UnicoMarketing: 27 startups in Asia that caught our eye

asian startups weekly list

Here’s our newest round-up of the featured startups on our site this week. If you have startup tips or story suggestions, feel free to email us. Enjoy this week’s list!

1. YellowNepal | Nepal (Techlist Profile)

Kathmandu-based startup YellowNepal is a location based restaurant search app which provides a discovery service for 1,500 restaurants in the Kathmandu Valley. The interface of the app allows you to search for restaurants by name, cuisine, or area with an option to check details like menus, directions, business hours, and contact info of the establishments.

2. PinoyTravel | Philippines (Techlist Profile)

PinoyTravel is Philippines’ first online provincial bus booking system and also among the first batch of startups funded by Philippine accelerator Ideaspace Foundation. Since its launch in September 2013, PinoyTravel has expanded its services to include ferry and hotel bookings. It will soon launch a reseller portal, allowing even small neighborhood convenience stores to sell bus tickets.

3. Hopscotch | India (Techlist Profile)

Hopscotch is an ecommerce portal selling merchandise for babies and kids in India. It is recently revealed that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and venture capital fund Velos Partners have invested US$11 million in the startup.

4. Aoliday | China (Techlist Profile)

Travel and ticketing booking site Aoliday does things differently from most of the other similar sites by focusing on selling daytrips, tours, and adventurous experiences around the world. The startup has recently secured US$1.5 million in seed financing from Gobi Partners.

5. Dealoka | Indonesia (Techlist Profile)

Launched mid last year, Dealoka is a mobile app that enables shoppers to receive exclusive and targeted offers from the brands that matter to them. The company is among the first graduates of Indosat’s accelerator program, Ideabox, and is raising an undisclosed amount of series A funding from SB ISAT, a US$50 million fund by Softbank and telco Indosat.

6. Meituan | China (Techlist Profile)

Meituan is one of China’s biggest startups as well as one of its top daily deals sites for localized consumer services. The company revealed this week that it has secured US$700 million in funding.

7. SmartNews| Japan (Techlist Profile)

Founded in June 2012, SmartNews, is a news reading app which uses machine-learning algorithms to aggregate trending stories from both news outlets and social media. Within three months of its US debut, the app has one million monthly active American users. It has also reached the number-one spot in the news category for apps on the US versions of the App Store and Google Play.

8. NanoArcade | Taiwan and US (Techlist Profile)

NanoArcade is an arcade machine you can take everywhere. It lets users play Java-based games using physical push-buttons and a joystick and gain access to its library of almost 100 games. The mini-arcade cabinet just passed its funding goal on Kickstarter.

9. Naldo | South Korea (Techlist Profile)

Seoul-based urban logistics startup Naldo works sort of like an Uber for last-mile deliveries. With its mostly two-wheeled fleet, it promises delivery within 90 minutes in Seoul. The site connects clients directly to available nearby drivers with no middlemen involved.

10. Vitargent | Hong Kong (Techlist Profile)

Hong Kong-based Vitargent provides bio-chem testing services to cosmetics, pharmeceauticals, and food and beverages companies. At different product stages – from raw material to packaged item – samples are collected and sent to Vitargent’s lab for testing. If it passes, it gets a clean safety report and certification. The startup also licenses its patented tech to clients, for which it charges a licensing and consultation fee. Companies can also purchase the testing equipment used by Vitargent to conduct their own tests.

11. Shakr | South Korea (Techlist Profile)

Shakr, a Seoul-based startup that helps small businesses make professional-caliber video advertisements on a budget, has secured funding from Silicon Valley-based, Japanese-led venture capital fund SV Frontier.

12. StockRadars | Thailand (Techlist Profile)

StockRadars is a stock analysis app that simplifies information for investors to help them better understand the stock market, thereby decreasing risk. While the app comes with a free set of default radars, users can purchase additional radars with more advanced criteria if they so desire. The company announced raising an undisclosed amount in a funding round led by CyberAgent Ventures and joined by East Ventures.

13. Beibei | China (Techlist Profile)

Established in April 2014 by its parent company Mizhe, Beibei is a Chinese ecommerce site specializing in items for infants, toddlers, and moms. The startup has just announced it raised a series C funding round led by Capital Today and New Horizon.

14. 3Restart | Pakistan (Techlist Profile)

3Restart is a company focused on creating predictive and adaptive learning solutions in the form of games, along with analytics and progress reports. Currently, the product is still in the pilot phase, and the team is testing features with students and teachers from local schools, making sure to pick testers from different backgrounds and income brackets.

15. HandyMantis | Indonesia (Techlist Profile)

Launched in November 2013, HandyMantis does offer ojek (motorcycle taxi) rides, its main bread and butter is in courier and personal delivery services. It has yet to have its own mobile app, but has most of its business coming from popular chat apps like WhatsApp, Blackberry Messenger, and Line.

16. iSkwelahan | Philippines (Techlist Profile)

iSkwelahan is a mass notification system that allows schools to reach their students via SMS in seconds – whether it’s about a time-sensitive situation, an event, or the rollout of a new policy.

17. Gigfairy | Malaysia (Techlist Profile)

Gigfairy prides itself on being a simple go-to place to book musicians. There are only two steps that need to be taken to get a rocking live band: browse through the profiles of local musicians, and book them right from their profile page.

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We’re now gearing up for our 9th edition, Startup Asia Singapore, to be held in May 2015. For the first time ever at Startup Asia Singapore 2015, we will be featuring about 400 startups at the Boostrap Alley on both days, and startup founders are able to exhibit for free!

Furthermore, we will be having a 10-city search in Asia this coming March, for the best startups to showcase at Startup Asia Singapore. Winners of each city’s pitch will stand a chance to get free flights and accommodation, startup passes, booths to Startup Asia Singapore, and priority consideration to be one of the 10 finalists at the Arena finale during the conference itself!

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