Flipkart's $1 Billion In Funding Puts India Startups In The Big Leagues

More proof of India’s rise as one of the Silicon Valleys of the world can certainly be seen in the latest mega venture financing of leading Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart. With $1 billion in new funding, Flipkart joins the big leagues for not only the largest amount raised by an Indian company but among the largest for an e-commerce company globally.
I’ve been writing that this Silicon Tiger nation would catch up to China’s Silicon Dragon, and the evidence keeps piling up. Flipkart raised the sum from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, as well as existing investors including Tiger Global Management, Naspers, Accel Partners and Morgan Stanley Investment Management. This latest deal for Flipkart follows a $210 million fund raising this past May and Flipkart’s acquisition of fashion retailing site Myntra, which also is venture backed.
I first covered Flipkart (and also Myntra) in my book Startup Asia, after meeting with the founders — Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal — in Bangalore in 2010.
Keep reading post at Forbes, Flipkart.

Copying China Business Models In The U.S. Catches On As A New Tech Startup Trend - Quite the Reverse!

Globally minded startup teams in the U.S. are beginning to adopt Chinese business models and getting funding from American venture capitalists with China experience. An example of this newly unfolding trend is Curse, Inc., an online gaming media company in Huntsville, Alabama that just raised $10 million from Silicon Valley and Shanghai-based GGV Capital.
This new trend is the reverse of the copy-to-China phenomenon of a nearly a decade ago when look-alike sites of U.S. Internet brands such as Facebook, Google and Amazon sprung up in China and were largely funded by Sand Hill Road venture capitalists. It’s being fed by the globalization of tech trends among entrepreneurs and VCs alike.
Hubert Thieblot, the CEO of the U.S.-based gaming business Curse, doesn’t downplay how he got the idea for his startup’s new communications platform Curse Voice. It was inspired by Chinese startup YY.
Keep reading post at Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2014/07/08/copying-china-business-models-in-the-u-s-catches-on-as-a-new-tech-startup-trend-quite-the-reverse/

 

China Tech Innovator With 200 Patents For LEDs Gains $80 Million More To Break Through

Silicon Dragon tours LatticePower lab in Nanchang

A lot of people are skeptical about China’s potential for technology innovation. But one Chinese company I wrote about in my book Silicon Dragon in 2008, and have been tracking since then, has certainly been setting some new standards in cleantech — and ability to raise venture investment.

LatticePower Corp., which grew out of research by physics professor Jiang Fengyi at his Nanchang University lab in China, claims to be the first company to commercially develop high-quality, reliable and affordable LED lighting — a major step in a goal of replacing conventional light bulbs and fixtures with energy-savings LED lights.

The China-based company is no lightweight. It’s filed for more than 200 global patents and attracted financial support from the World Bank and several leading venture capital investors.

LatticePower has been championed by its lead investor, Sonny Wu of Chinese-US venture firm GSR Ventures. He was tipped off to this ground-breaking technology research happening in Nanchang by a senior official of the Chinese government’s Ministry of Information Industry inn 2000, then sent a team there to investigate further and first backed the company in 2005.

Now, fast forward, and LatticePower has just lured in $80 million in financing to ramp up R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., build research teams in Korea and Taiwan, expand production in China, and finance sales growth globally.
Keep reading post at Forbes, China LED innovator.

Forbes link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2014/07/01/china-tech-innovator-with-200-patents-for-leds-gains-80-million-more-to-break-through/