Startup Asia Singapore 2013 is Here

Charlie Custer interviews Fritz Demopoulos, the co-founder of the China-based travel booking site Qunar at Startup Asia Jakarta 2012.

After 2012 Startup Asia events in Singapore, Jakarta, and Bandung, we’re back to Singapore again for 2013. Startup Asia Singapore 2013 will be held on April 4 – 5 at Biopolis (exact address here).

We are humbled to already have some excellent speakers on board. In our coffee chat interview sessions, we will have Jixun Foo, a partner at GGV Capital, talking about his experience being an early investor in China. Jixun had the sharp eye and good fortune to invest in and work with some of the biggest internet companies in China including Baidu, Tudou, and Qunar. Ole Ruch, Managing Director APAC at Airbnb will also discuss with us what Airbnb is cooking in Southeast Asia.

For one of our founders’ story coffee chat sessions, we will have Singaporean entrepreneur Darius Cheung telling us about what he went through before, and more importantly after, his 2010 exit with tenCube to McAfee. We also have Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, who started the popular e-commerce site Tarad.com in Thailand which was acquired by Rakuten in 2009.

In the discussion panels we will be talking a lot about mobile — both general trends and mobile gaming. We are happy to have Fabrizio Caruso (Senior Vice President of Asia at Opera Software), Tetsuya Mori (Managing Director at DeNA Asia), and entrepreneur Alvin Yap (Founder and CEO of TMG) joining our mobile discussions.

This year we’re also going to place more emphasis on emerging markets like Thailand and Vietnam. Moo Natavudh, founder of the very popular Thai-startup Ookbee will tell us his founding story and how he conquered 88 percent of Thailand’s e-book market. Outside of Southeast Asia, we’re happy to have James Jung of beSUCCESS to share with us the vibrant startup ecosystem in S. Korea.

But of course, that’s just the beginning! We are in the midst of confirming more exciting speakers and hopefully we will have more to share with you soon.

Registration is now open with a 25 percent discount for early birds. And for startups looking to compete at our Startup Arena for the US$10,000 grand prize, please submit your application here.

Stay tuned, folks!