William Bao Bean

Managing General Partner

2014 - Current

William is Managing General Partner of Orbit Startups the first and longest running emerging and frontier market startup program with over US$180m in assets under management. Orbit invests in startups with technology that drives impact in sustainability, digitizing traditional industries and economic independence including ecommerce, fintech, travel, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging and frontier markets in Southeast and South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and LATAM. Orbit provides hands-on support for cross border expansion, user acquisition, sales, partnerships, and fundraising. Orbit's program has helped its startups scale to 224m monthly active users. William joined Orbit from SingTel Innov8 Ventures where he was a founding Managing Director. Prior to that William was a Partner at Softbank China & India Holdings, a VC backed by Softbank and Cisco, leading investments in Greater China and South East Asia. William started his career in equity research most recently with Deutsche Bank where he was a top ranked analyst for Internet and Software in Asia and worked on the IPOs for Alibaba, Kingsoft, eLong (Expedia), OnMobile and Infoedge Naukri. William was ranked #3 stock picker in Hong Kong/China and #1 for Technology, Media and Telecom by Thomson Reuters Starmine as well as #3 equity research analyst in Asia for Software and IT Services by Institutional Investor Magazine. William has done over 300 early stage investments including Bitmex in blockchain, UShopal in ecommerce, italki in edtech, Videoverse in AI, Carota in mobility, Flickstree in media, ELSA Speak in edtech, Tappytoon in media, Coutloot in ecommerce, and Dastgyr in fintech. He currently is a Director or Observer on the boards of Supplynote, Scantrust, Boost Capital, Pandabus, Fleksy, Freed Group, Goama, and italki as well as Blair Academy. He holds a BA from Bowdoin College.

General Partner

2014

My focus is investment in early stage startups, angel through Series B, through Orbit Startups the first accelerator to launch in Asia in 2010 and the first in Asia to have a unicorn Bitmex in Fall 2015. William is Managing Director of Orbit Startups the first and longest running startup program in Asia and General Partner of SOSV the #1 most active early stage venture capital investor in the world with US$1.5bn in assets under management. Orbit's focus is investing in startups using technology to have an impact on en digitizingsustainabilityh and economic and industrial independence including ecommerce, fintech, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging and frontier markets Southeast and South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Orbit provides hands-on support for cross border expansion, user acquisition, sales, partnerships, and fundraising. Orbit's ecosystem has helped our startups scale to 220m monthly active users.

Advisory Board Member

2021

H2 is the premier leadership network for the technology industry, connecting a trusted global community of leaders to support startup ecosystems around the world. Its membership consists of senior executives and entrepreneurs from leading startups and top global firms in major innovation hubs worldwide.

China Chapter Co-Chair

2016 - 2021

H2 is the premier leadership network for the technology industry, connecting a trusted global community of leaders to support startup ecosystems around the world. Its membership consists of senior executives and entrepreneurs from leading startups and top global firms in major innovation hubs worldwide.

Director

2007

Steering Committee Member

2007 - 2018

AngelVest Group was launched in 2007, in affiliation with the Shanghai chapter of the Asia America Multi Technology Association (“AAMA”) one of Silicon Valley’s leading business networks (www.aamasv.com), is the leading angel investment group in Asia. Our mission is to help our members identify and invest in compelling early-stage businesses across Asia, the US and Europe. We also provide a venue for entrepreneurs to raise early-stage capital from accredited angel investors. Entrepreneurs typically seek to raise from US$100K to $500K, and can enjoy the benefits of continued interaction and mentorship by our angel investors. AngelVest has grown from the leading organized angel investment group in China to the largest in Asia with monthly meetings in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Managing Director

2010 - 2014

Singtel Innov8 is the corporate venture arm of Singtel. Innov8, launched with usd250m in capital from SingTel Group, is focused on investing in and driving innovative services and technology from around the world. As a founding Managing Director supporting China investments I led investments in companies including Yodo1 (mobile games), GMobi/Carota (mobile platform), Lekan (children's video platform) acquired by Conde Nast, DeMyst.Data (unstructured data driven credit scoring), and Massive Impact (mobile advertising) acquired by GMobi My focus was global with a special focus on China. I was based in Shanghai and Beijing.

Partner - SoftBank China & India Holdings

2007 - 2010

Focused on early stage investments in technology, media, and telecom companies in Asia excluding Japan and Korea. As a Partner at Softbank China & India Holdings, a venture capital firm backed by Softbank and Cisco, I led investments in Silk Road Telecom (SRT) - in mobile enterprise cloud SaaS, Playspan - a payment platform acquired by Visa (NYSE: V), Punch Entertainment - a mobile game developer acquired by DeNA (Tokyo: 2432), and Peacesoft - a Vietnam eCommerce and payment platform backed by eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and MOL Group (NASDAQ: MOLG).

Vice President

2002 - 2007

Research analyst focusing on Internet, Software, Telecom Equipment and Hardware sectors in Asia and responsible for China TMT. William was among the top 3 Internet equity research analysts in Asia from 2005. In 2005, he was ranked #1 stock picker in Technology, Media and Telecom, and #3 overall in Hong Kong/China by Forbes/SCMP/Starmine. In 2006 he was ranked #3 All-Asia analyst for Technology/Software and IT Services by Institutional Investor Magazine Asia. William worked on IPOs including Alibaba, Kingsoft (Lei Jun of Xiaomi's first company), Naukri, Rediff and eLong (Expedia China).

Vice President

2000 - 2001

Associate

1997 - 2000