William Klippgen

William Klippgen
William Klippgen (2016)
Born Trondheim, Norway
Nationality Norwegian
Occupation Entrepreneur, Investor

William Klippgen (born 1969 in Trondheim, Norway) is a Singapore-based Norwegian entrepreneur and technology investor who was a co-founder of the price comparison portal Zoomit.com (later merged with Kelkoo, which was sold to Yahoo! in 2004). He served as one of the judges on the television series Angel's Gate, which was broadcast on Channel NewsAsia in 2012.[1] He holds an MBA from INSEAD where he is an Entrepreneur in Residence.[2]

Television work

Klippgen served as one of the judges on the reality TV series Angel's Gate, which began broadcasting on Channel NewsAsia in February 2012. The show gives budding entrepreneurs in Asia an opportunity to pitch business ideas to investors. Klippgen was one of four judges on the show alongside Patrick Grove (co-founder of the Catcha Group), Ken Mandel (Managing Director of Buddy Media Asia Pacific) and Karan Singh Thakral (Executive Director of the Thakral Group of Companies).

Business career

Klippgen founded Zoomit.com in 1997 with Per Siljubergsåsen. In 2000, Zoomit.com merged with Kelkoo to become a leading shopping comparison search engine and Europe's third-largest e-commerce site.[3] Kelkoo was acquired by Yahoo! Inc in 2004.[4]

In 2003, Klippgen founded the early-stage investment company Tigris Capital. He also co-founded Singapore seed investment fund BAF Spectrum in 2006, which primarily invests in tech startups across Asia in a co-funding partnership with SPRING Singapore (a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Singapore).

In 2016, he teamed up with British investor Michael Robert Blakey to launch Cocoon Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm targeting Southeast Asian startups within the B2B ecommerce, SaaS, fintech and deep tech verticals.[5][6][7]

Klippgen serves or has served on the boards of Tickled Media Pte Ltd (theAsianparent.com), Anafore Pte Ltd,[8] Mozat Pte Ltd, Progeniq Pte Ltd[9][10], Luxe Nomad Pte Ltd[11], Poundit Global[12] and Lendela[13].

Education

Klippgen holds an MSc degree in Engineering Cybernetics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, an MSc in Computer Engineering from Boston University (which he attended on a Fulbright Scholarship), and an MBA from INSEAD Business School.

References

  1. ↑ So you want to be an entrepreneur?, channelnewsasia.com, 2 February 2012.
  2. ↑ "William Klippgen" (PDF). INSEAD. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
  3. ↑ Gary Marshall (February 17, 2009). "Six Companies Microsoft Should Buy". Techradar.com.
  4. ↑ Associated Press (March 26, 2004). "Yahoo buys European shopping site". msnbc.com.
  5. ↑ "Five questions for Cocoon Capital". The Straits Times. 2017-06-06. Retrieved 2017-07-04.
  6. ↑ Yon Heong Tung (December 7, 2016). "Cocoon Capital launches US$7M seed fund, targets SaaS, e-commerce, and fintech verticals". e27.
  7. ↑ Andreas Klemsdal (September 27, 2016). "Sender såkorn til Asia". Finansavisen (Norge).
  8. ↑ "Why choose ReferralCandy for your Referral Marketing Program". ReferralCandy — Give Any Ecommerce Store a Referral Program. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  9. ↑ Press release (April 11, 2008). "Progeniq Receives Financing from BAF Spectrum". HPCwire.
  10. ↑ Gwendolyn Tan (April 14, 2010). "Progeniq gets Series A funding, engineering co-founder of Skype participates". SGEntrepreneurs.com.
  11. ↑ Joash Wee (June 12, 2012). "The Luxe Nomad, luxury traveling site by Stephanie Chai, closes investment from Tigris Capital at Echelon 2012". e27.com.
  12. ↑ "Filipino ecommerce site Poundit raises US$629,763 from Cocoon Capital". Reuters. September 15, 2017.
  13. ↑ Quynh Nguyen (September 12, 2018). "Singapore's Cocoon Capital, IMO Ventures lead seed round in loan broker Lendela". DealStreetAsia.
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