TNF Ventures Incubates TribeHired

SINGAPORE – 25 March 2013 – Tribehired.com, a social recruitment website, today announced that it had closed around S$696K (US$560K) seed funding round led by TNF Ventures (TNF) through the Technology Incubation Scheme under the Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) within the Prime Minister’s Office. The round was supported by Singapore angel investors Ben Ball and Ben Chew.

The investment will be used to grow Tribehired’s team to expand both the number of job candidates on the system and the range of businesses using the service.

Devan Singaram, Founder of Tribehired, said: “Today’s investment is crucial to the next stage of Tribehired’s development and not just because it brings us cash to fund our growth. In TNF we have access to a team of veteran entrepreneurs who have proved they know how to manage fast growth. Meanwhile Ben Chew brings specialist domain insight around recruitment. It’s great to have that kind of support behind us as we scale up rapidly.”

Tribehired has the potential to grow fast because it incentivises ordinary people to recommend job opportunities at companies where their friends would fit. A window into social networks gives employers a better choice of talent, simultaneously reducing hiring costs and time-to-hire. Tribehired’s automatic recommendations are supplemented by individual candidate interviews to assure a match.

Tribehired is currently in intensive beta testing with several thousand users in Malaysia providing feedback around real job opportunities. Early adopters are typically ‘Generation Y’ graduates but they are spread across a range of different industries and job functions. The notion of social network friends recommending each other for jobs is still new and testing has already revealed fascinating insights into customer needs and behaviours. A full international launch will follow shortly as the team reflects its learning in the service online.

Shirley Wong, Managing Partner at TNF Ventures, said: “Recruitment is an evergreen industry but it is also ripe for disruption. We saw that Tribehired’s team has the passion and drive to bring about that disruption. There are others in this space but Tribehired’s team convinced us that they really understand the psychology of social networks and job seekers better than anyone else.”

Clients using Tribehired already include Zalora, Lazada, Flocations and Brandtology. The service currently covers Singapore and Malaysia and focuses on innovative businesses that offer job seekers opportunities in businesses with a flat hierarchy and positive social impact.

Previous to today’s announcement, Tribehired received pre-seed funding from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, a government agency under the Ministry of Finance, Malaysia. Tribehired was also a participant in the JFDI-Innov8 2012 accelerator program operated by JFDI.Asia.

Hugh Mason, Co-founder and CEO at JFDI.Asia, said: “This is a great deal for those directly involved but it also shows the benefits when Malaysia and Singapore collaborate to support innovative start-ups. Tribehired’s talent was first spotted by a Malaysian government fund and, with support from both private and public investors in Singapore, the business has been able to exploit opportunities in both markets to grow much faster than it would have done in either alone. Now, Tribehired is helping to fill jobs and create wealth on both ends of the causeway.”

TNF Ventures Incubates Mobile Media Creations

5 February, 2013 (SINGAPORE) – Mobile applications developers Mobile Media Creations (M2C) have secured S$588k in pre-Series A funding for a revolutionary m-commerce and mobile apps platform called MOGi.  Led by TNF Ventures (TNF) through the Technology Incubation Scheme under the Singapore’s National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office (NRF), the funds will play a important role in M2C’s roll-out and adoption plans for MOGi.  The wallet app is a first in Singapore for both iPhone and Android phones, allowing users to save through gift card promotions & discount vouchers, earn rewards, and securely pay with their mobile device at over 220 dining, retail and health & beauty outlets across Singapore.  The app also provides an interesting innovation allowing for social gifting.

Mr. Rashad Budeiri, the Chief Executive Officer of M2C said, “Mobile Wallets are on the verge of becoming mainstream in 2013.  All trends point to a surge in the adoption and use of smart phones in commerce, specifically for marketing and payments.  In fact, according to PayPal, m-commerce transactions already account for 24% of all e-commerce transactions in 2012¹ and will only grow further as sales of smart phones continue to skyrocket.”

He added, “We are extremely privileged to be in a country that supports technological innovation on such a comprehensive scale and are grateful with the support provided by NRF and TNF. This funding is an important component in our plans to make MOGi the most popular mobile commerce and wallet app in Singapore for both the merchants and the consumers.”

Since the app was launched last October, several thousands of active users have signed up to enjoy numerous promotions, send gifts to their friends and use their mobile devices to pay in participating MOGi merchant outlets.  The platform has successfully helped participating merchants with their transaction volume, apparent with several merchants who have seen their sales increase by several thousands of dollars per month.

In addition, MOGi has helped over 160 small and medium businesses to:

• Enhance their brand recognition and presence in the digital marketing and mobile space
• Build and grow a loyal base of repeat customers
• Obtain marketing analytics in order to develop more intelligent and focused marketing campaigns and promotions
• Leverage the power of GPS location-based services for real-time targeted promotions
• Improve their customers’ shopping experience through mobile payments
• Utilize mobile application and social media to drive in-store traffic and boost sales

Shirley Wong, the Managing Director at TNF said, “Our focus is on providing holistic support to innovative and ambitious start-ups.  What Mobile Media Creations have developed and presented to us is a solid proposition for both the consumers and the merchants.  We are excited to be involved with companies with strong innovations and look forward to MOGi and M2C’s continued success.”

The free MOGi app can be downloaded via the iPhone App Store or the Google Play Store. For more information, please visit: www.mogicard.com

TNF Ventures Incubates Quantine

Quantine Secures SGD 588k Pre-Series Funding
Funding to Further capabilities of Next-5 Human Resource Screening Platform

Next-5.com is a novel platform that allows companies and job/internship seekers to connect and engage without borders or time conflicts. Leveraging on the pervasiveness of webcams, they give jobseekers the ultimate marketing tool.

TNF Ventures incubates Flocations

Flocations.com Secures SGD 700,000 Pre-Series Funding Led by TNF Ventures
Funding to Integrate Hotel and Flights Search by Price

SINGAPORE – December 11, 2012 – “Where can I go for $200 this weekend?” Flocations Pte. Ltd., a popular online travel discovery tool, helping travelers answer that question, closed a pre-series round of funding, raising SGD 700,000 led by TNF Ventures. The investment is supported with additional capital from SingTel Innov8 and Singapore-based business angel Ben T Ball.

Flocations.com finds getaways and short-haul breaks for travelers in Southeast Asia, in a fun and interactive way. Flocations.com presents users with an interactive map comparing travel options based on price rather than the traditional date and destination. The funding allows Flocations.com to offer a new set of innovative features, integrating both hotel and flights into their search by price methodology.

Tudor Coman, Co-founder at Flocations.com, said: “This is an extremely exciting step for Flocations as this funding allows us to launch our new feature set that combine both hotels and flights into one price, in addition to the continuation and finance of operations across Asia Pacific. This means users can search for a whole vacation just by putting in their price and also lets them discover places they never even thought of within seconds!”

Shirley Wong, Managing Partner at TNF Ventures, said: “Flocations’ targeted market of short haul travellers and their search-by-price methodology is what’s powerful. It changes the paradigm of traditional travel search and tries to disrupt the travel market by targeting a niche market.”

Flocations graduated among the first batch of 11 start-up companies from the JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp earlier this year. It was one of two companies to be earmarked for investment by SingTel Innov8 immediately following the bootcamp demo day.

“We are excited about the innovation Flocations will bring to the travel space,” said Edgar Hardless, CEO, SingTel Innov8. “Everyone loves a bargain and Flocations changes the way travellers discover vacation spots, enabling them to learn about places they never considered within a budget.”

TNF Ventures incubates TradeHero

TradeHero (www.tradehero.mobi) is a stock market simulation mobile app that draws real-time data from 14 stock exchanges, 45,000 global securities and 1,300 currency pairs. Users are credited with a $100,000 starting portfolio and can make trades to create their own virtual portfolio. The app’s Leaderboards identify the most successful traders (known as ‘Heroes’) by their returns, and they are ranked by Exchange, Sector, Monthly or Quarterly returns, as well as overall returns. Followers can subscribe, for a small monthly fee, to follow and receive trade feeds from their chosen Heroes via push notifications on their mobile device. These push notifications detail each Buy and Sell action of the Hero, allowing followers to receive expert trading tips and personal insight into successful investment strategies. TradeHero will share subscription revenue from followers equally with Heroes, thus allowing Heroes to monetize their trading expertise.

TradeHero CTO Dominic Morris suggests that the innovation ‘helps to galvanise a global community of financial traders’, enabling the financial markets to be more transparent and interactive. As the world’s first truly social investment network, the TradeHero community aims to break down the barriers to participating in financial markets. Meanwhile, skilled traders can gain a large following and earn extra income quickly. In time, Followers can challenge for the top positions on the Leaderboard.

The innovation had caught the eyes of TNF Ventures. TradeHero snared the first investment dollars from TNF Ventures since its inception in May earlier this year.

“Trade Hero provides a real trading experience which presents an incredible opportunity for anyone who wants to put their trading skills to test without burning real cash and yet receive real cash when others idolize you. Dinesh and Dominic are game changers and innovative in creating new experiences for TradeHero users and we are excited to be the incubators of this venture.”, said Ms Shirley Wong, Managing Partner of TNF Ventures.

TradeHero was founded in Singapore in early 2012 by CEO Dinesh Bhatia, an experienced local start-up entrepreneur, and CTO Dominic Morris, former head of e-commerce quality at Standard Chartered. Together they envisaged an app that would transform the world into a virtual trading floor.

TNF Ventures Launched with Poker Party

TNF Ventures, founded by key shareholders with backgrounds of entrepreneurs, senior corporate executives and venture capitalists are some of the IT luminaries in Singapore.  With the belief that their combined knowledge, experience and contacts could make a huge difference to a burgeoning startup ecosystem, TNFV looks to contribute back to Singapore by incubating the next generation of entrepreneurs.

“We are really excited to be here with a Dream Team we have put together and who share the same values. We pride ourselves with the ability to significantly add value to our investments across most sectors of technology and beyond the shores of Singapore, including China and Silicon Valley”, said Ms Shirley Wong, Managing Partner during the kickoff.

Calling themselves investor-mentors (IM), the partners of TNFV have vast experiences in building or nurturing companies from their infancy to successful enterprises.  The team members include Eddie Chau, Founder of E-Cop and Brandtology, Shirley Wong and Steve Ting, both co-founders of the public listed BT Frontline, Tan Yen Yen, Senior VP of Oracle, and David Su, Foo Jixun and Terence Tan who are Managing Partners of their respective VC funds of Matrix Partners, GGV and IPV Capital, all based in Shanghai.

Staying true to its mantra of having fun, TNFV ended the day with a group of start-ups, who were pre-selected from a pool of introductory video clips, with a poker game. The game ended with the top 3 startups winning an exclusive dinner with the TNF Team to further finetune their pitch for potential funding.

TNF Launch and Startup Mini-Poker Event

Hi everyone,

To celebrate our launch and for you to get to know our investor-mentors better, we are having a friendly mini-poker tournament at our TNF Launch for startups! To all founders, we are offering the chance to win a one-to-one meal with our team of investor-mentors.

To enter the contest, submit a 2 min video of why you believe your startup is going to succeed at http://bit.ly/tnfpoker!

• For Startups – Video Contest
• Contest: http://bit.ly/tnfpoker

• For our guests, we hope that you can RSVP at bit.ly/TNF_RSVP.
• TNF Ventures Launch
• Date/Time: 18 May 2012, 430pm – 7.30pm
• Venue: Media Development Authority, F11 Screening Room, 3 Fusionopolis Way, Symbiosis Singapore 138633
• RSVP: bit.ly/TNF_RSVP
• Map: http://bit.ly/TNF_Launch_Venue

Are you ready to test your pokerface reading skills?

Investors of TNF Ventures are hands-on Mentors to Startups

For Immediate Release

Investors of TNF Ventures are hands-on Mentors to Startups

SINGAPORE,  29 Apr 2012 –  TNF Ventures (TNFV) is founded by a group of ICT industry veterans. The investors of TNFV believe in taking a hands-on business advisory approach when working with startups.

Calling themselves investor-mentors (IMs), the partners of TNFV are established entrepreneurs, veteran business professionals and investors who have vast experiences in nurturing and building companies from infancy to successful enterprise.

“We believe our insights, network and experience are far more valuable than our capital to any startups. Besides funding, many startups need help in business model development, go-to-market strategies and connections with key industry players and customers. Entrepreneurs working with TNFV will benefit from our collective experience, powerful business network and accessibility of our team.” says Ms Shirley Wong, the Managing Partner of TNF Ventures.  The founders of TNFV will be able to complement each other in terms of expertise, knowledge and network to afford startups the best resource possible to assist them in their path to success. Besides having a strong network in Singapore, half of the IMs of TNFV are based in China and active in USA, providing startups a strong outreach in Asia and USA market.

The focus of TNFV is on Telecommunications, Media and Technology where Technology will encompass not only ICT space, but also Medical and eco-related technologies.

TNF Ventures is looking for exceptional teams or individuals who have the drive, fortitude, tenacity, versatility and capability to create a difference and possess unusual technology approaches or business model innovation.

For Enquries, please contact

Ms Shirley Wong

Managing Partner

moc.erutnevfntnull@ofni