Category Archives: Startups World

Lunch Actually bags 7-digit Series A from Fatfish and a Japanese social network

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The Singapore-based premium dating platform plans to ramp up presence in existing markets as well as expand to one new market

Lunch Actually

Singapore-based dating services provider Lunch Actually has raised an undisclosed 7-digit Series A round from Japanese social media network and publisher of mobile game Monster Strike mixi; and ASX-listed Singapore-based VC Fatfish.

The newly-raised capital will be used to increase its presence in existing markets — Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia — as well as expand to one new market in Asia. In addition, it will be ramping up marketing and hiring efforts.

First established in 2004, Lunch Actually operates a suite of dating services including its bread-and-butter dating consultation service, online matchmaking platform esync, and dating app LunchClick.

It made two acquisitions in the past two years including dating app Love Out Loud Asia (LOLA) and Thailand matchmaking company MeetNLunch.

Lunch Actually claims to have more than half a million users and a five-fold revenue growth since 2011.

Despite its optimistic outlook, the dating company attracted controversy in the online community over claims of poor customer services and hard-sell tactics.

Lunch Actually, however, vehemently defended itself in an exhaustive article on Vulcan Post.

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Image Credit: LunchActually

 

 

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MACROKIOSK enables content providers to monetise their digital content

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MACROKIOSK enables content providers to monetise their digital content across Southeast Asia via a single direct connection to its mobile payment platform

MACROKIOSK

Goh Brothers, Founding team of MACROKIOSK-final

Malaysian mobile technology company MACROKIOSK has secured an undisclosed sum in strategic investment from GMO Payment Gateway, a unit of Japanese conglomerate GMO Internet Group, in return for a substantial stake.

“Having GMO-PG as a strategic stakeholder puts us at a higher level-playing field, extending beyond our leadership in the Southeast Asia regions, and we see that there will be substantial synergies and business leverage arising from this investment. It will significantly accelerate the speed in which we adopt new technologies and innovate solutions to meet the dynamic needs of our diverse clienteles from 18 industries,” the company said in a statement.

MACROKIOSK was founded in 2000 by brothers Goh Chee Ken, Goh Chee Heng and Goh Chee Seng. It is an enterprise mobility and mobile payments services company that enable leading content providers to monetise their digital content across Southeast Asia via a single direct connection to its mobile payment platform.

It serves more than 2,000 clients, reaching out to 37 countries within 18 industry verticals ranging from financial services, aviation to hospitality and leisure, offering complete secure and scalable enterprise mobility solutions in key engagement areas such as interactive, notification, authentication and security.

Also Read: Malaysian industry players weigh in on the GrabGas controversy

The company has presence in 12 countries across Asia namely Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and the UAW. It has more than 250 employees.

GMO-PG is one of the largest payment service providers in Japan offering payments and financial-related services to e-commerce merchants, banks and leading companies in Japan and across Southeast Asia.

It has been looking to expand its current provision of e-commerce and payment services to local banks and leading companies in the Southeast Asia region, in which this strategic investment will pave way for the service extension.

GMO-PG currently has five local companies in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. It also runs GMO Global Payment Fund that invests in capital, creates business alliances and works collectively in advancing the company’s overseas business expansion mainly in the payment sphere.

GMO-PG has also committed further cash investments into the company MACROKIOSK.

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MACROKIOSK

 

Spotlight Reporting – business intelligence reporting tools

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Spotlight Reporting -Global from Day One is a cross-border technology fund with the majority of capital to be invested in New Zealand and Taiwanese startups

Spotlight Reporting

Spotlight Reporting CEO and Founder Richard Francis

Spotlight Reporting, a Wellington-based cloud software company, has secured US$5 million in Series A funding from investors such as Global from Day One (GD1) — a VC fund formed by Auckland-based Sparkbox Ventures and Taipei-based VC firm Pinehurst Advisors.

Former Xero Director Graham Shaw, Vend Director David Wilson, MYOB Co-founder and Xero Director Craig Winkler also participated.

“Spotlight Reporting continues to go from strength to strength, so raising smart capital allows us to maintain momentum and open up new opportunities in line with our ambition to be a global leader in our space,” CEO and Founder Richard Francis said.

Founded in 2010, Spotlight Reporting provides business intelligence reporting tools to accountants, advisors and business owners. Its tools import data from Xero, QuickBooks and other software products and create reports, forecasts and dashboards.

The company has offices in New Zealand, the US, the UK and Australia.

Founded in January this year, GD1 is a cross-border technology-focused fund with the majority of capital to be invested in New Zealand and Taiwanese startups with a focus on the US and Asian markets.

In May this year GD1 raised NZ$38 million (US$26 million) towards its second fund.

This is GD1’s second investment since launch. Earlier, it has invested in another New Zealand company called Qotient.

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Spotlight Reporting

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Spotlight Reporting

 

Five.ai – AI powerhouse for driverless cars

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Five.ai

A startup spearheaded by serial entrepreneur Stan Boland plans to build a world-leading UK software powerhouse for autonomous vehicles – a hothouse of AI that manufacturers can harness to validate the safety of driverless cars.

Boland (pictured), who has a string of Cambridge technology successes under his belt, is co-founder and CEO of Five.ai which recently raised $2.7 million in a round led by Hermann Hauser’s Amadeus Capital Partners.

Three VCs weighed into the round and the company will be looking for some $35m in a further two rounds to get definitive validation technology into the marketplace by 2019 and subsequently push on with commercialisation. It expects its investor profile to become increasingly international.

Co-founder Ben Peters, who heads up marketing for Five.ai and worked with Boland at Neul in Cambridge before it was bought by Huawei, said brainpower in the golden triangle of Cambridge, London and Oxford was helping the UK lead the way in embedded software for autonomous vehicles.

“We intend to leverage the pull of their talented professors and PhDs and build a UK powerhouse for machine learning and embedded software that will be required to validate and power driverless cars,” he said.

The company currently has Cambridge offices at Barclays’ new Eagle Labs incubator and in Bristol and feels no need to make a call on an HQ location just yet. The business is currently just the six founders but two job offers are in the process of converting and Peters said headcount will ramp steadily after that.

“The current funding gives us 18 months; we will probably grow by 10 or 12 people over the next year. We will be looking for around $10-$15m in about a year’s time to see us through to 2019 and then a further $20m to really push on commercially, by which time we should be up to 60+ headcount.

“It is seriously exciting time for the business and we are lucky to have such cool offices in Cambridge. As we progress we can give talented young AI professionals who join the business an equity stake and a platform to showcase their skills.”

Peters said the technology for autonomous vehicles had moved on substantially since Google, for example, first paraded its potential in the space in 2011.

Five.ai is purely a software play. It will harness best-of-breed machine learning, embedded software and AI to ensure that makers of driverless cars can thoroughly validate their safety and efficiency before they hit the highway.

The theory is that chipmakers can buy into the software capability and that manufacturers can incorporate the proven software and chip technology into their prototypes.

Boland believes Five.ai has the edge by utilising more sophisticated machine-learning that will help a vehicle understand its surroundings without the need to constantly compare its data against ultra-precise, three-dimensional maps created by radar systems. He says a Five.ai-powered vehicle would need three to four times as many computers as Google’s driverless car. That is intended as a reassurance that safety and efficiency are paramount to the autonomous vehicle proposition and that Five.ai will not cut corners to appease manufacturers as they scramble for pole position in a red hot marketplace.

The Five.ai team is perfecting a computer-vision system and will soon be in a position to engage with vehicle manufacturers and transport companies.

Boland has an outstanding track record. He was brought into Hermann Hauser’s Acorn Computers to restore equilibrium and lay the foundations for the spin-out of ARM in 1990.

He went on to head up chip designer Element14 (acquired by Broadcom for $600 million). He then founded Icera, which made wireless modems for cell phones and sold that to Nvidia for $367m.

He also turned round wireless broadband startup Neul and moulded it into such an attractive proposition that Chinese ICT giant, Huawei acquired it and is now up to 80 people at Cambridge Science Park as a re-engineered and powerful player in the IoT marketplace.

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Geniee invests in AdPushup to expand into Indian adtech space

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The partnership aims to provide combined services to users in Japan and Southeast Asia

Geniee invests in AdPushup

The AdPush team

Japanese adtech company Geniee, Inc has invested an undisclosed sum in AdPushup, a provider of ad revenue optimisation product catering to web publishers and online media companies globally.

The investment is intended to integrate Geniee’s solutions, designed to maximise ad revenue for Internet media publishers, with AdPushup’s display ad-based revenue optimisation capabilities, and provide combined services to users in Japan and Southeast Asia where the Geniee SSP (supply side platform) is used. This is expected to further improve display ad revenues for publishers in the region.

The companies also plan to expand business in India and the US by providing the Geniee SSP to AdPushup, which conducts transactions with over 400 Internet media companies primarily located in those countries.

In addition to the capability enhancement and integration with Geniee services, AdPushup also plans to expand and accelerate the services that it provides to web publisher and online media companies across the world.

Established in 2014, US- and Delhi-based AdPushup is an ad technology company that provides a product, which helps optimise revenue from display ads on the Internet.

The ad revenue optimisation product being integrated in this alliance is intended to boost display ad revenues by using machine learning to optimise the layout, size and type of ad in the ad space to suit each individual website visitor.

Also Read: AdPushup raises US$632,000 through LetsVenture

To date, the company has achieved an average revenue optimisation of 69 per cent for over 400 web publishers in India and the US, it said in a statement.

In 2014, AdPushup received seed round funding from group of angel investors, including Jonathan Boutelle and Amit Ranjan, previously director of LinkedIn and Founder of Slideshare; Ravi Srivastava, Founding Partner at Purvi Capital; Sachin Arora, previously Principal Data Engineer Advertising Products at Yahoo; Kima Ventures; and Microsoft Ventures.

Founded in 2010, Geniee develops and provides the Geniee SSP, a platform designed to maximise revenue for Internet media publishers, which currently serves 60 billion impressions per month.

Geniee not only provides comprehensive analyses of web browsers and apps for advertisers, but also offers MAJIN, a marketing automation service that utilises AI and automation to improve marketing activities at every stage, right from attracting customers to prompting sales.

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ChatWork – office communications platform

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Can this Japanese startup give Slack a run for its money, targetting new markets in Asia?

ChatWork

Vietnam’s up and coming tech scene is starting to grab some significant notice. With an estimated 50 million people using the internet, companies are looking to appeal to this market and take advantage to gain a foothold.

One such service is ChatWork, an internal communications product that was came together in 2012. CEO Toshi Yamamoto had previously opened his company EC Studios to work in web marketing in 2000, but recognised a space for growth in chat, and made the pivot.

Having received their Series A of US$2.5 million from GMO VenturePartners in April 2015, and then pulled another US$12.5 million for their Series B in January from JAFCO Japan and other investors, ChatWork is headquartered in Tokyo and Sunnyvale.

ChatWork was built with the intention of replacing those long threaded internal emails, simplifying communications within the team with features such as text, voice and video chat, task management, file sharing, etcetera.

Also Read: The rise of chatbots: targetting Southeast Asia’s booming chat commerce space

Unlike Slack with their wealth of integrations such as Trello, Wunderlist, GitHub, etcetera, ChatWork gives users a straightforward messaging app that they believe has a wider appeal to users in workplaces that fall outside of the startup niche where those integrations are more commonly utilised.

ChatWork has also made efforts to secure communications, telling Geektime that they are, “focussed on the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on the Cloud, and ChatWork is the only messaging platform to provide this layer of security for its customers – which is particularly important for businesses.” They are ISO27001 certified, which counts for something in the wild west that is data storage of your communications.

This model seems to have an appeal to a wide audience, with the company telling Geektime that they work with over 100,000 companies. They cite a strong base of users in the Asian Pacific area – supporting Japanese, Vietnamese, as well as traditional and simplified Chinese – and a growing presence in English speaking countries such as the US. Backing these efforts, they have offices in Osaka, Taipei (Taiwan), and two in California.

Also Read: A day in the life of a WeChat-obsessed user (According to Tencent)

ChatWork

ChatWork CEO Toshi Yamamoto (Image Credit: PR)

Looking to a rising Vietnam

False expectations that Vietnam could become the next Silicon Valley aside, the country is already being recognisedfor its tech talent and growth potential. Its small but vibrant startup scene is attracting funding with 67 investment deals signed in 2015.

With the evolution of the local ecosystem there, it makes sense that services such as ChatWork might look to establish a greater presence there as it continues to grow. Beyond the startups, it appears that other parts of Asia are looking to Vietnam as an ideal site for outsourcing, which is how Yamamoto discovered the expansion opportunity.

“We have a strong user base in Japan and we noticed that many of these companies also have outsourced offices and teams in Vietnam,” he told Geektime in an email. “Once those Vietnam-based teams adopt ChatWork, they also then add new local contacts they work with (like vendors and consultants) to their accounts.”

“It’s been a very natural and viral process,” he said of their entrance into Vietnam, adding that, “We’re seeing viral growth in the Southeast Asian markets due to our success in Japan.”

As Vietnamese internet use and local business ecosystem continue to expand, it will be interesting to watch as other services such as CRMs, marketing tools, other productivity apps, etcetera start trying to sell to the Vietnamese, adapting their products to the local market.

Also Read: A day in the life of a WeChat-obsessed user (According to Tencent)

Where to next

Looking ahead, Yamamoto said that they will, “likely target countries around the world where personal chat apps are already popular.” He noted that, “A user’s adoption of personal chat apps tends to segue into them adopting business chat apps as well.”

Their plan is to add more native language capabilities and features to the product to meet the needs of people in a diverse set of locations across the globe that could be open to their product.

It is worth noting that while US-based companies such as Slack and Facebook are able to gain considerable market share around the world, there are often more local or regional options that meet the tastes of users there. Think about WeChat in China or the Russian social network VK that have held on strong and even grown despite the rise of their global competitors. In the business chat space there are players such as typetalk and Jandi that are also geared to address Asian users.

While Slack probably is not going anywhere any time soon, ChatWork could start to challenge them in smaller markets where they might be able to provide a more basic and effective bang for the buck.

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The article Taking on Slack, Japan’s office communications platform ChatWork adds Vietnamese first appeared on Geektime.

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Paidy – paying online without a credit card

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These are the two main motivations behind creating a cardless payments app in Japan

Paidy

Japanese startup Paidy, ExCo’s online payment service, announced a US$15 million Series B funding round led by SBI Holdings and Eight Roads Ventures Japan on Thursday. Other investors include Itochu and two returning funders: SIG Asia and Arbor Ventures.

Like every country, Japan‘s e-commerce landscape is growing, projected to go from US$89 billion in 2015 to US$122 billion in 2018, according to e-commerce portal PFSweb. Paidy is trying to develop a non-credit card payment network for Japanese e-commerce, already reaching 600,000 stores online that allow shoppers to check out with merely a phone number. That includes clients such as Adidas and Dean & Deluca, according to the company. The reasons to go that route have a lot to do with increasing credit card fraud in the country, which amounted to GBP43.1 million in 2014 according to Accenture.

The company is the brainchild of Canadian investment banker Russell Cummer, who has led ExCo since 2008. With attention being paid to their payments app, it seems the company is undergoing a rebranding, though that wasn’t entirely clear. Other investors in the company have included 500 Startups, Juvo Capital, CyberAgent Ventures, Cherubic Ventures and Recruit Strategic Partners.

Also Read: The investor 101 video guide to funding e-payment startups

While fraud might be one motivation, Japanese consumers prefer cash in general. The same Accenture report points out only 60 per cent of payments in Japan are done by card.

“It isn’t because people don’t have a credit card,” Cummer told TechCrunch. “People just don’t use them when shopping online. That’s because the majority of purchases are made on a mobile device, that form factor plus the fact they are probably on the go, means paying without a credit card is easier.”

The payments subsector is getting noticed across Asia. Last week, Bangkok-based Omise raised US$17.5 million in Series B with investors from fintech-awash Singapore and Jakarta. Unlike fintech hubs Singapore and Hong Kong, Japan’s scene is still nascent, having seen only US$44 million in venture investments in the sector in the first three quarters of 2015.

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The article Paying online without a credit card? Japanese startup Paidy just raised $15 million to push the effort first appeared on Geektime.

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Paidy – a non-credit card payment network for Japanese e-commerce, already reaching 600,000 stores online

Paidy – paying online without a credit card

MakeLeaps – cloud fintech service

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This funding will allow MakeLeaps to accelerate plans to build a wider range of functionality for Japanese businesses and make significant progress on the goal of eliminating paper from offices in Japan

MakeLeaps

MakeLeaps, a Japan-based cloud fintech service company, has recently announced that Rakuten Ventures, the venture capital arm of Rakuten Group, is leading the MakeLeaps Series A round of financing.

Rakuten Ventures is the latest prominent investor to back MakeLeaps, following 500 Startups and Naval Ravikant (Founder, AngelList), who invested in the previous seed round.

Also Read: Qwikcilver raises a new round of funding led by Sistema Asia Fund

Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund, a US$100 million fund, was launched early this year to target the next generation of early-stage innovators in Japan. Make Leaps and Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund are completely aligned on the goal of improving efficiency of the business operations in Japan with advanced cloud technology.

MakeLeaps will expand from a fully featured business invoicing system to a comprehensive fintech business platform, targeting various vertical markets. Further, Make Leaps will continue seeking partnerships with system integrators and business platforms to enable additional growth.

Also Read: Omise secures US$17.5M in funding to further expand across APAC

“Today, we couldnʼt be happier to announce Rakuten Ventures as our lead investor for our Series A. Moving forwards, the business partnership between Make Leaps and Rakuten will provide significant benefits for all existing and future MakeLeaps customers,” said Jay Winder, Make Leaps CEO, in a press statement.

Founded in 2009, the cloud business management platform for Japan enables businesses to create, manage and send quotes, delivery slips, order sheets, invoices, and receipts.

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Make Leaps, a Japan-based cloud fintech service company, has recently announced that Rakuten Ventures, the venture capital arm of Rakuten Group, is leading the MakeLeaps Series A round of financing.

Pixie Technology – lost item smart tags

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The Israeli startup has developed Pixie Points – small smart tags that will direct you to the location of lost items with a dynamic display on your smartphone

Pixie Technology

Israeli company Pixie Technology has developed tags for locating items that will show you their location using layered reality on your smartphone, with quite impressive range and accuracy. To continue doing this while developing new capabilities, the company has announced the completion of an US$18.5 million Series B funding round.

Leading the current round was Spark Capital, whose resume includes investments in companies such as Twitter, Slack, and Medium. OurCrowd, Cedar Fund, and private investors also took part in the round. Together with the US$5.5 million raised by Pixie Technology in 2013, the new financing round brings the total amount raised by the company to $24 million.

Pixie Technology’s tags, called “Points,” use Bluetooth low energy (LE). In contrast to other products, which merely show your proximity to the lost device, Pixie also enables you to operate the smartphone camera and see the precise location of the lost item with the help of augmented reality. In addition, for all intents and purposes, it is also a navigational app, just like Google Maps, and will direct you accurately and give instructions on how to get to the lost item.

The point tags have an outstanding range of 15 meters within buildings and 45 meters outside the building, with the possibility of locating items to within 30 centimeters. To increase the range, the tags communicate not only with the smartphone, but also with each other so that each tag serves as a kind of “relay station” for signals from the other tags.

Although the tags broadcast their location continuously, they are guaranteed to last for 18 months. You will then have to say goodbye to your tags and buy new ones, because the batteries are not replaceable. Fortunately, four such tags cost US$70, a fairly reasonable price for making our lives a little easier.

Other than the end users, the company is also aiming at developers by offering them API and SDK for future developments based on its technology.

With the help of its latest financing round, Pixie will soon be able to launch new features for its product, including locating any smartphone with a tag attached to it, such as through a different smartphone. They are also developing a “digital strap,” which will notify users as soon as a tagged item is found outside its range, and family sharing, which will enables relatives to keep watch over their family members’ products.

Pixie Technology’s founders are President, CEO, and Chairperson Amir Bassan-Eskenaz — he was also the founder of BigBand Networks, where he was CEO for 12 years — and CTO Ofer Friedman, who worked for 10 years in the wireless department at Texas Instruments. Pixie has offices in Boston and Israel.   

Pixie Technology

The article Lost item smart tags developer Pixie raises $18.5 million first appeared on Geektime.

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Pixie Technology

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Pixie Technology

MyTaxiIndia – inter-city taxi rental solutions

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MyTaxiIndia has over 12,000 taxis operating across 120 cities on more than 10,000 routes, through affiliates

MyTaxiIndia

Delhi-based inter-city cab rental platform MyTaxiIndia (MTI) has raised US$1 million in a bridge funding from existing investor Nihon Kotsu — an 88-year old leading taxi rental company in Japan.

MyTaxiIndia is currently in talks with investors to raise US$5-10 million in a Series A round.

The firm will use the fresh capital for expanding services to tier II and III cities, technology development, marketing and branding.

MyTaxiIndia was founded in December 2013 by Anshuman Mihir, Mohit Rajpal and Satyakam Rahul. It offers inter-city taxi rental solutions and provides one-way fare ride to commuters for outstation trips. It also does city tours on an hourly basis for B2B clients.

The firm uses an in-house routing and prediction algorithm to automate trip-related processes.

MyTaxiIndia has over 12,000 taxis operating across 120 cities on more than 10,000 routes, through its affiliates. It plans to increase its presence to 200 cities by the end of FY2016-17.

Recently, MyTaxiIndia tied up with SpiceJet to provide passengers the option of booking a taxi to reach the airport at the time of ticket purchase.

In August 2015, the startup had raised US$500,000 in pre-Series A funding from Nihon Kotsu. Previously, it had received US$100,000 from GHV Accelerator as part of its 12-month acceleration programme.

“It has cracked the space where players like Ola, Uber and ZoomCar are still trying to figure out. The technology which it has built has taken it out from GMV model; otherwise, it will be profitable in a few quarters,” said Vikram Upadhyaya, chief mentor and accelerator evangelist at GHV.

Ichiro Kawanabe, Chairman of Nihon Kotsu, said, “My Taxi India and Nihon Kotsu share the common values that what we provide is not just a mean of transportation, but a superior ride experience which embodies the spirit of hospitality. Moreover, we pursue the similar business model of which provides an IT platform that connects customers and duly licensed taxi companies of the local area, but not illegal taxi service provides or unlicensed taxi drivers. As the companies that shares common values and business model, we believe we can exploits the good synergy across the border.”

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MyTaxiIndia