Khailee Ng is Venture Partner at 500 Startups, a SIlicon Valley based global seed fund and startup accelerator, overseeing a USD10 Million micro-fund to invest in the next generation of SouthEast Asia's most promising startups. He is also the co-founder of 2 of Malaysia's recent tech startup success stories: GroupsMore, a company acquired by Groupon, and SAYS.com, which merged with assets from Catcha Group. Personally, he has angel invested in 7 more fast growing tech startups, 3 in Malaysia and 4 in the US, was a private advisor to Sir Richard Branson, and had previously won the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Award. He is 29 years old.

 

Khailee co-founded and built SAYS.com, a social content engagement pioneer trusted by over 70 leading advertisers to engage Malaysia’s Facebook and Twitter generation. The business is driven by the belief that the new generation of consumers is primarily influenced by the content shared by their social network. Clients across all industries like Nike, Coke, Nestle, Unilever, Maybank, and more have run multiple successful, and many award winning campaigns with the influence of SAYS.com’s social content distribution platform. SAYS.com was awarded World’s Most Democratic Workplace 2012 by Worldblu, alongside Zeppos.com.

 

Khailee is also known for using SAYS.com to launch and popularize GroupsMore.com, making it Malaysia’s leading group buying site in 3 months, before it got the attention of Groupon International, who subsequently acquired it, turning it into the market leader Groupon Malaysia.

 

Prior to that, his businesses focused on community organizing and online market research. His biggest campaign organized 120,000 stories from across Southeast Asia in 6 weeks to present a youth insight report to world leaders at the YES2009 summit. He had spent 2 years before that with the global internet publisher, Mindvalley, where he specialized in web application development and direct-response marketing strategy for e-commerce clients in the US and UK. His most successful campaign drove USD2 Million in Sales in 2 weeks for Bob Proctor, the start of hit documentary, “The Secret”. He is also a popular speaker and contributor to marketing magazines and was the youngest judge of the Malaysian Effies Marketing effectiveness awards. He was the winner of the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Award 2006 Best in Asia.

His love for using digital technology to express human ideas dates back to winning his first digital art competition at the age of 4, when the earliest computer drawing programs were invented. At age 15, he was designing websites and content management systems for high-paying clients. At age 19, his digital artwork won competitions in Sydney. 

 

As a business leader and futurist, he spends time traveling and studying the future of business. He was selected by the US government for the exclusive IVLP, a program reserved for the future leaders of a nation (notable alumni include Presidents and Prime Ministers from around the world, like Nicolas Sarkozy, Indira Gandhi, and Tony Blair), where he was flown across the USA to learn and connect with digital business leaders. He then continued his trip to Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong with David McClure, one of Silicon Valley’s most prolific investors, where he spent time with startups, incubators, and large tech companies there. His most recent trip was to the private home of Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island to help him and the Virgin Unite team find new ideas to better engage the social media generation.