Cocoon aim to nurture start-ups in region
Experienced angel investors Michael Blakey and William Klippgen have set up a new $10 million seed-venture firm in Singapore called Cocoon Capital.
The company will focus on early-stage investments ranging from $350,000 to $1m in South-east Asia and India.
Mr Klippgen is a Singapore-based Norwegian entrepreneur and technology investor. Mr Blakey has been an early-stage investor in Britain since 2000 and has also invested in a number of Singapore companies.
Cocoon Capital plans to invest in no more than five companies a year, to leave enough time and resources to help founders build businesses.
NTUC UNIT IN TECHNOLOGY TIE-UP
General Assembly, a training school for skills like coding, marketing and user experience design, has signed a memorandum of understanding with U Associate, a unit of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), to address Singapore's technology and digital skills shortage.
They will develop joint training workshops and engagement sessions to train professionals, managers and executives for technology and digital careers.
Both organisations will also provide help with job placement in start-ups.
SENJO GROUP INVESTS IN TJAARA
Global-payment operator and fintech investment firm Senjo Group has invested US$1.2m (S$1.7m) in Singapore start-up Tjaara and extended an additional US$20m in trade finance.
Tjaara uses a group-buy concept to aggregate demand from companies and wholesalers before placing orders with manufacturers, located mainly in China.
The company negotiates, does quality-control checks from factory to port and acts as an escrow service to manage the buying process.
The service benefits small to medium-sized wholesalers who previously could not obtain lower prices unlocked by economies of scale, due to their small orders.
LATIZE'S FORAY DOWN UNDER PAYS OFF
Singapore big-data company Latize has won a contract with New South Wales government after opening its first overseas office in Sydney in June.
It will work with the Department of Industry's Division of Resources and Energy on mine safety and will eventually undertake integration with several other systems.
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