Keynote presentation: From grapes to watermelons: Why scale is the north star for 2026

  • Nicholas A. Nash, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Asia Partners

 

Hundreds of Southeast Asian startups across dozens of business model categories received funding over the past decade. Now is the moment for strategic consolidation, with King Arthurs across each category assembling Round Tables of like-minded fellow entrepreneurs to build scale.
In a world with multiple trillion-dollar market cap companies attracting investor interest, it is both a strategic and capital markets imperative to cross the $1-billion value threshold to be relevant – and based on price to free cash flow multiples, not zero interest rate multiples. Rhinos, not unicorns, will be the winners.