Chinese B2B e-commerce company Zall Smart Commerce Group has announced that it has formed a consortium with Japanese trading company Marubeni and Singapore-based CrimsonLogic‘s unit Global eTrade Services to apply for a digital wholesale banking licence in the city-state.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Zall seeks to contribute to Singapore’s development as a global financial hub for trading activities.

Started in 2017, Zall runs a virtual bank called Z-Bank in China.

Zall-led consortium is the latest to join the race for a digital bank licence in Singapore. Another notable Chinese company to have joined the race is Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, which aims to obtain the licence to serve corporate clients.

Also Read: What are Digital Full Bank and Digital Wholesale Bank licences?

Earlier this month, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that it had received 14 applications for a digital wholesale bank licence and seven for a digital full-bank licence.

Singapura Finance is also in the race which has partnered with MatchMove Pay for a full-bank digital licence.

Late last year, Enigma Group, a financial services company that specialises in analytical recruitment and executive search in the US, Middle East, and the Asia Pacific, also announced that it formed a consortium comprising Singapore-based Qrypt Technologies, 2359 Media and Blockchain Worx to apply for a digital bank licence.

The race sprinted after Grab became one of the first companies in putting a bid for the licence back in December 2019. It applied for a digital full bank licence in Singapore with Singtel, the communications technology group.

Singapore-based digital payment startup Razer Fintech (Razer) also announced that it has submitted an application for the digital full bank license.

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash

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Backpacking through 50 countries after a long finance career led Vikram Bharati to his true calling of becoming an entrepreneur. In March 2018, Bharati founded Tribe Theory, a global chain of business hostels targeted for young startups and entrepreneurs.

What began with a single unit in Singapore has since been expanded to eight locations around the world. On Tuesday, Tribe Theory announced a US$3.5 million funding from American venture capitalist Tim Draper and rebranded it to Draper Startup House (DSH).

e27 had a chat with Bharati to know more about this deal and DSH’s future plans.

Below are the edited excerpts:

Getting funding from billionaire investor Tim Draper is every entrepreneur’s dream. How did this deal happen? 

Two Draper University alumni, Katie Russel and Daniel Wiegand, were tackling their own challenge of connecting entrepreneurs around the globe, aiming to expand the university strategically beyond the US. With the entrepreneurial stars aligned, Tribe Theory was then introduced to the US-based Draper Ecosystem.

Also Read: LINE partners HappyFresh to give Thai users grocery delivery service on its messaging app

Tim Draper’s dynamic and inspirational venture capitalist background was by far amongst the most genuine, where the dedication to progressing each entrepreneurial life was undeniable — this was the 10x differentiator Tribe was looking for.

You built Tribe Theory with your blood, sweat and tears. While partnering with Draper is definitely a great achievement, how hard was the decision to rebrand it?

The rebranding of Tribe Theory helps us propel our mission forward in a bigger way, so it was an easy decision. Tribe Theory is rebranding to reinforce the new combined vision — to enable one million entrepreneurs by 2030.

How DSH is going to be different from Tribe Theory? Will this deal help you scale and grow much faster?

This rebrand will accelerate Tribe’s mission of building what it originally set out to accomplish – hospitality as the foundation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The transition begins now but within the next couple of months, each location will offer co-working spaces, custom programming focused on entrepreneurship, access to venture capital funding, and the ability to submit pitch decks to the Draper Venture Network, which has 23 global funds.

Post-deal, will you still continue to be part of Draper Startup House?

Yes, I will continue being the founder of DSH International and building the International division of DSH

What are your future goals?

We want to have a DSH location in every major country by 2030.

We will focus on our mission to enable one million entrepreneurs by 2030. Through the use of the real human connection, inspired business travel, a diverse-minded community and access to global citizens — one is able to connect to new opportunities, inspire one another to innovate and execute, and empower one another to go big, give back, and drive progress.

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gojek, US-based adtech company The Trade Desk partners to launch O2O solutions in Indonesia [Press Release]

gojek, Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing, and technology unicorn announces its latest partnership with The Trade Desk (Nasdaq: TTD), an advertising technology company from the US to launch an exclusive partnership to provide advertisers with insight into the impact of their online advertising campaigns on offline sale. This, the companies believe, can improve the efficiency of marketing decisions to boost business growth.

According to a source, the partnership marks the first Online-to-Offline (O2O) measurement solution in Southeast Asia, launching initially in Indonesia.

“Our mission is to remove life’s daily friction by connecting consumers to the best providers of goods and services in the market. This partnership will enable advertisers on The Trade Desk platform to use gojek’s insight to measure their campaigns and ultimately increase the effectiveness of their advertising,” said Pulkit Khanna, gojek’s Vice President for Merchant Research and Analytics.

gojek will work with TTD to measure the impact of online advertising using gojek’s actual in-store purchase transactions instead of cookie-based data, correlating purchases made on and offline using gojek, with advertising served via TTD platform. This will include both purchases made within the gojek app, such as the food delivery service, GoFood as well as in-store transactions with merchants who accept GoPay.

The process will allow marketers to be able to link sales with advertising campaigns, harnessing offline attribution capability to gain insight on the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.

Tencent launches WeChat short video’s trial to answer to ByteDance’s TikTok [Bloomberg]

Tencent Holdings Ltd. is reportedly planning a significant update to its WeChat messaging app as an answer to its archnemesis ByteDance Inc.’s dominance of short-form video, as reported by Bloomberg.

WeChat offers services ranging from messaging to booking meals and movies and is used by more than a billion people. Tencent plans to add a feature to let users publish video clips and photos to their followers via a feed similar to Twitter.

Also Read: Report: gojek to purchase stakes at Indonesian taxi operator Blue Bird

To do so, it means WeChat will ditch the current format that focusses on articles and to let users share video and content directly with one another. It’s still unclear how the final product will look like.

Since Monday, WeChat reportedly has begun rolling out the feature tests with select individuals and organisations that run public accounts.

Bitcoin signals selling after taking a tumble at US$7,000 [Bloomberg]

Since its peak period in June 2019, Bitcoin reportedly has been showing signs of technical indicator warning. Although crypto trades near the highest level since November last year, the largest cryptocurrency’s Global Strength Indicator, a measure of upward and downward movements of successive closing prices, is posting a sell signal for the first time since peak period.

In recent weeks, Bloomberg reported that Bitcoin has failed to overtake the US$9,000 mark for a sustainable period, with a dip at the beginning of January pushing the price below $7,000. However, the downward trend reversed last week, with Bitcoin briefly breaching $9,000 on January 17, the highest since November.

The price swings come in the wake of the volatile year of 2019 that was largely influenced by investor optimism over the announcement of Facebook Inc.’s Libra crypto project followed by skepticism and upped regulatory scrutiny.

“On a technical basis, it’s getting overbought and more importantly for political reasons I think there are just too many political headwinds for a cryptocurrency to get the kind of traction the bulls think it will,” said Matt Maley, an equity strategist in New York at Miller Tabak & Co.

Recruitment platform GrabJobs, POS system Moka partner to empower Indonesian businesses [Press Release]

GrabJobs, the recruitment automation platform in Southeast Asia, announces that it has established a partnership with Moka, a point-of-sale (POS) system provider, to empower businesses to grow.

GrabJobs CEO & Co-Founder, Emmanuel Crouy stated that the two companies “share a similar vision with helping companies grow, focussing on similar target clients and provide services that complement each other.”

“A majority of GrabJobs and Moka merchants are from the F&B, Retail, and Services industries. One of the major pain points faced by these industries is staffing. GrabJobs will help all of Moka’s merchants to recruit their staff more efficiently,” Crouy explained.

Also Read: Freelancing video platform Eristica partners with Binance to promote charity

GrabJobs provides recruitment automation that features an interview chatbot that helps companies automate their applicant interviewing, profile screening and scoring, interview scheduling, and interview reminders. With these features, job seekers can apply for jobs easily without a CV, interview over chat on the spot, and get an instant response as to whether they get shortlisted for the job or not.

David Liga, Senior Product Manager at Moka, said: “Collaboration between Moka and GrabJobs gives entrepreneurs the ease of finding the required candidates.”

Blockchain ecosystem Binance invests in data-focussed blockchain protocol startup Numbers [Press Release]

Blockchain ecosystem, Binance, just announced its investment in Numbers, a blockchain protocol focussed on data traceability and monetisation.

Numbers seeks to create an open, transparent, and traceable data system with the development of a fully open-source application that assures data traceability and digital evidence. This allows individuals to own and monetise their personal data.

Bofu Chen, Numbers co-CEO said that the investment from Binance will help the company explore more use scenarios and accelerate technological and business development.

Since 2019, Numbers has been working with Shoah Foundation, Stanford University, and IBM for the Starling project to establish the data traceability and verification systems to pre-load the applications on Exodus, the blockchain-powered smartphone series launched by the global smartphone manufacturer HTC.

Gin Chao, Binance Strategy Officer, said: “Numbers app is integrated with Binance Chain through Zion, a hardware-based key management system and offers the developer community easy access to use the Binance Chain and for hardware wallet protection, digital signature and so on.”
–

Image Credit: gojek

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Barramundi Asia, a fish farming group based in Singapore and Australia, has announced that it has acquired deeptech startup Allegro Aqua.

The merger will see both companies combine resources and catalysing knowledge-based, sustainable practices to create an integrated barramundi enterprise with a global footprint, said a press release.

Barramundi says the merger is expected to strengthen food fish production targets and introduce sustainable practices across diverse geographical regions, to better meet the food security needs of Singapore and the region.

Andreas von Scholten, CEO at Barramundi Asia, said: “Allegro Aqua’s expertise in life sciences research and innovation will empower Barramundi Asia to realise synergies from improved genetics. With this merger, Barramundi Asia’s quest to make Barramundi the “Salmon of the Tropics” has been further advanced.”

Also Read: ‘We want to have a Draper Startup House in every major country by 2030’: Vikram Bharati

Allegro Aqua was started in 2018 by scientists from Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) and backed by Temasek Life Sciences Accelerator (TLA) to commercialise an elite strain of the Asian Sea Bass, known as the St John’s Sea Bass. Developed by TLL as part of a joint research collaboration with the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), the St John’s Sea Bass represents a culmination of over 15 years of advanced research efforts in genetic selection and mass cross-breeding.

Founded in 2008, Barramundi Asia farms Barramundi in the ocean and draws on sustainable fish farming practices and aquaculture technology. Today, Barramundi operates barramundi farms in Australia and Singapore. It is developing a 6,600 hectares ocean farm site, in Brunei’s Nankivell Offshore Aquaculture Site.

Barramundi also operates its own Recirculating Aquaculture System hatchery, nursery, and deep-sea cage ‘grow-out’ farms, typically in energetic tidal environments.

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Hundreds have already claimed their passes for the 10th edition of Echelon. Have you?

We know what you’re doing on May 14th and 15th of 2020. You will seeing us at the Singapore Expo for Echelon Asia Summit 2020!

Echelon brings together the movers and shakers of APAC to meet, discover, and learn. When you attend Echelon Asia Summit 2020, be prepared to meet 12,000 delegates from all over the world. From tech entrepreneurs, industry leaders, policymakers, and ecosystem enablers, you will be engaging with some of the brightest minds of the region.

Grab a Delegate Pass to get access to all 4 stages and all exhibition areas. This is the perfect chance to learn from and meet the region’s finest. Who knows? This might be where you meet your future business partner or investor or employee…you get the idea.

The Premium Pass is for those who want to make the most of Echelon to achieve specific business goals. It gives you all the access of a Delegate Pass plus exclusive features like a slot at the Mentorship Zone. A Premium Pass also gives you entry to exclusive workshops and speaker discussion groups, access to the Premier Lounge, and more. Stay tuned for further announcements on Premier Pass features.

Don’t miss out of the Echelon experience this year. Get your tickets here.

We also have some exciting things happening in the months leading up to Echelon:

TOP100 APAC

From February to April 2020, the e27 team will be traveling across the region (Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia and South Asia) to discover the next generation of up and coming startups.

Qualified startups will be invited to pitch to a panel of judges during a private pitching session. Startups with the highest scores will get the chance to be part of the TOP100 Programme, where opportunities for investor meetings and business matching abound. TOP100 startups would get to showcase at Echelon, both on the exhibition zone and on the TOP100 pitching stage, where they stand the chance to win cool prizes.

We have received hundreds of applications for the region’s up-and-coming startups since we opened for submissions late last year. To accommodate requests, we extended the submission period: startups can now still apply until 31st of January.

Echelon Roadshow

Get a taste of the Echelon experience in a city nearest you! Echelon Roadshow is a series of events to bring together the local startup ecosystem over thought provoking content, networking opportunities, and great food and company.

During the Echelon Roadshow, we will be inviting your local industry experts and experienced founders to share their insights about what it takes to build a startup in Asia. Then after, show your support for your local startup as we will be announcing the semi-finalists from TOP100 who will be representing your country in Echelon Asia Summit 2020.

You can RSVP to attend the roadshow at these cities. Watch out for more cities soon.

We have many more Echelon 2020 features to announce, so stay tuned for more updates from the e27 team about what we have planned for an incredibly exciting year ahead!

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