SendFriend attracted Ripple, Barclays, and some other investors with its US-Philippines remittance service

Blockchain-based remittance startup that helps people in US to send money to the Philippines SendFriend has announced funding from Ripple, Barclays, MIT Media Lab, the Mastercard Foundation, Techstars, Mahindra Finance, 2020 Ventures, and 8 Decimal Capital. All investors banded together in raising a total capital of US$1.7 million for the company, as reported by The News Asia.

Also Read: Cambodia catches up with launching of startup professional service alliance

The company will use the fund to finance its mission, which is to enable Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to securely transfer USD to PHP at the lowest rate available. SendFriend also seeks to become the only option to do so, from US to the Philippines and vice versa with 65 per cent lower fees.

The news came just after the integration with Ripple’s xRapid solution for SendFriend’s users to have a more efficient cross-border payment in November 2018.

“With the integration, XRP is used as a liquidity vehicle for cross-border payments, enabling SendFriend’s users to circumvent the corresponding banking system and convert USD to XRP to PHP in a matter of seconds,” said representative from SendFriend to David Lighton, SendFriend co-founder and Chief Executive Officer further added the plan with the funding.

Also Read: GOJEK names Lien Choong Luen as GM for Singapore operations

“This investment will allow us to build out our team, focus on community engagement, and marketing efforts. Next, we’re planning to launch in New Jersey and becoming available in other states in US,” said Lighton.
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Image Credit: SendFriend

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As a member of the society, tech companies have the right — and obligation— to fight for justice

There are many reasons to be disappointed at the world these days. The latest was when, on Wednesday February 13, Instagram deleted a comic strip about daily struggle of being an Indonesian gay Muslim man.

The ban was confirmed by Indonesian minister of communications and informatics Rudiantara, following pressure from society to ban the comic strip’s account. The account, which boasts 6,000 followers, had been condemned by internet users as blasphemous and immoral for its depiction on the internal conflicts that a Muslim gay man faces on daily basis.

If you recall, this is not exactly the first time a tech giant succumbing to the pressure of homophobic groups in Indonesia. As recently as 2018, Google succumbed to the ministry’s request to remove several LGBT apps — mostly social networking or dating apps — from Play Store.

Also, do not forget that time when Go-Jek had to sanction its executive for posting a compliment on the company’s inclusive policies on his personal Facebook. While the executive was sanctioned for “violating the company’s employee social media guideline”, it is hard to separate the sanction from the public pressure that had called upon Go-Jek users to uninstall the app for supporting LGBT rights.

These incidents happened at least three times in the Indonesian market and I have reasons to believe that more is going to come as the country becomes more religiously conservative.

It is about time for us to beg the question: How long can tech companies succumb to the homophobic, human rights-violating demand of its public?

Also Read: Riding the irony: Can Indonesian GO-JEK afford supporting LGBTQ rights in a country that condemns it?

The first response to this question would be: Well, when running their operations in a country, businesses are obliged to abide to the positive law of said country. If Indonesia said you should pay tax, then you pay tax. If Indonesia said you should not have pornographic content on your platform, then you should not, unless you are willing to risk being banned.

But guess what? Despite some group’s effort to have them banned, being a homosexual is not illegal in Indonesia.

So if a tech company decided to follow through demands from groups or a ministry to ban LGBT content on its platform, they are not abiding the law, they are succumbing to pressure from hardline groups.

Also Read: World’s largest dating app for gays sets up shop in Taiwan

Here is the thing: On the other hand, we also have to understand that businesses can not afford to lose their customers. They need to maintain a certain a public image and a good reputation equals money.

However, innovation is meant to be for the betterment of society.

And we believe that in the case of tech companies, their innovation should not be limited to to their scope of work, or the services and products that they provide. It also lies in the value that they are propagating.

This is why, when tech giants such as Google make a mistake in the way they are handling sexual harassment cases, its employees did not just sit down and accept. They walked out; they called for changes.

As long as you are a member of the society, you are entitled — no, obliged — to fight for justice.

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Image Credit: Mercedes Mehling on Unsplash

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This brings to a close OYO’s US$1B financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800M into the company

OYO gets US$100M from China’s Didi Chuxing [The Economic Times]

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has invested US$100 million in Southeast Asia’s budget hotel aggregator chain OYO. The investment, which continues to value Oyo at about US$5 billion, has been made from Didi-controlled entity Star Virtue Investment, people aware of developments told ET.

This brings to a close OYO’s US$1 billion financing round led by existing backer SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800 million into the company.

The Didi investment comes a little over two months after Singapore-headquartered transportation major Grab infused the same amount in the Gurgaon-based startup.

Circles.Life to expand to Taiwan, Australia this year after securing Sequoia investment [Channel News Asia]

Mobile virtual network operator, Circles.Life, on Thursday announced it will be expanding its presence from beyond Singapore’s shores, with plans to enter Taiwan and Australia this year.

Its regional expansion plans come after it closed a Series C funding round led by Sequoia India, the company said in a press release. No details on the size of investment that was raised were disclosed.

CEO Rameez Ansar told Channel NewsAsia in an interview before the announcement that this is one of the few times Sequoia is investing in a telco, which is testament to what the company is trying to achieve – creating a telco experience on top of the infrastructure akin to what Uber and Grab did to disrupt the taxi industry.

Google, Apple face calls to pull Saudi app allowing men to monitor wives [Reuters]

A Saudi Arabian government app that allows men in the country to monitor and control their female relatives’ travel at the click of a button should be removed from Google and Apple’s online stores, a US politician and activists said on Wednesday.

Human rights campaigners argued the tech giants are enabling abuses against women and girls in the ultra-conservative kingdom by hosting the app.

The free Absher app, created by the Saudi interior ministry, allows men to update or withdraw permissions for their wives and female relatives to travel internationally and get SMS updates if their passports are used, said human rights researchers.

Indonesia’s trader platform Stockbit acquires mutual fund app Bibit [DealStreetAsia]

Indonesia-based Stockbit, a social network for stock traders, has acquired local investment startup Bibit for an undisclosed fee to simplify investment process for first-time traders. Prior to the acquisition, which took place late last year, Bibit was an OJK-licensed tech-based mutual fund seller.

Following the deal, Stockbit has relaunched Bibit as a robo-advisory platform to simplify conventional time-tested investment products to the Indonesian public.

“(Bibit will be) a one-click solution to invest in an optimal portfolio that is personalized towards your age and risk profile,” Stockbit CEO Wellson Lo told DealStreetAsia.

The post Today’s top tech news, Feb 14: China’s Didi Chuxing injects US$100M into OYO appeared first on e27.

The company plans to launch in Taiwan, Australia and Indonesia plus two other unnamed countries

Circles.Life, the Singaporean mobile data plan operator, announced today it has raised US$50 million from Sequoia India to finance international expansion.

Circles.Life plans to open in five countries over the next 18 months, beginning with a launch in Taiwan in Q2.  The plan is to launch in Australia the next quarter, according to Channel News Asia, Indonesia is also one of the five countries included in the launch.

The company plans to spend quite a bit as it pursues its international goals, expecting to, “invest more than $50 million in each launch.”

Furthermore, Circles.Life has dedicated US$25 million to its engineering center in Bangalore. It plans to use this money to use data science to improve its personalised offerings to customers.

In Singapore, Circles.Life operates by purchasing bandwidth from the local telco M1 and then selling it to customers at discounted prices (or giving a huge amount of data).

For example, just this week, the company pulled a clever marketing stunt by announcing it was killing its 20GB for US$20 plan at the end of February. Then, a day later, it announced that it was offering unlimited data for US$20 a month.

The company claims it has 5 per cent of the Singaporean market and calls itself Singapore’s fastest growing telco (although, technically, it is not a telco).

“Circles.Life was built on a mission to give power back to the customers. Because of this mission and our innovative digital platform, we have raised the bar in Singapore and telco space. The significant investment from a blue-chip venture capital firm is a testament to the impact we bring to the industry,” said Rameez Ansar the Co-founder and CEO of Circles.Life.

Also Read: Bullied to succumb: Should tech companies bow to society’s homophobic demands?

Considering its position in Singapore, Circles.Life is still very young, having been launched to the public in May, 2016. In the 2+ years of existence, it has grown into a very well-known brand in the Lion City.

“Circles.Life has a fresh and disruptive approach in reimagining what the telco experience of the future can be for millions of people,” said Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors.

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These startups are building the next-generation of applications that leverage the advantages of 5G tech, including faster and better connectivity

The latest-generation cellular mobile communications, 5G, is just around the corner. The first phase of 5G spec is set to be completed in April this year, and the second phase will launch in April 2020. Telecommunications companies and technology providers stand to gain from the much-anticipated upgrade, which highlights faster data rates, reduced latency, better energy saving, cost reduction, higher system capacity, and better interconnectivity.

Taiwan’s Asia Pacific Telecom 5G Accelerator Programme — jointly developed by Asia Pacific Telecom and the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan — recently collaborated with e27 in recruiting startups at NUS Enterprise. APTG Accelerator selected the 15 most promising teams from more than 300 startups at home and abroad.

These teams passed several rounds of review to enter the final selection — all have demonstrated outstanding capabilities and exceptional potential. The selected teams will collaborate with Asia Pacific Telecom to co-develop the 5G market and find business opportunities worth tens of billions.

A fierce selection process whittled this down to 15 companies, aspiring to leverage 5G technology, as well as Big Data, Cloud, internet-of-things, and sensors, in disrupting and innovating in their respective spaces.

These teams were chosen for their potential in creating 5G applications in building systems, services, applications, and hardware integration.

Also read: e27 teams up with APTG to provide startup founders scholarships to attend e27 Academy

The APTG 5G Accelerator Programme cohort 2019 had its programme opening ceremony on February 14, 2019 , at the first floor at the Asia Pacific Telecom HQ, where the selected teams successfully showcased their winning applications and content for 5G innovation. Teams also had the opportunity to interact and inspire more ideas with media, partners, and investors from all over the world.

Here are 7 of the 15 companies that had the opportunity to showcase their technologies:

1. Hyper Immersion Technology Taiwan Co. Ltd.

Hyper Immersion Technology Taiwan Co. Ltd. was founded in 2014 by a group of entrepreneurs with great enthusiasm for stereoscopic 3D imaging and virtual reality images. Formerly known as the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Labs. The team consistently develops 3D related techniques, and it is targeting to make virtual reality (VR) and interactive technology widely available for individual and family use.

Hyper Immersion Technology focuses on VR 360 panoramic video production technology and provides exclusive VR Live streaming services. Highlights include:

• Real-time stitching: Proprietary VR360 real-time stitching software stitches multiple cameras to make VR360 video streaming.
• High performance algorithm: Optimises stitching resolution up to 8K 30 fps to meet the needs of real-time VR live streaming.
• Extremely high quality: A VR 360 capturing system consists of multiple digital mirrorless camera with higher resolution, sensitivity and sharpness is suitable for various applications.

2. Cheng Jie Technology Co., Ltd.

This smart education company was founded by parents with preschool children, and it has invented the “Witspal Smart Pen” and “Witspal Smart Case”, which are devices that link up via IoT in helping address nearsightedness among children, by combining computer vision with speech.

The company’s project has won three prizes, including a second-place finish in the Seventh Information Service and Innovation Competition across the Taiwan Straits.

3. InnovArt Design

This LA- and Taiwan-based design startup that integrates design, technology, business, and user experience, with focus on creating innovative products that greatly compliment the user’s lifestyle. The company believes that technology is an extension of a user’s personality, and this can be enhanced through better mobility.

Its product, CarWink is a highly interactive internet-on-vehicle (IoV) consumer electronic gadget, which InnovArt Design expects to reduce road rage, improve communication between vehicles, reduce cable mess and personalise vehicle styles.

The aim is to help improving traffic conditions and enhance business behavior prediction through back-end data analytics, with the aim of leveraging AI toward a mature automotive industry.

4. OSENSE

This startup leverages image processing, computer vision, artificial intelligence, indoor positioning and navigation, and augmented reality, in producing vision-based smart solutions and services. The technology-driven team has its core strength in computer vision and artificial intelligence. The latest product gives a computer “eyes” to understand physical space in order to solve tasks with smart solutions in various industries.

OSENSE’s world leading indoor positioning technology, VBIP, is a fusion of spatial recognition and magnetic filtering to create an easy-to-use, compact and reasonably priced indoor positioning and navigation solution.

With the support of AI and cloud computing, VBIP can quickly identify and recognise space, providing indoor positioning and navigation for the environment with no GPS signals. Furthermore, VBIP does not require Bluetooth beaconing or Wi-Fi devices to provide a plethora of innovative applications and smart services via the AR user interface.

VBIP has been awarded with multiple international patents. The fusion of technologies can effectively enhance the strength and reduce the limits of indoor positioning, dramatically increasing the accuracy and effectiveness of positioning and navigation. VBIP can be quickly deployed with minimum hardware requirements (in terms of installation costs and operating requirements).

Also read: 5G Technology: how Taiwan’s APTG Accelerator Programme is approaching the future of tech

5. GranDen Corp.

GranDen devotes to integrate VR, AR, and MR technologies into entertaining interactive services. A global team from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, and with averagely more than seven-year experience in game development, GranDen focuses on the O2O space in pioneering “XR” or “Extended Reality” which refers to all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology and wearables.

Currently, GranDen’s services includes the VR music game I’m ready to Fly, and AR and location-based-services social mobile game AliGala, a go-and-play casual game that lets players interact with augmented reality, location, and O2O marketing.

AliGala’s first cooperation with the Bravo Bear Mascot from Taipei City Government enables users to collect items via mobile phone’s AR camera and exchange for practical Bravo Bear dolls. In only one month, the event generated an expected US$650,000 in Taipei 101 and other 14 department stores and 4 shopping districts.

In the future, AliGala will cooperate with the largest video marketing company to offer precision marketing and big data as B2B solutions.

The company is in cooperation with Shin Kong Bank, Taipei 101, and the Museum of Archaeology in delivering content, and also plans to expand into Japan and Hong Kong markets.

6. AccuPai

AccuPai enhances visual imagery with instant, high-quality photos and watermarks, which enables businesses to build strong brand images across online communities.

The service allows real-time cloud uploading and photo editing, which works best in events. Users can simply scan a QR code, and the startup’s editing and quality assurance platform uploads images to an event album within five minutes. AI aids in facial recognition to automatically tag users during events.

7. igloohome

igloohome smart locks and smart lockboxes allow home and property owners to grant access to visitors remotely, with time-sensitive PIN codes and Bluetooth keys. Headquartered in Singapore, the 60- strong team has its offices around Asia, USA, Europe and India.

igloohome’s products have been rolled out to over 90 countries with over 50 distributors globally, and these have been featured in numerous publications, which include The Wall Street Journal, Channel NewsAsia, The Business Times, The Huffington Post, and GQ.

igloohome products are designed to provide 24 hour access, even when the home or property owner is away. They work with the igloohome mobile app, which allows access for guests to be granted remotely via PIN codes or Bluetooth keys.

The ability to work offline makes igloohome products suitable for properties with weak or no Wi-Fi and negates the risk of Wi-Fi hacking. The technology behind it is similar to that of an Internet banking token, which involves cryptography and synchronisation.

APTG 5G Accelerator Programme’s opening ceremony hosted potential partners and investors, where they met with these promising startups, media, potential partners, and other investors.

You can find more information about the APTG 5G Accelerator Programme, as well as investment opportunities, roadshows, recruitment events, and partnerships.

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