From a shared workspace in Singapore to $50,000 startup cheques in Kazakhstan, Quest Ventures has made a business of connecting founders to their next market. Its wager is that introductions, local knowledge and patient capital belong in the same package.
In Central Eurasia, a promising startup can run out of connections before it runs out of ideas. MOST Ventures pairs capital with the less glamorous work of preparing founders, cultivating investors, and opening doors abroad.
Colvir spent 25 years making the machinery behind banks configurable. Then a new Kazakh bank tested the proposition: five months, a fixed deadline and almost no appetite for custom code.