I was fortunate to dive deep into meaningful marketing campaigns with MHV and our founders.

With my startup internship experiences ranging from working in a pre-seed startup in Singapore to a Series B startup in Europe, and even to working with startups in an MNC startup team, I entered the VC world with a foundation and understanding of the regional ecosystem.

MHV is unique compared to other VCs in the region with its strong focus on marketing and branding for its portfolio companies. This goes back to its “entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs” philosophy.

Our investment partners and many on the team have founded their own companies and know the importance of marketing and communications as a startup in terms of increasing branding, starting a funnel for customer leads, and also for attracting top talent and investors. Having strong and consistent messaging goes a long way in helping early-stage founders get started.

I got the opportunity to sit in on meetings with founders to discuss media and overall communications strategy for their funding announcements and product launches. I learned about the nuances in navigating international media like Bloomberg News and CNBC compared to regional and local press. As an aspiring marketer, I see the importance of how international and regional news media coverage can boost a startup’s above-the-line marketing and help them increase their overall brand awareness.

I was also attracted to MHV’s strong focus on founder engagement and helping them solve ecosystem problems. Here, I realized that a VC is more than an investor, but also a business partner. I learned the importance of being a sounding board for advice and a source of knowledge for the founder ecosystem.

When we don’t have the information that founders require, we then go out to try to plug these gaps ourselves. This is where I got the hands-on experience of launching our SEA Tech Talent Report, in collaboration with Glints. This ecosystem report focuses on providing compensation data points for startups, while also educating early-stage founders on the importance of building a good culture right from the start. As an intern, I was empowered to drive the distribution strategy for the report, starting from preparing the press release and media kits to streamlining internal communication for key ecosystem stakeholders through email marketing and newsletters. Leading up to the launch, I was also tasked to spearhead the ideation of several campaigns that will sustain the momentum over our report, which I then presented to the wider team and other senior stakeholders we partnered with.

The overall culture at MHV encourages innovation while being highly resource-efficient. Being a part of the communications team, we go by the adage that “less is more” and aim to make our content as concise and effective as possible. I appreciated the guidance provided by the team in honing my marketing, communication, and project management skills, and have thoroughly enjoyed learning from the team across investment, operations, and HR functions.