Penjana Kapital and Sunway University, through its innovation arm, Sunway Innovation Labs (Sunway iLabs), have joined forces to launch Malaysia’s first venture capital talent development programme, KapitalX.
KapitalX, which began operations on April 1, 2022, intends to develop future venture capital (“VC”) talent by providing them with the essential skillsets to become junior to mid-level VC investment analysts.
This is in line with Penjana Kapital’s goal of developing the Malaysian venture capital ecosystem as part of the Malaysian government’s aim to expedite the development of a future innovation economy.
The 2-month programme is an industry-agnostic course that is open to university students in their final or penultimate year, recent graduates with less than two years of experience, and entrepreneurs or early-stage start-up employees.
“The KapitalX programme is designed to ensure that there is a consistent pipeline of VC talent. We hope to nurture homegrown investors, fund managers, as well as analysts and develop expertise in the asset class.
“This is in line with our mandate. In Malaysia, the government believes that the development of an innovation-led economy requires a vibrant VC industry. VCs function as the gatekeeper and the bottleneck to the deployment of ‘growth’ capital. Creating sustainable VC talent pools is critical for bridging talent shortage gaps and enhancing our attraction as a VC hub, in the long run, ultimately increasing Malaysia’s appeal to regional start-ups as their launchpad.” said Taufiq Iskandar, Chief Investment Officer of Penjana Kapital.
A total of 30 participants will be carefully selected from the pool of applicants for the programme. In over 20-hours of classes, these participants will learn the fundamentals of the venture capital world from global VC investors.
Learnings include deal sourcing, due diligence, legal and soft skills development, with a demo day in the final week where participants will pitch their research on investment opportunities to a panel of venture capitalists. Selected participants will then spend one month on a venture fellowship where they will shadow investment analysts with our partners such as Tenggara Capital Partners, The Hive SEA, RHL Ventures, AC Ventures, Bintang Capital Partners, Emissary Capital, Iris Capital, Crewstone International, Gobi Partners, Sun Sea Capital and many more.
“Sunway University is very pleased to collaborate with Penjana Kapital on the KapitalX Venture Capital Development Programme. This collaboration provides another great opportunity for our students to touch base with a rapidly growing market sector and become employment-ready graduates,” said Professor Sibrandes Poppema, President of Sunway University.
