AccelerAsia

Singapore on its way to becoming an iconic smart city: great article by @Boyd Cohen but as always: more local innovation and creativity is required…. http://bit.ly/K9Dyc0

There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers around the world, meaning 77% of the world’s population uses a phone. The majority of those users — 3.8 billion or 73% of the group — live in emerging economies.

Yet mobile advertising dollars spent around the world do not begin to compete with traditional platforms or Internet ads.

As the Internet spreads throughout the developing world, it’s arriving on phones before traditional computers. Some 70% of Internet users in Egypt, 59% in India, 57% in South Africa, 50% in Ghana and 44% in Indonesia get online via mobile phones alone.
More…

Together with Silicon Valley and London no less…

http://bit.ly/GRVnAI

AccelerAsia has used the Christmas break to move into a great new office on 55B Amoy Street, right in the heart of the business district.

2012 has seen us grow tremendously; in terms of staff we grew from 3 to 6 people and in terms of new clients and revenue the growth was even more impressive. The new office gives us a great opportunity to continue this growth and, not unimportantly, puts us right in the middle of a number of great restaurants and bars to celebrate the success. Come and see us soon when you get the chance!

We are pleased to announce that Baracoda Media (http://www.baracodamedia.com) has chosen AccelerAsia to help with its expansion in Asia.
Baracoda Media, a French technology start-up, is a cloud based mobile radio service provider built on a highly scalable and socially extensible technology platform. Baracoda Media’s carrier grade radio platform is currently used by the Orange Group and is available from many IP devices, including iPhone, iPad and Android. Baracoda Media has also launched its own application Radio Line on Mac, with releases for iPhone and Android anticipated for early 2012.

AccelerAsia will be responsible for all business development activities in South East Asia and will focus its efforts on forming partnerships with Mobile Operators and handset manufacturers with whom we have excellent relationships already because of the work we are doing for current clients and have done in the past for previous clients.

We’re very excited to announce that Jana, a fast growing startup from the US, has selected AccelerAsia to help it grow in Asia. Jana was formerly known as txteagle but has rebranded recently in the light of their global expansion.

Jana empowers global organizations to directly engage with emerging market consumers in over 85 countries via mobile phones. Jana’s proprietary technology targets and rewards 2.1 billion consumers with free mobile talk time as an incentive to complete surveys or purchase products. Jana Research provides real time insights about consumer behavior in emerging markets, such as brand preferences of specific demographic groups. Jana Marketing enables global brands to sell products to their next billion consumers with targeted, social offers.

Jana is a rapidly-growing, early-stage start-up with $10M in funding backed by Spark Capital, the Blackberry Partners Fund, Qualcomm Ventures, Flywheel Ventures, the Royal Bank of Canada, and Esther Dyson.  txteagle is presently earning revenue in 49 countries, with partnerships in place that will enable the expansion to 80 by year end.

AccelerAsia will be visiting clients and agencies in the region in the coming weeks accompanied by senior Jana management and we are looking forward to a longlasting and successful relationship.

Pointlogic, a Dutch firm with offices in New York, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and headquartered in Rotterdam, combines cutting-edge research, advanced mathematical modeling, and flexible software tools to enable its clients to make smart decisions. Pointlogic applies fresh, analytical thinking to problems. It then uses powerful mathematical modeling to generate insight into clients’ choices. Most importantly, Pointlogic deliver concretes, software-based solutions that clients can both implement and distribute across internal and partner networks.

The leading provider of integrated marketing communications and marketing ROI solutions, Pointlogic is active in several different industries, including media, marketing, human resource management and logistics. Its client base consists out of multinational corporations and governments and covers over 60 international markets.

AccelerAsia will work with Pointlogic in a Business Development capacity and help build name recognition and drive sales in several key markets in the region.

This interesting article in the Economist shows the enormous potential for various social media in this region, especially on mobile platforms. Tantalising opportunities await the early movers.

http://www.economist.com/node/17853348?story_id=17853348.

This week we sign an agreement with Qubulus, a Swedish company that specialises in indoor positioning systems.

Qubulus provides the infrastructure inside malls, airports, event areas, and other indoor areas that enables the most accurate and reliable positioning of mobile phones to date.

Depending on the business needs of the client Qubulus can configure a system delivery that can be everything from a pure software setup to installations of hardware that increase accuracy and enable security & alarm, smart logistics, flow analysis and much more.

Indoor positioning is a fast growing new field in the technology world and we are excited to be working with Qubulus to build up and expand their business in Asia where there is no shortage of malls, exhibition halls and airports.

Over the last two or three decades Singapore has made itself a wealthy place in the sun by establishing a sort of familiar, safe and sound enclave for international banks and businesses to set up regional bases for operations in South East Asia. But what about its entrepreneurial ambitions?

Peter Day has been sampling the views of some of people who have started businesses here in recent years and asks them if Singapore is now a natural home to innovative business people.

Listen to his programme (2 parts) here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bt8m6

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bybnf