DFJ And Cisco Gives 4 Singapore Startups Chance At USD 0.25M And Mentorship

For the first time, leading international venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson is opening their business plan competition to global participants. Having this opportunity to win the top prize of minimum funding of US$250,000 and mentorship from DFJ and Cisco are 4 lucky Singapore startups.

Helping make this possible, DFJ has tied up with Cisco to use the latter’s Cisco TelePresence™ technology to enable collaboration via a live, face-to-face network communications experience. Finalists can then present their business plans in real time to a joint panel of DFJ and Cisco executives based in San Jose.

The competition seeks to find new technology-oriented ideas from aspiring college and university student entrepreneurs around the world.

Competition finalists will be selected on various criteria including the quality of the management team, technical innovation, addressable market size, competitive positioning, barriers, capital efficiency and financial projections.

16 finalists will be announced on June 19, 2009. The winner, who will be announced on June 30, 2009, will receive a minimum of US$250,000 seed money. The winner will also receive professional feedback and mentorship from both DFJ and Cisco.

Prior business plan competitions have produced great successes, including DFJ-backed winners DirectHit, which was acquired by AskJeeves in 2000 for US$532 million, and Webline Communications, acquired by Cisco for US$325 million in 1999.

TheMobileGamer

Overview: TheMobileGamer’s product is GameMo, a free mobile application that lets users find and try mobile games before they buy them; right from their mobile devices. They can play before they pay on-the-go and on-demand. It is also a social network where users can invite friends, challenge them to beat high-scores and find out what others have been playing.

Team members: Alvin Yap – CEO, graduated with Diploma in 2006 from Ngee Ann Polytechnic; Vincent Wang – COO, currently pursuing Degree at Singapore Institute of Management (SIM); Casper Peh – CFO, currently pursuing Degree at SIM; Chua Khim Teck – CTO, currently pursuing Degree at NTU; and Leong Yew Wai – Systems Architect, graduated with Diploma in 2004 from SIM.

Phokki

Overview: Phokki serves as an online marketplace for photo-retouching and photo-styling services. Based on a mass collaboration (Wiki-style) and crowd-sourcing approach, it leverages on the digital artist community to uniquely style your photos at a significantly cheaper price or even free of charge. Phokki leverages on the trend that artists like to showcase their talents and help people beautify their photos as a hobby, only asking for recognition of their works. What drives these artists are recognition and appreciation, not monetary greed. Phokki acknowledges this trend and fuses into its business model.

Team members: Sean Seah – CEO graduated in Computer Engineering (2nd Upper Honors) with Minor in Business in 2005 at NTU; Kris Kasidit – Marketing Director graduated in Computer Engineering (2nd Upper Honors) in 2008 from NUS; Zhou Jun Jie – Technology Development Lead, graduated in Computer
Engineering faculty in 2008 at NTU; and Bernie Khaw – Technology Development Lead, graduated in Computer Science faculty in 2008 at NUS.

E-Thermity

Overview: E-Thermity takes baby-care to new heights with Chromi, a family of non-toxic, light-weight and durable baby milk bottles that changes color according to the temperature of the bottle contents, aiding parents and care-givers and providing greater safety to infants.

Team members: Brenda Goh – CEO; Fan Shufen – CTO; Tsang You Jun – CFO; and Chen Yijun – CMO; all currently pursuing or graduated with Bachelors of Engineering in Material Engineering at NUS.

Zimplistic

Overview: 800 million Indians eat 2.4 billion rotis everyday since Chapati or roti is a staple in Indian diet. Yet it can take over 30 minutes to prepare a simple meal of roti. Repeating this at least three times every day is a cumbersome process. Zimplistic’s invention is an elegant “patent filed” automatic roti-maker set to be the rice cooker of India. The RotiMatic can mix,make and bake rotis with just a click of a button. User is required to only refill flour and water once in a couple of days.

Team members: Pranoti Nagarkar Israni – CEO, graduated with Bachelors in Engineering (Mechanical Engineering in 2006 from NUS; Nuwan Wanninayake – Mechatronics Lead, currently in Mechatronics Engineering School in Temasek Polytechnic; and Varun Bhalerao – Electronics Lead, currently studying Astrophysics at Californita Institute of Technology.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson (“DFJ”) backs extraordinary entrepreneurs everywhere who set out to change the world. DFJ achieves its mission through its DFJ Global Network of Partner Funds. Together, DFJ and the Network manage over $6B and have made more than 600 investments on four continents. With a 24-year history of success across diverse sectors and market conditions, DFJ has led the way investing in emerging technologies, from the Internet and life sciences to clean energy and nanotechnology.

DFJ has been proud to back over 500 companies across many sectors including such industry changing successes such as Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by EBAY), United Online (UNTD), Overture (acquired by YHOO), Athenahealth (ATHN), EnerNOC (ENOC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), Feedburner (acquired by Google), Interwoven (IWOV), Four11 (acquired by YHOO), Parametric (PMTC), and Digidesign (acquired by AVID).

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco products are supplied in Singapore by Cisco Systems International, BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc.

Overall, Cisco has approximately US$1.3 billion in venture capital investments under management and has been an early and active investor in major markets such as the U.S., China, India, Israel, Russia and Europe. Cisco is a strategic investor in start-ups and venture funds around the world and focuses on partnering with young, innovative companies.

About The Author

SGEntrepreneurs - (SGE)

Covering the Singapore and Southeast Asia entrepreneurship scene since 2005.

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