Day 3 of AsiaBerlinSummit was Investor Day co-curated by enpact and WLOUNGE. We spoke about investment opportunities in China, AI in India, innovation, logistics tech, diversity and so much more!

Follow along as we share the highlights from the day:

At our panel on Next Gen Ventures, moderated by  Miguel Encarnacion of Unifier Ventures, we spoke to 2nd generation founders who grew up in entrepreneurial environments and went on to start their own ventures. They shared their learnings from their established family operations that had managed to survive multiple waves of technological disruptions. Panelists gave advice to founders and pointed to things people do wrong when trying to localize their product in Asia with cross-border investments.

Patricia Sosrodjojo of AC Ventures talked about how being part of her family business allowed her to appreciate resilience, trained her to recognize emerging markets and note cycles in prices. Rachel Lau of RHL Ventures shared how learning from her family’s business gave her a solid understanding of the business cycles and familiarity  with how partnerships work. Karl Pilny of Asia21 insisted that when deciding to expand business to Asia, Europeans need to educate themselves about the culture and market potential and products in Asia to come up with an investment framework. 

Our chief guest Bo Ji from China Start & Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) delivered his Keynote speech about what investors need to keep in mind when expanding their business to China. He said that despite the US-China trade war, business between the two countries has actually grown and given birth to many opportunities for Europe. He added that Europe does have technological advantages and investors can leverage this. He ended with some key tips on how to invest in China. 

We hosted an engaging panel with investors from Asia and Berlin with speakers: James Song of APX, Benjamin Joffe of  SOSV, Michael Maria Bommer of Next Big Thing, Rabab Nasrallah of   Earlybird Venture Capital, Tony Verb of Carbonless Asia, and moderator  Jag Singh of Angel Invest. They shared the best practices from their unique geographies and gave us insights into the changes in the investment environment in the post-COVID world. The panel was interactive with founders and business leaders candidly discussing some of the pressing issues and questions they have about their growth strategies.

 At our panel on Corporate Innovation (Intrapreneurship) we had the amazing Dr. Marcus Krug of SAP, Varun Sridhar of Paytm Money , Luis Sperr of InnoEnergy  and Alice Chan from Porsche Digital talk to us about the innovative strategies they used to revolutionize business to make it sustainable, profitable and scalable. 

Our session on CVCs in Logistics Tech addressed disruptive macro-economic forces that impacted the industry and how our speakers – Luck Saraya, of TOP Ventures/ ThaiOil, Janie Yu of LFX Ventures Partners, Ralph Riecke of  Porsche Ventures were able to overcome them. We also talked about how different problems and different kinds of innovation are prevalent in different countries across industries and future investments in startups that each company is looking forward to.

At our FireSide Chat: “Tapping into Indo-German Investment Potential” speakers discussed deep-tech and AI related to language processing and India as a forerunner in the field. Other topics of discussion were areas of collaboration between Germany and India and what is the best channel to invest in startups from India or Germany. Thanks to our speakers Varun Sridhar of Paytm Money , Peter Kabel, of AECAL Ventures, Manish Singhal, Pi Ventures,  Siddharth Borkar of  Mahindra Group and our moderator  Angela De Giacomo of WunderNova GmbH for their deep insights.

At our closing panel: Crossbreeding Unicorns moderated by Mali M. Baum of WLOUNGE Magda Group fund  , we had a conversation on the difficulties minorities and female entrepreneurs face in accessing capital. Momo Bi, NY Ventures talked about the importance of coaching men in a way that helps them look at the world in a more well-rounded way. Vanessa Liu, of SilverLIfe talked about the importance of active listening when looking for diverse founders and shared tips on making the process a lot more democratic. Cindy Gallop, of  MakeLoveNotPorn talked about the need for diversity and how it drives innovation. Cindy Gallop’s words to women investors and entrepreneurs stayed with us when she said: “I want you to bullshit as much as the men do. Don’t hold back when selling their cause to investors, men toot their own horn a lot more than we actually ever can.”

Thanks to our co-moderator Siddharth Bhasin. We thank all our participants who joined us in-person at Spielfeld Digital Hub.

Photographs: Stefan Wieland

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