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How was your funding from the Singapore investors connected to Bubble Motion picking Singapore for its headquarters?Around the same time, when we were deploying the Bubbly service with SingTel-owned opera-tors in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Coin-cidentally, SingTel was launching its new venture fund, Innov8, at the same time. The operators introduced us to them and Jeff Karras, who runs the Americas for Innov8, ended up leading a round of investment with Infocomm Investments participating in that round.
How is Bubble Motion doing now? Our social messaging service, Bubbly, has more than 12 million users. We have basically signed deals with and have deployed or are in the proc-ess of deploying with all of the major opera-tors in India, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. We have about 50 staff in Singapore now and another 25 spread around Asia. So things are defi nitely going well.
“Singapore is an extremely easy place to attract top talent”
Infocomm Investments is the venture capital arm of Singapore’s technology authority. We work with technology startups from around the world. We invest in startups alongside the world’s best venture funds.
We also help startups create a base in Singapore to access the Asian opportunity. This means getting access to international talent, Asian markets and Singapore government programs.
More at www.infocomminvestments.com
About Infocomm Investments
Bubble Motion wanted to turbo-charge development of a new product: A social messaging service that could be likened to Twitter, but for voice messages on mobile phones. But the fi rm’s engineers were in disparate cities, from Helsinki to Shanghai.
So chief executive Tom Clayton decided to put all the engineers in one place: Singapore. Twelve months later, the product, Bubbly, was launched.
Today, Bubbly has more than 12 million users and Clayton and his team call Singapore home, too. ! e fi rm closed a signifi cant funding round from two strategic local investors in March 2011.
Clayton tells us how fi ghting internal momentum to base the fi rm in the Valley - seen as the safer option - paid o" for Bubble Motion.
How Bubble Motion’s Asian base helped it gain millions of usersWhy moving to Singapore helped this social messaging startup win millions of users, strategic investors and a stronger team
Bubble Motion’s ‘Bubbly’ is a social messaging service where people share SMS and voice updates with friends, family, fans and followers. Bubbly is like ‘Twitter with a voice’ and brings social networking to all mobile phones. Bubble Motion is funded by Sequoia Capital, SingTel, Palomar Ventures, Comcast and Infocomm Investments. The company is headquartered in Singapore.
About Bubble Motion
More at www.bubblemotion.com
StartupStories Mobile Social
Media USAWHAT’S IN THIS CASE STUDY:
What other reasons did you have for pushing to stay in Singapore?Singapore is in the heart of Asia – which is where our core markets are – so it’s a perfect base for a company with operations spread from India to Japan. Additionally, the business-friend-ly government and R&D grant program were huge factors in our decision process. Lastly, we felt that the high quality of life and low income tax rate as well as the government’s relatively fl exible immigration policy would make it the easiest place to attract top-notch talent for relo-cation.
What other cities were you considering for your headquarters?We seriously considered Silicon Valley. For engineering and development, we also looked at Shanghai, Bangalore and even Helsinki at one point. However, after a while, we realized that we needed to have both our headquarters and R&D located in the same place to boost productivity and morale.
Surely Singapore has some downsides too. What are they?There is not an enormous software and mobile engineering talent pool here. Moreover, the cul-ture has traditionally focused on fi nancial serv-ices and multi-national corporations more than startups. We often fi nd that many locals would prefer to work for HP, Microsoft or Yahoo. We’re trying to attract them to work for the next Face-book or Twitter, not large ‘has-been’ companies that no longer attract top talent and no longer have the same sort of exponential stock upside. This is where the culture and mindset of the Valley and Singapore differ quite signifi cantly.
You hire talent from outside Singapore too. Where are they from, and how do you f ind them?Our development team has engineers from India, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the United Kingdom, the US, and many other countries. We often just post all of our open positions on LinkedIn, which allows us to attract talent from all over the world. The mar-ketplace for top talent is now truly global.
The idea of a ‘startup visa’ is debated in the US and elsewhere. How hard is it to get your talent into Singapore?Well, fi rst of all, once you identify a top engineer, it is defi nitely a lot easier to get them a visa or work permit to work in Singapore compared to the US. Then with (Singapore’s) favorable income tax rate, it is actually much easier to attract talent from abroad.
How do your Singapore investors - SingTel Innov8 and Infocomm Investments - add value compared to your investors from the Valley?While the Valley VCs have been great, given their understanding of how to build companies, it is quite refreshing to have local Singaporean inves-tors at this stage, as they have really been able to add a ton of value with everything from hiring in Singapore to more senior connections across the mobile operators in Asia.
Bubbly Growth vs Twitter & Facebook Initial Growth
uniqueusers
MAR2010
APR2010
MAY2010
JUN2010
JUL2010
AUG2010
SEP2010
OCT2010
NOV2010
DEC2010
APR2011
MAY2011
JUN2011
JUL2011
JAN2011
FEB2011
MAR2011
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000 BUBBLE MOTION
When you joined Bubble Motion as chief executive, Sequoia, one of your investors, wanted the company to move its headquarters to Silicon Valley. You pushed hard to have the HQ in Singapore. Why?The company had many challenges with hiring top talent over that fi rst year following Sequoia’s investment. Therefore, [Sequoia] wanted me to move the company to Silicon Valley, so that we could attract and recruit the level of engineering and management talent we needed. However, I was hesitant because I had recruited top-notch talent in Asia in the past. Moreover, all of our customers were in Asia, so I pushed back and told them to give me six months.
Did pushing to stay in Singapore pay o! in the end? Within a month, it was clear that it made much more sense to remain in Singapore – it was in the heart of where all of our customers were deployed, the cost basis was far lower than the Valley, and it was clear that we could attract the right level of talent – we just had to work harder and smarter at recruiting.
“[Singapore’s] business-friendly government and R&D grant program were huge factors in our decision process”
What other reasons did you have for pushing to stay in Singapore?Singapore is in the heart of Asia – which is where our core markets are – so it’s a perfect base for a company with operations spread from India to Japan. Additionally, the business-friend-ly government and R&D grant program were huge factors in our decision process. Lastly, we felt that the high quality of life and low income tax rate as well as the government’s relatively fl exible immigration policy would make it the easiest place to attract top-notch talent for relo-cation.
What other cities were you considering for your headquarters?We seriously considered Silicon Valley. For engineering and development, we also looked at Shanghai, Bangalore and even Helsinki at one point. However, after a while, we realized that we needed to have both our headquarters and R&D located in the same place to boost productivity and morale.
Surely Singapore has some downsides too. What are they?There is not an enormous software and mobile engineering talent pool here. Moreover, the cul-ture has traditionally focused on fi nancial serv-ices and multi-national corporations more than startups. We often fi nd that many locals would prefer to work for HP, Microsoft or Yahoo. We’re trying to attract them to work for the next Face-book or Twitter, not large ‘has-been’ companies that no longer attract top talent and no longer have the same sort of exponential stock upside. This is where the culture and mindset of the Valley and Singapore differ quite signifi cantly.
You hire talent from outside Singapore too. Where are they from, and how do you f ind them?Our development team has engineers from India, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the United Kingdom, the US, and many other countries. We often just post all of our open positions on LinkedIn, which allows us to attract talent from all over the world. The mar-ketplace for top talent is now truly global.
The idea of a ‘startup visa’ is debated in the US and elsewhere. How hard is it to get your talent into Singapore?Well, fi rst of all, once you identify a top engineer, it is defi nitely a lot easier to get them a visa or work permit to work in Singapore compared to the US. Then with (Singapore’s) favorable income tax rate, it is actually much easier to attract talent from abroad.
How do your Singapore investors - SingTel Innov8 and Infocomm Investments - add value compared to your investors from the Valley?While the Valley VCs have been great, given their understanding of how to build companies, it is quite refreshing to have local Singaporean inves-tors at this stage, as they have really been able to add a ton of value with everything from hiring in Singapore to more senior connections across the mobile operators in Asia.
Bubbly Growth vs Twitter & Facebook Initial Growth
uniqueusers
MAR2010
APR2010
MAY2010
JUN2010
JUL2010
AUG2010
SEP2010
OCT2010
NOV2010
DEC2010
APR2011
MAY2011
JUN2011
JUL2011
JAN2011
FEB2011
MAR2011
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000 BUBBLE MOTION
When you joined Bubble Motion as chief executive, Sequoia, one of your investors, wanted the company to move its headquarters to Silicon Valley. You pushed hard to have the HQ in Singapore. Why?The company had many challenges with hiring top talent over that fi rst year following Sequoia’s investment. Therefore, [Sequoia] wanted me to move the company to Silicon Valley, so that we could attract and recruit the level of engineering and management talent we needed. However, I was hesitant because I had recruited top-notch talent in Asia in the past. Moreover, all of our customers were in Asia, so I pushed back and told them to give me six months.
Did pushing to stay in Singapore pay o! in the end? Within a month, it was clear that it made much more sense to remain in Singapore – it was in the heart of where all of our customers were deployed, the cost basis was far lower than the Valley, and it was clear that we could attract the right level of talent – we just had to work harder and smarter at recruiting.
“[Singapore’s] business-friendly government and R&D grant program were huge factors in our decision process”
How was your funding from the Singapore investors connected to Bubble Motion picking Singapore for its headquarters?Around the same time, when we were deploying the Bubbly service with SingTel-owned opera-tors in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Coin-cidentally, SingTel was launching its new venture fund, Innov8, at the same time. The operators introduced us to them and Jeff Karras, who runs the Americas for Innov8, ended up leading a round of investment with Infocomm Investments participating in that round.
How is Bubble Motion doing now? Our social messaging service, Bubbly, has more than 12 million users. We have basically signed deals with and have deployed or are in the proc-ess of deploying with all of the major opera-tors in India, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. We have about 50 staff in Singapore now and another 25 spread around Asia. So things are defi nitely going well.
“Singapore is an extremely easy place to attract top talent”
Infocomm Investments is the venture capital arm of Singapore’s technology authority. We work with technology startups from around the world. We invest in startups alongside the world’s best venture funds.
We also help startups create a base in Singapore to access the Asian opportunity. This means getting access to international talent, Asian markets and Singapore government programs.
More at www.infocomminvestments.com
About Infocomm Investments
Bubble Motion wanted to turbo-charge development of a new product: A social messaging service that could be likened to Twitter, but for voice messages on mobile phones. But the fi rm’s engineers were in disparate cities, from Helsinki to Shanghai.
So chief executive Tom Clayton decided to put all the engineers in one place: Singapore. Twelve months later, the product, Bubbly, was launched.
Today, Bubbly has more than 12 million users and Clayton and his team call Singapore home, too. ! e fi rm closed a signifi cant funding round from two strategic local investors in March 2011.
Clayton tells us how fi ghting internal momentum to base the fi rm in the Valley - seen as the safer option - paid o" for Bubble Motion.
How Bubble Motion’s Asian base helped it gain millions of usersWhy moving to Singapore helped this social messaging startup win millions of users, strategic investors and a stronger team
Bubble Motion’s ‘Bubbly’ is a social messaging service where people share SMS and voice updates with friends, family, fans and followers. Bubbly is like ‘Twitter with a voice’ and brings social networking to all mobile phones. Bubble Motion is funded by Sequoia Capital, SingTel, Palomar Ventures, Comcast and Infocomm Investments. The company is headquartered in Singapore.
About Bubble Motion
More at www.bubblemotion.com
StartupStories Mobile Social
Media USAWHAT’S IN THIS CASE STUDY:
