Isabelle Decitre: Hi Alex. Thanks for having me today. It's great to be here. I'm the founder of ID Capital. We are a venture investment and innovation advisory company. We are headquartered in Singapore with a presence in China and in Europe. We focus on agri-food tech through a climate lens, I should say. But what I really think sets us apart is how we lean into adjacent sectors with a strong overlap with food and ags, ⁓ things like and bio manufacturing. the investment side, we typically back Series A stage startups with tickets ⁓ of to one million, but deployed across multiple branches. We've never done a first check of one million. So we tend to be this typical tag-along investor in Series A. And in parallel to this, we have this advisory business of ours where we work for ⁓ much larger and we've also helped facilitate significantly higher, bigger transactions. That's defining us, in a way. The last point, maybe you would have heard us as ⁓ people convening Future Food Asia, which comes to life ⁓ a year, at least, with an ⁓ startup competition and conference. And we just ⁓ a rebranding for the 10th edition, a rebranding into Future Fit Asia. I'm sure we'll talk about it.

Alex Shandrovsky: Well, it's such a pleasure to speak with you. I admire also individuals who took their family from, ⁓ you weren't born in Asia and moved your whole family to a new country, a new space and build a life there and build the expertise. So now we get to learn on all the pain that you've accumulated by raising a family and building a business there.

Isabelle Decitre: I think there's been some kind of mistake in my family history. I need to address it. I should have been born in Asia.

Alex Shandrovsky: Oh, in a parallel universe, it'll for sure happen. You know, every fund has a little bit of contrarian viewpoint that makes it stand out. What is the thing that you would say really defines the thing that most people maybe would disagree with or really sets you apart as an investor or as an advisory partner?

Isabelle Decitre: Maybe somehow the answer lies in your very first question. We are not a fund. And it's so funny that I repeat this again and again and people tend to not ignore it, but I would say it doesn't stick to their mind. Maybe because what I've described before makes us a little hard to put in a need box. And it's not by design. We're not trying to be mysterious. there is quite a bit of empirical wisdom behind this setup. of it less...

Alex Shandrovsky: Hmm.

Isabelle Decitre: as a traditional firm but more as a well-tested ecosystem and I'm very happy to unpack what is in for you and for your audience today. we are not a fund, we did consider, of course we did. We would look bigger, more powerful, more institutional if you will, but the truth is the is probably at the intersection of who we are and how I see the traditional VC mold. relative to the sector we want to be into. on the first part, we just in science, we are just in technology and operations. And like any I'm an entrepreneur, so you have to identify your edge. Ours became very clearly deep ability to understand companies, not just financially, but in terms of IP, defensibility, and execution. I know it sounds very mundane, but... execution is a very important part. After a couple of early co-investments alongside larger funds, I was really struck by something. much Excel sophistication, but much less depth when it came to people, strategy or long-term resilience.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm.

Isabelle Decitre: And so what I did was really bringing this notion, I call it the ecosystem intelligence, in particular in Asia Pacific, which was my hunting ground for the longest time, this capacity to connect the dots didn't even see, ⁓ So that's on one side who we are and what we think we can be good at. And on the other side, there is this classic VC promise, outsized returns.

Alex Shandrovsky: and

Isabelle Decitre: When GPs make these commitments, and if you don't have a track record in the space and in AgriFoodTech, nobody had, you have to be quite bold. Keep in mind, I started to operate out of Singapore covering Asia. Asia was very new to this. We were new to the sector. Asia was new to AgriFoodTech. And honestly, I just didn't have this Silicon Valley swagger. I didn't see myself promising 20 % plus. I.R.R. a time period of six years. You know, frankly, in hindsight, I'm very glad we didn't raise a fund. ⁓ didn't think it would be credible for us to make these kind of promises. But what I do believe is in our ability to design collaborations very intentionally and design the world design matters. ⁓ crafted. By this, I mean we can see opportunities where sometimes that really doesn't fit the VC mold. So don't get me wrong, we are VC investors, hardcore, but we have other ways to have more impact.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm. So let's take that through like an example, right? listening to this podcast, Isabel, I hear Isabel speaking about, ⁓ she's builders, she's Asia, up to a million, maybe more checks can come from partners. Like if I reach out to you, what actually happens, right? What will to me as a startup if I reach out to ⁓ you, or know you have a team, it's not you, but ⁓ your analyst, team, what will actually happen?

Isabelle Decitre: Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: Because in a typical VC, it's quite simply, it's an eight week or eight week or 12 week type of process of the diligence. I'm going to have an initial call, there'll be a data room review, there's going to be an NDA. How is your approach going to be different as a startup that approaches you? How is it actually going to look? What can I expect as a startup?

Isabelle Decitre: I can tell you what startups tell us, it's a better way maybe than just bringing my own perspective on this. They like talking to us because they see us as a bit of a one-stop shop a particular edge on Asia-Pacific. So let me unpack this one-stop shop because they know we are not the biggest investor but they feel like if they talk to us there are multiple entry doors and maybe one of them would be a good one and if not at least they will have spoken for say 30 minutes with somebody who is knee deep into the sector. They could come to our conference. So first, we could be an investor. It does happen. We've invested in 15 in the sector. We could be an investor. If we are not an investor, we could be currently in a business with some ⁓ investors, call them clients.

Alex Shandrovsky: And when you say you're an investor, is that coming from like more like a family office from own balance sheet that you're putting in ⁓ your LPs? Just ⁓ it could be an investment. ⁓ that coming from a family office structure, like your own private family office, or it's an LP that's in your ecosystem?

Isabelle Decitre: It's definitely the former. I'm investing my own money. We don't have any LP, we don't have any LPGP relationship. We do have with investors, many. Some are absolutely casual, some are a bit more structured, but we are not managing third party money. So I'm investing my own capital and I've done so for many years without trying to pretend to be a VC investor. It so happened that I have quite a bit of experience in that space. I'm investing my own money. We don't have any LP, we don't have any LPGP relationship. We do have relationship with investors, many. So as I said before, you all have to deal with your frustrations. Yes, we could be bigger, but it would be a very different model. And the way I wanted to see myself as a significant player was not just by being defined by my check size, but being defined by whom I could influence and bring around the table. So back to your question. Startup hears about us they ask for a call. ⁓ in hindsight, what do they get out of it? the way I wanted to see myself as a significant player was not just by being defined by my check size, but being defined by whom I could influence and bring around table. First, as I said, we could invest, but they know very well they are much bigger investors. And I dare say if it were just for the money, maybe they just wouldn't come to us. we wouldn't consider it because you just don't want to invest in a startup that is so desperate for money that they come to us. We are quite self-aware in the pecking order they are much bigger and prestigious investors. Say we tell them listen the timing is not good or your round is too big or too small or you're too early stage or you're too late stage or we don't understand your domain well enough, we don't invest. It doesn't mean we cannot do something for them. Option number two, an ongoing basis we have clients. Some of our clients could be a very good fit for them and in that case it's all benefit to them because we won't charge them anything. Option number three, ⁓ don't have such a client but we are in very advanced conversation with people who could be clients. then we would be very happy to extend introductions as and when relevant. Option number four, we might have a very high likelihood of bringing right investors to these companies. We can also frame a collaboration around this. Option number five, if I'm not mistaken, we do have this FutureFoodAGA, FutureFit Asia conference once a year.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm-hmm.

Isabelle Decitre: And we try to make it not just another conference, by the way, full disclaimer, I'm not a very good conference delegate, I don't like it most of the time, so I'm trying to make ours different. And how we make it different, we shy away from any kind of, I would say, regular speaker that would have been speaking at ⁓ every possible maybe very well, but it seems like it's an echo chamber, it's always the same thing. So we like to spot and grab the undetected things, the people that are not seen everywhere, people doing very interesting stuff, but maybe they are not very visible at the moment. So potentially we could ⁓ them be visible, get a better outreach, and so on and so forth. We have ongoing relationship with some media, maybe some media are looking for some specific angles on the specific topic. We had a lot of requests a year ago about ⁓ anteric methane emission reduction and we did have some knowledge of the sector, we helped both sides connect. And I would like to add one point, not everything needs to end in a transaction. That is very important.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%. But I think for startups, it's really helpful to have a map of these are the ways that we can engage or we can support you or we can work together. for us, as you know, we're raising 12 to 24 months runways. Our decisions have to be in quite short term. We have a limited amount of shots on goal, so we have to be quite selective.

Isabelle Decitre: Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: Can you give a guidance to our listeners and like, what are the areas that right now you think, you you're hearing from your partners or you and your own funders say, look, this is really interesting to me right now. Cause we spoke with series A obviously, you know, you're not looking at something at a lab scale. you talk to me about, like Alex, like I really love spending my time speaking to this type of founder, this stage of company.

Isabelle Decitre: No, we are not.

Alex Shandrovsky: with his intention. Clearly it has to be an angle with Asia, right? Asia Pacific that has to be there. mentioned Syriza. Can you speak a little bit more about like, really get excited speaking to this type of founder, solve these type of problems. And I think I can help those people the most, you know, if they're prepared.

Isabelle Decitre: the last question, anybody who has a very serious plan and more than a plan starting to get into Asia as a region, I think we can be a very good sparring partner. And when I say sparring partner, it's deliberate. Sometimes it's just about bouncing ideas on one another. We know the region from inside out. We know more than just the usual accelerators, fans, incubators. We know the government agencies. We know the mechanism for it. Innovation is being funded and there is no secret. We made it a core skill set and we monetize it So that's how we make it a business, right? I'm not just You know investing my own capital and waiting for things to pan out in eight years time So anybody who has a serious plan in Asia should come we can build it together But what we are not relevant to is people coming from let's take France for instance my dear country

Alex Shandrovsky: Yes.

Isabelle Decitre: French people coming my way and saying I think my company has a great potential in China. And I say thank you. That is not a plan, a bit of wishful dreaming. What really like also is this notion of optionality.

Alex Shandrovsky: We're thinking about the other side, is, appreciate it. Say, Hey, Isabel, a plan. I really think this would be wonderful. And I saw, you know, recent government announcements and I think, I think it could really do well there. Right. What be an example of somebody that is actually prepared to have a conversation with you? know, is it they already have, you know, an investor from the region? Is it that they have a head count already in the region? Is it that they think that their solution is uniquely positioned to solve a problem in the region in a meaningful way and they have already talked to capital providers or corporates. If that's what bad looks like, what does good look like?

Isabelle Decitre: What looks bad, and then I'll get to the good in a minute. What looks bad is people just assuming that because China and Asia are big markets with dynamic demographies, the potential would be proven instantly. What looks good is people having done a little bit of a homework and being able to understand if there are players doing what they are doing already having prepared not just the call with me, but having prepared themselves to think about Asia. ⁓ And it goes down to very mundane things. But a very easy signal for me is when companies are very, very thinly funded and quite early stage. And you look at them and you say to yourself, guys, the best advice I can give you is just to remain in your natural habitat and ecosystem and don't waste your money traveling to China or Asia every other day. It will cost you a bomb. At the scale of your company, it starts to be a significant expense. You're better off looking at different countries. You're in France, look at Germany, look at Italy, Switzerland, the UK. I mean, it's not as if everything needed to happen in Asia from day one for you. the state of the company is very important. Also keep in mind VC investors are usually in the early stage, usually investing in a radius of miles their home place. The mm has evolved over time. but you would see very few VC investors investing in pre-POC startups far from their home base. So all this together is just common sense. What looks good is when people start to have the awareness that developing Asia would be a cost first before it's a source of revenue. And they look at their funding and they feel like they can reasonably allocate a portion of their funding

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah,

Isabelle Decitre: to trying hard to get in Asia with a very But they cannot put all their eggs in one basket and say, I think I have a great potential in Asia. Let's go full swing into developing the Asian market.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm-hmm. Understood. And when you speak about Asia, and you mentioned China several times, but yourself is a Singapore-based fund, ⁓ and your event is Singapore. So I, as foreign founder, I'm scared of Asia. Or ⁓ I scared. think, gosh, like, I've read a lot about it and I've read a great piece if people want to. Apple in Asia, that's a great book that I think is just brilliantly written. And man, they're gonna steal my IP. I'm gonna get basically somehow locked out of the ecosystem. They're gonna learn from my tech and then do it better than me and then copy it like. Man, I'm scared, right? So first question is, ID capital specifically, would you say your pathway to China ultimately, because that's the biggest market in the region, or Japan, South Korea, more like Western, I would say Western friendly, even though it's an ironic thing to say, seeing how much product is actually manufactured in China. But just to clarify that, do you see yourself primarily as a pathway to China or a pathway towards other regions as well in Asia?

Isabelle Decitre: You First of all, you're very right to be scared. You remember this book that was called Only Paranoids Survive? That was a book about entrepreneurship and it's so true, you need to be a little paranoid. The worst is not certain, but it might happen. So, I'm with you. To your question, it's not just China. The thing is, it depends. I know it's a very disappointing answer, but the answer to your question is it really depends on what you're doing. and your stage and your team. headlines are full of horror stories of partnerships going down the drain and it can be pretty ugly. Not just in China. Cultural gaps are humongous and they need to be overcome in any solid partnership. We are very bullish about many different countries in Asia, but it depends for what. We are equally bullish about Korea. I know, you like Korea.

Alex Shandrovsky: I am a love career.

Isabelle Decitre: Singapore can play a very interesting card in certain instances. Australia is also very interesting and I don't want to rule out India, but it depends on what you're doing. I think that's the knowledge we are bringing most of the time. Don't be naive as to what is in for you in Asia and don't always just go the comfortable route of considering that Singapore will be a gateway to Asia. If you really have a solid case for China or in China, go to China.

Alex Shandrovsky: Hmm. Amazing. So take me just a few steps forward. That first meeting happens. What do I expect as a startup to happen next? Right. So I share with you a little bit about the 30 minutes I share you a deck. tell you, look, I think the fit is here, here and here. Potentially this is a product line. These are timelines. This is a regulatory challenge that we'll be facing. What happens next after that first meeting in ID Capital? To understand if it makes sense to a further conversation or look. There's really no fit here at the moment.

Isabelle Decitre: There is a human fit that you can tell quite quickly and it doesn't fall into scorecards and ⁓ excel sheets and likes but it's very important. Our due diligence process is disappointingly ⁓ and ⁓ It's a gated process. We first do a high level DD. If it passes, then we go to a deeper DD where you hire people to do the legal accounting part and likes. So that is a bit of a run of the mill DD process. What might be more interesting is I describe the type of investment we like and it's not specific to I would say I don't know ⁓ robotics or alternative proteins or ⁓ bio. It's a bit more about seeing that we like the idea of a business that has optionality. In that respect, it's a bit of a departure from the classic time-samsung mindset where bigger is automatically better. For us, and I would say we have evolved a little bit over the past years, it's less about chasing the largest theoretical market and more about identifying multiple credible pathways to commercialization. Multiple, not just one. Even if they sit outside of food sector, which is very much why we rebranded FFA into Future Fit Asia. Because FFA is the public skin of what we do day in day out as investors and advisors. And that's what we've been doing over the years. And I realized it was high time to share this. Of course, we do a proper due diligence. But there is also, back to your earlier comment, there is a mutual selection process. We choose founders, but they choose us. As I said before, we are relatively small investors. And to be blunt, Just the money doesn't make the difference. In my case, most of the time, the value add on Asia is a big defining element of selection. ⁓ can take an example if you want. We recently invested in an Australian ⁓ called AllG.

Alex Shandrovsky: That would be perfect.

Isabelle Decitre: And actually the relationship was three years in the making. At that point of time I hear you saying, wow, they are very slow. No, no, no, They first stood out because of their very deep expertise in casing micelles. And at the time I was not even looking at them for an investment. I was looking at them because I was looking for experts and I was looking at the wider precision fermentation and cultivated milk sector. So we looked closer at this sector and we discovered that they were excellent. Excellent on this notion of formation of casein micelles. We ultimately passed on the other investment opportunity and we parked this impression of a very, very solid team somewhere in our documents and memories. But what is interesting for you, I think, is what really sealed the conviction and the willingness to close the deal with them is that they didn't stay fixated on one application or one narrative. Although they were really very, very proficient in case in micelles, when many people were trying and not managing to crack it, they thought very smartly of pivoting toward higher value compounds. And they did explore these adjacent industries as an entry point. And they confidently leaned into the Chinese market to do so, which I think is also very bold but very smart because in a way we are at a state where every single early stage investor is expecting startups to be derisked as much as possible. So you have VC investors behaving like private equity investors. Everybody has shifted. Who used to do early stage, no one's do slightly later stage. When they were doing pre-revenues, they want to do post-revenue and so on and so forth. They manage to de-risk their business big time, very, very smartly. But it is really about not being wedded to your own science and your own, I would say, narrative.

Alex Shandrovsky: Did they pivot to elect of Aaron or something like that? they pivot to elect of Aaron or some other high value? ⁓

Isabelle Decitre: Absolutely. Lactoferrin as the first product has been announced with very clear pipeline of, you know, ⁓ and orders for commercialization. And there there is more more behind. And I think there is this notion of, you know, ⁓ this tension between de-risking, but not losing your ambitions.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really perfect and then when you felt like when they made that pivot, they were more closer the market from a standpoint, makes more sense the risks from the investment to the science for high margin product. And that's like, okay, now I'm to come in. And also I can bring you value of accessing that market, which clearly has a pretty, know, like the fairness of very well known wellness solution there.

Isabelle Decitre: Yeah, think of what it takes to a team who's been spending their days and nights on building some science and confidently knowing that they are very, very advanced compared to the others. What does it take to auto-park it on the side? It's not dumped. And to take a clean slate approach and rebuild the foundation of your business model, not just your science, your business model. I think it's very difficult to most.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, brave.

Isabelle Decitre: teams and the ones who can do this, I think they are prepped for

Alex Shandrovsky: with that case, what is the value besides the check that you bring into the team?

Isabelle Decitre: investor connections, of the potential scale-up partners, and ecosystem as I said before. ⁓ In this we brought the three of them.

Alex Shandrovsky: amazing. Incredible. That's a huge value add beyond the check. You've been so generous with us and there's so much more insights that we know we can gain from you and just heard so many conversations. To our listeners, in the next six to 12 months, what are you working on and then how can we give back to you for what you've shared with us?

Isabelle Decitre: We are preparing for the 10th edition of FFA, 12 and 13 May in Singapore, as I said, Future Fit Asia. We have a whole thesis behind this. It's not a departure from food and ag. It's a way of realizing the limitations of the current approach to food, which I have to say has been a little bit of, you know, let's work on the collection of ingredients. We used to have the proteins, now we have the fats, all fibers is the new cool. That's not how the food matrix works. ⁓ health. is eventually human health. So that's a big part of what will keep us busy in the next few months and I would love to share with your community and with as many people as possible. AgriFood Tech startups will remain very relevant to us. It's how we look at them that will change. And since you kindly ask, instead of having something to spread, I have a question for your audience. A question I keep asking around whenever I have a chance and I never really got a... a very crisp answer. I don't so much believe in the power law when it comes to venture investing in AgriFoodTech. I don't even hope for the power law. I know quite a few investors, early investors in our sector who made their return and hence the performance of their fund on the fact that they had invested in either Beyond Meat and they exited at the IPO or they've been quite smart, visionary or they were just lucky a secondary transaction in one of the early movers like Farmers Business Network, Perfect Day, Impossible Food. At the time the valuations were very high and ⁓ I've been asking people around, what do you think of fans who've made their entire performance on such exits? And I always received a very embarrassing silence. And I don't know what to think of it. And I would love to have people sharing their perspective on this.

Alex Shandrovsky: Nah. That's spicy. Well, now this is a very unorthodox. ⁓ Instead of you asking, you're giving a question. and the challenge. I very appropriate. And again, I'm very much grateful for our conversation. I look forward to having our audience reach back out to you with their take on it. have my own thoughts, but that's a separate email that you'll be getting from me. Thank you, Zabell.

Isabelle Decitre: Thank you, Alex.

Alex Shandrovsky: It was awesome. Great. Perfect.