Liu, who will be one of the judges in the WIT Grand Finals Start-Up Pitch at the WIT Conference on October 19, said he had seen increased activities from companies in making use of social networking, mobile applications and digital advertising to reach out to a younger audience exploiting different media and channels.
“The challenge with a lot of these new ideas is in the monetization, ie getting consumers to pay for the service or product.”
He said that on the investors’ front, there were increased investments going into early stage companies as well as later stage, eg mezzanine round and pre-IPO stage. “What is not so well-funded is something in between which takes longer. Also today, exits from investment be it trade sale and especially IPO takes much longer.”
He said the investment climate had certainly improved from a year ago due to positive economic growth and better profitability at the corporate and individual level, resulting in more bullish sentiments and investment appetite.
“The question remains whether it can be sustained in the current uncertainty of economic recovery in US and Europe.”
As for the problems people are trying to solve, Liu said a few areas were still attracting innovation and funding.
1) Helping population to age gracefully, (drug discovery, elder care, medical devices)
2) Providing better entertainment value through rich content and easy access
3) Issues associated with mobility, staying connected and entertained while on the move
4) Data/info management in an era where there is information overload
5) Building better appliances for productivity, ease of use and cost-performance, be it for a company or individual
6) Building better software tools for information search, analytics and presentation.
7) Use of biometrics for personal authentication, security, etc
8) Clean technology and Environmental technology
Stream Global, which currently has investments in about half a dozen start-ups, to date, has also recently been appointed to work with the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) in its Technopreneur Incubation Scheme (TIS).
The NRF was set up in 2006 as a department under the Prime Minister’s Office. One of the main objectives is to implement national research, innovation and enterprise strategies and to allocate funding to programmes that meet NRF’s strategic objectives. The TIS is one such scheme where an appointed incubator such as Stream Global will co-invest with NRF in a star-up where NRF funds 85% up to S$500,000 and Stream Global funds the 15%. Within three years, the incubator can buy back from NRF with 5% interest on the “loan”.
Said Liu, “We believe this scheme bridges a funding gap which is too small for traditional VC and too large for angel investors.”
Many schemes exist to enable entrepreneurship in Singapore, from government grants and assistance schemes from bodies such as the Media Development Authority, Infocomm Development Authority, SPRING and IE Singapore as well as the universities and their technopreneurship programmes.
These range from S$20,000 for grants to students to S$50,000 to S$250,000 for prototypes and to seed funding from S$300,000 to $1 million. There are also schemes for commercialization for technology and exports, said Liu.
Asked if these made life easy for entrepreneurs, Liu said, “If life is easy for an entrepreneur, than he or she is probably not doing something that is really game changing. More likely it is a me-too type of business. Successful entrepreneurs usually go through many challenges and setbacks before they see light at the end of the tunnel.”
To access these grants, Liu said homework had to be done to see what grants were available and suitable. “One can start from the websites of the funding organization. Next one must have a good business plan and be able to articulate why the project or idea deserves funding. Getting money is never easy nor is it difficult if you have a good value proposition. However you do need to be able to pitch your ideas to the right people.
“As for strings attached, the grants in Singapore generally do not come with too onerous terms. A good mentor who is familiar with fund raising will certainly help.”
Liu, who was responsible for helping WIT put together its Start-Up Pitches in the last two years, said he was still looking for companies or ideas with the wow factor.
“Having said that disruptive technologies and paradigm shifts are difficult to gain acceptance and to implement. However, the payback is huge once adopted.”
Featured image credit (Businessman standing looking at jigsaw puzzle): Ockra/iStock
