After exiting his Silicon Valley company, Vinnie Lauria backpacked across Asia for a year with his wife, spotted a funding gap for early-stage Southeast Asian founders, and built Golden Gate Ventures from scratch to fill it. He permanently relocated from San Francisco to Singapore and later Vietnam to be on the ground in the markets he backs, allocating one-third of his fund specifically to Vietnam where he moved his family and opened a representative office. After exiting his Silicon Valley company, Vinnie Lauria backpacked across Asia for a year with his wife, spotted a funding gap for early-stage Southeast Asian founders, and built Golden Gate Ventures from scratch to fill it. He permanently relocated from San Francisco to Singapore and later Vietnam to be on the ground in the markets he backs, allocating one-third of his fund specifically to Vietnam where he moved his family and opened a representative office.