Capital, Clarity, and Cross-Border Insight: AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 Reveals Investor Panel

AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 Reveals Distinguished Investor Panel for March 18 Virtual Pitch Forum

AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 has unveiled a distinguished lineup of investors for its upcoming virtual startup pitch and investor dialogue forum on 18 March 2026 from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM (SGT). The quarterly event — hosted by AsiaTechDaily, beSUCCESS, KoreaTechDesk, and IndiaTechDesk — continues its mission to bring emerging Asian startups together with experienced investors for focused, high-impact discussions around fundraising, growth strategy, and cross-border scaling.

As Asia’s startup ecosystem evolves in 2026, this edition’s investor panel reflects a blend of regional insights, cross-border capital experience, and sector expertise, offering founders the opportunity to gain practical feedback and explore meaningful engagements beyond the pitch stage.

Introducing the AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 Investor Panel

Grace Kim — Investor, Sazze Partners (US / South Korea)
Grace Kim is a key investor at Sazze Partners, a Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in innovative technology companies across the United States and Korea. Sazze Partners supports founders from pre-seed through Series A, providing both strategic capital and guidance to help ambitious startups scale beyond local markets. Grace focuses on consumer technology, consumer products, and retail, seeking teams with global vision and the ability to thrive on the international stage.

Urska Vracun — Angel Investor, Epic Angels (Singapore)
Urska Vracun is an active angel investor and ecosystem leader associated with Epic Angels, one of the largest female-only angel investor networks globally. Based in Singapore, Epic Angels backs diverse early-stage founders from pre-seed to Series A, while working to democratize access to angel investing. Urska’s cross-border experience and mentorship support founders navigating early growth and international expansion opportunities.

Tommy Khương — Investment Associate, JDI Group (Vietnam)
Tommy Khương serves as an Investment Associate at JDI Group, a venture catalyst and advisory platform empowering startups across Southeast Asia to build and scale disruptive innovations. JDI works closely with founders on tailored fundraising strategies, pitch preparation, and capital access support, emphasizing readiness for institutional investment. Tommy’s perspective in bridging early-stage teams toward investor readiness brings tactical value to founders participating in the expo.

Sunay Kumat — Angel Investor (India)
Sunay Kumat is an angel investor and finance professional with deep experience across financial services and investment advisory. With a strong background in capital markets, financial structuring, and strategic analysis, Sunay helps founders sharpen their fundraising positioning and business fundamentals. His structured, execution-oriented feedback is particularly valuable for startups refining valuation considerations and investor conversations.

Kingsen Yan — Angel Investor & EdTech Founder (Indonesia)
Kingsen Yan is an Indonesian angel investor and EdTech veteran with extensive experience building and scaling education technology companies. Prior to angel investing, he founded and led an EdTech platform that reached more than 10,000 teachers and 200,000 students nationwide, culminating in a successful acquisition. Kingsen now supports early-stage founders, leveraging his operational experience and EdTech insights to guide teams through strategic growth and market expansion.

Richard Taslim — Investor, Openspace Capital (Singapore)
Richard Taslim represents Openspace Capital, a Singapore-headquartered multi-strategy asset manager with a long-established specialist focus on Southeast Asia’s technology ecosystem. Founded in 2014, Openspace backs tech-native and tech-enabled businesses across early and growth stages, supporting portfolio companies with capital, strategic guidance, and operational insight. Richard’s experience includes engaging with some of the region’s best-known venture-backed companies and identifying scalable opportunities across sectors.

Ritwik Kumar — Angel Investor & Technology Leader (India)
Ritwik Kumar is an angel investor and seasoned technology leader who specializes in building and leading engineering teams to deliver high-impact, scalable solutions. With deep expertise in technical strategy, system architecture, and leadership development, Ritwik offers founders insights on aligning technology execution with business goals. His perspective is particularly valuable for startups refining their product roadmaps and technical narratives ahead of growth-stage discussions.

Rimjhim Ray — AI Innovator & Angel Investor (India)
Rimjhim Ray is a recognized technology leader, AI innovator, and angel investor with more than 17 years of global experience across India, the US, Europe, and APAC. A member of the NASSCOM Insights Advisory Board, Rimjhim has led large-scale digital transformation and product initiatives and later co-founded AI-driven platforms at Spotle.ai. She has been recognized as a Woman of Influence and among India’s Top Women Tech Entrepreneurs, and she actively mentors early-stage founders while advocating for AI innovation adoption.

Gaurav Pant — Angel Investor & Technology Leader (India)
Gaurav Pant is an angel investor known for his leadership in engineering and product execution. With deep experience in technical leadership, strategic product development, and team mentorship, Gaurav brings insights that help founders align technology strategy with business outcomes. His emphasis on collaboration, ownership, and resilient systems supports startups navigating early-stage challenges and growth trajectories.

Jo Chaturvedi-Durant — Investor, VU Venture Partners (India / UK)
Jo Chaturvedi-Durant is a private markets and VC investor with 17 years of experience in the investment management industry. She invests across stages, geographies, and sectors, and serves on investment screening committees for impact funds while building entrepreneurial initiatives. At VU Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital firm, Jo focuses on identifying and supporting high-growth opportunities across consumer, enterprise, FinTech, healthcare, and frontier sectors.

Lee Teng Hau — Investment Director, Kairous Capital (Malaysia)
Lee Teng Hau is Investment Director at Kairous Capital, a regional venture capital and private equity firm headquartered in Malaysia. The firm focuses on scaling technology-driven businesses across Southeast Asia and China, typically investing in Series A and early growth companies. Lee partners with founders on strategic scaling, operational execution, and cross-border expansion, bringing a fundamentals-driven investment approach to portfolio engagement and long-term value creation.

Mitchelle Chang — Investment Manager, Pegatron Ventures (Taiwan)
Mitchelle Chang serves as Investment Manager at Pegatron Ventures, the corporate venture arm of PEGATRON Corporation — a leading global design and manufacturing services company. She focuses on investing in technology-driven startups and supporting them with strategic capital, product development insights, and access to global manufacturing and supply chain capabilities. Her role helps founders accelerate commercialization and scale within hardware-software integrated markets.

Why This Panel Matters

The AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 investor panel reflects the evolving nature of capital deployment across Asia. It brings together early-stage angels, regional venture capital firms, multi-stage global funds, and corporate venture investors — each operating at different points along the startup growth curve.

This diversity is particularly relevant in 2026, as founders face a more disciplined fundraising environment shaped by capital efficiency, clearer paths to profitability, and sharper scrutiny around execution. Early-stage investors on the panel offer perspective on product–market validation and founder readiness, while growth-focused and corporate investors provide insight into scalability, governance, and cross-border expansion.

Collectively, the panel spans Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Europe, and the United States — reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of Asia’s startup ecosystem. Their sector exposure ranges from consumer and enterprise technology to AI infrastructure, fintech, EdTech, hardware innovation, and deep tech. This breadth ensures that discussions move beyond surface-level pitch feedback toward deeper questions of defensibility, market timing, and long-term value creation.

For founders, this means exposure not only to capital — but to multiple lenses of evaluation. It creates an environment where startups can understand how different investor profiles assess risk, opportunity, and growth trajectory in today’s market.

In a period where fundraising success depends as much on narrative clarity as on traction, this panel represents a meaningful convergence of strategic capital and operating insight.

Event Format & What to Expect

AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 will open with an investor panel discussion on “Fundraising Reality Check: What Investors Expect in 2026”, providing founders and attendees with practical perspectives on current fundraising dynamics. This will be followed by 100 minutes of curated startup pitches, where founders present live to the panel and engage in moderated discussion.

Agenda (SGT)
• 1:00 PM – 1:10 PM | Opening Remarks
• 1:10 PM – 1:35 PM | Investor Panel Discussion
• 1:35 PM – 3:15 PM | Startup Pitches + Investor Q&A
• 3:15 PM – 3:30 PM | Closing Remarks & Next Steps

Each pitch segment follows a 4-minute presentation and 4–5 minutes of discussion, creating space for substantive feedback and potential follow-on conversations.

Applications & Registration Now Open

As fundraising conditions remain selective and investor expectations continue to evolve, clarity, positioning, and relevance matter more than ever. AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 offers founders a rare opportunity to present directly to a cross-border panel of experienced investors who actively deploy capital across Asia.

Selected startups will not only deliver a concise, live pitch but will also engage in moderated discussion with investors representing early-stage funds, multi-stage venture firms, corporate venture arms, and active angel networks. The structure is intentionally dialogue-driven rather than presentation-heavy — designed to move beyond slide decks and into substantive evaluation of product clarity, defensibility, traction quality, and scalability.

The moderated format encourages investors to probe into market timing, capital efficiency, customer acquisition strategy, unit economics, and long-term value creation. For founders, this creates a rare opportunity to experience real investor scrutiny in a controlled but candid setting — mirroring the types of questions typically encountered in first and second meetings during an active fundraising process.

For startups preparing to raise capital in 2026 — particularly in a climate where investor selectivity remains high — participation offers more than exposure. It provides:

• A platform to stress-test your pitch narrative under live investor questioning
• Structured, real-time feedback on fundraising positioning, valuation framing, and growth assumptions
• Insight into how different investor profiles (angel, VC, corporate venture, multi-stage funds) evaluate opportunity and risk
• Increased visibility through AsiaTechDaily and partner media coverage
• The potential to initiate follow-up conversations with investors aligned to your stage and sector

The panel’s geographic breadth — spanning Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Europe, and the United States — reflects the increasingly cross-border nature of Asia’s capital flows. For founders building in regional markets but thinking globally, this exposure provides perspective on how their business resonates across different investment lenses.

In an environment where capital allocation decisions are shaped by discipline, defensibility, and execution clarity, AsiaStartupExpo Q1 2026 aims to create a space where founders can refine their positioning while engaging directly with investors who are actively deploying capital across Asia’s innovation ecosystem.