Biography
Eugene Teo is an investment manager at Antler, a global investment firm backing early-stage startups.
Before joining Antler, Eugene led the product and growth at wagely, a fintech company providing earned wage access in Indonesia and Bangladesh. Prior to wagely, he worked for the Boston Consulting Group’s fintech practice.
This conversation focused on Antler’s Theory of Next: SEA report, where Eugene played a key role as a contributor. The report covers five key “macro themes” that Antler expects will redefine economies across Southeast Asia in 2025 and beyond.
Why did you choose to study Southeast Asia (SEA) at this point, and which five macro themes does the report focus on?
I’ll answer this from a personal and professional perspective.
Personally, I was still relatively new to venture capital, coming from an operator and consulting background. Writing this report was a way to sharpen my own conviction by digging deep into sectors, understanding their nuances, and pushing myself to articulate where the region is heading. I also noticed that while there is plenty of material on tech trends, very few take a Southeast Asian lens and account for the region’s unique complexities.
Professionally, as an early-stage investor, Antler focuses on backing ideas and business models that are genuinely new. We sit at the pipeline stage for larger funds, which means we cannot simply replicate existing models. Our focus has to be on net-new markets or approaches. In parallel, the region’s funding environment has gone through a reset. I wanted to show that despite the challenges, SEA still has strong fundamentals worth building on.
The report narrows in on five macro themes: AI, enterprise software, consumer, fintech, climate/sustainability.
Source: Cento VC SEA Tech Investments Report 2024
Why did those particular themes make the cut?