Here’s our newest round-up of the featured startups on our site this week. Enjoy this week’s list!
1. News in Shorts | India
Noida-based News in Shorts has raised US$4 million in a funding. The startup crunches news stories into a crisp 60-word skeleton for busy readers and has a team that manually curates and summarizes the news in categories like national, business, sports, technology, and so on.
2. Offpeak | Malaysia
Offpeak is an online restaurant deals and reservations platform that wants to provide restaurateurs a platform to get in more customers during their less peak hours. The startup offers dining discounts of up to 50 percent daily to its users – not only during off-peak hours, but throughout the day at designated timings.
3. Talenta | Indonesia
Talenta is a human resources software startup that unlike its competitor SAP Software and Solutions, focuses on startups and small-medium enterprises. The software tracks attendance, paid time off requests, overtime requests, and payroll. The company also claims to help simplify salary issues, including tax reports, payroll slips, payroll files for banks, and other procedures that can bog down startups.
4. Kaodim | Malaysia
Kaodim is an online marketplace for people to find service professionals such as plumbers, decorators, movers, yoga instructors, or pest control specialists. The startup closed a seed funding round led by East Ventures and participated in by a number of other VCs, including 500 Startups.
5. Notey | Hong Kong and US
Hong Kong and San Francisco-based startup Notey is a website that aggregates blog posts of various topics from 500,000 blogs. The startup just raised US$1.6 million in seed funding from well known backers, including Xiaomi’s vice president of International Hugo Barra, Hootsuite founder and CEO Ryan Holmes, and Infoseek founder Steve Kirsch.
6. Popinjay | Pakistan
Popinjay is a Lahore-based Luxe artisan-made handbags that combine exquisite craftsmanship and ethical business, and was getting showcased at the Emmy awards and in numerous international publications.
7. Raksu | Japan
Raksul is a startup that lowers printing costs, and it publically confirmed it scored US$33.7 million for its own series C. The company acts as a mediator between users who have printing needs and the thousands of printing companies around Japan, taking a percentage of each sale. Users can detail what their printing needs are – and even get assistance with the design and file formatting – and then look around at the different printing options in their area. To save time, users can also rely on Raksul’s own algorithm to find them the best printer and price for their needs.
8. iTraveller | India
Bangalore-based iTraveller provides users with the option of selecting holiday packages or customizing one of their own on the portal. The platform also provides curated suggestions for holiday packages to suit the the user’s preferences.
9. Kuassa | Indonesia
Kuassa specializes in digital guitar amplification and audio processing. The site, which has been around since 2010, is disruptive because it offers affordable computerized versions of otherwise expensive music gear for recording purposes.
10. Wooplr | India
Bangalore-based Wooplr is a local shopping and social discovery app that lets users discover fashion and food products they like, find what’s trending around them through photographs, and recommend those to their friends and the community. The startup just raised series A funding from Helion Venture Partners
11. Sociocaster | Indonesia
Sociocaster aims to replicate Hootsuite’s success by providing a brand management tool geared towards the archipelago’s small businesses. Users can also quickly find content that relates to their businesses and schedule said content to appear on their own social media accounts at scheduled times throughout the week.
12. 17zuoye | China
17zuoye is an online education platform for students K-12, as well as teachers and parents. It aims to serve as a nexus for all three groups to facilitate the educational experience, focusing on English and Math classes. The startup raised a series D round, and brought the company’s total valuation to US$600 million.
13. Cricly | Pakistan
Cricly lets you look up World Cup cricket scores quickly on the lockscreen.
14. Grivy | Indonesia
Grivy is a Jakarta-based travel and leisure activity auction startup. The company announced this week that it raised an undisclosed amount of pre-series A funding from several Indonesian family offices. The site is similar to Groupon and LivingSocial in the sense that it offers special deals. However, Grivy turns deal hunting into a bidding competition much like eBay.
15. Stayzilla | India
Founded in 2010, Stayzilla is a diverse site for travelers looking for places to stay. It has something for everyone: from hotels, homestays, and peer-to-peer rentals a la Airbnb to guest houses, jungle lodges, and boat houses. The company raised a series B funding round and plans to scale that up to 50,000 properties in 8,000 places by the end of this year.
Read more at techinasia.com
The post 15 startups in Asia caught our eye (22 February 2015) appeared first on Daily Across.