It’s been three years since East Ventures, an early stage fund based in Jakarta, Singapore, and Tokyo, launched. To mark the milestone, the firm released an infographic detailing its performance so far. It has invested in 8 or 9 startups annually in each of the three years. A small number of these startups are based in Singapore, with the rest coming from Indonesia. Majority of its investments are in the e-commerce space, followed by online publishing.
Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner at East Ventures, tells me that the firm has invested between USD 50K and USD 500K in each startup. Its accelerator program, East Ventures Alpha, has invested about USD 10K per startup.
He is unable to disclose the firm’s returns for the exits of its portfolio companies. Read more
JFDI.Asia held its first bootcamp in Asia. The question remains whether it and Asia's other startup accelerators can keep the momentum going.
Asia has become a much friendlier place to do a startup. That’s because throughout the region, more startup accelerators have been launched to provide aspiring entrepreneurs some handholding as they search for the next big idea.
In 2012 alone, at least 4 startup accelerators have begun their inaugural bootcamps. Singapore’s JFDI.Asia held a successful one from January to May, while South Korea’s SparkLabs unveiled their first batch of startups in August. Philippines’ Launchgarage and Hong Kong’s AcceleratorHK too have started their programs.
A startup accelerator, essentially, is a type of seed startup funding (see: stages of a startup) vehicle that offers a structured mentorship program and support services over a fixed duration of time — often from 3 months to a year. Investees typically have to go through a rigorous selection process. Read more
Filed under Innovation & Technology, News, Special Commentary, Technology, Venture Capital & Private EquityTags: Hong Kong, JFDI.asia, Launchgarage, Singapore, South Korea, sparklabs, Startup accelerators
There’s plenty of uncertainty when talking about funding and startup stages: What defines a growth stage startup as opposed to an early stage one? Do Series A rounds coincide with growth stage startups? How do we know if a company has graduated from one stage of the lifecycle to another?
Here, we take a quick look at three popular models that’s been bandied about: Funding stages (which venture capitalists talk about often), Steve Blank’s Customer Developmental Model, and Startup Genome’s Marmer Stages, a new entrant which adapts Steve Blank’s model and modifies it with self-reported data from thousands of startups.
Marmer Stages
|
Customer Developmental
Model
|
Funding Stages
|
- Named after Startup Genome founder Max Marmer
- Based loosely on Customer Developmental Model, but product-centric
- Goals and activities drawn from self-reported data by thousands of startups worldwide
|
- Developed by Steve Blank in his book Four Steps to the Epiphany
- Focuses on understanding customers’ needs
|
- Explains how funding at each stage can meet a startup’s needs.
|
| DISCOVERY (5-7 MONTHS) |
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY |
SEED/ANGEL ROUND |
Goal:
Validate whether you are solving a meaningful problem and whether anybody would hypothetically be interested in your solution.
|
Goal:
Discover whether the problem, product and customer hypotheses in your business plan are correct.
|
Goal:
Ensure you have enough money to build version one of the software and raise the next round of capital.
|
Activities:
- Founding team is formed
- Many customer interviews are conducted
- Value proposition is found
- Minimally viable products are created
- Team joins an accelerator or incubator
- First mentors and advisors come on board.
|
Activities:
- Get outside the building in order to learn what the high-value customer problems are.
- Find out what it is about your product that solves these problems
- Discover who specifically are your customer and users
- With your findings, shape how you will describe your unique differences to potential customers
|
Activities:
- Set up the company and fund living expenses
- Write a skeleton business plan addressing the five fundamental questions:
1. what you’re going to do
2. why users need it
3. how large the market is
4. how you’ll make money
5. who your competitors are and why this company is going to beat them
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
EARLY STAGE |
| |
|
Goal:
Show some traction and possibly generate revenue
|
| |
|
|
| VALIDATION (3-5 MONTHS) |
CUSTOMER VALIDATION |
|
Goal:
Get early validation that people are interested in your product through the exchange of money or attention.
Activities:
- Refinement of core features
- Initial user growth
- Metrics and analytics implementation
- First key hires
- Pivots (if necessary)
- First paying customers
- Product market fit
|
Goal:
Build a repeatable sales road map for the sales and marketing teams that will follow later.
Activities:
- Prepare sales materials, marketing strategies, sales roadmap
- Land a few deals with “earlyvangelists”
- Develop positioning statement to influence how the market perceives your product
- If, and only if, you find a group of repeatable customers with a repeatable sales process, and then find that those customers yield a profitable business model, do you move to the next step.
|
Activities:
- Turn prototype into something releaseable to the public
- Have solid core features ready
- Gain a small but devoted following
- Start generating revenue
- Formulate an exit strategy — go public or exit.
- Pay investors who will help the company in some way by letting them invest at low valuations.
- Use other investors as leverage to prevent funding delays. Pursue alternatives.
- Hire first employee and freelancers/part-timers/interns
|
| |
|
|
| EFFICIENCY (5-6 MONTHS) |
CUSTOMER CREATION |
|
Goal:
Refine your business model and improve the efficiency of your customer acquisition process. Efficiently acquire customers in order to avoid scaling with a leaky bucket.
|
Goal:
Build on the success the company has had in its initial sales.
|
|
Activities:
- Value proposition refined
- User experienced overhauled
- Conversion funnel optimized
- Viral growth achieved
- Repeatable sales process and/or scalable customer acquisition channels found
|
Activities:
- Create end-user demand and drive that demand into the company’s sales channel.
- Heavy marketing spending after the point where a startup acquires its first customers.
|
|
| |
|
|
| SCALE (7-9 MONTHS) |
COMPANY BUILDING |
SERIES A ROUND & BEYOND/GROWTH STAGE |
Goal:
Step on the gas pedal and try to drive growth very aggressively.
Activities:
- Massive customer acquisition
- Back-end scalability improvements
- First executive hires
- Process implementation
- Establishment of departments
|
Goal:
Exploit the company’s early market success.
Activities:
- Transition from informal, learning and discovery-oriented Customer Development team into formal departments with VPs of Sales, Marketing and Business Development. These executives now focus on building mission-oriented departments.
|
Goal:
Go from revenue to profit. Grow aggressively.
Activities:
- Spend more on marketing
- Build infrastructure
- Hire executives
- Down-rounds can occur to struggling startups
|
|
|
|
| |
|
LATE STAGE |
|
|
Goal:
Go from profit to exit/IPO.
|
| Source: Startup Compass Blog |
Source: Four Steps to the Epiphany |
Sources: Paul Graham’s blog, Meng Wong’s Map of the Money |
Notes:
1. This comparison is not meant to go into the details. It is aimed at giving an overview.
2. As is always the case with the real world, there are exceptions to the norm. Some startups, for example, may choose to eschew venture funding.
3. Investment quantum varies across geographies. Seed funding and venture rounds in Silicon Valley are typically larger than those in Asia. For example, YCombinator company ZenPayroll raised USD6.1M in seed funding in December 2012.
Image credit: Torley
Updated: 17th January 2012
Image: Silicon Straits
After running Neoteny Labs as Principal and making 24 investments since May 2010, James Chan has announced on his blog the rebranding of his early-stage venture fund. It’s now called Silicon Straits, reflecting the narrow bodies of water that flow through much of Southeast Asia.
The change affects Neoteny Labs Pte Ltd, the Singapore-registered entity that was part of the National Research Foundation’s Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS), a government startup co-funding initiative. Neoteny Labs will continue to exist as an offshore Limited Partnership.
James unveiled the new development not long after Neoteny participated in a USD500K seed round in Burpple, a Singapore-based startup that has created a mobile food journal and discovery app. While Joi Ito, the General Partner of the fund, will continue to maintain its existing portfolio with James, he will be focused primarily in his new appointment as the director of the MIT Media Lab. Read more
Here is a list of venture capital firms with a presence in Singapore that are actively investing in startups. While venture capital and private equity firms appear similar in their objectives — to make money through means like a company’s sale or IPO — they possess very different mindsets. This list doesn’t contain private equity firms. Read more
Filed under Innovation & Technology, Technology, Venture Capital & Private EquityTags: Extream Ventures, Gobi Partners, iGlobe Partners, Infocomm Investments, innosight, Intel Capital, JAFCO Asia, Jungle Ventures, Singapore, Singtel Innov8, Stream Global, Upstream Ventures, venture capital, Vickers Venture Partners, Walden International
The inaugural Optus-Innov8 Seed Program has announced on 12th November its first two pre-series A investments. SingTel Innov8 led a AUD250k (USD260k) round by 121cast, which offers a free, personalized, and mobile digital audio feed.
It also fronted a AUD450k (USD468k) round by Venuemob, a provider of party and function locations in Melbourne.
Both startups, which are registered in Australia, stood out from the Winter Pitch Event held on 31st July. 10 startups pitched at that event with the hopes of securing funding.
Moving ahead, Venuemob and 121cast will have 3 to 6 months to refine their strategy and business model, all the while taking advantage of the free venue and mentorship provided by the accelerator program.
Optus will come in to lend a hand with their communications technology, network services, and know-how. Both companies could also use the time to raise their next round of funding, which would be in the AUD1M and above range.
The Program will reopen applications once again in January 2013 for their summer intake.
Optus is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel Group.
Jungle Ventures, a Singapore-based early stage VC fund, has announced at Techventure 2012 the launch of a pan-Asian super angel fund. USD 10M has been raised in the first round. Read more
Investor and entrepreneur Jayesh Parekh has joined Jungle Ventures, an early stage VC firm, as one of its managing partners.
The Singapore-based firm, which also operates a seed fund and incubator, has been undergoing a process of team building, with the aim of making 10 to 15 investments in 2013. That’s a step up from the 4 to 5 companies it has been funding annually. It will zoom in on the following countries: Singapore, India, Indonesia and Taiwan. Read more
Filed under Funding, News, Technology, Venture Capital & Private EquityTags: HR, india, Indonesia, Jayesh Parekh, Jungle Ventures, Moves, Singapore, taiwan
Update on 15th October:
Launchgarage has announced its first class of 4 startups on 15th October. Here they are:
Workinspire
Work Inspire is a cloud based project management tool that helps managers and team members save time on scheduling, task and time tracking by working with your emails instead of adding on to the spam. It’s proven to save two to eight hours per day per team member.
SulitApps
A service for non-credit card holders that allows them to purchase apps and digital goods from popular marketplaces even without a credit card.
Tripsiders
Tripsiders is an online booking service for tours and activities nationwide that focuses on service providers’ reliability and trust. It provides a full e-commerce booking website for desktop and mobile, a review and rating platform, a directory of verified service providers, and polite and helpful 24/7 customer service.
MyLegalWhiz
MyLegalWhiz provides an online venue for legal professionals to do research and case management work. It currently has a huge curated database cases and is already in use by some legal professionals.
Previous: Pinoy 6-month accelerator Launchgarage calls for pioneer batch of startups
The tech startup ecosystem in the Philippines is really heating up. Just a few days ago, startup accelerator Ideaspace launched its national competition to find the best tech innovations in the country.
Today, Kickstart Ventures and Proudcloud are announcing their call for the pioneer batch of startups for their joint accelerator, Launchgarage.
Due to commence within the next few weeks, Launchgarage is a 6-month accelerator program that guides Pinoy startups from the idea stage, to the build, and the launch.
Apart from a seed round of USD 30K for 15% equity, throughout the six months, teams will get access to work space, mentorship and advice, networking, exclusive lectures, and strategic partnerships with tech’s leading players. Expect to have some of your online infrastructural costs subsidized by Amazon Web Services, Google, Globe Telecom and the like.
Spaces are highly limited – Launchgarage is searching for just four teams to join this first batch of startups. Pitches are ongoing now.
If you want to try out for the accelerator, you can apply here.
SGE is proud to be a media partner of Launchgarage.
Filed under Investments, News, Venture Capital & Private EquityTags: kickstart, Launchgarage, mylegalwhiz, Philippines, Pinoy, proudcloud, sulitapps, tripsiders, workinspire
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and the first external investor in Facebook, has invested in his first Australian startup. He led a A$1.2M (US$$1.25M) seed funding round in ScriptRock, an enterprise software provider.
The move by Thiel, which was announced last week, was made through Valar Ventures, an early-stage VC firm founded by him with other partners. Read more
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