Malaysia Silicon Valley of South East Asia

In 2012, Startup Genome ranked Singapore 17th on World startup ecosystem. Malaysia, was not on the list by the Silicon Valley Startup.

At rhe beginning of the week. CEO of Catcha Media, Patrick Grove  , when interview by The Edge Weekly, claim that while Singapore aggressive promote to become Silicon valley of South East Asia,  he claim Singapore do not have "Internet company" that have over $1billion market capitalization. But Malaysia have 3............ Jobstreet.com, iProperty.com and Myeg.com.

He further claim that we only have 8 internet public listed company in South East Asia, of which 6 are base in Malaysia.

Actually, iproperty.com, a company part own by Patrick's Catcha Media, are listed on Australia Stock Exchange despite their main operation and customer are in Malaysia. However, he only claim "internet company". In fact, if  technology/software company included, not just internet company,.Malaysia have more than 6 technology/software compaies listed on London's AIM, Singapore, Taiwan and New Zealand respectively. Of which Singapore listed's Silverlake Axis, base in Malaysia, have market capitalization of more than 1billion and it is in USD.

Connecting the East and West

Malaysia, with it multilingual talent, make it like Belgium of Asia ( Singapore claim they are Switzerland of Asia).

China's Huawei have set up base in Malaysia's PETRONAS Twin Tower KLCC, of which, Microsoft's Malaysia HQ is base in same building. Huawei expanding it R&D centre in Malaysia recently.

China's Tencent also set up a base in Malaysia to market it Wechat apps.

Partrick's Catcha's Media operate a Malaysia's MSN page. Catcha media also partner of China's Alibaba in South East Asia. It is not sure, Alibaba's Taobao South East Asia operate by Catcha, However, Catcha claim it has been offer a pre-IPO share by Alibaba recently.

Of the top 3 China's internet giant, only Baidu seem do not have present in Malaysia, despite Malaysian contribute a significant portion of search using Baidu.  Baidu oversea venture focus on Japan instead of South Eadt Asia. In fact, Malaysia can be a base for Baidu to venture into huge Indonesia market.

One difficulties is China still close it door. Malaysia still have difficulties to order from Taobao.com and setup account with Alipay until recently.

A social web co-founded by Malaysian base in Canada, Plurk.com ,which very popular in Taiwan  has been restricted by China like Facebook as China have it own renren.com. It doesn't help Malaysia Prime Minister used Facebook in stead of Plurk.com. Plurk.com leading market in Indonesia has been overtake by Facebook since then.

Malaysia have to make China to open it market to company base in Malaysia if it want to become a connecting hub between east and west.

Earlier, London AIM listed Red Media Asia Ltd, announced a reverse take over of Malaysia ACE listed  PUC Founder (MSC) BERHAD. Malaysia base Red Media will tap PUC Founder;s China ties as they will form a joint venture post merger.

The Founder Group, backed by Peking University, is involved in the development of technology for China’s IT, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

 

This is like Wipro in India where it also involved beauty, cosmetic healthcare and biotechnology industry.

 

According to the latest available data, the Founder Group owns five public companies listed on the stock exchanges of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Malaysia, as well as over 20 sole funded enterprises and joint ventures with nearly 30,000 employees.

 

Islamic and middle east

 

Malaysia technology also well received in Middle East's Islamic country. Some company like Scan Associate and IFCA have strong present in Middle East.

 

MOL IPO

 

Malaysia expecting an IPO of MOL, a company that acquired Friendster and after selling some IP to Facebook, held some equity of Facebook.

Update : MaGIC appointed Cheryl Yeoh as first CEO