Yahoo returns Indonesia’s Koprol back to its founders after saying it wants to shut the service down

Yahoo has returned Koprol, an Indonesia-based Foursquare-like service, back to its owners, reported tech blogs DailySocial and TheNextWeb. That includes ownership of the Koprol name, domain, and all intellectual property and trademarks.

The service has endured a tumultuous journey: It was sold to Yahoo for an undisclosed sum, stagnated in terms of user traction, and was condemned to the trash heap just under a month ago.

Originally slated for shutdown on 28th August, Koprol might soon see new life under its founders, who have since started a new company called IceHouse. The Koprol team was about to implement plans for version 2.0 when Yahoo decided it wasn’t worthwhile maintaining the social network and its roughly 1.5 million users, mostly based in Indonesia.

Koprol’s hardcore users had launched a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #savekoprol in an attempt to save it.

Yahoo! kills Koprol after massive layoffs in Indonesia

Come 28th August 2012, Koprol will be no more. Indonesian tech blog DailySocial has reported that Yahoo!, which acquired the Indonesian location-based social networking startup in 2009, is shutting down the service.

The news comes three months after Yahoo! fired about 80 percent of its technical development team in Indonesia, DailySocial added.  Read more

Cheatsheet of technology startup exits in Southeast Asia

Last updated: 5 April, 2013

Tech startup activity has intensified in Southeast Asia in the past few years as investors and entrepreneurs have started to look more seriously at opportunities in the region. Acquisition activity has increased too. To help you keep track of what’s happening, here’s a cheatsheet of exits in the past few years, covering Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. Let us know if we missed out on any company, or if you have any feedback on how to improve the list.

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Indonesia Digest: Deezer enters Indonesia, Koprol’s Android app, and more

Here is some interesting startup news snippets from Indonesia, not only in its capital, Jakarta, but also other tech startup hubs such as Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and many more. These listed news are taken from our partner, DailySocial, a leading blog on Indonesia’s tech startup scene. Read more

Indonesia Digest – 13 Jul

Here you can find some interesting startup news from Indonesia, not only in its capital, Jakarta, but also other their tech startup hubs such as Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and many more. These listed news are taken from our partner, DailySocial, a leading blog on Indonesia’s tech startup scene. Read more

Indonesia Digest – 7 Jul

Here you can find some interesting startup news from Indonesia, not only in its capital, Jakarta, but also other their tech startup hubs such as Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and many more. These listed news are taken from our partner, DailySocial, a leading blog on Indonesia’s tech startup scene. Read more

TWIA #66: The Worlds of Tencent & Sekai Camera

Our TWIA producer, Mike Foong is finally back with the crew in the virtual studio after 3 months of hiatus, with also one of our highest recurring special guests, Serkan Toto (@serkantoto) from TechCrunch in Japan to talk about the top news that rocked the web and tech landscape in Asia this week. We discussed a few big hitters in the form of TenCent’s acquisition of Comsenz, the growing popularity of Sekai Camera and Koprol’s TV ad that rocked Indonesia along with other stories that focused on e-commerce in Asia, online forums and the big events in Asia which will have our September and October calendars all filled up.
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TWIA #62: O Smithy, Where art thou?

Yes, everyone is checking out on Smithy’s location these days. Yet, the news of the week from TenCube being acquired by McAfee to Google’s foray into China & Japan dominated the Asian landscape for web and tech. The TWIA crew starts off their chat about the future of Android in China & thoughts on the future of Southeast Asia tech scene with Daniel coining his term “Silicon Straits”. Of course, you won’t want to miss our crew’s famous discussion on “who wants to guess how much this company is acquired for”. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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TWIA #58: Live from Open Web Asia SEA

It has been an exciting week for the Malaysia web/tech scene with the Open Web Asia – Southeast Asia conference happening in Kuala Lumpur on 13-14 July. The TWIA crew hosted a live show with Serkan Toto (@serkantoto) from TechCrunch & Brian Wong (@brian_wong) formerly from Digg and now followFormation as our guests. We touched on some hot topics with great seats about InMobi’s 8M fund-raising success, the feedback about the Open Web Asia Conference and interesting start-ups which caught our eye, how Asian start-ups should improve on their pitching so to attract investors (and Asian investors should be more harsh on feedback to the entrepreneurs here) and Serkan’s interesting prediction for Asian companies in the next few decades. A special treat for all our listeners that you can view the video of the live show here. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. You can watch the This Week in Asia Live Show Video from Satoo.TV. Read more

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TWIA #55: The Story behind Yahoo-Koprol

The acquisition of Koprol by Yahoo is probably the most important tech event which rocked Southeast Asia this year. With the founders of Koprol, Fajar Budiprasetyo & Daniel Armanto together with our dear Smithy from Yahoo, we discussed the origins of Koprol (and how it was launched before FourSquare). We also found out how the founders built the mobile social network from zero to 100K users and the interesting features of Koprol before the fateful acquisition. In fact, we get an insider view behind the scenes on the day when the acquisition was announced. Finally, we hear how the founders and Smithy explain how the marriage between Yahoo & Koprol from their own perspectives and the future which lies ahead for Koprol. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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