We cover:

Why Southeast Asia is still in an extended funding winter – and why each market (Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore) has its own funding “personality”.

The “single-source funding” trap created by government money, CVCs, or family groups dominating early capital – and what that does to the early-stage pipeline.

How Kevin designs Indelible’s fund model around realistic 50–250M exits – and why power law still holds even when the numbers are smaller than in the US.

Failure rates as a structural fact of life, and where value-add can and can’t move the needle.

What this all means for emerging managers trying to raise their first fund in SEA or comparable markets.

A grounded discussion of programs like VC Lab: how they help compress the emerging-manager learning curve without replacing the need for deep local context.

If you’re an LP, GP, or founder operating between Europe, Southeast Asia, and other emerging markets, this episode offers a candid look at how to think about power-law returns at the scale your ecosystem actually operates in.Episode links

Indelible Ventures - https://indelible.vc/

Kevin on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/kbrockland

Emerging Forward newsletter – https://emergingforward.substack.com

In this episode, Adi speaks with Ankit Upadhyay, Founder & GP of A2D Ventures and Senior Advisor at McKinsey, about how early-stage capital in Southeast Asia is being rebuilt in 2026.They cover the collapse of earlier early-stage funds, the rise of accelerators, government grants, and angel syndicates, sector opportunities from fintech to food innovation, and why success in SEA may look more like 1,500 profitable 100–500m companies than a wave of unicorn IPOs.

- Why 2026 looks “better but different” than 2025 for SEA founders valuations stabilising and resilient teams emerging from a capital-scarce cycle.

- How early-stage VC pulled back after fund II struggles, and why CVCs in Thailand and the region moved up to Series B+.

- The four realistic fundraising routes for SEA founders today: accelerators, government grants/equity schemes, angel syndicates/family offices, and legacy personal networks.

- Why A2D Ventures decided to build a productised angel platform: educating angels, providing regulated SPVs out of Singapore, and giving global investors safe access to local deals.

- Sector signals: fintech as infrastructure, consumer & health tech for 700m people, food innovation, and applied deep tech in materials, construction, and biotech.

- Rethinking exits in SEA: fewer IPOs, more local and regional M&A, and why “many 100–500m companies” may be a better success metric than chasing unicorn counts.

Timestamps

0:00 - Why 2026 looks different for SEA founders

4:00 - What broke in early-stage venture (and why fund II never came)

10:15 - The previous era of startups - four early-stage routes: accelerators, government, angels, legacy networks

11:00 - Building A2D: turning loosely organised angels into a productized platform

15:00 - Cross-regional capital Flow

21:00 - Fintech, consumer, food, and deep tech opportunities with a SEA lens

25:00 – Exits, recalibrating success, and what investors should really expect

We cover:

- Why a physics background changes how you evaluate frontier companies.

- How deep-tech funding stacks combine grants, VC, specialists, and strategics.

- Why Europe’s research strength still struggles to convert into aggressive venture outcomes.

- How valuation gaps between Europe, Asia, and the US can create real alpha.

- Why dual-use space, energy, materials, compute, and robotics remain underpriced but highly selective.

- What LPs should really worry about: scientific, engineering, team, and geopolitical risk.

Guest links:

Beyond Earth Ventures: Website | LinkedIn

Alexandra Vidyuk - LinkedIn

Episode highlights:

03:00 - First-principles investing and the bottleneck map.

06:40 - Capital stacks, grants, and what deep-tech funding really looks like.

18:30 - Why geography is not the thesis.

29:30 - The next frontier themes worth watching.

34:00 - The real risk stack in deep tech

Emerging Forward : Newsletter | Spotify

This issue is a special investor edition of Emerging Forward, a deep dive into how venture is (and isn’t) evolving for founders who don’t fit the “archetypal” mold, and for LPs/GPs who actually care about both yield and impact.

1. The 2% anomaly that refuses to die

Gillian starts with a statistic she can’t let go of: women receive around 2% of traditional venture equity, despite multiple decades of data showing that women‑led companies are unusually capital‑efficient and generate higher returns.​

She walks through the numbers:

* Women‑led companies raise about 44% of the capital that male‑led companies raise in the same industry, then exit at similar valuations.​

* That translates into roughly 56% less dilution for investors: every new dollar raised dilutes existing equity, and women tend to raise fewer of those dollars on the path to exit.​

* In the datasets she cites, women‑led companies exit one to two years sooner than their male‑led peers; time as both a risk factor and a cost factor.​

* They generate roughly 2.5x the revenue per dollar invested. Gillian’s example: if a male‑led company makes 38 cents per dollar invested, a comparable women‑led company is closer to 76–78 cents.​

* Roll all of that up and you get the killer number: about 35% higher ROI for women‑led companies over more than 30 years of data.​

If these numbers sat inside any other asset class, the capital would stampede toward the anomaly. Hedge funds shift entire books for a single extra percentage point of return.

In women‑led venture, 35 points of outperformance has barely moved the needle.​

So Gillian and her co‑founder, Anne Kennedy, chose to treat this as an investor problem, not a motivational poster.

2. Why the money doesn’t follow the money

Mastersfund’s thesis doesn’t assume the anomaly exists because women are somehow “better” founders. A big chunk of the outperformance is structural: when capital is that scarce and the needle’s eye is that tight, the companies that make it through tend to be unusually strong.​

But that still leaves a question: if the anomaly is this obvious, why hasn’t the market corrected?

Gillian’s answer is anthropological:

* For most of human history, survival meant sticking with your own kind. The infant that cozied up to a saber‑toothed tiger didn’t survive long enough to pass on its genes.​

* The same pattern shows up everywhere: flocks, herds, schools, clusters. “We’re carbon‑based life forms; we’re wired for similarity,” as she puts it.​

* In today’s venture context, that instinct shows up as over‑funding of a very narrow archetype: tall, white, US‑educated, able‑bodied, youthful, baritone‑voiced men from institutions like Harvard and Stanford.​

Her point is not that these founders shouldn’t be funded. It’s that the human wiring behind this pattern is “vestigial behavior”, it made sense when huddling with your own tribe improved your odds of not being eaten, but it no longer serves a planet trying to solve 21st‑century problems.​

Crucially, she doesn’t believe the answer is endless shouting at Sand Hill Road:

“Don’t shout at the tall white men with baritone voices in Sand Hill Road. They’re doing exactly what they’re programmed to do.”​

Instead, she argues, the money must flow from different hands.

At Mastersfund, that means working on the activation of women’s capital:

* Women are often taught to write philanthropic checks, not to manage their own investable capital.​

* They already hold and are inheriting significant wealth, but it is largely intermediated by institutions who have 101 good reasons not to move any of it into higher‑risk alternatives like venture.​

* Men will often say “yeah, Joe, just write the check.” Women get run over by that logic.​

The fund’s work sits at the junction of gender‑lens investing, agency over capital, and new instruments that reduce risk while preserving upside.

3. Venture is not just venture equity anymore

One thing Gillian is very clear about: “venture capital” is a broader category than “venture equity.”

Founders and investors, she says, need to stop treating the classic Silicon Valley equity fund model as the default for every startup on the planet.​

At the very top level, she splits the world into:

* Venture equity

* Venture debt

Under each, there’s a much richer toolkit than most founders (and many LPs) use:

* Dividend models

* Royalty agreements

* Revenue‑share structures

* Variants of convertible instruments and SAFEs

* Hybrid models that blend equity‑like upside with debt‑like protection​

Her counsel to both founders and investors:

“Take a scalpel to this job, not a hatchet.”​

The existence of a “standard” note or a “standard” SAFE doesn’t mean those are the right tools for your company, or that their terms are set in stone. Every line of the instrument is negotiable, and in some cases, modifiable enough to become a new instrument.

Which is exactly what Mastersfund did.

4. Inside Mastersfund’s redeemable warrant

Mastersfund created a redeemable warrant for options, working with an attorney who had been experimenting with similar ideas in angel groups.​

Gillian contrasts it with familiar tools:

* A convertible note is debt. In the US, as the note’s paper value increases, investors may end up paying taxes on that gain before they see any cash, an “unfortunate consequence” in an asset class where 80% of companies will die.​

* A SAFE is equity, with fewer investor protections but some simplicity benefits for founders.​

* In both, there’s usually a line that says the instrument is not redeemable and will convert to stock. From the investor’s perspective, that hard‑wires venture‑equity‑style risk.

Mastersfund’s tweak:

* Treat the instrument as an option: the fund can elect to convert into stock, or it can treat the position more like a debt instrument over time.​

* While the warrant sits as equity, the fund doesn’t incur the same kind of tax exposure as a classic note. The decision to convert (or not) is made with more information about the company’s trajectory.​

* That optionality allows them to pull the risk profile of the fund closer to something resembling private equity – earlier and steadier returns – without giving up all the upside associated with equity in outlier winners.​

Underneath is a deep critique of the way venture tried to “slather” a model designed for a very small set of hyper‑scalable companies (the software that powers the next big thing) onto every startup on the planet.​

Most of those companies were never built for that kind of scale. They need a different capital stack, and investors should know better.

5. Time, risk, and serial exits

Gillian uses a simple analogy to talk about risk:

* Ask her what the weather in Seattle will be in the next five minutes and she can tell you with near‑perfect accuracy: it will not rain.​

* Ask her about five days from now and the answer gets fuzzier.

* Ask her to predict conditions 15 years from now and it becomes a joke.

The same logic applies to holding periods:

* The longer you stretch the time to liquidity, the more macro variables pile up: politics, regulation, cross‑border tensions, supply chains, whole technology cycles.​

* In the 1990s, venture could sometimes get away with 2–5 year exits. Today, even in AI and other “crack‑in‑the‑universe” technologies, exits are slower and path‑dependent.​

For her, the response is clear:

* Shorten the time to serial exits for the same pool of capital.

* Design structures that allow investors to see real liquidity events in shorter cycles, then redeploy into new companies.

This isn’t anti‑VC. It’s a recognition that in 2026, the old “wait 10–15 years for a single monster IPO” model no longer matches either the macro environment or the kinds of companies non‑archetypal founders are building.​

6. Playbooks for non‑archetypal founders and investors

Gillian’s closing argument: it’s not just about women. It’s about any founder and any investor who doesn’t fit the archetype, and the systems we build around them.​

For founders:

* Know your capital stack options. Equity, structured equity, revenue‑share, royalties, venture debt; each has a different risk/return profile and different implications for control and dilution.​

* Design for your actual trajectory, not someone else’s mythology. If your company is “the next decent thing” built on top of breakthrough platforms, you probably don’t need a capital stack designed for the few players building those platforms.​

* Negotiate, don’t default. “Standard” terms are a starting point, not a law of nature.

For emerging managers & women investors:

* Learn the instruments as deeply as you learn the theses. If you’re serious about gender‑lens or impact investing, structures like redeemable warrants and revenue‑share may be as important to your success as your sourcing.​

* Activate your own and your peers’ capital. Don’t just give philanthropically; build the world you want to see by allocating to instruments and managers who are solving real anomalies.​

Her final exhortation:

“Bring a scalpel to the job, not a hatchet.”​

The tools now exist to design capital stacks that match the companies and founders you’re actually backing. The question is whether LPs and GPs are willing to use them.

🎧 If you’re an LP, GP, or founder exploring non‑archetypal paths, this episode is meant to live in your ‘save’ folder.

If you’d like more conversations like this; on structured equity, non‑intro capital flows, and real outcomes between Europe and APAC/MEA; you can subscribe to Emerging Forward here.

About Sagar

Sagar Chandna is Senior Partner and CTO at RunwayFBU, an industrial tech VC backed by one of Norway’s largest industrial groups. A Top 100 Data-Driven VC Leader, he brings experience from scaling global technology platforms and investing in deep tech companies across Europe.

Bullet highlights:

- Why 2025 was “one of the hardest” fundraising years for European emerging managers.

- How RunwayFBU uses automation and AI for sourcing and evaluation instead of relying on interns and manual rubrics.

- Why industrial tech is still stuck in the “90s” and why only around 3% of captured industrial data is used today.

- What a credible emerging manager looks like in Sagar’s eyes: platform, ecosystem, and more than capital.

- Regulation as safety belt and moat in industrial contexts where it helps and where it overreaches.

- How LPs with “skin in the game” beyond capital think differently, and what this means for GP–LP relationships.

- Thoughts on exits, AI “massacring” generic SaaS TAMs, and the future of data vs intuition in investing.

- Why Nordic founders will increasingly look at Asia, Africa and other emerging markets as next steps beyond Europe.

Taya Kudashkina is a 4x founder turned angel investor and syndicate lead.

She is currently building an investment syndicate that automates parts of angel investing while providing curated deal-flow for LPs and experienced operators.

Based in Luxembourg, she mentors founders at the national Fit 4 Start program through Luxinnovation and works closely with early-stage companies across the European startup ecosystem.

In this conversation, we go from origin story to mechanics: how she filters 95–98% of deals in minutes, designs her red‑flag engine, uses AI to scale judgment without losing nuance, and thinks about Europe vs the US as different “engines” inside one global portfolio.​

What we cover

Starting from zero in Luxembourg: Moving countries with no local network, why she flipped from founder to angel, and why she sees backing founders as “her part” in building a better world.​​

Thesis first, not deal first: How a simple geo–segment–stage thesis (US only, AI/B2B SaaS/fintech she deeply understands, post‑traction) instantly cuts 95–98% of inbound deals, and why mis‑match is the real reason most pitches die.

Designing dealflow like a product funnel: Manual exploration → semi‑automation (intake questions) → full automation (n8n/Zapier + ChatGPT agents reading decks, generating follow‑ups, and flagging issues) for a low four‑figure build cost.

The Red‑Flag Engine: Why experienced angels see the same patterns over and over, how she codifies red flags into a system, and which repeatable signals make her say “no” even when everything looks shiny.

Human vs machine boundaries: What she’s comfortable automating (everything before the first serious founder conversation) and what stays stubbornly human (first calls, data‑room deep dives, final founder meetings).

Europe vs US – stop comparing apples to oranges: How she uses the US for speed, volume and software upside, and Europe for deep‑tech, climate, industrial and long‑cycle R&D backed by grant‑heavy programs like Fit 4 Start.

Cross‑border SPVs are a solved problem (psychology isn’t): How she wired a US clean‑tech/med‑device SPV in ~30 minutes, why infrastructure is no longer the bottleneck, and why many angels still default to “local coffee only” despite wanting US upside.

AI growth vs AI moats: Why 0→500k ARR in six months no longer impresses her in AI, and what she actually looks for in data, distribution, regulation or workflow embedding that can survive the next model release.

Designing dealflow that respects angels and founders: How codified ICPs, standardized intake, and fast “no’s” reduce noise for both sides—and why founders should qualify investors with the same discipline investors use on them.

Angel OS as a repeatable system: The components of her own Angel OS, sourcing, ICP filters, red‑flag engine, scorecards, and why she believes process, not access, becomes the moat for cross‑border angels in 2026.​​

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro, Taya’s background as 4× founder turned angel and syndicate lead; why helping founders is her way of “building a better world.”​

02:08 – Defining a tight angel thesis (geo, segment, stage, traction) and why that single page filters out most inbound.​

04:48 – How she layered automation on top of manual work: intake questions, Typeforms, then n8n/Zapier + ChatGPT agents to read decks and triage.​

08:06 – Building the red‑flag engine, what can be automated vs delegated, and why the first founder conversation is still human.​

10:40 – Advice to operators and angels starting a micro‑syndicate in 2026: the one dealflow design mistake to avoid from day one.​

Later – Europe vs US portfolio roles, cross‑border SPVs, AI moats, and Angel OS as an investment operating system.Links

Connect with Taya on -

Substack: https://taisiya.substack.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taisiyakudashkina​

Guest: Ruslan Rakymbay, Investment Director, Quest Ventures

Ruslan Rakymbay is an Investment Director at Quest Ventures, a top venture capital fund in Asia. He works closely with startups to accelerate their growth through a combination of acceleration services and programmes. He is also responsible for market access initiatives for key markets in Central Asia. Ruslan was a founding member of QazAngels, Kazakhstan’s pioneering angel investment network, Ruslan has played a key role in fostering the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Prior to this, he served as the regional CEO of Primus Power, a US Silicon Valley-based energy storage technology company. His contributions to the energy sector have earned him prestigious accolades, including the Clean Tech Transformer award from the Islamic Development Bank and the New Energy Leader award from the Asian Development Bank. Ruslan is also an active member of the Project Management Institute in Kazakhstan. Ruslan is a Bolashak Presidential Scholarship recipient, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and received an MSc in Energy Economics from the University of Dundee, UK. Ruslan speaks Mandarin Chinese and spent two years at CUEB and BLCU in Beijing, China. He is also an International Law Specialist (MA-equivalent) from the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. For leisure, he enjoys traveling, diving (Ruslan is PADI certified scuba-diver), cycling and reading.

What We Cover

Quest Ventures’ ecosystem build: Kazakhstan Digital Accelerator, educating VC instruments and mechanics to regulators/AIFC, and Astana Hub partnerships, ecosystem.​

Cross-border bridges: Central Asia (Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan) as one market, expanding to Vietnam/Philippines/Singapore via SEA events and portfolio companies.​

LP evolution: From zero GPs to 30+ in Central Asia, M&A exits now, IPOs possible in 5 years (SEA/HK/Nasdaq).​

AI tailwinds: Kazakhstan AI code, supercomputers for startups, AI as scaling tool for all models.​

Founder playbook: “Live there first” for expansions (e.g., 1-month India test saved $1M burn).​

2026–27 outlook: More AI startups, Quest raising Central Asia fund ($1M A-rounds), Vietnam as key bridge.​

Timestamps

00:02 Intro: Ruslan’s bio, QazAngels founding, Quest Ventures role.​

02:18 2019 entry: 2–5 deals/year to 32 investments, 6 exits via accelerator.​

10:54 LP shift: 10+ Kazakhstan GPs, 30+ Central Asia, no more SAFE education needed.​

23:00 Cross-border: Central Asia as unit, SEA expansions (US/Philippines/Europe).​

25:25 Founder blind spots: “Live in market 1 month” before scaling.​

30:00 AI infra: 2 supercomputers (free GPUs), AI code, 2026–27 AI surge.​

Quest Ventures Links

Official site

Ruslan Rakymbay profile: Link​

Quest Ventures: LinkedIn ​

Guest: Almaz Edilbaev (@almaz-edilbaev)

Almaz Edilbaev is co-founder of chANGELS, an angel syndicate from Kyrgyz Republic backing Central Eurasia founders building global businesses; COO & co-founder of DataCall AI (backed by 500 Global), a Chicago-based healthcare AI startup automating phone operations like benefit verification and prior auth for clinics. Originally from the Kyrgyz Republic, he has 13+ years in VC/accelerators across Central Asia, Russia and the US; including Investment Lead at Accelerate Prosperity (AKDN), Strategy & Corporate Development at Kyo Health.

What we cover:

• Central Asia's quiet VC boom: from ~5 funds a decade ago to ~100 today, including a $1B Kazakh fund-of-funds already deploying 20%.

• Why Central Asian founders now "default to global" – building US-facing teams from Bishkek with unicorn traction (e.g., Hicksfield).

• Valuation gaps: $200-800K pre-seed at ~$5M cap regionally vs $2M at $10-20M in the Bay Area.

• GTM differences: Short cycles + easy access in Central Asia vs long procurement battles in US healthcare.

• How chANGELS built the first Kyrgyz angel syndicate using SPVs + SAFEs to pool small checks into US-facing founders.

Key quote: "Talent is distributed equally, but capital is getting closer to equilibrium." – Almaz Edilbaev

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro + Almaz's journey (Moscow VC → Kyrgyzstan accelerators → US healthcare ops)

01:40 – Central Asia VC explosion (100+ funds, C5+1 geopolitics)

04:00 – AI as the breakout sector + "default to global" mindset

07:00 – Valuation geography gaps + Hicksfield unicorn case

10:00 – B2B GTM: Central Asia vs US differences

13:00 – chANGELS syndicate mechanics (SPVs, Sidecar, SAFEs)

18:00 – Closing: Why Central Asia will only get bigger

Links:

• Almaz's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/almaz-edilbaev

• Emerging Forward newsletter: https://emergingforward.substack.com/

Aadi Vaidya (Partner, The Scale Factory) spent 10 years building across India, Southeast Asia, and Europe. He was founding team member and COO at Zilingo (Sequoia-backed, scaled to near-unicorn status) and now helps software companies expand between Europe and Asia.

In this conversation, we explore:• Why the Europe-Asia corridor is underserved compared to US routes• How "pace" means different things in different markets (and why this creates friction)• The fear of unknown as the biggest expansion blocker• Why a seed company in Europe has Series D controls in Asia• ACV considerations for different markets• Why Asia opportunity is bigger than most European founders realize• Framework for thinking about expansion without being reckless

Key Timestamps:00:00 - Intro00:27 - Aadi's background: India → Southeast Asia → Germany02:41 - Why Germany? Personal and professional reasons05:31 - Pace differences: Asia vs Europe07:00 - Maturity at different stages across markets10:40 - US mentality vs European mentality13:00 - Expansion strategy framework15:44 - Don't go reckless: Talk to ICPs first18:27 - Fear of unknown as biggest blocker20:02 - Why founders miss the Asia opportunity22:26 - Why now is the moment for this corridor

Guest: Aadi Vaidya - Partner at The Scale Factory (Singapore HQ, based in Berlin)Previously: COO & Founding Team at Zilingo (Sequoia-backed)Started: Citibank Corporate & Investment Banking, India Advisor: German Accelerator, Techstars mentor

Connect with Aadi: LinkedIn

Host: AdiSubscribe: Substack

Emerging Forward explores capital flows, expansion strategy, and overlooked dynamics between Europe and emerging markets.