Gagan Singh is the founder and CEO of WOWS Global, an investor matching platform that assists startups in their primary and secondary transactions.

Born and raised in India, Gagan moved to Southeast Asia over a decade ago. Prior to WOWS Global, Gagan was part of a venture capital firm called Inspire Ventures and also acted as a Group CFO for B2B tech logistics company named Deliveree.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I am building a Digital Investment Bank for Startups. My job is to add value to startups by helping them achieve their financial goals. Be it funding for their early-stage startups to enabling a secondary sale of shares for their early investors, our digital platform assists them across all stages of their growth journey.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Some interesting facts about me:

1. I come from a very small town in India and completed my entire education in my hometown (yes, no fancy MBA).

2. I've not lost a game of poker in the past 2 years.

3. I did try my hand at making Youtube videos which got decent traction :)

Some interesting (or not so interesting) facts about my job: I am a janitor and CEO at the same time. When you are building a startup, you have no option but to be hands-on. It's like Murphy's law — anything that can go wrong will go wrong!

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

It was definitely building my previous startup, Deliveree, a B2B on-demand tech logistics platform that operates out of Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. I was one of the first joiners there and helped scale the company from Pre-Seed to Series C. In the capacity of my role as a Group CFO, I played a pivotal role in raising funding of over USD 100 million for the company.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Definitely Web3. This year, more than $3.8B has been poured into startups in the Web3 space — which includes the metaverse, cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and plenty of augmented reality features. While every now and then there is news of frauds, market crashes, etc., the web3 space continues to show resilience and is arguably the space with the most innovation. It would be interesting to see how everything pans out, but personally, I'm bullish and believe it's the future.

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Be resilient. You will hear a lot of "No" so be prepared for it. Building credibility does take time, so don't expect overnight success. But in the end, success will come, so stay strong and keep hustling.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

My startup is my passion, and I am kind of obsessed with it. I can talk about it for hours and am overly enthusiastic about the way it can advance the existing landscape.

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

The Big Short/Silicon Valley

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Chocolate Chip