We attended the Wild Digital Southeast Asia 2022 event on the 6th-7th September 2022 where over 1,350 participants came to listen in on the latest trends in the technology space. The speakers for the event include government agencies, founders of tech start-ups and unicorns as well as various venture capital (VC) firms. The key takeaways echoed throughout the event were:

1. There is too much protectionism over local talent. Taufiq Iskandar (CIO, Penjana Kapital) reiterated that the success of digitalising Malaysia requires embracing foreign talent.

2. Shahril Hamdan (Economic Director, PM’s office) encourages more communication among GLICs’ venture capital division to ensure investments are allocated strategically.

3. Start-ups in Malaysia are now in the lifecycle where they need bigger funding (i.e. Series B, Series C) to scale up but lack the storytelling ability to convince VCs for bigger cheques.

4. There needs to be more awareness on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) to remove the stigma of it being a secondary career choice.

5. Q-commerce remains an enticing segment for VCs owing to its ability to structurally change consumer’s shopping experience when executed well.

6. VCs are seeing the slowdown in the public market as an opportunity in the private market. 500 Global and Prosus Ventures are cutting bigger cheques as they go hyperlocal in Southeast Asia.

7. Play-to-earn in the Web3 space is currently facing an issue where the developers and players are solely profit-oriented. The games developed need to first be fundamentally fun to play, only then by adding tokenomics, it will be sustainable.

Source: Kenanga Research - 13 Sept 2022