Gavin Teo is a General Partner at Altara Ventures, a Southeast Asia venture capital fund focused on Series A stage investments. 

The firm is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Seoul. Oh, and they’ve backed startups like Tonik, Staffinc, and Clevai!

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

I have the privilege of raising institutional capital for my fund, Altara Ventures, and putting it to work to support entrepreneurs in our portfolio as they build big technology-enabled businesses.

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

Time is our most valuable resource and it has to be used with intentionality. The biggest impact a venture investor can make as a steward of capital is focusing energy in the right places. 

After assets are selected, turning a 2x fund into a 4x fund requires moving a 2nd quartile performer into the top quartile, or the 3rd quartile performer to recover capital. 

The top quartile will succeed almost with or without our input. And unfortunately, the bottom quartile will likely fail regardless of how much we lean in. 

Our constant challenge is to decisively identify where and how to spend our time and then be disciplined and respectful in setting expectations when we cannot. Of course, we need an open mind as there are always surprises.

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

The biggest highlight of my career is raising an institutional venture fund as a startup GP. 

After more than a decade of investing capital on other people's platforms, it is a daunting honor and privilege to have done it with my partners on a platform that I co-own. 

As the adage goes, the nature of venture is investing, but the business of venture is raising and managing money over successive economic cycles. I will always be proud of making that leap (during COVID!).

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

I'm looking closely at technology across the healthcare value chain, an early but fast-growing sector in our region. 

I have done most of my investing in the consumer sector to date, and I will continue to look at ways that new tech like AI enables the production and distribution of consumer goods and services more efficiently.

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

Invest in building expertise in an area where you have interest and conviction. This can take a geographic, sectoral, functional, or technological lens. Write your thoughts down, refine, test, and develop your own thesis. 

Then, identify the rising stars in our industry and take them out for coffee. Our business is built on information asymmetry and access: spotting things before others and having the network to put deals together, both on the buy and sell side.

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

Singapore.

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

Dune and The Mandalorian (all seasons).

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

Brandied cherry.

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FYI. We've edited this interview for clarity.