Day: January 22, 2020

Kristal.AI, an AI-powered digital wealth management startup with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and India, has received a US$6 million series A funding led by Chiratae Ventures, an India-based VC firm.

The round, as reported by Tech In Asia, is also joined by names like Desai Family Office as well as well-known individuals in the financial industry. This round brought the company’s total funding to US$11 to date.

Kristal.AI said it will use the new funds to improve its back-end technology, come up with more curated “Kristals”, or strategies, and expand further into the Asia Pacific and the Middle East markets. It also seeks to launch a new offering for its market in India.

In 2016, Indian entrepreneurs Asheesh Chanda and Vineeth Narasimhan established Kristal.AI as a startup that uses a patented genetic algorithm to recommend and create personalised portfolios for its users.

Kristal’s investment products are Leveraged Bond Kristal, which invests in fixed-income instruments issued by corporate and sovereign issuers, and Singapore REITs Kristal.

Also Read: Kristal.AI is bringing artificial intelligence to the fintech world, raises US$1.85M seed round

Currently, the startup stated that it has over US$100 million in assets under management for over 10,000 users on its platform with its products are said to achieve around 14 per cent returns for its clients.

The company has operations in Singapore with a Capital Markets Services license issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as well as operation licences in Hong Kong and India.

Back in 2018, the startup raised over US$1.8 million in a seed round, also led by Chiratae Ventures, who used the name IDG Ventures India then.
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Singapore-based investment company ID Capital announced the return of Asia Pacific agrifood tech competition Future Food Asia 2020 in Singapore on June 2-3, 2020.

The event will select 10 finalists to showcase their innovations and compete for the US$100,000 grand prize.

In addition to hosting panel discussions on major industry challenges such as the supply-side shocks caused by African Swine Flu and other biosecurity threats, the event will also include the Plant Protein Innovation Award.

“Future Food Asia Award is an excellent platform to foster greater collaborations between multinational companies and startups in Singapore and in the Asia Pacific region. This supports EDB’s efforts to develop Singapore as a leading centre to develop and commercialise agrifood tech solutions that can sustainably feed the world,” said Lee Eng Keat, Executive Director, Agrifood, Commercial & Professional Services at Singapore Economic Development Board, commenting about the event in a press release.

Also Read: Meet the 10 startup finalists competing for Future Food Asia’s US$100K prize

The event will also co-host a Plant Protein Masterclass to provide insight to entrepreneurs in scaling plant-based food formulations and manufacturing.

The company also announced the list of partners for the event: Corteva AgriscienceTM, Dole Packaged Foods, Singapore’s public research agency A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology, and Research), Bühler Group, Givaudan, and ADB Ventures.

The previous three editions of Future Food Asia have supported 38 early stage startups from the Asia Pacific and distributed US$1 million in awards.

Applications for the award is now open.

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Uber sells food delivery service in India to Zomato – TechCrunch

Ride-hailing giant Uber announced that it has sold its food delivery business in India, Uber Eats, to local competitor Zomato, TechCrunch wrote.

Uber would own 9.99 per cent of Zomato following the deal. Its users would also become part of the company.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the deal valued Uber Eats India between US$160 million and US$200 million.

Entering India in 2017, Uber Eats had initiated the conversation to sell the business in late 2018.

The report also stated that some Uber Eats employees are being given the option to join Zomato while the rest will be let go.

Malaysia to roll out commercial 5G in Q32020 – Bangkok Post

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said that the country is gearing to launch 5G cellular network by the third quarter of this year, Bangkok Post wrote.

The country is testing out the 5G technology in 56 sites across the country for fields such as health care, agriculture, education, public safety and tourism.

“If we apply 5G properly, the development of Malaysia will take a much shorter time. Maybe not 2030, maybe by 2035, we should achieve our objective of becoming a developed country,” he told reporters on Monday after watching a demonstration of 5G wireless technology at police headquarters in Langkawi.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news, Aug 23: Indian restaurant association boycotts Zomato, others

Alphabet, Microsoft disagree on EU facial recognition ban – SCMP

Following the European Union’s proposal for a temporary ban on facial recognition technology, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft President Brad Smith shared their dissenting opinions, South China Morning Post reported.

Pichai supported the moratorium as the technology can be used for “nefarious purposes”. Meanwhile, Smith likened the ban to using a meat cleaver, instead of a scalpel, to solve potential problems.

Myanmar’s waste management startup RecyGlo is raising US$900K to expand to Indonesia, Singapore – e27

Yangon-based waste management and data analytics startup RecyGlo announced that it is in advanced stages of raising a US$900,000 investment round to expand in existing markets and foray into new ones.

The startup is currently raising a US$350,000 bridge funding and expects to make the final close of the ongoing round by the end of Q2.

The company, however, didn’t share the investors’ details.

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AppsFlyer, a mobile marketing analytics and attribution startup, with a global presence, has received a total of US$210 million in Series D funding from New York-based growth equity firm General Atlantic.

With this announcement, the company has also announced the opening of its seventh Asia Pacific office in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The proceeds from this round will be used to enhance its open platform for third-party developers.

This investment comes three years after AppsFlyer’s Series C funding round and brings the company’s total funding to US$294 million.

Also Read: Marketing tech startup SilverPush secures US$5M Series B funding

“This year, we predict that Asia Pacific (APAC) will hold the world’s largest quantity of app-install ad spend at US$30 billion. With massive volume and scale in this mobile-first region, marketers will be looking even harder into how they can better optimise their marketing budgets. There is also the imminent danger of fraud exposure for brands and users alike, where sadly, APAC leads in the world’s fastest fraud rate-growth at 60 per cent higher than the global average,” said AppsFlyer’s APAC President and Managing Director, Ronen Mense.

“This funding will go into strengthening our open platform for partners and third-party developers, allowing them the flexibility to add their custom solutions on top of ours, so they grow and protect their businesses in a highly competitive marketplace like APAC,” he added.

As part of the deal, Alex Crisses, Managing Director at General Atlantic, and Anton Levy, Co-President and Global Head of Technology, have joined AppsFlyer’s Board of Directors.

AppsFlyer offers a suite of comprehensive measurement and analytics solutions that are around privacy by design. It seeks to ’empower marketers to grow their business and innovate’.

“AppsFlyer’s scale enables it to provide accurate attribution data and ad-fraud protection, saving millions for advertisers. At the same time, the company has the end-user in mind every step of the way and a mindset of privacy by design and security first right when data privacy becomes one of the primary concerns facing brands,” said Levy of General Atlantic.

Also Read: 9 digital marketing trends you can no longer ignore in 2020

AppsFlyer’s global customers include brands such as Gojek, Agoda, Tokopedia, SEA Group (Shopee & Garena), HBO, Tencent, and Nike. Their existing investors are Qumra Capital, Goldman Sachs Growth, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (DTCP), Pitango Venture Capital, and Magma Venture Partners who also participated in this round.

General Atlantic’s APAC portfolios include Indonesia’s edtech Ruangguru to India’s healthtech Rubicon Research.

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Prominent venture capitalist Tim Draper has invested US$3.5 million in Tribe Theory, an entrepreneur-focused hostel chain with a presence in multiple locations in the world.

With the strategic investment, the Singapore-headquartered hostel chain will rebrand to Draper Startup House and form the international division of the business, said a press note.

Katie Russel and Daniel Wiegand have jointly founded the parent company Draper Startup House in the US, which will operate the US business activities and oversee its minority stake in the international partnership.

These two operations will collaborate to expand hostel locations globally.

“Tim and his team immediately understood our vision and made an offer to invest in us and work with us to build out this concept globally under the brand Draper Startup House. This was the differentiator we were seeking,” said Tribe Theory Founder Vikram Bharati.

(In Photos) Tribe Theory’s venture hostel for entrepreneurs and startups in Singapore

“This rebrand will put us on the course of building what we had set out to — hospitality as the foundation of an entrepreneurship ecosystem. It will propel our mission much further because we are now part of a larger ecosystem,” Bharati added.

Tribe Theory is present in eight international locations, including Bali, Singapore, Yangon, Estonia, Manila, Lisbon, as well as two locations in Bangalore. They all will be rebranded to Draper Startup House.

The first US location will open in March 2020 in Austin, TX at SXSW, with additional locations following the investment.

In addition to the short- and long-term accommodations offered by Draper Startup House, entrepreneurs will get a co-working space, custom programming focused on entrepreneurship, and access to VC funding. They will also be able to submit their pitch decks to the Draper Venture Network, which has 23 global funds.

“Draper Startup House provides global live/workspaces for entrepreneurs where they can connect, be inspired, and build a community,” said Draper. “Draper Startup House community members join a powerful global network of innovators and influencers. It provides resources and activities to help them succeed in their missions.”

Draper Startup House is an expansion of Tim Draper’s global brand which includes Draper Venture Network, Draper Associates and Draper University.

Since 1985, Tim Draper has been focused on supporting and accelerating entrepreneurial work through his Draper Ecosystem. He has been an early investor in more than 30 unicorns including Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Baidu and Bitcoin.

In March last year, Tribe Theory raised about US$740,000 in seed funding from Superangel, Aurum Investments, and REAPRA.

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