Joanna Yeo: Wall Street to ClimateTech, Biochar Carbon Credits & 50% Farmer Revenue Share – E577

"I felt that the scale was the reason we focused on agriculture, and the fact that that is where the people at $2 a day are—or even $6 a day, that’s another threshold for poverty. If I want to address the problem, I need to go where they are. So let’s try to figure out what their issues are, what the problems are. As for climate, I had started with that sustainability reporting piece while I was at Keppel. That was in real estate, and it was very well defined. Outside of real estate, it was very hard to come up with concrete, measurable things. I also invested in this company waiting for materiality for listed companies for ESG." - Joanna Yeo, Founder and CEO of Arukah

"People burn agriculture waste because it's not valuable, but if you can aggregate it in a certain way, these biomass-type projects are very valuable in global markets. We see the opportunity to create a very standardized set of projects that can do that. And the other piece—because we are very committed to poverty alleviation—is that we commit 50% of our carbon credit project revenue to the participating farmers, so we can unlock more income for them. That also makes it feasible for them to do things. I feel like a lot of the climate space or carbon markets have this mindset where they're like, 'Oh, it's very hard to get farmers to change their behavior,' but you're asking someone to change their behavior for 10 years with no income." - Joanna Yeo, Founder and CEO of Arukah

"But in 2018, my mentor—who's now one of our advisors—was then the CEO of the IFC's SME Finance Forum. I connected with him through the Harvard network. Alumni networks are very valuable and helpful. I said, 'Matt, I'm very worried about small businesses and market access,' because from where we were sitting, investing in private equity and also in tech, I could see the wedge growing in terms of opportunities. How do they survive, right? He said, 'Oh, I understand what you're concerned about.' He was the one who said, 'Look at mobile and blockchain.' I said, 'Okay, mobile I get, but blockchain? What are you talking about? It's like crypto cowboys.' And he said, 'No, look at blockchain as infrastructure.' The fact that it's immutable, distributed, and secure—these are very powerful in markets where you don't have secure access to centralized sources of data and finance. So look at how you build a credit history." - Joanna Yeo, Founder and CEO of Arukah

Joanna Yeo, founder and CEO of Arukah and former institutional investor, speaks with Jeremy Au to explore how Southeast Asia’s agri-waste can be transformed into a global carbon credit engine. They unpack how her education at Harvard, Cambridge, and Stanford shaped a mission to connect vulnerable communities to opportunity, and how she learned from finance, blockchain, and rapid tech scaling to build a climate startup grounded in data, incentives, and farmer equity. Joanna shares why embedded finance failed to scale in agri, how she discovered the commercial viability of biochar and biogas, and why her company commits 50 percent of carbon revenue to participating farmers. The conversation highlights how Southeast Asia’s agriculture base, low-cost advantage, and digital infrastructure can lead the world in transparent, high-trust climate solutions if builders focus on real data, real problems, and real upside sharing.

05:05 The Impact of Education on Joanna's Career: Gratitude and exposure to global inequality led her to a clear goal to connect vulnerable people to markets at scale.

10:46 First Steps in Finance: Private Equity and Morgan Stanley: She learned how capital shapes the world, how sustainability can be measurable, and how investment logic is structured.

20:38 Reflecting on a Rapid Growth Journey: Joining a unicorn gave her a close look at how top tech firms manage speed, tracking, and execution discipline.

22:28 Addressing Poverty in Southeast Asia: Joanna links her mission back to the post-pandemic data showing up to 100 million people falling below $2/day.

23:16 Founding a Climate Tech and Agritech Startup: She founded Arukah to bring embedded financing and carbon monetization to underserved farming communities.

28:50 Building Sustainable Business Models: After embedded finance proved unreliable, she pivoted toward waste conversion with high verification standards.

36:49 Commitment to Farmers and Long-Term Vision: Bravery means holding the line on fairness Arukah gives farmers 50% of carbon revenue and builds with long-term trust.

(00:59) Jeremy Au: Hey Joanna. Good to have you on the show. 

(01:01) Joanna Yeo: Good to be here. 

(01:02) Jeremy Au: We've been friends for a while and I thought now is a good time to talk about what you're doing in climate tech and agri tech, both of which are in a bear market right now in Southeast Asia. What you're doing is such an incredible mission that we got to spotlight you and see what Russell's out there. Could you introduce yourself? 

(01:18) Joanna Yeo: Wanna know. I am a entrepreneur and investor. we have built a company called Arua.

(01:23) It is working with, agriculture in emerging markets to convert waste into biogas and biochar for carbon credits and food security, and unlocking incomes for low income people I also serve on an impact investment committee for a United Nations fund on sanitation hygiene.

(01:41) Jeremy Au: Amazing. I would love to dig into that. I think what's interesting is let's go back in time I already warned you about this. the reason why I laughing is because you're one of the only people I know who's been to Harvard for undergrad, then Cambridge for grad school, and after went to Stanford for graduate school again.

(01:57) as somebody who's gotten the check marks you need to have for the editor, (02:00) the tripper hoop, the jump crew, so I'm curious, how did you do it 

(02:04) This is not how to be an Asian parent and get your kid there into tree pop schools, but I was just kind of curious, what was your perspective behind that? Why did you wanna do that? You are not a scholar, so you do this in an individual capacity. what was going on during this time 

(02:17) Joanna Yeo: Thanks for asking the question. This is taking me far back. I had really good teachers in school when you're very young, someone who is an expert in something or is ahead of you 

(02:26) They look at you and they say, I believe in you. I think you can do this. And lots paths that you may not even have realized were possible. I had a lot of favor from very good people who, saw something in me. And. wanted to help.

(02:41) I was encouraged to apply to top universities when I was coming out of jc. So I just went through standard, Singapore education system. I was also a good student. I really like extracurriculars. I think it comes down to favor and teachers being Hey, I believe in you.

(02:56) Why don't you try this? I was actually encouraged to consider (03:00) applying to the states without scholarship. And the idea there was really to say look, if you don't have to take a scholarship, not that there's a new thing, I mean, it's great if you want to, but if you want to kind of explore more, my teachers could see that part of me Really understand the world, And answer questions about the world. So I was encouraged to look into applying to top schools, would be able to provide, scholarships. I was very lucky to get one. so I went to Harvard for my undergrad. it was a great name and everything, but what, closed it for me 'cause I actually visited a few places and, my mom wanted me to go to study medicine in US instead.

(03:33) And, safer, right? Because I'm a girl, I'm like running all over the place. what unlocked it or why I decided was when I went there, I just felt like everyone had this, optimism and idealism. The idealism is it's okay to develop extreme standards of excellence on anything, even if it's not something that has a clear path to a career.

(03:53) I really appreciated that That was special about that. I had a good ecosystem of friends, also teachers who believed in me and called things out. (04:00) that's how the next step came, Cambridge, I had a bunch of teachers who somewhere in the middle of college, were Hey, you are really like the fellowship profile type, so you should think about applying to the UK after you graduate.

(04:12) So, I did and I got fellowship and I went to Cambridge. And that was also quite wonderful. it's good having a different perspective because these are all good schools, but because of the history of each of the schools and the countries they're in, you get a very, very different mix of students.

(04:32) You also get a very different mix of Approaches to solving problems. And I'll summarize that actually once I get to Stanford. and basically from when I was at Cambridge, I decided, due to different reasons that I wanted to continue studying, international trade, and that I would be able to pick up some interesting tools if I went to Stanford, where I was also offered a full ride to continue, graduate school.

(04:51) So I went. it was not something planned. I didn't say, oh, I want to go to all these schools. I was just kind of step by step going along, benefiting (05:00) from very good peers and teachers who believed in me and pointed me in a certain direction.

(05:05) comparing across the three, what it gave me was. Very, very different sets of approaches to looking at problem. And, and maybe, later when we're talking about Singapore and Southeast Asia and other markets, that's a segue to that each of these schools, because of Boston, south Old America, Like the early settlers were very connected. at Harvard, how to solve a problem was very much you can solve any problem you want these are the resources and we can make these intros at Cambridge, There was also this whole like weight of history. 'cause Cambridge is much, much older school and England Europe's much older nations I remember walking into the college I was at, at Cambridge, and it was this whole these were the holes that Navi n Niru and Newton walked through and you're just very intimidated 

(05:50) Like I'm walking through show thanks. And so you also resourced to solve problems, but there's also this there's a way of history. And then when I went to Stanford, actually it was pretty (06:00) interesting because obviously it's also a historically significant school, 

(06:03) And so there was much more of this blank slate, let's solve a problem, we break it down, let's figure out what kinds of tools there are. and so that was also a different type of perspective, right? So they're much more likely to say, okay, we assume blank slate. Like game theory, like modeling, this is the mechanism we can build.

(06:19) the program I did at GSP is very oriented towards mechanism design. the eBay auction mechanism advanced market commitments for vaccines and actually climate came out of that. So it's very like tabular rasa, let's, like build things from scratch. I'd say I'm very grateful for the three perspectives.

(06:35) whenever I look at a problem, I can always switch. I can think Where do I need this perspective? I would encourage people, it doesn't have to be specific schools, but being in different environments that have a different approach to solving problems and achieving success is always good.

(06:48) Jeremy Au: I love what you said about, all these famous alumni walking through the halls. It feels like that ghost are there.

(06:54) You must be great one day, so, when you were at these schools, obviously. It was interesting because you were doing about political (07:00) economics. You government. And you're not a Singapore scholar, so there's some interesting dynamics there. what was your goal, did you say I want to be in government because I'm doing all this political economic stuff. Yeah. Like what, what was going your head? Because, you, you were doing a lot of this stuff, right? 

(07:12) Joanna Yeo: Oh, that's really deep question. I'd say 

(07:14) I wanted to make my parents proud, honest answer. by the time I was graduating, I was starting to feel very grateful. I could see how much resources I've been blessed with. it me a lot of opportunities to run conferences, get fellowships to go travel and do interviews and people open up their doors to us.

(07:34) I studied, international trade and all these people who were directly in the negotiating rooms would answer. I felt so grateful. when I was moving to Cambridge, I had a very deep sense of gratitude and, the fellowship I got when I was going there also encouraged this.

(07:50) it's called the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. it's actually the 25th anniversary this year. they're really themed around impact, and selecting for people who want to make an impact on the world. going into Cambridge, I had (08:00) this sense of there's a world that's so much bigger than me.

(08:02) the year I was in England a couple of things happened that Informed my decision to go to Stanford, I was studying a lot of international trade, not everyone has a seat at the table.

(08:10) Singapore was very lucky because we have so much technical expertise. We earn ourselves a seat at the table. I think Singapore also does a really good job at trying to unlock access for other markets as well. they have a lot of leadership in that, space, but generally it's just big countries, right?

(08:25) 'cause that's what people want market access to. I was very conscious that market roles are not formed evenly, Not everyone has the same marketing power. a friend who's Singaporean, referred one of my team members she had come back from. Field working in Nepal.

(08:38) she noticed a lot of criminal trafficking activity targeting poverty. they would find the poorest families and villagers and condition them for a while. after, the families kind of in that mind space, we're not gonna survive.

(08:51) They would point blank say, you can tell us your child is a prostitute. And this was my moment of wait, there's something wrong, I was angry, I was sad. juxtaposed with (09:00) studying international trade and realizing not everyone has the same impact on rules.

(09:03) I had this very specific, mission statement that I wanted to do something over the course of my life to connect vulnerable groups at scale to economic opportunities. But it has to be sustainable and at scale, which means it has to be markets, that informed my decision to go to Stanford I wanted to continue picking up tools for understanding how you build market infrastructure. when I was there, something unlocked, Because, Stanford has this very cool, school called the Design School.

(09:27) a bunch of my friends took this class called Design for Extreme Affordability. there was an aha moment. the insight there is basically like any problem can be broken down and solved. you can always take a step forward, right?

(09:39) you can talk about bias to action or whatever. we can say, okay, there are all these systemic issues, but what's the one thing that can be done? the design for extreme affordability class was. Something that opened my eyes, like my friends sharing about it, that you could use business to solve these problems.

(09:55) when I first went to Stanford next I was thinking, okay, I'll get PhD. I'm gonna (10:00) like map out like inequality and access to knowledge and capital. and use like network theory to map it out. And then I'm gonna go to the World Bank and convince people to allocate resources differently.

(10:11) my friends were sharing what people were doing at design for extreme affordability, which is taking a very bottom up approach. And I'm this may never work, it's important work, but this is something like I can actually get something done. I can start moving the needle a little bit.

(10:23) that was the trigger to say, okay, let me just try that. I credit Stanford and the environment there with, opening my eyes to see that business can be very value creating. if we think about Southeast Asia, a lot of it is really about gatekeeping resources, the dynamics are quite different. Whereas in the Bay Area, they're very used to let's come up with something new. Right? And so, that, that was the journey. 

(10:45) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think what's interesting is that from that set of experiences, you went into your first experiences at work.

(10:52) Where you're doing finance in terms of private equity and Morgan Stanley So I'm just kind of curious about what was driving that, right. (11:00) 'cause here you are saying like okay, I wanna save the world. Yes. Top up, bottom down. And I'm entering finance so I'm just kind of curious. 

(11:07) Joanna Yeo: immediate connection. 

(11:07) Jeremy Au: Yeah. 

(11:08) Joanna Yeo: And for a lot of my friends, who grew up with me, they're think I would be a doctor. you are good at science. You want to help the world go be a doctor.

(11:14) yeah. So what happened was actually immediately coming out Stanford initially I was thinking, oh, maybe we start a business and we're exploring some things. And in that process, actually got the opportunity to pitch some investors. And actually, around that time, Simple was already doing quite a good job, bringing in some VCs.

(11:30) So I had the chance To pitch Tim Draper, and then he was send me your pitch deck. And that was my I have no idea what you want moment. as I was getting some feedback from friends and everything, I okay, actually I think this is a big step. I think that a huge part of unlocking markets and new market access really is understanding how to access capital markets.

(11:50) that's what led me to try to go to the buy side, investing side. I, met some people. my first job in the buy side was with one of the subsidiary funds. the thing that got me over the hurdle (12:00) was the managing director there who is, now the CEO of Capital.

(12:03) She's an amazing boss, Christina. the core group of them, actually came out of GIC when she was talking to me, she said, in the end what we are doing is we're stewards of capital and everything we do, we need to make a return, but we also need to do so responsibly.

(12:15) we make returns while managing risk because ultimately we're managing pensions and the pensions affect the man on the street. Right. It was the only person, all the people I was interviewing with who talked about the social responsibility of managing capital. and that's how I ended up. Going to, to join them. And then, it was, it was a, it was a really good experience very well run. they gave a lot of opportunities. It was actually quite early on where they were just starting to look at sustainability.

(12:40) there were two things happening. There was a CEO transition underway. they did group wide, scenario planning and sustainability came out as a big theme. And I mean, kudo to them. We look at what they're doing now. Everything is sustainability themed and very asset management heavy.

(12:53) So that's testament to strong leadership there. And the other thing that was coming up was this thing called, (13:00) sustainable. there were investors from Europe who were saying, Hey, we can invest in your fund if you can, get this sustainability credential. credentials is very like what is involved? Is it very loose? But the interesting thing is for real estate is actually very, very measurable.

(13:12) So it's stuff like water use, electricity use. You track a lot of things. that was my first insight, into an aspect of capital markets, which is that capital has a huge, impact on like optimi, like location, like resource allocation decisions by, whether it's fund manager or companies getting funding from investors.

(13:32) Secondly, the more measurable and verifiable it is, the more powerful it is. It's tangible for the investee and much more verifiable for the investor. Right? And so it was a really great experience.

(13:43) then I had the opportunity to move closer to China. I was thinking about the market a lot. that's when I moved to Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. There I also had the opportunity to do something quite interesting. the other thing that was quite interesting about this time going into financial markets was that (14:00) it was post-financial crisis.

(14:01) there was a lot of active reorganization in capital markets. banks were pulling a lot of assets off their balance sheet post Basel. a lot of European capital was diversifying out of Europe and they were long Asia. So basically what that was doing was creating a lot of flows .

(14:17) That I then had a next opportunity to think about how. Capital and assets get allocated at scale, when I was at Morgan Stanley, I read, so I like raising my hand and being what your top three priorities for the next six to 18 months? and I just go around asking this question.

(14:33) I like asking it when I meet people. one of the things that came out, at Morgan Stanley with some of the senior leaders in the division I was in, was that they were thinking about ways to, even out cash flow, have it be less lumpy because it was lot closed end funds and closed end funds, basically of lumpy cash flows.

(14:48) And because you bought all the profit at the end, so. I, ask question. They gave me an answer. this is the other note to anyone who's earlier in your career is always very, very good to (15:00) initiative. if something sparks your interest, people actually welcome it.

(15:03) there's not enough people to get all the work done. And if someone wants to, show initiative, it's quite valuable. that's how I ended up getting looped into this thing at Morgan Stanley where they were building a new, open end fund structure. it was a new business, for Asia.

(15:15) that particular division I was in, all their businesses in Asia so far have been closed end. And this was an opportunity built something open-end. And so this was an incredible opportunity for me. Obviously I was doing a lot of work like modeling, like read all the legal stuff, but it was a way to see a global bank build a long-term new business and how they worked with capitals.

(15:37) Like wanted to allocate what they needed from the bottom up in terms of track records, to be able to construct something that is now one of the main business lines for that particular division in Asia. So that was a really interesting opportunity.

(15:50) when I was halfway through that, one of my, mentors pulled me aside who was an MD and she what you're doing is great, you're doing great work. But fundamentally asset management is just going to keep (16:00) being more of the same. And she knew that I kind of want to do something to make things more fair.

(16:05) we were in the middle. This was, by mid 2010, so kind of like 2015. No one could have missed Yuba and Alibaba they had basically gone from zero to top three mutual funds in the world she was this is the future, you really need to be moving in this direction. Around that time was, at the chance to join this Hong Kong, conglomerate who, had just divested a big chunk of a, brokerage business in Hong Kong, to a Chinese company. they were looking to build new asset management business.

(16:30) And because it was a diversified holding company of financial services businesses, and they were doing balance sheet investing, there was the opportunity to do tech, FinTech, financial services, and diversified global coverage. So that's when I moved there. And that led me to the next step to OpenTech actually.

(16:47) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And so where you went to next stage is eventually you also got into the regulated blockchain space as well. how does that happen? I mean, isn't this a continuation of finance journey you're talking about, or how did you see that? 

(16:59) Joanna Yeo: Yeah, I (17:00) mean, there were a couple things happening.

(17:01) first was I was still at the back of my mind thinking, I'm solving problems along the way, but I still have that big question how do you connect vulnerable groups at scale to economic opportunities? along the way I'm okay, this is how you build an investment track record for a new asset class.

(17:16) This is the kind of structuring you need. we couldn't miss mobile, right? when I first went to, the Hong Kong company, we were doing a lot of mobile enabled, platforms. then with blockchain around 2017. We were getting a lot of inbounds.

(17:30) So starting about 2016 when the first run kind of started, we were getting a lot of inbounds, everything from let's partner with your brokerage to do trading. Let's, fund a Bitcoin miner. So I was studying it for the corporate, like what we could do strategically.

(17:44) But I still didn't really think about it so much because a lot of it was crypto as an asset class. But in 2018, a mentor who's now one of our advisors, He was then the CEO of the IFCs SM E Finance Forum. I connected with him actually through Harvard, network.

(17:57) alumni networks, very valuable and helpful. (18:00) he was very generous to take a call and, talk through things. I said, Matt, I'm very worried about small businesses and, market access because from where we were sitting, investing in private equity, also investing in tech, I just could see like the wedge growing in terms of opportunities, for just normal small business.

(18:18) how do they survive, right? he said, oh, I understand what you're concerned about, he was the one who said, look at mobile and blockchain. I'm okay, mobile, I get it, but blockchain, what are you talking about? it's like crypto cowboys. I didn't see how, 

(18:30) Jeremy Au: are proud about being crypto cowboy, so it's not a negative phrase.

(18:34) Joanna Yeo: the little farmer or like smallholder department in emerging market. And he said, no, look at blockchain as an infrastructure. Yeah. And, and the fact that it is immutable, distributed and secure. These are very powerful in markets where you don't have secure access to centralized sources of data.

(18:52) And finance. how do you build a credit history around then, A Stanford alum who had previously built one of the largest FinTech platforms in (19:00) America, reached out because he was thinking of building regulated financial services on blockchain.

(19:05) he was really blockchain, I think this is going to change the long tail of finance, transform it. He's not doing crypto. What he's doing is, automating things like the settlements, like transfers, and in a way where you can do a hundred percent audit and control all the time.

(19:20) fast forward to today, they have done over $16 billion in regulated financial services and blockchain, fully functional. I was lucky at the right time when I was thinking about it, someone encouraged me to look into the technology.

(19:32) Then someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, would you join? I had the opportunity to do that. And I went for it. 

(19:37) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think it's interesting because that was your, real startup growth stage experience Before that in finance. were there any culture shifts or things you had unlearned?

(19:46) 

(19:46) Joanna Yeo: question. Okay. it was the first tech startup experience, but it wasn't really the first zero to one experience. the time I joined finance in Asia was unique. Because it was post-financial crisis.

(19:58) every (20:00) buy-side role I was in, I had my buy-side main job, official job, but then I was spending a lot of time building new businesses. Because I kept raising my hand to ask questions. And so I actually had a lot of opportunity build like zero to one, like new businesses within a larger business, this was quite a natural next shift I wasn't going to build from scratch. that would be a giant jump. But here I'm coming from understanding how to build new financial services businesses from scratch. this particular tech, platform was really about how do you drive new technology adoption. Partly it's by originating things that people don't otherwise have access to.

(20:35) So that was my segue in. I think what was very powerful about it, I'm very grateful for the experience. It was, they went from like series A to unicorn, like year and a half, right? So you really see how quickly things can grow. It was Silicon Valley anchored, a very powerful Ecosystem, it was strong peers. high energy, let's solve problems. also seeing how the whole company is organized, you are hitting a lot of milestones, 

(20:59) How do (21:00) you organize about 200 people in the company I was in the leadership team. I saw that if a fast growing business is truly optimizing for certain things, they will be able to report on it, you always have a list of targets you're really optimizing for They're tracking it, checking it every single week in three different meetings. the company level meeting, the leadership meeting, the sub meeting, the one-on-one.

(21:21) I think what I learned there was best in class, fast growth building, how you organize the team. I'm very grateful for that. then it started overlapping a little bit with the pandemic 

(21:31) So, so is, again, this is a lot serendipity in life, so someone tapped me on the shoulder, a recruiter there's a company that had just, gone into partnership with the World Bank IFC for this program called the Distress Asset Recovery Program. it's a program that has about $6 billion of assets and a $40 billion book, and it's really there to make sure that, there's institutional, secondary liquidity in the market.

(21:52) it's there to make sure you don't miss three loan repayments and lose your house. that particular company, had operations across (22:00) Southeast Asia and they were looking for a independent director. So the opportunity to join and when I joined it was about, second quarter of 2021.

(22:08) that was my moment because I joined. a very good team. I saw the books and I'm oh, wow. we're sitting in Singapore and we can't travel, we can't go eat at restaurants. And then you look at the books and people are missing these what don't look like very large payments. Right. and in a very. Big way. And so that kind of triggered like oh, okay. what's going on? So then I started looking around and that's what led me to this stat that alarmed me and then started this journey.

(22:34) the stat that alarmed me was an estimate that up to a hundred million more people across Asia would drop below $2 a day. I immediately connected it back to the experience at grad school where my friend was sharing about systematic targeting of poverty. And that worried me, 

(22:48) Because if we think about, I was concerned that would pick up. But then on the flip side, I also saw the opportunity, Chinese have this word, like in every challenge there's also an opportunity. And what I felt around that time, (23:00) Southeast Asia by 2021 hit digital payment volumes that we were only supposed to hit in 2025.

(23:05) It was actually a big opportunity to do something if we could figure out where all these people are. when I looked further, most of them were in agriculture. So that's how I up in agriculture. 

(23:15) Jeremy Au: let's talk about that. 

(23:16) Joanna Yeo: Yeah. 

(23:16) Jeremy Au: Which is that you became a founder now.

(23:18) , that is an intersection of climate tech. And agritech. And I think that one third of all jobs in Southeast Asia today is in agriculture 

(23:25) Joanna Yeo: 50% of emissions are from agriculture. 

(23:27) Jeremy Au: I think there's some interesting dimensions here. 

(23:29) Joanna Yeo: Yeah. 

(23:29) Jeremy Au: So why the intersection of these two worlds, right?

(23:32) Climate, tech and agritech, and why be a founder attack this? 

(23:35) Joanna Yeo: the quick answer is I felt that, The scale was the reason we focused on agriculture, and the fact that that is where the people at $2 a day are. Or even $6 a day, 

(23:48) That's another threshold for poverty. if I want to address the problem, I need to go where they are. So let's try to figure out what their issues are. What are the problems and climate? I had (24:00) started with that sustainability, reporting thing while I was at Capital, that was in real estate and very well defined Other than, in real estate, it was very hard to come up with concrete, measurable things, I also invested in this company, waiting for materiality for listed, companies for ESG.

(24:15) if you waited for materiality, there was a returns impact. If you didn't, there wasn't, but there's not that many places where you have structured data around this. I thought, let's see if there's a way to intersect these two markets. at that point, in the middle of the pandemic, the climate pickup was starting.

(24:30) Right. climate change is real. agriculture, areas are very affected by climate change. I think yields are already. Globally about 20 something percent down. Yeah, a little bit to a few decades ago. And, they also have a huge impact on climate, like in our region.

(24:43) burning is a big issue, even though climate's a little bearish, overall, it seems like the right intersection because the demand for solutions on the climate side was gonna keep growing. And I still think they're gonna keep growing.

(24:56) And where I wanted to create new income (25:00) opportunities was in agriculture. the next thing to do was to figure out how to get to the intersection, which is where we are now, which is taking agriculture waste and converting its fire and biochar. , we sell both the physical product. 

(25:12) Jeremy Au: Mm. 

(25:12) Joanna Yeo: So the physical product for biochar becomes fertilizer.

(25:15) and then we also generate carbon credits, which we to international markets. And the opportunity there actually, it's a huge arbitrage opportunity, right? people burn agriculture, waste, because it's not valuable, But if you can aggregate it in a certain way, these biomass type projects are very valuable in global markets.

(25:31) we see the opportunity to create a very standardized set of, projects that can do that. And the other piece, because we are very committed poverty alleviation. So we commit that 50% share of our carbon credit project revenue is allocated to the participating farmers so we can unlock more income for them.

(25:49) That also makes it feasible for them to do stuff. I feel like a lot of the climate space or carbon markets, have a lot of things where they're oh, it's very hard to get farmers to change their behavior. But you're asking someone (26:00) to change their behavior for 10 years with No income would we do it?

(26:03) I don't think so. farmers, when you visit them are really small businesses on the ground in emerging markets. in the same way that we would pay people to do things, to contribute to a bigger project, they should be paid to. And that was something also that I felt with the digital infrastructure emerging in Southeast Asia, both on the payment side and internet connectivity.

(26:23) There was incredible opportunity to do something where we take the principles of embedded finance. embedded finance, unlocked financing for small businesses, small factories. we can verify data around their actions and then we can pay them 

(26:35) Bring that to agriculture too. 

(26:36) Jeremy Au: What does the product market fit process look like? Because it's interesting because it sounds like a mixture of both top down and bottom up. It's both. Because one part of it where you're okay, I wanna do something in climate tech. I also care about poverty.

(26:47) And I care about agriculture. 

(26:48) Joanna Yeo: these pieces come to, how did you learn 

(26:49) Jeremy Au: carbon credit and biochar? As a solution. how do you learn on that solution 

(26:55) Joanna Yeo: I wish I landed on it immediately. The real answer was iterative process. I started out (27:00) saying, okay, I know embedded finance, there are all these ag techs In the region now. So let's do embedded financing to Ag Techs. And then the extra secret sauce I'll add in is we bring in people who care about impact.

(27:12) And we use the measurable impact to bring down the cost of financing. rates rose by 400 basis points. we also, were able to work with one of the top credit guys in the market who's been on credit committees for multiple big books. he helped us underwrite some of our first deals 

(27:26) Realized some of the ag tag were not as digital as the narrative, so we couldn't actually track the data. And because we are forcing them to report the data to get the rate down, we are okay, if we can't verify this data then for the ones who could, we realized they couldn't meet a lot of very basic credit conditions, so that's when we were okay.

(27:44) Maybe we pause on this. but around that time I had already been doing a lot of deep questions with all the supply chains we are working with. the other cool thing about Singapore is people think of Singapore as not agricultural, but a lot of people who either own agribusinesses or invest in agribusinesses (28:00) sit here.

(28:00) Yeah. So we actually had a lot of access just from Singapore 'cause major commodities trading hub. Right. So we had a lot of access to people who either owned or invested in these, very large agri supply chains. one of the things we were doing was asking them to say, okay, can you lay out all the sustainability and climate linked activities you're doing?

(28:17) And I wanna figure out if there's a way to get you better financing through that. if the process is digitized. that's how we first discovered biogas because it was a very large dairy supply chain you are working with. And they said, oh, we're doing this thing with the cow down.

(28:29) Jeremy Au: Yep. 

(28:30) Joanna Yeo: The farmers process it and get biogas and carbon credits and it's six tons per year. my approach with everything is I quickly call the five experts. I know. I called a few people, is this real?

(28:38) Is this doable? the answer was yes. Then I started understanding what they were doing on the ground. The problems were basically if farmers were not getting paid a small group might keep at it, but there was a lot of drop off and they needed to earn more money to do something about it.

(28:50) So I'm okay, business model, something can be done, but there's a huge opportunity, 'cause India has very good payment infrastructure, And you can track, because once it's a machine, I can put a sensor, costs (29:00) a bit more money, I need to figure out the financing it's doable.

(29:02) we quickly run to the carbon buyer side, carbon financier side. What is the problem? And the problem is fraud. don't know if it's actually installed. There's also drop off. and then there's incentive misalignment. the auditors, everyone, everyone's incentivized to just say everything's working fine.

(29:18) there's a lot of uncertainty there. this is an interesting opportunity because we can figure out the financing. I have feedback from the people who are generating revenue for the project, what they need to see. it is feasible to build in a hundred percent full metering of everything.

(29:33) It's just more expensive. to then allocate a share of it. To farmers for verified. so that's actually what we've done in India and that was our first project. It was very bottom up investigative we run there. To the buyers to say, what do you need? to our knowledge, it's a course year compliant methodology.

(29:48) It's been around for more than 10 years, but to our knowledge, we had the first group that's done a hundred percent metering of all the devices. per farmer, we have an emissions reduction run rate that we track on a dashboard. the farmer can interact (30:00) with us via a WhatsApp chat bot, be how am I doing on my emissions?

(30:03) and then they can get paid and get notifications that they'll get paid. over time we're gonna also ask them to upload something. To enrich the data set. it was a step towards embedded financing.

(30:15) I realized there was an issue There was 400 basis point rate hikes. one of the supply chains was doing this thing quickly, go and get feedback from the market. and then how we ended up with Biochar was I was talking to a group about biogas.

(30:28) It was a group doing biogas projects and the guy who was on it, it's a Japanese climate guy, and he was Hey, you know this across biogas and biochar, you can sort out almost any kind of waste. 

(30:38) Jeremy Au: Wow. 

(30:39) Joanna Yeo: to the races. 

(30:39) Jeremy Au: that's a lovely story of product market fit, right?

(30:42) Yeah. Know you're discover market, the cost, the mission. Yes. And then different types of solutions that you tried and pivoted from there, this amazing story. my second last question is Like today, the market's pretty bearish, right? 

(30:54) I would say change or tech or whatever that is. And then in Southeast Asia, there's also a funding (31:00) winter. And then in Vy tech, there's a e fishery scandal that hasn't made things easy for that. Which ties to the fraud concern that a lot of people have around the ag as well.

(31:08) So, I'm just curious, but when you think about building this climate, how are you thinking through this process? 

(31:14) Joanna Yeo: Well this is a big question. Let me take a few pieces. The first piece on Ag Tech, and this is something we realized when we were looking at financing companies.

(31:24) Agriculture is a very, very, deep market. someone from Delhi or Mumbai can't necessarily talk on the ground to the farmer in a village because they're speaking different languages. These networks take like 20, 30, 40 years to build.

(31:38) There's some losses there, but there's also a lot of trust our insight was it's not easy to rebuild those just with money. You need time. So instead, after going through that round with the Airtech financing, our insight was we really wanna work with agri businesses that are digitally enabled.

(31:56) Right. And helps them unlock (32:00) what we think are more inclusive business models, through new business lines rather than trying to rebuild the whole value chain. the rebuilding is doable. it's not a VC play. It's like an infrastructure play, like a commodities play.

(32:12) So that was the first insight if we then think about climate and Southeast Asia, these are whole other questions. Maybe how I will first approach it is to say, let's think about the intersection, right? Since we are in Southeast Asia and, climate change is real, right?

(32:27) And I think for Singapore as a island state, we could be submerged very soon. And not to be alarmist about it, right? It's, to say, okay, what are practical solutions that are an opportunity here? my approach is always to think like. How did China lift a billion people outta poverty?

(32:44) They didn't lift them up by getting very alarmist or doing a lot of handouts. they said, okay, let's connect these people to markets at scale in a stable way. the insight I would focus on for Southeast Asia and climate is where are we uniquely positioned to create (33:00) solutions that are of a higher quality, at a better price than anywhere else in the world?

(33:04) Right? This econ 1 0 1 was our comparative advantage, right. And Singapore's role in that is quite powerful because we are in Southeast Asia, but we are also very capital heavy. So we are able to be a nexus for quick testing. if I think about the opportunities in Southeast Asia, there's so much agriculture, that's an incredible opportunity. Also land, cost, labor cost. A lot of the agriculture waste is low price relative to the value if you process it for global markets. the third thing Southeast Asia has as a great enabler is the digital infrastructure.

(33:36) there's internet connectivity, so you can build in centers. Singapore's trying to be an AI hub, and we are moving in that direction. Spatial intelligence, right? two of my interns before coming to work with us, were working at the DSO developing computer vision systems to track persons of interest.

(33:53) Those types of things can be brought to tracking a factory in a last mile area. I think the (34:00) opportunities in Southeast Asia and climate would really be focused on anything that's lower cost to build here.

(34:05) Anything around agriculture for sure. And then, anything that really benefits from the ability to digitize. Singapore has a good role in that space as a capital markets hub. It is not just a capital markets hub because neighboring countries have their own capital cities with a lot of wealth.

(34:22) But what we have is a capital markets hub that's also quite unique. this links to my public service role at the impact investment committee, which is really about how do you build the investment track record, like kind of flywheel for new asset classes. in Singapore, you have the full spectrum, right?

(34:37) We think of capitals in Singapore and sometimes the market and GIC, there's also all the insurance companies. So those are the big ticket guys who can write hundred million dollar, billion dollar checks. But they're not going to start with the new asset classes.

(34:51) What Singapore has is a lot of people who are accredited investors. they can give you a $10,000 check, $50,000 check with that first hundred to million (35:00) dollars You can build a track record that then can take your money from light. Smaller family offices, smaller funds gets you to the 20 to 50 million track record.

(35:10) You can start taking money from slightly bigger funds. Some of the banks will start doing it. the opportunity is also within Singapore, we have the entire capital markets ecosystem to build out the investment kind of flywheels. So, that combination, and I think it's very symbiotic.

(35:26) Like Singapore can create a lot of value for our neighbors and unlock for the region. And then our neighbors are the ones who are very resource rich and, there's a lot of opportunity there. So I would focus more on the opportunity 'cause there's still demand. But you need to be very laser focused on it. Like what is that actually demand for? I'll give you one, example Biochar is quite popular. People talk about it. But for us, when we started building it, the first thing I did was I'm okay, who are the biggest buyers in the market?

(35:54) Like the tier one buyers and people are setting prices. there were European and American companies with a lot of AI (36:00) exposure, their marginal cost of abatement is very high. for them it's important to have very durable, carbon removal.

(36:06) I basically went straight to them, whether it's publish things on their website or get intros to talk straight to the buying team. they said they can only do one type of biochar and not another type. they gave us clear criteria, like minimum scale.

(36:19) It needs to be legally enforceable. as legally binding as a private infrastructure project, they need certain Design features around the product most of the market's not doing that.

(36:28) so that's something I'd say Southeast Asia has a lot of opportunities. We have in terms of resources. We have a cost advantage. What we need is that laser focused link to who is really driving the market. And being able to connect into that information to build product that will actually be bought.

(36:43) Jeremy Au: Wow. Amazing. , last question here is could you share a personal story about time that you've been brave? 

(36:47) Joanna Yeo: thanks for asking the question. I'd say building a ruca has been brave. specifically it's the commitment to the 50% share of the carbon credit revenues to, farmers on a gross basis. And (37:00) shout out to my team, to our partners, to our investors who have signed up for this and, are in it for the long haul, it requires turning down a lot of things, right? courage is you continue, even though it's a bit scary it's everything from your buyers. When they find out there's a 50% share to farmers, they're okay, so then you can sell it to me half price. some of them will walk away.

(37:22) You have investors who have the same view. You have partners who are very good, but they're like. Why are you giving money to the farmers? To be clear, we don't give money away, right? We equip them to participate in the projects and, our views really, they should be better off when the project has entered in terms of access to market infrastructure than before.

(37:42) But this requires courage because, we're playing the long game. Any business, you cannot squeeze anyone dry, you have to leave value on the table for everyone. And when we're building projects that actually require very large scale participation even though they're very poor and they don't have very good bargaining power, they're the ones who (38:00) are carrying most of the weight in terms of the ongoing projects.

(38:03) it might be equal, but, they need to do the daily work. It's a very shortsighted thing if we want to do high integrity projects that can actually be digitally verified. If we are expecting one group to not be paid on an ongoing basis. we are being short term idealistic, but long term would be very, very good.

(38:19) it's also been unlocking a lot of doors in terms of access to biomass. it requires courage, but it has also created a lot of friendships and good aligned people that we are very grateful for. 

(38:29) Jeremy Au: Fantastic. on that note, I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways from conversation first.

(38:34) Thanks so much for sharing about your educational achievements. it's nice to hear about the rationale for why you thought about it I think was strong sense of mission and purpose was really guiding you through those conversations.

(38:43) Secondly, thanks for sharing about your own experience in the kind of finance your professional career. I thought it was just fascinating hear about how you thought about your values and some things that you're learning about. Building zero to one new businesses and being part of a high growth startup.

(38:57) Lastly, thanks for sharing about your experience building (39:00) at intersection between agriculture and FinTech with the carbon credits via arca. it was fascinating to hear about some of the trade offs you had to make. , but also I think it was really fascinating here, the product market fit, because I think so many people, wanna approach it from a top down basis.

(39:13) They wanna help the world. Yeah. And so they do top down, but they never arrive at solution. That works. 

(39:17) Joanna Yeo: Yeah. 

(39:17) Jeremy Au: And a lot of people also try to do it bottom up, but never really does it in a way that connects with 

(39:21) Joanna Yeo: it needs to scale. 

(39:22) Jeremy Au: I think there's a really powerful product market for story on that note, thank you so much for sharing your story. 

(39:26) Joanna Yeo: Enjoyed the conversation. 

(39:28) Jeremy Au: Okay, great.