From serving in Singapore’s Prime Minister’s Office to becoming Sequoia Capital’s first hire in Southeast Asia, and ultimately founding one of the region’s most influential venture capital firms—Yinglan Tan’s journey reflects the evolution of Southeast Asia’s startup economy itself. Today, as the Founding Managing Partner at Insignia Ventures Partners, he continues to shape the future of innovation across the region, backing category-defining companies and cultivating the next generation of investors and founders.
In this exclusive narrative, Yinglan reflects on the defining moments of his career, the qualities that distinguish unstoppable founders, and why Southeast Asia—and increasingly, India—are poised for a decade of global relevance.
From the Sidelines to the Pitch: A Career Defined by Perspective
Yinglan often uses football metaphors to describe his professional journey. His early years serving in the Prime Minister’s Office, where he worked on attracting global venture capital and shaping Singapore’s innovation infrastructure, felt like being a referee—setting the rules and ensuring the field was ready.
Joining Sequoia Capital, however, marked a shift from officiating to playing on the pitch. Running alongside some of the region’s most ambitious founders offered firsthand insight into the grit, volatility, and triumphs behind iconic companies.
Founding Insignia Ventures Partners and later Insignia Ventures Academy elevated him to the role of coach—building playbooks, supporting rising teams, and helping founders convert potential into performance.
At the heart of this evolution lies one belief:
“If you don’t become a player yourself, you can’t truly understand how players feel.”
Another defining moment came in 2016–17—noticing that Southeast Asia was on the brink of explosive growth but lacked dedicated early-stage capital. It was a once-in-a-generation opening, and seizing it became the catalyst for building Insignia Ventures.
The Unstoppable Founder: What It Takes to Build Regional Champions
Across the hundreds of founders Yinglan has evaluated, one characteristic stands above the rest: being unstoppable.
To him, a bold founder is someone who, when confronted with a wall, will climb over it, go around it, dig under it, or find someone to move it. This relentless problem-solving instinct is non-negotiable.
These founders run their companies like disciplined sports teams—not like a family with unconditional acceptance, nor a wolf pack where everyone is on their own. They embrace structure, play within the rules, and strive for excellence in every match—even when they lose.
They treat competitors as peers who elevate the space, not as enemies. And above all, they are self-igniting learners—driven not by pedigree but by the speed at which they absorb new skills.
A standout example is Theodoric Chew, CEO of Intellect. Without a university degree and with no background in mental healthcare, he still managed to build one of the world’s leading mental health platforms. What he lacked in credentials he made up for in slope: the speed and intensity of his learning curve.
Spotting Potential Early: Lessons From Tokopedia to Groww
Yinglan’s career is dotted with landmark deals—Tokopedia, Appier, Traveloka, Gojek, Carousell—and each had one defining trait in common: founders with radical self-belief in visions that few others initially understood.
One of his favorite stories comes not from Southeast Asia, but India. At a Y Combinator Demo Day eight years ago, he met a small team of former Flipkart employees trying to disrupt the mutual funds industry with almost no traction. Despite Insignia’s Southeast Asia mandate, he backed them—believing the founders had that rare, unstoppable conviction.
That company became Groww, which recently went public with a valuation crossing US$10 billion. The investment produced triple-digit multiples for early co-investors.
The lesson, Yinglan says, is simple:
“Sometimes you must break your own rules when you find a special founder.”
Groww succeeded because its founders bet early on how millennials would want to invest—and built alongside their users as their lives evolved. Technology became the key to removing intermediaries and reducing fees, enabling truly democratized investing.
The Next Wave: Global-From-Day-One Specialist Founders
Southeast Asia’s innovation landscape is shifting. Yinglan sees the next decade shaped by founders who build globally from day one, powered by deep domain expertise and accelerated by AI.
These aren’t generalists—they’re specialists with years of experience who now have tools to scale faster than ever.
Examples include:
Jonathan Viet Pham, CEO of Diaflow, whose autonomous AI platform saw rapid adoption in the US just months after launch.
Dr. Yanan Wu, a former nuclear physicist and portfolio manager, now building Surfin—a multi-market, AI-powered financial services platform.
This shift reflects a broader trend: Southeast Asia is moving from regional ambition to global competitiveness.
Deepening Ties With India’s Innovation Ecosystem
Insignia Ventures maintains multi-layered connections with India’s fast-growing startup landscape. Several portfolio companies have engineering hubs or operational bases in India, including Surfin, Finmo, and Tonik. The firm also works closely with executives who previously held leadership roles at Flipkart, Paytm, Pine Labs, and other leading Indian startups.
Fintech, AI-driven platforms, and cross-border SaaS remain areas where Southeast Asia and India’s strengths increasingly intersect—and where Insignia sees expanding opportunity.
ASEANnovation in the AI Era
While the principles of ASEAN innovation—dis-intermediation, ecosystem thinking, and data accumulation—remain unchanged, the context has evolved significantly since Yinglan’s books Navigating ASEANnovation and Backing the Bold were published.
Today, the region is attracting new global interest:
Japanese strategics seeking growth
Middle Eastern governments pursuing innovation partnerships
Global stock exchanges competing to list Southeast Asian companies
The scale of ambition has expanded. Founders are no longer building for regional markets alone—they’re building companies destined for global relevance and public markets.
Building Resilience in a “Messy Transition” Global Landscape
Yinglan observes that today’s founders operate in what Singapore’s Prime Minister calls a “messy transition” in the global geopolitical and economic order. Resilience, therefore, is essential.
The strongest founders diversify across markets, products, and revenue streams:
Carro evolved from a used-car marketplace into a fintech ecosystem, expanding into Hong Kong and Japan.
Surfin scaled to 10+ markets while strengthening core AI capabilities and securing key regulatory licenses.
Dependence on one market or one customer segment is no longer an option.
Supporting Founders Beyond Capital
Insignia prides itself on being a founder-centric fund. Yinglan emphasizes that while advice and high-level insights help, the real value often comes from bringing in the right people at the right time—CFOs, CTOs, independent directors, and follow-on investors who shape a company’s next phase of maturity.
The goal is simple:
to be the call founders make at 2 AM when the stakes are highest.
Closing System-Level Gaps: Talent and Capacity Building
One of Insignia’s largest ecosystem contributions is talent development. Through Insignia Ventures Academy, more than 200 investors and operators have been trained across nine cohorts. Many now hold leadership positions—including a former Bank of Singapore executive who became CEO of a major family office.
With its 10th cohort launching soon, IVA continues to strengthen the region’s innovation backbone.
A Message to Young Founders: Believe in What Others Don’t—Yet
Yinglan returns to the story of Groww when offering advice to first-time founders. The founders believed deeply in something the world did not yet see—and pursued it with unstoppable resolve.
His final message encapsulates decades of experience:
“Ask yourself: What do you know to be true that the rest of the world doesn’t—yet?
Hold onto that belief, and pursue it with an unstoppable mindset.”
-Interview conducted by Sandhya Bharti
