Jan, Chief Investment Officer, Cradle provides more insight about the agency.
Juliana Jan, Chief Investment Officer, Cradle |
Tell us more about Cradle.
Ministry of Finance Malaysia (MOF) that supports local Malaysian tech based
early stage start-ups since 2003.
tech start-ups and holds the highest commercialisation rate amongst government
grants in the country.
and Grow Programme, a market driven programme to train entrepreneurs, we strive
to be the leading funding agency that provides effective grant, equity, commercialisation
support, coaching and industry value-add to accelerate the growth of start-up
companies.
How do you support startup companies to raise pre-seed, seed and start-up stage
funding?
deal, we look at how much do they need to raise. If this is within our ticket
size, and fits all the criteria’s (eligibility as well as other qualitative factors),
we will probably come in on our own.
could also be co-investing in a deal with any one of our partners. Also, due to
the limited number of investments we can make, we also deal flow the deals that
we do not think fits us, to other partners and investors. This could either be
done via our occasional pitch events, introductions or referral to the angel
side, which is handled by MBAN. However, there are some start-ups who are not
ready for investments for several reasons such as product-market fit, unclear
strategies, raising too much too early, we will try to advise them.
start-ups, investment ready or not, to Coach & Grow Programme, our coaching
program.
ST: How
do you make a decision in who to invest in?
there are a lot of qualitative things that we look at, among the most important
ones are:
difficult situations and coachable.
What are the factors and criteria for the investment?
Company with technology based products and/or
services
Owns the rights to the IP
Incorporated in Malaysia
Owned by a minimum 51% Malaysian
In operation less than 5 years
Total revenue of not more than RM5 million
When do you expect a return on your investment?
years, on a case to case basis.
How many more investments are you planning to make this year? What are the
developments so far?
deal flows and finalising a couple. Hope to close before end of Q2.
Would you like to give some tips for dynamic technology enthusiasts and
entrepreneurs to follow while raising funds for their startups?
well. Explore potential investors and get to know them as this is going to be a
partnership, therefore they need to find the right fit for them and to always
remember to not lose focus of their business, while raising.