An interview with Infinity Ventures: Entrepreneurial advice for startup ecosytems | Techsauce

An interview with Infinity Ventures: Entrepreneurial advice for startup ecosytems

This innovative investment company, Infinity Ventures, has the attributes of a local mindset with a global cohesive outlook. Techsauce recently interviewed the co-founders to delve deeper into what makes this investment company so successful, what they look for in a startup and how they can contribute to a rising ecosystem.

1) Please tell us about the history of Infinity Ventures, the massive global footprint that you have and how did the partners meet?

Prior to starting Infinity Ventures, I was running Adobe’s corporate VC investment in Asia covering Greater China, Japan, Korea and India so already familiar with the regional dynamics. And prior to that, I was based in Silicon Valley.

Also, our fund is part of the largest global network of early-stage VC e.ventures with offices in Germany, Russia, US, and Brazil so we have exposure to early-stage Internet trends globally.
My co-founder Hiro and I met at what is the precursor to an industry event that we run today-  Infinity Ventures Summit.

2) Scaling a fund into a global network and brand must have been hard. How have Infinity Ventures been able to do it?

While we look at global trends we focus regionally. In the past, our focus was on Japan and Greater China and now we are starting to look at SE Asia as well.

3) Infinity Ventures Summit, one of the flagship conferences that you host is regarded as one of Japan's leading conferences. What is the reason that drives you to host the conference and how have you made it stand out from a plethora of other tech conferences?

IVS originated over 10 years ago there was no such conference for founders of Internet companies. So it is the longest-running such event in Japan. And typically with Ver 500 founders attending it is also largest. We are running the event so that we can grow the community of entrepreneurs.

We are different from also most of the other tech events as IVS is a private invitation only events mostly targeting company founders and investors.

4) You have had many investments over the years. what has been the biggest learnings and opportunities that you have witnessed?

 Two things. 
 1. Tech booms come in waves. In our time we saw the rise of SNS platforms, Social games, group buying, sharing economy, Apps, marketplaces, online video, etc.
 So while not always successful but it’s important to see the beginnings of such “waves” early and find good teams behind it. 
2. Quality of founders. I think ultimately an early stage VC investment creates a long-term relationship with founders. So it’s important to find people that you can mutually respect and work with. 
You don’t always win but if you are in a new growth wave and working with great founders then you have just improved your odds.
5) Given your extensive experience starting from Japan and Taiwan, how have you seen the startup ecosystem there evolve? What are your long-term visions for the ecosystem? In Japan, we basically grew with the ecosystem ... we are an active part of it and saw it grow from a small number of founders to now a decent size industry having a meaningful impact on the Japanese economy as a whole.
 Taiwan we think is now just entering the expansion phase and we are keen to grow with the founders there as well, discovering new models together.
Thailand has huge potential and we are excited to get involved with this exciting country to increase its potential and size which eventually will match or mirror Japan and Taiwan.

6) Japanese corporations and Corporate Venture Capitalists are increasing their activity, especially in Southeast Asia, both as an investor and business partner. What are your views on them and how should Asian companies prepare to work with Japanese conglomerates?

I think for the most part it’s a positive trend as Japan is now trying to export its capital and expertise to these markets. One thing people should know is that (although there are always exceptions), Japanese companies tend to operate at a different speed (due to partly cultural and partly structural reasons). So need to set the right expectations. But you may find, once they make the commitment, they often become long-term partners.

7) How can entrepreneurs best pitch to VCs like Infinity Ventures and what is the key criteria that a startup must prepare in order to get investment from you?

For us, we are looking for a few traits. We want to understand the market you are in (both geographic and sector senses). We like bigger growth trends and international stories. And we also like founders with strong engineering backgrounds (partly my bias). And we definitely like to spend time with the product/service that you may be building and any analytics you run behind it.

8) What are your geographical and vertical/industry focuses in terms of investments in the near future? Will you also be more active in Southeast Asia?

 We only look at Internet companies ... but within that sector, we are focused on Entertainment& Media, Commerce&Logistics, AI, and Fintech and of course BlockChain. We do look at other emerging categories as well.
 We already have a few portfolio companies in SE Asia and we are looking forward to reaching out to more companies in the future.
9) We hear that you are raising a new fund, can you tell us more?
 We are in the middle of launching Fund 4. We will probably have a formal announcement in late summer. So please stay tuned :)
For more details on Infinity Ventures please click the link below:

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