It has been 4 months since we have celebrated CNY this year. The year of the Rabbit, that symbolises hope, resilience, and cautious optimism. Continuing with the interest rate hike trend since mid-2022, Fed fund rates are currently at the high of over 5%. The cheap liquidity flooding the markets, spilling over to private investments, including PE/VC, angel investments, has long since dried up.
Is that an entirely bad situation? Are we all screwed?
Silver lining seems to be that valuation has become more realistic, same goes for founders’ expectations. Investors now must exert greater prudence in evaluating deals and deployment of funds must be much more cautious. Still, the hardest hit industry is the tech industry. Lay-offs, slower growth, much lower valuation multiple seems to be the common trend.
Is that the end of the tech space?
Yet, in 2023, we have fortunately witnessed two of our portfolio companies undergo liquidity events with healthy returns for angel investors like us. In Feb 2023, MyRobin was acquired by Betterplace, as part of Betterplace’s regional expansion into the Indonesian/South-east Asian market, making it one of the most notable startups deals in Indonesia[1]. Following up recently, May 2023, Allrites, our content licensing marketplace portfolio company, announced their listing on NASDAQ, via a merger with Aura SPAC[2].
These two deals are the earliest deals invested by Bamboo Ventures via our vehicle and both have grown exponentially since 2020. It is reassuring to know that despite the tough global financial and economic situation, there are still positive news and optimism ahead. More importantly, tech is still the key industry to look out for.
What’s next then? AI? EV? Metaverse?
Whatever it is, we hope to be part of it, no matter how small our stake is.
[1] https://yourstory.com/2023/02/betterplace-foray-south-east-asia-myrobin [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-08/singapore-tv-licensing-startup-allrites-to-merge-with-aura-spac