E547 | Tanuja Rajah, M Venture Partners (MVP): From PhD to VC: Tanuja Rajah on Cracking Southeast Asia’s Health Tech Boom

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping venture — this time with a lens on Southeast Asia and India.This week, David Cruz e Silva, founder of EUVC, and Ambika Behal from Circle Capital sit down with Tanuja Rajah, Partner at M Venture Partners (MVP) in Singapore — an early-stage fund backing founders from day zero across Southeast Asia and India.Tanuja’s path is not your typical VC story: a PhD in immunology, a startup built on trial and error, and a mission now to fund the region’s next generation of founders tackling healthcare, trust, access, and affordability — without the science risk.🎯 This Episode’s Themes:How a science background shapes a founder-first investment lensSoutheast Asia vs. India: where the next breakout health techs will come fromThe truth about exits in Asia: secondaries, roll-ups, & why IPOs are hardAI hype vs. reality: why MVP waits before jumping on the AI bandwagonGoing from B2C to B2B: the maturity curve in regional digital healthThe realities of being an emerging fund manager in an overheated early-stage ecosystemTanuja’s biggest lesson: great teams are not enough — markets matter more🕒 Here’s what’s covered:01:30 | How a PhD in immunology landed Tanuja in venture03:00 | Starting a company with no playbook: lessons from Malaysia to Singapore05:00 | Why MVP backs healthcare — but avoids the science risk07:00 | 25% of the world’s population: why India & Southeast Asia are consumer goldmines10:00 | Biggest VC lesson: ownership matters (and why it’s so hard for new funds)12:30 | How MVP balanced brand building with early fund modeling15:00 | Why angels and micro-funds make Southeast Asia so competitive17:00 | Healthcare’s future: physical + digital or nothing19:00 | AI: hype, scribe startups, and the real wedge that matters22:00 | Portfolio spotlight: how HD used real-world data to build a regional moat25:00 | Can Southeast Asia’s healthtech scale into Europe?28:00 | Where follow-on capital is (and isn’t) coming from30:00 | Exits done right: why secondaries and &A trump IPO dreams35:00 | Strong beliefs overturned: why the best teams still need the best markets39:00 | Advice for emerging fund managers: pick your people and sharpen your USP42:00 | Book of the Week: how Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “Emperor of All Maladies” shaped Tanuja’s mission