The winner will receive S$50,000 in grants from Enterprise SG, in addition to a Unicorn chalice made by SIEGE

As the two day-long Echelon Asia Summit 2019 draws to a close, the 10 finalists selected from the Top 100 startups in Southeast Asia will pitch for the championship title before an expert panel of judges at 04:00 pm in Singapore today.

The top two winners will receive S$50,000 each in grants from Enterprise SG. The title winner —  TOP100 Champion –will also be awarded with a “Unicorn” chalice made by SIEGE.

Other TOP100 finalists will also receive mini chalices made by SIEGE.

Below is a brief of the 10 startups:

BeamAndGo (Philippines): BeamAndGo caters to needs and solves the remittance pain of overseas Filipino workers. A payment and digital marketplace, the startup empowers migrant workers by giving them control over how their remittances are spent by their families.

DRVR (Thailand): Headquartered in Bangkok, DRVR provides a fleet intelligence platform for the logistics industry. Its fleet intelligence platform helps businesses reduce the cost of operating vehicles. The firm uses telematics that allows devices to send and receive information across large distances to track vehicle performance, driver behaviour, unscheduled stops, etc.

Also Read: Busting the myths around AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud at Echelon 2019

Ecomobi (Singapore): It is a social selling platform, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Ecomobi seeks help e-commerce companies direct sales towards social networks. Its algorithm allows social influencers to monetise their traffic via access to e-commerce inventories and connect with brands instantaneously, optimising both cost-per-acquisition and revenue.

GLife Tech (Singapore): A farm-to-fork platform, GLife connects farmers with restaurants, ensuring that their produces move through the supply chain efficiently.

JupViec (Vietnam): The startup aims to change the traditional domestic workers industry in the country by connecting domestic workers with customers online. It aims to create social impacts by improving the life of Vietnamese women.

Lizuna (Japan): It serves to help e-commerce businesses detect and prevent fraudulent orders via its product Beacon, which combines elements of Big Data and SMS to deliver false information detection, curation of mobile data points and fine-tuning.

H3 Dynamics (Singapore): A digital platform that fully automates and simplifies the use of security and industrial asset inspection drone operations, enabled by cutting-edge AI, robotics and energy storage technologies.

Ravenry (Indonesia): An on-demand desk research platform, Ravenry generates actionable insights for your business within 48 hours by combining human, technology, and data. It works with companies by supporting them in commercial due diligence, market analysis, competitor and technology scanning, and leads generation.

Real Estate Doc (Singapore): It is a next-generation software that aims to revolutionise the managing of commercial real estate leasing businesses. Powered by blockchain, its platform claims to facilitate secure, immutable and legally binding transactions between parties using smart contracts.

Toku World (Singapore): It builds a communication platform that enables businesses to interact with their (potential) customers via audio, text and video messaging APIs across all the available channels, regardless of the technologies or systems that they use.

The post Meet the 10 startups fighting for the championship title at Echelon Asia Summit 2019 appeared first on e27.

Despite challenges, there are plenty of opportunities for insurtech startups in the region, according to Sunday Ins CEO Cindy Kua

Insurtech is one of the most promising branches of fintech, yet in the Southeast Asian region there is an impression that there are not that many companies operating in the sector. This case is especially true when compared to other segments such as e-commerce.

This is why, for those who work on the sector, there are plenty of opportunities to succeed at various level.

Responding to this hypothesis on the first day of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 at Singapore Expo on Thursday, May 23, Cindy Kua, CEO of Thailand-based insurtech startup Sunday Ins stressed that insurance is basically a “very complex” industry.

“The challenge with Southeast Asia is that it is still in very early stage for insurtech,” Kua told e27 Editor Kevin MsSpadden in a fireside chat.

“For founders and startups … the challenge is in how you play in this market. Because the entire value chain can be disrupted,” she continued.

Kua explained that when the co-founders decided to build Sunday, they had to figure out on which aspect of the insurance business they are going to focus on: From implementing artificial intelligence to solve a specific pain point to delving in insurance brokering.

Also Read: 8 tech and startup events happening next week, and even one on Sunday

The ability to differentiate is crucial as even companies such as Grab and Google at some time were looking to become an insurance aggregator.

“When we started in 2017, we decided that we want to be insurer ourselves. Our main differentiation factor is that we are risk experts. We adsorb and manage the risks, and we deploy that in a highly localised market like Southeast Asia,” Kua said.

She further explained that in the region, insurance marketing is still predominantly run by agents and intermediaries.

In the case of Thailand, Kua pointed out that motor insurance remains the most popular type of insurance as it is compulsory for vehicle owners to have one. Its popularity is followed by comprehensive car insurance, which is also required when vehicle owners are applying for financing.

As for competition, in the kingdom there are 16 life insurance companies operating, and Kua did not hesitate to admit that her company is competing with them.

“But there are a lot of rooms for startups and new companies. Because even the incumbents are looking for something new to stay ahead and they are struggling,” Kua said.

Also Read: This is how Indonesians read news online: On their smartphones on Sundays

As an end-to-end insurtech platform, Sunday Ins looks after the sales and after-sales services for various insurance products, from motor to healthcare.

Their products are customisable, and each customer is provided with an app that includes features such as panic button for emergencies. For example, if a car insurance policy holder experiences an accident, by using the panic button, the customer can have a surveyor being dispatched to his location immediately.

In the future, Sunday Ins is looking forward to introduce self-service feature.

In February, the company made headline with a US$10 million funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.

According to Kua, the factor that enabled Sunday to seal the deal was the licence play.

“When you bring a licence into the deal, it started to become more complex. It is the go-to-market strategy that, I believe, has bought them,” Kua stressed.

The post Insurtech startup Sunday Ins reveals the secret to win the Southeast Asian insurance market appeared first on e27.

In a bid to expand its presence in Southeast Asia, WeWork opens the first two locations in Bangkok, Thailand

WeWork, the co-working space network, has landed in Bangkok, Thailand. The first two locations are located at the Asia Centre Building and the T-One Building, as reported by The Bangkok Post.

The Asia Centre location also becomes the home of WeWork Labs, WeWork’s innovation platform, as a part of its Southeast Asia expansion, that also becomes a milestone for WeWork in its mission of supporting the startup ecosystem.

“WeWork is committed to being a partner to help the country achieve its Thailand 4.0 vision by acting as a launch pad. As our footprint grows in Thailand, we see huge potential for serving demand, from MSMEs [micro, small and medium) to Fortune 500 companies looking for an efficient solution for flexible spaces, along with accelerating their business in the local ecosystem empowered by a global network,” said Turochas Fuad, managing director of WeWork Southeast Asia.

Krithpaka Boonfueng, deputy executive director for innovation systems at the National Innovation Agency (NIA), also emphasised on how startups in Thailand need the global and Southeast Asian perspectives to attract investment. “NIA will work with WeWork Labs to stimulate the growth of local startups and is confident that closer partnerships with the private sector will pave the way for strengthening Thailand’s local ecosystem”, she said.

WeWork has 19 locations in Southeast Asia, including in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur.

Also Read: Indonesian “1000 Startups” initiative being renewed by the government

Adrian Tan, head of WeWork Labs Southeast Asia, said Bangkok’s WeWork Labs is the second location in Southeast Asia, demonstrating Thailand’s position as an innovation hub for local and global players. The WeWork Labs space provides early-stage startups with resources to help their business grow.
–

The post WeWork lands in Bangkok, Thailand marking Southeast Asia expansion appeared first on e27.

The Singapore remittance startup strikes partnership with the Thai Banking Group Kasikornbank

Digital remittance company based in Singapore InstaRem has partnered with Thailand’s Kasikornbank, joined in on the initiative to strengthen the company’s influence in the institutional payments space.

The agreement would see the Singapore startup facilitates cross-border payments for the bank’s clients in select markets, as reported by FiNews Asia.

“With InstaRem, KBank clients will be able to have faster turnarounds, while providing certainty on delivery times and payout amounts,” said Prajit Nanu, co-founder, and CEO of InstaRem.

Kasikornbank is Thailand’s second-largest bank in the country in terms of total assets, which currently is at US$96.9 billion.

InstaRem announced the close of its US$41-million Series C funding round back in March. The company claimed that it has since been using the funding to support growth and expansion to new markets, including opening a regional headquarters in Latin America and expanding its teams in London and Seattle.

Also Read: WeWork lands in Bangkok, Thailand marking Southeast Asia expansion

InstaRem already has a presence in 40+ countries in Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe with its service that allows low-cost cross-border payments to 55+ countries.
–

The post InstaRem joins Thai bank to launch multi-currency payment feature appeared first on e27.

Asia is a promising market for major tech companies, but there are factors that they often forget to count in

In May, chat and messaging API and SDK developer SendBird announced that they have raised an additional US$50 million to their US$52 million Series B funding round –bringing the total number to US$102 million.

The number was mind-blowing as it was bigger than what giants such as Uber, Zoom, and Lyft raised in their respective Series B funding round.

However, the average joes and janes might not be familiar with the company’s identity. But once their leading clients such as Go-Jek and Carousell were mentioned, it would be easy to recognise the works that they have done.

“We want to empower our businesses and customers by not getting them distracted by chat building and maintenance … We take care of the entire back to front technology,” SendBird APAC Sales Manager Yeji Yoon explained to e27 Editor Kevin McSpadden on the second day of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 at Singapore Expo, Friday, May 24.

Messaging services itself tend to scale really fast, especially when it is included in a platform that handles millions of users on a regular basis. How does SendBird maintain consistency as it scales rapidly?

Also Read: 15 more companies will join us as exhibitors for Echelon Asia Summit 2019

“We invest in chat technology. We have invested hundreds of million in chat technology, and now we have another millions to invest in it. Today, for example, we process over a billion messages a month in 12,000 apps,” the manager explained.

“Scalability is actually what we specialise in,” she stressed.

SendBird has its root in both America and Asia. While their headquarter is located in San Mateo, California, their APAC headquarter is located in Seoul.

With a total of five offices in the continent, SendBird sees Asia as a promising market.

“Asia is part of our DNA and it is a huge market. Especially since we have empowered so many innovative unicorns out there,” Yeji Yoon said.

Also Read: 2019: A hell of a year for marketers with chat and voice bots

“If you look at GDP growth, population growth, and mobile penetration adoption, it is natural to say that all these huge apps are going to come out of Asia, and that it makes sense to have a SaaS company that targets the Asian market,” she continued.

However, entering Asia is not without its own challenges. Major tech companies such as Uber had tried to tackle the market before, yet somehow unable to navigate the cultural differences between the regions.

This is why SendBird puts a strong emphasis on diversity.

“One of our core values is global citizenship. We were born out of Asia and we are optimised in Asia as much as we optimised globally,” Yeji Yoon explained.

“We embrace diversity and we try to be as local as possible by providing local support. We also build up a culture and investing in it to continuously serve all of our customers,” she added.

Also Read: Inspired by the lack of reproductive health awareness in Myanmar, Myhealthcare allows patients to chat with doctors

In choosing a potential partner or client, SendBird considers how its services can add value for the company’s works itself.

“We do not want to be just another call centre,” she concluded.

The post What SendBird does to scale in Asia –and get it right appeared first on e27.