Recently in the news for starting Launcho Ventures, DTribe Capital has pioneered the venture studio model in Southeast Asia.

DTribe seeks to fund, build, and scale successful companies across the region by identifying and transforming ideas with viable business cases into independent companies through collaboration with entrepreneurs and skilled professionals.

A successful serial entrepreneur, Launcho founding partner Martin Berry has built and sold companies with values in excess of US$600 million and has gone on to make over 50 venture investments in early stage technology companies to date.

He is also the founder and CEO of DTribe Capital, a Singapore-based, opportunity-focused VC firm empowering founders seeking to enhance people’s lives and create positive economic impact through technology.

Berry founded Gong Cha Korea in 2012, acquired its parent company Royal Tea Taiwan in 2016, and went on to scale the Gong Cha brand globally to 18 countries and 2,000 outlets worldwide.

Over the last 20 years, he has built, acquired and exited several companies and served as a board member for many financial and technology companies.

In our latest Meet the VC webinar, we spoke to Berry to understand this venture studio model better and the opportunities for startups in 2021.

Key takeaways

• Started a career in technology and fell in love with it. Worked in the banking sector at the onset of internet banking
• His long journey in the corporate world made the various gaps evident to him and his startup journey started as a side hustle in tech companies
• The GFC ultimately made him take the plunge to become an entrepreneur
• Gong Cha grabbed his attention although he never really understood the Asian love for tea. He literally would sit outside the store and study the audience and reverse engineer the economics

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•  He decided to franchise it to the South Korean market, a market Berry knew well. And went from zero to 400 stores in three years and became the fastest-growing beverage brand in the country.
• Eventually, with some PE support, he bought the Gong Cha brand. And sold it last year whilst retaining a majority stake
• He has so far invested in 16 tech-first companies to help the next generation of founders and that’s how DTribe Capital came into being. It invests in early-stage tech companies
• SEA has a growing population and disposable income and nascent technology but Berry feels the ecosystem to support the founders is still not where it’s supposed to be
• Hence he chose to go the venture studio route where he is working with first-time founders who have an idea but need help with other elements of running an organisation — hiring, management, financials, etc.
• Launcho Ventures is not a time-bound programme such as accelerators. It is actually milestone-driven
• Berry spoke to many founders and realised that finding a co-founder and fundraising were major pain points that averted founder attention from actually building a business
• DTribe not only provides support but also gives founders SG$300,000 to get started
• DTribe has no LPs, so they are not constrained by investment mandates. This allows it to be very open-minded
• The quality of the idea and the founder’s passion majorly drive Berry’s investment decision
• Often times, people are in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur and they are surrounded by family and friends who support it, but there is hardly anyone who can give them candid feedback that an entrepreneur needs to pivot, move and groom.

Advice for founders

• Founders should rigorously be disciplined to keep looking for their strong value proposition, study their audience, consumer choices to succeed
• Be very research-driven and consumer-centric. Build something that customers want and need. Everything will follow, the revenue, funding etc.

Also Read:Why Kay Mok Ku of Gobi Partners thinks VCs will become like influencers in a post-pandemic world

For the next year

• For 2021, VCs are keeping a lot of dry powder and this will continue as everyone is more careful about spending
• The key emphasis is going to be quality over quantity
• Helping retail to go from offline to online will be a big opportunity
• F&B is still far behind and the pandemic brought that to life. So startups that will help traditional businesses be more digitally enabled will be rewarded.
• Besides, health tech, AI for health, etc. will be undoubtedly be shining

Resources

Check out the full video recording and learn more about Berry’s thoughts on 2021 here:

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