Nonstop Games, a Singapore and Finland-based developer of mobile games, has announced today that it has raised USD 2.9M in early stage funding from Creandum, the Nordic investor in Spotify, and Lifeline Ventures, a Finland-based early stage investor that has funded successful Finnish games company Supercell.
The startup (formerly GamesMadeMe) also unveiled its first mobile game, Heroes of Honor, and revealed that it will be setting up an office in Silicon Valley. It currently has 11 employees in Singapore. Read more
Singapore restaurant booking site Chope has raised a USD 2.5M round led by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and two other investors, which are undisclosed. The news was first reported by TechCrunch and announced by SPH to the Singapore Exchange.
SPH, which invested SGD 1.81M (USD 1.45M), now owns 27.8 percent of the startup, which gives Chope a valuation of USD 5.2M. That’s about half of HungryGoWhere, which was acquired by SingTel for about USD 9.4M last year.
While the investment sum is substantial, Chope’s co-founders Clowie Tan and Arrif Ziaudeen appeared to have give up quite a significant chunk of equity — 48 percent to be exact.
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Curated e-commerce sites have been coming up on our radar lately, offering products that are ‘design-centric’ and ‘tasteful’. In other words, these businesses are differentiating themselves not by price or quantity of choice, but by the quality of their collection.
In Singapore, there’s CuriousCatch and HipVan, both of which are emphasizing the cool factor by selling goods from independent designers. Beauty box startups like VanityTrove and Bellabox too are selling curated products to their customers.
Now add Jooix to the mix. Launched in late 2011 by former branding and communications executive Angeline Seow, Jooix sells mainly lifestyle products and gifts. Read more
Clearbridge BioMedics, Singapore-based medical tech company, has today announced a new series B venture round of SGD 9M (USD 7.2M). Vertex Venture Holdings, a wholly owned venture capital arm of Temasek Holdings, is the lead investor.
The startup’s flagship product is the ClearCell System, which consists of patent-pending CTChips that are able to detect, isolate, and retrieve tumor cells from blood samples obtained from patients. The isolated tumor cells can then be stained for identification and analysis. Read more
Zalora, a Rocket Internet fashion online retailer, announced today that it has raised EUR 20M (USD 26M) in investment from Tengelmann, a German retail company.
It also revealed that it has set up a regional software development center in Singapore, and is currently achieving double digit millions USD in annualized revenue.
Tengelmann is no stranger to Rocket Internet companies. In January this year, it invested about USD 20M in Lazada, an Amazon-like e-commerce site. Both Lazada and Zalora are active in the region, with the latter serving eight markets in Asia-Pacific and stocking over 500 brands and 20,000 product variations. Read more
Red Dot Ventures, an early stage investment firm under the National Research Foundation’s Technology Incubation Scheme, has announced today that it has invested SGD589K (USD482K) in iCarsClub – a Singapore-based startup providing a marketplace to rent underutilized private cars.
The online platform enables car owners to list their vehicles, which can then be rented by other users. This enables them to make better use of their vehicle’s down time and earn some extra income on the side. Read more
East Ventures, a Singapore and Indonesia based early stage investment firm, has revealed that it has invested in RedMart, an online grocer serving the Singapore market.
The investment firm’s founder and managing partner Willson Cuaca is unable to disclose the exact investment sum at this point, although he did state this is still a seed round. Read more
Singapore-based early stage fund TNF Ventures has invested SGD 588K (USD 475K) in MoGi, a mobile wallet app developed by Mobile Media Creations. The Singapore government’s National Research Foundation is a co-investor through the Technology Incubation Scheme.
Available on iPhone and Android for free, MoGi enables users to store virtual pre-paid cards, rewards programs, and discount coupons to over 220 dining, health, retail, and beauty outlets in Singapore. Users can even send gifts to one another. It was launched in October 2012. Read more
Pollenizer, an Australia-based accelerator and ‘startup creator’, has raised AUD 1.1M (USD 1.1M) in funding to continue seeding companies and fuel its expansion into Southeast Asia.
The round was closed in December last year with investors from Singapore, Australia, and the United States. They include: Pandora Australia founder Brook Adcock, veteran tech investor Neil Miller, and Carsales.com.au CEO Greg Roebuck. Read more
Payroll Hero, a Philippines and Canada based startup specializing in time, attendance, payroll, and scheduling enterprise software, has announced today that it has raised a USD 1M round from 500 Startups, Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes, and LX Ventures.
Other participants in this investment include The Futura Corporation, 8capita Partners, Clarity CEO Dan Martell, Benjamin Joffe, MAKE Technologies founder Christian Cotichini, and other angel investors.
The startup differs from traditional payroll software in that it operates on a SaaS model and uses facial recognition and GPS location to ensure that the right employees clock in at the right time. The software facilitates transparency between employees and management through attendance analytics. Read more
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