Flocations, an online travel discovery tool, which previously pitched in Angel’s Gate Season 1 has just secured a S$700,000 pre-series round of funding.
Catch Flocations in action over @ Angel’s Gate Youtube page:
You can find out more information on Flocation’s recently funding over at e27’s article:
Flocations finally secures funding from TNF Ventures and Innov8, after NRF delays
Angel’s Gate is over at the Asian Television Forum 2012!
ATF 2012 which was held over 4-7 December, held at Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Center, is one of the most popular platform in Asia for content. ATF acts a as premium content market to buy, sell, finance, distribute and co-produce across all entertainment platforms.
Ash Singh, Founder of Angel’s Gate, was featured as a speaker during the talks which ran alongside the ATF convention.
Here are some pictures from the event!
Catch more pictures of Angel’s Gate at ATF over at our Facebook Page
John Fearon, one of Angel’s Gate Season 1 successful contestant, from DropMyEmail has brought in new co-founders for his venture EatAds.
John Fearon in action on Angel’s Gate Season 1 Episode 8
Original Article from SGEntrepreneurs.com
Revitalized EatAds, with new funding and co-founders, looks to disrupt traditional advertising in Asia
It was an idea worth pursuing, but entrepreneur John Fearon had to let EatAds gestate to pursue Dropmyemail, which he felt had greater immediate potential.
Now, John is ready to grow EatAds again, and this time, he’s brought reinforcements in two new co-founders. Dhruv Sahgal, who worked at Royal Bank of Scotland, joins the company as business operations lead while Nigel Hembrow, formerly at e-billing startup GreenPost, will head up product development.
EatAds has also secured more angel funding from Crystal Horse Investments, their original backers, and it managed to bring along a few more angel investors.
Read more at SGEntrepreneurs: Revitalized EatAds, with new funding and co-founders, looks to disrupt traditional advertising in Asia
The 3rd Angel’s Gate Jam Session held at NUS Business School was a huge success! Attendees loved the venue, food and most of all, the two speakers that took time off to grace the event, Eric Tachibana & Dr Chau Chun Dong.
In case you’ve missed our Jam Session, here’s a quick round-up on the key lessons & takeaways on Eric’s topic: “Designing for Exit- How to build the exit plan into the business plan.”
Background: Eric Tachibana, adjunct professor at NUS Business School and Managing Director at eXtropia Holdings.
Building an exit strategy is important when starting up.
Before you start walking, you need to know where you want to go and business strategy is exactly the same thing. If you don’t think about your exit before you start, you may be in a situation where you can’t exit because you haven’t been walking in the right direction or you’ll have gotten somewhere, but have all the wrong tools to climb the mountain. The way you’ve built your company over time makes it very difficult for an exit.
3 Key Points – WHY, HOW & WHEN on exiting your business.
WHY should we think about Exit?
Money - “This is business school right? The answer is always money!” mentioned Eric, so one of the key reasons why we want to exit is to take money out of this venture hopefully at a premium on how much the founders have invested in the first place.
Growth – In this scenario, business owners are not getting a whole lot of money out of the business, either because the founders don’t have the right skillsets or perhaps they have a great product but no capability in distribution. For this company/product to grow to that next level, it requires a distribution channel which they do not have.
Exhaustion – After 3 to 5 years of putting your heart and soul into a company, maybe you are just tired and you need to move somewhere else and take a break.
Failure – “So in many cases, in most cases probably the business won’t go the way you wanted it to go and the business is going to fail.” An exit before a business failure may help to recoup some of the losses incurred.
HOW should we exit?
IPO – Eric compared IPO toselling a dream to retail investors / mutual funds or anyone who is going to buy a lot of shares in the open market.Planning an IPO as an exit has ramifications upon the type of company that you build. You are setting yourself up to become an IPO Company, you need to build certain things. For example, you need to build a certain type of brand, a certain type of growth into it. You will need to build a strong legal and audit infrastructure because you are going to go through a rigorous process of due diligence when you actually list.
Trade Sale – IPO is the sale of shares publicly, trade sales are a little different. In a trade sale, the company shares are sold to another company. The typical strategy with a trade sale approach is that, you need to be clear where you are today and where will the industry be in 3 to 4 years from now. You need to look at the big players who will be potential buyers or who will be the buyers with a lot of liquidity and what would they need to buy in order for them to accelerate their growth.
The Zombie Company – Zombie companies are coined as such as they are the companies that live forever. These companies are the absolute foundation of the economy and represents 98% of the companies which are providing jobs and which are actually contributing to GDP growth. Some zombie companies are family owned and the main focus is sustainability of the firm, not the people. So when you’re building a company that will use the zombie firm approach to exit, the focus is on sustainability and passing it down.
Liquidation – If you create a company which you’re ultimately going to liquidate, it can be quite lucrative. Escpecially if you have a huge inventory of things that are easily sold on the open market for high profit sometimes that’s a great option. “Just close everything down and the founders can enjoy all the proceeds of what has been built up.” – Eric Tachibana
WHEN should we exit?
Exit planning needs to start before you have incorporated the private limited, one of the reasons why is that the choice of exit could affect your name too. If IPO is about selling a deam and trade sale is about selling synergy, you can imaginve that even the choice of the name can make a difference in the success or failure of that approach.
Everything from what types of people you hire, what functions you decide to keep in core versus outsource, what types of products you build. How sustainable and how long term is the product or platform, all these questions matter depending on which type of exit you want to go for. This means, if you think about exit only in your 3rd year of operations, it may be too late.
Know when to fold – Most entrepreneurs have an unlimited number of ideas and there is no shame in folding. Taking the liquidation route or doing a trade sale again where instead of having a 20 times multiplier, you just sell for 2 million. This 2 million trade sale is real cash and you can take that 2 million and fund 4 other companies, and then you can suddenly diversify your portfolio quite significantly. It’s a real option, so know when to fold them.
This diagram from Eric sums it all up nicely with a timeline
Article Published by TechCrunch: Original Source Link
Today, there seem to be more business accelerators than there are startups to fill their classes and cohorts. It seems that not a week goes by without the launch of another accelerator or seed starter fund. In fact, as Peter Relan said in a recent post (riffing on Chris Dixon), accelerators have become an industry segment in their own right. He also goes so far as to surmise that — just as it is for startups — 90 percent of accelerators are likely to fail.
Nonetheless, even if they fail, accelerators are still essential to the growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems not only because they provide a petri dish for innovation, but because they create jobs. In an article on AllThingsD today, Jed Christiansen contends that the fundamental value of seed accelerators lies in their ability to both drive economic growth and foster an entrepreneurial culture within local communities.
Christiansen, along with being the Head of Channel Sales for Emerging Markets at Google is also the founder of Seed-DB, a database for seed accelerators and their startups, which he created in 2009 to track the up-tick of incubators and the startups they graduate. Today, the resource is tracking 134 seed accelerators in 33 countries.
Most notable, however, is the data that Christiansen has gleaned from Seed-DB on the impact of seed accelerator programs, starting with the fact that accelerators have funded over 2,000 startups, which have raised a total of $1.6 billion in funding. The founder, in turn, estimates that about 100 of these startups have already been sold for a total of approximately $1 billion and, perhaps most importantly, startups that have graduated from seed accelerators have created over 4,800 jobs.
Of course, Seed-DB’s data is to be taken with a grain of salt. The resource is incomplete, has compiled data on a fraction of startup exits (as many don’t report acquisition price) and it relies on startups and others to self-report (alongside the data it pulls from CrunchBase). However, Christiansen estimates that, were all accelerators to self-report, the total number of jobs created would in fact be closer to 7,000.
Startups, small businesses and accelerators are critical pistons in the engine of job creation; there are a few who would argue with that. However, research from the Kauffman Foundation puts into perspective just how important they are. It suggests that, between 1980 and 2005, all net job growth emanated from companies fewer than five-years-old. When it comes to how to best reverse an economic downturn, about the only thing you might find politicians agreeing on is the importance of supporting small businesses.
Not to say SMBs are the panacea, but they do play a critical role. For accelerators, it doesn’t matter whether or not all of their startups raise big rounds of venture capital, it matters how well their graduates can build a network of support for their peers and for future companies. The deeper and more robust it becomes, the more success startups find and the more jobs they collectively create.
Giving accelerators their due, Christiansen concludes: “From just one accelerator in 2005, to a handful in 2007, to over 130 around the world today, seed accelerators — and the jobs they create — are a positive change in the economic infrastructure of the technology industry.”
We’ve added a new partner into our startup kit! Meet Xero!
Xero is an online accounting solution that provides you with everything you need to make smart business decisions, from day one. Get growing, with financial information that’s accurate and up-to-date.
“It just makes accounting so ridiculously easy. The interface is really intuitive.” – Ivan Vanderbyl, testpilot.me
Total visibility of your finances
Xero provides you with the information you need to have the complete financial picture of your business. It connects straight to your bank, so the numbers you see are always up-to-date.
With full visibility of your real-time cashflow, money coming in & money going out, you can get the right balance between keeping money in the bank & spending for future growth.
Analyse your business
Xero is not just a financial management tool, it is an analytical tool to help you monitor & understand your business performance. Use your real-time financial data to create accurate reports & budgets.
With a real understanding of your numbers, you not only have a great product, you have confidence in its financial potential.
Communicate with your advisors
Xero provides a collaborative platform where you work together with your advisors and make sure you’re on track to get to the next step. As a cloud based software each party has access to real-time financial data at the same time.
Have real-time dialogue with your business partners, investors and your incubator, providing them with accurate information to build trust in their investment.
Connect with your other software
Manage all aspects of your business within Xero, using the open API. Connect your other software or bespoke solutions that you have created, to get seamless data transfer straight into Xero.
Get the total picture of your business performance, minus the manual data entry.
Download the slides on this presentation here.
Get updates on the latest Angel’s Gate videos by subscribing to our channel!
You’ve caught GameMaki on screen last season on Angel’s Gate and they walked away with a deal. Find out some of the obstacles they’ve encountered & where are they now!
From the article “How GameMaki came back from the brink to become a blueprint for Singapore’s startups” on SGE:
Faced with desperate circumstances, GameMaki went for broke on entrepreneurial reality show Angel’s Gate, and it paid off.
“Crystal Horse and Angel’s Gate were our saviors,” says Keith, adding that Crystal Horse Investments threw them a lifeline with a USD100,000 investment. The business deals then started flowing in.
Read more about this article on: http://sgentrepreneurs.com/2012/11/14/why-gamemaki-could-be-a-credible-blueprint-for-singapores-tech-startups/
We’ve just sent out the first round of invitations for the Audition of Angel’s Gate Season 2! Stay tuned for more exciting news & updates on how you can participate!
Angel’s Gate held our 3rd successful Jam Session over at NUS Business School the night before halloween!
It was a huge success! We had over 80 people who turned up for the event! We would like to thank everyone for dropping by.
If you’ve missed our last session, checkout one of the presentations on the event-day over on youtube! We will have them up real soon, so head on over to youtube and subscribe to our channel for the latest video updates!
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/AngelsGate
Curious to see how our event went? Head on to our facebook page to checkout our pictures on the event day! Tag your friends and yourself to stand a chance to win our Angel’s Gate t-shirt!
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheAngelsGate
We’re honoured to be featured in the Brunei Times!
BUSINESS startups that have a strong vision and a passionate owner are more likely to retain their staff, a Canadian venture capitalist said.
In an interview during the Think Big Innovate Forum 2012 at the Empire Hotel & Country Club, Ash Singh acknowledged that it was difficult for startup businesses to compete with the public sector or government-linked companies that offered lucrative wages and benefits.
Singh, who also runs Singapore-based web design company Interactive.SG, said staff retention “comes down to the quality of the entrepreneur themselves”.
“If you are passionate about something and you can make people believe in your product, it becomes less about the money and more about the idea of being a part of something special,” he told The Brunei Times.
He said that getting the right people to join startups involved having a vision that had to be conveyed to others.
He also acknowledged that working for startups may not be everybody’s preference, adding that “there are things beyond your control when you are starting a new company”.
For the full article, visit: http://www.bt.com.bn/business-national/2012/10/25/startups-must-bank-vision-and-passion-keep-people
Quick Update!
Ash(Founder - Angel’s Gate) is in Brunei to speak at Think Big Innovate Forum.
After successfully securing funding from Angel’s Gate with Dropmysite to backup websites and databases, CEO, John Fearon realized a bigger market that required backing up – emails. With over 3.4 billion email accounts and 294 billion emails sent daily, Adeo Ressi, of TheFunded.com, agrees, “I backup my computer data, why not backup my emails?”
Dropmysite Pte Ltd created a sister product, Dropmyemail, the most comprehensive email backup solution in the cloud. It was launched on March 1st at DEMO Asia ’12 to much fanfare, winning the coveted DEMOguru award. Within 50 days of the launch, Dropmyemail gained over 525,000 signups.
Being interviewed and reviewed by international newspaper, magazines, TV stations, websites and blogs, Dropmyemail has gone from strength to strength. To the extent that e27 featured Dropmyemail at Echelon’12 and termed it, “the current fastest growing startup in Asia”.
The startup team is also growing immensely – with 13 employees stationed across the world. Especially of interest is the addition of Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, ex-Senior Conversion Specialist from Google as the Head of Product Development.
Together with this momemtum and his team, John will lead Dropmyemail to achieve its goal to backup the Internet.
Phew~!
It’s been a busy week for Angel’s Gate!
We held our latest Jam Session #2 over @ the cool Microsoft Folks on Games & Gamification on 12th September!
We managed to get hold of past participant Keith Ng, from GameMaki and also Jeffrey & Travis from Touch Dimensions, Singapore-based creators of iPad Game Sensation Autumn Dynasty, to speak at our event! Check out the pictures of the event here!
Over the weekend on 15th & 16th September, Angel’s Gate, together with Crystal Horse Investments ran a 2-day Pitching Bootcamp for the participants of IDEAS INC’s Pitch Challenge at their main event! Here’s some of the Bootcamp pictures!
A quick update to all, Angel’s Gate will be at IDEAS INC’s main event on the 22nd September with a very special giveaway! See you there!
Hey People!
It’s our 2nd issue of Cool Tools! This time round we’re introducing a cloud based project management tool Mavenlink!
Mavenlink’s SaaS platform enables professional services providers and their clients to efficiently manage their project from start to finish. As an “end to end” project management solution, including:
Team Management – Keeps your team as well as your goals on track by simply making it easier to manage roles, activities, permissions, schedules and responsibilities. Clients, colleagues as well as service providers are given access to your projects via SSL-security. Permissions let you give specific rights to users within a project.
Collaboration – A secure, shared workspace for communication. Messages instantly go to everyone listed in a work space via email updates; confidential messages can be sent to other users through private messaging; reel-time messaging lets you see updates in the project workspace as it happens. Task management made easy
File Sharing – Upload multiple files at once and share up to 20GB across projects. With its file privacy option, you can control who has access to your documents. You can view your files instantly through integrated Scribd technology with the option to view all your projects in one collaborative feed via google apps integration. All of your team’s files are linked to project conversations, making it impossible to lose important documents.
Project Management – You can see all activities from your clients, colleagues and service providers. With a centralized dashboard, you get a view of the status of all your projects, navigate payments and messages. All project participants can update the project activities, so everyone stays on track.
Here’s our take on the service!
We’re sure some may have encountered other project management platforms out there, however, what really caught our eye with Mavenlink was its seamless integration with QuickBooks!
QuickBooks a cloud based accounting platform for businesses is easily integrated into Mavenlink project management platform which eases the amount of administrative work for start-ups and small business owners! What’s more, QuickBooks is fully compatible with Singapore Tax Filing guidelines!
Get Organized!
I’ve never met a successful businessman said that building a successful business was easy.
The pressure involved with decision making & hard work involved in execution is immense. As new age entrepreneurs, we should find ways to utilize the scarce resources available effectively and efficiency so that the core focus can on the profitable tasks that will help grow the business.
There are a lot of free(and paid) tools that are available on the web, that helps businesses function more effectively. Cool Tools is a new blog series by Angel’s Gate to introduce these tools and share tips & tricks on using them to help you in your business.
As our 1st issue, we’re going to start with an online tool many are familiar with. DROPBOX!
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. If you have more than one computer, keeping track of all your files can be a pain. The problem is organization, you need one place for everything. Solving this problem is one of the big ideas behind Dropbox. Dropbox keeps your files accessible and synced from all your various devices. It’s like a magic pocket, a single secure place for all of your stuff.
Dropbox creates a new kind of folder in your computer. This folder works hard to be exactly alike and it makes all your files accessible anytime, anywhere.
Dropbox works as a secure channel to share files, pictures and videos. When a folder is shared, all the files inside that folder get accessed by the recipient. Sharing folders are appropriate for collaborative purposes and is the best way to access and update files without the use of emails.
Whether you are traveling the world, running a business or simply organizing your life; Dropbox means you can stop worrying about managing files and back-ups and get on with other important aspects of your life.
Cool Tips & Tricks:
Next Cool Tool on the list! Freshbooks!
FreshBooks is an online invoicing software as a service for freelancers, small businesses, agencies, and professionals. It is produced by the software company 2ndSite Inc.
Bookkeeping and keeping track of your finances can be tedious, time consuming and of course the least fun part of running the business.
Freshbooks is straightforward, simple and easy to use (and you can try it for free), even as a non-accountants you can manage accounting your business without intimidation. It lets you create customizable invoice and estimate forms that you can fill manually or complete using lists. It lets you send invoices by post or email; accept online payments (PayPal or credit cards); automatically send pending payment notices; creates a handful of really easy to understand reports and graphs.
With Freshbooks, your business data is accessible anytime and everywhere, in all your devices. Data loss and theft is never a problem as your data is regularly backed-up and secured.
Having a good business pitch is one of the important aspect of early start-up companies. It helps you get your ideas across to not only your customers, but also potential investors!
Ever wondered how you would work on and ace your business pitch?
Find out how on our article on Her World Plus online here!
http://www.herworldplus.com/lifestyle/money/lifestyle-money-budding-entrepreneurs-here%E2%80%99s-how-ace-business-pitch
Angel’s Gate held our 1st Jam Session over at Amazon Web Services!
It was a huge success! We had over 140 people who turned up for the event and feedback from most participants were really positive! We would like to thank everyone for dropping by.
We’re in the midst of preparing for our next event & will be confirming our location really soon! Stay tuned!
If you’ve missed our last session, checkout one of the presentations on the event-day over on youtube!
Angel’s Gate is proud to announce a whole new series of events for both aspiring & seasoned Entrepreneurs!
Our Angel’s Gate Jam Sessions are held monthly and aims to inspire & provide an avenue for Entrepreneurs to network and learn from one another.
This month of July, we are having our 1st Jam session over at Amazon Web Services!
We’re delighted to have Pieter Kemps from AWS as our 1st speaker.Pieter aims to aid entrepreneurs who are preparing for their next business pitch with his presentation entitled “What does a good pitch deck look like?”
Topics to be covered:
We have John Fearon from DropMyEmail.com, who appeared in Season 1 of Angel’s Gate, as our 2nd speaker. John will be sharing with us his experience during his journey as an Entrepreneur. Find out more about his involvement in Angel’s Gate
For our 3rd Speaker, we have Ash Singh, Founder & CEO of Angel’s Gate who will be presenting “50 Keys to Startup Success”. His most recent project is Turbanizer, a mobile application which allows anyone to easily visualize themselves in a turban!
I hope you’re as excited as we’re about our 1st Jam Session!
Be sure to register over @ our facebook events page!
Angel’s Gate is proud to be invited as a Guest Speaker for British Chamber of Commerce’s Private Event @ Harry’s Bar on 21st June 2012! Ash Singh(CEO Angel’s Gate) gave a short presentation and helped answered a bombardment of questions shortly later. The setting was classy, the food was excellent & the people were great!
