Billion Dollar Breakdown Emerging Markets: SuperApps, SPACs, Multi-Billion Showdowns with Mikal Khoso, Wavemaker Partners

In today’s Billion Dollar Moves Breakdown, we bust some myths on the emerging markets and venture capital with THE emerging markets analyst, Mikal Khoso, VC at Wavemaker Partners, a cross border venture capital firm dual headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore and has raised over $580M across multiple funds.

 

5 THINGS YOU’LL LEARN

  • GoTo, Grab, Shopee – who will win in this multi-billion e-commerce showdown?
  • Primetime Emerging Markets: the opportunity for digitization, leapfrogging
  • The secret sauce of emerging markets
  • Byjus, the best kept secret in edtech?
  • SPACs: Real deal or a cover for the lack of fundamentals

 

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Intro: what’s on tap this week?

01:25 – Why emerging markets, why now?

03:34 – Exploding population

05:39 – Leapfrogging

08:35 – Political uncertainty? What’s the risk premium here?

10:55 – Golden era of startups – analyst top picks

23:00 – GoTo: marriage of convenience?

29:16 – The exit story for emerging markets

 

More about Mikal

Mikal is based in LA with Wavemaker, focused on sourcing new deals, collaborating with partners on diligence and further iterating on the investment process and tech stack. He writes a popular weekly newsletter Emergent on the fastest-growing businesses in emerging markets. (reademergent.com)

Prior to joining Wavemaker Mikal was a partner at First Round’s Dorm Room Fund, a student-led venture firm that invests exclusively in student-founded companies. In his time at Dorm Room Fund he led two investments that have collectively raised $45 million in follow on funding. Prior to that he was an Associate at Underscore VC in 2017 where he led two investments as well that collectively have raised $40 million in funding.

Prior to that he worked at the New Ventures Team at Northeastern University, a corporate innovation team tasked with building Edtech companies for the university. Mikal graduated with a B.S. in Economics and Philosophy from Northeastern University.

 

 

PODCAST INFO:

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