Four Asian sustainable tourism startups to participate in the 2018 Booking Booster Programme
Four Asian social enterprises have qualified as part the top ten travel startups to participate in this year’s Booking Booster Programme, by Booking.com. They will join six others in Amsterdam this May to take part in a three-week long accelerator programme, designed specifically for startups work [...]
US$11m richer, and RedDoorz makes first move into leasing and managing its own hotel
In the same week it announced raising a pre-Series B round of US$11m funding, Southeast Asia’s leading online budget hotel booking chain, RedDoorz, also made its move into the brick-and-mortar world by leasing and running its first property in Singapore.
The pre-Series B round comes as an addit [...]
WIT collaborates with Phocuswright to find APAC Innovators of the Year
WIT Startup Pitch Japan & North Asia 2018 now open for entries
WIT has teamed up with Phocuswright in a search for two APAC Innovators that will be given opportunities to fast track their business ideas to become successful ventures on the global stage.
The WIT Startup Pitch for bo [...]
In The Big Chair – Brian Chesky of Airbnb
This article was originally published in Phocuswire. Written by Jill Menze.
In just 10 years, Airbnb has grown from a modest home-share site into one of the biggest disruptors in travel. It's enjoyed the kind of success most startups can only dream about - and with a new slate of product offerin [...]
Asian tours and activities platform KKday closes US$10.5M in series B funding
Asia’s tours and activities platform, KKday has raised an impressive US$10.5 million in Series B funding, led by Japanese travel agent H.I.S., and current investor MindWorks Ventures (a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm) in participation. KKday previously raised US$4.5 million in series A fundi [...]
Letter from Penang: As Year of the Dog dawns, so will new travellers and citizens with different aspirations and expectations
Tomorrow, February 15, will be the peak of travel as millions of Chinese and their diaspora make the journey to wherever home is to gather for their Lunar New Year reunion dinners.
You can already feel it in Penang, when the population of the island more than triples with the return of Penangites [...]
Startup Inside A Non-Startup, Part 2: 8 Lessons Learned In Starting Kafnu Inside Next Story Group
In my previous post I discussed the cultural differences between being entrepreneurial vs. being corporate. In the last 12 months, I was asked to do a startup, Kafnu, inside Next Story Group. I thought I’d share my experience about what we have done to make it work so far.
Entrepreneurial effor [...]
Startup Inside A Non-Startup, Part 1: 12 Differences Between Entrepreneurial v. Corporate Thinking
A year ago, Next Story Group acquired the company I co-founded, Brand Karma, and I joined the team to start a new venture, Kafnu. Since Kafnu’s second opening in Taipei, I’ve had time to think about why it’s difficult to merge the best of startup and corporate worlds to foster innovation. [...]
How Aaron Sarma ventured into Touristly and a 50% deal with AirAsia
Other than a little exposure to travel during his stint as country manager at Street Deal, a group buying company in Malaysia, Aaron Sarma knew very little about the vertical.
But when he was looking to do his own thing after leaving the daily deals company, the first industry he looked to was tr [...]
SnapShot launches Marketplace to solve hotels’ data and tech woes
One of the biggest pain points in hospitality is fragmentation of data points, and hence too many data silos. One company that is trying to solve that problem, as well as solve the industry’s access to “a properly integrated data platform which would dramatically accelerate the hotel technology [...]
