Wednesday, December 16, 2020

China Power Debate 2020: Silicon Dragon Moved the Needle!


 "Selective U.S.-China economic decoupling will set back China’s emergence as a global high-tech leader." I WON this debate, arguing it WON'T! Agree or disagree?
China Power 2020 @ Center for Strategic & International Studies in DC.
Watch Rep. Rick Larsen, Hoover fellow Matt Turpin and me. Check out before/after poll!  

December 15, 2020: CSIS China Power Debate   


On December 15 from 10:30 am - 11:00 am EST, Representative Rick Larsen will deliver keynote remarks on the challenges and opportunities posed by China’s growing power and the view from Congress, followed by a Q&A conversation hosted by Bonnie Glaser, CSIS senior adviser for Asia and director of the China Power Project.

Representative Rick Larsen represents the Second Congressional District of Washington State. Representative Larsen is a co-chair of the bipartisan U.S.-China Working Group, which educates Members of Congress about bilateral issues through meetings and briefings with academic, business, and political leaders from the U.S. and China. Representative Larsen has visited China eleven times.


The keynote remarks will be followed by a debate on the proposition: "Selective U.S.-China economic decoupling will set back China’s emergence as a global high-tech leader."

 

Following the keynote remarks by Rep. Rick Larsen, from 11:00 am – 12:15 pm EST, the China Power Project will host a debate on the proposition: "Selective U.S.-China economic decoupling will set back China’s emergence as a global high-tech leader." This debate is the fifth event in the "China's Power: Up for Debate 2020" series.

The Trump administration has imposed restrictions on exports to leading Chinese telecom and semiconductor companies. In addition, the U.S. has taken measures to encourage American companies to diversify their production and supply chains in order to reduce reliance on China. Given the interconnectedness of the global economy, these efforts could pose a challenge to the competitiveness of Chinese tech firms and manufacturers.

Matthew Turpin, Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, will argue that U.S.-China decoupling will set back China’s emergence as a global high-tech leader. Rebecca Fannin, Founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures, will argue that U.S.-China economic decoupling will not set back China’s emergence as a global high-tech leader. 

The debate featured pre- and post-event polls.




Monday, December 7, 2020

Silicon Global Online: Ask A VC Anything! Nazar Yasin, Rise Capital

 


For our 20th Silicon Global Online episode, Ask a VC Anything, our featured guest was Nazar Yasin, Founder and Managing Partner at Rise Capital. See these 10 takeaways from our discussion about exciting trends coming out of emerging markets.

Online conversation with VC Nazar Yasin and Rebecca Fannin, host of Silicon Global Online, December 3, 2020.

 

Rise Capital – staying disciplined

·       The 5 M’s of Rise Capital’s investment strategy are Management, Market, Metrics, Moats, and Multiples.

·        It is common for funds in emerging markets to do a Series A and then a follow on Series B for portfolio companies. Rise reserves $2 for the Series B of every $1 for the Series A in these cases.

·       Rise takes a 5-25% equity stake in its portfolio companies and a board or board observer seat. “There is no such thing as a successful passive investor in emerging markets. It does not exist,” Yasin notes.

 

The right CEO

·       Founders must be able to adapt when a successful startup scales up. The right person needs to be in place at the top to do so.

·       In addition, surrounding the CEO with people of differing perspectives and expertise is a marker of successful companies.

 

A new asset class

·       Investing in emerging markets such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia is a new asset class.

·       To illustrate this, Latin America is roughly 45% of China in terms of GDP and population but the number of firms who can lead or co-lead a Series A or B is low enough to “count on two hands” (including Rise Capital).

 

New business models

·       Rise Capital portfolio company Gokada, founded in 2018, is the leading multimodal transportation company in Africa.

·       Gokada is currently growing 10% per week and is cash flow positive.

·       Gokada provides drivers with a “Business in a Box” that works well in light of Africa’s poor road conditions.  This box includes a brand-new motorbike, a Department of Transportation Certificate, and a smartphone.

·       The driver pays Gokada a daily subscription fee to be part of the service, and after two years the driver has a fully paid off motorbike and their own business. Gokada drivers in Nigeria make 3x the average salary of other workers.

 

Evaluating Risk

·       Internally, Rise Capital deals with the issue of actually not taking enough risk. There’s also the risk of not picking the “right horses,” coming out of certain emerging markets.

·       Instead of viewing the risk of investing in choppy waters as a negative, Rise Capital is investing in the fastest-growing economies in the world, in the fastest- growing sector (the internet), and the fastest-growing companies in that sector.

·       Trillions of dollars in market cap being created in the internet sector coming from emerging markets in the next ten years.

 

Imitating China

·       Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia markets see China’s quick and massive GDP creation from the internet sector and look to emulate China more than the US.

·       Actions like India’s ban on Tik Tok and other foreign companies help bolster this strategy in efforts to spur growth in local startups.

 

Chinese Tech Titans in emerging markets, friend or foe?

·       Large Chinese tech companies are not crowding out the market for startups in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets. They actually make great exit partners.

 

Peak Globalization

·       The world hit peak globalization five or even ten years ago. Since then, it has continued to grow more nationalistic.

·       Nationalism trends have helped Rise Capital in some ways. Sovereign wealth funds from the countries that Rise invests in tend to become LPs.

 

Mini Jack Ma’s

·       There probably won’t be another Jack Ma. Due to the raw GDP Ma was able to acquire in China, all under one umbrella, Alibaba’s feat may never be duplicated. But there will be mini Jack Ma’s coming out of emerging markets.

·       One of them is Careem Founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha who has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of families in the Middle East by helping them create their own businesses. Careem (which Rise Capital funded) was acquired by Uber in 2019 for $3.1 billion, one of the largest exits ever in the Middle East.

 

Advice to Wannabe VCs

·       “There is no way you can be a successful VC without having run or been an executive at a successful company yourself.”

·       He also recommends obtaining financial knowledge of how businesses work, even if it’s not from an MBA or CFA.

·       Lastly, it’s incredibly important that if you can join a successful startup, do it, don’t worry about your position.

 

 

Bio:

Nazar Yasin is a Founder and Managing Partner at Rise Capital in Silicon Valley. Nazar is a seasoned entrepreneur and venture capitalist in emerging markets. He is a firm believer that technology entrepreneurs in emerging markets will become some of the most impactful individuals in the world over the coming years. 

Nazar began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he led the firm’s internet investment banking activities across the EMEA region. He then served as the CEO of Forticom, a $1 Billion+ market value social networking business in Russia, CIS, and Eastern Europe that was acquired by a consortium of Mail.ru (LSE: MAIL), Naspers (JSE: NPN), and Tencent (HK: 0700). 

After his successful exit as an entrepreneur, he became a VC, first at Tiger Global in 2010 for three years. In 2013, he formed Rise Capital in San Francisco, where he has backed several high-growth technology startups across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Nazar holds an MBA and JD from Northwestern University, and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Submitted by Mike Weiss, editorial contributor to Silicon Dragon Ventures

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Ask A VC: David Lam, Atlantic Bridge > Why The China-Europe Bridge Is Widening



For our 19th Silicon Global Online episode, Ask a VC Anything, our featured guest was David Lam, a general partner at Atlantic Bridge Capital.  See these 10 takeaways from our wide-ranging conversation about international business and investment trends, with an eye toward China.

Online conversation with VC David Lam and Rebecca Fannin, host of Silicon Global Online, November 18, 2020.

 

Cash runway exam

 When the pandemic hit the US in March, Lam and Atlantic Bridge Capital used it as an opportunity to look closely at their portfolio companies’ balance sheets and calculate the impact Covid-19 would have on their businesses. The findings were mixed: some segments were affected, some were not impacted, while others actually saw positive momentum.

 

Growing portfolio despite the virus

 Despite Covid-19, the firm remains right on its pace of three to four later-stage investments a year: Caption Health, Syntiant, and a European company in the semiconductor industry that is currently in stealth mode. Caption Health is an artificial intelligence company using AI for guided ultrasound for echocardiograms (an ultrasound of the heart). It is the first FDA approved AI guidance system. Syntiant makes an AI chip that is optimized for voice in devices ranging from phones to smart speakers. The stealth company is a semiconductor equipment company building technology around web processing.

 

Bill and Melinda Gates’ $5 Million

 The Gates foundation recently gave a $5 million grant for Caption Health to extend its breakthrough AI technology for heart ultrasounds, using vast data to capture an echocardiogram at a high-quality level. Caption Health is used at more than 20 hospitals in the US currently. Caption has huge relevance, since regular echocardiograms are recommended for all Covid-19 patients.

 

Europe gains appeal for expansion

 Many fast-growing US companies have highlighted China as an overseas business opportunity because of the size of the market, but current tensions has made expansion more challenging than ever. The interest from entrepreneurs to go to China right away has dampened, although the market is still a priority for many foreign businesses. In this environment, Europe is an appealing location: world’s top research institutions, wide pool of hirable software developers at a more reasonable salary than Silicon Valley counterparts, and strong companies in both hardware and software.  Some of Atlantic Bridge Capital’s portfolio companies have chosen to reincorporate in Europe. This allows them to run their businesses how they see fit and investors to own the same amount under the same terms as they would somewhere outside Europe. Most importantly, companies are able to sell their products to other markets, including China, which want to see goods coming from a neutral region.

 

Europe-China Bridges

 In Europe, Lam has leveraged Ireland’s particularly strong relationship with China. One of his firm’s funds has a strategy of making equity investments in technology companies with a presence in Ireland and a substantial or strategic interest in China’s fast-growing tech companies.  

 

US-China positive synergy despite tensions

 As an example, a new Atlantic Bridge portfolio company, Syntiant (mentioned earlier), chose a general manager from China that was recommended by Atlantic Bridge Capital. The hire took place after a rigorous independent decision-making process by Syntiant.

 

IP advice for China

 Lam is quick to note the importance of IP protection as a foreign company. If the goal is to actually sell products to China and Chinese customers, it would be best to identify ways to augment existing IP in China for that specific market. You protect your IP by keeping your core IP where you are based.

 

Semiconductor hardware opportunity

 One of the implications of a flattening of Moore’s Law is that the processing power starts to become more linearly correlated with power. This creates a huge challenge in terms of power management and environmental issues related shipping a lot of power. A number of exciting new technologies are developing in the power management space.  

 

Focus on data and speed

 With so much data being generated, so fast, the current infrastructure in most places is not equipped to handle these new data speeds. An investment opportunity exists in companies that can move data very quickly into a database. Atlantic Bridge portfolio company AtScale allows valuable content to be produced and then securely and privately stored worldwide.

 

CFIUS in a new US Administration

 Lam expects to see some change in how CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) laws are enforced in a new administration but it will likely be seen in a more case-by-case basis than in sweeping changes. He noted that the US Congress will continue to act on the belief that stronger CFIUS oversight is in the best interest of US national security.

Bio:

David Lam is General Partner of Atlantic Bridge Capital, a 15-year-old technology investment firm focusing on adding value cross-border with offices in Palo Alto, Dublin, Munich, London, and Paris. Lam led the firm’s investments in Caption Health, Syntiant, and AtScale. He previously served on the board of Movidius (acquired by Intel). David co-founded Summit Bridge Capital, which operates the China-Ireland Growth Technology Fund.

Prior to Atlantic Bridge, David was Managing Director of WestSummit Capital where he served as its representative on the boards of Twitch (acquired by Amazon), Mirantis and Maginatics (acquired by EMC), among others. David was previously Managing Director for WI Harper, a ground-breaking US-China cross-border venture capital firm where he led the firm’s US office. His projects included the formation of Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation Ventures). Prior to that, David was Vice President at The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, after serving as head of business development for a Carlyle portfolio company. He also held various operating roles at CIENA Corporation, ONI Systems, Cisco Systems, and Proxim. David began his career as an investment banker at Robertson Stephens and Company. David is a board member, past president, and past chairman of the Asia America Multi Technology Association (AAMA). He also serves on the board of the Association of Asian American Investment Managers (AAAIM).

David holds a BS and an MA from Stanford University, and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management where was a recipient of the Merit Scholarship and Patrick McGovern Award.

 Summary by Mike Weiss, contributor to Silicon Dragon

Monday, November 16, 2020

Expect Softer Tone Toward China Tech In A Biden Administration: Gary Rieschel, Qiming Venture


What's the new normal for tech investing today, and how is it evolving?

In a Biden administration, expect a softer tone in the anti-China rhetoric and possibly less targeting of specific companies like TikTok and WeChat that are primarily used for entertainment and communications but have been drawn into a tech cold war. That's according to Gary Rieschel, a founding managing partner at Qiming Venture Partners. 

In his keynote address at the recent Cyberport venture forum in Hong Kong, Reischel emphasized that Chinese technology is increasingly considered a threat to Silicon Valley’s dominance. But he said it is primarily viewed as a long-term concern instead of the existential threat that the current Trump administration has made it out to be.

See video of his remarks and Silicon Dragon's Rebecca Fannin introducing Rieschel.  

Rieschel also pointed out how the rest of the world is getting a firsthand demonstration of Chinese entrepreneurship. While the rest of the world has been busy grappling with a year of uncertainty, Chinese entrepreneurs stepped up to the challenge, he said. In a way, they were always ready given how they wake up every day and face regulatory, legal and competition-linked uncertainty with gusto.

Additionally, Rieschel believes that all the talk of supply chain relocation is overly ambitious. It’s not about resource availability or finding countries with lower labor costs. The network of relationships built during the early years of globalization can’t be dismantled so easily. Anyone running a supply chain knows this in their bones, he said. 

China's drive towards self-sufficiency and technological independence should only boost technology development. Chinese entrepreneurs are racing ahead in a number of fields. As the robust health of the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges show, they also don’t always need to look West to get capital now that the two exchanges have relaxed listing requirements. 

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Hong Kong's Progressing Role in the Greater China Edtech Market


Hong Kong is well placed as an education technology nexus in the region’s Greater Bay Area, as edtech accelerates digital learning worldwide, according to several experts who spoke at the recent Edventures GBA Summit, November 4, spearheaded by Esperanza founder John Tsang (photo), a former financial secretary of the HKSAR.   

 The sector is ripe for disruption after a slow start in this digital century. Edtech spending of $200 billion has lagged in the $6 trillion education market.

We are in a very interesting inflection point in the evolution of our species that will have a profound impact on education and the future of the world,” said Kamran Elahian, Chairman and Founder of Global Innovation Catalyst, a successful serial entrepreneur, a cross-border venture capitalist who is known as i-Ghandi for his work in bridging the digital divide for children around the world. He pointed out that innovation economy is all about algorithmic content, emphasizing that traditional knowledge bases have lost value and that the role of teachers should change from teaching to being a mentor and a coach. 

Teachers are learning how to use technology effectively to personalize lessons and empower students to design their learning, pointed out Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and a former Obama education official. Elliott Masie, chairman of the Learning Consortium, who is widely credited with the term 'e-learning,' highlighted the importance of designing experiential learning for the workforce so that learning becomes more creative and collaborative. 

Edtech is fast progressing now as a game changer with AI, robotics, data analytics and mobile technologies applied to learning. “There is a common perception that edtech is used primarily to nurture digital literacy. “Literacy, 21st century skills and numeracy are the top three skills that edtech innovations can address,” said  Esperanza founder Tsang, citing a Brookings Institution study. 

In China, the education market has grown to as much as 6-7% of the country’s GDP and it’s poised to become the world’s biggest and the fastest growing edtech market as venture capital and talent flows in.  A threefold increase in China’s digitization index has occurred in the past five years, according to the Tencent Research Institute.

Out of 14 edtech unicorns globally (privately held venture-backed companies worth at least $1 billion), eight are from China, according to market intelligence firm HolonIQ.  Yuanfudao recently nabbed an after-deal valuation of $13 billion to become the most valuable edtech unicorn worldwide.

As part of the Edventures summit and a related fellowship, 10 growth stage edtech finalists pitched to a panel of judges, with four awardees: CoderZ Technology is Israel, Cybint in Israel/US, MEL Science in the UK, and Mandarin Matrix in Hong Kong. A virtual expo is showcasing their work until November 22, at bit.ly/Edgba_Summit2020.  The fellows will get support in connecting with local localization partners, investors, markeet entry advisors and adopters of their solutions. 


Silicon Dragon founder/editor Rebeca Fannin moderated a panel on China market opportunities with Dr. Simon Leung (Vice Chairman, NetDragon), Dr. Steven Li (Vice Dean, Tencent Research Institute) and Julian Fisher (Vice Chairman, British Chamber of Commerce, Beijing).  Dr. Li commented that many education innovations take place outside the school systems with fewer government regulations. The key market opportunities include pre-school, teacher training, homework and mental health. “A broader trend is research-backed edtech because parents and governments want results. They want to know that (the offering) is actually based on research and not just sales driven or marketing driven,” he said.

Dr. Leung added that one of the few areas that is encouraged for foreign players is vocational education. He also pointed out that parents are increasingly interested in their children developing soft skills.

Pointing to an advantage held by Hong Kong in the edtech market, Tencent’s Dr. Li noted that while good quality content is in short supply in China, Hong Kong has a lot of good content to offer because of its concentration of good schools and universities. With their internationally acclaimed research capability, Hong Kong universities could also play the very important role of supporting, evaluating and validating edtech solutions, he said.   

A separate panel facilitated by Jumpstart Media CEO Relena Sei brought in Elahian plus two investors Bill Ning, founding partner of Blue Elephant Capital and Matt Greenfield, managing partner of Rethink Education. Ning said that good education companies are labor intensive businesses, where growth would be slower than a typical tech investment. Greenfield added that while the return could take long to realize, the loss ratio is lower. The successful startups are often those with a social mission working on a peripheral innovation to solve a problem that no one is working on, he remarked.

For startups interested in entering the China market, these tips were offered by the expert speakers:

·   Be realistic about the market, the price points, the competition, what value can be added, the government regulations and the resources required

·        Segment the market and look for the right partners to work with and localize the offering

·        Place senior members of the team locally 

In summary, Esperanza founder and former HKSAR financial secretary John Tsang said that successful edtech applications demand a fundamental change in the mindset of educators, parents and the community at large. It requires effective collaborations among a complex and interconnected web of players outside the classroom, from policy-makers, education technology providers, NGOs to funders and the business community. “Let’s join forces to reimagine the future for our children,” he concluded.





Monday, November 9, 2020

Top VC of the Year Named at Silicon Dragon HK 2020: Recap

 


Silicon Dragon HK 2020: Key Takeways

 Quick speaker highlights: 
November 4, 2020 



Silicon Dragon's Top VC 2020
James Mi, Founding Partner at Lightspeed China Partners, was named Silicon Dragon’s 2020 Venture Capitalist of the Year.  James lead this China-focused early-stage venture capital firm with approximately $1.9 billion under management and 8 funds. Among James’ many successful early stage investments are Dianping (Meituan), Pinduoduo, Rong360, and Baidu. 

Keynote: Kamran Elahian, Founder and Chairman, Global Innovation Catalyst, Silicon Valley 
Elahian founded 10 companies including three unicorns (Cirrus Logic, NeoMagic and Centillium). He previously ran venture firm Global Catalyst Partners for 15 years. He now works in global philanthropy and is an Advisory Member to the UNICEF Innovation Fund.

·       Society is moving from a knowledge economy to an innovation economy. lies in algorithmic content. This is the case for finance, education, media, and many other markets.
Over time, more tasks will happen with algorithmic content or machine learning and automation. Less and less will be manual. 
Due to broadband and the diffusion of knowledge, Silicon Valley is no longer the only place for unicorns to be created.
T
ech innovation will be propelled by a convergence of engineering, business and design schools in addition to hubs that consist of accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, maker spaces, and micro-funds. Tech hubs are emerging on the frontier, and spurring the creation of new tech jobs. There are now over 1000 tech hubs in Africa alone.


Venture Panel: Outlook 2021

James Mi – Founding Partner, Lightspeed China
Jeffrey Chi – Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Vickers Venture Partners
Edith Yeung – General Partner, Race Capital
Duncan Chiu – Managing Partner, Radiant Venture
Olivia Wang – Former Head of US, ZhenFund 

Key points by panelists:  

Duncan Chiu – Managing Partner, Radiant Ventures

·       Radiant Ventures took a conservative approach and slowed down its investment activity early in the year when Covid-19 hit. In order to offset the slowdown in investments in Q1, Radiant Ventures did follow-up rounds on previous portfolio companies, a common thread among other firms. Now, investors are beginning to plan post Covid-19.

·       The Hong Kong market is split: later stage companies are having no trouble raising money, unicorns can get funded even now if they are not too aggressive with their valuation.

·       Earlier stage companies are having a more difficult time because they are backed by personal investors and angels, who tend to be more conservative. This makes it harder for these early stage company to close a round.  Many are calling this a gap year for these early-stage companies.

·       Startups in the US and China are able to focus on their own markets because they’re so big, but for companies coming out of Hong Kong, they need to choose their market. The top choices in this case are Mainland China, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. 

James Mi – Founding Partner, Lightspeed China

·       The investment pace slowed for Q1 but now it is picking up for both early and late stage companies in search of funding.

·       Barriers are being put up for cross border collaboration and innovation, but this also creates opportunities for startups in each region because more local solutions are required.

·       Lightspeed has been advising its portfolio companies during Covid-19 to keep a six-month cash reserve and raise funding even if they think they can get by without it.

Olivia Wang – Former Head of US, ZhenFund

·       A priority has been to prepare portfolio companies for the worst case scenario and manage their cash burn.

·       As opposed to Q1, the summer has been robust for even seed and series A companies.

Jeffrey Chi- Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Vickers Venture Partners

·       “It’s not about when Covid-19 will pass, but how we are going to learn to live with it.”

·       Tensions will continue whether Biden or Trump is president. (time lag here)

·       Innovation will take a step back as tensions between US and China grow. Frictions in deals are happening when US and China are part of the transaction.  

Edith Yeung – General Partner, Race Capital

·       Distributed deals geographically are the norm. Location does not matter.   

·       Covid-19 is an accelerator for previously avoided sectors like online education and healthcare.

 

IPOs: Where Hong Kong Fits 

Michael Chan - Head of International Issuer Services, HKEX
Irene Chu – Partner, KPMG China / 
Head of New Economy and Life Sciences markets, Hong Kong

·       Hong Kong IPOs totaled $129.8 billion from 2016 through first half of 2020, compared with $96.6 billion for NYSE, $91.7 billion for Shanghai, $72.3 billion for Nasdaq, $53.2 billion for LSE, and $41.7 billion for Shenzhen.

·       New economy companies account for about 25% of all Hong Kong market cap.

·       Market appetite for companies in health, fintech, and biotech is strong. 

·       Even with social unrest, Hong Kong IPOs are not having issues with raising money.

·       Look for more Southeast Asian tech companies to go public.

·       Neither wanted to comment on the delay of the Ant IPO in China, but it’s created some uncertainty in the market over powerful influences.

 

 Summary submitted by Silicon Dragon contributor Mike Weiss

Monday, October 26, 2020

Ask A VC: Jeff Paine, Golden Gate Ventures > Takeaway > Less Copying from the US & More from China


Ask A VC: Key Takeaways from Jeff Paine of Golden Gate Ventures

For our 19th Silicon Global Online episode, Ask a VC Anything, our featured guest was Jeff Paine, a founding partner at Golden Gate Ventures, which focuses on internet and mobile startups across a variety of sectors in Southeast Asia. In our conversation with Paine, we discussed hot spots for startups in the Southeast Asia region, his firm's wide investment span, and the changing dynamic for startup ideas in the US and China.

 

Key Takeaways:

Online conversation with VC Jeff Paine and Rebecca Fannin, host of Silicon Global Online, October 22, 2020.

Investment Trends: Less Copying from US

Paine noted that he is seeing less copying of American ideas and more copying of Chinese ideas. This is a reversal of a trend that was in place a decade ago, when Silicon Valley-style startups were copied in China and elsewhere in Asia.  

China’s Dragons Enter SE Asia

Chinese tech titans began entering Southeast Asia a few years ago, partly to expand in new markets but also as a reaction to growing tensions in the U.S. again China investment in tech startups and emerging companies with leading edge technologies.   

Covid-19 Impact on Tech Sectors

Hot sectors right now include education and healthcare due in part to the acceleration of growth trends stemming from Covid-19.

Missed Opportunity on WhatsApp?

Paine noted that he’s seen companies in places such as Brazil create businesses around groups on WhatsApp, the ubiquitous messaging app owned by Facebook that claims to support a whopping 2 billion users worldwide. He expressed surprise that we haven’t seen companies in specific countries formed around WhatsApp groups. He implored entrepreneurs to seize the opportunity to leverage WhatsApp groups.

Startup Hierarchy of Southeast Asia: Indonesia

As the country with the largest population, Paine sees Indonesia as the top regional market for startups. Vietnam is not far behind, as Paine was quick to note the country’s impressive Covid-19 response and large population of Korean expats who help to keep the economy buzzing. Paine called Vietnam the most dynamic country in Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia, Making the Stops

Golden Gate Ventures’ focus on Southeast Asia extends to Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. But the firm also invests in companies from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and the U.S. if their businesses can tap Southeast Asia.  Startups across a wide variety of mobile and internet sectors that have expansion potential in the region are favored.

Average Check Size

Golden Gate Ventures invests at the Seed, Series A, and Bridge rounds, with typical investments ranging from US $1 million to $5 million. Co-investors are welcomed who can add value and are open to leading or following other investors in the round.

A Wide Scope of Market Sectors

Paine makes it a point to emphasize the wide area of sectors that Golden Gate Ventures targets as investment sectors. The fund’s portfolio contains companies from education, logistics, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile, fintech, SaaS, entertainment, and media. 

Bio: 

Jeff Paine is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at Golden Gate Ventures, an early stage technology venture capital fund based in Singapore investing in internet and mobile startups in Southeast Asia. Golden Gate Ventures has over $175 million under management and has invested in 35 companies since 2012. Jeff is particularly interested in startups in fintech, consumer internet, marketplaces, mobility, education, healthcare, greentech, B2B SaaS and content distribution platforms.

Paine has been the Director at The Founder Institute of Singapore since 2010 and is currently overseeing its expansion in Southeast Asia and Japan. The Founder Institute is a global network of startups and mentors that has helps entrepreneurs launch great technology companies internationally. Since 2010, The Founder Institute in Singapore Paine has led has graduated more than 100 companies.  

Paine is a Singapore native and holds a Bachelors of Business Administration (Information Systems) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.


-- Submitted by Mike Weiss, a contributor to Silicon Dragon


Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Ask A VC: 8 Takeaways from Han Shen of iFly.vc

 


For our 18th Silicon Global Online episode, Ask a VC Anything, our featured guest was Han Shen, a founding partner of micro VC iFly.vc, focused on investing in underserved demographics. In our conversation with Han, we discussed how his portfolio companies are doing in light of Covid-19 and US-China tensions, lessons learned from applying Chinese business models to the US startups in his firm’s portfolio. We also delved into Shen’s journey to becoming a VC, and highlights from his career in VC, investing recently raising a second fund of $50 million.

 

Eight Key Takeaways:

 

Online conversation with VC Han Shen and Rebecca Fannin, host of Silicon Global Online, October 15, 2020.

Apply strategies from Chinese consumer tech players to U.S. business models

The venture firm’s U.S. portfolio company, Asian e-grocer Weee!, is applying business models from large Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo. One key lesson was how Pinduoduo, during its early growth, mobilized users on social networks like WeChat to sell deals and form group buys. Weee! applied this formula to scale its user base in the U.S. Net-net, Weee!’s user acquisition costs are 80% less than its peers in the online grocery space. Additionally, the CEO of Weee! went to China to study the practices of five top online grocery players, and took a lesson on how to avoid a fast cash burn. 

You can always revisit a turned down deal, for better
Shen’s diligent studies of the grocery business globally since 2014 led to his eventual investment in fast-growth Weee! Shen had initially turned down investing in startup in 2016 due to concerns over how it could scale with a model of mobilizing individuals in different neighborhoods to collect orders and distribute. 
But within two years, Weee! had pivoted to an end-to-end vertically integrated model.  Moreover, the founders had putting all their financial resources into keeping the company alive. In December 2018, iFly.vc signed on as a sole investor. Fast forward to now, and Weee! is cash flow positive with a positive quarter in Q2 2020. Weee! recently closed a $35 million Series C round led by DST Global.

Research, research before pulling the investment lever 
As a team member at Formation 8, Shen met with Oculus and was initially not all that won over by its technology. But earlier in his career at Vantage Point, he had done a study on 3D TV’s, and learned about the tech stack and road map of the 3D space. He was able to see the value in Oculus and pushed for an investment in Series A and B. The investment ended up returning around $200 million back to the LP’s. 

·       Impact of current US/China tensions
The firm focuses on consumer plays in the U.S., so its business and decision-making does not go into highly sensitive areas that are exacerbated by the geopolitical dispute of the two global superpowers.

·       Covid-19 era offers opportunity to outperform
“In a financial crisis, it’s about how much how much disposable income disappears for the time being. But the flip side is that it gives the chance for companies that can outperform the competition to address the needs of the consumer demand. It’s an incredible window to stand out and outperform.”

·       Walk the Deal Before Signing
Fundraising and deal making for the firm’s second fund during Covid-19 has been difficult and slower. Shen’s preferred method for meetings currently is taking long walks with social distancing and masks on so he can really get to know who he’s working with. Many LP’s re-upped from Fund 1, and some commitments came in without an in-person meeting (a first for the VC firm).

·       Persistence Pays Off in Raising Capital
Shen reached out to more than 300 investors in raising his first micro fund for iFly.vc.  He shares this experience with his portfolio companies when pitching isn’t going well for them. This fund-raising experience was a factor in iFly.vc’s thesis to build a concentrated portfolio, where the team can truly afford to give time and bandwidth to the founders they invest in. 

·     The right LPs can contribute $ plus time and expertise

The LP’s behind iFly.vc’s Fund 1 and Fund 2 have provided immense value to the venture firm and its portfolio companies. The micro-VC raised funds from a combination of family offices and high net worth individuals. Most of these investors are successful entrepreneurs including founders from Palantir and Tencent. If you put all the LP’s together who invested in iFly.vc, their collective market cap would be $900 Billion. Shen is able to ask his prestigious LP’s for their valuable time and organizes intimate office hours between the LP’s and iFly.vc’s portfolio company founders.

Bio:

Han Shen’s career in venture capital started in 2009 and has spanned at VantagePoint and Formation 8, where he was the first hire on the investment team and was a driver of the firm’s investment in Facebook-acquired Oculus.  Earlier, he held venture investment consultant jobs at Mohr Davidow and ARCH. Previously in his career, Shen was a technical leader at Rohm and Haas Co. where he developed four patents. In 2016, Han became a founding partner at iFly.vc, which he describes as a micro VC that goes after underserved communities.
A fun fact about Han, he has his pilot’s license!
Shen holds a BS in Chemistry from Nanjing University. In the U.S., he has an MS and PhD in Chemistry from the University of Chicago, and an MBA from Wharton.

-- submitted by Mike Weiss for Silicon Dragon

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Ask A VC Anything! Roy Bahat, Bloomberg Beta: 10 Key Highlights

 


For our 17th Silicon Global Online episode, Ask A VC Anything, our featured guest was Roy Bahat. Bahat is the head of early stage fund Bloomberg Beta. You can see the firm’s full investing operating manual on Github! In our fascinating conversation with Roy, we discussed Bloomberg Beta and their system of operating, what defines the future of work, and tech hubs outside of Silicon Valley and the Northeast.

10 Key takeaways: 

Online conversation with VC Roy Bahat and Rebecca Fannin, host of Silicon Global Online.

·       As a new entrant into the early stage venture capital world in 2013, Bloomberg Beta has done things differently. For instance, Bloomberg Beta has made its investing process transparent, using an open source software called Github. Bloomberg Beta put its operating manual on Github, and made it public.

·      Bloomberg Beta focuses on the future of work. This can mean anything that makes work more productive or humane including productivity tools (Bloomberg Beta was an investor in Slack before the IPO) and an entire stack of work-related technology solutions like what is used in data centers, data processing technology, business applications like CRM and HR administration tech, and professional media.

·       For Bloomberg Beta, the future of work can also mean investing in companies with such a profound idea embedded in how they operate that they could set a template for other businesses and industries. An example of this is in Bloomberg Beta’s portfolio company Flexport, a shipping broker that uses AI to broker deals at a fraction of the cost to before.  

·       Bahat believes that the best investments produce disagreement. So, while other firms have a decision-making process of group agreement, Bloomberg Beta wanted to see what it looked like if only one person at the firm had to say yes for an investment to be made. This way, founders can speak to anyone on the Bloomberg Beta team and know that they were speaking to someone empowered to make the important decisions.

·       Bahat remarks, “This philosophy was uniquely suited to early stage investing. The sin at this stage is not investing in something that fails, but in failing to invest in something that becomes the next big thing.” A typical venture fund will take 7-9 years before they’ll know if an individual investment will be successful. Bloomberg Beta is a seed-stage fund, so the firm’s time horizon is 9-11 years. 

·       Bloomberg Beta focuses on the Bay Area and the NY, Boston, DC areas because that’s where their main network is. Currently around 5-10% of their investments come outside of the US.

In 2017, in conjunction with NGO New America, Bloomberg Beta released findings on the future of work throughout the country. This coalition between New America and Bloomberg Beta led Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio to invite Bloomberg Beta to see the venture capital ecosystem of his constituents. This led to comeback city tours where Bloomberg Beta was able to build a network in underserved places like Ryan’s Youngstown, Ohio. In 2018, Tim Ryan announced a $2.25M Comeback Capital Fund created to bridge the divide between Silicon Valley Investors and Midwestern startups.

Bahat, who does due-diligence on 300-400 companies a year, believes “wasting a founder’s time is a sin.” He visits geographies in the US outside of Silicon Valley and the Northeast that are on the rise, and calls Atlanta, “the most underappreciated tech ecosystem.

Bahat weighed in on growing tensions between the US and China and believes the forces of decoupling are winning. He illustrates this viewpoint with Bloomberg Beta portfolio company InCountry, which provides a cloud service to other software companies that want to customize their national presence by country. This move towards different national internets and away from a singular global “Internet”, is seen by Bahat as a troubling trend. But Bloomberg Beta saw InCountry as a way to capitalize on a movement that has already begun. 

Bahat noted a trend in 2020 that is more in focus than ever. That is the need for diversity on the cap table. Not just in terms of race and gender, but for differing investment perspectives and knowledge. A successful venture-backed company now might explicitly want an investor with experience in a certain geographical area, or expertise in certain technologies. Bahat notes that this is in stark difference to earlier years where one investor might want to take on the whole investment. 

Bio: 

Roy Bahat has been the Head of Bloomberg Beta since 2013. Previously, Roy held positions in several industries including starting as an Associate at McKinsey, a Senior Policy Director with the Office of the Mayor in NYC in 2002-2003, a Vice President at News Corporation, a President at IGN Entertainment, and a Co-Founder and Chairmen at gaming console startup OUYA Inc.
In addition to his role at Bloomberg Beta, Bahat is also a lecturer at the Haas School of Business, where he teaches an annual seven-week course on media to MBA students. He is also an organizer at #walkthevote – a non-partisan movement to support community leaders and voters organizing local “voting parades” to drop off absentee ballots.
Roy can be found on twitter at @roybahat, where he shares his thoughts, what he’s working on at Bloomberg Beta, and a video series called #thisisnotadvice
Roy Bahat holds an A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard, and an M.Phil in Economics (urban economics) from the University of Oxford.

submitted by Michael Weiss at Silicon Dragon