Undeterred by a slow start, startups in the land of smiles are growing rapidly and increasingly attractive

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Index 2018 (GEI), Thailand is ranked 71st out of 137 countries (65th in 2017) and 15th out of 28 countries in the Asia-Pacific region (12th in 2017).

The GEI measures both the quality of entrepreneurship and the extent and depth of the supporting entrepreneurial ecosystem.

It identifies 14 components that are essential to the health of the entrepreneurial ecosystems:

1. Opportunity Perception
2. Startup Skills
3. Risk Acceptance
4. Networking
5. Cultural Support
6. Opportunity Perception
7. Technology Absorption
8. Human Capital
9. Competition
10. Product Innovation
11. Process Innovation
12. High Growth
13. Internationalization
14. Risk Capital

In 2018, Thailand scored a 27 per cent on GEI, while the United States leads with 84 per cent, Australia has 75 per cent with Singapore at 53 per cent, Malaysia 33 per cent, Vietnam 23 per cent and Cambodia 18 per cent.

Thailand scores best on Human Capital and Product Innovation and is weak on Internationalization and Technology Absorption.

Having relatively strong entrepreneurial people in the ecosystem, Thailand can move up the GEI ranking by improving the quality of the institutions that support entrepreneurship, which is exactly what is happening at the moment.

Entrepreneurship has been high on the government’s agenda, and there have been numerous initiatives to improve the startup ecosystem.

The latest can be seen at the National Innovation Agency (NIA), as it is overhauling its financial support program for startups to accelerate their progress, facilitating access to THB 44 billion (USD 1408450692) in funding from various sources and targeting one to two unicorns in five years.

This strategy aims to build 3,000 innovation-based startups in the next 10 years and the program will train and network with master’s and doctorate students to help build deep tech entrepreneurs.

There is not one single solution to creating a startup ecosystem.

Ecosystems are formed by people, various startups at different stages, and different organizations with different roles and in different locations (be it physical or virtual), all working together as a system to create new startups.

This system is dynamic and evolves with the external and internal factors of each location, entrepreneurial culture and resources available.

At the heart of any startup ecosystem are the ideas, research and innovations.

Also Read: (Exclusive) NEXEA invests in Malaysian startups ParkIt, Plush Services, RunningMan

Talented individuals called entrepreneurs will turn these into startups and take it through various stages, from getting mentored in incubation programs to being funded by investors.

The journey turns ideas into businesses and teams into organizations.

Throughout this journey, many supporting organizations and services are involved.

Higher education institutions are the first supporting organization in this journey. Innovations are often born, and talents usually identified within the university compound.

Once the startup is formed, advisory and mentoring organizations are involved along with incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces.

With the scaling stage comes the investor networks, venture capital companies, crowdfunding portals and other forms of funding providers (loans, grants, etc.). Big companies usually come in at later stages as they help create successful growth companies from the startups.

However, the term successful startup can have different meanings for different people.

Some may think of a successful startup as business unicorns like Facebook or Airbnb, while others have a different definition of what being successful means, like being your own boss or making a positive impact on the world.

One thing for sure though, a successful startup is a company that is sustainable, at least in profit terms.

Large Thai companies have also recently become very active in the startup ecosystem.

Beacon Venture Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank (KBank), has invested US$50 million in Grab for GrabPay service and US$6.5 million in Jitta, a Bangkok based “wealth-tech” startup.

Siam Cement Group (SCG) has embraced open innovation by creating SPRINT accelerator programs that help mentor Thai innovators.

And, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), together with Sasin School of Management, has put together the Sasin Startup Incubator by SET where facilitators are trained, and budding entrepreneurs are put through intensive boot-camps and mentorship programs.

“However, the growth of startups is very limited because they don’t have a global or Southeast Asian perspective, they lack deep technology, and they often cannot access investors nor the market”, said Mr Pun-Arj Chairatana, Executive Director of the NIA.

But that too is about to change.

Also Read: Taking a sabbatical: slowing down to go faster

SCG has again teamed up with Sasin to hold the SCG Bangkok Business Challenge @ Sasin 2019 where teams from top universities around the world bring their innovations with global applications to compete for investments in this three-day event, held at Sasin from February 21 – 23.

Startup ecosystems often take time to develop and mature.

They also require a significant commitment of resources and support from a broad range of organizations and people.

Despite a somewhat sluggish start, Thailand’s startup ecosystem is now rapidly moving beyond the early stages of development and is attracting attention around the region and throughout the world.

There are even indications that with continued support, Thailand has the potential to become a major entrepreneurial hub in Asia.

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SeedPlus leads the funding round for BlockPunk, which aims to make anime merchandise more accessible to fans

Singapore-based anime tech startup BlockPunk today announced a S$1.3 million (US$957,000) seed funding round led by seed-stage venture firm SeedPlus.

The round was joined by SGInnovate, Hustle Fund, Entrepreneur First and Japanese printing giant Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd with whom the startup has a strategic partnership.

In a press statement, the startup said that the funds will be used to expand its engineering team and develop product.

BlockPunk is a platform that enables creators to turn their digital artwork into “scarce” collectible merchandise.

The platform uses blockchain to create proof of authenticity and a new source of income for creators.

Also Read: This blockchain startup empowers creators to fund, merchandise and stream their content directly to fans

It was founded with the mission to make anime merchandises more accessible to global fans.

“Anime merchandise supply is broken. Fans want to consume merchandise globally as soon as the anime is streamed online but merchandise is rarely available due to fragmentation and supply chain issues. Unlicensed products have become the norm to match this demand. Our solution allows any creator to instantly create official collectible merchandise that is available worldwide,” said BlockPunk co-founder Julian Lai-Hung.

“With our strategic partnership with Dai Nippon Printing, a US$14 billion revenue world leader in printing technologies, we will extend our technology to physical merchandise in addition to digital,” he continued.

Co-Founders Julian Lai-Hung was the former head of anime at Netflix while Jatin Shah has a Yale PhD in computer science and was a product manager at LinkedIn.

By far, content creators such as Ishimori Pro (Cyborg009), Kazuto Nakazawa (Kill Bill, B the Beginning) and Zunda Horizon (Tohoku Zunko) are already live in the platform with more in the pipeline.

Also Read: Singapore’s video-based social media platform Bigo raises US$272M led by China’s YY

SeedPlus Managing Partner Michael Smith said that the firm is interested in investing in BlockPunk as it enables “new level of transparency” as well as “efficiency in protecting creator and owner IP rights.”

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Image Credit: BlockPunk

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Investors are bullish on the industry, but some important factors act as counterweights

The worst kept secret in Singapore ahead of yesterday’s Budget 2019 announcement was the plan to focus heavily on healthcare — specifically support for the Merdeka Generation, a term used to describe the people who lived through the island’s independence.

To highlight the priority, after a brief announcement of a bicentennial fund, Singapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat jumped into various initiatives aimed at helping the elderly better afford healthcare in their later years.

With aggressive government focus, it is reasonable to expect a bumper year for the medtech industry.

The difference between now and 2015, when people were pointing to the healthcare sector as a giant startup opportunity, are underlying statistics that suggest the medtech sector is gaining momentum.

According to e27 data, 13 health-tech companies raised funding in 2018, the fourth-highest amount of deals in the country.

If we consider the government priority, plus the natural momentum of the industry, it beg’s the question if medtech is set to enjoy a hype cycle similar to e-commerce years ago, fintech after that and, more recently, blockchain.

After speaking to investors and startups, the answer is, “yes, but…”

According to Albert Shyy, a Principal at Burda Principal Investments, most of the VCs he speaks with have put medtech on their watchlist because of the potential for mobile phones to disrupt the value chain.

However, there is a ‘but’.

“I think the main forces that could work against it are that healthcare may have a slower ramp-up due to higher regulatory concerns, so I am not sure if the acceleration will be as steep as e-commerce/fintech were (especially in moving from seed to Series A and beyond),” he said in an email.

When fintech was exploding in 2016, it was very common to walk into finance-industry events and listen to smart people argue vociferously for deregulation. In healthtech, nobody really makes that argument.

If deregulation in finance results in a few people getting burned financially, that is bad, but at the end of the day it is just money. If deregulation in medicine results in deaths, that is an entirely different conversation.

This is coupled with the fact that medtech companies are typically more expensive to run than an e-wallet, so startups are at further risk of running out of cash while their product navigates bureaucracy.

That being said, governments across the world are opening options for experimentation in medtech. Singapore has a medicine-focussed sandbox and the US Food and Drug Administration has launched a programme to help startups get approval from insurance companies.

But this being said, investors are still bullish on the industry’s future. No, it may not “pop” like blockchain, but it is widely anticipated to grow, and one reason is advancements in artificial intelligence.

According to Will Klippgen, a Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital, the growth of artificial intelligence has made starting a medtech company cheaper. This has helped entrepreneurs sidestep hospitals to get the MVP off the ground.

“More machine learning talent is available, both in Singapore and across the world along with better algorithms as well as better tools for scaling up AI software,” he said.

Today, the Cocoon announced a US$1 million investment into See-Mode, a startup that uses AI to help predict strokes.

Also Read: (Exclusive) NEXEA invests in Malaysian startups ParkIt, Plush Services, RunningMan

The most important part of any business is its customers. It is easy to complain about regulations, or the ability to get financing, but it is irrelevant if nobody is buying the product.

For WhiteCoat, a company that allows people to perform check-ups via their phone and order medicine-for-delivery, a lot of the traditional barriers are starting to fall.

“I think Singaporeans are well educated and mobile phone penetration rate is high. Therefore they get a lot of information online. But they need a professional to help them. For older groups, [our product] is a big bonus because doctor consultations are a logistics exercise,” said Dr. Yii Heng Seng, the Chairman WhiteCoat Global. 

People trust doing business on their phones and for some in Singapore the convenience of performing checkups at home outweighs the benefits of trekking to the doctor for a face-to-face consultation.

Dr. Yii acknowledged that WhiteCoat is entering uncharted territory without guidelines or protocols.

This means, and these are my words not his, it will be more useful to look at consumer adoption in a year or two.

Also Read: Shake up your tech startup by joining Echelon Roadshow 2019 Phnom Penh

There are a couple of other weights dragging down explosive growth in medtech. They are as follows:

Southeast Asia is not a medtech hub: There are two Southeast Asian countries that see significant innovation in medtech, Thailand and Singapore. After that, there is not a lot of interest in the industry. According to an Indonesian investor, the region’s largest country will not be seeing a medtech boom in the near future.

Data hacks are a real problem:  If we focus on Singapore, two of the biggest controversies in the past year have involved personal medical data being hacked or leaked. Over the summer, the National University Hospital was hacked in an incident that affected 1.5 million people. Currently, the government is dealing with the fallout from a leak that revealed the HIV-positive status of over 14,000 people.

These incidents have severely harmed public trust in online security and the willingness to pass over sensitive information to the medtech industry.

After Singapore Budget 2019, it is clear that medtech will be a major theme for the remainder of the year. It may not experience a hype-cycle at the same level of blockchain, but the industry should experience solid and stable growth over the next 12 months.

So is medtech ready to explode?

Yes, but…

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Photo by John Jackson on Unsplash

 

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Big names, small origins

With the heightened negativity associated with cryptocurrencies, many would assume that blockchain, the accompanying technology is dead.

But on the contrary, blockchain as a technology is very much alive and applicable as a deep tech layer that would significantly impact the way we operate.

In fact, a number of blockchain projects exist right here in Singapore.

So what are these blockchain projects about?

TRIVE’s team that runs Tribe, Singapore’s first government-backed blockchain accelerator, investigates and tell us more.

Automotive – MVL

The automotive industry faces multi-faceted issues.

Examples are cab drivers with discourteous service, unreliable service by mechanic shops, a lack of consistency and transparency on used-cars by dealers, and accidents caused by reckless driving.

Current solutions are unable to address these individual issues effectively, let alone solving them as a whole.

To further compound the issue, the lack of transparency often leads to an increase in prices customer has to pay for.

MVL Chain was born based on these issues. It is a vehicle data collecting ecosystem based on blockchain technology which aims to resolve these issues.

It is an ecosystem that connects all services, like the car dealer shops, mechanic shops and car rental companies, touchpoints that your car engages in its lifetime.

These participants will insert core data related to driving, traffic accidents, repairs and other car-related transactions into the blockchain.

With this ecosystem, records of all activities relating to a particular vehicle for the entire duration of its lifetime can be maintained.

It can also be ensured that such records are kept free from corruption. Only the owner will have the authority over his or her data stored on the decentralized blockchain.

Previously, a limited number of centralized services monopolized data, but now the power of who owns the information is distributed evenly to the people.

Various participants in the vehicle market can continue to add trustworthy data and be connected in one ecosystem.

User Data – Indorse

In order to generate revenue, social networks sell user-generated content and information to providers, advertisers and recruiters.

This leads to a loss of user privacy.

Furthermore, users do not get any revenue-sharing for the information they produce.

Indorse seeks to address this issue and wants to use the blockchain’s decentralised network to allow people to regain control of their data.

Plus, the nature of the distributed ledger means Indorse users would enjoy significantly more privacy within the ecosystem than the current model for social networks.

The startup is a skills-based professional network platform using new models of tokenization and decentralisation to change the shape of professional social networking — letting the users own and earn from their data.

The solution replaces the current way social networks operate.

It is a decentralised one that places ownership of information back in the hands of the members.

They have control of their own profile with themselves and they get to choose how their data is used by the Social network.

It also allows members an easy way to earn rewards for the activities that benefit them.

With participation in the network, members can earn Indorse Rewards for sharing more about themselves and for endorsing the claims of others.

Indorse is co-founded by David Moskowitz and Gaurang Torvekar, known figures in the Blockchain Industry Association.

Food – Whatshalal

Always wondering whether food consumed is Halal in origin, or to discover new sources of Halal eateries?

This is a major pain point in the world’s Muslim population, especially when travelling to overseas destinations where Halal food is hard to find and not certified.

To address this, WhatsHalal aims to be the definitive guide and provider of unquestionably Halal Thoyiban food to the Muslim community.

The creation of a Halal ecosystem seeks to reduce, even eliminate, doubt of the “Halal-ness” of the food you consume, in fast-changing times where information may not be substantially available or easily sourced.

The startup wants to strengthen the Halal integrity of certificates by ensuring each stage in the life cycle of a food item or product can be established with certainty the conditions that the item was produced.

Integrating Halal traceability in the food chain is greatly improved by Blockchain technology.

This ensures that the movements of an ingredient or product can be tracked even as it changes hands.

Enterprise customers who wish to go Halal simply need to initiate the application on the blockchain platform and several smart contracts will determine the assurance process, working in collaboration with consultants, labs and certification bodies.

Locally, consumers can order products from Halal-certified merchants and send orders on demand.

The consumer app is also touted to verify the Halal validity of products by scanning its barcode, perfect for travelling in non-Muslim countries.

Gaming – Enjin

Gaming is one large worldwide community and Singapore-based Enjin validates that.

It is one of the largest gaming community platforms that support over 250,000 gaming communities and around 20 million registered gamers.

Internet users, gamers and developers demand fast and effective user interfaces that not only appeal to the human eye but also make operations efficient.

This is coupled with the need for a trustworthy platform that keeps their data and intellectual property safe.

As an all-in-one website platform, Enjin can help build websites, forums, voice servers, donation stores among others. It applies blockchain technology on some of its products.

EnjinX is a web-based universal blockchain explorer, built with a focus on user experience, speed and ease of use.

Efinity is Enjin’s solution to the scaling problems in the Ethereum blockchain. It supports various Ethereum tokens and provides end-to-end e-commerce solutions.

Also Read: Singapore-based anime startup BlockPunk raises US$957K seed funding round

The Enjin team comprises of technology and crypto coin enthusiasts with Maxim Blagov and Witek Radomski as the founders of the company. They bring decades of experience in the field of gaming technology, game development and security.

Digital currency backed by gold – Digix

Much of the criticism levelled against cryptocurrencies is due to their price volatility.

It is critical that a digital currency is stable, especially when used as a transactional medium.

Digix makes a digital currency possible to buy gold in an efficient manner via cryptocurrency by providing investors with a tokenized version of gold so you don’t have to physically own or store it.

The company proudly gets 99.99 per cent of its gold from LBMA-approved refiners, with zero per cent from fractional reserves, delivering confidence.

With Digix, investors can take advantage of the stability and value of gold as well as the ease of using cryptocurrency, much similar to that of a fiat currency.

Digix differs itself from other existing investment options by issuing the allocated bullion immediately from a point of digital purpose.

This makes client ownership the priority, instead of the company as a whole. Gold bullion is traditionally challenging to use and trade. Digix overcomes the liquidity by converting gold to a digital currency.

Tokenization of assets – Rate3

The Initial Coin Offering space is a little dicey, to say the least.

There is a real deficit of accountability in the space because of a lack of regulation for utility tokens.

In the same breath, traditional financial transactions are expensive because of all the fees associated with the middlemen like bankers.

Rate3 aims to address the lack of credibility of tokens and overcoming the weaknesses of traditional financial transactions.

It is an end-to-end protocol for tokenization of assets (or security tokens) across both the Stellar and Ethereum networks and a protocol to create and manage a unified cross-chain identity.

Also Read: AI, big data company AiSensum receives seed funding from 500 Startups

Rate3 wants to be the bridge between enterprises today and the tokenized world.

They believe that assets can be tokenized in a legally-compliant, interoperable and scalable way, so they will become widely liquid, usable, tradable and accepted for as cases as possible.

Scalable database service for dApps – Bluzelle

The rapid growth of blockchain technologies is transforming the way data is exchanged via the use of decentralized applications, or dApps for short.

These dApps continuously exchange massive amounts of data that must be stored and managed. However, the current blockchain platforms in existence like Ethereum are unable to store and manage this data due to lack of space.

To fulfil the need for data storage and management, Bluzelle has created a decentralized, on-demand, scalable database service for dApps.

Without a decentralized database like Bluzelle in place, dApps would not be able to run efficiently and scale to massive use.

At its core, Bluzelle’s ecosystem connects consumers wishing to rent out database space to providers with additional computing resources to offer this storage.

Using this data storage, dApp and application developers alike can optimize their products by accessing reliable data when necessary and storing their data on a secure platform.

Providers can, in turn, be compensated for providing this storage.

Bluzelle has the potential to play a pivotal role in the blockchain infrastructure landscape. The company’s decentralized database services have the potential to fulfil a significant need for the advancement of blockchain technologies in enterprise use-cases.

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This is part of the “VC on Blockchain” series, where I dwell into the blockchain industry. Ethical disclaimer: Tribe Accelerator is a unit of TRIVE, which is a Singapore government-backed blockchain accelerator. Applications for the first cohort are open.

Image Credits: leungchopan

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The announcement also kickstarts the pre-incubation period for 36 local online media in Indonesia

kumparan, an online media startup based in Surabaya, announced today that it has commenced the pre-incubation stage of 36 selected local online media across Indonesia. All 36 local online media will be available to access on kumparan’s platform starting today, Tuesday, February 19.

Also Read: Marketing tech startup SilverPush secures US$5M Series B funding

The launch itself has been a part of a long-standing program by Kumparan called 1001 Start Up Media Online that aims to help setting up and maintaining online media across the country.

kumparan said that it received over 1700 proposals from online media across Indonesia in 2018. 25 of the proposals were selected and these online media were brought to Jakarta last month to get training in journalism, content management, social media, commercial strategy, and company management alongside other 11 online media that have joined kumparan prior to the program.

Training was handled by kumparan’s internal team in partnership with Google News Initiative and with Ipang Wahid and Putu Aditya from Aliansi Jurnalis Indonesia (AJI) or Indonesian Journalists Alliance.

The official statement from kumparan said that the company also invest in the selected media in a form of seed funding, working asset, and mentorship.

“Our vision is to build Indonesia through helping digital business grows in other cities across Indonesia,” said kumparan’s Editor in Chief Arifin Asydhad.

Also Read: (Exclusive) NEXEA invests in Malaysian startups ParkIt, Plush Services, RunningMan

Not only supporting local online media and its business but the program also strategically will help kumparan to put forward local contents from the area where the selected online media are based, considering all 36 media are based in each and every 34 provinces of Indonesia.
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