Beatrice Lion: From No-Pay Intern to Global VC, Betting Early on AI & Blockchain – E662
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
48 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 18 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Sometimes the line between success and failure is very thin. Like just because you did one additional introduction, that portfolio company of yours could be funded in the next round. So some of the times just because one additional thing that you didn't think too much of and you push yourself to do that, then the library's success and failure is super small.
Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on Success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah Founder, Harvard MBA, Science Fiction Nerd, and Dad of Two Daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesea.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hey Beatrice, so good to see you.
Hi Jeremy, very excited to be here. Thanks
for inviting me. I think we first met at a conference and I was so intrigued by your last name, Lion. So I was like, how do you get Lion as a last name?
It's a name that you don't want to do anything wrong because then you appear in the papers. You're a very narrow pool. It's not like a tan or a leaf. The quick backstory is just that in World War II, when my grandfather changed his passport, he actually went to the custom officer Neo British. And my grandfather only spoke Mandarin. So he told them my Mandarin last name, which is Liang, and they directly translated it to Lion. So all the kids he had before he lost his passport is Niu and Niu, because Niu is Liang. For us, like with my father and his younger. brother. They took on the new last name which is Lion and uh we decided not to change it after the war when there was a period of time you could correct it.
How did a no‑pay internship shape Beatrice Lion’s career path?
So that kind of stood to another few generations, I hope, of this last name.
Good. Now we recorded this so that in a thousand years where there's a whole clan of lions they're gonna be like, How did this happen? And they go back to you and this origin story. Could you introduce yourself?
Yes, I'm Vishus Lyon, the general partner and CEO of True Global Ventures. We are a global VC fund, as its name suggests, investing in early stage across artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. That's where we focus on in our core. Our active funds right now is fund four, five, and six in early stage. Fund four is a hundred and thirteen million dollar fund. Fully deployed, we're in the harvesting stage now. We're very proud of our performance.
Why did Beatrice find venture capital more meaningful than a banking career?
We are actually checking on where carta inside pitch booked so far. Our DPI and TVPI puts us at the top one percentile of funds globally. We have our fund five, which is still deploying 166 million in the growth stage. It's an opportunity fund, but also investing into new deals. And then actively deploying also in the six fund, which is back in the early stage, late seed Series A, again throughout four, five, six in AI applications and blockchain. And on top of that, in terms of geographies, we focus a lot on Bay Area and New York in the US. that's where we have a strong bias towards investing into for AI application companies. But elsewhere in the world we also have London, Stockholm, Paris, Dubai in the Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong in Asia.
Those are where the geographies where we have a deep network in, where our LPs are coming from as well, but also where we have better proprietary jail flow coming from. So that's a bit of ourselves.
Incredible. And let's go back to the beginning, right? Because here you are a general partner, you know, venture capital, investing. But go us back to the beginning. When you're a university student, what major do you choose and why?
So I was one of those, okay, let's just try to open up options, do a double degree in business and economics. Okay. That was the flavor of the month or years when I was a university student and basically I did decided to major in finance. And so all my peers joined like large banks, consulting companies.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:46
2
How did a no‑pay internship shape Beatrice Lion’s career path?
1:46–2:24
3
Why did Beatrice find venture capital more meaningful than a banking career?
2:24–8:05
4
What sparked Beatrice’s conviction in blockchain after the Animoca shutdown?
8:05–9:56
5
Why does technology alone not create market demand, according to Beatrice?
9:56–14:14
6
How do crypto market crashes build more resilient founders?
14:14–21:11
7
What does eight years in one fund look like – multiple roles and responsibilities?
21:11–28:41
8
What personal courage was required to lead a long MAS licensing process?
28:41–48:16
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
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