East Ventures Jakarta Ventures Night [LIVE BLOG]

Hi from Hyatt Hotel, Jakarta. This post will be constantly updated with East Ventures’s Jakarta Ventures Night highlights. If you haven’t already known, East Venture is a Venture Capital with multiple investment in Indonesia, including Urbanesia, Tokopedia, Disdus, PriceArea and many more. There will be more start-ups unveiled tonight. Pretty excited to learn what have East Ventures invested.

5.05pm: More people registering and filling in. Finally met up with MarketGeek’s founder Yamaki Wataru and Taro Fukuyama. Well, in fact I heard from Anri, East Ventures’s Associate Investor relations that they will be attending. I’m seeing a lot of cool Japanese in this room. Perhaps a lot of Japan-based start-up to be unveiled later. Update: Wrong guess, more Indonesian start-ups were presented.

5.15 pm: Batara, Managing partner of East Ventures, CEO and founder of Disdus, Jason and guest-of-honor authorities welcomed by emcee. The big shots are here! Key quote: “Local start-ups should learn from one another. That’s the spirit!”

5.20 pm: Emcee showcasing East Ventures’s portfolio – App Foundry, Disdus, Tokopedia, PriceArea, Urbanesia, AdaDiskon and more… Batara speaks now..passionate as always. Indonesia tech start-ups for the win.

5.30 pm: East Ventures is playing a major role in the Indonesia tech market. Market and purchasing powers are there. Indonesians are getting affluent but demands aren’t meeting their need… Bottomline: there is huge potential in the country. Mr Mahendra Siregar quoted an example: Indonesia is the second largest Facebook nation in terms of users… a whopping 35 million!… He went on to thank East Ventures for building a healthy ecosystem for Indonesia’s Internet-based start-ups. With potential, it’s all about meeting the right people. The right partnership is crucial. Capital is one thing but market potential and entire tech ecosystem have to be available too. “Thank you East Ventures,” he said. “Most of you are young, you don’t need to be a millionaire immediately.. so take risk and try!” (paraphrased).

5.37 pm: Mr Mahendra Siregar went on to wish Japan a swift recovery. Here’s a list of help options. Just fyi.

5.42 pm: Jason, CEO and Founder of Disdus speaks. Disdus is the largest group buying site in Indonesia. Core team is formed by Jason and Ferry. Advisors are Andrew Darwis and East Ventures. Disdus was inspired by Groupon as the daily deal site has proven to be scalable ($5 billion valuation). So how well is Disdus doing? –  It started from 1,500 uniques in August to 140,000 uniques this month. Jason gives credits to East Ventures’s funding and advices. Disdus also plans to expand his team to 24 men strong. He is also looking to bring Disdus to the other large cities in Indonesia.

5.50pm: Jason shares some tips. (1) First mover advantage is also good. Collaborate with big companies and leverage on their strengths. (2) Strong management and advisors team, picking the right people to work with.

5.55 pm: Aria, founder of Gantibaju, a “tee design” company  speaks… Gantibaju don’t design t-shirts. They allow users to design them instead (Crowdsource). One key point and perhaps its cutting edge: all tees designs have to be related to Indonesia. Aria talks about Threadless in U.S.. amazing statistics. If 100,000 tees are sold at $15 each, that would translate to  $1.5 million revenue. Gantibaju so far has 18,000 members,  2000 productions and 800 submissions. Aria understands the gap but will be working to close it. Gantibaju has also won the top 10 web apps in SingTel Accelerate and the “Best of the best” in Sparxup 2010.

6.11 pm: Break time meet up! Met up with IncubateFund‘s Mr Masahiko Honma and Zynga Japan’s Mr Shintaro Yamada. We’ll be meeting Yamada in Singapore and writing on IncubateFund soon. IncubateFund is a mobile social gaming company. Also, next to me is Mr Taiga Matsuyama, a partner of East Ventures.

[Hyatt’s WI-FI went down during this time gap.]

– Teknoup, a gadget news site for Indonesians received an investment from East Venture.

7.04 pm: Tasterous is a food app on BlackBerry, iPhone and Android. Its core strength lies in user data: What’s good or bad are defined by users? User could also check out what friends had tried and read past reviews. Its a great benefit when you’re in a foreign country. It’s also powered by Foursquare API, which includes a layer of social game twist in Tasterous. Through users interaction with the app (points, check-in) users can unlock deals and promotion. Many tech start-ups are also working with Tasterous, including Urbanesa… Ah no wonder… Founder and CEO of Urbanesia, Selina was announced as one of the board of directors for Tasterous.