Ep 56: Amra Naidoo (Co-Founder, Accelerating Asia & General Partner, Accelerating Asia Ventures)

Amra Naidoo is the co-founder of Accelerating Asia, an early stage venture capital fund that runs programs for startups and investors, and General Partner at Accelerating Asia Ventures. Prior to that, she was the Head of Corporate Partnerships at UN Women, including Project Inspire (a UN Women global social entrepreneurship program) and a part of muru-D’s, which was one of the top startup accelerators in Asia. She is also the APAC Regional Lead for Shaper Impact Capital and Outgoing Curator for the Global Shapers Singapore Hub, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and is the host and creator of the Doing Good Podcast. She has been interviewed and featured as a guest author on industry blogs, including The Straits Times, Techcrunch, Reuters and named as one of Harper's Bazaar’s Women Who Inspire Others. Highlights 1:56 Growing up in Zimbabwee 3:14 Moving to Australia 5:23 Why Amra started dreaming of working at the UN 7:26 Selling SKII & Shiseido 13:53 Deciding on how to change her life 16:18 Getting a UN internship 20:03 Becoming Head of Corporate Partnerships at UN Women 21:00 Running Project Inspire 25:50 How startups can run successful crowdfunding campaigns 27:28 The struggle with marketing 31:35 Why Amra ended up leaving the UN 34:17 Obtaining a marketing degree from the University of Newcastle 36:30 Meeting Craig, her current co-founder, at muru-D 37:19 How the idea of Accelerating Asia began 39:20 The “missing middle” 41:26 The biggest challenges in setting up an independent accelerator 43:21 Bootstrapping to set up a consultancy program 44:16 Running the 100 days accelerator program 47:22 The regulatory challenges behind running a fund 48:24 Fundraising for their fund 50:37 Why selling a fund is similar to selling Chanel 56:25 Why Accelerating Asia focuses on pre-Series A companies 58:48 Whether Amra looks for social impact in their startups 1:04:00 Starting the Doing Good podcast 1:05:44 What Amra thinks about the creator economy & how VCs/startup founders should get into the space 1:07:31 How Amra ended up joining the Payment’s Race - MoneyAsia 2020 📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/56 💌 Sign up for the weekly STIMY newsletter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605