11 Startups in Asia That Caught Our Eye

Here’s our newest weekly startup list, this time featuring eleven young companies from across the region. For tips and stories suggestions, feel free to email us. Alternatively, you can send tips here and/or tell us about your startup here. Enjoy this week’s list.

1. Trip Tern | India

Trip Tern automates the travel-planning process, giving you a daily itinerary that’s designed to fit your interests and maximize your traveling efficiency. It is currently only accessible via web browsers, but a mobile application is in the making and will be aiming for launch sometime this year.

2. Karir Rakyat | Indonesia

Karir Rakyat (meaning “people’s career”) is an Indonesian job portal launched last month. It offers yet another alternative for Indonesians who are looking for jobs online and focuses on being a lot more visual and pleasant to browse. It even has localized job maps.

3. JinJin | China

JinJin is an app developed by the Sino-US startup Appconomy, and appeals to both shoppers and retailers. It can serve as a mobile wallet that holds loyalty cards, discount coupons, allows mobile payments in-store, and even lets you gift a product to a friend. For retail partners, it offers tools for understanding customers and how they shop, and permits the targeting and automation of shopping promotions.

4. Tokyo Otaku Mode | Japan

Tokyo Otaku Mode focuses on the otaku community surrounding Japanese anime, manga, and cosplay, with its venture starting out as a Facebook page before launching as a standalone site. Then came its funy photo app. Just this week, it announced that it has attracted funding from YJ Capital (an investment subsidiary of Yahoo Japan) and more investors.

5. e27 | Singapore

Singapore’s technology-focused media company e27 has announced this week that it has concluded a S$760,000 ($614,000) financing round from B Dash Ventures, Pinehurst Advisors, Ardent Capital, Dan Neary, and some other undisclosed angel investors.

6. PairBuddy | India

PairBuddy was built by Nirav Shah and a small team in under 48 hours. Appropriately for a dating app, it launched on Valentine’s Day. PairBuddy focuses more on outing a secret crush on Facebook than getting people hooked up immediately – in contrast to the notorious Bang With Friends.