<article>Once the stuff of myths, startups with billion-dollar valuations, or unicorns, are now no longer rare. In fact, Asia is home to more than 60 such startups.</article>

Once the stuff of myths, startups with billion-dollar valuations, or unicorns, are now no longer rare. In fact, Asia is home to more than 60 such startups.
But what goes into the making of a unicorn? How long and arduous is the journey from starting up to scaling up? At the Asia PE-VC Summit 2017, we will bring together two enterprising executives building the region’s next unicorns to share their experiences.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-80382 aligncenter" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=300,300" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?w=300 300w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=150,150 150w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=125,125 125w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=32,32 32w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=50,50 50w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=64,64 64w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=96,96 96w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/chatri.jpg?resize=128,128 128w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
Chatri Sityodtong, Chairman and CEO, ONE Championship
Running a startup can often feel like being in a ring, with founders required to stay on their toes and out of the way of unexpected jabs thrown their way.
It helps that Chatri Sityodtong is a trained martial artist. “If not for the discipline of martial arts, I would have quit multiple times within the first three years of launching ONE Championship,” he says.
His is the proverbial <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/chatri-sityodtong-one-championship-2-80034/">rags-to-riches story</a> but what makes it all the more interesting is what he has set his sights on – creating Asia&#8217;s first multi-billion sports property to rival the likes of NBA in the US.
In July, ONE Championship, the mixed martial arts (MMA) competition that Chatri founded in 2011, secured a major equity investment led by venture capital firm Sequoia India and Mission Holdings. That investment, which brought external funding so far to over $100 million, came just months after the firm raised an undisclosed amount from a unit of Temasek, Singapore’s state investment fund.
Chatri, who fought his way out of poverty, got his first break when the internet company Nextdoor Networks he co-founded raised $0.5 million in angel funding, and then about $40 million in venture capital funding. He then spent over a decade on Wall Street, with stints at Fidelity Investments and Bain and Company.
Chatri launched his own hedge fund, Izara Capital Management, after leading the $12-billion Maverick Capital hedge fund. A passion for martial arts and the absence of a strong Asian brand in the space led him to start ONE Championship.
Chatri says it&#8217;s the warrior spirit instilled in him by martial arts that has helped him in this journey. He now expects ONE Championship to cross the $1 billion valuation mark in the next 12 months.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-80384 aligncenter" src="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=300,300" alt="" srcset="https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?w=600 600w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=150,150 150w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=300,300 300w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=125,125 125w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=32,32 32w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=50,50 50w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=64,64 64w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=96,96 96w, https://media.dealstreetasia.com/uploads/2017/08/hari-krishnan.jpg?resize=128,128 128w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" data-recalc-dims="1" />
Hari V Krishnan, President &amp; Chief Executive Officer, PropertyGuru Group
A technology industry veteran with leadership stints at Fox Interactive Media, Yahoo! and Cisco, Krishnan was the Vice President &amp; Managing Director for APAC &amp; Japan at LinkedIn before he moved to PropertyGuru, Asia’s leading online property portal.
Krishnan sees the move as a natural progression for a career focused on taking businesses digital. Elevated to the CEO position in September last year, he will oversee the TPG Capital-backed firm achieve its next set of milestones &#8212; see its valuation cross $1 billion in the near future, and achieve profitability at a group level &#8212; a unique feat for internet firms from the region &#8212; by the calendar-year end.
Krishnan says his technology experience has served him in good stead as he leads PropertyGuru towards profitabilty.
&#8220;I think running a consumer Internet platform as a business is an excellent way to drive discipline&#8230; Focusing on actually generating revenue and profitability is something that both the companies (LinkedIn and PropertyGuru) have in common and it is not mutually exclusive with creating an excellent consumer experience,&#8221; he told this portal in an <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/focused-asean-especially-indonesia-hari-krishnan-propertyguru-62889/">interaction</a>.
PropertyGuru embarked on a series of investments in recent years to expand into new markets and add to its technology and marketing capabilities, driving up costs and cutting into profit. It picked up a stake in Vietnam’s Batdongsan last year, marking its entry into the fifth market in the region after Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. It has previously bought out Indonesian realty portals Rumah.com and RumahDijual.com.
Krishnan expects the property search portal to reap the benefits of that expansion this year, especially in Indonesia and Vietnam. “We are a market leader in four of the five markets and the largest in the region by any measure whether traffic, total listings, revenues,” he <a href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/propertyguru-to-turn-profitable-this-year-after-expansion-spurt-66435/">recently said</a> in an interview.
The firm&#8217;s last round was in 2015 when it attracted S$175 million ($124 million) from investors including TPG and Indonesia’s Emtek Group. It was the second-largest amount raised by a tech company in Southeast Asia that year.
Also Read:
<a class="tinymce-colortext" style="color: #ff0000;" href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/propertyguru-to-turn-profitable-this-year-after-expansion-spurt-66435/">Singapore: PropertyGuru to turn profitable this year after expansion spurt</a>
<a class="tinymce-colortext" style="color: #ff0000;" href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/focused-asean-especially-indonesia-hari-krishnan-propertyguru-62889/">We’re very focused on ASEAN, especially Indonesia: Hari Krishnan, PropertyGuru</a>
<h4>Join us at the Asia PE-VC Summit 2017. It&#8217;s where the leading deal makers from Southeast Asia, India and China will gather to discuss the trends, opportunities and challenges in the region&#8217;s investment landscape. </h4>
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At the Asia PE-VC Summit 2017, ONE Championship's Chatri Sityodtong and PropertyGuru's Hari Krishnan will share their experiences.

What does it take to build Asia's next unicorns? Top execs to share their secrets

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