Adrian Li (left) and Donald Wihardja (right) of Convergence Accel.

Last week Jakarta’s newest venture capital firm Convergence Accel announced its first investment in Female Daily Network; a US$1 million round led by seasoned Indonesian VC Ideosource.

While Convergence Accel is brand new to Indonesia’s startup scene, its founder and managing partner Adrian Li has been in Jakarta since June 2013. An ex-Rocket Internet managing director, Li is also the co-founder of Qraved, one of Jakarta’s well-known foodtech startups. Donald Wihardja, Li’s partner at Convergence Accel, is the former country manager and chief information officer of 2c2p, one of Southeast Asia’s biggest players for ecommerce payment solutions. Wihardja is also the former head of the Indonesian Ecommerce Association.

“I always wanted to start a VC,” says Li. “The strongest motivation for me was that I always believed in the idea of empowering entrepreneurs. For Donald, he’s also long been excited about this. He’s been in Indonesia’s tech business longer than most people, and so we decided to put together our complimentary skillsets and networks.”

See: This Japanese VC may be new to Indonesia, but it’s making an impact by backing disruption

Helping local startups reach series A

Currently, Convergence Accel’s fund has around US$25 million ready to be spent on Indonesian startups. Apart from Indonesia’s Bakrie Group, which is making strong moves into the archipelago’s tech space, Li didn’t disclose the identities of Convergence Accel’s backers or their amounts contributed to the fund. He did mention, however, that the fund is still open for investment but that he doesn’t want to let it exceed US$30 million in total.

Li claims Convergence Accel is not a corporate venture capital firm, but rather an independent entity structured much like a Silicon Valley venture firm with both investment partners and limited partners. Li confirms that the money in Convergence Accel’s fund comes from family offices and high net worth individuals in Indonesia, China, and the US.

Li adds that Convergence Accel is not yet focusing on specific sectors for investment. “Right now we have a geographic focus,” explains Li. “First and foremost, the companies must be located in Indonesia, and then we’ll look at many sectors. We want to invest in 25 to 30 companies, then reserve funds to help those companies succeed in the future.”

A need for speed without a lot of data

So far, Convergence Accel has screened over 100 companies and conducted in-depth due diligence on around 20 of them. Li says Convergence Accel’s sweet spot for investment will typically be less than US$500,000. Li refers to this amount as “pre-series A funding.”

Li believes Indonesia is a challenging market for investors because there’s not an abundance of data or case studies to look at when making decisions about which companies are likely to succeed in the archipelago. “It’s a bit difficult because we have to be quick in filtering down the ones which we consider to be real options,” says Li. “We don’t want to be the first money in, so we like to see companies that have gained traction already with money from friends, family, or angel investors.”

Although the firm has the word “accel” in it’s name, Convergence Accel will not create a traditional incubator or accelerator in Jakarta. Instead, Li and Wihardja simply aim to use their collective network and experience to guide their portfolios while trying to be as “hands on” as possible with each one. Li declined to give names of startups he’s interested in at the moment, but says the he has met several socially responsible ones that he likes through the Endeavor Indonesia network. “I think startups that are related to micro lending for farmers, or using tech to improve agriculture and alleviate poverty deserve a lot of recognition,” says Li.

This post Meet Convergence Accel, Indonesia’s newest venture capital firm appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Currently, there are 17 epayment companies in Indonesia. Names like Veritrans, Coda, and 2c2p come to mind. Some people say competition is good for a tech startup scene. It forces the players in a given space to one-up each other to better serve a market. Folks like Peter Thiel may disagree, however, arguing “creative monopolies” are better. With this in mind, one question to answer is: Which school of thought can best be applied to Indonesia’s epayments space?

Earlier today, DailySocial ran a short piece about PayPal looking to hire a country manager in Indonesia. The scoop is interesting, as 80 percent of Indonesia’s population is unbanked, and less than five percent own credit cards. Epayments is one of the most complex challenges that consumers and internet businesses face in the archipelago.

As far back as 2012, PayPal was already taking an interest in the island nation, having partnered with epayments gateway Doku and fellow local player iPaymu to offer merchants cross-border transaction capabilities. Last month at Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, founder and COO of Doku Nabilah Alsagoff said the topic couldn’t be more timely, as ecommerce is set to grow significantly this year and the public is becoming increasingly comfortable spending online.

See: Epayment gateway Doku records $1.1 billion in transactions

One dominant player could mean faster universal adoption

Local ecommerce entrepreneurs may tell you that a lack of trust when shopping online is becoming less of a problem in Indonesia. But according to the Indonesian Ecommerce Association (idEA), out of the nation’s 75 million internet users, 34.5 million expect to make their first online purchase next year, and 40 percent of the nation’s non-recent eshoppers worry about the security of their financial information on the internet.

Nabilah Alsagoff, founder and COO of Doku

When PayPal became arguably the most dominant epayments company in the West, user adoption was observably viral. In the year 2000, people started talking about the brand after it reached a million users on eBay. When it gained more than 100 million active accounts in 193 markets and 26 different currencies, the company could legitimately say that it was “one of the world’s most trusted ways to pay and get paid.” Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal writes, “PayPal became a favorite way to pay online once it achieved a critical mass of buyers and sellers. ”

In Indonesia, the population of worried eshoppers and non-eshoppers could potentially be converted to avid online customers if all of their friends and relatives are constantly reassuring them that a single famous epayments brand is safe and secure.

An ethical monopoly could speed up the law-making process

Earlier this year, Indonesia’s central bank reported an average of 420,000 daily epayment transactions with a total value of Rp 7.7 billion (US$652,000). Around the same time, the Bank of Indonesia revised its regulations governing the nation’s epayment services, stating that epayments players were no longer allowed to strike exclusive partnerships.

This was likely done to spur healthy competition and provide an economic incentive to other firms looking to enter a lucrative space. Compelling cases can be made for and against this regulation, but one downside is that the rule makes it easier for more brands to enter the sector, and thus creates more cases that potentially need to be governed and regulated. This fragmentation is amplified when brands try to out-innovate each other and create fresh new territories.

The Overseas Development Insititute characterizes Indonesia’s policy making as “slow to change.” But with regard to epayments, if one brand was allowed to organically and ethically corner the market, lawmakers would only be dealing with one slippery animal instead of many.

Darwin on epayments

Arguably, PayPal is in a league of its own, alongside other iconic firms like Google, Microsoft, and Apple. But what these companies have in common is that they are consistently able to produce innovative products at scale, perhaps partly because their market dominance allows them the lateral freedom to focus on serving the users instead of one-upping the competition.

One thing is almost certain: If PayPal is setting up an office in Indonesia, the epayments space is sure to liven up with competition and maybe accelerate the archipelago’s natural selection of a dominant player.

Editing by Paul Bischoff and J.T. Quigley; lead image from JasonParis

This post Would PayPal’s presence in Indonesia speed up natural selection? appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Epayments processing company 2C2P today announced a series C funding round of US$7 million. Investors in the round include Amun Capital AG and GMO Venture Partners. With this latest round, the Singapore-based startup reports a total funding of over US$10 million. It had previously secured US$2 million from GMO Venture Partners in a series B funding round.

Since it was founded in 2003, 2C2P has expanded across Southeast Asia, with offices in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The company’s mission is to bring epayment and mobile payment solutions to Southeast Asia, where consumers in several markets are not even used to credit card transactions. “We foresee strong eCommerce growth in SEA,” Aung Kyaw Moe, group CEO and founder of 2C2P, told Tech in Asia. “2C2P intends to continue to serve the underserved.”

2C2P founder and group CEO, Aung Kyaw Moe.

The company has several products across its territories. It has launched point-of-sales (POS) and epayments solutions in Myanmar and Thailand. In Myanmar, it introduced the “Citizen Card”, a prepaid card coupled with a mobile application. And it has partnered with international financial institutions such as American Express, China UnionPay, MasterCard, and Visa.

While there are several competing services across Southeast Asia, 2C2P is in a powerful position as it is one of the few to have a presence in several markets. According to Aung, the company has processed US$2.2 billion in transactions for FY2014. “We anticipate that we will continue to grow,” he added.

This new funding round will allow the company to continue its expansion in the region, embark on a recruitment drive, and further diversify its products by expanding its card, cash, and cash equivalent acceptance services. “We are searching for talent across the board – from SEA as well as globally,” Aung said. “2C2P seeks for experts in the fields of payments, as well as those who possess SEA  in-market expertise.”

Update (10pm SGT): Updated with comments from 2C2P founder and group CEO, Aung Kyaw Moe.

This post Online payments company 2C2P banks US$7M in series C appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Singaporean bank DBS is bringing its DBS Paylah app to the Apple Watch, it announced today. DBS Paylah is a mobile payment app for iOS and Android phones. DBS account holders can link their accounts to the app in order to add funds to it. The funds are stored in the app’s mobile wallet and can be used for online payments, online purchases (with selected merchants), donations, and micro-payments between friends.

(Update, 1/7: This post has been updated with information from DBS)

The Apple Watch version of Paylah is basically an extension of the iPhone app, enabled through bluetooth sync between the two devices. As such, users don’t need to download a separate app to their Watch. They can just update their mobile app to work with it.

For now, users can then receive notifications on their transactions, such as a successful payment, and view their available balance on the Watch. As DBS told Tech in Asia, it will eventually add functions such as sending money and the ability to approve requests for funds using the wearable.

The app is tied to the phone, where the user must log in at least once using a six-digit alphanumeric password. The Watch will need to be in close proximity to the phone and the apps will need to be locked together via bluetooth, in order for the user to be able to check information on the wearable. The iPhone version also supports logging in via TouchID for users of iPhone 5s and up. The total amount for transactions is limited to S$999 (US$739) by default, although the user can adjust that at their discretion.

The mobile payments space in Singapore has been expanding during the past year and a half, with major players such as domestic telco Singtel’s and Standard Chartered’s Dash app as well as Mastercard’s Masterpass being prominent examples. Singapore startups such as 2C2P and Matchmove (which received investment by Japanese credit card and financial services company Credit Saison last January) are also active in this space.

The full DBS Paylah app for iOS and Android was introduced last year. It’s not immediately clear how widely used it is in Singapore, and the bank declined to provide any details in this regard. Play Store install numbers currently sit in the 100,000 – 500,000 category, but that is a pretty big margin and doesn’t say much about active user or transaction numbers.

This post Singapore’s DBS bank brings its Paylah mobile payments app to Apple Watch appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Every band needs a lead singer, and every company a CEO. Strong startup founders attract an all-star team, gel people into one, and set the tone and vision for the rest to follow.

Meet Southeast Asia’s finest 30. Captains of the tech industry, these founder-CEOs are looked up to by their cohorts, and they serve as mentors to the rest.

A quick word on the methodology. The founders are picked only if they’re helming an internet company day-to-day. They’re ranked based on their current company’s revenue, traction, and funding figure, as well as their personal track record as entrepreneurs.

Of course, the list is somewhat subjective, as ranking a founder’s software company against another’s online media startup is near-impossible. But this is our best effort to present you the most inspiring founders we know today.

Ready? Starting from number 30, here are this year’s top founders:

30. Alexis Horowitz-Burdick, Luxola, Singapore

Alexis is the ultimate hustler. Soon after starting online cosmetics store Luxola, she created a list of 500 investor email addresses and reached out to all of them. That worked, and she raised millions to grow her startup. In 2015, she sold her startup to global luxury brand LVMH, and the deal was considered a win by insiders, estimated to be worth between US$30 million and US$50 million.

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Luxola data

Funding amount: US$15.6 million
Latest funding stage: Acquired
Industry: Lifestyle, Ecommerce

29. Niki Luhur, Kartuku, Indonesia

The first e-payments entry in this list is Niki Luhur of Kartuku, a company which supplies payment terminals, biometric fingerprint readers, and an internet payment gateway. While the company was started in 2001, Niki returned from studies in the US in 2006 to run it upon his father’s pleading, as the company was struggling. He managed to turn it around.

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Kartuku data

Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: Enterprise Solution, Finance

28. Ryu Suliawan, Veritrans, Indonesia

Ryu Kawano (center)

Veritrans is another well-known name in Indonesian e-payments. It deals with credit card, direct debit, e-wallet, bank transfer, and convenience store payments. Ryu, son of a property multi-millionaire, is the man behind the startup. He started as a consultant before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Veritrans data

Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: Ecommerce, Payments

27. Victor Lavrenko, Coc Coc, Vietnam

Challenging Google directly would be a death knell for many companies, but Coc Coc isn’t deterred. Victor has led the company to 3.7 million searches a day in Vietnam, and 8.7 million monthly active users. Can it keep the momentum going? Let’s see what Victor has up his sleeves.

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Coc Coc data

Funding amount: US$34 million
Latest funding stage: Series B
Industry: General Internet, Search & Discovery

26. Arijit Sengupta, Antuit, Singapore

Antuit came out of nowhere to become perhaps Singapore’s top big data startup. Just 18 months old, it raised tens of millions in US dollars from Goldman Sachs and others. It now has 20 clients, including eight Fortune 500 firms. Prior to Antuit, Arijit had a long career in business process management and consulting.

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Antuit data

Funding amount: US$59 million
Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Big Data

25. Maria Ressa, Rappler, Philippines

Fuelled by social media, Rappler has quickly risen to become one of the Philippines’ most-visited news sites, garnering around five million monthly visits, according to SimilarWeb. It has expanded to Indonesia recently. What’s surprising is that the site was started by an old-school journalist, Maria, showing that age isn’t a barrier to a mindset shift.

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Rappler data

Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Media

24. Nadiem Makarim, Go-Jek, Indonesia

Nadiem was part of Southeast Asia’s ecommerce revolution as the head of Zalora Indonesia. Now, he’s partaking in another shake-up: transportation and logistics. Go-Jek is giving GrabTaxi a run for its money in the motorbike booking arena. With the ecommerce wave still ongoing, Go-Jek could ride along with it.

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Go-Jek data

Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: Lifestyle, Logistics

23. Steven Goh, Migme, Singapore

Migme started out as a social network for feature phones. It then entered a tough transition phase in an attempt to move on with the times and capture the hearts of smartphone users. Things are looking up. Growth has been strong, and it now sees about 20 million monthly active users in its endeavor to become the mobile entertainment platform for emerging markets.

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Migme data

Revenue: US$9 million run rate
Funding amount: US$44.60 million
Latest funding stage: Post-IPO Equity
Industry: Publishing, Social Networking & Communication

22. Achmad Zaky, Bukalapak, Indonesia

Bukalapak is the Indonesian cousin of Carousell. It saw over US$80 million in transactions in 2014. Unlike Carousell, it’s big only in Indonesia. But given the size of the market, Bukalapak has plenty of room to grow, and Achmad’s entrepreneurial instincts come into play. We wonder what’s next for this noodle seller turned software consultant turned tech founder.

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Bukalapak data

Latest funding stage: Series B
Industry: Ecommerce

21. Ferry Unardi, Traveloka, Indonesia

ComScore calls Traveloka Indonesia’s top flights search and booking site. SimilarWeb estimates it gets around four million visits a month. First-time entrepreneur Ferry’s achievement is remarkable considering how brutal the online travel industry is. He’s proof that if you find a lucrative, untapped niche anywhere, you can run with it.

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Traveloka data

Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Travel

20. Aldi Haryopratomo, Ruma, Indonesia

Ruma is probably the most unique startup here. Think old-fashioned, tech-enabled, person-to-person commerce, conducted across first- and second-tier cities in Indonesia. The startup matches service providers with field agents, who in turn sell these services to residents throughout the country. Ruma builds the tech that lets agents fulfill orders and transact.

The man behind Ruma is Aldi, a former management consultant who became an employee at Kiva, a microfinance site. While social enterprises rarely become massively profitable companies, Ruma may have found a way to make it happen.

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Ruma data

Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: Professional Services, Finance

19. Siu Rui Quek, Carousell, Singapore

Siu Rui Quek, CEO of Carousell (center)

Ride on the subway in Singapore, and you’ll notice how often Carousell comes up on smartphones. That’s how popular the mobile marketplace has become. It’s a busy place: eight million items listed and two million goods sold since 2012, or eight transactions every minute.

And we hear they’re doing well in Taiwan and Malaysia, scoring top five in app store rankings for certain categories, according to App Annie data. I’m not surprised if they have hundreds of millions in gross merchandise volume by now. Their next challenge: monetization.

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Carousell data

Funding amount: US$6.89 million
Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Ecommerce

18. Darius Cheung, 99.co, Singapore

Darius was part of the first wave of startup exits in Singapore, selling mobile anti-virus company TenCube for several millions of dollars. Since then, he has mentored fellow founders in Singapore (including some on this list), and is now back with 99.co, a property search site with backing from Sequoia Capital and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

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99.co data

Funding amount: US$2.16 million
Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Consumer Internet, Real Estate

17. Nabilah Alsagoff, Doku, Indonesia

Doku is widely considered Indonesia’s leading payment gateway. That’s remarkable considering Nabilah has so far taken no venture capital or angel funding and is battling competitors who are better connected and well-funded. You’d also have to consider that Doku was incorporated in 2005, way before the country had a thriving startup scene. No hype, just pure guts.

Doku data

Payment volume: US$520 million
Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: Payments, Others

16. Aung Kyaw Moe, 2C2P, Singapore

2C2P claims to have processed US$2.2 billion in transactions in 2014, which is probably the most among all online payment players started in the region. The bonus is that it has a presence in multiple countries, making it a potential winner in this space.

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2C2P data

Funding amount: US$10 million
Latest funding stage: Series C
Industry: Payments

15. Paul Srivorakul, aCommerce, Thailand

Paul has a thousand things on his plate. He started and sold an ad network, then flipped a daily deals site years later. Now he’s an investor via Ardent Capital, and also the CEO of aCommerce, a logistics and marketing services firm for ecommerce ventures. It sits right in the heart of a logistics revolution in Southeast Asia. Exciting times are ahead.

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aCommerce data

Funding amount: US$20 million
Latest funding stage: Series A
Industry: Logistics

14. Samuel Lim, Reebonz, Singapore

Many girls dream of owning luxury bags. Samuel Lim dreamed of owning the site that sells them. That was why he started Reebonz, a site for users to buy new and used luxury items at discounted prices through flash sales. Prior to Reebonz, he started a mobile content provider. Could a public listing be next for Reebonz?

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Reebonz data

Funding amount: US$50 million
Latest funding stage: Series C
Industry: Lifestyle, Ecommerce

13. Nix Nolledo, Xurpas, Philippines

You’ll often hear stories of entrepreneurs who try and try again until they succeed. Nix is one of them. With Xurpas, he found his gold mine. The company, a mobile content provider, did not receive a single cent of funding from external investors en route to its IPO. But with Philippines becoming a more robust startup ecosystem, Nix is paving the way for a new generation of Filipino tech entrepreneurs.

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Xurpas data

Revenue: US$19 million run rate
Latest funding stage: IPO
Industry: Gaming

12. Malcolm Rodrigues, MyRepublic, Singapore

Malcolm Rodrigues (first row, center)

MyRepublic is an internet service provider that took aim at the dominant telcos with dedicated internet plans for gamers. It introduced Teleport, which lets people use sites like Netflix and Hulu Plus, circumventing geographical restrictions. It was the first to introduce a consumer-friendly 1 Gbps fibre broadband plan, and has also expanded to New Zealand. Now, it is on a quest to become Singapore’s fourth telco. Malcolm, a former exec at StarHub, knows how to keep his former bosses on their toes.

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MyRepublic data

Revenue: US$20 million annualized
Funding amount: US$37.5 million
Latest funding stage: Undisclosed
Industry: General Internet, Internet Infrastructure

11. Roger Egan, Redmart, Singapore

Redmart is a pioneer of online grocery shopping in Singapore, with Roger, a former investment banker, at the helm. Its slick user experience made the local supermarkets’ websites look feeble by comparison. The startup built its logistics arm from scratch, and recently ventured into a marketplace model, where it uses its delivery fleet to bring indie merchants online. Now, with competition from fellow startups Honestbee and HappyFresh, Roger aims to keep the company ahead with planned expansions to Hong Kong and Indonesia.

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Redmart data

Funding amount: US$59.9 million
Latest funding stage: Series B
Industry: Lifestyle, Ecommerce

10. Razmig Hovaghimian, Viki, Singapore

Razmig had many failed ventures before Viki. He started a pizza delivery service, and exported used Levi’s jeans to Europe. Both failed. But at Stanford Business School, he turned a class project into Viki, which became a video site well known for its subtitling tool that crowdsources translations from users. It built an audience by specializing in Asian content, and convinced Rakuten to acquire it for a rumored US$200 million. He’s rumored to be working on his next startup.

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Viki data

Funding amount: US$24.30 million
Latest funding stage: Acquired
Industry: Video

9. Nguyen Duc Tai, The Gioi Di Dong, Vietnam

The Gioi Di Dong is like the Best Buy of Vietnam. Again, it’s not a name foreigners are acquainted with. But it’s huge, and probably makes the most money out of all the companies here. So, Tai could easily top this list based on that criterion, if not for the fact that most of its sales comes from offline sales. Having said that, TGDD are experts in omnichannel, guaranteeing the delivery of a smartphone within 30 minutes of an order through the website. Tai’s meticulous and barebones operational genius are key to why this company will likely become a $1 billion omnichannel electronics behemoth.

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The Gioi Di Dong data

Revenue: US$370 million
Latest funding stage: IPO
Industry: Enterprise Solution, Ecommerce

8. William Tanuwijaya, Tokopedia, Indonesia

The amount of money Indonesian shopping site Tokopedia raised from investors was jaw-dropping. Never had a startup with a local founder raised so much money. In six short years (check out its history here), Tokopedia has become the leading example of the country’s ecommerce and tech startup potential. It’s an achievement for William, a first-time entrepreneur and career engineer.

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Tokopedia data

Funding amount: US$100 million
Latest funding stage: Series E
Industry: Consumer Internet, Ecommerce

7. Steve Melhuish, PropertyGuru, Singapore

Think property search in Singapore, and the name that comes up is PropertyGuru. Perhaps the leading service of its kind in Southeast Asia, PropertyGuru offers a plethora of online tools and information for property seekers and renters to find the best deal. Led by the affable Steve, the company claims to have 10 million monthly visits across its sites, and is gunning for a public listing sometime next year.

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PropertyGuru data

Funding amount: US$183 million
Latest funding stage: Series D
Industry: Consumer Internet, Real Estate

6. Ganesh Kumar Bangah, MOL, Malaysia

Ganesh is the architect behind MOL, one of the leading e-payments company born out of Southeast Asia. It’s still growing, doing about US$550 million in payment volumes with a huge focus on gaming. That’s courtesy of a virtual currency called MOL Points, which can be used to buy games, content, and services.

Though it received a battering on the stock market, the worst might be over. Note: though Ganesh is not strictly the CEO anymore, he’s still very active in running the company as executive chairman, hence his inclusion in this list.

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MOL data

Revenue: US$45.9 million
Industry: Payments

5. Anthony Tan, Grabtaxi, Singapore

Instead of picking a career in massive family business Tan Chong Motors, Anthony struck out on his own. What a ride it’s been. From humble days as an unknown firm in Malaysia, his team hustled towards becoming Southeast Asia’s top taxi booking app.

GrabTaxi clocks in at seven rides a second, and is trying to fend off Uber and Go-Jek in the transportation and logistics sphere (though it has lots of catching up to do with Uber in the user experience department). Now, with backing from Chinese peer Didi, it begins a new chapter.

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Grabtaxi data

Funding amount: US$680 million
Latest funding stage: Series E
Industry: Consumer Internet, Logistics

4. Maximilian Bittner, Lazada, Singapore

Gripe about Rocket Internet’s work culture and high turnover rate if you want, but you can’t deny it placed an unprecedented bet on ecommerce in Southeast Asia, which gave investors more confidence in the future of online shopping.

Max has played an instrumental role in turning the company into a household name in ecommerce. He also successfully oversaw its transition from a direct sales model into a marketplace for buyers and sellers.

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Lazada data

Revenue: US$154 million
Net operating loss: US$153 million
Funding amount: US$686 million
Latest funding stage: Series F
Industry: Ecommerce

3. Le Hong Minh, VNG, Vietnam

If you’re not from Vietnam, you’d be forgiven for not knowing VNG. But in the country, it’s a big deal. Formerly an investment banker, Minh turned his interest in gaming into a sprawling business. He’s now the leader behind one of Vietnam’s largest internet companies.

Like Garena, VNG is also a games publisher that’s spreading its wings into social networking. It owns the dominant chat app in Vietnam, Zalo. But unlike Forrest and friends, VNG is intensely focused on one country, and it doesn’t seem like that’ll change soon. Nevertheless, with Vietnam being a tough-to-conquer market for outsiders, it’s a viable strategy.

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VNG data

Revenue: US$100 million
Industry: Lifestyle, Gaming, General Software

2. Forrest Li, Garena, Singapore

Forrest Li (right)

Gamers in Southeast Asia would know Garena as the way you could play pirated copies of Warcraft 3 online. But from there, it’s gone on to become the region’s top games publisher, bolstered by an investment from Chinese internet giant Tencent, which helped it cement exclusive rights to distribute the popular game League of Legends in Southeast Asia.

There’s been a few missteps. It acquired the rights to distribute online shooter Firefall, which became a dud. It distributed a blatant rip-off of a popular Blizzard game. But overall, it’s been successful.

Instead of sitting still, it’s evolving. It launched investment arm Garena Venture. It’s moving beyond gaming, creating a chat app called BeeTalk. It launched Shopee, its take on popular mobile marketplace Carousell.

For steering Garena into a name synonymous with online gaming in Southeast Asia, Forrest deserves a spot on this list.

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Garena data

Revenue: Over US$200 million
Valuation: US$2.5 billion (unofficial)
Industry: Gaming, Social Networking & Communication

1. Min-Liang Tan, Razer, Singapore

He’s called the Tony Stark of gaming. A social media rock star, Min-Liang has a loyal following on Facebook, with whom he shares anything from jeremiads about the state of the tech industry, photos of him with adoring fans, to sightings of people with Razer gear.

His company is a dominant force in gaming devices, but it has a new ambition: to become a lifestyle gadgets powerhouse. A product the company has been promoting is the Nabu, its take on a smart wearable on the wrist.

Min-Liang’s thinking escapes convention and is sometimes controversial.

He blames HP and Dell for causing the PC industry’s decline, and then launches into a pitch about how Razer is going to reverse this through its Blade gaming laptops.

He once told a roomful of students in grades-crazy Singapore that wasting time or getting an ‘F’ for their exams is okay. He inculcates a product-obsessed culture by throwing in hypothetical scenarios during job interviews, like: “Your wife just gave birth, but we really need you to stay back and finish this.”

Whatever he’s doing, it’s working.

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Razer data

Revenue: US$250 million to US$300 million (estimated)
Funding amount: More than US$50 million
Valuation: US$1 billion (unofficial)
Latest funding stage: Late Stage
Industry: Hardware

Update on October 5: The article incorrectly mentioned that Samuel Lim of Reebonz was the co-founder of Zuunbo.com. He was not.

This post Southeast Asia’s top 30 tech founders appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Fintech is one of the darlings of the startup world right now. VCs and investors are tripping over themselves to back startups with new and innovative ideas in the financial technology space.

Investment in fintech startups in Asia reached US$797 million in 2014. This puts the continent in second place after the US, with US$3.9 billion, according to a report by Singapore-based venture capital firm Life.Sreda (PDF link).

Southeast Asia, and especially the financial and trading hub that is Singapore, has seen a large chunk of that investment feeding frenzy. So here’s a look at the 15 best funded fintech startups in Southeast Asia today.

Data by Tech in Asia. Research by Hana Nguyen, Elly Van, and Herby Dao. Infographic design and top image by Kathrinna Rakhmavika.

This post These are the 15 most funded fintech startups in Southeast Asia (INFOGRAPHIC) appeared first on Tech in Asia.