DNA on BFM: Catcha’s Wild Digital scores home run

By Karamjit Singh September 4, 2015

Excellent mix of leading startups with investors
Catcha Group event fills missing niche in startup ecosystem

DNA on BFM: Catcha’s Wild Digital scores home run IT was a moment to treasure. If only you could have seen BFM presenter Freda Liu’s jaw drop when I told her that tickets for the just concluded two-day Wild Digital conference had cost US$1,500 for delegates and US$2,500 for investors.

While costly from a Malaysian aspect, and someone quipped that it was Asia’s most expensive digital conference, Wild Digital was positioned as a global conference that focused on the opportunity for unicorns to be born from out of South-East Asia.

You can listen to my thoughts about the conference and why I thought Patrick Grove, founder and chairman of Catcha Group, has a home run on his hands with Wild Digital and why I am already looking forward to next year’s conference.

And check out why I absolutely loved the point that Axiata Digital Services chief executive officer Mohamad Khairil Abdullah made about a key difference between the culture of startups and established brick-and-mortar giants. It’s all in the ‘comma.’

And Liu was right – I could have spent the entire 24 minutes Digital News Asia (DNA) has for the show speaking just about Wild Digital.

But, as good as it was, there was other news in the ecosystem that demanded DNA’s attention. One of them was the success of Catch That Bus Sdn Bhd in raising US$1.5 million in what it describes as a pre-Seed A round.

Its bus-ticketing platform was launched in 2013, and it is now in Singapore and its home country of Malaysia, with definite plans to scale into the region very soon.

The two dynamic founders of the company – Viren Doshi and Ashwin Jeyapalasingam – have been working on their startup since 2011 and make no bones about how hard the journey is.

Liu had interviewed them before as well and chipped in (or, more like, I let her have some of my time) with her thoughts as well.

And of course, DNA’s numbers guy, Goh Thean Eu, delves into the half-year results of the three main mobile telcos in Malaysia with his customary zeal and eye for spotting certain trends.

Just talking about this article would have been a 10-min segment but I could only briefly touch on the article and on how the top three spots may see a change within a year.

I wrapped up the show with a quick mention of an interesting acquisition that was just announced yesterday in the ad tech space which involved Adknowledge Asia, a company Axiata Group Bhd has a stake in, which has strengthened its presence in the region by acquiring Mumbai-headquartered Komli Media Inc’s South-East Asia assets.

I did make a mistake though by describing Adknowledge as a video ad delivery company. It delivers advertising in all formats and not just video.

Do have a listen to the podcast for my thoughts around these four stories!