Paul Ark (Polapat Arkkrapridi)

Greater diversity in Japan's VC & startup ecosystem is imperative to realize the government's “5-Year Startup Plan”. The first step to 'moving the needle' is understanding where the needle lies. Tokyo Women in VC's latest report sheds light on the issues and will help all of us move forward! 🚀

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Enjoyed participating in a discussion on mobilizing investment to deliver a net-zero economy at the #JapanEnergySummit. The biggest barrier constricting VC capital flow is the potential for"death-by-pilot" where start-ups fail to secure the necessary funding required to support multiple iteration and scale-up phases often with moving goalposts from customers and partners. Contrary to popular belief, it is often commercial inertia that extends these timelines, not fundamental technology issues. While commercial partners need to manage risk, start-ups need to find partners where the highest levels of management see the vision for future alignment and are not just tinkering. And start-ups need to be able to give confidence to investors by striking early commercial deals with these partners that are subject to performance milestones and show real skin in the game.

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Looking forward to speaking at #CleantechForumAsia next week in Singapore, May 7-8. This Cleantech Group event is shaping up to be a good one with over 220 high-quality participants with over 75% being innovators, investors, or larger corporations looking to build and support climate solutions. Through my panel ‘Adaptation and Resilience: Is APAC Innovation Keeping Apace of the Challenges?’ I would like to highlight how the Asia-Pacific faces unique climate challenges due to its diverse geography, heavy reliance on natural resources, and dense urban centers. #Agriculture, a key sector, is highly vulnerable, with changes to soil chemistry, diminishing yields and disruptions in livestock production. This vulnerability is heightened by the region's dense population, limited healthcare resources and widespread poverty. However, innovations across the spectrum of #mitigation, #resilience and #adaptation as well as community based initiatives, can enable sustainable development, limit the impact of adverse climate shifts and enable easier restoration. Collaboration among nations, facilitated by #innovation networks, is vital for addressing these multifaceted threats collectively. Register to join me and help support the dialogue on climate action: https://lnkd.in/gErpZxUS

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South Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups Unveils Strategy to Boost Exports The Ministry of SMEs and Startups in South Korea has announced a new strategy to support the globalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and venture companies. The plan aims to nurture 1,000 innovative domestic companies into export entities and help 3,000 companies achieve exports of $1 million each by 2027. Top 5 highlights of the strategy: 1️⃣ Expanding export support for tech service companies to 15% by 2030 2️⃣ Introducing an 'export doctor' system for tailored assistance throughout the export process 3️⃣ Establishing a scale-up program for rapidly growing export companies 4️⃣ Introducing a voucher exclusively for overseas expansion 5️⃣ Tapping into the potential of foreign students through the 'K-Export Warrior 1,000 Project' SMEs play a significant role in the South Korean economy, with sales 17.2 times and employment 5.1 times higher than the average industry. However, export numbers have remained relatively stagnant over the past decade, with approximately 94,000 companies engaging in yearly exports, hovering around $110 billion annually. The Ministry aims to address emerging demands by shifting focus from 'products' and 'exports' to 'technology' and 'overseas expansion.' The goal is to foster sustainable growth for South Korean SMEs and ventures on the global stage through collaborative efforts and adaptive support mechanisms.

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🇯🇵 Cultivating Cross-border collaboration 🌍 Cross-border collaboration is reshaping the global startup landscape, with Japan emerging as a key player in this international exchange. The Land of the Rising Sun is not just exporting innovative technologies but also welcoming foreign startups with open arms. 🇯🇵 Tokyo's startup ecosystem, is becoming a magnet for international entrepreneurs. Different initiatives and events are breaking down barriers, creating a melting pot of global innovation right in the heart of Japan. 🇩🇪 The strong connection between Japan and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) in Germany showcases the power of international ties. As the most important location for Japanese companies in continental Europe, NRW offers a springboard for Japanese startups looking to expand westward. 💼 At 8 Impact, we're at the forefront of this cross-border movement, supporting and financing international expansions for scaleups both to and from Japan. Our mission is to facilitate seamless global growth, connecting innovative minds across borders. 🚀 The future of innovation is borderless, and Japan is playing a pivotal role in this global narrative. From fintech to robotics, Japanese startups are not just going global - they're inviting the world to join them in shaping the future of technology and business. #pe #scaleup #finance #vc

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A team from Shandong University and Tongji University showcase SATO (Stable Text-to-Motion Framework) which represents a significant development in the Text-to-Motion (T2M) model arena. This initiative addresses the longstanding challenge of instability and inconsistency in motion predictions generated from semantically similar or identical text inputs. Traditional T2M models have faced difficulties in producing stable outputs, primarily due to unpredictable attention patterns within the text encoder module, which often resulted in inaccuracies in motion sequence predictions. SATO addresses these issues by integrating three specialized modules designed to ensure stable attention, stable prediction, and a balance between accuracy and robustness. This approach markedly improves the model's capability to generate consistent motion predictions, even when faced with minor textual variations, such as the use of synonyms.   The effectiveness of SATO has been confirmed through rigorous testing on a newly developed textual synonym perturbation dataset, where it demonstrated enhanced stability and accuracy over existing state-of-the-art models. This achievement has broad implications for several fields, including video games, the metaverse, and virtual/augmented reality environments. In these areas, the ability to generate motion data directly from textual descriptions can significantly improve user experience and interaction. By mitigating the unpredictability of model outputs, SATO facilitates more reliable and robust text-to-motion applications, establishing a new benchmark for future research and development within this sector. This progress not only broadens the scope of potential applications for text-to-motion technology but also establishes a new standard for future investigations in this dynamic field, promising substantial enhancements in the realism and responsiveness of digital environments.  Arxiv: https://lnkd.in/eADwmz3q

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【🇯🇵 and 🇰🇷 Innovate by Integrating Startups with Conglomerates】 - A Unique Twist on the Silicon Valley Model - 🇺🇸 Unlike the U.S. government, which often adopts an anti-large startup stance, Japan and Korea must take the opposite approach. Their economic strategies focus on integrating startups with established giants to leverage the strengths of both and ensure long-term success and competitiveness in the global market. 🇯🇵 Policymakers in Japan and Korea are customizing the Silicon Valley innovation model to better align with their unique economic structures, recognizing that a direct transplant of the model is not feasible. 🇰🇷 In both Japan and Korea, large conglomerates (keiretsu in Japan and chaebol in Korea) play a central role in the economy, controlling significant market share and resources. 💡 Programs supported by the governments of Japan and Korea actively promote collaboration between startups and these large conglomerates, fostering a mutually beneficial relationship that drives innovation and economic growth. Continue to read from here： https://lnkd.in/g6EYuqwv #Startup #Conglomerates #Collaboration

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We are covered by Deal Street Asia! Great thanks to Quynh! Yoonmin Cho, our global investment director, explained what we have done, what we are focusing, and what we will do. Listen to our stories! #DealStreetAsia #Sopoong #Climatetech

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As a delegate, the measure of a successful conference is in the side meetings. 💼 🌍✨ Not in high-level discussions on stage, not in symbolic gestures from politicians, and not in the amount of media attention. Side meetings are a leading indicator of the real action that will take place after the event. In the 10 years that I have been attending #Ecosperity, this year was the most impressive. 🌟 Together with 🇺🇸 Frank T. Troise 🇸🇬🇨🇭, our side meetings were prodigious - 🌍 We explored financing plans with emerging climate fund managers. 🌱We discovered new climate-tech and carbon projects.  💡We developed action plans to crowd in finance from channels in our own home country 🇺🇸 . 💪We met old friends from Hong Kong, London, Geneva, and Seoul, and made new ones from Australia, Paraguay, Malaysia, and India. Now the real work begins! Let's go! #singapore #sustainablefinance #netzero #climaterisk #Temasek #Philanthropy Asia Alliance #The Liveability Challenge #ClimateAction #GenZeroSummit2024 #GenZero

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【Nurturing Innovation through the Key Role: The Intermediary】 It's more than simply brainstorming that might be needed to spark Innovation. The latest cover story of Harvard Business Review Global Traditional Chinese Edition points out that the key to success lies in having an "intermediary" who can guide long-term collaboration. HBR Taiwan interviewed Edgar Chiu (me) to share our perspectives on SparkLabs Taiwan's acceleration program experiences. ▎Establishing Connections: The intermediary's role isn't just about bringing people together, fostering trusting relationships, and creating a conducive structure for dialogue. ▎Developing Relationships: The intermediary must devise a collaboration roadmap, introduce external perspectives, act as a coach, create a safe environment, and ignite team motivation. ▎Maintaining Management: As collaboration scales up and organizational demands become more complex, the intermediary needs to focus on building strong relationships, providing opportunities for reflection, and assisting in managing stress and emotions. The rise of the intermediary helps startups overcome barriers, create open and transparent platforms, ensure consensus among all parties, encourage participants to speak up, and ultimately achieve shared success. SparkLabs Taiwan, an international venture capital and startup accelerator from Silicon Valley, serves as an intermediary. It deeply understands the needs of all parties, assists in solving internal and external business issues, and fosters mutual benefits. In a startup case study, Ting-Kuan Chen, Co-founder and CEO of FunNow, a real-time booking platform in Taiwan, shared its journey, highlighting the crucial role played by SparkLabs Taiwan, including providing "lessons from failure" to avoid pitfalls and increase success rates, building networks of professionals to assist with registration, trademarks, patents, etc., facilitating connections between external entrepreneurial partners, introducing suitable startup talent, and linking to the capital market.

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Congratulations to our True Global Ventures portfolio company Animoca Brands and team (Kenneth Shek Yat Siu Evan Auyang Jared Shaw Minh Do Alan Lau) with their US$23.9 million committed at 12x oversubscription on the MOCA Token Launch! 🌟 The total pre-deposited funds of US$29.3m was conducted on MocaList, a new co-branded token launchpad jointly launched by Mocaverse and CoinList. Access to the offering was gated by Moca ID, the MOCA Token Launch was the top-funded sale on CoinList so far in 2024, with participation by nearly 17,000 unique KYC-ed users from 123 different countries and record participation from the Mocaverse community. The MOCA Foundation serves as the platform to build the largest interoperable cultural economy in the Web3 space powered by the MOCA Token, and support the growth of Moca DAO, where members will take the lead in co-creating Migration Infrastructure Providers (MIPs) and engaging in cross-DAO empowerment through unique delegation models. I see KYC-Identity interoperability across Web3 applications accelerating ease of mass market adoption such that when you onboard onto one MOCA Ecosystem Web3 application you easily onboard onto all at the same time! https://lnkd.in/d6XTA-5D

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2024 reality check - Are Southeast Asian venture capital and startups still worth investing in? Fundraising has been slow, exits have not been as promising or forthcoming, and founders seem to have dampened their ambitions. Questions remain about the market size, and whether it can truly compare to US / China / India. Is this a reckoning for the region's ecosystem? Hian Goh, Michael Blakey, and I delve into these hard truths in the latest episodes of the Unreasonable Podcast. We debate the challenges and share reasons why we remain optimistic about the future (its not AI 😅). Join our candid discussion on Spotify or Youtube (link in comments below). #VentureCapital #Startups #SoutheastAsia #Investing #TheUnreasonablePodcast Freddie Luchterhand-Dare Felicia Chia

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Investors are placing big bets on #southeastasia's burgeoning #startup scene! This week saw funding flow across various sectors, highlighting the region’s diverse innovation. Singapore’s Marketnode, aiming to build a multi-asset digital marketplace, secured backing from giants like Temasek and HSBC. #Proptech platform WeSale in Vietnam is leveraging AI and automation to streamline real estate transactions. In the Philippines, beppo is making accounting and tax compliance a breeze for businesses with its #AI-powered solution. Meanwhile, India is witnessing a surge in electric vehicle (EV) startups. Zypp Electric’s US$15 million Series C funding fuels its mission for carbon-free last-mile delivery, while Turno an EV financing and distribution platform, secured US$6 million to expand its reach. This funding spree reflects the immense potential of Southeast Asia’s startups to disrupt industries and create a more sustainable future. #e27Listicle #venturecapital #startups

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When founders raise money, they focus on valuation when they should be focusing on the terms: https://lnkd.in/gM3mWZpA John Sung Kim Chang (CK) Kim #startupswithseoul

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Post #COP28, while some organisations perceive the Dubai outcome as half the glass filled, many were upbeat on the potential of greater commitments through #carboncredits. Among the myriad of strategies discussed, the convergence of carbon credits and #Web3 technologies emerged as a promising frontier to catalyze climate action. Web3 has reincarnated as the risen phoenix beyond the ashes of FTX and Luna saga to resolve traceability and authenticity of sustainability projects Having advocated at COP28 forum, Forbes Business Council published my advocacy on how businesses can leverage on the immutable and permanent characteristics of Web 3 technologies to transact high quality carbon credits as parallel income to #ESG endeavours. Businesses should ride on the crest of this climate wave to capture a renewed revenue source. #web3 #carboncredits #climatechange #ESG #mrv #sdg Global Catalyst Advisory Forbes

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🇸🇬What’s the case for Singapore deep tech? The title sounds doom and gloom but Elyssa Lopez from Tech in Asia has spoken to some esteemed ecosystem players in this well-balanced article that is worth a read. Of course, she didn’t fit our hour long interview in there so I’ll summarize my bull case here: 1️⃣Catching the Wave Any surfer 🌊will tell you to anticipate the wave instead of chasing after it. Deep tech ecosystems take around 30 years of R&D to seed, and quickly mature from there. Singapore’s RIE schemes have run for 30 years with $60Bn in spending thus far, with more to come. This is the BIGGEST wave we will see in a generation. That’s why elev8.vc is investing today to catch the wave as it comes. 2️⃣Playing to our strengths Singapore is often called the world’s greatest startup. But in recent years, this startup’s competitive advantages are getting eroded as other Asian countries stepped up their education. What does a good startup do when competition catches up? Build the next competitive advantage, of course!💡 I can think of few defensive moats stronger than $60Bn of investments over 30 years 🧐. 3️⃣Making it worthwhile Singapore is pragmatic. It’s not going to work if there’s no money💰 to be made. Good news (for investors)! Singapore’s deep tech startups are undervalued. By a whopping ❗️40-60% ❗️on average Why? One word: “Obscurity”. What happens if we invest in obscure assets and put them under the spotlights? Three letters: “ROI”. Of course, there are speed bumps and it’s not easy. Yet, nothing worth doing is ever easy. Let’s build the next generation 🚀

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Foreign Investors, Take Note In a call to foreign investors, Dasher urges venture capitalists to explore Japan's dynamic startup landscape. Strong industries to consider include energy storage technologies, superconducting fiber for energy transmission, grid backup batteries, next-generation automotive solutions, biotech engineering and advanced materials development. These emerging opportunities signal a shift towards high-growth potential ventures, making now an opportune moment for global investors to engage with Japan's flourishing innovation. Japan still requires considerable infrastructure building to support these ventures before they're truly ready for the global value chain, and foreign investment will be key. Today, Japanese startups are receiving more support from global organizations than ever in their efforts to spearhead the emerging digital economy. Figures indicate that in 2022, global investment in Japan’s startups surpassed 877 billion yen (approx. 6.7 billion USD), an increase of over 13 times from 64.5 billion yen (approx. 500 million USD) in 2012. In terms of the high rates of growth expected on both sides, Dasher says that there are more "entrepreneurs and seed stage investors who understand that process today. Now is the time to start seriously considering investment in Japan." To learn more, join SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024 Global Startup Program Official Account on May 15th and 16th in Tokyo! :) Tokyo Metropolitan Government Tokyo Innovation Base Yuriko Koike Manabu Miyasaka JETRO Startup JETRO - Collaborate & Invest Japan JETRO - Japan External Trade Organization

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𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 (300+ climate tech investors list)   Raising capital for your start-up is the most challenging part of your startup journey.  Specifically for climate tech startups, which are different from other startups because they take longer to become profitable.   To make your climate tech fundraising journey easier, here is the climate tech map by Dealroom.co, where you can find over 300 climate tech investors.   👉 Check it out here https://bit.ly/4b6VDeK   The map classifies investors into: > Sector specific > Generalist VCs with dedicated climate tech fund > Generalist VCs with significant climate tech efforts > Corporate climate tech VCs > Impact funds > Private infrastructure investors Climate tech startups are emerging quickly, and so are the investors who are interested in climate tech. The fact that climate tech increased 45x in just one decade. The combined value of climate tech start-ups dropped 20% in 2022 to $2T but recovered immediately in 2023 to $2.5T.   Geographically, Europe surpassed US in climate tech funding in 2023—$10B in Q3. Global investment in the energy transition rose 17% to $1.8 trillion in 2023.   City-wise, London and Stockholm are on the top, followed by Boston and the Bay area.   Raising capital for your climate tech startup could be hard, but with the right strategies and communities, it becomes 10x easier.     Credit: Shout out to Dealroom.co, led by Lorenzo Chiavarini, for this amazing resource.   #Venturecapital #AI #Deeptech #Startups   Follow us for strategies and resources for Deep Tech founders and VCs!   And get access to exclusive content on Deep Tech startups like contextflow, Avinew, KIVU Technologies (GmbH), HAAWK, Inc., and Phantasma Labs in our newsletter:   🗻 https://lnkd.in/dtTX49AF

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【Webinar (9) ASPN Sports Tech Accelerator】 📌 Topic: Equity Structuring for Your Startup 📌 Lecturer: Andrew Tan Yan Hoang，Managing Partner of TinkBig Venture Limited 📌Content/Overview :  In this 90-minute seminar presentation, we will delve into the critical aspects of equity structuring and shareholder management for startup entrepreneurs. Understanding these concepts is crucial for long-term success and growth of your startup. 📢 Equity Structuring Basics: Learn about different types of equity (common stock, preferred stock, options) and how they impact ownership and control. 📢Founder Equity Split: Discuss strategies for fairly dividing equity among founders based on contributions, roles, and future commitments. 📢Employee Equity Incentives: Understand the importance of equity incentives for attracting and retaining top talent, and learn about different equity incentive plans (ESOPs, RSUs, stock options). 📢Investor Equity and Dilution: Explore how equity investment impacts founder ownership and learn strategies for managing dilution. 📢Shareholder Agreements and Rights: Learn about shareholder agreements, voting rights, and other key considerations for managing shareholder relationships. By the end of this seminar, you will have a solid understanding of equity structuring and shareholder management, enabling you to make informed decisions that support the growth and success of your startup.

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