Deals
Rich Asian Millennials Pool Family Fortunes to Build Venture Fund
- Children of three Southeast Asian business empires unite
- Fund backs proven startups for later rounds of financing
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One of Rachel Lau’s strongest childhood memories is the smell of newspaper. Her father, driving her to school each day in Kuala Lumpur, would make his sleepy daughter open the paper, go through stock quotes and do mental math.
“He would be, like, ‘How did KLK do today? OK, if it’s up 4 sen and I’ve got 89,000 shares, how much did I make?’’’ Lau recalled. The daily ritual continued through her teenage years. Her father Lau Boon Ann built his fortune in real estate and by investing in companies like Top Glove Corp., which became the world’s biggest rubber-glove maker. Some days, he would stand in front of an empty lot with his young daughter and challenge her to imagine a building there rather than watching the chickens running around.