Rising Giants Newsletter - N.25 Jovany Antonio, Managing Director, DA&G Real Estate Investment Management
Max & Dom chatting with the boldest and most inspiring entrepreneurs and investors in Cambodia 🇰🇭. Turn on 💡, Tune in 📻, Keep up 🚀
Welcome to the Rising Giant's Podcast Newsletter by Max Thornton and Dominic Kalousek.
If you enjoy our content, please subscribe to our post-interview newsletter as we share our most recent podcast episode, Southeast Asia startup and venture capital news, venture deals, entrepreneur resources, and job opportunities in the region!
▶️ This Weeks Episode Recap
In this week’s episode, we talk with Jovany Antonio from DA&G Real Estate Investment Management, bringing decades of experience navigating real estate markets in the USA and Southeast Asia. Since arriving in Cambodia in 2014, Jovany has quickly established himself as a leading figure in the real estate community. As the Managing Director of DA&G, Jovany is building a one-stop shop for real estate investors looking to interface with Cambodia and get the most out of their investments.
We get into:
🏗️ Witnessing first-hand the immense growth in real estate investment in Cambodia over the last decade.
🌳 Where the untapped opportunities are in the real estate sector today; quality vs. quantity, new urban centers, etc.
🪙 Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Mars; how the three relate
🧠 Want to learn more about DA&G?
Check out some of the recent activity on DA&G’s Linkedin page to see what projects they are leading in Phnom Penh.
🎧 Find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Play, and Anchor!
📝 Venture Capital Deal Flow Highlights in Southeast Asia
Indonesia-headquartered Hypefast has raised $14 million in its Series A round, with Monk’s Hill Ventures investing $8 million and Jungle Ventures with $3.9 million. Founded in 2020 by former Shopee and Lazada marketer Achmad Alkatari, the startup is in the business of acquiring digital and ecommerce-native brands in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand and growing them for a global market.
HappyFresh, the on-demand grocery app based in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $65 million Series D. Founded in 2014, HappyFresh was the first Instacart-style grocery delivery service to launch in Southeast Asia. It expanded into five markets before shutting down its operations in Taiwan and the Philippines in 2016. It continues to operate in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Shikho, an edtech startup focused on Bangladesh students, announced it has closed a $1.3 million seed round co-led by returning investor LearnStart (the seed fund of edtech investment firm Learn Capital) and Anchorless Bangladesh. Founded in April 2019, Shikho is focused on grades 9, 10, 11 and 12, with plans to introduce content for grades 6 up to university level and continuous education. Its learning material, created by educators and subject experts, is based on the Bangladeshi National Curriculum. To keep students engaged, it uses gamification techniques, like points, leaderboards and virtual awards.
Philippine fintech startup NextPay raised $1.6 million from a new round of seed funding led by Golden Gate Ventures, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, and Gentree Fund, the private investment vehicle of the Sy family. NextPay, which was launched during the pandemic in 2020, plans to use the funds to develop more digital banking solutions for its growing customer base of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). It aims to provide access to financial services like digital invoicing, cash management, and batch payments to any bank or e-wallet in the Philippines.
📰 Frontier Market Start-Up and Venture Capital News in Southeast Asia
🇰🇭 Young Cambodian entrepreneurs spent the weekend pitching their ideas to venture capitalists and government representatives at a virtual showcase event.
🇹🇭 A Thai robowealth startup seeks to bring investment to the mass market through apps, with a focus on the younger generation
🇮🇩 Indonesia’s MDI Ventures and Fintech Capital make first close of a joint $40 million fund.
🇻🇳 Vietnam’s fintech focused 1982 Ventures is looking to ramp up deployment of funds in the country.
🇧🇩 Bangladesh Tech Briefing: 4 Bangladeshi SaaS startups to watch for.
🇳🇵 Telehealth is growing up in Nepal - read on how TeleUpachar, a health tech startup in the country, shows promise in the scene.
🇵🇭 A local Philippine startup from Davao City is developing a learning management system (LMS) that will help students and educators in conducting online learning and sharing educational resources.
📚 Knowledge Base: Entrepreneur and Investor Learning Resources
In this week’s resource, we want to share with you a great podcast episode from Tim Ferriss that discusses how couples can talk about money, reaching your bucket list goals, and the “100 dollar challenge”. While it’s not a typical video for an entrepreneur, there are stories about how couples who are starting businesses deal with the financial stresses to make sure both on the same page to achieve their goals. We hope you enjoy!
Additional Resources To Check Out:
🔍 Framework for dealing with investment FOMO.
🎥 6 exercises to becoming better at evaluating startups.
🔨 Great resource on how to create a community flywheel.
🔥 Fool proof ways to win an argument.
👨🏼💻 Frontier Market Job Opportunities
Visa is hiring a Marketing Manager in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Emerging Market Consultants is hiring for Senior Consultants in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
DA&G is hiring for multiple positions to help serve their clients in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Legrand Cambodia is hiring for a Business Developer in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
ATEC International is hiring for Marketing Coordinator in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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🧐 What is Rising Giants?
The Rising Giants Podcast was created in November 2020 by Max Thornton and Dom Kalousek after realizing that there were a limited number of resources available for insight into the local startup and investor ecosystem in Southeast Asia.
Our mission is to talk to entrepreneurs and investors in the world’s most rapidly evolving frontier markets to help understand what it takes to have bold ideas and build the business disruptors of tomorrow. Through our personal exploration of these landscapes, we dive deep in our interviews with inspirational individuals learning about their career journeys, ideas, and insights into the markets of developing startup ecosystems, and expanding on why they see their business and the region as a "rising giant”.