Don’t get caught in the missing middle

Piyush Chaplot is currently the Vice President of Finance & Investments at Innosight Ventures and a Director at Chope. This article is an edited version of the original on his blog. You can follow him on Twitter: @PiyushChaplot.

Can you find a place on this planet where it is easier to start a venture than Singapore? Thanks to various schemes by government bodies like National Research Foundation, SPRING Singapore and other agencies, you have at least 25 different sources of seed capital (read An overview of angel investing in Singapore). You can even get enough grants to keep your company alive for the first few years. In my personal view, if you can’t raise seed money here, you do need to seriously think about your chances elsewhere.

But the real drama starts AFTER you have raised the seed money. Most people believe that half a million dollars is enough to take the company to the next level. Hard to disagree if you are a couple of graduates working on a cloud-based application or a mobile app. But not all startups fit that bill. If we want to build serious technology-based startup companies in Singapore, then we are looking at much higher monthly burn rates and/or much longer incubation periods. Read more

Chillin’ With Piyush Chaplot of Innosight Ventures

 

We’re chillin’ with: Piyush Chaplot of Innosight Ventures, an experienced investor and mentor, after his presentation on “How to build a viable Business Model“, co-organized by SGE and Tanguy Lesselin of Cartouche, and supported by Microsoft.

When: This Thursday, 5th July at 8PM

Where: We’ll be meeting at Harry’s Bar, The Sail, 4 Marina Boulevard, #01-31 The Sail @ Marina Bay [map].

Interested in chillin? REGISTER HERE

How to build a viable Business Model – 5th July 2012

You have an idea for a startup that you have been itching to work on. But you are unsure on how and where to start. Knowing that only one of out ten new startups manage to launch successfully, how can you turn odds in your favor?

Fret not, the upcoming workshop to be held this Thursday will answer these questions and more! Read more

“Indoor GPS” company YFind raises US$1.18M from Innosight and Walden

Singapore-based YFind, an indoor positioning company, has raised S$1.5M (US$$1.18M) from Innosight Ventures and Walden International, it announced in a press release.

The company has developed patent-pending technology called YFind Positioning System enables users to find out there exact location in indoor or dense urban environments, with less than three meters accuracy.

The technology is WiFi-based, purportedly low cost, and works on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. Applications for it include mobile advertising, business intelligence, and asset management. Read more

Why big corporates like SingTel can be White Knights to Asia’s startups

This article was republished with permission from the author’s blog.

“What are you doing here in (insert country), you should be in Silicon Valley.”

Do these words sound familiar to you?

In Asia, it’s very common for Founders with great ideas to either run their companies in boot strap mode or relocate to Silicon Valley. Even great talent is expected to take huge pay cuts when they join a startup.

We don’t need a scientist to figure out the primary cause of this issue. This is primarily because of the scarcity of risk capital in Asia. Entrepreneurs with good ideas have to slog for cash. One key factor that gives wings to the dreams of most Silicon Valley startups is the free flow of capital that lets them dream big…really big.

Silicon Valley is blessed with excess capital. And, that is probably why failure is embraced.

But how do they get that kind of money? What is the source? Who are these Limited Partners (LP)? Read more

How to mitigate risk when investing in early stage startups

This article was republished with permission from the author’s blog.

Andreessen Horowitz recently revealed that its investment of US$250K in Instagram became $78 million. Thats a multiple of 312. Investing in early stage ventures is indeed very rewarding yet inherently risky. It thrives on multiple high risk bets out of which one or more would achieve high rewards.

But that certainly does not mean putting blind bets on anything that comes your way. Those who believe in “Spray and Pray” kind of investing are often losers in the long term.

Most VCs through their experience would have developed some sort of an internal braincloud (mental) checklist which gets ticked during the pitching sessions. Relying on mental checklists again is risky. Some or more of those check points might get sidelined if the idea falls into one of the soft spots of the more influential team members.

So how can venture capital funds systematically mitigate undue risks?

Here is a list of risks inherent in Venture investing along with practical risk mitigation strategies and if needed a ‘Jugaad’. Jugaad is a colloquial Indian term that means a creative idea, or a quick workaround to get through commercial, logistic or law issues. Read more

Singapore-based TheMobileGamer raised S$1mil from One97MobilityFund

Mobile games developer TheMobileGamer (TMG) has raised S$1 million in second round funding from sole participant One97MobilityFund, reported Penn Olson.

TMG’s games can be found at mobile social networks mig33, kotagames.com, and Mozat. With the investment, they aim to produce 10 more mobile games and acquire 2.5 million more users. Read more