In a big leap for Thailand, Southeast Asia-focused tech news site TechSauce is partnering with Digital Ventures – the venture arm of SCB, one of the biggest banks in Thailand – in organising the TechSauce Summit, an event that brings the best of Silicon Valley to Thailand.
Thailand is a hotspot for startups now especially since their government launched a 20 billion baht fund (US$570 million) to support startups growing locally. They have a goal of establishing 10,000 startups in the country by 2018, which would put Thailand in the same league as the ‘Startup Nation’ Israel by startups per capita!
Startups in Thailand have excelled at ecommerce with Fintech growth coming at a close second.
No surprises then that Facebook recently partnered with Thai payment processing startup 2c2p to develop its social commerce capability by creating opportunities for customers to buy within the Facebook app in just a few clicks. Currently, South-east Asia is still an immensely untapped market with less than 1% of shopping actually taking place online today, but the region is poised to eventually become the third-largest e-commerce market in the world, second only to China and India.
Mobile is another big development in Thailand with 49% of the population owning a smartphone today. Thais are very fond of their mobile apps too, with 24 million (37% of the population) accessing mobile apps every day!
With Thailand being one of the biggest markets for messaging, it is no surprise that LINE Thailand launched its own internal R&D team in late-April 2016. Already it has launched a new delivery service called LINE Man that has green-jacketed guys – with LINE characters printed on them – delivering takeaway meals, 7-11 products and offering courier services by scooters.
The newest service from LINE Thailand’s new R&D team is delivery service LINE Man.
As these developments continue, the TechSauce Summit is building on the momentum by bringing together 100 of the country’s most successful startups to share about their business as well as offer workshops. The 10 best will participate in a Growth-Stage Startup Pitching Battle which looks set to boost them even further. Hence, a myriad of opportunities in a variety of industries from Fintech and eCommerce to Gaming and Enterprise Development look set to make it an exciting development for Thailand’s startup ecosystem.
So why go to the TechSauce Summit?
- Explore opportunities for expanding into growing Asian markets like China with a keynote by Dr. Gang Lu, Founder and CEO of TechNode and TechCrunch China. Not only is TechNode one of the leading online publications for everything tech and startups in China, TechCrunch China is one of the biggest events in China for the latest disruptive trends in tech.
- Regional unicorns such as Garena, one of Southeast Asia’s biggest internet platform providers with a diverse portfolio of businesses such as eCommerce startup Shopee, will be sharing about marketing and understanding Southeast Asian customers.
- Also, it will offer insights into corporate innovation and partnership programs. At the TechSauce Summit, our Managing Director Martin Pasquier will be moderating a panel on corporate innovation. Highlights include examining the challenges that corporates face in developing innovation internally as well seeing success cases such as telecommunications company DTAC.
So buy your tickets here and we will see you in Bangkok!
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