<article>Remember the PayPal mafia? That powerful group of founders and former employees of the US payments firm who went on to launch or back some of the biggest tech companies, including Tesla, YouTube and LinkedIn.</article>

Remember the PayPal mafia? That powerful group of founders and former employees of the US payments firm who went on to launch or back some of the biggest tech companies, including Tesla, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Is a similar network of former startup execs launching and/or investing in new ventures shaping up in Southeast Asia? Yes, and about time, we say.
Take Indonesia-based logistics startup Kargo, which recently emerged out of stealth after raising $7.6 million in seed funding. Founded by former Uber Indonesia head Tiger Fang and backed by former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, among others, its employee base includes several Uber alumni.
For Fang, it was natural to recruit his former colleagues when starting out Kargo, which operates a similar on-demand transportation model, albeit in the logistics space, as Uber.
“I’ve learned to surround myself with highly intelligent, capable and hardworking people who come into the office with purpose &#8211; passionate about bringing efficiency to trucking logistics,” Fang said.
Fang’s other former unicorn employer, Lazada, is probably one of the region’s most prolific producers of venture founders. Two company executives, Andrea Baronchelli and Giovanni Casinelli, left to start cash management solution company Aspire in 2018. Three other executives &#8211; Matthieu Coti, Thibault Couperie Eiffel, and Koussey Goupi &#8211; followed suit earlier this year by teaming up to launch influencer marketing platform Capssion.
Former Lazada execs Tommaso Tamburnotti and Augustin Ceyrac were among the early ones to launch their own venture. They joined hands with former banker Paul Lugagne Delpon to launch shipping software company EasyShip in 2015. Last year, the company raised a $4-million Series A round, which was co-led by former Lazada founder and CEO Matt Bittner.
Another early example is Southeast Asian ride-hailing major Grab&#8217;s former CTO Wei Zhu, who left the company in 2015 and set up insurtech startup Axinan a year later.
Today, the new wave of startup executives turned founders seems to be coming from Indonesia, as more early employees of the country’s unicorns GOJEK, Tokopedia and Traveloka choose to go independent.
“I&#8217;m seeing a new generation of entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia. I call this &#8216;Generation 1.5&#8217; as it&#8217;s not yet a second-time founder, but early employees of high-growth startups learning the ropes and jumping ship to grab new opportunities by the horns,” said Golden Gate Ventures founding partner Vinnie Lauria.
Southeast Asia-focused Golden Gate was an early investor in Sampingan, a freelance jobs marketplace founded by former GOJEK senior manager Wisnu Nugrahadi. The venture capital firm has also backed sports network startup Rovo, which was co-founded by Ritesh Angural, James Dam, Danny Limanseta, and Joshua Newman, four former employees of Singapore’s well-funded grocery shopping site Redmart.
Lauria said that seeing and supporting those former employees transform into founders and investors in the region “is a crucial step required to mature a startup ecosystem and something that has only happened in a handful of places around the globe”.
Other new ventures launched by startup executives include creative service marketplace Moselo, co-founded by former Tokopedia senior content lead Erwin Andreas; fintech startup and Indonesia&#8217;s first Y Combinator participant Payfazz, co-founded by former Kudo executive Hendra Kwik; and insurtech startup Qoala, co-founded by former Traveloka executive Tommy Martin.
For Martin, who teamed up with serial entrepreneur Harshet Lunani to build Qoala, the experience of working at Traveloka enabled him to foresee some of the challenges at his new venture.
He credits his time at Traveloka as having taught him how to adapt to the tech industry&#8217;s fast pace as well as the importance of strong innovation and a solid go-to-market strategy. He has also found that the status of an ex-unicorn employee has somewhat enhanced the reputation of his new venture among potential clients.
“Network and trust are also elements to build a successful company, especially if you are a B2B company. Partners are likely to trust and likely to work together if you come from a big brand and within the ecosystem,” he said.
Since it started operations in February of last year, Qoala has raised an unspecified amount in seed funding from Central Capital Ventura, and MDI Ventures, SeedPlus and Genesia Ventures. The company was also recently chosen among the 17 startups that are part of the first cohort of Sequoia Capital’s Surge accelerator, thereby bagging $1.5 million in funding from the program.
As far as fundraising is concerned, Martin admits that his experience as a former Traveloka employee may have some level of influence on investors but contends that it all really boils down to “the whole package of founders, idea, originality, and execution strategy”.
Genesia Ventures general partner Takahiro Suzuki said that while a founder’s previous experience is a point worthy of consideration, it is essential to look at the role they played in building the company.
&#8220;If someone joins a unicorn company when it is already over $1 billion in valuation, they would have good experience in growth stage, but they may not be able to create a new business. It requires different skills and experience,” said Suzuki, who also led CyberAgent Ventures’ investment in Tokopedia’s Series B round in 2011 during his time as the VC’s Indonesia CEO.
Nevertheless, having former employees of big startups starting new ventures, Suzuki agrees, is bound to have a positive impact on the ecosystem as a whole, as has been proven in other more established markets like the US and India.
According to serial venture capitalist YC NG, such developments are part of the evolution of a startup ecosystem.
Ng, currently a partner at Latitude Venture Partners, said that the cycle of talent is started by the &#8220;trailblazers”, whose struggle and endeavour is passed on to early employees or “torchbearers” who would, over time, leave the companies and use their experience to develop new ideas or improve upon old ones.
&#8220;As time goes by, first-generation trailblazers would have resulted in a mix of successful and non-successful entrepreneurs. Some of them will either retire with their new fortunes, or in their itch to re-start, pick up on prior learnings (and new fortunes) to become second-time entrepreneurs.
“The constant churn of experiences, learnings and growth leads to an exponential growth of the ecosystem. That is why we witness the explosive growth of epicentres such as Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, Singapore, and increasingly Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City,” he said.
However, arguably the biggest event that needs to happen to speed up this phenomenon, as demonstrated in case of the PayPal Mafia, is meaningful exits.
“A topic that hangs over our shoulders would be the lack/rarity of a material liquidity events (notably IPOs and large-scale acquisitions like that of Flipkart). However, I believe we can safely see the growth of the ecosystem already take place &#8211; one can safely say that said liquidity events would only further spur and accelerate such events,” Ng said.
Also Read:
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/uber-kalanick-sea-investment-126509/">Kalanick’s fund makes SE Asia debut, joins Kargo’s $7.6m Sequoia-led round</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/paypal-grab-111863/">PayPal said to be in talks to join Grab’s $3b funding round</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/easyship-funding-112135/">Lazada founder Bittner co-leads $4m Series A for shipping startup Easyship</a>

The new wave of startup execs turned founders seems to be coming from Indonesia, as early employees of unicorns GOJEK, Tokopedia and Traveloka choose to go independent. 

Southeast Asia's own PayPal mafia? It is slowly but surely emerging

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