Weekly Highlights
Global Trends
Mobile ad spending to top $18B enroute to $42B by 2017 Mobile advertising will surge 37 percent to more than $18 bn this year and nearly $42 bn by 2017. And while display ads will account for the lion's share of spending, video is expected to enjoy the fastest growth toward the end of this explosive three-year period. By region, Asia-Pacific remains the most mature for mobile advertising, but it will still enjoy growth averaging around 30 percent a year through the next three years. North America is projected to enjoy the sharpest increase thanks to what Gartner calls the "sheer scale" of the region's advertising budgets and a shift from print and radio advertising to mobile alternatives. App revenue in Asia grew a massive 162% in 2013, driven by Google Play Over the past two years, Asia has emerged as the worlds top marketplace for appsand its still growing. Revenue in Asia rose by a massive 162% in 2013, annihilating growth in all other continents, according to a new report by Distimo. Furthermore, that increase was fueled in large part by Google Play, where revenue from Asia more than quadrupled in 2013. In comparison, the App Stores growth in Asia was much slower: a 94% increase in revenue for iPhone apps and 64% for iPad apps. But that was still faster than the App Stores total growth in Europe or North America. Worldwide pay-TV subscribers to exceed 1.1B in 2019 with increasing IPTV market share According to ABI Research, the worldwide pay-TV market reached 903.3 million subscribers in 2013, generating US$249.8 billion in service revenues. IPTV operators enjoyed 18.5% on-year growth in 2013 to 92 million subscribers with a total of US$37.2 billion in service revenues. Increasing FTTH subscriber base and bundled subscriber base of telcos are boosting the IPTV market. The IPTV subscriber base will grow to 161 million subscribers in 2019 accounting for 15% of the overall pay-TV market.
Asia Pacific
Korea
Samsung 4Q13 profits to fall Samsung Electronics has estimated its operating profits for the fourth quarter of 2013 at about KRW8.3 trillion (US$7.8 billion), down 18% from the prior quarter. Consolidated sales for the 4Q are set to stay flat on quarter at KRW59 trillion, Samsung disclosed. The forecast operating profits represent a 6.1% decrease compared to the KRW8.84 trillion reported for the 4Q12, while sales are expected to register on-year growth of 5.2% during the same period. Samsung reported a record KRW10.16 trillion in operating profits for the third quarter of 2013, buoyed by rising prices for memory chips as well as sales of mass-market smartphones in emerging markets. Samsung to flood market with tablets in 2014; to offer new 7-inch tablet at US$129 Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to flood the tablet market with several different sized models including 7-, 8-, 10- and 12-inch in 2014 and will price its new 7-inch model, the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite at US$129 to attract consumers, according to sources from the upstream supply chain. Korea TV vendors focus on Ultra HD TV production amid low production yields for OLED Korea TV vendors plan to continue developing Ultra HD TVs in 2014 while development of OLED TVs is expected to remain slow due to low production yields for OLED TV panels. Samsung and LG continue to invest in OLED TV production but are still having trouble improving yields for OLED panel technology. This has led to high pricing for OLED TVs, which is expected to continue throughout 2014 and limit sales of the TVs. Kakao prepared to become a listed company next year Kakao will become a listed company in May of 2015. The company has finished overall preparation to be listed in Korea, and is planning to start a real business with the fund they would receive after being listed. Kakao recorded revenue of US$ 216 million in 2013.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 1
China
Chinese Internet giants Alibaba and Sina Weibo partner up to launch Weibo Payments Sina Weibo has partnered up with Alipay to launch a new payment platform called Weibo Payment. Users of Sina Weibos iOS app can now access Weibo Payment, which is an important part of the strategic partnership between Sina and Alibaba, two of Chinas top Internet companies. Sina Weibo has also added new features that not only facilitate offline payments, but also turn the microblogging service into a CRM platform that allows merchants to manage marketing campaigns and accept payments. Potential users include the 400,000 business accounts currently on Sina Weibo. Lenovo may lead in 2014 notebook shipments Lenovo is likely to ship 28.3 million notebooks in 2014, followed by HP with 28.0 million, Dell 18-19 million, and Acer and Asustek Computer 16-17 million each, according to estimates by Taiwan-based supply chain makers based on preliminary orders received from the vendors. While Lenovo dominates Chinas notebook market, HP has the largest notebook market share in N. America and the business-use segment. China lifts 14-year-old ban on gaming consoles China has lifted its longtime ban on video game consoles, opening a lucrative new market for manufacturers including Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. The State Council said that it will now allow consoles to be manufactures in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, an experimental testing ground for economic reform. China had implemented a blanket restriction on the manufacture and sale of consoles and games in 2000, denying gaming companies access to the world's most populous nation. Chinese officials had cited worries over violent content and the potential for moral decay in explaining the ban. Meizu to launch smartphones in US in 3Q Chinese phonemaker Meizu is planning to break into the US market in 3Q13, betting on affordable prices and its simplified operating system based on Android called Flyme. Meizu joins the bandwagon of Chinese phonemakers, including Huawei and Lenovo, hoping to get a slice of the pie in the US.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 2
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 3
Japan
Japanese investment firm Venture United forms $11M startup fund Venture United, a Japanese startup investment company, announced today that it has formed a fund worth 1.2 mn yen ($11 mn). Venture United and its parent company United, the company best known for homescreen app CocoPPa, have already invested in many startups, including (Lifenet Insurance, Enigmo, Unoh (acquired by Zynga back in 2010), and Nobot (acquired by Mediba, a KDDI company). Japanese language learning startup Lang-8 secures funding from CyberAgent Venture Tokyo-based startup Lang-8, which runs a language learning platform based on peer corrections, announced
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 4
India
Indias Micromax launches a phone that pays you to watch advertisements Indian mobile device maker Micromax has launched its new Canvas Mad A94 model, which comes equipped with what it calls a MAd application. Mad, or Micromax Advertising, is an application that lets users watch advertisements and earn points which can then be converted into Indian currency and credited to users phone accounts. The app works across all of the devices affiliated telecom operators and the credits are applicable to both pre-paid and post-paid plans. CommonFlor, Indian property listings site, gets $10 million in fresh funds About six months after CommonFloor raised $7.5 million in funding from Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management, the startup has raised another RS 64 crore ($10.5 million) in series D funding. CommonFloor claims to be Indias largest real estate site, based on ComScores ranking for its site relative to local rivals. It has 75,000 property projects listed, for a total of 200,000 listings, coverings hundreds of cities. It doesnt just have new property listings and reviews but also incorporates a platform for residential community management. According to the company, the new funding will be used for product development and to fuel growth through new marketing initiatives. Its previous input of capital was used to open 11 new offices across India, so that it now has staff present in 18 cities. Little Eye Labs, Indian Startup, confirms its acquisition by Facebook, Deal worth $10-$15 million Little Eye Labs, an Indian startup that makes a software tool for analyzing the performance of Android apps, has confirmed its acquisition by Facebook. The deal is in the range of $10-15 million. This is Facebooks first acquisition of an Indian company and the entire Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebooks headquarters. Medypal raises $400K in seed round to help patients buy affordable healthcare in India Commerzpoint Networks, an Indian startup that owns healthcare marketplace Medypal, has raised around $400,000 in seed funding from Unitus Seed Fund. With this funding, Medypal will help patients find trustworthy service providers who will bid against each other for their spend on medical procedures. Medypal will use a reverse auction method to ensure that the services are competitively priced and patients are able to pick the service provider they want. India IT training school offers Bitcoin course Koenig Solutions introduced a four-day program that encompasses skillsets and focus areas such as the basics of Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining, secure trading with Bitcoin, and Bitcoin protocol specifications. The course is currently available at its Delhi training center, and will be offered to its other branches in India and overseas, reported The Times of India. It is estimated that India houses 30,000 Bitcoin owners who hold about 1 percent of the global circulation of some 12 million Bitcoins.
Indonesia
Indonesias internet speed gets an update, 100Mbps worth of it 4G internet speeds have become more widely available in Jakarta. A new home broadband service from First Media, internet service provider, has been rolled out since last month and it costs IDR 3mn ($252) a month. ITs currently available only in certain areas, and the team is still working to make sure it can eventually cover
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 5
Taiwan
LG to launch curved-screen smartphone G Flex in Taiwan market LG Electronics on January 6 unveiled G Flex, a smartphone with a curved screen and body, for launch in the Taiwan market. G Flex will be available for contract-bundled sale exclusively by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT). About 9 million smartphones were sold in the Taiwan market in 2013 and LG sold 300,000 units for a market share of 3.3%. LG plans to launch 10 smartphone models in the Taiwan market in 2014, four of which will be flagship models while two-thirds will support LTE. LG aims to ship 400,000-500,000 smartphones with an average sales price of US$300 in the Taiwan market in 2014 and account for 5% of the total sales volume and 8% of the total sales value. HTC unveils 2 LTE smartphones HTC on Jan. 7 unveiled two 4G LTE smartphones, the HTC ONE and HTC Butterfly S, for launch in the Taiwan market at recommended retail price of NT $19,900 (US$663) and NBT$20,900. The launch aims to meet demand for 4G smartphones as operations of 4G mobile communication services in Taiwan are expected to begin in 2H14. Acer partners with PChomePay Acer has announced a strategic partnership with PChome Group through investing in PChomePay, a provider of third-party e-payment services, for a 15.6% stake, marking Acers debut in e-commerce. Acer said it will subscribe to seven million new shares PChyomePay will issue to raise additional paid-in capital of NT70 million (US$2.33 million). Asustek expects 20% shipment growth for notebooks and tablets in North America in 2014 Asustek Computer expects its notebook and tablet shipments in North America to grow at least 20% on year in 2014, raising its ranking in the regions notebook market from seventh in 2013 to sixth. Since Chromebooks are gradually gaining demand in the sub-US$300 notebook market in North America, Asustek is also preparing related products, aiming to acquire some share of the market, especially in the education segment.
Thailand
Thailand sees huge boost in online shopping as Bangkok hit by shutdown Rakutens Tarad e-store, one of the largest e-commerce companies in Thailand, saw sales increase by 71% during the last three months while there were political protests going on for months in many cities in Thailand and Bangkok shutdown a week ago. Total visits shot up by 93% in that period compared to the same period the year before. Looking at mobile-only e-shoppers in Thailand, the growth of sales from phones increased by 637% during the ongoing protests. This big boost could also be the result of Rakutens mobile commerce campaign that the company started late last year as smartphone usage grows in the country
Singapore
Facebook co-founder joins online grocery store RedMarts $5.4M funding round Redmart, a Singapore-based online grocery service, announced the closing of its oversubscribed $5.4M bridge round led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. The investment, a precursor to a larger Series B round which it is already raising money for and is slated to close within five months, will be spent on fulfillment technology and infrastructure. This latest round brings RedMarts fundraising total to about $10 million. Past investors include Skype co-founder Toivo Annus, games publisher Garena, Singapore-based investment firms East Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures, and angel investor John Tan.
Australia
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 6
United States
Apple confirms acquisition of Australian entrepreneurs SnappyCam photography app Apple has acquired an Australian entrepreneurs smartphone app that turned the iPhone 5 into a full action camera capable of shooting 20 high-quality photos in one second. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launches new app Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launched a new Q&A app called Jelly. The app, available on iOS and Android, lets users crowdsource questions to their social networks. A feature also lets users take pictures and pose questions to friends and their networks. The concept: if you're walking down the street and see a flower you want more information about, you can take a picture of it, crop or draw on it, and pose a question to your social networks. Mashable raises $13M in its first outside funding Mashable raised $13 million in Series A funding. CNN (which was previously rumored to be in talks to buy Mashable) broke the news, and Mashable has confirmed the funding in a post of its own. Founded in 2005, the site has since expanded from its initial focus from tech, particularly social media, to include entertainment, lifestyle, and other news. The round was led by Updata Partners (a growth equity firm), with participation from New Market Ventures Partners, Social Starts, Buddy Media co-founders, Iglo Group CEO, and Havas Global CEO. Pinterest acquires image recognition and visual search startup VisualGraph Pinterest has just acquired two-man startup VisualGraph, which creates machine vision, image recognition, and visual search technologies. By understanding the visual content of what people pin, Pinterest could suggest other content or show people more relevant ads. For example, even without text or tags, if you pin a lot of long dresses, VisualGraph could help Pinterest recognize the shape of clothing, and let it know to show you similar apparel, opposed to short skirts. You can see VisualGraphs image detection tech in action in the images below. TiVo moves storage of TV shows into the cloud with new network DVR service TiVo is building products that would let consumers save their favorite shows not on a hard drive in a box, but up in the cloud. The company has spent the last few years adding cloud-based elements to its service and apps. With the network DVR, TiVo will be able to deliver the same consistent UI to users without having to have a hard drive in its set-top boxes.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 7
Europe
Worldwide device shipments on pace to grow 7.6% in 2014, says Gartner Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are projected to reach 2.5 billion units in 2014, a 7.6% increase from 2013, according to Gartner. Among the operating system (OS) market, Android is on pace to surpass one billion users across all devices in 2014. By 2017, over 75% of Android's volumes will come from emerging markets. French custom travel startup Evaneos raises $6M to ocontinue competing with European tour operators Evaneos, a French startup that competes with traditional tour operators by providing a marketplace for tailored travel experiences, has raised $6 million in Series B funding. The round is being led by XAnge Private Equity, with participation from previous investor ISAI. This brings total funding for the four year old company to around $7 mn, having raised a little over $1 mn in two previous rounds from various angels and ISAI. The new capital will be used for European growth, specifically to launch in new countries beyond France, Spain, Italy and Germany where it currently operates. Estonian farm management startup VitalFields raises further !500K Estonian startup, VitalFields, which offers web and mobile apps to put farm management into the cloud and harness otherwise untapped farm-related data, has raised !500,000 in follow-on funding. The round was led by original backer SmartCap, the venture capital arm of the Estonian Development Fund, with participation from new investor TMT Investments. Previous backers Wiser Financial Advisors, and Arvi Tavast, also participated, along with Ahti Heinla (one of the first Skype engineers) and Andres Kull. This brings total funding to !750,000, after VitalFields raised !250,000 in late 2012. The Eye Tribe is shipping its first $99 Eye-Tracking Units, raises another $1M The Eye Tribe, which develops hardware that allows users to control technology with the motion of their eyes, has started shipping its first units and software development kits ($99). The company also raised another $1 million in seed funding, bringing its total seed/angel funding to $1.8million. As investor interest heats up in Turkey, Pan-European accelerator startupbootcamp launches in Istanbul Startupbootcamp, the pan-European accelerator based loosely on the Techstars model, has expanded to the Turkish city and is currently accepting applications. As is now very familiar, it operates a 3-month bootcampstyle program to fund, mentor, house and showcase early-stage startups. Teams from anywhere can apply, but will need to relocate to Istanbul for the program, with applications expected from across Europe, the Middle East, CIS and North Africa. Startups accepted into the program receive !15,000 (in return for giving away 8% equity), 4+ months of office space, mentorship and whats being described as !250k+ in sponsor and partner services.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 9
Israel
Bitcoin ATM Machine Arriving in Israel An ATM machine allowing conversion between hard cash and Bitcoins is set to arrive in Israel in March. The machine will be installed in Tel Aviv's "Bitcoin Embassy." The machine will be operated by Lamassu, Inc., and will support conversion between the virtual currency and more than 200 regular currencies in 25 languages. Once acquired, Bitcoins are stored in a digital wallet. In recent months, the device was installed in Canada, where customers are able to conduct transactions of up to 3,000 Canadian dollars ($2,700) per day. Israel and India to invest $40M in joint venture tech fund The Indian and Israeli governments have reached an agreement to establish a $40 million fund aimed at investing in joint technological ventures. Each country will contribute $20 million towards the fund over five years. The fund will support media, software, agriculture, energy, water, and aerospace ventures. The fund will help Israeli companies participate in large Indian government-led ventures, foster collaboration of Israeli and Indian companies in R&D projects and seek to adapt products developed in Israel for the Indian market. Incubator for Arab startups to be opened in Haifa Israeli venture capitalist Chemi Peres, JVP fund and Arab-Israeli businessman Imad Telhami, are in the process of setting up an incubator for startups in the fields of internet, media and mobile in the Arab language. TheMarker reports that the incubator, aimed at Arab-Israeli startups, will most likely be located in the city of Haifa and accommodate early-stage companies.
SparkLabs Global Ventures (http://www.sparklabsglobal.com) is a global seed-stage fund with partners in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Seoul. 10