Asia’s tech news #096: VC in Singapore, Tencent metaverse, hyperlocal in India…

Asia’s tech, startup and funding news in brief, drawn from South & SE Asia, Australia & NZ, with wider-world items for reference. Get the app here

China: Tencent seen focusing on metaverse activities with advanced gaming studio hiring 46 positions — www.scmp.com
The new operation will form part of Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group, creator of hit video games Honour of Kings and Call of Duty: Mobile.

Hong Kong’s Opharmic Technology wins Asia Pacific Medical Technology Ass’n 2021 accelerator programme — www.biospectrumasia.com

Based in Hong Kong, Opharmic is developing a transformational ultrasonic non-invasive ocular drug delivery device with the goal of replacing intravitreal injections. More than 500 million patients…

Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association unveils 2021 SVCA Award winners — www.svca.org.sg

The Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association celebrates its 29th anniversary with our Annual SVCA Awards Presentation delivered LIVE Online on 20 October. Despite the pandemic, the…

Australia: Applications for Remarkable Accelerator open now, closing in January 2022, focusing on disability — remarkable.org.au

Remarkable is looking for post-product, post-revenue startups, but startups may not have experienced massive revenue or growth yet.

Singapore: Doyobi professional development platform for educators gains $2.8M seed funding — techcrunch.com

The edtech boom has focused primarily on students, but teachers are learners, too. Doyobi, a Singapore-based professional development platform, wants to give educators new, more engaging ways of…

Wild Digital Southeast Asia Conference: November 9–12

Australia: Muso raises $2M with platform streamlining logistics around live local entertainment — www.itnews.com.au

“We created Muso so that entertainment could be managed in a similar way to the financial, marketing, and other core operations of hospitality businesses. By easing the process, we’re essentially enabling…”

India: Lokal platform raises $12M led by China’s Tencent with hyperlocal social media and news — techcrunch.com

The app also helps users find jobs in their vicinity and keeps them up to date with things such as commodity prices, real estate prices and matrimonial ads that you would otherwise find in local…

South Korea: Kakao Pay, country’s largest online payment service, raises massive $1.3BN in IPO — au.finance.yahoo.com

The startup backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co. came to market about three months after its sister company KakaoBank Corp. raised $2.3 billion in Korea’s second-largest IPO this year. IPO proceeds…

Australia: Zero Co breaks crowdfund record with refillable personal care and home cleaning products — insideretail.com.au

Eco startup Zero Co has broken the Australian record for the largest crowdfund in Australian history as it has raised $5 million in recorded time — six hours. The unprecedented high volume of traffic…

ICYMI: Donald Trump to launch new Truth Social platform, set for roll out in early 2022 following November beta — www.theguardian.com

A link to the Truth Social website directs users to sign up for a wait list or to pre-order the app via the Apple App Store. There, screenshots of the Truth Social app show a user profile that bears a striking…