Foound one of 7 startups with new funding
Neoteny Labs has made an investment in Foound, the hottest startup at Echelon 2010. This puts an end to the weeks of rumors swirling around Singapore’s startup scene about the deal.
Foound makes a free* iPhone app of the same name that makes it easier for users to set times and places to hang out. The invested amount was undisclosed.
The Foound investment was one of seven deals closed by incubators operating under the Singapore government’s Technology Incubation Scheme. The National Research Foundation (NRF), which runs the scheme, announced the news in a press release today.
Under the scheme, the NRF pays for 85% of an investment while the incubator takes care of the rest. Investments are capped at US$367,000. The scheme has a total of US$37 million to invest.
“Unfortunately, we can’t disclose more about the funding other than what has been disclosed by NRF. This is due to some technicalities about the disclosure,” Danny Tan, Foound’s co-founder, told us by email. “But I can tell you for Foound, NRF is only one of the investors and there are actually a lot more interesting stories behind the other investors.”
Neoteny Labs, which is run by noted angel investor Joi Ito, also invested in Socialutions, which is developing a licensing and distribution web platform for content creators based on the Creative Commons framework called CreationMix.
Another incubator with two investments was Clearbridge Accelerator which invested in Clearbridge BioMedics and Clearbridge NanoMedics. The two firms develop biomedical devices related to oncology and nanotechnology. They were spun off from projects at the National University of Singapore.
The incubator Social Slingshot made three investments. Artyii is an invite-only platform to buy and sell Asian art. ShoppingLifestyle is a web portal for women that ComScore ranks the top women’s portal in Singapore and Malaysia. Socialico develops social fantasy prediction games under the brand FameLeague. Social Slingshot is founded by Brad Greenspan, who controversially calls himself Myspace’s founder.
*An earlier version of this article wrongly said that Foound sells its iPhone application. It is in fact free.
tagged
