Steve is an investor, advisor, and award-winning tech entrepreneur with 28 years of building businesses in Asia and Europe. This includes scaling teams from 2 to 1,500 people, raising over $400M in funding, M&A deals, and investing in and mentoring green-tech start-ups. He’s passionate about entrepreneurship, climate change, and social equality. In 2007, Steve co-founded PropertyGuru out of personal frustration, and set out to increase transparency and “empower consumers to make confident property decisions”. He led the business as CEO for the first 10+ years, growing it from scratch into a proptech unicorn used by 50 million people in 5 countries, with 1,400 staff, and took it public on New York Stock Exchange (“PGRU” NYSE ticker). Steve serves on the board. Steve founded Planet Rise in 2019 to help companies tackle climate change and social inequality, using tech to achieve impact at scale. He’s invested in and advises 17 Asian green-tech start-ups in clean energy, clean water, clean air, sustainable food, circular economy, sustainable finance, migrant worker rights, and women-led enterprises. In 2021, Steve co-founded Wavemaker Impact, South East Asia’s first VC climate-tech venture builder, with the goal of reducing 10% of global carbon emissions. We are developing a portfolio of 100x100 ventures (climate-tech businesses with the potential to mitigate 100MT emissions and generate $100M revenue each), working with seasoned entrepreneurs. Steve has supported the development of South East Asia’s start-up ecosystem over the last 16 years – as an angel investor (~30 start-ups), mentor, and VC (Wavemaker Partners / Wavemaker Impact), focused on sustainability tech. Steve is a member of the Asian Venture and Philanthropy Network (AVPN) and Top Tier Impact (TTI). He is also a sponsor/mentor/judge for HabitatForHumanity’s Sheltertech affordable housing accelerator, Capitaland’s Sustainable Buildings accelerator, and Temasek Foundation’s global The Liveability Challenge. Steve supports charities including FoodBank, Asia Startup Network (low-income families), and LightHouse (migrant workers). Previously, Steve invested in and then led ComiAsia, a Singapore mobile content start-up. Previously, he founded Business2Profit in Europe to help enterprises to innovate and start-ups with scaling. Prior to this, Steve held leadership roles in the tech sector for 10 years, his last position was director of a $500 million turnover business at Cable & Wireless helping internet, content, emerging telco, and mobile players. In 2007, Steve was awarded the “Spirit of Enterprise Award” in recognition of contributions to entrepreneurship in Singapore. He is a keynote speaker and is regularly interviewed by media on start-up, venture investing, and sustainability topics. Read more about Wavemaker Impact here https://wavemakerimpact.com/ or connect with them on Linkedin here https://www.linkedin.com/company/wavemaker-impact/. You can connect directly with Steve on Linkedin here https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemel/. If you enjoyed this podcast, would you consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? It takes less than 30 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince new amazing guests to come on the show, and on top of that, I love reading the reviews! Connect with me: Email: hello@andrewsenduk.com Website: https://andrewsenduk.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.senduk/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-senduk/
