Hype Autopsy covers private equity, venture capital and tech. Non-mainstream stuff.
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This week, the VC community offered salutations to Joel Neoh on his appointment as Roblox’s managing director for Southeast Asia and Oceania.
But there’s still an unopened bottle of champagne on the desk of The Malaysianist.
It’s reserved for when Neoh’s VC firm, First Move, hits the usual milestones for its Jelawang-anchored fund: closing it, deploying it into startups and, above all, posting DPI (distributions to paid-in capital, aka cash returned to investors).
First Move was arguably the best-known name when Khazanah’s Jelawang Capital unveiled its first cohort of emerging fund managers in June last year.
You could say Neoh was the poster boy, even though he founded the firm together with longtime associate Audra Pakalnyte.
First Move did not have a venture capital licence when it applied to the programme, The Edge reported, and as of February it had not called capital from Jelawang or deployed any of its money.
It has since come some way: Securities Commission data shows it is now a registered venture capital management corporation, with a number carrying a 2026 date.
Neoh, the founding partner, is the sole director of First Move Management Sdn Bhd, which in turn is wholly owned by Singapore-domiciled First Move Technology Pte Ltd.
I celebrate Malaysian multitaskers, multipotentialites and all the multi-adjectives that make a LinkedIn post.
But Jelawang backed Neoh and his fund, and asked that he run it full time.
With the Roblox appointment, two things are now on the line: Jelawang’s selection, and Neoh’s record as a fund manager with a government-linked LP.
What fuels Son’s US$50 billion headline?
I have been riffing about SoftBank’s Malaysia pledge for a while, so I’m going to close the loop.
A quick refresher: Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim claimed on October 24 that SoftBank would invest US$50 billion (RM202.7 billion) in Malaysia.
Nikkei reported that only part will come from SoftBank, the rest from project financing and partners.
SoftBank hasn’t confirmed the figure at press time.
The only signed deal is an October 8 framework with Grab and Petros for a Sarawak AI platform.
So what kind of investor are we luring here?