From Guesswork to Informed Conversations: How a Malaysian PE Firm Researches Southeast Asia’s Private Companies

Introduction

In this edition of Speeda’s User Voice, we speak with Gavin Tan, Director, Investments & Investor Relations at COPE Private Equity (hereafter referred to as “COPE”).

COPE is one of Malaysia’s oldest private equity firms. It has been investing for 20 years and manages about USD 150 million in assets. The firm invests predominantly in Malaysian companies across three sectors: technology, industrial and consumer.

COPE is a growth equity investor. “We take minority stakes and we work with entrepreneurs,” Gavin explains. The firm has about 18 people and has used Speeda for more than nine years.

The challenge: knowing a company’s scale before the first conversation

For a PE firm with set ticket sizes, the first question about any opportunity is simple: is this company the right size for us? In Malaysia’s private markets, that question used to be hard to answer.

“Companies reach out to us and we really could not check the scale, their background, their numbers” Gavin recalls. “Because we have certain investment ticket sizes, we would prefer to spend time on businesses at the right scale with the right economics.”

Early screening was “a bit of guesswork.” The team searched records at SSM, Malaysia’s companies registry. But access was not easy, searches were case by case and they were time-consuming. The cost fell on both sides: the investors’ time and the entrepreneur’s.

How COPE uses Speeda today

Speeda now sits at the front of COPE’s research process. “With Speeda, you can really speed up the research process, get a background, get a sense of who the people are behind,” Gavin says. “From there, we have a more informed conversation.”

The team uses the platform in three main ways.

Screening inbound opportunities. When a company approaches COPE, the team first checks its scale and background against the firm’s criteria. Meetings then start with the right companies and with better questions.

Zooming into sub sectors for deal sourcing. Within its focus sectors, COPE drills down, for example from consumer into healthcare, and from healthcare into medical devices. Here the team draws on Speeda’s sector-specific industry reports and has used them to study areas such as consumer products and confectionery for outbound deal sourcing. Where no report exists, the firm’s research quota lets it ask Speeda’s consultants for customized research.

Sizing the investable universe for fundraising. “When you fundraise, investors care about the investable universe: how big is the market” Gavin explains. COPE uses Speeda to identify companies of a certain scale in its target sectors, across geographies such as Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand. The question is practical: “Given our ticket size, given our team, given our geographical focus, how many companies are there in a certain sector within our range?”

Why local private market coverage matters to COPE

COPE’s team has used global financial data platforms in the past. In Gavin’s experience, they tend to be broader in scope and focused on public equity.

“For us, public equity data is a good-to-have. You use it as a benchmark and you use it for research,” he says. “But really what we need is Malaysian private market data, and Speeda gives us great coverage.” That coverage also extends across many Southeast Asian countries.

Price matters too. Global providers justify their fees with the volume of data they offer, Gavin notes. “But if you don’t use these features, is it worth the money?” For COPE’s focus, he says, Speeda fits what we need very well.”

COPE’s perspective on investing in Southeast Asia

We also asked Gavin what COPE’s two decades of investing have taught the firm about private companies in the region. His answers apply well beyond any single platform.

Numbers matter, but the people behind the business matter most

Financials are the starting point: the business, its history, its growth trajectory, margins and products. But in COPE’s experience, the key is the people behind the business.

“Especially as growth equity investors, you partner with the entrepreneur,” Gavin says. “So understanding what makes him tick, understanding his ambition, his character, that is very important.”

That means going beyond desk research to industry checks. Talk to people who have worked with the founder, and to their suppliers and competitors. Legal protections only go so far: “You can draft things in your legal documents, you can check and make sure everything’s ok. But if the person’s character is problematic, it will be a difficult investment.” When problems do arise, Gavin agrees, they generally trace back to the founders.

Southeast Asia is not one market

Southeast Asia is often discussed as one region, but investment conditions differ significantly from country to country. COPE’s partners have invested outside Malaysia, and Gavin points to three differences any cross-border thesis should account for.

• Economic development. Each country is at a different stage, with Singapore the most developed. The industries that work in one market may not work in another, depending on how developed it is.
• Business norms. Business practices and expectations vary across Southeast Asia. Gavin points to the different historical backgrounds of markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam as one factor behind these local differences.
• Legal systems. Some markets follow common law and others civil law. His advice is to have someone local who understands the market. ” If not, you’re taking a big risk when you go from one country to the other. It’s a bit like stepping into the unknown.” As he puts it: “You always learn. But do you want to learn it the easy way or the painful way?”

“We have been a happy customer of Speeda over the years, and we are grateful for the collaboration,” Gavin says.

Interview Date: September 25, 2026
The content of the interview article, as well as the affiliations and titles of the individuals mentioned, are based on information as of the time of the interview.

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