Kevin Brockland is the founder and Managing Partner of Indelible Ventures, a seed-stage VC targeting tech-enabled B2B products that can scale internationally. In assessing startups, I believe in prioritizing the 3Ps in order of importance: People, Process and Product.

If you don't have great people with processes to test and iterate, a good product today won't be able to evolve and scale to become a great product tomorrow.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

At its simplest, my job is to pool capital from investors into a fund and then find, invest in and support the next generation of breakout tech startups. On the surface, it sounds simple, but there is a lot that goes into the strategy to be successful.

This business is an outlier business, where 1 or 2 successful investments may account for almost all of the fund's gains (the Power Law). So we have to be comfortable taking risk. If we don't take enough risk, we'll never be able to get the return profile that VCs look for.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

What surprises most people is why I landed in Malaysia in the first place and then, since launching Indelible Ventures, why most of my focus has been on startups in Malaysia.

There is a mostly simple explanation for the first part. I came to Malaysia for a prior fund where I was managing the Asia portfolio. The second part relates to consistently seeing that Malaysia produced great entrepreneurs over the years but was overlooked and underfunded with few to no VCs, depending on stage. This represented a great opportunity.

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

There are many to choose from. But while I ought to highlight a successful investment, I would have to say my highlight was founding Indelible Ventures.

As to the why, founding and building something is a special thing that any entrepreneur knows. I feel the same sentiment in founding a VC firm. Also, by filling a gap in the Funding ecosystem, I hope to play my part in building the ecosystem and be fortunate enough to support and be a small part of the success of incredible entrepreneurs.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Historically, Southeast Asia lagged behind in the adoption of technology in businesses. The pandemic lockdowns forced some levels of adoption and advanced the trend line by years. The inertia behind this adoption trend alongside changes in the future of work is bringing a number of interesting trends into the SaaS space.

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

To become or succeed as an investor in early stage companies, the key is to have a unique and valuable viewpoint. This is an outlier business and to find and understand what or who the outlier is takes unique insight. Look at any of the revolutionary companies of today, most people thought they were absolutely crazy when they were starting....except those early investors.

There is no single path to build that unique insight.

🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Not really one thing, but anything VC/startup related and especially opening up on areas that are typically more opaque.

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

No single favorite. But stupid comedies are a guilty pleasure.

🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Salted caramel