So, you are getting ready to embark on the Scale Up! Train-the-Trainer? Exciting! This can be truly life-changing for your professional career!
Before you begin, here’s a couple of points you might like to know.
Scale Up! online format, with Katapult accelerator, Nov 2021
Part I: Ten fast facts
1. What is Scale Up? Scale Up! is a methodology to develop entrepreneurs, founders, angel investors, accelerators, incubators, VCs and ecosystem developers. The Scale Up! Methodology is based on 20+ years of experience supporting 1000’s of high-growth startup founders from pre-seed to post-IPO. The methodology is built on ‘working visually’, with a series of visual canvases and the visual Scale Up! kit.
2. What’s the core idea behind Scale Up!? In Scale Up! participants form teams and compete through the Founder’s Journey, taking a company from idea to successful exit. For most people, we do around 8-10 years in just three days.
3. How is Scale Up! delivered? In-person or online (using Miro and Zoom)
4. How can Scale Up! be run? Your imagination sets the only limitations; we describe seven different ways you can run Scale Up! We prefer the 3-day format, but half-day, one-day, two-day, five day or even 3-month formats are possible. It’s really up to you.
5. How many people have been through Scale Up!? Globally, ca. 4.500 to date
6. How many countries have Scale Up! been run so far? 50+
7. How many expert facilitators are there? ca. 70+
8. How many Scale Up! version are there? – Scale Up! (1.0) – Scale Up Angel! – Scale Up MENA! – Scale Up Africa Rising! – Scale Up Europe! (launching in 2026). More coming…
9. Who developed Scale Up!? Chris Rangen and his colleague Jolene Foo-Hodne was working with Innovation Norway, the Norwegian national innovation agency on a national program. This collaboration led to the first Scale Up! back in 20218.
10. Who can run Scale Up!? Globally, anyone can learn to run Scale Up! To date, faculty, VCs, accelerator staff, coaches and consultants have all learned to run Scale Up! With a bit of training and willingness to learn, anyone can.
Founders, investors, ecosystem builders – all benefitting from Scale Up!
Part II: Two types of knowledge
The two sets of expertise you will develop For anyone running Scale Up!, there are two skillsets you need. We count these on a one to five level, from beginner to expert.
Domain knowledge Domain knowledge is how much you know about the content, the term sheets, the deal structures, the cap table math and how to bring together a 2M @4M post SAFE, with a 500.000 @3M pre equity round, while also keeping the initial angel investors happy and structuring a 12% post-round ESOP.
Domain knowledge is important. It is what you know. It is the foundation you use to teach, coach and mentor others. Everyone should strive to develop their domain knowledge.
But domain knowledge alone is not enough.
Facilitation knowledge Next, you have faciliation knowledge, or really faciliation skills. How comfortable are you with structuring programs, designing multi-stakeholder workshops and facilitating high-paced masterclasses? Can you manage large groups, in both online and in-person formats?
Can you use your voice well? Can you give instructions clearly? Can you design a workflow to keep people engaged over multiple days?
For most of us, these two sets of skills is something we work on constantly, day in and day out. You never graduate, you just keep getting better and better over time.
Getting to level five ….takes real, genuine work
Part III: The five core topics you will master
Our train-the-Trainer is designed around five core topic areas. Each represents a critical piece of the puzzle every Scale Up! Expert Facilitator needs to handle with confidence.
1. Founder’s Journey From IPO dreams to the messy realities of taking a company public, you will learn to guide participants through every twist and turn. This is the backbone of Scale Up! – understanding what founders actually go through from idea to exit. Can you tell stories, of success and failure from across the Founder’s journey?
2. Term Sheets 600+ term sheets. SAFE notes. CLAs. Priced rounds. Liquidation preferences. You will learn to read, understand, and explain even the most complex investor term sheets. Did you know there is such a thing as ‘too many term sheets’? You will.
3. Cap Tables From foundational equity to Series K dilution, cap table mastery is non-negotiable. You will learn to help founders understand how their equity evolves – and how to protect it.
4. Ten Steps to Scaling Up This is where strategy meets execution. Scale up mindset. Exit planning. Equity management. ARR velocity. Team development. Market expansion. Customer discovery. Financing. Product development. Scaling with AI. Ten interconnected elements that determine whether a startup stays stuck – or scales.
5. Liquidity & Exits The ultimate question: how do you return value to investors? M&A, IPO, secondary transactions, partial liquidity – you will learn to facilitate conversations most founders have never had. Combined, these five are the core topics you need to study up on to build out your domain expertise.
Scale Up! Train-the-trainer Structure
Part IV: Three levels of development
Here’s the thing about becoming a Scale Up! Expert Facilitator. It’s not about reading a manual. It’s about a progression through three distinct levels.
Knowledge This is where you start. Learning the content. Understanding the frameworks. Reading term sheets. Studying cap table math. Getting fluent in the visual canvases, the Founder’s Journey, the Investor Map, the Rocketship Canvas. You are building the internal library that allows real improvisation later.
Confidence Knowledge is not enough. Confidence comes from running programs. From co-facilitating with masters. From leading a full simulation and experiencing what it feels like when things go sideways – and learning to recover. This is where the nervous system develops. Where you learn to sense what a room needs, moment to moment.
Mastery Master facilitators create unseen structure and invisible support. They make profound learning look effortless. They adapt mid-session to emerging themes without losing coherence. They know when the ‘wrong’ conversation is actually the most important one. Mastery is not perfection – it’s the hard-won ability to orchestrate genuine transformation.
Scale Up! online format, Nov 2021
Part V: What a typical Scale Up! session looks like
Here, we use a three-day format. You can of course mix and match this around to best suit your format. You can easily adapt to a one-day format, two-day or even five-day.
Day 1: The Foundations
The Welcome session kicks off with the Founder’s Journey, Investment instruments and Foundational equity. You will dive into Strategy 101, Pre-seed/seed stage dynamics, ESOP structures, Term sheets, Investor mapping, Product development and Pitch deck fundamentals.
By the end of Day 1, teams will have navigated 30+ term sheets across 2-5 rounds, managing raises from 1M – 10M at valuations of 10M – 30M. Boom cards. Bust cards. Burn rates from 10.000 – 100.000. Welcome to the founder’s reality.
Day 2: Scaling Up
Day 2 opens with a Pitch session. Now you take teams into venture territory. Sales organization. Market expansion. Long-term capital strategy. 3x Value uplift. Boards & governance. Rocketship canvases. LinkedIn positioning. Complex term sheets. SAFE conversion mechanics. Product mastery. Investor liquidity & returns. Outcome canvas analysis.
The complexity ramps up. Each team should see term sheets: 30-40. Rounds: 3-5. Raises: 20M – 100M. Valuations: 100M – 500M (and pushing toward 1BN). Boom: 10-30. Burn rate: 500.000 – 5M. This is where scaling founders separate from starting founders.
Day 3: Growth & Exit
The final day opens with an Outcome pitch. You are now in growth stage territory. Global leadership. Market expansion. Margin expansion. Investor questions and power dynamics. M&A strategies. Liquidity transactions. IPO readiness. Exit transactions.
The stakes are highest here. M&A: 0-3 deals. Term sheets: 20-40. Rounds: 1-5. Raises: 50M – 1BN. Valuations: 10M – 30M? Not anymore – we’re talking multiples higher. Boom: 10-15. Burn rate: 10M – 20M. This is where winners are made.
Globally, over 70 people are now trained and certified to deliver Scale Up! programs. They work in 50+ countries. They’ve taken nearly 4.500 founders, investors and ecosystem builders through the journey.
As an Expert Facilitator, you will join this global community. You will gain the ability to transform how founders think, how investors evaluate, how ecosystems develop.
The best part? The journey from Learn to Run to Apply to Fly is one of the most rewarding professional development paths you can take. Each program you deliver, you get better. Each challenging term sheet negotiation you facilitate, you grow. Each breakthrough moment you witness – a founder finally understanding their cap table, an investor seeing the power dynamics differently – reminds you why this work matters.
One day, this will all be yours…
Ready?
The Scale Up! Train-the-Trainer is not a certification you collect. It’s a capability you develop. A community you join. A journey you commit to.
From Knowledge to Confidence to Mastery. From Day 1’s foundations through Day 3’s exits. From your first nervous co-facilitation to the flow state of mastery.
From Fund I ($10M) to Fund III ($50M) in Six Years. A Three-Part Series on Building a South-East Asian Venture Capital Firm from Scratch
Written by Christian Rangen, advisor to VC funds, Fund-of-funds, faculty,
Written through the lens of Aisha Rahman, Founding Partner, Meridian VenturesWith insights from: Rizal Tan, Co-Founder & General Partner, Meridian Ventures-
The people and companies are largely fictional for the purpose of this article, based on the Fund Journey Map and GP Fundraising Team canvas by Chris Rangen, Strategy Tools.
The journey from “we should start a fund” to actually managing institutional capital is longer, harder, and more humbling than almost any first-time fund manager expects. Here’s how one South-East Asian emerging manager navigated those critical early years—and learned the hard way that fundraising requires a completely different skill set than investing.
It’s 11:47 PM in Kuala Lumpur, and I’m staring at a spreadsheet that makes no sense. We’ve been working on our fund concept for eighteen months now, and I still can’t articulate why a family office would trust us with $2 million when we’ve never managed a fund before.
Rizal is asleep on the couch in our tiny shared office—a converted shophouse in Bangsar that we’re renting month-to-month because we can’t commit to a lease until we know if this fund will actually happen.
That was Year T-1. Six years later, we would be managing $85 million across three funds—Fund I ($10M), Fund II ($25M), and Fund III ($50M)—having raised a new fund every 20 months on average. We would establish ourselves as one of South-East Asia’s most consistent emerging-stage performers and a genuine thought leader in the region’s venture ecosystem.
But in that moment? I genuinely didn’t know if we’d make it past first close.
This is the story of our fund journey—the real one, not the polished version we tell at conferences. If you’re an emerging manager in South-East Asia, or thinking about becoming one, pay attention to the ecosystem builders who helped us along the way. And pay close attention to our fundraising evolution—because that’s what ultimately made the difference between survival and success.
Behind the idea, fund economics 101
Year T-2: The Idea Takes Shape
The Spark
Rizal and I met at a fintech conference in Singapore in 2017. He was running business development for a Series B payments company backed by Golden Gate Ventures; I was a principal at a mid-sized regional VC that was, frankly, underperforming.
Over teh tarik at a mamak in Petaling Jaya, we complained about the same things: VCs who didn’t understand founders. Decision-making processes that took months. Partners who’d never built anything themselves. The disconnect between what South-East Asian founders needed and what most regional funds delivered.
“We should start our own fund,” Rizal said, half-joking.
“We should,” I replied, not joking at all.
That conversation planted a seed that would consume the next three years of our lives.
The Reality Check
Starting a fund isn’t like starting a company. You can’t bootstrap it. You can’t build an MVP and iterate. You need LP commitment before you can do anything—and LP commitment doesn’t flow to people without track records.
We spent the first six months of Year T-2 doing what I now call “the reality audit.”
Market Opportunity Assessment: We mapped the South-East Asian early-stage landscape, with particular focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. What we found was both encouraging and terrifying. Encouraging: a genuine gap existed for founder-friendly, operationally-focused pre-seed and seed investors in the $200K-$1M range. Singapore had become expensive for startups, and regional founders needed alternatives that understood local markets. Terrifying: at least 30 other groups were circling the same opportunity, and several established Singapore VCs were beginning to look downstream.
The Malaysian Ecosystem Landscape: Early in our research, we discovered the critical role of Cradle Fund in Malaysia’s startup ecosystem. Cradle had been nurturing early-stage companies since 2003, providing grants and coaching that created the very dealflow we hoped to invest in. Understanding Cradle’s portfolio became essential to our thesis—many of our future portfolio companies would be Cradle alumni. We also mapped the roles of MDEC, MaGIC, and various state-level initiatives. South-East Asia’s venture ecosystem wasn’t just Singapore anymore.
Team Capabilities Audit: Between us, we had twelve years of relevant experience. Rizal had operator credibility from his startup years and deep fintech knowledge. I had investment experience, but as a principal, not a decision-maker. Neither of us had carried interest (the profit share that defines GP economics). Neither of us had ever raised institutional capital.
Investment Thesis Development: This is where most emerging managers fail first. They have a vague idea—“we invest in great founders”—but no differentiated thesis that answers the question every LP will ask: Why you? Why now? Why this strategy?
We spent three months developing our initial thesis. Early-stage generalist tech across South-East Asia, with initial focus on Malaysia and Indonesia, concentrating on B2B software and fintech, with a contrarian bet on founders from non-traditional backgrounds who were overlooked by establishment VCs. Check sizes of $200K-$800K, targeting 12-15 investments over a three-year deployment period.
The Honest Assessment: By the end of Year T-2, we had a thesis we believed in, complementary skills, and genuine founder networks from our previous roles. What we didn’t have: LP relationships, a track record as GPs, or any idea how to actually raise a fund.
The Fund Manager! Masterclass: A Turning Point
In late Year T-2, we made a decision that would fundamentally change our trajectory: we enrolled in the Fund Manager! Masterclass run by Strategy Tools.
“It blew our minds,” Rizal later told other emerging managers. “We thought we understood venture capital because we’d worked in the industry. The Masterclass showed us we didn’t understand the first thing about running a VC firm; and definitely not about delivering net DPI back to LPs.”
The Masterclass covered fund economics, LP prospecting, portfolio construction, value creation and DPI in ways that academic programs never touched. But the real value was the simulation component—practicing LP pitches, running investment committee discussions, and navigating the inevitable cash flow crunches that plague emerging managers. It was intense, but incredible.
We left the Masterclass with a completely revised approach:
• Our fund target dropped from $30M (too ambitious for first-time managers in South-East Asia) to $10M (achievable and sustainable).
• Our thesis sharpened around specific value-add we could provide: operational support for B2B go-to-market.
• We understood the brutal economics of small funds—and planned accordingly.
Most importantly, we had a realistic understanding of the economic challenges ahead. The Masterclass didn’t make fundraising easy. It made us prepared for how hard it would actually be.
Key Learnings from Year T-2
Looking back, we made two critical decisions that year that shaped everything that followed.
Decision 1: We chose generalist over specialist. Many advisors told us to pick a vertical—“focus on fintech only” or “own the Malaysian SaaS space.” We resisted. Our thesis was that the best opportunities at seed stage in emerging South-East Asian markets often came from unexpected intersections. A generalist approach gave us flexibility but made our LP pitch harder. We’d need to defend that choice hundreds of times.
Decision 2: We committed to doing this together or not at all. Rizal had a standing offer to return to his old company as VP of Strategy. I had recruiters calling about partner-track roles at larger regional funds. We agreed: if we hadn’t reached first close within two years, we’d both move on. That deadline created urgency but also alignment.
Year T-1: The Fundraising Education Begins
(And it was a very hard school)
January-March: Building the Foundation
Year T-2 started with a sobering realization: we knew nothing about LP fundraising.
I’d spent years helping portfolio companies raise capital from VCs. The dynamic there is relatively straightforward—founders pitch investors who make decisions in weeks. LP fundraising is an entirely different animal.
The first quarter was pure education:
We read every book on fund formation we could find. We attended two LP conferences as observers (paying full tickets we couldn’t afford). We cold-called fifteen fund managers who’d raised first-time funds in South-East Asia, asking them to share their experiences. Most were incredibly helpful.
What we learned was humbling:
The average first-time fund takes 18-24 months to raise. Many take longer. Most never close at all. In fact, 75% of all GP teams give up before their coveted first close. LPs receive hundreds of fund pitches per year and invest in perhaps 2-3% of them. First-time managers face a structural disadvantage: LPs prefer to re-up with existing managers rather than take risk on unproven GPs.
This journey is likely to be harder, a lot harder than we first expected
Grace Choo’s perspective (Regional Lead, IFC):
“When I look at emerging managers, I’m not just evaluating the strategy. I’m evaluating the people and their ability to survive the inevitable hard times. Most first-time funds face an existential crisis within the first three years—deal-flow problems, portfolio blowups, partnership tensions. The question is: do these GPs have the resilience and alignment to get through it together?”
April-June: Legal Setup and GP Economics
We incorporated our management company in April. This sounds simple. It wasn’t.
The legal complexity almost derailed us:
Fund structure: Labuan IBFC? Singapore VCC? Cayman Islands? Each jurisdiction had different tax implications, different regulatory requirements, different costs. We spent $25,000 on legal fees just to understand our options—money we funded personally from savings.
GP commitment: LPs expect GPs to have meaningful skin in the game, typically 1-3% of fund size. For a $10M target fund, that meant $100K-$300K of personal capital. We didn’t have that. We’d need to bootstrap it through management fee deferrals and side arrangements.
Management fee: The standard 2% management fee on a $10M fund generates $200K per year. Sounds manageable until you realize that covers salaries, office, legal, travel, fund administration, and everything else. For two GPs, the math is brutal.
The GP business model realization:
Most people outside venture don’t understand this: fund management is a terrible business until you have multiple funds under management. The economics only work at scale. A single $10M fund generates enough management fee to survive, not thrive. Real GP wealth comes from carried interest—but that only materializes 7-10 years later, and only if performance is strong.
We modeled our GP business plan obsessively that quarter. The conclusion: we’d need to launch Fund II within 2-4 years to build a sustainable management company, and we’d need Fund I to perform well enough to attract larger commitments.
Building the LP Market Map with Asian Development Bank
One of the most valuable relationships we built during Year T-2 came through an introduction to Craig Dixon and Ian Lee at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
ADB had been increasingly active in the South-East Asian venture ecosystem, not just as investors but as ecosystem builders. Craig and Ian were leading their emerging manager support program, and they agreed to spend time with us despite our lack of track record.
“We spent three intensive sessions with the ADB team building what we called our LP Market Map for South-East Asia,” I later explained at an AVCJ conference. “This wasn’t just a list of potential investors. It was a comprehensive mapping of LP types, their typical allocation patterns, their decision timelines, and crucially, their appetite for emerging managers.”
The LP Market Map revealed several critical insights:
• Most institutional LPs in the region had minimum check sizes of $5-10M, making them impractical for a $10M fund.
• Family offices and high-net-worth individuals were more accessible but required different approaches.
• Development finance institutions (DFIs) like ADB and IFC had specific mandates that we could potentially align with—but typically required larger fund sizes.
• Fund-of-funds focused on emerging managers were starting to look at South-East Asia but had limited presence.
• Angel networks and HNWI communities across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia represented our most likely Fund I LP base.
July-September: LP Research and the Persona Problem
This was the quarter where we learned the most painful lesson of emerging manager life: LPs are incredibly difficult to understand, categorize, and access.
The LP universe is vast and fragmented:
Family offices (thousands of them across Asia, all different), pension funds (long decision cycles, high minimum commitments), fund-of-funds (professional allocators, very competitive), sovereign wealth funds (policy objectives, bureaucracy), corporate venture arms (strategic agendas), government programs (economic development mandates), endowments and foundations (mission alignment required), and high-net-worth individuals (relationship-driven, inconsistent).
We made every rookie mistake:
We built a target list of 550 LPs without understanding that 430 of them would never invest in a first-time $10M fund. We sent cold emails with our deck attached (never do this). We requested meetings without warm introductions (rarely works). We pitched our strategy without first understanding what each LP was looking for.
The LP persona problem:
Here’s what nobody tells emerging managers: LP motivations are incredibly diverse, and you can’t pitch the same way to all of them.
A family office investing generational wealth wants something completely different from a fund-of-funds managing institutional capital. A government development agency optimizing for economic impact has different priorities than a pension fund optimizing for risk-adjusted returns.
We wasted three months pitching features instead of benefits, strategy instead of fit.
The breakthrough moment came in August:
An experienced fund advisor told us: “Stop trying to convince LPs your fund is good. Start trying to understand which LPs your fund is good for. Ask yourself. ‘how are our customers? And why would they care?”
That shift changed everything.
We went back to our LP research and re-categorized everyone based on their likely priorities:
This framework helped us prioritize and customize. We stopped mass-pitching and started targeted outreach.
The Strategy Tools LP AI Platform: Practice Before the Real Thing
During this period, we discovered the Strategy Tools LP AI platform—a tool that allowed us to practice pitching to different LP personas before meeting them in real life.
“We found this immensely helpful,” Rizal recalled. “The platform let us practice nailing LP personas and value propositions pre-launch. We could simulate a conversation with a skeptical family office patriarch, a process-driven fund-of-funds, or a mission-focused DFI—and get feedback on how to improve our pitch for each.”
We ran through dozens of simulated LP conversations, refining our answers to the tough questions:
• “Why should we trust first-time managers?”
• “How will you compete against established Singapore funds?”
• “What happens if you don’t raise enough capital?”
• “Why Malaysia as your base?”
• “What’s your edge in deal flow?”
Strategy Tools LP AI Platform, a superb way to practice on LP Personas
October-December: First LP Meetings and Brutal Feedback
By October, we had our legal structure in place, our deck polished (we thought), and our target list refined. We started taking meetings.
The first twenty LP meetings were a massacre:
“Your track record is insufficient.” (We knew this, but hearing it repeatedly was demoralizing.)
“Your fund is too small for our minimum commitment.” ($2M minimums into a $10M fund don’t work.)
“We’re not looking at emerging managers this cycle.” (Then why did you take the meeting?)
“Your thesis sounds like every other generalist fund.” (Ouch. They weren’t wrong.)
“Come back when you have a few investments to show us.” (The classic chicken-and-egg problem.)
Pitching, pitching; but getting no response
Grace Choo’s perspective:
“I remember meeting Aisha and Rizal for the first time in late 2018. They were clearly smart, clearly passionate, and clearly unprepared for LP diligence. Their deck was too long. Their financial projections were too optimistic. They couldn’t articulate their differentiation in under sixty seconds. But what I did see was founder-quality determination. They took our feedback seriously. When they came back three months later, the improvement was dramatic. That’s the signal I would later invest behind—not perfection, but trajectory. Of course, fund I was not a good fit for us, but these conversations did lead us into fund II a few years later.”
December reality check:
By year-end, we had met with 93 potential LPs. We had zero commitments. Not soft commitments, not verbal interest—zero. Our personal savings were running low. Rizal’s wife was expecting their first child. I had stopped paying myself entirely, living off credit cards.
We had a hard conversation that Christmas: do we continue, or do we accept that this isn’t working?
We decided to give it six more months—but we needed to change our approach fundamentally.
The Cash Flow Reality: Surviving Pre-First Close
Here’s the dirty secret of emerging manager life that nobody talks about enough: you need working capital to operate before your management company generates fee income.
We funded this through personal savings, a small loan from Rizal’s uncle, and increasingly uncomfortable credit card debt. I stopped paying myself entirely. Rizal worked a consulting gig on the side to keep his family afloat.
This is the part of fund formation that the glossy conference panels never discuss. The reality is that most emerging managers in South-East Asia are living on the edge of financial viability until first close—and many give up before they get there. The 75% failure rate for first-time GPs isn’t because they have bad strategies. It’s because they run out of money and willpower before the strategy can be proven.
Year 0: The Long Road to First Close
January-March: Repositioning and Re-engagement
The first quarter of Year T-1 was about radical honesty.
What wasn’t working:
Our pitch was generic. Our main deck was too long (28 slides—should have been 12). Our answer to “why you?” was unconvincing. Our LP targeting was scattershot. Our follow-up was inconsistent. We did not use our LP CRM well enough. We were not disciplined. We had nothing about LP value propositions. We only discovered that part later.
Adding more leads to your CRM does not help if your fundraising narrative is broken
What we changed:
We rebuilt our deck from scratch, focused on three things: team credibility, differentiated thesis, and LP value proposition. We cut everything else.
We developed specific LP personas with tailored pitch angles:
• For successfully exited founders in the region: Emphasized deal flow access and co-investment opportunities in the next generation of South-East Asian startups
• For active business angels: Emphasized portfolio diversification and professional fund management
• For HNWIs: Emphasized regional exposure and access to venture as an asset class
• For single family offices: Emphasized our accessibility, direct GP relationship, co-investment opportunities
• For angel networks: Emphasized our systematic approach to sourcing and supporting startups they could also access
We implemented a proper CRM (finally) and started tracking every LP interaction systematically. No excuses.
Using the LP personas x VP Canvas to nail the key message
Even more importantly, we started developing and iterating on the LP Personas x Value Proposition canvas for each of our LP personas, and for every LP we engaged with. It was awkward, slow even, in the beginning, but it helped us really tune into who are LPs were and what they cared about.
The LP Personas x Value proposition canvas on a successfully exited founder
The breakthrough conversation:
In February, an LP we’d met six months earlier agreed to a second meeting. This time, they engaged differently. They asked about specific portfolio company scenarios. They probed our valuation discipline. They questioned our reserves strategy.
After ninety minutes, they said: “We’re interested in a $500K commitment if you can reach first close by June.”
Conditional, yes. But it was the first real signal of momentum.
Going to market with a better deck
April-June: Building LP Momentum
The domino effect:
That conditional commitment changed our LP conversations overnight. We went from “no one has committed yet” to “we have strong LP interest and expect first close within months.”
The power of anchor LPs:
We learned that LP fundraising has a herd dynamic. Once one credible LP commits, others become more comfortable. The first commitment is impossibly hard; the next ones are merely very hard.
In April, we secured a second conditional commitment from a Malaysian family office—$750K. In May, contributions from two angel networks indicated $1.2M combined. By June, we had verbal commitments totaling $4.5M.
The working capital problem resolved (barely):
We solved this inelegantly: Rizal took out a personal loan against his apartment. I maxed out my credit line. We deferred our own salaries entirely. It was financially precarious and emotionally exhausting.
Some emerging managers solve this through GP seeding programs or anchor LP arrangements that include working capital provisions. We didn’t have that luxury.
July-September: Legal Documentation Marathon
With LP momentum building, we entered the documentation phase.
LPA negotiations are brutal:
The Limited Partner Agreement (LPA) is the legal document that governs everything: fee structure, carry waterfall, GP removal provisions, key person clauses, investment restrictions, reporting requirements.
Every LP wanted changes to our draft LPA. Some wanted lower fees. Some wanted specific co-investment provisions. Some wanted side letters with enhanced reporting or most-favored-nation clauses.
We spent three months in legal negotiations that cost another $40,000 in attorney fees.
Key terms we fought for:
• Standard 2% management fee (some LPs pushed for step-downs)
• 20% carried interest with 8% hurdle and European waterfall
• 4-year investment period with possible 1-year extension
• 10-year fund life with two possible 1-year extensions
• Key person clause covering both Rizal and me
• GP commitment of 2% ($200K on a $10M fund—we’d figure out how to fund it through fee deferrals)
• Co-investment rights for LPs on deals over $500K
• Advisory committee with LP representation
October-November: Racing to First Close
By October, we had $7M in executed subscription documents. Our target was $8M for first close, which would allow us to start investing with credibility.
Backing innovators, just need to close our fund first
The final push:
We called every warm LP relationship. We accelerated meetings with anyone showing interest. We offered modest fee concessions to LPs who could commit quickly.
The November crisis:
Three weeks before our target first close date, one of our committed LPs—an HNWI representing $1M of commitments—went silent. Emails unanswered. Calls unreturned.
After a week of panic, we learned through back channels that he was going through a divorce and had frozen all discretionary investments. Our $1M was gone.
We had two weeks to find $1M or miss first close. Missing first close would signal weakness to existing LPs and potentially trigger uncommit clauses.
The scramble:
Rizal flew to Hong Kong to meet face-to-face with a family office that had expressed interest months earlier but couldn’t meet our timing. I worked the phones, reaching out to every contact who’d ever shown warmth.
In the end, a successful entrepreneur we’d met at a Cradle Fund event committed $600K, and the Hong Kong family office committed $500K contingent on meeting Rizal in person (which he’d just done).
We made first close with $8.1M—not the $10M we wanted, but enough to start.
Year 1: First Close and First Investments
December-January: Operational Reality
First close on December 15th felt like victory. The relief was physical—I slept for fourteen hours straight.
But first close isn’t the end; it’s the beginning:
Capital calls went out. Management fee income started flowing, but we were still understaffed and under-resourced. Our $8.1M fund would generate roughly $162K in annual management fees. After legal, administration, office, and basic operating costs, we had enough to pay ourselves modest salaries—and nothing more.
The capital call mechanics:
We learned that fund accounting is surprisingly complex. Capital calls need to be calculated precisely, documented properly, and communicated to LPs with adequate notice. Our fund administrator handled most of this, but we still needed to understand it.
First capital call: $2M (roughly 25% of commitments), to be deployed over the first 12-18 months plus reserves.
The Friends, Family, and Angels Reality of Fund I
For Fund I, we failed at raising any institutional capital.
Every DFI we approached said our fund was too small. Every fund-of-funds said we lacked track record. Every pension fund said their minimums exceeded our entire fund size.
We had to pivot completely. Instead of institutional capital, we built Fund I from friends, family, high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), angels, angel networks, and two local family offices.
Fund I Final LP Roster:
LP Type Commitment
Malaysian Family Office #1 $1.5M
Hong Kong Family Office $1M
Singapore HNWI (exited founder) $1.4M
AngelCentral Malaysia network $800K
Malaysian angel syndicate $700K
Various HNWIs (6 individuals) $2.7M
Friends & family $500K
GP Commitment (deferred) $200K
Fund I Total $10M (final close)
Final close at $10M came in March of Year 1, adding another $1.9M from additional HNWIs who saw our early momentum.
Fund I Economics: The Brutal Math
Let me share the fund economics of a $10M first fund, because this is where many emerging managers miscalculate:
Item Amount
Fund Size $10,000,000
Annual Management Fee (2%) $200,000
Fund Administration & Legal -$35,000
Office & Operations -$25,000
Travel & LP Relations -$20,000
Available for Salaries $120,000
$120,000 per year for two partners. That’s $60,000 each—less than entry-level roles at banks or corporations in KL, and far less than what we’d been earning in our previous roles.
The economics only work at scale. A single $10M fund generates enough management fee to survive, not thrive. Real GP wealth comes from carried interest—but that only materializes 7-12 years later, and only if performance is strong. This is why we knew from day one that Fund I was just the foundation. We would need to launch Fund II within 2-4 years to build a sustainable management company.
February-June: First Investments
Investment #1: DataSync (April, Year 1)
B2B analytics software for SMEs. Two founders from Grab’s data team. Pre-product, but extraordinary clarity on the problem they were solving. We led a $600K seed round, investing $400K.
Making that first investment decision was terrifying. Every doubt I’d had during fundraising resurfaced: Are we really qualified to make this call? What if we’re wrong? What if we’re just two people who convinced some LPs to trust us and now we’re about to deploy their capital into a company that fails?
Rizal talked me off the ledge. “We did the work. We believe in the founders. We understand the market. This is literally what we raised money to do.”
He was right. We wired the money.
Nothing beats closing a term sheet
Investment #2: PayMalaysia (May, Year 1)
Payments infrastructure for Malaysian marketplaces. Solo founder, ex-Maybank digital banking lead. Slightly further along—had a working product and three pilot customers. We lead an $800K round alongside an angel syndicate, investing $350K.
June 30 position:
Two investments deployed. $750K invested out of $10M committed. Management fee covering operations. Team of two GPs plus one part-time analyst. We were officially in business.
July-December: Continuing Portfolio Build
Investment #3: CloudSEA (August, Year 1) — SaaS for regional SME operations. Three-person founding team from enterprise software backgrounds. Early revenue, strong NPS. We invested $500K to lead a $1M round.
Investment #4: SecureKL (October, Year 1) — Cybersecurity for Malaysian enterprises. Deep tech founding team from local universities. Pre-revenue but compelling technology. We invested $300K in a $600K round.
Investment #5: LogiTech Asia (November, Year 1) — Last-mile logistics optimization for e-commerce. Solo founder, former Lazada operations manager. Pilot agreements with two major retailers. We invested $400K to lead her seed round.
Year 1 Portfolio Snapshot:
Company Investment
Status DataSync $400K Building product, pre-revenue
PayMalaysia $350K Growing, 5 customers
CloudSEA $500K Early revenue, expanding
SecureKL $300K Pre-revenue, developing
LogiTech Asia $400K Pilot stage
Total Deployed $1.95M 19.5% of fund
Year 1 Summary
By December 31 of Year 1, we had:
• $10M in committed capital across 14 LPs
• 5 investments made, totaling $1.95M deployed
• A functioning (if lean) operation with 2.5 team members
• Management fee income covering basic expenses
• Survived
We hadn’t thrived. We were chronically under-resourced. Our LP reporting was messy. Our portfolio support was reactive rather than proactive. I was working 70-hour weeks and still falling behind.
But we had survived. And in the emerging manager game, survival is the first milestone.
Key Takeaways from Part I
For aspiring fund managers:
1. The timeline is longer than you think. Budget 2-4 years from concept to first close. We took nearly 3 years.
2. LP fundraising is its own skill set. Experience investing or operating doesn’t translate directly. Study LP motivations obsessively.
3. Work backwards from GP economics. Understand what fund size you need to build a sustainable management company. Too small = you starve. Too large for an emerging manager = you don’t close.
4. Conditional commitments unlock momentum. One credible LP commitment changes every subsequent conversation. Prioritize getting that first anchor.
5. Working capital is existential. Have a plan for how you’ll fund operations before management fees flow. This is the most common emerging manager failure point.
6. Legal costs are real. Budget $75K+ for fund formation in South-East Asia. It’s unavoidable.
7. First close isn’t final close. Keep fundraising momentum through the investment period.
Grace Choo’s final perspective on Part I:
“Aisha and Rizal nearly quit three times during their fundraising journey. I know because they told me later, after Fund I was performing well. What they didn’t realize at the time was that their struggle was evidence of their commitment, not evidence of failure. Every emerging manager I’ve backed has had moments where they questioned whether it was worth it. The ones who break through are the ones who find a way to keep going. The Fund Journey Map shows this path clearly—but living it is another matter entirely.”
Ready for part II and III? Follow Aisha and Rizal’s journey into year 2,3 and beyond.
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1766270132118.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-12-30 17:59:382026-05-01 17:59:59The Fund Journey: An Emerging Manager’s Story from Kuala Lumpur to South-East Asia. Part I (Years T-2 to 1)
Continued from Part I (years T-2 -1). Read part I here, and Part III here.
Through the lens of Aisha Rahman, Founding Partner, Meridian VenturesWith insights from: Rizal Tan, Co-Founder & General PartnerAnd: Priya Nair, CEO, DataSync (Portfolio Company)
The investment period is where fund strategy meets market reality. For Meridian Ventures, Years 2-5 would test every assumption in our thesis—and force us to make decisions that would determine whether Fund I would succeed or fail. More importantly, it would teach us that building a world-class fundraising team was the key to our survival.
Year 2: Building the Portfolio
January-March: Deployment Accelerates
Year 2 began with unfinished business—we were still seeking to fill out our Fund I portfolio while simultaneously supporting our initial five investments.
The portfolio construction challenge:
Fund I targeted 12-15 investments. With $10M and roughly 30% reserved for follow-ons ($3M), we had $7M for initial investments. Average initial check: $450K-$600K.
Our investment period was 3-4 years, but best practice suggested deploying most capital in years 1-2 to allow adequate time for value creation before exits.
Target deployment pace: 4-5 investments per year in Years 1-2, slowing in Years 3-4.
Q1 investments:
Investment #6: HealthTech MY (February, Year 2) — Digital health platform connecting patients with specialists. Strong team from the Malaysian healthcare system. Complex regulatory environment, but a genuine market need. $450K investment.
Investment #7: PropTech.asia (March, Year 2) — Commercial real estate analytics. Data-driven approach to property valuation across South-East Asian markets. Two experienced founders from the real estate industry. $400K investment.
April-June: First Portfolio Challenges Emerge
By summer, reality started diverging from our investment memos.
DataSync: The early warning signs
Our first investment wasn’t developing as expected. The founding team—brilliant data scientists from Grab—struggled with go-to-market execution. Six months post-investment, they had built an impressive product with almost no customers.
Our board seat gave us visibility, but limited control. We pushed for them to hire a commercial co-founder. They resisted, believing the product would sell itself.
The VC’s dilemma:
This is where active ownership gets complicated. We had conviction in the market and product, but growing concerns about execution. Do we push harder and risk damaging the GP-founder relationship? Do we stay hands-off and hope they figure it out? Do we write more about our concerns in LP reports, potentially signaling problems prematurely?
We chose a middle path: supportive but direct feedback in board meetings, connected them with commercial advisors from our network, and documented our concerns internally while maintaining constructive external positioning.
Rizal’s perspective:
“DataSync taught us something important in Year 1: the gap between investment memo and portfolio reality. On paper, they were perfect—ex-Grab team, clear market need, technical excellence. In practice, they had a fundamental gap in commercial DNA. As investors, we could coach around the edges, but we couldn’t fix the team composition problem without their buy-in. That’s the limit of VC influence at the seed stage.”
Hunting great deals, but not every deal is going to end well.
July-December: Closing Out Year 2
More investments:
Investment #8: AgriTech ASEAN (August, Year 2) — Precision agriculture software for South-East Asian farms. Strong domain expertise from agricultural extension backgrounds. $350K investment.
Investment #9: EduScale ID (October, Year 2) — EdTech platform for corporate training, Indonesia-focused. First-time founder, but she’d been a customer of this category for years and understood the pain points intimately. $400K investment.
Investment #10: FinFlow (November, Year 2) — Subscription billing platform for regional SaaS companies. Two-time founder (previous exit to a strategic acquirer). More expensive than our typical deals—we paid a premium for founder pedigree. $550K investment.
Year 2 Summary:
Metric Value
Investments made 10 total (5 in Year 0, 5 in Year 1)
Capital deployed $4.1M (59% of initial allocation)
Portfolio value (estimated) $4.5M (modest markups)
Net IRR ~10%
TVPI 1.10x
DPI 0.0x (no distributions)
LP feedback (first annual meeting):
Our first annual LP meeting happened in November, Year 2. The feedback was mixed.
Positives: LPs liked our pace of deployment, the quality of our deal sourcing, and our transparent reporting.
Concerns: Multiple LPs questioned why we’d invested in 10 companies before having meaningful traction data from our earliest investments. Were we deploying too fast? Should we have waited to see DataSync progress before committing more capital? This was fair criticism. We defended our approach—the market window for seed deals doesn’t wait, and batch deployment is normal—but we heard the underlying anxiety.
Year 3: The J-Curve Bites Hard
January-March: Portfolio Divergence Accelerates
Year 3 revealed the brutal reality of seed-stage investing: outcomes diverge fast.
The winners emerging:
PayMalaysia signed a partnership with a major Malaysian bank, gaining access to 25,000 SME customers. Their MRR jumped from $15K to $45K in a single quarter.
CloudSEA landed their first enterprise customer and began generating real revenue. The founding team proved they could sell, not just build.
FinFlow—our expensive bet on the serial founder—launched and acquired 80 paying customers within three months. Unit economics looked strong.
The troubled middle:
LogiTech Asia was progressing but slowly. Their pilot customers liked the product but were reluctant to commit to scaled rollouts. The solo founder was burning out, handling everything herself.
SecureKL hit regulatory complexity we’d underestimated. Malaysian cybersecurity compliance required certifications that would take 12-18 months to obtain.
AgriTech ASEAN was pre-revenue and burning cash on R&D. The founders were making technical progress but had no commercial traction whatsoever.
The failures materializing:
DataSync continued its slow death march. By March, Year 3, they had signed only two customers—both small, low-ACV deals that didn’t validate the business model. Cash was running low.
The write-down conversation:
For the first time, we had to discuss portfolio write-downs with our LPs.
Our policy was to mark investments at fair value quarterly, based on either subsequent financing rounds or internal assessment. DataSync hadn’t raised follow-on capital, and our internal assessment suggested the company was worth significantly less than we’d paid.
The decision: Mark DataSync down by 50%. Our $400K investment was now carried at $200K.
This single write-down dropped our fund TVPI from 1.12x to 1.05x.
Grace Choo’s perspective (LP advisor, though not yet an investor):
“I remember Aisha calling to tell me about the DataSync write-down. She was clearly uncomfortable—admitting their first investment was struggling felt like a personal failure. But I actually gained confidence from that call. They weren’t hiding problems. They weren’t massaging valuations to look better. They were being straight about challenges. That’s exactly what I want to see from GPs.”
April-September: The Capital Crisis and Critical Decision
DataSync reaches the breaking point:
By July, DataSync had 4 months of runway remaining. The founding team came to us with two options:
Option A: Bridge financing to buy time for one more pivot attempt. They wanted $150K from existing investors to extend runway by 8-10 months.
Option B: Shut down the company, preserve remaining capital for investor return, accept failure.
This was our first major follow-on decision. The Fund Journey Map shows this moment clearly—the choice between doubling down and writing off.
The analysis:
We ran the numbers cold. DataSync had burned $500K (our $400K plus other investor capital) with almost nothing to show for it. The founding team had proven they couldn’t find early product-market fit despite multiple pivots. The market for SMB analytics was getting more competitive, not less.
A $150K bridge would increase our exposure to $550K in a company we’d already written down 50%.
Our decision: Don’t participate in the bridge. Let the company find other sources of capital or shut down.
This was painful. We liked the founders personally. We’d championed them to our LPs. Walking away felt like failure.
But the alternative was worse: good money after bad into a company that had demonstrated it couldn’t execute.
The aftermath:
DataSync couldn’t raise the bridge from other sources. In September, Year 3, they shut down and returned approximately $40K to investors. Our $400K investment became a $32K return—a 92% loss.
Priya Nair (CEO, DataSync) perspective:
“Looking back, Meridian made the right call. At the time, I was furious—I thought they were abandoning us. But we’d had 18 months to prove the model and hadn’t done it. Throwing more money at the problem wouldn’t have changed the fundamental issue: we were great at building product and terrible at selling it. I learned more from that failure than from anything else in my career. Two years later, I started a new company with a commercial co-founder from day one. That company is now doing $2M ARR. DataSync’s failure was my most important education.”
The Hard Lesson: We Need to Get Better at Fundraising
By late Year 3, with DataSync written off and the J-curve biting hard, we had a sobering realization.
“If we’re going to survive as a firm,” Rizal said one evening in our Bangsar office, “we need to raise Fund II. And we can’t go through the same scramble we did for Fund I. That nearly broke us.”
He was right. Fund I fundraising had been 18 months of desperation, cold outreach, and near-misses. We’d raised $10M through sheer determination, but we’d burned out in the process. And $10M wasn’t enough to build a sustainable management company.
We needed a systematic approach to fundraising. We needed a real fundraising team.
Building a World-Class Fundraising Team: The Game Changer
Who’s on your capital formation team?
The canvas identifies eight distinct roles that drive successful LP fundraising. We didn’t have eight people—we never would for Fund II—but we deliberately covered each function:
Role Function Our Solution
LP Researcher
Leads all research on prospective LPs, fills top of funnel
Part-time analyst using ADB’s LP database and conference materials
LP Networks & Engagement
Builds deep relationships through events, conferences
Aisha – primary relationship builder through AVCJ, SuperReturn Asia
Deck, Model & Dataroom Builder
Builds and maintains all fundraising materials
Outsourced structure using Strategy Tools templates; Rizal maintained
AI & Automation
Builds automation engine to make LP process 10x faster
LP AI platform for persona practice + custom CRM workflows
GP Leadership
Overall leadership, joins and leads most LP meetings
Rizal – led all key meetings, responsible for overall LP performance
LP Closer
Takes LPs from hello to signature, strong sales focus
Split between Rizal and Aisha based on relationship warmth
LP Whisperer
Elder statesman with networks to top prospective LPs
Advisory board member from major family office + Jim, ex-ADB
LP Process & DD Guide
Guides LPs through entire process from data room to IC
Dedicated support from legal counsel + streamlined process docs
This systematic approach transformed our fundraising capability. Where Fund I had been desperate scrambling, Fund II would be organized execution.
From two GPs to a strong capital formation team and network
Key changes we implemented:
1. Continuous LP engagement: We didn’t wait until we “started fundraising.” We maintained quarterly touchpoints with all Fund I LPs and prospective Fund II LPs from Year 3 onward.
2. Data room always ready: Instead of scrambling to build materials when an LP showed interest, we kept a perpetually updated data room.
3. LP persona customization: Different pitch materials for different LP types, practiced extensively using the Strategy Tools LP AI platform.
4. CRM discipline: Every LP interaction logged, follow-ups scheduled, relationship health tracked.
5. Advisory leverage: Our advisory board member opened doors we could never have opened ourselves.
The IFC Partnership: Becoming Institutional-Ready
One relationship proved transformative during our Fund II preparation: our connection to Grace Choo , Regional Lead at IFC (International Finance Corporation).
Grace had seen hundreds of emerging managers across Asia. She’d watched funds succeed and fail, scale and collapse. When we approached her in Year 3, we weren’t asking for investment (we knew our fund was too small for IFC at that stage). We were asking for guidance.
“We got immense support from Grace to understand how to evolve from Fund I to Fund II, and becoming institutional-scale ready,” I later told other emerging managers at an AVCJ panel.
Her guidance covered several critical areas:
On portfolio reporting: Institutional LPs expected quarterly reports with specific metrics. IFC had templates we could adapt.
On ESG integration: DFIs increasingly required ESG frameworks. Build these now rather than retrofit later.
On governance: Have an Advisory Committee and LP reporting structure that would scale.
On fund size: IFC typically couldn’t invest in funds under $50M, but if we performed well in Fund II, Fund III might qualify.
“Think of Fund II as your audition tape for institutional capital,” Grace advised. “Every decision you make, every report you write, every portfolio company you support—assume that institutional LPs will scrutinize all of it when you come back for Fund III.”
Andrew Senduk: Venture Partner for GTM Excellence
As our portfolio grew, we recognized a gap in our capabilities: go-to-market (GTM) execution. Many of our founders were technical experts who struggled with sales, marketing, and commercial scaling.
In Year 3, we brought on Andrew Senduk as a Venture Partner specifically to address this gap.
Andrew had spent 15 years building and scaling businesses across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. He’d led GTM for two successful startups (one acquired, one IPO’d) and understood the unique challenges of selling across South-East Asia’s fragmented markets.
Andrew’s perspective on joining Meridian:
“What attracted me to Meridian was their recognition that early-stage investing isn’t just about picking winners—it’s about helping those winners actually win. Most seed-stage founders in South-East Asia are technical builders who’ve never sold enterprise software or scaled a consumer product across multiple countries. That’s where I could add genuine value.”
Andrew worked with six of our Fund I portfolio companies on their GTM strategies:
• Sales process design for enterprise SaaS companies
• Market entry strategies for regional expansion
• Pricing and packaging optimization
• Customer success frameworks
His involvement became a key part of our LP pitch for Fund II: we weren’t just providing capital, we were providing hands-on GTM expertise that could meaningfully accelerate our portfolio companies’ growth.
Year 4: Portfolio Maturation and Fund II Launch
Portfolio Performance at Year 4:
Company Total Investment Status Current Value Multiple
• Total invested: $4.5M (65% of initial allocation)
• Current portfolio value: $8.4M
• TVPI: 1.55x
• DPI: 0.01x
• Net IRR: ~18%
Fund II Strategy evolution
It was a webinar in March that led to team to step back and reflect. “Our fund II is not just a replica of fund I. We need to think far more strategically”. On the webinar, the team was introduced to the Fund Strategy Canvas, developed by Strategy Tools. Carving out a full-day offsite, the team sat down to complete the Fund Strategy Canvas together.
Fund Strategy Canvas: Meridian Ventures Fund II ($25M)
Fund Name: Meridian Ventures Fund II
General Partners: Aisha Rahman & Rizal Tan
Use the Fund Strategy Canvas for your one-page, visual strategy
THESIS, STRATEGY
Thesis & Size
Meridian Ventures Fund II is a $25M early-stage venture capital fund investing in B2B software and fintech companies across South-East Asia, with primary focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Our thesis is built on three convictions:
First, South-East Asia’s digital economy is entering its enterprise phase. After a decade of consumer internet growth, the next wave of value creation will come from B2B infrastructure—payments, logistics software, enterprise SaaS, and vertical solutions that enable the region’s 70 million SMEs to digitize operations.
Second, the best founders in ASEAN are increasingly emerging from non-traditional backgrounds and geographies outside Singapore. Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam are producing world-class technical talent with deep local market understanding. These founders are systematically overlooked by Singapore-centric VCs who rarely travel beyond Changi Airport.
Third, early-stage companies in emerging South-East Asian markets need more than capital. They need operational support—particularly in go-to-market execution, regional expansion strategy, and preparation for institutional follow-on rounds. GPs who combine capital with hands-on GTM expertise will generate superior returns.
Fund II targets $25M, representing a 2.5x step-up from our $10M Fund I. This size allows us to lead seed rounds of $500K-$1.5M while maintaining meaningful follow-on reserves for winners.
Strategy
Stage: Pre-seed to Seed, with selective Seed+ participation
Check size: $500K-$1.5M initial; up to $2M follow-on in winners
Geography: Malaysia (40%), Indonesia (35%), Vietnam/Philippines (25%)
Target portfolio: 18-22 companies over 3-year deployment period
We invest at the earliest institutional stage—typically first or second money in after angels. Our sweet spot is technical founding teams with clear product vision but limited go-to-market experience. We help them build the commercial muscle to reach Series A.
Unfair Advantage
Our unfair advantage is the combination of three elements no other regional fund possesses:
Operator-investor team: Rizal spent 8 years building and scaling startups across Malaysia and Indonesia before becoming an investor. He’s lived the founder journey and speaks the language of operators, not just financiers.
Ground-level presence: We’re based in Kuala Lumpur, not Singapore. We travel to Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila monthly. We see deals 6-12 months before Singapore-based funds because we’re embedded in local founder communities.
GTM value-add through Andrew Senduk: Our Venture Partner has 15 years of enterprise sales and regional expansion experience. He works directly with portfolio companies on sales process, pricing strategy, and market entry—capabilities that differentiate us from capital-only investors.
TEAM & TRACK RECORD
General Partners
Aisha Rahman, Founding Partner
12 years in venture capital and corporate development. Former Principal at a mid-sized regional VC where she led 15+ investments across ASEAN. Board experience across fintech, SaaS, and logistics companies. MBA from INSEAD. Leads fund strategy, LP relations, and serves on 6 portfolio company boards.
Rizal Tan, Co-Founder & General Partner
8 years as operator, 4 years as investor. Former VP Business Development at a Series B payments company (acquired). Founded and sold a B2B marketplace in Malaysia. Leads deal sourcing, investment decisions, and portfolio company operational support. Deep networks across Malaysian and Indonesian founder communities.
Extended Team
Andrew Senduk, Venture Partner
15 years building and scaling businesses across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Led GTM for two successful startups (one acquired, one IPO’d). Works with portfolio companies on sales process design, regional expansion, and commercial scaling. Not full-time but engaged across 6+ portfolio companies per fund.
Two Associates: Handle deal sourcing, due diligence support, and portfolio monitoring. One based in KL, one in Jakarta.
One Operations Manager: Fund administration, LP reporting, and back-office operations.
Track Record
Fund I Performance (as of Fund II launch):
Vintage: 2023
Size: $10M
Investments: 12 companies
TVPI: 1.55x
DPI: 0.02x (one small exit)
IRR: ~18%
Notable Fund I positions: PayMalaysia (4.9x paper, Series A prep), FinFlow (3.3x paper, growing rapidly), CloudSEA (2.5x paper, acquisition discussions). One complete write-off (DataSync), demonstrating follow-on discipline.
Prior Track Record (attributable deals from previous roles):
Aisha: 4 exits from prior fund, including 2 at 3x+ returns
Rizal: Personal angel portfolio of 8 investments, 2 exits at 5x+
LP MIX
Anchor LPs
Jelawang Capital ($4M commitment)
Regional thought leader in South-East Asian venture. Their rigorous due diligence and public commitment provides institutional validation. Jelawang serves on our Advisory Committee and actively supports our LP fundraising through introductions and co-hosted events.
Sarona Asset Management ($3M commitment)
Impact-focused fund-of-funds with emerging markets mandate. Their commitment signals ESG credibility and opens doors to other impact-oriented institutional LPs.
Fund I HNWIs (exited founders): Direct mentorship to portfolio founders, customer introductions, hiring network access
Dubai Future District Fund: Middle East expansion pathway for portfolio companies, sovereign wealth fund network
Corporate LPs: Strategic partnership and M&A optionality for portfolio companies
LP ECONOMICS
Financial Terms
Term Fund II Structure
Management Fee
2.0% on committed capital during investment period
2.0% on invested capital thereafter
Carried Interest 20%
Preferred Return (Hurdle) 8%
GP Commitment 4% ($1M)
Waterfall European (whole-fund)
Fund Life10 years + two 1-year extensions
Investment Period 4 years
Distribution Policy
Distributions made as exits occur, subject to:
Return of LP capital contributions first
8% preferred return to LPs
80/20 split thereafter (LP/GP)
GP catch-up provision after hurdle achieved
Fee Offsets
100% of transaction fees, monitoring fees, and director fees received by GPs from portfolio companies are offset against management fees.
LEGAL SETUP
Fund Domicile: Labuan International Business and Financial Centre (IBFC), Malaysia
Fund Structure: Labuan Limited Partnership
Rationale for Labuan:
Tax-efficient structure for regional investments
Regulatory framework designed for investment funds
Lower setup and administration costs than Singapore VCC or Cayman
Acceptable to institutional LPs including DFIs
Geographic alignment with our KL base
Fund Administrator: Apex Fund Services (Singapore)
Legal Counsel:
Fund formation: Rajah & Tann (Singapore/Malaysia)
Portfolio investments: Local counsel in each jurisdiction
Auditor: Ernst & Young (Malaysia)
Tax Considerations:
Labuan entities benefit from 3% tax on net profits or flat RM20,000
No withholding tax on distributions to non-Malaysian LPs
Tax treaties in place with most LP jurisdictions
DEALFLOW
Primary Dealflow Channels
1. Founder Networks (40% of pipeline)
Rizal’s operator background generates direct founder referrals. Portfolio company founders introduce their peers. Our reputation for being “founder-friendly” creates inbound interest from founders who’ve heard about us through the ecosystem.
2. Ecosystem Partners (30% of pipeline)
Deep relationships with Cradle Fund (Malaysia), MDEC, 500 Startups (SEA), Antler, and regional accelerators. We’re the preferred follow-on investor for several accelerator programs because we move quickly and add operational value.
3. Angel/Syndicate Networks (20% of pipeline)
Co-invest relationships with AngelCentral Malaysia, Angel Investment Network Indonesia, and individual super-angels across the region. Angels bring us deals early; we bring them access to institutional rounds.
4. Proactive Sourcing (10% of pipeline)
Associates systematically track companies emerging from regional tech hubs, monitor funding announcements, and conduct outbound outreach to promising founders.
Dealflow Expansion Strategy
For Fund II, we’re expanding dealflow through:
Quarterly “Office Hours” in Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila
IC memo, partner discussion, decision, Term Sheet 2 & Close 1-4 weeks
Final terms negotiation, legal documentation, funding 1-4 weeks
Total process: 2-14 weeks from first meeting to close
Decision authority: Both GPs must approve; no solo deals
PORTFOLIO & VALUE ADD
Portfolio Construction Parameter
Target Number of investments 18-22 companies
Initial check size $500K-$1.5M
Follow-on reserves 35% of fund ($8.75M)
Target ownership 8-15% at entry
Concentration limit
No single investment >12% of fund
Follow-on Strategy
We reserve 35% of the fund for follow-on investments in winners. Follow-on decisions are made based on:
Company performance against milestones
Ability to maintain meaningful ownership
Quality of incoming investors
Risk/reward at new valuation
We explicitly do NOT do pro-rata follow-ons across the portfolio. Capital is concentrated in top performers. Fund I experience: followed on in 3 of 12 companies; those 3 represent 60% of portfolio value.
GPs take board seats on all lead investments. Active participation in strategy, hiring, and fundraising decisions. Monthly check-ins with all portfolio CEOs.
GTM Support (Andrew Senduk)
Hands-on work with portfolio companies on:
Sales process design and optimization
Pricing and packaging strategy
Enterprise sales playbook development
Regional expansion planning
Customer success frameworks
Andrew engages with 6-8 companies per fund on structured GTM programs.
Talent Network
Curated network of 200+ executives and operators across ASEAN. Direct introductions for key hires. Quarterly portfolio talent events connecting companies with candidates.
Follow-on Fundraising
Warm introductions to Series A investors (Sequoia SEA, Vertex, East Ventures, Openspace, etc.). Preparation support for institutional fundraising. Data room and pitch coaching.
Peer Network
Quarterly portfolio CEO dinners. Slack community for real-time peer support. Annual offsite bringing together all portfolio founders.
EXIT STRATEGY
Value Creation & Exit Strategy
Value Creation Focus Areas:
During Years 1-3 (building phase):
Product-market fit validation
Initial revenue traction ($100K-$500K ARR)
Team building beyond founders
Market positioning establishment
During Years 3-5 (scaling phase):
Revenue acceleration ($500K-$3M ARR)
Unit economics optimization
Geographic expansion within ASEAN
Series A/B fundraising
During Years 5-8 (exit preparation):
Path to profitability or clear growth trajectory
Strategic relationship cultivation
Board composition optimization for exit
Financial and legal housekeeping
Exit Pathways:
Exit Type Expected % of Exits Typical Timeline
Strategic M&A (regional) 20% Years 4-7
Strategic M&A (global) 5% Years 5-8
Secondary sale 10% Years 4-6
IPO (rare at our stage) 5% Years 7-10
Write-off 60% Years 2-8
Exit Preparation Process:
Starting Year 2, we work with portfolio companies to:
Identify potential strategic acquirers
Build relationships with corporate development teams
Prepare management for M&A processes
Clean up cap table and legal structure
Develop exit-ready financial reporting
Exit Experience
GP Exit Track Record:
Aisha Rahman:
4 exits at prior fund, including 2 M&A transactions she led
Managed LP distributions and exit accounting
Board member through 3 acquisition processes
Rizal Tan:
Founded and sold B2B marketplace to strategic acquirer
Personal angel portfolio: 2 exits (1 acquisition, 1 secondary)
Operator perspective on founder exit psychology
Fund I Exits (to date):
SecureKL: Acquired for $2M (1.38x return)—managed full M&A process
DataSync: Orderly wind-down with capital return—demonstrated discipline
Management Fee (annual, post-investment period) $400,000 (on invested capital)
Total Management Fees (10-year life) $4,400,000
Available for Investment $20,600,000
Target Gross Multiple 3.0x
Target Net Multiple2.5x
Target Net IRR20%+
Management Company Economics
Annual management fee of $500K supports:
2 GP salaries (market-rate for regional VCs)
2 Associate salaries
1 Operations Manager salary
Office (KL headquarters + hot desks in SG, Jakarta)
Travel (significant—we’re on the ground across 4 countries)
Fund administration, legal, audit
LP relations and reporting
Cash Flow Reality:
Unlike Fund I (where we paid ourselves poverty wages), Fund II economics allow for sustainable GP compensation. This is critical for partnership stability and long-term firm building.
Carried Interest Distribution
Assuming 3.0x gross return ($75M exit proceeds) on $25M fund:
Distribution Amount
Return of LP Capital $25,000,000
8% Preferred Return to LPs $8,000,000
Remaining Proceeds $42,000,000
LP Share (80%)$33,600,000
GP Carried Interest (20%)$8,400,000
Total LP Returns: $66.6M on $25M invested (2.66x net)
GP Economics: $8.4M carried interest + ~$4.4M management fees over fund life
Working Capital
Fund II includes a modest working capital facility to bridge timing gaps between capital calls and expenses. This prevents the personal financial stress that characterized Fund I operations.
Structuring a series A with four co-investors, what are the return profile on this deal?
SUMMARY: WHY FUND II WILL SUCCEED
Meridian Ventures Fund II is positioned to deliver top-quartile returns because:
Proven Team: GPs with complementary skills, demonstrated partnership stability through Fund I challenges, and relevant operating experience.
Differentiated Strategy: Ground-level presence in underserved markets, combined with genuine GTM value-add through Andrew Senduk.
Strong Fund I Foundation: 1.55x TVPI with clear winners emerging, disciplined write-off decisions, and institutional-quality reporting already in place.
Right-Sized Fund: $25M is large enough to lead meaningful rounds but small enough to generate strong returns from regional exit valuations.
Institutional LP Base: Anchor commitments from Jelawang and Sarona provide validation and strategic value beyond capital.
Clear Path to Fund III: Fund II performance sets up institutional fundraise at $50M+, accessing DFI capital and achieving sustainable firm economics.
Fund II isn’t just an investment vehicle—it’s the foundation for building a permanent institution in South-East Asian venture capital.
Fund II Fundraising Begins
By mid-Year 3, we formally launched Fund II fundraising with a $25M target—2.5x our Fund I size.
The LP composition evolved significantly from Fund I:
LP Type Commitment
Jelawang Capital (anchor) $4M
Sarona Asset Management $3M
Dubai Future District Fund $2.5M
Speedinvest Emerging Manager Program $2M
Regional Fund-of-Funds (2) $5M
Fund I Re-ups (Family Offices, HNWIs) $6M
New HNWIs and Angels $2.5M
TOTAL $25M
Jelawang Capital: A Thought Leader Partnership
Among our Fund II LPs, Jelawang Capital stood out not just for their commitment size but for their role in the ecosystem.
Jelawang had established themselves as thought leaders in South-East Asian venture, publishing research on emerging manager performance, hosting convenings for GPs and LPs, and advocating for ecosystem development across the region.
Their due diligence process was rigorous—more intensive than any other LP we’d encountered. But that rigor came with genuine partnership. Once they committed, they became active supporters of our firm, making introductions to other LPs, providing feedback on our portfolio strategy, and including us in their thought leadership events.
“Having Jelawang as an anchor LP gave us credibility that we couldn’t have purchased at any price,” Rizal later reflected. “When other LPs saw that Jelawang had done deep due diligence and committed, it reduced their perceived risk in backing us.”
Fund II closed in 14 months—4 months faster than Fund I. The difference was our systematic fundraising approach. We had LP coverage across every major category. We had materials ready. We had a process. We weren’t scrambling; we were executing.
Fund II announced at SuperReturn Asia
Year 5: Fund II Deployment and Fund I Value Creation
Fund II First Investments:
With $25M to deploy, Fund II allowed us to write larger checks ($500K-$1.5M) and target slightly later-stage opportunities (seed+ to Series A).
Fund II investments (Year 5):
• Investment #1-3: Three seed rounds averaging $800K
• Investment #4-5: Two Series A participations averaging $1.2M
• Total deployed Year 5: $5.2M (21% of fund)
Fund I Portfolio Events:
PayMalaysia closes Series A (October, Year 5): $5M round led by Jungle Ventures, a top-tier regional VC. Our follow-on: $200K to partially maintain position. PayMalaysia was now valued at $18M; our position worth approximately $3.5M on $650K invested (5.4x).
SecureKL acquired (November, Year 5): In a surprise development, SecureKL was acquired by a regional cybersecurity company for $2M. Our $400K investment returned $550K—a modest positive outcome (1.38x) after years of struggle. First actual exit and DPI generation!
AgriTech ASEAN shuts down (December, Year 5): After 3+ years with no commercial traction, AgriTech’s board and founders decided to wind down the company. Our $350K investment returned approximately $50K from remaining cash. Second complete write-off.
Year 5 Fund I Metrics:
• Total invested: $5.2M (75% of initial allocation)
1. The J-curve is real and painful. Years 2-5 will feel like failure even when you’re building a successful portfolio. Communicate this to your LPs early and often.
2. Portfolio mortality is normal. Expect 30-80% of seed investments to fail completely. The key is limiting exposure to losers while maximizing exposure to winners.
3. Follow-on decisions define returns. Our Fund I returns were driven by concentrated follow-on in PayMalaysia and FinFlow. Spray-and-pray follow-on destroys returns.
4. First exit matters more than its size. SecureKL’s 1.38x return was modest, but generating actual DPI established our credibility for Fund II.
5. Build your fundraising team before Fund II. Use the GP Fundraising Team canvas to systematically cover all eight roles, even with a small team.
6. Fund II timing is strategic. Starting Fund II in Year 3-5, before Fund I exits, is standard practice. LPs understand the cycle.
Grace Choo’s final perspective on Part II:
“By Year 5, I’d moved from cautious optimism to genuine confidence in Meridian. They’d made hard decisions, communicated transparently, and generated reasonable paper returns. More importantly, they’d maintained partnership stability through challenging years. Fund II felt like a natural evolution, not a leap of faith. I told them we’d be interested in exploring a Fund III commitment if they could reach $50M.”
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1766275356941.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-12-30 17:52:122026-05-01 18:04:37The Fund Journey: An Emerging Manager’s Story from Kuala Lumpur to South-East Asia. Part II: Investment Period and the Birth of Fund II (Years 2-5)
Continued from Part I (years T-2 -1). Read part I here, and Part II here.
Through the lens of Aisha Rahman, Founding Partner, Meridian VenturesWith insights from: Rizal Tan, Co-Founder & General PartnerAnd: Ahmad Ismail, CFO, PayMalaysia (Portfolio Company)
By Year 5, we had deployed most of Fund II and were generating the track record that would define our institutional future. The question was no longer whether we could survive—it was whether we could scale.
Year 6: Fund I Harvest Mode and Fund III Preparation
Fund I Portfolio Status:
Company Total Investment Status Current Value Multiple
DataSync $400K Exited (failure) $32K 0.08x
PayMalaysia $650K Series B prep $6M 9.2x
CloudSEA $700K Acquisition talks $2.5M 3.6x
SecureKL $400K EXITED $550K 1.38x
LogiTech Asia $600K Growing $1.2M 2.0x
HealthTech MY $550K Growing $1.4M 2.5x
PropTech.asia $500K Profitable $900K 1.8x
AgriTech ASEAN $350K Exited (failure) $50K 0.14x
EduScale ID $500K Series A complete $1.8M 3.6x
FinFlow $650K Series A complete $3.2M 4.9x
Year 6 Fund I Metrics:
• Portfolio value: $17.5M (8 remaining companies)
• Total distributions: $632K
• TVPI: 2.8x
• DPI: 0.13x
• Net IRR: ~32%
CloudSEA Acquisition:
In June, Year 6, CloudSEA was acquired by a regional enterprise software company for $8M. Our proceeds: $2.2M on $700K invested (3.1x).
This was our second meaningful exit and dramatically improved our DPI story.
Fund I Post-CloudSEA:
• Total distributions: $2.85M
• DPI: 0.57x
• TVPI: 3.0x
Fund III: The Institutional Leap to $50 Million
Fund III represented our transition from emerging to established manager. At $50M, we could finally access the institutional capital that had been out of reach for our first two funds. But doing so, required next level fundraising strategy.
Fundraising Strategy Canvas: Meridian Ventures Fund III ($50M)
Fund Name: Meridian Ventures Fund III Completed by: Aisha Rahman & Rizal Tan Completed date: May 5th
Fundraising strategy, leaps and bounds from fund I
Content Marketing (Your key message)
Our Fund III content strategy builds on five years of thought leadership. Aisha publishes monthly insights on South-East Asian venture trends via LinkedIn and our firm blog, reaching 15,000+ followers across the region. We co-author research with FoF’s on emerging manager performance in ASEAN markets. Rizal speaks regularly at AVCJ, SuperReturn Asia, and regional LP convenings. Our quarterly LP letters have become known for transparent, detailed portfolio analysis—several prospective LPs cited these as reasons for taking initial meetings. For Fund III, we’re producing a signature report on “The Next Wave: AI Opportunities Shaping the future” to position our revised thesis.
LP Construction (200 Names vs 3000 Names)
Fund III targets 20-25 LPs with an average commitment of $2-2.5M. Our construction starts with warm relationships: 12 re-up conversations with Fund I/II LPs (targeting 80% re-up rate), plus 8 qualified new institutional prospects. We’re not casting wide—we’re going deep on LPs where we have genuine fit.
Our primary list includes: IFC and ADB (DFI mandate alignment), 4 fund-of-funds with emerging manager programs (Sarona, Speedinvest, HarbourVest, Adams Street), 3 regional pension funds beginning SEA allocations, 2 American foundations with Asia impact mandates, and 3 corporate VCs seeking regional deal flow access. Secondary list adds 15 family offices across Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Gulf.
Sequencing (Game Plan)
Pre-marketing (Months 1-3): Soft conversations with Fund I/II LPs to gauge re-up appetite and gather reference feedback. Update all materials, refresh data room, finalize Fund III terms.
First Close Target (Months 4-8): Secure anchor commitments from Jelawang Capital ($6M target) and one DFI (IFC at $8M). These two anchors unlock the rest of the raise.
Second Close (Months 9-12): Convert fund-of-funds and re-ups. Target $35M cumulative.
Final Close (Months 13-16): Complete pension fund and foundation conversations. Close at $50M.
Extended Team (Who?)
We’re not raising alone. Our extended team includes: Jim, the ex-ADB (warm introductions to DFI network), our advisory board member from a major Malaysian family office (opens doors across Gulf family offices), Jelawang Capital’s LP relations team (co-hosting events where we’re featured), our Fund II co-anchor LP who now sits on two foundation boards (direct introductions), and a placement agent for European institutional LPs only (Eaton Partners, success-fee basis).
As always, Andrew Senduk and his army of AI agents supports by presenting our GTM value-add story to LPs evaluating our portfolio support capabilities. We also brought in people like Jen Braswell and Paola Ravacchioli to guide us into the world of institutional readiness.
The biggest difference, now we have a full capital formation team, full-time. That’s a game-changer.
Timeline (6 Weeks vs 4 Years)
Target: 14-16 months from launch to final close. We’re raising institutional, so we accept longer cycles. DFIs like IFC require 6-9 months from first meeting to IC approval. Pension funds need 4-6 months minimum. We’ve built relationships with target LPs over the past 2 years specifically to compress these timelines. Fund II closed in 14 months; we’re targeting similar pace for Fund III despite larger size because our LP relationships are now mature and our track record is proven.
Amplifying LPs (Value-Add LPs)
Three LPs serve as active amplifiers for Fund III:
Jelawang Capital: As anchor, they’re actively referring us to their LP network and co-hosting a webinar on SEA emerging managers where Meridian is featured.
Grace Choo (IFC): Beyond their commitment, IFC’s involvement signals institutional validation. We’ll reference their due diligence process and commitment in all LP conversations.
Fund I HNWI (exited founder): Now a respected angel investor, he’s made personal introductions to three family offices in his network who are exploring VC allocations.
Geography (Focus)
Primary: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong (in-person intensive). These three cities cover 70% of our target LP base.
Secondary: Dubai (6 trips planned for Gulf family offices and sovereign-adjacent capital), Washington DC (IFC HQ, 4 trips), San Francisco (2 American foundations, 5 trips).
Tertiary: European fund-of-funds handled primarily via placement agent with 3 Rizal trips to London/Amsterdam.
We’re not trying to cover the world. Geographic focus means deeper relationships in fewer places.
Incentives (Incentives to Close)
First Close Incentive: LPs committing by first close receive most-favored-nation status on any future side letter terms and priority co-investment allocation on the first three Fund III deals.
Anchor Incentive: Jelawang Capital’s $6M anchor commitment came with a seat on our Advisory Committee and quarterly strategic calls with GPs beyond standard LP updates.
No fee discounts. We learned from Fund I that fee discounts create LP management complexity and signal desperation. Our 2/20 terms are firm. Value-add comes through access and relationships, not economics.
Summary: Why Fund III Will Close
Fund III succeeds because we’ve built the infrastructure over four years:
1. Track Record: Fund I at 2.8x TVPI with 0.6x DPI; Fund II performing at 1.6x TVPI in Year 2
2. LP Relationships: 80%+ expected re-up rate from existing LPs
3. Institutional Readiness: IFC-grade reporting, ESG frameworks, governance already in place
4. Anchor Momentum: Jelawang and IFC commitments create herd effect for remaining LPs
5. Team Coverage: All 8 GP Fundraising Team roles systematically covered
6. Geographic Discipline: Focused presence in 3 primary cities, not scattered globally
We’re not hoping to raise $50M. We have a plan to raise $50M.
Closing LP in deep capital markets
The Fund III LP roster showed our journey from emerging to institutional:
LP Type Commitment
IFC (International Finance Corporation) $8M
Jelawang Capital (top-up) $6M
Fund-of-Funds (top-ups x3) $10M
Employees Provident Fund (EPF / KWSP) $5M
Regional pension fund (1) $1M
American Foundations (2) $5M
Corporate VCs / Strategics (3) $8M
Fund I/II Re-ups $7M
TOTAL $50M
IFC: The Institutional Validation
When IFC committed $8M to Fund III, it represented the culmination of a eight-year relationship.
Grace’s guidance during Fund I and II had prepared us for IFC’s due diligence process—one of the most rigorous in the industry. When the IFC team reviewed our fund, they found:
• ESG frameworks already in place
• LP reporting that met institutional standards
• A governance structure that could scale
• A track record of transparent, disciplined decision-making
• A clear investment thesis with demonstrated execution
“Meridian had done the hard work of institutionalization before they needed to,” an IFC investment officer noted during our closing celebration. “That’s rare for emerging managers. Most try to retrofit institutional practices after they want institutional capital. Meridian built the foundation first.”
Analyzing the LP outcome scenarios for EPF / KWSP
One particularly valuable preparation was the extended masterclass we did on the LP outcome scenarios. This actually happened in Lausanne, Switzerland, where we participated in IMD’s Venture Asset Management program. Here we met Jim and Heidi, from ZKB. We got to develop and then truly practice using the LP outcome canvas. Enrique pushed us hard on this. This was truly transformative.
We did not know it at the time, but just months later we would find ourselves in exactly the same position, when the investment team at EPF/KWSP started discussing their LP outcome analysis with us. Suddenly, we realized we could hold our ground and discuss, even negotiate with them on LP outcome models. Looking back, that was probably the moment it clicked, ‘now we are truly institutionally ready’.
Read the full LP outcome analysis from EPF/KWSP here.
The 20-Month Fundraising Cadence
Fund III closed in early Year 7, meaning we had raised three funds in seven years—a new fund approximately every 20 months.
This aggressive pace was only possible because of the fundraising infrastructure we’d built:
• LP relationships maintained continuously (not just during fundraising windows)
• Data room always updated and ready
• Fundraising team roles clearly defined across our small team
• AI and automation tools accelerating LP research and outreach
• Process-driven approach to LP conversion
Year 7: The Firm Today
By the end of Year 7, Meridian Ventures managed $85M across three funds:
Fund Size Vintage Status
Fund I $10M Year 0 Harvesting
Fund II $25M Year 2 Value Creation
Fund III $50M Year 4 Deploying
Our team had grown from 2 founders to 8 people: 2 GPs, 1 Venture Partner (Andrew Senduk), 2 Principals, 2 Associates, and 1 Operations Manager, as well as a full team of AI agents.
We’d invested in 32 companies across South-East Asia. Four exits completed. One potential unicorn in the making (PayMalaysia, now valued at $60M+ and heading toward Series C).
We were no longer emerging managers. We were an established firm with institutional credibility, consistent returns, and a platform that would outlast any individual partner. Of course, with three funds, we now need to start generating exits and DPI back to our LPs. That’s the next step of the journey.
From fund I to institutional; and still just getting started
Key Recommendations for Emerging Fund Managers in South-East Asia
Having navigated the journey from concept to $85M under management, here are the recommendations we would give to emerging managers starting today in South-East Asia:
1. Start Smaller Than You Think
Our original target of $30M for Fund I would have been impossible to raise. $10M was achievable—barely. In emerging markets, fund size credibility must be earned gradually. A successfully deployed $10M fund opens doors that no amount of pitch materials can open for a $50M first fund.
2. Understand the Economics Brutally
A 2% management fee on a $10M fund is $200,000 per year. After fund administration, legal, office, and travel, you’ll be paying yourselves poverty wages. Plan for this. Either have personal runway, alternative income sources, or extremely understanding life partners. The economics only work at scale—which means Fund II and III are not optional; they’re survival requirements.
3. Invest in Fundraising Infrastructure Early
Use the GP Fundraising Team canvas to build systematic fundraising capability, even if you’re just two people. Define who covers each role. Use AI and automation tools aggressively. Define your LP personas. Nail your LP Value proposition. Maintain your LP CRM continuously. The difference between our Fund I scramble and Fund II execution was entirely about infrastructure.
4. Leverage Ecosystem Builders
Organizations like IFC, ADB, Cradle Fund, and Jelawang Capital exist to support ecosystem development. They want emerging managers to succeed. Engage with them early—not for capital, but for guidance, connections, and credibility. Our relationships with Grace Choo at IFC and Craig and Ian at ADB were transformative years before they led to any investment.
5. Build Value Creation Capabilities
South-East Asian founders often need more support than capital. Andrew Senduk’s GTM expertise became a genuine differentiator for our fund. Think about what operational value you can genuinely provide, and build that capability deliberately. LPs increasingly want to see portfolio support, not just deal access.
6. Accept the LP Evolution Timeline
Fund I will likely be friends, family, HNWIs, and angels. Fund II will add some early institutional elements—fund-of-funds, emerging manager programs. Fund III is when major institutional capital becomes accessible. Don’t fight this progression; plan for it. Each fund stage prepares you for the next.
7. Maintain a Fundraising Cadence
Raising a new fund every 20-24 months sounds aggressive, but it’s actually survival strategy. It keeps LP relationships warm, demonstrates traction, and builds the AUM necessary for sustainable GP economics. Start thinking about Fund II long before Fund I even closes.
8. Be Transparent About Challenges
Our first write-off was painful to communicate to LPs. But our transparent handling of that failure—and our discipline in not throwing good money after bad—built credibility that paid dividends in Fund II and III. LPs expect some failures. What they’re watching for is how you handle them.
9. Invest in Education Continuously
The Fund Manager! Masterclass transformed our approach. Strategy Tools’ LP AI platform sharpened our pitching. Industry conferences, peer networks, and continuous learning aren’t luxuries—they’re requirements for staying competitive in a rapidly evolving industry.
10. Remember It’s a 15-Year Journey
The Fund Journey Map shows a 15-year cycle from idea to final distribution. We’re only at Year 7. The hardest part—converting paper gains to actual DPI—is still ahead. This is a career commitment, not a quick path to wealth. Make sure you’re in it for the right reasons and with the right partners.
Final Reflections
Rizal’s reflection:
“Six years ago, Aisha and I were two people in a converted shophouse, maxing out credit cards and wondering if anyone would ever trust us with institutional capital. Today, we manage $85M across three funds with IFC as an LP and genuine institutional credibility. Fund I’s emerging returns aren’t the highest in the industry, but they’re solid, repeatable, and built the foundation for everything that followed. The Fund Journey Map captures the phases, but what it can’t capture is the emotional journey—the anxiety of Year 0, the relief of first close, the devastation of our first write-off, the joy of our first major exit. This business is deeply human. That’s what makes it worth doing.”
Aisha’s reflection:
“If I could give one piece of advice to emerging managers starting today in South-East Asia, it would be this: the fund journey is a marathon, not a sprint. Every phase has its challenges and rewards. Year T-2 felt impossible; Year 4 felt like vindication; Year 6 feels like we’ve just begun. Through all of it, the constants were partnership stability, LP transparency, and founder-first investing. Those principles guided every decision. They’ll guide Fund IV and beyond.”
The fund journey continues.
Read Part I (years T-2 -1), I here, and Part II here.
About the Fund Journey Map and GP Fundraising Team Canvas
The Fund Journey Map by Strategy Tools visualizes the complete 15-year lifecycle of a venture capital fund, from early idea through final distribution. It captures the key decision points, risks, and milestones that define the GP experience. Based on work with 100’s of emerging fund managers, the Fund Journey Map is designed to help emerging managers successfully navigate the full fund journey.
The Fund Journey Map. Get it at www.strategytools.io
The GP Fundraising Team canvas identifies the eight roles that drive successful LP fundraising, from LP Researcher through LP Process & DD Guide. Both tools are part of Strategy Tools’ Venture Capital Series.
Build your team with the GP Fundraising team
Download the Fund Journey Map, GP Fundraising Team canvas, and explore our full suite of GP accelerators and venture capital programs at strategytools.io
Ready to start your fund journey?
Join the Fund Manager! Masterclass to learn from experienced GPs, practice with our Fund Manager simulation, and build the skills needed to launch and manage successful venture capital funds. Learn more.
This article is part of the Venture Capital Series at Strategy Tools, helping fund managers, LPs, FoFs and ecosystem builders develop better venture capital ecosystems around the world.
About the Author:
Christian Rangenis a strategy advisor and business school faculty. He works with ambitious ecosystem developers, innovation agencies, venture funds, national fund-of-funds and governments on building better VC firms and VC ecosystems. He runs GP Accelerators and GP Masterclasses globally.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1766279815736.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-12-30 17:43:142026-05-01 18:07:07The Fund Journey: An Emerging Manager’s Story from Kuala Lumpur to SEA. Part III: Value Creation, Fund III, and Institutional Arrival (Years 6-7)
From Fund I to Fund III Aisha and Rizal navigate nearly a decode on the fund journey. For Fund III, they run into the LP Outcome Canvas at one of Malaysia’s leading pension funds. (case based, fictional fund)
Read the full story, The Fund Journey: An Emerging Manager’s Story from Kuala Lumpur to South-East Asia, Part I (years T-2 -1), PartII (years 2-5) and Part III (years 6-7).
Fund: Meridian Ventures Fund III Fund Strategy: Early-stage B2B software, AI and fintech across South-East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines) Recommendation: Invest Date: October 5th
Commitment: $5,000,000 In % of total fund size: 10% Our role with the fund: Limited Partner with Advisory Committee seat
MV Fund III Pitch deck It’s strong.
Investment Context
Employees Pension Fund (EPF/KWSP) is evaluating a $5M commitment to Meridian Ventures Fund III as part of our emerging manager allocation within the alternative investments portfolio. This represents our first commitment to Meridian, though we have tracked the firm since Fund II.
Why Meridian Fund III:
Malaysian-based GP aligns with our mandate to support domestic asset managers
Strong Fund I performance (2.8x TVPI, 0.6x DPI at Year 5)
Proven team stability through challenging early years
Clear thesis in B2B/fintech aligned with Malaysia’s digital economy priorities
Our Due Diligence Findings:
GP team demonstrates resilience and discipline (DataSync write-off handled well)
Differentiated GTM value-add through Venture Partner
Conservative fund sizing relative to opportunity
Strong LP re-up rates from Fund I/II (>80%)
Institutional-grade reporting and governance already in place
Analyzing Fund III with the LP Outcome Canvas
Outcome analysis for LPs, something most GPs are ill-prepared to discuss on the spot. Unless they’ve trained for it.
Outcome Models
1. Terrible
Scenario Description: Multiple portfolio failures due to regional economic downturn or systemic startup ecosystem collapse. Fund deploys capital but majority of companies fail to reach Series A. No meaningful exits. GP team potentially breaks up under pressure.
What would cause this:
Severe regional recession impacting startup funding environment
Key GP departure (key person event)
Systematic misjudgment in investment selection
Follow-on funding market collapse preventing portfolio companies from scaling
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Never
Years to Full Distribution 12+ (wind-down)
Fund Multiple 0.4x
Our Net TVPI0.4x
Our Net DPI 0.3x
Probability 5%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$1.5M returned over 12 years. Significant loss but limited to committed capital.
2. Disappointing
Scenario Description: Fund performs below expectations. Some exits occur but at modest valuations. Winners don’t scale as hoped. J-curve extends longer than projected. Returns below hurdle rate, no carried interest paid.
What would cause this:
Mediocre portfolio company performance across the board
Fund I outperformance was partially luck, not fully repeatable
Competition from larger funds compresses Meridian’s deal access
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Year 9
Years to Full Distribution 12
Fund Multiple 1.5x
Our Net TVPI 1.5x
Our Net DPI 1.4x
Probability 15%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$7M returned over 12 years. Positive but below our target returns for venture allocation. Opportunity cost versus other alternatives.
3. Performing
Scenario Description: Fund delivers solid, median-quartile returns. Portfolio construction works as planned with expected winner/loser distribution. 2-3 strong exits, several modest outcomes, typical write-off rate. GPs execute their strategy competently.
What would cause this:
Normal portfolio distribution: 20% winners, 50% modest outcomes, 30% failures
Regional exit environment functions adequately
Fund I success was real but Fund III faces more competition at larger size
Team executes well but without breakout positions
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Year 7
Years to Full Distribution 11
Fund Multiple 2.2x
Our Net TVPI 2.2x
Our Net DPI 2.0x
Probability 35%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$10M returned over 11 years. Meets our baseline expectations for emerging manager venture allocation. Acceptable risk-adjusted return.
4. Overperforming
Scenario Description: Fund outperforms expectations with strong portfolio company development. Multiple successful Series A/B raises, 3-4 meaningful exits including at least one at 10x+. DPI generation ahead of schedule. Clear Fund IV momentum.
What would cause this:
GTM value-add genuinely accelerates portfolio company growth
Team cohesion and capability continues to strengthen
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Year 5
Years to Full Distribution 10
Fund Multiple 3.0x
Our Net TVPI 3.0x
Our Net DPI 2.8x
Probability 30%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$14M returned over 10 years. Strong performance justifying emerging manager risk. Would support increased allocation to Fund IV.
5. Market Leader
Scenario Description: Fund establishes Meridian as the definitive early-stage firm in ASEAN ex-Singapore. Multiple breakout portfolio companies. At least one potential unicorn. Strong DPI from strategic acquisitions by global tech companies. Fund III becomes a reference point for regional emerging manager success.
What would cause this:
1-2 portfolio companies scale to $100M+ valuations
Major strategic exits (Google, Microsoft, Grab, Sea acquiring portfolio companies)
Meridian brand becomes synonymous with quality SEA early-stage deals
Fund I fully distributed at 3.5x+, validating long-term track record
Strong global LP interest in Fund IV at $100M+
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Year 4
Years to Full Distribution 9
Fund Multiple 4.0x
Our Net TVPI 4.0x
Our Net DPI 3.8x
Probability 12%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$19M returned over 9 years. Exceptional returns. Strong relationship for preferred access to future funds. Case study for our emerging manager program.
6. Outlier
Scenario Description: Extraordinary outcome driven by a generational company in the portfolio. One investment becomes a regional or global category leader with $1B+ outcome. Fund returns driven primarily by single massive winner, similar to early Sequoia or a]16z funds with breakout companies.
What would cause this:
Portfolio company becomes the “Grab” or “Sea” of its category
Everything goes right for one extraordinary founder
Metric Value
Years to 1x DPI Year 3
Years to Full Distribution 8
Fund Multiple 6.0x+
Our Net TVPI 6.0x+
Our Net DPI 5.5x+
Probability 3%
Our outcome: $5M invested → ~$27.5M+ returned over 8 years. Transformational return. Would significantly impact our alternatives portfolio performance. Extremely rare but possible given early-stage venture dynamics.
Summary Analysis
Probability-Weighted Expected Outcome
Scenario Probability Fund Multiple Weighted Multiple
Terrible 5% 0.4x 0.02x
Disappointing 15% 1.5x 0.23x
Performing 35% 2.2x 0.77x
Overperforming 30% 3.0x 0.90x
Market Leader 12% 4.0x 0.48x
Outlier 3% 6.0x 0.18x
Expected Value 100% — 2.58x
Probability-weighted expected return: 2.58x net multiple on our $5M commitment
Expected dollar return: ~$12.9M over 10-year average holding period
Risk Assessment
Downside Risk (Terrible + Disappointing scenarios): 20% probability of returns below 1.5x
Base Case (Performing): 35% probability of solid 2.2x returns meeting our venture allocation targets
Upside Potential (Overperforming + Market Leader + Outlier): 45% probability of 3.0x+ returns
Risk/Reward Assessment: Asymmetric return profile typical of venture capital. Limited downside (maximum loss = committed capital), significant upside potential. 45% probability of strong outperformance justifies the allocation.
Read the full story, The Fund Journey: An Emerging Manager’s Story from Kuala Lumpur to South-East Asia, Part I(years T-2 -1), Part II (years 2-5) and Part III (years 6-7).
About the Author:
Christian Rangenis a strategy advisor and business school faculty. He works with ambitious ecosystem developers, innovation agencies, venture funds, national fund-of-funds and governments on building better VC firms and VC ecosystems. He runs GP Accelerators and GP Masterclasses globally.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1766284354290.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-12-30 17:36:272026-05-01 18:10:02The Fund Journey: LP Outcome Canvas: EPF Investment in Meridian Ventures Fund III (Part IV)
The journey from first contact to final investment is a structured, rigorous process that separates exceptional opportunities from the merely good. Here’s how leading venture capital firms navigate the path to investment.
The venture capital investment process isn’t a single decision—it’s a carefully orchestrated sequence of escalating commitment, deeper understanding, and strategic alignment. From the moment a startup catches a VC’s attention to the final wire transfer, each stage serves a critical purpose in de-risking the investment and building conviction.
Let’s walk through the five key phases that define how VCs invest, using insights from the VC Investment Roadmap and real-world examples from the Italian venture ecosystem.
Five steps to the VC investment roadmap (get it at www.strategytools.io)
Phase 1: Industry Insights – Building Deep Market Intelligence
Before evaluating any single startup, elite VCs invest heavily in understanding the landscape. This isn’t about skimming industry reports—it’s about developing thesis-level insights that inform every investment decision.
The Core Work: Deeply Understand the Industry
The foundation of great investing is deep industry knowledge. Top VCs complete comprehensive landscape mapping exercises that capture:
Long-term secular trends reshaping the market
Key value drivers that create defensible positions
Emerging technologies and business model innovations
Regulatory shifts and their implications
Competitive dynamics and consolidation patterns
Key Deliverable: Complete the Landscape Map. This living document becomes the strategic foundation for all deal evaluation in the sector.
Example: When Italian Ventures (fictive name), one of Italy’s early-stage VCs, began building their thesis around B2B SaaS in Southern Europe, they didn’t just track companies—they mapped the entire ecosystem. They analyzed why European SaaS companies trade at different multiples than US counterparts, identified gaps in infrastructure and talent, and recognized that Italian companies building for international markets from day one had fundamentally different trajectories. This deep industry understanding enabled them to spot great deals before competitors recognized their potential.
Phase 2: First Contact – Pattern Recognition at Scale
Once you understand the industry, you can quickly assess whether a startup fits your investment thesis. This phase is about efficient screening and comparative analysis.
The Essential Activities:
Analyze 6-10 Comparable Cases Great investors don’t evaluate companies in isolation. Complete the “Mapping the Deals” map to track:
Valuation benchmarks and pricing dynamics
Capital raised and burn rates
Active investors and syndicate patterns
Growth rates and unit economics
Competitive positioning
Study the Exit Landscape Complete the Exit Canvas to understand acquisition targets, strategic buyers, IPO readiness, and partnership opportunities. Start building relationships with potential acquirers now—exit planning begins on day one.
Pro Tip: The best VCs maintain living databases of comparable transactions. When a new opportunity emerges, they can instantly contextualize the valuation, understand if the founding team is experienced relative to peers, and spot outlier metrics that signal exceptional potential or hidden risks.
Phase 3: Digging Into the Case – First Impressions Matter
You’ve identified a promising company. Now it’s time for deeper engagement while maintaining efficiency.
The Critical Steps:
Review Deck & Materials Ask for pre-meeting access to the pitch deck and data room. Review everything closely in advance. Come to the first call with informed questions, not basic clarifications. This signals respect for the founder’s time and demonstrates your preparation.
et Up Calls Run the first 1-5 calls with management. Complete the Startup Index to assess:
Team composition and capabilities
Product-market fit evidence
Go-to-market strategy and execution
Competitive advantages and moats
Vision and strategic thinking
Italian Ventures Example: When Italian Ventures first engaged with PayX (now one of Italy’s most successful fintech unicorns before they invested), they didn’t jump straight to term sheets. They spent weeks understanding the buy-now-pay-later landscape in Southern Europe, interviewed merchants using the platform, spoke with competing solutions, and assessed the team’s ability to execute across multiple markets. Their diligence created conviction.
Decision Point: After this phase, you face a critical go/no-go decision. Most deals end here. Only those demonstrating exceptional potential proceed.
Phase 4: Deep Assessment – Building Conviction Through Analysis
For opportunities that pass initial screening, it’s time to build robust investment models and stress-test assumptions.
The Strategic Frameworks:
Capital Landscape & Funding Journey Co-develop the Funding Journey Canvas and Funding Journey Deliverables with management. Understand:
Complete capitalization history
Future funding requirements and milestones
Investor syndicate composition
Strategic capital partners vs. financial investors
Assess multiple capital strategies. Develop a deep understanding of the team’s capabilities to execute their funding journey. Will they need $5M or $50M to reach their vision? What happens if the next round doesn’t come together? How does their approach compare to successful companies in the sector?
Develop Outcome Scenarios Complete the Outcome Canvas. Take the long view on the company. Map out likely end-state outcomes and investment returns across multiple scenarios:
Bear case: Challenges emerge but value is preserved
Downside case: What’s the floor on outcomes?
Calculate potential returns under each scenario, probability-weight them, and determine if the risk-adjusted return justifies the investment.
Italian Ventures’ Approach: For their growth stage investments, Italian Ventures models 5-7 detailed scenarios spanning different exit multiples, timelines, and dilution assumptions. They pressure-test their models against historical precedent transactions in the category. Only when multiple reasonable scenarios generate target returns do they proceed.
Decision Point: May issue a preliminary term sheet with high-level terms, signaling serious intent while preserving flexibility for deeper diligence. (Note, from term sheet to signed investment agreement, we usually see ca. 50% conversion rate. Don’t expect a term sheet to be an investment. it’s not. It’s just a stepping stone)
Phase 5: Final Decision – The DDDD Sprint
You’re convinced the opportunity is exceptional. Now it’s time to finalize terms, complete comprehensive diligence, and mobilize your network.
The Four Pillars:
DDDD – Deep Dive Due Diligence Complete the full due diligence package including:
Market reference calls (customers, partners, former employees)
Background checks on key executives
Work through an accelerated DD sprint. Prepare the investment memo and draft press release—writing the press release forces clarity on why this investment matters.
Secure Co-Investors Complete the Investor CRM list. Use your global network to bring in your dream team of co-investors. The best investors are additive beyond capital—they bring:
Domain expertise and pattern recognition
Network access and business development support
Operational experience building similar companies
Follow-on capital capacity for future rounds
Clear the IC Present to the investment committee. Secure approval. The best IC presentations tell a compelling story: Why this market? Why this team? Why now? What could go wrong, and how does the team mitigate those risks?
Invest Close the deal. Settle payment. Start onboarding. Now the real work begins—you’re shifting from evaluator to partner, from outside observer to aligned investor working alongside the founders to build something extraordinary.
Decision Point: Issue the full term sheet with complete terms, conditions, and governance provisions.
The Italian Context: A Maturing Ecosystem
Italy’s venture ecosystem has experienced remarkable growth, with investments reaching €2.1 billion and a 67% increase in recent years. Many firms are professionalizing the investment process and competing on the global stage.
What makes Italian VCs distinctive is their deep understanding of building from Southern Europe while scaling globally. They’ve developed expertise in helping founders navigate cross-border expansion, understand regulatory nuances across European markets, and build teams that can execute in resource-constrained environments.
Key Principles for VCs and Founders
For Venture Capitalists:
Build industry expertise before deploying capital—deep knowledge creates conviction
Use structured frameworks to maintain discipline across the investment process
Invest in pattern recognition by tracking comparable transactions systematically
Make decisions with incomplete information, but stack the odds through rigorous process
Remember that clearing the IC is just the beginning—value creation happens post-investment
For Founders Seeking VC Investment:
Understand that each VC interaction advances you through their process—make every touchpoint count
Prepare materials in advance—VCs notice when you make their diligence easy
Articulate your funding journey clearly—show you understand capital strategy
Build relationships with potential co-investors early—VCs value founders who can help syndicate
Ask VCs about their process—understanding their timeline helps you manage yours
The Bottom Line
The venture investment process is neither art nor science—it’s both. The best VCs combine rigorous analytical frameworks with pattern recognition and intuition developed over hundreds of evaluations. They maintain discipline through structured processes while remaining flexible enough to move quickly when conviction emerges.
Every phase serves a purpose: building industry knowledge, screening efficiently, assessing deeply, modeling outcomes rigorously, and completing comprehensive diligence. Skip a phase and you introduce risk. Execute each phase well and you dramatically improve your hit rate.
The VC Investment Roadmap provides a battle-tested framework for navigating this journey. Whether you’re a first-time fund manager in Milan or a seasoned GP in Silicon Valley, these principles endure: know your market, compare relentlessly, build conviction through analysis, stress-test assumptions, and move decisively when opportunity emerges.
Ready to upgrade your investment process?
Download the complete VC Investment Roadmap and explore our full suite of strategy tools designed for venture capital investors, startups, and innovation leaders at www.strategytools.io.
This framework is part of the Venture Capital Series by Strategy Tools—empowering VCs, founders, and ecosystem builders with visual thinking tools that drive better decision-making.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1762187687872.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-06 18:59:422026-05-01 19:00:02How a VC Invests: The Venture Investment Process
“We just hit unicorn status!” the founder announced proudly at the Dubai Angel Network event. Congratulations flowed. Champagne corks popped. LinkedIn lit up.
But here’s the uncomfortable question nobody asked: How are you actually going to turn that into cash?
Welcome to the MENA ecosystem’s most misunderstood trio: value creation, value realization, and exit. They’re not the same thing—and confusing them could cost you everything.
Value Creation: Building the Beast
Value creation is what you do every day as a founder. It’s growing revenue from $1M to $10M. It’s securing that killer partnership with a regional bank. It’s building proprietary IP that nobody else has. It’s expanding from Dubai to Riyadh to Cairo.
Every new customer, every product launch, every market you enter, every patent you file—that’s value creation. Your company’s equity value increases. Your IP portfolio expands. Your team strengthens. Your competitive moat widens.
MENA is crushing it here. Dubai saw 26% year-on-year growth in scale-ups. Founders are building extraordinary companies with innovative solutions for regional challenges. The value creation engine is firing on all cylinders.
But here's the problem: value creation alone doesn't pay anyone.
You can build a $500M company with incredible technology, dominant market share, and perfect unit economics. That’s phenomenal value creation. But if there’s no path to turn that value into cash? You’ve built a very expensive hobby.
Value Realization: The Forgotten Middle Step
This is where most MENA founders get lost.
Value realization isn’t the same as exit. It’s not a single event. It’s the mechanisms and paths you build to deliver liquidity back to investors and founders along the journey.
Think of value realization as your answer to: “How do we actually capture some of this value we’re creating?”
The Value Realization Toolkit includes:
Secondary Sales – Selling a portion of your shares to new investors or existing ones before exit. Smart MENA founders are negotiating secondary rights in Series B and C rounds, allowing them to take some chips off the table while the company continues scaling.
Partial Buyouts – Strategic investors or late-stage funds buying out a percentage of early investors’ positions. This creates liquidity for seed investors who’ve been in for 5+ years while you keep building.
Strategic Partnerships with Liquidity Components – When a regional bank or telecom takes a strategic stake and buys out some early angels in the process. You get the partnership and create early liquidity.
Dividend or Distribution Strategies – Rare in venture but increasingly discussed in MENA’s maturing ecosystem, especially for profitable scale-ups that don’t need to raise more capital.
Structured Secondaries with Growth Rounds – Setting up formal secondary processes alongside primary fundraising, where 20-30% of the round allows existing shareholders to sell.
The key insight? Value realization is something you plan and engineer—not something that magically happens at exit.
The MENA Reality: Great at Creating, Struggling at Realizing
Here’s what’s happening across the Middle East and North Africa right now:
Value Creation: World-Class Founders are building incredible companies. Valuations are climbing. Innovation is exploding. The region is creating value as fast as Silicon Valley and faster than Southeast Asia. Just check out Deal Room’s new data.
MENA is minting new unicorns at record pace. Source: Dealroom.
Value Realization: Immature Most founders don’t even know these mechanisms exist. Term sheets don’t include secondary provisions. Cap tables aren’t structured for partial liquidity. Investors sometimes actively resist value realization pre-exit.
Result? Founders and early employees with massive paper valuations and zero liquid wealth. Angel investors who’ve been in for 7+ years with no path to returns. Early VCs showing strong MOIC and TVPI on paper but weak DPI (actual cash back to LPs).
Exit: The Bottleneck Strategic acquirers are selective. IPO markets are developing but not mature. Cross-border M&A is complex. Every founder is waiting for “the exit” while the value they’ve created remains locked up.
This is the critical gap in the MENA ecosystem: Mastered value creation. Haven’t mastered value realization – yet.
Exit: One Path, Not the Only Path
An exit—acquisition, merger, or IPO—is the full transfer of ownership. It’s the grand finale. The moment when everyone who holds equity realizes value simultaneously.
When Careem sold to Uber for $3.1 billion, that was an exit. It delivered massive value realization in a single transaction. Former employees walked away with cash to start new ventures. Early investors returned capital to their LPs. The “Careem Mafia” was born.
But here’s what the smartest MENA founders understand: Exit is just one value realization mechanism—and it shouldn’t be the only one you plan for.
Why? Because exits are:
Uncertain (deals fall through constantly)
Slow (18-36 months from first conversation to close)
Rare (only a tiny percentage of companies achieve meaningful exits)
Binary (you either exit or you don’t—there’s no middle ground)
If exit is your only value realization strategy, you’re betting everything on a single unlikely event.
What Smart MENA Founders Do Differently
1. Build Value Realization into Your Cap Table from Day One
When you’re raising seed or Series A, negotiate secondary provisions. Build in the right for founders and early employees to take 10-20% liquidity in future rounds. Structure your ESOP for partial exercises. Don’t wait until Series C to start these conversations.
2. Create a Value Realization Roadmap Alongside Your Growth Plan
Use tools like the Outcome Canvas to map specific liquidity events:
Year 3: First founder secondary (10% of equity)
Year 5: Seed investor partial exit opportunity
Year 6: Strategic secondary or growth equity with buyout component
Year 7-8: Full exit transaction
You’re not choosing between value realization and exit—you’re building a systematic path that includes both.
3. Educate Your Investors on Progressive Liquidity
Many MENA investors still have an “all or nothing” mentality. Your job is to help them understand that progressive value realization:
De-risks the journey for everyone
Keeps founders motivated for the long haul
Proves the model works before the final exit
Creates local success stories that strengthen the ecosystem
4. Look at Maturing Markets as Your Template
In Singapore, Switzerland, and increasingly parts of Asia, value realization is systematic. Secondary markets function efficiently. Late-stage funds expect to provide some liquidity to early investors. Founders take partial liquidity at Series B+ as standard practice.
MENA needs to adopt these practices. The infrastructure is slowly emerging—growth funds offering secondaries, family offices providing liquidity solutions, regional exchanges developing. But founders need to demand these mechanisms, not just wait for them to appear.
5. Don’t Confuse Paper Gains with Real Outcomes
Your company hitting a $1B valuation is value creation. It’s impressive. It’s meaningful. But it’s not value realization until someone can convert equity into cash.
Stop celebrating valuations like they’re victories. Start celebrating liquidity events—even small ones—because those prove the model actually works.
The Path Forward for MENA
The region is at an inflection point. We’ve proven we can create extraordinary value. Now we need to mature the mechanisms for realizing that value.
This means:
Investors being open to structured secondaries and partial liquidity
Founders demanding value realization provisions in term sheets
Government entities supporting liquidity mechanisms through policy
Accelerators and advisors teaching founders about value realization paths
The difference between a mature startup ecosystem and an immature one isn’t value creation—it’s value realization infrastructure.
The Bottom Line
Value Creation = Building the company (revenue, IP, market share, team)
Value Realization = The mechanisms you use to deliver liquidity (secondaries, partial sales, strategic buyouts, and yes—exits)
Exit = One major value realization event (M&A, IPO), but not the only one
Liquidity = The actual cash that results from value realization
Stop thinking “build the company, then exit.” Start thinking “build the company, create progressive liquidity along the journey, then exit.”
The founders who master all three? They’re the ones who don’t just create paper wealth—they create generational outcomes for themselves, their teams, and their investors.
And they’re the ones who stick around long enough to build MENA’s next generation of billion-dollar companies.
At Strategy Tools, we work with MENA startups, VCs, and ecosystem builders to develop systematic approaches to value creation, value realization pathways, and exit execution. The Scale Up MENA! masterclass helps founders understand these critical distinctions—and build companies designed for liquid outcomes from day one.
The question isn’t just “What’s your company worth?” It’s “When and how do you convert that value into cash?”
In November 2025, we will be running five Scale Up MENA! Masterclasses in Dubai. In December, we are back in Cairo, Egypt again. Want to join us? Get in touch. Chris@strategytools.io
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1761988463274.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-03 19:29:482026-05-01 19:30:13Value Creation, Value Realization, Exit: Why MENA Founders Need to Know the Difference
What is a ‘good cap table’? How have we trained 4,000+ participants on cap tables to date and how can new trainers become masters of cap tables?
Over the coming 12 months we expect to train and certify 30-60 Scale Up Train-the-trainers. These range from accelerator managers, business school faculty, VCs and program managers at large, global entrepreneurship programs. Yet, what they all will face is the joy, the struggle and the complexity of ‘the cap table’.
Here is a short overview on the four most common cap table tools we use in Scale Up!
Term sheets, term sheets everywhere….
What is a ‘cap table’?
A capitalization table – or ‘cap table’ – is the living, breathing record of who owns what in your company. It tracks equity ownership across all shareholders, from founders and employees to angels, VCs, and convertible note holders. Think of it as the financial DNA of your startup.
At its core, a cap table shows the percentage ownership, the number of shares, and the type of securities each stakeholder holds. But it is far more than a static spreadsheet. A well-maintained cap table tells the story of your fundraising journey – every investment round, every SAFE conversion, every option grant to key hires. It reveals who has voting rights, who gets paid first in an exit, and how much dilution founders experience as they scale.
In Scale Up!, we have seen hundreds of teams wrestle with their cap tables. The ones who master it early gain a strategic advantage. The ones who treat it as an afterthought often face painful surprises down the road – discovering they have given away too much, structured deals poorly, or created complex messes that scare off sophisticated investors.
Why good cap table management matters?
Poor cap table management is one of the silent killers of startups. We have watched promising companies stumble not because their product failed or their market disappeared, but because their cap table became an unsolvable puzzle.
First, investors care deeply about cap table cleanliness. A messy cap table signals operational immaturity. When a Series A investor sees dozens of small angel investments, confusing SAFE terms, or founder equity splits that don’t make sense, they start asking harder questions. Some walk away entirely. In fact, based on our work with VCs across three continents, cap table issues rank among the top five deal-breakers in early-stage investments.
Second, cap table mistakes compound over time. That generous equity grant to your first employee? That SAFE with a low valuation cap? These decisions ripple through every subsequent round, affecting dilution, control, and exit economics. We have seen founding teams who, after three rounds of funding, own less than 20% of their company – leaving little incentive to keep building.
Third, transparency matters. A well-managed cap table builds trust with your team and investors. Everyone knows where they stand. Employees can model their option value. Investors can track their returns. Founders can make informed decisions about future raises. When we run Scale Up! sessions, the teams that maintain real-time cap table accuracy consistently outperform those who don’t – they make faster decisions, spot problems earlier, and negotiate better terms.
Finally, your cap table becomes critical during exits. Whether it is an acquisition, IPO, or secondary sale, the cap table determines who gets what. Liquidation preferences, anti-dilution clauses, and participation rights all flow from your cap table structure. Get it right, and everyone celebrates. Get it wrong, and you will watch your team’s wealth evaporate in legal fees and disputes.
What on earth are these terms??
What role does the cap table have in Scale Up?
In Scale Up!, the cap table isn’t just a teaching tool – it is the backbone of the entire learning experience. Everything flows through it. Every strategic decision participants make, from hiring key talent to choosing between investor offers, ultimately shows up in their cap table.
We designed Scale Up! around a simple truth: you cannot understand startup growth without understanding equity dynamics. Founders face constant trade-offs. Should they take money from that eager angel at a lower valuation, or wait for a lead investor? Should they grant 2% equity to a rockstar COO, or offer a lower package with more cash? Should they raise a large round at a high valuation, or stay lean and bootstrap longer? These questions all converge on the cap table.
Throughout the simulation, teams watch their cap table evolve in real-time. They see how their ownership percentage shrinks with each round. They feel the tension between growth capital and dilution. They experience the consequences of poor terms or ill-timed rounds. And crucially, they develop an intuition for what ‘good’ looks like – balanced ownership, clean structure, alignment with investors.
The cap table also serves as our primary performance tracking mechanism. In our leaderboard, we don’t just track revenue or valuation. We track how efficiently teams deploy capital, how well they preserve equity, and how smartly they structure their deals. The winning teams aren’t necessarily those who raise the most money – they’re the ones who reach their milestones with the least dilution.
From our experience training over 4,000 participants across accelerators, business schools, and VC programs worldwide, we have seen that mastering the cap table transforms how founders think about their business. They stop seeing fundraising as simply getting cash in the door. Instead, they start thinking strategically about capital as a tool, equity as a finite resource, and investors as long-term partners. That mindset shift is what Scale Up! is really about – and the cap table is where it happens.
Good deal? You decide
Here are the four cap tables we use in Scale Up!
Pen & Paper
For smaller groups, with less experience and less time, the good ol’ pen & paper format works perfectly fine. If you are running a discovery session (3 hours) or even a full-day session, you can get far with just pen and paper.
In fact, Scale Up! was first designed for pen & paper, in the view that we learn more when seeing and writing vs. punching numbers into a spreadsheet. There is something powerful about physically writing down each equity transaction. It forces teams to slow down, discuss each decision, and truly understand what is happening to their ownership structure.
Pro:
– Easy to use – Very easy to get started – Simple to manage for both participants and facilitators – Forces intentional, slower decision-making – Great for building foundational understanding
Con:
– Gets complex after first three rounds – Converting SAFEs and CLAs is not so easy in the paper format – More manual, so it takes a lot longer – Hard to track multiple scenarios or run sensitivity analysis
When to use it:
For small groups, lower levels of pre-existing knowledge, limited time, or when introducing basic cap table concepts for the first time.
Who’s in charge:
The team. Make sure the whole team works through this format together. Go slow. Cover the basics. This collaborative approach ensures everyone understands the fundamentals before moving to more complex tools.
Facilitator view:
With small groups, it’s pretty easy to follow. You can always see the documents and paper records on the table. Increase the group size, say, to six or ten teams and it might get a bit trickier. Budget extra time for teams to catch up, and expect to do more hands-on support walking around the room. We typically recommend one facilitator per 15-20 participants when using pen & paper.
Cap Table meets pen & paper. A sight of beauty, truly.
Excel 1.0 (the classic)
Almost as old as the pen & paper format in Scale Up!, the old Excel file is still fantastic to use. It was made for ‘save a local copy’, and has no cloud collaboration or shared leaderboard. It works. It’s simple, but it is also lacking a number of key features.
This version emerged from our early days working with accelerators who wanted something more scalable than paper, but didn’t yet need real-time tracking. It has proven remarkably durable – thousands of founders still use it today.
Pro:
– Easy to use – Covers basic cap table management, nothing else – People use it locally, can take it home and work on it overnight – No internet dependency – Teams can experiment without worrying about ‘breaking’ a shared file
Con:
– Facilitators have little to no insight into how it is going – Hard to follow and impossible to track the top performers – Mistakes are often left unsolved, due to only having local version – No real-time feedback or comparison with peers
When to use it:
Designed to make the pen & paper version slightly more suited for multiple rounds and later stages, it is simple and easy to use. The Excel 1.0 cap table tool is very suitable for small and large groups, at entry- and intermediate levels. Just don’t expect to be able to track performance or clean up mistakes in this format. Best for asynchronous work or when participants want to practice independently between sessions.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO
Facilitator view:
We have run 100’s of sessions with this tool, and it just works. Probably the best tool for super early stage founders who are still wrapping their heads around basic equity concepts. The lack of real-time visibility means you will need to schedule regular check-ins and be ready to troubleshoot issues retroactively rather than preventing them in real-time.
A super simple locally hosted Excel-based cap table, from pre-seed to seed+. No ESOP?
Google Sheet 1.0 (the basic)
A couple of years ago we started experimenting with a shared version, where we could track all teams in the same interface, and also teams could compare themselves in real-time.
We simply copied the excel version into a Google Sheet version (1.0), and voila, we had the basic version. Instantly, this was a hit with participants. The competitive element that emerged from the live leaderboard completely changed the energy in the room. Teams started benchmarking themselves, learning from top performers, and pushing themselves harder.
Pro:
– Same ease of use as Excel – Now in a shared format, with leaderboard – Easy to keep track of all teams, audit and correct cap math mistakes in real-time – Creates healthy competition and peer learning – Facilitators can provide targeted support based on what they see
Con:
– Not many; but a clear message that ‘this is only looking at financing’ – Not tracking ARR, revenue or basic accounting – Teams sometimes focus too much on leaderboard position vs. learning
When to use it:
In most sessions, really. Great for both entry, intermediate and more advanced users. If you have reliable internet and want to create a dynamic, competitive learning environment, this is your go-to tool.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO
Facilitator view:
Bringing the cap table from local Excel to shared Sheet is a game-changer. If there are two facilitators, one would spend ca. 10% of his / her time to just keep an eye on, do light audits and generally correct mistakes before they turned into major problems. The real-time visibility means you can spot patterns – which teams consistently make similar mistakes, which concepts need more explanation, which teams are ready for advanced challenges.
But, the feedback was clear; ‘where do we track everything else….?’ Teams wanted to see how their cap table decisions connected to their revenue growth, hiring plans, and burn rate. That insight led us to build version 2.0.
Series B with Vessemeyer Capital and Fifth Wall, but look closely for the pre-money, post-money and how ESOPs might skew the cap table. Any facilitator would pick this up in a seconds.
Google Sheet 2.0 (the full management dashboard)
In early 2025 we started piloting a more advanced, full scale ‘Management Dashboard’. This tool would quickly outgrow the cap table, and suddenly teams would be able to run full-scale operations, annual accounting, ARR growth, margins, Y-o-Y growth, advisors, zoo animals and exit transactions, all in the same real-time spreadsheet.
Once we saw this live, we knew we were not going back. This version represents the full Scale Up! experience – where financial strategy, operational decisions, and equity management all interconnect. Teams finally see the complete picture: how hiring that expensive VP impacts burn rate, which impacts runway, which impacts when they need to raise, which impacts dilution.
Pro:
– Comprehensive full overview across all aspects of the company – Real-time, shared with running Leaderboard – Makes it superbly easy to run the session as facilitator, offering far more depth into company financials – Reflects real-world complexity that founders actually face – Teams develop holistic strategic thinking, not just cap table mechanics
Con:
– OK, so, it is very complex. It clearly takes time to figure out, and even the best teams get parts of it wrong – It has a lot of moving parts, leaving it hard for the teams to focus on the core, cap table management – Not for beginners, as most get overwhelmed and do not understand the basic financials, never mind cap tables – Requires significantly more facilitator expertise to run well – Teams need strong collaboration and clear role division to manage effectively
When to use it:
Intermediate and advanced-level teams. Need more time. Only worth using when we have minimum one full day, preferably three days. Best for cohorts that already understand startup basics and are ready to wrestle with the messy reality of scaling a company.
Last used with:
Katapult Ocean Program, and here it worked very well. These were experienced impact-driven founders who needed to see how sustainability metrics, investor expectations, and financial performance all connected. The complexity matched their reality.
Who’s in charge:
The CFO, but all team members have dedicated working areas they own. The CEO focuses on strategy and investor relations, the CTO manages product development costs and technical hiring, the CMO tracks customer acquisition and revenue growth. This distributed ownership mirrors how real startup teams actually operate.
Facilitator view:
This is a monster to run, but once it is running it is fantastic. Due to the holistic view on each startup, the full management dashboard takes the Scale Up! experience to another level – but only if you as a facilitator can handle it. You need deep financial literacy, strong group facilitation skills, and the ability to rapidly diagnose where teams are stuck. Plan for at least two facilitators for groups larger than 20 participants. The upside? Teams leave with genuine strategic capabilities that transfer directly to their real companies.
The Leaderboard view everyone cravesZoom in, and find the Series C with SCV at 400M, with 4,4% remaining in the ESOP unallocated.But zoom out, and you realize there is quite a lot to track…
Closing thoughts
With 30-60 new trainers coming online, there will be plenty of chances for Scale Up sessions, big and small. From classrooms to Masterclasses, we will be delivering Scale Up!, Scale Up MENA! and Scale Up Africa Rising!
But, keeping track of all things cap tables is crucial. As a future facilitator, make sure you select the cap table tool that works for you and master it. Use this guide to decide on the right tool for the job for you.
Remember: the tool itself matters far less than your ability to use it effectively. We have seen brilliant sessions run with pen & paper, and mediocre ones with the full dashboard. Your job as a facilitator is to meet participants where they are, push them appropriately, and ensure they leave understanding not just how to fill out a cap table, but why it matters.
Start simple. Master one tool completely before moving to the next. Build your confidence. And most importantly, remember that behind every cap table percentage is a real founder making real decisions about their company’s future. Our job is to help them make those decisions wisely.
https://i1.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1761995183920.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=17201280Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-11-03 19:19:392026-05-01 19:20:29The Four Cap Tables in Scale Up!
Over the past six years working with 250+ emerging fund managers across every continent, I’ve noticed a troubling pattern. Most aspiring GPs can articulate their investment thesis in vivid detail. They know their target sectors, geographies, and check sizes. They’ve researched comparable funds and can cite industry statistics with precision.
But when I ask them to walk me through their complete fund strategy—from dealflow sources through portfolio construction to LP value proposition—the conversation often stalls.
That’s why we created the Fund Strategy Canvas. Not as another framework to add complexity, but as a visual tool to force honest conversations about the eleven interconnected elements that determine whether a fund succeeds or struggles.
Why A Canvas? Why Not A Pitch Deck?
Traditional fundraising decks are linear presentations designed to persuade. The Fund Strategy Canvas is different. It’s a thinking tool that reveals gaps, inconsistencies, and opportunities in your fund strategy before you start pitching LPs.
Think of it as pre-flight checklist. Would you want a pilot who skipped their checklist because they felt confident? Your LPs don’t want you skipping the hard strategic questions just because you’re excited about your investment thesis.
Introducing the Fund Strategy Canvas
Fund Strategy Canvas. Used by 50+ GPs to shape and sharpen their strategy
The canvas forces you to address eleven critical building blocks:
To illustrate how the Fund Strategy Canvas works in practice, let me walk you through two emerging manager cases (both are ‘illustrative examples, based on multiple real life fund manager I’ve worked with). Both are building funds in frontier markets. Both face skeptical LPs. But their approaches to the canvas reveal very different strategic choices and challenges.
Nairobi Impact Partners (case GP)
Case Study 1: Nairobi Impact Partners – Climate & Agriculture Fund
Background: Sarah Kimani and David Omondi launched Nairobi Impact Partners in 2024, targeting a $30M first close for their climate-focused impact fund across East Africa. Sarah brings 12 years from the International Finance Corporation working on climate finance. David is a second-time founder who built and exited an agritech startup in Kenya for $8M.
Fund Strategy Canvas, NIP
Let me walk through how they completed their Fund Strategy Canvas and what it revealed.
Thesis, Size & Strategy (Core):
Sarah and David’s investment thesis centers on climate adaptation technologies for smallholder farmers across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. They’re targeting early-stage companies (Series A) that have proven product-market fit with $500K-$3M annual revenue.
Their $30M fund size reflects careful math: 15-18 portfolio companies with initial checks of $1.5-2M and 50% reserved for follow-on capital. This sizing came from honest assessment of the deal pipeline and realistic assumptions about ownership targets (15-25%) given competitive dynamics in the region.
Unfair Advantage:
Here’s where their canvas work got interesting. Initially, they listed “deep market knowledge” and “strong networks” as advantages. These are table stakes, not unfair advantages.
Through canvas discussions, we identified their real edge: Sarah’s relationships with eight DFIs and impact investors who collectively manage $15B in Africa-focused capital, combined with David’s operational credibility with founders (he’s been in their shoes). More importantly, David’s exit experience means he can credibly guide portfolio companies through M&A processes—a rare skill in East African VC.
Sarah & David working with early LPs to shape the fund strategy
Team & Track Record:
Sarah brings investment experience but has never led a fund. David brings entrepreneurial credibility but limited investment experience. The canvas revealed a critical gap: neither has fundraising experience for a fund.
Their solution: they brought on Fatima Hassan as a third partner (20% carry). Fatima previously raised $50M for an East African growth equity fund and brings LP relationships and fundraising expertise. This addition fundamentally strengthened their canvas.
Dealflow:
Their initial dealflow plan was generic: “attend conferences, build reputation, take inbound.” The canvas forced specificity.
They mapped four distinct dealflow channels:
Accelerator partnerships: Formal partnerships with three climate-focused accelerators (CFAN, AgFunder, and VC4A) giving them first look at graduates
Founder network: David’s founder community provides peer referrals
University partnerships: Relationships with Strathmore University and University of Nairobi entrepreneurship programs
The canvas revealed they needed to convert these channels from ideas to executed partnerships with specific metrics. They now track dealflow by channel and measure conversion rates.
The canvas revealed this was too vague. We modeled specific scenarios:
What if their best companies need $5M Series B rounds? Their 50% reserve only covers 3-4 companies.
What happens to ownership if they can’t participate in follow-on rounds?
How do they handle bridge rounds between Series A and B?
Their refined approach: Initial checks of $1.5-2M targeting 15-20% ownership. Reserve capital structured as $750K automatic pro-rata for winners (top 5 companies) and $250K discretionary for opportunistic follow-ons. This precision came directly from canvas work.
Value Add:
“We help companies scale” is not value add—it’s aspiration. The canvas forced them to specify exactly how they add value:
Operational Support: David leads quarterly operational reviews with portfolio CEOs, focusing on unit economics, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising preparation.
Talent Recruiting: Fatima maintains a curated database of 50+ climate tech executives and makes 2-3 introductions monthly to portfolio companies.
Customer Introductions: Sarah’s DFI relationships translate into corporate customer introductions for B2B portfolio companies.
Climate Finance Access: Sarah advises portfolio companies on accessing $200M+ in climate finance facilities (grants, concessional debt) that complement equity.
Anchor LPs & LP Mix:
This is where many emerging managers struggle. Sarah and David’s initial answer: “We’ll raise from impact investors and DFIs.”
The canvas revealed the chicken-and-egg problem: DFIs want to see commercial investors committed before they participate. Commercial investors want to see strong deal terms. Impact-only funds often struggle with both.
Their breakthrough came from mapping their specific anchor LP strategy:
Target Anchor: AfricInvest (existing relationship through Sarah’s IFC work). Target commitment: $5M for credibility with other LPs.
LP Mix Strategy:
DFIs/Impact (40%): IFC, FMO, Norfund—patient capital with impact measurement requirements
Family Offices (30%): East African families with agricultural interests seeking impact exposure
Fund of Funds (20%): European impact-focused funds of funds
Corporates (10%): Strategic corporate LPs from agriculture value chain
LP Economics & Fund Economics:
Their initial terms: “2% management fee, 20% carry, standard 8-year fund life.”
The canvas revealed misalignment. DFI LPs increasingly push for 1.5% management fees on impact funds. But at $30M fund size with three partners, 1.5% generates only $450K annually—insufficient for team salaries, office, travel, and operations.
Their solution emerged from canvas work:
Management fee: 2% on committed capital for first four years, stepping down to 1.5% on invested capital thereafter
Carry: 20% with 8% preferred return to LPs
Management fee offsets: 100% of fees offset against carry (industry standard)
Working capital: Secured $500K working capital line from a supportive family office to smooth cash flow gaps
This precision came from modeling their fund economics line-by-line, a process the canvas forced them to complete before pitching LPs.
Legal Setup:
Initially: “We’ll set up in Mauritius because everyone does.”
The canvas forced examination of whether Mauritius actually served their strategy. Their LP mix includes US family offices (Mauritius has tax treaty limitations with US), European funds of funds (require specific regulatory structures), and DFIs (have varying Mauritius preferences).
Their refined approach: Delaware LP as main fund vehicle with Mauritius parallel fund for LPs requiring it. This dual structure emerged from mapping their specific LP requirements through the canvas, not copying what other funds do.
Value Creation & Exit Strategy:
Here’s where impact funds often hand-wave. “Strategic acquisitions or IPOs” doesn’t cut it when your portfolio companies are $10M revenue Kenyan agritech startups.
The canvas forced Sarah and David to map realistic exit paths:
Primary Exit Routes:
Strategic acquisitions by regional agriculture companies (Equity Bank, KCB Bank expanding into agriculture fintech; Safaricom entering agtech)
Later-stage fund acquisitions (Novastar Ventures, TLcom Capital buying positions for their growth funds)
Development finance exits (Selling to impact investors willing to accept lower returns for sustained impact)
Exit Preparation Process:
Starting Year 2 of each investment, they host annual “Exit Strategy Board Days” mapping potential acquirers and preparing companies. This systematic approach came from canvas work revealing that exits don’t happen accidentally. (did you know, the team picked that up here.)
Exit Experience:
David’s $8M agritech exit provides credible experience, but the canvas revealed a gap: Sarah has never led an M&A process. Their solution: formal advisory relationship with a Nairobi-based M&A advisor who will mentor them through their first 2-3 exits while also sourcing buyers.
LP Value Add:
Final canvas element: what value do LPs bring beyond capital?
Their strategic LPs:
IFC: Provides regulatory navigation support across East Africa
Family offices: Provide customer introductions to agriculture value chain
AfricInvest: Provides co-investment capital and M&A support
This specificity helped them target LPs strategically, not just whoever might write checks.
RAIV (Case GP)
Case Study 2: Riyadh AI Ventures – Enterprise AI Fund in MENA
Background: Omar launched Riyadh AI Ventures in 2024 targeting a $40M fund focused on enterprise AI applications across Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt. Omar spent eight years at Google leading AI partnerships in MENA, followed by three years as Chief Product Officer at Careem.
His canvas journey revealed very different challenges than Nairobi Impact Partners.
Fund Strategy Canvas for RAIV (case)
Thesis, Size & Strategy:
Omar’s thesis: Enterprise AI applications built specifically for Arabic-language markets and regional regulatory requirements. While global AI companies dominate consumer applications, enterprise AI for Arabic contexts remains underserved.
His $40M target reflects aggressive sizing for a first-time fund. The canvas forced honest conversation about whether this was realistic. Most first-time MENA VC funds close at $15-25M. Omar’s argument: his Google relationships give him access to larger institutional LPs, and MENA AI deals require larger checks than typical seed funds deploy.
Through canvas work, we stresstested this assumption. If he only reaches $25M, can the strategy still work? His answer: yes, but with 12 companies instead of 18, and higher ownership targets.
Unfair Advantage:
Omar’s initial answer: “Deep AI expertise and strong corporate relationships.”
The canvas pushed deeper. What makes him unfairly advantaged versus every other AI investor globally?
His real edge emerged: He’s one of three people globally who deeply understand both frontier AI technology AND Arabic natural language processing challenges AND have relationships with every major enterprise buyer in MENA (through his Google and Careem networks). This intersection is genuinely unique.
Moreover, his Google relationships mean he can broker access to compute resources and AI tooling for portfolio companies—a material advantage when GPU access is a startup constraint.
Team & Track Record:
Omar is a solo GP—a red flag for most LPs. The canvas made this gap explicit.
His solution: Instead of bringing on full partners (which would dilute his carry significantly), he structured venture partner relationships with three domain experts:
Technical VP: Former Meta AI researcher based in Dubai (15% carry, focused on technical due diligence)
Enterprise Sales VP: Former Oracle EMEA executive (10% carry, focused on portfolio company sales acceleration)
Finance Partner: Former Goldman Sachs MENA (10% carry, focused on fund operations and later-stage rounds)
This structure came from canvas work revealing he needed team credibility without full partner economics.
Dealflow:
Omar’s initial dealflow plan relied heavily on inbound flow from his reputation. The canvas revealed this was insufficient and risky.
His refined four-channel approach:
Corporate innovation programs: Formal partnerships with ARAMCO, STC, and Emirates NBD innovation labs to see enterprise AI pilots
University partnerships: MIT Jameel Clinic, KAUST, and American University of Cairo AI programs
AI Accelerators: Partnerships with Google for Startups MENA and Hub71
Founder outbound: Personal outreach to AI founders in stealth mode (leveraging his Google network to identify engineers leaving FAANG companies to start companies)
The canvas forced him to build redundancy into dealflow rather than hoping inbound would materialize.
Series A (6-8 companies): $2-3M initial checks, targeting 12-15% ownership
Series A+ (2-3 companies): $4-5M initial checks in breakout companies showing enterprise traction
Reserve capital: 40% of fund (higher than typical because MENA AI rounds are growing quickly and he needs pro-rata protection).
This precision only emerged through canvas modeling exercises.
Omar whiteboarding fund strategy – before finding the Fund Strategy Canvas.
Value Add:
Omar’s initial value proposition: “I help companies build AI products and scale sales.”
The canvas forced specificity on HOW:
Technical Value:
Quarterly AI strategy sessions with portfolio CTOs
Access to Google Cloud credits ($100K per portfolio company)
Introductions to AI researchers for technical hiring
Architecture reviews for scaling challenges
Go-To-Market Value:
Direct introductions to CIOs at 15 enterprise customers (ARAMCO, STC, Saudi Airlines, etc.)
Quarterly enterprise sales workshops
Pricing and packaging strategy sessions
RFP response support for government contracts
Capital Value:
Introductions to Series B funds (Balderton, Accel, Insight Partners expanding to MENA)
Guidance on US/European expansion strategy
Financial modeling and board presentation coaching
This detail makes his value proposition credible and measurable.
Anchor LPs & LP Mix:
Omar’s breakthrough on the canvas: his Google relationships extended to GV (Google Ventures) considering MENA exposure. If he could convince GV to commit $5M as anchor, it would provide massive signaling to other LPs.
His LP mix strategy:
Strategic Corporates (30%): Google Ventures, Saudi Telecom, Aramco Ventures
Sovereign Wealth/Government (25%): Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), Mubadala
US Tech VCs (25%): Firms wanting MENA exposure without full fund (Kleiner Perkins, Accel)
Family Offices (20%): Tech-savvy MENA families
The canvas revealed a tension: US VCs want standard Delaware LP terms. Sovereign wealth wants specific governance rights. Family offices want quarterly liquidity updates. He needed fund administration capable of serving this complex LP base.
LP Economics & Fund Economics:
Omar’s initial terms: “Standard 2 and 20.”
The canvas revealed that “standard” means different things to different LPs. Sovereign wealth funds in MENA increasingly demand 1.5% management fees. US tech VCs expect 2.5% fees for emerging managers with operational support.
Carry: 20% with 8% preferred return (European LPs require preferred return; US VCs prefer no hurdle—this was a compromise).
Fund Economics Working Capital:
At $40M with blended 2% management fee, Omar generates $800K annually. As solo GP with three venture partners, this covers:
Omar salary: $200K
Venture partner retainers: $150K total
Operations/legal/admin: $150K
Office/travel/events: $100K
Future hires: $200K
The canvas revealed his management fee economics were tight but workable. However, he needed $750K working capital to cover the 18-month period between first close and becoming cash-flow positive. He secured this from his anchor LP as a bridge loan.
Legal Setup:
Omar’s initial plan: “DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre) because I’m based in Dubai.”
The canvas revealed problems: DIFC has limited tax treaty network. His LP mix includes US institutions who want ERISA compliance, European funds requiring specific regulatory treatment, and Saudi investors who need Sharia-compliant structures.
His solution: Parallel fund structure:
Delaware LP: Main fund vehicle for US/European LPs
DIFC Parallel Fund: For MENA-based LPs requiring regional structure
Cayman Feeder: For specific LPs requiring offshore structure
This complexity emerged only from mapping his actual LP requirements through the canvas.
Value Creation & Exit Strategy:
Here’s where MENA AI funds face reality checks. There are limited acquirers for $50M AI companies in the region. The canvas forced Omar to map realistic scenarios:
Exit Paths:
Strategic acquisitions by MENA tech companies: Careem, Noon, Tabby acquiring AI capabilities
Strategic acquisitions by global tech companies expanding to MENA: Google, Microsoft, Salesforce buying regional AI platforms
Strategic acquisitions by MENA enterprises: ARAMCO, STC, SABIC acquiring AI vendors
US/European expansion then exit: Companies that start in MENA but expand globally and exit to US/EU acquirers
Later-stage fund exits: Selling to growth equity funds (General Atlantic, Insight, Tiger Global)
The canvas revealed a critical insight: His best exits likely require portfolio companies to expand beyond MENA. This informed his value-add strategy around US/European expansion support.
Exit Experience:
Gap revealed by canvas: Omar has zero M&A experience. He’s built products and partnerships, but never closed a company sale.
His solution: Advisory board including two former corp dev executives (one from Google, one from Microsoft) who will mentor him through exits and potentially broker introductions.
LP Value Add:
Beyond capital, what do his LPs provide?
Google Ventures: Technical credibility, Silicon Valley network, potential acquisition path
US Tech VCs: Series B fundraising connections, US expansion support
Family Offices: Follow-on capital for breakout companies
The canvas helped him design an LP stack where each category provides strategic value, not just capital.
What The Canvas Reveals That Pitch Decks Hide
After walking through both funds, several patterns emerge:
1. Specificity Separates Strong Strategies From Weak Ones
“We source great deals through our network” is generic. “We have formal partnerships with three accelerators generating 12 qualified leads monthly with 15% conversion” is specific and measurable.
The canvas forces this specificity. Every vague statement gets challenged: How exactly? How many? With whom? By when?
2. Gaps Become Visible Before They Become Fatal
Both funds discovered critical gaps through canvas work:
Nairobi Impact Partners: No fundraising experience (solved by adding third partner)
Riyadh AI Ventures: No M&A experience (solved by advisory relationships)
Finding these gaps on a canvas before pitching LPs is far better than discovering them during LP due diligence.
3. Trade-Offs Become Explicit
Fund strategy is about trade-offs:
Nairobi Impact Partners chose slower growth and patient capital over aggressive returns
Riyadh AI Ventures chose concentrated portfolio with larger checks over diversification
The canvas makes you own these trade-offs rather than claiming you can have everything.
Both fund teams had unspoken assumptions about strategy until they completed the canvas together. Sarah assumed they’d raise quickly from DFIs. David knew DFIs move slowly. The canvas surfaced this disagreement.
Omar assumed his venture partners understood the portfolio construction math. They didn’t. The canvas aligned everyone.
5. The LP Perspective Becomes Central
The canvas is organized around what LPs care about:
Do you have defensible dealflow?
Can you construct a portfolio that returns the fund?
What’s your actual unfair advantage?
Do you have exit credibility?
Working through the canvas from the LP perspective reveals whether your story holds together.
How To Use The Fund Strategy Canvas
Based on watching dozens of emerging managers work through the canvas, here’s my recommended process:
Week 1: Individual Completion
Each team member completes the canvas independently. Don’t discuss or align beforehand. You want to surface disagreements.
Week 2: Team Alignment Session
Bring your canvases together. Spend 3-4 hours going through each section. Where do you disagree? Why? What assumptions are you each making?
The disagreements are where the real work happens. If one partner thinks you’ll close the fund in 9 months and another thinks 18 months, that affects everything from working capital needs to fee structures.
Week 3-4: Gap Analysis and Modeling
For each canvas section, identify gaps and model solutions:
Dealflow insufficient? Model three new sources with specific metrics
Portfolio construction unclear? Build Excel model showing various scenarios
Team incomplete? Define specific roles needed and start recruiting
Week 5-6: External Validation
Share the canvas with trusted advisors, potential LPs, and peer funds. Not as a pitch, but as a strategy artifact. Ask:
Where is our thinking unclear?
What gaps do you see?
What trade-offs would you make differently?
Week 7-8: Refinement
Revise the canvas based on feedback. The canvas should evolve as you learn.
Ongoing: Living Document
The canvas isn’t a one-time exercise. Revisit it quarterly:
Are dealflow channels performing as expected?
Is portfolio construction working?
Do you need to adjust LP mix based on fundraising reality?
Common Canvas Mistakes
After coaching 50+ funds through the canvas, I’ve seen recurring mistakes:
Mistake 1: Filling It Out Alone
The canvas’s power comes from team discussion. If you fill it out alone and present it to your team, you miss the alignment benefit.
Mistake 2: Generic Statements
“Strong network” is not an unfair advantage. “Exclusive partnership with the largest fintech accelerator in East Africa” is an unfair advantage.
The canvas demands specificity. If you can’t measure it, it’s probably not specific enough.
Mistake 3: Skipping Hard Sections
Many emerging managers gloss over exit strategy or LP economics because they’re uncertain. The uncertainty is exactly why you need to work through these sections.
Use the canvas to surface what you don’t know. Then learn it.
Mistake 4: Making It Static
Your canvas will change as you learn. Nairobi Impact Partners revised their canvas four times during fundraising as they learned what resonated with LPs.
Treat the canvas as a living strategy document, not a completed artifact.
Mistake 5: Confusing It With A Pitch Deck
The canvas is for internal strategy alignment. Your pitch deck is for external fundraising. They serve different purposes.
Complete the canvas first. Then build your pitch deck from the aligned strategy.
Why This Matters Now
The venture capital landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. LPs are more sophisticated and selective. “Good enough” fund strategies don’t get funded.
The funds that succeed are those with:
Crystal-clear differentiation
Specific, measurable strategies
Realistic understanding of their advantages and gaps
Alignment between partners on hard trade-offs
The Fund Strategy Canvas doesn’t guarantee success. But it dramatically increases your odds by forcing the hard conversations before you pitch LPs.
Every successful fund I’ve worked with has, in some form, worked through these eleven building blocks. The canvas simply makes the process systematic rather than haphazard.
If you’re building a fund, start with the canvas before you write your pitch deck. Gather your team, block out a full day, and work through each section with brutal honesty.
The gaps you discover will be uncomfortable. That discomfort is the point. Better to discover them on the canvas than in LP meetings.
Both Nairobi Impact Partners and Riyadh AI Ventures are currently in market fundraising. Sarah reports that LPs consistently comment on how well-thought-through their strategy is. Omar closed his anchor LP ($5M from Google Ventures) after a single meeting—the GV partner said his clarity on portfolio construction and exit strategy was “the most sophisticated I’ve seen from an emerging manager.”
That clarity came from canvas work, not from being smarter or more experienced. It came from doing the hard thinking systematically.
Download the Fund Strategy Canvas at www.strategytools.io and start the work. Your future LPs—and your fund’s performance—will thank you.
https://i2.wp.com/www.engage-innovate.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1759659414103.png?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=15761024Christian Rangenhttps://www.engage-innovate.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/engage-innovate-logo-main-header-1-300x157.pngChristian Rangen2025-10-29 20:11:432026-05-01 20:12:04Building Your Fund Strategy: Why Most Emerging Managers Skip The Most Important Step
Since we launched Fund Manager 4,5 years ago, more than 50 Masterclasses and programs have been delivered around the world. From Singapore to Toronto, London to Cape Town, 1.200 people have experienced building a new VC firm in just days, scaling it from idea to successful DPI.
1. Generally, low understanding of venture capital and VC lingo
Most people, including many professional investors and asset managers have a limited understanding of how venture financing works, how things are structured and even what most lingo means in practice.
A common day two phrase might be: “We’re doing a 5M at 12M post with two leads and two follows, all with 3X liq, with Softbank doing the B, chasing outlier net DPI in less than three years due to a massive M&A window to TDK, ultimately delivering us a Dragon. Who’s in?” Yes, there might be some new language and learning here. But using the Fund Journey Map and a wide range of visual canvases helps anyone break down the barriers in just days.
“It’s rare to experience something that challenges and inspires you at the same time. These three days were exactly that – exceptional structure, energy, and collaboration. Truly grateful for the experience and all the amazing people I got to meet along the way! Huge thanks to Christian Rangen and Scott Newton for making it so impactful!” – Sara Oluić,
Fund Strategy 101, Frankfurt, Germany 2025
2.Accelerated, exponential learning curve
Most people come in, expecting a ‘standard course’. This is anything but. Day 1, you strap into a rocketship as you and your newly founded team will sprint through nearly 15 years in just 2- or 3-days. Things happen at hyperscale pace – all the time.
“I came with scepticism that it is possible to deliver a venture capital program that will be challenging and engaging both to enthusiasts and professionals, in just 3 days. Christian Rangen and Scott Newton proved me wrong, they kept all of us on our toes, at the peak of our absorbing intellectual capacities with this masterfully crafted and delivered program, their infinite patience, unwavering support, relentless energy, venture capital knowledge, experience and superb training and coaching skills”
Emerging fund managers, and their LPs. Toronto, Canada, 2025
3. Great teams, great leadership matter more than great deals
Again and again, we see the pattern. The teams can be sitting on amazing deals, on great exits and stunning mark-ups; but they can’t quite figure it out. They got the pieces, but they are lakcing the leadership and team performance to turn opportunity into value. Without great leadership and excellent team performance, nothing else matter.
“Our winning moves? Play to strengths – People in the right seats, fueled with full support by the team, outperform Celebrate wins – Call out good work and keep energy high Stay agile – Learn fast, adapt to market news and redefine portfolio/exit strategies fast Go big and go bold – Trusting your thesis and deliver results” – Janine Pereyra
H
4. Value creation is a big, new idea for post
Most people approach the program with two goals. 1. Raise (a bigger) fund 2. Invest in (lots of) companies it takes them some time to realize, just maybe, they have been chasing the wrong metrics. Returns, not investments. Capital back, not capital deployed. DPI, not deals, is what we focus on. In the program, we talk a lot about post-investment value add, post-investment value creation and ultimately, doubling down on your winners for extreme power law performance. But this does not happen automatically. To most, value creation to exit is a “whole new world”, when all they wanted to do was deploy capital at pace.
“The experience was an eye-opener into the principles of venture capital. It helped me understand which KPIs truly matter, what challenges arise during the fund lifecycle, and, most importantly, how to collaborate in a team that must balance a constant inflow of capital, deals, and information.”– Julian Ritzi
Deploying capital is easy. Creating value is hard. Online, CVCA, Canada, 2024
5. An incredible learning experience
“Best learning ever”, “Best training I’ve ever done”, “The highlight of our entire MBA program”.
Since start, we have been stunned by the amount of excessive, positive feedback. We believe this might just be from the high-standards we keep, the fast pace we move, and simply for the participants to working in a high-pressure , high-performance environment with great team members.
We who teach learn the most. Chris & Elena, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2024
6. Skills x mastery; not training or education
We are building skills, and developing mastery. This is not just another training program where you sit through PowerPoint decks. People are on their feet, structuring complex seed investments, negotiating with real-life LPs, writing up LP outcome analysis in just minutes, posting ‘why we invested memos’ on LinkedIn and build expertise by doing – not just listening.
For many people, we stay in touch as they transition from Masterclass to scaling their real-life funds. We aim to build mastery, not simply educate.
“And very intensive 3 days those were, indeed. Thanks to you Christian and Scott for delivering a true masterclass. There is a lot to take away from the course for everyone and at different levels of engagement with VC. I appreciated the dialogue and additional assignments, even though part of the simulation…, there is always a real world connect. Hugely recommended!!!” – Christoph Berndt, CFA
The rockstar exit, Belgrade, Serbia, 2025
7. Use AI tools – all the time
This one has been growing on us. Today, we can not phantom running a Masterclass without having the teams use AI tools – all the time.
Gamma for pitchdecks (how did we live before?)
ChatGPT for lingo (who needs to ask us, when GPT is better?)
Claude for deal memos (anyone can write a dealmemo in 3 minutes)
Bolt.new for websites (push your new site live in less than 5 minutes)
We use AI tools, all the time, in the process 10X’ing the creative outputs of the teams. People are stunned when they see their own, creative efforts multiply like this.
What winning looks like in the age of AI (thanks Dora M)
8. Working visually matters
Explaining anyone a full 15-year fund journey can be, well, hard. Teaching anyone the nuances between MOIC, TVPI and net DPI can be challenging. Helping an emerging manager construct LP outcome scenarios with outcome tables and financial returns, can be pretty tricky. But all of these things, and much, much more becomes easy, thanks to working visually.
From Fund Manager Journey (our 2,5 meter canvas), to fund strategy worksheets, a powerful visual Fund Manager! simulation and a rich library of visual canvases, soaking up the details of venture management is doable for all, thanks to how we work visually.
The Fund Journey , a visual canvas covering the full 10-15 year journey. A powerful visual backbone to Fund Manager! Serbia,2025
9. Learning never stops
In our Masterclasses, we have had senior executives, heads of family offices, GP’s with 20+ years experience, all of them seasoned investors, all of them truly excited about the experience.
“Working on exits is so important”, said on GP in Egypt. “We can never do this enough”. When first presenting a new Masterclass, we often get sceptic questions. “Why would anyone attend? Surely, they already know it all!”, is a common one. “I assume this is for juniors. Anyone working in venture should already know all this”, equally so. Neither are true. Again and again we see the most senior participants leaning in the most and reaping the benefits of their work. Like us, they realize, learning never stops.
“Big thanks for an incredible Masterclass! Three days that felt like a full fund cycle—what a way to be converted. Truly eye-opening and energizing. Grateful for the experience and looking forward to staying connected!” – Vanja Kljajevic, MBA, MSc
DFIs & GPs, teaming up, Jo’Burg, South Africa, 2024
10. Focus on the ecosystem – not just the individual
The biggest benefit to many is not the individual learning, but the collaborative work, the strengthening of ties and the benefits of ecosystem-wide collaboration. Individual mastery is valuable, but achieving the same at ecosystem is even more valuable.
As one participant noted, “I was concerned to walk into a room full of ‘finance bros,’ and instead found a welcoming group of people working to build the ecosystem.”
This is also one of the design principles behind Fund Manager! Simply, you will do better if you work together. This, of course, spills over into real life, where GP-LP connections and pre-seed-to-A-fund relationships matter. When we see a great Masterclass in the works, we can also see the clear spill-over benefits to the ecosystem.
“At Zephyr Angels and Zephyr Equity with Gogo Rafajlovski, we’re connecting capital, talent, and capability – building the next generation of investors and founders. The Western Balkans need more fund managers, more syndicates, and more people who think long-term about ecosystem design.Grateful to EBRD Star Venture, Dejan Tonic, and Ljubisa Petrovic for making this possible — and for continuing to push our region forward.” – Igor Mishevski
Building VC ecosystems, one deal at the time. Dubai, 2023
From 1.200 to 10.000 – just getting started
Today, we are 50+ Masterclasses in. We have worked with emerging fund managers, LPs from some of the biggest funds in the world, European family offices, Pacific ocean impact funds, foundations, Fund-of-funds and globally leading business schools. Looking ahead over the next 4,5 years, we are truly excited for what is ahead as we bring the Fund Manager Masterclass to 10.000 people and beyond.
MENA is where the action is. See you there! Dubai, 2023
