Mikal Khoso

Hey I’m Mikal Khoso

I’m a global citizen and have lived in 9 cities in 8 countries across 4 continents.

Professionally I’ve spent time as a startup employee, startup founder and venture capitalist.

As a venture capitalist I have invested over $150 million across 30+ startups.

As a startup operator I’ve been part of the founding team (employee #6) of an edtech company and was COO of a design studio with over 45 employees.

Lastly I’m an avid writer and write Emergent, a newsletter about the fastest-growing businesses in emerging markets. I also used to write Trajectory, where I followed my curiousity and analyzed emerging technology trends.

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My Writings

  • Nubank: The World’s Biggest Digital Bank

    Nubank: The World’s Biggest Digital Bank

    This piece was originally published in my newsletter Emergent. My name is Mikal – I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.  This […]

  • Grab: The Most Valuable Startup in Southeast Asia

    This article was originally published in my newsletter Emergent. Southeast Asia is the most dynamic internet economy in the world outside of the United States and China. The number of internet users in the region has soared from 260 million in 2015 to 400 million by 2020. The region as a whole has a population of […]

  • Udaan: India’s Biggest Digital Wholesaler

    Udaan: India’s Biggest Digital Wholesaler

    This piece was originally published in my newsletter Emergent. My name is Mikal – I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.  This […]

  • Meituan: Food + Platform

    Meituan: Food + Platform

    This piece was originally published in my newsletter Emergent. My name is Mikal – I’m an early-stage tech investor and I was born in Asia, grew up in Africa and now live in the US. Every week I break down a fast-growing business in an emerging market to understand its product, market and growth strategy.  This […]

  • Tokopedia: Indonesian Ecommerce Giant

    This piece was originally published in my newsletter Emergent. The War for the Indonesian Ecommerce Market Southeast Asia is the fastest growing economic region in the world – growing over 5% per year. The region has been transformed in the last decade with ecommerce and digital payments in particular having grown exponentially. One of the […]

  • Jumia: Amazon of Africa?

    The Rise of African Ecommerce Overview 2020 was an explosive year for ecommerce globally, with ecommerce businesses seeing their revenues soar, profits increase and valuations climb. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend was Jumia, which saw its valuation soar from lows of ~$2.50 in March of 2020 to highs of $65 recently. Jumia […]

  • The Green Revolution

    2020 was a tipping point for clean energy globally. Amid the chaotic news cycle of the pandemic, this fact was mostly lost. Decades of research, investment and advancement culminated in 2020 to decisively change the economics of clean energy and start what will be a decades-long effort to redesign and rebuild our energy infrastructure globally. […]

  • Machine Learning and Archaeology

    Archeology is a relatively obscure but deeply impactful discipline. Archaeology is critical to our understanding of human history. Moreover, the discoveries unearthed through archaeological work impact and help shape other intellectual disciplines such as politics, geography, demographics and more. In many ways archaeology is a foundational discipline that creates the base of data and historical […]

  • Optimizing Complex Systems

    Efficiency has been a critical concept ever since the industrial revolution. Increasing productivity and efficiency have been core assumptions and goals of the field of economics since day one. Increasing efficiency is a complex challenge and there are numerous ways to do so. Typically, efficiency can be approached at a unit-level or at a system-level. […]

  • A Fourth Industrial Revolution

    The rumors of the demise of American manufacturing have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, American manufacturing is experiencing something of a renaissance. In 2018, the United States added 261,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector, mirroring an increase of 207,000 in 2017. This job growth has primarily been powered by small, high-technology firms working with cutting-edge […]