Malaysia on the rise
- Khailee Ng, Managing Partner at 500 Global, believes that founders in Malaysia may not find a better time to build their companies.
- During his opening keynote at Tech in Asia Conference in KL, he elaborated on why Malaysia is on the cusp of an inflection point.
- Tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, Infineon, and Intel, have all committed to investing billions of dollars to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the country.
- Furthermore, Malaysia’s stock exchange has seen 27 debuts this year, raising a total of US$723M — 43% higher than that of the same period last year. This is amid a “subdued” level of Initial Public Offering (IPO) activity in Asia Pacific.
- Malaysia outperformed its peers in Southeast Asia in exit-to-investment ratio, making 1.21x the total capital invested in them between 2013 and 2022.
- Despite the “VC market drag” (when VCs are not investing at the pace, speed and size they used to), the wave is here. “How do we ride it?” Khailee asked.
- “[For] most tycoons in so many countries, the biggest lifts in their fortunes are made because of the plans they made when the economy was down,” he said. Meanwhile, the 1% – or what he termed the “baller level” – have plans that “shape and shake the market, and it creates confidence in others.
- “A lot of regional champions are built in the worst of times and without any good news,” he shared. And Malaysia has produced many outstanding tech leaders, such as Grab Co-founder Hooi Ling Tan and CTO Suthen Thomas, Carousel Co-founder and CTO Lucas Ngoo, and Carsome CEO and Founder Eric Cheng.
- “We’re gonna need a way to imbue this confidence and let it spread, because confidence breeds confidence,” Khailee concluded. “Without this kind of confidence and a substantial source of confidence, you won’t have the conviction to build companies or invest in companies.”
- Read the full story on Tech in Asia.
