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Very few Chinese I know like Renren, either as a service or a company. Some believe its founder, Wang Xing who is currently the CEO of Meituan, would make it a better service if it weren’t sold to Joseph Chen, current chairman and CEO of Renren, as if it wasn’t a copy of Facebook when it was only serving college students. What I agree on is it’s a pity that Renren, with tens of millions of college student users, never came up with interesting services tailored to them and monetizing their youth lifestyle. Eventually, it took the universal antidote for Chinese internet services, online gaming.
I read a transcript of an interview with Joseph Chen, finding, surprisingly, what he said about Chinese mobile Internet and Renren makes sense (source in Chinese). For instance, Joseph Chen is grateful about the cash Renren grabbed from its IPO that now is sitting in the bank “so that it’s possible for us to invest in the future.” “What can you harvest without making investments, especially in China Internet market, such a Red Sea market that is hardly seen anywhere else in the world?”
Mobile isn’t the second wave for tech entrepreneurs?
“People are saying it’s the second wave of the internet industry, but you can see it’s a false proposition after taking a look at the market”, he means that big players have already taken it all and the rest can hardly sleep at night. “I guess even Victor Koo (CEO of Youku) and Zhou Hongyi (CEO of Qihoo) cannot sleep well.” He thinks it will take only half a year that we can see a clearer picture of the mobile Internet sector.
At the same time he doesn’t find products created in this sector interesting, “it’s hard, to be honest, to find good products. To find the killer apps, you have to take a magnifier or a telescope.”
Small companies cannot afford to attend the party of the mobile Internet?
Chen agrees that all internet companies have to shift to the mobile Internet, no matter for how long you plan to operate a service; however, he doesn’t think small companies can afford it, for 1) they don’t have that much cash as the giants have, 2) trials and errors are no more than experiments done for big companies.
“It’s very hard for the new generation. It seems that some products have performed well, with high user growth rates. But how about two or three years later? Problems would come along if they were doing well but not acquired then. Now the market isn’t big enough and nobody would pay attention to you. But how big a room will be left to you when everyone begins attacking you when your user base is big (and worth much attention)?”
He suggests entrepreneurs explore opportunities in other industries other than the Internet or mobile Internet, saying “there isn’t much room for startups in mobile Internet.”
Renren is an airship, with holes to fill.
Joseph Chen says he has been sleeping well ever since the founding of Chinaren, the first startup he co-founded. It seems he never showed any ambition in Renren. Now, although he set a goal for Renren employees to increase all metrics by three times, he thinks to himself that doubling the existing active users is enough. He compares Renren to an airship, but, with holes to fill, hoping it can fly faster after being repaired. To him, it’s more cost-effective to upgrade a user base than starting up from scratch.
Chen lamented that Renren was reluctant to join in the mobile Internet “land grab” movement. “Shortly after we went public, we made some profits in one quarter. Good days didn’t last long, for smart phone became hot in the next quarter. I said, alright, we were set to work again, land grab era came again. Land-grabbing in the mobile Internet, in fact, is very troublesome and tiring. How large an area of land you can occupy depends on how fast your horses can run. But if what you have grabbed are saline lands, you may have to make much more effort to harvest the same amount of crops than before. “”Weibo emerged before Renren could enjoy anything brought over by the mobile Internet. Then came Weixin not long after Weibo had became hot.”
As Renren hardly made profits in the past years, Chen concluded that “don’t try to make money from services that are not supposed to used for making money. Those are for raising users. Platforms are needed for user stickiness. Placing monetization ones at the back end, such as gaming, e-commerce, video, etc.. This is a matter of structure. Those on the back end cannot deliver well if the front end doesn’t perform well.”
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The Gregorian year of 2012 started with an ominous ring to it. But 2012 waltzed along anyway, and so did December 21. And here we are, at the cusp of a global new year.
Before you young folks party the night away, we thought it good to school you in the happenings of the Asian tech startup scene over the last 12 months. Or, if you’re reading this in 2013, welcome to the past.
JANUARY saw the launch of the iPhone in China. Chaos followed.
One of the world’s largest technology launch platforms, DEMO, came to Asia in late FEBRUARY. Myanmar hosted yet another Barcamp while Rocket Internet continues its blitzkrieg in Asia with a Pinterest clone. And full-fledged e-commerce comes to LiveJournal.
Singapore’s today’s almost legendary reputation of funding-overflow saw new private investors join hands with the government to start more VC funds. And MARCH also saw some of the world’s best iOS developers gather in Australia while Apple CEO Tim Cook visits an Apple store in China.
US’ Square also gets more competition in Asia with Swiff and PayPal Here.
Things were really starting to get heated up in Philippines in APRIL, as the country rises. And Evernote gets serious about Asia.
Things didn’t look too well as once-promising Chalkboard deadpooled but NASA Whirlpool-Galaxied its way into Indonesia with the International Space Apps Challenge.
And in more physics: Technology + Coca Cola’s Marketing poweress = Hug a Vending Machine.
Wrapp returns fire against Rocket.
Southeast Asia’s first Y-Combinator style incubator, JFDI.Asia, welcomed its first batch of startups and culminated with a demo day after 100 days of bootcamp in MAY. With Singapore’s first nation-wide tech company open house taking place a few days after.
One of Asia’s largest telcos, SingTel, goes on a shopping spree. While the company’s home country of Singapore tops the Mobile Payments Readiness Index study by MasterCard across the world.
JUNE saw three key startup events in the region: Echelon, beLAUNCH in South Korea and Startup Asia Jakarta. (Read: 4 things you must know to tackle the “Wild West of tech entrepreneurship” that is Indonesia.)
And Startup Weekend took place in Cambodia again while Path rolls out seven new languages including Thai and Bahasa Indonesia.
Intel Capital shows more interest in Asia with investments in Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam. This middle of the year also saw good news for Asian Apple consumers as the iTunes store touches down across the region.
And the Rocket launches its Square-missile in Asia.
JULY saw the finals of the nation-wide ON3 pitching competition in the Philippines and Australia hosted the grand finals of Imagine Cup. India’s InMobi acquires more companies and the world’s largest blackout occurs in India.
Amidst the global fascination with new CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! in Southeast Asia demonstrates a butcher’s regret after it buys, kills, then later resurrects Koprol, Indonesia’s answer to Foursquare.
Rural Vietnam got biometric banking ability with fingerprint-enabled debit cards in AUGUST. While urban cities in Asia saw the continual deaths of daily deal companies.
India continues to see more funds cycling around with its largest e-commerce platform, Flipkart having raise a new round and online photography startup, Canvera does the same.
More Rocket Internet layoffs, admits defeat in online furniture in Singapore.
SEPTEMBER played host to India’s largest tech discovery platform, we saw Japan’s answer to SXSW and ChopChop’s founder break his cushy investment banking job scholarship to start the company in Malaysia.
Google also thinks Lao is important for its Translate tool.
The first ever FailCon in Singapore happened in OCTOBER and Friendster-owner, Malaysia’s MOL, expanded its payments reach in the US and Latin America with a majority investment in Rixty.
Thailand’s Ookbee and Indonesia’s SCOOP partner for e-publishing platform expansion. When competing startups partner rather than continue butting heads full on, one plus one equals three and one less kitten dies.
NOVEMBER saw China’s TenCent turn 14, battles teenage angst.
Singapore hosted Asia’s first Javascript-focused conference and Japan’s CyberAgent Ventures continues to make a string of investments in Vietnam, Taiwan and Indonesia.
And again, from the world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia’s produces augmented reality app, Harpoen which was one of the winners of the World Summit Award Mobile.
Crowdsourced teeshirt design giant Threadless threw a huge day party in Singapore, one of its most important markets, ever.
The folks all the way in Ireland from the Dublin Web Summit asked us to recommend the top startups in Asia. One of which we recommended was Vibease, which went on to receive one of the top spots.
Japan’s gaming giant, GREE announced a partnership with Asian telco giant SingTel while Philippines and Indonesia gets Google Free Zone. And Taiwan’s Cubie and Japan’s CinemaCraft join the 5th batch of portfolio companies of US’ 500Startups.
DECEMBER saw the Malaysian government launch accreditation for angel investors and we found the top 10 startups of Asia at Open Web Asia in China.
Chinese e-commerce giant Taoball saw RMB 1 trillion (USD 160.5 billion) in revenue for the first 11 months in 2012 while 55Tuan claims to be the first profitable Chinese Groupon-clone.
Japan’s VC, Global Brain brought outside-Japan startups and individuals like myself for a Japan-Southeast-Asia-themed forum.
Further proof of interest of a growing Southeast Asia, South Korean mobile messaging app, KakaoTalk shows its seriousness about Indonesia.
IN SUMMARY, WE BELIEVE IN THE TWO ASIAS: urban/developed and rural/developing. We like ambitious founders, and we like sleeping, but some entrepreneurs like it so much, they sleep with their co-founder.
If you don’t, there is still hope for you.
The post Asia Tech Scene 2012 Year in Review appeared first on SGE.
2012 was a defining year for global telecom industry – right from rise of Android to iOS maps goofup to demo of bamboo smartdevices!
Team at 91mobiles has put up this curated timeline of global mobile industry that gives you great perspective on some of the important milestones of the industry in 2012.
CCAvenue is India’s largest payment gateway solution powering thousands of eMerchants with real time, multi-currency, multiple payment options online payment processing services. The solution is powered by proprietary technology that integrates transaction-processing, advance shopping cart, auction payment collection facility, mobile page, risk assessment and fraud control, smart analytical dashboards, financial reporting and order tracking and many more features.
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India lost its brave heart daughter who was gang-raped and later succumbed to injuries on December 29th and while the nation is at rage, Google India has paid a tribute to her by placing a vigil candle in order to honor her.
Raising an important question (we Indians asked the same questions few years back when Bilkis Bano/Satyendra Dubey incident happened), but let’s ensure that this issue isn’t lost in numerous scams or performance of our cricket team.
Time to
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Red Dot Ventures has invested S$589K into Singaporean startup Ascenz, which provides fuel-tracking technology to shipping firms.Fuel price remains a big factor in business costs, whether you’re running a small retail firm or a big shipping company. With this in mind, Singapore-based startup Ascenz has developed a monitoring system that enables shipping firms to remotely track data on fuel consumption, thereby enabling better efficiency and savings management.
Red Dot Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on providing funding to early-stage high-tech startups in Singapore, has announced that it has invested S$589,000 (US$482,000) into Ascenz. As part of Red Dot’s incubation model, Ascenz will also receive assistance in terms of management, mentorship and market access.
A viable business
Ascenz was founded in 2008 by Sia Teck Chong and Chia Yoong Hui, who started the business based on the opportunity to help ship owners save millions of dollars in fuel expenses amid rising bunker fuel costs. “Since Ascenz started operations, the composition of fuel oil to total operating costs for ship ownershas increased from 25 to 60 percent,” says Mr. Chia “This, together with a global market size ofabout 85,000 ships – including general cargo ships, tankers and bulk carriers, made this business aviable one.”
Using Ascenz’s proprietary software monitoring system, data capture of fuel consumption and bunkering is delivered from moving ships to the onshore control office. The data is then translated into useful information for customers to monitor fuel usage and ensure accurate fuel bunkering. Aside from this, the system sends back informationabout the engines, location of the ship as well as its speed and path of travel, effectively also acting as a locating device for the vessel.
Ascenz has since won the Singapore Minister of Transport’s Innovation Award (Merit) in 2009. The company was likewise one of the finalists for the Technical Innovation Award of the third Seatrade Asia Awards in 2010. In June, the company won the Singapore Emerging Enterprise Awards 2012.
Regional expansion
As part of the investment, Red Dot Ventures is also optimistic about Ascenz’ planned expansion into the APAC and EMEA markets. Red Dot Ventures managing director Leslie Loh notes that 70% of the startup’s clients are Singaporean shipping firms. However, there is room for growth outside of Singapore. “Red Dot Ventures will help the company extend its clientele in China, as most ships in the region areassembled there, and also introduce it to the European and Middle-East markets,” Mr. Loh said.
The post Ascenz monitors ships’ fuel consumption, gets S$589K funding from Red Dot Ventures appeared first on e27.
Red Dot Ventures has invested S$589K into Singaporean startup Ascenz, which provides fuel-tracking technology to shipping firms.Fuel price remains a big factor in business costs, whether you’re running a small retail firm or a big shipping company. With this in mind, Singapore-based startup Ascenz has developed a monitoring system that enables shipping firms to remotely track data on fuel consumption, thereby enabling better efficiency and savings management.
Red Dot Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on providing funding to early-stage high-tech startups in Singapore, has announced that it has invested S$589,000 (US$482,000) into Ascenz. As part of Red Dot’s incubation model, Ascenz will also receive assistance in terms of management, mentorship and market access.
A viable business
Ascenz was founded in 2008 by Sia Teck Chong and Chia Yoong Hui, who started the business based on the opportunity to help ship owners save millions of dollars in fuel expenses amid rising bunker fuel costs. “Since Ascenz started operations, the composition of fuel oil to total operating costs for ship ownershas increased from 25 to 60 percent,” says Mr. Chia “This, together with a global market size ofabout 85,000 ships – including general cargo ships, tankers and bulk carriers, made this business aviable one.”
Using Ascenz’s proprietary software monitoring system, data capture of fuel consumption and bunkering is delivered from moving ships to the onshore control office. The data is then translated into useful information for customers to monitor fuel usage and ensure accurate fuel bunkering. Aside from this, the system sends back informationabout the engines, location of the ship as well as its speed and path of travel, effectively also acting as a locating device for the vessel.
Ascenz has since won the Singapore Minister of Transport’s Innovation Award (Merit) in 2009. The company was likewise one of the finalists for the Technical Innovation Award of the third Seatrade Asia Awards in 2010. In June, the company won the Singapore Emerging Enterprise Awards 2012.
Regional expansion
As part of the investment, Red Dot Ventures is also optimistic about Ascenz’ planned expansion into the APAC and EMEA markets. Red Dot Ventures managing director Leslie Loh notes that 70% of the startup’s clients are Singaporean shipping firms. However, there is room for growth outside of Singapore. “Red Dot Ventures will help the company extend its clientele in China, as most ships in the region areassembled there, and also introduce it to the European and Middle-East markets,” Mr. Loh said.
The post Ascenz monitors ships’ fuel consumption, gets S$589K funding from Red Dot Ventures appeared first on e27.