Following the venture trail, the journey has led from
Silicon Valley to China and then on to India and Vietnam – and next, newly emerging
markets such as Russia and Brazil, which are both angling to build their own
Sand Hill Road ecosystem.
Just as Silicon Valley and China had their successes in
online travel, e-book retailing, gaming and social networking, the next
frontier tech zones are following their example. I wrote Startup Asia to track
their progress.
Everyone knows China’s breakthrough Internet companies:
Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Ctrip, DangDang, Renren. But they don’t yet know their
counterparts in India, which is fast on the rise. Nor do they know their
look-alikes in Vietnam, Russia or Brazil.
But count on these copycat models to break through in the
world’s next hotspots. Why be so sure? Because if the business model works well
in one market and can be adapted locally to another culture and language, then
why not? If that new market has a
switched-on digital populace, it’s almost foolproof – particularly if the same
venture capital firm is behind them, which they are in most cases.
See venture capitalists (above) who spoke at our recent Startup Asia event: Kabir Misra, Kumar Shiralagi, Naren Gupta, Bill Tai, Tim Chang, Peter Wagner.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2012/01/31/the-startup-asia-chase-is-on/
