Is there any method in Rocket Internet’s madness?

Is there any method in Rocket Internet’s madness? A few months ago, I made a point that winter has landed in Southeast Asia with the fast and furious expansion of Rocket Internet from the infamous Samwer brothers. In the process, I also concluded that while they may be bad for innovation but they would demonstrate good examples of execution and speed to the rest of the technology ecosystem within the region. While monitoring their revolving door executives quitting within 3-6 months, employees complaining about their ways and their startups shutting down like Home24 within a short period of time, we are beginning to ask, “Is it really going to work or fall apart?” Read more

Rocket Internet’s Square clone PayLeven buys domain names in Asia; sets up company in S’pore

Asia, watch out. Rocket Internet‘s next clone could be coming your way very soon.

Called PayLeven, the Square clone’s corresponding domain names for Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Hong Kong have all been snapped up. The registrant organization for PayLeven.sg and PayLeven.in is “JADE 1360. GMBH”. For Payleven.in, the registrant name is Arnt Jeschke, the CFO and managing director of Rocket Internet.

It’s no secret that the Samwer Brothers are feverishly coming up with a copy of Square, a mobile payment company started by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey. But confusion reigned over what it would be called. Read more