Starting the important conversations. Photo credit: Facebook Messenger Day video.
Welcome to Last Week in Tech, where we look back at what happened in the tech and startup ecosystem in the last seven days. We’ve also collated a list of regional events to look forward to in the week ahead for your convenience.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today.
The battle for social — Snap vs Everyone Else
For a few months now, Snapchat has been under attack with rival messaging apps picking out Snap features and cloning them. Hot on the heels of Snap’s IPO news, there seems to be a strong divide between whether people think this affects Snap or not.
The latest app to join the fray: Viber’s new secret chat feature.
- On one side: People who believe Facebook’s attempts to slow down Snap are hurting it as a company. Snapchat clones on Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp prompted dissatisfied users to call the tech giant “relentless and shameless” after the new features were less than satisfactory.
- On the other side: People who think that all these are temporary measures for Facebook to slow down recently IPO-ed Snapchat and knock the hype out of it. With a significantly larger user pool, Facebook, Inc. only needs half a percent of users to prefer its copycats to deprive Snap Inc. of 10% of potential future users.
Nonetheless, Snap seems to have some pretty avid users who are willing to hedge their bets on the company out of loyalty. Some of these first-time stock investors are going as far as buying Snap, Inc. shares at record high prices.
Will Snap loyalists prevail or will Facebook succeed at making them the next Google+?
Southeast Asian startups moving hard and fast
Another prefab home – this time by Marcel Wanders. Photo credit: Revolution Precrafted.
While the social media giants battle it out in Silicon Valley, Southeast Asia is flourishing. Here’s a summary of the week’s big moves:
- Alibaba has plans to set up a regional distribution hub in Malaysia’s KLIA Aeropolis, a 24,700-acre development dedicated to increasing the country’s cargo and logistics traffic. With one of the region’s biggest ecommerce platforms on board, the project’s lofty goal of generating US$1.58 billion of domestic and foreign investments seems closer than before.
- Rocket Internet-founded startup Helpling raised a US$11M round led by APACIG.
This round was raised on a decreased valuation compared to its US$45M Series B in 2015, raising questions about how sustainable the home services model is.
The middleman model has suffered customer retention problems in the past with Homejoy serving as the cautionary tale. It remains to be seen if Helpling will be the one to find the solution. - Next up is funding news that breaks the mold on both company and investor ends. Already profitable Filipino startup Revolution Precrafted received an investment of US$15.4 million from parties including 500 Startups – an amount way beyond its usual ticket size. The company, specializing in prefabricated homes designed by the world’s best architects, is now valued at US$256M.
Amidst impressive funding news, the founders of 123RF, the fourth largest stock library in the world, share their stance on bootstrapping with their inspiring startup story.
Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem may be moving rapidly, but there are two countries that stand out:
Singapore’s startup dreams
Singapore has not been shy about its ambitions of being the technology hub of Southeast Asia. This week, questions about how well it’s really doing surfaced after:
- Singaporean CEO of Valley-based Razer said Singapore is not actually an ideal testbed for global ideas.
- A recent Startup Genome report indicates it still trails behind Chinese ecosystems in terms of funding. However, its ranks higher in talent than even Silicon Valley (good news for SkillsFuture advocates).
Indonesia cracks down on ride-hailing apps
Ridzki Kramadibrata, managing director of Grab, speaking on behalf of Grab, Go-Jek, and Uber, at a press conference.
Indonesia’s tug of war with ride-hailing apps comes to a crescendo, as the country’s ministry of transport released a set of rules for ride-hailing apps.
- On the one hand, it finally acknowledges the legality of ride-hailing apps. This comes at a time when individual cities like Yogyakarta seek to establish a city-level ban.
- On the other hand, the move gives the government power to limit fleet sizes and set minimum and maximum fares for rides. This prompted Grab, Uber, and Go-Jek to band together with a co-signed letter of demands to the ministry. The rivalry will continue another day.
This week, in tech:
Tuesday
March 21, 2017
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM SGT
Tech in Asia Founders Meetup: Product Discovery – Build and Validate in Real Time.
At TIA’s monthly Founders Meetup, TradeGecko’s Product Manager Evgeny Lazarenko will give a keynote presentation on dual-track Agile, with a focus on product discovery. To find out more, click here.
Wednesday
March 22, 2017
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm SGT
GA x NTUC: So You Want To Be A Product Manager.
Learn about what a day in a life of a product manager entails from this General Assembly and NTUC event. Panelists from DBS Digital Bank, ShopBack, Zendesk will talk about how career expectations, hiring, and key areas of growth for a product manager. To find out more, click here.
Friday
March 24, 2017
4:15 PM – 6:00 PM SGT
Quest for Growth – “Startup Lessons from Indonesia.”
At this Quest Ventures event, Goh Yiping, founding member and former CPO of MatahariMall.com will be sharing her experiences of moving to Jakarta and building a USD 500 million funded e-commerce marketplace from scratch. To find out more, click here.
This post Last Week in Tech: We are overrun by Snap clones, and ride-hailers unite in Indonesia. appeared first on Tech in Asia.