Asian Startups @ SXSW 2013

At SXSW 2013, there were three Asian countries with their own pavilions.

Some thoughts about the pavilions at SXSW

1. When exhibiting in the USA and the primary language for your country is not English (like Japan and Korea), it really helps that a member of your team has studied, lived or worked in the USA. The most engaging booths from Korea and Japan had representatives who had spent significant time living in the USA; these representatives excelled in communicating with the attendees.

2. Having said that, do not hire local folks just for the event to pitch your company. While talking to exhibitors, it was immediately obvious to me which booths had just hired folks for SXSW. Usually, these representatives of the company had no passion and knowledge when talking about the company and the company’s product.

3. It was easy to know which booths were part of the Korean and Japan contingent; for Singapore not so much. Maybe there really is such a thing as Cultural Technology. Read more

beLAUNCH India to connect Indian startups with Korean and East Asian market

After a successful run in Japan, South Korean Startup Conference beLAUNCH is currently organizing an Indian edition to be held as part of their annual conference on May 1st and 2nd, 2013. As the flagship event of South Korea tech media beSUCCESS, beLAUNCH is Korea’s biggest startup and technology conference targeting the global technology communities. By holding a special Indian edition, beLAUNCH aims to connect startups from India interested in expanding their reach into the Korean or East Asian market with investors and major telecom firms located in Korea. Indian startups successfully accepted into this conference will subsequently have an opportunity to exhibit their product/service in a startup booth. Read more

Swiss software licensing platform Lotaris anticipates boom in Asia; grows presence in the region

Here’s a story line so often repeated it gets nauseating: It’s boom time in Asia. But of course, we should all be thankful that the region’s economies are being propped up by countries like Philippines and Indonesia, which are experiencing a wave of optimism that makes them attractive to investors.

Tech companies too are moving into Asia in droves, attracted by long-term opportunities despite the precariousness of the banking sectors in Vietnam and China, which could drag the world into another recession.

Lotaris, a Swiss company that specializes in helping app developers monetize, fits into this larger narrative. It sees Asia as a big growth market, and as such, has shifted its project management, quality assurance, and strategic elements into the Singapore office. Read more

Mysteries surround Facebook’s Asia Pacific Gateway project

The Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) is an NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph)-led initiative to lay submarine cables across 12 Asian Telcos and not 11 as initially reported.

These countries include: China (China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom), Taiwan (Chunghwa Telecom), Korea (KT and LG Uplus), Japan (NTT Communications), Singapore (StarHub), Malaysia (Time dotcom), Vietnam (Viettel and Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications) and the Philippines (PLDT).

Credit: SubmarineNetworks.com

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New startup accelerator SparkLabs launches and brings Silicon Valley to South Korea

A new startup accelerator in Korea called SparkLabs has launched with the aim of connecting Korea’s entrepreneurs to mentors from Silicon Valley and around the world. It hopes to help these startups expand into the US, China, Japan and beyond.

“Korea has been a powerhouse of innovation in high technology. SparkLabs opens the door to new entrepreneurs to amplify and ignite their new ideas into new and growing businesses,” said Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, who is an advisor to SparkLabs.

The accelerator is started by serial entrepreneurs Hanjoo Lee (co-founder of Hostway), James Kim (former executive at Nexon), and Bernard Moon (co-founder of Vidquik). They have started technology companies in the United States and Korea, experienced going public, raised significant amounts of venture capital and bootstrapped their startups. Read more

Funded by heavy-hitters, DocDoc lets you see a doctor’s schedule and make appointments in real-time

The food industry in Singapore has undergone a revolution lately as online reservation services are making it easier for diners to get a restaurant table and beat the crowd.

Now, the healthcare industry in Asia could see a similar change as a multi-platform service called DocDoc makes its debut in Singapore. Lounging at a hotel room in the posh Fullerton Hotel, the team gave SGE a preview of the web app today. It enables patients to instantly search for the right doctor, look at their schedule and make an appointment right away, saving time and effort. The app will go live sometime this week.

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Asia Pacific participants join winners at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2012

credits: Imagine Cup

The Asia Pacific region was well-represented in the winner’s circle at the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals. After five grueling days of presentations, learning sessions, and cultural activities, the top nine teams were finally revealed at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.

TANG Thai from Thailand who won 1st place under Game Design: Xbox/Windows Team, TokTok from Korea won 3rd place under Windows Metro Style App Challenge, and Coccolo from Japan won 2nd place under Software Design. In the individual category, Joshua Sim from Singapore won 3rd place under the IT challenge.  Read more

Overview of venture capitalist industry in South Korea

While the number of venture capital deals has been skyrocketing in South Korea since 2008, acquisitions of startups are still few and far between. Most exits come in the form of IPOs. These findings are derived from a beSUCCESS Special Report by Eunse Lee. Altogether, there are 105 registered VC firms in Korea, handling about KRW 9,460B  (US$8.28B) worth of funds. Read more

Mobile messaging apps from Asia you must know about: KakaoTalk, WeChat, Cubie

Updated: 8 October 2012

Among the pack of instant messaging apps in the market, Whatsapp is probably the alpha wolf, with a user base that’s estimated to be in the tens of millions. It also announced that it was sending one billion messages in a single day in end October last year.

But all top dogs will be dethroned or removed, and in a wide open market, the challenger can come from anywhere. Asia is one of those places.

Here, we feature three of the apps arising out of the continent that have proven user traction, and have a shot at being numero uno. For all we know, they might already be on top. Read more

Winners of Korean startup conference BeLAUNCH 2012 announced

BeLAUNCH 2012, South Korea’s first global tech startup conference, has announced the four winners of its startup battle competition. Held from 13th to 14th June, the conference hosted 20 startups who went on stage to wow investors and the audience.

Here are the winners: Read more