Don’t miss the second set of companies who will be gracing the halls and showcasing their work at the Echelon Asia Summit 2019

There are lots of great reasons for you to come to Echelon Asia Summit 2019! With more than 15,000 people attending from over 30 countries, the Echelon Asia Summit brings together a full-range of personalities across the field of tech: from tech enthusiasts, to up-and-coming startup founders, and even to leaders and experts! This makes Echelon Asia Summit 2019 the perfect opportunity for you to brush elbows with potential future partners, investors, colleagues, or other like-minded people who might appreciate your ideas!

More than 120 speakers will also be sharing key insights on emerging trends and disruptive technologies across four key stages, namely: Founder stage, Future stage, Capital stage, and the top 100 stage—where 100 of the most promising startups will be pitching live!

Also read: Check this out: first 23 exhibitors for Echelon Asia Summit 2019—announced!

And finally, one of the key features of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 is how it will showcase some of the most brilliant startup products in the region. With 300 exhibitors that will sprawl all over Singapore Expo, participants can witness firsthand how these companies are changing the world.

So without further ado, here is the first set of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 exhibitors!

 

Sneakest

 

Sneakest is every Sneakerhead’s go-to place for all things sneaker related.

 


Sportlyze Sport & eSport Entertainment

 

Sportlyze Sport & eSport Entertainment is a one stop portal for sports and eSport entertainment.

 

fewStones

 

fewStones enables you to personalise videos that can help improve conversion of your sales funnel.

 

White Labs

 

White Labs product Travelstop is a revolutionary platform aimed at modernising and simplifying business travel

 

FS Capital

 

Funding Societies | Modalku is the largest digital P2P lending platform in Southeast Asia, backed by SoftBank Ventures Asia, Sequoia Capital, Golden Gate Ventures and many more.

 

Doropu pte ltd

 

D
oropu pte ltd provides retail sales via internet

 

Collab Partnership

 

Collab is a AI-powered co-founder matching platform that aims to bring together highly compatible founders in a team.

 

InstaREM

 

InstaREM is an international payments platform that aims at making overseas money transfers cost-efficient for individuals & businesses alike.

 

SOCXO

 

SOCXO Solutions (SOCXO) is a leading Advocacy Platform that enables brands to transform their stakeholders into brand advocates.

 

Chainstack

 

Chainstack is the Ultimate Blockchain Control Panel for Business

 

Where to get tickets for Echelon Asia Summit 2019?

 

Catch this stunning set of companies showcase their brilliant work and more at the Echelon Asia Summit 2019! The event is happening from 23 – 24 May, at Hall 3A, Singapore Expo, 1 Expo Drive, Singapore. We don’t want you and your team to miss out on the important insights that will be shared by our speakers there, so get your Echelon Tickets today!

The post We’re revealing 10 more exhibitors for Echelon Asia Summit 2019! appeared first on e27.

As per iResearch Global, Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace and JD.com controlled 82 per cent of the Chinese e-commerce market last year

Amazon, facing entrenched rivals, says to shut China online store [Reuters]

Amazon.com said it will shut its China online store by July 18, as the US e-commerce giant focuses on the lucrative businesses of selling overseas goods and cloud services in the world’s most populous nation.

The move underscores how entrenched, home-grown e-commerce rivals have made it difficult for Amazon’s marketplace to gain traction in China. Consumer research firm iResearch Global said Alibaba Group’s Tmall marketplace and JD.com controlled 82 per cent of the Chinese e-commerce market last year.

An Amazon spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday that it is notifying sellers that it will no longer operate a marketplace, nor provide seller services on Amazon.cn.

OYO China fires 25 employees for unethical practices and misconduct [The Economic Times]

OYO Jiudian, the Chinese subsidiary of SoftBank-backed hospitality chain OYO Hotels & Homes, has fired 25 employees, and issued warnings to over 100 more, as the Gurgaon-headquartered company sought to crack down on what it has described as “unethical practices”.

In a statement sent out on Wednesday, the hospitality company, which commanded a valuation of US$5 billion in its Series E funding round, said it had also formed an integrity committee to weed out instances of misconduct and unethical practices, while continuing to double down on corporate governance and ensuring compliance across levels.

Australian VC Square Peg Capital leads US$27M in healthcare startup Aidoc [DealStreetAsia]

Israeli artificial intellegence healthcare startup Aidoc has closed a US$27 million Series B led by Australian venture capital firm Square Peg Capital, it said in an announcement on Wednesday.

The latest Series B round brings Aidoc’s total funding to US$40 million.

The fresh capital raised will be used to grow Aidoc’s technology and go-to-market team to support the demand for its products.

Founded in 2016, Aidoc provides imaging solutions for radiologists to enhance their diagnosis by flagging acute anomalies in real-time. Its solutions are currently deployed at over 100 medical centers and has reviewed a total of 1 million patients – the largest number of images analysed by an AI tool, the startup claims.

Videoconferencing company Zoom prices IPO at US$36 per share [CNBC]

Videoconferencing company Zoom priced its IPO at US$36 per share, above of its already-increased range. That values the business at US$9.2 billion.

Zoom, which is slated to start trading on Thursday on the Nasdaq, had originally given a pricing range of US$28 to US$32, but investor demand was so high for the profitable, fast-growing company, that the offering ended up well above that mark. CNBC had reported earlier on Wednesday that the company would price at the top end of the increased range — US$33 to US$35 — and possibly above it.

The post Today’s top tech news, April 18: Amazon to shut China online store; OYO fires 25 staffers for misconduct appeared first on e27.

The Singapore-based fintech works with non-bank financial institutions and liquidity providers to allows its technology assisting on faster and cheaper digital money transfer

KOKU, Singapore-based fintech that focusses on foreign currency exchange, announced that it has raised a US$2 million pre-Series A funding led by Jason Zeng, the co-founder of Tencent Holdings who also founded China-based angel investment company Decent Capital.

The funding will be focussed on KOKU’s product development and regional expansion to neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

With the funding, KOKU said that it will pull its resources to expand and grow FX TechUP Suite. It will offer artificial intelligence technology and machine learning to utilise data for users in the ecosystem.

The immediate plan to execute, the company said, would be improving the technology for non-bank remittance and liquidity providers that it believes will push their business further for the next six months.

KOKU works with non-bank financial institutions including non-bank remittance companies in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, and liquidity providers. KOKU’s technology allows these institutions to have a faster, more affordable, digital remittance for their customers.

Also Read: LINE’s Managing Director for Thailand is stepping down

The company said it will also increase its employees to 30 per cent for the next six months to increase the transaction volume from US$10 million per day to US$30 million.

The World Bank’s recent report showcased that remittance sector in 2019 will grow to 4.2 per cent from US$142 billion value estimation in 2018 in East Asia and Asia Pacific alone. KOKU wants to ride on the opportunity to increase the cross-country transaction, digital money transfer, and the overall financial inclusion.

“We are aware that the non-bank remittance and liquidity provider service is a complex business model that requires hard work. But it will be rewarding if we can provide the same facility to these underserved groups and help them in their operation,” said Calvin Goh, founder and CEO KOKU.

KOKU targets to close the Series A round at US$10 million in its first semester this year.
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Image Credit: KOKU

The post KOKU raises US$2M pre-Series A funding from Tencent’s Jason Zeng appeared first on e27.

Indonesia’s up-and-coming halal certification law means that there are 1.5 million businesses scrambling for a certification in the market

Indonesia is set to implement a new regulation on halal certification for various consumer products, from food to cosmetics to pharmacy, by the end of 2019.

Under this new regulation, businesses in the world’s largest Muslim population are required to undergo a certification process and secure a halal label with a grace period of three years. Failure to comply to this new regulation will result in administrative penalties.

With the up-and-coming regulation, there are 1.5 million businesses in the market scrambling for a halal stamp on their products –and this is the opportunity that Singapore-based blockchain startup WhatsHalal is aiming to seize.

In an interview with e27, the company’s director of business development Muhammad Hadi Bin Rahmad explains the two challenges that businesses and governments are facing in the implementing halal certification:

First, there is the lack of a unifying platform that brings together all the stakeholders in the whole supply chain together, from farmers, manufacturers, merchants, to consumers.

Second, there is also the administrative roadblock. “Every single stakeholder in the supply chain have different process and system. It is also very manual and manpower-driven,” the director says.

Also Read: A blessed opportunity: Your guide in understanding SEA’s rising halal tech industry

In the case of Indonesia and its upcoming halal certification regulation, businesses and government are facing a new and unique challenge.

There are currently 17,000 companies that have been certified halal in the market, and the country needs to increase this number to one to five million within the next five years.

WhatsHalal CEO Azman Ivan Tan elaborates the process that companies had to go through in order to secure a halal certification, and how WhatsHalal platform can help ease this process.

First, businesses need to decide on what kind of certification (by which institution) that they want to use. Then they will need to make sure that all of their ingredients come from halal sources; they will also need to understand the ruling and assurance system.

“Normally, these companies would bring on a consultant. After the audit process, in which they may pass or fail, they would feel the need to go back and see the changes that they have to make [before they can get certified],” he explains.

With WhatsHalal, companies begin their journey in using the platform by choosing the market that they wish to operate in. The platform will show to them if they are able to undergo the audit process by themselves, or if they would need a consultant in doing it.

“If it’s too tedious for you, the system will assign a consultant for you. If you’re happy with the consultant, you pay the fee, and the consultant will take over from there. They will upload the ingredients and the blockchain will assist in verifying whether they are halal to begin with,” Tan says.

Also Read: From halal fashion to food, there is a mushrooming number of Islamic startups in Southeast Asia

The main issue that the company aims to tackle is the uncertainty about a particular food product’s halal status.

“In the past, we tend to take the attitude of ‘everything is halal unless otherwise stated’ but then I realised that [customers] do not have a clear understanding of what is halal or not, as not everything that is manufactured today have full ingredients disclosure. You cannot see where the source is,” Tan stresses.

In addition to the halal certification process, WhatsHalal also provides other services such as on-demand food delivery service.

The startup expands this service through the acquisition of HalalOnClick in 2018.

In the future, it also aims to introduce a halal scanner for end-customers, leveraging on the wealth of data that the startup has acquired and their ability to track a product down to its source.

“The halal certification platform is just the first [of the technology that we are working on]. The second part of the technology is the traceability – it is what set us apart from other companies who are talking about blockchain. We are looking at devices such as IoTs, RFIDs … that we will be putting in places in the supply chain,” Rahmad explains.

Also Read: A Prudential director wants to make Singapore a halal e-commerce hub

“The value of wagyu beef in Japan is that high because of the details available in its certificate,” he adds.

WhatsHalal is currently run by a team of 21 in its offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Jogjakarta.

In Indonesia, it has secured a partnership with Sucofindo, a joint venture between the Indonesian government and SGS, a Geneva-based inspection giant.

Currently internally funded, Tan hints that there are already some external parties expressing their interest in investing in the company.

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Image Credit: WhatsHalal

The post How this startup uses blockchain to simplify the halal certification process appeared first on e27.

Our Sarawak winner was Ravenry, a company that wants to connect researchers and companies needing information

Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! Enter promo code ECHELONFUTURE for free tickets!

When e27 started the TOP100 competition this year, the goal was to find the best young startups Asia has to offer. While this means it is important to visit hubs like Seoul, Bangkok and Jakarta it is equally important to visit the less famous locations.

Startups can come out of anywhere, and one such place is Sarawak, in the Malaysia portion of Borneo. This year’s TOP100 competition proved this statement true as six startups qualified to compete for the overall championship at Echelon Asia Summit 2019.

This year’s winner was Ravenry, a startup that wants to make it easier for regular people to connect with quality researchers.

The pain-point Ravenry is trying to solve is that when an individual or company performs a general search for useful information, it is often inadequate or overly broad. So, the startup wants to become a matching service for the supply and demand side of the industry.

Users send research requests to Ravenry, where the team connects their requests to relevant researchers who provide results within a 48 hour window.

As the winner, Ravenry will be presented with a free booth at e27’s Echelon Asia Summit from May 23-24, 2019. But while they have won the battle, the war is not over. At Echelon, they will be but one of many competitors pitching for over S$100,000 worth of prizes.

Also Read: Listen to these expert speakers at Echelon to know whether blockchain is just a hype or not 

TOP100 is not completely over! We still have one more online pitching competition that will feature startups from places we could not visit this year — including Japan, India and Bangladesh.

The qualifiers

Five other startups have qualified for TOP100 in Singapore!

They qualify for discounted rates for Exhibition booth space in the TOP100 Zone at Echelon Asia Summit 2019 (Offer ends by end of the event day).

Once a qualified startup has purchased the TOP100 booth, they are then also entitled to:

• A Pitching slot on the TOP100 stage on day 1 of Echelon
• Intimate investor meetings and inclusion to Corporate business matching
• 5 Starter Tickets to Echelon Asia Summit
• Access to the TOP100 Tour in Singapore

The qualifiers are as follows:

• Trasso
• Sixteen Resources & Consultancy
• HQ EZFOOD DELIVERY
• E POST WORLDWIDE
• Solaku

See you in Singapore!

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 Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! Enter promo code ECHELONFUTURE for free tickets!

Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash

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