Rakuten Capital’s Saemin Ahn is ‘pessimistic’ on Southeast Asian VC: Good startups are getting ‘a lot less oxygen’
The managing partner of Rakuten’s venture arm says the region’s startups lack the scale and exits to justify U.S.-style checks.
Saemin Ahn, the head of international investments for Rakuten Capital, expresses pessimism about venture capital investments in Southeast Asia. He argues that the region's startups are not delivering stellar results, and the high cost of funding due to rising inflation and interest rates is making it difficult for them to succeed.
In the first nine months of this year, only $10.7 billion flowed into Southeast Asia, just over 1% of the total $679 billion, a significant recovery from last year's figure of three times lower. Ahn believes that the lion's share of global venture capital is concentrated in the U.S. and North Asia, and that the region's startups need to post better results to win more VC money.
His company, Rakuten Capital, has shifted its focus to North Asia, the U.S., and parts of Europe, and now invests in over 90 companies in e-commerce and fintech.
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