July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Zalora, the Zappos-like fashion and beauty store for Southeast Asia, announced this morning that it has closed a $100 million financing round.

That’s a lot of lipstick and high heels.

Zalora focuses on 10 countries in Asia: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The year-old startup says it has already achieved “annualized double-digit million USD revenues.”

“Our company is one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in Southeast Asia and has bright prospects,” said managing director Michele Ferrario. “It is an honor for us that investors of such great repute have invested into an e-commerce company as young as Zalora”

It is indeed an honor when a year-old startup with two or three million dollars in annualized revenue scores a $100 million investment. And it’s an unusual honor as well. But there’s method behind the madness.

The investment was secured by the German holding company that owns Zalora, Rocket Internet, which claims to be “the largest, fastest and most successful international online venture builder.” Founded by the infamous Samwer brothers — who Jason Calacanis has called “despicable thieves” —  its modus operandi has been to take successful models from American startups and apply them globally.

Genius, perhaps, if not very original. And very, very successful.

Rocket Internet sold Groupon clone CityDeal to Groupon for $126 million in 2010 and eBay clone Alando to eBay for $50 million, among many other lucrative deals. That history is undoubtedly part of what led the investment group, led by Summit Partners, Investment AB Kinnevik, and the Verlinvest and Tengelmann Group, to participate in this $100 million round.

Source: Rocket Internet

Rocket Internet’s impressive portfolio of companies

A big chunk, 25 percent, of Zalora’s revenue comes from mobile commerce, and the company says its app is the top lifestyle app in all the countries it serves, and the top app overall for Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.

In other words, Rocket Ventures saw an opportunity to take a big slice of an emerging market, and is moving rapidly — and with massive investment — to own the space.

The capital will be used, Zalora said, to scale up operations and grow the number of local and international brands it carries.

The company has just delivered its millionth order.

photo credit: AehoHikaruki via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

A number of Western developers I advise are interested in launching their apps in what they call “the Asian smartphone market.” The goal is quite understandable, given that geographic area’s high growth rate in recent years.

But I sometimes fear that term is too broad and can lead to confusion. There are many large countries within Asia, and for various cultural and infrastructure-related reasons, they can have widely varying mobile usage and ownership patterns. To illustrate this, here are five facts about this market that aren’t generally well known by many of my colleagues in the West:

Japan is where mobile apps monetize best

In gaming, Japanese mobile publisher GREE has an ARPU (average revenue per user) of $11.21 per month, while Zynga’s monthly ARPU is 33 cents, according to the Wall Street Journal. We see a similar pattern in non-game apps.

Take LINE, for example, a messaging app from NHN Japan that’s  extremely popular in Asia (it has 100 million total users). Ten percent of its active Japanese users monetize around $1 or more per month. (LINE users purchase “stamps” — cartoon characters they can insert into their text messages.)

There is a very good reason for this high monetization rate: Japanese mobile users have been accustomed to paying to use their apps since 1999, when top mobile carrier Docomo created a market for applications — basically an app store — and charged its users for these apps, many of which provide services most Western phone owners take for granted. When Docomo rolled out email access through mobile, for instance, it charged customers 300 Yen (more than $3) per month to use it. Despite those fees, the service became very popular. In fact, most Japanese first started accessing the Web on their phones, not a PC. So there are very different cultural assumptions in Japan around mobile payments — and consequently, much higher revenue.

Japanese e-commerce is ruled by mobile

Major online retailers such as Amazon and Rakuten see about 60 percent of their purchases come from mobile in Japan, generally much higher than rates in the West, especially the United States. Again, this is related to Japan’s unique conditions. As I noted, most Japanese first began to access the Web on mobile and so are accustomed to shopping via their phones.

Different usage behavior is also a factor. Unlike in United States, most Japanese commute to work via trains and thus have much more leisure time to shop on their phones. Since most Americans drive to work, they are less likely to shop with their phones during their commute. (At least I hope so, if they’re driving!)

Mobile diversity throughout Asia

As I said, to speak generally of “the Asian smartphone market” is somewhat misleading. Consider how the ownership rates and app usage behaviors vary widely from country to country.

For instance, in Japan, about 40 million of the country’s population of 127 million own a smartphone — roughly one fourth use iOS, and three fourths use Android. Korea counts about 20 million smartphone owners among its population of 50 million.

However, app usage is much greater in Korea. For the apps by our portfolio companies (we count about 75 million total users on our platform), a typical distribution rate in terms of downloads from the most active countries is 40 percent from the U.S., 10 percent from Japan, and 20 percent from Korea.

So while the Korea smartphone install base is much smaller than the U.S. or Japan groups, app usage is proportionally much higher in Korea. This is probably because smartphone adaptation in Korea started earlier than either country, and Korea’s data infrastructure and Internet connection speeds are much higher. And as a smaller country by geography, it’s easier to establish broad mobile coverage in Korea. For these reasons, 4G in Korea is cheap and very fast, making it much more appealing to download and use apps.

China: The biggest, most slippery fish

By now, most Westerners know China has surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s largest smartphone market, with an install base of 240 million to the U.S.’s estimated 120 million. Some analysts even forecast China will grow to have half a billion smartphones by the end of this year.

Less well known are all the barriers that currently exist for Western developers who want to enter that market. Beyond the obvious language and cultural barriers, not to mention problems with IP rights protections, there’s no Google Play in China. Amazon Web Services has not launched thereyet, and there are literally hundreds of app stores vying for customers.

To be sure, Apple’s App Store in China has gained significant traction in recent years, but the iOS install base in China is dwarfed by Android.

Then, of course, the Great Firewall makes many apps that depend on cloud servers and social networks outside of China virtually unusable. Facebook and Twitter are blocked by China’s government, and Chinese users turn instead to local social networks like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo.

Japan’s unique social media culture

When LinkedIn attempted to launch in Japan, the social network had difficulties gaining users, for cultural reasons, in Japan, resumes are considered highly confidential and not widely shared. To be sure, many Japanese do use LinkedIn, but they tend to be those who work outside Japan or regularly deal with U.S. and European firms.

For similar reasons, game developers have experienced difficulty using Facebook Connect as an account creation method — Japanese usually fear that professional contacts in their social network will think less of them if it’s revealed they are playing online games.

Instead, Japanese prefer using another social networks for their leisure activities, such as GREE (with a focus on mobile games) and Mixi (with a focus on entertainment and user avatars).

Conclusion

Despite all the challenges Western developers face when dealing with Asia’s many mobile markets, it’s exciting to watch them start succeeding there anyway. One of our developer partners, Atlanta-based Metago, turned its ASTRO file management app into a service with 55 million users, a very large percentage of whom are living in Asia. I’m certain many other Western developers can gain as much success across the Asian market. And when that happens, developers won’t need posts like this that cover little-known facts about Asian mobile — because knowing those facts will already be an integral part of their job.

Masanari Arai was cofounder and CEO of Synclore Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, which merged with Servo Software to become Kii. He has more than 15 years experience in the mobile software space in Silicon Valley and Japan. He joined Intellisync in 1995 as one of the original members of the company, where he served in various positions such as VP product marketing, VP business development, GM for Asia, and President of Intellisync Japan. Prior to Intellisync, he was at IBM where he was the product manager of original ThinkPad 700 Series.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

YouCommentate was one of the most interesting startups I ran into earlier this month at SXSW. It’s a mobile app that you use to broadcast live commentary about sports events to your friends in real time as the events are happening.

What really caught my attention is that it has potential far beyond sports commentary. While that’s an obvious and potentially lucrative market, YouCommentate also could play a role in real-time news — and even in movements for social change.

I sat down with the founder and chief executive, Steve Bealing, for a short video interview (see below).

“Sports commentary is one of the last monopolies out there,” Bealing said, explaining the market opportunity. “You pay your ESPN subscription [as part of your cable bill], and you’re forced to listen to the guys in the broadcast box. We want to democratize that platform, to let any fan get on board and share their passion.”

It’s a pretty simple app: While an event is happening, you simply tap a button and you can start streaming your own audio commentary to all your friends. They can watch the event on their own TVs and — if your commentary is good enough — turn off the sound and just listen to your play-by-play.

Some sophisticated technology enables the app’s real-time streaming with almost zero latency, Bealing says. That tech was made possible through a research grant from the Singapore government.

The app launched a little a week ago in San Francisco, but the company is based in Singapore. It has just four employees so far. The company is currently working hard to line up trials with content creators in both mainstream and alternative sports media. It’s also prepping its servers for a more full-blown rollout later — a work in progress.

“One of our commentators used the app to stream live commentary for the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens final last weekend,” Bealing told me today. “We had almost 1,000 users hit the service to listen into the live stream before the servers blew up. We didn’t anticipate that kind of heavy usage so quickly after launch — as they say, its a good problem to have.”

As for the market opportunity, “There are enormous sports markets out there,” Bealing said, referring to international markets around the world, not just in the U.S. And, he said, because of the company’s global orientation, Singapore is an ideal location.

“It’s a fantastic place to start a business, it’s one of the thriving parts of the world, and we literally set up our company within a day and we were off and running,” Bealing said. “The govt makes every effort to remove the red tape, so entrepreneurs don’t have to worry about that.”

Sports is just the first step, for Bealing, and it’s a logical one, because it’s such a big market. But down the line, he envisions people using YouCommentate to offer real-time audio commentary on all kinds of events, from TV shows to street protests.

Imagine if informed people could have offered real-time commentary on the video streams coming out of the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt a couple years ago. Activists could offer commentary, pro and con, on the Supreme Court arguments on gay marriage. Political pundits could comment on sessions of Congress or Parliament.

The possibilities are intriguing, and I’m looking forward to seeing where Bealing takes this company next.

Check out the video we shot with Bealing at SXSW, below.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Last month, Apple released a list of its 748 suppliers. According to a new data visualization by ChinaFile, more than 600 of them are in Asia, and more than half of those are in China.

That’s not surprising: we know Apple sources a lot of product — in fact almost all of its products — from Asia, where the company has had significant challenges with suppliers maintaining legal and ethical labor standards, in spite of efforts by CEO Tim Cook and others to improve working conditions.

But it is interesting to see the breakdown. Here’s a partial list of the countries Apple sources product from:

• Mainland China: 331 suppliers
• Japan: 148 suppliers
• United States: 76
• Taiwan: 35 suppliers
• Malaysia: 27
• Singapore: 25 suppliers
• Philippines: 23 suppliers
• Thailand: 17 suppliers
• United Kingdom: 7 suppliers
• Israel: 5 suppliers
• Austria: 4 suppliers

I guess that’s the definition of a multination corporation right there. Overall, with 88 percent of Apple’s supply chain in Asia, only 11 percent of Apple’s suppliers are in its home country of the United States, and even fewer — seven percent — of Apple’s suppliers are in Europe and the Middle East.

Apple has planned to bring some manufacturing back to the United States. Tim Cook announced last last year that Apple would be spending over $100 million to bring some manufacturing back to the U.S., a move that some have derided as a mere publicity stunt.

A bit expensive for a stunt, perhaps.

That manufacturing appears to be for Apple’s desktop lineup of iMacs, a product category that makes up a tiny fraction of its overall $55 billion in sales last quarter. In contrast, iPhone, iPad, and iPod account for over three quarters of Apple’ revenue — 76 percent, in fact.

But it does represent a start. And one that American workers probably would appreciate.

Image credit: Google, ChinaFile

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

One of our favorite yearly events is right around the corner, and we’re excited to announce that we’re throwing a party, along with IDA Singapore, during SXSW Interactive.

Come unwind with a few cocktails, meet some VentureBeat staffers, and network with a mix of technology execs, investors, and other VIPs.

When: 7 p.m. Sunday, March 10
Where: Eddie V’s, 301 East 5th Street, Austin, Texas

Spots are limited. Fill out the form below, and we’ll email you right away if you’re on the list!

Update: Unfortunately, the guest list is completely full and we are no longer accepting new entries.

[image credit: www.wtfeck.com]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

On-demand car service Uber has started testing out its business in Singapore, the first sign it will officially bring the service to Asia.

Uber has done a good job of getting the word out about its service in the United States, spreading from San Francisco to New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and other cities. The company recently launched Uber X, its answer to a less pricey cab service for San Franciscans. Uber’s main service also works in London and Sydney, but now the company is clearly pursuing a larger international presence.

The company writes on its blog:

There’s no better place for a man of many appetites to call home than Singapore. Extravagant nightlife, architectural splendour, and sophisticated pursuits taken with a dose of spicy laksa.

…

And so begins our “test mode” period in Singapore. Download the Uber app for iPhone or Android or go to m.uber.com on a blackberry or web browser to make a booking. Availability of cars may be limited as we work out the kinks during this trial period, but if you’re lucky enough to snatch up an Uber, please send the feedback to supportSingapore@uber.com or tweet our way at @Uber_SING. We’d always love to hear from you!

While the company has only just started in Singapore, it would make sense to see the service get going in Tokyo and Hong Kong as well to hit other populous Asian cities where it’s hard to catch a cab.

San Francisco-based Uber has raised nearly $50 million from investors including Menlo Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Founder Collective, and Jeff Bezos.

Top photo via Uber

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Asia dominated the world stage of tech funding news today. A Singapore-based firm that focuses its investments on Southeast Asian companies revealed the first three members of its portfolio, a health and wellness startup raised money to enter the Korean market, and a Hong-Kong company is silver lining its media cloud offering. Don’t chug through today’s Singapore Sling of Funding Daily too quickly, bad things may happen. I speak from experience.

For more funding news as it happens, subscribe to our Deals Channel feed. You can also follow VentureBeat on Twitter, @venturebeat, to view funding news as it’s published.

Sequoia Capital raises $700M fund to play a heavyweight, global game

Yesterday, longtime Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia Capital announced it raised a massive $700 million fund called the Sequoia Capital Global Growth Fund. That’s a hefty fund, considering that Sequoia’s recent funds have all been under $500 each, including a $200 million fund focused on Israel (its fifth fund aimed at that country) in August, 2012. Sequoia declined to comment for this story, but a source familiar with the matter suggested that the firm would use its new, big fund to invest in more mature companies alongside big, late-stage players and permit investment in any part of the world where Sequoia currently invests. Read more on VentureBeat.

Grockit strikes major deal with Discovery to invigorate online learning

Grockit, a startup that applies social learning to online test preparation, has raised $20 million in new funding. The investment is part of a partnership with Discovery Communucations, which led the round, and the two companies will work together to promote Grockit’s new product Learnist. Learnist looks a lot like Pinterest for online learning.  Users can view lessons on a range of subjects in a user-friendly board format. This marks the fifth round of institutional funding for Grockit and is by far the largest. Summit Group also participated in this round, along with previous investors Atlas Venture, Benchmark Capital, Integral Capital Partners and GSV Capital Corp. It brings the total capital raised to just under $50 million. Read more on VentureBeat. 

Plex Systems gets $30M from Accel to push manufacturing into the cloud 

Plex Systems, the cloud-based planning and management tool for manufacturers, has received significant strategic investment from Silicon Valley firm, Accel Partners. For $30 million, Accel will gain a seat on the company’s board, alongside Francisco Partners, which acquired Troy, Mich.-based Plex Systems earlier this year. With this new infusion of capital, Plex will continue to migrate its customers — primarily in the high-tech, electronics and automotive industries — from on-premise systems to the cloud. The company, which was founded over two decades ago, competes with tech giants like Infor and SAP and the company claims to have seen 30 percent year-over-year growth. With this investment, they will hire new employees to augment R&D efforts. Read more on VentureBeat.

Exablox gets $22M to tackle your multi-terabyte storage problem 

Today, almost every mid to large-size company is grappling with storing massive amounts of data cheaply. This has led to a resurgence in interest in the once-stodgy enterprise data storage market. Exablox, a stealthy startup that just raised $22 million in a highly-oversubscribed funding round, is one of the hot startups in this space. The founding team is currently working with a small number of customers and partners to better understand their pain-points and are emphasizing user experience. This funding round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, DCM and US Venture Partners. Read more on VentureBeat.

‘Halfway house’ for old-school IT systems backed by $12M 

Fruition Partners has raised $12 million to transition companies operating on outdated enterprise IT systems to more efficient cloud-based infrastructure. The firm assist companies with every step of the process, from initial discussions all the way through to training on how to use the new systems. It is a licensed implementation partner of the cloud IT management service ServiceNow, which has experienced high-demand and also contributed to Fruition Partner’s growth. This first institutional round was led by Trident Capital, a venture capital and growth equity firm based in Silicon Valley. Read more on VentureBeat.

.406 Ventures swings away with new $175M fund

.406 Ventures, whose name derives from Boston Red Sox player Ted Williams impressive batting average, pooled together a new $175 investment fund to invest in enterprise startups. The firm is based in Boston and provides support for early stage companies, primarily on the East coast. This is .406 Ventures’ second fund and will focus specifically on IT security, healthcare IT, and web infrastructure companies. Existing portfolio companies include Adtuititve, ambient, Bit9, Chosen Security, Mashery and Veracode. Read more on VentureBeat.

Noom raises $2.6M helps users zoom down a pant size

Noom Inc, the health and fitness app developer, has raised $2.6 million to enter the Asian market. Noom’s flagship product is the Weight Loss Coach, which is a top weight loss app for Android. Behind the US and the UK, Korea is Noom’s biggest market. This $2.6 million “pre-Series A” and will help open the Noom Korea marketing office and launch a fully localized Noom in Korean. Noom currently has over 15 million installs and plans to continue international expansion, as well as make additions to the product line and mobile offerings. This round was led by m8 Capital, a London-based investment firm that focuses exclusively on mobile technology. Qualcomm Ventures and Harbor Pacific Capital also invested. Read more on VentureBeat.

Qvivo takes $1 million to fill the skies with personal media clouds

Hong-Kong based Qvivo received $1 million in financing from SingTel Innov8. Qvivo offers a simple way to build a personal media cloud, meaning its stores and syncs your media library across computers, tablet, and smartphones for anytime, anywhere access. This investment will be used to accommodate user growth by bolstering the infrastructure. SingTel Innov8 is the venture arm of SingTel Group, A Singapore-based mobile phone and internet service provider.

Three startups take big ol’ swigs of a Singapore Sling 

Golden Gate Ventures is a new venture firm with headquarters in Singapore and Silicon Valley dedicated to supporting Southeast Asian startups and spurring the region’s position as hub of a technology and innovation. It announced making its first investments in three companies tackling e-commerce.

The first, TradeGekko offers a platform for small businesses to manage their wholesale inventory, orders and  distribution, and engage with customers. It has raised $650K to integrate its system with other software-as-a-service applications, like Xero, Shopify, and Vend. TradeGekko was founded by three entrepreneurs from New Zealand and participated in the WaveMaker Labs incubator program in Singapore. The other two portfolio companies are online grocer RedMart and Coda Payments, which enables online purchases through mobile accounts. .

2can follows its nose to the flavor of fruit and $2.3 million

Russian payments startup 2can secured new funding for its product which is basically a copycat of Square. 2can offers a physical credit card reader as well as iOS and Android applications that small businesses can use to accept payments using a smart phone. 2can previously raised $1.6 million led by InVenture Partners. As reported by the Russian tech blog Quintura, this round came from Almaz Capital Partners. This news comes just a week after Life-Pay, another Russian Square clone, announced a $2.6 million round from Life.Sreda.

Catbird sings a meowing song of new investment 

Security company Catbird locked up new investment from Medina Capital. Network virtualization is a hot right now as companies are developing new technology in these areas and receiving large venture capital investments or buy-outs for their efforts. With the growing excitement surrounding virtualized data centers comes the need to protect them, and Catbird offers a security solution designed for virtualized infrastructure. Medina Capital is a strategic growth equity firm that focuses its investment on IT infrastructure. The amount of the round was not disclosed.

When loan sharks bite, they bite hard and often leave a nasty scar. But when you need cash and the bank is shutting you out, there’s often no other option.

Aidil Zulkifli, a lawyer in Singapore, and Izati Ngaliman, who heads up the marketing side, founded Singapore-based LoanGarage in 2012 to solve this problem. The two founders are building the business with the goal of making loan sharks more transparent.

“More consumers are turning to private lenders for personal loans simply because they are underserved by traditional banks and financial institutions for a variety of reasons,” said Ngaliman in an email to VentureBeat. “But the private lending industry is currently a nontransparent market where legal lenders and illegal loan sharks are almost indistinguishable.”

The company lists lenders — banks and private loans alike — on its website where borrowers can peruse their options. The lenders have LoanGarage’s stamp of approval, which means they’ve been vetted and are trustworthy. The borrowers then fill out an application and can quickly apply to a number of loans and “shop around” for the best deal.

LoanGarage is currently only available in Singapore, but if the company receives its first round of funding in time, it will expand internationally in the first quarter of 2013.

But it’s not just the beleaguered folks in countries like the U.S. and the U.K. that LoanGarage wants to help. Indeed, Ngaliman says the company is well equipped to serve emerging markets, as well.

“LoanGarage is here to serve not only those with bank accounts, but also those without,” he said. “For example, 58 percent of Indonesians are still unbanked, but they have access to Internet via mobile. … It is crucial for consumers in the emerging markets to have access to financial products. Eighty-four percent of the world’s population lives in emerging markets. We don’t see why financial products and technology should only be developed or created for the minority 16 percent in the developed markets, where the population is well served, or over-served.”

Catering to this, LoanGarage plans to release a home-grown way of assessing credit scores. It will take into account traditional forms of credit scoring but also include some unconventional ones, which will undoubtedly serve those who do not have a bank account. The hope is that borrowers who are turned down for poor credit will have a different avenue to prove that they are worthy of the loan. This technology should be available by November 2012.

On the DEMO stage, Founders’ Den managing partner Jason Johnson said the service reminded him of AngelList, which connects early-stage startups with part-time investors and went so far as to say he could see the service doing well outside the developing world, too.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

This sponsored post is produced by Brian Johnson, SVP, Global Sales, mBlox.

The story of mBlox in Singapore is one that starts with the industriousness of the people there. Five years ago we acquired the South East Asian network assets of a company called Zed and hired the local employees. We initially had about 12 staff situated there – a workforce which has now grown to 45 spanning business development, marketing and operations.  Also, Singapore is now home to our global, tier-1 support and network monitoring resource, a crucial division that supports our core business.

Anyone who’s worked in Singapore will be familiar with the quality of Singapore’s workforce. Their work ethic and attitude is second to none. My personal opinion is that this is rooted in Singapore’s fantastic education system, where young people are encouraged to embrace the world of commerce and to function within the global marketplace from an early age.

In the US and Western Europe, mBlox enjoys a prominent position as one of the leaders in mobile interaction and payments, and a major area of focus for the year ahead is now building on the company’s presence in South East Asia. We are in a great position to achieve this, using our next generation mobile marketing solution mBlox Engage, to spearhead growth in the area, and leveraging on our partnership with EDBI, a strategic global investor who takes an active interest in our Asian expansion.  EDBI’s knowledge of the industry in Singapore and Asia, has been invaluable in assisting our recruitment efforts for our local team.  Their extensive global network has also been instrumental in business development for mBlox Engage by connecting us to potential clients, such as media companies, all around Asia.

Key to this growth opportunity is Singapore itself.  It is, from a corporate perspective, a launch point for broader expansion into South East Asia (SEA). Singapore is a well-respected business capital, while the physical location, infrastructure and currency make it an ideal hub for regional growth. The potential for this regional growth is considerable: across the globe, we’re seeing demand for mobile commerce skyrocket (with Forrester predicting this to reach $10 billion by the end of 2012 on an annual growth rate of 39%). It’s a particularly exciting time in SEA, where there’s a real hunger and appetite for mobile technology. It also helps that Singapore and SEA are hotbeds for mobile entrepreneurs, bursting with exciting innovations and technology development.

Few places carry the promise of business opportunity and innovation that Singapore does – and that’s why mBlox, a leader in the fast moving world of mobile technology, is excited about our future opportunities for growth in this region.

About mBlox:
mBlox is a mobile interaction and payment specialist that provides enterprises and solution providers with the fastest and most reliable way to engage with their customers on mobile devices without compromising on security. mBlox delivers a combination of software and services that allow businesses and solution providers to create mobile solutions with the greatest possible reach.  mBlox Engage is a cloud based solution delivering the next generation of mobile marketing engagement. By offering offer real time, location-based analytics and reporting, it enables brands to achieve new levels of insight into consumer behaviour on mobile – facilitating the best possible content delivery and strengthening the relationship between the brand and end user. Backed by leading venture capital firms, mBlox offers a network of more than 800 operators in over 180 countries, covering over 90% of the world’s population.

mBlox is a portfolio company of Singapore’s EDBI.

About EDBI:
EDBI is a leading strategic global investment firm headquartered in Singapore. A value adding investor, EDBI creates sustainable and synergistic partnerships with its portfolio companies, leveraging its broad network of resources and experience to facilitate growth in Asia and the world.

IDA — the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore — has teamed up with VentureBeat to explore Singapore’s potential as an Asian launchpad in a series of posts that culminated in a live video webinar on March 22. This post is part of that series. To read the full series and view a recording of the webinar, go here.

Underpinning this quickly developing ecosystem are top notch colleges and universities that are magnets for top students throughout Asia and produce a steady stream of talent for local companies.  NUS and NTU, the two largest universities in Singapore, are ranked among the best in Asia, and the world.  Companies such as Google, HP, and eBay are among the tech companies that have tapped into this talent, fueling the rapid expansion of the ecosystem.

Beyond talent, the same reasons that make Singapore a bustling financial center also make it an easy place to set up software development centers.  For starters, there are familiar laws and order.  It is rated one of the easiest countries to operate in by the World Bank.  Infrastructure is unmatched, with wifi and fiber-optics set-up throughout the city.  Internet penetration is over 99%.

Finally, Singapore is simply much more cost efficient than the US.  Starting salaries for engineers are 30-40% less than they are in the US.  In addition, various government agencies including EDB and IDA provide incentives in the way of grants to companies that conduct R&D and inject growth into the Singapore economy.  While other countries may have even lower operating costs, it is difficult to match the quality to price ratio offered by Singapore.

For all these reasons, when Tremor Video was looking to scale our development team over 2 years ago, we looked to Singapore.  We looked for a partner with strong connections in and local knowledge of the region that can guide us in this process.  We found such a partner in EDBI, a strategic global investor, and the corporate investment arm of EDB.  EDBI took an equity stake in Tremor Video (ScanScout at the time), and has been an invaluable resource in helping to provide strategic as well as operational advice.  EDBI’s industry knowledge and wide network gave us access to additional non-dilutive funding sources including grants from EDB and IDA.  EDBI has also been instrumental in our recruitment efforts and in helping us integrate into the local ecosystem by introducing us to key business leaders in our industry and beyond.  Today our team in Singapore is over a dozen strong and growing, and has become integral to the development of our VideoHub platform.  For us, this could not have worked out any better.  If you are looking to efficiently scale your development team, Singapore is a truly hidden gem to consider.

IDA — the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore — has teamed up with VentureBeat to explore Singapore’s potential as an Asian launchpad in a series of posts that will culminate in a live video webinar. This post is part of that series. To read the full series and sign up for the webinar, go here.

About Tremor Video:
Tremor Video provides in-stream video advertising solutions to Fortune 1000 brand advertisers and top tier publishers. Widely regarded as the leader in online video advertising technology, the company leverages its award-winning decisioning engine, innovative video ad formats and publisher technology to deliver the campaign results and scale advertisers should expect from digital video. Tremor Video is the only video ad platform that can provide 100% brand safety by scanning and categorizing every single video stream before an ad is ever served. In addition, Tremor Video’s award-winning SE2 technology gets smarter at finding and engaging viewers with every ad served, enabling the company to welcome and encourage pay-per-engagement pricing. Founded in 2005, Tremor Video is backed by top-tier investors, including Canaan Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, General Catalyst, Keating Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, Time Warner Investments, and W Capital Partners.

At South By Southwest Interactive, we caught up with three entrepreneurs who have chosen Singapore as the geographical launch pad for their startups.

The tech community stateside has been buzzing about this Asian tech hub, and VentureBeat wanted to get the story straight from the horse’s mouth: Just what is it that makes Singapore so special? With these entrepreneurs, we discussed community, culture, competition, the talent pool, and venture capital in Singapore, and the folks we met with were quite enthusiastic about their hometown.

Here’s the first of three interviews on that subject. Stay tuned for the rest, and be sure to check out the startup referenced here, Gametize.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Singapore has been said to be Asia’s next new, big tech hub, and at South By Southwest Interactive, we decided to investigate that claim for ourselves.

VentureBeat caught up up with a few Singapore-based entrepreneurs and get the story straight from the horse’s mouth. We talked about culture, competition, the talent pool, and venture capital in Singapore, and the entrepreneurs we met with were quite enthusiastic about their hometown.

Here’s the first of three interviews on that subject. Stay tuned for the rest, and be sure to check out the startup referenced here, Protégé Production.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Word on the street is Singapore’s the next new big tech hub in Asia.

Not being the type to take anyone’s word for it, VentureBeat decided to catch up with a few Singapore-based entrepreneurs and get the story straight from the horse’s mouth at South By Southwest Interactive. We talked about culture, competition, the talent pool, and venture capital in Singapore, and the entrepreneurs we met with were quite enthusiastic about their hometown.

Here’s the first of three interviews on that subject. Stay tuned for the rest, and be sure to check out the startup referenced here, Business.me.

An impressive 47 companies from 14 countries are launching their products and ideas at the vent. Each presenter was hand-picked by the DEMO team in Singapore. Once they’re on stage, presenters have six minutes to demonstrate their product. Some attendees will participate in the Alpha Pitch instead, where they get just 90-seconds to sell the audience on their product or service.

The audience is made up of technology press, venture and angel investors, buyers, entrepreneurs, corporate and business development professionals, and other tech professionals.

The event, which started February 29 and goes through March 2, is taking place at Matrix @ Biopolis in Singapore. VentureBeat’s own editor-in-chief, Matt Marshall, is executive producer for DEMO and is helping emcee the event.

Check out a slideshow of the event below, and stay tuned for more from DEMO Asia here on VentureBeat over the next couple of days.

Our DEMO partners in Asia are doing an excellent job revving up for the event.

Now they’ve opened the application process for companies seeking to launch there Feb 28-Feb 2. Many of these will be startups from Singapore and from surrounding countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Some of them will be new companies that haven’t had the opportunity to present at such a large-scale event.

The DEMO Asia team will be holding auditions for those companies wanting to launch products there. If you’re a company interested in auditioning, send an email to the DEMO Asia team expressing your interest, and they’ll respond soonest.

December 8th and 15th will be the next audition dates.

DEMO Asia is also an excellent launchpad for companies throughout the world hoping to launch in the Asian marketplace. As part of the DEMO experience, we’ve also created a way where companies that launch in Asia also get access to the DEMO event in the U.S., and in DEMO Brazil. And vice versa. Companies that launch in the U.S. at DEMO, get the right for free access to the DEMO Asia and DEMO Brazil events. 

I’m really looking forward to seeing amazing new companies surface throughout this program. Things are looking very exciting in Asia!

Venture capital investment in Asia has nearly tripled in the past five years to $15.6 billion. China has leaped ahead to become the world’s second-largest venture market at $7.6 billion investments, while India has climbed to third place at $5.8 billion.

Together, these dragon and tiger markets account for 13 percent of the $37.8 billion put into startups globally. That’s up from 5 percent in 2005.

Since 2005, more than 6,000 startups in Asia – about half of them in India and China alone – have been venture funded.

These two markets are also tops when it comes to mobile service adoption. China ranks highest in the world, with 840 million mobile service subscribers, while India places second with 673 million subscribers. Vietnam has 78 million mobile service subscribers in a country of 89 million people!

China is also gaining ground when it comes to technology patents. The country scores fourth worldwide for new patent applications, up from tenth place in 2005. Two giant Chinese companies – ZTE Corp. and Huawei Technologies – are among the top four corporate patent filers in the world.

For sure, the U.S. still leads the global venture capital market, weighing in with 70 percent of investments in startups and 64 percent of deals worldwide. But VC spending in America has flattened and hasn’t recovered momentum since the last peak more than 10 years ago. The U.S. remains the world’s superpower innovator, too, with 28 percent of all patent applications in 2010. But the U.S. share of patent filings has slipped from 34 percent in 2005, while China’s portion stands at 7.6 percent, up by 56 percent in 2010.

In other telling signs of the eastward shift, the U.S. slipped to fifth from third place in a recent World Economic Forum ranking of 138 countries by technology development and competitiveness. Singapore ranked second, while Taiwan and Korea moved up among the top 10, China leapfrogged to 36th place, and Vietnam scored with the fastest climb.

Asia’s innovation hotspots are fast emerging as first choice destinations for bright young entrepreneurs. By 2014, an estimated 200,000 skilled tech workers leave the U.S. to return to their Chinese and Indian homelands to find new opportunities and to create tomorrow’s leading startups. Consider some of the great companies created by Chinese and Indian immigrants to the Valley: Sun Microsystems, Hotmail, Yahoo and YouTube.

This year, Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Elliott Ng took a job at Google in China and moved his young family there. Raj Gilda left a VP post at Citigroup in New York and moved to Pune in India to ramp up a vocational training and micro-lending operation called Lend-A-Hand. Mentor and tech entrepreneur Bryan Pelz left Los Angeles for Ho Chi Minh City to work with mobile gaming and search startup VNG, which borrows from Shanda, Tencent, Google and Baidu. Yale undergrad Alice Wang left the ivy-covered walls for a job at a Groupon venture in China.

Getting in on the action, Singapore is making good with government hand-outs and skillful coaching for entrepreneurs. KC Wong is jumpstarting Sparky Animation in Singapore and wants to make it in Hollywood. Mobile security startup Tencube, incubated at the National University of Singapore, was acquired by McAfee. Taiwan is luring startups to move beyond their base in churning out more than semiconductors and electronic goods, and has turned on the lights for a number of LED startups.

The super-charged emerging markets of Asia promise to deliver the next Facebook phase – a turning point that will spark a creativity surge like the social media boom. Startups create jobs and wealth, and enthusiasm for future innovations.

Once, Sand Hill Road investors rarely scouted deals outside the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, they can’t get enough of Asia. Silicon Valley leader Dick Kramlich of giant New Enterprise Associates left his Nob Hill home and art collection and moved with his wife to Shanghai for more than a year to be in the thick of this happening city. Venture heavy Gary Rieschel of Qiming Venture Partners left behind a Bay Area career and his wine collection to relocate to Shanghai, working from the 39th floor of JinMao Tower overlooking the Bund. Former Sequoia Capital India head Sumir Chadha – now back at WestBridge Capital Partners – moved from his comfortable suburban residence in Burlingame to a sea-facing condo in Mumbai. IDG chairman Pat McGovern has made 100 trips to China and is now exploring new terrain in Vietnam and India, and financing dozens of scrappy young entrepreneurial ventures.

“The opportunity is now. In a few years, it will be too late,” says Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of Google China. Now chairman and CEO of Beijing-based Innovation Works, Lee advises young Chinese entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to “Go East” and he’s financing dozens of startups and mentoring the founders.

These trends underscore a shift in entrepreneurial and inventive muscle to Asia. As the currents for tech innovation move across the Pacific Ocean to China and onward to the Indian Ocean, America’s long-term competiveness is increasingly at stake. Consider how important venture capital is to economic growth:  In 2009, venture-backed companies in the U.S. contributed 21 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product and 12 million jobs, according to IHS Global Insight.

Powerful tides are shifting, and quickly, as not only Chinese and Indian immigrants return home for improved job opportunities and family ties, but also young professionals and bright college graduates pack their bags and settle into a comfortable lifestyle and community of like-minded dynamos in Asia’s top tier cities. It’s not a roundtrip ticket either, but a several years’ journey or a lifetime commitment.

This exodus is laying a foundation for Asia to out-innovate America.

“Silicon Valley will not forfeit its leadership, but China and India will compete heavily,” says Ajit Nazre, a partner at top tier venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “We will see hundreds of companies coming out from these markets with huge growth and lots of potential.”

This new innovation dawn in Asia is really only the beginning. Over the next two decades, the startup game will play out in a new geography distant from its Silicon Valley roots.

Rebecca A. Fannin is the author of Startup Asia (Wiley, 2011) and Silicon Dragon (McGraw-Hill, 2008). Fannin will be appearing at Kepler’s Book Store, 1010 El Camino Real, in Menlo Park, Calif. on Friday, Dec. 9, at 6pm, for a talk, book signing and cocktail reception. 

[Top image via Lu Wenjuan/Shutterstock]