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The international tech scene is no longer a private playground for Silicon Valley companies, with Asian players making waves on this side of the globe and beyond. To celebrate the talented individuals who are changing the face of the industry, the Asia Tatler editors and a panel of experts compiled a list of the top 50 rising tech stars in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. Here are six of Singapore's technological elite on the list.
Why him? Clouds—the tech, online data storage kind, not the condensed water vapour—are everything these days. Gen.T lister Shashank Dixit understood that way back in 2008 when he founded Deskera, a provider of cloud-based software solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. Almost a decade on, the company operates across Southeast Asia and aims to be listed soon on Catalist, the Singapore Exchange’s junior board.
What's more Dixit was an awardee at the 2016 Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards.
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Why him? With a giant like Alipay—the payment processor started by Alibaba founder Jack Ma—as one of his main investors (through its operating company Ant Financial Services Group) and an official endorsement from Singapore’s government, Gen.T lister Benjamin Mah is a star entrepreneur.
The biz V-Key, the venture he co-founded in 2011 and of which he’s now CEO, secures any app from malicious attacks through a patented cryptographic virtual technology, providing security to banks, governments and mobile payment providers.
What's more Among its clients are ChinaPNR and Deloitte—oh, and Alipay, obviously, which handles 80 million transactions a day. Peanuts!
Why him? The tagline for Razer, a unicorn specialising in computer hardware marketed to gamers, is “for gamers, by gamers.” It’s apt, then, that co-founders Tan Min-Liang and Robert Krakoff decided to join forces—and brains—after meeting through, you guessed it, an online game.
The biz Since its launch in 2005, Razer has grown to become one of the best known gaming names in the world, working on anything from gaming laptops and keyboards to, most recently, virtual and augmented reality.
Back story Before Razer, Tan, who holds a law degree, worked as an advocate and solicitor at the Supreme Court in Singapore.
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Why him? Ever found yourself skimming through page after page of a report or the terms and conditions of a contract? We feel your pain—and so does Gen.T lister Daryl Neo.
The biz Handshakes, the company he co-founded in 2011, compiles public corporate documents and enables users to easily see the connections between companies and the people who own or run them. Yes, it’s as good as it sounds—so much so that last year Handshakes picked up an award at the National Infocomm Awards in Singapore, the first contest it ever entered.
Why him? Forrest Li is the maverick behind Garena, Southeast Asia’s most valuable start-up. How valuable, you might ask? US$3.75 billion, which makes it the region’s largest unicorn (a start-up valued at more than US$1 billion).
The biz Dubbed Singapore’s answer to Alibaba, the company is a consumer platform provider that started off as an online-gaming darling before branching out into e-commerce, social networks and online payments. Li established it in 2009 and has been its chairman and CEO ever since.
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Why him? Hovaghimian is the co-founder of Asia’s answer to Netflix.
The biz Established in 2007 (pre-Netflix), Viki is a video streaming website that licenses movies and TV shows at a fraction of what they would cost in their home markets, distributing the content online to a global audience with crowd-sourced, fan-created subtitles for the different language markets. The firm was also one of the first to spearhead Singapore’s start-up scene and, when it was assimilated by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten for a reported US$200 million in 2013, became one of the most impressive tech stories to come out of Asia.
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