An edutech startup and a service that helps you to cut down the queue line share the throne for Startup of the Month in July

Can’t believe this actually happened. We asked the e27 Community to vote for the Startup of the Month winner on our Telegram Group and Twitter handle, and we came out with two winners!

The first one is AI-powered school administration platform Edusuite, which had recently announced an over US$235,000 seed funding round from the Manila Angel Investors Network (MAIN). Two of the startup’s clients –Batangas Eastern Colleges (BEC) and Sumulong College of Arts and Sciences– also participated in the funding round.

Edusuite stole our attention for providing a service that helps schools optimise their resources and make smart decisions.

The other winner is QueQ, a Thai startup that aims to help customers queue for their spot in a dining or retail outlet with the touch of a button –from the comfort of their own home.

QueQ has recently raised a US$2.8 million Series A funding round from True Incube and Bon Angels Venture Partner.

Also Read: Startup of the Month, June: Indonesian tech-enabled coffee chain Kopi Kenangan

The startup stole our hearts with their unique service and rapid expansion move –it already has a presence in Malaysia and Thailand and is looking forward to entering Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong.

For the runner-up, this month we also have two startups vying for the same spot — Brunei’s Memori and Malaysia’s Naluri.

Memori is a legacy-planning platform that has recently raised additional seed funding round from an undisclosed member of an Asian royal family.

Naluri, a healthtech startup founded by former iflix CEO Azran Osman-Rani, has recently raised a US$1.5 million oversubscribed pre-Series A funding round led by Global Founders Capital.

Congratulations and best of luck to the companies!

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In addition to Didi Chuxing and BP, we also have updates from Progcap, the Indonesian government’s electric car ambition, and ByteDance

Didi Chuxing, BP to build e-vehicle charging infrastructure in China – TechCrunch

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and British oil and gas giant BP today announced the formation of a joint venture to build electric-vehicle charging infrastructure in China, TechCrunch reported.

The service will be available for both Didi and non-Didi drivers.

BP’s first charging site in Guangzhou has already been connected to XAS (Xiaoju Automobile Solutions), a platform that was launched by Didi in April 2018 for all its vehicle-related services.

The announcement of the joint venture came in just a week after Didi announced a US$600 million funding from Toyota Motor Corporation, which enabled Didi to set up a joint venture with GAC Toyota Motor to provide vehicle-related services to Didi drivers.

India’s Progcap raises US$5M funding led by Sequoia – Deal Street Asia

Delhi-based fintech startup Progcap has raised a US$5 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia India, Deal Street Asia reported.

The funding round also included the participation of MV Nair, chairman of Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd (CIBBIL); Sandeep Tandon, co-founder of Freecharge; as well as existing investors GrowX Ventures Fund and Somak Ghosh.

Progcap is a platform that aims to facilitate debt capital for underserved micro and small businesses in India. It was founded in 2017 by Pallavi Shrivastava and Himanshu Chandra.

The funding will be used to strengthen its operations, support product development, and accelerate pan-India expansion.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news, Feb 14: China’s Didi Chuxing injects US$100M into OYO

Indonesia to incentivise electric-car manufacturers and ownership – Bloomberg

Indonesia is planning incentives for electric-car manufacturers and drivers in order to help bolster a sector that has already lured investment from Toyota Motor Corp and SoftBank Group Corp, Bloomberg reported.

Citing a draft government strategy that is awaiting approval from President Joko Widodo, the plan is said to include lower taxes for manufacturers and buyers.

It also included benefits for owners such as special parking areas.

ByteDance to build a search engine to compete with Baidu – Kr.Asia

ByteDance has begun the recruitment process to build a general search engine for all internet users, Kr. Asia wrote.

Citing a WeChat announcement from the company, the move is seen as a plan to compete against Baidu

The search engine will be built by the same team that has built search functions inside ByteDance’s apps such as Jinri Toutiao and TikTok.

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Image Credit: Adi Constantin on Unsplash

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How you design your pitch deck gives investors an insight into how you plan on building your business

 

Creating a good pitch deck is hard, creating a great pitch deck is even harder.

Investors look through applications from startups: a lot of them are great, some of them…not so much. Why?

One of the main reasons is that the pitch deck is incorrect or incomplete.

Here are a few hints and guidelines on what is expected from a pitch deck. That way, you can increase your chances of leaving a lasting impression.

By the end of the pitch deck, the following questions will be answered:

• 1.   Why you?
• 2.   Why this?
• 3.   Why now?

We often see simple mistakes, such as missing information, overcrowded slides, a lack of research, confusing or contradictory statements, typos, etc.

Also Read: How to impress with your startup pitch

Take extra care to avoid these blunders, please! This will help us and especially you!

How can you avoid this?

Do your research and create a sound structure for your pitch deck.

Take the investors on a journey.
Show them all the aspects of your company that they want to and should know about.

A great place to start is to include the following dimensions and answer the following sample questions:

• 1.   Problem → What problem are you addressing?
• 2.   Solution → What solution do you offer?
• 3.   Product → What is your product?
• 4.   Vision → What’s your vision today, in a year, in five years?
• 5.   Market size → How big is your (addressable) market?
• 6.   Competition → Who are your competitors (direct and indirect)?
• 7.   Business Model → How does your business work? How do you plan to make money?
• 8.    Status and roadmap → Where are you today? What key milestones do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?
• 9.    Team → Who are you? Why are you the right team to build this?

Last but not least, the pitch deck design matters.

It is not expected from you to have your corporate identity completely figured out – or even having a simple logo.

However, you must prove to the investors that you have a good feel of the business. After all, an image is worth a thousand words.

Also Read: Pro pitch deck tips for beginners

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Joshua Agusta shares how MDI Ventures made its calculated moves as an Indonesian VC firm long before it was cool to do so

Indonesian corporate venture capital (CVC) firm MDI Ventures has been reported to be in fundraising mode for its third vehicle. This time, the firm –which also has operations in Silicon Valley– aims to tap external investors.

In 2016, MDI Ventures launched a US$100-million single-LP fund from Indonesian state-owned Telkom Group, followed by a US$40-million fund in partnership with Telkomsel, the telco giant’s subsidiary.

In this interview with e27, Joshua Agusta, who is Vice President (Investment) at MDI Ventures, talks about the fund’s local operations which had witnessed three back-to-back exits within just a single month.

The early days

In the venture capital space, the term ‘exit’ is used to describe a point at which an investor sells its stake in a firm to realise gains or losses. For MDI Ventures, the three back-to-back exits it witnessed in a span of one month represent healthy capital gains.

According to him, it is not common for Indonesian VC firms to get exits as fast as MDI Ventures did, let alone in an overseas company. Agusta says that MDI Ventures managed to achieve this feat thanks to a carefully mapped-out move, crafted since its establishment in 2016.

“Basically, our strategy in the early days was to have a quick win. We will shadow the more established and seasoned VCs to learn from them as well as participating in their portfolios’ funding,” he explains.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

He speaks of the firm’s decision to invest in Whispir, an Australian cloud-based email, text messaging, and web chatting platform, which he dubs as a learning process.

In investing in Whispir, MDI Ventures followed the footsteps of Telstra. The local telco giant is already a seasoned investor through its VC arm Telstra Venture; by participating in the same round, MDI Ventures was able to establish a good rapport from early on.

Given that MDI Ventures’s LP at that time was Telkom, the decision to back a company that was already backed by an established telco entity made a lot of sense, says Agusta.

“We, of course, have a responsibility to show our LP that we can have a quick return, hence the venturing out overseas,” he stresses.

These are the three back-to-back exits from the VC:

Whispir

Whispir has commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on June 19, following an oversubscribed IPO that raised AU$47 million (US$32 million) via the issue of 29.4 million shares at AU$1.60 (US$1.10) each.

The IPO comprised of a primary raise of AU$27 million (US$19 million) and a secondary sell-down by existing shareholders of AU$20 million (US$14 million).

At the IPO listing price, Whispir had a market capitalisation of AU$163 million (US$113 million).

According to Agusta, MDI Ventures was confident in backing Whispir because it has recorded a more than 100 per cent net negative monthly recurring revenue churn since 2013.

“For any SaaS company, this is a very impressive stats to have,” he says.

As for quality aspect, Agusta vouches that Whispir’s founding team members were solid and persistent, shown by the company’s ability to land multiple sales contracts from Fortune 500 companies and partner with world-class names in enterprise communications.

Red Dot Payment (RDP)

Singapore-based RDP is a fintech firm best-known its product RDP Connect, which focusses primarily on the hospitality industry. With RDP’s tools, clients such as hotel chains can introduce their own booking sites without the need for other booking engines or aggregators.

Naspers’ fintech company PayU announced that it had acquired a majority stake in RDP on July 5, as part of its expansion into Southeast Asia. While the details remain undisclosed, PayU has confirmed that it values RDP at US$65 million.

Also Read: Naspers unit PayU forays into Southeast Asia by acquiring Singapore startup Red Dot Payment

“For RDP, since 2016, the company has been growing its revenue at a double-digit rate month-on-month, with a healthy gross margin compared to other payments companies,” says Agusta regarding the VC’s investment in the company.

In terms of quality, RDP consisted of ex-banking industry veterans who mostly worked for Visa. For MDI Ventures, this showed a deep level of domain expertise, which is important for a highly-regulated industry such as payments.

Wavecell

On July 22, 2019, MDI Ventures announced that another exit was made from the acquisition of Singaporean cloud-based communication platform Wavecell by US-based 8×8 (NYSE: EGHT) as a part of its market entry strategy across Asia. The deal was worth approximately US$125 million.

Established in 2010, Wavecell helps businesses enhance customer experiences by offering SMS, chat apps, video interaction, and voice solutions for any platform.

The startup operates in key Southeast Asian markets such as Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

The deal brings MDI Ventures to a total of three successful portfolio company exits in 2019, all of which have taken place simultaneously during the month of July.

The firm can now claim that it has cultivated a total of five success stories since the fund’s first investment in 2016.

“Wavecell is a great example of our firm backing a company based on a founding team with deep industry know-how, who are aiming to solve a real problem, in a relatively untapped space, at just the right time,” stresses Agusta.

MDI Ventures’ playbook

Agusta highlights that MDI Ventures is an independent entity with its own funding processes. It “combines a VC model with services in providing companies from Telkom Group with access to operational assistance and help in building startups’ growth engine after making a financial investment.”

When considering to invest in the company, MDI Ventures always approach the assessment from both the qualitative and quantitative side.

“On the quantitative side, strong traction and growth in their key operational metrics were important to us,” he explains.

In Whispir’s case, for example, some things that MDI Ventures considered were whether the business actually upsells and by how many per cent.

“They have a spread out footprint and their clients returned to use their offers,” Agusta says.

The first investment MDI Ventures made was in Japanese company Geniee. It is a platform to enable users to deliver ads to earn maximum revenue from pure advertisements, demand side platform (DSPs), real-time bidding through ad exchange, multiple ad networks, and affiliate ads.

True to its “quick win” strategy, Geniee exited in 2017 and is now listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange Market.

In the future, MDI Ventures plans to diversify its portfolio, particularly by backing up-and-coming unicorns in Indonesia, such as fintech startups Finaccel and Kredivo.

“We started off with capturing a quick win opportunity overseas, and now we have shifted focus to go after startups in Indonesia. It’s all a part of our portfolio mix. From a total of 32 companies we’ve backed so far, there are those that we’ve invested in to have a return, and there are companies that we believe will exit. It’s all pure strategy,” Agusta elaborates.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

Recent data shows that 2018 saw a surge in Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) activity worldwide. For the whole year, there were 2,740 deals on record, while roughly US$53 billion was disclosed in CVC funding for tech startups.

Asia attracted 38 per cent of all CVC deals in 2018, up from 31 per cent in 2017.

“What matters is that our investment thesis is working, and that Indonesian corporate funds can succeed not just on their home turf, but also throughout the region,” Agusta emphasises.

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Image Credit: MDI Ventures

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Everything you need to know after 5G

It’s time to discuss the next iteration of the mobile internet. I’m talking WiFi 6. 

WiFi 6 and 5G are popular topics these days, for good reason.

If you’ve stayed ahead of tech news for the last decade, you’ll remember that with each new version of mobile internet always comes a diverse whirlwind of internet-based industries. Notice I said industries, not just products.

Uber, Airbnb, and IoT aren’t simply services that got their start thanks to 4G and WiFi 5. They represent entire new industries that were impossible — and hardly imaginable — under prior iterations. 

This begs the question: now that WiFi 6 and 5G are imminent, what new industries and products can we expect in the near future? 

Also Read: The proliferation of 5G will transform businesses and societies: Here’s how

How will VR and AR be effected? 

Will social media foundationally change? 

How will everyday communication keep up?

The truth is, we can dream all day. But we won’t know the true possibilities until they begin to unfold before our eyes. But here are the features we know you can look forward to with WiFi 6:

Characteristics of WiFi 6

Faster overall WiFi speeds (obviously)

Let’s start with the obvious. Speed is by no means the most talked-about benefit of WiFi 6. But it’s still important and almost goes without saying. Some reports expect WiFi speeds to improve about 30 per cent

 
Better performance in crowded areas 

Tired of slow internet in crowded spaces? WiFi 6 improves internet performance for crowded areas like offices, sports stadiums, or hotels. It achieves this by increasing network capacity (thanks to higher throughput and transmit beamforming), as well by improving simultaneous communication between access points and multiple end-points. 

Also Read: These 7 startups will be early 5G adopters under the guidance of APTG Accelerator Programme

Here’s some of the technology that makes that possible: 

• OFDMA (Orthoganal Frequency Divisional Multiple Access): OFDMA gives access points the ability to divide channels into many sub-channels. This means access points can simultaneously communicate with multiple devices at a lower data rate.
• MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple-Input-and-Multiple-Output) capabilities – WiFi 5 was already using MU-MIMO for downlinks. WiFi 6 utilizes it for uplinks too, enabling access points to receive communication from multiple clients at the same time. 

The combination of OFDMA and MU-MIMO creates more efficient networks while reducing overall network latency. 

Make connected homes even more connected 

Internet of Things (IoT) is another incredible industry made possible through WiFi 5. WiFi 6 is expected to take IoT possibilities to a whole new level, enabling homeowners to connect and control many more devices.

It will also make it simpler to save energy. WiFi 6 supports a feature called “Target Wake Time.” This lets the access point put a device’s WiFi functionality to sleep for a defined period of time before it “wakes up” again to connect. The feature could significantly reduce the power usage of individual devices.

When will WiFi 6 become mainstream? 

Admittedly, WiFi 6 has had a tumultuous start.

Standards committees turned it down twice. This put access point vendors into an unusual predicament: in a bid to be first-to-market, they were forced to manufacture and commercialize their devices without knowing the approved standards. 

WiFi 6 access points are already commercialized. But the reason most of us haven’t used WiFi 6 yet is because of devices. Most devices on the market don’t support WiFi 6 yet. 

Here are a few exceptions: 

• The new Samsung Galaxy S10, released in March 2019, is the first WiFi 6 phone 
• Intel’s new 9th generation chips have (expensive) WiFi 6 capability
• Intel’s WiFi 6 adapters, released in April 2019, is already comprehensive, with major players like NetGear and Cisco already offering devices

Also Read: This IoT device can turn your regular speakers into WiFi-enabled ones

WiFi Alliance announced that a WiFi 6 certification program will begin in Q3 of 2019.

While that’s not too far off, the date suggests we shouldn’t expect a flood of WiFi 6 devices in the near future.

And as we all know, the early versions will likely be expensive and possibly buggy.

If you do decide to start implementing WiFi 6 routers and access points now, you won’t see a return on investment for quite a while. Even though we’re starting to see some compatible now, we probably shouldn’t expect widespread WiFi 6 devices until late 2020. 

Contact him directly at alexander.lewis@paessler.com

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