Emmanuelle Norchet works with Golden Equator Capital. Her focus is on technology investments across the southeast region in the online travel, media and entertainment, digital health and financial tech sectors.
What’s your story?
I am currently working as an investment professional with Golden Equator Capital, a private equity and venture capital fund manager, with a strong focus on technology, headquartered in Singapore. I joined the firm to look at technology investments across the Southeast Asia region, with a focus and interest for sectors such as online travel, media and entertainment, digital health and financial technology. The firm currently has 11 investments that are active across 2 technology funds. Our portfolio can be found here: https://www.goldenequatorcapital.com/portfolio-2/.
Prior to joining Golden Equator Capital, I worked with Nest, an early venture capital firm focusing on B2B technology plays in sectors such as healthcare, financial services, automotive and insurance. In my early days at Nest, I gained operational experience acting as general manager for Investable.vc, a first-to-market equity crowdfunding platform in Hong Kong set up to help early stage companies get access to financing through a community of over 800+ accredited investors and subsidiary of the Nest Group. I started my career working at a Chinese law firm in the field of inbound and outbound direct investments. I hold a Bachelor of Law, a MSc in Finance and I have been admitted to the Bar of Quebec, Canada.
What is your involvement with Investment?
As part of the investment team, I am involved with sourcing, identifying new investment themes, due diligence on new potential investments, presenting those opportunities to our investment committee, and finally working closely with portfolio companies to help them with their expansion strategy, corporate partnerships, customer acquisition and fundraising post-investment.
How did that come about?
After working with a startup and an early-stage venture firm, it made sense for me to move to Golden Equator Capital and focus on the technology sector in the Southeast Asian region. It is the right timing to focus on the region as we are starting to see more successful companies raising larger rounds from international players such as KKR, Expedia, JD.com and Alibaba.
What are some of the key things you have learnt about Investing?
There will always be some risks and some hurdles along the road, but ultimately, you have to believe in the team you are investing in and their ability to adapt as they continue to grow the business. As the technology sector is evolving quickly, our founders also need to have the ability and drive to move fast and adapt to the new market needs. A clear vision and good synergy between the founding team is important.
What mistakes do you see less experienced investors making?
They haven’t usually seen enough companies, founders and business models to be able to see the big picture, trust their instincts and not doubt their decisions.
What mistakes do you see Entrepreneurs making?
One of the biggest ones that I’ve observed with early stage companies is for the founding team to focus or spend too much time on fundraising, resulting in less attention and focus on business and product development. The other mistakes would be the lack of focus, inability to delegate and building a clear organisational structure, resulting in the inability to do one thing well and affecting the execution.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
As cliche as it sounds, I would go for, “focus on what you can control.”
What advice would you give to those seeking funding?
- Don’t use buzzwords in your deck or presentations
- Be clear about the vision and the focus of the company
- Keep presentations short and to the point, leave most of the time for Q&As
- Enquire about the fund mandate to ensure alignment (geography, sector, stage)
- Don’t focus too much on the valuation in the early days
- Speak to the portfolio companies of your potential investors to better understand their personal experience working with them
Who inspires you?
Many of the local entrepreneurs that have managed to build amazing companies from scratch. Some examples are:
- Ching Tse-Tseng, founder and CEO of Vault Dragon
- Joseph Phua, founder and CEO of M17 Entertainment
- Lingga Madu, founder and CEO of Sale Stock
- Ethan Lin, founder and CEO of Klook
- Rosaline Chow Koo, founder and CEO of CXA
What have you just learnt recently that blew you away?
All of the challenges that JD.com had in their early days to get their company off the ground. I would recommend the book, “The JD.com Story.’
What business book do you recommend the most?
The one I mention above and also, some other interesting reads are:
- https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205
- https://www.principles.com/
- https://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519272960&sr=1-2&refinements=p_lbr_one_browse-bin%3ARay+Kurzweil
Shameless plug for your business/organisation:
If your company is looking to join our business club at Spectrum (https://www.spectrum.global/), please contact [email protected]. If you are a startup at the Series A or B stage in the region, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]
How can people connect with you?
[email protected] or [email protected]
Social Media profiles?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelle-norchet-b2001ba/
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This article is part of the World Business Angel Forum media partnership with AsianEntrepreneur.org
If you would like more information about WBAF, please contact Callum Laing WBAF High Commissioner for Singapore. [email protected]
