Kuo Yi Lim

Kuo-Yi Lim is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Monk's Hill Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm he launched in 2014 with serial entrepreneur Peng T. Ong. Headquartered in Singapore, the firm focuses on technology startups across Southeast Asia and has grown to manage roughly US$385M across three funds, including its third early-stage fund which reached a final close at US$200M in April 2023.

Before founding Monk's Hill, Lim was CEO of Infocomm Investments, a US$200M growth-stage fund of Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) that invested in technology startups globally. There he led investments in companies including Twilio (later NYSE: TWLO), Quid, DataXu, and Gengo. Earlier in his career he began as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and was an early employee/founder at several startups across Boston, San Francisco, and Singapore — including Encentuate, an identity and access-management software company later acquired by IBM, and Reputation Technologies. In 2008 he co-founded SportsHook, a SaaS platform for the sports community.

Lim holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral (PhD) degrees in electrical engineering from MIT, where his research focused on nanophotonics and photonic crystals. His deep technical training is frequently cited as underpinning his "first-principles" approach to evaluating founders and technology.

Beyond investing, Lim holds a number of board and industry roles, reportedly including positions connected to SG Growth Capital, Great Eastern Holdings, the Singapore Venture & Private Capital Association (SVCA), and the Global Private Capital Association's Technology Council. He is a regular speaker at industry events such as SuperReturn Asia and Asia Tech x Singapore.

• Invests at pre-Series A and Series A, typically writing US$3M–US$7M initial checks and reserving capital for follow-ons.
• Backs technology companies across Southeast Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines) across SaaS, fintech, consumer/e-commerce, digital health, cybersecurity, devtools, logistics, and increasingly AI-native businesses.
• Applies a first-principles, technically rigorous evaluation — a reflection of his MIT engineering/PhD background — emphasizing strong, resilient founding teams and durable business fundamentals over hype.
• Takes a long-term, patience-on-exits view: in interviews he and the firm have argued that Southeast Asian venture returns require patience and that founders should build through uncertain macro cycles rather than optimize for quick exits.
• Values founders who "keep moving" and iterate — a theme he has emphasized in talks on transitioning from operator/founder to venture investor.