CPCO6 – Más allá de la triple "F": Business Angels & Venture Capital
Over the last 20 years game developers and venture capitalists have had an uneasy relationship. VCs often want to invest in technology, not in one off produc…
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Hypo Venture Capital – Funds: Why This Could be the Answer Your Looking For!
Here at Hypo Venture Capital we are committed to offering our clients access to the latest and broadest range of financial services and products on the market. We know that choosing the right strategy, the right investment and the right product is no easy task in this day and age! Whether its advice, investments or financial planning we are here to answer all your questions and facilitate all your financial needs.
Here we look to dispel some of the jargon and confusion surrounding ‘Funds’, breaking them down, with no nonsense explanations in an attempt to help you understand this strategic investment.
Starting out?
Many newcomers to equity investment are nervous about investing in individual firms – and with good reason. Putting all your money into a few stocks is a high-risk strategy, especially for the inexperienced, because it leaves you vulnerable to sharp fluctuations in the share price of the individual stocks you pick, not the markets in which they trade. If you get it right and pick winners, great. But if you pick a couple of big losers, your whole portfolio will be scuppered. Collective or ‘pooled’ investments can diversify your holdings and therefore reduce that risk.
Why pooled funds?
Unit trusts, open-ended investment companies (Oeics, pronounced ‘oiks’) and investment trusts are all vehicles that let you pool your money with lots of other ‘retail’ – or small – investors. (In the US, this kind of investment is known as a ‘mutual fund’.) The pooled money is then invested on your behalf in a wide range of different equities by specialist fund managers. (There are also funds that invest in bonds or other assets, such as commercial property or commodities.) The fund manager takes a fee to run the fund and research what stocks to buy.
If they get it right, it means you get access to a highly diversified range of stocks at a reasonable cost. It also gives you easy access to asset classes and international markets that would otherwise be difficult and/or expensive to invest in. For example, specialist funds are available that invest only in Japan, or Latin America, or only in technology firms, and so on. Also, different funds are designed to meet different investment objectives and there’s a wide range to choose from. Some aim for income, some for capital growth, and some for a balance of the two.
Unit trusts and Oeics
Until recently, unit trusts were the main kind of collective retail investment in the UK. With a unit trust, you buy a fixed number of units in a fund, which then rise and fall according to the value of the underlying assets the trust invests in. Over the past few years, many fund managers have converted their unit trusts into Oeics in the belief that investors find them simpler to understand. From the point of view of the investor, Oeics are more or less the same as unit trusts; they are ‘open-ended’ in the sense that (like unit trusts) the fund’s size expands and contracts depending on investor demand. The big difference is that Oeics have only one price (as opposed to the dual bid/offer pricing of unit trusts).
Investment trusts
Like Oeics, investment trusts are firms whose business is to invest in the shares of other companies. But unlike unit trusts and Oeics, investment trusts are ‘closed-ended’: there are a fixed number of shares in issue, which are traded on the stock exchange. The purpose of an investment trust is, broadly speaking, the same as an Oeic – to give smaller investors cheap access to a wide range of shares. But they are structured rather differently.
The fact that investment trust shares are traded on the open market (the London Stock Exchange) means the share price is determined not just by the value of the trust’s underlying assets, but by current market demand for its shares. Sometimes, if an investment trust is popular, it will trade at a premium to its net asset value (NAV). Other times, it will be trading at a discount.
Investment trusts can borrow money (called “gearing”), often up to 10%-15% of the value of assets and use it to invest in the markets. This is great if the markets go up, but of course the funds losses escalate if they fall.
The final significant difference is that investment trusts are cheaper to buy than unit trusts or Oeics. Actively managed unit trusts have upfront fees of anything up to 5%-6% of the investment, plus an annual management fee of around 1.5%. By contrast, charges on investment trusts are typically less than 1%.
Passive or active?
One way of minimising the cost is to go for an index-tracking fund. These funds aim to match or ‘track’ the performance of a given market index, such as the FTSE All-Share or the FTSE 100. They do this using computer programs to work out how much of each individual stock they need to buy and sell to mimic the performance of the index as a whole.
That’s much cheaper than employing lots of expensive ‘experts’ and researchers, so index-trackers are much cheaper than ‘actively-managed’ funds. Index-trackers might seem like a safety-first option, but there’s a great deal of research evidence to suggest that they outperform most actively managed funds over the long-run because their charges are so low (typically 0.5%, or even less).
Another good ‘passive’ form of pooled investment is the exchange-traded fund (ETF). These work like index-trackers, in that they target a particular market or sector index, but are traded as shares, allowing for a cheap and highly flexible investment.
Want to know more?
Hypo Venture Capital is an independent investment advisory firm which focuses on global equities and options markets. Our analytical tools, screening techniques, rigorous research methods and committed staff provide solid information to help our clients make the best possible investment decisions. All views, comments, statements and opinions are of the authors. For more information go to www.hypovc.com
Hypo Venture Capital is an independent investment advisory firm which focuses on global equities and options markets. Our analytical tools, screening techniques, rigorous research methods and committed staff provide solid information to help our clients make the best possible investment decisions. All views, comments, statements and opinions are of the authors. For more information go to www.hypovc.com
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Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: Is the global economy back on an even keel?
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/asia-pacific/is-the-global-economy-back-on-an-even-keel
Day rates for the movement of goods around the world hit their peak in early 2008, a few months before the global financial crisis. Which direction are these same prices heading in now, and can the shipping industry help predict the direction of the global economy?
Day rates for the movement of goods around the world hit their peak in early 2008, a few months before the global financial crisis. Which direction are these same prices heading in now, and can the shipping industry help predict the direction of the global economy?
Munshi Ahmed / Bloomberg
A port in Singapore. Around 90 per cent of all the world’s goods are transported by sea, meaning that when economic activity is strong, the shipping industry is buoyant.
A port in Singapore. Around 90 per cent of all the world’s goods are transported by sea, meaning that when economic activity is strong, the shipping industry is buoyant.
Bloomberg
Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi, which is being constructed between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world.
Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi, which is being constructed between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world.
Forty-two floors up, from the window of Mercator’s meeting room, Singapore stretches out, a landscape of order, dotted with trees and water.
To the south, a haze of humidity hangs on the horizon, reducing the Indonesian islands to no more than an outline. Ships, trawlers and tankers sit between these two points, like toys in a bath, motionless in their motion. These are some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the blue of the ocean endlessly crossed by small black lines, keeping the economy of the world moving.
In the meeting room far above the sea, K Srivastava, a vice president of Mercator in Singapore, is explaining why the company he works for adopted a cautious approach during the heady days of the first half of 2008.
“We could see the cracks,” he says, “We could see the cracks very visibly because the day rates were so high. That on a long-term basis with that kind of day rates, one wonders whether any business can be sustainable.”
Mercator is one of the world’s leading dry bulk shipping companies, a company that moves vast quantities of dry goods – grains, coal, iron ore – around the world, servicing the factories and industries that keep the global economy moving.
Back in 2008, in the months before the financial markets collapsed, the per-day price for moving a shipment was vast. Companies such as Mercator were making huge profits. By one estimate, the shipping industry made an estimated US$ 80 billion (Dh294bn) in profits in 2004. But something didn’t quite add up.
“We found the day rates were too high, [too] unrealistic. The day rates were about $ 80,000 (Dh294,000) to $ 100,000 in the peak of times. So everybody who has a ship was earning $ 100,000 per day. Now that has a couple of implications. Operating costs for a ship are typically in the range of $ 5,000 per day. If you were to say you are earning $ 100,000 and operating costs are $ 5,000 … it’s still a lot of money. And therefore something had to be bizarre there.”
Mercator’s reaction to this situation was to hold fast, not taking on loans or debts. The day rates, notes Srivastava, were at their highest level for a decade. Other indexes were also high, at record levels. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI), a measure of the daily average cost to ship dry bulk commodities, was at record levels.
Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Financial News and latest headlines – Hypo Venture Capital Zurich, Switzerland is an independent investment advisory firm which focuses on global equities and options markets. Our analytical tools, screening techniques, rigorous research methods and committed staff provide solid information to help our clients make the best possible investment decisions. All views, comments, statements and opinions are of the authors. For more information go to www.hypovc.com.
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To VC Or Not to VC – What is the State of the Venture Capital Market?
During the second quarter of 2009, U.S. Venture Capital funds raised $ 1.7 billion vs. $ 9.3 billion in the second quarter of 2008, representing a drop of almost 82 percent! This startling statistic reinforces the fact that you MUST be prepared when trying to raise capital with Venture Capital firms. Companies are going after a much smaller pool of capital, so Venture Capital firms will only fund your company if you’re presented in a way that’s professional, memorable and believable.
Here is a checklist of 8 things to address that can increase your chances of gaining interest from Venture Capital firms:
Be honest with yourself – Is your company a viable candidate for Venture Capital? If you go through all the steps in preparing an Executive Summary/Business Plan, you’ll have the answer to that question. You may have a very viable business but it may not be a Venture Capital candidate.
Problem or Opportunity – What specific problem or opportunity are you addressing with your product or service? You need to be clear about the pain or opportunity and how you’re going to reduce costs, increase revenue, reduce time-to-market, etc.
Solution – How are you going to fix the problem? What hardware, software, and services are you offering?
Market Opportunity – What specific market segment are you targeting? Remember, there are riches in niches! You’ll show that you’ve done the research needed to have a strong go-to-market strategy.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – What is unique about your product or service offering and why would a client pay you money vs. all the competition in the market? (for emerging technologies where there isn’t business competition, you’re competing against inertia)
Management Team – Who will be running the business and how are they uniquely qualified to make your company successful?
Financial Projections – Remember, investors will only invest in your company if you can show them how you will make them money. Your five year financial projections should clearly demonstrate how you will do this…but they need to be believable or you’re wasting your time. Nothing turns off an investor faster than projections of your company reaching unrealistic revenue targets.
Funding Request – Many business plans fail to include how much capital they require and its uses. If you are requesting a certain amount for Phase 1 and plan a subsequent round for a later Phase, state that as specifically as you can.
These are only a few areas that must be addressed to be successful in raising the financing you need for your company. You need to get “thick-skinned” when dealing with rejection because a low percentage of deals actually get funded with Venture Capital. Following these steps will not guarantee you success but will greatly increase the chances of raising capital for your company when properly prepared.
For a free, no-obligation “To VC or Not To VC Consultation”, contact us and we’ll be happy to provide you the concrete feedback you need to increase your chances of success.
CU-Boulder Students Invest $30,000 in Startup Through Real-life Venture Capital Program
Boulder, CO (PRWEB) November 26, 2013
Elihuu, a startup company whose slogan is “meet your manufacturer,” has met an investor — a group of University of Colorado Boulder graduate students.
The students last week put $ 30,000 into Elihuu, an online software platform that connects product designers with manufacturers who can make their wares.
The students turned venture capitalists direct CU-Boulder’s Deming Center Venture Fund (DCVF), which was launched by a donor in 1997 and is a program of the Leeds School of Business.
Selected from across campus to be part of the fund, the students manage everything from scouting new companies to vetting business plans, negotiating the terms of agreements, making final decisions on investments and supporting investees with ongoing resources and advice.
“I think it’s brilliant and that they’re doing all the right things,” said Dorian Ferlauto, founder and CEO of Elihuu, which is based in Denver as well as Oakland, Calif. “I really didn’t know that there is a university fund like this run by students. It’s very unique and I think it’s a great thing in this area where there are a lot of startups.”
The $ 30,000 investment will go toward development and expansion of the Elihuu tool, which Ferlauto says is similar to a matchmaking website except it’s for designers and manufacturers working to line up with the right business partners.
One appeal to the students as they carried out their research on the company is that Elihuu supports the cutting-edge “makers movement.” The makers movement, which is growing in popularity, is comprised of people like artisans, techies and inventors who create small-scale products on their own.
While investee companies benefit from seed money from the DCVF, the student directors gain professional experience and unique insights that could give them an advantage as they pursue their own ventures.
“By going through the capital investment process and by being on the decision-making side, the students know what questions will be asked of them as entrepreneurs,” said Bret Fund, faculty director of the DCVF and assistant professor of management and entrepreneurism. “They themselves will build better companies or be better able to do whatever they want when they move forward.”
Nearly all DCVF alumni have landed employment in technology companies, venture capital firms or other professions related to entrepreneurship, according to the team.
About 10 to 12 CU-Boulder graduate students from business, law and engineering fields are part of the DCVF at a time. They apply for a position on the interdisciplinary team and serve for about 18 months.
“Students almost never get the opportunity, even through internships, to make venture capital decisions,” said Julie Simmons, director of legal management for the DCVF and a graduate student in both law and business administration. “The fund is completely ours to direct. We bring in the deals, we make the relationships and we make the decisions. The challenges are ours to figure out and the successes are ours to celebrate.”
Some of the student directors receive externship credit from the CU Law School for their DCVF participation; however, many students earn no credit from their respective degree programs.
Investments by the DCVF typically are in technology startups. In addition to Elihuu, the fund’s portfolio currently includes Birdbox, an online platform that organizes individuals’ social media content; Flixmaster, a cloud-based video editing and publishing tool; and SpyderLynx, a mobile marketing and technology company.
The student team works with five faculty directors and a board of professional advisers
Since 2009, the DCVF has deployed more than $ 200,000 in investments. Returns on DCVF investments typically come when bigger companies buy the startups. At that time, the DCVF’s ownership and the value of that percentage based on the acquisition is calculated. The acquiring company pays the DCVF its share.
One goal of the DCVF is to accrue enough in returns to put a percentage of profits back into the CU-Boulder campus and programs in addition to maintaining the fund.
“There are a lot of mock competitions out there that give students the chance to think through scenarios and put their skills to the test,” said Chris White, director of outreach for the DCVF and a graduate student in both law and business administration. “But I think this is the only situation where students are investing real money. The possibilities are incredibly real.”
For more information about the Deming Center Venture Fund visit http://cudcvf.org/.
-CU-
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Gengo Closes a New Round of Funding with Intel Capital, Atomico, Iris Capital, Infocomm Investments, NTT-IP Fund and STC Ventures
Tokyo (PRWEB) April 24, 2013
Gengo, the translation platform for global companies, announced that the company has recently closed a US$ 12M round of funding led by Intel Capital, along with participation from Iris Capital, Infocomm Investments, NTT-IP Fund and STC Ventures, and from returning investor Atomico.
Gengo provides an API and platform for fast, high-quality human translation for 33 languages, provided by a pool of over 7,500 tested and rated translators for global large and small-and-medium-sized companies as well as individuals. Currently, leading e-commerce, online travel, and community portals are powered by its translation platform.
With this new round of financing, Gengo will accelerate global expansion, while also improving the translation platform and increasing the speed of the translation process. Gengo recently partnered with YouTube, enabling video uploaders to order professional-quality translation for their captions. Leveraging Gengo’s translation platform, more and more of this kind of online communications will happen globally.
“The Gengo team is excited about working with investors from Asia, the USA, Europe, and the Middle East, lead by Intel Capital, because of their global experience and track record helping entrepreneurs,” said Robert Laing, CEO and co-founder of Gengo. “There’s a significant technology component to human translation at scale, so it’s great to work with a firm with the pedigree of Intel Capital,” added Matthew Romaine, CTO and co-founder of Gengo.
“As the Internet breaks down the concept of national borders, we think Gengo’s service will vitalize communication for people around the world.” said Kaz Yoshida, President, Intel K.K. “It will help to break the language barrier and bring together the wisdom of the people to address global social challenges we are facing. Intel promotes innovation so that people can enjoy rich and fulfilling experiences.”
“Gengo is at the forefront of the crowd-sourced translation space,” said Sudheer Kuppam, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Intel Capital. “Intel Capital welcomes Gengo to its portfolio. We look forward to working with the company to bring this unique service to more users worldwide.”
“Since our original investment, Gengo has proven it can scale its business across the world whilst growing its revenue fourfold,” said Hiro Tamura, Partner at Atomico. “We are excited to have Intel Capital, Infocomm and Orange all join the team as they share our core belief that the world is getting smaller, and that the most successful businesses of tomorrow will be truly global.”
“The 33 billion-dollar translation market is expected to experience a radical change and we believe that Gengo will play a crucial role in the change,” said Denis Barrier, Partner at Iris Capital. “We think it’s wonderful that Gengo has been based in both Asia and Silicon Valley since its establishment and is managed by visionary founders with global perspective”
“We are excited to join the team of truly global investors in helping Gengo with its expansion plans” said Kuo-Yi Lim, CEO of Infocomm Investments. “Singapore is well positioned – with a multicultural and multilingual environment, and diverse talent pool – as a base for Gengo’s growth into the rest of Asia.”
“Gengo provides crowd-sourced translation services utilizing a uniquely developed platform”, said Nobuyuki Akimoto, Executive Vice President & COO at DOCOMO Innovation Ventures. “They have been creating growing opportunities as a globally expanding start-up company and we look forward to their growth.”
About Gengo:
Gengo is the platform for global companies. A powerful API lets enterprise customers integrate professional-quality translation into their application, making it easy to build multi-language services. Gengo’s simple website also allows individuals and SMBs to order individual translations in a matter of seconds. Over 7,500 qualified translators work on jobs through the Gengo platform, in all timezones. This scale means Gengo can return simple translations in a matter of minutes, in 33 languages and at a quality level suited to each customer. Gengo’s platform takes care of quality control, job allocation and translation review. This means companies can focus on their business, while Gengo empowers them to go global. Gengo was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Tokyo.
About Intel Capital:
Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment and M&A organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting enterprise, mobility, health, consumer Internet, digital media and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$ 10.8 billion in over 1,276 companies in 54 countries. In that timeframe, 201 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and 317 were acquired or participated in a merger. In 2012, Intel Capital invested US$ 352 million in 150 investments with approximately 57 percent of funds invested outside North America. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit http://www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.
About Atomico:
Atomico is an international technology investment firm, focused on helping the world’s most disruptive technology companies reach their full potential on a global scale. Founded by Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype, they have become the investor of choice for ambitious entrepreneurs due to our unique international network, and ability to help companies operationally, with offices in London, Beijing, São Paulo, Istanbul and Tokyo. Their investments include category leaders such as Rovio, Jawbone, Fab, Klarna and Skype. http://www.atomico.com
About Iris Capital:
Iris Capital is a pan-European venture capital fund manager specializing in digital economy. Since its inception in 1986, the Iris Capital team has invested more than €900 million in more than 200 companies. Iris Capital targets opportunities in service or technology companies, seeking growth capital in order to realize their strategy. It provides active support to its portfolio companies on the basis of its strong sector specialization and experience, and has offices in Paris, Düsseldorf, San Francisco, Montreal, Riyadh, Dubai, Beijing and Tokyo. In 2012 Iris Capital has entered into a strategic partnership with Orange and Publicis to manage their
joint venture capital initiative. http://www.iriscapital.com
About Infocomm Investments
Infocomm Investments is the venture capital arm of Singapore government’s IT authority — IDA (Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore). Managing a fund of $ 200 million, Infocomm Investments invests alongside top-tier investors in growth stage technology companies and help startups around the world expand to Asian markets by leveraging Singapore’s top-class business infrastructure. For more information: http://www.infocomminvestments.com
About Docomo Innovation Ventures
DOCOMO Innovation Ventures, on behalf of NTT Group, play a proactive role in accelerating innovation for technologies and services by discovering, nurturing, and supporting venture businesses. We have just established 10-billion-yen (approximately 105 million USD) DOCOMO Innovation Fund, and have been operating 15-billion-yen (approximately 158 million USD) NTT Investment Partners Fund (NTT-IP Fund) since 2008. For more information: http://www.docomo-i-ventures.com/
About STC Ventures
STC Ventures is a venture capital fund, independently managed by Iris Capital, whose anchor investor is the Saudi Telecom Company. STC Ventures is focused on equity investments in the information technology, telecommunications, and digital media/entertainment sectors; seeking to support the development of innovative technology companies in Saudi Arabia, the GCC, Levant, North Africa and Turkey, in addition to funding globally minded international companies seeking capital and access to the MENA region. STC Group is the largest telecommunications company in MENA, ranked in the top 20 mobile networks in the world, and serving more than 160 million subscribers. http://www.stcventures.com
Gengo is trademark of Gengo Inc in the United States and other countries.
Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Contact:
Gengo, Inc.
Seiya Vogt
TEL: +81-3-6447-0311
MAIL: seiya (at) gengo (dot) com