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
Next saturday, Rainmakers Team will organize a miniconference in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week entitled “To Product/Market Fit and Beyond”.
It will discuss topics like how the seed funding landscape has evolved over the last two years with the entrance of super angels like AngelList as well as incubators and accelerators backed by venture funds, the differences and benefits of these various sources of early stage funding and what entrepreneurs should consider when making their decision, what kind of term sheets work best at such an early stage, and when young companies should raise money in their product life cycle.
The speakers include: Frank Chen of Andreessen Horowtiz, Sharon Vosmek of Astia, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures, Pascal Finette of WebFWD Mozilla, and Josh Elman of Greylock Partners, who will share their view with audiences live from Silicon Valley. James Chan of Neoteny Labs, Jeffery Paine of Founder Institute, Hian Goh of Asian Food Channel, and Hong Ting Wong of 2359 Media will make up the local panel during the conference.
Programme Details
0930am-10am: Registration and networking
10am-1015am: Opening remarks
1015am-11am: Live telecast from Silicon Valley
11am-1115am: Q&A from Singapore audience
1115am-1130am: Q&A from Silicon Valley audience
1130am-1230pm: Moderated panel discussion
1230pm-130pm: Mixer and lunch
Event Details
When: Saturday, 12th November 2011
Time: 930am-130pm
Where: NUS University Hall Auditorium, Lee Kong Chian Wing, Level 2, 21 Lower Kent Ridge Road (Map)
Register here.
Filed under EventsTags: Frank Chen, Hian, Hong Ting Wong, James Chan, Jeffery Paine, Josh Elman, Manu Kumar, Pascal Finette, Rainmakers, Rainmakers 2011, Sharon Vosmek
TiE Singapore will organize their ‘Technology’ Special Interest Group event this Wednesday. Within the 2 hours, there will be a provoking discussion on the topic of “The Dynamics of Startup Financing”. The discussion will be moderated by Hian Goh of Asian Food Channel. James Chan of Neoteny Labs, Darius Cheung of tenCube, Scott Rafer of Lumatic, and Arrif Ziaude are the panelists.
Event Details
When: Wednesday, 2nd November 2011
Time: 1830-2000
Where: Seminar Room @ Mochtar Riady Auditorium, Level 5, SMU Administration Building (Map)
Darius Cheung, one of the Singapore Youth Awards winners and founder of mobile security firm tenCube, will be one of the speakers in Startup Roots Speaker Series this week, 14 Jul. Beside him will be James Chan, Investment Manager at Neoteny Labs and Co-Founder of Startup Roots Singapore, who will speak about Startup Roots “Going Global: The Future of Startup Roots”. Read more
This Thursday, the Startup Roots Speaker Series will have as speaker Derek Sivers, founder of former president of CD Baby. One of the people behind it, Neoteny Labs’ James Chan, had a chance to interview Derek Sivers by email.
James Chan writes: Read more
For those who have missed the Neoteny Conference earlier this month, you should check out this interesting panel entitled “Starting Up Start-Ups” moderated by Sean Bonner (Founder, Bode Media), together with Rob Mee (CEO, Pivotal Labs), Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang (Head Engineering, Chumby Industries), Joi Ito (CEO, Creative Commons) and Samir Patel (Co-Founder, SearchForce). There are some interesting insights shared during the panel and perhaps, it will be great to check out the video here: Read more
Another special episode from the crew in This Week in Asia. Following the Neoteny Conference last week on 12-13 Dec in Singapore, we manage to catch Joi Ito (Founder of the Neoteny Labs, CEO of Creative Commons, Board member of Digital Garage) for a short conversation. We discussed with Joi on the origin, purpose and plan for Neoteny Labs in Singapore and around Southeast Asia, the lessons of agile development, pivoting and unstructured learning for start-ups, and his thoughts on the evolution of the web in the coming year. Joi also shared with us on what traits he look for in the entrepreneurs when reviewing a potential company for investment and mentoring. Note that you can listen to the podcast in SGE or go to the TWIA page direct. Read more
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Filed under Media, Mobile, Technology, WebTags: Agile Development, Consumer Web, Creative Commons, Hackerspace SG, James Chan, Joi Ito, Neoteny Conference, Neoteny Labs, Pivotal Labs, podcast
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