Q&A: MassMutual Ventures' Ryan Collins

Q: How did MassMutual get started in venture capital?

A: We were established in 2014 in Boston as the corporate venture fund of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance with a $100 million fund. Another $100 million fund for North America was subsequently launched in 2017. Last year we opened in Asia. We decided to establish a foothold in Singapore for the many, well-known reasons that investors are currently excited about Southeast Asia: the macro picture, internet user growth, smart phone penetration and financial services penetration, among others. We decided to start with a relatively modest allocation before potentially expanding our mandate. We will make 10-12 investments from this fund – seed through Series B and, maybe, Series C rounds. We look at anything across financial services, healthcare and enterprise software. We also look elsewhere in the region opportunistically, particularly Hong Kong and Australia.

Q: How are you different from other VC funds set up by insurers?

A: We are first and foremost a financial returns-driven fund, with the objective to deliver superior long-term risk adjusted financial returns to MassMutual’s policyholders. We invest as part of MassMutual’s allocation to alternative investments, rather than as a strategic or corporate development mandate.

Q: To what extent is the link to MassMutual helpful operationally?

A: As part of a Fortune 100 company, we are able to offer our portfolio companies access to both our expertise and or network, not just in the financial services sector but also across healthcare, data science – we have an extensive data science team in the US – cyber security and other areas. We can also introduce companies to larger pools of capital within the group for later rounds. Additionally, through MassMutual’s holding company for international operations, we have strategic relationships with Nippon Life in Japan and Yunfeng Financial in Hong Kong. This follows Nippon Life’s acquisition of MassMutual Japan last year and Yunfeng’s purchase of MassMutual Asia.

Q: Where do you fit into the Southeast Asian VC ecosystem?

A: The market is constantly evolving – it is amazing how far it’s come in the last 4-5 years. We are looking for the best founders and businesses we can invest in across our focus sectors in this region. It will mainly be Series A and B, although the letters can be somewhat arbitrary as there can be a wide range of valuations across stages. We are making commitments of around $3-$5 million on average, sometimes leading investments and sometimes following. It’s also worth noting that we are one of relatively few global platforms in the region, backed by a large financial services group, which we can leverage to the benefit of our portfolio companies.

Q: Do you expect investee companies to be global from day one?

A: Not necessarily. With enterprise software, companies tend to be global from day one or at least have global ambitions. For healthcare, the US is the big market, so we try to help portfolio companies with access there. That’s one of the key areas where we think we can add value. Fintech is probably a bit more localized, companies are more likely to be regional or single country plays, because of differences in regulatory environments and ways of doing business between markets.

Q: Before joining MassMutual Ventures, you ran the Asian arm of LOFT, Manulife’s innovation lab. How is this helpful in your new role?

A: I had spent almost 12 years in investment banking and hedge funds and wanted to get more operational experience. After a couple of years at an analytics start-up, LOFT was a great opportunity at it was like a series of start-ups with the backing of a large corporate. It was different from many innovation labs in that we had an in-house team of data scientists, engineers and researchers that worked much like any early-stage team, doing customer research, testing and building small-scale prototypes, seeing what worked. We were mainly focused on artificial intelligence and blockchain as technologies to explore – creating products and services that could be applied by Manulife across its insurance and asset management businesses.

Q: From your time at the analytics start-up – where you were based in Asia – what was the most frustrating aspect of dealing with prospective VC investors?

A: When you are raising money and investors don’t come back to you or won’t give a clear answer or indication of interest – that can be extremely frustrating. Some investors like to hang on to the option, in case a deal gets hot. It’s also frustrating when people say no, but don’t give a reason. It is so helpful in the early stages to get that feedback. Did they say no because it’s not really their area of expertise, or because you are too early stage or because you didn’t come across well? Sitting on the other side of the table, I try as best I can to get back to people in a timely way, and if we decline, provide the reason.  

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Venture
• Technology
• GPs
• Singapore
• TMT