Meet Thao Ha. 

She’s a product-led business builder, investor, and now, one of Integra Partners Win With Women venture partner program participants from Vietnam who is looking to make more angel investments in women-led tech ventures. 

Thao’s move into angel investing originated from her own fundraising experience, and in particular the mentorship and support she received from the angels that had invested in her business. “Sometimes it was strategic advice, some other times it was as simple as I did not have an answer for an operational issue, I picked up the phone to ask them.”

Now she hopes to pay this knowledge forward, supporting founders with the insights she gained during her own journey, investing her time and money in Vietnamese startups that she believes she can help scale.

Hidden Gems

“I’m driven by creating meaningful tech-enabled solutions to fundamental problems,” says Thao. “I want to be a part of solving mass-market problems.”

Thao’s angel investing journey is underpinned by her optimistic view of Vietnam’s potential. She sees favourable macro conditions and ample room for innovation across industries, making the landscape ripe for startups to flourish.

While acknowledging challenges in funding, talent acquisition, and leadership development, she remains hopeful. More funding is being infused into startups, talented individuals are gravitating towards key roles, and founders are increasingly emphasising leadership to build successful companies. “I especially believe in female founders in Vietnam – there are a lot of hidden gems in the country. I think mentoring and coaching can help these founders.”

Financial returns and then some

“It’s still too early in the ecosystem for me to have a view of how much return I can get out of my angel investments exactly,” she says, explaining that her interest in angel investing was not primarily motivated by financial gain, but she is clear that this is not just a mission-driven endeavour either. 

She is looking to support women and women-led tech startups in Vietnam whose efforts can scale, taking advantage of the market opportunity, and ultimately deliver returns. 

Thao’s investment philosophy is anchored in her product-centric approach stemming from her interest in addressing real-world problems. In her career she has placed great importance on understanding the end-users’ pain points and devising effective solutions, and this now extends to how she evaluates investment opportunities. But she recognises the need to strike a balance – factors like team dynamics, market opportunities, and distribution strategies play pivotal roles in building a successful company.

Her role as a venture partner in Integra’s Win With Women venture partner program allows Thao to leverage the know-how of Integra’s investment team to better structure her deal funnel, and more importantly, her investment analysis because, in her words, “investing only in founders I’ve known for a long time is not a scalable approach.” 

“It’s a steep learning curve, but I like it.” Whether she’s shaping her own company or offering support to other enterprising founders, the journey of navigating diverse challenges, hypotheses, and solutions keeps her engaged. She views this path as a constant trial-and-error process, or as she calls it, “validated learning”, helping her identify ambitious startups, mentor emerging leaders, and drive meaningful change in Vietnam’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.