Lightspeed Ventures has launched the third edition of Extreme Entrepreneurs to inspire and train potential founders. In a separate development, early-stage venture capitalist SOSV has partnered with Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development.
Lightspeed launches EE third edition
Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Lightspeed Ventures has launched the third edition of Extreme Entrepreneurs (EE), an intense learning programme designed to inspire and train potential founders.
According to an announcement, the third edition EE.3.0, will invite startups from Southeast Asia to participate in order to create more opportunities for the regional startup ecosystem.
It will be a six-week programme that will run live every Tuesday and will allow founders to learn while running their startups. Applications for the programme, which will start in January 2021, are now open.
First launched in 2018, Lightspeed’s EE programme has a mission to ‘bring outsiders in’, meaning founders and their companies who possess industry-disrupting potential.
In previous EE editions, established founders such as Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal and co-founder Affirm), Alex Chung (co-founder of Giphy), Vaibhav Gupta (co-founder of Udaan) and John Thompson (Chairman of Microsoft) have been featured as Masterclass mentors.
Lightspeed is a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the enterprise and consumer. It has an office in Singapore as well.
SOSV partners with Korea’s KISED
Global early-stage venture capital and investment management firm SOSV has partnered with Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) for the Global Startup Academy (GSA) programme, according to a statement.
SOSV, through its Asia-based accelerators – Chinaccelerator and MOX (Mobile Only Accelerator), will bring its cross-border expertise to the GSA programme, alongside three other international accelerators 500 Startups, Plug&Play and Startup Bootcamp.
The focus on AI-based startups in the GSA also aligns well with SOSV’s area of expertise where they have invested in over 50 AI startups around the world.
William Bao Bean, General Partner at SOSV and Managing Director of Shanghai-based Chinaccelerator and Taipei-based MOX, said that the Korea startup ecosystem remains largely untapped and has the potential to become the startup hub of the region, boasting a market for future tech companies to emerge and develop.
GSA is helping as many as 60 Korean startups to increase their footprint in Southeast Asia, the US, China, and Europe. The programme focuses on bringing more Korean AI-startups to the global arena.
