The speaker will share her experience as a VC for more than seven years. She will explain what she is looking for when she makes an investment in a company, and provide some case studies on what she liked or didn't like about the business plans. She will also offer her observations on the recent trends in VC investment strategy in Silicon Valley and share some tips for entreprenuers on how to go about fund raising and picking the right type of financial support for a startup.

Mrs CHIN Tahn-Joo is the managing partner of Cross Border Venture Partners. She was a founding partner of Venture TDF, and a partner with the WIIG-TDF Partners LLC based in the Silicon Valley in United States.

Cross Border Venture Partners (CBVP) is a mixed stage infocomm venture fund targeting to invest primarily in US with some investments in Asia, including Singapore. CBVP aims to help US portfolio companies to tap into the fast growing Asia market via Singapore, as well as make selective investments in Asian companies with potential to become global players.

Since Jan 1996, Tahn-Joo has co-managed three funds with a total of $150 million under management. She has invested globally in US, Europe (France and Germany), Israel and Singapore. Her investment focus is on technology companies in enterprise software, Internet infrastructure, telecommunication and semiconductor. Investments made by her include Redback Networks (Nasdaq:RBAK), Brokat (Neuer Markt), Cyrano (Nouveau Marche: CYRALN), and Gric Communications (Nasdaq:GRIC).

Tahn-Joo has also spent more than 15 years in information technology development and management. She was the founder and subsequently CEO of the leading Information Technology Institute (ITI), which is the R&D arm of the National Computer Board (NCB) of Singapore. Companies spun off from ITI with significant VC funding include MediaRing (MRNG.SI), Third Voice, and Private Express. She has spent few years as the CIO of the National Computer Board and was the Singapore Program Manager for the ISO 9001 IT certification program.

Tahn-Joo holds a Master degree in Computer Science Computer Engineering from Stanford University; a Diploma in Management Studies from the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; a Master degree in Industrial Engineering and Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) degree with first class honors from National University of Singapore. She is currently Adjunct Professor with the National University of Singapore. Tahn-Joo founded and was director of the Singapore-Israel Industrial R&D fund (SIIRD).

We are pleased to invite you and your colleagues to attend the talk. As there is limited number of seats available, please click here to register for the talk by 21 July 2003 (Monday). Please forward this invitation to your friends and colleagues who may be interested.

Admission is FREE & we look forward to seeing you at the seminar.