Category: Business
Studio XID secures US$1 million funding from Line and Evergreen Venture Partners
Studio XID, a Korean developer housing interaction prototyping tool known as ProtoPie, has received a US$1 million fundraising from Line Plus Corporation and Evergreen Venture Partners.
The startup founded by designers and developers from Google, Samsung, and Naver, has since its inception in 2014, been expanding its influence overseas, actively representing the rise of Korean startups by participating in events like TechCrunch Top 5, Rising Expo Tokyo, and Startup Nation Worldwide.
Its flagship product ProtoPie is a tool that allows designers to prototype mobile apps minus the requirements of coding and is aimed to facilitate the collaboration between designers and developers.
Besides, Studio XID has also been actively building partnerships with design teams in China, conducting closed beta-testing with firms like Baidu and Alibaba. With its commercial launch on January 5th this year, the tool has also been adopted by designers at major companies, including Google, Yahoo, Slack, Allianz, and Kakao.
Having established this partnership with Line, Studio XID will also be participating in improving Line’s overall mobile app development process, in addition to leveraging Line’s strong network in Japan for market entry.
With the latest capital, Studio XID also plans to enhance the overall functionalities of ProtoPie by working with Cheil Communications, its strategic partner, while leveraging its network to reach new customers globally.
Kim Su, a former Googler and CEO of Studio XID, hopes that the investment will further accelerate the adoption of ProtoPie. He stated: “We are delighted to work with Evergreen, the mobile leader in the Asian market. We will do our best to showcase both the high quality and potential of Korean software in foreign markets.”
According to its founders, the name ProtoPie is derived from the words prototype and the expression of a piece of pie. The application is built on the belief that details in creation will determine the success or failure of its app, a feature that they believe will withstand competition from tools appearing with similar feature sets.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Chinese web TV studio Up Pictures raises US$15 million series A to finance three book-to-film adaptations
Up Pictures, a Beijing-based web TV and film studio made an announcement yesterday that it has raised a series A funding at RMB100 million (about US$15 million) led by Legend Capital with the participation of Beijing-based Junyuan Capital.
This round follows the startup’s angel round led by Beijing-based movie group Huayi Brothers Media Co, within 23 days of its inception in which it claimed to be valued at RMB400 million (about US$58 million).
However, following this latest fundraising round, the company stands at a valuation of RMB1.4 billion (about US$200 million).
Founded in 2015, Up Pictures focuses on the suspense adventure movie genres, involving itself in film production and development, set investment, intellectual property (IP) incubation, artist management, market planning, as well as animation
Its production includes the popular web television series Ghost Blows Out the Light which is based on a fantasy novel series about a team of grave robbers seeking hidden treasure. This series alone accounted for half of the company’s total RMB40 million (about US$5 million) profit last year.
Other productions by the company also include animation series such as 80℃ and Le Roi et l’oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird); movies such as Three Body Problem, New York New York, and Mr. Six; as well as original web series including The Adventures In Wumen.
With the latest fundraising, Up Pictures will use the capital to finance three book-to-film adaptation by Tianxia Bachang including The Freak Neighbour, A Date With Fate, and Bing Jia Mi Jue (The secret of the soldiers).
This comes as the second web TV and video producer to raise venture funding within a week after Le Yong Pictures, a video firm established by LeEco founder’s wife raised its US$174 million series A.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Chinese women’s clothing rental platform – Dora’s Dream closes US$12 million series A
Following Chinese online dress rental platform MSParis US$18 million funding led by Northern Light Venture, Chengdu-based women’s clothes rental platform Dora’s Dream has also closed a Legend Capital-led US$12 million series A+ round which was also participated by Shanghai-based apparel maker La Chapelle Fashion.
Commenting on the investment, Jin Weiji, a partner at Legend said, “The Chinese consumer sector is entering a ‘sharing era.’ The sharing economy now exists across our daily lives, including transport, hotels, and fashion. Dora’s Dream provides young ladies with a fashion sharing platform that is innovative and follows the trend of consumer upgrade.”
He further notes that Legend has also investments in other shared-economy companies, including China Auto Rental Holdings Inc., as well as Uoko and Xiaozhu in the home accommodation sector.
Founded in 2015, Dora’s Dream provides daily clothes for young women in tier-two and tier-three cities, providing them a subscription rental solution to solve their needs for fashion brands, whereby they can rent fashion brands instead of purchasing and having it cluster at their wardrobes.
The platform currently provides its users with more than 16 combinations of membership selections whereby users can choose from time-lapse categories of 1, 3, 6, and 12 months paired with the maximum number of clothing piece from 1, 3, 6, and 9 which will vary from a price range between RMB 99 and RMB 8064.
At present, Dora’s Dream wardrobe of shared clothing has a stock keeping unit (SKU) reaching 500,000 in addition to partnerships with multiple brands and more than 100 designers. The startup also claims that since September, the annual membership system has seen more than 1/3 of users selecting the more than 1-month subscription service.
Dora’s Dream also asserts that from March 2016 to the end of 2016, the platform has more than 60,000 paying customers in addition to 500,000 registered users, mainly from Sichuan, Guangdong, and Zhejiang.
With the latest capital, Dora’s Dream will use the capital to further enhance its flexibility of supply chain in order to solve the clothing turnover rate and virality as well as to introduce new brands to achieve the diversification of platform clothing and to increase platform’s brand awareness and confidence.
In China, the sharing-leasing of fast fashion clothing is a market with great potential as speaking on the investment, La Chapelle‘s CEO Wang Yong said, “Investing in Dora’s Dream is because we have developed a liking for their subscription model, as well as their production chain from washing to quality inspection to delivery, which forms a closed operation model.”
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Makaan co-founder launches The Office Pass to provide co-working spaces in India
Having quit the real estate portal in December last year, Aditya Verma, the co-founder of real estate company Makaan.com is back to launch a co-working space provider known as The Office Pass.
Operating under Top Technologies Pvt. Ltd., The Office Pass is a technology platform that connects freelancers to micro small and medium enterprises with office spaces nearby which are rented as co-working spaces.
“The advances in the sharing economy will rub off in the commercial real estate sector as well. So people now share cabs and homes through Uber and Airbnb. We believe people will start sharing offices as well, where they work with other firms’ employees,” explained Verma.
In India’s new offices, these co-working spaces are a practicality and similarly run as real estate businesses, where owners and developers convert vacant office space into co-working spaces which are capital-intensive and difficult to scale.
Opening its first facility in Sohna Road, Gurgaon, The Office Pass practice a similar business model and will be inaugurated today with its first six paid customers. Besides, the startup also claims to be in the process of closing a seed investment round worth between US$200K and US$300K from several seasoned investors and companies based out of the US.
With the funding, Verma says that it will have sufficient capital to sustain the company’s operation for the next 15 to 18 months, in addition, to further develop the platform and increase the headcount of its five-member team.
Besides Verma, The Office Pass also has another two co-founders who are still in stealth mode as they are in the process of leaving their current assignments.
Makaan.com Pvt. Ltd was earlier a part of Anupam Mittal-founded People Group, which is also behind tech ventures such as matrimonial site Shaadi.com and Mauj Mobile. In April 2015, Makaan.com has been acquired by News Corp-owned online property broker PropTiger.
Co-working spaces have brought a wave of change in India as many companies and freelancers are switching to office-less companies. Likewise, The co-working space segment in India has also piqued investor’s interest in the past two months.
Last month, Innov8 has raised angel funding from Venture Catalysts and individual investors such as Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Google’s Rajan Anandan, and others through the LetsVenture platform.
While in January, Gurgaon-based InstaOffice has recently raised its pre-Series A funding led by online venture capital platform Globevestor and other angel investors, including Toppr’s Zishaan Hayath.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Chinese robot vacuum maker ECOVACS to IPO on Shanghai Stock Exchange
ECOVAS Robotics Co., Ltd., a Chinese robot vacuum maker backed by IDG Capital has filed with the country’s securities regulator for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Founded in 1998 by Chinese entrepreneur Qian Dongqi, Jiangsu province-based ECOVACS was initially an electronics manufacturer making vacuums for Philips, Panasonic, and Electrolux as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
In 2000, the company moved up from the lower-end of the manufacturing factories to becoming a technology enterprise with in-house research and development capability to obtain core technology competence.
Since then, ECOVACS has continued to invest in research and development, while beginning to focus on robot vacuums and robot home appliances in 2004 after Qi saw iRobot’s popular robot cleaners.
At present, the company sells a range of products in over 30 countries including robot floor cleaner, robot window cleaner, mobile air cleaner, and humidifier, as well as home entertainment and security robots.
Currently employing more than 5,000 people with corporate offices in Canton Ohio, Dusseldorf Germany, Tokyo Japan and Suzhou city in China, ECOVACS claims to be China’s number one robot home appliances maker with a 65% market share.
In 2013, IDG Capital invested an undisclosed amount in ECOVACS in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the company. The venture firm’s stake was reduced to 9.12 percent as the company conducted a shareholder restructuring after it decided to list domestically, instead of the initial plan in the United States.
However, in spite of having filed an IPO prospectus to complete an IPO, companies in China must wait in queue for a few years before IPO, as there are currently over 800 companies waiting in line to be permitted to complete their listings.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media