The Taiwan AI x Robotic Accelerator (TAIRA) is set to advance the success of three of Taiwan’s rising AI startups to the global audience at CES Eureka Park 2020

Since 2012, CES has served as a global expo for more than 1,200 startups from more than 40 countries and have been funded with more than $1.5 billion. This year, CES Eureka Park 2020 will be held in Las Vegas on 7-10 January 2020, where investors and corporations are attending to fund new ideas and forge new partnerships and acquisitions. With dozens of global media coverage, CES Eureka Park is easily one of the best international platforms for new startups to showcase their best products and get worldwide recognition onward to becoming the next unicorn.

This buzz-worthy exhibition is an opportunity to be seized by many new startups, encompassing various forms of tech innovations and providing solutions to a slew of today’s problems. As such, three Taiwan-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups facilitated by Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator (TAIRA), an accelerator program for startups developing AI and robotics technologies, are taking this chance to steal the spotlight.

Healthtech and Medtech making their global mark

Big Data Mobile is a company that specialises in the commercialisation of technologies related to smart healthcare, media AI, and products. With technical cooperation among some well-known Taiwan and United States universities, the company focuses on AI technology that can accurately determine the area of vascular occlusion as a means to provide a more accurate index for cardiologists.

Around half of the 50 million people in the US and Europe alone are not aware of their arteriosclerosis index until it leads to a critical stage such as peripheral arterial disease. Screening at the hospital is one way to prevent it but it is nearly impossible during the early stage and only 10% of patients presenting typical symptoms are accurately diagnosed.

The company’s leading product, AI-Screening is a combination of portable hardware and mobile application to help measure user’s arteriosclerosis index and obtain report in just one minute. Users simply change their smartphone back case with B.D Mobile back case and install the app called “iScreening”.

“iScreening provides real-time quantitative arteriosclerosis index of the aorta in the app. Our innovation provides aorta arteriosclerosis index to small devices that allows customers to measure the index anytime and anywhere,” said CMO Joyce.

The product is developed with an A.I. interpretation of the biomedical system to accelerate the labeling of cardiovascular index, such as pulse wave velocity, blood pressure, and HRV. This helps give immediate analysis reports for doctors to provide accurate diagnosis and pharmaceutical suggestion.

Also read: TAIRA 2019 sets the stage for global AI startups to expand in Southern Taiwan

As it integrates data and algorithm calculated on the AI platform, AI Screening is also ready for trial operation to provide the best diet analysis report based on the cardiovascular index.

In the near future, B.D Mobile will develop a product to provide quantitative arteriosclerosis index that includes aorta and peripheral artery.

“B.D Mobile started from developing algorithms, signal processing, and developed our own circuits and hardware. Currently, we focus on software-side big data analysis and the establishment of AI models and data collection,” continued Joyce who also co-founded the company back in 2014.

Now with support from TAIRA, the company targets to establish a wider network next year with manufacturers and hospitals to complete more data collection and integrated supply chain.

“We plan to have customer relationship establishment, product function integration, market research, FDA certification information,” added Joyce explaining what things to expect from their participation in CES Eureka Park 2020.

Internet of Things for car owners

Another TAIRA-supported startup that will also be exhibiting in TTA Taiwan Tech Pavilion at CES Eureka Park 2020 is 3drens, a B2B Internet of Things (IoT) solution provider that builds vehicle intelligence platform by using data collection and IoT technologies to empower mobility industries.

Focusing on optimising operations, 3drens provides a comprehensive tool that can cover almost everything for a commercial vehicle business owner to maximise a vehicle’s ROI.

“3drens product Fleet Intelligence Platform is designed to provide a one-stop solution to the whole-network scheduling, commanding, and monitoring space. This is a completely data-driven IoT platform designed for commercial fleet owners including vehicle rentals, logistics, public transportation, and automakers,” said CEO Oeo Yu.

The platform is also software-based so it can be basically integrated to any hardware, and includes many useful features such as geofence, map trajectory, driver performance reports, and issue management.

“Furthermore, we provide capacity matching, distribution tracking and route optimisation for LSPs (Logistics Service Providers),” added OeO, who also came from many experiences of developing smart city projects before co-founding the company.

Founded in 2017, 3drens was the brainchild of Oeo with CTO Chungdial Lim and COO Jammy Yu, with the intention of seizing the tremendous prospect of IoT, a smart computing system that integrates any device with the internet.

Also read: Fast-track your startup growth in Southern Taiwan with TAIRA’s corporate innovation

The company then was selected by TAIRA to be fostered in its accelerator program. It was an essential boost to the company’s success as they were equipped with funding, resources, and collaborations with enterprise clients.

“In addition, Starfab (TAIRA) continuously refers us to their corporate partners, even if we already graduated from the accelerator program. We recommend startups to join StarFab which is really a quality accelerator.”

Indeed the journey doesn’t end as they are now participating again at the much anticipated CES Eureka Park 2020 to reach international markets. “We are looking for corporate partners such as 3rd party logistic corporate partners, shippers, and domestic distributors,” said OeO.

More AI startups from the Taiwan ecosystem

In the same tone, Memorence AI also expects to grow even bigger as an artificial intelligence company, especially with their participation in the CES Eureka Park 2020.

Focusing on human-machine interactive AI learning system, the company aims firstly to change the way and the experience for people who want to build AI-based visual understanding and recognition applications. Secondly, it aims to build a learning system with human-like memories to enhance the capability of AI. And thirdly, it aims to improve the production quality and operation efficiency with AI for professionals such as smart factory engineers and radiologists.

“By doing so, we assist every professionals with great experience in building their high-precision visual recognition applications and therefore make sure end-customer receives the safest and highest quality products and services,” said Founder and CEO Pai-Heng Hsiao.

Founded in 2018, Memorence AI consists of a team of technology experts on AI, software, sensor & edge device, and brain theory scientist.

Their latest creation, Memorence Suite, is an AI learning system with graphical user interface for people without AI backgrounds to easily and efficiently build their high-precision AI applications without coding. It includes advanced features such as auto-labeling, multi-class recognition, and continuously incremental learning.

“We provide AI visual learning and recognition systems for enterprise and consumer solutions. Users include smart factories, health care industries, and continue to expand applications in different fields,” explained Pai-Heng who has 10 years of experience as an AI scientist.

Throughout his experience, manual operation has been a long-time concern as it was subject to human mistakes. Memorence AI was founded to show real commitment in improving quality and efficiency for consumer daily and industry operations.

“At present, the company is in the growth stage, and we are currently accepting the training of TAIRA accelerator which is very helpful to us.” Now with CES Eureka Park 2020 is in sight, Memorence AI is well-prepped to demonstrate their AI learning platform to enterprise professionals and consumers. “We want to find potential customers and business partners, increase company awareness, and survey markets needs and feedback,” added Pai-Heng.

Like the previous two startups, the company was facilitated by TAIRA in setting up collaborations, technical platforms, and funds to be further prepped with business and fundraising opportunities, allowing the company to increase market shares and acquire more clients.

As AI startups are blooming in Taiwan’s technology ecosystem, Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) and StarFab Accelerator — two of Taiwan’s leaders in modern tech — came together to initiate a platform that would bridge the gap between AI startups and enterprise corporations in Taiwan.

The idea eventually formed TAIRA, a program to accelerate AI startups in building partnerships with top companies and support them in acquiring resources to help vitalise further Taiwan’s startup ecosystem.

As TAIRA-supported startups, Big Data Mobile, 3drens and Memorence AI have passed the CES 2020 qualification to exhibit their finest contributions in AI technology for potential investors and enterprise corporations across the globe to witness and potentially invest in. As such, Taiwan’s future is shaping up to become an important AI talent hub for the international market.

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South Korea’s ATU Partners launches e-sports-focussed growth fund – Dealstreet Asia

South Korean private equity firm ATU Partners has announced the launch of a US$17-million growth fund that will invest in e-sports space, Dealstreet Asia reported.

Said to be the first in the region to focus on the industry, the fund is backed by Kakao Games, The E&M, Woori Technology Investments, and SB Partners.

It has already acquired South Korean e-sports organisation DRX (formerly known as Kingzone Dragon X) and invested in leading US-based talent agency AZYT.

Tencent says it fired more than 60 employees this year for corruption and bribery – SCMP

Chinese internet giant Tencent said that it has fired more than 60 employees in the first three quarters of 2019 for alleged corruption and bribery, with 10 of those handed over to Chinese public security and judicial authorities, South China Morning Post reported.

Tencent said that it investigated over 40 cases in the past nine months, mainly involving misappropriation of company assets, corruption and bribery.

It has also blacklisted 16 companies involved in such misbehaviour.

Also Read: Thailand E-Sports Arena raises funding from Japan’s GameWith; to foray into Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia in 2020

Grab, Singtel form consortium for Singapore digital banking license – e27

Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab announced that it has formed a consortium to apply for a digital full bank licence in Singapore with Singtel, the communications technology group.

Grab will have a 60 per cent stake in the consortium entity while Singtel will hold a 40 per cent stake.

In a statement, it is stated that Grab and Singtel seek to contribute to the financial services sector with a differentiated offering that addresses the unmet and underserved needs of consumer and enterprise segments in Singapore.

Temasek invests in Indonesia-focussed EV Growth’s US$250M fund – e27

Singapore-headquartered venture capital firm EV Growth has announced the close of its first fund at US$250 million, exceeding the firm’s initial target of US$150 million.

The VC firm’s new Limited Partners (LPs) include several Asia-based family offices and two of Asia’s largest sovereign wealth funds, including Temasek.

EV Growth was launched in March 2018. A joint venture among East Ventures, SMDV and Yahoo! Japan Capital, the fund focusses on providing growth capital to startups in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia with an industry agnostic focus.

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Image Credit: Frank Busch on Unsplash

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According to research by the Small Business Administration, only half of the new businesses have survived during the first five years and only a third of new businesses can survive for 10 years.

On the contrary, it is reassuring, as we can conclude that if only 50 per cent of new businesses are left during the first five years, the other 50 per cent will fail in the first five years. We can also conclude that about 65 per cent of new companies do not reach the ten-year mark.

Forbes reports a single Blecker statistic based on Bloomberg‘s research, which shows that eight out of every 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months.

What are the reasons that companies do not prosper, they are given 50/50 chance of survival and given any product or service for which there is demand? Let us analyse six reasons why companies fail and some ways in which business failure can be avoided.

Six reasons why companies fail:

Leadership failure

If your management demonstrates poor management skills, your business may fail, which may be evident in many ways. You will fight as a leader if you do not have enough experience to make administrative decisions, staff supervision or lead your organisation.

Your leadership team may not agree on how the business should be managed. You and your leaders can discuss each other publicly or refute each other’s instructions. When there are problems that require strong leadership, you may be reluctant to take over and when your business is constantly moving towards failure.

• How to avoid leadership failure: Useless leadership in your business will filter and affect all aspects of your operations, from financial management to employee morale, and once productivity is interrupted. Learn the horizon, study, find a mentor, enrol in training, do so personally.
• Research: what you can do to improve your leadership skills and industry knowledge. Test other best business practices and see which ones you can apply to your business.

Also Read: Indonesian edutech startup Ruangguru confirms US$150M Series C funding round

Lack of exclusivity and value

You may have an excellent product or service for which there is a strong demand, but your business is still failing. It may have a mediocre outlook or lacks a strong value proposition. If there is a strong demand, it probably has many competitors and does not stand out from the crowd.

How to avoid the failure of a value proposition: What distinguishes your company from competitors? How to do business in a completely unique way? What are your competitors doing better than you? Develop a personalised approach or package of services that no one else in your industry is using, so you can present it as a solid value proposition that attracts attention and interest.

This is how a brand is built. Your brand is the image that your customers recognise and associate with your business. Your value proposition should support your brand identity, including your logo, motto, colours, and all the aesthetics and visible business philosophies that represent your company.

You have to separate it from the package and present your personal perspective to your customers. Do your best to present that unique value proposition to your market so that you can capture a market share and start building your conversion rates.

To advertise your brand and differentiate yourself, you will need to speed up your marketing plan and use more and more places to present your brand to the public. You can be a lot better than your rivals, but it doesn’t matter if your prospects don’t even know you’re in the game.

Also Read: Planning for 2020: Leveraging technology to alleviate basic business woes

Use social networks, word of mouth, cold call, direct mail and other tried and true marketing techniques. Make sure you have a well-optimised online presence, develop lead generation technology and capture contact information, such as high-quality content on your site, a newsletter and gift of information for customers.

It is out of touch with customer needs

If you don’t keep in touch with your customers and they understand what they need and the comments they give, your business will fail. Your customers may like your product or service, but they may like it if they change this function or modify that process.

What are they telling you? Are you listening Or is there a market decline? Are you still selling what you are selling? These are all important questions to ask and answer.

Unprofitable business model

Similar to leadership failure is to build a business on a model that is not solid, works without a business plan and seeks a business for which there is no proven revenue stream. The idea of the business may be good, but if there are no established strategic guidelines, the implementation of the idea may fail.

Develop a complete business plan that includes financial forecasts based on projected revenue, strategic marketing, and challenge management solutions to overcome potential obstacles and competitive activities.

Create a milestone chart with specific tasks and objectives specified over time so that you can measure success, solve problems as they occur, and stay on track. A solid business model that incorporates best practices can help your company avoid failure.

Also Read: 7 ways to build a successful digital business

Poor financial management

You should know, until the last penny, where does the money in your business come from and where is it going to make your business successful. Your business may also fail if it lacks a contingency financing plan, a store of money that you can turn into in the event of a financial crisis.

Sometimes, people start businesses with dreams of making money but do not have the ability or interest to manage cash flow, taxes, expenses, and other financial problems. Bad accounting practice puts a business on a direct path to failure.

If 50 per cent of new businesses fail, 50 per cent of new companies can succeed. Starting a business is an exciting endeavor that requires a clearly defined product or service and strong market demand.

Whether you want to start a new business or are already doing it, you should understand that success depends on careful strategic planning and sound fiscal management that starts before it starts and continues throughout the life of the business is.

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A year-end throwback featuring three of our startup partners in 2019

2019 proved to be a great year for startups. Funding news upon funding news upon funding news dotted our newsfeed so much that exclusive monthly roundups were drafted for them. The fundings traversed from early stage to late stage and moved across verticals. Will 2020 be as bountiful? We can only wait.

Meanwhile, on the partnership side of things, exclusive startup coverage has also increased this year. Each partnership had their stories to tell that’s uniquely their own, and tell it they did, on a tech and media platform that operates within the same spectrum — e27.

Whether they were created to cater for businesses or for consumers, they leveraged on the power of storytelling to engage potential partners, clients, or investors in the region.

Also read: The power of storytelling: how to engage your audience 

So, as we wrap up another year, allow us to walk you through three startup stories that graced our platform this year, and anecdotes about them that will linger long after the year is over.

Pocket Money — improving access to credit while enhancing ROI with a social repayment system

Pocket Money is already a win in my book, serving the underbanked at the heart of this startup’s mission. In this exclusive article, CEO Stefano Virgilli detailed several facets that differentiated Pocket Money from other micro-lending platforms. In particular, we found their ‘social repayment’ system to be quite the stand out.

How this works is that borrowers are given the option to earn payment credits by accomplishing certain tasks, ensuring the lender that they will have other means to get back their money should the borrower default on payment.

In talking about the inclusion of this unique concept within a familiar space, Virgilli emphasised that he would rather introduce small innovations that actually work, rather than radically disrupt the microlending industry in ways that may not work.

Clean on Demand — a one-stop-shop for cleaning and household repair services

“We clean everything except money,” quipped CEO Ben Xavier, serving as our introduction to this Echelon 2019 alumni. Clean on Demand tapped e27 to craft the article during their participation at the Echelon Asia Summit.

The article showcased a cleaning business that goes beyond cleaning — one that leverages on tech and automation. They also adjust with the market’s demands. This is a company that understands their strengths and innovates continuously from there.

Speaking about how Clean on Demand pursues innovation, Xavier has this nugget of wisdom to share: “Never ever procrastinate. It’s just suicide on installment plan.”

SalesCandy and their LMS platform that lets you close more sales

It’s one thing to start a business out of a perceived need, and another out of personal experience. SalesCandy founders Stanley Chee and Jeffry Chan belong to the latter category. The duo both ran performance marketing agencies in the past and had witnessed firsthand how potential leads were lost as a result of inefficient sales process management.

Stanley and Jeffry eventually created an Uber-style lead routing system to bridge the sales gap and leverage data analytics to measure and improve their clients’ future advertising efforts.

As they prepared for regional expansion, SalesCandy tapped e27 to tell its story, highlighting its wins, and putting into detail its future expansion plans.

With the aim to help clients close as many sales as they possibly can, SalesCandy continues to innovate all the way with their regional expansion.

Help is out there — your startup story is worth sharing

These are just three of the many startup stories we’ve shared this year. Anecdotes aside, it’s always a pleasure to see these pieces come to fruition — from ideation to publishing. Not only because it means work is done, but also because we believe that opportunities multiply when you put your story out there.

Your prospective clients, potential investors or partners, and even future rockstar employees could be reading about you!

We’d love to give every startup a chance to tell their story, highlight their wins, elaborate on their products or services, and get connected to the rest of the ecosystem.

To explore possible collaborations, drop us an email at engage@e27.co or visit us at https://e27.co/advertise/. Our best consultants are here to connect with you!

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There are many reasons why a piece of funding news can rock a startup ecosystem. It could be the amount that the startup raised (Unicorn! Decacorn! Hippogriff!) or the investor behind it (Somebody famous, such as a boxer or an actor).

This year, we have seen several funding announcements that are significant not only to the parties involved but also to the ecosystem where they are based. Unlike our routine monthly funding rounds listicle, this time we decided to group the funding announcement into categories based on verticals or markets. Because, after a while, you just see a pattern emerging.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 funding news that rocked the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem this year:

The edutech sector graduates to the next level

2019 was an exciting year for Indonesian edutech sector as three of the leading startups in the market —Ruangguru, Zenius, and HarukaEdu— announced their later stage funding rounds. Even better: Ruangguru raised up to US$150 million, a number which is said to be the highest ever raised by an edutech startup in the market. Beyond Indonesia, we also saw investment flowing to the Philippines, with a funding round for Edukasyon.

Fintech continues to shine

As a sector, fintech remains popular among investors in the Southeast Asian region. Notable funding announcements include investment into startups such as Kredivo, MyCash, iSTOX, PayMongo, or Crowde. As the market becomes more open and receptive towards fintech innovation, investors are also becoming more confident in Southeast Asia’s ability to turn into a fintech hub.

Also Read: Indonesian legal tech startup Legalku raises seed funding from UMG Idealab

Property tech finds a home in Southeast Asia

The most interesting part about property tech investment in 2019 was the variety of it. There are investments directed towards emerging markets such as ShweProperty in Myanmar, the more mature markets such as Travelio in Indonesia, hotel and hospitality sector such as RedDoorz, and property marketplaces such as 99co.

Automotive e-commerce platforms are making moves

Automotive e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia are also gaining popularity among investors. Interestingly, startups such as Carsome are mentioning “profitability” as part of their goal for the next year. This part of the great wave of change that was triggered by coworking space giant WeWork’s failure to get listed.

Investors are getting their dose of caffeine

What are you going to be without your morning cup of coffee? Apparently even rapper Jay-Z knows how much you love your daily dose of caffeine. Since last 2018, VC firms in Southeast Asia started to invest in non-tech companies such as Alpha JWC Ventures’s investment in Kopi Kenangan, East Ventures’s investment in Fore Coffee, and Intudo Ventures’s investments in Artotel and R Fitness. The trend reached a new height in 2019 with Kopi Kenangan raising an extended Series A funding round from US celebrities and athletes such as Jay-Z and Serena Williams.

Emerging market is where the actions are happening

2019 is the year of emerging markets with Vietnam and Myanmar as the centre of all these activities. Investors are getting increasingly interested in the market as they invested in Vietnamese startups such as Propzy or Rever and Burmese startups such as Kone Si or ShweProperty.

Investing for the environment

When you are investing in a startup, you are investing in innovation. This is especially important in the context of environmental protection, and luckily, investors are growing more interested in investing in companies with a strong social impact. Think CricketOne or Bambooloo. In fact, Big Idea Ventures launched a fund that focusses on investing in the development of meat alternatives.

Also Read: Vietnamese bus booking platform VeXeRe raises funding to accelerate products development

Giving birth to new unicorns

Despite heightening scrutiny against tech startups and their valuations, investors continue on investing in companies that would later become a unicorn. Singapore saw the birth of its latest unicorn when Trax announced its Series D funding round, while Indonesia saw its fifth unicorn in OVO.

Healthtech, medtech investments are looking healthy

Another sector that is gaining popularity in Southeast Asia is healthtech and medtech. One of the latest was an investment in Zenyum, a dentistry startup, and an investment into AWAK, a wearable dialysis device.

Securing new funds

Startups are not the only ones raising funding this year. Many VC and CVC firms were also announcing their new funds in 2019. The latest that we saw was EV Growth’s fund, announced at the final week of the year. What was interesting about 2019 was also the variety of funds that are being launched. While most funds remain sector-agnostic, some funds chose to focus on a particular vertical, such as New Protein or women entrepreneurs.

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The Greater Bay Area (GBA) is perhaps the best contender in becoming Asia’s version of both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The region is already one of the global tech hubs, and it is home to major advancements in fintech. Since the announcement of the initiative in February this year, it has been well-received in the technology and finance industries across the region.

With a combined GDP of over US$1.6 trillion, and a population of nearly 70 million, it makes sense to closely integrate the region’s cities — namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen Zhaoqing, and the two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao — for efficiency in trade and transactions.

Also Read: AI-powered adtech platform ADBRO closes financing round with 500 Startups, eyeing APAC expansion

Investments in technology will greatly facilitate growth in the region and will be a testbed for how effective these technologies will be in the bigger picture. The so-called “Web 3.0” or the “internet of value” focuses on decentralized technologies, artificial intelligence, and smart and connected devices. With a diverse population, culture, and economic systems, these innovations will be the glue that brings together the GBA’s 11 cities within tight integration.

What makes the greater Bay Area attractive?

The GBA’s economic growth and large market size make the region a land of opportunities for businesses in various sectors including finance, real estate, infrastructure and many others, according to a comprehensive report by KPMG. In particular, strong manufacturing industry and tourism will contribute to growth, according to a report by PWC China.

The different cities involved present a region of diverse industries and skills that together make for a strong comparative advantage in manufacturing, IT, technology, global tourism, trade, asset management, and finance.

Compared with the rest of the world, the GBA has already made strong headway in finance, technology, insurance, property and blockchain technology. Some of these industries even outpace their global counterparts. 

Specific technologies that will drive integration and growth

For the Greater Bay Area goals to be achieved, there needs to be adequate integration among the 11 cities. Investments in innovation and technology in these areas will help enhance competitive advantage and promote better integration across the region.

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

One such area for investment is in decentralized technology. The nature of blockchain may be the right infrastructure to pursue, considering the 11 cities that make up the GBA. “Blockchain today is like how the internet was discovered over 20 years ago. I am convinced that blockchain will become the infrastructure of the future,” says Shirley Hsu, Chief Finance Officer, Tus Pine Peak Group. She adds that data will be a driver of growth and profit. “It’s a matter of how we can take advantage of this data.”

Integrated digital identity

One reason to rally behind blockchain tech is the opportunity for a user-centric model for decentralized digital identities. With no single city maintaining control over the know-your-customer (KYC) and identification system, businesses and governments across the region can achieve a standardized identification system that ensures the privacy of data and almost entirely mitigates control by centralized platforms. 

KYC procedures currently take up to several days or weeks before completion. A decentralized and standard digital identity system makes it possible for businesses to onboard clients in a faster and more effective manner, ensuring seamless service delivery and huge cost savings in terms of personnel, time and money. 

A number of experts in the field hold similar beliefs in the transformational capacities of decentralized digital identity framework. “We can’t reach the age of 3.0, i.e., web decentralization, unless we create a platform for decentralized digital identities and assets,” says Hans Lombardo, Co-Founder, Blockpass, a platform that decentralizes KYC and identity management. 

“The internet at present is centralized, and data is controlled by specific companies like Facebook, JP Morgan Chase, Google, and other companies in the United States. It is really very important that we have a decentralized digital identity,” he adds.

A decentralized standard for identity management will allow for an easier flow of transactions and remove barriers in resource exchange. This will make it easier for travellers across different cities to transact and travel easily without going through different ID verification protocols.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is another field with transformational capacities to help facilitate growth. Presently, Hong Kong holds a strong position in providing educational resources on AI, as home to two of the world’s top 10 universities for AI research. 

Investing in AI will help attract talent and provide quality AI research, which is crucial to innovation and technological advancement. With adequate advancements in AI, the GBA can provide substantial technical support to various sectors including finance and telecommunications.

“AI is still at an early stage in terms of applications, but as soon as the technology matures, we will see AI-driven taxi, trucks, customer service reps at banks and shops, as well as AI-controlled robots acting as police and security guard joining humans,” shares Aaron Tsai, Founder and Chief Capitalist at MASEx, a global security token exchange.

“Machine learning can simplify and simplify processes, and apply the lessons learned to other areas,” says Pradip Madhanagopal, Risk Audit Partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

A testbed for innovation

The year 2035 has been set as the milestone date for the GBA initiative to reach its maturity. With accelerated investments in infrastructure and technology, there is optimism that the economic potential of the region may be more quickly realized, given its market size, diverse resources, talent, and institutions.

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

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Entrepreneurs enjoy the privilege of being their own bosses, but they have to carry a lot of weight on their backs and find ways to help businesses grow single-handedly. Reports suggest that there are over 580 million entrepreneurs in the world today and each one is constantly looking for new solutions to improve products or services.

It’s not an easy job in the ever-changing business environment, so you’ll need to be very diligent and agile in order to keep the company alive and kicking in the long run. There is no magic formula to help you grow the organisation easily, but we can identify a few techniques that proved to work well for the majority of successful companies.

In this article, we will focus on those techniques and show you seven features that will make an entrepreneur’s life more powerful in 2020 and beyond. Let’s take a look!

Build your brand

Are you aware of the concept of personal branding? By definition, self-branding (also known as personal branding) is a form of marketing that an individual uses to create a uniform public image that demonstrates his or her values and overall reputation.

Although it may seem irrelevant, personal branding is actually a major business contributor because customers will judge the business based on the entrepreneur who represents the company.

Also Read: Apple successfully changed customer behaviour. Here’s what entrepreneurs can learn from it

According to the report, reputation damage is the number one risk concern for business executives around the world – 88 per cent of them say they are explicitly focusing on reputation risk as a key business challenge.

So, what can you do to build an authoritative self-brand?

The goal is simple – promote yourself through quality online content. You can write LinkedIn posts, website blogs, and contribute to relevant niche magazines. Such activities will prove that you are a trustworthy and knowledgeable professional.

Of course, you shouldn’t over-promote yourself. Focus on content quality instead and let your in-depth insights and analyses speak for you.

Work with your team

The second recommendation is to take care of your team – no matter how big or small it may be. Employee engagement greatly depends on the way you treat them, so do your best to provide subordinates with a comfortable work environment. You can do it in many different ways, but here are some of our favourite tricks:

• Organise team building events to strengthen relationships among employees.

• Invest in joint social activities.

• Invest in fitness and healthcare programs because fitter employees are more productive.

• Let your team members work remotely whenever needed.

• Increase the number of free days and encourage work-life balance in your company.

• Reward employees for successful projects.

• Listen to their business proposals and put their ideas into practice.

All these tactics are fairly simple, but they can do miracles for the overall productivity of your team.

Also Read: 5 financial tips from established to new entrepreneurs that will help you generate a better cash flow

Focus on customer experience

Customer experience is getting increasingly important. As a matter of fact, studies show that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. How come?

Well, the only way a business can distinguish itself from the crowd of more or less the same offers is by promoting a more comfortable consumer journey. You should do your best to personalise offers and tailor products so as to fit the needs of each buyer in particular.

No one wants “one-size-fits-all” solutions anymore. On the contrary, personalisation is the only way to improve customer experience, so you better embrace the new trend and focus on every consumer separately.

Create a value system

Another thing you should to do become a better entrepreneur in 2020 is to promote a specific set of values. It will help you to win over new customers and boost employee morale at the same time. It’s not just our opinion, but rather a well-known fact:

• Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of surveyed global consumers prefer to purchase products and services from companies that stand for a purpose that reflects their own values and beliefs.

• Almost 80 per cent of American workers say company culture is an important factor in job satisfaction.

Also Read: Self-success begins with self-confidence

People on both sides of the business spectrum want something they can relate to easily, so you have to pick the desired direction and promote values through the business. It will make you a much more successful entrepreneur and also a much more desirable employer.

Tools for professional development

Digital apps and programmes should not be a novelty among entrepreneurs anymore, but we have to mention this feature just in case you failed to deploy new technologies by now. You can find hundreds of useful tools online, so the choice essentially depends on the nature of your business. However, we can recommend you a few platforms that we enjoy the most:

• Moosend: It’s a powerful marketing platform that you can use to control all promo activities effortlessly.

• Essay writing service: This is one of the best content creation agencies that specialise in all sorts of digital content.

• Grammarly: If you don’t like proofreading, Grammarly will get the job done on your behalf quickly.

• MOZ: It is a highly comprehensive search engine optimisation program.

• Zoho Books: Many entrepreneurs rely on this tool to manage accounting and invoicing procedures.

Best of both worlds

We just mentioned some of the best online tools and apps that you can use to improve business operations, but you should not forget to dedicate some time to offline activities as well. In the world where businesses spend 99 per cent of their time on digital projects, customers would be very excited to see some good old human touch from your side.

First of all, make sure to build stronger relationships with buyers in physical stores. Teach your staff to behave politely and personalise interaction as much as possible.

Also Read: 10 mistakes that new entrepreneurs tend to make and should avoid in 2020

Secondly, you should organise live events from time to time to give a chance to your clients and customers to meet you in person. It is a major business content that can drastically improve your entrepreneurship status. After all, this is why most businesses (31 per cent) believe that event marketing is the single-most effective marketing channel.

Learn from niche leaders

This tactic is far from being a new one, but it will remain fundamental in 2020 and beyond. Namely, every entrepreneur must keep an eye on niche leaders in order to learn new business methods and identify fresh industry trends.

The idea is not to copy/paste the same campaigns, but rather to keep in touch with the novelties and avoid lagging behind your closest rivals. It’s a precious piece of advice that just have to make use of in 2020.

Solo entrepreneurship is never an easy job, especially if you are managing a small team and have to do many different things simultaneously.

Do you think these tips can help you to build a more profitable company? Do you have other interesting business ideas to share with your fellow entrepreneurs? Feel free to write a comment – we would be glad to see your opinion about this important topic.

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Enterprise Singapore and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) have launched the first joint call for innovation projects between the two cities, according to a press statement.

The organisations invited Singapore- and Shanghai-based companies to submit their joint project proposals on the development of innovative products or services with strong commercial potential.

Dubbed The Singapore-Shanghai Joint Innovation Call, this initiative aims to facilitate deeper cross-border collaboration between enterprises in the two cities. It will open up new opportunities for exchange market knowledge and technology interests, and co-innovate solutions together for the global market.

Enterprise Singapore and STCSM will provide funding support for jointly supported projects. The project consortium must have at least one company from each participating country to qualify for funding.

Also Read: Blockchain payment network Terra expands to Singapore with former Uber exec in leadership

The organisations will officially be calling for proposals in February 2020.

The programme is open for companies working in all technological and application areas, with a focus on sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and life science, urban solutions and smart cities development.

According to a spokesperson for Enterprise Singapore, the products, process, or services submitted to the programme “must be innovative, and should have an obvious benefit and added value resulting from the technological cooperation between the participants from the different countries, such as increased knowledge base, commercial leads, and access to R&D infrastructure.”

The Singapore-Shanghai Joint Innovation Call was one of the five MOUs signed at the inaugural Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council (SSCCC) meeting in Shanghai in May.

The event discussed the enhancement of collaborations and connectivity between the two cities, in specific areas such as ease of doing business and financial cooperation.

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Early April this year, leadership consultancy firm Zenger Folkman did a study on feedback practices. They discovered that, in fact, a great majority of leaders were “twice as likely” to give positive feedback (at times, sugarcoated feedback that can seem positive), instead of corrective or negative ones.

Which made sense: in another one of their studies, they found that employees actually want negative feedback despite it being undesirable. Negative feedback can highlight blind spots and show employees the way to improve.

The problem comes for the inverse.

Leaders are struggling to give feedback to their employees— but when the situation is reversed, the struggle is even bigger.

And that is understandable: for one, not many think of giving feedback to our managers and leaders. These people are our ‘superiors’ and for the most part, our jobs partly depend on their appraisals.

Two, it is difficult to approach the topic. For instance, if your leader implemented something that actually caused more trouble than good, it can be hard for many to tell him that straight in the face. Three, most of us avoid confrontation.

Also Read: 6 strategies to give valuable feedback that sticks

Why create an opportunity for conflict, when you can simply adapt?

However, there are always things we want to change. There are times where we want to speak up but we do not want to risk offending someone. It is a tricky situation to navigate but it should not be avoided. With emotional intelligence and tact, we can deliver our insight in the most constructive way possible.

Reputation matters

What bothers you may not bother another person— even if both of you are bothered by it, it might be less significant for them than for you. As you scan your workplace, you will most likely categorise people in two ways: those who complain constantly and those who rarely do.

Despite not complaining, these people are observant. They know what bothers them: they simply don’t talk about it.

While those who complain constantly, often go out of their way to make people aware of what bugged them. But typically, it only stays within their own circle, without having insofar a chance for their higher-ups to hear about it.

Problem is, the higher-ups know who are those people that complain constantly, even if they are not aware of the details.

Those who complain the least are always the most effective in giving upward feedback. These are the people that only talk about the bigger issues before going into the smaller annoyances and thus, their words carry more weight.

Also Read: RateIt raises US$5M to expand its real-time customer feedback solutions in SEA

It also the reason why there are loads of write-ups about how those who speak less are generally smarter.

Here’s what to do for both situations:

1. If you’re a stoic and you rarely complain, your words already carry weight. What you need is an appropriate time and place to raise your concerns, with respect to your superior.
2. If you’re a habitual complainer, you will have to be wary of your reputation. Talk about your problems less and write them down: that way, you can categorise which are the ones that deserve more priority. You can also think about possible solutions before going to your leader, which can help direct the conversation and reach a conclusion faster.

Ask for a separate meeting to raise issues

Managers are there for a specific reason: strategy. Unless their job scope covers running the ground, they are less likely to hear all the different complaints.

Few people take their complaints upwards as they want to make a positive impression on their superiors—things only change when there is visibility on new issues.

However, giving upward feedback should be dealt with tact.

Not every leader takes feedback well. Hence, your feedback delivery method depends on your knowledge of your manager. For instance, some managers don’t take criticism well and thus earn a reputation for being ‘prickly’. These are the nuances you need to take care of.

Apart from that, you should:

1. Be mindful of priorities. Are your issues deserving of being in a team meeting agenda? Are they critical to the team or just to a select few? Raise your issues at the appropriate time. Can your manager afford the time during busy periods?
2. Be empathetic. Just like how managers do not know everything about the employees, the reverse is also the same.
3. Schedule separate meetings. One-on-ones work best here. If there are more stakeholders involved, bring the stakeholders into the meeting with the leader as well. Such meetings emphasise only on select issues—rather than waiting till the end of a meeting to share feedback, you can easily go through every necessary detail that could have been omitted if you were to be delayed.

Also Read: This IoT device sends instant feedback of a player’s performance to the coach when he is in action

Focus on your perspective and facts

Frame your feedback in the form of your perceptions rather think of what you would do if you were in your leader’s position. For a leader that is disconnected from the other employees, your perspective can be invaluable.

By doubling down on your perspective you are also realising the limitations of your standpoint. By being empathetic, you can avoid presuming what your leader is faced with.

Like all feedback, it should be honest and data-driven. Be as specific as possible: what is the problem that you want to change and what are the things that went wrong? Emphasise on how it affects you and other stakeholders but avoid speculating:

1. Don’t state why you think this problem exists unless required. It is most likely that you have partial knowledge. Always seek to understand the whole picture rather than going straight in on one part. However, if your leader asks for a suggestion, be tactful about it.
2. Remove assumptions. Rather than ascribe a motive to someone else and get them to be defensive, stick to the facts of the situation.

Also Read: This IoT device sends instant feedback of a player’s performance to the coach when he is in action

When your boss rejects you

It is difficult to predict how someone will react no matter how careful or thoughtful you are with delivering it. Sometimes, you might get bitten as your leader gets upset or defensive about it.

Rather than clamming up after a negative reaction, take this opportunity to dissect the situation. What are the things that went wrong and what can you learn from it? Going forward, you can improve on the way you deliver your feedback specifically to this manager. You can also understand what are the topics beyond his/her boundaries.

The health of any organisation, team or relationship is dependent on identifying and discussing problems. Healthy teams talk about problems freely. They speak up about issues and resolve in tandem with one another.

In contrast, unhealthy teams leave issues unspoken about, which leaves a host of performance problems and potential errors. Eventually, results and relationships will be eroded.

Feedback is never a one-way thing. Between managers and employees, there must always be feedback going back and forth to help everyone improve together. It is understandably tough: we are much more comfortable venting to one another than to give our feedback to our managers—why risk our livelihoods?

Holding our tongue is the reason for accountability gaps. For the gap to start closing, the best way we can do is to start with ourselves.

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First seen on Human+Business.

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas by submitting a post.

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

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Updates: Ruangguru has reached out to e27 with a more complete list of their investors in this funding round.

Indonesian edutech startup Ruangguru today confirmed a US$150 million Series C funding round led by growth equity company Global Atlantic and venture capital firm GGV Capital.

EV Growth, UOB Venture Management, and a number of new investors also participated in the round.

The funding round has been reported by various media since weeks ago, but the startup has declined to comment until today.

With the investment, Ruangguru is also set to appoint General Atlantic Indonesia Managing Director Ashish Saboo as its commissioner.

The funding round itself is meant to support the company’s expansion effort to Vietnam, where it has launched under the brand Kien Guru.

“We are committed to building a comprehensive curriculum and implementing artificial intelligence in developing fun and easy to understand learning experience. Today, 80 per cent of our users are based outside of Jakarta. This shows that our products are widely accepted and evenly distributed,” said Iman Usman, Founder and Director of Products and Partnership at Ruangguru.

Also Read: Indonesian edutech startup Ruangguru receives grant from MIT SOLVE programme

Prior to this funding round, the startup announced a Series B led by UOB Venture Management.

Ruangguru recently made headlines when co-founder Adamas Belva Devara Syah was appointed as a presidential special staff by President Joko Widodo. In addition to Devara, the president also named Amartha founder Andi Taufan Garuda Putra as a presidential special staff.

The year 2019 was a big year for edutech investment in Indonesia as we see fellow edutech startups such as HarukaEdu and Zenius announcing their funding rounds this year.

HarukaEdu raises its Series C funding round in November, which was meant to support its expansion to B2B services.

Zenius also announced their funding round in October and had launched a free-to-access content offering since.

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Image Credit: Ruangguru

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