🎙️ EP42: Trailblazing VC Funding in Singapore & Investing in Women Founders… | InvestHer Podcast

Welcome everybody to our latest podcast episode of InvestHer Podcast, and I'm delighted to have with me today Field Pickering from Volpez from Singapore. How are you, Field? It's so lovely to have you with us.

I'm well, thanks for having me.

So tell us a little bit— before we get started, I always like to let our listeners get to know you a little bit. Tell us a bit about you, Field, and how you got into the world of investing. And how you landed in Singapore.

Sure. So I've been in Singapore for 13 years now. Moved here from San Francisco originally thinking that we would come over for a couple of years of international experience. And then here we are 13 years later, and Singapore has proven to be a very good place to live and raise a family. So it's very much home now. But in terms of how I got into the world of investing, I was an M&A lawyer for a couple of years. I joined Volpez originally as the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. And the deal I had with the CEO was he would give me a seat and give me the freedom to explore other areas so long as I did my day job, which was to be his General Counsel. But the agreement was that I was not gonna be chained to my desk. So one of the areas that I had us move more aggressively into was venture capital, both in terms of investing directly in companies and investing in funds. And that kind of opened up an opportunity in 2019 to launch our first fund.

So tell us a little bit more about Volpes first, because you don't just invest in venture. And so you kind of ventured into venture, as you say, at that time. So tell us a bit, who are Volpes? For those of us in the West who may not know, I think you're a very big name in Singapore for sure, and in Asia. So tell us a little bit more about the history of, of, of your fund. Well, not your fund, of your firm. Let's start it that way.

Yeah. So Vulpes is an alternative investment manager based here in Singapore, and it's backed by the family office of Steve Diggle. And Steve co-founded a hedge fund in 2002, which was the largest Asia-based hedge fund going into the financial crisis. They had $2 billion under management. 18 months later, they had $5 billion under management. And they were investing in the same products that were featured in the book or the movie, The Big Short. Steve says the only reason why he's not featured in The Big Short is because nobody in Hollywood cares about investment firms in Singapore. But the short credit strategy made their investors a lot of money. And then by 2010, they decided they didn't want to be managing other people's money. They unwound the hedge fund, returned capital to investors, Then Steve acquired the fund management business for a dollar, changed the name to Volpez, set up a family office. And the idea was to use the fund management platform as a way to invest his family office money along with like-minded investors. So today, 12 years later, we invest across a bunch of different asset classes. One of the asset classes that we invest in is venture capital. And if you look at the history of venture capital in Singapore/Southeast Asia, The ecosystem or the industry really was launched in 2015. The Singapore government had an initiative to create a Silicon Valley for Southeast Asia. And so in 2015, 2016, certain qualified funds, first-time funds got matching dollars from the Singapore government. So if you're able to raise a small fund, you immediately were able to double that fund with the assistance of the Singapore government. But Volpe was investing before that scheme was launched. So we led the seed round in a company called PropertyGuru, which is one of the first real success stories for startups in Singapore. It went from Singapore startup to unicorn to now publicly listed company in the New York Stock Exchange. Volpez has taken out something like 66 times cash from that investment. So that's probably the top, one of the top 3 venture exits in Southeast Asia, something that we need to see more of. that being exits. And then we were also invested in a couple of the other early unicorns. And then we moved into investing in funds and in 2020, we created a separate entity or separate investment thesis called Vulpes Ventures. And I left, I moved from being the general counsel and chief operating officer to running Vulpes Ventures and Vulpes Impact. And today we have 2 venture funds and 2 kind of venture-focused impact funds within the Volpe Ventures business.

Amazing. So I love that story because you're a real success story and I don't think enough people in this part of the world know about it in Europe and in the United States. So I'm really happy to our listeners who are from those areas and learn about this. Like you guys were really ahead of the curve in Asia and I love that you made your own success. You didn't need the support need if I put in, I'm doing air quotes, the support of the Singapore government to do the match funding for your fund. But that's an interesting thing. Does the Singapore government still have that policy in place, Field, or have they changed tack now that there are more players in the field in Singapore?

They're no longer supporting that scheme, partly because they don't have to, meaning the ecosystem that I suppose they desired back then now exists. The one thing the Singapore government has done and continues to do is to make it very attractive for fund managers to set up their operations here. So in 2020, they set up this new like scheme called the VCC, which is incredibly tax efficient. And so we see family offices and venture funds coming here to Singapore to incorporate and run their operations. So from that point of view, you know, they've, I guess, achieved what they set out to achieve. And then they continue to back some of those early managers. So if you were lucky enough to be one of those early managers, you have benefited from the continual support of the Singapore government. For those of us that came later or didn't participate in the beginning, you know, we don't get the benefit of those early managers.

You don't get the benefit, but the whole ecosystem benefits, which is, which is the point because then it's kind of a, yeah, a healthier marketplace, shall we call it. And does, I'm just curious, does the Singapore government also help at angel investment level with tax breaks or is it only at VC level or another type of asset class?

I can't think of a way that Singapore government specifically benefits angel investors. I mean, the overall tax regime here is very attractive. That's why people are here and why large financial institutions set up their base here. The— but I can't think of anything specifically for angel investors. There are a number of angel networks that are very active in Singapore. And over the last really 2 or 3 years, we've seen an increase in angel investing. I suppose that's what makes Singapore/Southeast Asia such a good venture market nowadays is that you have very active angel investors, you have seed funds, you have a little bit later stage investors and you have the growth investors. So you have kind of every rung of that ladder starting with angel investors.

I love it. And I think it's, it's fantastic that Vulpes, that you guys have been ahead of the curve and spotting the unicorns, which is, you know, holds you in very good stead for this next fund that you want to build. So tell us a little bit more. Where does the— where did the name Vulpes come from? I'm understanding Vulpa as coming from wolf from Latin, or is that— am I completely going off the mark here? Or was that something else that your founder said, no, we really like the name?

Yeah, it's Latin for fox.

Actually, the fox.

Okay. And there's an old Aesop fable about the fox and the hedgehog. And it goes back to a long story between Steve and his former co-founder of the hedge fund and the fox and the hedgehog have differing views on how to approach the world. And Steve is the fox. And so when he spun out to create Vulpes, that was the name he chose.

I love it. Oh, tell us, now you have me curious. Can you remember what the fable was?

Yeah, it's something like the hedgehog puts all his eggs in one basket and watches that basket closely, and the fox wants to put eggs across a bunch of different baskets. And so when he went to set out, and the hedge fund had 2 strategies, long credit, short— sorry, long volatility, short credit. And when he launched Volpeos, he wanted to create an alternative investment platform where He had exposure to a bunch of different asset classes, which is what Volpes has today.

Amazing. I love it. I always like the backstory. I think it's interesting because we don't always hear it and it reveals a lot about the mindset of the founders and the mindset and the vision moving forward and the culture of your operations, which is very interesting. And I like that you're spreading the risk and increasing the payback. Let's just say that's, which is, I know it's funding 101. However, not everybody does it. And that's clear. It's nice to hear that he had that clear strategy moving forward. So let's go more into Volpes. Tell us a bit more about your— like you were saying, kind of born— part of it was born during COVID So tell us a bit more about that. Because, you know, that was not an easy time, and you decided to move forward. So tell us more.

So in 2019, before COVID we were exploring the idea of launching our first third-party managed venture fund, meaning going out and getting investment from outside investors and running our own venture strategy. And we were exploring that into 2020 and then COVID hit March 2020 and we saw that good companies weren't able to close out funding rounds. So as an LP investor, I sat on a couple of investor calls where fund managers were giving their investors their response to the pandemic and how they were going to behave. And unanimously they said, we're not investing again until we can see people face to face, until we can get on an airplane again. And so what that meant was that meant that conversations they'd been having in the weeks and months before COVID including signed term sheets, you know, changed dramatically. So good companies were coming to us that we were either invested in directly or that were in funds where we were invested. And they were saying, what's going on? I've got a term sheet signed. I expected to close my next funding round in Q1 2020, and no one's responding to me. And so we got together and said, you know, either COVID is going to kill us all, in which case this is academic, or this might be a really good time to be investing because those companies were then being forced to raise less money at lower valuations, do bridge rounds. do whatever they could to get funding in, either because they were in their normal cycle, they needed funding to continue their growth, or because they were very nervous and they wanted to have cash, you know, in the bank just in case. And both of those things meant that there were very good companies that were in need of cash, and there was an opportunity to invest because very few other venture investors at that time, you know, took the same view as we did. So we raised a little bit of money and we being Yanni, one of the co-founders of Property Guru, which is the company that I mentioned previously, and he'd been an active early stage investor and mentor in the ecosystem before joining us. And then Hugh in Australia had been the Chief Investment Officer of one of the leading seed stage funds there in Australia. And so with the two of them joining me, we had instant credibility because Yanni and Hugh are well known in the ecosystem. And we started investing and we were very aggressive about how we built pipeline and how we found companies and how we reached out to companies. And we made 21 investments from that first fund. We then launched our second fund in 2021, at which point the world had come to grips with being forced to get comfortable investing via Zoom.

Yeah.

And then things took off and, and 2021 was into 2022, it was kind of a crazy time. in terms of valuations, the speed at which funding rounds got closed. And luckily, we were very disciplined during that period of time. And I think that has protected us quite a bit. But we've made 33 investments from Fund 2. There's a few kind of overlapped investments. So 44 investments in total across the 2 funds. And that's from 2020 into the end of 2023. We made our last investment this month. And so now the question is, which we'll talk about, what comes next for Vulpus Ventures in terms of bringing something interesting to the market that investors want to see?

I love it. Do you know when you say that, a song comes to mind? Oops, I've done it again. As in, okay, I've spotted a gap. I said, okay, I'm gonna seize that opportunity. And I when everybody else is being very cold, like being scared, I'm gonna go for it and I'm gonna seize that opportunity and go for it and, and milk it for as much as I can and really get a great return on investment and then say, okay, now what next? So I love, I love that. Um, I'm curious, just before we move on to the next topic, is like, what part of, would you say, Asian culture impacted the, the The fact that a lot of investors didn't want to invest over Zoom, do you think that the Asian culture had anything to do with that, or was it widespread, Field, with your experience from seeing what was happening around the world during COVID Yeah, it had, I don't think it was any, had anything to do with any cultural bias.

I mean, look at the Australians and the Kiwis in New Zealand. I mean, they were, they probably took the most drastic response. They had the most drastic response to COVID. I mean, the Australians in particular. So no, it wasn't a cultural thing. I think part of it could be that Singapore is fortunate that we are surrounded by a bunch of different countries in a close proximity with a terrific airport. And so it, it's very common for people in Singapore to bounce between Jakarta, Indonesia, Bangkok, Thailand, Saigon, Vietnam, Manila, Philippines, etc. And so when that, when that's no longer available, I think it does have an impact. It kind of, kind of spooks people, but that's more of a kind of Singapore thing than really a cultural Asian thing.

Okay. Curious about that. Okay. So you've done Fund 1, Fund 2. And so now we're here to talk about what are your next plans, Field? Because this is exciting already. Okay. The topic of our podcast is InvestHer Podcast. So maybe if you Walk back a second and say, what percentage would you know of Fund 1 and Fund 2 would have had women founders or co-founders in your portfolio?

So without any intention or focus on that, it's about 25% of our portfolio have at least one female founder. And I mean, so what's interesting is I spent the first part of the year talking to investors around the world. about our third fund. And I can explain why we're different and how we approach markets differently. But it's clear that in 2023, the venture markets, at least in Asia Pacific, are oversupplied, overcrowded. There's just too many funds in the market that are now trying to raise their next fund at a time when they're— at a time when investors want to see cash returned to them. So investors who have been investing in funds for the last 5 years are ready to start seeing money come back instead of having it be a one-way flow of money into funds. So, and obviously beginning part of this year, interest rates were at their peak. And so a variety of reasons that led to investors being uninterested in another venture fund saying we're gonna launch our next fund into early 2024. So we went back to the drawing board, And looking at the fact that we do 25% of, looking at the fact that 25% of our portfolio has at least one female founder, we decided to look closer into that. And we pulled out the female-backed companies across the 2 portfolios and we said, what would it look like? What would the returns be if we had just been investing in that cohort of companies? And this doesn't include companies that actually could change and bring in gender diversity and have the benefit of that.

Right.

This is just companies that have it. Single, at least one female founder. And the actual returns are something like 31% net IRR, 1.7 times money on invested capital. It's just slightly better than the overall performance of our portfolios.

Hmm.

So then, I mean, that's, that was the light bulb moment. So, and then we started doing research and the empirical evidence confirms that backing gender diverse leadership teams actually outperform the market.

Mm-hmm.

So then in a crowded venture market, if we explore a thesis focused around female founders and gender-diverse leadership teams, not only can we outperform the market, meaning we can deliver investors better returns, but there's probably more capital available because it's different. It's non-consensus. Everybody's going one way and we will be going in a different direction. I mean, it's shocking to me that more fund managers don't connect those 2 points that you can deliver better returns and raising money may be a little bit easier.

Yeah.

But anyway, that's, so that's our focus for the next fund. We're gonna be backing 75% of the portfolio have to have at least one female founder. And then in order to promote gender diversity, we want to be able to invest in companies that don't have the gender diversity but recognize that they're lacking it, have a commitment to change that. and need some help in figuring out the best way to get there. And, and so we can help them get there.

I love that. That's so exciting field. And so are there any other players in Singapore who currently have that thesis that are focusing solely or mainly on women founders?

There are no other venture managers with this focus. I mean, we see in other, other markets, there are Some fund managers doing this, nothing in Asia Pacific. There are some other products that are a little bit more like debt-focused or a little bit more private equity-focused. So, I mean, we're seeing like on the fringes, there are other managers, but there's no other pure venture fund manager. I think right now, I mean, ESG is obviously something that all fund managers have to talk about and prominently display in their pitch decks. 5 years ago, you wouldn't see the anything about ESG, and now you have to have the pretty colors from the United Nations in your pitch deck.

Yeah.

Today, the attention around ESG all seems to be focused on climate tech. Climate tech seems to be where the interest is. And it's my opinion that the next evolution in 3 to 5 years is gonna be around gender diversity.

Yeah.

And you're gonna see like the same attention that today today is attracted to climate tech will be attracted towards gender. So every fund manager is going to have something in there that shows percentage of female-backed companies, what their goal is for their next fund, the number of female leadership boards, all this stuff. It's, I mean, it's definitely coming.

I really hope that your prediction rings true because this is like something that we've been working on for the past 10 years at Global InvestHer. And, you know, 10 years ago in 2013, when we started, nobody was really talking about funding women entrepreneurs. Nobody cared. It wasn't a topic. And so much so that I remember creating a Google alert at the time for funding women entrepreneurs, investing in women, da da da. I would get maybe one article a month if I was lucky that Google would be able to pull up. Now it's like whatever, 10 a day or what.

It's gone. Now you had to turn off the Google alert.

I haven't turned it off. I don't look at them anymore. It's exactly that, which is fantastic. Yet, to your point, it's an incredible opportunity. I'm so happy that you've shared that you went and studied your own portfolio performance and the women entrepreneurs and the women founders in mixed teams and how they were performing better than— and because, yeah, the research says it. I mean, Harvard Wharton did that study many years ago that they've been harping on about it, saying it's gender-mixed teams, it's gender-diverse teams that produce the highest returns and the best results over in decision-making and innovation, it is the mixed teams. And there are many reasons for that, more so than age diversity, cultural diversity, or any other type of diversity. The gender one is it. And I'm so glad to hear you saying, yeah, we get this and we foresee this is going to be the next big thing. And I really hope it is. Like, I'm glad, Fields, that you guys are ahead of the curve. I still think we have a lot of work to do. Where we are aligned, so aligned is that I want to play with and partner with the people who get this. And many, many, for many years, I was all about going out in, you know, sharing those statistics, doing a lot of education to investors, to founders, to different ecosystems to say, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. There's a great opportunity, go for this, go for this, go for this, fund women, not because they're women, because, because they have higher returns, because they have more innovation, etc., etc. create more value. And so now I think it's great to see tides are starting to turn. It's not, not every country and area of the world is, is ready for that. So I think you have a great opportunity also because in Asia, you know, the saying that women hold up half the sky and the fact that, you know, women have been very instrumental to rebuilding economies across Asia in different ways. So I think that there is maybe more of a cultural acceptance and readiness for it. So I'm glad that you guys are going forward with this. So, so what more can you tell us about your plans? So like Fund 1 and Fund 2, how big were they? Let's maybe go, let's go back a little bit for a second.

Yeah. So the first 2 funds were very small. We have as investors, individuals, family offices. I'd say first fund with a few co-investment vehicles is about $15 million US. Second fund, same type of LP base, probably about $30 million US in terms of fund plus co-investment vehicles. So taken together in the span of about 4 years, we've raised $45 million and have invested that in 44 companies. And now the goal is to launch a fund for the female-focused fund or gender-diverse-focused fund to be somewhere between $50 and $100 and take the next step towards being more institutional in terms of having institutional LPs or limited partners investors that can help us scale because I think we have the opportunity to be the gold standard for gender lens venture investing in Asia Pacific.

Yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that we found is that when we go and we talk to individuals, in particular females that have had a successful business career, And Singapore is a town where people like to network. And so, I have conversations with people who I want to help make introductions for me. But when I give them the thesis and I tell them like the expected returns in terms of this particular thesis and asset class, they all want to invest personally.

Hmm.

So, in addition to making introductions for them, which is the purpose of sitting down with these people, they hear the story and they're like, well, I want to invest. So, what we're going to have is we're going to have a very active network of advisors for the fund, which is gonna be really helpful for the portfolio companies. And our intention is not just to be financial investors, but to build out like real community content, both for the female founders in our portfolio and the female founders in the ecosystem.

Mm-hmm.

And we're, we're working on building out that content in terms of what we're gonna do on a monthly, quarterly basis.

Yeah.

And how we're gonna connect our portfolio with our advisors to draw on the experiences of the advisors to, to add a lot of value to our portfolio.

Yeah.

So we're working through that and, and we hope to get the first close sometime around end of January, early February.

Yeah.

Start investing, make, do a lot of press about it because I think we will get a lot of press about being the first venture fund focused on this in Asia Pacific. And then, you know, hopefully we get the attention of all the best female founders, certainly in our region, but I bet we will from around the world. Now, I, one question we always get asked is, will you be able to find enough good companies? The answer is yes. So of the 4,000 companies we've looked at in the last 4 years or so, 26% of them have had at least one female founder, and that's without a focus on it.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that we, want to make very clear is that we are doing this for financial returns. So we need to find the best venture-backable companies that just so happen to either have a female founder or gender-diverse leadership teams because that's how we are going to prove that this thesis works. And we need to be able to deliver very good returns so that when we go back to market the next time, people are looking at us for our financial returns, not because we're gender-focused, although that won't hurt. So I think we have the real opportunity to kind of own this space, and that's the intention.

Amazing. And how about within your team? I mean, are you planning on having some more women investors on your team in the medium term, given that you're going to be creating this fund? Is that part of the plans?

Yeah. So we're, I mean, one of the things we became obvious right away was we can't go out and promote the virtues of gender diversity when our own investment committee lacks any gender diversity. And that's something we've recognized for a while. It's something we've been trying to fix. But for this fund, we're bringing on 2 female partners. And so the investment committee will be 2 male, 2 female.

Brilliant.

We'll have, as far as I know, the only 50/50 gender-balanced investment committee in Asia Pacific. And I think that will really help when female founders come in front of our investment committee, I think it'll, it'll just look a lot different for them to actually see 2 females, which will give us a lot of credibility. It'll also give us a different perspective because the questions that, you know, that are asked by females will probably be different than questions asked by males. So, we'll get a just a different and a better perspective and a more well-rounded one. So, we'll disclose more about who those people are joining the investment committee.

Hopefully.

January around first close.

Amazing, amazing. But I think what's really great, it's so exciting that you've taken that step and you've understood that you've mentioned the word credibility and it is about credibility and, you know, just common sense, right? So if you're touting gender diversity, you need to demonstrate that as well. And it's actually one of the things like we created the funder directory at Global InvestHer. which is the first global database of sources of funding, all types of sources of funding ranked by how women founder friendly they are. And one of the criteria we have is, like, we have 5 different criteria that we rank you on. And one of them is like, do you have women investors on that team, like writing checks? That's what's important. So it's not just talking the talk, it's walking the walk. So I'm really excited to hear that you are gonna again, pushing the boat forward for that in Asia-Pac, which is great. And particularly because there already are women VCs, let's say, you know, there are women fund managers out there, already, and some very, very successful. However, to have that completely 50/50 team is going to be new, and that's really exciting. And we're so excited to support you in this. And that's why I was so excited when you and I spoke a few weeks ago, Phil, to say, I want you guys to come on, I want the world to know about you. I really do. So while we have you with us, I'd love you to give us some practical key tips to women founders who are looking for funding. If you had to give them for those founders in Asia, in Singapore in particular, What key tips would you give them as to dos and don'ts when they go knocking on VC fund, you know, fund doors in particular?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the same advice I would give to any founder, whether they be male or female, and that's— and it's the same advice I have to remind myself of, which is you don't give up. Fundraising is a difficult and unpleasant process. Um, and maybe it's, maybe it's, maybe it's more difficult for females to, uh, like to go through that process because, I mean, it does take emotionally, it is very difficult to, to go through a fundraising process. And, and, you know, one of the things is that you have to kind of detach yourself from the emotion. No, it's a process. Uh, no, it's not personal.

Yeah.

And, and have real perseverance. But I think one of the, as companies go and raise later stage funding, the numbers show that it gets more difficult for female founders to raise money the later stage they go. So I guess one of the things I would suggest is try to build a network as early as you can of people that can support you, that can help you, that can make connections because a lot of the venture capital game is about connections, either like being connected to investors, being connected to, if you're a venture investor, being connected to good entrepreneurs. If you're an entrepreneur and a founder, being connected to other entrepreneurs where you can share learnings. So I'd say build, build a network and, and do it as early as possible so you can have a really authentic network.

I think that's really important. And it's also a difference between male and female entrepreneurs is often that male entrepreneurs have very wide networks and women have more targeted narrow networks, which doesn't serve you when you're looking for this. So you really need to go wider with your network and to cultivate those more tactical conversations and tactical relationships. You don't need to build a super long relationship with someone before being able to ask them for money. And I think that is a difference between male and female entrepreneurs. We just do it differently. And I think we have to learn from each other in certain things. And that's one of the key things. So any last tips, Field, that you would like to give to our listeners who are listening, like whether it is if you are investing in Asia or if you're a woman founder looking for funding, any last tips or comments that you want to make?

No, other than I'm happy to speak to anyone either about why we think this investment thesis can work. If you're a female entrepreneur, happy to have a conversation about the types of companies that we look at, either to see if your company would be a candidate or to help point you in the direction of where you might find, you know, investors more suited for the type of company you're building. So I think the more conversations we can have with people in this ecosystem, the better we all will be.

I think so. And so where can people find you, Field, if they want to learn more about Volpes, about your fund, and also founders? And okay, let's start with that. So where can they find you? What's the best place to contact you?

Yeah, LinkedIn's probably the best. So if you just type in Field Pickering, I think I'm the only Field Pickering on LinkedIn, certainly the only one in Singapore. So reach out that way and I'll be sure to get the message.

Yep, perfect. Okay. And what I would like to say is, to any of the LPs and investors listening out there, I think this is a really interesting opportunity. So if you want to learn more about this opportunity in this fund, do, you know, have a conversation with Field and the team, because I think this is a great time to have those conversations, to explore areas for collaboration. And to all of the women founders who are listening in Singapore, in Asia-Pac. So continue to, continue to move forward, continue to have hope, get excited, because, you know, Vulpes are here, Fund 3 is coming, it's going to be there specifically to help you. So do be reaching out. Honestly, it's never too early, is it, Field, for them to be reaching out to you? They can already be doing this now in January, even if you haven't closed yet, obviously, because you'll be deploying pretty soon after. So.

Yeah. So we're, I mean, we are still deploying from Fund 2. We're about to make our final investment from Fund 2, but we have a very active pipeline, which we will then pass along to the next fund. And we are building out that pipeline so that when we get to first close, which we expect to do at the end of January, probably we'll start investing. So yeah, we're open for business.

Open for business. So LPs, I can tell you, so open for business. And also, of course, women founders, mixed founders, open for business. And we're delighted to say that Volpes are on our funder directory. We're delighted to have you on it. So you'll be able to find them on the funder directory. And we will put all the links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Field, for being with us today, for sharing your vision. And I also want to give you an open up— an open invitation to another time later in the year or next year in 2025 to touch base with us again and tell us how Fund3 is going because we're super excited. And everybody watch out for the announcements that will be coming in January to learn more.

Terrific. Well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for the interest. And let's definitely do this again in December as we get to the final close. And I can give you an update on how the process went, the types of companies we've invested in, and the future of gender lens investing from Asia.

I love it. And I think that just to round that off, next year in Dublin, so in 2024, as you're listening to this, it's going to be early 2024. So this year in Dublin, we'll be hosting our InvestHer Summit. And we will be bringing together founders, funders, policy shapers, and ecosystem builders from around the world, all focused on funding a million women entrepreneurs by 2030. So click on the link to learn more about it. And what I wanted to say is like each year moving forward, we're going to have a regional focus. So in 2024, it's going to be Africa, and 2025, it most likely will be Asia. So I'm just giving you a heads up. Field. So we'd probably want to have you definitely come to Dublin already this year. And, you know, you can already be connecting with other people in the field. So to all of you, thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for our next episode. And thank you so much, Field, for being with us. I'm very excited to see what you guys do. And thank you for being trailblazers yet again at Volpez. We're so proud and happy to have you on this podcast. Thank you.

Terrific. Thank you, Anne.