The emergence of internet and mobile technology have given rise to ample new ideas and businesses capable of changing the way people live in the 21st century. From home-sharing and ride-hailing to food delivery and smart logistics, new ideas are flooding in – and there’s little doubt the coming years will bring more changes.
What’s more, Asia is brimming with exciting new companies. In what will be the first of similar investigations, FinanceAsia has looked under the hood of some of the region’s most unique start-ups – from billion-dollar “unicorns” to early-stage companies – and selected 10 we believe have the potential to disrupt their respective industries and possibly become the next leaders in their sectors.
We have ordered them in terms of approximate valuation from the largest to the smallest. Click on the picture for the full story. We would love to hear you feedback on our choices.
The top 10 |
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Toutiao |
Industry to disrupt: Media USP: Customised news aggregation Valuation: $20 billion (as of August) Investors: General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, CCB International, Sina Weibo Founder: Zhang Yiming Inception: 2012, China |
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Sensetime |
Industry to disrupt: Computer vision; artificial intelligence USP: Deep learning platform Valuation: $2 billion + (as of October) Investors: IDG Capital, Sailing Capital, CDH Investments and others Founders: Tang Xiaoou, Xu Li, Xu Bing, Yang Fan Inception: 2014, Hong Kong |
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VIPKID |
Industry to disrupt: Education USP: Only E-learning platform in China with US teacher community; big data analysis Valuation: $1.5 billion (as of August) Investors: Sinovation Ventures, Matrix Partners China, Northern Light Venture Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Tencent, and others Founder: Cindy Mi Inception: 2013, China |
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iCarbonX |
Industry to disrupt: Healthcare USP: personalised health management, artificial intelligence Valuation: $1 billion (as of April, 2016) Investors: Tencent, Vcanbio, China Bridge Capital Founder: Wang Jun Inception: 2015, China |
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Zhihu |
Industry to disrupt: Media USP: Knowledge-sharing, interactive online Q&A Valuation: $1 billion (as of January) Investors: Tencent, Sogou, SAIF Partners Founder: Yuan Zhou Inception: 2011, China |
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Zhuan Zhuan |
Industry to disrupt: Second-hand commerce USP: leveraging WeChat’s user community; incorporated credit rating system Valuation: $1 billion (as of April) Investors: 58.com, Tencent Founder: 58.com (Huang Wei) Inception: 2015, China |
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Practo |
Industry to disrupt: Healthcare USP: Doctor discovery and healthcare database Valuation: $650 million (as of January) Investors: Tencent, Google, Sequoia Capital, Recruit Holdings Founder: Shashank ND, Abhinav Lal Inception: 2008, India |
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Trax Image Recognition |
Industry to disrupt: Consumer USP: Fine-grained image recognition Valuation: $300 million (as of June) Investors: Warburg Pincus, Investec Founder: Dror Feldheim Inception: 2010, Singapore, Israel |
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M-Daq |
Industry to disrupt: Finance USP: Cross-border FX trading and settlement Valuation: $275 million (as of November 2015) Investors: Citi Ventures, GSR Ventures Founder: Richard Koh Inception: 2010, Singapore |
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Pony.ai |
Industry to disrupt: Transportation USP: Autonomous driving expertise Valuation: Close to $100 million (as of March) Investors: Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital Founder: Lou Tiancheng, James Peng Inception: December 2016, China and the US |
