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Hospitality startup Butler raises US$540K seed round

Singapore-based Butler called this round of funding a “customer round” as the majority of the money came from Butler’s own customers

Butler, a Singapore-based hospitality and real estate management service startup, has closed a US$540,000 seed funding.  Investors included businessman Massimo Mantero, Emanuele Novi, and Vincenzo De Falco, who invested in their own capacity.

The names mentioned are also the company’s own customers, as noted by Poon Da Qian, CEO and founder of Butler.

The company said that the funding will be used to scale up, providing professional services to Singapore’s apartment residents, office managers, and property managers. Butler will also use the new capital to recruit talents in Singapore.

Butler was founded in 2016 and has built an all-in-one platform for hospitality, real estate management, and services for homes, offices and commercial buildings.

The company currently helps apartment residents, office managers, and property managers by providing an all-in-one professional management service for their properties (Aka a “butler” as per the namesake). Services include housekeeping, concierge, property management, property maintenance services, and more.

Butler’s service allows customers to have a single professional vendor and point of contact for managing all their properties’ needs for what normally ranges between five to ten different service vendors.

Also Read: Grab Ventures launches Singapore subscription plan for its scooters

Butler prides itself in providing training as its top priority for the company with the establishment of Butler Academy, the in-house training program for housekeepers. Upon completion of the four month training programme, graduates receive market leading salary and welfare benefits.

The program, the company said, has played a role in improving the working standards and allowing workers to have confidence in the people they hire.

Butler said it’s currently servicing more than 200 apartment residents, office managers, and property managers.

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Bang for your buck: Get these 6 extras with your Premier Ticket to Echelon Asia Summit 2019

Navigate your way through the cool benefits you can get from your Premier Tickets

Echelon Asia Summit is all about bringing Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem together for two whole days of learning, discovery, sharing, and connecting. We all have our different goals in coming to Echelon. Some startups might be looking for talent to hire, investors to pitch to, or partners to do business with. Whoever you may be in this spectrum, Echelon has something for you.

But while we welcome everyone in the community to join, a select few will be getting deeper access to more content, more people, more places, and more stuff. If you registered for an Echelon Premier ticket, then this means you. If not, you might be missing out on access reserved for Premier ticket holders.

What might you be missing? Read on. Here’s what Premier Tickets will get you:

1. Conference R&R Zone, care of WeWork

Echelon is not all work but no play. Your Premier ticket gets you access to the Conference R&R Zone, in which WeWork provides wellness facilities, productivity-related fireside chats, and a whole 96 sqm space dedicated to R&R. This includes free coffee, beer, head and shoulder massages, smart vending machines, and gaming consoles. The fireside chats will focus on growth and scale, and the shift from corporate to startup life.

2. Access to Echelon Connect

We understand that a lot of you will be going to Echelon to rub elbows with fellow founders and possibly get the chance to connect and pitch to investors. Echelon Connect lets you waste no time, by facilitating business matching among the community. The goal is to cut down on leaving meetings to chance. With Echelon Connect, you can reach out to people you intend to meet for meaningful one-on-one meetings. More than just “speed dating” for startups, it is meant hopefully to build lasting relationships.

3. Food and Beverages

Cryowerx is providing two smart fridges, which will give Premier Ticket holders access to sandwiches and drinks. You won’t have to worry about getting hungry and dehydrated whilst listening to all the interesting talks and meeting interesting people at Echelon. You also get one free beverage at the Echelon Afterparty.

Also read: 4 exciting reasons why you should get the Echelon Asia Summit 2019 Premium ticket

4. Virtual Swag Bag

You get S$50 worth of General Assembly vouchers, video interviews with Asia Tech Podcast, a 6-month Mindfi premium membership, 6-month Delegate premium membership, WeWork stickers, Delegate stickers, and Coinhako webcam covers. In total, the virtual swag bag gets you at least $500 worth.

5. Access to Workshops

Your Premier Ticket gets you access to Corporate Venture Capital workshops run by Startupbootcamp and Rainmaking Innovation.

6. Express Access to Registration

Premier Ticket holders get exclusive access to your own registration lane at Echelon Asia Summit 2019. You won’t have to stand in line competing with the thousands of other attendees coming with Starter tickets.

We’re working on getting more benefits for attendees with Premier Tickets, so stand by. Being at Echelon is great in itself, but we think you’ll be getting more bang for your buck when you get Premier Tickets.

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Get your tickets to Echelon Asia Summit 2019 today. Use E27-ANGELO as promo code to get free Starter Tickets.

Photo: Unsplash

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16 more Exhibitors to WOW you at Echelon Asia Summit 2019


We’re featuring a diverse array of startups at Echelon Asia Summit 2019 and they’re here to WOW you!

Echelon Asia Summit 2019 Exhibitors

There are lots of great reasons for you to come to Echelon Asia Summit 2019! With more than 12,000 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: 15 more companies will join us as exhibitors for Echelon Asia Summit 2019

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 fifth set of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 exhibitors!

 

ADB Ventures

 

ADB is a development finance institution committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable region while eradicating extreme poverty.

 

BARP

 

BARP is a photo print online service that offers easy photo printing with less effort, where customers do not have to go out to print best quality photos.

 

Prime Respi

 

Prime Respi delivers value-based patient-centric innovations to address unmet clinical needs in respiratory care.

 

Nodis Corp

 

Nodis’ TruTint smart glass technology transforms windows, giving people the ability to change the tint, color and temperature characteristics of windows instantly.

 

Glee Trees

 

Glee Trees Pte. Ltd. is a technology vendor and innovator specialising in cognitive automation (Robotic Process Automation with Artificial Intelligence).

 

Neurobit Technologies

 

Neurobit is a sleep data analytics service. They provide clinical grade sleep data analytics as a service to the full spectrum of sleep measurement devices, from in-lab sleep studies to consumer wearables.

 

Pitchspot

 

Pitchspot is an open-sourced, community driven innovation platform for innovators to validate ideas using the Business Model Canvas.

 

Thesocialdataco

 

Thesocialdataco uses the ability to provide connectivity to create better travel experience for business and social travelers.

 

Beam and Go

 

Beam and Go is a payment and digital marketplace that empowers migrant workers by giving them control over how their remittances are spent by their families.

 

Unscrambl

 

Unscrambl provides 
AI-powered digital employees for the enterprise through next-gen real-time continuous intelligence & conversational analytics.

 

Innovo42 Pte Ltd

 

Innovo42 is a Singapore-based technology company which designs and builds process automation solutions for businesses.

 

Axinan Pte Ltd

 

Axinan is a leading Insurtech company based out of Singapore.

 

Dealxpert Pte Ltd

 

Dealxpert offers innovative and effective B2B sales enablement and performance solutions to sell smarter and win faster.

 

SimpleJobs Pte Ltd

 

SimpleJobs is a platform that helps hirers engage part timers for short term ad hoc jobs quickly and reliably.

 

Snaphunt Pte Ltd

 

Snaphunt is an intelligent hiring platform that finds and proposes targeted talent to employers for their open roles.

 

Hire Robin

 

Hire Robin provides the most dependable and fastest reference checks on candidates.

 

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!

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8 podcasts that every entrepreneur should listen to

Podcasts are starting to blow up in startup world. Here are 8 good ones to check out

Entrepreneurs are always on the hunt to learn something new and interesting. Be it about entrepreneurship, finding life inspirations or motivations. The idea is to surround oneself with content that helps you stay focused and positive towards your approach.

And being an entrepreneur myself, I find it quite hard to follow online reading materials on a regular basis. That is why podcasts are the best when it comes to instant updates and motivation.

Here’s a list of 8 podcasts that I’d highly recommend following on a regular basis.

The Growth Show by HubSpot

This is a weekly podcast where Hubspot’s CMO, Kipp Bodner, interviews leading personnel from growing companies, movement idea and sometimes even a team.

What makes this to my list is how remarkable growth stories are dissected into bite-sized pieces of inspirational hearing. It offers a plethora of advice that startup founders may find very useful. The episodes are tight and focussed interviews.

This one is highly recommended to someone who is inclined towards digital marketing. What works for me is that the interviewees come from a rather diverse group of companies – large and small, including tech and non-tech.

eChai Ventures

This highly interactive podcast resonates with vibrancy – a group of entrepreneurs discuss the burning issues in the startup industry and offers a solution to it. It thrives on the startup scenario across India with even offline events taking place at different locations. It offers a rich source of first-hand information, sourced from entrepreneurs for startup enthusiasts.

You will find discussions ranging from how to register a company online to successfully running it and achieving business goals. More than just the podcast, it is a great startup network that can help you link to potential investors as well within the local community.

Lewis Howes

Though this has been around since 2013, I have been an ardent fan of the School of Greatness for the past couple of years. This is also one of the fast-growing business and self-development podcasts on iTunes. It also consistently appears in the Top 50 iTunes podcasts with downloads of over 2 million per month.

The Episodes will have interviews from famous personalities from various fields. Be it entrepreneurship, sports, and health and lifestyle. They have a solo round with the host Lewis Howes along with the once a week listener’s favourite – 5 Minute Friday format.

The guests have to be brutally honest and this includes people like Alanis Morissette, Tony Robbins, Julianne Hough, Scooter Braun, Jack Canfield, and even Arianna Huffington.

The Minimalists

The podcast that is most different! This one goes beyond the usual clichés of success, failure and business jargon.

Minimalists are all about downsizing your life – from unnecessary stuff, including relations that do not add value to your life. The philosophy of ‘less is more’ is discussed broadly by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus.

For entrepreneurs, this is a very useful podcast that has various guests, including includes famous bloggers and authors. Their recent podcast ‘Millionaires’ has one amazing statement coming from Joshua –

“Don’t try to make money — try instead to make something that adds so much value that people want to pay for it.”

This says it all!

This Week in Startups

Invest in listening to this podcast even before you start a new business or even if you are running one. The host Jason understands Startups pretty well because there is no sugar coating involved when he speaks about them.

The information is highly original and when the guest speaks – coming straight out of horse’s mouth, so to say! This one is about real problems of real entrepreneurs and the way they overcome it.

The best is the way how he touches upon the problems faced by entrepreneurs with such clarity.

Entrepreneurs on Fire

The key value that this podcast holds for me is that things are transparent and honest over here.

This includes inspiring entrepreneurs speaking of their monthly income and how they handle their finances as well. The core idea that runs through the show is to emulate successes and avoid failures. It’s a must-listen podcast for those seeking to learn the art of making the right choices in business during its early days and have a knack of learning from others’ mistakes.

The Entrepreneurs on Fire dwells on the idea of giving budding entrepreneurs the inspiration and strategies required to boost their entrepreneurial journey.

The MFCEO

The MFCEO Project was started by Andy Frisella- an entrepreneur and an innovator, for motivating the listeners to succeed not only in business but also life in general.

This one always features on the top-10 lists of iTunes Podcast in the niche of marketing and management category. Honesty is central to this podcast as he calls it a “no BS” podcast that has guest entrepreneurs coming over to share their business insights.

They share their success and failure stories alike and talk about putting passion to work. Plus, they don’t use sponsors, allowing a smooth flow of the podcast with literally no hiccups.

Impact Theories

Again, a podcast with some interviews involved. The Impact Theory offers deep insights on doing business and cultivating a mindset that helps you transform your overall habits as well.

This inspiring podcast is hosted by Tom Bilyeu who himself is a serial entrepreneur a co-founder at one of the Inc. 500 company – Quest Nutrition.

He also hosted a successful Youtube –Inside Quest having above 100 million views. He himself is quite eager to learn a thing or two from the guests and shares instant insights for the listeners. The inputs are something that you can put to work immediately.

If you too share the love for podcasts, do mention which ones do you follow and why? I’ll be glad to add a few more to my lists of favourites.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

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Having raised US$80M in total funding, GoBear aims to foster new partnerships

GoBear CEO Adrian Chng explained why they only decided to publicly announce their funding now

GoBear.CEO.Adrian.Chng.Photo

GoBear CEO Adrian Chng

Despite operating in major Southeast Asian markets and Hong Kong, financial supermarket platform GoBear has never publicly announced their funding rounds.

But today the company announced that it has raised US$80 million in total funding from investors such as Dutch venture capital fund Walvis Participaties and financial services organisation Aegon N.V.

In a phone interview with e27, GoBear CEO Adrian Chng explained why they only decided to publicly announce their funding now.

Founded in 2015, the company aimed to improve financial health in Asia by creating a platform to help customers find finance products, particularly lending and insurance.

In addition to supporting this mission, the funding will also be used to foster new partnerships with banks and other financial institutions.

“We want to convince our potential partners that we do have strong financial backing,” Chng said. “… That we are indeed the ‘big bear’.”

Also Read: How Singapore helped a GoBear software developer become MacGyver

The startup is also looking to invest in Asia-based companies that offer technologies in personal financial management, alternative credit scoring, financial education, and investment platforms.

It will also invest in talent acquisitions as well as product and technology developments.

Based in Singapore, GoBear operates in six Southeast Asian countries –Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia– and Hong Kong.

The startup claims to serve 40 million users with 1,800 consumer financial products across the market.

It names leading financial institutions such as Allianz Worldwide Partners, Citibank, FWD and Standard Chartered Bank as its partners.

Chng explains that unlike more mature markets such as Europe, Asian countries such as Indonesia are facing a unique challenge that require a different kind of solution.

For Europe, fintech services such as financial product comparison site thrive as there is already a strong demand for that.

Also Read: Financial products comparison platform GoBear names Adrian Chng new CEO; to expand to Indonesia

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the level of financial literacy is not even that high yet, as reflected in its fewer than three per cent credit card penetration rate.

“We can even say there is no enough [available financial products] to compare,” he says.

Despite the different starting point, nowadays consumers in the emerging and mature markets have the same high level of expectations of fintech companies.

For the year 2019, in addition to work with existing partners and acquiring new ones, GoBear aims further develop its current services: digital lending and insurance brokering.

While the company is currently focussing on these two services, in the long run, it aims to become a “trusted” financial advisor platform.

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