Comments on: tenCube To Be Acquired By McAfee

By: Let the games begin! (in Singapore) | GeekoManiac

Let the games begin! (in Singapore) | GeekoManiac — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:06:55 +0000

[...] 2010: tenCube‘s story of being acquired by McAfee for $10-15 [...]

By: Why Exits Are Important As A Startup Metric « Near Field Communications

Why Exits Are Important As A Startup Metric « Near Field Communications — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:55:53 +0000

[...] who can help them to scale. Otherwise, their best case scenario is what happened to tenCube who gets acquired by McAfee (and Darius Cheung is now an investor to Neoteny Labs which is a very good sign of people [...]

By: Young Singaporeans seek startups, says survey « JFDI.asia

Young Singaporeans seek startups, says survey « JFDI.asia — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 09:09:05 +0000

[...] is that the run of successful startup sales around the region in 2009, including Koprol and TenCube, will at least be matched in the year to come and quite possibly eclipse [...]

By: Miss-Tan

Miss-Tan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:44:31 +0000

Hey! This is great news!

First it was ShowNearby at $6.6M now it is TenCube. Singapore Companies are doing us proud! Wait-a-go guys!

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:53:24 +0000

also, TenCube was named a Asia Finalist in 2007 for the Global Security Challenge – an international competition that awards annually $500K to the winning technologies. (http://www.globalsecuritychallenge.com)

By: Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:27:11 +0000

Good news to finally hear that a local tech company has been incubated , developed and sold. We need more success stories like this one in order to inspire and develop our community of technopreneurs.

The only questions I have are about the deal. I hope that Darius and team are keeping enough upside for themselves. My major concern about all these deals is whether the entrepreneurs themselves got a good deal out of the experience. It is easy to get excited about the brand names, the acquisition and of course big press coverage. But when the dust settles, what’s the situation.

To recap, Tencube is a 5 year old company. Revenue is neglible at <$500K for 2009 and I am sure it is still loss making. They have taken in 1M in feb 2010 from Indian firm valuing them about 4-5M SGD. Earlier, they took in 400K from SEEDs and I believe founders prob put in 100-200K. Via all these exercises the key founder is prob diluted to about 14-16% stake max.

My educated guess is that Mcafee paid anything from SGD$5M-10M but I think the guess of 7-8M or US$5M is prob quite accurate. 40% return for Indian firm for ½ year work.

Using US$5M, key founder share is worth about 700K-800 USD. Not bad for a 29 year old but hardly anything to retire with. For 5 years work, it means about 160K US per year. Don’t forget I am sure they probably took low salaries last 5 years. Make no mistake, SEEDS, the Indian fund etc are happy. They get to exit with profit. Eg. Seeds & NUS S$400K now worth about 1.4M SGD that is about 300-400% in 5 years for nonfull-time involvement. Indian fund makes at least 40% for 6 mths work.

Which brings me to the upside bit for founders. If my guesstimate is not too off, then Darius and team should lock in more upside by negotiating performance deals. Mcaffee obviously sees good potential in what WaveSecure has. So why not negotiate to continue working and then take a good cut of future profits from WaveSecure?

Of course, my guesstimate could be wrong and Wavesecure is super valuable and Mcafee paid US$20M for it. Then Darius gets about 3.2-3.5M USD. Almost enough to retire depending on the person but I think a very good deal for 5 years work for one so young!

All in all a great story. I hope to read much more such stories in the years ahead. And perhaps one where the founders gain the lions share!

By: This Week in Asia Episode 62: O Smithy, Where art thou? | This Week in Asia

This Week in Asia Episode 62: O Smithy, Where art thou? | This Week in Asia — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:44:55 +0000

[...] TenCube to be acquired by McAfee: The next big news since Yahoo acquired Koprol in southeast Asia, TenCube, a mobile security start-up in Singapore has made the news with an acquisition from McAfee. The crew discuss the history, trials & tribulations and milestones for TenCube in the past few years and as usual, make their own educated guess on the valuation to how much the company is sold with thoughts on the acquisition from James Chan, Neoteny Labs. [...]

By: 11a

11a — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:53:57 +0000

Any guess on valuation?

By: John

John — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:52:55 +0000

nice :)

By: Thoughts on McAfee’s acquisition of tenCube — motochan

Thoughts on McAfee’s acquisition of tenCube — motochan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:26:26 +0000

[...] that it would be acquiring Singapore-based mobile security startup tenCube via a press release. SGEntrepreneurs and e27 both broke the news at about the same time. According to the release, the acquisition is [...]