From the category archives:

Venture Capital & Financing

31 December 2009

Neoteny Labs selected for NRF TIS

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I‘m pleased to share the following piece of news with you.
SINGAPORE, 31 DEC 2009 – Neoteny Labs is pleased to announce that it has been selected as one of seven technology incubators to participate in the S$50 million National Research Foundation (NRF) Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS).
The recent successes of global platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, [...]

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30 November 2009

Neoteny Labs

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November 30th, 2009 marks my first official day as Investment Manager at Neoteny Labs. I’ve had many friends ask me what I’d be up to, now that I’ve left government service. I thought I’d talk about it here so that I can point future queries to this blog post instead.

Joi and I are in [...]

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27 October 2009

Thin-slicing in Venture Capital: Tapping the power of the Adaptive Unconscious

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Every entrepreneur knows the importance of placing their best foot forward so as to leave a good impression with investors at the first meeting.  Yet more often than not, the entrepreneur finds the session rapidly going south.  The less patient angel or VC’s body language would subtly change, as they shift about in their seats [...]

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8 September 2009

Of Lee Kai-Fu’s new US$115m Investment Fund and NRF’s TIS

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Techcrunch was first to break it to the Western English-speaking world on 4 September, but had trouble deciphering the output from Google Translate *cackle*.  动力博客 Mobinode was next with their rumors (later verified) of Lee Kai-Fu’s new gig, an incubator for young Chinese entrepreneurs in the form of Innovation Works.  On 7 September, Lee Kai-Fu [...]

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1 September 2009

Why NRF’s TIS may be the Fix that Singapore’s Tech Ecosystem needs

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Some weeks back, the National Research Foundation (NRF) issued a call for proposal for their latest initiative termed “Technology Incubation Scheme” (TIS).  A public briefing session was conducted last Friday to a sell-out crowd at the Treasury Building where NRF’s office is, where it was revealed that up to S$50 million had been set aside [...]

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28 August 2009

10 Tips to Enhance your Pitch

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Over the years, I’ve spent a fair bit of time sitting in on pitches by entrepreneurs – more mediocre than good – so much so that bad pitches have firmly entrenched itself as the leading health risk in the course of my work.  It’s okay if the contents of the pitch were less than ideal, [...]

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26 August 2009

Millionaire Asia & MDA: Investing in the Digital Media Industry

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Earlier today, I spent 3 hours at a luncheon presentation co-organized by Millionaire Asia and Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA).  Apart from really good food by Taste Paradise, we were also treated to 15-minute pitches by 6 companies in the Interactive and Digital Media sector who were seeking to raise funding to finance their [...]

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17 August 2009

NRF issues Call for Proposal for Technology Incubation Scheme

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It’s finally here – just over an hour ago, the National Research Foundation of Singapore issued a call for proposal for a new initiative termed the “Technology Incubation Scheme”.  Read more about it in the issued document below.
NRF Technology Innovation Scheme – Call For Proposal
View more documents from motochan.

The Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS) is a [...]

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13 August 2009

Review of Seed Forum Singapore ‘09

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I attended Seed Forum Singapore this morning at Pan Pacific Ballroom 1 and listened in first to the 13-sec elevator pitches by 6 start-ups, and then their respective 10-minute presentations.  Roughly 100 people showed up for the inaugural event by Seed Forum International Foundation in Singapore.  The event’s sponsors included DnB NOR (main), Innovation Norway, [...]

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24 July 2009

USA VCs turn optimistic, crawl out from under their rocks

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Uncanny clairvoyance or simply a case of over-exuberence?  USA VCs turned optimistic ahead of roaring stock markets as Dow Jones VentureSource reports them investing US$5.27 billion in 595 deals in Q2 2009, bouncing back up from the previous quarter.  In the rest of the world (Canada, Israel, China, India and Europe), VC investments continue on [...]

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