The 2 big trends to watch in Asia, according to this IoT investor

Kyle Ellicott, chief labs officer at ReadWrite Labs

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Kyle Ellicott is the co-founder of tech blog ReadWrite and chief labs officer at IoT accelerator ReadWrite Labs. He’s also my partner at Explorer Equity Group, where he manages our Asian investment portfolio. To date, Ellicott has advised over 175 companies globally and raised over US$130 million in venture funding.

In my first interview with him, we talked about his entrepreneurial journey and his experience building an IoT accelerator. Here, we discuss more about the investing side, particularly here in Asia.

Could you share a little bit about your background?

I’ve been an entrepreneur the majority of my life, and it’s been an absolute joy.

About five and a half years ago, I started a company called ReadWrite Labs, which was an accelerator for IoT and wearable technology. In 2015, we expanded into Asia, going from San Francisco to Hong Kong, and then into mainland China.

I put about 30 weeks or so on the ground per year in Asia, working with local governments, investors, businesses, and entrepreneurs here, helping to grow the ecosystem. So, a lot of my background is focused on Asia, entrepreneurship, fundraising, and global business.

What made you dive deeper into investing?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been working with investors in some way, shape, or form, and that was part of the reason we decided to start the accelerator. I have been an entrepreneur myself, living and breathing the struggles. I have also been on both sides of the table, seeing what worked and what hasn’t.

I see tremendous opportunities in Asia from the investment side. There are so many great entrepreneurs building real companies and real technologies that scale. Asia also has some of the largest consumer markets globally.

Why did you dedicate a few years of your life going back and forth between the US and Asia?

The moment I knew Asia is the next big thing was literally the day I stepped off the plane on my very first trip to the region. It was November 2015. I arrived in Hong Kong and saw this world of energy, buzz, and excitement. Very quickly, I was off to the races into startup events, meeting startups and investors.

It continues to show. You’ve got an ecosystem that’s thriving, and everybody—government, universities, investors, entrepreneurs, and so on—is giving 110 percent. They are contributing, reinvesting, learning, trying to create new opportunities, or doing anything to make the region successful. I thought, “Where was this five years ago? Where was this for me 10 years ago?”

Aside from IoT, what other verticals excite you?

For me, consumer enterprise is a great investment opportunity. But diving deeper, you have something like retail or “new retail” or O2O, which is exploding in China and throughout greater Asia.

Fintech goes without saying. There are a lot of emerging markets that have a fresh start to their financial system and the way their population will interact and transact. In the US, we still use credit cards with chips in them because of the way we’ve progressed.

There’s also deeper technologies. We know China is hot on artificial intelligence, but that also goes into robotics, drones, industry 4.0, manufacturing, supply chain, and to what I would say is a forgotten area, education. You’ve got millions upon millions of people coming online wanting to be educated in a more globalized way. Education technology, I think, is going to be huge.

What do you think is a big trend in Asia that is worth taking a closer look at for the next five or 10 years?

How do you provide enough support to companies without being overbearing or taking too much control?

What’s your advice for fundraising entrepreneurs?