Unfazed by the fierce competition in Asia's startup scene, an Israel venture funding platform aims to raise money for their Asia fund.
Ourcrowd, one of Israel's prominent venture funding platform, aims to raise between $30 million and $50 million in the next 18 months, offering investors access to international technology companies, according to a report in the «Business Times» (behind paywall).
Aware of the lofty valuations in the Asian startup scene, OurCrowd's managing director of Asia, Denes Ban, still sees a good supply of startups in Asia building disruptive technologies. However, he will avoid startups that run platforms which aggregate services, rather than developing strong in-house technology.
Partnering With Banks
The company's primary investor base comes from the U.S., followed by Asia. However, Ban expects Asian investors to make up the bulk of the platform's investor base in future. Asian banks, with their contacts of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and private banking clients, are natural partners for OurCrowd as it expands its reach to Asian investors.
Its first banking partner in Asia was Singapore's United Overseas Bank (UOB) when they first expanded their equity crowdfunding services to Asia. Through this partnership, startups from UOB's tech incubator can look for investors. UOB has separately invested more than $10 million in OurCrowd for an undisclosed stake.
Continued Expansion
OurCrowd hopes to expand in the region, and would do it by partnering just one bank in each country. To improve understanding of the local conditions, OurCrowd has plans to open a few more offices across Asia, adding to existing offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.
«The key to building venture capital is to have local due diligence, and then, more importantly and what investors often miss, is what happens the morning after. You have to sit on the board of these companies and you have to manage it, and you want to make sure that the money is not being used for the wrong things,» Ban said.
