Singapore government investment company invests in VB in Japan

2001/10/16

Nikkei Simbun Morning edition

Singapore government investment company Temasek Holdings begins venture investment in Japan. As the first step, the company underwrote a third-party allotment to Fledge Technologies, Inc. (Chiyoda, Tokyo), a consulting company for venture companies, and acquired 10% of the outstanding shares. In addition to investing directly in promising Japanese venture companies through Fledge, it will also help Singaporean venture companies enter the Japanese market. Investments in Japan will be centered on Temasek Capital, a subsidiary of Temasek's VC. Temasek Capital has invested mainly in venture companies in Europe, America and Asia. In the future, it will also invest in Japanese venture companies and those ventures spinning off from large companies, on which Fledge conduct technology evaluations.

Fledge was established in September last year, mainly from Toshiba's new business development team. Besides Toshiba, major VCs such as NI F Ventures (Tokyo and Chuo) have invested. In addition to supporting the starting-ups of engineers by discovering buried technologies of major companies, the company will also receive commissions from VCs and others to evaluate the technology of venture companies.