The On Call with Insignia Podcast

Ahead of a new call next week with returning guests Dayu Dara Permata and Ahmed Aljunied, founders of Pinhome, we're recapping three years of calls with the entrepreneurs leading what is now Indonesia's leading end-to-end property transaction platform and globally one of the most comprehensive platforms for all things home. Check out the full calls with them over the years, in 2020 , in 20...

Our call with Greg Krasnov, CEO and Founder of Philippine digital bank Tonik , continues in this episode. He shares more on his views on global fintech in today's bear market, Tonik's thesis on digital banking in the Philippines, the impact of automation on their organization. He also gives a quick masterclass on credit monetization. Check out last week's episode going behind the scene...

Join part 1 of our call with Greg Krasnov, CEO and Founder of Tonik, a Philippine digital bank that hit record user and deposit growth months after launch in early 2021, and over the past year has been focused on building up a balanced, scalable loan portfolio. Greg also shares his thoughts on generative AI and how this technology will change banking. Subscribe and stay tuned for Part 2 next week!...

Go on call with Anthony Chow, CEO and Co-Founder of igloo, a global smart access solutions company that recently celebrated eight years, securing more than 300K door assets with more than 10M digital keys issued across 100 countries. To celebrate their eight year anniversary and highlight the product launch of their latest enterprise smart padlock, they sent eight models into space! Anthony return...

Our call with Ernest Chew, CFO of AI-driven used car online platform Carro, continues in this episode. He shares his thoughts on EVs, unlearnings from two years as CFO, advice for finance professionals venturing into startups, and much more. Check out last week's episode going behind the scenes of Carro's balance of growth and profitability. Timestamps (01:00) Ernest's views on EVs and...

Go on call with Ernest Chew , CFO of Carro , a company leading the way in reshaping the used car industry with its AI-driven car buying experience. They recently announced record profitability in Q1 for FY 2024 (3x the entire last full year), the latest achievement in the company's journey becoming now one of very high-growth tech start-up that is profitable across all metrics, with growth dri...

Our conversation with Reuters #Asia #Technology Correspondent Fanny Potkin continues in this episode, where we tackle a new topic: #AI. From Generative AI #regulation developments to existing Data Privacy laws, #GenerativeAI memorization issues, and AI in #media, join us in this week's call! #podcast Watch part one where we talk all about semiconductor supply chains and influx of global compan...

Global companies setting up HQs in Singapore and shifting factories and R&D offices from China to Vietnam. Semiconductor supply chains diversifying with chip nationalism. Macroeconomic headwinds posing challenges for startup fundraising. What do these mean for Southeast Asia startups and ASEANnovation? Paulo goes on call with Fanny Potkin, Asia Technology Correspondent at Reuters to talk about...

How can your company leverage generative AI to become more operationally efficient? What are the opportunities for engineering talent in Vietnam? How do you approach organizational development from early-stage to growth? One of Vietnam's leading startup CEOs, ⁠Huy Nghiem , shares his takes from experience growing ⁠Finhay from an idea in 2017 into an organization now employing 160 Vietnamese bu...

On call with us this week is Huy Nghiem , CEO and Founder of smart investment platform Finhay⁠ . A year after his last conversation with Paulo , he returns with updates and learnings from the fintech's growth, now serving more than 3 million users. He also brings with him insights and stats painting a picture of Vietnam's economic resilience, an uptick in stock market activity in Q2, and t...

Indonesian agritech for farmers Elevarm's CTO and co-founder Febi Agil Ifdillah and CPO Bayu Adi Persada⁠ share how Elevarm approach to digitalizing farming in Indonesia impacts the kind of engineers and operators they hire, Elevarm's path to profitability and place in future agritech industry, and their own leadership styles. In last week's episode , Febi and Bayu shared their stories...

In this call, ⁠Febi Agil Ifdillah⁠ (co-founder and CTO) and ⁠Bayu Adi Persada (CPO) dial in from Indonesia. They are tech leaders at Elevarm , a digitally-enabled ecosystem to uplift the lives of 15 million smallholder farmers in their country's fragmented agriculture industry and ultimately contribute to the world's food and environmental sustainability. Their call with Paulo comes as the...

Join us on call with Jason Tan , CFO and Co-Founder of Rainforest , an ecommerce house of brands buying and growing brands for parenting and kids categories. Q1 this year the company marked its first profitable quarter and now with 16 brands in its portfolio, looks to expand their acquisitions beyond Amazon brands and build up their post-acquisition capabilities ( they are hiring! ). Jason goes do...

As we navigate through the midpoint of 2023, it is essential to reflect on the significant innovation trends shaping Southeast Asia’s landscape. These innovations are not just transforming the region’s business and economic environments but are also moulding the future career opportunities for the next decade. Here, we have extracted wisdom from several leaders  on Season 5 of the On Call with Ins...

SaaS operator and Salesforce alum ⁠Jeraldine Phneah⁠ goes on call with host ⁠Paulo J⁠ in this episode of ⁠Academy Afterthoughts⁠ to walk down memory lane on her Insignia Ventures Academy VC accelerator experience, how she was able to leverage the VC perspective she gained in her SaaS career, how content creation and her career come together, as well as dive into her learnings on GTM and sales engi...

Ecommerce operator and former Lazada growth exec Geraldine Se goes on call with host Paulo J in this episode of Academy Afterthoughts to walk down memory lane on her Insignia Ventures Academy VC accelerator experience in the pioneering cohort in 2021, share how the program impacted her career as a tech leader and angel investor, as well as dive into her own approach to early-stage investing. The V...

The ability of a company to unlock value from its own data is at the heart of many business transformation trends today, from generative AI to ESG reporting, the future of work to more adaptive financial management. Two business automation founders who have made it their mission to help companies build better data sets go on call with Paulo to talk about how to unlock this value and more. blueshee...

Insignia Ventures founding managing partner, Yinglan Tan , returns to host this episode as we go on call with Shinji Asada , Co-Founder & CEO, General Partner of One Capital . As a 20+ year veteran in the SaaS and venture capital space in Japan (formerly ITOCHU Ventures, Salesforce Ventures), Shinji shares his decades of experience in investing and building software companies across Japan and...

Join Paulo on call with Dino Setiawan , CEO and Co-founder of AwanTunai , Indonesia's leading supply chain financing and ERP platform. AwanTunai is at the intersection of fintech and software, enabling MSMEs and unlocking growth in the massive more than US$100B FMCG industry in Indonesia.  Dino returns to the show after two years to talk about how AwanTunai has evolved over that time. He share...

Insignia Ventures Academy Cohort 1 alumnus Jui Takle shares with Paulo her journey after joining the first-of-its-kind venture capital accelerator program and how she started to lead strategic development at the Philippines' pioneering digital bank Tonik . Get insights into Jui's experiences in the fintech industry from 12 years in fintech and credit rating agencies, particularly in the Ph...

Join us on call with Frank Ng , Head of Marketing at Intellect , Asia's leading mental healthcare company. With a wealth of experience in growth marketing at companies like Skyscanner and Uber, Frank shares invaluable insights into his journey as a marketing leader, the frameworks and heuristics behind his approach to marketing mental healthcare solutions, and developing a marketing function f...

From managing enterprise sales teams to adapting to Indonesia’s regulatory landscape and ensuring organizational maturity to secure ISO and AI-technology certifications, Vivi Mandasari , COO of Verihubs , has had to grow herself as much as she has helped grow the company since joining in 2019. She shares learnings from her journey thus far in this episode with specific focus on selling AI solution...

Is community building really valuable to a fast-growing business? How do you ensure they contribute both to the company and the ecosystem’s bottom lines as well? Joel Leong , co-founder and CMO of Aspire , an all-in-one finance operating software for businesses, shares more about Entrepreneurs of SEA and CFO Connect, two community initiatives he has been leading, to answer these questions and shar...

More than twelve years ago, the co-founder and COO then CFO, Hernan Kazah , together with the former CFO, Nicholas Szekasy, of now Latin American technology giant Mercado Libre decided to build a “true venture capital firm for Latin America,” one where entrepreneurs and former operators are partnering with founders rather than just investors deploying capital. 114+ ventures, 275+ entrepreneurs, an...