Nearly everyone in the tech ecosystem is familiar with the idea of fundraising for a startup. Some of us also know the ins and outs of raising for a particular fund, where investors pool capital from other investors who believe in their particular thesis.
Comparatively less known is the concept of investor relations for an entire country. I like to call this startup diplomacy.
These ambassadors, if you will, bridge markets, nations, or regions with a much broader, macro-level goal: To connect the investors in one part of the world with the entrepreneurs in need of capital in another.
These cross-border investments ultimately come through particular startups or funds, but the larger mission is to promote the particular market as a whole. It’s waving the flag for an ecosystem.
Fundraising for the Philippines
One such startup ambassador is Emil Banno. As the founder and CEO of consultancy JCash, which has offices in Tokyo and Manila, he attracts Japanese investors into the Philippines.
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While fundraising at the startup level is often digitally enabled, including everything from deal flow origination to term sheet signing, country-level investor relations are surprisingly more hands-on.
Banno frequently travels back and forth between Japan and the Philippines, sometimes alternating between the two every other month, making good use of his fluency in both Filipino and Japanese. Banno said such is necessary for relationship-building.
“These investors are usually very seasoned regarding local investments, but they may have less knowledge of other markets. A cold email won’t do in this case. You need to meet with them in person to build trust. In this way, you can make the opportunity profile of your home market fully real and attractive,” he said.
This kind of work is done across both formal and casual settings. In some instances, Banno visits Japan as part of an official delegation, such as for the Japan Cryptocurrency Forum in 2018, where other fintech leaders joined him in the Philippines, such as Ron Hose, the founder of Coins.ph and Justo Ortiz, the chairman of the board for Unionbank, among many others.
Banno is more commonly pursuing Japanese investors on his own, at their offices, coffee shops, or other informal venues. He emphasised his goal is not just to raise capital; even as one of the more nascent markets in Southeast Asia, the Philippines already has enough of that available within its borders. Instead, Banno argued that information exchange is the most important.
“The capital is secondary. Cross-border investment is important because the investors often have domain expertise that can help the companies they fund scale. In my case, for example, our Filipino companies have benefited from the expertise of our Japanese investors in technology, design, and operations,” said Banno.
Banno has helped attract investment into Filipino businesses across various industries, from agriculture and retail to fintech and e-commerce. He makes most of his living at these exchanges.
In some cases, he co-invests, and in others, he provides consulting to the Japanese companies about the best way to structure the deal, or even technology partners, such as in his recent selection of BLX for any Japanese business needs blockchain or web3 tech in the Philippines.
Though it may sound counter-productive, he often has no vested interest in the deal, venture, or fund in many cases. Such is the nature of faith in this type of ambassadorship.
The core belief of Banno and others like him is that a rising tide lifts all ships, and helping the ecosystem in some small way now will eventually pay dividends in the form of future business or investment opportunities, or even more abstractly, the availability of better products and services at home in the Philippines. This faith is rooted in a kind of techno-patriotism.
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“What I love about my work is that it is indeed a kind of ambassadorship. Only instead of connecting nations, I’m negotiating resources between two business ecosystems. This collaboration results in a better Philippines and even a better brand: We communicate to investors and entrepreneurs alike that you can build anything here,” said Banno.
Shrinking Asia Pacific through linkages
During his work, Banno has met others like him with backgrounds in entrepreneurship, investing, finance, and consulting. He encouraged more people in the ecosystem to consider this kind of work.
While it occurs at the periphery, often behind the scenes and far away from tech headlines, there is arguably no more important work than connecting entire ecosystems.
For people interested in this line of work, he advised them to go farther, quite literally.
“We don’t need people who can bridge Malaysia, Singapore, or Australia and New Zealand. We need business leaders who can connect markets geographically far from one another and substantially different in culture, economy, and society. In tapping these extremes, we can find the complementary resources necessary to entrepreneurship,” said Banno.
Banno, of course, is not alone. Individuals, organisations, and even governments all over the Asia Pacific strive to draw linkages, connections, and collaborations between different markets. These efforts are diverse in execution.
Some individuals, like Banno, set up consultancies to operationalise their cross-cultural work. Some organisations create programmes that help investors become more comfortable with investing in a particular market and sometimes make outright introductions to investable businesses.
Some governments provide financial incentives and, more importantly, market education to better attract investors.
Though these efforts may be diverse, they are united by a common but inspiring conceit: the Asia Pacific is a truly dynamic, interconnected economic region whose full value we can unlock by seeing past our differences and making connections that transcend culture.
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