BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)

Jean Hew explains how The Neighbourhood Boy, Jom's podcast series on Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, was made over three years. The team picked the subject because Wong had just been named the next PM, and Sudhir and economist Donald Low could speak about his early years. Most interviewees described a guai, down-to-earth technocrat, while Low alone saw him as a PM frontrunner. Each episode went through about 15 drafts, and recording paused when the general election was called, which revealed a more political side of Wong. When the planned narrator withdrew, Jean became host, aiming for a kopi-chat tone. She...

In this compilation episode hosted by Edric Poon, Daniel Suh, general partner at Gold House Ventures and a former corporate lawyer, describes the guilt second-generation Asian Americans feel toward immigrant parents, and why that pushes many toward prestige careers. He recounts five years in consulting with senior military and government clients, a Northwestern JD/MBA, and summers at a big law firm and a private equity firm. A verbal private equity offer left him feeling he had climbed the wrong mountain. Executive coach Pooja Venkatraman argues burnout comes from the mental soundtrack running during work, not the hours worked...

Jianggan Li joins Jeremy Au to report back from a week in China visiting five humanoid robot companies and three AI investors. They cover the US-China summit that produced a hotline and the term superintelligence, why Jianggan reads the agreement more generously than the media did, and the near-absence of safety discussion among Chinese labs racing toward general intelligence and embodied AI. The robotics findings are concrete: everyone concedes a funding bubble, Figure sorts 1,300 parcels an hour with 2,200 expected within a year, and engineers say hardware is not the limiting factor, software is. Warehouses run 60 to 70 autonomous forklifts. They...

Most founders who come to Beyond Border assume a US work visa works like an ESTA: fill in a form, get an answer in 48 hours. Frederick Ng, its co-founder, explains why a good O-1 process takes about three months and a 700- to 1,000-page petition. He joins Jeremy Au to cover the O-1 and L visas for founders and their launch teams, why a spouse's work rights often decide the visa, and how executives tied to an employer-sponsored green card can move to the EB-1A. He also walks through how Beyond Border separates human judgment from AI-assisted case...

In 2016, Singapore declared a War on Diabetes. This BRAVE compilation looks at what the Singapore blueprint gets right on health and public policy, and what that stability may cost in entrepreneurial drive.

Dr. Sue-Anne Toh of NOVI Health explains TOFI (thin outside, fat inside), why Asians develop diabetes at lower BMI, and how insulin resistance works. Adriel Yong of Clouted lays out the efficiency paradox: when public services work this well, fewer people grow up as problem solvers, and state ownership leaves few business families to build on. Dr. Joshua Wang of VerImmune covers why cancer is...

Edy Widjaja, former Senior Partner at Bain & Company and author of The Accidental Partner, joins Jeremy Au for a candid look back at a 16-year management consulting career. They cover what the job actually consists of once you take away the slides and the pitch, how performance reviews and feedback really work inside a top firm, how he handled clients and competing stakeholders, how he and his wife traded off two demanding careers around a young child, what a partner does day to day that nobody sees, and what happened after he retired at the end of 2025.

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Get the basics right in school and everything else builds on it. Miss that window, and it is very hard to course correct.

In this compilation from the BRAVE archive, Adam Huh Dam of Stick 'Em, Adriel Yong of Clouted, Henry Motte-de la Motte of Edge Tutor and host Jeremy Au break down what actually improves learning outcomes, and why so much of edtech does not.

Why authenticity and real traction can beat a polished pitch, from the team that won the 2025 Hult Prize (Adam Huh Dam)

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Wing Vasiksiri joins Jeremy Au to analyze a major wave of tech M&A deals and macro growth trends reshaping Southeast Asia. They dissect Grab’s $1.5 billion acquisition of a 60% stake in Atome Financial, examining its unique performance-linked staged structure, offline-to-online retail synergies against Sea Group, and the strategic value of Atome’s credit underwriting capabilities. They also break down Circle’s $400 million purchase of Tazapay, exploring how cross-border B2B payment rails and all-stock deal structures de-risk regional expansion and align long-term founder incentives. Finally, they examine Singapore’s $200M+ fintech fund injection, the double-digit surge in regional e-commer...

Ajay Bulusu sold NextBillion.ai after a two-year process, and his verdict on cross-border M&A is blunt: 99% of attempts fail, and the founders who never sell are usually stopped by greed rather than by the market. He tells Jeremy Au why 2021 SaaS valuations stopped being fundable the moment ChatGPT arrived, why he picked a number before he started and walked the day he hit it, and why age not coming back mattered more than the last dollar. Then he explains why he started again immediately. After losing his father to a side effect of his cancer treatment, and...

Adriel Yong is the Co-Founder and COO of Clouted, the AI-native clipping and distribution company that turns long-form content into short video and routes it to the right platform and audience. Clouted has raised a $7M seed led by Slow Ventures, following a $4.45M round backed by a16z SPEEDRUN and AppWorks under its former name, Clout Kitchen. The team also produces &FRIENDS, one of the largest dance and pop-culture festivals in the Philippines. 

Adriel joined Jeremy Au to work through what AI has done to media. Five or six years ago, making this p...

Jeremy Au takes the hot seat in a reverse interview hosted by Edric Poon to unpack the true value of a Harvard MBA and the fundamental principles of business leadership. Jeremy unbundles the prestigious degree into three core components: practical utility and learning, building a long-term global network, and acquiring a costly social credential. He shares actionable frameworks for effective leadership, emphasizing the necessity of decisive strategy, ruthless prioritization, and the ability to mobilize resources and capital. The conversation also explores the psychology behind the Harvard case study method, how pattern-matching helps leaders spot corporate fraud, and the harsh...

Jianggan Li returns for a China read: Europe's run on Chinese air conditioners, the humanoid robot games, Shein's discounted Hong Kong listing, and what breaks when Chinese firms go abroad. One thread runs through all four. China's advantage is not invention. Midea did not build a better aircon, it read Europe's building codes and engineered to them. Robot hardware raced ahead because engineers ground at it for a year while the software did not. Temu went from someone suggesting a Super Bowl ad to the ad being made in thirty days. The moat is iteration, and Chinese firms are...

"How are you going to stay ahead of the competition in a world where two kids can vibe code a clone of your product over a weekend?"

Itamar Novick is a solo capitalist and the founder of Recursive Ventures, a pre-seed fund focused on AI and emerging tech startups. He has supported over 50 successful startups, including Deel, Honeybook, Placer, Credible (IPO), MileIQ (acquired by Microsoft), Automatic Labs (acquired by SiriusXM), Tile (acquired by Life360), SafeGraph, and Armory. He's been recognized by Business Insider as a Top 100 global seed investor (#17 in 2021, #29 in 2022). As an operator, he helped take...

Jeremy Au and Shiyan Koh take apart Singapore's new SG Child Support Package: almost $70,000 per Singaporean child paid out over 17 years, more childcare leave, and preschool fees heading towards $150 a month.

Jeremy on why the number only means anything relative to income. Shiyan on why the preschool change matters most. Whether the extra leave actually gets taken, or quietly costs you at work. And the change nobody articulated: every Singapore Citizen child now qualifies regardless of their parents' marital status.

Plus nuclear, transhipment, and their wishlist for the next...

The next three years should deliver what the last thirty did. That is John Lin's argument, and it is why he thinks the ground under founders has shifted.

John Lin is the Founding Partner of Linea Ventures. Previously, he helped start F-Prime Capital's west coast tech practice and was also a Principal at Trinity Ventures. He has invested in 50+ companies, including Numeral, Squire, Branch, Side, Weights & Biases, Triumph and You.com. Prior to that he led Product and Engineering at Roomi and worked at McKinsey and Yelp. John graduated with degrees in Business and...

Where does innovation in Southeast Asia actually start?

Not in a lab. In this compilation from the BRAVE archive: a lock that took eleven hours to install, a Peter Thiel put-down at Harvard, and customers using a real estate website to sell food.

Anthony Chow built Igloo's first smart lock from parts bought in China, watched the first shipments fail, then invented an offline PIN lock (Google Authenticator, but for doors) because vacation rentals have no Wi-Fi. That invention won the Airbnb partnership and now runs more than half...

An offhand compliment from a leader becomes praise. An offhand insult becomes a verdict. Nobody in a leadership role gets to opt out of that.

Three conversations from the BRAVE archive with three best-selling authors, and one thing they share: all three went and checked what everybody already assumes about leadership, and found the data pointing the other way.

Adam Galinsky is a professor at Columbia Business School, currently spending a year at NUS Business School in Singapore, and the author of Inspire. He explains the leader amplification effect...

Software has been sold by the seat for twenty years. Nobody has ever had to promise it worked.

Three conversations from the BRAVE archive, on what changes when software starts getting paid for outcomes instead of access, and what has to be rebuilt underneath it.

Andres Klaric spent a decade in private equity watching SaaS scale before co-founding Fuse, an enterprise lending platform. His argument: current pricing has no accountability in it, and the profit pool should sit in the outcome rather than the operating system. Rohit Jha co-founded...

What is technology actually doing to healthcare, and what can it still not touch?

Four conversations from the BRAVE archive, on the gap between what medicine can do and what a doctor actually has time to do.

Dr. Thomas Kelly walked away from vascular surgery to build Heidi, an AI scribe and care partner now used by clinicians in more than 100 countries. He argues a doctor's paperwork is a patient safety problem, not an inconvenience. Jay Fajardo started over as a solo founder at 58 to attack "pajama time," the 40...

Jeremy Au joined Rohit Malhotra on Life Self Mastery to talk about the moves between founder, VC, and operator, and what each seat actually teaches you. Now leading Cosmetic Physician Partners Asia after Bain, CozyKin, Monk's Hill Ventures, and Lucence, Jeremy is candid about what does not transfer between roles.

They cover the three things every founder has to get right (the product, the team, and the business), the Southeast Asia story that still is not told at ground level, why angel investing is an Olympic-level race rather than a pass-fail test, why coaching...

Jeremy Au joins an episode of The Accidental VC podcast. Hosted by seasoned founders and VCs from ANZ and SEA, this show reveals how unlikely beginnings can lead to extraordinary outcomes. Whether you’re building, backing, or just curious—tune in for stories, strategies, and sharp takes from those who’ve been there. 

In this episode, we explore the thought that “Everyone wants a unicorn. But what if that's the wrong goal?” Mohan Belani and Jeremy Au join Milan Reinartz to challenge what founders and investors think they know about building in Southeast A...

Dr. Sue-Anne Toh, CEO and co-founder of NOVI Health, joins Jeremy Au to discuss the critical intersection of metabolism, longevity, and health policy. They explore the "War on Diabetes" in Singapore, unpacking why Asian populations are predisposed to insulin resistance and visceral fat accumulation even at lower BMI levels. Dr. Toh shares her transition from healthcare administration at NUHS working with MOH, to launching a health-tech "speedboat" to bridge the implementation gap in preventive care. The conversation covers the 80/20 of longevity, the role of GLP-1 medications in hormonal balance, and actionable strategies for "banking" muscle mass to ensure quality...

Everyone has the same access to the same frontier models. So what's actually left to compete on?

Jeremy Au moderates a panel at the Crosscurrents Summit in Parañaque on where enterprise AI adoption really stands.

Aravind Kandiah is CTO and Co-founder of Bifrost, a robotics infrastructure company that simulates the world to evaluate robots. Its simulations power some of the largest robotics companies, from Mars exploration with NASA to high-risk industrial work. Bifrost is backed by Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital and Airbus Ventures. On the panel he splits e...

Dr. Thomas Kelly was a vascular surgery trainee in Melbourne before he walked away from medicine to fix the problem he hated most: paperwork stealing time from patients. Today he is co-founder and CEO of Heidi Health, an AI medical scribe and "care partner" used by clinicians in more than 100 countries, valued at US$465M after its 2025 Series B led by Point72.

In this episode, Jeremy Au and Dr. Tom break down how GPT-4 nearly destroyed the company, forcing a brutal pivot from an AI model company into a product company, and how that near-death moment led...

An 18-year-old got kicked out of high school, built a data startup from a bathroom stall, and now raises millions to race human sperm on live television.

In this episode of the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au sits down with Eric Zhu, founder of Aviato and Sperm Racing, to unpack one of the strangest venture-backed stories in tech. Eric explains how he ran founder calls from an Indiana high school bathroom using a green screen and hall passes bought from drug dealers, why a billionaire dared him to turn sperm speed into...

Southeast Asia's venture market is not in a downturn. It is in a structural winter, and mid-2026 is when that distinction stopped being academic.

Kristie Neo returns to break down what is actually happening across the region: Singapore's IPO revival is real but is being carried by data centres and REITs rather than homegrown tech; allocators now rank Southeast Asia at the bottom of Asia behind China, India, Japan, Korea and ANZ; and a generation of growth-stage companies is being kept alive past the point where a merger or a wind-down would have served everyone better. Jeremy...

Daniel Suh spent a decade optimizing for prestige. Korean immigrant parents who left careers behind to start a small business in the US, a childhood spent moving apartments through bankruptcy, UCSD, five years in consulting to put his brother and mother through school, then an accelerated JD-MBA at Northwestern. He landed the big law summer and a private equity offer, the American dream on paper. He was elated for about ten minutes.

"It felt like climbing a mountain for ten years. You get to the summit, and then you realize you climbed the wrong...

Executive coach Pooja Venkatraman (Harvard College, Harvard MBA, ex-BCG, ex-Capital One) explains why burnout has almost nothing to do with how many hours you work, and everything to do with the mental soundtrack running while you work. She breaks down the two flavors of burnout high achievers miss, why "just quit" is bad advice, and the framework she uses to help Ivy League grads and operators get unstuck.

For founders, VCs, and operators across Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia, this is a candid look at building a career that feels as...

Host Jeremy Au sits down with two-time founder Justin Banusing, who returns to BRAVE to explain why he shut down a startup that was already working, near $1M ARR and freshly funded, and what that call taught him about building across Southeast Asia and the US. Together they unpack the value-chain trap Justin calls "sharecropping on someone else's land," why college gaming and esports could not become venture-scale businesses, and how the cultural shift from campus gaming to music festivals reshaped his entire thesis on where to build.

From AcadArena, the Philippines' first Series...

Is SaaS dying? Andres Klaric, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Fuse, joins Jeremy Au to explain why he believes we have reached "peak SaaS" and why AI agents are forcing software companies to charge for outcomes instead of seats. Andres shares how he spent a decade on Wall Street to build a war chest, launched during the 2020 pandemic, and pivoted from automotive refinancing to an AI-native loan origination system now used by more than 100 lenders. He breaks down the $25 million Series A, the $5 million "rescue fund" that frees credit unions from legacy contracts, and why context-rich teams, not newcomers, win...

What separates leaders who inspire from those who infuriate? Columbia Business School professor and bestselling author Adam Galinsky (Inspire, Friend & Foe) breaks down the science of inspiration: the Leader Amplification Effect, why every leader inevitably inspires or infuriates, and the three universal traits of inspiring people, being a Visionary, an Exemplar, and a Mentor. He also explains why AI is fundamentally sycophantic, how it can quietly erode learning and human connection, and why in-person relationships still win. Featuring the story of Southwest pilot Captain Tammie Jo Shults, the research on power and reflection, perspective taking, and the real difference...

When the oil crisis hit, Southeast Asia changed overnight. In this episode, recorded in Manila, Foxmont Capital's Franco Varona joins Jeremy Au to unpack how the energy shock supercharged the electric vehicle boom across the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. They break down BYD's stunning climb to become the Philippines' third best-selling car brand in roughly three years, why Filipino consumers now name a Chinese EV as their dream car, and how solar panels are turning electricity bills to zero.

The conversation also goes deep on the region's bigger game: Malaysia's fuel subsidy...

Dušan Stojanović, founding partner of True Global Ventures, joins Jeremy Au to map where money is heading as stablecoins and AI agents collide. He traces his path from building one of the first internet banks in France to becoming Europe's Angel of the Year, then breaks down the news that matters now: the Hong Kong stablecoin license won by Anchorpoint, the Standard Chartered, HKT, and Animoca Brands venture. The conversation goes deep on why payments are the first real use case for the agentic AI economy, why a human still needs to stay in the loop, and his be...

Behavioral designer Nir Eyal sits down with Jeremy Au to unpack the ideas behind his New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief. He explains why information alone never changes behavior, why your limiting beliefs stay hidden like your own face, and how the motivation triangle of behavior, benefit, and belief decides whether you actually follow through. Nir breaks down the research showing why manifesting and vision boarding can backfire, what athletes do instead with mental contrasting, the crucial difference between pain and suffering, and the four-question turnaround he used to repair his relationship with his mother. The episode closes with...

Is Singapore too efficient to ever become a great startup hub? After a single shower-thought tweet went viral and sparked a tech Twitter debate, Adriel Yong joins Jeremy Au to unpack the uncomfortable idea that Singapore works so well it dulls the hunger founders need to build. The conversation digs into whether a 5 million person market really caps your upside, why Grab out-earned Gojek despite a smaller home market, and how Israel and Estonia prove small countries can still punch above their weight. They also break down Temasek and the missing business dynasties, zero capital gains tax, the GovTech...

Jeremy Tan, independent candidate for Mountbatten SMC in Singapore's GE2025, joins Jeremy Au and Shiyan Koh to unpack why he ran, why he lost, and what he learned about Singapore's political meta. He explains why public scrutiny and small-town dynamics deter Singaporeans from entering politics, why negative campaigning backfires with voters, and why opposition parties should focus resources on winning single member constituencies. The conversation digs into Singapore's fertility crisis, with Jeremy arguing that housing affordability, not incentives, is the real bottleneck, alongside his policy ideas: ending primary school affiliation, building cheaper HDB flats, and compounding baby equity accounts...

How do startups actually beat established incumbents? In this episode of the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au reframes the classic David vs Goliath story to explain why startups are not underdogs. They are operators who choose the right weapon, then go for the kill shot of category creation.

Break down the David vs Goliath Reframe, where the slingshot was equivalent to a pistol and David won not by luck but by choosing speed over armor. Walk through Startup Case Studies including Oatly building a billion-dollar oat milk category from nothing in 1994, and Hon Lik inventing...

Are AI agents and LLMs coming for your job? In this episode of the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au sits down with Ori Sasson to uncover the harsh realities of AI job replacement, the "Hollywoodization" of the workforce, and the explosion of 10x productivity in startups. Discover how employers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia are redesigning roles, navigating "shadow AI", and leveraging government policies to stay competitive.

Whether you are a tech founder, venture capitalist, or operator in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, or Malaysia, this conversation is your blueprint for surviving and...

Is Southeast Asia entering a golden age of technology? In this episode of the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au explores the booming venture capital landscape and what it actually takes to build a unicorn in highly fragmented markets like Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Dive deep into The Technology Stack & Leapfrogging, explaining why fundamental infrastructure, like widespread internet and mobile adoption, must precede advanced tech, using Grab's expansion into the Philippines as a prime example. Break down the three main Southeast Asia Market Archetypes that dictate how startups scale across borders, from single-market giants to regional...