to Singapore end of November, early December. Listen in to our latest analysis of the Asian tech ecosystem and tour schedule.

Rina Neoh has more than 20 years of experience in both the corporate and entrepreneurial world. With a solid foundation in BS Computer Science and a keen business sense acquired through an overseas MBA, Rina has delivered multi-million dollar returns from small business enterprises, which she has incubated, coached, invested in or promoted. Rina’s years of investing experience has taught her many things, not the least of which is that the ability to work with someone is paramount. Relationships matter and investing for her and her team is about building a long term working relationship with Founders.

Paul Meyers is currently the Head of the Southeast Asian business for muru-D, which is impressive in and of itself. But there is so much more to his story. After moving out to San Francisco post college and building his eponymous media and production company, Paul travelled to Asia in 1995 and has remained ever since. His experience in building and running media properties included animation, live streaming television, music and listing a company on Nasdaq. Paul has worked with or built some of the most well known brands and media properties in the the world. His involvement as a business founder, builder, mentor and advisor is substantial and makes him insanely qualified to lead one of the most forward thinking accelerators in Southeast Asia.

[03:00] What are inno vation road trips? Why are these great ways to discover what's really going on at the grass roots of individual Asian tech ecosystems? [15:05] If you were going to give a piece of tour advice to a company who’s going to go and see Asian innovation for the first time, where would you go and how would you do it? [32:10] We may not see in our lifetime another growth story like the "Greater Bay Area."