TechInAsia, the Singapore-based digital media platform for startup coverage, which also puts up numerous conferences across Asia by the same brand name has raised $4 Million collectively from SB ISAT Fund, Eduardo Saverin( Facebook co-founder) and others.
Other participating investors include Walden International, Marvelstone, m&s Partners and and Andrew James Solimine, Co-founder of Nitrous. The company’s existing investors, which include the likes of East Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital and Simile Venture Partners also participated in this funding round. SB ISAT Fund works with Indosat and Softbank.
Tech In Asia will use the investment to build more relevant features for its community. It recently revamped its website to form a more “connected” discussion forum for its readers. With infusion of fresh capital, the company is also looking to expand its team in the region, said an official statement.
Speaking on the development, Terrence Lee, TiA’s Managing Editor said,
Mere reporting is dead. We want to move into producing more insightful content, beyond just reporting the facts. The editorial team will focus on adding context and commentary to help people make sense of tech trends in Asia.
“We are humbled to have found a league of distinguished investors who believe in the value we want to bring to the ecosystem,” said Willis Wee, Founder and CEO, Tech in Asia. “This investment will be used to evolve Tech in Asia’s businesses so that we can better serve the needs of our community,” he added.
Started in 2011 and now functioning with a team of 70 spread across Asia, TechInAsia aims to come as a news site to “serve and build Asia’s tech ecosystem.” And while we here, at The Tech Portal are marching ahead aggressively to build something similar for SE Asia (with more insightful features coming soon), TiA’s work, even though being a rival, has been pretty commendable.
While TiA’s mainstay continues to be its news blog, a rather distinctive feature is its paid-for database of Asia’s startups/founder/investors, named Techlist. Earlier this year, Tech in Asia underwent and graduated from the Winter 2015 batch of Y Combinator’s accelerator program, during which it premiered its first version of Techlist.
But then again, looking at how similar, and rather more comprehensive platform like TC’s Crunchbase, and India’s own Tracxn (which has been attracting heavy investment lately), it will still need more time for TiA to show how Techlist stands out of those I mentioned above.
Willis says, certain changes like the website revamp and release of Techist, “mark the beginning of Tech in Asia’s next phase”, and a whole lot of “exciting changes and new features” are planned for the community over the next 12 months.
TiA’s funding is a positive sign for all those (very few) startups, working to get Asia on the digital map, something which hasn’t really happened at a pace it drove in the west. And even though, it is saddening to see Asia not having a single globally recognised digital news platform for tech and startups, we (and folks like TiA) are committed, to create platforms, which could stand up against the likes of TechCrunch, Re/Code, The Verge or any other notable western digital news platform
And for folks at Tech In Asia, Congratulations guys, and keep marching ahead !
