Author: vivian

Finding Success In The Most Unlikeliest Place – Talking Toes

Spreading positivity with socks, Talking Toes found success in the most unlikeliest of place – yes, a pair of socks. Founded in April 2015, this company was started up by Singaporeans Nison Chan and Lucas Saw as the pair quit their jobs to pursue this startup dream.

The two has now found success with their socks being stocked in 17 stores both locally and worldwide, among which 14 are in Singapore and one international stockist each in South Korea, Myanmar, and San Francisco.

Looking back, founder Nison Chan says that he always had an affinity with socks since he was a teenager, his favorite being an international socks brand called Happy Socks. Since his first pair, his fancy socks collection has grown to now filled up three bags.

Placing what they love to work, the founders said that “Talking Toes aren’t simply socks, they sell inspiration.”

True to that, the pair of socks with vibrant colors and snippets of inspiration printed onto them can lift anyone’s spirit when they put it on and start their day.  Most of the quotes are short, sweet and concise such as “Celebrate Life”, “Be Yourself” and “Dream Big”.

It’s not just that, the socks are also of premium quality, woven from combed cotton, which is different from regular cotton, being finer, stronger and more compact. This material allows the socks to have a gentler and softer feel on the feet while maintaining durability and design quality.

Besides that, seeking to expand their business to more international audiences, Talking Toes has also placed a project on popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter last month. Promoting itself as the world’s first inspirational label, Talking Toes to date, with 20 days to go has already achieved the support of 83 backers and also exceeded its goal of S$3000 with a surplus of $1366.

About Talking Toes
Talking Toes offer premium quality socks with inspirational quotes on them.  It currently has 9 inspiring designs with the most popular being, “Blessed”, “Be Yourself” and “Be Confident”. Their socks can be purchased online or bought from 14 stores in Singapore.

For more information, please visit https://talkingtoes.com.sg/

Contact Info
Name: Vivian
Organization: Unicorn Media

Singapore-based Digital Property Agency, Greyloft Concludes Seed Funding With US$1.1 Mil

When it comes to buying or renting a home, the process can be quite a hassle. Witnessing this, a Singaporean-based real estate startup, Greyloft seeks to bring the experience of house hunting online. In its most recent fundraising round, it secured an amount of US$1.1 million with the round led by DSG Consumer Partners and Wavemaker Partners.

Aiming to bring the whole realty journey online, Greyloft is a licensed real estate agency experimenting with the uses of technology to achieve the facilitation of house rental processes online. In other words, Greyloft aims to become a one-stop platform for users to make a smarter decision on deciding where to live.

Founded in September 2016, the story behind the company started when the founders, Mr. Narayanan and Mr. Agarwal experienced the troublesome house-hunting processes themselves when they came to Singapore to pursue their studies in the National University of Singapore.

Henceforth, the startup embodies their goals to bring transparency and simplification to the process as well as working towards the common goal of being “Asia’s preferred brokerage”. To accomplish this, the startup is working on a combination of software tools with its own in-house real estate agents who aid home seekers with paperwork, moving in and support after the customer moves into the new property.

Instead of going to multiple agents when you want to purchase or rent a house, Greyloft provides customers with as much information about the properties in their interested location sufficient enough to facilitate decision-making.

“A lot of the data that our customers need is already out there. However, it’s hard to make sense of it all, and they tend to refer to unreliable sources for information. We are building a team of data scientists and researchers to develop technology that will help cut through this clutter and present them with relevant information and data,” says Archit Agarwal, Greyloft co-founder

The startup also plans to extend it reaches from rentals to property sales. Greyloft will put funding toward product development, build data-driven online research tools for customers and tools that make the offline segment of real estate businesses easier for both the users and the agent. The funding will also be intended for recruitment purposes, building up its product team and agent staff as well as to boost the brand through various marketing efforts.

The company monetizes by charging a commission on successful transactions. Siddhesh doesn’t provide specific numbers but tells Tech in Asia that Greyloft’s revenue has grown 18 percent month-on-month since January 2016.

For more information, please visit https://www.greyloft.com/

Contact Info:
Name: Vivian
Organization: Unicorn Media

UniFa Wins Japan Regional Championship And Is Now On Road To Startup World Cup For US$1 Million

Ten Japanese startups go head-to-head in the regional round of Startup World Cup, participating in a series of pitch contest as they fight for the chance to be their national representative in order to participate in the grand finale which will be held in Silicon Valley, San Francisco next year.

In the end, the regional champion turned out to be UniFa, a startup enterprise providing  an Internet of Things (IoT) solution for parenting and child development which has won the judges’ votes amidst other competition. The panel of well-known judges was from Japan’s own technology and startup’s system, that is SNS founder Takafumi Horie, ABBA Lab CEO Osamu Ogasahara, and Gumi CE0 Hironao Kunimitsu.

Some of the competition that UniFa has headed up against includes Alpaca, a fintech startup based in Japan and US which leverages on artificial intelligence to create an automated trading platform, and D Free, a medical wearable that detects the user’s intestinal tract activity and alerts the user that it’s time for them to use the restroom.

UniFa, on the other hand,  offers the solution of a small robot called Meebo, an application that is designed to track kindergarteners’ physical and mental growth. It functions as a smart thermometer, and a smart bed collecting data from kindergarteners in order to provide parents with a better idea of their child’s feelings and experiences. The robot is also  said to be able to cut down the unnecessary workload of handling paperwork for kindergarten teachers, which thus would allow  them to concentrate on the child’s education.

With this, UniFa will be able to bring their company mission, that is to lessen the communication gap between children and their parents to the global platform as UniFa has withheld a place as one of the top 16 startups from 14 countries that will go head-to-head on March 24, 2017, in San Francisco where the next wave of entrepreneurs will be born and the winner takes all.

About Startup World Cup:

Looking for the world’s brightest mind across the globe and groundbreaking solutions that will move ecosystems forward, Startup World Cup is an event organized by Fenox Venture Capital  that is dedicated to launching and advising the world’s next wave of leading entrepreneurs.

For more information, please visit: http://www.startupworldcup.io/

Contact Info:
Name: Vivian
Organization: Unicorn Media

Parentlane, A Connecting Platform For Parents Gets Funding From Capier Investment

Parenting can be a formidable task, as parents bear the responsibilities of raising a new life into the world, shaping their personalities and values.

For this, Parentlane offers a social platform that enables parents to connect with other parents and to a community of parenting experts from grandparents to teachers as well as child psychologists and nutritionists. The company works on a community model, which means it operates on the expansion of its increasing members and growing information.

Founded in December 2015, the Bengaluru-based startup leverages on machine learning and data science technology to map out a child’s development. The company specializes in the child development timeline from the age of a newborn to a toddler of eight.

The company was founded by Vijay Anand which has its first round of angel investment on May 2016 with the round led by Sujeet Kumar, the former president of Flipkart and Aprameya Radharkrishna, the co-founder of TaxiForSure.

On the other hand, this funding by Rohit MA came four months later as an extension of the angel investment round earlier in May whereby the managing director of Cloudnine Hospitals has made the investment through his personal investment arm. The amount was undisclosed.

“I believe Parentlane team has done a great job in leveraging technology to deliver personalized guidance to support parents during their early child development cycle,” said Rohit of Capier Investments, “I am personally excited with their plans in delivering superior value to the entire parenting community.”

The development of Parentlane was due to the realization of the needs of today’s city-educated millennial generation for precise and personalized information related to their child as they become parents. Relatedly, the app also provides parents the opportunity to track and treasure their memories with their child as childhood can be brief. The app is currently only available on the android platform.

About Parentlane:
Parentlane is a social parenting platform empowering parents by delivering personalized, timely assistance to raise smart and healthy kids. Parentlane also allows parents to map the development of their child from their first smile to when they crawl. Aside from that, parents can also obtain personalized baby care and child development tips from registered child experts or other experienced parents. The app cover all aspects of growth and development, brain development activities for kids, food recipes and tips for parents during the journey.

Naoki Yamada, Founder And CEO Of Tokyo-based Conyac Exits With US$14 Million

In a globalized world, markets are increasingly interconnected but often there is a barrier to these expanding markets, and that is language. Thus, language translators are needed all around the world.

Taking advantage of this need, is a business called Conyac which mediates social translation services between bilinguals and companies. In other words, it is a platform to crowdsource and recruit translators for translation projects provided by businesses.

Founded by Naoki Yamada in February 2009, Conyac is named after the special konjac jelly in the popular Japanese animation called “Doraemon”. It is a special tool that gives characters the ability to speak and understand any languages after consumption.

Building on that, the site aims to gather native translators from all over the world. Since its launch in 2009, Conyac’s base of translators has grown to 10,000 individuals around the world who work in 60 different languages. Prices range from $3 per translation to a $100 per month packages, and clients usually get their completed projects back within an hour.

Additionally, what sets Conyac apart from its competitors is its high quality translation work. This is achieved through its system of project evaluation whereby Conyac has an evaluation system between translators to maintain quality.

On August 2016, Yamada sold his crowd translation service, Conyac to Rozetta, a language learning service provider for US$14 million. The deal with Japan-based Rozetta worked out to a 50 percent in cash and 50 percent in stock swap.

In response to this, Naoki Yamada, founder of Conyac explained that “This is just a way and tool to grow the business. IPO is also a tool, as well as acquisition. You should take the option that works for your company.”

Naoki hopes to see more buy-outs in Japan and looks forward to the day when acquisitions the size of his company wouldn’t even make headlines. Naoki said in an interview with Tech In Asia.

About Conyac
Founded in 2009 and based in Japan, Conyac is a global platform for crowdsourced translation services. It acts as a platform for social translation network, matching skillful translators with businesses and users who require translation services.

For more information, please visit https://conyac.cc/en

Contact Info
Name: Vivian
Organization: Unicorn Media

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