Startups Miss Big Op with WhatsAp Groups: VC Jeff Paine / Next? Advice from Israeli VC Jon Medved

October 26, 2020

www.silicondragonventures.com

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Key Takeaways

VC Jeff Paine

Golden Gate Ventures, Singapore

Online Show, Oct. 22

Reverse Investment Trends

Less Copying from US and More from China in Southeast Asia

Why China’s Dragons Enter SE Asia

Rationale: expand in new markets and detour from U.S. given tensions over Chinese tech titans penetrating Silicon Valley.

Covid-19 Impact on Tech Sectors

Hot sectors right now include education and healthcare.

Missed Opportunity on WhatsApp?

Too few startups are leveraging the WhatsApp group platform as a method to gain traction.

FEATURED EVENT

Silicon Dragon HK 2020

Nov. 4, 8-9:30am, HKT

Nov. 3, 4-5:30pm PST

US-China Tensions: Impact on VC

Keynote Speaker: Kamran Elihian

VC & Serial Tech Entrepreneur

Global Catalyst, Silicon Valley

FEATURED IMAGE

Lordstown Motors' founder Steve Burns gave me a tour of the former GM plant in Ohio where he plans to produce electric pickup trucks, now that he has the capital from an IPO today on Nasdaq.

Burns is a maverick innovator from the Midwest like none other. His prior projects were the SureFly, an electric two-seater helicopter, and the HorseFly, drone deliveries from the top of trucks.

Lordstown new techie truck, the Endurance, will compete with Tesla's Cybertruck.

DEALS, FUNDS, IPOs

Fivestars, a SF-based maker of small business payments and marketing software, raised $52.5 million in funding led by Salt Partners, with DCM and Lightspeed.

Accel leads $4.2 million funding of Slintel, an Indian-US founded marketing startup.

Qiming Venture co-leads $14 million 1st round in SaaS play Cool College in Beijing.

Hillhouse Capital leads Series B round for Chinese medical equipment maker Hemo.

Sequoia Capital China leads $225 million funding of Chinese chip designer SmartSens

Jack Ma's Ant Raises About $3.5 billion from Asian IPOs: "first time such a big listing was priced outside NYC. We wouldn't have dared think about it 3 years ago."

NOTABLE

From phones to cars, semiconductors are found everywhere, and the U.S. is trying to freeze China out of their supply chain. But the forced self-reliance may actually be helping China in the long run. Nikkei