Resume

Summary :

James Chan (陈亮宏 , born August 7, 1981) is a Singaporean-born and American-educated geek, photographer and venture capitalist. James is Investment Manager at Neoteny Labs, a hybrid incubator that combines an early-stage venture fund with hands-on mentorship and incubation for portfolio companies. James works closely with General Partner Joichi Ito on the fund and its portfolio companies.

Prior to Neoteny Labs, James was a member of the investment team at Walden International Singapore managing Seed Ventures IV Pte Ltd (S4), a new fund organised under the National Research Foundation's Early Stage Venture Capital Fund Scheme that was focused on making investments into early-stage technology companies in Singapore.

Prior to that, James was part of the team that restarted operations in July 2007 at Infocomm Investments (IIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore which managed assets in excess of US$200 million. Apart from being on the investment team managing IIPL's existing portfolio and co-investing alongside private-sector VCs into Singapore-based growth-stage infocomm companies, James was also involved in the engagement and account management of foreign VC-funded infocomm start-ups, and policy and incentive formulation and implementation, so as to promote Singapore as a location for their offshore R&D and Engineering operations.

A recipient of the EDB Singapore Inc. Overseas Scholarship, James graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Double Major: B.Sc in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy, and completed his M. Sc in Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford University. In his spare time, James pens his East-meets-West thoughts on technology, venture capital and entrepreneurship on his personal blog at www.motochan.com.

Specialties :

Direct equity investment: deal sourcing, deal assessment and evaluation, due diligence, legal/deal completion, portfolio account management, divestment

Investment Promotion: marketing, Singapore, Singapore government, business development, facilitation

Corporate Development: policy/programme formulation, fund-raising, governance and processes, paper writing (government-style!)

Infocomm (ICT): Mobile Software and Services, Consumer Internet

Geographies: Singapore, USA

Experience

Investment Manager

Neoteny Labs

(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

November 2009 - Present (11 months)

Early-stage venture fund and incubator.

Transitional Executive

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

(Government Agency; Information Technology and Services industry)

October 2009 - November 2009 (2 months)

Investment Manager

Walden International

(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

May 2009 - October 2009 (6 months)

I am a member of the investment team at Walden International Singapore Pte Ltd (WIS), managing Seed Ventures IV Pte Ltd (S4), a new fund organized under the National Research Foundation's Early Stage Venture Capital Fund Scheme. S4 will primarily focus on investing in early stage technology companies in Singapore.

I am involved in all aspects of the investment process - deal sourcing, due diligence, deal structuring and negotiation, deal closing, as well as monitoring, value-adding, reporting on performance and divestment of portfolio companies of S4.

I am also tasked to provide assistance and support to other existing and new investments of other Walden group funds managed by WIS.

Investment Manager

Infocomm Investments

(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

July 2007 - May 2009 (1 year 11 months)

(1) Venture Capital
(a) Direct equity financing for growth/expansion-stage ICT enterprises based in Singapore with S$200m fund
(b) Direct equity financing for seed-stage ICT enterprises by serial entrepreneurs with S$30m fund
(c) Management of existing equity portfolio, reporting of performance and valuation, value-adding, etc.

(2) Industry Development
(a) Engagement with and account management of overseas VC-backed start-ups to promote Singapore as destination for R&D/Engineering centres; in order to increase diversity of entrepreneurs and startups in Singapore's ICT ecosystem
(b) Formulation and implementation of new policies/promotional tools to enhance engage with overseas VC-backed startups

Assistant Manager (International Operations)

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore

(Government Agency; Information Technology and Services industry)

August 2006 - June 2007 (11 months)

(1) Facilitate market access and engage in business development for Singapore ICT enterprises to export solutions to markets in Americas and Europe.

(2) Programme manager for "Infocomm Singapore - Innovations in Action" industry brand

(3) Programme manager for Singapore Infocomm Endorsement Mark

(4) Member of team working on industry development initiatives to enhance diversity of entrepreneurs and startups in Singapore

Photo Editor

The Stanford Daily

(Newspapers industry)

September 2005 - June 2006 (10 months)

Responsible for:

(1) Coordinating photo requirements of articles with writers and photographers

(2) Scheduling and assignment of photography resources

(3) Taking of events/sports photos

(4) Preparation of photos for proofing and printing