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Tokopedia launches curated channel for Muslim-friendly products, services

Tokopedia introduces its new product to Indonesia’s Vice President Prof. Dr. (H.C.) K.H. Ma’ruf Amin

Indonesian e-commerce giant Tokopedia today announced the launch of Tokopedia Salam, its new curated channel for Muslim-friendly products and services.

The channel aims to help customers purchase halal-certified and Muslim-friendly products and services including food, beverages, fashion and beauty products.

It also enables customers to purchase sharia-based financial products (such as mutual funds) and donate to their chosen charities.

Tokopedia is also looking forward to introducing pilgrimage (umrah) packages in the channel.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news: Tokopedia projects to contribute US$12B to Indonesian economy; WeWork India to raise US$200M

According to Garri Juanda, Head of Tokopedia Salam, the company found out through research that more than 80 per cent of its users have the needs to purchase halal-certified food products. More than 85 per cent of its customers also have the need to purchase in the Muslim fashion category.

The launch of the product is in line with the trend in regional tech startup ecosystem, where companies are trying to cater to the needs of Muslim population in Southeast Asia through sharia-based fintech services or halal-certified travel and tourism packages.

Venture capital firms such as Gobi Partners have also included “taqwa tech” as a preferred vertical for its recently launched funds.

Image Credit: Tokopedia

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Initial coin offerings: the next-gen startups that never were

 

If you’ve been following the cryptocurrency or FinTech fields, chances are that you’ve heard of the term Initial Coin Offering (ICO). This is a relatively new way for startups to raise money by issuing and selling their very own cryptocurrencies. 

Individual projects would have their fundraising rounds completely finalized in a matter of weeks, if not days, getting retail and institutional investors to line up to participate. 

Fast-forward a couple of years, however, and we can see that most of the projects which raised money through an ICO failed to deliver on their promises, causing their investors massive losses. 

Nevertheless, the history of ICOs, regardless of how brief it may be, is definitely an interesting one, especially for those with interests in investments. The following graphic represents their growth and their evident decline.

In any case, let’s have a look at how ICOs caused a massive disruption in traditional VC fundraising models and why they eventually failed. 

It all started back in 2016

Technically, ICOs started back in 2015 as some very large projects such as Ethereum, IOTA, and Augur had their coin offerings held in 2015. However, this new fundraising method for blockchain-based startups and businesses really took off in 2016 when their number started to grow notably. 

Not only the number of ICOs skyrocketed but also the number of investor dollars. Data from popular resource ICOData reveals that 29 projects managed to raise as much as USD$90 million back in 2016. While this may seem as an inconsiderable amount in the traditional world of investments, it has to be considered that this was a model introduced just a few months ago. 

What is more interesting, however, is the speed with which these projects raised money. FirstBlood raised USD$5.5 million and SingularDTV raised USD$7.5 million – both of them doing so in less than 15 minutes. While not every project saw its capital funded as quickly, most of them were particularly fast, especially compared to traditional equity-based funding. 

Transitioning Into 2017

This is where things started to get really interesting. As opposed to 2016, when the model was going through its very early stages, 2017 saw an influx of capital poured into blockchain-based startups through initial coin offerings. 

The year saw more than $6 billion invested into roughly around 875 different projects. Naturally, everything peaked in December. 

December was the parabolic month for cryptocurrencies and businesses around them. Bitcoin surged to an all-time high of around  USD$20,000 and the entire market cap of all digital coins peaked above USD$800 billion. The world was taken by a storm. 

Everyone was talking about Bitcoin and data from Google supports it. 

The interest in the world’s leading cryptocurrency transitioned to the entire market, as seen on the above charts displaying the capital raised through ICOs. 

This is also when we start seeing massive returns from those projects. The cryptocurrencies they issued through an ICO would eventually get listed on an exchange and their prices would skyrocket, netting initial investors tremendous gains. 

Let’s take Binance Coin (BNB), for example. That’s the native coin of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. Their ICO took place between July 1st and July 21st, raising a total of USD$15 million. Investors could buy BNB tokens for USD$0.10.

Less than a month later, its price was already around USD$2.8, marking an increase of around 2,700 per cent. In December, during the surge, its price was around USD$8, which gave investors a return upwards of 8,000 per cent in less than half a year’s time. It’s perhaps very easy to see why people were eager to invest in ICOs back at the time. 

Going downhill: The bear market of 2018

Once Bitcoin hit USD$20,000 and it pulled the entire market with it, retail investors poured the market with interest surging on a daily basis. 

More and more initial coin offerings started to pop up, each one of them hitting its targets quickly and without any serious hassle. This also gave birth to the so-called “whitepaper” fundraising model where, essentially, all a project had to do is write up a detailed plan of what it intends to do with the money, in order to raise it. 

Looking back, one can easily see how the entire surge was based on nothing but speculation as pretty much everyone invested in those projects only for the returns they would yield following their listing. 

And this had its effect on the ICO market, as crypto startups continued to raise tremendous amounts of money. Well, at least for the first few months of the year. 

The year saw a total of 1253 projects raising around USD$7.8 billion. Yet, the graphic looks particularly different compared to that of 2017. 

Interested started to fade away and for the entire 2019 so far, there were only 96 projects that managed to raise around USD$366 million – a fraction of the capital gained in the previous year. 

Now that we saw how ICO progressed and, as it turned out, regressed, over the years, let’s explore some of the reasons for their demise. 

Lack of developments

As we said in the beginning, ICOs had companies issuing cryptocurrencies that were sold to investors to raise capital for funding the project’s future development. A lot of these tokens, as they are also commonly referred to, served some utility as they could be used within the project’s own ecosystem for different purposes. Some tokens acted like equity stakes, giving investors rights to the revenues of the project to a certain extent. 

But in order for all of this to yield any fruit and to become a working model, the projects had to deliver. They had to develop the products they promised. 

That wasn’t the case, for the most part. In fact, it was recently reported that an overwhelming amount of ICO-based projects didn’t add a single line of code in 2019. To be more precise, out of 2000 reviewed projects, 640 from them failed to display any activity at all. More alarmingly, their current combined market capitalisation is more than USD$415 million. 

The crypto winter

Another reason, which is more on the speculative side of things, is the prolonged bear market that cryptocurrencies saw throughout the entire 2018 and the beginning of 2019. 

Bitcoin went from USD$20,000 in December 2017 to about USD$3,100 in November 2018. The entire market capitalisation of all cryptocurrencies shrank down to below $200 billion, becoming a shadow of its former self. 

Altcoins, as all cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin are commonly referred to, went through even bigger declines. In fact, a broad range of them is currently trading at prices which are 90 per cent lower than their former all-time high values. 

In fact, one trader invested 50 Bitcoin in 50 different altcoins, putting 1 BTC in each back in mid/late 2017. The losses he incurred range from almost 100 per cent to 70 per cent, depending on what he invested in. 

Regulatory Hurdles

While at the beginning regulators were still trying to figure out how to deal with this new way of fundraising, this year we saw definitive actions on their behalf. 

The US SEC recently fined Block.one, the publisher of EOS – an ICO which managed to raise more than USD$4 billion back in 2017 and 2018, with USD$24 million for failing to register itself as a security offering. The same thing happened to Telegram’s TON cryptocurrency, the token sale of which was halted under similar merits. 

Regulators across the world are tightening their provisions regarding cryptocurrencies in order to protect investors after the bloodbath of 2018. 

All of the above, coupled with new investment options such as Initial Exchange Offerings, which provided alternative to ICOs, inevitably led to the demise of the former. 

The takeaway

Initial Coin Offerings could have been a very fruitful and hassle-free way of raising capital. They provided a fresh alternative to the challenging VC model and also lowered the barrier for retail investors to jump in early on in potentially prosperous startups. 

Unfortunately, their run was for not. But it’s not because of the model – it’s because of the projects. A lot of people took advantage of the hype surrounding ICOs and simply capitalised on it, without providing any measurable results in return. 

However, we can already see that things are starting to get better. Regulators are stepping in, large cryptocurrency exchanges are openly backing certain projects, providing the necessary due-diligence for investors to make informed decisions.

With that said, the cryptocurrency field is seemingly becoming more mature, and it’s particularly interesting to see how it will develop in the near future. 

 

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

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Why using security information and event management (SIEM) tools makes sense even if SEA isn’t high on compliance yet

 

 

I recently got the chance to chat with an old industry contact of mine who now manages projects for a local business solutions firm. It was actually quite surprising to see him online on social media in the middle of the workday.

During our chat, he casually mentioned the reason — their internal network was down due to some incident. Their IT team was taking quite a while trying to figure out what went wrong and they pretty much had to twiddle their thumbs until they’d be back up and running.

I asked if they already use security information and event management or SIEM tools which should help them zero in on the possible causes of the issue. Proper log collection, management, and analysis could easily reveal all events, activities, and errors across computing devices and network appliances.

However, manually checking event managers and logs is tedious and inefficient. SIEM makes the process more efficient and automatic. Today, ArcSight, Splunk, and SolarWinds are just among the leading names in the segment.

Some SIEM tools that leverage machine learning now even boast of predictive capabilities that can readily notify or warn IT teams of potential issues before they even happen. I was hoping that a tech-related organization such as theirs should be leveraging such tools.

Unfortunately, this was not the case at my friend’s firm. With plenty of frustration in his language, he replied that their IT team actually looked like a pair of headless chickens inside their server room fiddling with racks and appliances trying to find the cause. Not even once did he see them even bring up Windows’ Event Viewer.

Also Read: Why SEA governments should adopt blockchain

This didn’t really come as a surprise. It isn’t uncommon for IT staff of smaller organizations on this side of the globe to serve more as computer and network repair technicians. And this is despite modern business wisdom dictating that IT departments should now cover a wider set of technical skills including (but not limited to) incident mitigation and response, cybersecurity, and governance. The skills gap between developers and IT staff can cause friction between the two teams.

Team synergy concerns aside, what’s more concerning is that businesses continue to fall short in adopting modern security measures.

SIEM tools have been quite valuable in helping IT teams track issues within their networks but they’ve become a huge thing in the US and in Europe due to the emergence of laws and regulations that required compliance from companies. Regulations like the GDPR have provisions that heavily penalize organizations that fail to disclose security incidences. As such, solutions providers swooped in to fill the need for tools that comprehensively keep tabs of everything that happens within an organization’s IT infrastructure.

SEA hasn’t generated as much buzz concerning the enforcement of data privacy though there have been some efforts to promote data privacy and security in the region. The Philippines has had data privacy signed into law even back in 2012 but it’s only recently that the government made real effort to spread awareness and enforcing the law. Recently, its privacy commission cracked down on online lenders that resort to debt shaming clients through their clients’ mobile phone contacts.

Other countries still appear to be trying to make sense of data privacy as well. Malaysia has the Personal Data Protection Act since 2010 but it has been criticized for its lack of provisions for cross-border data processing and online data. Indonesia has yet to establish similar stringent regulations.

Also Read:  Southeast Asia emerges as leader in conversational commerce; Thailand, Vietnam most advanced in adoption

And despite the presence of these regulations, companies, especially smaller enterprises still, have yet to warm up to investing more in their cybersecurity. Significant breaches in the SEA region have already been reported over the past years. Even the region’s tech leader, Singapore, was revealed to be vulnerable after suffering breaches that affected its citizen’s healthcare and identity data in separate incidences.

Most small businesses I have had discussions with concerning IT adoption share that they only allocate very meagre resources and attention to cybersecurity. IT security often consisted of free antiviruses installed on individual workstations. It’s rare to encounter companies to make use of measures that secure networks as a whole. Not everyone is even aware of good security practices. For instance, it’s still common to see them use Yahoo Mail despite calls by experts for users to ditch the service after the massive breach that affected the company a few years back.

Granted that many of these businesses aren’t necessarily involved in tech or software development. But it can be worrying to encounter even tech-related businesses, though relatively small, not to have what are now considered essential security tools like SIEM solutions.

SIEM tools are capable of tracking all activities across the network and even individual endpoints and devices. They can also be used to log and analyze access attempts and malicious traffic. So, should a breach or security incident should happen, companies will be able to accurately determine the vector of attack and the scope of the breach. On a compliance standpoint, such information should provide organizations with some legal cover in the event that disclosure must be made.

But even without the threat of penalties and legal action, SIEM tools can greatly benefit its adopters. IT teams can use them to capably diagnose root causes of issues that bog down networks thereby hastening resolution and minimizing downtime. Many SIEM providers now also offer their solutions as cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings making them more affordable and easier to integrate. Open source SIEM tools are also available for those with ample technical know-how.

This said SIEM tools are just a few of the many solutions modern enterprises must adopt to comprehensively protect their infrastructures and prevent cyberattacks and security breaches that seek to compromise their security.

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

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: chuttersnap

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Today’s top tech news: Singapore to ban e-scooter from footpaths

Singapore to ban e-scooters from footpaths – Channel News Asia

Singapore’s Land Transportation Authority (LTA) announced that it will ban e-scooters from footpaths in the country starting from November 5, Channel News Asia reported.

The use of such devices will be allowed on cycling paths and park connector networks, and there will be an advisory period until December 31.

Food delivery services in Singapore such as Deliveroo and Foodpanda are known to use e-scooters to deliver customers’ food.

Responding to this issue, Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min stated that the regulation is not a complete ban on e-scooters and that LTA will work with such companies to help their riders switch to motorcycles or bicycles instead.

Grab, which services such as GrabWheels and GrabFood commonly use e-scooters, has issued a statement.

The company said that it plans to “engage in further dialogue” with the government for the possibility of riders who had displayed “responsible riding behaviours” to be given the option to continue on using e-scooters “under certain conditions.”

It will also reach out to all affected riders by end of this week.

Specifically on GrabWheels, Grab said that:

“With the new direction, GrabWheels will also commence measures to suspend its shared ePMD service progressively from November 5, 2019. All existing ride-plans will be refunded in the next 30 days to users’ credit cards. Grab remains committed to serving Singapore and will explore other ways to serve our users with alternative active mobility options.

GrabWheels has been growing our shared e-scooter service in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia. Our service in Indonesia has seen six-times growth in number of rides over the last three months, and we remain committed to expanding the service to the rest of the region.”

Singapore-based spacetech startup Aliena raises US$1M – Dealstreet Asia

Singapore-based space tech startup Aliena raises US$1.5 million (US$1 million) in a funding round led by Cap Vista Private Ltd, Dealstreet Asia reported.

Aliena designs low power propulsion systems for satellites to perform advanced manoeuvres in space. According to Aliena CEO and Co-Founder Mark Lim, this allows for more complex operations to be performed onboard smaller satellites.

Also Read: E-scooter-sharing startup Popscoot pivots to FOUND, now gamifies your daily commute and rewards you for it

Didi Chuxing in talks to enter the Philippines – The Philippine Daily Inquirer

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing is in talks with U-Hop Transportation Network Vehicle System Inc. (U-Hop) for a partnership to enter the Philippines, The Philippines Inquirer reported.

Politician Luis “Chavit” Singson, who owns U-Hop, confirmed the talks and said that the partnership aims to “break the monopoly of Grab” in the market.

Officials from Didi and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) did not immediately responded to request for comments on Thursday.

U-Hop itself is one of the companies with licenses to operate a ride-hailing service in the Philippines.

TikTok declined to testify at US congressional hearing on risks to American consumers – SCMP

ByteDance’s TikTok has declined to testify at a congressional hearing scheduled by Republican Senator Josh Hawley to discuss its business and risks to American consumers, South China Morning Post reported.

“We appreciate Sen. Hawley’s invitation. Unfortunately, on short notice, we were unable to provide a witness who would be able to contribute to a substantive discussion,” a ByteDance spokesperson wrote.

In addition to TikTok, Apple was also invited to testify and had also declined the invitation.

Image Credit: Mike Enerio on Unsplash

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How these two TOP100 alumni slowly win the tough startup’s crowds, one fresh funding at a time

Echelon Asia Summit 2020’s TOP100 has officially kicked off with recruitment of aspiring startups to join a list of graduates that have gotten recognised, backed, and in the process, made a name for themselves.

e27 checked in on two of the most successful startups from 2018 to 2019 that participated in TOP100 and came out on top. Here they are and what they’re up to post-TOP100.

From Malaysia, Dropee

Dropee is a B2B eProcurement marketplace that joined 2018’s TOP100 and qualified to go on and represent Malaysia alongside PHP web application & server management provider Runcloud.

Dropee might not emerge as 2018’s winner, but it caught lots of attention. In January 2019, it raised US$341,000 seed funding from Vynn Capital, in which the company said it used for kickstart market expansion, hire new talents, and introduce new product features.

Dropee was founded in 2016 by Lennise Ng and Aizat Rahim. It connects suppliers with small and medium enterprise (SME) business owners in real-time.

Suppliers and brand owners can streamline the product fulfillment process and facilitate bulk purchases through a suite of enterprise solutions provided by its platform. It offers features such as automated ordering placements to reduce stocking issues, a digitalised documentation, such as auto-generated purchase documents and cloud storage accessibility, which seeks to reduce human error and eliminates inefficiencies.

It also has tools to easily compare suppliers, prices, and products. It currently specialises in the Food & Beverage, FMCG, and retail market segments.

Also Read: Malaysian B2B marketplace Dropee wins grant from TERAJU’s SUPERB programme

Currently, Dropee focusses operations in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Johor.

Before this funding, Digital News Asia reported that Dropee raised US$71,600 from undisclosed angel investors and received a. US$35,800 grant from Cradle Fund.

Back in June 2019, Dropee introduced SME business financing in collaboration with Grab Financial. Powered by their lending and P2P financing partner, Grab would provide business financing to Dropee’s merchants and retailers.

The financing allows retailers to procure products directly from suppliers within the platform; with a financing tenure of up to 12 months. This way, Dropee guarantees a speedy processing time with low interest and a shorter repayment period.

In August, Digital News Asia reported that Dropee stroke another innovation in its platform. Dropee dropped NexHera, a suite of digital tools that seek to strengthen B2B relationships by giving merchants real-time visibility of business data across their supply chain and free up the paperwork hassle.

By co-existing with NexHera, Dropee said, multi-channel (offline-to-online) orders are consolidated on a user-friendly, personalised dashboard, which also provides real-time connectivity of customer information and inventory movement. Users will also get insights into customer behaviour and preferences, which aims to help maximise value and optimise marketing budgets.

From Vietnam, Ecomobi

Hailing from the most exciting economy in Southeast Asia for now, Ecomobi was one of the two winners in the 2019’s TOP100 finale.

Before joining Vietnam’s chapter of this year’s TOP100, it is reported that in 2017, it received an undisclosed sum in investment from Hong Kong-based STI Capital, followed by backing from ESP Capital (Vietnam) and Nextrans Capital (South Korea) in 2018.

Ecomobi describes itself as a social commerce platform that builds partnerships with publishers and facilitates commerce through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Zalo, and Instagram.

Ecomobi uses AI, machine learning, and chatbots to help brands connect with key opinion leaders and sell their products through reviews, promoted content, and product experience.

In September, DealStreetAsia reported that Ecomobi announced that it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from VinaCapital Ventures, a US$100 million venture capital fund focussed on tech startups in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Also Read: AI-powered social selling platform Ecomobi connects brands with influencers, boost their sales

VinaCapital Ventures was also joined by additional investors include Korea-based firms GS Shop, Naver Group, Line Ventures, and the follow-up funding by ESP Capital.

Ecomobi CEO and founder Thanh Truong stated that next in the pipeline for the company is to launch in Malaysia and the Philippines.

With operations in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore, Ecomobi claims that it supports e-commerce giants such as Tokopedia, Shopee, Tiki, and Lazada, as well as brands such as Sony, Samsung, and Vascara.

Both Dropee and Ecomobi have received funding post-TOP100 and have significantly improved since their Echelon days.

What both have experienced can be yours to take. Make the first step, plunge into the competition, and create noise around your products through 2020’s TOP100. Sign up here.

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