Red Herring United States

http://www.redherring.com/Home/13562

http://redherring.com/Home/pages/print/posts/?bid=134356b8-c3d3-4cc8-b5c1-5189c1c060d3&mode=Full

Selecting Red Herring’s 1st list of the Top 100 Private companies in Asia was not an easy task. Of course, we didn’t expect it to be a cinch when we put out a call for applications last spring and asked our fair-flung editorial staff to identify startup companies that would meet our criteria. We know that Asia was rapidly becoming a hotbed of entrepreneurial innovation, as venture investment – and this list – reflects.

From more than 500 applications and nominations, the editors spent hundreds of hours over several months poring over data submitted by the companies. We examined the quality of technology, the experience of management teams, the clout of customers and partners, and, finally, financing. We narrowed the candidates down to slightly more than 200 finalists and, ultimately, to our 100 winners.

The final list is far from perfect. We know that there are many deserving companies we have probably overlooked. In some cases, companies did not provide enough information to make an intelligent decision. In others, companies could not describe succinctly what they actually do and we couldn’t figure it out. Work on your elevated pitch, guys.

Some of the companies on our list will fail; others will soar into IPO heaven or be acquired by larger companies. Intact, during the selection process, we had to drop Baidu.com when it went public and we waited to find out if Alibaba.com would remain in privet hands as it negotiated with yahoo- it did, and collected a deal worth $4 billion in the process.

The 100 companies here reflect the entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping Asia. Together, the 100 winners raised slightly less than $ 1 billion in funding and had sales of $ 1.25 billion. The top – grossing company on our list was Beijing Xinwei telecom technology, which claimed $ 200 million in annual revenue. There are also several promising companies in what is euphemistically called “pre-revenue” stage.

Winners came from 1 countries including Kazakhstan, the home of Asia software (whose 4500 employees made it the largest company in our list), Pakistan, which contributed two companies and Malaysia, with one. China provide the most companies on the list (41), followed by India (19) and South Korea (10).

The Asian companies show some important differences from those on our European and North American lists. More than 25% of the Asian startups are internet and services companies. In comparison, only 16% of our 2005 North American list consisted of internet and service companies. Perhaps reflecting the newness of venture investing in Asia and the caution of investors, we didn’t see the same universe of innovation technology startups that we came across in other lists, where we saw new material startups, sensor devices, and nanotechnology companies.

Another big difference was the last of experience in management teams. There weren’t many serial entrepreneurs leading their second are third companies, As we’ve seen in the united states and Europe. And Asia’s companies had more employees, An average of 352 per company (throw off by Asia software), compared to 115 for their U.S counterparts.

In one important category, the Asian firms did better. 63% of the companies in our list said they were profitable, for more than the 38% on this year’s North American list. In this age of cautious, profitability counts for a lot. RH