Jennifer has worked in the law, energy and tech sectors for the past two decades. She spent 9 years as a regional legal counsel in Chevron and the next 7 years in Meta as Director and Associate General Counsel for the general APAC region.
In this article, Jennifer shared with us her journey in angel investing: what started it, how she evaluates startups and ultimately what she looks forward to in angel investing.
….I like the very personal aspect of angel investing.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today! Let’s start with your background, could you share with us an overview of the professional roles you did and the industries you were in?
Thank you so much for having me today. So I’m actually a recovering lawyer and I’ve worked in pretty diverse industries from energy to tech and now investing.
I think what’s consistent across all my experiences is that I’ve primarily worked for US companies across their Asia-Pacific operations and helping them to find strategic opportunities while simultaneously de-risking. And that’s obviously been very useful in the investing journey as well.
What were some interesting trends/changes you’ve noticed over the years in the legal industry landscape, especially now that there are more legal tech startups?
So I think the speed of execution of change is extraordinary particularly when you take into account the legal tech industry. I’ll use one of the more prominent AI tech startups called Harvey.
Harvey is really like the poster child for how Gen AI is going to impact professional services and Harvey only started in 2022. It’s now at an 11 billion valuation situated doing pilots or you know being deployed in multiple Fortune50 companies as well as multinational like law firms.
This is an extraordinary pace of change because you know the way that the modern law firm structure works frankly speaking has not changed since the Industrial Revolution.
Could you share with us more about your investing journey – what made you interested in angel investing?
So, investing is actually really in my family’s blood. But what I’ve chosen to do is to do ange investing as my own personal journey. And the reason for that really is because I like the very personal aspect of angel investing. You are working with very motivated, very idealistic founders who are very early in their journey. And I think that that also tracks a little bit of my own learning journey.
One of my investing heroes is actually also an ex-lawyer. He is Charlie Munger and I think that that transition from being a legal counsel and being an adviser to being an investor and hopefully a strategic partner for the founders. There’s a lot of synergy but there’s also a lot to learn there.
What were your expectations of being an angel investor before you started investing? How has your thought process changed ever since you started angel investing?
I think that it is less a change but more a refinement of my investing approach.
There are a lot of different types of ways to be an angel investor and one, for example, can be a silent cheerleader very passive but, you know, monitoring how the startup is doing. I’ve tried that. I realized that that is not really my cup of tea.
There’s no right or wrong answer here. It really tracks in with what your personal preferences are and frankly speaking what your strengths are and what you can bring to the table apart from the cheque for founders in specific industries or, you know, when they’re trying to achieve certain milestones.
So, that’s a little bit of my journey – more a refinement in terms of what type of investor I want to be rather than a wholesale change.
How would you describe your current investment philosophy? i.e. What do you look for in a potential investment opportunity?
So if I could use one word to describe it would be discipline and the reason for that is because there are so many interesting startups and just so many good founders out there. It is actually not possible to fund all of them the way that I want to be involved in the startups.
It really requires me being extremely disciplined about what aspects, what verticals I want to be invested in and like I said I keep going back to what does being a strategic investor mean? What I bring to the table apart from the cheque?
How has your work experience of working in various Asian regions impacted your knowledge for vetting startups/angel investments?
So I’m actually born and raised in Singapore and I think one of the really important things about being with this kind of background is to avoid making certain assumptions.
Asia Pacific is a very diverse region and I think there are different operational cultures and challenges across the different markets in Asia Pacific. Making assumptions that only hold true in Singapore would be actually very precarious for investors.
Additionally, in what ways has your past work experience as a director and general legal counsel shaped your investment thesis?
Yes and also I think what has been very fortunate for me is just being able to operate at a level where I’ve been involved in a lot of strategic opportunities and also in board governance and board deliberations.
What that has helped me really is to understand right that the role of the board is similar to the role of hopefully a mentoring investor, in that you need to keep both eyes on the revenue as it is today or the growth as it is today and the growth it looks like tomorrow.
For all companies becoming relevant is very difficult but actually staying relevant in some ways could be even harder.
How was your experience like taking part in the AngelCentral Review Committee (ARC)? In what ways has being part of the ARC helped you in enhancing your evaluation processes for investments?
I would say that being part of ARC is probably the best part for me, personally, of being part of the AngelCentral community. You know, nobody knows everything and so just having an opportunity for very thoughtful debate and to hear from other people and actually to confront blind spots that one may not even know one has is a great way to improve as an investor.
What spaces have you invested thus far? Do you feel that there is a need to have intensive knowledge of an industry before you commit to an investment in said industry?
So I’ve done CPG(Consumer Packaged Goods), I’ve done health tech, and I’ve done biotech. The short answer to the second question is definitely because we live in an age of information abundance. And if you’re going to put money into an area, a startup operating in a certain area, there has to be a certain baseline understanding of what problem the startup is trying to face, is trying to solve.
To me, not doing any research and not understanding the industry and putting money in is not called investing. It’s called speculating.
What do you enjoy most about this journey/angel investing?
I think it’s the constant learning because every time you interact with a new startup that has a new problem set they’re trying to solve. Every time you confront a new industry or you meet new investors, you meet new founders, you learn something throughout all of that. And so this constant learning journey is actually very fun for me.
To end the session, what would be one tip you would give to new/aspiring angel investors?
So I think take the time to understand first of all what angel investing is and secondly, what kind of investor are you?
Because as I mentioned, there are so many opportunities out there. So the key is not to take every opportunity that comes, you know, or to suffer from some kind of analysis paralysis and not be able to take any opportunity at all. It’s actually to understand how you want to invest and what’s the system you’re going to develop to help you invest.
So take that time, you know, before making that first investment.
Thank you for your time, Jennifer. Where can people reach out to you?
I’m on LinkedIn, so happy for anybody to reach out at all times.
