Friday, December 14, 2012

Focus on traction, communicate and inspire, money will follow: Paul Singh, Partner, 500Startups

In two and a half years, 500 Startups has invested in over 425 companies in 20 countries. India is one of the largest regions in which the venture firm is interested in now. Paul Singh, of 500 Startups spoke at the 6th Edition of UnPluggd held last month. For those who missed the talk, we bring you the video.

Key Takeaways

Early stage startups have already changed.

  • Startup costs are lower than ever. The cost to scale the company is rising though. Once you hit the product market fit, the costs are higher because the acquisition channels are saturated.
  • As the web gets bigger, the world is getting smaller. Raising money from investors have become tougher as more and more entrepreneurs come up in different parts of the world. Internet penetration gets you more potential users but also gives investors more companies to invest in. Its no longer good enough to be the best in your neighbourhood, you need to be the best in the world.
  • For most tech startups is traction is almost the only intellectual property that matters.
  • Transparency is driving the change. On Angellist, Quora, Linkedin etc, there are many different data points available to investors. Money is increasingly data driven and that’s why you should focus on traction.

Venture Capital Industry is Changing

  • Early stage investing used to be very fuzzy. That’s changing. There is an unbundling of advice, control and money.
  • Differentiation in venture capital is now about the access to the deal. We all want to invest in the best company. But the best companies will be able to generate a market. Paradox is that the best companies don’t need me.
  • Increasingly, VC industry is switching to a checklist based format. You need to be solving a problem, be capital efficient, have a primarily Internet based distribution model, functional prototype, and a good cross functional team.
  • Early stage financing is changing with more standardized terms. We are seeing more deals that have no fixed amounts or closings. They are turning into convertible notes.

If you want to raise more money, focus on traction, learn to communicate and inspire. Pick your words carefully.

Recommended read: India Has a Series A Drought : There aren’t enough early stage companies being funded in India


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Tech in Asia: Our Picks for News of the Week [Dec. 15]

There was lots of interesting tech news going down in Asia this week, and particularly in China. The iPhone hit in a few new countries, although there was more going down around the region that warranted attention. Coincidentally, much of the news from this week did center around apps that run on iPhones though. I [...]

The post Tech in Asia: Our Picks for News of the Week [Dec. 15] appeared first on Tech in Asia.


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Translate your social enterprise idea into reality with Singapore International Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme

Targeted towards aspiring social entrepreneurs aged 26 and below across all nationalities, Singapore International Foundation (SIF) is currently accepting applications for its Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) Programme.

If you believe you have a valuable idea for a social enterprise and want to have an opportunity to make that dream a reality, this programme is for you.

Successful YSE 2013 participants will receive special coaching through a workshop, as well as guidance and mentorship by professional consultants. Moreover, participants will have the chance to take part in overseas study visits and get to pitch their ideas for funding to kick-start or scale up their budding enterprises.

You may register your interest for YSE 2013 HERE. Do note that registration remains open until 21st December 2012.

For more information, you can refer to their website here or contact Jasmine at jasmine.chew@sif.org.sg

The post Translate your social enterprise idea into reality with Singapore International Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme appeared first on SGE.


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DailyDose: Futurist Ray Kurzweil to join Google as Director of Engineering

Futuruist Ray Kurzweil is joining Google

Ray Kurzweil confirmed today that he will be joining Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing. “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining Google as Director of Engineering this Monday, December 17,” said Kurzweil. “I’ve been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular, for a long time: when I was 14, I designed software that wrote original music, and later went on to invent the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, among other inventions. I’ve always worked to create practical systems that will make a difference in people’s lives, which is what excites me as an inventor. [Source]

Ray Kurzweil

AngelList raising $150 million

AngelList, a service that matches early stage startups with investors, is raising a big round of financing at a valuation that multiple sources say will top $150 million. Investors may include Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, among others, say our sources. This will be the company’s first outside financing. [Source]

Microsoft, Motorola file to keep patent case details private

Microsoft Corp and Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit have requested a federal judge in Seattle to keep secret from the public various details from their recent trial concerning the value of technology patents and the two companies’ attempts at a settlement. [Source]

Khosla Ventures Hires Condoleezza Rice as Adviser

Khosla Ventures, the investment firm led by Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founder Vinod Khosla, hired former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s advisory firm to work with its portfolio companies. Rice, who is now a professor at Stanford University, is being tapped to help Khosla Ventures’ startups deal with political and regulatory risks as they expand overseas, the Menlo Park, California-based firm said today in a statement. Her partners at RiceHadleyGates LLC include former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. [Source]


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Games2Win mobile games cross 25 million downloads, targets 50 million

Homegrown gaming company Games2win has crossed 25 million downloads for its mobile apps. According to ComScore, the casual gaming company has more than 20 million unique consumers a month and has more than 700 proprietary games and applications to its credit.

“We haven’t spent any money on marketing our 44 apps that have been deployed on iTunes and Android,” says Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-Founder of Games2Win.

Of the 25 million+ downloads, iTunes comprised 17.3 million, whereas Android comprised 7.99 million.

Games2win wants to cross the 50 million download mark porting its hit online games to mobile.

Game Title                         Downloads*

Parking Frenzy                     13.7 million
SuperMom                             4.4 million
Makeovermadness                1.1 million
Best Friends Forever           899 k
Volcano Flight                       615 k
Plain Jane DressUp             612 k
Other 35+ Apps                    3.8 million
Total Downloads            25.3 million

* Source: Games2Win

Games2Win was founded in 2005 by Kejriwal and Mahesh Khambadkone. The company raised $5 million from Clearstone Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group in 2007.It then raised $6 million from existing investors in a follow on round in March 2011.

A year later, Nexus india Private Limited, a few senior employees and ICICI Ventures sold 10 % of their stake in the company to Nirvana Venture Advisors.

For casual gaming companies, Mobile is the next big wave. For instance, Zynga, the public listed US based social gaming giant gets nearly 20 % of its revenues from Gaming. They have been stepping up thier mobile offerings lately. Zynga says it wants to launch two web based games and four mobile games every quarter. Zynga had over 306 monthly active users as of July 2012.

Try out Games2win’s iOS games here and Android games here.

Watch Games2Win founder, Alok Kejriwal’s talk at UnPluggd event:


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Chat App Comm Will Be a Big Part of DeNA’s 2013 Plan

dena comm

DeNA is doing well financially these days, and we’d all like to find out more about its plans for 2013. I attempted to dig up some more information recently at the company’s headquarters in Shibuya, Japan. The good folks at DeNA couldn’t reveal too much. But somehow even when the conversation is going in circles, its new chat app Comm constantly proved a recurring theme.

The app was built not to compete on messaging or texting. Rather, Comm is positioned to have superior voice call quality to compete with other chat apps, a DeNA representative explained to me.

With successful case studies from KakaoTalk and Line that games can thrive on chat apps, it surely has applied pressure on DeNA to rethink where and how people will play mobile games in the future. Mobile chat apps are proving to be one avenue where casual mobile gamers spend time and money. Such apps have an in-built a social graph to keep games casual and viral.

So far, there’s no plan for DeNA to insert games into its Comm app. It’s just too early to do so for such a young app. Here’s our timeline for Comm so far:

The target for Comm this year is 10 million downloads. I’m not sure how feasible that is but I’m hearing that Comm currently has about five million downloads. A representative declined to confirm the figures but did say that Comm will “play a big role in 2013,” although they didn’t elaborate on exactly how it might do that.

But perhaps the answer is obvious: Build a massive network of users and then distribute games to them. It worked phenomenally well for Line and KakaoTalk so DeNA should excel also if the users on Comm are as active as on competing chat apps.

The post Chat App Comm Will Be a Big Part of DeNA’s 2013 Plan appeared first on Tech in Asia.


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A Glimpse on China’s Online Education

img:http:i5.hexunimg.cn

Chinese tech people are not missing out on the online education revolution. Over 100 online education startups emerged. It’s a business easier to justify than those such as group-buying: in such a big country where quality education resources are concentrated in bigger cities, well-recognized teachers or for-profit schools can reach more students and make more profits through the Internet.

Some existing educational organizations or online services have tasted the sweetness. New Oriental Education’s online business, Koolearn which was founded ten years ago, has its revenues increased 50% for the six consecutive years, and the margin, at the same time, are higher than that of offline classes, according to its CEO (article in Chinese). Hujiang, a language-learning site founded in 2001, claims it has made 100mn yuan ($16mn) in revenue this year from 15mn registered users (source in Chinese).

Different from other copy-to-China businesses, most online education services, though there still are MOOC-like or Shareskill-style ones, are in very Chinese ways, 1) most online classes are for pre-exam training, 2) teacher is the key resource to attract users, 3) most founders are from tech background, not education background, 4) most courses are not for free.

Examination-oriented & Teacher-centric

Almost all well-known private schools in China, such as New Oriental Education, have been focusing on pre-exam training and language learning. That doesn’t change for online education and is expected to be so for a long time. And in the whole education system teachers are absolutely respected by the mainstream society. They want teachers to help their kids get high scores in exams.

Laoshiteacher in Chinese, is a platform for students and teachers to reach deals. The website holds the tuition paid by students till the end of all classes, and will refund the remain fees if a student isn’t satisfied with classes that have taken. Students will get cash rewards by rating or reviewing teachers after all classes.

Fenbi, chalk in Chinese, is “an interaction platform between professional training teachers and learners” as it describes itself. It takes the micro-blogging format that students can follow teachers/schools, reading notes/materials they post as timeline feeds, access learning materials uploaded by teachers/schools, or taking part in Q&As. The platform covers all kinds of exams a Chinese’d probably come across in a lifetime. Founded by Li Yong, former editor-in-chief of Netease news service, and his colleagues. It raised A round of funding, 10mn Yuan, from IDG, saying they won’t be worried about monetization in two years.

Few founders with education background

Most founders are from tech scene, engineers or tech media people. The rest with education background are from primary/middle schools where teachers are motivated as they have been paid for out-of-school classes when preparing examinations.

It’s hard to imagine that professionals from higher education system in China would build an online service like Coursera or anyone could come up with online classes so attractive as Khan Academy’s. So far I haven’t heard about any professor or university teachers opening online classes.

Different from building up a social network or group-buying site that what you need to do is attracting as many users/merchants to join in, the key for an online education service is content, well-organized classes. There has been technically well-supported sites that can enable all kinds of online educational activities but few offers professionally organized classes.

Taobao

Yes, Taobao is everything. Some people managed to making a good living by selling self-made teaching videos there. They don’t necessarily be teachers, or it can be on a part-time basis.

Educational organizations also set up stores on Taobao’s Tmall. New Oriental School and Hujiang Online School, among other services, even took part in the November 11th marketing event this year — the first time for educational organizations, offering online classes at half the prices. The total transactions on education reached 200mn yuan ($32mn) on that day, according to data released by Taobao (source in Chinese).

YY Education

With its virtual currency, users can access online classes on YY Education through YY software. YY wants to make the education business, launched in June 2011, as successful as YY Music in terms of popularity and revenue. But so far it hasn’t shown how different it is from other online education startups.

The education market in China has been changing since brick-and-mortar private schools emerged. The newcomer parents, who grew up after the Cultural Revolution and during the economic reform, hate the existing education system and are willing to pay a big percentage of family savings for kids to get a good education. But it pretty much depends on how they and their children define high-quality education. To them, better education may mean studying in a Western advanced country or obtaining professional certifications, thus the education market will still be exam-driven and about language-learning. For startups who previously have little access to educational resources, to survive, they have to figure out where to get the right content that will be accepted by audiences. If you wonder whether the online education trend would change China’s education system? Well, there must be a long long way to go.

Related posts:

  1. SAIF Partners China Invested $10M into Early Education Company
  2. Low-End Smartphones Should Democratize Education in Rural China
  3. TermWiki: Term-based Online Learning Platform


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LeWeb 2012 Startup Competition

One of the high points of the LeWeb conference held in Paris from December 4th to 6th was without doubt the Startup competition.
Such an event offers a unique opportunity for young entrepreneurs to make themselves known. At previous conferences you could have discovered Super Marmite, Waze, Babelverse, Heycrowd and Blippar as well.
This year, out of the 17 startups selected from the 400 candidates, most had more or less close links with the conference theme “The Internet of Things”.
In other words, you might secretly hope to discover the next Nest or Lockitron.
So for the whole of Tuesday, the startup pitches followed one after the other in the second plenary room and an enthusiastic public was presented with projects that, until now, had been in “stealth mode”.
The startups selected at the end of the first day were: Recommend, Be-bound and qunb.
Recommend offers a mobile application that makes it possible to recommend all sorts of things to your friends.
Be-bound offers an original, if slightly old-fashioned seeming, method of connecting to the internet in the absence of a broadband Wi-Fi network.
Qunb is a “YouTube” or rather a “Slideshare” for data.
On Thursday, the 3 finalists presented their projects in the main plenary room in front of a jury composed of successful French entrepreneurs (Jacques-Antoine Granjon, Marc Simoncini, Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet and Jean-David Blanc).

Before announcing qunb as the winner of this year’s competition, Jacques-Antoine Granjon created a bit of a stir when he remarked that the judges were hoping for a better selection of startup finalists. Having sat through the entire first round of presentations, I am totally agree with him, and in my opinion, here are the startups that should have been in the final:
- qunb: I think that they got their place in the final because there is great business potential. Next time I would advise their team to do less story-telling and more demonstrations.
- Biletu: Is a mobile application that makes it possible to make peer-to-peer payments. At first I thought it was unimaginative and, above all, I thought there were already plenty of startups doing the same thing. But the application is designed in such an intelligent and user-friendly way.
- wiMAN: A Wi-Fi access terminal for public spaces, such as cafés, restaurants, shops, etc, that adds a social layer to the service. All you have to do to access the Wi-Fi network is to log into Facebook. The business can also ask the user to “Like” its Facebook page or post a little message on their wall to thank the business for the connection.

Sometimes the best ideas are also the simplest, that’s why, without doubt, I would have chosen wiMAN as winner of the 2012 competition.

Did you see the pitches? Which was your favourite?

Related posts:

  1. TechNode Will Be At LeWeb 2012 (4th to 6th Dec.)
  2. G-Startup Competition Prizes Announced, So Apply Now!
  3. Introducing GMIC2012 G-Startup Competition: Let the Games Begin!


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Blueseed Receives Seed Funding from Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang of ZhenFund

Blueseed, the planned startup community on a ship, has just announced seed funding from leading venture capitalists. The project’s backers include Floodgate Fund, Correlation Ventures, and Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang of ZhenFund.

Based In Palo Alto, CA, Floodgate Fund is led by visionary investor Mike Maples Jr, an early investor in Twitter, digg, and Chegg. Palo Alto and San Diego, CA based Correlation Ventures raised $165M in 2012 with its revolutionary analytics-based startup evaluation approach. High-profile Chinese venture capital firm ZhenFund which is co-founded by famous Chinese angel investors and entrepreneurs Xu Xiaoping and Wang Qiang, raised $30 million for its most recent fund, launched in conjunction with Silicon Valley heavyweight Sequoia Capital.

Blueseed is creating a high-tech startup community in international waters 12 miles from the California coast. Its model is to take in startups from around the world, connect them with resources in Silicon Valley, and help them scale until they’re ready to move into Silicon Valley proper. As Dan Dascalescu, the press officer of Blueseed said, its mission is to create jobs and fostering technological innovation.

So far, Blueseed has formalized partnerships with over 70 organizations, including Start-Up ChileStartup WeekendFenwick & WestRocketSpacethe Unreasonable InstituteEntrepreneurial Poland, and Nanyang Technological University.

Blueseed was actually introduced by us to Xu Xiaoping at TechNode’s event at InnoSpring back in September. Xu Xiaoping was saying that it one of the craziest idea he ever heard of.

Related posts:

  1. Zhenfund Teams Up With Sequoia Capital China to Start a Really Serious US$30 Million Fund
  2. Kindo Secures Additional Seed Funding, So Will We See Its Global Growth?
  3. Orange France Beijing CEO Wang Haila: Social TV Brings Out Brand New Customer Experience


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Shanghai Startups Handout: Places Worth Visiting

A lot of Chinese cities now has its own cradle of startups, endeavoring to create a fertile land that allow newborn companies to flourish, such as Zhongguancun (China’s Silicon Valley) in Beijing, Tisiwi and FuDiChuangYeYuan in Hangzhou, and TianFu Software Park in Chengdu, just to name a few.

The past years have seen the rise of Shanghai startup ecosystem, in particular, with the quick emerging of incubators, co-working space cafes for startups, including:

 

9 incubators/investment institutions: iStart Ventures, iCamp, SuHeHui, FeiMaLv, Innovation Works Shanghai, Shanghai Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for Graduates (EFG), Innospace, Shanghai Cloud Valley and Startup Commune;

3 co-working offices: People Squared, KeXiang, and 517Office;

6 startup-themed café: AitaCafe, WeeCoffee, ICCafe, IPO Club, JiuCengGeCafe, iCoffe in Startup Commune

3 Salons: iTalk, TopGeek and Techyizu

 

1.      People Squared

Address: Building 8, No. 990, Changping Rd, Jing’an District, Shanghai

Since its inception in March 2012, People Squared provides co-working space for entrepreneurs. Its loft office is spacious with majestic glass façade mounted into walls.

In weekend evenings it usually holds different kinds of startup salons and activities. Non-profit activities are free of site use fee. With convenient transportation and roomy space, it is almost one the most dynamic places for startups in Shanghai.

 

2.     iStart Ventures

Address: Building 6, No.380, Xinsong Rd, Minhang District, Shanghai

iStart Ventures is an incubator slash investment company co-founded by local government, SBCVC and angel investor Cha Li.

Covering an area of about 10k square meters, it offers space rental service, training program and other services for startups. It mostly invests in seed stage and series A round with a fund size of RMB200 million and has focus on wireless Internet, new media, health service and environmental technology.

 

3.     Knowledge & Innovation Community (KIC)

KIC is a big community situated amidst Shanghai’s sub- center Wujiaochang with an aim to become the Chinese Silicon Valley. Multinational enterprises like IBM, startup service agencies like Silicon Valley bank and South-South Global Assets and Technology Exchange all have offices in KIC. The famous Fudan University and Tongji University also stand near it. With so many SMEs scattered around and  about 100 activities held there annually, KIC has formed an ecosystem of startups in north of Shanghai, echoing the iStart Ventures in the south.

KIC consists of –

1)     KIC Venture Park

Consisting of 4 independent buildings, the venture park boasts a total area of 3k square meters that home to incubators and ventures.

2)    KIC Square Building No.7

It’s the conference centre of KIC and many events are held there.

3)    InnoSpace Incubator

Located at B1 floor Building No.7 KIC Square, it has 5oo square meters. Its strength lies in the abundant resources around.

4)    IPO CLUB

It intends to become a café house providing opportunities for startups to network.

5) YunHai Building

The cloud computing startup boot camp. Local government provides public resources, funding and industrial collaboration opportunities to incubate cloud computing-related startups in Shanghai.

6) Innovation Camp

It’s an incubator mainly focusing on mobile internet, providing tutor, funding and physical space. All the four co-founders studied or worked abroad.

7) AitaCafe

Address: No.196, Zhengmin Rd

It’s the first startup café in Shanghai, initiated by the insiders from internet/investing trade. It provides space for startups and holds various salons and events.

 

4. Shanghai Entrepreneurs Public Training Base

Address: No.300 East Guoding Rd, Huangpu District, Shanghai

Not far from KIC, this place is supported by Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the local government, and it provides startups with tutorial, funding and training service. In addition to startups, there are also 3 service agencies worth mentioning:

1)     viagra for sale Innovation Work

The Shanghai branch of Innovation Works. In the No.3 Building of the base, can accommodates more than 1000 staff. Innovation Work has shifted itself from incubator to venture capital.

2)    Youth Business China

YBC offers young entrepreneurs with RMB 30k~50k load which is free of interest and guarantee. Along with the funding, it also offers tutorial for three years. The government supports YBC.

3)    Shanghai Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for Graduates

Located in Building No.5 in the base, STEFG is an angel fund for public benefit. It has an area of 8k square meters, providing space of nearly 200 square meters together with policy, intellectual property, human resources, law and financial service support

 

5.     SuheHui

Address: Room 401, No. 700, Guangji Rd, Hongkou District, Shanghai

SuHeHui is an incubator similar to TiSiWi in Hangzhou. It selects about 10 startup teams out of a competition for every batch and provides necessary services for startups during a 4-month-long incubation period along with a funding of 200k RMB (an exchange for 8% share). At the graduation ceremony slash roadshow all teams are presenting ideas to attract further investments.

 

6. ICCafe

Address: 3rd Floor, No.635, Bibo Rd, Pudong New District

ICCafe stands inside the Zhangjiang High Technology Park and was founded by about 70 insiders from semi-conducter industry and related field. ICCafe wants to foster industry communication and share of resources.

 

7. WeeCoffee

Address: Room 102, No. 365, Xinzha Rd, Huangpu District, Shanghai

WeeCoffee is situated by the SuZhou River in Shanghai. It has something to do with weibo as all its 50+ shareholders are Weibo addicts. Compared with other startup cafes, Weecoffee has a wider range of focus including lifestyle, internet, advertising, media and internet.

 

8. Startup Commune

Address: Building F, No. 27, Lane 345, Shilong Rd, Xuhui District, Shanghai

Startup Commune was initiated by Li Yi and his friends, aiming at becoming a public service and resource integration platform and providing startups with guidance, consulting and investing service. It covers an area of 20k square meters, and 43 companies opened offices in it.

 

9. JiuCengGeCafe

Address: Room 912, No. 668, East of Beijing Rd, Huangpu District, Shanghai

JiuCengGeCafe opened on October 15, 2012 and is curated by Shanghai IC Design Incubator. It targets at providing offices at low cost for entrepreneurs and building a platform for them to cooperate and communicate.

Established in 2000, Shanghai IC Design Incubator only focused on IC design companies before, but now the company pays more attention to mobile internet companies since 2010.

It is sponsored by the government and enjoys convenient transportation. It is in People’s Square, the centre of Shanghai.

 

1o. KeXiang

Address: 3rd floor, No.8, Changyang Rd, Hongkou District, Shanghai

KeXiang also has co-working space and provides services including company registration, agent accounting and angel financing, in an aim to become the cluster of innovation.

KeXiang covers an area of 1k square meters, with an offering of 18 independent offices. It belongs to KeXiang the corporaton which set foot in property, investment, etc.

 

11. Italk Salon

Address: 3rd Floor, No.635, Bibo Rd, Pudong New District

Italk is a regular salon in Zhangjiang High Technology Park, initiated by Shanghai Computer Trade Association. Since March 2008, the salon has been holding at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights every other week.

 

12. Feimalv

Address: Room 126, Building A, Anhua Rd, Lane 492, Changning District, Shanghai

Feimalv is a startup service agency initiated by well-known entrepreneurs in China including Yu Minhong and so forth, emphasizing on providing guidance and resources for startups.

It mainly concentrates on service industry (logistics, e-commerce, chain, educational training, entertainment, etc), providing services like resources consolidation, management, brand communication and capital optimization in exchange for a small portion of share (2%~4%) of startups. Feimalv also has subsidiaries in investment business.

 

13. TopGeek

TopGeek is a community for technicians covering topics ranging from Internet, software to other topics.

 

14. Techyizu

Techyizu (sounds like tech ants in Chinese) is a nonprofit organization targeting at supporting startups, holding/ assisting offline events about startups, such as Barcamp and Demo Day. The events are mostly in English, so foreigners, ABCs and overseas returnees have more interest in it.

 

15. 517office

Established in 2009, 517office has co-working space to rent and other basic services as well. It has seven offices in Shanghai, covering a total area of 3k square meters. Besides Shanghai, 517office also has branches in Tianjin, Wenzhou and Xi’an, etc.

 

16. iCoffee

Address: Floor 2, Building E, No.27, Lane 345, Shilong Rd, Shanghai

iCoffee belongs to Startup Commune and holds startup activities/salons regularly.

 

You can also check out the Map here.

Related posts:

  1. Startup Cafe, CoWorking Space, Incubators and GirlsinTech, Shanghai Is Getting More Interesting for Startups
  2. Shanghai Techyizu Announced its Startups Demo Day, June 18–19
  3. Rumor, Jack Dorsey of Twitter Visiting Shanghai in May


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HK Startup Bootcamp 2.0 Demo Day

December 12th, graduates of the Startup Bootcamp 2.0 had their demo day in a local creative co-working space CoCoon. Seven early-stage startups from different regions shared their graduation design. Let’s take a look at some interesting ones.

Whogotstuff

Moving has always been a big disaster, especially for those city mobiles. Does it ever  happen to you that you got piling stuff you don’t need any more but might still be useful for others? Or when you move to a new place you find yourself need everything but just don’t want to buy all them new. Whogotstuff tries to offer a social exchange platform for stuff like that. “It might take you at least 30 minutes to exchange or get something online, and the searching process could be annoying. Now we would like to make it easier.” Whogotstuff is based on Facebook network, where people can add “My Stuff” and post “My Wants” with a Facebook account. It only takes 10 seconds for a successful match and deal through the app. Currently it’s free, and the team said their future plan is to charge for delivering/transportation service.

Teacher.io

This team is from Russia and they demonstrated two ideas. The first one Teacherio is a social network for teachers covering 83 regions in Russia. To register as a new teacher, you are required to provide your public articles, portfolio, open classes and certifications. After that, teachers can share teaching materials by grades, types and subjects. What’s more, teachers can also post news and blogs to connect with each other as well as sell their teaching materials. The current business model is to take % from the material deals among teachers.

Online Runner

The second one by this team is a mobile app called Online Runner which allows users to compete with anyone in the world. The team believes that everyone loves competition and that it motivates people to finish tasks like exercises. With this app, you choose a competitor at your level before running (or any other sports like cycling), and start the game. The app can tell you who is the winner whenever and wherever you are. It will be a free app and possibly will try to collaborate campaigns with sports brands for revenues.

FilmTrens

Filmtrens is film industry focused startup, and is still in its very early stage. The startup is aiming at serving the indie film makers with data and platform, which usually doesn’t get much attention from the public audience.

Minds

 

Also interested in the education field, Minds is a crowd-sourced platform helping students prepare school and providing assessment tools. The target users are preschoolers and their parents with tablets devices. Minds sets up a social learning place where kids can finish interesting studying tasks and compete with their classmates on tablets. Meanwhile parents can review the performances of the kids from another device. Minds is going to cover all languages and all subjects with a rating system behind which there are groups of professional retired teachers, and tutoring services. In Hong Kong there are 1.2million students and accordingly 1 in 6 HK people owns a tablet, which makes the team believe this could be a promising market.

Finds

Based in Hong Kong, Finds knows well that people here are so into shopping and talk about shopping tips obviously. That is why this startup is focusing on social advertising with a community where consumers share shopping experiences and fancy items. To utilize the social media, Finds wants to connect brands with digital influencers and enable both sides to find what they want.

MySupplyGuru

As buyers themselves, this team has been fed up with the inconveniences brought by the lack of transparent information from suppliers. Now they come up with a solution – a community for buyers. MySupplyGuru is different from other trading sites in that it excludes the procedure for verification. Rankings of buyers are based on the reviews and their reputation but not for any pay-to-be-golden fees. The first 6 months will be free, and later on charges for premium users will be offered. Users can look for good trading opportunities by themselves and also will receive alerts from Guru about the potential partners.

The next startup bootcamp is coming soon, for details please check here.

 

Related posts:

  1. The Pipeline of Incubation: from Startup Weekend to Startup Labs and then YSeed
  2. Factors of Success for Chinese Startup Companies
  3. Several Taiwan Startups Make a Splash at DEMO China


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IDG China Xiong Xiaoge: I Have A Dream

Xiong Xiaoge (Huge Xiong), founding partner of IDG Ventures, made a thought-provoking keynote speech at the year-end conference held by Entrepreneur China magazine, here’s part of the excepts from his speech:

 

Xiong Xiaoge, founding partner of IDG China Photo credit: Chuangyebang

 

Good morning, everyone.

I’m talking about D-R-E-A-M today, a word that means a lot to a person and even a nation. Recently I saw local media covering stories on dreams of grassroots, and our new president Xi was also talking about the Chinese Dream. Well, as to me, dream weighs even more to an entrepreneur. You have to have a dream that keeps you energetic and passionate, that keeps you hang in there to make the dreams come true, that makes an entrepreneur.

Actually days ago I happened to read a piece written by myself back in 1993, titled “Dreams come true”. It was published on the 1st issue of the Electronics World, which reminds me of the past days.

Back in the 90s, I had a dream that I would bring excellent foreign tech magazines and venture capital into China. Before joining IDG, I worked as an editor and interviewed many entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley. This experience makes me realizing what a great role magazine can play as a platform for entrepreneurs. With efforts with my fellows, I founded a magazine and our first fund started investing in China in the year of 1993. That was when I wrote that piece, I still remembered that I didn’t even change a word before publishing it.

Clearly I was quite proud of the piece and myself at the moment. Sorting out the results, I brought in 40 magazines in total and became the first VC in China. So it looks like my dreams did come true and it was a perfect ending. But when I read that piece now, honestly I didn’t feel that way at all I could say I feel very blue instead. Publication and Venture Capitals have been two very mature industries in the States and I just happened to step on China early. The past trophies were just my luck, but what about the future decades? What should I go for and what is my dream now? These questions have haunted me recently.

In the past month, people have been talking about the presidential election in America. For me election is the best example for getting something from nothing, and the nothing here is a dream. You won the competition with a convincing plan. If people like your dream, they support you, vote you and follow you. As investors, we tended to look up to successful examples in America and look for the similar ones in China. But now I don’t think this is right. When we copy, do we really wanna be the copycats of something? And will we become exactly successful as the originals? I doubt that.

Now the market talk is all about mobile internet, and some say that our future belongs to the mobile. I can’t deny this perspective, yet no one can actually make this clear. It is believed that 5-10 years is a development circle in every industry. When I first entered the tech industry, people were talking about Microsoft, IBM and Intel. 10 years later, now we care more about companies like Google, and Facebook. That’s why I can’t help pondering that ten years from now, who would be in the center of media hype in China? Will we still speak about Baidu, Tencent or Alibaba? Or will we see some new names that we haven’t met yet? I have faith in the later prediction as long as we believe in our dreams.

The hit MV Gangnam Style going viral and now 800m people become fans (no matter you are a president or a kindergarten kid), isn’t this amazing and unbelievable? And I kept thinking that this is all owing to the internet, especially the mobile internet which help us create miracles that we never dared to imagine. With technology, everything is possible as long as you got your dream and you work hard to realize it. This is the chance of this Internet era.

 

 

Related posts:

  1. The Top 10 Dream Employers in Chinese Internet Industry
  2. 15-years Chinese Web, We See The Glory, Can We See The Dream?
  3. Beijing Maker Space, a Place for Hackers to Build Dream Machines


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For the First Time Ever, an Apple Store Will Open Tomorrow in China’s Wild West

Ready to roll: The new Apple Store in Chengdu.

Mainland China gets its eighth – and most far-flung – official Apple Store tomorrow with the opening of one way out in China’s fast-developing western outposts. The new Apple Store will be in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, which is known around the world (perhaps spelled “Szechuan”) as the home of the nation’s spiciest food.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) says the new Chengdu store will open at 8am tomorrow in the MixC mall.

It’s the first time that Apple has ventured outside of China’s wealthier coastal regions (Shanghai and Beijing now have three Apple Stores each, plus one for Shenzhen), with Chengdu being 2,000 kilometres inland from Shanghai. But the city is no backwater, and it is one of many “second-tier” cities in China that are packed with new wealth, driving forward everything from Chinese e-commerce to sales of all kinds of luxury brands. And, for many, Apple is up there with Chanel as a brand to be seen with.

The iPhone 5 launched in China earlier today, so it’s good timing for the newest store. The iPhone 5 rollou, like the one for the iPad Mini last Friday, seemed subdued with no large queues.

Tomorrow there’ll also be a new – and very dramatic – Apple Store opening in Hong Kong, which is the area’s third.

Here’s the new Chengdu store listed on Apple’s retail site.

[Kudos to reader ‘njren’ for pointing this store opening to us; Images: Chengdu.cn]

The post For the First Time Ever, an Apple Store Will Open Tomorrow in China’s Wild West appeared first on Tech in Asia.


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IndSight Helps You Analyze Indonesian Social Media Trends

NoLimit, an Indonesian startup that specializes in analyzing social media through conversation analysis, launched its IndSight project a couple of days ago. The team describes it as a portal where users can monitor the latest social media trends in Indonesia.

There are four main channels analyzed on IndSight: brands, public figures, organizations, and media. Each of those have their own sub channels like ‘motorcycle’ for brand, or ‘politician’ for public figure. All channels are analyzed based on activity on Facebook and Twitter. We can easily see the visualized data about things like fans or followers, total posts made, and engagement rate [1] of monitored accounts there. IndSight also allows people to compare the top social media accounts from each sub channel.

IndSight will earn revenue from premium research services for clients who need deeper, more detailed insight. The fee for the this particular service is based on the quantity and complexity of the requested research.

The target market for IndSight is digital media or advertising agencies, enterprises, and social media managers or digital strategist. The team believes that IndSight can be used to keep users updated on hot topics, or to analyze conversation or patterns in a social media campaign.

The company has two other products, in addition to IndSight, in its social media dashboard and SocialMeter. The team is looking to upgrade and harmonize all three products to provide an all round social media campaign solution for clients.

IndSight can be accessed for free at IndSight.me. You can also email NoLimit if you’re interested to to know more.


  1. Engagement rate is calculated based on the number of active fans/followers compared to the total number of fans/followers. The findings can help conclude how close a certain account’s relationship is with its fans/followers.  ↩

The post IndSight Helps You Analyze Indonesian Social Media Trends appeared first on Tech in Asia.


Link to full article

IndSight Helps You Analyze Indonesian Social Media Trends

NoLimit, an Indonesian startup that specializes in analyzing social media through conversation analysis, launched its IndSight project a couple of days ago. The team describes it as a portal where users can monitor the latest social media trends in Indonesia.

There are four main channels analyzed on IndSight: brands, public figures, organizations, and media. Each of those have their own sub channels like ‘motorcycle’ for brand, or ‘politician’ for public figure. All channels are analyzed based on activity on Facebook and Twitter. We can easily see the visualized data about things like fans or followers, total posts made, and engagement rate [1] of monitored accounts there. IndSight also allows people to compare the top social media accounts from each sub channel.

IndSight will earn revenue from premium research services for clients who need deeper, more detailed insight. The fee for the this particular service is based on the quantity and complexity of the requested research.

The target market for IndSight is digital media or advertising agencies, enterprises, and social media managers or digital strategist. The team believes that IndSight can be used to keep users updated on hot topics, or to analyze conversation or patterns in a social media campaign.

The company has two other products, in addition to IndSight, in its social media dashboard and SocialMeter. The team is looking to upgrade and harmonize all three products to provide an all round social media campaign solution for clients.

IndSight can be accessed for free at IndSight.me. You can also email NoLimit if you’re interested to to know more.


  1. Engagement rate is calculated based on the number of active fans/followers compared to the total number of fans/followers. The findings can help conclude how close a certain account’s relationship is with its fans/followers.  ↩

The post IndSight Helps You Analyze Indonesian Social Media Trends appeared first on Tech in Asia.


Link to full article