Congratulating our new General Partners in Asia
We’re thrilled to announce two new promotions within our Asia-based team as we look to scale the support, capital, and impact White Star Capital has across the region.
White Star Capital has always found Asia to be a highly exciting market for venture capital investment, given its large diverse population, fast growing economies and the incredible leapfrogging of technology — often seeing fifty years of western progress happen within a decade.
We made our first Asian investment in Asia Innovations Group’s Series A round in 2014, which has rewarded our conviction by achieving impressive traction to become a unicorn investment. Since 2018, on the back of this success, we have built a team comprising Shun Nagao, based in Tokyo, Joe Wei, based in Hong Kong, and Cristina Ventura, based in Singapore, to continue our expansion in the region.
For our most recent fund, we have found that some of the most exciting companies in our portfolio have come specifically from South-East Asia. These include Flash Coffee, Una Brands and Sleek — each of them seeing incredible growth despite Covid and difficult recent markets.
As a result, White Star Capital will be doubling down on the region and as part of this we are extremely pleased to announce the promotion of both Cristina Ventura and Joe Quinn Wei to General Partners within our firm.
Cristina Ventura promoted to General Partner & Chief Catalyst Officer
Cristina joined us last year as White Star Capital’s first Chief Catalyst Officer, with a remit to catalyse business growth by connecting talented entrepreneurs globally, collaborating across ecosystems with family offices, institutional investors, and strategic corporates, to create sustainable value for all of our stakeholders.
She has brought invaluable experience to the team having worked on growth strategies, innovation, and global business development for some of the world’s most prestigious companies. Prior to her current role, Cristina led the launch of Apple in Hong Kong and China, served as a Director at Prada during its IPO, held a number of key roles at LVMH and Gucci, and before joining White Star Capital was the Chief Catalyst Officer at Lane Crawford Joyce Group — a role she has reprised and will continue to hold alongside her promotion to General Partner.
Cristina brings a wealth of global connections, holding a Global EMBA from IESE & CEIBS, is Alumni at Harvard, Stanford and INSEAD, and on the Board of Harvard Business School Club of Singapore, member of YPO Asia United and a Kauffman Fellow.
Joe Quinn Wei promoted to General Partner
Joe joined the team as a Venture Partner in 2019, based out of Hong Kong. Since joining White Star, Joe has led White Star Capital’s investments in South-East Asia so far and sits on the Boards of Flash Coffee, Sleek and Una Brands.
Prior to joining, Joe spent 11 years at Deutsche Bank in London and Hong Kong, covering transactions for predominantly technology, industrial and financial institutions companies. He worked across several teams including M&A, Equity Private Placements (raising pre-IPO rounds) and IPOs. After leaving investment banking, he went on to work at Nova Founders Capital, a fintech-focused venture capital investor and company builder, helping co-found and support a variety of fintech start-ups including CompareAsia Group (now Hyphen Group), Frank.co.th (acquired by Bolttech) and Paycelerate Group. Both Hyphen Group and Bolttech have gone on to become unicorn companies in their own right.
He brings a highly analytical approach from his years in finance, alongside practical knowhow and background as an experienced early-stage founder/investor, particularly in the Fintech and Consumer industries, to help founders refine their strategy and scale effectively.
Please join us in congratulating them both on their promotions. We’re excited to be continuing to grow our global presence and look forward to supporting even more exceptional founders across Asia.
White Star Capital is a global multi-stage technology investment platform that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs building ambitious, international businesses. Operating out of Guernsey, New York, London, Paris, Montreal, Toronto, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, our presence, perspective, and people enable us to partner closely with our Founders to help them scale internationally from Series A onwards.
