Eventures Seeks Site For Incubator
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 31, 1999
EVentures Australia, the local outpost of the one-month-old, $US50 million ($79 million) joint venture between Japanese Internet and publishing giant Softbank and News Corporation's British venture-capital fund epartners, is seeking an incubator site in Sydney so that it can hatch a clutch of Internet start-ups.
Mr Andrew Isles, who was appointed chief executive of eVentures Australia this week, declined to put figures on the size of the company's venture-capital fund in Australia or the amount to be invested in the incubator facility.
``It's not decided, but it won't be extravagant spending," he said, adding that ``investments in the physical incubator facilities will be frugal".
Mr Isles said eVentures' focus for the foreseeable future would be on launching Australian subsidiaries of more than six SoftBank affiliate companies, or companies Softbank had negotiated the rights to launch in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and India.
``Softbank has a large inventory of products that need to be launched in Australia. We will be open to all ideas and proposals [from other start-ups] but initially that has to be our main focus," he said.
Mr Isles said he hoped to have the first three start-ups set up in six to nine months. First, within the next three months, will be an Australian arm of E-LOAN.com, one of America's largest providers of online mortgages. The Australian company will be equally owned by eVentures and E-LOAN in the US.
Just last month ePartners announced it would invest $US22.5 million to take E-LOAN into Britain.
But, depending on the outcome of a meeting this week with an Adelaide company of the same name and in the same business, Mr Isles said the E-LOAN company might have to be launched here under a different name.
``If we can do a deal, that's great. The name is important, but it won't make or break us. We'll be spending an aggressive amount of money. We expect to win this."
E-LOAN Inc, which listed on Nasdaq last month, said it had originated $US1 billion in loans in 1998 but incurred a loss of $US11.2 million. The site allows visitors to search a database of 50,000 products from 70 lenders and promises cost savings of 50 per cent over traditional mortgage channels.
However, the company may not be the first big US online mortgage company into the Australian market. Last week iOwn.com announced it was looking for a strategic partner in Australia to set up a joint venture. IOwn has estimated that by 2003, 10 to 25 per cent of all US loans may be handled online.
News Corp has had little presence in the Australian e-commerce market so far but has indicated it will make some significant investments to change that. Softbank has also had no direct presence in the Australian market since it pulled out last year.
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald
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