Prior to launching venture capital firm Ascend Vietnam Ventures (AVV), General Partners Eddie Thai and Binh Tran launched the Vietnam-focused fund of Silicon Valley-based early-stage investor 500 Startups. The experience validated their hypotheses about startup and VC opportunities in Vietnam, and they decided to spin out and launch AVV in 2020 to double-down.
Their fund mandate was twofold: Bring business models that worked elsewhere to Vietnam, and identify novel startups in Vietnam that could expand internationally.
“Vietnam’s ecosystem still has a lot of untapped potential,” Eddie says.
The team knew they needed a fund-administration provider—Eddie and Binh previously worked with a fund-admin provider at 500 Startups—and sought a partner with regional support and a balance of technology.
“We found challenges around time zones specifically and wanted to be more tech-focused in terms of how we ran our firm and built it out,” said Eddie.
The team found the solution in Carta’s APAC Fund Administration team and offering. Having a tech-focused partner is important for operational efficiency and institutional stability, Eddie said. AVV onboarded a new finance manager in 2023, and the Carta platform had all the fund’s documents for investments, expenses, capital calls, and its investor newsletter, which made it easy to transfer the knowledge.
No need to think about fund admin
“The job of a fund admin is to make me not have to think about it day to day,” Eddie said, mentioning the ease of leveraging on Carta’s platform and the ability to accommodate the diverse needs of AVV’s existing partners.
Eddie ThaiOur LPs provide fund managers the fuel to survive, thrive, and grow. So we give them the information they need, and Carta’s software is a core component of that work for us.
General partner, Ascend Vietnam Ventures
AVV understood that the team needed to focus on its portfolio companies and limited partners—and not have to think about fund operations—if it wanted to build a well-oiled machine.
“Our LPs provide fund managers the fuel to survive, thrive, and grow,” Eddie said. “So we give them the information they need, and Carta’s software is a core component of that work for us.”
Collaboration and partnership
Not only has AVV selected Carta as its fund admin provider, it has also chosen to partner with the Carta team to build the Southeast Asian ecosystem together.
“It’s always great to have a more mutually beneficial relationship with a partner than just the baseline services,” Eddie said. The two teams regularly catch up on market developments, hold events together, and explore other potential partnership opportunities, he said.
“We also share Carta as an option for all our portfolio startups to manage cap tables,” Eddie said. “A number of them use Carta for that.”
Finding your best fit
When asked to give advice to other firms looking for a fund admin provider, Eddie said to “talk to multiple options—there are a lot of vendors out there.” That’s what the team did before settling on Carta.
Ultimately, AVV determined that Carta had the technology the firm was looking for and was able to accommodate specific LP commitments. In addition, it is a brand name recognized amongst the LPs in the region.
But finding that team fit is most important. “Ultimately it came down to the people,” he said.
