On Thursday, November 12th 2020, WisePass held its first Original Series Event called Founder’s Night. The event is a talk show featuring a guest speaker every month about a specific industry. It consists mostly in sharing and connecting with the audience.

The first event happened at Ministry of Men on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street in Ho Chi Minh City. The first guest speaker was Khiem Tran from the venture capital fund Expara. During the event Khiem has shared about his work on investing in early stage startup and the check size of his investment.

Some other founders have joined the event to discuss about fundraising and the pitfalls a startup may encounter. The event was sponsored by the whisky Aultmore from Scotland and a glass was offered to each WisePass subscriber attending the event.

About Khiem Tran - Senior Associate Vietnam

Khiem joined Expara in early 2017. He holds both Bachelor of Corporate Finance and Master of Business Administration (Finance focused) degree with 100% scholarship from Vietnam National University where he contributed research papers about Vietnam venture capital market to Southeast Asia (Singapore Management University) and local journals (Vietnam Trade and Industry Review). Before joining Expara, Khiem had experience in the Vietnam ecosystem since 2014 as Investment Representative from ESP Ventures (formerly Alpha Vision Ventures) and Senior Investment/Innovation Officer at Asia Commercial Bank. Khiem's favorite quote is: "Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised". You may drop him an email at khiem@expara.com.

About Expara

SEA's leading early-stage VC and accelerator

Expara is a Southeast Asia's pioneer and leader in early-stage venture capital and venture services, as well as an experienced provider of acceleration, incubation, entrepreneurship training, and mentorship to start-ups from all around the world. The company is headquartered in Singapore with offices and presence in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Poland.

Expara's unique qualifications

As an active VC investor in SEA since 2003, programs and courses are all based on real-world experience. They are better educators because they are active investors. And they are better investors because they are active educators.

• Trained and mentored more than 8000 entrepreneurs from all around the world. More than 150 companies benefited from acceleration programs.

• Successfully launched 5 venture capital funds in Southeast Asia since 2007, invested in 80 companies.

• Deep experience in training and mentoring university and research institute spin-offs and working with academic and researcher entrepreneurs.

• Ability to serve as a bridge between Europe and Southeast Asia, transferring knowledge from Asia and helping companies to scale