Twwo Jaruthassanakul is Investment Manager and SEA Lead for Seedstars, a global early-stage VC fund actively investing in companies across Southeast Asia, MENA, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Previously, he was Investment Director at 500 Thailand.

Scoop fact: The extra "W" in his name is to distinguish the name from the number, which can get confusing at times in emails and work documents.

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

My job is to do three main things:

Source: Find talented and exceptional founders to invest in.

Select: Research and analyze each startup, market and various other factors to select the best startups to invest in.

Support: Post-investment, support startups in as many ways as I can, whether it'd be through my network, strategic advice or building a team, for example.

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

Many people I meet think I'm older than my actual age. That's because I skipped three years of high school to go straight into university. Although I enjoyed school, I always wanted to work in the real world as fast as I could.

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

Great question, hopefully, there will be many more highlights, but I'll point to 2 for now.

The first highlight was during the initial period of COVID, when there was a lot of uncertainty and disruptions to business. Being able to walk the walk by being there for founders, deploying capital when many others were conserving cash and seeing the fruits of those decisions in the post-COVID recovery.

The other highlight would be venturing into frontier markets like Cambodia and Myanmar, making one of the first few VC investments in those markets.

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

I've always been keen on Digital Enablers for SMEs. This is the right timing post-COVID. SMEs have now awoken to the fact that they have to digitize to remain competitive, especially against corporates and massively funded startups.

And they need help! That's why we're starting to see digital enablers supporting SMEs in all sorts of industries, and SMEs make up the majority of our GDP, which is why this is a huge opportunity for SEA.

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

Be nice to people. Simple as that. Relationships and reputation are key in the VC industry. You cannot do things alone but rather function as a part of a wider ecosystem.

Therefore, being nice to people can only help. And you'd be surprised how far that gets you.

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

Politics, but let's save that for a later date!

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Movie: The Revenant, Series: The Mentalist. I strangely gravitate towards movies and shows that are somewhat based on real events.

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

Strawberry!