If you’re an entrepreneur in Malaysia, you would (or, if not, then should) know about NEXEA.
A venture capital (VC) and startup accelerator firm, as well as an angel investor network, NEXEA hosts lots of events within the startup and business ecosystem locally, such as Entrepreneurs Summit and DisruptInvest Summit.
Behind Nexea is founder Ben Lim. While Lim does have an MBA, he pursued something quite unexpected before that. For his undergraduate education at the University of South Australia, Lim studied design, of all things.
How does one get into the world of venture capital?
So, how does someone who did a bachelor’s degree in visual communication design end up dealing with millions of investments and high net worth individuals?
Well, the truth is that Lim always knew he wanted to get into the business world. That’s why he endeavoured to do an MBA in Australia. Specifically, he began his MBA at the University of Adelaide in 2012.
Yet, he ended up not completing it as he felt that the people he was interacting with and learning from couldn’t give him the relevant knowledge and networks to do business in Malaysia.
So, he decided to shift from the University of Adelaide (where he still obtained a Graduate Certificate in Business), and got his MBA at Sasin School of Management in Thailand instead.
“I got to meet a lot of family businesses in Thailand, and it’s a younger crowd, so I can do business with them,” he explains.
During his MBA, he did get to take a “VC class,” which piqued his interest. Fortuitously, he was able to leverage a connection he already had when he graduated too: family.
At the time, Lim’s father had just exited his company, leaving him with some funds he could invest. But Lim saw more than money — he saw expertise. He set up an angel investor network, starting with his dad and some of his friends. Beyond being able to invest their funds, they could help guide younger entrepreneurs too.
An angel investor is a wealthy individual who provides capital (money) to early-stage startups or entrepreneurs, usually in exchange for ownership equity.
From there, NEXEA grew its own full-fledged venture capital arm too, supporting startups through major funding as well as accelerator programmes.
Specifically, NEXEA is a venture capital firm that aims to focus on future tech giants that can grow 10x within the next few years. Source: NEXEA
Coming back to Malaysia
Even after spending a total of five years in Australia, then two in Bangkok, Lim ultimately still decided to come back to Malaysia to build and grow NEXEA.
He admits that in Australia there is a “bamboo ceiling”. For those uninitiated, this refers to the invisible barriers preventing Asian immigrants from advancing to senior leadership roles in the workplace, despite high qualifications.
Lim doesn’t take it personally. He points out, “It’s natural in every country, even foreigners in Malaysia, for locals to trust you in top management. It takes a lot more than trusting a local.”
And staying in Thailand would be tricky too. Knowing how to count to ten Thai is one thing, speaking Thai business language is a whole other challenge.
All that said, Lim still appreciated his time abroad deeply.
“Adelaide had very, very few Asian people. You’re then sort of forced to interact with the locals there. You’re forced to blend into a different culture as well. You learn a lot doing that — by doing tough things,” he muses.
Lim believes that what you gain from studying abroad is truly not so much the education itself.
“Every school has the same courses and it’s the same courses and it’s roughly the same things, and you can get most of it off the internet as well,” he expresses. “But what you really gain is the culture there, the networks there. I think that has a lot more value than just the education itself.”
As of now, it’s been a decade since he’s been back in Malaysia to start NEXEA. While that might sound like a long time, Lim believes that it’s actually only a very short stint. To him, it’s only been one “cycle” of seeing how a business develops and grows, and one cycle is still rather nascent.
Looking ahead, Lim doesn’t plan on doing anything flashy — those kinds of efforts are reserved for the startups in his portfolio. Rather, he plans on laying the groundwork for growth in the next ten years, and beyond.
