Conference Report: Frost to Fire: Can Indonesia and SEA reignite the startup boom?

Southeast Asia venture has been through a multi-year reset, and 2025 forced everyone to get honest: unit economics, governance, round sizing, and exits. Built off DealStreetAsia’s new full-year ecosystem report (produced with Kickstart Ventures and released at the summit), this session skips the headline gloom and gets practical: what’s investable again, what still doesn’t clear, and what needs to change for the next cycle to actually last. Joan Yao (Kickstart), Susli Lie (Monk’s Hill), Helen Wong (ACV Capital), Eddi Danusaputro (BNI Ventures) and Gary Khoeng (Vertex Ventures) compare notes on where capital is moving by stage and sector, what “discipline” now looks like at board level, how financing structures are evolving, and what a realistic liquidity stack for 2026–2028 could be – from strategics and IPO pockets to secondaries and structured exits. A candid playbook for getting from frost back to fire, without repeating the last cycle.