RHL Ventures & Venture Capital in Southeast Asia with Rachel Lau

Rachel Lau, managing partner of RHL Ventures joined us in a conversation to discuss their newly formed venture capital firm and discuss her perspectives on venture capital trends in Southeast Asia. Rachel began the conversation with her background and how RHL Ventures is formed under a group of well-established family businesses behind them, their investment thesis and the verticals which they are currently focused on. She also offered her perspectives on how one need to think of Southeast Asia as a region of investment and the major technology trends in the region.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Rachel Lau, Managing Partner, RHL Ventures (LinkedIn) [0:52]
  • How did you start your career? [1:05]
  • What prompted you to set up a venture capital firm in Malaysia? [2:18]
  • In your career journey, what are the interesting career lessons learnt? [4:32]
• RHL Ventures [5:36]
  • Can you describe the mission and vision of RHL Ventures? [5:52]
  • What is the backstory behind the setup of RHL Ventures? [7:14]
  • Can you describe the background of both Raja Hamzah Abidin and yourself? How are your skill sets complementary in starting this firm? [8:49] (Ref: “Rich Asian Millennials Pool Family Fortunes to Build Venture Fund“, Bloomberg)
  • Do RHL Ventures have an investment thesis? [9:32]
  • What is your typical day like as a venture capitalist? [11:26]
  • What are the industry verticals that RHL Ventures typically invest in? [13:47]
  • What is the ticket size per investment for RHL Ventures and what are the traits in startups and founders that RHL Ventures sought out for? [17:45]
  • What are the interesting investments from RHL Ventures so far? [19:45]
  • Given the rise of ICOs and alternative venture capital models, do you see traditional venture capital is here to stay? [21:30]
  • How do you think about investing in Southeast Asia means? Is it just country by country or a set of countries with similar macroeconomic conditions? [23:40]
  • What are the interesting technology trends which VCs will find interesting to tackle in Southeast Asia? [26:08]
• Closing [28:41]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [28:52]
    • Rachel’s recommendation: “The Most Good You can Do“ by Peter Singer
  • How do my audience find you? [29:29]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.