How Singapore Management University’s Masters of Science in Innovation (MI) is helping shape the region’s next best thinkers

Have you always dreamed of starting your own business? You’re not alone — these days, more and more people are ditching 9-to-5 jobs in favour of being their own bosses. Yet many lack the leadership and knowledge to create breakthrough innovative business ideas. How can you become a leader in developing, market validating, and leading innovative teams to create breakthrough new business ideas?

In Singapore, the Singapore Management University (SMU) offers the world’s only Asia-focused entrepreneurship programme in the form of its Masters of Science in Innovation (MI), which aims to engage, challenge, and grow the next generation of innovation leaders.

The SMU MI curriculum is crafted for corporate managers, creative art professionals, technologists, entrepreneurs, and practitioners keen to advance innovation in their field. It involves regular engagement with thought leaders and schools, as well as practical projects.

Designed to be completed over 12 months for the full-time programme format and 15 months for the part-time format, the programme also consists of a Capstone Project and International Residency.

Gaining valuable exposure


The MI capstone project runs concurrently through the programme, and is co-taught by Paul Santos, a successful venture capitalist and former entrepreneur. He is currently the Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2003 that has over US$265 million in assets under management.

Reddi Kotha, Academic Director of the MI programme, Associate Professor of Strategic Management explains: “We believe that rigorous theory should be combined with cutting-edge practice to have the best learning at SMU. Paul and I have revamped the curriculum to include custom cases on VC-backed companies, to help situate the ideas of our students in a fertile ground. Paul provides guidance on the specific challenges their business ideas may encounter, and how the student teams can overcome these challenges.”

Eligible full-time students will also have the opportunity to participate in the optional internship to further their learning.

“For full-time students who want to get further grounding in innovation, we recommend they do optional internships at entrepreneurial companies, to complement their in-class learning and capstone project. The internship will help them to gain a deeper understanding of the application of the innovation theories, tools and skills from the programme,” says Reddi.

Increased access to resources

In addition to the industry exposure, full-time students of the MI programme will also have access to venture funds totaling over S$1 million. From the P.A.K. Challenge to the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition, there are many opportunities organised by SMU, its student entrepreneurship club, SMU Eagles and the SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SMU-IIE), for students to validate concepts and give life to their ideas.

In addition, each student team receives a S$1,000 grant from SMU-IIE for their capstone project. Explains Associate Professor Kotha “This budget enables students to ‘make a little and sell a little’, so their prototypes can be tested. While not all ideas are conducive to this process, attempting to get as near as possible to solving real-world problems is the best way to learn and gain insights on the market.”

Aside from monetary support, the SMU-IIE incubator also provides students with workshops and hotdesking spaces, as well as the opportunity to get feedback on business ideas through monthly pitching sessions.

Officially known as the Business Innovation Generator (BIG), the IIE incubator had nurtured over 200 incubatees since its inception, and helped raise funding in excess of S$59million. Some of BIG’s most illustrious start-ups include Tech in Asia, Reebonz, Ninja Van, Carro and Red Dot Payment. BIG also conducts events and programmes such as the two-day Brand Hackathon, and the Startup School to help aspiring entrepreneurs formulate a validated product or viable business plan, and an intensive 9-month incubation programme designed for start-ups to validate and sell their business or innovation ideas.

Networking and mentorship opportunities are also available. Says SMU-IIE Director Hau Koh Foo: “We have recruited a team of “high powered” mentors comprising ex-ministers, chief executive officers of listed companies, and technology leaders, to not just advise but to have the ability to bridge the right connections for our SMU entrepreneurs.”

The most important quality for those keen to be a part of this programme is a good attitude. As Mr Hau puts it: “Students must be coachable team players who are willing to collaborate and give back to the SMU startup community. At the onset, we are looking for awesome founders, not awesome ideas. We believe that founders who have the right attitude, grit, drive and are collaborative can eventually develop good ideas, rally support from the various stakeholders, and bring their ideas to market successfully.”

Interested in joining the SMU MI programme and embarking on your own journey as an entrepreneur? Find out more here.

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This article is brought to you by the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business Social Media Team

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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.

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Image Credit: Tokopedia

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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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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.

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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.

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Image Credit: Mike Enerio on Unsplash

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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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Of all the later stage funding rounds that we covered in October, we noticed that there were several names that kept on coming back.

Apart from Indonesian unicorns such as gojek and Bukalapak, who are fundraising for an ongoing round, we also saw regional power players such as ZEN Rooms.

There were also some surprises from companies that we had not heard in a while such as TouchTen.

Check out the complete list of later stage funding rounds in October:

Mobikon
Funding: US$12.5 million in Series B
Investor(s): Binny Bansal (lead)

Singapore-based F&B customer engagement startup Mobikon will use the funding to further dominate the market share in its existing geographies and to establish a strong foothold in Australia and Indonesia.

Scommerce
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Temasek

Vietnamese logistics service provider Scommerce will use the funding to accelerate the nationwide expansion of its two business units.

Also Read: 5 ways in which crowdfunding can help your start-up grow

gojek
Funding: US$50 million
Investor(s): Cool Japan Fund

Cool Japan will work with Gojek to spread Japanese culture in Indonesia through both the platform’s food delivery and video streaming services.

Zenius
Funding: US$20 million
Investor(s): Northstar Group

The funding round could potentially be the first external funding that Indonesian edutech startup Zenius has raised.

Curiox
Funding: US$15 million
Investor(s): KB Investment, Dayli Partners, Quad Investment Management, IMM Investment, SV Investment Partners, and HB Investment

With the funding announcement, Curiox revealed plans to pursue an IPO on the Korean stock exchange KOSDAQ in the next 36 months.

Aerodyne
Funding: US$30 million in Series B
Investor(s): InterVest/Kejora Ventures, VentureTECH, Gobi Partners, and 500 Startups

Aerodyne Group, a drone-based managed solutions provider in Malaysia, plans to use the funding to undertake select M&As, further invest in R&D and technology, hire talent globally and continue to expand into its key global markets.

Also Read: Vietnamese healthcare startup Med247 gets seed funding from KK Fund, broadens users coverage

Alodokter
Funding: US$33 million in Series C
Investor(s): Softbank Ventures Asia, Golden Gate Ventures, Philips, Heritas Capital, Hera Capital, and Dayli Partners

The Indonesian healthtech startup will use the funding to expand the company’s network with hospitals and to develop an insurance service.

ZEN Rooms
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Yanolja, Access Ventures

ZEN Rooms and Yanolja will work to deploy automation technology to enhance customer experience and further reduce budget hotels’ operating costs.

TouchTen
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Prasetia Dwidharma, Sheila Tiwan, Indra Leonardi, CUEBIC

With the new funding, TouchTen aims to boost its efforts to address the often-ignored women gamers market.

Bukalapak
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Shinhan Financial Group, Emtek Group

Though the value of the company’s investment was undisclosed, a press statement by Shinhan GIB said that the close has brought Bukalapak’s valuation to surpass US$2.5 billion.

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The e27 Startup Database connects the community to the hottest internet companies in Asia. We encourage startups to visit their profile and regularly update their information.

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It’s generally accepted by the start-up that it’s easy to take ideas that have worked in developed markets and reproduce them in developing markets.

Cultural nuances, differences in propensity to spend at both the personal and corporate level, as well as differing opportunity sets,  mean that it’s rarely as easy as stencilling a solution onto Asia inc.

Companies that are looking to expand or replicate themselves in Asia need to be mindful that each market is inherently different. Solutions that work in one market won’t work in another. Lacking a strong rule of law, companies and consumers are less likely to “take a chance” on an emerging brand and will tend to rely on established brands.

Also Read:4 ways corporates can work better with Chinese startups

Further, the opportunity sets can differ significantly as the cost of labour in Asia can be negligible when compared to developed markets. This can be leveraged, creating more opportunity for local populations and allows different business opportunities to emerge in developing Asian markets than would be possible in developed markets.

Cultural nuances

It’s easy to be complacent if you’re taking models that have worked in largely homogenous developed markets like the US or Europe and then try to apply that model to Asia.

Laws and cultures may be more-or-less similar across the EU, which has a population of 341m, or all of the United States of America, which has a population of 372m. This isn’t necessarily the case with Southeast Asia, which has a population of 641m — looks like a bigger market, but it is it?

Commonly, I see start-up decks that extrapolate the population to insinuate that the revenue opportunities could be larger in SEA than they are in the other developed markets. SEA is an agglomeration of thousands of islands and subsets of populations, some of which are ideologically opposed to others. The strategies that work in one market won’t necessarily work in another.

In one of the most egregious cultural faux pas that I’ve heard of, one company that had offices across the region appointed a new general manager. The general manager decided that there was no place for pictures of the King in the Thailand offices.

Anyone who has been to Thailand would have noted the pictures of the beloved King in restaurants, bars and any other establishment. There was a significant decline in company morale which almost led to an internal mutiny. This is an example of a cultural nuance that could only be understood by spending a bit of time on the ground and talking to people.

Don’t let the numbers fool you. While it’s large in aggregate, SEA is composed of a number of small and heterogeneous markets. Companies need to be aware of the cultural differences and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Propensity to spend

Brands and relationships are important in developing markets, maybe more so than in developed markets. In developed markets, people are able to rely on the rule of law and consumer rights regulations. These facilities are less prevalent in emerging Asia. As a result, it can take a lot of time and capital to build up the credibility to get consumers or companies to trust an emerging brand.

In Singapore, there’s the concept of Kiasu, which could be interpreted as being afraid of losing in a relative sense to another person. This means that people will want to have what someone else has but they would be less willing to take a risk on a new and unknown product — because there’s no one to be jealous of. This is a hurdle that new brands need to conquer to be successful in one of the more developing markets in Asia.

Further, Go-Jek, which went from a “transport app” to an “everything app” knew early on that they needed to be focused on cash usage because credit card penetration is around 1 per cent.

They knew that transactions were typically going to be small ticket items and built out their platform around that, taking advantage of the differing incomes in the country according to the propensity to spend.

The things that high-earning time-strapped employees in developed markets are willing to spend money on don’t necessarily translate to countries where subsiding is more important than self-actualisation.

Opportunity sets

The opportunity sets that are available in each geography are markedly different. Clusters and ecosystems naturally form around existing players. It makes sense that a company could exist to supply tools to cloud providers improving efficiency or reducing costs if it’s surrounded by dozens of companies that can pay for the services as well as help to iterate the product. Proximity matters. This is a reason that Silicon Valley has an edge as the tech hub of America.

The opportunity sets in Asia are different. Different opportunities = different solutions. One example of this is Sampingan, an Indonesian-based start-up that helps companies scale by connecting them to a network of trained freelance agents who perform tasks on a pay-per-performance basis.

This takes advantage of the personal nature of business in Asia (people talking to people c.f. digital advertising) as well as the large casual workforce and the lower cost of living (relative to developed countries). This is an opportunity that likely wouldn’t be exploited in other developed markets.

Summing Up

Entrepreneurs in Asia that are able to find solutions in an environment where it’s difficult to get consumers to part with their cash are more likely to be successful in developed markets. Once a company has ground it out in an untrusting market, it will be easier for them to operate in developed markets with trusted brands already on their roster.

Leaders that are able to spot the opportunities in small fragmented markets won’t have any issues in driving a wedge into the larger opportunities in developed markets.

If you’re building a business in Asia that could scale more broadly, please reach out!

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Image Credit: Mario Gogh

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The Crewdible team

The e27 Community has voted –and the winner for October’s Startup of the Month is Indonesian micro warehousing platform Crewdible!

Startup of the Month is a fun initiative that gets our community on Telegram to vote for the startup that has made notable achievement or milestone during the month.

Crewdible stole our attention with its US$1.5 million pre-Series A announcement led by Global Founders Capital (GFC) recently.

The company helps small, individual online sellers on social media and e-commerce platforms by turning empty facilities (houses, offices, and warehouses) into a warehouse for their inventories.

Its history started in 2015 when founder Dhana Galindra ran a sporting brand called Lean. As his business grows, Galindra began partnering with staffs from logistics companies, paying them a commission for storing Lean’s inventories in their houses.

This system enables the business to grow without renting a specialised warehouse or hiring dedicated staff, and the founder eventually developed a mobile app and turned it into a separate business.

Congratulations to the winner!

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Image Credit: Jake Ingle on Unsplash

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