• Is there a shortage of capital for good investment opportunities, or are those opportunities in short supply?
• Distinguishing the product from the business and its people in assessing opportunities for growth
• Is Angel and VC transactional activity underweighted relative to PE?
• Update on Angel, Venture Capital and PE investments
• Has the liberalising of the legal framework for capital raising opportunities been over-hyped?
• Is technology going to remain the dominant investment sector?
• How do investors access the expertise to properly assess the technology, IT, health, biosecurity and manufacturing sectors?
• What part do bigger picture issues play such as climate change, state moves to reallocate capital, developed versus developing economies, measures of growth other than GDP?
Speakers
Wendee Wolfson
Leadership Coach and Consultant, Angel Investor
Wendee Wolfson has been working with entrepreneurs and investing in entrepreneurial high growth companies for over twenty years. After beginning her career and spending several years in the financial services industry, she was a founding partner of Women’s Growth Capital Fund, a venture fund focused on women entrepreneurs, and of WomenAngels.Net, funding Washington, DC area startups.
Currently she remains actively involved with organised angel investing groups as a lead advisor to the Next Wave Impact Fund, a new fund formed for the purpose of investing in for-profit social enterprises, and its predecessor pilot fund, Rising Tide, both created to educate and engage more women in early stage investing. She also co-chairs the annual International Exchange for the Angel Capital Association yearly summit in which early stage investors from over twenty-five countries participate in an exchange of ideas and developments in their regions.
In addition to her work with Next Wave, Wendee is a Leadership Coach to emerging and experienced leaders through her individual practice at Brickworks Advisors and through an affiliation with Mobius Executive Leadership. She is also a coach for executives in the Georgetown University Executive Masters in Leadership program and for Fellows in the Halcyon Incubator Program for social entrepreneurs.
In previous activities, she has consulted to families in business together, creating and facilitating programs on family systems, communications, leadership development, and leadership transitions between generations. She has worked with non-profit boards to develop strategic initiatives and implement leadership transitions as a consultant and as a board member.
Wendee has a BA from Brandeis University in French Literature, an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University. She holds the International Coaching Federation certification as an Associate Certified Coach (ACC).
Jeffrey Paine
Founding Partner, Golden Gate Ventures
Jeffrey Paine is a Co-founder and Managing Partner of Golden Gate Ventures, an early stage technology venture capital fund based in Singapore investing in Southeast Asia with over US$175 million under management investing in over 35 companies since 2012.
Jeff started and manages the Founder Institute in Singapore where he is currently overseeing its expansion in Southeast Asia and Japan. Since 2010 the Founder Institute in Singapore has graduated over 100 companies. He is a recipient of the Founder Institute Director Award 2012 for “Greatest Ecosystem Impact” Worldwide (Singapore).
He is a Singapore native and graduated with a Bachelors of Business Administration (Information Systems) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Adhijit Banerjee
Managing Director, Decacorn Capital
Tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, business leader with three decades of international experience, Abhijit has a deep understanding of cross vertical business processes, human capital and software applications which propel great businesses.
Abhijit is a Partner and Managing Director in Decacorn Capital, a Singapore domiciled cross border venture capital initiative, curating startups from across the world, mostly pioneering game changing models from US, Europe, deep tech from Israel, and scalable platforms in Asia. Prior to formalizing his journey as a VC, Abhijit has been an angel investor in early stage startups alongside mentoring passionate young founders.
Since moving to Singapore in the nineties, Abhijit had set up and grown three early stage tech companies, including a funded fintech in the Asia Pacific region establishing footprints across SE Asia, North Asia and Australia. At each of these companies, Abhijit has used a combination of smart branding, aggressive sales models and customer retention efforts as the fundamental growth drivers providing him a broad view of their unique as well as common business issues which impact revenue and bottomline.
In a world which is at its disruptive best Abhijit considers himself a “digital migrant” and believes “what brought him here will not take him there” which keeps him firmly on a track of continuous learning.