Direct Investments in Artificial Intelligence

Hosted by Startup-O Ventures
February 4, 2021
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET
Keynote

AI and AI based infrastructure and applications represent a multi trillion dollar revenue opportunity for enterprises. Accessing AI investments is, however difficult for investors since the ingredients for AI based value creation are concentrated in the hands of large corporations that develop AI in-house, using their proprietary data and access to scarce talent. Startup-O has democratised access to this opportunity by identifying a global pool of 100+ early stage AI enterprises, founded by industry practitioners that are serving mid-sized corporations solve specific business challenges and capture scaling opportunities using AI. Its Singapore based, MAS licensed fund management business, coupled with its strategic partnerships with leading research institutions provides it with access to a large number of investment opportunities, and its globally recognised data-driven assessment process helps rapidly curate and shortlist these for investment. In 2020 it has launched a limited access direct investing platform to help investors benefit from this opportunity and is seeking to selectively diversify its investor base globally.

  • How AI is creating value in businesses globally
  • Financing gaps in the AI startup ecosystem
  • Discovering and Curating the opportunity set
  • Creating risk adjusted portfolios of AI companies
  • Startup-O's offering to investors in AI

Event Recording

Startup O Ventures - "Direct Investments in Artificial Intelligence" by Nitin Nath, CEO

00:29:59

Speaker

  • Nitin Nath

    Title
    CEO, Startup-O Ventures
    @
    Company
    Startup-O Ventures
    Role
    Speaker

    Nitin is the Co-Founder of Startup-O, a technology focused "Entrepreneurs-for Entrepreneurs" platform specialising in the rapidly growing ecosystem of new economy companies founded by mid career founders. He has a track record of serial entrepreneurship & investing in private markets. His passion lies in enabling financial success for early stage startups, which inspire him through their dreams, energy and courage. Nitin is a firm believer in collaborative business models, and is focused on reducing information gaps in the startup ecosystem. He believes that the future of private markets lies in data driven decisioning and simplicity of investment structures. His career includes leadership positions in senior roles with global investment banks including responsibilities for listed products, institutional sales, structured products and private banking coverage. He has been active in the middle and small-cap opportunity in financial services in international markets since 2010. He has also set up a captive for a large global bank where his legacy includes the creation of a global, process driven business organization focused on smaller and under served clients using technology and process engineering.

About

Startup-O Ventures

Startup-O is a Singapore-based online rating, investment & venture building platform. It deploys a proprietary process which combines the art of assessment by domain experts and science of algorithms to discover promising tech start-ups globally. Startups participate online from any location and expedite their chances to get discovered, amplified and funded in under 8 weeks. Our technology enabled system has now assessed over 2000 companies using a multi expert, multi stage, data driven assessment framework that allows us to identify the most resilient businesses across 47 countries, by indexing them to a stable predictive parameter set. This methodology, now battle tested through COVID, has made us leaders in identifying early revenue B2B startups (sub 1mm revenue), typically founded by experienced professionals, and solving targeted problems across traditional industries – which, have struggled to hire top technology resources and manage disruption risks from VC backed startups. Investors get a well-curated and diversified portfolio of 10-15 seed stage ventures with a data-driven and transparent approach to early-stage investing along with strong portfolio monitoring, mentoring and venture building support on the platform. Importantly, our revenue-assist framework that exploits network effects of our expert community not only helps startups with limited resources access international enterprise customers, but also gives us an insight into their competitive advantages and operational gaps as we co-pilot their market share capture journeys - allowing for timely managerial interventions. This also allows our fund strategies to make winning follow-on bets at the optimal time with high risk adjusted return expectations. Some of the key supporting partners are IP Bridge from Japan, and A*Star ETPL, Singapore apart from 26 other scouting and country partners.