Tag Archives: Southeast Asia

Introducing the Google for Startups Accelerator: Southeast Asia 2022 cohort

Posted by Thye Yeow Bok, Head of Startup Ecosystem, SEA, SAF and Greater China Region

As Southeast Asia recovers from the pandemic, analysts predict that the region's digital economy will increase 20% YoY to reach just shy of $200B in gross merchandise value in 2022 — three years ahead of predictions about the region's growth in 2016. New digital services emerged during the last few years, such as telemedicine, digital payments, and online education platforms. We also saw innovation in legacy sectors such as agriculture, logistics, talent retention, and recruitment due to the adoption of advanced technology such as cloud, AI, and machine learning.

While the region isn't immune to the macroeconomic headwind, companies like Grab and Gojek have placed Southeast Asia on the global startup map with high investment potential.

In October 2022, to help support this growing startup ecosystem, Google announced an open call for applications to its 7th Google for Startups Accelerator: Southeast Asia program. This three-month hybrid program supports tech startups building innovative solutions to cater to advancing digital transformation across Southeast Asia.

After reviewing all applications, we're delighted to announce the ten phenomenal startups selected to attend the program:

  • Bluente (Singapore, Education): The world's first business language learning mobile app, delivering bite-sized and personalized courses for working professionals.
  • Docosan (Vietnam, Healthcare): A healthtech marketplace expanding access to healthcare via online and offline bookings with providers and direct-to-consumer, digitally enabled testing and treatment journeys.
  • Elfie (Singapore, Healthcare): A product that reduces the burden of chronic diseases by rewarding patients for self-monitoring.
  • HD (Thailand, Healthcare) - The largest healthcare and surgery marketplace in emerging Southeast Asia, described as theBooking.com for health and Airbnb for surgeries.
  • Mindtera (Indonesia, Human Resources): An award-winning platform for Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) that uses data-driven insights to increase performance, productivity, and well-being.
  • NOICE (Indonesia, Content/Media): Indonesia's #1 local audio platform that serves multi-vertical content from podcasts, audio series, live audio, and radio streaming.
  • OOOLAB (Vietnam, Education): An edtech startup that powers the world's most delightful learning experiences.
  • PasarMIKRO (Indonesia, Agriculture): Indonesia's first agriculture commodity trade platform for smallholder farmers.
  • Rider (Pakistan, Logistics) A modern logistics provider for online sellers in Pakistan, working with 750 online sellers across 60 cities.
  • Wela School System (Philippines, Education): An end-to-end school system (software) where students and parents can view their grades, announcements, and billing statements through a mobile app.

Through mentoring, consultation, and training on technology, product management, business development, marketing, and leadership, we hope to bring the best of Google's resources, experts, products, and network to support all these startups in their entrepreneurial journey.

Discover and celebrate the best local games at Indonesia Games Contest


Posted by David Yin, Business Development Manager, Indonesia, Google Play.

It is a great time to be a mobile game developer on Android with the opportunity reaching more than a billion global users on Google Play. At the same time, developers in fast growing mobile markets like Indonesia have an additional opportunity in the form of a huge local audience that is hungry for local content. We have already seen thousands of Indonesian developers launch high quality, locally relevant games for this new audience, such as "Tahu Bulat" & "Tebak Gambar".

In our continuous quest to discover, nurture growth, and showcase the best games from Indonesia, we are really happy to announce Indonesia Games Contest. This contest celebrates the passion and great potential of local game developers, and provides an opportunity to raise awareness of your game with global and local industry experts, together with gamers, from across Indonesia. It's also a chance to showcase your creativity and win cool prizes.
Entering the contest

The contest is only open to developers based in Indonesia who have published a new game on Google Play after 1 January 2016. Make sure to visit our contest website for the full list of eligibility criteria and terms. A quick summary of the process is below:
  1. If you are eligible, submit your game by 19 March 2017.
  2. Entries will be reviewed by Google Play team and industry experts, and up to 15 finalists will be announced in early April 2017.
  3. The finalists will get to showcase their games at the final event in Jakarta on 26 April 2017.
  4. Winner and runners up will be announced at final event.
To get started

Visit our contest website to find out more about the contest and submit your game.
Terima Kasih!


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Southeast Asian indie game developers find success on Google Play

Posted by Vineet Tanwar, Business Development Manager, Google Play

Indie game developers bring high quality, artistic, and innovative content to Google Play and raise the bar for all developers in the process. In fact, they also make up a large portion of our 'Editor's Choice' recommended titles.
Southeast Asia, in particular, has a vibrant indie game developer ecosystem, and we've been working closely with them to provide tools that help them build successful businesses on Google Play. Today, we're sharing stories from three Indie developers based in Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia, who joined us at our 'Indie Game Developers Day' workshops in May 2016 and all of whom have experienced significant growth since.

Inzen studios from Singapore learned how to use store listing experiments and has improved the conversion rate of their newly launched game Dark Dot by 25%. Indonesia based studio, Niji Games, creator of Cute Munchies, implemented 'Saved Games' and 'Events and Quests' from Google Play games services to significantly improve user retention, and also earned an 'Editor's Choice' badge in the process. Ho Chi Minh City based developer, VGames, optimized monetization and introduced new paid products for their game Gungun online, and grew revenue by over 100%.


Indie game developers who are interested in meeting members of Google Play and who would like to work closer with us are invited to join our next round of SEA workshops in March 2017. To apply for these events, just fill in this form and we will reach out to you.

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