The Top 10 startups of Asia at Open Web Asia 2012

The light tropical resort island of Hainan, China turned into a business and tech hub for four days for the APEC SME Summit and Open Web Asia 2012. Held from Dec 7-10th December, the Summit is the premier forum for facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region. This year is the first time Open Web Asia (OWA) was held as part of the APEC SME Summit.

Held in both English and Mandarin, OWA this year saw several interesting panel discussions around mobile (read what went on in the panel I moderated on “The Golden Age of Asian Mobile Internet” (article in Mandarin), gaming and e-commerce. We even had a massive 10-member panel discussion on the various country startup ecosystems (article in Mandarin) around Asia.

Having been held once every two years since 2008 (first in Seoul, South Korea, then Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), it was the first time China hosted OWA. It was also the first time that OWA had a top ten startups award.

We scoured the entire Asia region to find these startups, with the help of key people like Lu Gang of TechNode (the main organizer of the conference), James Jung of beSUCCESS, Daniel Cerventus of Entrepreneurs.my, Rama Mamuaya of DailySocial.net, Casey Lau of StartupsHK, Ngân Sâu of Action.vn, Masaru Ikeda of StartupDating, Mohan Belani of e27, Gaurav Mishra, and myself. Read more

Online infographic creation tool Piktochart earned USD200k in revenue since March

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

Five Malaysians win scholarships to YouNoodle Camp in San Francisco

Five Malaysians have won scholarships to attend the YouNoodle Camp, a month-long acceleration program in San Francisco.

They were selected from the “Pitch Your Way to Silicon Valley” contest,  which featured shortlisted candidates from the Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia (SVC2M) symposium held last October. Read more

Singapore’s Teamie wins Startup Arena competition, and a US$10,000 check

There were plenty of distractions at Startups in Asia, the first-ever tech startup event organized by Asian tech blog Penn Olson — including a couple of Kimono-clad ladies and helpers in tight skirts.

But the star of the show remained the Startup Arena, a pitching competition where 19 startups vied for the top prize of a US$10,000 check, as well as some Lenovo laptops and Nokia Lumia 800 mobile phones.

The winner, announced yesterday, on day two of the conference, turned out to be Singapore-based startup Teamie, which is building a social learning platform that aims to make learning more fun, social, and intuitive. Read more