GIST Investors has reached Malaysia and is now working to support angel investors in Kuala Lumpur. GIST Investors: Malaysia works in partnership with Technology Park Malaysia (TPM), will work to strengthen the local investor network and create more investment opportunities. However, the training program has proved that it will likely provide support to other angel investors throughout Southeast Asia as well.

Malaysia’s investor network has a lot of growth potential, even though it is less than five years old. In fact, the Malaysia Business Angel Network, the official trade association and governing body among investors and angel clubs in Malaysia, was only founded in 2014. Given the relatively young age of the ecosystem and its high growth opportunity, GIST identified Kuala Lumpur as a city that would benefit from GIST Investors.

On Monday, April 2, GIST and TPM held their first investor training session in Kuala Lumpur. Training topics included key principles in angel investing and the best ways to build an angel network. These are built on the foundation of knowledge the groups already have – which is why these investors used the GIST training as an opportunity to support investors throughout the region.

“What I did not expect is how sophisticated they were, how experienced they were, how much experience they had in the region, and that they had others from other [ASEAN] countries… flying in just for the workshop,” said Ramphis Castro, GIST Investors trainer and co-founder of ScienceVest. He said watching the Malaysian investors provide regional support to other ecosystems was an unexpected but beneficial outcome of the investor program in Kuala Lumpur.

GIST will continue to work with TPM over the next year, providing follow up training workshops to ensure the investor networks get the right injection of knowledge to enable growth and more investment opportunities.

Since its founding in 1996, Technology Park Malaysia has a proven track record of helping more than 3,000 businesses start and grow. Now it will work with GIST to provide in-country training and support to the emerging investor network in the country. The long term goal of the partnership is to create a robust investment network that is able to respond to the financial needs of the science and technology entrepreneurs in Malaysia.

To learn more about the GIST Investors programs, click here.