Surviving the Freeze: Angel Investing in SEA’s Funding Winter

The recent global funding winter has reshaped the flow of capital – and Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem is no exception. Valuations have cooled, founders are recalibrating growth expectations, and investors are becoming increasingly selective about how they assess and deploy capital.

In this panel discussion, we bring together experienced angel investors and ecosystem experts to unpack what this shift means for investors, and share how they’re navigating this environment – what’s changed in deal flow, where opportunities still lie, and how investor behaviour is evolving in response to tighter capital conditions. 

This session is designed for both active and aspiring angel investors looking to gain deeper insights into how to stay resilient and strategic through this challenging macro environment.

Supported by the Singapore Global Network (SGN), a division under Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Join SGN to become a member of a 190,000-strong global network of professionals and friends with Singapore at its heart. Learn more at www.singaporeglobalnetwork.gov.sg

About the Panellists

Mr. Phey Teck Moh, Partner, AngelCentral 

Phey Teck Moh is a mentor and angel investor in the Singapore entrepreneur ecosystem. He co-founded AngelCentral, to build a community of angel investors; offering education workshops and curating startups for angel investments. At Entrepreneur First, Teck Moh is a mentor to extraordinary people to build amazing startups from scratch. Xpanasia is an advisory company specializing in Telecommunications and Information Technology companies in Asia Pacific.

He retired as Asia President, Motorola Solutions in May 2013. During his tenure, Motorola Solutions Asia Pacific grew to more than US$1B. Prior to Motorola, Phey was the President & Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Internet, a NASDAQ- listed Internet service provider in Asia Pacific. He started his career at IBM and moved to Compaq.

Mr. Thomas Jeng, Startups, OpenAI

Thomas Jeng is part of OpenAI’s go-to-market team, where he leads startup and venture capital relationships across Asia-Pacific.

An experienced builder and operator in the global startup ecosystem, Thomas has:

• Led Aspire’s global Startups segment and Singapore market, helping scale the YC-, Lightspeed-, and Peak XV-backed fintech
• Invested actively in the region as a Venture Partner with Headline Asia, a Scout with Iterative, and as an angel
• Driven commercial growth at early-stage startups, including as VP & Head of Commercial at Gnowbe (EdTech)
• Expanded 500 Global’s footprint across Asia, North America, and EMEA as Head of Global Business Development
• Founded Junction, a platform for digital innovation talent, as Co-Founder & CEO

He began his career in strategy consulting at BCG and Gartner, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Politics from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Mr. Prantik Mazumdar, President, TiE Singapore

Prantik is an entrepreneur & venture investor and acts as a Digital Transformation Catalyst in organizations to drive sustainable change and impact. After pursuing a major in Computer Engineering & a minor in Technopreneurship from the National University of Singapore (NUS), he kickstarted his career with the Singapore government (Enterprise Singapore) to drive international trade promotion for the island state. Apart from his corporate role, he is an active angel & venture investor, mentor, advisor and speaker through organizations like Quest Ventures, Tie Singapore, HealthXCapital, NUS Angel Ventures and is an Entrepreneur-In-Resident at INSEAD. 

Mr. Clément Parazon, Head of VC and Startups Partnerships, Google

Clément Parazon is currently the Head of VC and Startups Partnerships for Southeast Asia at Google, based in Singapore. He has extensive experience in tech, including investment banking, running his own start-up and leading Commerce and Entertainment enterprise partnerships for Google in APAC. He has a very interesting vantage from which to connect the supply and demand sides of capital in the early stage ecosystem. Clement has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from France’s “Ecole des Mines” and is the proud dad of 2 French-Italian-Australian daughters.

About the Moderator

Mr. Ngo Yi-Jian, Operating Partner, AngelCentral

Yi-Jian has 15 years of experience in venture capital and startups in the United States. Most recently he was Managing Director at Alliance of Angels, one of the largest and most active angel investing organizations, where he screened and reviewed thousands of founder pitches and raised pre-seed funding for over 300 startups. Prior to that, he held roles in corporate venture capital and corporate strategy at Microsoft and AT&T.

About AngelCentral

AngelCentral is the most active community of angel investors in Southeast Asia. We organize regular curated pitch sessions, angel education workshops, and provide syndication services.

The idea for AngelCentral started in late 2016 as a community initiative by the Partners to share their personal experiences and lessons learned on angel investing. With the initial success and validation of their efforts in 2017, AngelCentral incorporated officially in February 2018 with the mission to build a community of effective angel investors in Southeast Asia. Since Inception, AngelCentral has trained >1000 angels and our members have invested >S$35M into the startups.