Ng and fellow partner Gavin Teo previously worked at B Capital, Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s venture capital house. The other three partners are Koh, Tan Chow Boon and Seow Kiat Wang, who founded Omni Industries, an electronics components maker acquired by Celestica Inc. in 2001.
Altara’s portfolio companies include Vietnam-based education technology startup Clevai, Malaysia digital insurtech platform PolicyStreet and Philippine digital bank Tonik. Together, the quintet has backed more than 100 companies, including Razer, Ninja Van and Twitch.
Southeast Asia, a region with about 650 million people, is seeing rising interest from investors scouting for companies that can capture the surge of online activity amid the pandemic.
“The venture and startup ecosystem really started gaining traction in Southeast Asia only within the last decade, so we have a long runway ahead of us,” Koh said via email. “Today, the debate has shifted from ‘do we need entrepreneurship and technology transformation?’ to ‘how do we do it?’”
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Photo: The Edge Singapore/Samuel Isaac Chua
