Infocomm Investments funds Twilio, Hoiio’s competitor

Infocomm Investments, the VC arm of Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority, has invested in San Francisco-based mobile development company Twilio, joining existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures and 500 Startups, announced CEO Lim Kuo-Yi in a blog post on 13th June.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Twilio offers developers an API that allows their apps to make and receive phone calls, as well as send and receive text messages. Singapore-based Hoiio, the winner of the People’s Choice Award at DEMO Asia 2012, has a similar concept. But while Twilio has focused on being an app enabler, Hoiio has ventured into developing a suite of communication apps.

Infocomm Investments aims to “attract and nurture a vibrant pool of entrepreneurs and startups to enhance the technology depth and increase the diversity of Singapore’s tech scene.”

It had previously participated in a US$10M Series C round in San Francisco based Quid, a data collection and visualization company, as well as a Series A round of an unknown size in DS3, a Singapore IT security firm.

Through an investment in Twilio, it will lend its expertise to the company and help it expand to Asia, using Singapore as a natural beachhead.

With the boost, it’ll be interesting to see how Twilio competes with Hoiio in the continent. The latter has been around in the region since 2007, giving them a headstart in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Vietnam. They are now looking to the West, having launched their API in the United States a few months ago.

Hoiio currently has 800 developers using its platform, raising S$1.5M (approx. US$1.03M then) in funds and grants before 2010.

Twilio claims to have passed the 100,000 developer mark. The US rival is more well-funded too, raising a total of US$33.7M prior to Infocomm Investments’ involvement, with the latest being a Series C round in December last year.