The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Boon Ping Chua, Singapore Press
SPH Media Fund, the corporate venturing arm of Singapore-based media conglomerate Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), last year wound up its SPH Plug and Play accelerator initiative but instead has focused on its direct investments under its CEO, Boon Ping Chua.
The media and technology-focused accelerator was launched in April 2015 as a joint venture between SPH, accelerator Plug and Play, and Infocomm Investments, a division of the Singapore government’s Infocomm Development Authority.
SPH Media Fund will instead focus on a direct investment strategy after results paid off. In 2016, US-based mobile advertising company Smaato said China-based Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communication Group, an offline marketeer, had agreed to buy it for $148m. Smaato had raised $47m from investors to date, including its most recent $25m series E round led by Singapore Press Holdings in August 2014 and including state-backed EDB Investments. Chua had been on Smaato’s board since 2010 having been a senior vice-president at EDB Investments, for five years until August 2014 when he joined SPH.
Other deals include social video creation platform Wochit, which raised $13m in strategic investment from media conglomerates ProSiebenSat.1, SPH Media Fund and Carlo de Benedetti, Chope, Glints Intern, Peatix, Moneysmart.sg, Kudo–PT Kudo Teknologi Indonesia, Burpple, Snapcart, ViSenze and Jukin Media.
Earlier, Chua had started his corporate venturing career at phone operator SingTel Ventures for four years after the millennium before becoming director of corporate finance and strategic planning at ST Electronics for four years and a year at MediaCorp.
