Last week we got a glimpse of what Myanmar is like. square, a new homegrown social network that is pushing the boundaries of a newly opened country. This week we’re introducing Cambodia, the home of the Khmer-era Angkor Wat and a country of over 15 million people. The capital, Phnom Penh, has a population of less than 3 million people and is the center of a small startup community building there.
Small but tightly connected
Cambodia is a very small country and Phnom Penh is a very small city, so it is often overlooked when investors are looking for interesting prospects in the region. According to co-founder Adrian Labes: Cambodian Otakua Phnom Penh-based technology news blog, says there may be around 100 startups in the country so far.
Robust statistics for Cambodia include over 5 million 3G subscribers. Last year, internet growth increased by 500% due to investments in fiber optics from telecommunications companies.that’s all 700,000 People on Facebook.
A small ecosystem with a relatively open government has created a fairly close-knit community in Cambodia, where most people know each other. There are two main types of coworking spaces. collaboration and small world, and some events.Startup Weekend Cambodia has just begun last year But the following event bar camp phnom penh The event (which draws more than 1,000 people each time) has been running since 2008 and has slowly expanded across the countryside with thousands of dollars in funding from the U.S. Embassy. In other words, Cambodians are hungry for more.
Where it all ends: Mobile gaming and social innovation
With such a small population, VNG The domestic market is too small for Cambodian entrepreneurs to attack. Therefore, according to Adrian, “entrepreneurs are increasingly looking for a global perspective to run their startups.”
But perhaps the two biggest trends we’re seeing in Cambodia are mobile gaming and social innovation.
Mobile gaming is particularly popular in Cambodia, as evidenced by: Asva the Monkey and sempom gain fame. If you’ve ever been to Cambodia, you know that nonprofits are a huge economy in their own right. They are rampant. Adrian speculates that we’ll start to see nonprofits and civic-minded startups building solutions from there. This will be a unique aspect of Cambodia’s startup environment.So keep your eyes peeled Interesting startups like CheckInTonight Suddenly they start appearing from this small country in Southeast Asia.
(Edited by Stephen Millward)
post A peek into Cambodia’s quietly starving startup scene It first appeared asian technology.