Unearthing Sea Group’s alumni network

This is the latest version of the article that was published on June 7, 2021. We’ve added more alumni members to the visual and table.

In a world where unicorns hog headlines, Asia Partners’ Nick Nash says the growth equity firm has its eyes on the “baby rhinoceri running around” instead. He’s referring to the startups that are underrated, humble, thick-skinned, and authentic.

Earlier this March, Asia Partners announced the close of its inaugural fund for startups in Southeast Asia at a significant US$384 million.

Nash, the firm’s co-founder and managing partner, knows a thing or two about the rhinos Asia Partners is betting on firsthand. After all, he is the former group president of Sea Group, what used to be an underrated company which now has a market cap of about US$76.7 billion.

Garena, Sea’s gaming arm, has continued to be on a steady growth path. The company’s ecommerce vertical, Shopee, has dominated Southeast Asia within just a few years, keeping competitors like Lazada on their toes.

So we wanted to know just how much impact can a company’s growth – and the way it is growing – affect what its alumni do?

As Tech in Asia found out, that answer is woven into the innate workings of the startups founded by these alumni. And much like in the case of Grab and Gojek’s networks, as we have chronicled previously, the companies founded by former Sea employees are spread out across various verticals.

This is perhaps because those who worked at the company were able to garner a diverse set of experiences before striking out on their own.

In a lot of ecommerce companies, team members usually manage a very specific part of the business, says Weizeng (Wilson) Zhang, founder of Thailand-based electronics trading platform Remobie. “But [at Sea] I got to learn how to be a jack-of-all-trades since Shopee gave me a lot of hands-on experiences in different fields – from marketing to operations.”

Entrepreneur Keren Wang’s experience at Shopee was similar. Wang spent close to five years working in and with different departments in the firm like marketing and cross-border operations before founding an ecommerce enabler called AladdinCommerce in Singapore late last year.

The company helps digitize traditional retailers and onboards them onto platforms such as Shopee and Lazada. Most of AladdinCommerce’s clients are in Singapore and China.

“These are traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, and we help them with everything from taking professional photos to setting up video-streaming and shop optimization,” says Wang.

Her experience on Shopee’s team has given her insight into what is usually expected of these small businesses when they go online. “You need to know the rules of the game to play the game,” she says.

Network is king

Remaining hungry

The forward march