Soul Ventures Founder and GP Warren Hui
Going over the list of portfolio companies of Soul Ventures is guaranteed to keep one impressed, especially with the appearance of familiar names such as OpenAI, Reddit, SpaceX, and Neuralink.
Apart from those companies, the firm has also invested in Asian companies such as online real estate marketplace Anjuke. It also works closely with various LPs based in Singapore and Taiwan, going in on deals together like a recent investment into AI company Cohere.
Founded in 2021, Soul Ventures focuses on growth-stage investments in frontier tech, AI, and consumer tech. Led by founder and GP Warren Hui, the Hong Kong-based firm bridges the US and Asian markets for its portfolio companies. With extensive ties throughout Asia and the US, Soul Ventures has been instrumental in helping companies in both regions grow and expand internationally, especially in the AI space.
Hui explains to e27 the firm’s notable investments and major regional plans in this email interview. The following is an edited excerpt of the conversation.
You have invested in some of the most notable names in the industry today, such as SpaceX and OpenAI. Can you tell us about what first drew you into these companies? What are the factors that you look at when assessing them?
For us, we always start with the bigger picture thematically. What are the biggest disruptions that might happen in the next 10 years? So, for example, we believe AI will be a technology that will disrupt all industries. So we take AI, and then we distil it down into the medium term and the long term: What industries will be disrupted first using AI? We strongly believe that consumer and enterprise productivity will be a big market that will be disrupted immediately.
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Our team then researches and contacts numerous AI companies in order to understand each founder’s vision. We invested in OpenAI because the team is one of the most talented in the world and has done much of the research that lays the groundwork for AI today. They’ve also created a strategic plan to commercialise and bring their tech to the masses quickly.
What lessons do you learn from supporting these companies?
For our portfolio companies, our biggest value-add is to help them expand into Asia, especially Southeast Asia.
Given a large number of our portfolios were founded in the US, their user base is generally in the US as well. To help startups bridge the gap between regions, there are a lot of cultural nuances that we help founders understand. The way users interact with tech and understand different companies is extremely different between regions, and localisation is key.
We have learned that to help tech companies become truly global the business itself has to be fluid and agile, adapting to user needs constantly.
What is your investment philosophy? What sets you apart from similar VCs?
We want to invest in companies that disrupt the most lives and build a better future for all of us. We genuinely believe technology is a tool to improve people’s daily lives.
Compared to other VCs, our team has both entrepreneurial and operational backgrounds, which enables us to understand first-hand the pain points founders have to go through and then dig in and help them in as many ways as possible.
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What are the factors that you are looking for in a potential investment?
It always starts with the team and the founder. Many startups may get their market fit or product wrong initially, but a great founder can pivot the business and lead a team to success.
We love founders who are visionaries, and especially those with a vision that is so big it seems impossible.
Can you tell us more about the areas and regions you focus on? What strategy do you use to approach these regions? Any interesting insights that you can share with us?
Our primary focus is the US and parts of Asia, such as Southeast Asia (SEA), Taiwan and Japan. Given that my partner has invested in Asia for decades (he backed Tokopedia before it became GoTo and IDN Media, to name a few), we are actively sourcing investments in this region.
I think that, in any region, we always go to places that attract talent. So, in the US, it would be Silicon Valley and now Austin, Texas. We see a lot of AI application-layer companies being built in SEA and invested in an AI infrastructure company out of Taiwan.
We believe that where the most talent is based, ecosystems will naturally be built around the area to help startups succeed.
What is your major plan for 2024?
We will continue to focus on AI. We believe that apart from foundation models – infrastructure and application layer companies will be most interesting.
Consumer internet has always been our focus, so we want to find companies in this space that use AI innovatively. We also want to explore more into robotics and space technologies which we believe will be huge in the next decade.
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Image Credit: Soul Ventures
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