SingTel continues shopping spree, acquires HungryGoWhere for US$9.4M

SingTel announced in a press release today that it is acquiring GTW Holdings, the owners of HungryGoWhere, Singapore’s most visited foodie site, for S$12M (US$9.4M).

The site, which was started in 2007, has a presence in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Australia. Under the terms, GTW will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel. It will merge operations with inSing.com, another SingTel subsidiary with an audience of two million customers.

With the purchase, SingTel claims it has the largest food and lifestyle audience in the island state.

GTW’s Singapore-based founders will play a crucial role in growing SingTel’s services in Singapore and beyond. Read more

Philippines Google Technology User Group’s Map Your Town Competition

Early this quarter, more than 500 active mappers and volunteers joined forces across the Philippines in a series of Google Map Maker events that explored the benefits and fundamental steps toward building even more beautiful country maps.

The events kicked off with a Map Maker workshop in Manila, where Advocates and Regional Expert Reviewers worked alongside budding mappers. Their enthusiasm carried over to three Map Maker Summits: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, where the Filipino mapping community focused on the ways an accurate country map can lend itself to improved community planning, disaster preparedness and tourism.

The Google Technology User Group in Philippines (GTUG Philippines) have a very ambitious plan to have MapUps in 80 cities across the Philippines and would like to dedicate this activity for Philippine Tourism. Focus will be given to:

Tourist spots
Airports/Ports/Bus Terminals
Hotels and Resorts
Police Stations
Malls / Business Establishments
Pasalubong Stores
Barangay / City Halls

To kick things up a bit, they will be awarding the top mappers in the country! Please make sure you read the mechanics below for details on how to join the Map Your Town Competition.

For updates, to request for a MapUp or to conduct one in your area, please visit the Mapping the Philippines site.

Mechanics:

Interested individuals must register here.
This contest is only open to individuals based in the Philippines.
The Map Your Town competition shall start on May 16, 2012 and end 2 months later on July 15, 2012. Only approved edits during this timeframe shall be considered eligible.
MapMaker Advocates and Regional Expert Reviewers are disqualified from the individual contest.
The top 10 mappers in the Philippines will be awarded with netbooks.
For the mapper with the most number of contributions in the Philippines, PhP100,000 will be donated to a public school from his/her hometown.

First-ever, livestream-only Digital Fashion Week could democratize fashion

This October, Singapore will play host to the first-ever Digital Fashion Week (DFW), a fashion show that sets itself apart by being livestream-only — a first in fashion history, touts the organizers.

This means that you won’t see any front row VIPs scrutinizing the models up close. Yes, no Anna Wintour-type tastemakers or wealthy celebrities.

In addition, this fashion week will let live viewers pre-order their favorite looks immediately after they spot it on the runway, and have it delivered to their doorstep within weeks. The show will feature the Spring/Summer 2013 collections from Singapore’s distinguished designers, as well as an unannounced guest designer.

DFW is a company set up by Keyis Ng and Charina Widjaja, and both used to work under Singapore celebrity singer Dick Lee in the advertising industry. Keyis also runs STORM Creative Events Agency, a public relations company. Read more

TNF Ventures, a new startup incubator in Singapore, knows how to have fun

Efforts made by Singapore government to nurture the nation’s entrepreneurship scene have finally rippled down to the private sector.

With the extension of the National Research Foundation’s Technology Incubator Scheme (NRF-TIS), eight new incubator-funds have emerged last year. Among them is TNF Ventures (TNFV), which held an official launch last Friday.

The fund is founded by several veterans, consisting of a good mix of entrepreneurs, senior corporate executives and venture capitalists, mostly in the IT industry. Read more

KDDI and Global Brain wants to fund young startups worldwide

The KDDI Open Innovation Fund, a 5 billion Yen (US$63M) corporate venture capital fund from Japan, is seeking to invest in promising mobile startups in the seed and growth stage. Read more

Squiryl seeks to do for loyalty cards what Google did for ads

Loyalty cards are inefficient and generate a lot of waste. Even digital ones. A while ago, I was at a music shop and decided to preorder a music album for a friend.

To my delight, I received two chops on Perx, a loyalty card app I recently featured. But to my dismay, I was eight chops away from getting my reward. And it’s extremely unlikely I’ll step into the store ever again — I’m just not an avid music listener.

Here’s the problem with loyalty cards: They don’t always capture loyal customers. And when they don’t, they’re a burden to merchants.

This is a problem Singapore-based startup Squiryl hopes to solve. Unlike other loyalty card apps, it allows users to swap stamps — or acorns, in their lingo — with one another.

Suppose I have two acorns at a restaurant I’ll never visit again. I can use the Trades feature to exchange acorns with others by putting up an offer. For example, I can offer two acorns from Fisherios Fish n Chips in exchange for three acorns at a Puma store. Read more

Singapore’s ClearBridge BioMedics wins 2012 Asian Entrepreneurship Awards

Clearbridge BioMedics has won the 2012 Asian Entrepreneurship Awards in a business plan competition held from 9-11th May 2012 in Kiashiwanoha, Japan.

The company won due to its ClearCell System, a cell-based invitro diagnostic device that isolates and retrieves intact and viable circulating tumor cells from blood.

It was the only Singaporean participant out of 18 total startup companies representing 12 countries. As the winner, it took home three million yen (S$47,000) and three years of free tenancy at the Tokatsu Techno Plaza in Chiba Prefecture. Read more

Singapore’s Dropmyemail snags senior Google exec

Google Southeast Asia’s senior conversion specialist, Vinoaj Vijeyakummar, has left the search company to become the head of product development at Dropmyemail, a service owned by Singapore startup DropMySite, reported techcircle.

The company is started by ex-marketing professional John Fearon. Dropmyemail is a service that lets users back-up their emails on the cloud. It has amassed 500,000 users within two months of its launch, John claims. Read more

Singapore’s m-commerce market jumps seven-fold to US$259M in one year

2011 has turned out to be a breakout year for mobile commerce in Singapore, says PayPal‘s Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011 study.

The report has revealed that the country’s mobile commerce market has grown by 660 percent reach S$328M (US$259M) last year from S4$3M (US$33M) in 2010.

The study was conducted by The Nielsen Company online using a representative sample of 1,009 Singaporean online shoppers aged 18 and above. 482 of them are mobile shoppers, which in this study means that they have shopped or made purchases using a mobile phone or tablet.

The mobile commerce market is expected to grow ten-fold to reach S$3.1B (US$2.45B) in 2015, indicating that shopping on mobile devices has become mainstream due to the ubiquity of such devices. Read more

Facebook Pages Manager now available on iTunes in Singapore and select countries

The Facebook Pages Manager is now available for free to iPhone and iPad users through the Apps Store. The app by the world’s largest social network lets users manage their company’s Facebook Pages using their phone.

While the official Facebook app allows for some basic Facebook Page management, it lacks a lot of key features. This new app has the ability to let social media managers post new updates and photos on their Pages, get push notifications about Page activity, view Page insights, and more. Read more