The luxury e-commerce site IhaveU has announced that it has wrapped up B-round funding, though the full investment sum has not been revealed. The injection of investment was led by the CID Group and JAFCO Asia. IhaveU.com is one of a number of luxury B2C Chinese e-commerce sites that focus on couture brand clothing - along with other independent rivals such as The Luxury Club, as well as high-end fashion stores from web giants such as Sina (NASDAQ:SINA). IhaveU sells both men’s and women’s clothing and pricey accessories, from the likes ...
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Feb 7 2012
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Qihoo Says Apple is Re-approving Its iOS Apps, Drama Over
Yesterday we noticed that all Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU) apps for iPhone and iPad had been removed from Apple’s iTunes App Store, which caused a great deal of speculation online about what was going on. But this morning, a Qihoo representative tells PO that it was something of a mix-up, and that all the apps - such as its 360 Browser for iPad, and 360 Mobile Defender (pictured above) - will be back in Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) store in due course. Speaking via email, a Qihoo rep in its Beijing HQ tells us: ...
Feb 7 2012
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Thailand’s Ensogo Reflects on Success, Aspires to Expand in 2012
Thailand-based daily deals site Ensogo has revealed that its 2012 goals include maintaining its roughly 90 percent market share in Thailand and expanding its user-base in Southeast Asia beyond 3 million people. That’s what the company’s CEO and co-founder, Tom Srivorakul, told me recently. The company plans to increase its partnerships with local vendors from 2,000 last year and work more closely with banks, mobile operators, and credit card companies to facilitate deal payment. Tom also wants to integrate hotel booking and restaurant reservation systems into the site, as hotel ...
Feb 7 2012
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James Tong: How IDA and Gobi Ventures Help Startups Expand Into China
Last week I caught up with James Tong, a seasoned entrepreneur and venture fund partner, just before he went onstage for a discussion at our Startups in Asia event in Singapore. Knowing that he’d be talking about his background and entrepreneurial story during his ‘coffee chat’ on the stage, I thought I’d use our time instead to pick his brains on what startups need to do to succeed in China - and how the kind of agencies that he also works for can help them out. James - a Singaporean who ...
Feb 7 2012
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FC2 Continues to Expand Web Services to Big Markets
We’ve recently told you about Nevada-based web services company FC2, which offers what could be the top blogging service in Japan , as well as a popular video service which just branched out to Indonesia. But the company has its eyes set on other big markets as well, a company representative tells us. Its LiveChat service (at livechat.fc2.com) is being released in multiple languages, including Indonesian, Korean, and Traditional Chinese. We’re told a China release is being contemplated as well. Like FC2’s video service, FC2 Live Chat also has a prominently ...
Feb 6 2012
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Facebook Still Looking at China as it Files for IPO
Facebook’s IPO filing this past week notes that the company is still indeed looking at China as a possible market for its popular social network, despite being currently blocked. While there have been no shortage of rumblings about about Facebook’s possible jump into China, when we asked representatives back in October), they were mum on the topic. But in the recent filing does explicitly mention China more than a few times, perhaps most notably in this remark: We may enter new international markets where we have limited or no experience ...
Feb 6 2012
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Sina Weibo Holds Tudou’s Hands, Youku Still on its Own For Now
Last Friday, Tudou (NASDAQ:TUDO) announced that they will be integrating on a deeper level with Sina Weibo. From now on, Sina Weibo users who are not registered with Tudou, but wish to share their videos with Tudou’s users, can use their Sina Weibo credentials to log into Tudou. Tudou claims to be the first video site to have such a partnership with Sina Weibo. Outside the world of online video, it’s not just Tudou doing this, though. Last week, we saw Qihoo 360 striking a similar deal where both companies share ...
Feb 6 2012
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What is Sequoia India Doing in Singapore? An Interview with Shailendra Jit Singh
Shailendra Jit Singh is the managing director of Sequoia Capital India. That's the sort of investment firm that entrepreneurs dream about. So what is Sequoia India doing in Singapore, and in Southeast Asia in general? We talked to Shailendra on the floor of our Startups in Asia (Singapore) event to hear more about Sequoia's experience and its plans for the region. What are you thinking in terms of expansion into Southeast Asia? That's exactly the question I was anticipating – why are we here? In the last year, we have made four ...
Feb 6 2012
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Amazon Launches Junglee.com for Indian Market
Last summer there were reports that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) would be entering the Indian market in early 2012. This has turned out to indeed be the case, as this past week the company finally launched its online shopping website junglee.com to serve Indian consumers. Amazon says that the new web service will offer over 12 million products from 14,000 brands, and will allow customers to buy from retailers including “Homeshop18, UniverCell, Hidesign, Gitanjali, The Bombay Store, Fabindia, Bata India Limited, Dabur Uveda, Microsoft India Store, Reebok, and Amazon.com.” The Junglee website offers a ...
Feb 6 2012
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Mystery of the Missing Logo Solved: InMobi Rebrands
Both Vanessa and I were at Inmobi’s Singapore office recently to meet up with a couple of friends for chat. Interestingly, the new office didn’t have any logo displayed. It didn’t feel like an InMobi office, and I thought it was pretty unusual at the time. I asked some of the staff why but they explained that they are more focused on getting real work done. What I didn’t know was that the mobile ad network company was planning a rebranding. The new logo, as you see on the right, is ...
Feb 4 2012
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Moscow-Based Venture Fund Ru-Net to Invest USD50m in SEA Market
I had the privilege to have a chat with Alexander Pavlov, Investment Director for Moscow-Based Venture Fund Ru-Net, on the sidelines of our Startup Asia event. We chatted about Ru-Net’s plans to invest $50 million is the Southeast Asia (SEA) region. In a nutshell, Ru-Net is a Russian-based fund focused on investing in Internet and Information Technology (IT) industries. Some of the more successful companies that they have invested in include OZON.ru (often dubbed the “Amazon of Russia”), BigLion (Russia’s largest daily deals site) and ivi (an online video site). They ...
Feb 3 2012
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Start Now Aims to Make Volunteering a Snap
This post is a part of our coverage of Startups in Asia (Singapore), Penn Olson’s first tech conference. Our full coverage of the event can be found here, for our RSS feed, click here. Start Now is a Singapore-based startup that hopes to simplify the volunteer-NGO relationship by providing would-be volunteers with an easy way to find service opportunities, and NGOs and other organizations a simple platform for finding volunteers. Team member Ivan Chang took stage today during the Startup Arena competition to share his team's plan with the audience (and the judges). According to ...
Shanghai Boy Imitates Mobile Game, Jumps Off Five-Story Building
Feb 7, 2012
James Tong: How IDA and Gobi Ventures Help Startups Expand Into China
Feb 7, 2012
Thailand’s Ensogo Reflects on Success, Aspires to Expand in 2012
Feb 7, 2012
Jumpsurf Provides You With Cross-Border Mobile Wifi
Feb 6, 2012
FC2 Continues to Expand Web Services to Big Markets
Feb 7, 2012