Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping venture — this time with a lens on Southeast Asia and India.
This week, David from EUVC and Ambika from Circle Capital sit down with Tanuja Rajah, Partner at M Venture Partners (MVP) in Singapore — an early-stage fund backing founders from day zero across Southeast Asia and India.
Tanuja’s path is not your typical VC story: a PhD in immunology, a startup built on trial and error, and a mission now to fund the region’s next generation of founders tackling healthcare, trust, access, and affordability — without the science risk.
🎯 This Episode’s Themes:
How a science background shapes a founder-first investment lens
Southeast Asia vs. India: where the next breakout health techs will come from
The truth about exits in Asia: secondaries, roll-ups, & why IPOs are hard
AI hype vs. reality: why MVP waits before jumping on the AI bandwagon
Going from B2C to B2B: the maturity curve in regional digital health
The realities of being an emerging fund manager in an overheated early-stage ecosystem
Tanuja’s biggest lesson: great teams are not enough — markets matter more
🕒 Here’s what’s covered:
01:30 | How a PhD in immunology landed Tanuja in venture
03:00 | Starting a company with no playbook: lessons from Malaysia to Singapore
05:00 | Why MVP backs healthcare — but avoids the science risk
07:00 | 25% of the world’s population: why India & Southeast Asia are consumer goldmines
10:00 | Biggest VC lesson: ownership matters (and why it’s so hard for new funds)
12:30 | How MVP balanced brand building with early fund modeling
15:00 | Why angels and micro-funds make Southeast Asia so competitive
17:00 | Healthcare’s future: physical + digital or nothing
19:00 | AI: hype, scribe startups, and the real wedge that matters
22:00 | Portfolio spotlight: how HD used real-world data to build a regional moat
25:00 | Can Southeast Asia’s healthtech scale into Europe?
28:00 | Where follow-on capital is (and isn’t) coming from
30:00 | Exits done right: why secondaries and &A trump IPO dreams
35:00 | Strong beliefs overturned: why the best teams still need the best markets
39:00 | Advice for emerging fund managers: pick your people and sharpen your USP
42:00 | Book of the Week: how Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “Emperor of All Maladies” shaped Tanuja’s mission
You can watch it here or add it to your episodes on Apple or Spotify 🎧 chapters for easy navigation are available on the Spotify/Apple episode.
✍️ Show Notes
Why MVP Won’t Touch Deep Science (Yet)
Tanuja shares why solving for trust, access, and delivery beats taking science risk in India and Southeast Asia — where regulation, affordability, and adoption matter more than a new molecule.
Asia’s Consumer Advantage
Home to 25% of the world’s population, the region’s next wave will come from rising incomes, rising health awareness, and the massive switch from online eyeballs to offline trust.
Exits: Not IPOs, but Smart Secondaries
Forget billion-dollar listings for now. MVP engineers exits by working in strategic investors early — and banking on roll-ups and trade sales at the $30–100M range.
AI’s Hype Filter
Everyone wants a piece of AI scribes, chatbots, or drug discovery. But for MVP, differentiation and defensibility matter more than big buzzwords. If you’re a wrapper, you’ll be replaced.
Emerging Manager Reality
Picking the best teams isn’t enough. You need a USP, a strategy that stands out — and the patience to build credibility in one of the world’s busiest early-stage markets.
💡 Investor Takeaway
Great founders fail in bad markets. Great markets give great teams room to win. For Tanuja and MVP, that means backing the best — but only when the macro matches.
Free and exclusively available for community members.
Jonathan is a Partner at Bullhound Capital. He joined Bullhound Capital from Molten Ventures (formerly DFJ/Draper Esprit), where he was a Partner for 16 years, focused on direct investments and successful exits, including RavenPack, Ledger, M-Files, and PodPoint. At Molten, he also led the Fund of Funds and Secondary practices, investing in over 80 early-stage VC funds and managing multiple secondary portfolio transactions. These initiatives provided exposure to standout companies such as UiPath, Revolut, TransferWise, Peak Games, and Typeform.
Jonathan’s career began in investment banking, advising on equity offerings and mergers & acquisitions at leading firms including Apax Partners Corporate Finance, Rothschild & Cie, and Jefferies.
Jonathan holds a master's degree in Management from EM-Lyon and the University of St. Gallen, and a postgraduate degree in advanced corporate finance from the University of Paris IX Dauphine.
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