Aloke Bajpai On iXiGo’s Funding, Founder’s Stake

iXiGo raised $18.5 mn in funding from SAIF Partners and MMT and a general query was – why? why did they sell off?

Here is a QnA with Aloke Bajpai, founder of iXiGo on the fund raised and story going forward:

QN: This is more like acquisition? Agree/disagree?
Aloke: This is the combination of a major financial and strategic investment – SAIF owns majority and Makemytrip owns minority (<20%). Also, our angel/seed investors are exiting to the incoming investors. Post
transaction, the iXiGO founders still own ~23% of the company and continue to manage and run the company – we have significant upside going forward, given the huge market potential of online travel
lead-generation, referrals and advertising. I personally think there is enough room for a transactional and lead-generation/media-model business to co-exist without conflict of interest and there are areas
of common interest that will benefit not just us but the travel industry and travel consumers.

QN: Why sell so early in the cycle? (at least the majority stake)? Google acquired and launched a vertical OTA specific service – I am sure there is enough opportunity out there. Why MMT? Doesn’t it take away the neutrality of ixigo’s business model?

Aloke: We found a good synergy of team, experience, understanding of the space and vision of the future with SAIF and MakeMyTrip. We will respect all existing agreements with our partners and since we
continue to run as two separate entities with two distinct management teams, we do not foresee any conflict of interest in continuing working with multiple suppliers/OTAs just like we have always done. We
also do not foresee any change in the inherent neutral and unbiased nature of our business model. As for Google’s ITA acquisition, we don’t foresee any short to medium term impact to our business since ITA is a US-centric flight-data aggregator.

QN: Future plans?
Aloke: We’ll continue to fulfil the travel information / research needs of Indian consumers by aggregating useful travel information and launch new products / tools that  will engage travelers and allow them to
plan their trips more meaningfully.

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Events For The Week – 13-20 Aug

For a one-stop to all events related to or concerning entrepreneurship, certain industry-meets-business forums and seminars in Singapore, check out our Calendar. If not, you can also follow our bite-size updated posts for upcoming events for the week.

Events range from simple get-togethers to full-blown conferences. Get to meet fellow developers, entrepreneurs, startup CEOs & founders, and meet & learn from CEOs of established companies who have seen it all.

Our aim here at SGE is to make it easy for you to pick & choose from the event buffet. Enjoy.

Here are the events for this week. Events are mostly in Singapore (generally 30 minutes drive from anywhere), but we also include key events from around Southeast Asia and beyond.

Fri 12th-Sun 14th Aug:

(1) [Taipei, Taiwan] Startup Weekend

Sat 13th Aug:

(1) IPA Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SOLVE) Awards 2011 Launch

Mon 15th Aug:

(1) Chillin’ With the Founders of Lunch Actually

Tue 16th Aug:

(1) DestrActions

Wed 17th Aug:

(1) Martell VSOP TUSS Result Night Party
(2) Web Wednesday

Image courtesy of joyosity.

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Chalkboard inks deal with HTC Singapore

Following a similar deal with HTC Malaysia, location-based deals platform Chalkboard will have its app installed in HTC phones in Singapore as well, starting with the flagship EVO 3D (see press release).

In essence, Chalkboard allows users to see what deals are on offer from merchants near to him or her. This also makes it a useful marketing tool for businesses, who can send updates to consumers for less than S$1 per day.

In addition to special deals, the app also displays the businesses’ address and contact information, all within a five-kilometer radius from the user. A map also enables potential customers to find their way to the shop.

Chalkboard seems to be on a roll of late. After announcing the deal with HTC Malaysia in June, they opened a new office in San Franciscowith the hopes of breaking into the US market.

The company was founded in February 2010 by CEO Saumil Nanavati and CTO Bernard Leong with investment from Neoteny Labs. With offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and now the US, they plan to enter the Indonesia market soon.

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BANSEA Network Lunch – 25 Aug

In 2 weeks time, the Singapore Business Angel Network Southeast Asia (BANSEA) will organize a networking lunch with four Interactive Digital Media (IDM) startups that will pitch their business during the session. BANSEA Network@Lunch is a platform that provides opportunities for early stage venture investing, networking, deal syndication & business collaboration.

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Programme Details

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10:40 am: Registration
1100 am: 4 Startup Pitches – Twtbuck, MyRideBuddy, Forever Young Studio, SkeeG-Online
1200pm: Investor Evaluation Session
1230pm: Networking Lunch
1:30pm: End of Event

 

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Who Will Pitch

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Gaurav Sharma, Founder and CEO of Twtbuck
Twtbuck is performance based social media advertising and crowdsourcing platform that reduces advertising cost by 50-80%.
Ashoketaru Sengupta, Director of MyRideBuddy
MyRideBuddy is Asia’s 1st dynamic, real-time, comprehensive carpooling service leverages trusted network and ride fees to increase ride sharing and reduce congestion.
Alban Villani, MD of Forever Young Studio
Forever Young Studio‘s in-house project, Whakan, is a new type of flash web & mobile social network game using Facebook Connect and which is based on micro-transaction business model.
Ian Wu, Founder of SkeeG-Online
SkeeGerpedia is the world’s first online educational social networking encyclopedia; re-engage teaching, re-engaging learning.

 

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Event Details

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When: Thu, 25th Aug
Time: 11am-130pm
Where: THE PINES, Ballroom II at Basement, 30 Stevens Road, Singapore 257840 (Map)
Fee: Complimentary (BANSEA Executive Members), S$40 (BANSEA Ordinary Members), S$50 (SVCA and TiE Members), S$60 (Others).
Register here.

 

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South Korea Digest: LivingSocial acquired Ticket Monster, I-um and Cocoabook dominate social-dating, and more

Here you can find some interesting startup news from South Korea, not only in its capital, Seoul, but also other their startup hubs such as Busan, Incheon, Ulsan and many more. These news are taken from our partner, onsuccess, a media enterprise on start-ups and ventures in Korea.

(1) Livingsocial‘s acquirement of Ticket Monster last week seems to be 100 billion won (US$ 92.5 millions) higher than market evaluation or around 350-400 billion Korean won (US$ 323.7-370 millions), it was announced on August 4. All of Ticket Monster’s shares are being swapped for Livingsocial’s shares after its IPO this year, along with a little bit of cash. This case is setting an example where more and more conglomerates are looking for opportunities in the Asian market. Further details here.

(2) Two startups founded by university students are currently dominating the domestic social-dating market. I-um ranks first with Cocoabook in second place. I-um is growing fast, reaching its break-even point in just one month after its launch last year,and it has currently recorded a monthly profit of 150 million Korean won (US$ 138.7K) last month. I-um matches users once a day, and currently consists of more than 1.3 million members. It has received a total of 2 billion Korean won (US$ 1.85 millions) from Altos Venture and Suprema. Cocoabook distinguishes from I-um in that people may only become a member through an invitation. Users may select from three candidates or meet someone of their dreams from a self-developed algorithm. Being only three months old, it is already nearing 20,000 users.

(3) Publstudio is holding an event from August 1 to celebrate its new storybook app ‘The Secret Forest‘. If you find all the pictures of the animal named ‘Kin,’ Publstudio will reward you with Gifticons, which are coupons that you may change to gifts offline, such as a Paris Baguette bread. ‘The Secret Forest’ is an interactive storybook with many videos and games, and which can be downloaded by iPhones and iPads. Publstudio is being incubated at a training school hosted and managed by Small and Medium Business Corporation. The app ‘The Secret Forest’ raised more than 100 million Korean won (US$ 92.5K).

(4) KTOA (Korea Telecommunications Operators Association) has established an agreement for a second round investment of 369 billion Korean won (US$ 341.3 millions) in the KIF (Korea IT Fund) on July 29. KB Investment and ten other companies initially established and managed this investment fund, with plans to include other limited partners and raise an additional 275 billion (US$254.3 millions) later this year. The first Korea IT Fund originally started off in 2003 with 300 billion Korean won (US$ 277.5 millions) by KT, SKTelecom, and LG U+. From 2003 to 2010, it has invested in 262 companies, 50 of them which went public on KOSDAQ (Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotations). The ten general partners are planning to finish fundraising by September and start investing in October.

(5) Pankyo is surfacing to become the 2nd Teheran Valley because of greater accessibility and connectivity due to a new subway line and government policies. Many IT companies as well as major fabless semiconductor companies have announced they are moving in by the end of this year. Institutes such as KSIA (Korea Semiconductor Industry Association) and ETRI Seoul System Semiconductor Promotion Center are also considering moving in. Korea Bio Park, which has 22 solid companies with advanced technology such as Genexine, SeouLin Bio Science, Crystal Genomics, Oscotec, Bioneer, Amicogen, is also a contributing factor to Pankyo’s lively atmosphere.

This has been brought to you by SGE and Onsuccess. Onsuccess is a media enterprise for start-ups and ventures in Korea. Onsuccess introduces innovative Korean start-ups and ventures to people overseas through media partners and inspires readers by sharing interesting business ideas and trends from all over the world. Furthermore, Onsuccess holds various events, offering actual chances for Korean start-ups and ventures to meet other start-ups, venture business partners and investors abroad. They publish in both Korean and English.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

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Why Bugis Junction is still booming

Completed in 1995, and first owned by BCH Investments Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Keppel Land, Bugis Junction is located in the junction of Middle Street, Victoria Street and North Bridge Road right in the middle of the downtown core area of Singapore. Occupying a Gross Floor Area of 578,000 sq ft, the mall has some 207 shops over 5 levels, and 648 carparks spaces catering to those who drive.

Bugis Junction comes alive during Christmas. Photo: William Cho

Bugis Junction is one of the holdings of CapitaMalls Trust, a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), and is currently managed by CapitaMalls, a leading mall management company in Singapore which is public listed.

I’ve always wondered why Bugis Junction managed to succeed and thrive fabulously, remaining on the cutting edge of consumerism while many newer malls have fallen by the wayside. How does it manage to keep itself going on in the hypercompetitive retail market in Singapore? Here are some of my observations:

1) Location, Location, Location. While Bugis Junction isn’t situated in the popular Orchard Road or Marina/Suntec shopping belts, it sits right smack atop the Bugis MRT station and is well served by many buses. The mall is also easily accessible by the highways (either East Coast Parkway or Ayer Rajah Expressway).

2) Integration and linkages with surroundings. Other than being connected via an underpass to the Bugis MRT station, Bugis Junction is also located fairly close to other adjoining areas like the new Bugis Street, Bugis Village, the Albert Complex/Fu Lu Shou/Sim Lim Square malls, and the heavily visited temples at Waterloo Street. This helps to form a natural human traffic belt in the area, with positive spillover effects.

3) Focusing on One’s Core Audience. As a weekend hangout for young adults and youths, Bugis Junction has stuck fairly close to its guns in managing its tenant mix to cater to this crowd. I love the array of snacks and takeaway food options in its basement, offering the latest and trendiest grub for the Gen Ys and Millenials. The selection of boutiques, shops and salons are also pitched at this segment.

4) Access to Weekday Office Crowds and Hotel Guests. With multiple offices in its office complex, the shopping mall benefits from a weekday lunch crowd unlike malls located in exclusive shopping belts. The adjoining Inter Continental hotel also helps to provide much needed foot traffic to its tenants.

5) A great design and layout. Featuring Singapore’s first glass-covered, air-conditioned shopping streets (quirkily named after the old streets themselves like Hylam Street), Bugis Junction’s architectural design preserves the romance of the old shophouses without the heat and humidity. Illuminated by natural light, the atrium area gives one the illusion of being on a sidewalk cafe where one can observe the action on the street.

6) Choosing the right anchor tenants. This is probably one of the oldest trick in the shopping centre management book. Some of the more established tenants in Bugis include BHG Bugis, Shaw Cineplex, VirtuaLand, Cold Storage, Food Junction, and of course Books Kinokuniya. These branded outlets help to add to the allure of the complex and draw customers of their own without subtracting from its brand equity.

7) A Colourful Legacy. Older Singaporeans will recall that the Bugis Street area where Bugis Junction now sits on used to be a popular venue for transvestite shows and night life activities. While the shopping mall is nothing like its past, having that colourful past helps to create that mystique behind the brand.

Naturally, the above isn’t exhaustive, but I believe that they constitute some of the key reasons why Bugis Junction remains a crowd puller, year after year.

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Walter Lim is a corporate professional with more than 15 years of experience in marketing, public relations, social media, events management, strategic planning and corporate development. This article was republished with permission from his blog coolinsights.blogspot.com

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NetEase invests $ 31M in Online Video Business

NetEase, one of the largest portal site slash game vendor in China is reported to invest more than RMB 200 million (US$ 31 million) into its online video business with special focus on copyrighted contents.

According to people familiar with the matter, NetEase has planned something fiercely regarding online video strategy, however its late move is due to the company’s concerns over the market maturity .

At the current state, NetEase online video offering is equipped with contents from TV station. It’s patently lacks behind in shopping quality TV serials and movies as compared to its counterparts such as Qiyi, Sohu Video and Xunlei.

For example, according to a Goldman Sachs report, costs related to copyrighted content purchasing of Youku would rise up to RMB 2.7 billion(US$ 41million) in FY11, while Qiyi, the Chinese Hulu, was rumored to spend up to RMB 1 billion on quality copyrighted content last year.

Just take a wild guess, people believe NetEase’s latest move in online video signals the company is getting prepared for the spin-off of its portal business which will be going public.

 

Related posts:

1. Sohu's online video business gain market share
2. Youku acquiring Tudou rumor signals cost and copyright problems in online video market
3. Youku, Tudou and Sohu Lead China’s Online Video Advertising Market

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Video: Girl with weird and sexy dress blowing the web

Everybody, first of all, thank you for keeping coming back to this little site. If  I am not wrong I’ve stop updating it for three month. Ive got tried of writing about China’s rubbish knockoff electronics, though some of them are interesting, but most are not, and definitely I have other more meaningful things to do. So from now on I would bring you some more funny stuff other than knockoff products,  hopping to give you a fresh angel for you to look into China, this wonderful land, as we Chinese calls it.

This time the topic is about a girl who’s wearing sexy and weired design swimwear alike at a Mcdonald’s in Beijing. Forgive me I don’t have enough words to describe it, just watch the video for more details. Personally I like this girl, for the piece of cloth, her courage she have, her calmness at her big success of catching public attention, and the last and the most important, the possibility of the wearing style she created becoming a trend in fashion…

This video is blowing the Chinese web, re-micro-blogged by the people with the most spirit of entertainment. Some people were angry and questioned why she covered some positions that shouldn’t be covered, and some more detailed oriented people just kindly reminded them even if she didn’t do that, she really didn’t have much more to show you… So what’s your opinion?

[Source:Youku]

• No Related Post

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An (Un)ethical Lesson Startups Can Learn From LinkedIn

Geeky entrepreneurs think of users first and money later. But likes of Facebook(beacons) of the world have demonstrated that it’s alright to be evil and take the evil route (as long as nobody notices the evil feature).

The latest to join the rank is LinkedIn, one of the most admired (and ethical) company in recent times.

LinkedIn has launched (or maybe its an earlier feature) Social Advertising that will use your name and photo in their ads.

What’s Unethical?

Feature is definitely useful (will work wonders for advertisers). Just that by default you are ‘checked-into’ the system – i.e. this isn’t an opt-in system, but you are automatically made part of LinkedIn’s social advertising system.

How cool is to see you promoting a brand without you being aware of the promotion?

Well, that’s unethical and if LinkedIn can resort to this, do take a stock of what’s ethical for your startup (i.e. manage business vs. ethics line?).

And those who crib about Indian startups selling user’s email ID/mobile numbers to advertisers, do understand that it’s a global phenomena and by the virtue of being online, you have taken a hit on your privacy.

Welcome to Social 2.0?

Aside, in order to opt-out, do visit account settings and click ‘Manage Social Advertising’.

Recommended Read:

• Plan For Good And Bad Luck: Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder
• 11 Entrepreneurial Advice [Don’t be Marc Zuckerberg. Be your ‘Ownbook’]
• Ethics and Entrepreneurship [The Dharma Sankata of an Entrepreneur]

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5 Android Apps For Students [Appnomy Collection]

As smartphones get faster and cheaper, they double not only as entertainment devices but also educational ones. The utility of smartphones in the classroom has never been in doubt and as more apps that truly empower the student emerge, this attribute of the smartphones will be quite useful to students. Here are a list of apps that will get you started up as more will surely come.

1) Time table:
Time tables are considered essential tools for all students. This time table app will let you create separate time tables for different activities, making it easier to manage your workload. And there are more features, you can add exam time tables to it too! This can also be a handy tool for parents to keep track of which of their kids have what classes and when!

Download Link here

2) Math formulary:
Math formulary is one of the handiest tools a school or university student can have. The app provides …

[Continue Reading At Appnomy]

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Chennai Based HappyFox Will Happify Your Customer Support

Chennai based TenMiles has launched HappyFox, a SAAS based support software. TenMiles, if you remember had a on-premise hosted solution, HelpDeskPilot and while that product continues to serve enterprise IT market, HappyFox is targeted towards SMBs who prefer cloud based solution.

Here is a QnA with Shalin Jain, founder of TenMiles:

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Transition from HelpDeskPilot to HappyFox – Can you walk us thru’ the entire journey?
We’ve been serving the Enterprise & SME market with Helpdesk Pilot for last 6 years. Helpdesk Pilot still continues to be available for organizations that need an Helpdesk system typically within their network. SaaS offering has been on our mind for last 3 years and we had decided to re-engineer the product for very high scalability. We’ve been in private beta for last 3-4 months and have a large number of paying customers already.

Why create another brand?

A lot of things are different: Our target segment, product use case, pricing and delivery.
Helpdesk Pilot is strongly established as an deployable enterprise product now. Also, Helpdesk Pilot has served a different market, for instance it caters to large group of Internal IT help desk requirements in banks, universities and many other large organizations besides being used for customer support by many other companies. Many features like LDAP integration is more important to enterprise segment than for a cloud based customer support software. An additional brand is a lot more work but over a long run it would be great for our customers.

What’s your sales model? Put it on the web, create buzz? Or have a direct sales/offline model as well?

Our Sales & Marketing efforts are largely Internet driven.

Zendesk recently announced SAAS for enterprise – and that’s a big competition (established one). What’s your target segment?
We’ve been serving similar markets for a very long time and win in my many areas when it comes to features and ease of use. Having said that, with HappyFox we are essentially targeting smaller and mid-sized companies. We are priced better and have a matured product with a no-nonsense workflow.

Most of the saas based support software have similar positioning  (i.e. “Support Simplified”). What’s HappyFox’s USP?
HappyFox is the first true freemium cloud based customer support solution in the market. The product is feature-rich with great user-experience available at a very competitive price point.

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It’s interesting that Shalin shared interesting insights (on SAAS vs. Hosted solutions) in our last coverage of Helpdeskpilot:

Let’s not be silly to think a non-SaaS based product has no acceptance or wow-factor. There are plenty of reason why companies prefer non-hosted models and it is a great plus to have a product that can be deployed and can also be taken to the cloud.

Helpdesk Pilot can be used on the Intranet + Internet. So, it is a good for a internal IT Helpdesk use-case as well as good for customer service on the internet. Hence, the ability to deploy is great. Most top education institutes, banks, casinos prefer deployable models for the ability to customize and keep access/information strictly internal. It becomes highly affordable when you deploy a product – esp. with a product like Helpdesk Pilot that can be installed on any shared hosting service.

Besides, Helpdesk Pilot has been around for 4 years now. Extremely popular, profitable & great growth story. Of course, full blown SaaS would be a sweet extension of the product. For now, we can still host it for you.

What’s your take on the SAAS based support software? A lot of Indian startups are going after this space, as SAAS has leveled the playground for them (i.e. you do not need a physical sales team to sell the product).

Another startup in this space: FreshDesk.

Recommended Read: How to Price your SaaS Application – The Definitive Guide | How SAAS Pricing Plans Have Evolved Over a Period of Time

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