Avoid these common mistakes that might sink your startup early or cripple its growth

When you start a business venture or a startup, there are 101 things that could go wrong. There is no denying to the fact that how much good the prospects of business is, there is always a chance that things might go south.

One of the most common methods of that happening is to get involved in legal matters that may be out of bounds for you. Most of the entrepreneurs are not very aware of the various legal proceedings and may need counsel to navigate through any such complications.

Having a lawyer is naturally the best method to negate any such issues as their experience in this particular matter is unparalleled. However, due to budget constraints, it might always not be possible to do so.

Alternatively, there are courses offered to entrepreneurs that can help them guide through the basic legal matters mainly by creating awareness about ways to negate it. Here are some common legal mistakes that entrepreneurs tend to make, especially early in their career.

• Postpone legal dealings– First and foremost, in case you get an inkling that something is amiss legally, you should address the matter immediately. Do not keep it for consideration for sometime later as it might escalate quickly beyond your control and you will be left licking your wounds. Thus, don’t delay it unnecessarily.

• Not incorporating early – Sometimes a business is founded by more than one partner and they disappear immediately after the foundations are laid. Later, when the venture takes off, they come back with an inflated view of their contributions and ask for equity of the same value. Avoid this problem by making sure that incorporation is done early and shares are divided among the founders which can be subjected to vesting.

• Not issuing shares for vesting – To add on to the previous point, if the founders are assigned shares and not subjected to vesting, the earlier situation might again creep up and they may stake a claim at the equity again. So, not only issuing the shares but also taking the next necessary step of vesting completes the legal procedure entirely.

• Hiring an inexperienced lawyer – in case you can afford a lawyer, be smart in hiring one. If you make the mistake of hiring a lawyer who is inexperienced to deal with startup matters, you are basically shooting yourself on the feet. There is one more angle to it. Some investors tend to put money into your organizations only after checking who is going to take care of the legal matters. Thus, investments get indirectly affected by hiring one of less repute.

Also Read: 3 legal problems online marketers could run into

• Negotiating investments based on valuations – The valuation of a company is not the only thing that can bring capitalists to it. There are many other attached ways to compensate them in case they are paying an inflated price for the shares. The cumulative dividends and the redemption rights are also good compensatory tools, so it should be brought to the picture as smartly as possible.

• Unnecessarily waiting for property protection internationally – Every country has different patent and trademark laws. For example, in the US, if you disclose your business plan, you still have a year to file a patent, while in Japan, if you disclose similarly but a patent has not been filed previously, it loses its ability to be patented. Thus, be aware of the laws in your country and stick to it religiously.

• Not making people sign a nondisclosure agreement before disclosing a project – This has the potential to spell doom for your business as your idea can go to a potential competitor even before you start working on it. It is especially applicable for cases where protection through the patent is unavailable. Thus, ensure that a nondisclosure agreement is duly signed.

Also Read: The biggest legal traps startups fall into

• Making things easier for competitors – In case you start your business while being an employee of a company that can be your direct competitor or hiring someone from a competitor company are the two ways of making it easy for your competitors to bring you down. Being careful is a potent way of avoidance here.

All these tips are invaluable while dealing with legal matters as an entrepreneur. Follow them and you will not have to face any legal complications anytime.

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Image Credit : dolgachov

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The investment will be focussed on GrabFood and Grab Financial Services

Invesco, an American investment management company, has plunged an additional US$300 million into Grab. The additional investment brings their total stake in the Southeast Asian ride hailing firm to US$703 million.

The money will be used to “accelerate expansion” in Southeast Asia. In particular, the investment will focus on GrabFood and Grab Financial Group (the financial services product under Grab).

Grab is focussed on these two services because they are relatively new but showed positive traction metrics. Thus, according to a spokesperson, Grab is doubling down on the two products in order to take advantage of the current growth momentum.

The original US$403 million was actually invested by a New York City financial managment company named OppenheimerFunds. Invesco acquired the company — and the Grab stake — back in July 2018.

““We are very excited to increase our stake in Grab and support their endeavour of bringing more everyday services, greater accessibility and convenience to users in Southeast Asia,” said Invesco Team Leader and Senior Portfolio Manager Justin Leverenz in a statement.

Also Read: Grab invests in UK-based Splyt, enabling worldwide ride-hailing service

This week has seen a lot of movement on the Grab investment front.

The company invested in its British counterpart Splyt. As part of the deal, in the coming year Grab users will be able to book rides beyond Southeast Asia via Splyt’s partner network.

Additionally, Apple confirmed this week that it has acquired Drive.ai, a struggling autonomous vehicle technology company. Grab Ventures had invested in Drive.ai.

Also Read: Go-Jek investor Warburg Pincus sets up new US$4.25B fund for China, Southeast Asia

In the past week, Invesco went through a major restructuring as 12 Portfolio Managers left the firm. It was related to the final close of the OpeenheimerFunds acquisition mentioned above.

Invesco is the sixth largest American retail investment manager and has US$1.2 trillion assets under management.

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The winners will receive a trip to Beijing, participate in a week-long boot camp, and secure a spot to pitch on the international stage

She Loves Tech, a global women- and technology-focused competition, is back in the Philippines for a second run on August 3, 2019 at QBO Innovation Hub.

Any women-led or women-impact businesses can join the competition. Deadline for applications is on July 1, 2019.

The criteria to participate in this competition are: 1) startups which are seeking angel, seed or Series A round funding (under US$5M funding raised) with, at minimum, a viable product past its conceptual stage; 2) any entrepreneur, male or female, who is using technology to impact women positively, or at least one female entrepreneur must be part of the founding team who is using technology to solve a problem; and 3) startups which use science and innovation to invent useful things to solve problems, particularly in fintech, AI & Big Data, Internet of Things, medtech, clean energy, agritech, edtech, and consumer tech.

Also Read: Grab adds US$300M to warchest with Invesco funding

The winners of the Philippine round will receive a trip to Beijing, China where they will attend the She Loves Tech 2019 International Conference, participate in a week-long boot camp, secure a spot to pitch on the international stage, and gain networking opportunities with China’s leading tech ecosystem players.

They will also get investment opportunities from She Loves Tech’s official venture partner Teja Ventures and other affiliate funds.

The Philippines is lauded for having one of the narrowest gender-gaps in the world, but the same can’t be said for the tech industry. The local startup ecosystem remains male dominated with women accounting for only 18 per cent of startup founders. Closing this gap could prove to have considerable economic benefits — with some studies showing that female-founded startups outperform their all-male counterparts in terms of revenue, ringing in as much as US$68,000 more over a five-year period.

Also Read: Go-Jek investor Warburg Pincus sets up new US$4.25B fund for China, Southeast Asia

“We’ve been vigilant in our efforts to improve the participation of female founders in the startup ecosystem through our Startup Pinay program, and we’re happy to be furthering this push by continuing our support for She Loves Tech,” said Katrina Chan, Director of QBO Innovation Hub. “Last year’s winner, Olivia, with the support of DOST did the Philippines proud in the global competition. I’m looking forward to meeting the startups who will vie for the prize this year and seeing more lady bosses take the stage.”

She Loves Tech is an initiative showcasing the convergence of the latest trends in technology, entrepreneurship, innovation and the opportunities it creates for women. The program is designed to give the world’s most promising women tech entrepreneurs and women impact startups an opportunity to showcase their businesses to a global audience of investors and influencers.

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Per the ride-hailing company’s statement, the appointment of Kotwal signals its commitment to business intelligence and data science capabilities

Mobile on-demand service and payments platform Go-Jek today announced the appointment of Gautam Kotwal as Group Chief Data Officer. Kotwal will be based in Singapore and report to Kevin Aluwi, Co-Founder at Go-Jek.

In his new role, Kotwal will bring aboard more than 20 years of Silicon Valley experience of leadership roles in engineering, data analytics, and machine learning. He will be responsible for managing Go-Jek’s overall data strategy and teams across business intelligence, data engineering, data science, and fraud.

In addition to that, Kotwal will provide an integrated oversight for all data-related functions at Go-Jek, an area that is deemed central to key business decision-making and unlocking new opportunities for the platform and its stakeholders.

Kevin Aluwi, GOJEK Co-Founder, said: “Kotwal will play a key role in expanding GOJEK’s data capabilities. We believe that data, in combination with creative thinking and analysis, has the power to create solutions to problems faced by our users, partners, and economies. It’s a high time for us to capitalise on our exponential growth in the region and ramp up our efforts with more sophisticated data capabilities.”

Before joining the unicorn, Kotwal was the Chief Analytics Data Officer at Albertsons, he also held data, analytics, and engineering leadership positions at Kohl’s and Netflix. In fact, Kotwal was one of the early engineers on the Netflix Streaming team.

Also Read: Neuron Mobility expands to Australia, to operate 600 e-scooters in Brisbane

“Go-Jek is using technology to solve some of the most impactful consumer challenges in Southeast Asia, something which is aligned with my passion for scaling complex systems efficiently,” said Kotwal.

Currently, Indonesia-based Go-Jek said that it has 3,000 employees in its data function spanning technology, operational, and administrative roles.
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Singapore will pick a telco to be the first to mass-market 5G networks by the end of the first quarter of next year, the first step in a broader rollout

Singapore to invest US$30M in 5G tests ahead of 2020 rollout [Reuters]

Singapore on Thursday launched a S$40 million (US$29.5 million) initiative to test applications for 5G networks, the next generation of mobile communications, ahead of a planned rollout next year.

The project, unveiled by Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran, will test the network in areas such as port management, manufacturing and consumer applications as the city-state looks to be “a global front-runner in impactful 5G use cases”.

Also Read: The 5G bandwagon: legal and regulatory implications

Singapore will pick a telecoms company to be the first to mass-market 5G networks by the end of the first quarter of next year, the first step in a broader rollout, Iswaran told journalists after the announcement.

Fave strengthens appoints Jason Tan as CFO, Jake Abdullah as MD (Malaysia) [press release]

Fave, an online loyalty and payments platform, has appointed Jason Tan has as its new Chief Financial Officer and Jake Abdullah as new Managing Director for Malaysia.

The appointments of both Tan and Abdullah come during a period of accelerated growth for Fave in the areas of growth, merchant acquisition, and new services expansion. In 2018, the loyalty and payments platform raised US$20 million in Series B funding led by investors Sequoia Capital, Venturra Capital and SIG. This was then followed by the acquiring and acqui-hiring of F&B startups, WAAVE, CutQ and FoodTime in Singapore and Malaysia in May 2019.

Fintech startup Recko raises US$1M from Prime Venture Partners [press release]

Recko, a fintech startup that enables AI-powered reconciliation of digital transactions, has raised US$1 million in seed funding from Prime Venture Partners.

The fintech startup has built a SaaS-based reconciliation product that keeps track of the complete transaction lifecycle and commercial contracts for organisations. Emerging out of stealth, Recko also announced that it is at a run rate of reconciling a quarter billion transactions annually.

In the first 12 months since launch, Recko has reconciled transactions worth US$2B and is looking to scale this by 10x in the next year.

Indonesia’s Alami comes in second in the Taqwatech Pitch Pit [DigitalNewsAsia]

Alami Fintek Sharia (Alami) came in as the runner-up position in the TaqwaTech Pitch Pit organised by Gobi Partners Venture Capital.

The competition, which began in May 2019, targeted startups from various Muslim-based industries.

Three companies from Indonesia qualified for the top ten, namely Alami, as well as two marketplace startups for pilgrimage services PergiUmroh.com and Umroh.com.

TaqwaTech is a startup competition that offers products and services for Muslim consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B), or communities around the world. As part of Malaysia Tech Week, this competition presented funding opportunities of up to US$1 million (RM4.14 million) to winning startups.

eziPOD announces partnership with Shoe Mo [press release]

eziPOD, the 24/7 smart locker laundry service, has announced a partnership with shoe and sneaker care Shoe Mo to expand its service to shoe cleaning under one app to offer convenience to Malaysians.

Also Read: eziPOD’s smart laundry locker doubles as your courier delivery point and personal storage

With eziPOD’s recent partnership with Shoe Mo, users can drop their dirty shoes off at the eziPOD smart lockers, where the company would pick them up and deliver them to ShoeMo for processing. eziPOD will then pick the cleaned shoes up and deliver them back to the smart lockers, ready to be picked up by the user.

On top of that, eziPOD is aiming to launch a parcel feature where users can collect their parcels from the eziPOD locker, after courier services drop them off.

 

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