A look at RedHerring Asia’s Top 100 startup list [India:56, China:41]

Red Herring has released thelist of the short-listed companies for its “2012 Red Herring 100 Asia Award”. Selecting the most innovative upcoming companies from across the Asia (including Australia) to compete for the Top 100 Asia Award. The winners would be announced after another round of judging and live presentation at the Red Herring Asia Forum to be held in Hong Kong from September 10-12, 2012.

Out of this year’s finalists a whopping 56 start-ups come from our humble India, which comes as a relief for all those bashing the relevance and the innovativeness of the Indian start-up community. The race for a position in the final 100 start-ups from across Asia is hotly contested with China, which itself has 41 companies competing.

According to Red Herring the companies are selected on a basis of a variety of parameters ranging from financial performance to IP creation to execution of strategy and the Top 100 would reflect that region’s most promising private ventures. Few restrictions that Red Herring has in place include, that the selected companies be focused on either technology or life science; and are all of them are privately held and not be listed anywhere.

A quick look at 11 ventures from India which form our personal favorites spanning across different sectors but sharing the common DNA of causing disruption in their respective fields:

1. Appnomic Systems

SaaS solutions for autonomic management of the IT infrastructure.

2. Capillary Technologies

Building customer engagement solutions helping retailers and customers and being used by more than 100 major brands worldwide.

3. EDXL Learning India

EDXL provides customized learning solutions to offer training for organizations and skill based programs for individuals.

4. Forus Health 

Affordable technology-driven healthcare solutions for the emerging countries

5. Freshersworld.com

A job site exclusively for helping the recent graduates to find their first dream job.

6. HOORAYY Technologies – Kidloo

Online toy store for kids aged 0-13

7. MeriCar

Web portal for online booking for car servicing and repair.

8.My Parichay

Next generation e-recruitment solution using social media.

9. Uniphore Software Systems

Delivering speech based mobile solutions in a variety of industries ranging from banking and healthcare to agriculture and education.

10. Waterlife India

To provide safe and clean water to everyone in a sustainable manner

11.   Y2CF Digital Media – Hoppr

Mobile device-agnostic, location based service providing hyper local e-commerce

Not all the companies competing for a Top 100 position are a new brand. There were a few which enjoy mass brand recognition and market dominance.  Companies such asCleartrip (travel solutions),Eko India Financial Services (low cost infrastructure powered secure and convenient financial transactions, FREECULTR (online shopping experience with a full range of lifestyle apparel & accessories) andiBIBO Group (online gaming site and other ventures) form base of the already established players from India.

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13 Startups in Asia That Caught Our Eye

Another week has passed in Tech in Asia and below is the list of startups which we have covered. For tips and stories suggestions, feel free to email us at Editors[at]techinasia[dot].com. Alternatively, you can submit tips here and/or your startup here. Enjoy!

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1. NepalAdz | Nepal

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NepalAdz describes itself as an SMS-based C2C online classified ads board. Ads can be posted to the service by sending a simple SMS – so you don’t even need to be online to do it.

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2. Priceza | Thailand

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Thailand has its own price comparison site. It’s called Priceza.com, and apparently it is gaining a lot of traction too, claiming to have over 1.2 million unique visitors per month.

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3. TaoU | China

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Leveraging on the Sina Weibo API, TaoU is a China-based startup that aims to help users find the right connections and content on their microblog network.

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4. Adplus | Indonesia

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Performance-based ad network Adplus claims to be the first to introduce a new acquisition model for digital marketing in Indonesia called CPV (Cost Per Visit). It also focuses on several other aspects of performance-based advertising too.

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5. StartupBisnis | Indonesia

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StartupBisnis, founded by Denny Santoso and Rhein Mahatma, aims to provide useful knowledge and content for entrepreneurs in the country.

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6. FreeMailBlast | Philippines

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FreeMailBlast is an email management service that offers an all-in-one solution to sending out millions of emails in as little time as possible.

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7. aBit Games | China

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aBit Games is a Xiamen-based game dev firm on the southeastern coast of China, making globally-oriented and highly-addictive mobile games. Well, one so far.

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8. Kezaar | Singapore

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What do you wanna learn? Guitar, a new language, or cooking? Kezaar.com probably has someone out there offering their skills.

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9. Ushi | China

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Ushi shares its future plans this week and we can expect the Chinese LinkedIn-like professional network to partner with AngelList or introduce an extended service that works like AngelList.

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10. Weibo Reach | China

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Sina Weibo is a powerful communication tool. But it doesn’t offer much in the way of analytics. Enter Chinese startup Weibo Reach, which takes your tweets and produces awesome visualizations of their spread throughout the web, in addition to a bunch of other analytical data about how they are passed along.

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11. Gongmin Guanzhu | China

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Many government websites in China haven’t been updated in years, and others may contain fake information designed to trick you into giving money to hackers. So what’s a Chinese citizen to do if they really want to get in touch with their People’s Congress representatives? Thankfully, there’s an app for that: Gongmin Guanzhu.

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12. Agate Studio | Indonesia

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Agate Studio, a mobile gaming startup from Indonesia, has launched Football Saga 2 on Facebook. The sequel has a really important message for the players and for football fans in general, which is to unite support behind the currently sad state of the Indonesian National Team.

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13. Tokopedia | Indonesia

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Tokopedia, one of the oldest players around in Indonesia’s e-commerce industry focusing on the C2C market, celebrated its third year anniversary this week – and shared some of its financial figures.

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Related Startup Stories

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• Chinese Startups Are Slowly Moving Away From Beijing, Shanghai [CHART]

• Is the Tech Incubator Model Broken in China?

• Singapore Serving as Springboard for Japanese Companies Looking Abroad

• Cut The Bullshit, Singapore. Solve Point Number 3

• Punjab Government in Partnership with Google Launches Punjab Innovation Campaign

• 8 Indonesian-Themed Games for Independence Day

That’s all for this week, folks! (See last week’s list here). For our full coverage of the hottest and most innovative startups in the region, you can click here or subscribe to our Asia startups RSS feed. For tips and news, sent us a note via editors[at]techinasia.com

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Endangered Banyumas Dialect Gets Its Own Linux OS

The @blankonbanyumas project in Indonesia has launched its open source, Linux-based OS that’s fully localized in the Banyumas local language. It launched on Friday, aptly arriving on Indonesia’s 67th Independence Day. Wikipedia describes the tongue as “considered to be a dialect of Javanese.”

The OS, which is called “BlankOn Banyumas,” has been used in 23 villages that are members of the Village Development Movement (GDM) in Banyumas regency.

The OS is developed to help the local Banyumas society learn computers more easily with its dialect, instead of the usual Bahasa Indonesia. Ideally, this move is also meant to help decrease the usage of pirated software in the area. The OS has been in development for eight months, with the help of hundreds of volunteers including the likes of IT practitioners, students, bloggers, and villagers.

Get this very special Linux distro from its homepage, or check out a screenshot below.

[Source: Detik]

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Converting from sole proprietor to a Singapore private limited company

(Credit: Swiss Financial Company & Trust SA)

A client recently asked us how to convert their business from a sole proprietorship to a Singapore private limited company. Here’s how in four simple steps.

Step 1 – Consent

As the owner of the sole proprietorship, you will need to write a letter you have no objections using the business name to become the name of a private limited company. This is called a No Objection Letter and explains why you want to retain the business name and whether the same person owns it.

Step 2 – Incorporate a private limited company

For most formations, the fee is around S$1,000-2,000, depending on your requirement. At the very least, you will need a registered mailing address, one local resident to be a director and appoint a company secretary within six months of incorporating.

As soon as the private limited company is formed, the owner needs to close the sole proprietorship within three months of incorporating the new company.

Step 3 – Asset transfer

Once we identify the assets/liabilities list that need to be transferred to private limited company, we can either recognise these assets as an ‘amount injected by director’ or ‘share capital’ of the private limited company.

A director’s injection can be an interest bearing loan or non-interest bearing loan (advances).

It is advised you engage a professional to help you prepare the transfer. These computations can be complex, and involve buy / sell notes where one business buys assets and liabilities from another.

Items that will be required to transfer include:

1. Assets. The net assets taken over by the private limited company.

2. Bank accounts. You must close all banks accounts maintained by the sole-proprietorship firm and open a new account under the private limited company. This will affect your customers, GIROs, auto payments, so ensure you update stakeholders on the change of account.

3. Contracts. If you are renting an office for your business, you will need to re-sign the lease agreement under the private limited company. Likewise you may need to re-sign existing business contracts / service agreements.

4. Licences/permits. You may need to apply for new licenses or permits, as these usually cannot be transferred.

Step 4 – Ceasation

Once the company is incorporated, the sole proprietorship firm must be terminated within 3 months from the date of incorporation. Lodge a Notice of Cessation to ACRA confirming the closure of the sole proprietorship within 3 months from the date of incorporation of the private limited company.

Reasons to convert to private limited company

A sole proprietorship has the following drawbacks:

1. Unlimited liability. Creditors can claim against your personal assets, including your property.

2. No corporate tax benefits. Taxes are at the personal income tax rate. For net profits greater S$100,000 p.a., this is not tax effective. Many tax shields enjoyed by private limited companies are not available.

3. Raising funds. Limited to cash injections from personal finances and using retained earnings.

4. Valuation. Perceived as having less value than private limited companies.

Legal structure comparison

Below is a comparison chart published 2010 by ACRA. The table compares sole-proprietorship, partnership, limited partnership (LP), limited liability partnership (LLP) and private limited companies.

View more presentations from futureb00ks

Disclaimer

The information given is of a general nature and may not be applicable in a specific situation. Under the Terms of Use of this website, we disclaim liability for any act done or omission made on the information provided and any consequences for any such act or omission. For specific legal advice, you should seek professional legal assistance.

About Futurebooks

Futurebooks is Singapore’s and Hong Kong’s most progressive bookkeeping company. Futurebooks offer affordable incorporation, bookkeeping, business planning and brokering, to entrepreneurs with big ambitions.

Whether your goal is to be acquired or to be more profitable this quarter, Futurebooks provide planning to keep your business on track and bookkeeping services that streamline the journey.

Using cloud computing solutions like Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, Xero, SaaSu, DropBox, Workflowmax, Vend, salesforce.com and Google Enterprise, Futurebooks are able to offer clients productivity improvements and reductions in the cost of accounting.

Visit our website and chat to us live or follow us on Twitter.

About the author

Anthony is the founder of an accounting and analytics firm Futurebooks Pte Ltd. Anthony is obsessed with helping start-up companies incorporate, conduct industry analysis and develop positioning.

He has ten years experience in media and marketing, and was founder of Firestarter, a digital marketing agency.

Firestarter was acquired by Novus Media in 2010.

Featured Image Credits: Made It Simple

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Converting from sole proprietor to a Singapore private limited company

(Credit: Swiss Financial Company & Trust SA)

A client recently asked us how to convert their business from a sole proprietorship to a Singapore private limited company. Here’s how in four simple steps.

Step 1 – Consent

As the owner of the sole proprietorship, you will need to write a letter you have no objections using the business name to become the name of a private limited company. This is called a No Objection Letter and explains why you want to retain the business name and whether the same person owns it.

Step 2 – Incorporate a private limited company

For most formations, the fee is around S$1,000-2,000, depending on your requirement. At the very least, you will need a registered mailing address, one local resident to be a director and appoint a company secretary within six months of incorporating.

As soon as the private limited company is formed, the owner needs to close the sole proprietorship within three months of incorporating the new company.

Step 3 – Asset transfer

Once we identify the assets/liabilities list that need to be transferred to private limited company, we can either recognise these assets as an ‘amount injected by director’ or ‘share capital’ of the private limited company.

A director’s injection can be an interest bearing loan or non-interest bearing loan (advances).

It is advised you engage a professional to help you prepare the transfer. These computations can be complex, and involve buy / sell notes where one business buys assets and liabilities from another.

Items that will be required to transfer include:

1. Assets. The net assets taken over by the private limited company.

2. Bank accounts. You must close all banks accounts maintained by the sole-proprietorship firm and open a new account under the private limited company. This will affect your customers, GIROs, auto payments, so ensure you update stakeholders on the change of account.

3. Contracts. If you are renting an office for your business, you will need to re-sign the lease agreement under the private limited company. Likewise you may need to re-sign existing business contracts / service agreements.

4. Licences/permits. You may need to apply for new licenses or permits, as these usually cannot be transferred.

Step 4 – Ceasation

Once the company is incorporated, the sole proprietorship firm must be terminated within 3 months from the date of incorporation. Lodge a Notice of Cessation to ACRA confirming the closure of the sole proprietorship within 3 months from the date of incorporation of the private limited company.

Reasons to convert to private limited company

A sole proprietorship has the following drawbacks:

1. Unlimited liability. Creditors can claim against your personal assets, including your property.

2. No corporate tax benefits. Taxes are at the personal income tax rate. For net profits greater S$100,000 p.a., this is not tax effective. Many tax shields enjoyed by private limited companies are not available.

3. Raising funds. Limited to cash injections from personal finances and using retained earnings.

4. Valuation. Perceived as having less value than private limited companies.

Legal structure comparison

Below is a comparison chart published 2010 by ACRA. The table compares sole-proprietorship, partnership, limited partnership (LP), limited liability partnership (LLP) and private limited companies.

View more presentations from futureb00ks

Disclaimer

The information given is of a general nature and may not be applicable in a specific situation. Under the Terms of Use of this website, we disclaim liability for any act done or omission made on the information provided and any consequences for any such act or omission. For specific legal advice, you should seek professional legal assistance.

About Futurebooks

Futurebooks is Singapore’s and Hong Kong’s most progressive bookkeeping company. Futurebooks offer affordable incorporation, bookkeeping, business planning and brokering, to entrepreneurs with big ambitions.

Whether your goal is to be acquired or to be more profitable this quarter, Futurebooks provide planning to keep your business on track and bookkeeping services that streamline the journey.

Using cloud computing solutions like Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, Xero, SaaSu, DropBox, Workflowmax, Vend, salesforce.com and Google Enterprise, Futurebooks are able to offer clients productivity improvements and reductions in the cost of accounting.

Visit our website and chat to us live or follow us on Twitter.

About the author

Anthony is the founder of an accounting and analytics firm Futurebooks Pte Ltd. Anthony is obsessed with helping start-up companies incorporate, conduct industry analysis and develop positioning.

He has ten years experience in media and marketing, and was founder of Firestarter, a digital marketing agency.

Firestarter was acquired by Novus Media in 2010.

Featured Image Credits: Made It Simple

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Gourmet Food + English Study App Released

Drecom Inc. [J] has released the social learning application “Gurutan Eitango Sekai Shuuyuu” (Gurutan* [gurume=gourmet, tango=word) English Word World Tour).  Download is free.

“Gurutan” is a social learning application for smartphone which allows you to enjoy information about world cuisine while casually learning English vocabulary.  You advance by solving problems about English vocabulary questions that pop up, and then you acquire various gourmet items from actual locations while traveling to any country.  You can easily study whenever you have free time, and you can continue to enjoy the sense of gameplay for what would otherwise tend to be monotonous study of English vocabulary.  As for the contents of study, it offers a foreign language dictionary, reference books, and language study publications that produce actual results based on the editorial supervision of Sanshusha Inc, and the questions that pop up cross over a divergent spectrum of spheres such as business, health, life, and scholarship.  You can study from beginner level words or use it to study for the TOEIC examination, it supports Drecom’s original social learning platform “smacolo,” you can find friends learning together and cooperate in your studies, and you can continue learning while competing with or supporting each other.

Translation authorized by VSMedia.

Gourmet Food + English Study App Released

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Tech in Asia: Our Picks for News of the Week [August 18, 2012]

Piracy, price wars, protests, and powerful new gadgets. You know you love reading about all those things. And there’s even more that happened this week. Here’s a platter of choice cuts from some of our bloggers.

Charlie’s pick: Xiaomi launches the Mi2, goes quad-core with Android 4.1

Xiaomi launched its sequel to the smartphone that started China’s cheap Android revolution this week with a Steve Jobs-style keynote presentation and all the pomp and circumstance that implies. But Xiaomi brought more than just hype; the Mi2 is better than Xiaomi’s original phone in many ways, but retains the original’s 1,999 RMB (US$315) price tag.

Willis’ pick: Online shopping price war in China

It’s all over the web and air-waves this week in China. The price war between e-commerce players and brick-and-mortar stores — 360buy, Suning, and Gome — is bursting in conversations over both traditional and new media. Though I do have doubts whether this is all a show. Admittedly, as I track the talk on Weibo, I must say that I have formed a sort of admiration for 360buy’s CEO, Liu Qiangdong, and his no-bullshit style. It’s badass – but very much needed in this very competitive space in China.

Joshua’s pick: Line app gets boost from new features

If you are a loyal reader of our site, you must have noticed how Line has been prominently showing up here and there on our feeds. Creating more features outside the app’s core messaging capability apparently hasn’t slowed it down – in fact it’s getting a great response from users. So far in Indonesia, the main alternative to the love-hate relationship we have with BBM is still WhatsApp, but I would say in the coming months that Line – which is now on BlackBerry – can catch up with its competitor(s) here.

Rick’s pick: Chinese studio blatantly copies foreign indie game, developers pissed

Having moved from China to Japan a few years back, I always find myself comparing the innovations that come out of both countries. While the conventional narrative these days is to be down on Japanese entrepreneurship too, I’m still a little bit more optimistic about the ideas I see here. China, on the other hand, while it has made great progress in shaking its reputation as a copycat, still has a long way to go if this brazen game-copying incident is any indication.

Enricko’s pick: “Open Government Indonesia” wants to put public services online

Any Indonesians, or anyone who has tried dealing with the Indonesian government over the last decade, would appreciate that this news is pretty damn significant. I’ve had my own share of frustration renewing my driving license and passport by going through what many agree is a long, tiring, and ineffective bureaucratic process. And with it, comes the middlemen and officials who can ‘help’ you undergo the process for a certain fee. If done properly, this move online by the government may yet prove to be a revelation to the public administration system, while it can also become a barrier to the ‘incentive’-motivated officials in the country.

Steven’s pick: China’s Xiaomi launches the Mi2

I’ve got to concur with what my colleague Charlie says – this is a major launch, sort of like China’s own iPhone, and we’re going to be talking about this smartphone all year. While we’re still awaiting official stats for how many of the first-gen (M1) phones were sold, this powerful new Mi2 looks set to be – if its quality control measures don’t disappoint – a blockbuster gadget.

But one other story that we better keep an eye on next week is the growing anger over major Motorola job cuts in China. We’ve already seen protests outside Google-owned Motorola facilities in Nanjing and Beijing on Thursday and Friday, so those could continue next week. Google still hasn’t confirmed precisely how many of the phone-maker’s 4,000 global lay-offs will happen in China. Local media are suggesting the cull figure could be as high as 1,000 or even 1,500 lost jobs.

Thanks for dropping by again this week, folks! For other ways of reading us, perhaps try our tailored RSS feeds, or find us within the Flipboard or Google Currents apps.

The post Tech in Asia: Our Picks for News of the Week [August 18, 2012] appeared first on Tech in Asia.

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Indian Government bans bulk SMS service for 15 days to control rumors

The government has banned bulk text messages for the next 15 days, owing to the recent issue related to North East population in Karnataka and other states.

“Cities like Hyderabad and Pune have been on edge with their large North Eastern communities feeling insecure about their safety.  In the last month, nearly 80 people have died in ethnic violence in Assam and doctored MMS-es and text messages have infected other states, warning that students and professionals from the North East will be attacked.”, reports NDTV.

As far as consumers are concerned, one won’t be able to send more than 5 messages.

Also, several TV channels have earlier reported that the government has ordered for monitoring of social media sites, though we aren’t sure how government will control tweets/Facebook chatter.

Do you think banning bulk SMS serves the right purpose? Or there is something more fundamental that needs to be addressed?

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