Hardware Zone consisted of a clutch of print magazines and the highly trafficked tech forums of the same name. Some forum users (specifically from the EDMW sub-forum) were rather upset when the acquisition happened, framing it as an invasion of the evil empire on their sovereign fief. Some users left and formed their own message board. The controversy eventually blew over and Hardware Zone’s forum remains one of Singapore’s most popular online properties.
Hardware Zone’s founders, however, had to curb their entrepreneurial instincts when they were absorbed into SPH. They started work on ClickTRUE, an online marketing company that does things like SEO, as a subsidiary of Hardware Zone. Last December, SPH folded ClickTRUE into a new entity called Kyosei Ventures in return for 22.5% of the new company. Kyosei is described as an investment holdings company. This effectively set the Hardware Zone founders free to wheel and deal as they please.
Now, Kyosei is looking to invest SGD 50,000-300,000 (USD 39,000-234,000) in ‘interactive digital media marketing’ startups in Southeast Asia. “The boys are back in business,” said Jackie Lee, Kyosei’s executive chairman and one of five Hardware Zone co-founders.
Here’s an email interview we did with Lee recently.
When was Kyosei started?
Kyosei Ventures started in Oct 2010.
What is Kyosei’s fund size? Who are some of the limited partners (LPs)?
There are no LPs in the firm now. However, there are stakeholders namely the team and some representatives of SPH. We don’t have a fund size determined at this point.
We will look at the opportunity and discuss among our stakeholders and see if it’s cool and how it will make sense to all of us including the companies in discussion.
Kyosei is the core organizing philosophy of all of our investments, products and services and has been chosen as our name to reflect what we believe to be fundamental thinking of living and working together for the common good.
What’s Kyosei’s investment mandate? What sorts of companies, and what size investments, are you looking to make?
Kyosei Ventures is an investment holdings company which is set up to create, seed, invest and grow companies, products and services related to the interactive digital media marketing in Southeast Asia. Anything from SGD 50,000-300,000 (USD 39,000-234,000) from seed to Series A or B, mainly.
What’s the story behind Kyosei and ClickTrue? How did the fund come about and what’s the connection with ClickTrue?
clickTRUE as a data-driven performance marketing company is an important asset for Kyosei Ventures to assist further new media projects in Southeast Asia.
It’s almost like accountancy to a company. If you are in [the] new media business, you will … need services provided by a company like clickTRUE.
Kyosei Ventures consist of some Founders from Hardware Zone and Intrapreneurs who created clickTRUE.
The details of the agreement are confidential. However, what I can say is that the founders of clickTRUE led a management buyout from SPH with a clear understanding of the potential in the future and plans to expand beyond Singapore. The details are as announced in the SPH’s SGX announcement dated Dec 31, 2010.
We all felt that it was time to spin out the company that we have created during our time as intrapreneurs in SPH. The business has stabilized and a new journey of expansion was needed to scale the performance marketing company further in its own timeline.
SPH continue to maintain a strategic shareholdings in our investment holdings. This outcome is a win-win scenerio as SPH continues to be able to utilize clickTRUE’s expertise and participate in the future upside of this company that she helped seeded.
The founding team consist of Jackie Lee, Jereme Wong, Scott Poh, Adrian Tan and Crono Lee.
Do you have companies in your portfolio right now? Can you share some of them with us?
clickTRUE is the first one. We are considering a couple more investments this year. We will let you know when we [have] firmed [it] up.
We are constantly looking at young energetic startups or services/prodcuts where we can play more than financial roles and be strategic to help them grow faster and perhaps reach their next round of funding.
The experience, value and network that my current partners have are sometimes even money cannot buy. Both sweat and cash equity are usually considered when we looked at the companies as we believe in a hands on and hand holding approach with business.
We have assembled a complete team of strategic thinkers, marketing gurus, creative designers, conversion specialists, data analysts, and people who have done this before working together for a common good.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Perhaps a quote:
“We would like to express our appreciation to SPH and our existing beloved partners and customers for their continuous support.
In addition, we would also like to credit the hardworking bunch at clickTRUE for their dedication and helping us to make clickTRUE a more successful group for Southeast Asia.
For those who are keen to join us, do write to us and tell us how you can make it better for us collectively.
Lastly, to all our friends and partners since Hardware Zone days, “The BOYS are back in business.”
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