OTTAWA SUN – Sep 30 – Ottawa natives Christopher Gimmer, 26, and Marc Chouinard, 24, launched ClassmateCatch.com, an exclusive dating site for university and college students. The website currently has ~400 registered users from Ottawa U, Carleton, Algonquin and Queens University and is looking to expand to other Canadian post-secondary schools.
Month: October 2012
Q&A With Peng T. Ong, Co-Founder Of Match.com
WSJ – Sep 28 - Investor and entrepreneur Peng
T. Ong is best known as the designer and co-founder of Match.com. Today,
he is the chairman of Infocomm Investments, a $200M fund in Singapore, a
venture partner with GSR Ventures, and works with select start-ups as
an angel investor and adviser.
Q: You invest in Coffee Meets Bagel – in China and the U.S. Do you approach deals differently in these two regions?
A:
I think the similarities far outweigh the differences. The differences
are cultura. A lot of what I invest in is local, meaning teams that are
doing business where they are also savvy about the culture and the
market.
Q: What does the Chinese start-up scene need most today?
A: The availability of experience is missing in China still.China is way behind. Specifically, Beijing is 20 years behind.
Q: What top three trends are changing the way start-ups can succeed?
A:
When we did Match.com there was not any kind of stack for us to build
on top of, no Java. Now you could put that together in a week, probably.
Also the world has been opening up in terms of financial impact. The
last big trend is global talent.
Q: Does government regulation play a big role in the investment decisions you make?
A: It’s
not the main thing we worry about. But it’s not insignificant. In
China, if a company is creating a lot of user-generated content that’s
targeted at a large audience, then we pay a lot more attention because
regulation is more sensitive here than in the U.S.
Q: Has nonequity crowdfunding taken off in China?
A: In China, I have not seen a company doing what Kickstarter and IndieGogo are doing in the U.S. yet.
Q: What do American start-ups need to do to win in the Chinese market?
A: You will need to have a localization team.
Q: Why do you like investing?
A: I
really like destruction. Every time a new platform breaks through,
everything stops and changes. The most recent one is mobile, that’s
getting very obvious to everyone.
RussianLoveMatch.com Launches “Miss Fit”
PRESS RELEASE – Sep 28 – RussianLoveMatch.com, a Russian dating site operated by Romantic Tours, is launching Miss Fit, a virtual beauty pageant celebrating Russian and Ukrainian women who are passionate about looking good and staying active. Members of Russian Love Match will choose Miss Fit by voting for their favorite contestant. Click here to watch videos and vote.