DMP

Singapore’s AdzCentral Raises $3.2 Million From Electric Sheep Capital and DMP

admin — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:13:10 +0000

Singapore-based AdzCentral has concluded a SG$4 million (US$3.2 million) financing round with Electric Sheep Capital and Digital Media Partners (DMP).

AdzCentral in a nutshell provides clients with a one-stop platform for convenient automated digital ads buying including social ads, search, mobile, email, and video. The AdzCentral platform integrates with DSP and trading desk technology to run real-time ad bidding.

Twitter, Mig33, 51.com doing well in Asia

admin — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 03:38:34 +0000

Social networking sites in Asia received some mixed news last week, when Internet research firm GlobalWebIndex released a study of how social networks have performed in the region from Q2 2012 to Q4 2012.

Twitter has experienced tremendous growth among several countries in Asia Pacific, contributing significantly to its status as the fastest-rising social network in the world. Strong performances in Hong Kong, China and South Korea has helped it offset declines in Vietnam and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, several locally-developed social networks have also been seeing good growth. Singapore-based Mig33 has witnessed almost 20% increase in Indonesia, making it the 7th fastest-rising social network in the world. China’s 51.com, a gaming website, and Indonesia’s Koprol, a location-based social network that is currently being revamped, also made the shortlist.

WearYouWant Aims to Ride on Thailand’s E-Commerce Growth

admin — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 03:33:43 +0000

Thailand’s WearYouWant is a B2B2C fashion e-commerce site. That means, it helps other retailers to feature and sell their products to consumers online. It was founded in October 2011 by Julien Chalté and Martin Toft Sørensen, when both founders saw that Thailand would eventually need an online platform for shops to sell things online, particularly in the fashion sector.

Chalté told me: “The Thai people are getting more and more educated in the use of new technologies. We felt an increasing demand for finding a larger variety of products online, so bringing end-users from all over Thailand in touch with the “Fashion Mecca” provided in Bangkok became a necessity.”

Golden Gate Ventures Scores a Triple Turkey: Coda Payments, RedMart, and TradeGecko

admin — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 06:41:21 +0000

It’s an early Christmas for three startups and a triple turkey for the Golden Gate Ventures (GGV) team this morning, as it announces its inaugural investments in Coda Payments, RedMart, and TradeGecko.

Some of our readers might recall back in February where we reported that GGV, had set up a US$10 million venture fund focusing on startups in Southeast Asia. These new investments appear to be the result of that, although, the individual investment amounts were not revealed. According to to GGV, the decision was a careful and thorough one. It took more than a year of researching, meeting more than 400 teams, and hosting events to eventually decide.

Man vs. machine

admin — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:32:09 +0000

One of the key innovations of M-PESA is shifting transactions—especially cash in and cash out—outside of expensive bank branches and into low-cost independent shops, or agents. (Ignacio Mas’s article “The Economics of Branchless Banking” remains the best overview of this; for real cost data, you can look here.) Over time, the use of agents has come to be understood as an essential component of branchless banking efforts.

Except when it isn’t. I remember being shocked when chatting with the then-General Manager of True Money in Thailand, who was brimming with excitement about the rollout of a network of cash-in kiosks. Surely, I asked, it would be cheaper to appoint agents, rather than investing in buying and then maintaining a network of expensive machines. But as we worked through the numbers, he convinced me that these kiosks would, in the long run, be a lower-cost channel than agents.

Reza Behnam, CEO of ADZ to speak on automated ad buying at IAB breakfast briefing

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:58:56 +0000

Forget ’The Year of The Dragon’ … 2012 has proved itself to be ‘The Year of Real-Time Bidding’ with the three little letters ‘R‘ ‘T‘ and ‘B‘ commanding the attention of Publishers, Agencies and Advertisers alike. Which is why we’re dedicating our last Breakfast of the year to all things to do with Automated Buying.

Join us on the morning of Thursday, 15th November, as we take a comprehensive look at Real-Time Bidding as presented and discussed by some of the best names in the space:

The Evolution of Automated Buying presented by Reza Behnam, IAB Vice-Chair and CEO, ADZ
An Introduction to DSPs presented by Robbie Hills, Head of Media Technology – China, Southeast Asia & India, Google
The Role of Trading Desks presented by Matt Harty, General Manager – Asia Pacific, Accuen

Andy Zain, director of The Founder Institute Jakarta, joins mig33 as executive director

admin — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:47:06 +0000

mig33, a social entertainment platform company headquartered in Singapore, has welcomed a new executive director, serial entrepreneur Andy Zain. He joined mig33 in August.

Andy is also currently the director of The Founder Institute Jakarta. Prior to his current appointments, he co-founded Polaris Network, the first wireless hotspot service in Indonesia; Elasitas, a platform provider and mobile VAS company; and PT Numedia, a go-to-market solution for mobile and Internet companies.

Becoming the Yelp of Southeast Asia, by Way of Bangkok

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:29:03 +0000

International start-ups and investors seeking to tap into Southeast Asia’s rising middle class and remarkably high rates of mobile and social-media usage have commonly targeted Singapore or Indonesia as the launch pads for their Internet businesses.

The benefits of Singapore, entrepreneurs say, include its buzzing tech scene, ease of doing business and abundant investor capital, while Indonesia offers much-feted growth potential and a huge population of more than 240 million—which also skews advantageously young and tech-savvy.

But a start-up called Zodio is pinning its hopes on Thailand.

“Bangkok is a good middle ground, where you can successfully test an idea before going regional or global,” said Jai Govindani, the 28-year-old co-founder and managing director of Zodio, which offers local business searches and reviews. “The city has some of the sophistication and organization of Hong Kong or Singapore, which Indonesia and the Philippines are generally lacking, but labor cost and space are still very cheap here.”

Zodio is closely modeled after Yelp, the well-known social business reviews service based in San Francisco. By imitating Yelp in Thailand, Zodio is also imitating a business model most associated with the German tech incubator Rocket Internet, which has found profit in copying successful Internet services from the U.S. and launching them in developing markets not yet reached by the originals.

Dealguru acquires Asian Room Service, heats up online food delivery competition in Singapore

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:26:31 +0000

Dealguru, the company behind Deal.com.sg and one of Singapore’s largest group buying sites, has just announced its acquisition of Asian Room Service, which runs Room Service Deliveries.

The news was first reported by SGEntrepreneurs, with the terms of the acquisition undisclosed. Founded almost a decade ago, Room Service Deliveries operates in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Dealguru, on the other hand, was launched in 2010 by co-founders Patrick Linden and Jan Croeni. They are backed by Rebate Networks.

With the acquisition, Dealivery, the delivery arm of Dealguru, will be merged with Room Service Deliveries, making them the biggest food delivery service in Southeast Asia. On top of that, the partnership is also expected to expand Dealguru’s reach and to speed up delivery times. According to the article on SGEntrepreneurs, Dealivery was offering island-wide delivery in Singapore from 120 establishments. Now customers can choose from over 400 merchants through a co-branded food delivery site.

The acquisition is definitely heating up the food delivery space in Singapore. Recently, Rocket Internet’s FoodPanda has been active in the food delivery space in a couple of Southeast Asia countries, including Singapore. Other than FoodPanda, several other startups also recently launched to help hungry customers get their food faster. There is Tick Tok, a mobile app which helps you keep queue smarter at F&B outlets by giving you real time queue time updates from your favourite restaurants. HungryGoWhere also recently partnered with Reserveit to help customers reserve their seats at their favorite restaurants.

2C2P launches 123 Service to diversify online payment options

admin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:24:29 +0000

2C2P takes Thailand’s e-commerce sector to a whole new level with its announcement of 123 payment service, enabling more convenient, non-credit-card payment processing both for online [IDF1] merchants and for consumers. This scalable and seamlessly integrated payment solution meets the needs of the country’s growing e-commerce industry and improves global competitiveness.

“We are not newcomers to the industry. We have been providing reliable online credit/debit card payment solutions, to leading banks in Thailand and South East Asia, for over nine years,” says Mr.Aung Kyaw Moe, Group CEO, 2C2P. “We have always been committed to Thailand’s promising e-commerce sector, especially the B2C segment which has already reached 85 billion baht in market value. Today, we expand our award winning online payment capabilities directly to online merchants. We will reduce the complexity of acquiring and managing their payment acceptance needs. This will give ecommerce merchants in Thailand more time to devote to building their businesses.”

“E-commerce businesses typically use credit-card payment processing services. However, credit cards usage in Thailand is still limited, with fewer than 10 million cardholders. In addition, many cardholders are not fully confident in online credit card security, so they prefer not to use their credit cards for online transactions. As a result, e-commerce transaction value in Thailand has not kept pace with global e-commerce growth.”