Bangladesh Angels

With 10+ years of experience as an investment banker and investor, Sadaf Sultan has worked at the bleeding edge of venture capital and private equity globally. Based in Singapore, he is currently leading a financial advisory firm focused on startup founders and investors called Finprojections. An INSEAD alumnus, Sadaf Sultan has honed his experience in world-renowned organizations such as Goldman Sachs and IFC. He is also a mentor at 500 Startups. Finprojections is a financial advisory firm focused on providing high-impact tailored solutions to the startup ecosystem. The firm currently provides financial modeling and virtual CFO services to startups and transaction diligence services to startup investors. Hear from Sadaf Sultan about Finprojections, how it was founded, the virtual CFO movement, and how FinProjections helps founders navigate the world of fundraising.

Catch Hannes Kirchhoff  from SOLshare, Julian Weber from SELISE and Zahin Razeen from Hydroquo+ in the third episode of The Bridge, where they talk about: - Bangladesh's startup ecosystem and leveraging the DACH connection to create stronger regional corporations and accelerate the startup ecosystem in Bangladesh - the areas of work of each of their respective companies - building the local talent pipeline and leveraging Bangladeshi talent The Bangladesh-German Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BGCCI) is a trusted name among German and Bangladeshi businesses. Since its inception, BGCCI has been working as a catalyst for accelerating economic growth for both the partner countries. Being an independent, member-driven bilateral trade organization, BGCCI is known for its vast network at home and abroad. About the Bridge: In this podcast series, we highlight stories of Bangladeshi diaspora entrepreneurship around the world, bringing lessons and perspectives from such entrepreneurs back to Bangladesh and vice versa.

Epic Angels is a network of female executives and operators who have built and expanded companies in all parts of the world. Based in Singapore, it's on track to become the largest female-only angel network in Asia. Its focus is early-stage startups in Asia across all verticals. It invests in pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds. As a strong advocate of female leadership, it prefers having at least one woman in the executive team of its pipeline companies. About the speaker: Maaike Doyer is an entrepreneur, educator, and design strategist with a twisted love for numbers. She studied math, had a career in M&A, and in the past decade, she led a global design firm as the CFO / COO. She personally brought the company from Europe to the US where she founded and scaled their offices in San Francisco and New York. Her company produced the famous business model canvas book, Business Model Generation. She has supported hundreds of organizations of all sizes, all industries, and all geographies with their business model strategy. In the end of 2020 she moved to Singapore to learn more about the Asian culture, and launched Epic Angels within a short period of time.

In this episode we have with us, Reima Linnanvirta, Chair of the Board at the Finnish Business Angels Network (FiBAN). ​Structured as a non-profit association of private investors on a mission to inspire private investments, the network is one of the largest and most active business angel networks in the world with over 650+ approved members. Its three main activities consist of matchmaking of startups and investors, sharing of best practices, and representing the interest of private investors. Hear from Reima on the model and focus of FiBAN, its due diligence and syndication process, portfolio companies, and its training program for current and aspiring business angels.

Value For Women Ltd. offers holistic and tailored advisory support with a gender lens to a diverse set of organizations, investors, and SGBs (Small and Growing businesses). Increasingly, studies indicate that gender inclusion is not only the right thing to do in terms of promoting gender equality but also a key strategy for improving business performance, efficiency, and productivity. In this session, we will hear from Rebecca about the work and model of Value for Women, the four types of gender smart investing, gender forward businesses and lessons for Bangladesh. As Chief Executive Officer and Founding Director of Value for Women, Rebecca has spearheaded the growth of the organization into a globally-recognized leader in gender-inclusive business practice. With over 20 years of global expertise, Rebecca leads Value for Women in its efforts to design innovation for gender inclusion with investors, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), banks, financial institutions, development organizations and corporate foundations. Under Rebecca’s leadership, the Value for Women team works globally in a collaborative, multidisciplinary manner, applying practical, hands-on approaches to solve business and investment challenges with a gender and inclusion lens. This involves the delivery of advisory services, and the design of research, training and communications. Rebecca has also authored and led sector-changing research on the intersection of gender, investment, entrepreneurship and economic development across sectors such as Sustainable Energy, Finance, Agriculture and Entrepreneurship. Rebecca is frequently invited to speak as an industry expert in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

In this episode, we will hear from Vera Elizabeth Baker, Venture Partner at Jua Fund, about the Jua Fund, her experience as an angel investor with the Atomico Angel Programme, diversity in the European tech ecosystem and lessons for emerging markets such as Bangladesh, barriers that underrepresented founders face in attracting investments, and why it's important to invest in/support more such ventures.  Vera Elizabeth Baker is a Paris-based Venture Partner at Jua Fund. Jua Fund is an early-stage, Pan-African fund that invests capital and community into exceptional founders. She invests in European startups as an Angel Investor for Atomico in the areas of sustainable solutions, future of food, future of work and broadening access to care. She has also built a global community of women of color (and allies) via For Colored Girls Who Tech, a curated weekly newsletter highlighting entrepreneurship and venture capital in the tech ecosystem.

Maxime Cheng is the Lead Market and Capacity Building Programs at Roots of Impact, an Impact Linked Finance advisory firm based in Germany. She is also the programme manager of the impact investing eco-system building programme Biniyog Briddhi in Bangladesh, working with the Embassy of Switzerland and LightCastle Partners to address both supply and demand side of the Bangladeshi Impact Investing pipeline. Throughout her 10+ years of experience working in the sector of impact entrepreneurship, she gathers expertise in impact measurement and is a skilled translator of the subject to both impact entrepreneurs and investors and facilitated over 10 Impact Linked Finance transactions globally as of today. In this episode, Maxime talks about Roots of Impact, impact linked finance in the Bangladeshi context, the Biniyog Briddhi program in Bangladesh, challenges Bangladeshi entrepreneurs face in raising institutional impact funds, and more!

Deepali is an advisor to female founders and an angel investor with a keen interest in digital health, femtech, and sustainability. Deepali invests in female founders/mixed teams and some of her investments include LiveBetterWith, PensionBee, Polipop, Parla, PLANERA, Kama Labs, Sano Genetics, Shellworks, SideQuest, JunoBio, FLOWN, Okko and yhangry. She is also a co-founder at Alma Angels (www.alma-angels.com), set-up to democratize and demystify angel investing and create more female angel investors that invest in female founders. She is also an Atomico Angel and a Venture Partner at Speedinvest (where she focuses on female founders). Deepali is the UK Business Angels Association's Angel Investor of the Year. In this episode, we will hear from her about Alma Angels, supporting early-stage tech founders with the right tools, barriers that female founding teams face in attracting investments, investing in early-stage tech startups and more!

Akeel Jabber is the Investment Director and GP at Horizen Capital, a leading SaaS operations group consisting of Marketing and Finance experts who specialize in growth marketing and Mergers & Acquisitions. They are focused on partnering up with hand-picked B2B SaaS companies with the aim of helping founders maximize company growth with the help of their data-driven approach. In addition, through the help of their global network of investors and strategic acquirers, they also help companies raise funds or undertake M&A processes. The 4 core values of Horizen Capital are Integrity, Autonomy, Commitment, and Personal Development, and their entire team strives towards living up to these values by continuously seeking partners who share them. Akeel is a growth marketing expert who also specializes in business operations. He started his career as an engineer before entering the world of digital marketing. He then took on the role of CEO at 2 different digital marketing firms - $99 Social and Increase Visibility Inc. Before joining HoriZen Capital, Akeel was a partner and operations director at Wire Investors, a private equity firm specializing in digital asset acquisitions.

Amra is the Co-Founder of Accelerating Asia and General Partner at Accelerating Asia Ventures, an award-winning startup accelerator that scouts and propels the best founders in the region and provides pre-Series A startups with the resources and investment to scale their growth. ​She is the Southeast Asia Lead for Impact Capital and Outgoing Curator for the Global Shapers Singapore Hub, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and is the host and creator of the Doing Good Podcast. She has been interviewed and featured as a guest author on industry blogs, including The Straits Times, Techcrunch, Reuters, is a regular guest on 938Now’s national radio show and named as one of Harpers Bazaar’s Women Who Inspire Others. Amra regularly speaks about the intersection of business and impact, including at global events such as Money 20/20 (Singapore), Singularity University Impact Challenge (Poland) and the Asia Corporate Sustainability Summit (Philippines).

Munawar Hafiz is the founder and CEO of OpenRefactory, Inc., an application security company that intends to improve the way developers write secure, reliable, and compliant code. Recently AISI, in partnership with BAN, has led a pre-seed investment into OpenRefactory, which is serving clients around the world, from its bases in both US and Bangladesh. In this episode, Munawar will discuss the possibilities of deeptech in Europe.

Deborah Quazzo is the Managing Partner at GSV Ventures. GSV Ventures is a venture fund investing in education and workforce skills technologies that are disrupting the $7 Trillion sector and named to Insider’s inaugural list of top 100 seed investors. In addition, Deborah is the Co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit. Now in its 13th year, the ASU+GSV Summit celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “preK to Gray” learning and talent landscape and attracts over 5,500 attendees. Hear from Deborah on the history of GSV and the ASU+GSV summit, how has GSV's investment thesis or process changed as a result of the pandemic, GSV's investment strategy when investing into emerging markets such as India and Indonesia, de-risking investments, and more. 

With 9 years of experience across Ed-tech, Food-tech, Beauty-tech, Media-tech, and Healthcare tech, Deeksha wears many hats as an entrepreneur, consultant, investor, collaborator. She is committed to enabling growth in the startup ecosystem through diversity and sustainability as the driving force behind her work. Encubay is a diversity-focused startup network that is creating a connected and inclusive ecosystem for female founders. Encubay Angel Network , one of the initiatives under Encubay's banner, aims to unlock the huge potential of funds that rest with women & men who are keen to invest in diverse founders. Founded in 2020, Encubay was launched in collaboration with GreenHouse Capital Africa that aims at bringing up the percentage of women in the startup ecosystem from the current 14% which is dismal. In her journey with Encubay, Deeksha also realized that there was a lack of funding that was making its way into the hands of early-stage startups founded by women. It was hypothesized that part of the reason was a lack of female angel investors in India. After some women reached out and expressed their interest in investing in diverse startups, the idea for the Encubay Angel Network was born. The angel network aims to create a collective of women who want to invest in women-led startups, thereby increasing the funding that is being provided to diverse startups. The network was founded in partnership with Deeksha’s co-founder at Encubay - Eashita Maheshwary, and three other accomplished women investors and founders - Ankita Vashistha, Jayaroopa Jeyabarathi and Anisha Patnaik. They facilitated their first angel investment in Ready Set Jet - a beauty and social-impact lead company founded by Shalini Vadhera. The investment was done from some of the top women in the country who were partners at the largest VC funds. The Network is also preparing to announce their second investment and they aim to also provide access to smart capital to any startup that they invest in through the networks that were built at Encubay. In this episode, Deeksha talks about the investing strategy & process of Encubay, cross border pollination, collaboration, and co-investments in the region, gender lens investing in SEA, among other things.

Visa Kannan is a Partner at Saison Capital, a single LP fund backed by Credit Saison Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. that invests in Pre-Seed to Series B companies globally, but with a focus on South East Asia and India. Investing across all verticals, including but not limited to SaaS, marketplaces, fintech, Saison Capital has a deep fondness for embedded finance – non-fintech companies and industry leaders that are looking to build fintech arms within their ecosystems.  Visa comes with a wealth of experience in the startup space, having previously held leadership roles at 2 unicorns - Grofers and Lazada. She also has a background in consulting and law. In this episode, Visa talks about Saison Capital, its investment thesis, Saison's portfolio companies in Pakistan and India, scaling startups, and more!

Adrien Barthel is a co-founder of Sleek - Asia's leading corporate services platform with more than 5,000 SMEs under management in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.  Prior to this role, Adrien spent six years in the eCommerce space as CMO with Luxola expanding in Southeast Asia (Sold to the LVMH Group in 2015) and with the Carrefour Groupe as their Head of eCommerce in Indonesia. Adrien is also an active angel investor in Southeast Asia. Hear from Adrien on how he built Sleek, attaining product-market fit, and Sleek's fundraising strategy which has resulted in $9M raised to date.

Hear from Angela Lee, Founder of 37 Angels, about the story behind 37 Angels, its initiatives, guiding principles in due diligence, her approach to value creation in getting companies from Seed to Series A, and more. 37 Angels, based out of New York, is one of the leading communities of women investors committed to funding early stage startups. Angela Lee is an award-winning professor and former Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business School where she teaches venture capital and leadership courses. Angela started her career in product management and then moved to consulting at McKinsey & Company. She has started 4 startups and is also the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated over 15000 startups, invested in 70+, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp. She also serves as a venture partner at Fresco Capital, an early-stage venture fund that focuses on the future of work, digital health, and sustainability.   Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is an expert in teaching online and making learning scalable. She is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC and Fox Business. She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch, and by Crain’s as a Notable Women in Tech. In 2020, she was awarded the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence at Columbia Business School.

Welcome to the first episode of SCALE by Bangladesh Angels. In this podcast series, we talk to entrepreneurs and investors who built and invested in businesses that have gone on to raise or generate revenues of millions of dollars, employ hundreds or more employees and serve millions of users in order to unlock the secrets of scaling a company Patrick Flesner is a growth capital investor and a partner at the investment firm LeadX Capital Partners. Each year, he looks at hundreds of tech companies that want to raise capital in order to accelerate growth. He sees patterns in companies that fail and companies that succeed. His respective growth expertise and his knowledge deriving from more than 16 years in Private Equity and Venture Capital have gone into his latest book, FastScaling. Prior to joining LeadX Capital Partners where he built one of the largest European portfolios of B2B tech companies active in consumer industries, Patrick Flesner was a lawyer and partner at reputable German business law firms. His articles on Venture Capital and M&A have been published by renowned magazines like the MIT Sloan Management Review and the Global Corporate Venturing Magazine.

Sayma Rahman is an active startup mentor, investor, and advisor, with companies such as Thrive Edtech and Jobike under her portfolio. An INSEAD and North South University alumna, Sayma has held several positions of leadership across top organizations in Bangladesh. Her expertise and experience across digitalization, partnerships, retail modernization, product development, projects, intrapreneurship & angel investing make her an asset to any startup founder.  Hear from her on her journey, as a third culture kid growing up in the Middle East, to coming back to Bangladesh and helping to set up partnerships with major international tech companies and startups for the largest telco in Bangladesh.  She also details how she has applied her lessons and skills from the corporate world to advising and investing in startups. Finally, she shares tips on personal finance and angel investing for other corporate executives looking to explore this asset class.

In this episode, Karen Contet, co-founder of WHub.io - Hong Kong's biggest startup community and power connector, and co-founder & CEO of AngelHub, dives into investing in growth-stage tech companies scaling or established in Asia. Karen is also the founding board member of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong. Immersed in the startup scene, she is a French Foreign Trade Advisor, Community Leader for Techstars, Accelerator Programs Mentor, International Conference Speaker (InspireFest2018 in Dublin, JS conference in Singapore, Vivatech in France, RISE in Hong Kong), FrenchTech Ambassador, and WomenWhoCodeHK Founder. 

Peter Rostovsky is the Founder & CEO of Raiseway, which makes investment crowdfunding easy and affordable for small business owners with its AI-enabled SaaS platform. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Crowdfunding Professional Association.In the past, Peter worked in Business Development for Crowdfund Better, produced interviews for FintechTV, and consulted businesses on crowdfunding, private equity fundraising, marketing & sales. Peter is a former capital markets intelligence salesman for Preqin, Debtwire, Xtract Research & Continuum Economics, where his clients included the World Bank, Federal Reserve, EY, Blackrock, Blackstone, Kirkland & Ellis, CBRE, Interamerican Development Bank, Apollo, Oaktree, and others. We learned about: Finding debt and revenue-sharing deals in the U.S. investment crowdfunding market Doing due diligence on these deals Identifying sales opportunities for our BPO services in the Reg CF market Supporting Bengali small business owners in the United States with investment crowdfunding