New price comparison app PricePinz one of the fastest and easiest to use

PricePinz is a free price comparison iPhone app that launched recently. Developed by a Singapore-based company, it joins a growing number of apps like Save22 (formerly LobangClub) eBay’s RedLaser, Amazon’s PriceCheck, and ShopSavvy, among others.

Since its debut a few days ago, PricePinz has been downloaded over 100 times. It currently offers over 4,000 items in its pricing database — the information is gathered mostly from merchants and in-house data entry.

PricePinz boasts support for both barcode and QR Code scanning, and provides a list of deals available in the vicinity of the user. It leverages social network to allow users to help promote their favorite deal and rate or rank a retailers’ offering based on criteria like customer support, freebies, and after sales service. Read more

Singapore’s Flocations raises USD 0.57M seed round from TNF Ventures, SingTel Innov8

Flocations, a travel discovery site aimed at short haul weekend travelers, has raised a SGD 0.7M (USD 0.57M) seed round led by TNF Ventures and joined by SingTel Innov8 and Singapore-based angel investor Ben Ball.

The Singapore-based company offers a different take on travel discovery. Instead of search by destination, Flocations lets users search by price — perfect for travelers who are on a budget and don’t know where they want to go. Read more

Sprooki goes white-label after funding round, steps up efforts to digitize malls in Asia

Soon after a USD0.48M funding round from Get2Volume, Singapore-based mobile marketing startup Sprooki has gone white label. It launched on 29 November a new location-based marketing app customized just for Singapore shopping mall 313@Somerset,  and will be looking to sell the solution to even more shopping malls and retailers.

The iPhone app, called Tring313, enables users to find deals that are nearby, download coupons, and make redemptions at the store. They can also make purchases directly on the app.

Malls and retailers can use the platform to schedule promotions, offers, and events to appear on the app as targeted messages. They can track and manage coupons as they are being downloaded, purchased or redeemed. Read more

Venture capital firms in Singapore — a directory

Here is a list of venture capital firms with a presence in Singapore that are actively investing in startups. While venture capital and private equity firms appear similar in their objectives — to make money through means like a company’s sale or IPO — they possess very different mindsets. This list doesn’t contain private equity firms. Read more

Singapore indie cafe The Pigeonhole starts fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to stay alive

Forced to vacate due to rising rentals, The Pigeonhole, an indie cafe in Singapore’s hip Duxton Road area, has taken to crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to raise money so that it can move to another location.

The company is seeking USD13,000 to pay for outstanding rentals, a two-month security deposit for a new and cheaper location, the first month of rental fees in the new premises, as well as renovations, repairs and painting work. The campaign will end on 27 December. Read more

Pink Dollar aims to end gay discrimination by promoting Hong Kong’s LGBT-friendly businesses

Paul Ramscar got a strange look from a sales staff when he once entered a jewelry store with his boyfriend. He could tell that the sales person behaved awkwardly — a reaction he didn’t get when he entered the same shop alone.

While Hong Kong is one of the most gay-friendly places in Asia, gay discrimination is still prevalent. That personal encounter was one of the things that prompted Paul to create Pink Dollar, a mobile app that serves as a directory of LGBT-friendly businesses. Read more

S’pore educational games startup Rockmoon partners with Chiang Mai University; makes inroad into Thailand

Photo: Rockmoon

Rockmoon‘s battle against worksheets continues in Thailand. The Singapore startup, which has created a platform that lets anyone create interactive educational games for student field trips, has scored a partnership with Chiang Mai University’s Knowledge and Innovation Center to create a technology learning hub.

The new center, which is called THINK (acronym for Technology Hub for Innovation & Knowledge), aims to find ways to incorporate ICT into children’s education and assist schools in piloting these technologies.

Rockmoon kickstarted the new intiative by holding a mobile learning seminar and Chiang Mai Zoo iTrail competition on 30 November. About 100 primary school students participated in the competition, where they used the company’s Trail Shuttle iPad app to answer quizzes, take photos and videos, and explore its augmented reality features.

The company says that this is the first time mobile technology has been used on such scale in a field trip in Chiang Mai. It hopes that through this partnership, more doors will open for its platform to be adopted as a tool for education and learning among students in Thailand.

Read: Trail Shuttle lets students create their own interactive learning trails

For Terence Tan of TNF Ventures, finding that one big hit isn’t enough

Fun is a rather quaint way for an investment firm to differentiate itself. But Terence Tan, an investor at TNF Ventures, is pretty serious about fun — and always have been. A competitive player in golf and tennis, he once overextended himself over a tennis game, fell and suffered a concussion, then lost his sense of smell.

This paradox of having serious fun permeates TNF’s culture. They’re managing money on behalf of NRF, a government body in charge of scientific research, yet they organized a poker tournament at their launch event. They wore gaudy red and white polo tees that made the event look more Resorts World than Marina Bay Sands, yet gave a Powerpoint presentation to introduce the firm.

It’s a signal that they don’t take themselves too seriously, but are hungry about making the right investment bets. It image seems befitting for a team of successful corporate and entrepreneurial types who’ve got it made. They don’t really need to start another fund, but for one reason or another, decided to. Read more

JFDI.Asia teams up with Golden Gate Ventures, reveals more details about second bootcamp

Update: Applications for JFDI.Asia Bootcamp, held from 14 February to May 2013, are now open. Deadline is 14 December.

The frog is croaking again. After months of relative peace, where they were quietly laying the groundwork, JFDI.Asia is ramping up for a second helping of their signature accelerator program in Singapore — the JFDI.Asia Bootcamp.

Major changes are afoot. First up, teams that are selected for the program will be getting more seed money — SGD25k (USD20.5k) instead of SGD15k (SGD12.3k) to be exact — to test out their ideas and develop prototypes.

Second, Golden Gate Ventures (GGV) will feature more prominently in this round, after they announced today a new “alliance” that will see the firm’s three partners, Vinnie Lauria, Paul Bragiel, and Jeffrey Paine, join the accelerator as mentors. Only Vinnie was a mentor for the first run. Read more

Red Dot Ventures invests USD490k in The Stakeholder Management Company

A Singapore startup, The Stakeholder Management Company (TSC), has created an online platform that generates visualizations to untangle the complex web of stakeholder relationships. It has already been used by Fortune 500 companies like HP, Nokia, and Syngenta.

For these accomplishments, it has secured SGD600k (USD490k) in seed investments from Red Dot Ventures, a Singapore-based startup incubator that is part of NRF-TIS, a government-funded co-investment scheme. The development was announced on 26 November.

Founded by Terence Lyons in 2011, who was at Microsoft leading its global enterprise value marketing strategy and CSR engagement, TSC maps out issues affecting a company and the positions stakeholders are taking in it. It can then identify who the influencers are in the issue, and allow companies to engage them, all within one web platform. Read more