Genesis

Founded in 2016, Milieu Insight is a consumer research and analytics company that connects businesses directly with their target audience. Milieu’s platform offers businesses a wide range of tools for accessing, analysing, and visualising high-value and timely consumer opinion data to help power better decision-making and strategy in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

By leveraging technology and applying consumer research best practices, Milieu built an opinion-based insights platform to connect communities to organizations, making understanding consumer sentiments and behaviours quick, simple, and fun! Milieu’s mobile app user base has grown from 500,000 users in 2019 to over 2 million users in 2020. It has also increased its enterprise customer base by 300% to 180 customers as of October 2021, up from 45 at the start of 2020.

Recent news: Milieu has raised US$5 million in its latest funding round for product innovation, developing new software as a service-oriented consumer insight offerings, and expanding beyond South-east Asia (11 November 2021).

“Genesis believes that the consumer insights industry is due for a tech upgrade and the strong value that Milieu brings to corporates that want to know what their customers are thinking and where the trends are heading. When we first encountered their research and insights, we knew that Milieu was solving an important, real-world business problem of consumer insights and their approach could revolutionise the industry,” said Dr Jeremy Loh, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Genesis.

The traditional market research industry was based on primitive methodologies and inefficient processes. Milieu was born out of a conviction that its co-founder and CEO, Gerald Ang, had — that market research should be there to make everybody’s life easier, not tougher. Therefore, he decided to build his own tech-driven automated research product that would operate more efficiently and intelligently, thus revolutionising the way market research is conducted. From Gerald’s perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many industries, but it has only been an accelerator in driving the acceptance of online research.

”Empowering people to share their opinions effortlessly has always been our goal. Our partnership with Genesis allows us to continue building on our positive momentum, improving the user experience of our solutions and reach a wider audience, without experiencing high shareholders’ dilution,” says Gerald.

Recent research published by Milieu include the silent mental health crisis in South-East Asia, the tipping point for switching to electric cars, and where E-wallets stand in the future of payments. Its innovation and insights have not gone unnoticed by the industry, winning the team nine industry awards since 2019, including Campaign Asia’s Most Valuable Product, Marketing Interactive’s Market Research and Programmatic Agency of the Year, as well as several Mobile Experience (Mob-Ex) awards.

Pace, a Singapore-based fintech solution company that allows customers to ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL), today announced that it has raised USD40 million in its Series A investment round. Investors that joined the round include UOB Venture Management (Singapore), Marubeni Ventures (Japan), Atinum Partners (South Korea), AppWorks (Taiwan), and a series of family offices from Japan and Indonesia. Previous investors, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia, Alpha JWC, and Genesis Alternative Ventures also participated.

Following this investment round, Pace is now the fastest growing multi-territory BNPL player from Singapore. The new funding will go towards expanding technology, operations, and business development, to hit a Gross Merchandise Value run rate of USD1 billion in 2022 and grow its user base by 25X over the next 12 months.

To date, Pace has more than 3,000 points-of-sale across the region, driven by Pace’s ability to increase overall sales up to 25% by leveraging local customer insights, while driving repeat purchases from Pace’s fast-growing base of users.

Launched in 2021 by Turochas ‘T’ Fuad, Pace has successfully grown its overseas operations by working closely with regulators and adapting ultra-local approaches, such as integrating frequently used in-market payment methods to build resonance with merchants and shoppers. It will continue to replicate a hyperlocal framework as it goes live in new countries.

Read the full article here.

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Read the full article here.

Southeast Asia’s business community is buzzing as many of the region’s tech unicorns prepare to go public. Their listings are a validation of the blood, sweat, and tears of their founders, who will be worth millions through the value of their stakes in these companies.

However, according to a Tech In Asia report (26 October 2021), large tech companies that have gone public over the past three years, as well as those that are planning to have an IPO soon, indicates that many Southeast Asian founder have faced greater levels of dilution compared to their peers from other regions.

One possible reason cited for the higher level of dilution is that South-east Asia is not a single integrated market, unlike China or the US.

Another reason may be that most of these companies went through their initial fundraising at a time when venture capital interest in the region was far lower than it is today.

The article also highlighted the rise of venture debt in the SE Asia region could likely to improve this dilution problem. Venture debt is seen as founder-friendly, as it helps over-diluting shareholder equity at the early stages of a company’s growth.

On this issue, Genesis’ Managing Director, Jeremy Loh said, ““When these companies went through their initial fundraising rounds, venture debt was not a well-established source of funding in this region. However, the landscape has changed over the past two years. With increased acceptance of venture debt as a complementary financing tool, I am confident that future unicorn founders can retain a larger portion of their shareholder equity”.

Read the full article here.

Read more about venture debt: Top 10 questions Every Founder Asks About Venture Debt

As an early-stage start-up founder, you are dealing with many different business issues simultaneously every day and working capital might not be high on your priority list. However, working capital is an important key to your company’s success.

Working capital is to your company as wind is to a sailing boat. You might drift along without it, trying your utmost best to row hard to avoid the rocks. However, to make good headway, you really need wind to provide that boost.

So, what is working capital in the context of finance and accounting? Working capital is basically the funds that you need to run your day-to-day operations. This affects many aspects of your business, from paying your suppliers to keeping the lights on. This sounds simple, but this is also one of the main reasons why a lot of start-ups fail.

Think of this as a cycle:

To extract as much efficiency from the way you manage your cash, there are a few important ingredients that you will need:

Collect cash upfront from sales (Receivable cycle): One way to do this could be to consider a small discount for customers who are willing to pay upfront for your product.
Negotiate for favourable credit terms with suppliers (Payable cycle): Look to grow the relationships with your suppliers and hopefully they will be more flexible when it comes to prices and payment terms.
Keep your inventory to as low as possible (Inventory cycle): You don’t want cash tied up in products that no one is buying!

The key to this is that you want to hold onto your cash longer and try to get paid quicker. This might sound easy on paper but executing this well in reality is complex. For start-ups that are dealing with large enterprises, conglomerates, and government entities, this gets even more complex as you are now dealing with longer payment terms.

This is an area where Genesis can come in to help to bridge this cashflow gap. Venture debt, when structured properly, can unlock capital earlier for your business to generate and fund new sales or investments, while minimising shareholder’s dilution. You can read more about venture debt here and the different types of loan structures here.

Managing your company’s working capital and cash flow in an efficient and effective manner is crucial for success, especially in the world of start-ups. Paying attention to these cash movements on your balance sheet will help you be a better founder and bring you closer to your goals. Let us work closely with you to understand your funding requirements.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me.

I did not want to write another article about “5 steps on how to scale your business” nor “the 10 things you must do to go from 100 – 1,000”. There are many good articles already published.

I would like to share a story of a local Japanese ramen shop I chanced upon. Its USP is to bring quality ramen to the average diner at affordable prices. That’s a big sell, given that the average cost of a bowl of Japanese ramen is three to five times that of a bowl of local wanton noodles. Intrigued but extremely sceptical, I decided to give it a try.

An entry-level bowl of ramen at this establishment costs $6.90 and comes with ramen, two slices of meat, garnishings, and a very hearty broth. It was tasty and wallet-friendly. I was sold.

I went back a second time last weekend. This time, while I ate, I Googled the history of this shop and came across an interview with the two founders. Prior to starting their ramen shop, they had no F&B background. But to my amazement, they were able to scale their business to seven outlets since starting in 2015. How did they do that in a hyper-competitive and cut throat F&B sector? I was sure that they must have a special formula for success.

And this is what I found out:

The founders wanted to make an honest living doing something they felt passionate about: For them, this meant being committed to selling “affordable ramen for the masses”.
They were obsessed with creating a product that customers love. Their aspiration was to bring a bit of happiness to each customer’s day with their ramen.
They disrupted the status quo by always finding a better, cheaper, faster way of doing things. They designed processes to cut costs in areas so that staff are not bogged down by non-core activities. This allowed them to keep their team lean.
They budgeted for the inevitable rainy day and did not give up when things didn’t go according to plan. When they started their first stall, it was at “a low-cost location” so that the losses would be manageable even if business was slow. Business was brisk in the first few months, but they lost all their profits when the school holidays came. Instead of giving up, they relocated somewhere else with higher traffic.
Through monthly profit-sharing, improved staff welfare, and positive working environment, they have a employee turnover rate that is below industry average.

That made me ponder, what does this mean for tech entrepreneurs looking to scale their business? Here are my conclusions:

Be obsessed with creating the best product that serves the needs of your customers – If you create a great, value-for-money product and take care of your customers, revenue growth should take care of itself.
Always be dissatisfied with the status quo. Find better, faster, cheaper ways of doing things. Improve unit economics and cost discipline. Ultimately, all these activities will be beneficial for the bottom line.
Never give up when things don’t go according to plan. Don’t forget why you started in the first place. Be nimble and be ready to tweak strategy if needed. Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
Take care of your team. Your team is your most valuable asset. When you take care of them, you create the fighting spirit and daring initiative that powers your team to go through the good and bad times with you.

I had wanted to add – be on good terms with your existing and potential investors. But that would be too self-serving!

It appears, if you get the above right, the scaling up should take care of itself. Oh, looks like I inadvertently shared some “how-tos” about scaling your business.

Did the angel investor, Han Ji-pyeong, in the Netflix show “Start-up” inspire you? While the hit K-drama series was fictional, it offered some interesting peeks into the start-up world and venture capital (VC) funding.

If you are keen on a career in VC, our Managing Director, Jeremy Loh, shares his career journey and some tips:

Genesis (G): How did you get started in the world of venture investing?

Jeremy (J): After completing my PhD in engineering and doing academic research at Imperial College, I returned to Singapore in 2004 and joined A*STAR, the R&D agency supported by the Singapore government.

Did you know A*STAR has more patents than Harvard or MIT? Yet few ideas were successfully converted into real businesses. I’ll share my experience to commercialise one of my patents. My team put together a business plan for an infectious disease diagnostic kit and went out to raise funds. That whole process made me realise that I did not understand the entire concept of starting and running a business.

I have a PhD and was backed by a top-class research team. But at the end of the day, if we cannot commercialise and turn that idea into a business, we are only half successful.

So I started looking at how I could gain experience with the business side of things and came up with two options: I could get an MBA, or join the venture capital industry as it straddled both the technological and the financial aspects of venture creation. Through serendipity, I was presented with an opportunity to join Bio*One Capital, a $1billion healthcare fund under EDBI that invested in medical devices, drug discovery development, stem cells etc.

Looking back, I realised that my entry in the venture capital industry was a transition. What I did was to leverage my domain expertise in precision and bio engineering to open doors into the financial industry.

G: I hear that the VC space is fast-paced and cut-throat. How true is this?

J: One thing that I can say for certain is that I have not had a boring day. Every day I am energised by start-ups and their ideas to solve a pain point through the clever application of technology. Today, it can be a medtech that can diagnose infections faster and tomorrow, it can be a fintech to serve the unbanked majority.

As for the culture, I can only speak for Genesis and the co-investors we partner with. We are family-oriented and collaborative – we constantly share deals with each other. This is an industry built on trust and if you want to go far, you have to build meaningful and positive relationships.

G: What do you look for when you hire?

J: Typically, venture capitalists hire MBAs, serial entrepreneurs, or people with corporate finance backgrounds. At Genesis, we believe in someone who wants to make a difference:

We look for an intellectually curious mind: someone who is not afraid to ask, “why not?”.

Someone who reads extensively to feed that curiosity.

Someone who challenges himself/herself to be in the shoes of the consumer or enterprise who would buy that product or service. This is the hardest skill to learn, as compared to getting a certificate in financial or technology. But it can be learnt.

G: Any pre-requisite technical skills?

J: You would need to have either a technical (engineering) or financial background to begin with. At Genesis, we will train you up and provide you with exposure to:

deal origination – networking in the startup ecosystem to get access to the best deals to invest capital
financial modeling with Microsoft Excel and analysing financial statements
Able to communicate confidently as you will have to present the investment opportunity to the leadership team and investment committee.

G: What advice do you have for undergraduates or fresh graduates who aspire to a career in venture capital?

J: One of the best ways is to serve an internship that is at least 6 months long with a venture fund or financial institution. Why six months? This is the minimum period you will need to gain valuable experience in how a deal flows from origination to execution. Not just one deal, but at least two or three different types of deals in different industries.

At Genesis, our internship program puts the interns through the same pace and vigour as though you are a full-time analyst in the firm. You will meet incredible founders and amazing venture capitalists. You will also work with a team that is fun and diligently trying to find that next Unicorn. We believe investing time to train up the next generation of venture investing talent will eventually have a positive impact for the Southeast Asia startup scene.

Our internship programme runs year-around so do drop your application at contact@genesisventures.co. We will contact you once a position becomes available.

Our Partner and co-founder, Ben J Benjamin answers some frequently asked questions about venture debt from start-up founders.

1. Who is venture debt for?

Venture debt is ideal for early-stage venture-backed companies that are growing rapidly and that need working capital to fund further expansion, undertake new projects, or acquisition. The key benefit is that founders (and other early investors) do not have to give up as much of their ownership in a funding round. In effect, venture debt can empower growth while minimizing equity dilution.

My colleague, Eddy Ng, shares how to structure your debt for success here: Deal Structure for Venture Debt Success

2. What about interest rates? And collateral?

In terms of payment, founders must consider the following two components:

Interest: usually a flat rate of about five to eight percent
Warrants: comprises about 15 to 25 percent of the loan quantum.

Given the nature of a startup’s business, very few of them have any collateral to pledge to the loan agreement. Unlike banks, venture debt lenders will not ask for personal guarantees or collateral. Instead, lenders will ask for warrants and include covenants to ensure repayment.

3. What are the typical payment terms?

The loan usually has to be repaid within 36 months, fully amortized. The warrant is separate from the loan. Depending on the company’s lifecycle or nature of business, the warrant period can be anywhere between five to 10 years. The venture lender would be free to exercise the warrant during this period.

4. Can I buy back my warrants?

In most cases, the buyers of warrants are usually the founders and/or their existing investors. While the stakes are not huge – warrants generally represent a maximum of two percent of the company – it is a good opportunity for such parties to increase their stakes before a liquidity event (such as an M&A, IPO, or trade sale, for example).

5. My start-up is constantly approached by venture funds. Why should I consider venture debt, even though the interest rate is not much higher than banks?

When raising funds, the key issue that entrepreneurs and investors alike face is equity dilution.

Just imagine if you could raise 20 to 30 percent of the entire series in less dilutive debt. (There is minimal dilution as the warrants may be exercised at some future date when the company is successful, as pointed out above in #4.)

Instead of taking that 20 to 30 percent equity dilution at the early stages of the company’s growth, it makes sense to use venture debt to minimize dilution, especially if you have the conviction that the business will increase in value over the long term.

6. As an entrepreneur, I can go to my existing equity investors and raise convertible notes. Why should I consider venture debt?

Many founders ask this question. A convertible note is generally converted into equity when the business performs well. So, it is not less dilution – it is just delayed dilution. And that dilution is 1:1; in the final analysis, it feels like full equity dilution.

7. Venture debt funds add little value to entrepreneurs.

There is a misconception that venture debt funds exit from the start-ups as soon as the loan is repaid. However, the reality is that venture debt funds do have skin in the game. As warrant holders, we are very much interested in the long-term success of the company. In fact, several of our portfolio companies have returned to us for additional debt because they enjoy the benefits of our experience, networks, and value-add.

8. I like the idea of minimizing equity dilution. Can I use 100% debt to fund my business growth?

As with any company, a balanced capital approach is important when building your books. Just as we would say there is a space for venture debt on the balance sheet for early, high-growth tech companies, it would be unrealistic to suggest that debt should take up the lion’s share in the growth journey.

Venture debt is just one of the many options available for businesses. There are many tools for fundraising, so pick the most appropriate one in the context of your existing capital structure, shareholding, and business plans.

9. When is the right time for start-ups to use venture debt?

Timing is everything. A company that is too young (with poor cashflows, or without a strong balance sheet) will find it difficult to raise venture debt. A company that already has a capitalization table with good investors on board, and has either a strong balance sheet or strong cashflows, will find it easier to raise venture debt from a well-known lender.

It is also worth considering raising venture debt in conjunction with an equity raise. This allows the company to access additional cash to extend the runway to help achieve a larger milestone and a higher valuation at the next round of financing.

10. Any advice for founders when approaching venture debt providers?

We appreciate founders who are honest and forthright from the start. The journey to build a successful business will take three-, five-, or 10-years, so mutual trust is very important.

So, start a conversation with a venture debt provider, even before you need to raise debt. Take time to understand how venture debt works, and the key terms that come with it. Help us understand your industry, business model, and plans. This will accelerate the process when you are ready for venture debt.

Finally, choose your venture debt partner with care. Many founders focus their venture debt conversations on price and loan quantum. They should also consider choosing a venture lender who can be a long-term funding partner, and ask important questions such as, “Am I dealing with a venture lender who understands how a start-up grows and can the lender add value?”, “What is their track record of working with companies that hit hard times?”, and “Will they take a long-term perspective?”.

If you have any additional questions, please do reach out to Ben.

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Southeast Asian ride-hailing and food delivery giant Grab raised $2 billion in debt [1] in Q1’2021 in what it said was the largest institutional debt in Asia’s technology sector, as the company expands its regional services. The five-year senior secured loan was upsized from the initial $750 million after the company secured commitments from international institutional investors. Just a year earlier, Grab raised $4 billion of equity from SoftBank and Toyota and added $500 million of debt [2] from debt investors.

While it may not be apparent at first, experts will suggest that debt becomes an increasingly important part of a startup’s capital structure as it grows. In many cases with late-stage companies, part of the reason is that the cost of debt is less expensive and dilutive than equity. Debt providers play a crucial role in providing startups’ first credit lines helping them to build their credit track record over time. Debt investors, including large growth debt fund and traditional financial institutions, begin to take comfort in a 10-year-old (or more) startup that now has historical financials and a level of credit-worthiness that these lenders can fall back on.

Grab was founded in 2012 and raised its first clip of debt financing in 2017. The company sought $2.5 billion of equity to fund growth of its ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia and tapped on $700 million in debt facilities from leading global and regional banks to expand its car rental fleet in Singapore and Indonesia, two of its key markets. In this period of time, venture debt had just emerged as a debt financing opportunity for early growth startups but the enormous debt quantum was out of reach for Southeast Asia venture debt players then.

Is this a one-off situation unique to Grab or are startups in Southeast Asia following the footsteps of raising larger rounds of debt financing as they grow? Let’s take a look at a few more examples.

Last year, Kredivo (an Indonesian digital lending and credit scoring platform) secured $100 million of debt facility, taking its total debt raise to $200 million in all. UnaBrands, a specialist that consolidates smaller e-commerce brands, raised $40 million in an equity and debt round that closed in May 2021. In Genesis’ portfolio, Matterport had chosen to go with venture debt to grow its business in Southeast Asia instead of taking equity dollars that would have meant further dilution for existing shareholders. Apart from the fundamentals and the fit, it certainly helped that Matterport’s Chief Financial Officer, J.D. Fay, was a seasoned executive who has leaned on venture debt throughout his career.

Expanding The Spectrum of Debt Financing: Early Startups to Growth Stage

In the US, three key private debt providers, Silicon Valley Bank, Hercules Capital and Triplepoint Capital have provided more than 30,000 [4] startups with debt at seed stage (debt size of $25K to $5m) to early stage ($1m to $25m) and later-stage companies ($1 to $50m). To give the reader a sense of the size of the market, Hercules Capital originated a record $1.5 billion worth of deals year-to-date (as at September 2021) annual total gross debt (including equity commitments). This sets a clear path for the “venture to growth debt” journey that a private debt provider like Hercules Capital has undertaken since it started venture lending in 2003.

Turning to Southeast Asia, the venture equity landscape only took off in 2015 with the early cohort of funds investing largely in Seed and Series A companies. Today some of these funds including Vertex [5] and Openspace [6] are already managing both early and later-stage investment vehicles, a natural investment progression given that their own portfolio companies and the rest of Southeast Asia startups continue to move up the development curve.

We believe this phenomenon will continue to play out in the private debt space in Southeast Asia. With SME loans and venture debt covering the early growth debt requirements of startups in the region, we are beginning to see growth debt players moving to cover the gap in the later growth stage. New entrants such as EvolutionX announced a $500 million fund that will write debt cheques of between $20 to $30 million per investment. As more startups graduate from early growth and prepare for pre-IPO funding, there will be more opportunities to inject growth debt into these companies.

The beginnings of this ecosystem maturation bodes well for lenders. Whether at the venture or growth end of the spectrum, an increased rate of lending opportunities (and with additional lenders) will lead to a more sophisticated marketplace of borrowers that better understand the merits of debt (venture and growth). Genesis will be well-placed to continue building on its strong position in the regional venture debt space while selectively looking at growth debt opportunities together with aligned co-lenders.

References

Grab upsizes debut term loan to $2 billion on strong investor demand [link]
Grab secures $500m syndicated facility for vehicle fleet financing [link]
Kredivo Lands $100 Million For BNPL In Indonesia [link]
Bloomberg: Meet Venture Capital’s Baby Cousin, Venture Debt [link]
Vertex Growth to hit $330 million 2nd fund close [link]
Openspace Ventures Closes Third Fund at Hard Cap of US$200M [link]
Temasek, DBS launch $677m debt financing platform for tech firms in Asia [link]

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Martin Tang is the reading champion in Genesis – he is an avid reader and believes that reading the experiences of people who have gone before is one of the best ways to learn. As he always tells us, “a person who does not read is no different from a person who cannot read.”

If you aspire to a career in financial services, especially in the venture capital space, Martin recommends the following books to help you hit the ground running.

1. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters

Considered the first book that inspired many aspiring startup founders, this book delves into the new ways we can create value and innovation in any area of business. This comes from a very important skill that every entrepreneur must master – learning to think for yourself.

2. Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins

The author, a retired US Navy SEAL and ultra-marathon runner, shares his philosophy on how to master your mind, overcome physical and mental obstacles, and cultivate resilience to achieve one’s fullest potential.

3. The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

A self-help classic, this book emphasizes the transformative power of positive thinking and offers practical tips to overcome self-doubt and cultivate success. It underscores the impact of one’s mindset on personal and professional achievements and is invaluable for individuals who are “feeling stuck”.

4. Start with Why by Simon Sinek

This book explores how successful leaders and organizations inspire action by communicating their “why” — the purpose, cause, or belief that motivates them. In contrast to businesses that focus on “what” they do or “how” they do it, the most influential and innovative ones start with a clear understanding of “why.” Sinek illustrates how a compelling sense of purpose can create a loyal following and drive success.

5. The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption by, Sebastian Mallaby

“The future is not predictable; it is only discoverable.” In his book ‘The Power Law,’ Sebastian Mallaby offers a behind-the-scenes look at the people who financed industry giants like Google, SpaceX, and Alibaba. It dissects the successes and failures and offers insights into the tech industry’s evolution and its global impact.

6. What It Takes: Lessons In The Pursuit Of Excellence by Steve Schwarzman (co-founder of Blackstone)

As you can tell, I am a big fan of Blackstone! Steve Schwarzman is the grand daddy of the investment industry. He took US$400,000 and co-founded Blackstone – a firm which manages US$684 billion (as of Q2 2021). He generously shares his expertise and insights on what it takes to achieve excellence. I am always re-reading this book because I find new wisdom every time.

7. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins

This is an excellent book – backed by tons of deep data and research and is well-written. It is full of insights about why some companies go from good to great, while others fail for the same reasons. What intrigued me is the “curse of competence” that hinders companies from achieving greatness. I will not spoil it for you; read the book and find out!

8. Laughing at Wall Street: How I Beat The Pros At Investing (By Reading Tabloids, Shopping At The Mall And Connecting On Facebook) by Chris Camillo

Investment success is not mystical. It comes from being very observant of your surroundings and identifying trends. This book is full of engaging anecdotes and common-sense explanations.

9. David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits And The Art Of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

This is a classic Malcom Gladwell book where he sheds light on how we think about disadvantages and obstacles. We all know the story of how a shepherd boy, David, felled the mighty Goliath with a sling and a stone. The author challenges us to re-think about the “Goliaths” in our lives and what successes can arise out of adversity.

10. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Another classic by Malcom Gladwell. Backed by data, he traces the reasons for the success of some overachievers. What do Bill Gates and top football professionals have in common? Are they really that much more different from us normal folks? This book changed the way I looked at success.

We hope this list will help you become a more successful version of yourself.

In this Masterclass on venture debt for NTU Entrepreneurship Society, Dr. Jeremy Loh shares the following insights:

Background of venture debt industry
Differences between VC and PE firm
Blended costs of capital
How startups are assessed before investments are made and the importance of credit history
The importance of partnerships within the venture funding community.
Advice for future founders with ambitious aspirations or need capital to scale
What it takes to be an intern at a venture fund with a personal sharing by Genesis intern Kang Ying Kwek (Class of 2021).
Internship opportunities at Genesis and portfolio companies.

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Milieu Insight Revolutionises Traditional Research, Bringing Real-Time Consumer Insights to The Forefront, Seamlessly

Pace raises USD 40 million Series A funding from Pan-Asian group of investors from Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia

SEA’s Unicorn Founders Give Up More Equity Than Their Peers

Working Capital and Why It Matters

Food for Thought: Scaling Your Business

How to Start a Career in The VC Industry

Top 10 Questions Every Founder Asks About Venture Debt