East Asian giants offer opportunities for investors and startups alike

East Asia has been an interesting market for the New Nordic area for a long time. Chinese and Japanese giants have purchased several Nordic companies, including Finnish decacorn Supercell.  At EBAN Helsinki 2019, we’ll have a deep look into the possibilities of East Asia with Chris Rynning, advisor for Norway’s oil fund and author of several China-related writings, Marek Kiisa, partner of NordicNinja VC, Helen Wang from BGTA, and Zhu Bin, head of China at Invest in Finland (Business Finland).

According to EU Startup Monitor’s latest study, recently, there has been a noticeable interest in internationalisation from Europe to Asia: one fourth (25.8%) of participating startups are looking to internationalise to Asia. New free trade deal between EU and Japan will definitely assist startups scaling to Japan from 2019 onwards. In addition, several of the biggest exits in Europe have been sold in Japan and to China to companies such as Tencents, Softbank and Alibaba. Also, more and more Asian capital is actively sourcing deals in Europe, for example Korelya Capital, originated from South Korea, and Nordic Ninja VC which is packed by Japanese keiretsus Panasonic and Omron.

Soft-landing programs are a great assist for startups, but how could local investors, besides funding, help startups in East Asia? What is there to gain for European investors? How can you get funding from East Asia based VCs? These and many more questions will be tackled in panels and workshop discussions during EBAN Helsinki 2019 to really dig deep into the opportunities from East Asia. Here’re some of the great speakers to give insights on the multiple possibilities East Asia has to offer.

OUR SPEAKERS

Marek Kiisa is one of Estonia's most prominent business angels and elected Estonian angel of the year 2015. He is a partner in Baltcap, SuperAngel.io and Nordic Ninja VC, the first Japanese-based fund operating in the New Nordics with over 100 million euros to support scale-up goals in the Nordic and Baltic region.

Helen Wang, CEO and founder of BGTA Accelerator, a cross-border corporate backed accelerator that is committed to fostering the development of a global tech and investment ecosystem through accelerating tech companies from the UK, EU and the US to China. Headquartered in London, with China-based operations, BGTA’s open innovation network includes world-class investors, technology companies, academic organisations and government institutions.

Chris Rynning is a Norwegian advisor to the state owned investment fund Investinor, author, entrepreneur, and financial commentator. Rynning is the author of the self published 2013 book about China entitled Little Streams, Big River and publishes a newsletter on Chinese economics and financial events. Rynning was based in Beijing from 1997 and has held roles in China including among others Founder and Managing Partner of Ascend Ventures, Managing Partner of MINT, PWC Consulting’s joint venture investment arm in China, and Regional Director of Asia with Elkem, an Oslo and Frankfurt listed company.

Zhubin, Head of China in Invest in Finland (Business Finland).  He has been working in cross border technology transfer and investment sector for over a decade time. He established the Invest-in Finland team for Greater China market in 2014. During the past 3 years, Dr. ZHU and his team supported over 20 investment deals from greater China to Finland, including the remarkable Thundersoft’s acquisition with Rightware, Huawei’s new research center in Tampere, CATL’s equity investment into Valmet Automobile, Tencent’s acquisition with Supercell, etc.

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