Singapore, Chinese Partners Spin Off Big Data Firm

A new big data analytics company, 6Estates, is the latest company to launch as a spin-off from a research centre established by partner universities in Singapore and China.

6Estates' platform is powered by technologies licensed from the National University of Singapore (NUS), which established the NUS-Tsinghua Extreme Search Centre (NExT) in partnership with Tsinghua University of China. The new company uses advanced data, predictive and linguistic analytics - including deep natural language processing for both English and Chinese - to provide automated, live intelligence on consumer behaviour, brands and industry trends, segment by segment, and help clients understand online conversations and customer needs.

The company name is based on the idea that journalism is the 4th estate and social media has been called the 5th - the 6th is the automated analysis of these two and the output it produces.

The firm has already raised $SG 1m in seed funding from angel investors and grants, plus its four cofounders Gary Chin, Dr Luan Huanbo, Professor Chua Tat Seng and Roger Yuen. The last two are the founders of growing visual search technology firm ViSenze, with Yuen also an investor in social media specialist Brandtology and a former senior corporate executive at ZDNet, CNET, Acer and Softbank.

Chin has worked recently as Head of Consumer Commercial Strategy for CBS Interactive in Asia-Pacific, and as MD of Admax Network (now Komli Media) across Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. Huanbo, who leads the company's technical development team, is the NExT centre's Deputy Executive Director and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

CEO Chin says of the launch: 'People are increasingly moving to digital platforms and posting massive amounts of their conversations across numerous sites. By leveraging on 6Estates, businesses that effectively utilise these insights will significantly improve their ROI (return on investment) in marketing campaigns, research initiatives, and customer engagement'.

Web site: www.6estates.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.