Winnie Khoo is a Partner at Antler, the investor backing the world's most driven founders from day zero to greatness. She has more than 25 years of experience in managing tech and media startups cross-functionally across Asia.

Scoop fact: She's an avid Lego collector with more than 400 pieces to date. I have an entire room dedicated to Lego sets!

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

We help the most exceptional entrepreneurs to build their own companies! Starting a company is hard, so we connect them with a global community of co-founders and access to talent, expert advisors, expansion support, and capital.

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

We review over 10,000 founder applications across Southeast Asia every year!

Most VCs don't go to that extent, but at Antler, we really want to make a difference in the industry. Hence we do our best to help as many founders as we can.

Unfortunately, only 5% of them will make it into our residency programs because we also have to ensure that our founders get to work with the best.

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

I've had great journeys at Alibaba, PropertyGuru and Carousell, where I helped them grow from early stage to market leadership positions. But the biggest highlights have always been growing people in my teams, watching them advance in their careers and surpassing me!

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

In Southeast Asia, one of the biggest problems I hope to solve is getting people out of the sandwich generation, i.e., those who need to bring up their own children and care for their aging parents at the same time.

This situation delays their ability to prepare for their own retirement, and as a result, their children are stuck in this vicious cycle.

Asians, in particular, have this unique problem due to our cultural values, and I'm keen to uncover what we can build to break this cycle (while still respecting the values that do make us unique). I'm particularly interested in solutions that could solve this, be it breaking the underlying core principles of insurance or fragmentalizing investment buckets at an early age, etc.

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

Be highly curious about businesses. Look around you and develop your own hypotheses as to why some companies succeed and some fail. Then, build or join a community of like-minded folks and bounce your thoughts off them!

Also, be bold in taking risks — lots of them.

‍

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

I'm a tech geek at heart, so I love talking about new technologies. In my capacity as a coach at Antler, I can talk to founders all day about their businesses and jam about growth!

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Pulp Fiction

‍

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

Mint choco (especially the old-school kind that comes with bread and is sold by uncles with a trolley)