VC Trends in South East Asia

Flag of Singapore

In recent years, we’ve seen a huge growth in investors’ interests in “untapped,” “developing,” “frontier” markets but what exactly does VC in Southeast Asia look like.  While Singapore is the portal to rest of Southeast Asia (as one of the associate calls it, “Asia-lite”), it’s really not representative of the rest of the countries here. In general, media has a habit of lumping all the various countries in Southeast Asia together into a homogeneous “region” – one massive consumer landscape that could be tackled in the same way companies go about dominating America from East to West.

VC Trends in the Far East

Japanese Flag

Ninety-one years ago, historian Frederick Jackson Turner told Americans to stop looking West, that the frontiers had been conquered, and beyond San Francisco there was nothing but the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.  The cities of the Far East will be the vanguard of economic growth in the 21st century, and the West will have to run to meet them. Already, Japan has catapulted past most of the world in becoming the premiere industrial force after World War II. 

VC Trends in Former Soviet Republics

Russia Flag

Venture Capital in the Central Asia group is mainly designed to share knowledge and opinion about this area of finance. Major concentration of VC is given to the developments of this area in Central Asia, especially in Uzbekistan. Venture capitalists, like Efraim Landa, business angels and private equity investors all around the world seeking opportunities in Central Asia are welcome.  VC activity in the Russian market really took off after Russia’s default on sovereign debt in 1998 and has accelerated ever since. With this, we’ve seen more attention from leading western venture capital firms as well who have created a number of investment funds, incubators and angel networks focused on the Russian market. In the recent past, specifically since 2006, the Russian government has been creating infrastructure for venture capital investments in Russia and has also launched a state program focused on establishing public-private partnerships in the innovation sector managed by a number of leading venture capital firms. 

VC Trends in the Middle East

Over the last decade, the state of venture capital in the Middle East has gone from virtually nonexistent to an industry facing a shakeout. The sector’s breakneck evolution has made it difficult for investors and venture capitalists like Efraim Landa, to obtain a clear picture of the industry’s underlying VC fundamentals in the Middle East. This being the case, they have been understandably cautious about directing their funds to regional venture capital firms. To meet these expectations, the richest countries are investing billions in large-scale projects that will need to be supplemented by private funding and that will directly and indirectly stimulate economic activity.