Why Smart Investors Do Dumb VC Deals

Prof Douglas Abrams is the founder and CEO of Expara and pioneer of the Singapore VC industry since 2000. He has launched two seed stage funds (Expara IDM Ventures I and Expara IDM Ventures II, two early-stage venture funds (Extream Ventures and Expara Ventures III), one pre-seed venture fund (Expara Asia Ventures) in Singapore since 2007 and one client fund in Thailand (Expara GSB Fund). He was a founding partner of Parallax Capital Management, a Singapore-based funds management company in 2000. He is a former Chairman of the Business Angel Network of Southeast Asia (BANSEA) and has been a Director since 2002. He served on the board of the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) from 2009-2010. Prior to coming to Singapore, Douglas managed information technology at J.P. Morgan for 14 years.  From 1997 to 1999, he was the Global Markets Head of Internet Marketing, and from 1991 to 1997, he was the VP and Manager of Investment Banking Technology.

Douglas is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Business School since 2001, where he lectures on New Venture Creation for undergraduates and Venture Capital Funding for MBA students. He is also a Visiting Professor in Venture Capital at Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and RMIT University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  He graduated from the Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications and received an MBA from The Wharton School.