[Webcast] Venture Capital: So Cal and Asia
VIEW EVENT DETAILSOver the last decade Los Angeles has developed one of the leading startup ecosystems in the world. Venture capital investment in LA startups has grown dramatically, and an increasing share is coming from Asia. Major Chinese companies including Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and Wanda Group have invested in local startups, many of which want to gain a toehold in key Asian markets. Last month, Wavemaker Partners, which is co-headquartered in Santa Monica and Singapore, announced the close of its third and largest fund focused on Southeast Asia. Will this trend continue in spite of rising political tensions and economic uncertainty fueled by the ongoing COVID-19 fallout? What does the future hold for VC-funded start-ups on both sides of the Pacific?
Join us for an insightful discussion with venture capitalists Seamon Chan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Palm Drive Capital and an Advisory Board member of Asia Society Southern California, Eric Manlunas, Founder and Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners, and Yida Gao, General Partner at Struck Capital, as they explore cross-border VC investments and opportunities between Southern California and Asia. Ben Bergman, Senior Reporter at dot.LA, will moderate.
Speakers:
Seamon Chan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Palm Drive Capital
Seamon Chan brings entrepreneurship and operating experience through multiple technology startup roles in the US, Asia, and Europe. He co-founded Palm Drive Capital in 2014, a venture capital and growth equity firm invested in over 80 startups across five continents. Earlier in his career, he gained corporate and research experience at Hitachi Data Systems, Citigroup, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, and Stanford Center for Integrated Systems. Through Palm Drive, Chan has pledged a seven-figure amount to The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, a global consortium of venture funds committed to tackling the gender investment gap by increasing their investments in women-founded companies. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Chan co-founded MillionLives.org, a non-profit to donate medical supplies to the most vulnerable communities around the world.
Yida Gao, General Partner at Struck Capital, Forbes 30 Under 30
Yida Gao is a Partner at Struck Capital. Prior to Struck Capital, Yida was a technology investor at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the world's largest VC funds with $20Bn+ AUM. Previously, he was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group based in NYC where he helped execute over $15Bn in aggregate deal volume. Gao graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science and was a varsity pole vaulter. He attended Stanford GSB briefly before dropping out to join Struck Capital.
Eric Manlunas, Founder and Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners
Eric Manlunas is the Founder and Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners, an early-stage cross border venture capital firm he founded in 2003 that’s dual headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore with over $400M of assets under management. Manlunas is a two-time start-up entrepreneur turned venture capitalist who has an extensive track record as an early investor in over 350 early-stage businesses. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Manlunas founded two technology start-ups, one in e-Commerce in 1996 and the other in Internet services in 1999, both of which were successfully built and eventually sold to strategic buyers. He began his career as a consulting associate with Arthur Andersen’s retail management consulting division from 1991-1995. He earned an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1995 and an undergraduate degree in Communications from Florida International University in 1990.
Moderator:
Ben Bergman, Senior Reporter at dot.LA
Ben Bergman is the dot.LA newsroom's senior reporter, covering venture capital. Previously he was a senior reporter/host at KPCC, a producer at Gimlet Media and NPR and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times. Bergman was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School.
For any questions for the speakers in this program please submit in advance to [email protected]. We hope you'll consider joining Asia Society Southern California as a member and contributing, both available on our website.
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