Singapore accelerator JDFI raises $2.1m

Infocomm Investments led the round, investing alongside Russia's SpinUp Partners and Silicon Valley's Fenox Venture Capital. Angel investors Vijay Saraff, Paul Burmester and Thomas Gorissen also took part with additional commitments coming from unnamed investors from the Philippines.

JDFI eventually hopes to raise S$6 million, using half the capital to scale up its operations and other half to invest in start-ups participating its accelerator bootcamp. The JDFI bootcamp entered into its fourth iteration this week - there was previously one in 2012 and two in 2013. JFDI claims 60% its graduates have gone on to raise follow-on funding.

"It is a scaling up and scaling out,' Hugh Mason, co-founder of JFDI.Asia told AVCJ. "So we are ramping up what we do, expanding our team and including many more people across the region to scout start-ups."

Mason adds the investment represents the first round of institutional fundraising for JFDI with the capital to be deployed over three bootcamp programs in 2014.

The current bootcamp will be followed by two further runs of the program later in the year. Via its bootcamp the accelerator is looking to add an additional 30-40 start-ups to its portfolio of alumni, with ambitions to expand that by a further 40-60 in 2015

"For the first time in history, innovation is becoming systematized and we now know how to teach entrepreneurship," said JFDI chaiman Wong Meng Weng. "JFDI was first to bring a new approach to nurturing start-up companies to Asia. Now that we have proved that it works, it's time to scale up and that's exactly what this funding allows."

Set up in 2011, JFDI is modeled on US accelerator Tech Stars. It looks for teams ready to take their start-up from concept to early-stage investment. Every team selected is offered S$15,000 ($11,700) in cash plus working space. JFDI also claims to offer S$150,000 worth of mentoring and $300,000 in technical support and vendor perks.

Previous graduates from JFDI include Singapore e-commerce platform TradeGecko which raised addtional rounds from Golden Gate Ventures in 2012 and medical records management service provider Klinifiy which received addtional seed funding from Jungle Ventures last month. 

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• Topics
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• JFDI.Asia
• Venture
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• Technology