9 Asian Startups That Caught Our Eye This Week

In the last seven days, we have covered a couple of startups on Tech in Asia, specifically from Indonesia, China, Thailand, and Singapore.

For folks who are interested in investing or partnering with these startups, drop us an email — editors[at]techinasia[dot]com – anytime. No promises, but we’ll try our best to be the bridge.

And if you’re a tech startup based in Asia hoping to get featured, please send us your pitch here.

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1. ShopSpot | Thailand

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ShopSpot is a m-commerce application that aims to simplify your selling and buying experience on the mobile phone in three simple steps: snap, tag, post.

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2. Juwai | China

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“Mainland Chinese property buyers spent US$28.7 billion on residential property around the world in 2011, generating over $900 million in commission for professional property sellers.” So says the blurb on the website of Juwai.com, which lists international property for Chinese buyers.

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3. Buykee | China

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China’s already lively online shopping industry has a new challenger this week in the form of the luxury brand-oriented social commerce site Buykee. Newly launched out of a beta testing period, the site is actually a social network more than anything, adding a layer on top of various existing e-commerce platforms.

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4. Chocoarts | Indonesia

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Indonesia-based Chocoarts has launched its long awaited mobile football game this week. The game, titled Jago Kabo, is built for Persikabo (Persatuan Sepakbola Indonesia Kabupaten Bogor), a club within the Indonesian Premier League.

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5. Game Ventures | Singapore

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Game Ventures’ Howzat has reached over one million monthly active users. When asked, founder Zaki Mahomed told us, “We take user actions seriously. Understanding the levers of your product and then building for retention. It’s not easy so most people don’t like it.” Click on to read more.

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6. Binumi | Thailand

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Binumi is a stock video, audio, and image website based in Bangkok, Thailand. No doubt that the product is good but there is just one thing that didn’t make a good impression on our China Editor, Charlie Custer.

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7. Kark | Indonesia, Singapore

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Jakarta-based incubator IdeoSource has made an investment in Kark Mobile Education, a Singaporean startup whose “edutainment” tablet platform has yet to even launch.

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8. Stilomo | Indonesia

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Founded by Stanley Octavian, Rebecca Agiestha, and Nick Yudha, Stilomo is a mobile app that allows users to get promotions/deals by sharing them to social media accounts. The startup has received angel funding this week and will be launching pretty soon, we learned.

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9. Ifetcha | Indonesia

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Ifetcha is a dating service that helps users connect and interact with new people around them using its LBS app. Targeting 91 million single Indonesians, the startup was founded by the trio of Muhammad Ikram, Yady Guitana, and Jidesh Veeramachaneni, and will utilize social and gaming aspects into its mobile app. Like Stilomo, it has also received angel funding and is set to launch soon. Both Stilomo and Ifetcha are recent graduates of the Jakarta Founder Institute.

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Startup Weekend Cambodia 2 – 22-24 June 2012

Startup Weekend is an intense 54-hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application that could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

This is Cambodia’s second Startup Weekend and it promises to be even BIGGER and BETTER than the last one! There is increased capacity, hosted at a much larger, more modern venue: Yellow Tower and several members of the Startup Weekend Core Team flying for a visit!

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Event Details

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When: Friday-Sunday, 22-24th June 2012
Where: Yellow Tower, No. 191, Tonle Sap (Rd.), Village 12, Sangkat Chroy Changva, 12110, Phnom Penh, Cambodia [map]

Register here.

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Startup Weekend Cambodia 2 – 22-24 June 2012

Startup Weekend is an intense 54-hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application that could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

This is Cambodia’s second Startup Weekend and it promises to be even BIGGER and BETTER than the last one! There is increased capacity, hosted at a much larger, more modern venue: Yellow Tower and several members of the Startup Weekend Core Team flying for a visit!

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Event Details

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When: Friday-Sunday, 22-24th June 2012
Where: Yellow Tower, No. 191, Tonle Sap (Rd.), Village 12, Sangkat Chroy Changva, 12110, Phnom Penh, Cambodia [map]

Register here.

Link to full article

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Stilomo and Ifetcha Raise Angel Funding, Both Launching Soon

Stilomo and Ifetcha have both successfully raised funding from angel investors. There hasn’t been a figure attached to the investments, but from what I’ve heard from the founders it is enough for them to launch and market their products. Both Stilomo and Ifetcha were part of the first graduates from the Jakarta Founder Institute, and graduated just two months ago.

Stilomo is – or, rather, will be – a mobile app that allows users to get promotions/deals by sharing them to social media accounts. Founded by Stanley Octavian, Rebecca Agiestha, and Nick Yudha, they are trying to differrentiate their startup from Groupon, LivingSocial or any group buying services by providing small- and medium-sized business owners the virality and traffic to their stores from these shared deals. It has a clear business model, and reminds us of the similar Singapore startup that is doing quite well called GSpot. Stilomo is currently developing an Android app, to be followed by Blackberry and iOS apps later. The beta version of the Android app will be released in May, and the startup will launch to the public around June.

Ifetcha is a dating service that helps users connect and interact with new people around them using its LBS app. Targeting 91 million single Indonesians, the startup was founded by the trio of Muhammad Ikram, Yady Guitana, and Jidesh Veeramachaneni, and will utilize social and gaming aspects into its mobile app. There will be virtual goods for sale as part of its revenue model, which will allow users to woo a potential date. My colleagues in China note that such apps are doing well amongst Chinese 20-somethings, such as Momo, and Mix.

I contacted both startups to get to know more about the funding rounds:

Rebecca, co-founder of Stilomo, explained:

We can’t mention its amount or even the range. But we can assure that the number is best-suited for us to kick-starting the company at its earliest stage. At first, we are focusing on product development, then we build our sales force to grab cooperation with some merchants, and we also plann some strategic alliances with telco providers, handsets, media or any other party that we believe could bring us to a higher level. We are only targeting merchants who are restaurants and in the food and beverage category in the first 6 months, then we’ll become available to any other categories like fashion, retail, and so on. In the long run, Stilomo allows people not only to hunt exciting promos, but they can explore the city business listings, and interact with their friends in a playful way. For merchants, Stilomo simply switches your customer to be a personal buzzer for your brand via social media.

Yady, co-founder of Ifetcha, told us:

We cannot disclose the details of our funding but it will be used mainly toward product development and refinement. We are currently focused on building our application and will launch a closed private beta at the beginning of May.

It is a solid recognition of the Jakarta Founder Institute’s graduates to get angel funding in less than three months from finishing the program – not to mention they haven’t even launched! I’ve also heard that the same angel investor actually approached all the graduates with regards some financial backing, but for now only these two have been confirmed. Meanwhile, Jakarta Founder Institute is currently opening its second batch and will close its registration on May 12, 2012 – go sign up for it here.

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Video: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed [Inspiration]

Imagine yourself sitting in the front-row seat of a flight and suddenly, the pilot announces ‘Brace for Impact’. You are right there, witnessing the plane going down.
Well, Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009 and he shares his experience of surviving the crash (and the impact on life post-crash):

We have this bucket list, we have these things we want to do in life, and I thought about all the people I wanted to reach out to that I didn’t, all the fences I wanted to mend, all the experiences I wanted to have and I never did. As I thought about that later on, I came up with a saying, which is, “I collect bad wines.” Because if the wine is ready and the person is there, I’m opening it. I no longer want to postpone anything in life. And that urgency, that purpose, has really changed my life.

I no longer try to be right; I choose to be happy. [TED]

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News Roundup: Airtel launches an online store

Telecom operator Airtel has launched an online store (http://shop.airtel.com), powered by Infibeam’s BuildaBazaar solution (Infibeam also powers online stores of VijaySales, TheMobileStore, VIP, Prestige and Crossword etc).

The online store offers mobile handsets, digital TV, broadband connections and even airtel’s cloud based ERP solution as well as storage on-demand. The delivery of devices is handled by NSI Infinium Global Pvt. Ltd, i.e. Infibeam’s parent company.

Guidelines to be framed for prepaid mobile connections

The Supreme Court on Friday directed that a five-member expert committee be set up to recommend guidelines for verifying those applying for prepaid mobile connections.  Identifying the area of divergence that needed to be examined, the court said that the expert committee would address the issue whether re-verification should be undertaken by the service provider/licensee, the DoT itself or any other central body and if there was any need for enhancing the penalty for violating the instructions/guidelines including sale of pre-activated SIM cards. [source]

TRAI’s spectrum auction proposal can raise tariff by 30 per cent, warn telcos

India’s five mobile phone companies including Bharti Airtel on Friday accused the telecom regulator of issuing a ‘highly retrograde set of recommendations on spectrum auctions’ and demanded that communications minister Kapil Sibal reject all key proposals suggested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). They also warned that high spectrum costs would lead to a 25-30% hike in call rates. [source]

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Events For The Week – 28 Apr-5 May

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.

Saturday to Sunday 27th-29th April

(1) [Philippines] Startup Weekend Manila

Monday 30th April
(1) [Singapore] Want to build a startup on selected technologies by research institude A*STAR?

Friday 4th May
(1) [Singapore] Network at Entrepreneurs’ Corner, level 6 at SMU Admin Blgd
(2) [Singapore] JFDI-Innov8 Bootcamp 2012 Demo Day (invite-only)

Image courtesy of joyosity.

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Evernote Devcup Meetup in Singapore

Remembrance and productive app company, Evernote‘s second annual worldwide developer competition is here: the Evernote Devcup! Devcup challenges software developers and designers to create awesome products that help our 25 million users do more with Evernote. They’ll be awarding over $100,000 in prizes and giving finalists the chance to present their work to the attendees of this year’s Evernote Trunk Conference in San Francisco.

Here’s what will be given away:
Gold – $20,000 cash prize
Silver – $15,000 cash prize
Bronze – $5,000 cash prize
6 finalists – $10,000 cash prize, and airfare and lodging to attend ETC 2012

The details:

Any piece of software that integrates with an Evernote API is eligible for Devcup. You can build for desktop, mobile or the web.

Key dates:

Now through June 25th – Form a team, come up with an idea, build an app!
June 25th – Submission deadline
July 23rd – 6 finalists announced
Late summer – Finalists present their entries at the Evernote Trunk Conference; the Grand Prize winner and runners up are chosen

To help you get started, we’re holding a number of meetups around the world. These are a great place to brainstorm and discuss the feasibility of an idea with our developer relations staff, connect with others who are participating in Devcup, and learn more about Evernote. We’ll also be holding webinars if you’re unable to attend in person. For a list of events, and to find all of the information that you need about Devcup, join the conversation at devcup.evernote.com.

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Event Details

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When: Tuesday, May 8th 2012
Time: 7:00 PM
Where: Blk 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #02-18, Singapore 139951

Register here.

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