By William Bao Bean, Managing General Partner at Orbit Ventures

Emerging markets offer significant growth potential, but growth alone does not create venture returns.

For investors, the challenge is identifying which business models can scale across markets, what needs to be adapted, and which founders can execute under local conditions. In SuperReturn Middle East, William Bao Bean shares why emerging-market investing requires a localisation-first approach.

Successful models need local adaptation

A business model that works in one market may not translate directly to another. Infrastructure, regulation, payment systems and consumer behaviour all affect execution.

The starting point is to understand why a model worked, then identify which elements can transfer and what must change. China and India offer useful examples, but their success does not guarantee the same results elsewhere and still requires local understanding and execution.

Local founders, global reach

Founders who operate in their home markets bring knowledge of customer behavior, regulation and operational constraints that outside investors may overlook. For investors, that local understanding is an important consideration when assessing execution risk.

Local expertise alone, however, is not enough. Orbit Ventures calls its cross-border approach innovation arbitrage: combining business models, operational practices and commercial relationships from different markets, then adapting them to local conditions.

Cross-border expansion can broaden a company’s opportunities, but timing matters. The business model and founding team must be ready to scale beyond their home market.

From Alibaba to AI: Digitizing SMEs

As the equity research lead for Alibaba’s first IPO in 2007, William saw how technology helped small and medium-sized businesses build trust, reach customers and participate in digital commerce.

Today, AI is creating new opportunities to improve SME operations. Orbit Ventures works with more than 50 companies using AI to address similar challenges across Asia, Africa and Latin America, including supply chains, logistics and sales.

The underlying investment opportunity remains consistent: reduce friction, improve productivity and give smaller businesses access to customers and services that were previously difficult to reach.

What this means for investors

Emerging-market returns depend on more than macroeconomic growth. Investors need business models that can be localized, founders who understand their markets, and a path to positive unit economics and sustainable sales rather than repeated fundraising.

The objective is not to replicate a playbook unchanged. It is to identify what can travel, what must be adapted, and when a company is ready to scale across borders.