Net

The9 Invests in AuroraFeint

 The Chinese Gaming company The9 has invested in AuroraFeint - makers of the OpenFeint platform to bring OpenFeint to China & Android. Very exciting times for Jason & the team. I first got involved with OpenFeint as and advisor last year after I left Facebook & have been very impressed by the speed Jason Citron & his team have executed on their vision under the guiding star of Peter Relan, founder of YouWeb who incubated the company. OpenFeint has over 2,200 live games for the iPhone, and will soon have publishers such as Astraware, Digital Chocolate, Glu Mobile, Hudson Soft and others onboard. With both Chinese and Japanese investors onboard (the Japanese gaming giant DeNA invested in the company last year) AuroraFeint is set up for a strong future presence  in Asia. Very excited to see how the how the story unfolds. 

Disclaimer: I'm a former advisor & a small shareholder in AuroraFeint.

China bans foreign investment in Online games industry

This is very disappointing for many foreign investors eyeing the Chinese Online games industry. General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) issued a an order on Saturday prohibiting foreign investment in domestic online gaming operations through joint ventures, wholly owned enterprise. GAPP ever goes so far as to prohibit foreign firms from indirectly influencing Chinese gaming firms through agreements or technology support. This is really outrageous but not at all surprising. After all, this is China and the Online gaming market is mushrooming and is estimated to reach value of $3.5-4 billion this year so why not make sure that you're in control & keep the revenues inside China? Thanks to Frank Yu for the hat tip.

WEF Summer Davos China 2009 Facts & Figures

WEF Summer Davos (China 2009) Facts and Figures See you there!

Summer Davos, Dalian next week

Next week I'm off to Beijing for my first board meeting with P1 which shall be really exciting and then I'm straight off to the Annual Meeting of the Champions 2009 also called "Summer Davos" in Dalian, China. If you're going to be at the event and want to meet up please ping me.

Joined the Board of Chinese P1.cn

I'm very happy to announce that I joined the Board of Directors of P1.cn. P1.cn is a private (by invitation only) social network for young affluent Chinese, a target group that is expected to grow from 20 million to 80 million over the next decade.  I've been impressed by the different approach they have taken to social networking and the high quality brands and advertisers they have managed to attract. Looking forward to start working with the Swedish/Chinese founders & the board on this exciting venture!

Tencent Mind 2009 Guangzhou

Qzone's General Manager Peter Zhen and I shake hands after the social networking panel at the Tencent MInd 2009 Forum in Guangzhou. My friend and moderator Gang Lu on the right. Some videos posted afterwards: 

• My short talk (what's up with my accent?)
• Interview with QQ Finance 

Had a great time in Guangzhou and really appreciate the invitation from Tencent. I'm glad to getting involved in China again.  

Interviewed in Asian Venture Capital Journal

I was recently interviewed by Rebbecca Fanning for Asian Venture Capital Journal about VC's facing global challenges. The cover story describes how VC's are spending more time (than money) huddling in conference rooms with CEO's and entrepreneurs, revising business plans, bugets and strategies. Some interesting data points:

• Asian fund-raising peaked in 2008, with a jump of 8% to $20 billion in new funds. In the first quarter of 2009, Asian venture fundraising plummeted to $1.7 billion. The first quarter 2008 comparable was $6.9 billion.

• In Asia, investment declined 22% to $22.3 billion in 2008. The first quarter of 2009 recorded 114 deals totaling $1 billion, compared to 375 deals totaling $8.2 billion for the same period in 2008

My advice to entrepreneurs struggling in these tough times (by no means meant to be comprehensive) can be found at the end of the article.

Great slides on Online China

Handbook of Online China

View SlideShare presentation (tags: web trend trends powerpoint olympics)

Silicon Dragon: How China Is Winning the Tech Race

A year ago I was interviewed by Rebecca Fannin, international editor of the Hong Kong weekly Asian Venture Capital Journal and former International News Editor at Red Herring for her upcoming book: Silicon Dragon: How China Is Winning the Tech Race". The books message is that we shouldn't be surprised if the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will be coming form China. Through an in-depth account of the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs that is challenging the U.S. for global high-tech leadership, Rebecca is trying to take the reader behind the scenes to provide an up-to-the-minute account of a phenomenon that is just now breaking the surface in mainstream media and business press. I was one of the entrepreneurs interviewed through my involvement in Maxthon as was Jeff Chen, Maxthon's founder. Rebecca just let me know that the book will be hitting the shelfs anytime soon and you can pre-order it already from Amazon (see link above). I have not yet read the book, but for anybody interested in how the Silicon Dragon is taking on the U.S for global high-tech leadership I think it will be very interesting reading.

Hong Kong Web Startup Meet Up

Last year when I was visiting Hong Kong and met with the Simon Lee & the guys at Bullpoo, they complained that there where not enough web entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. And if there were, they were not aware of each other. I then suggested that the meet up with a few people I had been in contact with and start meeting informally for drinks once a month. Guess what? Today Simon tells me over Skype that the initiative I started have just resulted in the fourth Hong Kong Web Start up Meet up, and they were almost 200! Amazing!

EditGrid hosted the last meetup, Yahoo HK have started to show-up and  Catharina Maracke from Creative Commons was there as well. I am really excited about the fact that it was started on my initiative and in one year has grown to such an extent. There is nothing more gratifying than being able to help and connect people with each other.

And of course, what event/group can be taken seriously if they don't have their own Facebook group? Join HK Web 2.0 on Facebook here.

I for sure will come by next time I have an opportunity to join the meetup. Good luck - and thanks Simon for sharing the story.