Niu Ventures

The 1st! Startup Grind event of 2025, Coordinated with The Garrison KAIA (?)???????????? Robin Han, honored to have Reinaldo Normand as our guest, given many practical advice to the international founders. Don't know how to put it on words to describe my gratitude for all the community supports and wonderful people I have met during the event yesterday :) My special thanks goes to Clément Metharam - ??? for giving such a passionate on-site support and Doer Youngil Ahn for organizing everything behind the scene, Dan Jo for having hands-on support till late hours to handle guest list and wrap ups :) Global Startup Center (GSC) is now become a monumental venue for many foreign founders in Korea and I believe it would bring more values to our ecosystem!

Leg 5/10 of my Niu Ventures journey to connect tech ecosystems with Brazil/LATAM: Indonesia. Indonesia had long been a mystery to me, but this trip provided clarity on its potential. In Jakarta, I met great people such as Kayrana A., Adi Kurniadi, Wafa Taftazani, Steven Kim and Sutanto Hartono to discuss and learn from the local tech scene. Here are my key takeaways: 1. Jakarta’s modern CBD doesn’t reflect the reality of a vast country with 280M people. Despite a $1.4T GDP, per capita income is half of Brazil’s. 2. Indonesia has at least three distinct economic segments. The one with real buying power for sophisticated tech is still small but will grow into a strategic market within a decade. 3. For now, B2B tech should focus on infrastructure software (healthcare, logistics, fintech). B2C founders need innovative, low-cost models due to extreme price sensitivity. 4. Tech adoption lags behind Brazil, partly due to powerful conglomerates and state-owned enterprises. Still, the trend is upward. 5. Today, if LATAM founders want to expand to Indonesia, finding a local partner is crucial for navigating bureaucracy and culture. This may change in a few years. 6. Despite being a Muslim-majority country, Indonesia feels culturally close to Latin America—warm, friendly, and pragmatic. Business influences come from China, Korea, Japan, Europe, and the U.S. 7. Financial services are advanced, with a PIX-like system (BI Fast) and widespread NFC payments. IMHO, government digitization will match Brazil’s by 2030. 8. Indonesian startups should definitely look to expand to Brazil and Mexico and vice versa. This trip made me more bullish on Indonesia, and I’ll be back soon to explore beyond the Jakarta bubble. Thanks for the intros Richard Armstrong, Emilio Umeoka, Amanda Martins Pedro Drummond

Leg 4/10 in my journey at Niu Ventures to understand and connect tech ecosystems with Brazil/LATAM: Thailand. I've had the privilege to meet very sharp investors in Thailand such as Richard Armstrong, (Twwo) Pun Jaruthassanakul, Ankit Upadhyay, Pailin (Pie) Vichakul and Nattapat (Kun) Thanesvorakul. Also had the opportunity to attend Finnoefra Accelerator team demo day and watch amazing pitches from companies such as Gowajee.ai, MUI-Robotics and Spacely AI. Here are my initial impressions—please keep in mind they’re preliminary: 1. The local market is still recovering post-pandemic, with low startup density, prompting VCs to invest broadly across SEA rather than specific countries. 2. Thailand has ~70M people, and GDP per capita of ~$7-8K, though most lack significant spending power. 3. Thai consumers are highly connected, tech-savvy, and heavy users of apps like Line, Grab, and WhatsApp. 4. Many Thai businesses small and large remain traditional, presenting opportunities for LATAM startups, especially in (software) infrastructure and healthcare sectors. 5. Thai banks are modern, offer great UX, and the financial sector is sophisticated, including innovative payment methods akin to Brazil’s Pix. 6. The prevalent "losing face" culture in Thailand and Asia might hinder open feedback and tolerance for failure, essential for startup growth. 7. Vietnam currently has more experienced software engineers, but with AI increasingly automating coding, the playing field will level out in less than a year. 8. Now is an ideal time for experienced international CTOs, product managers and UX designers to settle in Thailand, benefiting from its quality of life as future software/product teams shrink significantly. 9. Venture capital is available for Series A+, but limited at pre-seed and seed stages, especially for ambitious or early-stage startups without immediate revenue. 10. Ambitions for global scale among Thai startups remain modest due to few local success stories such as Agoda. 11. Thai companies should consider LATAM for expansion, though LATAM region currently struggles with effective storytelling and its potential is not well known across Asia in general. I hope I’m one of many helping to spread the message and bridge SEA and LATAM. We’re far more similar than people realize. I left Thailand with a strong feeling that the next five years will be bright for the country, provided the private sector and government make the right moves. They must—there’s so much potential here! Thanks for the awesome intros (Twwo) Pun Jaruthassanakul, Manusanun (Mew) Leelahongjudha, Samantha Batista and Jeffrey Chua.

Leg 3/10 in my journey at Niu Ventures to understand and connect tech ecosystems with Brazil/LATAM: Singapore. Although I've been in Singapore many times, this is the first time I came with a specific focus. In the last decade, Singapore has taken the mantle from Hong Kong as the most stable and safest country to incorporate and run your startup or multinational tackling the Asian market. The English and Chinese speaking city-state is one of the most developed nations in the world, friendly with all countries, with sophisticated investors such as the sovereign fund Temasek, VCs ranging from pre-seed to Series such as 500 Global headed by Vishal Harnal, Golden Gate Ventures from our own Paul Bragiel, Vinnie Lauria and Jeffrey Chua, Monk's Hill Ventures founded and run by Peng T. Ong and sophisticated family offices. Singapore is one of the four jurisdictions that Ycombinator invests through their own SAFEs. My advice for founders from LATAM is to come to Singapore at a later stage to explore markets such as India, Southeast Asia or even Taiwan, Japan or Korea, if you're doing hardcore research and deeptech stuff such as Patrick Teyssonneyre, or kicking off your high growth startup as done by Zenos Schmickrath. Also checkout SEA Founders to connect with Series A or B founders in the region. The only missing ingredient in Singapore in my view is serendipity and unstructured human to human encounters as they occur in Silicon Valley.

We had a great turnout at our Fuelling Innovation "Tech Talks" event! A huge thank you to everyone who attended. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to our moderator, Christine Kearney, and panelists, Mark Daniel, Behzad M., and Reinaldo Normand for sharing their insights, knowledge, and perspectives on venture capital!?? A special thanks again to our generous event partners: Cayman Enterprise City, Venga People, SteppingStones Recruitment, and Digital Cayman ?? ??Don't miss out! Visit https://hubs.li/Q02SpFzX0 for more information on our upcoming events. #EnterpriseCayman #TechTalks #VentureCapital #Innovation