Web3 tech still valuable, says Insignia Ventures

Recession Run is a series where we talk to Southeast Asia’s investors to suss out the opportunities they see this funding winter.

“Infrastructure” is the word that comes to mind for Yinglan Tan, founding managing partner of Insignia Ventures Partners, when deciding on companies to invest in during the economic downturn.

He says that during a bear market, startups building infrastructure to simplify the complexity in an industry and change behavior, relationships, and communication will be the most impactful. This opens up sustainable monetization options for these startups and also builds moats against competitors with a wealth of resources.

Tan cites FishLog, an Indonesia-based firm in Insignia’s portfolio that has created a “B2B operating software” for the country’s fisheries through its extensive supply chain. The VC led the startup’s seed round last March and participated in its US$3.5 million pre-series A in November 2022.

“[FishLog] not is only opening revenue streams with good margins, but also enabling the industry in a way that global players find too difficult and costly to do themselves,” Tan says.

Yinglan Tan of Insignia Ventures Partners / Photo credit: Yinglan Tan

The veteran investor was Sequoia Capital’s first hire in Southeast Asia, sourcing deals for Tokopedia, Carousell, and Gojek, among others. In 2017, Tan decided to launch his own VC firm, which evolved into Insignia.

To date, the VC has financed over 70 emerging tech companies across Southeast Asia.

A sum of its parts
Active since: 2017
Founder: Yinglan Tan
Current fund size: US$388 million
Invests in: Sector-agnostic (early-stage)
Portfolio firms: Carro, Ajaib, GoTo, Fazz, Tonik
Headquarters: Singapore
Areas covered: Southeast Asia
Ticket size: US$500,000 to US$50 million
Other highlights: Has a VC Academy

Still more to see with Web3 ⛓️👀

Though Insignia is a sector-agnostic VC firm, when it closed its most recent US$388 million fund last year, Tan had said that it remains bullish on agritech, healthcare, and Web3.

Much of the hype and overzealous investment in Web3 has fizzled out after the collapse of companies such as crypto exchange FTX, but Tan says that blockchain technology is still valuable. Going against the grain, he urges that speculative trading in crypto should be distanced from Web3 building.

Source: Giphy

“It will be a fundamental step for the ecosystem to have sustainable mass adoption of Web3 beyond trading cryptocurrencies to attract greater funding. That means building fundamental infrastructure to address security, identity, transactions, and communication in Web3,” he explains.

Follow-on FTW 🏆