Venture capital firm raises Bt515m to incubate Thai unicorns

By The Nation

 

Tevin

 

 

InnoSpace (Thailand), a state-backed venture capital firm, on Monday (September 9) mobilised initial funding worth Bt515 million for local start-ups. 

 

Somkid

 

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who chaired the signing ceremony, said Thailand requires many start-ups to drive the economy, and cannot just rely on a few hundred large companies. In the new digital era, countries like South Korea, Japan and Israel have successfully created many start-ups, which apply cutting-edge technology to their businesses. 

 

Thai start-ups in comparison have faced many limitations, which is why the government should create a conducive environment by creating an Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) project to support the new S-curve industries, he said. 

 

Meanwhile, Tevin Vongvanich, chair of InnoSpace (Thailand)’s advisory committee, said the capital fund could be used to support start-ups until they reach unicorn status or are worth US$1 billion (Bt30.62 billion). Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia already have several start-ups with unicorn status. 

 

InnoSpace has secured 13 partners comprising banks and companies that have agreed to provide seed money, including Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial bank, state-owned Krungthai Bank, the state-owned Small and Medium-Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand, PTT, Thai Beverage, CP Group, True Corporation, Sahapat Group, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, Thai Union Group and Bangkok Airways.

 

InnoSpace's business partners

 

Another seven potential partners are planning to invest, he said.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30375999

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-09-10

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10 minutes ago, webfact said:

Meanwhile, Tevin Vongvanich, chair of InnoSpace (Thailand)’s advisory committee, said the capital fund could be used to support start-ups until they reach unicorn status or are worth US$1 billion (Bt30.62 billion). Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia already have several start-ups with unicorn status. 

 

InnoSpace has secured 13 partners comprising banks and companies that have agreed to provide seed money, including Bangkok Bank, Kasikornbank, Siam Commercial bank, state-owned Krungthai Bank, the state-owned Small and Medium-Enterprise Development Bank of Thailand, PTT, Thai Beverage, CP Group, True Corporation, Sahapat Group, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services, Thai Union Group and Bangkok Airways.

Startups that will reach $1B USD? In Thailand? Unicorns indeed.

State-backed?

In otherwords, another corrupt method for government insiders to steal taxpayer money.

 

These morons don't seem to understand the reason why America has a successful VC/unicorn funding industry. Because 

1. The unicorns - sometimes - have viable innovative businesses, AND

2. The VC firms funding them, are using their OWN capital, thus have much greater incentive to push the unicorn business to become viable.

Unlike the lazy Thai public servant throwing around other people's money.

USD$16million?

 

That's not a lot of funding and won't go very far.

 

Given the ratio of "investments" to "Unicorns"....they will basically lose USD$16million within a year. And imagine how risk averse State owned "money" will be and the process of approval...

 

Leave investing to those who know what they are doing.

 

This is just a money laundering scam into individual bank accounts.

Edited September 10, 20196 yr by DLock

I thought they were actually going to be breeding unicorns from the headline.  Dang!

2 minutes ago, Mick501 said:

I thought they were actually going to be breeding unicorns from the headline.  Dang!

Probably have more chance of success breeding Unicorns.

 

This will either be a non starter...or a complete failure.

2 minutes ago, DLock said:

Probably have more chance of success breeding Unicorns.

 

This will either be a non starter...or a complete failure.

Can't be that hard to cross a narwhal with a horse, can it?

22 minutes ago, Mick501 said:

I thought they were actually going to be breeding unicorns from the headline.  Dang!

My thoughts also when I read the headline lol ????

"And the fish was this big"

32 minutes ago, Mick501 said:

I thought they were actually going to be breeding unicorns from the headline.  Dang!

They tried but only ended up with eunuchs in the confusion???? 

Most Startup Friendly Countries In The World, 2019

https://ceoworld.biz/2019/01/02/most-startup-friendly-countries-in-the-world-2019/

The top ten countries overall (ranked #1-#10 in the following order) are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, India, Germany, Poland, Malaysia, Sweden, and Denmark.

Why the U.S. #1?

In part it is home to 119 institutions among the world’s top 500 Universities For 2019.

Thailand has none. Some other comparisons in top 500: South Korea has 6; Singapore has 2; and Malaysia has 1.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2019/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

Some other startup rankings:

#4 Israel; #8 Malaysia; #13 Singapore; #18 South Korea; #23 Japan; #33 Indonesia.

Thailand's challenge #50

33 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

"And the fish was this big"

Actually, that is the size of the envelope.

2 hours ago, Time Traveller said:

State-backed?

In otherwords, another corrupt method for government insiders to steal taxpayer money.

 

These morons don't seem to understand the reason why America has a successful VC/unicorn funding industry. Because 

1. The unicorns - sometimes - have viable innovative businesses, AND

2. The VC firms funding them, are using their OWN capital, thus have much greater incentive to push the unicorn business to become viable.

Unlike the lazy Thai public servant throwing around other people's money.

And the US is not trying to develop products and services for a population that has no money to purchase them. The market with disposable income is very limited in Thailand.

3 hours ago, Mick501 said:

Can't be that hard to cross a narwhal with a horse, can it?

You wouldn't think so...probably more chance than this Investment fund.

Who do you need to know to get some of this money, and how much do you have to use to line pockets?