Former Fave Executive Founds First Move, VC for Pre-Early Startups

Departing from the experience of the two founders as entrepreneur, FirstMove officially established as a venture capitalist who will also invest in Southeast Asian startups. Backed by 500 Global and Consumer Tech Angel Syndicate, First Move provides pre-ticket funding of up to $100k and mentoring for startup founders.

Provide funding support and mentoring

Joel Neoh (former founder Fave) and Audra Pakalnyte, neither of whom are new to the startup industry. Thanks to their experience, they claim to understand the challenges of being a founder, so besides investing they also want to give mentoring and other support to succeed founder early stage startup.

"After starting my journey as an entrepreneur, I feel very helped by the support from the startup ecosystem. Now, with First Move, we are committed to providing the same support to our founder in Southeast Asia, so that First Move is able to be a supporting partner in their journey, especially during the crucial early stages,” said Joel.

As well as providing direct funding to early-stage startups, First Move adopts a collaborative approach by partnering with other venture capital firms. One of the early collaborators and supporters of this initiative was 500 Overall. Currently, First Move itself has seven portfolio companies spread across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.

"Southeast Asia is a dynamic center of consumer technology innovation, and has an ecosystem and infrastructure ready to grow. Therefore, First Move is very pleased to partner with various entrepreneurs who are just starting their journey to drive the creation of future consumer technology companies," said Audra.

Associated with timeline According to First Move, the funding that will be provided is moving fast enough in investing and channeling funds. This was done because they wanted to make sure the founders were focused on operating the business instead of spending months on fundraising. The signing of the terms and distribution of capital was carried out within a few days.

Preferred startup business category

As one of the countries that is being focused on, FirstMove claims to want to present relevant solutions through startups from Indonesia. Not only in Jakarta, they also want to address the needs of consumers outside the metropolitan area, as those markets are still underserved by most businesses.

As for the vertical focus glimpsed among them healthtech, femtech, sustainability, and inclusive fintech.

First Move has also established the Consumer Tech Angel Syndicate, a community of experienced founders and executives in the consumer sector. Angel Syndicate members, among them the founders and senior executives of D2C, e-commerce, mobility, and financial technology across Southeast Asia, will co-invest in First Move deals.

In addition, these seasoned leaders will provide hands-on support and advice to early-stage startups.

"We look at the experience of the founders, the size of the market and opportunities to overcome it, the sustainable unit economy, the path to profitability and the marketing strategy."