Clodura Systems Pvt. Ltd, an automated lead generation startup based in Pune, India has recently raised an undisclosed amount of investment from a high-net-worth individual (HNI).

The investment was made by individual investor Ajay Dubey, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, who has 36 years of experience working with IT firms such as Infosys, Patni Computer Systems, Persistent Systems and Uniken.

Founded in 2016 by Kapil Khangaokar who previously worked with IT firms such as Calsoft, Clodura acts as an automated LeadGen platform which finds leads for business to business (B2B) services companies using machine learning.

Clodura collects data from over 80 paid and unpaid sources and analyses them to understand the strategic direction taken by each company. Its core machine learning algorithm then find high-value prospects to close.

That is as a sales assistant, Clodura helps managers to spot more customers and facilitates faster conversion of deals. It provides end to end information and solution that a salesperson need to close the deal.

The startup listed 8 customers among which includes Clarion Technologies, Cybage, Landmark, Exceptionaire Technologies, Calsoft, Faichi, Ryussi and Harbinger Group.

“We are aiming to have more than 40 customers by April 2017, and then go for a Series A funding round,” said Khangaokar.

The startup will use the funding for product development as well as sales and marketing.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Toge Productions, an Indonesian Indie game developer studio, announced on Tuesday that it has received an undisclosed funding from Discovery Nusantara Capital (DNC), the investment arm of China-based game company Zhexin IT Co.

With this investment, the early-stage funding will be used to accelerate growth, helping to develop and bring forth quality games from Indonesia to the global market, according to Toge’s CEO Kris Antoni in a press statement.

Speaking on the investment, Kris Antoni also said, “Investment from DNC is not only limited to money but also includes other strategic aspects namely network connection to the international games industry.”

Because established in 2010, DNC’s parent company, Zhexin IT is a game maker firm employing more than 260 workers and has a market capitalization of US$4 billion. Its shareholder is Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture, which announced a partnership with Project Discovery Ltd to create DNC.

Prior to this, DNC, in 2016 also invested in the series D funding round of an Indonesian mobile game developer Touchten, which is known for its games including Target Acquired, Warung Chain: Go Food Express, and Rapstronaut.

Focusing on supporting the growth of Southeast Asian gaming industry, DNC finances and transfers knowledge and resources to companies in the region. It operates a US$10 million fund to invest in games companies in Southeast Asia with a particular focus on Indonesia.

“When we look at the Indonesian market, we see many players that are just like the way we were in 2010,” Irene Umar of DNC said. “So we would like to help these players grow, not only by giving funds, but also by transferring accumulated knowledge, experience, and resources for fellow gaming industry players. Through DNC, we want to create a positive impact in Indonesian gaming industry.”

Founded in 2010, Toge Production’ portfolio ranges from web games to mobile and desktop games, including PC and Mac. The company primarily focuses on building premium instead of free-to-play mobile games.

Among some of its most popular works is Infectonator, which had won the Best Desktop Game award at the Indie Prize Casual Connect Asia 2014. With the funding, Antoni states that it will undoubtedly help Toge strengthen its foothold in the Indonesian game industry.

“Toge generates profit every year and last year was the best year for us. Financially, Toge is still in the green zone and there is no compulsion to seek immediate funding. Toge productions, on the contrary, invests in Mojiken Studio not too long ago in a time where many startups struggle to find investment,” Antoni said.

Additionally, Toge Productions plan to expand their support for Indonesia’s game industry ecosystem through collaboration programmes.

“We want to change the world’s perception that Indonesia is only a market of consumers. We want Indonesia to be recognized as a country that produces world-class games,” he added.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Indonesia’s financial e-commerce provider, Cermati on February 2 announced that it has raised a seven-digit USD funding from Orange Growth Capital (OGC), a venture capital firm focused on fintech.

This investment by Orange Growth Capital, a European fintech VC and backer of peer-to-peer platform Zopa and online trading platform BUX follows as an extension to the Series A round previously announced in September 2016, which was led by East Ventures with the participation of Beenos Plaza.

Additionally, Cermati will also become OGC’s first investment portfolio in Asia, adding to the 12 portfolios which are all running in the field of finance such as loans, fraud prevention, investment payments to insurance among some. Established in 2013, the VC firm has three offices located in Amsterdam, London, and Singapore.

This latest round also sees Hams de Back, a partner at Orange Growth Capital joining Cermati’s board. Speaking on the investment, Hans de Back said, “We are delighted to invest in Cermati and to partner with Andhy and the team. This business has a great growth potential as Indonesia is the largest market in Southeast Asia.”

“In Indonesia, there is growing disposable income amongst the population and a regulator supportive of the growth of the financial services industry, where today there are only at approximately 36 percent of Indonesians that are customers of financial institutions. We are looking forward to working with Cermati to build a top tier financial e-commerce portal in Indonesia,” he added.

Founded in April 2015, Cermati is an online platform that helps customers research and acquires financial products, such as credit cards, auto loans, personal loans, and mortgages. It claims to have become the most visited financial e-commerce site in Indonesia, posting 3.2 million monthly visits in December 2016 and facilitating over IDR 100 billion worth of consumer loans in 2016.

Oby Sumampouw, the CTO and co­founder of Cermati, said: “We are focused on building a financial technology platform to provide the most streamline and easy to use experience for Indonesians to discover and get financial products.”

The latest investment will be used for product development and further technical enhancements, to improve the state-of-the-art technology, data science as well as analytical tools. Besides, the firm will also be opening more opportunities for tech talents to join their company.

Speaking on the investment, Andhy Koesnandar, the CEO and co­founder of Cermati said, “We are very pleased to partner with OGC, which brings deep experience in building FinTech businesses. We look forward to capitalizing on OGC’s experience in Indonesian market opportunities. This investment will accelerate our progress to achieve our mission of making financial products more accessible to many more Indonesians.”

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Xtreme Design, a Tokyo-based startup providing the cloud-based virtual supercomputing-on-demand service known as Xtreme DNA, has on Tuesday announced that it has fundraised 70 million yen (about US$620,000) in its pre-Series A round.

The round was led by Freebit Investment and individual investors which include the former Vice President of Japanese mobile game developer Colopl, Kotaro Chiba and the CEO of Takamatsu-Kotohira Electric Railway, Yasumasa Manabe.

With this funding round, it is said that there would be a probable business synergy between Xtreme Design and Freebit, the parent company of Freebit Investment which businesses involves the provision of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

This financing round also follows the round conducted last January and March by the firm’s founders and angel investors worth 30 million yen (about US$260,000).

Founded in February 2015, Xtreme Design is a platform development company for the democratization of supercomputing. In November 2016, the startup has presented its flagship product Xtreme DNA at the global supercomputer conference SuperComputing 2016.

Xtreme DNA is an unmanned service of operations which is capable of monitoring the dynamic changes of configuration in order for an effective system utilization of supercomputers through the deployment of virtual supercomputers on the cloud.

It is available for Microsoft Azure, supporting InfiniBand as well as applicable on AWS (Amazon Web Service). According to CEO Naoki Shibata, the functions of Xtreme DNA have been attracting a lot of attention as IaaS from enterprise users.

Despite Xtreme Design focus on back-end technologies, it appears to be switching gears for the next stage, releasing “Xtreme DNA 2.0.” in which Shibata explains is an attempt to supplement the visualization with well-designed UI/UX to Xtreme DNA.

“We plan to develop our service to be used not only in genome or simulation analysis but also in various fields such as IoT, image analysis or stock price prediction in fintech. The purpose of UI/UX implementation is to make it easier to be used by a wide range of users,” said Shibata.

Although a few startups in the United States also provide seemingly competitive services, Shibata expects that Xtreme Design can win out if a good product with UI/UX can be offered.

With a vision to dominate the global market, the brand-new Xtreme DNA is scheduled to be exhibited at the SXSW Trade Show which will be held in Austin, Texas on March 10th.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Chinese conglomerate Fosun has decided to participate in a US$15 to US$20 million financing round in travel search site Ixigo, a deal that is expected to mark the investment firm’s first venture transaction in India.

The US$15 to US$20 million round was first reported by the Economic Times in December to be led by marquee venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, with Fosun coming on board as a co-investor.

This Ixigo financing round also follows a US$18.5 million funding round last raised in August 2011 by SAIF Partners and MakeMyTrip which has acquired 56.7 percent and 19.9 percent respectively.

While in June 2015, phone maker Micromax has picked up a stake in the company by investing about US$4 million. However, the three existing investors did not participate this time around in the last Series B round.

Founded in 2007 by Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, Ixigo acts like a meta search engine for online travel agents such as MakeMyTrip and Goibibo. The company is said to have processed transactions worth Rs 300 crore during the financial year of 2015.

Besides, the Gurgaon-based company has also recently started taking bookings through its app as well as entering the cabs metasearch space where it works with Ola, Uber, among other to find the best options for commuters.

Fosun, on the other hand, has set up its India team last year to invest in domestic firms. Raisurana, an ex-MD at Standard Chartered Private Equity, Tej Kapoor, former Naspers executive, and Ajay Lakhotia, who was earlier India head of Vertex Venture, are leading the investment team for the Chinese group in India.

The Shanghai-based group, however, has earlier endeavored in the travel industry, acquiring French holiday group Club Med in 2015 and making an investment in Thomas Cook and its public market position, MakeMyTrip.

The new team will look to make early-stage tech investments signing cheques for up to US$5-10 million, as well as take picks among more mature companies in both private and public markets.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media