News Stop: 17 May 2006

May 17, 2006 by SGE

Need financing? Make your pitch at BlueSky Festival by Lee Ching Wern, Today Online, dated 17 May 2006

For those who want to do early stage or series A fundraising, you should seriously consider making your pitch for this event. SG Entrepreneurs have placed the details earlier in this post. Even if you are not interested in fundraising, you should attend to do some networking, given the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who would be attending the event.

Here are the extracted excerpts from the article:

“SMALL and medium-sized enterprises (SME) seeking financing of at least US$1 million ($1.6 million) now have the opportunity of pitching their business proposals directly to leading venture capitalist firms in the region.
Come July, over 600 regional entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will gather in Singapore for BlueSky Festival 2006: Singapore and Beyond Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Linking for Opportunities. The event is organised by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), Singapore’s private-public sector entrepreneurship movement. A highlight of the three-day event from July 26 to July 28 is the BlueSky Investment Forum, a platform for companies to attract venture capitalists to invest in their businesses.
At the forum, companies seeking second-stage financing of at least US$1 million can pitch their business proposals to a panel of venture capitalists. The panel will consist of 12 local and regional venture capitalists, including representatives from SkyVen Asset Management, Sirius Capital Holdings, Phillip Private Equity, CIMB Private Equity, Walden International, Rothschild Singapore, Crest Capital and Jafco Investment (Asia Pacific).

With the rise of China and India sucking away large sums of investment dollars, the pool of venture capitalist funds available to Singapore companies is getting much smaller.

“One of the biggest problems that local SMEs face in getting international financing is the China and India effect, where venture capitalists are switching focus to China and India and no longer being active in this region,” said Mr Chua Kee Lock, chairman, Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, ACE’s co-organiser for the BlueSky Investment Forum.

“The BlueSky Festival provides a focal point for the region’s entrepreneurs and venture capitalists,” said Mr Chua, who is also managing director of Walden International.

Interested companies with a track record of at least three years and revenue of at least US$3 million in the latest financial year are invited to submit their business proposals for assessment now. The proposals will be assessed by an evaluation committee comprising several venture capitalists.

Interested parties can submit their business proposals at www.acebsf2006.sg.”