Top 50 Education Angel Investors in Asia in January 2026

Investor | Storyologist | Builder

Managing and Founding Partner of Ideosource Venture Capital, an Indonesia focused venture capital firm dedicated on early-stage to later-stage investments.

Joined Intelligence in 1999. Established Key Players Inc. in 2005. Consultation with more than 3,000 managers and career counseling for more than 10,000 individuals. In addition, we have invested in more than 55 outside directors, advisors and angels in Silicon Valley and Bangladesh in Japan. Over 100 lectures on careers, entrepreneurship andstartups.

Boon Hwee is the founding partner of Credence and Chairman of the investment committee. Concurrently, Boon Hwee is a member of Agilent Technologies Inc, Chairman of AAC Technologies, Yeo Hiap Seng Limited, and Sunningdale Tech Limited.Boon Hwee began his career in 1977 at Hewlett Packard ("HP") and rose to become its Managing Directorin Singapore, a position he held from 1985 to 1990. Boon Hwee's other previous positions include:Chairman of Singapore Telecom Group ("SingTel") and its predecessor organisations for 17 yearsChairman of Singapore Airlines Limited ("SIA") for 4 yearsChairman of Development Bank of Singapore ("DBS") for 4 yearsDirector on the Board of Temasek Holdings Private Limited for 15 years (Boon Hwee also served as a member of the Executive Committee from January 1997 to September 2010)Chairman of the Wuthelam Group for 10 yearsBoon Hwee was named the Outstanding Manager of the Year in 1991 by Business Times and DHL Worldwide. He was conferred The International Herald Tribune Visionary and Leader Honour in January 2003.Boon Hwee contributes actively to non-profit organisations, and is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Nanyang Technological University and a Director of the Hewlett Foundation in the United States.Boon Hwee obtained his Bachelor's Degree (First Class Honours) in Mechanical Engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London in 1972 and his MBA (Distinction) from the Harvard Business School in 1976.

Siu Rui is a co-founder of Carousell and oversees Product and Marketing. Since the launch of Carousell in May 2012 together with co-founders Marcus Tan and Lucas Ngoo, Siu Rui has been deeply involved in product strategy, international expansion and capital strategy. He is passionate about technology and has been buying and selling online since hewas 13. This has been a driving force behind Siu Rui’s commitment to building a product-focused company, focused on solving meaningful problems for people globally.Prior to Carousell, Siu Rui spent some time in marketing and product management at VSee, Ogilvy & Mather and DBS Vickers. Siu Rui read Business Administration and Entrepreneurship at National University of Singapore and Stanford University (Under the NUS Overseas College Program in Silicon Valley, California), and dropped out of his Honours year to start Carousell.

Mohammad Maaz

Minhong Yu is the founder, Chairman and CEO of New Oriental, a company providing a comprehensive range of educational services. Yu is also the Vice Chairman of the Beijing Young Entrepreneurs Association and Vice Chairman of the Committee of Education of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League. Prior to founding New Oriental, Yu was anEnglish instructor at Peking University between 1985 and 1991. Yu received his Bachelor’s Degree in English from Peking University. Minhong Yu is the Director of Kidstone.

Mr. Huang founded SYNNEX in 1980 and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Prior to this, Mr. Huang was the International Sales Manager at Advanced Micro Devices. Mr. Huang holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Kyushyu University, Japan, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester and an M.S. inManagement Science from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Jefferson Lanjie Chen is the Co-Founder, Group Chairman & CEO at Advance Intelligence Group.

Eric Feldman is the Co-Founder of Eco.

Allen Penn is an Advisor at GV .He attended Miami University.

Keisuke Honda is the Founder & CEO of Now Do.

Hendra Kwik is the Co-Founder of PAYFAZZ.

Tiger Fang is Co-Founder and CEO at Kargo Technologies. Before Cargo, Tiger had successfully led various technology companies. He is general manager at Uber Indonesia and China, and managing director at Lazada Thailand.

Stanley Tang is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at DoorDash. He attended Stanford University.

Dmitri Melnikov is COO and Co-founder of Semrush.

Bhavik Bajaj

Oleg Shchegolev is the founder and CEO at SEMrush.

Finance executive (Certified Public Accountant) with broad experience managing and developing high performing teams.Extensive experience scaling finance departments, financial planning and forecasting, treasury, driving operations and process development for private venture back as well as multinational public companies including: Zynga, GileadSciences, Intuit, Sandisk, Monogram Biosciences, Novacea, Avanex, Cell Genesys, Nektar Therapeutics and Proteolix.Deal experience covering a variety of transactions, including acquisitions, initial public offerings (IPO), debt offerings, corporate partnerships and follow-on offerings.Broad understanding of public company issues and structuring pre-IPO for transition to public company.

Amrish Rau is the CEO of Pine Labs.

Entrepreneur and Investor based in Hong Kong. Attended Questrom School of Business, Boston University.

Timothy Lee, Former Sequoia Partner.

Kunal is a technology entrepreneur and investor.

Nobuhiro Ariyasu is the CEO at Coach United.

Yinan Li is a partner at Plum Ventures and is known for being the founder of luxury electric bike maker Niu Technologies Group.

Marat is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry and early stage investor. He is the founder of several successful companies, including a consumer finance bank, few e-commerce companies and investment fund. He serves on the board of his several portfolio companies (Bioloka, Wow Cube, F3 and RelesticaHolding), utilizing his knowledge and expertise in Blockchain industry which he joined to in 2013 as a partner in Bitfury Group. In both as a fund and as an angel investor, Marat have invested in 30+ fin tech, e-commerce, blockchain technology, educational, healthcare and gaming companies, providing business expertise and financial & advisory support to founders. Marat has a master's degree in finance & business management and a bachelor's degree in law. In his free time, Marat likes surfing and skiing!

John Danner is an Angel Investor at Danner Capital. Stanford University Distinguished Careers Institute from 2021 - to 2022.

Tatsuo Sakamoto is a Head of Sales, Japan at MOLOCO. He Attended The University of Tokyo.

Kiyoshi Ayabe is the President and Founder of KIYO Learning.

Michael’s responsible for strategic growth in the Asia Pacific region of Zendesk. An IT sales veteran, Michael has more than 20 years experience in a variety of sales and marketing roles spanning the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia.Prior to becoming Zendesk’s first employee, Michael was selling help desk projects in Australia. Michael is anarmy officer who has studied at the Danish Technical University.

After graduating from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, he joined Solomon Brothers, where he became the youngest managing director in Asia, where he was in charge of Asian investment. After that, he created one of the largest independent Asuka assets. He also launched Japan's first independent online life insurance company,LifeNet Life Insurance, and inspired Japan's first International.

Rohit Bansal - Co-Founder @ Snapdeal

Nikhil Kamath is the Co-Founder of Zerodha & True Beacon. He previously worked at Kamath Associates as a Partner.

Francis Plaza currently works as an Advisor to the Boards for PayMongo. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During his years at Waseda University, Shintaro worked at Japan’s biggest e-commerce mall, Rakuten, Inc. On August 1st 2001, Shintaro established “Unoh Inc.” after graduating university. At Unoh he was responsible for designing and developing several web services, one of which was the online magazine subscription . Services provided by Unohinclude planning, development and management of the film enthusiast community site “Movie Life” (acquired by PIA Corporation) as well as “Sugu.CC” , “NeoAd” (both acquired by GMOAP) and the photo sharing site “Photozou” (acquired by Digital Garage).In 2009 Unoh entered into social gaming, creating multiple successful social games. Among these games, “Machitsuku!” has been its biggest hit with over 5 million users. On August 3rd 2010, Unoh joined Zynga and Shintaro became General Manager of Zynga Japan. He resigned on January 2012. After traveling around the world, He established the new company “Mercari, Inc.” on February 2013 and released the resale shopping app “Mercari” on July 2013 in Japan.He is a true Internet geek, spending a lot of time on the Internet and boasts around 180,000 followers on Twitter.

Jack Conte is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patreon. He attended Stanford University.

Kunal Shah

Shiyan leads NerdWallet's Personal Financial Management products. Before NerdWallet, she was an investment professional at Bridgewater Associates.Shiyan was also a Senior Investment Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, and began her career as an Investment Banking Analyst at JPMorgan, serving technology and healthcare clients.She is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.

Jitendra Gupta is the Founder of Jupiter.

Kevin Lin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metatheory. He previously worked at Everyday Ventures as an Owner and Manager. Kevin Lin attended Yale University.

Darius Cheung is co-founder of BillPin and CEO/co-founder of McAfee-acquired tenCube.

Narita Shuzo is a Executive Vice President/COO, CrowdWorks Inc.

Marcus Tan Yi Wei - Co-founder @ Carousell

Bob Xiaoping Xu is the founder of ZhenFund and one of China's most celebrated angel investors. Established in 2011 as a joint fund with Sequoia Capital China, ZhenFund is China’s foremost angel fund. Managing USD 600 million, ZhenFund has 500 portfolio companies and offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Palo Alto. It has played a leading role inChina’s rise as a “startup nation”, and is widely considered a beacon of light in China’s vibrant startup environment. Prior to founding ZhenFund, Mr. Xu co-founded China's largest private English training and test preparation group, New Oriental Education, along with Michael Yu and Victor Wang. New Oriental became listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006 and currently has a market cap of USD 11 billion. The founders’ endeavors, which helped drive Chinese education toward a new global era, was featured in the box office hit “American Dreams in China”. The movie ranked as the #3 Chinese domestic box office hit in 2013. Mr. Xu’s success as an educator and an entrepreneur led him to angel investing, where he has pioneered a unique investment philosophy of investing in exceptional people. He became one of the most prolific patrons of entrepreneurship, as well as a leading mentor to young business leaders. Forbes Magazine has honored him on the Midas List as one of the World’s Top 100 Venture Capital Investors for two consecutive years (2016 and 2017). Mr. Xu currently serves as the Chairman of China Angel Investment Association. Mr. Xu has more than 11 million followers on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. He is also a prolific author who has published seven books on career growth and education. His writings, speeches and interviews on entrepreneurship, investment and education have had an immense impact on China’s emerging business leaders, and particularly on those who have studied abroad. He is the president of Committee 2005, an institution that gathers the most influential Chinese overseas returnees, including the likes of Robin Li, Neil Shen and Lee Kai-fu. Mr. Xu is deeply committed to philanthropy. He is a founding donor and the Committee Acting President of the Future Science Award, an annual award of USD 1 million for scientists who have made significant contributions to life sciences and physical sciences in Greater China. Mr. Xu graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music, the Chinese equivalent of Julliard School of Music, with a bachelor’s degree in music. He received his master’s degree in music from the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to that he was a counsellor at Peking University for five years.

Mark Vranesh was named Chief Financial Officer of financial and business experience in the software, entertainment and related technology industries. Mark also spent 8 years with Ernst & Young LLP’s high tech practice, most recently as an Audit Senior Manager and earned a degree in Business from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1990.

Yuichi Tanaka - CDO @ Visional

Cai Wensheng is the CEO of 265 Science and Technology. Wensheng is notorious for using cyber squatting tactics to register thousands of domain names. He has reportedly made several million dollars as a result. In 2003 he established Huayu Network Science and Technology and the 265 Network.

Richard Qiangdong Liu is the founder of JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) and has been their chairman and chief executive officer since the company’s inception. Born in a small rural village and raised in relative poverty, Liu’s commitment to operating his business with honesty and integrity has seen it grow from a tiny stall in a shopping bazaar to the thirdlargest retail company globally by revenue. The company reported an annual revenue of $82.9 billion for 2019, and while Liu’s net worth himself is estimated to be upwards of $12.7 billion he remains humble -- when Fortune magazine identified him as one of their “World’s Greatest Leaders” they singled him out as having “few of the trappings of a celebrity CEO.” With heavy investments in technology such as AI, big data, and drones, Liu’s vision for the future of his company is one that continues to break the mold of traditional retail and ecommerce businesses while staying true to its roots in customer loyalty and trust.Liu was born and raised in a village called Chang’an in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, China. A part of the Suqian prefecture-level city system in the northern area of the province, Liu’s family had been forcibly resettled there after the rise of communism in the late 1940’s. In fact, prior to the revolution his family had been wealthy shipowners who transported goods along the Yangtze river and the ancient imperial canal from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in the south. However, by the time Liu was born his parents were poor farmers, struggling to make ends meet and support both him and his grandparents who lived with them. Although Liu was born in the 1970’s, his village still lacked the modern day conveniences that were readily available in other parts of the country such as running water, electricity, and even paved roads. Nutritious food was also scarce, and from June to September they had access to corn which they would stretch to make meals such as cornmeal porridge, corn pancakes, and dry cornbread, all of which were so tough that Liu has said they could make your throat bleed. The rest of the year the family would eat sweet potato, either boiled, formed into pancakes, or dried. In his final year of secondary school, Liu applied to universities located in Shanghai and Beijing, believing only large cities would give him the platform he needed to do more and see more. He excelled in the rigorous college entrance exams he took, and was accepted to Renmin University -- then known as the People’s University of China -- in Beijing. However, the trip to Beijing was going to cost him around $75, an exorbitant sum to rural farmers at the time. His family was unable to afford the train ticket on their own, but thankfully his friends and neighbors had full faith in his ability to achieve and contributed whatever they could spare towards his education.At Renmin University, Liu studied sociology with the thought that he may enter politics, but he soon found that even with his classes and homework he had a considerable amount of free time in Beijing. He got a job at a small business who couldn’t afford a photocopier hand-copying letters, and also began to teach himself computer programming. The latter endeavor turned out to not only be a fun way to pass the time for Liu, but also one of his very first entrepreneurial ventures. The recent policy shift in China toward market reforms and embracing some aspects of capitalism created an influx of businesses that needed computer programmers. With Liu’s calm demeanor and trustworthy nature, he quickly became a popular choice and had soon made more money than he had ever dreamed of in the lucrative business. With the funds, he purchased a personal computer and cell phone -- two very expensive items at the time -- and was even able to have a new house built for his parents in the village. On June 18th, 1998, Liu took his 12,000 yuan (about $1,760) he had saved during his two years at Japan Life and used it to purchase inventory and rent a 4-square-meter booth in one of the many technological bazaars in Zhongguancun. Calling the company Jingdong, this was the start of what would eventually become JD.com, and the date on which he opened up shop has become known as “618” day and accompanies a promotional blitz that has become a nationwide phenomenon rivaling the United States’ Black Friday. Before all that though, he was simply a one-man booth selling magneto-optical drives, a type of optical disc drive similar in appearance to a floppy disk capable of having data written and rewritten upon it. In 2003, Liu’s business hit a snag when the SARS epidemic caused widespread fear and panic, with most consumers electing to stay home in order to avoid catching or spreading the virus. This had a devastating effect on China’s economy, and many retail stores including Liu’s were forced to temporarily shutter. In an effort to continue generating revenue and keep himself in business, Liu began posting his products to online bulletin boards, and after one of his customers happened to find him and vouch for his decency and honorableness he was able to keep his business alive by selling his electronic goods online. After Liu was able to re-open his stores, he also designated one employee to work full-time posting his products on the internet. By the time the year was over, it was clear to Liu that the burgeoning e-commerce industry was the perfect match for his business aspirations, and began plans to move his company entirely online. At the time, the internet was still a place people were wary of purchasing items from, but Liu’s work building a trustworthy brand enabled him to get a head start in gaining the trust of the consumers. Nonetheless, he worked extremely hard to build JD.com into a premiere e-commerce service, launching JD.com in early 2004. He elected to live in his office in order to save money on rent, and wrote the initial code for the website himself. He wanted to get to know his customers and their needs as closely as possible, and so he alone answered all of the customer inquiries that came through. In order to make sure no questions went very long unanswered, Liu would set an alarm clock for himself to go off every two hours during the night so that he could wake up and answer any questions that had been asked. He even handled much of the deliveries himself. For Liu, having control over the quality of his service was one of the key differentiators between his business and his competitors. Liu extended this idea in 2007, when he made the decision to take his entire logistics network for the e-commerce site completely in-house. For Liu it was an imperative step towards not only being able to curate his e-commerce service to tailor-fit his customers, but also open up previously untapped markets such as third and fourth-tier cities whose consumers previously had to travel miles in order to purchase the goods they needed. This strategy has proven to be a key to the company’s atmospheric rise, with 90% of its deliveries now arriving either the same or next day. Liu has frequently been recognized for his work on JD.com and the Chinese online ecommerce industry as a whole. China’s largest television network CCTV awarded him the “2011 China Economic Person of the Year” and he has also been named the “2011 Chinese Business Leader” and was noted as one of Fortune China’s “2012 Chinese Businessmen.” According to Forbes, Liu is currently #165 on the list of 2020 billionaires, #40 on China’s Rich List of 2020, and #25 on the Richest in Tech 2017 list, and was also ranked #48 on Fortune’s “World’s Greatest Leaders” list. In reference to Liu’s ranking, Fortune remarked that Liu had “few of the trappings of a celebrity CEO” and little corporate ego. Liu is often invited to speak at some of the largest forums in the world such as the World Economic Forum in Davos on topics such as the ecommerce industry, technological advancements, and to share his business development story as a means to inspire others, but even with this and working 16 hour days, he still spends one day a year working as a delivery person for JD.com.