Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs

Hitoshi Ikeya serves as Investment Director and leads decision-making from the Yangon office. He works alongside a small team that includes Investment Manager La Woon Yan and Portfolio Growth Advisor Claire Lim. The Executive Board of Directors provides oversight, but day-to-day investment selection and portfolio management rest with Ikeya and the local investment team.

EME is structured as a permanent capital vehicle, not a single family office nor a traditional closed-end venture fund. It invests off its own balance sheet rather than calling capital from limited partners on a fixed schedule. This structure allows EME to hold positions longer and reinvest follow-on capital without a fund-life pressure point.

EME targets post-revenue, technology-enabled startups operating inside Myanmar. The firm looks for companies that have already started generating income and want to scale using technology. Its initial check size runs from US$50,000 to $250,000, and the firm can reinvest up to two additional rounds in its strongest portfolio companies.

EME is a full member of the Myanmar Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, which anchors its local regulatory and industry dialogue. The firm also participates in the Asia Venture Philanthropy Network and appears as a stakeholder in Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs ecosystem reports, linking it to larger development-finance and impact-investing conversations across Southeast Asia.

EME makes direct investments exclusively. The firm does not market itself as a fund-of-funds or allocator to external GPs. Its model is to find, fund, mentor, and partner directly with startups in Myanmar, supplementing equity with commercial contracts and mentorship rather than spreading capital across multiple managers.

Joshua Morris runs Emerging Markets Investment Advisers, which oversees operations, while Trent Eddy chairs Emerging Markets Group Holdings, the wider holding group. Matt Viner operates as Investment Manager at EME while also helping launch the Cnai Accelerator in Cambodia. These overlapping roles create an operational network but do not pool a single pot of investable capital.

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation is the primary philanthropic name linked to EME. Although the firm itself is a for-profit asset manager, its membership in the Asia Venture Philanthropy Network and Sasakawa Peace Foundation relationship signal a broader commitment to development outcomes alongside financial returns.