ShopSpot, the Singapore-based incubatee of the JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp, has annouced today that they have received funding of an undisclosed amount from a group of angels and entrepreneurs in Thailand, led by Kris Nalamlieng.
The company received the investment in the midst of the 100-day inaugural bootcamp. ShopSpot aims to make “selling stuff as easy as sending a tweet” (see SGE’s app feature). Since launch, they have garnered over 1,500 downloads on the iOS. Within 12 hours, the app reached number five in its category on iTunes.
“The cash element of this investment will allow us to focus on shaping the great user experience that will make ShopSpot a leading force in mobile commerce worldwide,” said Natsakon Kiatsuranon, co-founder and CEO of ShopSpot. Read more
Jerome Punzalan from SpinMeBuddy
While the judges huddled for an hour to decide the winners of the second Startup Weekend Manila, an unlikely person kept the crowd thoroughly entertained.
Call it the first Standup Weekend ever. SW Manila participant Jerome Punzalan came out swinging like Manny Pacquiao, dropping one joke after another, leaving the packed room exploding in laughter and applause. Chants of “More, more!” followed after each punchline.
You would think everyone would be sullen after 54 hours of preparing their pitches, but it turned out that they had an extra fuel tank for the final stretch, with the finishing line clearly in sight.
Finally, the judges streamed back in one by one, and it was time to announce the winners. Read more
Filed under Events, General, Innovation & Technology, TechnologyTags: kiddle, Manila, mentorsdojo, paybillis, Philippines, sphere, spinmebuddy, Startup Weekend, startup weekend manila, traqme
Startup Weekend is an intense 54-hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application that could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.
This is Cambodia’s second Startup Weekend and it promises to be even BIGGER and BETTER than the last one! There is increased capacity, hosted at a much larger, more modern venue: Yellow Tower and several members of the Startup Weekend Core Team flying for a visit!
Event Details
When: Friday-Sunday, 22-24th June 2012
Where: Yellow Tower, No. 191, Tonle Sap (Rd.), Village 12, Sangkat Chroy Changva, 12110, Phnom Penh, Cambodia [map]
Register here.
For a one-stop to all events related to or concerning entrepreneurship, certain industry-meets-business forums and seminars in Singapore, check out our Calendar. If not, you can also follow our bite-size updated posts for upcoming events for the week.
Events range from simple get-togethers to full-blown conferences. Get to meet fellow developers, entrepreneurs, startup CEOs & founders, and meet & learn from CEOs of established companies who have seen it all.
Our aim here at SGE is to make it easy for you to pick & choose from the event buffet. Enjoy.
Here are the events for this week. Events are mostly in Singapore (generally 30 minutes drive from anywhere), but we also include key events from around Southeast Asia and beyond. Read more
Remembrance and productive app company, Evernote‘s second annual worldwide developer competition is here: the Evernote Devcup! Devcup challenges software developers and designers to create awesome products that help our 25 million users do more with Evernote. They’ll be awarding over $100,000 in prizes and giving finalists the chance to present their work to the attendees of this year’s Evernote Trunk Conference in San Francisco. Read more
5 days before the upcoming JFDI demo day for the JFDI-Innov8 bootcamp 2012, the mentors for the program were invited to hear the pitches from the 11 companies. All the companies have emerged from a tough and grueling hundred days where they had to make difficult decisions for their start-ups. They have come a long way and here are the interesting companies you should take a look at. Read more
Filed under NewsTags: familyko, Fetch Plus, flocations, JFDI Innov8 Bootcamp 2012, JFDI.asia, kark, remember, shopspot, Stubb, TradeGecko, trafflers, tribehired
SG Geek Girls, is a Singapore-based initiative to connect females in the tech scene together, is organising a volunteer get-together session on Saturday, 4 May.
During this session, you will find out more about the plans ahead, understand the goals of SG Geek Girls, apply for positions you are interested in and meet the rest of the ladies on the team!
Please note that this is a ladies only event.
Event Details
When: 5th May, Saturday, 11am – 2pm,
Where: Microsoft Singapore, Level 22, NTUC Building, One Marina Boulevard Singapore 018989
Nearest MRT: Raffles Place, Exit J (Ladies only event)
Register here
Playmoolah, a startup that has developed a money management game for children that ties them to real life and real money, has won the “Top Startup” title at the Innotribe Challenge showcase held in Singapore on 24th April, Tuesday.
The company will now advance to the Innotribe Startup Challenge finals in Osaka, Japan in October 2012 where it will compete for the US$50,000 prize. The Challenge is part of Sibos, the annual conference of global financial organization SWIFT. Read more
Kark Mobile Education, an incubatee at Singapore’s first ever JFDI-Innov8 Bootcamp, announced that they have received funding of an undisclosed sum from Ideosource, a Jakarta-based investment firm.
The startup, started by four Indonesians, is developing a series of education collectible card games that interact with companion mobile apps. The edutainment platform is targeted at kids 5-12 years old (see SGE’s feature of Kark).
The funding will go towards the development of those products.
“We are delighted to have this support, which gives us the ability to continue building our product after the bootcamp and reinforces what we have believed all along– that games have a great future in the educational industry,” says Bullitt Sesariza, founder and CTO of Kark. Read more
Filed under Funding, Innovation & Technology, Mobile, News, TechnologyTags: bullitt sezaria, Educational technology, jfdi, jfdi-innov8 2012 bootcamp, JFDI.asia, kark, kark mobile education
This was jointly written by Terence Lee and Gwendolyn Regina Tan.
It was a simple party with a few invited guests, some pizza and drinks, a seemingly ordinary networking event at the Chalkboard office in Mount Sophia. No formal announcement was made, but some of the folks knew something was up.
There would be no happy ending for Chalkboard, a Singapore-based mobile advertising startup. The co-founders, Saumil Nanavati and Bernard Leong, decided months earlier to close shop. They were just quietly figuring out a way to do it.
Interestingly, they were very close to getting acquired. Chalkboard was, after all, a pretty attractive target: Sales were coming in, and they were close to breaking even. One interested party was a major firm from Silicon Valley, the other a prominent Singapore company. However, they felt neither acquisition was the right fit.
But despite the setback, neither entrepreneur took it as a personal failure. It had been a team effort all the way. The party was simply a celebration of the journey they’ve taken together with friends.
“We were disappointed it didn’t go the way we wanted, but we were not ashamed, we did the best we could with the smartest people, including the investors who gave their best. We tried,” says Saumil in an interview with SGE on Thursday afternoon.
He and Bernard even came up with an acronym to describe the totality of their experience: MIA (Market, Investors, and Ambition).
Their ambitions for Chalkboard were big enough to match the best entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Their investor, Joi Ito from Singapore’s Neoteny Labs, bought into their vision.
What ultimately caused them to fold was a confluence of factors: The incompatibility between their business model and the Asian market, a weak US venture capital climate after the European Crisis, and the acquisition offers which they felt did their stakeholders (and themselves) injustice. Read more
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