Lai See | Private sector rushes in where government fears to tread

We're pleased to see that EzeeCube, a start-up company we wrote about in June, appears to have achieved lift-off. It recently completed one of Asia's most successful crowd funding campaigns this year. It was initially looking for US$75,000 on crowd-funding site Indiegogo but ended up raising more than US$160,000 with upfront sales of more than 1,000 units. Recently it signed an agreement with Hong Kong-based Nest Investments to be included in its portfolio of the most promising start-ups in Asia. Nest has committed to invest US$100,000 to help EzeeCube scale up marketing and sales activities.

The company's product, according to founder Ashok Jaiswal, is a stackable media-hub. It is an open system which can be extended and is based on open-source XBMC that supports all manner of file types. It connects to a television and will automatically sync and sort photos, videos, music and contacts from iOS and Android phones or tablets. EzeeCube's base unit can store up to 500,000 photos and will automatically store them by location, date, album and so on.

"Basically it enables you to store all your digital media without having to think too hard about it," Jaiswal told Lai See. It is modular so more storage can be stacked on top of the unit without the need for wiring or setting up. Other modules such as a Blu-ray player can be added similarly and future add-ons will be connected in the same, simple way.

There is an irony in EzeeCube's success achieving one of the best crowd funding campaigns in Asia this year. Jaiswal initially applied to one of the Hong Kong government schemes established to help develop start-up companies in Hong Kong. But the review committee comprising civil servants, a few university professors along with some businesspeople, turned him down. Jaiswal went on to find seed funding through Hong Kong-based angel investors BigColors and Big Bloom.