It’s been three years since East Ventures, an early stage fund based in Jakarta, Singapore, and Tokyo, launched. To mark the milestone, the firm released an infographic detailing its performance so far. It has invested in 8 or 9 startups annually in each of the three years. A small number of these startups are based in Singapore, with the rest coming from Indonesia. Majority of its investments are in the e-commerce space, followed by online publishing.
Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner at East Ventures, tells me that the firm has invested between USD 50K and USD 500K in each startup. Its accelerator program, East Ventures Alpha, has invested about USD 10K per startup.
He is unable to disclose the firm’s returns for the exits of its portfolio companies. Read more
Berrybenka.com, a fashion ecommerce startup from Indonesia, has raised a Series A investment from GREE Ventures, it announced in a press release today. According to Berrybenka’s co-founder Claudia Widjaja, the investment sum is in the seven-digit millions (USD).
The funds will be used to expand product selection, scale up marketing, and improve the startup’s logistics. In addition, Jason Lamuda, co-founder of Groupon Disdus, will join the company’s co-founders, Claudia and Yenti Elizabeth, as president director and CEO. Jason has been acting as an angel investor and advisor to the startup. Read more
For a social network about fashion, Clozette isn’t exactly a looker, especially when compared to the sprightlier and hipper #OOTDX, an upstart that appears to be drawing the Instagrammer crowd.
But while my first impression may be less than positive, Clozette actually turns out to be more interesting than it lets on.
It certainly has enough cache to seal a partnership with SingTel’s lifestyle portal inSing.com, an arrangement that has given Clozette front page placement — on the portal’s dropdown menu. Clicking on that link will bring you to insing.clozette.com, an e-commerce site that sells goods from Clozette’s partners.
While I’m not sure how many percent of inSing’s purported 2 million monthly active users will actually land on Clozette, it’s a positive start. The partnership between these Singapore companies appears to be the right one too: Clozette, after all, has ambitions to be a one-stop shop for women’s fashion and beauty needs.
Sure, you might have heard it all before. It would seem that every online fashion and beauty retailer, your Zaloras, Luxolas, and Asoses, wants to be that first-stop for fashionable women.
But here’s the difference between Clozette and the rest: It isn’t a traditional e-commerce site at all. In fact, it fulfills an entirely different role in the online fashion ecosystem, that of discovery. Read more
Filed under Innovation & Technology, News, Retail, Special Commentary, Technology, WebTags: clozette, Fashion, Indonesia, inSing.com, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, SingTel
Getting media coverage for your app or startup can be a pain in the neck. It requires a lot of research, plenty of hobnobbing with journalists and bloggers, and too much heartbreak: All that relationship building could be for naught as the publication might on a whim decide that your app is too boring.
Peterpings, a new web app that launched yesterday, promises to make getting press coverage a lot earlier. Developed by Jon Yongfook’s 24-12, the same Singapore company behind online marketplace Tinytrunk and fashion social network #OOTDX, Peterpings lets users craft an email from a template, and at a click of a button, ‘ping’ all 170 websites at one go. Read more
Tiket.com, an Indonesian startup that lets users book airline tickets, concert tickets, hotel accomodation, and travel packages, has won the top prize of USD 25K at the Tech-I international competition organized by the Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) Initiative.
The winners were announced at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Dubai held in mid-December.
Since launching in November 2011, Tiket has gone on to grow at a 20 to 50 percent clip every month, according to TechinAsia. So far, it has partnered with 1,000 hotels, six airlines, 30 convert events, and 300 travel agents. Read more
After getting seed or venture funding, one of a startup’s first actions is to hire a team. However, good talent with high risk profiles are hard to come by.
Getting the word out to the right people could be part of the solution. That’s where StartUpJobs comes in. Created by Ben Chew, an angel investor and entrepreneur who runs a HR consulting firm, StartUpJobs is basically a free jobs portal for startups.
While Ben has said that the service is meant for “startups”, what he really means is any new company under 5 years old. Strictly speaking, startups would cover only new companies that are built to scale and grow rapidly. Read more
Asia might make a promising market for carsharing. Depending on where you live, cars are either too expensive or rendered useless by traffic congestion. These problems give carsharing intiatives an invitation to come in, which is why iCarsclub wants to be an early player in this space.
The Singapore startup has been working on their solution for months, and after delays with finalizing their motor insurance terms, it finally launched on 12 December.
Collaborative consumption for motor vehicles is not new in the world or even Asia. This year, we’ve seen ridesharing apps enter the market, offering users the ability to split costs on a cab fare or find a carpooler to share a ride to work. Governments are particularly supportive of this concept due to its public benefits: Reducing air pollution and traffic congestion. Read more
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“To help millions of people make informed and better career decisions” — that was, and still is, the grand goal of IDENTIFI when we covered them a year ago.
Since then, they have expanded into an enterprise software company, dropped the double “II” at the end of their name, and brought on notable companies such as Novartis and British American Tobacco as clients.
IDENTIFI provides a suite of data-driven solutions to help enterprises manage their human resource functions and employee careers. The platform has features like pre-employment assessments, a talent recruitment tool, and a developmental plan builder for existing employees. Read more
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
Piktochart, a Malaysia-based startup with an online infographic creation tool, has announced today at the Open Web Asia 2012 conference in Hainan, China that it has earned USD200k in revenue from March 2012 to now.
According to co-founder and CEO Goh Ai Ching, almost all of Piktochart’s revenue comes from its premium accounts. The startup has been cash flow positive since June this year.
Since bursting onto the tech scene in July 2011 through Chinaccelerator, where they received USD30k in equity seed funding and mentorship, the company has quickly ticked off a list of accomplishments. Read more
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