Senasa’s big step in the startup ecosystem of the country; Investment of 140 thousand billion Rials in 4 years

At the beginning of this meeting, the CEO of Shinasa introduced the Shinasa Group while pointing out some of the statistics of this veteran VC in the country’s startup ecosystem and said: The Shinasa Group is operating in the acceleration sectors with the presence of Trig Up and in the field of startup studio with Chinova brand. Since about two years ago, Trigate, as an online accelerator, has been offering its services to all over the country. Investoran is also active in the field of crowdfunding.

In fact, Sinasa has now defined its activity in the stages of emergence, growth and development by developing sub-brands. Our focus so far has been more on the initial stages of investment and our NTTs have been active in this field.

Hossein Nazarboland, after presenting statistics from Shinasa Group, said: They have drawn a plan for investment until 1407, and they will invest up to 140 thousand billion Rials in the country’s startup ecosystem. He pointed out that one of this amount has been approved and will be implemented by the end of this year, and the rest will be implemented after the approval of Pasargad Financial Group.

Hossein Nazarbaland considers the need to publish an informed investment policy statement on the point that trust in the ecosystem is thin and fragile and needs to be watered more: one of the attributes that exists in traditional business and is weak in this ecosystem is the issue of trust. What I’ve seen in the ecosystem is that trust is more fragile than what you see in the mirror. Issuing the Investing Policy Statement is because we want to build trust, so we need to be transparent and create transparency. We are transparent in our investment statement, we clarify our decision-making mechanism and we specify based on what criteria and with what figures and under what conditions we invest. The media can also help us here as the most important tool for creating transparency to strengthen this thin tree of trust between us and all the actors of the ecosystem.

In the continuation of this meeting, Seyyed Hamidreza Alavi, the Vice President of Investments, said about the reasons of this VC for publishing the investment statement and explaining its approaches: There was a gap in the investment statement from the side of the VCs in Iran. We have published this statement on our website. One of the most important approaches in the field of investment is institutional development. Trygup, Bildsup, technology research funds, and the Investoran financing platform are among the institutions that have been formed in Sinasa.

Bold investment is one of the other investment approaches in Sinesa, and other VCs also do this in a classic way. In this approach, we have targeted investments from 5 to 60 billion tomans.

Another smart investment approach is bold innovation. In this approach, we think about solving a national problem or problem and act for it.

Investing before IPO is considered as another smart investment approach. Currently, there is a gap to go on the innovative board in the stock market. Sinesa created our service in this space and by investing in businesses with the ability to enter the stock market, we help them enter the capital market. In this field, we invest up to the equivalent of three million dollars. Also, areas such as mining, health, fintech, information and communication technology, food security and energy are among the areas that are known for investment.

Further, in response to the question of whether an exit has occurred in the real sense of the term, and if an exit has not occurred, what is the reason for this not happening, he said: We have had close to 200 billion tomans of exits, which have been given to the founders. Businesses have been done within the financial group as well as to other actors of the startup ecosystem.

The reason for the lack of exit in the ecosystem is that the valuable financial resources that we expect to enter from outside the ecosystem are not attracted. We at Sinsa have been profitable in terms of exits and the financial cycle has happened, but if we always exit within the financial group itself, it is considered a kind of rotation within the group. Ecosystem-wise, we are all hoping for an IPO so that the startup ecosystem becomes less dependent on investors who either invest out of goodwill for the national economy or because of government incentives, and gradually move towards attracting capital from investors who want to make a profit. And small and large investments come into the ecosystem. This can be realized by entering the stock market.

Regarding well-known exits in the ecosystem, I can mention the exit from Shab to Golrang Group, the exit from Linkup within the financial group, and the founders themselves, we have exited up to eight startups.

Hippocrates is the last investment out of our ecosystem. Also, one of the items within the group that we have invested in is Smileino. In the second half of the year, we will invest in ecosystem startups.

The CEO of Sinasa also said about the activities of Sinasa over the past year and the changes in the ecosystem with the arrival of the new government: We have invested more in startups in the investment portfolio of Sinasa during the last year and based on global trends.

But it seems that the situation of financial resources is improving in the ecosystem. Especially because of the knowledge-based production jump law, the lock that has been on the ecosystem for several years has been removed, and our impression is that more financial resources will be injected into the startup ecosystem.

In response to the question of how much investment you have had since the beginning, Nazarboland mentioned: We have invested 18 million dollars in Shinsa so far.

Seyyed Hamidreza Alavi, the vice president of Shinasa Investments, added: We will increase our investment from 18 million dollars to 30 million dollars by the end of 1403.

We do not manipulate the number of investments, although according to the report of the Iranian VC Association, we have had the largest number of investments in the last three years. Overall, we had 5 investments in the bold innovation approach over the past year. In the bold investment approach, we have made seven investments.

In the continuation of this press conference, the CEO of Sinasa said about the attractive investment areas of Sinasa and the reasons for entering these areas: Sinasa has been active in the health sector since the beginning of its establishment, leading to the health tech sectors and with startups such as Padasys in the field of locomotor skeleton, Pars Trava in The field of cancer treatment, gene campus in the field of genetics and resonance in the field of deafness. By investing in Hippocrates, we entered the field of electronic health, which has a new place for work, although there are serious challenges in it. In this field, you will hear other serious news from the experts this year. In the field of mining, we believe that technology should enter the field of mining. Since last year, in the financial group, we have started efforts with Midco.

Alavi, the vice president of Shinasa Investments, also said in this case and Shinasa’s future investments: In the field of construction, in cooperation with Kisson, we launched Buildsup, and several startups have also been launched in this center. We will also enter the fields of energy, artificial intelligence and cars.

Mahmoud Karimi, the vice president of investment, sees incompetence and immaturity in the essence of the formation of the startup ecosystem and notes that economic enterprises do not know how to socialize and live with startups even with the presence of a stimulus such as the knowledge-based production jump law, and those that work better with the participation of others have practiced and experienced socializing with startups.

Karimi considers that one of the lessons learned from family studies is to give authenticity to the dominance of the founders’ ownership and to know the extent of our intervention. In its new approach, Shenasa tries to interact more with other players and form more connections by participating in organizations such as Venture Investment Association, Iran Technology and Innovation Management Association, upstream regulatory bodies and other startups and investors. In this space, Sensa is placed next to other actors and this is not a competition, but a friendship that will form a more fertile ground for the growth of new and new businesses.

The CEO of Sensa says this about the formation of the ecosystem: A simplistic view is to say that a wave was formed and there was money, and when the money ran out, this wave also ended. But I say that a wave was formed and we copied a series of ideas from the world and now we have reached a period where we have to start innovating ourselves and this is a difficult task.

My prediction is that with all the exits that have occurred and the law of knowledge-based leapfrogging and the presence of us and other actors, the ecosystem will not be too short of money in the next year, but I am very concerned that we will face a shortage of innovative ideas. Bringing an idea to work in the middle of the industry is not an easy task at all! Because there is no model out there to copy and we have to do this in a completely innovative way. The bottleneck of the ecosystem in the next two or three years is the team. There are ideas and my guess is that in general, there is also capital; But the team that will bring this idea to fruition is one of the issues we are facing and we must search and find such a team.