Willson Cuaca's path into venture capital ran through hands-on technology work, not finance - a computer science background that made him Indonesia's first Cisco Certified Instructor before he founded and sold SCOOP, the country's largest digital newsstand, and built an early iPhone and Blackberry app startup. He co-founded East Ventures in 2009 with Batara Eto and Taiga Matsuyama, at a time when, in his own words, 'no one believed in Indonesia's consumer internet potential.' That early conviction produced the region's clearest proof point: East Ventures was the seed investor in Tokopedia, which later merged with Gojek to form GoTo and complete one of Indonesia's largest-ever IPOs in 2022. Cuaca has since built East Ventures into a multi-asset platform spanning seed through growth across more than 300 portfolio companies, and has been named the Most Active Investor in Southeast Asia and Indonesia multiple times by CB Insights and Crunchbase.
Education
Universitas Bina Nusantara (Binus)
Previous Experience
First Cisco Certified Instructor in Indonesia
Sales & Support, Singapore security firm
Founder, mobile startup (iPhone & Blackberry apps, 2008)
Founder, SCOOP (Indonesia's largest digital newsstand)