News of the start-up community launched by Thailand’s AIS and Singapore’s Singtel was first heard at a recent AIS-hosted Regional Seed Network Workshop in Bangkok, where representatives from many SingTel associate companies came together to focus on this new community. According to news reports and an AIS press release, members from corporate venturing units attended the event, including SingTel Innov8 program, Kickstart Ventures from the Philippine’s Globe, Teman Dev from Indonesia’s Telkomsel, Optus Innov8 Seed from Australia’s Optus, Malaysia’s Maxis, and AIS The StartUp.
According to a TechinAsia news report, there was a showcase for start-ups who participated in the AIS TheStartup weekend event to present their projects and discuss potential collaboration from other telecommunication companies. Companies that pitched included Noonswoo, iButler by Fourleaf, AIS Privilege app by Buzzebees, Doplphin I/O, BentoWeb, Molome and ShopSport.
AIS also has a venturing unit called InVent, which to date has invested in domestic start-ups. In September InVent announced investments in Computerlogy and Meditech. It has also invested in e-book company Ookbee.