China BroadbandCommunications

LOCATIONBeijing, China

URL www.cbcom.cn

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2004

CEO Feng Kefei

EMPLOYEES 120

FUNDING $10 million, 2 rounds

KEY INVESTORS N/A

China Broadband Communications provides multimedia communications services targeting small- and medium-sized businesses in China. It has pioneered the integration of VoIP, video, data, and instant messaging into customers’ web sites, whether for e-commerce, search, or online games. China Broadband has rolled out quickly to meet an expected demand surge: China’s netizenry has surpassed 123 million, broadband subscribers are at 77 million, and price-sensitive users are tired of big phone bills. The company has close relations with local carriers, but operates in a regulatory gray area. China’s state-owned operators are notoriously hostile to VoIP players, and while they’ve been tolerated for now, survival isn’t guaranteed.

DideoNET

LOCATIONSeoul, South Korea

URL www.dideonet.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2001

CEO Yong-il Kang

EMPLOYEES 48

FUNDING $5 million, 1 round

KEY INVESTORS Jafco Asia Technology Fund

DideoNET offers everything a service provider needs for streaming video, or video users consume as it is being delivered, as opposed to stored video. It offers three platforms: one for video on demand, another for live broadcast, and a third for business Intranets. DideoNET either sells its streaming products or provides them as hosted services. The company has about 100 customers in South Korea and Japan, and plans to expand into China, Europe, and North America. But the European and North American markets could prove difficult because they are currently crowded with well-established rivals like Real Networks. DideoNET, which lists Pandora TV and Samsung Heavy Engineering among its customers, has turned a profit in each of the last three years.

Esqube Communications

LOCATIONBangalore, India

URL www.esqube.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2002

CEO K.V.S. Hari

EMPLOYEES 37

FUNDING $250,000, 1 round

KEY INVESTORS Cranes Software International

It could be daunting for a startup to have Skype, GoogleTalk, and Yahoo as competitors. But Esqube Communications has turned these challenges to its advantage to build low-cost and low-bandwidth voice, video, and voicemail solutions in the Internet telephony space. These products also work on a mobile platform, a feature that the likes of GoogleTalk lack. Esqube is pinning its hopes on its toll-free VoIP product, meant to replace 1-800 service. However, having one high-profile customer (Rediff.com) will not suffice; Esqube needs to bring in more customers and either partner with or license its technology to established players sooner rather than later.

Gmedia

LOCATIONBeijing, China

URL www.gmedia.cn

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2005

CEO Shen Wei

EMPLOYEES 50

FUNDING $2.3 million, 1 round

KEY INVESTORS TDF Capital, DFJ ePlanet Ventures, Zhangjiang Venture Capital

Snap a picture with your camera phone of a barcode on a magazine ad—for a book, say—send it to Gmedia by multimedia messaging service (MMS), and your merchandise shows up at your door. That’s the goal, anyway. For now, it will only route you to the right wireless application protocol (WAP) site. But Gmedia, inspired by similar companies in Japan, is hustling to sign on vendors and payment solution providers to jump-start mobile commerce. Competition in China comes from Coolmark and Inspiry, but none of Gmedia’s competitors can touch its venture backing: the company expects to announce a roughly $10-million second round led by a major Silicon Valley VC.

Innoviti

LOCATIONBangalore, India

URL www.innoviti.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2002

CEO Rajeev Agrawal

EMPLOYEES 15

FUNDING N/A

KEY INVESTORS N/A

With India’s retail and banking sectors booming, Innoviti’s payezee holds great promise. The software allows existing point-of-sale credit card machines installed at check-out counters to go wireless. And it can be retrofitted on existing machines without making changes in the existing software or at the bank. The machine can now be brought to the consumer, say at restaurants or gas stations. The company is working on another product aimed at women—a Bluetooth device that is worn as a pendant or earring and alerts women that the phone in their handbag is ringing. But marketing such a niche product could be capital-intensive and vulnerable to copycats.

Mauj Telecom

LOCATIONBangalore, India

URL www.mauj.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2003

CEO Arun Guptat

EMPLOYEES 165

FUNDING $10 million

KEY INVESTORS Intel Capital, Sequoia, WestBridge Capital

Mauj Telecom pioneered video ring tones in India and developed its own code to enable this in India, where low-cost phones may have limited memory. It also introduced multiplayer Bluetooth games, popular in India because third-generation networks have yet to arrive. Mauj, which means “fun” in Hindi, faces competition from the likes of Indiatimes, Jamster and Zed; but with a long client list, competition is the least of the company’s worries. Scaling is a larger concern. To expand globally, Mauj has already charted out plans to open offices in the Philippines, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and Germany.

NeoAccel

LOCATIONMumbai, India

URL www.neoaccel.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2004

CEO Michel Susai

EMPLOYEES 40

FUNDING $6 million, 3 rounds

KEY INVESTORS NextStar Ventures, angels, Baring Private Equity India fund

As data and video packets travel on the Internet, they get heavier and often even get dropped during a virtual rush hour. NeoAccel’s product intercepts data before it begins its journey and compresses and encrypts it so that it can move securely and smoothly. Called SSL VPN-Plus, it competes with existing products from companies like Juniper and Neoteris but goes one step further by fixing a fundamental flaw in those products that can result in unchecked congestion. Annual worldwide sales of SSLVPN-Plus will reach $350 million by 2009. But as a relatively late entrant, NeoAccel will have a tougher job convincing corporations to adopt the new solution.

Phi Microtech

LOCATIONAtsugi, Japan

URL www.phimicro.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2001

CEO Yukio Akazawa

EMPLOYEES 15

FUNDING $1.2 million, 2 rounds

KEY INVESTORS Nippon Venture Capital, NTT Leasing Co.

Phi Microtech specializes in designing high-speed chips and modules for optical and wireless communications networks. To drive its growth, the company is counting on growing demand for its products stemming from the explosion of entertainment content being piped into consumers’ homes through video-on-demand and other means. The company’s product lines include transceiver chips for sending and receiving optical signals that carry movies and TV shows. The company declines to disclose its customers, saying only that they include a major telecom company in Japan. During the tech downturn, the optical component industry saw many mergers and acquisitions. Despite the consolidation, Phi Microtech still faces numerous formidable competitors, including Zarlink Semiconductor and Broadcom.

Photop Technologies

LOCATIONFujian, China

URL www.photoptech.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2003

CEO John Ling

EMPLOYEES 3,000

FUNDING $20 million, including private and seed

KEY INVESTORS Success Union Management, Firmstrong Technology, Laserx Technology

With more than 50 patents for various display components under its belt, Photop Technologies is one of the market leaders in micro-optics, optical devices for communications, and components for digital light processing and rear-projection televisions. Created through a four-company merger in 2003, Photop bills itself as the technology leader for green diode lasers, which will be key in next-generation laser displays in televisions and mobile devices. But to achieve its growth strategy—expansion to new markets and more production facilities—the company will need a finance strategy to match.

Mobile2win

LOCATIONMumbai, India

URL www.mobile2win.com

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2003

CEO Gopala Krishnan

EMPLOYEES 90

FUNDING N/A

KEY INVESTORS N/A

Through its 22 exclusive media collaborations and partnerships with more than a dozen telcos in India, Mobile2win is in an enviable position in the wireless entertainment segment. It has created significant content around the intellectual property owned by media companies to be delivered on mobile devices, television, or Internet sites. It has innovated concepts like reverse auction, mobile karaoke, and mobile comics (momics). But to keep up, M2W and its competitors like Indiagames not only need to constantly innovate for operators and users, which increasingly want good quality games. They must also tackle piracy, devices with limited functionality, and poor network quality.

Iconlab

LOCATIONSeoul, South Korea

URL www.iconlab.co.kr/english

SECTOR Communications

FOUNDED 2005

CEO Jae Jun “J.J.” Lee

EMPLOYEES 47

FUNDING $2.5 million, 1 round

KEY INVESTORS JAFCO Investment (Asia/Pacific)

Like Gmedia in China (see p. 41), Iconlab enables mobile commerce for cell phone subscribers with camera phones. Iconlab’s proprietary Intercode system is the de facto standard for all three South Korean mobile carriers—SKT, KTF, and LGT—and the company derives revenue by charging the carriers and advertisers. Though Intercode has been installed on 16 million of South Korea’s 37 million cell phones, Iconlab’s big challenge is educating subscribers on how to use the service. The company also operates in Thailand and Taiwan and plans to enter both China and the United States later this year.