Big buzz in Thailand's tech start-up scene
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UP to a thousand children turned up at Bangkok University recently, taking turns to run their fingers over an iPad as they competed to be named the smartest kindergartener in the Kingdom.
They came from all corners of the country, from Chiang Rai province in the North to Hat Yai in the South. And they had been picked from a list of 25,000 hopefuls.
The competition was organised by the team behind Taamkru – a new educational app for pre-schoolers in Thai, English and Chinese.
The intense interest in Taamkru is drawing attention in Thailand’s |blossoming technology start-up scene. Investors are homing in on a market supported by a smart-phone-adept middle class familiar with e-commerce.
Amarit Charoenphan, the co-founder of co-working space provider Hubba, estimated that Thai tech start-ups have secured US$30 million (Bt970 million) in funding globally since the start of this year. That is at least double what they managed last year.
Although it is still a far cry from the kind of deals made in Singapore, where tech firms attracted $1.71 billion in venture capital last year, investors are eyeing the Kingdom for its huge growth potential.
A quarter of all mobile phone owners in Thailand owned smartphones last year, according to consulting firm Frost and Sullivan estimates.
Thais also spend more time on the Internet than in front of the television and are voracious users of social-media outlets such as like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Amit Vedprakash Anand, managing partner of Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, said: “You can scale a company [up] very quickly in Thailand if you have a good product because of what happens on social media.”
At a start-up convention and competition in Bangkok last week, hundreds of aspiring business owners and investors listened attentively as young local pioneers shared tips from their entrepreneurial journey.
They included the stalwarts behind digital publisher Ookbee and Builk Asia, which offers software for construction management.
Meanwhile, Thai telecommunications firm Intouch has also ploughed Bt29 million into local software development start-up Computerlogy.
This year, aCommerce, which helps businesses with their electronic commerce, snagged a $10.7 million injection from a group of investors.
Taamkru, which is “ask teacher” in Thai, is one of the latest darlings on the scene.
The mobile app and website offer quizzes for kindergarten children that are tailored in real time according to their learning abilities and is also designed to collect data that would allow each parent to know how their child is faring against others.
Taamkru now has 200,000 registered users, while its app is listed among the top educational apps on the Apple App Store in Thailand. It appears to have hit a sweet spot among parents anxious to get their children into the choicest primary schools, in an educational system that is consistently derided for its low quality.
“Asian parents are never satisfied,” joked Taamkru’s 32-year-old chief executive Wicharn Manawanitjarern. “If their child can do Level 1 textbooks, they want him to do Level 2. We cater to their needs.”
In July, Taamkru announced that it had raised $620,000 in seed funding led by 500 Startups, a California-based seed fund and incubator programme.
Meanwhile, Thailand is teeming with budding start-ups like Skootar, an online system of matching businesses with messengers in order to optimise trips for messengers and lower costs for users.
Like the online auction site eBay, it has a customer-rating system that rewards the best performing messengers with a first cut of jobs.
With big money taking an interest, Thai technopreneurs have banded together to get a better deal. In May, they formed the Thailand Tech Start-up Association.
“Some of them don’t know how to talk to venture capitalists, and end up getting unfair agreements,” said its vice-president Vachara Aemavat. The group has now produced standard agreements to help start-ups get decent terms.
