Event Review: Bandung Ventures Night 2011

Bandung Ventures Night 2011 was held last Friday, April 8th, 2011, which is the second Bandung Ventures Night (BVN) event after previously executed last year in August 2010.

This time BVN event was somewhat different, especially the venue of this event. Usually East Ventures (JVN or BVN) events were held in a cafe or hotel ballroom, but this time the event was held at Comlabs ITB Multimedia Room, ITB Campus, Jl. Ganesha no. 10 Bandung.

The event attended by the startup founders, students and other invitees was opened by remarks from Batara Eto as a representative of East Ventures (EV), followed by some welcoming speeches from the representatives of ITB. The event then continued with the presentation of the 3 East Ventures portfolios that is Urbanesia, NightSpade and Tokopedia.

After the presentation from the EV portfolio representatives, the event continued by a coffee break before finally there were 11 startups and projects presented or pitched in front of investors and participants in attendance. Here are the 11 startups / projects that pitched in the event of Bandung Ventures Night 2011:

1. Karnivall

An auction site or auction marketplace, where the user can join and sell their goods with an auction system. The payment is using 'angpao', some kind of a joint account using SMS. Karnivall will focus on niche markets, such as the auction for the action figures product, character figures and Apple products. The service is already running but is still in beta, and just changed the look.

2. KlikHotel

An online reservation service for hotels. Provides realtime data facility which making it easier for hotels to provide promotional services. Officially launched in November 2010, currently it has 203 hotels in the list, mostly in Bandung and Bali. The payment system is using BCA / Mandiri / ATM Bersama and using Kaspay and credit cards. It has revenue growth and merchants, it will expand to non-hotel reservation in big city areas.

3. Fonaja

Fonaja is an enterprise telephony system for small businesses. Currently it is still under development. Fonaja was also elected into top 50 iMULAI list, Swa Startup and recently was elected to pitch in front of the VC in G-Startup event in Beijing. For additional info in DailySocial article can be seen in this link.

4. Ngomik

Online place to read and publish comics. Their services are already running and have received several awards as a winner in Indigo Awards 2010, and iMulai. Ngomik also have renewed their appearance and adds some new features. They also will develop a digital publishing service. Marketplace facilities will also be developed not only to sell comics but also products with similar themes, such as action figures.

1. Chordeo

Chordeo is a financing platform for the ideas into action. The process is: idea - submit - curatorial - fundrasing - discordant donation - the idea is executed. Chordeo will take a fee of 5%, if donations failed to reach the quota then the funds will be returned. There is also a kind of reward badge to the donors. The service is similar to Kickstarter. Currently it is in development progress.

1. Arsanesia

A game developer, who will develop the game with elements of Indonesia, will be developed for mobile devices, including tablets. Various games which will be released by Arsanesia are still in the form of ideas and development stage. The team has also recently formed 3 weeks ago.

1. Buzzle

It’s a mobile application of location-based social network dedicated to promoting business through communities. There will be some features such as point rewards for users; the core service is to help the promotion of business owners through mobile devices. There is already a prototype of this app and is still being developed. Unfortunately Buzzle did not do market research, because when they were asked about the similarity with SCVNGR, the team from Buzzle was even asking back.

8. RuangMain

Social network for children with parental controls. It is currently in private beta version. Later there will be a special browser for the children who integrated with RuangMain service, where the children can use internet but remain in parent’s control.

1. Bizlauncer

It is a social networking for inventors and investors. It’s a place that provides facilities for the owners of ideas to be discovered by investors, which has been run offline and now is being developed for the online version. Monetization will be directed toward the premium users, advertising and investment sharing fee.

1. ExpertAround.us

It’s a mobile application that provides services to locate experts around the user. The service is run based on GPS to get various professions information in a particular location. Later there will be various features such as search, job opportunities, as well as send messages. Monetization will be run with freemium and advertising system. This application also made a presentation at the FOWAB #5 event some time ago, and is in the final stages of development.

11. Masukitb.com

It’s a social networking for those who want to enter ITB. In this service the user can update the status and get comments from other users. Alumni who wish to take part can also make articles to provide motivation for prospective students. There is a feature called ‘kakak asuh’ (elder care), upload videos, add relationships like social networking. Monetization will be run by sponsored content.

There were some interesting things that I saw on the BVN show this time. Although not all of pitch presenters were presenting the finished product – there were still prototypes and ideas – but mostly they have been aware of the concept as a startup company, where the monetization side, the preparation team (employees with each desk jobs) have been considered. Some startups that do pitch also have received awards such as Ngomik (Indigo Award 2010 - iMulai) and Fonaja which was selected to pitch at the G-Startup show (GMIC) in Beijing.

Another interesting thing was the venue to held BVN 2011 selected by East Ventures (EV), which this time was at a campus. There might be an influence from NightSpade which one of the founders was also a student (just become alumni) of ITB, or it could also be because the program of ITB itself which have directed the developers or their students to begin to develop a business (startup) and bringing in investors. But one thing crossed my mind was the hunt process by EV. Is campus election indicated that EV will now acquire a talent and no longer provides funding for startups?

Although was not confirmed the EV, the answer could be yes or no. Maybe EV is looking for talents to be acquired to join their portfolio. Or this could be just a coincidence if the EV was held on campus. One thing for sure, campus or the students with the ability to develop applications or programs are now closer to the business world, even more driven by their respective campuses. This provides an opportunity to get skilled graduates and have a business 'feeling'.

Let's look for the next few months, is there any startup or project that will get funding, or employees of the EV portfolio that will grow.

Photo belongs to ComLabs ITB.

Translated by Nita Sellya.