GreyReview » elevyn http://www.greyreview.com technology. social. startup. Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:53:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Elevyn Selected for NetExplorateur 2009 http://www.greyreview.com/2009/01/12/elevyn-selected-for-netexplorateur-2009/ http://www.greyreview.com/2009/01/12/elevyn-selected-for-netexplorateur-2009/#comments Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:14:27 +0000 Yung-Hui Lim http://www.greyreview.com/?p=1455


Elevyn Elevyn is among the 100 web/IT projects selected for this year’s NetExplorateur 100. Besides Elevyn, another Malaysian start-up, Tumpang (bulk-buying platform) is also selected.

Both Elevyn and Tumpany are among 23 projects selected from the Asian region. Other projects from Asia are SharedCopy (Singapore), Enswer.me (Korea), iKnow (Japan), QiFang (China), Juice (China), Asia Online (Thailand), &D Card (Korea), Beam (India), Comi Asia (Singapore), Duedee (China), Ee PC 701 (Taiwan), GazoPa (Japan), iKnow! (Japan), Internet Umbrella (Japan), MetaCard (Singapore), New Songdo City IBD (Korea), OK CouFun (Korea), Rang De (India), Sekai (Japan), SENS (Japan) and Zoho Writer (India).

The NetExplorateur 100 list is created by Forum Nexplorateur, organized by the French Senate. The Forum selects 100 innovative projects from around the world each year and the top 10 winners will be invited to Paris to present to the Senate. Only two from Asia made it to this year’s Top 10 NetExplorateurs of the Year namely, Sekai (Japan) and New Songdo CIty IBD (Korea).

Elevyn Selected for NetExplorateur 2009 originally appeared on GreyReview on January 12, 2009.

]]> http://www.greyreview.com/2009/01/12/elevyn-selected-for-netexplorateur-2009/feed/ 1 Elevyn Empowering Fringe Communities http://www.greyreview.com/2008/11/29/elevyn-empowering-fringe-communities/ http://www.greyreview.com/2008/11/29/elevyn-empowering-fringe-communities/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:58:55 +0000 Yung-Hui Lim http://www.greyreview.com/?p=706


Elevyn Elevyn is a social purpose e-commerce platform. Developed by Mike Tee and Devan Singaram, Elevyn aspires to assist marginalized communities to improve their economic well-being by (a) encouraging and enabling them to trade online with socially conscious consumers from across the world and (b) a more effective means to raise money for social causes.

This venture is probably what Bill Drayton described as social entrepreneurship, which involves a combination of pragmatic and results-oriented methods of a business entrepreneur with the goals of a social reformer.

Social Economy on Elevyn

Anyone can signup for free at Elevyn. Members can support / suggest a cause and setup an online shop. Preferably, the online shop sells products made by the community artisans and the community members manage the online shop, from creating product catalog to product packing to delivery to customers.

Every online shop on Evelyn is also encouraged to must support a Cause. A portion of every sales made through the online store will fund the Cause. After each completed transaction, a buyer will automatically see how is channeled to the Cause.

An example, “raise $200 to buy books for kindergarten.” Evelyn takes 5% for each sales and also 10 cents for each item listed on its online product catalogue. Another 5% goes to PayPal with the remaining 85% will be collected by the seller. Once the fund reaches the target $200, Evelyn will send it to field coordinator to fulfill the Cause (which is, purchase books for the kindergarten).

Online Shop at Evelyn

Besides purchasing products, a member can also contribute by (a) joining the cause, (b) making a donation and (c) raising awareness of the cause by embedding widget on website.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Elevyn took 8 months to develop its front-end interface; it was launched on November 11 2008. The company is currently developing backend analytic engine that is able to calculate optimum selling price for each country, by aggregating prices on its platform.

Elevyn Empowering Fringe Communities originally appeared on GreyReview on November 29, 2008.

]]> http://www.greyreview.com/2008/11/29/elevyn-empowering-fringe-communities/feed/ 1 Budding Ventures Showcased at Startup Camp KL ’08 http://www.greyreview.com/2008/11/23/budding-ventures-showcased-startupcamp-kl/ http://www.greyreview.com/2008/11/23/budding-ventures-showcased-startupcamp-kl/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 05:54:38 +0000 Yung-Hui Lim http://www.greyreview.com/?p=1219


startup camp klSix recipients of MSC Malaysia’s Technopreneur Pre-Seed Fund Programme were paraded by Roslan Bakri Zakaria of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) during Startup Camp KL yesterday. The six Pre-Seed’ed projects:

  • Elevyn, web-based platform that connects community-based sellers to a socially-conscious market
  • EzyPzy, contact management, information repository and information distribution web application
  • Urekalabs, creator of videoAD and roo.my
  • Thisisbinding.com, print, photocopy and bind your work
  • TeDDology, social network for Malaysia’s technopreneurs
  • SocialWalk, social network that revolves around events

Budding Ventures

startup camp kl

Devan Singaram (Elevyn), Kenneth Kiffer Fong (EzyPzy), Roni Shah Mustapha (Urekalabs), Hakim Albasrawy (Thisisbinding), Asyraf Abdul Rahman (TeDDology) and Tham Keng Yew (SocialWalk), together with Roslan Bakri Zakaria, shared their experiences applying for the Pre-Seed Fund and also their start-up adventures. 

Some interesting facts about the Fund:
  1. The Pre-Seed Fund offers up to RM150,000 for anyone to kick-start their business ideas.
  2. To date, there are 168 start-ups funded with 90% 19% of them already with some forms of revenue.
  3. In recent months, each Batch attracts about 400+ applications.
  4. Lots of submissions related to greeting cards and education. Majority of the Pre-Seed fund applications were related to education and online wedding.
  5. The Fund is an outright grant a conditional grant. 
    • If a funded company makes RM1 million within 3 years upon completion of the project, the company is required to return the RM150,000.
    • If a funded company receives RM1 million investment within 3 years upon completion of the project, the company too is required to return the RM150,000.
  6. Preferably, two stakeholders for each project, with one as primary as full-time and the secondary (can be part-time).
  7. The minimum requirement: Develop a prototype at the end of one year
  8. Only 60% of the approved fund can be used for ‘allowance’.
  9. Each project team member can only receive a maximum ‘working’ allowance of RM1,500.
  10. From Submission to Approval process takes about four to five months.
  11. Each applicant can only be involved in one funded project, at any one time.

For those interested, some key considerations when applying for the Fund:

  1. All you need is an idea (with some elements of IT, of course). 
  2. The “Application Form” is important (and probably the most time-consuming).
  3. Have a right revenue model (e.g. target market and how you plan to get to that market)
  4. Research on your competitors
  5. Technology innovation
  6. Business innovation
  7. Present your ideas, concisely
  8. Time and pace yourself during presentation
  9. Reference – letter of support is helpful
  10. Know your facts related your business ideas

Budding Ventures Showcased at Startup Camp KL ’08 originally appeared on GreyReview on November 23, 2008.

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