AARON SARMA

Aaron Sarma is an entrepreneur, investor and speaker with over 21 years of experience in technology, digital media and retail.  

In 2015, he founded Touristly (which later rebranded to Vidi) which sold to AirAsia in 2017. He served in the group in various capacities to develop travel3Sixty, BigLife and was COO of AirAsia.com.  

Currently, he serves as General Partner at ScaleUp Malaysia, an accelerator looking to help startups build and scale to the next level which he co-founded in October 2019. ScaleUp Malaysia has announced investments in 30 companies and have been recognised as one of the most active investors in South East Asia.

In 2020, he co-founded a venture builder called Remote Ventures that helps entrepreneurs get from zero to one by providing technology support and seed funding. Remote Ventures has powered the launch of 4 ventures in entertainment, education, fitness and logistics.

Aaron has served as a consultant at the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation as the Head of Digital Development. He has consulted with the World Bank, MaGIC and international agencies on the topic of the startup ecosystem in ASEAN. He is also a business coach at Cradle’s Coach and Grow Programme.  

He is a regular guest commentator on Astro Awani and BFM on topics around entrepreneurship, startups and the Digital Economy. He is a panellist, moderator and public speaker and has been keynote speaker at events organised by Axiata, Khazanah Founders, MDEC, MaGIC and Cradle Fund. A talk he gave in 2018 was covered by Digital News Asia. He is also a featured TedX speaker having recently delivered a talk called “Build The Future” for TedX Monash KL. He also has written several articles that have been featured in TechNode, Kr-Asia, e27, Malaysia Kini, Malaysia Today, Business Today, Digital News Asia, TigerHall, Web In Travel and other publications. In his current roles he has been recognised on Tatler Asia’s Most Influential list 2021 and as a Digerati 50 member 2020/2021 by Digital News Asia.

He enjoys building great companies, developing products and bringing them to market. Through ScaleUp Malaysia and Remote Ventures he has invested in 34 emerging startups in Malaysia. He has faith in innovation and its power to change society for good. He firmly believes that the coming economic recovery will be driven by digital businesses and that Malaysia is positioned to capitalise on this opportunity.  

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