Startups and brands can have a Mynewsdesk-hosted newsroom or your own hosted newsroom. Interested companies should contact Johan, the Singapore Country Manager for Mynewsdesk.

Journalists can use Mynewsdesk to follow companies and startups for free.

“As part of Blk71, MDA and SingTel Innov8, the corporate venture arm of the SingTel Group, have signed a Memorandum-of-Understanding (MOU) to provide funding and create a dynamic environment for start-ups. Under the MOU, both parties will make joint Calls-for-Proposals (CFPs) which will provide successful start-ups with up to S$50,000 of initial seed funding and opportunities for follow-on funding of S$200,000 or more. MDA and SingTel Innov8 will also co-sponsor activities such as industry speaking engagements, workshops and networking events. To support these initiatives, MDA and SingTel Innov8 will commit an initial sum of up to S$2 million each over three years.

NUS Enterprise will leverage its experience and networks as an incubator to manage the Blk71 incubation space.”

Image Credit: .Fabio.

SAN FRANCISCO – Feb 1, 2011 – Seesmic, the leading maker of applications that monitor social networks across mobile devices, today announced a $4 million investment from salesforce.com, inc. and a Softbank Group company managed by Softbank Holdings Inc.

Seesmic helps companies monitor, engage and build their brands across social networks and mobile devices. The Seesmic Desktop provides a single console that lets companies view and respond, in real time, to comments being made about their brands in Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. Seesmic Desktop works with Apple’s iPhone and Macintosh computers, smartphones running Google’s Android or Windows Phone 7 mobile operating systems, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and on personal computers.

Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, and Softbank group join previous investors Atomico, Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners. Seesmic has received a total of $16 million, including the most-recent investment round.

Seesmic and Salesforce.com have worked closely for more than six months to create a seamless integration between Seesmic Desktop and Salesforce Chatter, the industry’s first enterprise social collaboration app and platform. Leveraging the social features popularized by Facebook and Twitter — such as profiles, status updates and real-time feeds — Chatter lets employees “follow” documents, people, business processes and application data. The result is a new level of productivity that crosses departments and organizational barriers. By integrating with Chatter, Seesmic Desktop will enable salesforce.com users to immediately see comments that customers have posted on Facebook and Twitter.

“Salesforce.com has become a valued partner as we work together to bridge external and enterprise social communication with Chatter. These investments will enable us to reach more enterprise customers” said Loic Le Meur, CEO, Seesmic.

SINGAPORE, January 27, 2011: Smaato, the leading mobile ad optimiser and mobile advertising company, today announced the closing of a new institutional round of funding. Singapore’s EDBI led the $7 million round, with participation from existing shareholders including global private equity firm aeris CAPITAL. The new funds will help fuel Smaato’s international expansion, in particular to extend its presence in Asia from its Asian headquarters in Singapore.

Ms. Chu Swee-Yeok, CEO of EDBI highlighted, “Smaato is a leader in the mobile advertising optimisation space with its highly innovative advertising optimization platform. As a digital advertising hub, Singapore is an ideal base for Smaato to address the fast growing mobile ad market in Asia, given the high concentration of ad networks, media agencies, and publishers here. EDBI looks forward to working closely with Smaato to partner key industry players leveraging on our networks in the region, and executing the company’s ambitious expansion plans in Asia.”

More than 11,000 publishers have signed up with Smaato to monetize their mobile content, with Smaato managing close to 20 billion ad requests per month. Smaato will further grow its more than 55 staff worldwide and strengthen its leadership position as the largest mobile advertising optimizer.

“We have seen a tremendous growth in Smaato’s revenues in 2010. For 2011, we expect even more exponential growth by partnering with leading mobile publishers and app developers worldwide,” said Ragnar Kruse, CEO and Co-Founder of Smaato. “Singapore has proven to be an excellent location to expand our Asian business. This new round of funding will help us improve our reach, foster product innovation and grow the Smaato team worldwide.”

Further reinforcing Smaato’s leadership in the mobile advertising industry, the company has also recently been recognized for the third time on the OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies list for 2011. Smaato was selected from more than a thousand U.S. and international technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists, and digital media industry insiders.

Mobile publishers and mobile app developers partner with Smaato to maximize mobile advertising revenues with the aggregation of 50+ leading ad networks. Working with mobile ad networks on a global scale, Smaato has a unique offering to the market with relevant local ads made available globally in a single sign-up process at www.smaato.com/signup.

About Smaato Inc.

Smaato is a pioneering mobile advertising company that operates the mobile ad optimization platform called SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) and partners with mobile publishers and app developers. More than 11,000 publishers have signed up with Smaato to monetize their content in 220+ countries and Smaato is managing close to 20 billion ad requests per month.

SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of 50+ leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising revenues. Through an open API and a wide range of SDKs, SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.

Smaato Inc. is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced international management team. Additional Smaato locations are based in Hamburg, Germany and Singapore. Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association and the German Digital Media Association BVDW.

About EDBI

EDBI (EDB Investments) is a leading investment firm headquartered in Singapore with worldwide presence. EDBI invests globally in the innovative and dynamic sectors of Biomedical Sciences, Clean Technologies, Digital Media, as well as key industries in Singapore. As a value adding investor, EDBI works closely with its portfolio companies, leveraging on its extensive networks and experience to help bridge and drive the companies’ growth strategies for Asia.

(Check out our past coverage and interview with 2359 Media.)

Singapore, Jan. 10, 2011 – 2359 Media, a local leading mobile marketing provider, today announced the closing of its Series-A investment round of $1 million, accelerating plans for expansion to the US market.

SingTel Innov8, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SingTel Group, led the round, making it the first investment by the corporate venture capital fund since its launch in September 2010. In addition to its investment in 2359 Media, the two companies have agreed to work together on projects of mutual interest that will bring value to their customers. NUS Enterprise also participated in this investment round.

Founded in 2009, 2359 Media is looking to further the development of their core product, MobDis, as well as expand its distribution to the US market within the next quarter. MobDis is an HTML5-based mobile advertisement creation platform that allows marketers and designers to rapidly create, publish and share engaging mobile advertisements. 2359 Media received its initial funding from the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Start-Ups (Yes! Start-ups), a funding scheme initiated by SPRING Singapore and was incubated under NUS Enterprise Incubator.

“This investment represents a major milestone for 2359 Media as we make the transition from a promising early-stage technology startup into a commercial enterprise facing a growing global mobile advertising market,” said 2359 Media Co-founder Zhou Wen Han. “We are very excited as this proves the value MobDis brings in terms of innovating the way brands advertise on mobile.” The company has already begun hiring for a new office in US, scheduled to be operational by March 2011.

Plans for expansion to the US market is but a first step in the overall strategy to provide MobDis a global reach. “We look forward to achieving our vision of connecting brands and organizations to consumers whenever and wherever they are, by leveraging on the reach and infrastructure of our investors to help accelerate growth and solidify our presence in the global mobile advertising space,” said 2359 Media Co-founder Wong Hong Ting. “We welcome SingTel Innov8 and NUS Enterprise in supporting the business and providing the opportunity to push MobDis to overseas markets.”

About MobDis
MobDis is an HTML5-based platform made for marketers and designers, which allows users to create mobile web apps without the need to code. With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, users can create and publish a mobile advertising microsite within minutes of their first interaction with the platform without needing to download or install any software or plugins.

About 2359 Media
2359 Media aims to jumpstart the mobile web revolution by empowering anyone and everyone with MobDis, an HTML5-based platform that helps users create, publish and share rich media mobile sites on their own. With MobDis, our users can extend their reach and enhance user experience by engaging their audiences through rich interactive content on all mobile platforms.

Working with companies that include SingTel Singapore, Volkswagen Singapore, Far East Organization, TechCrunch, MediaCorp and the Media Development Authority of Singapore, 2359 Media aims to fuel mobile-based and location-aware content consumption worldwide.

Growing up with weekly episodes of Phua Chu Kang was definitely one of the highlights of the last century. Irene Ang, who starred as the irrepressible Rosie, is more than an accomplished actress as evidenced by the success she achieved with the show; she is also an entrepreneur that created an artiste management company that is the ‘Best in Singapore, JB, and some say Batam,’ and also possibly even Thailand.

Fly Entertainment, the company she started in 1999 turned 10 in 2009 and to commemorate the milestone, will be launching ‘THE FLY10 BOOK’ on 6 Feb 2010 (Sat) at Books Kinokuniya. THE FLY10 BOOK reveals the prominent company’s growth from a company armed with no more than a fax machine and two staff in 1999; to world-class entertainment consultancy specializing in casting, media production, events management and artiste management with an impressive portfolio of local and regional stars under its nurturing wing.

Members of the public who are keen to meet the dynamic CEO and Founder of FLY Entertainment Pte Ltd, Irene Ang, can do so at the book-signing session at:

THE FLY10 BOOK Book-Signing with Irene Ang
Date: 6 Feb 2010 (Sat)
Time: 4.00pm – 4.30pm
Venue: Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store, Crossroads

Xinya is a Singapore-based media company that constitutes channel management, content acquisition and distribution, and other media businesses like TV production, events staging and talent development.

Xinya’s channels target Mandarin speaking audiences, and the channels will be available via satellite and domestic cable in many countries in Asia Pacific such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand etc. Xinya will also be bringing many exciting concerts and live events to audiences in Singapore and other mandarin speaking territories next year.

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers titled “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2009-2013”, the Asia Pacific TV subscription and license fee market is worth close to US$30 billion this year. It is expected to grow 9.2 percent next year to $32.44 billion, making it the fastest growing market in the television space in the world. Furthermore, Asia Pacific is also seeing the second highest growth rates for the television advertising market. In 2010, this market is expected to be worth about US$33 billion, and it is projected to continue to grow at 2.5 percent the following year. Much of the growth comes from the mandarin speaking markets, and Xinya is poised to tap on these markets by establishing itself as a Pan-Asian media company.

Mr Wee Ah Kee, Chairman/CEO of Xinya Media said “Currently, many mandarin media companies deliver content that is close to their parent territories. The Company aims to be the platform to showcase the best of the Asian cultures by creating a mix of Pan-Asian content, incorporating materials from all the mandarin speaking territories, including Singapore.”. Mr Wee adds that “we welcome EDBI to be one of the shareholders. With the support of EDBI, our company would be able to expand its partnerships with media companies in the region and showcase Singapore content to the wider Asian audience.”

To establish Pan-Asian broadcasting and production, Xinya will partner established media players like Azio in Taiwan, and Jinyingma Group in China. Azio is one of the foremost media companies in Asia, producing household names such as the “Super Sunday” Variety Show, and the “Golden Horse Awards”. Jinyingma Group on the other hand, is one of the largest production houses in China. It has produced over 20 movies and 40 drama serials, winning various awards such as the 10th Chinese Government Award (Huabiao Award), the Golden Rooster Awards, and the China Golden Eagle TV Awards amongst others.

We are excited about Xinya’s plans to build a broadcasting, content aggregation and distribution platform in Singapore for the Asia Pacific market. Xinya fits well with EDBI’s investment objective of growing promising media and digital media companies in Singapore to be global leaders and enhancing the local capabilities in this high growth sector, said Chu Swee Yeok, CEO of EDBI. We look forward to Xinya leveraging on Singapore as a broadcasting hub to expand its footprint in the region, and aggregating international programmes for the Asian audience.

Beside EDB Investments, the other two co-investors in Xinya are Gobi Partners and Cheng’s Film. Established in China, Gobi Partners is a venture capital firm that focuses on China’s IT and digital media sectors and invests in companies that are pushing the frontier, integrating gaps or enabling consolidation within the digital media value chain. Cheng’s Film is a media company located in China and Hong Kong and has produced titles including “Purple Butterfly” starring Zhang Ziyi, Nakamura Toru and Li BingBing; and “Subway” starring Tony Leung and Miriam Yeung

For more information, please contact:
Ms. Pearl Forss
Xinya Media Group
Tel.: +(65) 64239598
Email : pearl.forss (AT) xinyamedia.com

About EDB Investments (EDBI)
EDB Investments (EDBI) is a leading investment firm headquartered in Singapore with worldwide presence. EDBI invests globally in the innovative and dynamic sectors of Biomedical Sciences, Clean Technologies, Digital Media, as well as key industries in Singapore. As a value adding investor, EDBI works closely with its portfolio companies, leveraging on its extensive networks and experience to help bridge and drive the companies’ growth strategies for Asia. For more information please visit www.edbi.com.

About Xingya Media Group
Xinya stands for New Asia, an emerging dynamic region with trendsetters who embrace new cultures while retaining strong ties to Asian values.

Xinya media group is the voice, which speaks to and speaks for these New Asians. Based in Singapore, Xinya is a media content and platform management group.

Under Xinya Satellite TV, we program, operate and distribute Pan Asian entertainment television channels on multiple platforms.

Supporting Xinya Satellite TV is Xinya Productions, which produces original light entertainment content with Asian sensibilities. Our productions span drama, variety and factual genres. We bring together a team of established producers from the region to create uniquely Asian content.

Likewise, Xinya Entertainment is about creating the Asian sound. Xinya Entertainment moulds and manages artistes from across Asia. We produce music shows, and stage concerts in major Asian cities, bringing audiences in the region together in their enjoyment of Pan Asian entertainment.

Xinya believes in bringing Asia to the world. Hence Xinya International works to repackage Asian content for distribution to the international market. We also collaborate with major broadcasters across the world to understand and access Asian TV markets.

Lastly, under Xinya Networks, we provide channel management services to enable companies to establish their own TV channels. With strong ties to affiliates, we are able to extend the reach of channels beyond their own shores.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Where can we watch Xinya’s programmes?
Xinya’s programmes are available via satellite and domestic cable in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Indochina, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, India and other Asia Pacific areas. In Singapore, you will soon be able to watch Xinya on Singtel’s mio TV as well as on StarHub. The programming on Singtel and StarHub will be different.

2. What are the characteristics of Xinya’s programmes?
In its first year, Xinya is focused on light entertainment in the mandarin language. This will include music shows, variety programmes, dramas, and also factual programming in an entertaining and informative fashion.

Xinya is currently planning its programme line-up for 2010, more details will be released in a few weeks.

3. How is Xinya’s production going to be implemented?
Xinya believes in growing its business through partners. In Singapore, besides growing its own production capabilities, Xinya will also be working with local production houses and event companies on a project basis. Xinya also has ready partners in Taiwan and China to take up production projects.

4. Who are some of Xinya’s partners?
Xinya has a number of international partners. Besides working closely with the Media Development Authority of Singapore, Xinya has also inked agreements with the China International TV Corporation, the China Radio, Film & Television Programs Exchange Center, German National Broadcaster Deutsche Wella- DW Transtel, and Trace TV- the top rating urban music channel in the world.

Teams that make it through the first round will be awarded up to $15,000 to build prototypes and explore the commercial feasibility of their product or service ideas. Furthermore, they will also have the benefit of being mentored by a select group of Singapore-based entrepreneurs, NTU professors and alumni, and industry partners. Finalist teams will be eligible for additional funding of up to $50,000 under SPRING’s Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Startups (YES! Startups).

ideas.inc. is part of the strategy undertaken by SPRING Singapore to promote and nurture youth entrepreneurship in Singapore. It complements the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools (YES! Schools) and YES! Startups launched in October and November 2008, respectively, to enhance the commercialisation of innovative ideas into youth enterprises.

The ideas.inc. Business Challenge was launched by Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade & Industry and Manpower, and Minister in charge of Entrepreneurship at NTU earlier today. The competition, which runs from August 2009 to July 2010, is jointly organised by NTU’s Nanyang Technopreneurship Centre (NTC) and SPRING. This is the first time that the University is putting together such a competition on a national scale.

Associate Professor Raymond Abelin, the interim Director of NTC says, “ideas.inc. is the biggest-ever effort on our part to reach out to as many young people as possible, to get them involved and excited about their new business ideas. By giving these potential entrepreneurs, who may not have any business training, early-stage capital and professional advice, ideas.inc. speeds up the transformation of new products and services from idea to market. Our ultimate goal is to foster a pool of talented market-savvy youths and innovative new businesses in Singapore with strong competitive advantage and long-term sustainability.”

As part of the ideas.inc. competition, NTC is also organising a series of workshops that will feature subject matter experts and business leaders who will coach participants on a wide variety of relevant topics for developing ideas into businesses. The budding entrepreneurs competing for the cash prizes to fund their businesses are encouraged to attend these workshops, to ensure that their plans include everything which potential
investors require.

As part of the ideas.inc. competition, NTC is also organising a series of workshops that will feature subject matter experts and business leaders who will coach participants on a wide variety of relevant topics for developing ideas into businesses. The budding entrepreneurs competing for the cash prizes to fund their businesses are encouraged to attend these workshops, to ensure that their plans include everything which potential investors require.

“Developing an entrepreneurial mindset and cultivating a spirit of enterprise among the youth is a key focus of SPRING’s entrepreneurship development strategy. ideas.inc. will provide a platform for our youth to turn their innovative ideas into viable business ventures by giving them the opportunity to prototype, test and market their products/services. We hope that many youth will come forward and participate in ideas.inc.; making use of the seed money available through YES! Startups and mentorship opportunities to start their businesses,” said Ms Chew Mok Lee, Group Director, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, SPRING Singapore.

Young entrepreneurs who have tapped on YES! Startups to start their business had this to say about ideas.inc. “I think that this is an excellent competition. This would actually entice more youths to be interested in entrepreneurship and encourage them to give it a shot.

Also, this gives them an additional opportunity to pitch their business ideas to professionals for further deliberation,” said Ms Elfaine Tan, Director, Fr3b Pte Ltd.

Added Ms Fan Shufen and Ms You Jun, Co-founders of E-Thermnity, “The ideas.inc. Business Challenge sounds like a really good way to incubate new startups, as it provides almost everything we’ve been looking for in the past months! It encourages those with brilliant innovations to step out and take this challenge, while at the same time not worrying about the lack of business knowledge as mentors will be there to guide them.”

The ideas.inc. Business Challenge was launched in conjunction with NTU’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Festival, which runs through Friday, 28 August 2009. The festival aims to educate and inspire students about entrepreneurship. Various platforms and sessions are being held at the NTU campus over four days, to inspire students to build business ventures that are not just profitable, but are also fulfilling on a personal level. For example, tracks on social entrepreneurship have been introduced this year to highlight how new enterprises can potentially change lives for the better.

You can learn more about the competition by going directly to their website.

Media contact:
Feisal Abdul Rahman, Senior Assistant Director, Corporate Communications Office
Tel: 6790 6687; Email: feisalar (at) ntu.edu.sg

Marion Abraham, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, SPRING Singapore
Tel: 6279 3617; Email: marion_abraham (at) spring.gov.sg

Progeniq’s hardware accelerated platforms provide over an order of magnitude speedup, at a fraction of the power consumption and space needed by typical server farms or workstations used by CG artists. Progeniq accelerated solutions have already allowed end users around the world to slash their compute infrastructure costs and complete their projects faster, with the best in class performance-per-dollar and performance-per-watt.

By teaming up, Progeniq and cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. were able to develop a whole new approach to hardware accelerated rendering, physics simulation, particle effects as well as image manipulation effects usually done in post production stages of a movie. Both engineering teams of Progeniq and cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. were able to achieve immense speedups in rendering complex scenes with finalRender by using the latest in re-configurable processors and advanced rendering algorithms incorporated in finalRender and Progeniq RenderBoost hardware acceleration technology.

At the SIGGRAPH 2009 exhibition, both companies announce their world premiere of a hardware accelerated rendering solution based on finalRender and RenderBoost. This will be expanded with further releases to even more broadly optimize and accelerate other movie production tasks in entire CG workflows under the companies’ “Accelerating Hollywood Initiative”.

With its technologies and products, cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. holds the key to all of the important fields of modern CG movie effects production pipelines. Together with the genius of Progeniq hardware acceleration and optimized software technologies, the companies are developing one unified integrated acceleration platform for all aspects of modern movie production.

Internal rendering benchmark tests done by both companies with real world production scenes from “2012”, with thousands of objects and millions of polygons were rendered with hardware-accelerated finalRender in an average of minutes compared to hours on a 8-core CPU server

CGI/VFX studios interested in integrating accelerated rendering solutions into their workflows can contact cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. and Progeniq to analyze and optimize their workflows for maximum compute efficiency leveraging on the hardware accelerators.

About Cebas

cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. is a German developer of advanced 3D special effects software for all major 3D applications on the market, now based in Victoria, BC Canada. With 20 years of experience in software development for the 3D market, cebas has become renowned for its quality and unique software products serving graphics and animation studios around the world. cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. has been part of many large scale movie productions like the upcoming “2012” or SPIDERMAN 3 and Blade Trinity to name a few.

About Progeniq

Progeniq is a leader in reconfigurable computing applications for High Performance Computing (HPC) industries, with accelerated algorithm engines already adopted by clients across different vertical markets worldwide. Today Progeniq continues to reinvent the way computing is done by leveraging on the Boost Platform to introduce reconfigurable computing into new compute-intensive industries, increasing the efficiency of computing systems while slashing acquisition and electricity costs.