This Week in Asia Tech Startups: 10 That Caught Our Eye

As usual, we have quite a few Asian tech startups on our radar this week, from China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

For folks who are interested in investing or partnering with these startups, drop us an email — hello[at]penn-olson[dot]com – anytime. No promise, but we’ll try our best to be the bridge. And if you’re a tech startup founder in Asia hoping to be featured, kindly send us your pitch here.

1. Youjia | China

We have reviewed several apps that help you hook up with new friends of the opposite sex. But Youjia has so far been the one that I’m most impressed with. It’s simple to use and highly sticky. Shanghai-based startup, Youjia, helps you find friends who are near your location…

2. Simeji | Japan, U.S

The Japanese subsidiary of Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), the Chinese search engine giant, has acquired the small startup team behind the Simeji input method editor (IME) app for Android. The free app has been downloaded over a million times already from the Android Market…

3. Dexetra’s mobile app Iris | India

If you’re an Android user who envies Siri on iOS5, worry not, you have Iris to play with. Iris, or Siri spelled backwards, spits out information based on voice recognition. It is built on top of Google Voice and is also able to help you call the right contact through voice, or search for movie reviews, recipes, lyrics and many other things…

Related: Creator of “Android Siri” Raised $200,000 From One97 Mobility Fund

4. Nubefy | Singapore

Nubefy told us that it has just received a grant from the Singapore government via the Technology Enterprise Commercialization Scheme (TECS). The sum of money Nubefy received wasn’t disclosed. But I’m guessing it’s at least six digits in total funding…

5. 99labels | India

This week, two-year old startup, 99labels, proudly claims to have one million users who generate 2,000 orders per day. In the early days, 99labels had only about 300-400 orders each day (which is still pretty awesome in my opinion). The two-year process must have been a tough one for the team. But it must now feel so fulfilling for the team who has made the concept work in India and other parts of the world including Paris and New York…