Count on Singapore's startups

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia
Wednesday, August 08, 2007 06:44 PM
tenCube
A relative newcomer to the scene, tenCube has already built a team of over 20 people and a customer base that includes leaders in IT security, such as the Singapore Police Force.
"There is no hard and fast rule on what is a good figure."
-- Darius Cheung
tenCube

tenCube's anchor product WaveSecure is an internationally-patented mobile phone security application, allowing users to perform various functions such as remotely locking the phone, backing up data through the Web and erasing data from the phone. The product was also identified by analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, as one of the "Top 10 Wireless Innovations in Asia-Pacific" last year.

Founded two years ago, tenCube got its first leg-up with funds the company received from taking the top prize in Start-Up@Singapore, an annual competition from the National University of Singapore (NUS) Entrepreneurship Center, which offers a prize money of S$30,000 (US$19,932) to the winner.

According to tenCube CEO Darius Cheung, the company's four founders dug into their savings to fund its operations in the first six months. Subsequent funding came from the NUS, Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB) and angel investors, with the company pooling in "close to a million [Singapore dollars] in working capital".

"There is no hard and fast rule on what is a good figure," said Cheung, on a suitable amount of funds for one to begin a startup. "On hindsight though, financiers are a lot more careful in Singapore, and thus, startups need to be prepared [to run on their own] a longer period before they can [secure] the first round of financing, compared to Silicon Valley."

"Therefore, a good figure to start with is the expected expenditure of the first 12 months," he said.

Cheung also ruled out the possibility of tenCube being acquired for "at least three years".

"We are very optimistic about the market potential," he said, on plans first to grow the company's value. "We will be able to command a much better price then."


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do you have an agent in Australia?
Can i buy this on disk as i have dial up it would take too long to download.
i am rather interested in your software if there is a way to get it.
Bazza
Posted by Barry Young on Monday, January 14 2008 07:41 PM


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