SGEntrepreneurs » TenCube

tenCube To Be Acquired By McAfee

Gwendolyn Regina T — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:49:32 +0000

McAfee, the security juggernaut, has signed a “definitive agreement” to acquire Singapore-headquartered mobile security firm, tenCube, with the acquisition expected to close within the month. We have been covering tenCube since the company first won Start-Up@Singapore (2006), to launching WaveSecure (2007), to chatting with tenCube CEO Darius Cheung at a Nokia summit (2009) to its most recent accolades in Silicon Valley. This time, we are happy to have received news about this pending acquisition.

With the WaveSecure locate, lock, back-up and wipe technology, Trust Digital’s enterprise mobility management (McAfee acquired Trust Digital two months ago), McAfee will be able to “deliver the industry’s most complete next generation mobility platform”.

“Mobile devices have become an extension of our lives. Through this acquisition, McAfee can broaden its security capabilities and offer users protection and remote control of the phone whether it is in their possession or not. This means no more worries about the whereabouts of your phone or losing personal contacts, photos or messages,” Darius Cheung, CEO of tenCube.

WaveSecure is currently available in English, Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia but McAfee will be expanding the language support when the acquisition is complete.

You may be interested to know that Darius Cheung was with the SGE team and wrote a brilliant piece titled The Gold Digger’s Pants back in 2006. I won’t ruin it for you, but it has a great takeaway, something it seems Darius himself has made sure he followed.

WaveSecure Making Waves in Silicon Valley

Chew Lin KAY — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:22:46 +0000

Local mobile security company tenCube is having a very good run in 2010! Following on from the announcement of a strategic investment from Indian telecom apps service provider One97 to having its innovation acknowledged by China Mobile Research Institute, comes the news of tenCube making waves at two separate Silicon Valley events. WaveSecure, tenCube’s flagship product, was selected as the top product at the Plug and Play EXPO Spring 2010, and was tipped by Launch Silicon Valley as “Most Likely to Succeed”.

The five-year old company was founded with the aim of providing a solution to the problem of lost phone. WaveSecure allows phone users peace of mind–with this mobile security service, users can automatically back-up their data, remotely lock their phones or even wipe their mobile devices. WaveSecure is now available for five platforms (Android, Java, Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Mobile). While the Singapore Police Force was one of the first users of WaveSecure, its popularity and realiability has seen its adoption by leading phone companies, as well as by prostitutes and pimps to keep client data safe from cops!

tenCube goes to California

Silicon Valley has the reputation of being the leading high-tech hub because of its concentration of innovative entrepreneurs and engineers, as well as venture capital funds and angel investors. That tenCube can make a splash in such a crowd is something it should be proud of:

In May, tenCube wowed the crowds at the Plug and Play EXPO in Sunnyvale, California. The EXPO was a platform for promising startups from fields as diverse as media, mobile, wireless and clean technology to launch their offerings and/or seek further funding. tenCube was one of only three companies selected out of an initial field of 200 to pitch to a panel of top venture capitalists.

Following that, in June tenCube was further affirmed at the Launch: Silicon Valley Conference, when the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley Angels and Venture Capitalists selected it as one of 6 companies most likely to to succeed. tenCube was the award winner in the Next Generation Internet 1 catagory.

“Launch: Silicon Valley has grown to become a major Silicon Valley event showcasing the products and services from the most exciting of the newest startups from around the world,” said Chris Gill, president and CEO of SVASE.

According to SVASE, previous event finalists have gone on to raise more than $300 million (caveat: this is calculated from publically available information only). We believe that both Plug and Play EXPO and Launch: Silicon Valley Conference the way for tenCube to reach out from its Sunnyvale offices into the wider international market.

TWIA #29: This Week in Japan

SGEntrepreneurs — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:11:23 +0000

For this week, the TWIA crew is joined by Serkan Toto, a special guest from Japan, who is the only Asia correspondent for TechCrunch. We diced and sliced through the news happening in Japan: (a) DeNA’s reported profits and its competition with Gree, (b) Google is now booted out of mobile search by NTT-Docomo, the largest telco in Japan with them adopting Goo, (c) the new mobile apps platform set up by various Japan handset vendors including NTT-Docomo, and finally, we have a Singapore start-up named TenCube making headway in China. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs.

DeNA Reports USD100M On Quarterly Profit and focus on social apps business: We examine the landscape of mobile social gaming, and how the fight is now intensified between DeNA and Gree with a lawsuit over a fishing game on Japanese handsets.
Google Losing Default Mobile Search Engine Position On Docomo i-mode Portal, A Gate To Half Of Japanese Mobile Web: Google is once again being snubbed and where do they go from here after NTT-Docomo, the largest telco dissed them for another mobile search engine. However, it did not help with Goo crashing on the first day when they realized that they could not handle the load.
Japan’s next generation mobile application platform: NTT-Docomo is leading the way with Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Sharp to create a new mobile applications platform. We wonder whether they are planning to take the Apple iPhone head-on given their recent success in the Japanese market. We surprise you by where Apple might get the idea of the mobile apps store.
TenCube, SG based start-up and winner of Android Developer Challenge 2 last year got an award in China. : So, where is TenCube going after traversing from India to China?
Don’t miss out these major events too: Wordcamp MY, PyCon APAC 2010 and definitely, Echelon 2010.

tenCube Wins Innovation Award in China

Chew Lin KAY — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:00:26 +0000

tenCube, a local mobile security company, has just reached another milestone in their growth. In March, they were awarded a prize for Most Innovative Company in China Mobile Research Institute’s Innovation Competition, distinguishing themselves from the 110 teams and 150 submissions received from all over China.

China Mobile Research Institute hosted the award ceremony in Beijing. In his speech, Bill Huang, General Manager of the institute expressed hopes for greater collaboration, especially amongst the small and medium enterprises, to enable to creation of greater social utility and economic value.

The competition attracted wide interest from industry leaders in wireless technologies and is a positive step in encouraging further innovation in China. A further sign of interest in the Chinese market can be seen in the presence of Taiwanese companies at the award event, observing the new initiatives from their Chinese counterparts.

In their acceptance speech (in Mandarin), tenCube shared about their efforts to enhance mobile security through their flagship product, WaveSecure. This allows a user to protect data on their phone, track the phone’s location, and even remote-wipe the data stored, if the phone cannot be retrived. The popularity of WaveSecure reflects how well they have read the market’s demand for increased security–as they shared in Beijing, while the price of smartphones will continue to fall, the value of the devices will grow as consumers increasingly rely on them to manage their lives, and will therefore require greater control over what is stored on their phones.

SGE congratulates tenCube on their latest achievement. We believe that this is another step in the company gaining international recognition and increased traction. In the past six months, the company has attracted much attention with its flagship product, WaveSecure, winning the Google Android Challenge 2 in November 2009, as well as One97, India’s leading telecom applications service provider, making its announcement of making a strategic investment earlier in 2010. Given that this is only May, what else could be in store for this five-year old company? Watch this space!

(WaveSecure was also recently featured on Fox 25, where it was revealed that prostitutes and pimps were using the product to erase data when caught by police!)

India’s Leading Telecom App Services Provider One97 Makes Strategic Investment In tenCube

Gwendolyn Regina T — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:28:58 +0000

Seems like tenCube has not just made waves in 2009 when we last picked the mobile security company as one of the “5 Tech Entrepreneurship Events that Rocked SG in 2009″, but they also started out the new year with a big bang.

The company behind the mobile device and data security product that protects users in more than 130 countries, WaveSecure, just announced a new strategic investment by One97 Communications – India’s leading telecommunications application services provider.

No word on how much the investment quantum was.

The Upside For One97

The deal with tenCube makes sense for One97 as they will now expand their market from dealing in cloud-based telecom applications and services to include device applications – those that are gotten through direct download channels such as app stores.

One97 will get priority reseller rights for WaveSecure in multiple geographies including India.

The Upside For tenCube

Though India isn’t a new market for tenCube (check out here and here), being able to link up with the leading telecom application services provider in India means they can immediately gain access to the 100% mobile market user reach of One97.

Come 25th Feb, you can also hear tenCube speak on their two Android Developer Challenge wins.

You can also read our interview with tenCube CEO, Darius Cheung at the Nokia Developer Summit in Monte Carlo, Monaco last year.

tenCube To Talk About Their Android Developer Challenge Wins

SGEntrepreneurs — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:55:34 +0000

The great guys at tenCube (those behind WaveSecure are going to be sharing their experiences in placing as winners in the recent Android Developer Challenge (3rd overall and 1st in the Productivity category) at HackerspaceSG on 25th Feb. If you’re interested, do come chat with them!

Event Details

Date: Thursday, 25th February 2010
Time: 7pm onwards
Venue: HackerspaceSG

View Larger Map

5 Tech Entrepreneurship events that rocked SG in 2009

Bernard Leong — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:30:21 +0000

It’s that time of the year when we actually review what has gone past a turbulent year 2009 and probably a year after the financial crisis that rocked the world after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in Sep 2008. Of course, one of the key after effects is that fundraising for start-ups in the technology space become increasingly difficult this year. While we are beginning to see more and more acquisitions in the US tech space, the SG tech start-ups are still working towards a tough environment. In the technology entrepreneurship scene, significant incidents have shaped and brought forward new perspectives in Singapore. While we are about to start the new road ahead in 2010. Here are the top 5 tech entrepreneurship events that rocked SG in 2009 (in no order of preference):

The Fusion Garage vs TechCrunch fiasco over CrunchPad (now JooJoo): With so much furore that poured out three weeks ago from Mike Arrington who declared the death of Crunchpad, the whole incident has brought upon a sad day in Singapore tech scene. With a lawsuit on intellectual property pending between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch, it is not clear if JooJoo will appeal to the marketplace. We have learned two important lessons from this whole fiasco: one, contractual agreements are necessary for a partnership; two, getting investors who do not understand the tech space are a bad idea, given that the investor Bruce Lee has caused the ruckus that perpetuated the fall of CrunchPad.
The rise of Brandtology in the social media monitoring space: Earlier the year, we see the emergence of monitoring tools that focus on gathering data and tracking sentiment analysis in the social media space, for e.g. Brandtology, ThoughtBuzz and JamiQ. Within the span of two months, Brandtology has leapt frog among the pack by inking a partnership with Edelman, getting serious series A funding of S$2M from Walden International, and expanded into many countries from Australia to China.
SocialWok and iTwin shone brightly in TechCrunch 50 event: Singapore start-ups have made their mark in the TechCrunch 50 event in Sep this year, with iTwin making the presentation stage with their product that allow secure file transfer using two USB connected devices and SocialWok, a company specializing in enterprise based social networking and Google applications securing the winner of the DemoPit in the exhibition area of TechCrunch 50. Although we have not heard much from these start-ups, we hope that there will be good news coming ahead from them with respect to funding in the next stages of their venture.
Neoteny Labs and Hackerspace SG poise to change the funding gap and innovation culture in Singapore?: The Neoteny Labs with Joi Ito bringing his entire ecoystem to jumpstart our nascent tech entrepreneurship scene has begun to change the dynamics with their unconference. With a different strategy from bringing Pivotal Labs and introducing Agile Development to the tech entrepreneurs, the team in Neoteny Labs has brought something totally different, not to mention a real different culture on tolerating failure and encouraging an open source environment. The same can be said of Hackerspace SG, bringing technologists, entrepreneurs and developers from all walks of life in Singapore and setting a private space for hackers to try new ideas and create new technology. The biggest distinction for HackerSpace SG against all other initiatives is that we see enthusiasts in technology are moving out of the comfort zone to start their own thing by putting down their own money instead of relying on public assistance from government. Some wonder why setting up the Hackerspace SG is important and the simplest example I can think is to think about how Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley sparked the personal computer revolution. We hope these new changes will continue to ferment the groundswell and push a tipping point to our entrepreneurial scene here. There are talks on creating a proper Y-Combinator in Singapore after a vibrant discussion in the Neoteny Conference, so watch this space.
TenCube winning the Android Developer Challenge and other start-ups like 2C2P and BreakDesign winning similar accolades: Over the year, while we see the new start-ups popping out of the blue, we also see the older ones making headway. TenCube has make remarkable strides with their WaveSecure product, first putting the app into Nokia phones and subsequently winning the Android Developer Challenge. We heard that TenCube is in the final stages of closing another round of financing and we wish them all the best for the year ahead. The same can be said of FAME for being the finalist in Facebook Fund competition and many other companies who made headway in 2009 like BreakDesign being the first SG company to get the Adobe-Nokia Open Screen fund and 2C2P winning the Calling All Innovators Challenge for Nokia. Other notable start-ups that have made strides within the year include Tyler Projects, BuUuk, HomeCamera, Garena, Foyage, Time Voyager, AiNet (Lunch Actually and Eteract), Mozat, Mig33 and OrSiSo in the space as well.

With a great year for SG Tech scene in 2009 despite the backdrop of CrunchPad fiasco, we look forward to 2010 and hope to see more new tech companies springing. Probably, I might have not done justice to other events which may be of importance this year. If you have any ones, do drop yours into our comments as well.

A Roundup for TenCube in 2009 – WaveSecure & Android for Life

SGEntrepreneurs — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:32:28 +0000

Recently, TenCube, one of our local mobile security companies have made a lot of headway in the international scene. First they won the recent Google Android Challenge 2 competition with their flagship product, WaveSecure. We have received news from Darius Cheung, the CEO of TenCube, since it is near Christmas, as a giveback to Android users support that made their ADC win possible, they are offering an unlimited free lifetime account for Android users. To do that, the users can head over to Android Market and download WaveSecure before 31st Jan 2010, the new user will be able to enjoy a free WaveSecure account for as long as you use that Android device.

On the whole, looking at how TenCube has evolved this year, they have made a lot of headway in both Google Android and Nokia Ovi, despite they are being shut out of the iPhone platform because of similar iPhone features. With their win in Google Android Challenge, TenCube is also now a Finalist at GSMA’s prestigious Asia Mobile Awards based on their work in partnership with mobile operators such as SingTel. TenCube has also acquired accolades over the year
like the overall champion of the Mobile Monday Peer Awards in Singapore, and the first runner-up in NAVTEQ’s global LBS challenge.

As of today from TenCube, the product WaveSecure has protected more than a 0.25M users in more than 130 countries. The product was originally designed for military and police use, WaveSecure has continuously been developed over the past 4 years with 7 releases and has 2 international patents. First launched in 2007 for consumers on Symbian and Windows Mobile Smartphones, the WaveSecure’s latest release for Android platform is now available on the Android Market.

SGE has covered TenCube and are happy on their achievements over this turbulent year of 2009. We wish them all the best and hope that they will make more headway in the coming year.

TWIA Episode 6: The MOL & Friendster Marriage

SGEntrepreneurs — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:51:16 +0000

With two major news that rocked the Southeast Asia markets this week from the acquisition of Friendster by MOL to the emergence of the JooJoo netbook, the crew is left reeling the implications of the events. We also have David Lian, who joined us as our special guest as we run through our stories in TWIA. You can check out the podcast directly from here.
From This Week in Asia:

Some quick thoughts from the crew who attended the Nokia Christmas event in Singapore and Paypal event in Malaysia respectively tonight, and some thoughts after BL caught a glimpse of the Nokia N900 powered by the Maemo (powered by Linux).

The Emergence of JooJoo: After the huff and puff from Mike Arrington on the end of CrunchPad, Fusion Garage has fought back with a video press conference and launched JooJoo, the new netbook on the block.

The iMatch Conference 2009: We discussed some of the companies which made the pitch on the event: 2C2P, TenCube, HomeCamera, AiNET (Lunch Actually and Eteract).

MOL acquired Friendster: The biggest story of the week – Malaysia’s MOL Global (check out which games they distribute here) will buy US social-networking service provider Friendster Inc. We discuss the implications, the strategic directions of this acquisition and what’s the impact for the consumers for the Southeast Asia online gaming market.

Editor’s Note: Note that BL disclosed that he has invested in Eteract under Thymos Capital.

WaveSecure Wins Google Android Developer Challenge 2

Gwendolyn Regina T — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:10:10 +0000

We are happy to announce that tenCube’s flagship product, WaveSecure is one of the winners in the Google Android Developer Challenge 2! Congrats guys.