BlueChilli has helped build over 130 companies across the world, so they are no rookies

The comment came out of nowhere. It had no context and was completely unrelated to the events happening around him.

“BlueChilli would be a good name for a business.”

And with that, the father-in-law of Sebastian Eckersley-Maslin returned to his previous task.

Fast forward to 2019 and BlueChilli has grown into a successful venture builder out of Australia. It boasts over 130 startups in its portfolio and three exits, including the IPO of GetSwift, a delivery company.

This week, the company marked its official foray into Singapore with the launch of its brand new programme called the BlueChilli HealthTech Accelerator.

The program, which opened for applications on May 28, will host 15 startups. The selection process is a little different from typical accelerators whereby companies will be put through a “bootcamp-lite” in an effort to see if the partnership is a good fit.

If the companies move to the second stage, the startup will receive a cash injection in exchange a 10 per cent equity stake. Should the startup make it through the program, the early-stage investor Anthill Ventures has committed to investing up to S$1 million (US$725,000) into selected startups.

A core focus of the accelerator is to help very young startups find their product-market fit.

“Product-market fit is a function of both building the wrong product but also about the market being able to find the market they want to solve the problem for,” said Eckersley-Maslin.

“So how do we bring the market into the decision room when we are making [the product]?”

Also Read: Retail-targeted image recognition startup Trax close to being next Singapore unicorn

Eckersley-Maslin promises to help startups build the correct product that gets them their first customers, which theoretically allows them to raise their first seed funding, hire more staff and eventually begin to scale the company.

Besides helping build an MVP, startups can expect BlueChilli to develop partnerships, create a pathway towards investment and provide advice about building their first team.

One example highlighted by Eckersley-Maslin is called TalkiPlay (although it participated in the female-focussed accelerator, not the healthtech version). TalkiPlay uses a an IoT device and various NFC-capable stickers around the house to help children improve their vocabulary.

BlueChilli helped take the company through product development, MVP-testing and partnerships. The company recently raised AU$750,000 (US$520,000) to finance the next steps in its journey.

The first half of the healthtech programme (which will take place between September 14 and March 5), is focussed on product development and market validation. The second half will be about growth and investment readiness.

The accelerator accepts startups from basically the entire healthtech industry, but it wants to find companies that “appreciate the context of Southeast Asia.”

BlueChilli is tapping into healthtech because it sees both a need to disrupt, but also an opportunity in a growing sector.

“Obviousy the region has a lot of promise but it’s also quite early stage in its development. So we think it’s the right time for BlueChilli to come in,” said Seow Hui Hong.

Also Read: tryb Group invests in Indonesian proptech startup Gradana

Seow also brought up pull factors like skyrocketing investment growth. Southeast Asian healthtech investment nearly tripled from US$33 million in 2016 to US$114 million in 2018, according to Galen Growth Asia,

Other pull factors are  the fact that Southeast Asia is a mobile-first region, citizens proactively seek solutions and government regulatory bodies are open minded towards finding solutions.

Furthermore, the barrier to entry is lower thanks to technology factors like increased computing power, less expensive sensors and the proliferation of data.

BlueChilli was launched in 2012 with dual headquarters in Singapore (just opened) and Australia. It has a presence in the US, Indonesia and New Zealand. Startups in its portfolio have raised over US$170 million.

—

The post Understand the context of Southeast Asia: BlueChilli wants to buoy healthtech startups appeared first on e27.

Trax can do much more for the country that helped established its foundations

It was all over the headlines when Trax announced it became Singapore’s next unicorn. I, however, was not enthused.

As a pro-Singapore evangelist, I should have celebrated as it shows Singapore is becoming the hotbed of big valuation companies, but as I dug deeper into the news, I wondered whether it would have any big impact to the Singapore economy; jobs for Singaporeans and more prosperity for its people.

Upside for Singapore

The Trax founders, who hail from Israel, spoke about their destiny in meeting in Singapore in 2010 and deciding to choose Singapore as their headquarters, which houses their four co-founders and a few senior managers. In the next 18-24 months, they plan to do a public listing: first a listing in New York, followed by a dual listing as offered by SGX.

This is a good recovery for Singapore’s SGX, given that it failed to get Singapore-connected unicorns Razer and Sea (formerly Garena) to even dual list on its board.

But beyond that, I fail to see any further upside. Granted, GIC (one of Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds) has invested in the company and may possibly reap good returns should the company soar further. But beyond that, I hear no further economic benefits to Singapore, maybe taxes. But in a world of efficient tax structures and Trax having subsidiaries in China and possibly in Europe, one might say the Singapore headquarters might not be getting much of that pie.

Other tech groups have doubled down in Singapore, why not Trax?

Let’s take Grab, Singapore’s first decacorn. Formerly from Malaysia, Grab is grateful for Singapore’s help through its actions. Grab’s commitment to a US$132 million spanking new Singapore headquarters in One-North (Singapore’s Silicon Valley) and to house 3000 employees is a significant testament.

Google launched its Singapore headquarters, which houses 1,000 employees in 2016, including a number of undisclosed engineers. When one visits Google Singapore, you can clearly see the company’s commitment through the investments it has put in. As shared by Caesar Sengupta, one of Google Singapore’s vice-presidents and a Singaporean since 2006, he explained that the nation is a good place for “long-term bets”.

A source from Google, who did not wish to be named, shared that Google has brought in global product and engineering projects, rather than only using Singapore as an international sales office. This further underscores how Singapore can be a great startup hub for talent.

Stripe declared that its Singapore operations will be the Asia-Pacific engineering hub and will include all of the core Stripe functions when it launched in late 2018. Patrick Collison, CEO and Co-founder of Stripe, shared in a recent Tech Forum in San Francisco hosted by Singapore’s Economic Development Board that Singapore is one of three countries that has a net inflow of patents, which is possible due to its open foreign talent policy, who help to build up the nations R&D capabilities.

Also Read: Understand the context of Southeast Asia: BlueChilli wants to buoy healthtech startups

Razer’s co-founder, Min-Liang Tan is Singaporean and made his successes in the Bay Area, is re-committing back to his home nation with a Southeast Asian headquarters also based in One-North, with an estimated gross floor area of 19,300 square metres.

I can continue talking about more companies like Sea (Garena), Go-Jek, Dyson, MSD and Facebook but you get my point.

On the other hand, all I am seeing from the report on Trax’s fundraising, is that Trax will have 110 employees in its China subsidiary and possibly more if it’s European acquisition goes through, but no news about seeing Singapore’s HQ growing.

It is quite evident that Singapore does not appear to have inadequate tech talent, as so many known tech firms have both established their headquarters and grow their engineering operations in Singapore.

Trax can do more and give back to Singapore

It struck a nerve when I read about Trax being a Singapore-based startup that does not have a single Singapore client. For a country that has a GDP of US$323 billion, it is no slouch in terms of a variety of economic activity.

Singapore is well known to be advantageous to be a starting point for startups, where B2B trials with the Singapore entities and government lend weight and credibility. To work with Singapore entities shows also the commitment by startups to engage its local market and provide economic benefits to its products.

Also Read: Knowing the types of people in your online community

Let’s talk also about hiring practices. If you see the company’s website, I am unsure how many Singaporeans are truly being hired. Are Singaporeans that untalented to be part of the team to deliver an outstanding global product?

Ending thoughts

I won’t deny the successes of these founders. But their actions speak of the lack of gratitude to the nation that provided Trax a sound foundation to grow.

I wouldn’t be surprised that once Trax has listed in New York, it will merrily uproot itself and base elsewhere, finding the next place to commercially benefit them. It doesn’t have anything much committed to Singapore. Or maybe Singapore is just a springboard for them to greater heights.

Sorry, if you aren’t here considering economic benefits for my nation and my fellow countrymen, I wouldn’t want to celebrate your success. Neither would I call you friend and support your startup.
—
The author is a staunch startup evangelist of the Singapore tech ecosystem. This article is part of the Heartware Singapore series, where the author shares on different topics to spur the Singapore startup ecosystem. All views expressed of his own.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

The post Opinion: Should Singaporeans celebrate its newly minted startup unicorn, Trax? appeared first on e27.

A one-day programme, KineticOne will mainly act as a deal sourcing unit for the seed-stage VC firm

Mount Parker Ventures, a seed-stage VC investor based in Hong Kong, has launched a one-day intensive accelerator programme for startups in the logistics and supply chain spaces.

Christened KineticOne, the accelerator will mainly act as a deal sourcing unit for Mount Parker,  which has invested in several startups including Gogovan.

Startups from anywhere in Asia can apply. The accelerator will then evaluate the startups’ ability to solve a worthwhile problem and monetise the solution.

Only five to seven startups will be selected for each cohort.

The early session is an intensive business strategy and pitch workout, where the mentors will evaluate and give feedback about the startups’ strategy as well as iterating on their pitch to investors. In the late session, startups will pitch in front of an audience of investors, industry professionals and other startups.

KIneticOne is still finalising the mentor lineup, but it will mainly comprise VCs and founders of later-stage logistics startups.

Also Read: Understand the context of Southeast Asia: BlueChilli wants to buoy healthtech startups

“This is a no-equity programme, so the business model is very different. We are financing this and running it as part of the deal-sourcing function of our fund,” Jude O’Kelly, General Partner of Mount Parker Ventures, told e27. “We are starting with an intensive one-day accelerator in Hong Kong in July. In late 2019, we will start running these regionally — in Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chin Minh and Bangkok.”

Elaborating the USP, he said unlike a typical accelerator programme which primarily focuses on the startup pitch (which usually takes about half the time in an accelerator), KineticOne will work with the startups to set their core business model, establish their internal tracking metrics, and help them on customer development. “This will actually be the beginning of our fund’s interaction with the startup as we will be tracking them for potential investment thereafter,” he said.

O’Kelly also shared that the one-day programme will probably be turned into an intensive one-week programme in future.

“We  want to keep it very short; we do not want to compete with the other regional accelerators. Fast growing or later-stage startups sometimes do not consider an accelerator due to the time demands, relocation requirements, or equity give-up (usually 6-8 per cent on valuations of under US$1.5 million ). As such we are running this as a lightweight, regional, no-equity programme,” he added.

The post (Exclusive) Hong Kong VC Mount Parker launches accelerator programme for logistics startups appeared first on e27.

Also, Bukalapak joins forces with MoEngage for cross-channel customer engagement

Malaysian HRtech company Jibble raises US$2.5M, now valued at US$33M [Press Release]

Jibble, Malaysia-based HR software provider, announced that it has raised US$2.5 million funding, putting its valuation at US$33 million. The company said that it will use the funding to focus on growing the product team and expanding its operations in the Philippines.

Before Jibble comes into fruition, it was started with PayrollPanda three years ago, a payroll software specifically made for Malaysian SMEs. The idea to have the time-tracking app came one year later as a standalone product called Jibble.

Both PayrollPanda and Jibble operate under Jibble Group now.

“We’re now working on 2.0 versions of Jibble and PayrollPanda on a consolidated platform, which will take things to a new level,” said Toine Vaessen, Jibble’s co-founder and VP of Revenue.

EMQ and Shanghai Commercial Bank partner to facilitate Asia’s cross-border money transfers [Press Release]

EMQ, a cross-border settlement network in Asia and Shanghai Commercial Bank (“SCB”), a local Chinese bank in Hong Kong, announced a partnership on cross-border money transfer service across Asia. This collaboration seeks to enable SCB’s payment platform to integrate with EMQ’s network infrastructure for compliant and cost-effective cross-border solutions.

“The payments ecosystem across Asia is undergoing significant transformation with the rise of local and cross-border cashless payments underpinned by a tech-savvy population. With a challenging fragmented market across Asia, businesses and individuals will require a global money movement network, especially in making cross-border money transfers streamlined, low-cost, secure, and real-time,” said Max Liu, co-founder, and CEO of EMQ.

Also Read: Opinion: Should Singaporeans celebrate its newly minted startup unicorn, Trax?

Leveraged on EMQ’s cross-border settlement network, Shacom Pay users can also make money transfers, initially to Indonesia and the Philippines, on a faster and more convenient platform.

Bukalapak joins forces with MoEngage for cross-channel customer engagement [Press Release]

Indonesian unicorn e-commerce Bukalapak has chosen customer engagement platfom MoEngage to drive cross-channel user engagement for the company’s digital and mobile channels.

With Bukalapak saying that it currently operates with more than 50 million users and processing half a million transactions a day in its e-commerce platform, the company needs to tackle the low push delivery rates and engagement issue.

Commenting on the partnership, Tushar Bhatia, AVP Growth, Bukalapak said, “Our priority at Bukalapak is in reaching our customers at the right time with the right message. MoEngage’s proprietary Push Amplification technology has helped us improve both the speed of delivery of push notifications as well as the delivery rates.

MHub partners with proptech Juwai.com to direct Chinese to buying Malaysian properties [Press Release]

MHub, Malaysia’s digital real estate marketplace, announced a partnership with Juwai.com, China’s international property website, in a bid to attract Chinese buyers looking to purchase homes in Malaysia.

With Chinese investment in Malaysia’s residential real estate expected to double by 2025, the agreement will give local property sellers access to Juwai.com’s more than 3.1 million monthly users.

According to Juwai.com, buyers from mainland China purchased RM9.5 billion worth of Malaysian residential and commercial properties last year. The agreement between MHub and Juwai.com will make it much easier for them to shop for houses in Malaysia.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Hong Kong VC Mount Parker launches accelerator programme for logistics startups

“The alliance of MHub and Juwai.com aims to expand the addressable market for property sellers in Malaysia. Our proptech platform brings the ecosystem of developers, agents, bankers, lawyers, and buyers under one roof,” said Quek Wee Siong, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of MHub.
–

The post Today’s top tech news, May 29: Malaysian HRtech company Jibble raises US$2.5M appeared first on e27.

If you do not have the passion and if you cannot put in the effort, then you should NOT be an entrepreneur

Watching the movie The Social network left a deep impression on me, inspiring me to be an entrepreneur as a career choice. The opportunity came during my final year in university, when a project of mine was gaining some traction and I saw the opportunity to commercialize it, and the rest was history.

As a serial entrepreneur who has started 2 companies in different locations (Kenya, UK) and currently working as a Venture Capitalist, I can attest to the conventional narrative of entrepreneurship as a path not for the faint-hearted. However, the point of how tough it is to be an entrepreneur wasn’t communicated succinctly to the wider audience. It certainly didn’t occur to me the challenges that a start-up founder would face when I started my first company 6 years ago.

Entrepreneurship is gradually being accepted as an alternative career path for new graduates as well as mid-career professionals. The narrative of entrepreneurship allows one to change the world, impact others and empower the wider community are some of the ideological pull factors for many.

Along with those ideological factors, the following are some common reasons that aspiring entrepreneurs gave when quizzed on their motivation to be an entrepreneur.

1. I’m able to be my own boss;
2. A quick way to get rich;
3. Autonomy in work;
4. Work-life balance;
5. Passion and more fulfillment at work.

While they are valid reasons, and true to a certain extent, there are more to it than what it seems to be.

Being a first-time founder working on my business plan/pitching to investors for seed-funding, while liaising with corporate partners to tie up partnership deals and had to prepare for my final university exams in a month’s time isn’t the best way to end my final school term. In reality, starting a business takes way more hard work, time and effort than many would have imagined, and the only drive remaining to pull you through the toughest time would be the passion you possess for your idea.

Also read: Turning your passion into a startup? Here are 9 tips based on my personal experience

The vision to see your idea being executed and bring value to your users, impacting their lives one way or another is an extremely rewarding experience.  That extreme belief of an entrepreneur in his/her idea is critical to the success of a company, as innovative business ideas challenge conventional wisdom, entrepreneurs will be the one converting doubters to believers, turning rejections to acceptance and skepticism to faithful followers.

Founders of early-stage companies are synonymous to a juggling act, wearing multiple hats at the same time. Speaking to customers for feedback, product development to implement the insights from feedbacks, fundraising, hiring, etc. There is essentially no work-life balance as a start-up founder with wide-ranging issues from customer complaints, product development, investors’ due diligence requests, forming partnership deals, etc, would all require founders attention and are likely to consume 24/7/365 of their time.

A VC whom I spoke to recently gave the comment that he would drop by the office on a Saturday afternoon, and companies that are around are the ones more likely to succeed. Although this comment comes off rather simplistic it brings home the point that you’ll probably work longer hours as a founder than you were as an employee.

There’s this mantra going around Silicon Valley which encourages founders to always be raising funds. After the closing each round of fundraising, founders should be laying the groundwork (networking) for the next round of funding. As a company raises funds, investors would make up a company’s board of directors, and founders are answerable to them.

Directors play a unique role in the company where they act as advisors to the founders, providing them with the necessary experience and network to grow their company. However, investors bring onboard their own set of experiences, playbook, and perspective towards your business. This is a double-edged sword, as it may add value to founders, but at the same time could be distracting to them.

Innovative business models are forward-looking, with investors tapping on their past experiences and applying the same playbook to these business models may not be the best advice to give founders. Founders must make the right judgment on what advice to take on board and to handle the board meetings professionally can be a challenging task (especially when you have a room full of big egos).

Also discuss: Would you take US$250K in smart funding vs US$5M in dumb funding?

Prior to starting a company, aspiring entrepreneurs must be clear of his/her underlying motivation, and to be aware if there is a genuine problem that they seek to solve. The passion they have for the business idea is crucial and possessing the relentless drive to solve that particular problem. Starting a company may not be the easiest way to get rich, despite the success stories that were widely written the majority of startups fail. If you’re in it for the money and fame, it is very likely that your company will fail, as the late nights and personal sacrifices that entrepreneurs have to put in to make the company work are far more than what monetary incentives can compensate for at its initial stage.

Genuine passion will shine through during challenging times and it is this attribute that enables entrepreneurs to navigate through those challenges. Monetary incentive, job fulfillment, autonomy at work all be achieved through easier means. For instance, an early employee of Twitter would have more autonomy at work with huge responsibilities and monetary incentive than the majority of the entrepreneurs.

Being an entrepreneur is not a trend, but a calling to solve a particular problem. It isn’t any cooler than being a software developer, a salesperson or an investment banker — this is the narrative that the media has been playing about entrepreneur taps on the audience’s ‘feel good’ emotion which they seek in every story.

If you’re still reading this article, after all has been written, and you have that burning passion to solve that ONE problem, you SHOULD be an entrepreneur.

—-

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Featured Image Copyright: csmaster83 / 123RF Stock Photo

The post Being an entrepreneur is not a trend, but a calling to solve a particular problem appeared first on e27.