Come get startup advice from App Annie’s Bertrand Schmitt and SmartNews’ Ken Suzuki

Tech in Asia Tokyo 2015 is still some time away, but we’d like to give you two good reasons to join us this September: Bertrand Schmitt and Ken Suzuki. The co-founder and CEO of App Annie, as well as the co-founder and co-CEO of SmartNews will be joining us during the conference for our fireside chats.

Bertrand will share the story of his journey in building App Annie and how it took flight, while Ken will speak on how he and his co-founder defied all odds to reach where they are today.

Bertrand Schmitt, co-founder and CEO, App Annie

Bertrand leads the international team at App Annie, a mobile app analytics service headquartered in San Francisco. A technology entrepreneur with 14 years of executive experience in the mobile, internet, and analytics space, Bertrand has steered App Annie to be a worldwide force for analyzing global app markets.

App Annie had a humble beginning, but gained traction within six months of its launch and to date has over 400,000 app developers from 60 countries using its service, including 94 percent of the top 100 app publishers. It raked in US$55 million in its latest series D funding, which has gone into product development and international expansion.

We can’t wait to hear from the entrepreneur, whose company has raised close to US$100 million in total from big names such as Sequoia Capital and IDG.

Ken Suzuki, co-founder and co-CEO, SmartNews

Co-founded by Ken Suzuki and Kaisei Hamamoto in 2012, SmartNews is an award-winning mobile news app from Japan that’s powered by machine learning algorithms.

The app, which is available in more than 150 countries as of February this year, has amassed over 10 million downloads – with the bulk of new users in the United States, India, Canada, the United Kingdom, and China. Over half of those downloads have turned into dedicated users. The startup is in third spot on our list of Japan’s most-funded startups, with US$45.6 million in funding as of May.

This achievement did not come easy. For a start, Ken and Kaisei thought they had hit it big with Crow’s Nest, a social media news aggregator. Despite winning several accolades, it hit a wall, failing to retain users or acquire new ones. This setback prompted the duo to restart, a process that led to the launch of SmartNews. Featuring an advanced algorithm and natural language processing to categorize and rank universally important news, this difference was all it needed to get things moving.

Hear more insights from Ken, who will make his appearance at Tech in Asia Tokyo 2015 on September 8 and 9.

Want to catch them at our conference but not yet purchased your pass? You can do so here and use the code tiatokyo25 for a 25 percent discount.