e27 Picks Up Investments from Asian Investors, Announces Expansion Plans

Singapore based technology blog e27 announced today that it will be expanding its operations across Southeast Asia following a funding round of SGD 760,000 from a group of Asian investors. It has also changed its name to simply e27 from e27sg and its web address from e27.sg to e27.co earlier this month. The blog's major startup conference, Echelon, will also be expanded to include more cities in Asia.

e27's fresh funds came from a number of investors, namely Japan's B Dash Ventures, Pinehurst Advisors from Taiwan, Ardent Capital from Thailand, and Dan Neary from Singapore. After six years of operations, e27 was profitable in 2012 with a 20% year on year growth in revenue.

B Dash Ventures' investment in e27 is tied to its interest in the region as CEO Hiroyuki Watanabe said in the press release, "with e27's involvement in various Asian startup ecosystems, it should also become easier for Japanese startups to expand their businesses to Asia, as well as facilitate a greater flow of information between Japan and other regions."

Currently the editorial team is made up of seven writers and editors spanning across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines alongside a number of contributors and it will increase its presence in the region accordingly.

Mohan Belani, co-founder and CEO of e27 said, "We're excited that our investors share our vision of being the best resource for the tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia. We’re passionate about this industry and we believe that the next generation of global companies will come from this region

e27's Echelon conference, which had been expanding over the last couple of years will continue to expand and add more cities to its satellite events to seek more quality technology startups and feature speakers and investors of greater diversity and caliber. it will also bring its Founder's Drinks and Echelon Ignite events to more cities in the region.

Echelon ConferenceSubmissions for this year's Echelon conference, which will be held in 17-18 June in Singapore, are still open as the deadline has been extended to the end of February due to popular demand. As in recent years, Echelon will kick off with satellite events in major cities in Asia from the end of March to end of April for 10 startups to qualify to pitch at the main event. Startups looking to network and showcase their products but not pitching at the event can register to participate in the Startup Marketplace, which is limited to 50 participants.