500 Startups & US Investment Trends @ Hong Kong International Fintech Symposium 2015 by Edith Yeung

1. 500 Startups & US Investment Trends 2015
Edith Yeung (@edithyeung)

2. #500STRONG

3. Edith Yeung is a Partner at 500 Startups’ Mobile
Collective, focusing on investing in mobile apps and
consumer internet startups.
Before 500, Edith was the VP of marketing & business
development for Dolphin Browser. Dolphin Browser is a
Sequoia-backed mobile browser with over 150 million
installs worldwide. She also founded RightVentures -
seed stage investment firm focusing on mobile and
consumer internet companies. Prior, she led many
operation roles at Oracle, Siebel, AT&T, Symantec,
Telstra, Cisco, Autodesk, etc.

4. 500 Startups by the number
• $190M under management with $130M deployed
• 1200 companies across all funds
• >300 companies started outside the US
• >300 companies with women co-founders
• Team of 75 people, 15 countries, 20+ languages
• Companies have raised $3B+ in additional capital

7. US Investment Trends 2015

8. Unicorn are private companies
valued at over $1B. Generally
refers to companies in high-
growth sectors of tech, life
sciences and energy.
1. Age of the Unicorns

9. 84 unicorns are mostly paper unicorns
Top
10
Unicorns
1. Uber
2. Airbnb
3. Twi4er
4. Whatsapp
5. Snapchat
6. Workday
7. Palo
Alto
Network
8. Pinterest
9. Dropbox
10. Fitbit
Source:
Aileen
Lee
Techcrunch
arLcle
July
2015
h4p://techcrunch.com/2015/07/18/welcome-­‐to-­‐the-­‐unicorn-­‐club-­‐2015-­‐learning-­‐from-­‐billion-­‐dollar-­‐companies/

10. Highly-Concentrated Portfolio
Modestly-Concentrated Portfolio
Highly-Diversified Portfolio
Source:
Dave
McClure
h4ps://medium.com/500-­‐hats/99-­‐vc-­‐problems-­‐but-­‐a-­‐batch-­‐ain-­‐t-­‐one-­‐why-­‐porVolio-­‐size-­‐ma4ers-­‐for-­‐returns-­‐16cf556d4af0

11. 3 Unicorns
>$1B in Value
!
25+ Centaurs
>$100M in Value
!
250 - 300 Ponies
>$10M in Value
!
#500STABLE

12. #500UNICORNS
TWILIO
GRAB TAXI
CREDIT KARMA

13. Instead of IPO:
- Companies raised
$40M - $1billion private
rounds
- Traditional public
market investors and
buyout funds moved into
private markets
- Many early stage
investors returns are
now private
2. IPO no more?
Source:
Andreessen
Horowitz
June
2015
h4p://www.slideshare.net/a16z/state-­‐of-­‐49390473

14. Box raised $150M Series G at $2.4B valuation
vs IPO at $14 per share at $1.67 B
Source:
CBInsights
h4ps://www.cbinsights.com/blog/dropbox-­‐valuaLon-­‐bubble/

15. 3. Unbundling Banking – Bank is under attack
Source:
Tom
Loverro
h4p://tomloverro.com/post/102797126721/banking-­‐is-­‐under-­‐a4ack-­‐heres-­‐a-­‐screenshot-­‐of

16. 3. 500 Startups’ Simple acquired by Spain’s
BBVA for $117M
Source:
Tom
Loverro
h4p://tomloverro.com/post/102797126721/banking-­‐is-­‐under-­‐a4ack-­‐heres-­‐a-­‐screenshot-­‐of

17. 4. Lean Startups - Never been cheaper to
create software
Much less capital required to build product and get to market
• Backend: AWS, Google, Paypal, Facebook
• Online marketing platforms:
• Search (Google, Baidu)
• Social network (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin)
• Mobile (Apple, Android)
• eCommerce (Amazon, eBay, Alibaba)
• Media (YouTube, Instagram)
• Messaging (Facebook Messenger, Wechat, SMS)
• 3 – 90 days development cycle

19. 5. Immigrant entrepreneurs are driving America
40% of Fortune 500 companies were
founded by immigrants (90 companies) or
by their children (an additional 114
companies), according to a report by the
Partnership for a New American Economy.

21. 6. Top Tech Hubs Around the World
Top 10 Tech Hubs according to me ☺
1. Silicon Valley
2. San Francisco
3. Beijing
4. Tel Aviv
5. Shenzhen
6. New York
7. Los Angeles
8. Singapore
9. Berlin
10. Ho Chi Min

22. 7. Virtual Reality is the Future

23. 8. Internet of Everything
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the
network of physical objects or
"things" embedded with
electronics, software, sensors,
and network connectivity, which
enables these objects to collect
and exchange data.
Source:
Chris
McCann
h4ps://medium.com/@mccannatron/esports-­‐market-­‐ecosystem-­‐map-­‐c6ae5bc6a7d0

24. 9. eSport
eSports is big, bigger than you
imagine. 27M people watched
the final League of Legends
event vs. 19.9M viewers
watched the full 6 game series of
the 2015 NBA finals
Source:
Chris
McCann
h4ps://medium.com/@mccannatron/internet-­‐of-­‐things-­‐iot-­‐market-­‐ecosystem-­‐map-­‐28a73d1393f

25. 10. Corporate VCs on the Rise
Google - 45 investments
Qualcomm – 33 investments
Baidu – 14 investments (Uber)
Alibaba – 17 investments (Lyft)
Tencent – 24 investments
• Kik
• Lyft
• Cyanogen
• Pocket Gems
Source:
Crunchbase
h4ps://www.crunchbase.com/organizaLon/tencent

27. #500VCs
2-Week Investor Course with
500 Startups and Stanford
• Education program for angels, micro VCs, corporates and family offices
who want to learn the Silicon Valley playbook
• 35 Students, 50% female - India, Vietnam, Germany, Pakistan, Iceland,
Brazil, Malaysia, South Korea, UAE, Russia, Taiwan, Jamaica

28. #500VCs
How to build investment thesis
Meet REAL startup founders and
conduct selection
Connection with Silicon Valley
investors and mentors
Legal docs: cap table and
standard terms
How to generate deal flow Trends and relevant area of
investments
Feb 8th - Feb 19, 2016 / Apply at http://500.vc

29. Join & subscribe weekly funding newsletter
www.edith.co/#newsle4er