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William Bao Bean
General Partner at SOSV
Riyadh
Overview
William Bao Bean is the Managing General Partner at Orbit Startups, specializing in digitalization investments in emerging markets. With a background in venture capital and private equity, he has successfully invested in a range of startups like Flashaid and Pricepally.com, demonstrating expertise in sectors such as E-commerce and BioTech.
Bean has held key roles at notable organizations like SOSV, Singtel, and SoftBank Group, showcasing a strong track record in strategic investments and corporate development, particularly in the digital media and mobile devices space.
Work Experience
Managing General Partner
2014 - Current
William is Managing General Partner of Orbit Startups the Emerging Markets VC with over US$240m in Total Value Managed. Orbit invests in startups with technology that drives impact by digitizing traditional industries and helps people make more money and have better quality of life, all in a more in sustainable way, including ecommerce, fintech, travel, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging and growth markets in Emerging Asia, MENA, 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 238 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 350 early stage investments including Bitmex in fintech, UShopal in ecommerce, italki in edtech, Videoverse in AI, Carota in mobility, Flickstree in media, ELSA Speak in edtech, Tappytoon in media, Priyoshop in supplychain, Coutloot in ecommerce, and Dastgyr in fintech. He currently is a Director on the boards of Boost Capital, Pandabus, Fleksy, Goama, and italki as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of Blair Academy. He holds a BA from Bowdoin College.
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.
H2 is the premier global leadership network for the digital industry.
Director
2007
Venture Partner
2023
William joined Orbit, a rebrand of Chinaccelerator MOX SOSV and a member of the SOSV Consortium, in 2010 as a mentor and full time as Managing Director and SOSV General Partner in 2014. Orbit is the first accelerator to launch in Asia in 2010 and the longest running startup program in emerging markets in the world, and the first in Asia to have a unicorn go through its program Bitmex in Fall 2015. Orbit is the Emerging Markets VC investing in tech companies that digitize traditional industries and help people make more money all in a more sustainable way including ecommerce, fintech, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging and frontier markets Emerging 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 238m monthly active users.
General Partner
2014 - 2022
William joined Orbit, a rebrand of Chinaccelerator MOX SOSV and a member of the SOSV Consortium, in 2010 as a mentor and full time as Managing Director and SOSV General Partner in 2014. Orbit is the first accelerator to launch in Asia in 2010 and the longest running startup program in emerging markets in the world, and the first in Asia to have a unicorn go through its program Bitmex in Fall 2015. Orbit is the Emerging Markets VC investing in tech companies that digitize traditional industries and help people make more money all in a more sustainable way including ecommerce, fintech, media, health, education, and logistics across emerging and frontier markets Emerging 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 238m monthly active users.
SOSV is a deep tech venture firm that invests from a startup's inception and operates the HAX and IndieBio programs.
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).
DB Capital Ventures invests in early-stage and emerging growth businesses and is a venture capital firm based in New York.
Vice President
2000 - 2001
Bank of America Neighborhood Builders is a signature philanthropic program that advances economic mobility and nonprofit leadership.
Associate
1997 - 2000
Associate
1996 - 1997
Technology analyst
Education
BA
1991 - 1995
High School
1987 - 1991