You have built a tech startup to provide an outstanding solution, but your audience might not understand it in the beginning. 

Yeah, it happens. Sometimes, your target audience is not fully aware of how brilliant your idea is. And the task to explain the concept of your startup is on your shoulders. 

Whether you deal in AI chatbots, provide an e-commerce platform to farmers or run a P2P gadget rental service, you should leave no stone unturned to make people aware of it.

In this article, I am going to share six tips to help you build awareness for your tech startup.

Create tons of useful content

Creating content that benefits your prospects is the first step towards building awareness. Write articles, make videos, and design infographics regularly to make your prospects well-informed.

Use the tactics of content marketing artfully to get leads simultaneously. Tech startups such as Asana, HubSpot and many others built their base by focusing on content marketing.

When people see your content regularly, they will follow you and gradually understand how you and your startup can help them.

Also Read: The A, B, and C of startup branding

Address your target audience’s pain points through your content and educate them about the purpose of your startup. Show people what you do.

Explore opportunities for being interviewed

Appearing in various interviews can provide a significant boost to brand awareness of your startup.

By talking about the latest trends, bringing insights about your industry and showing yourself as a problem solver, you can create a buzz around your startup.

So, reach out to magazines, local radio channels or podcast hosts who invite guests for interviews. Many online publications too, interview budding startups. You can pitch in to check if they are looking for guests.

Keep an eye open for opportunities. And when you grab one, show your authority.

Start a podcast to help the community

Podcasts are popular, and they are perfect to explain your startup idea in an easy way. Pack your podcast with relevant information and content, which will help the community.

You can talk about what you do, answer the frequently asked questions of your target audience and provide actionable tips to get them through their struggles. 

Also Read: The podcast fever: why are listeners tuning in more frequently than ever?

The better you are in engaging your listeners, the higher are the chances of getting people interested in your startup.

Launch a podcast to offer relevant solutions. And your startup will soon be a household name among your audience. 

Choose the right platform to spread the word

It will not be fruitful if your target audience is hanging out on YouTube, and you are trying to entice them on Facebook. Knowing where your audience hangs out is the key to boosting brand awareness.

So, find if they are on Reddit, Twitter or looking out for solutions on a niche tech forum. And be there; listening to them and helping them with appropriate solutions.

Get into the right platform, enter the discussions and spread the word out about your startup.

Adopt a freemium model if you can

People love free products and a freemium model for your tech startup can create plenty of awareness. It will attract many eyeballs to your services.

Even if you cannot go for a freemium service model, you can offer free trials.

Getting helpful features for free will pull in many prospects to use your product. You can also offer incentives or unlock paid services to encourage people to refer to others.

So, adopt a freemium model if you can and promote your offers to your target audience.

Write guest posts

Contributing valuable guest articles to niche sites and renowned blogs in your industry can also help you in creating some awareness for your tech solution startup.

Through guest posting, you make a name for yourself and your newly founded startup.

Along with spreading awareness, guest writing on popular websites would portray you as a thought leader and boost your startup’s branding too.

You should create practical articles to share on the websites known among your target audience. 

Write guest posts that are unique and memorable, and which help you share the idea and the vision of your startup among the readers.

Final words

Popularising your tech startup and getting it the recognition it deserves is not an easy task. But being out in front of your audience, supporting them and marketing your startup alongside will bring the benefits for sure.

So, broadcast your expertise to those who matter and make them aware of your solutions. Suit up and work on your strategy.

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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 and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Image Credit: Ann Fossa on Unsplash

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Singaporean VC firm Reapra backs Thai edutech startup Quest

Quest, a Thailand-based coding education platform, has just received backing from a Singapore-based VC firm Reapra and angel investors, according to TechInAsia. The amount raised is a six-digit undisclosed seed amount.

The newly-added capital will be used to further enhance its platform to create a full-stack automated teaching curriculum which will be using blockchain.

The startup has already had a history of receiving US$80,000 in grants from Depa and TED funds for its app.

Quest is looking to raise more funds from Reapra, Depa, and another investor by Q4 2020.

Indian on-demand mobility startup Vogo raises US$20 million for regional expansion

Vogo, an on-demand mobility startup announced today that it has raised US$20 million from Matrix Partners India, Kalaari Capital and Stellaris Venture Partners according to Economic Times.

The fresh funds will be used by the startup to expand regionally and strengthen its IoT technology. The company which provides on-demand scooter rentals claims to have more than 2.5 million users across India.

Also Read: How agritech is transforming life of Indonesian farmers

“There is a large opportunity to disrupt the market with the right offering and a sustainable model. Our growth has been on the back of our unique strengths of having a dock-based model… using IoT tech,” said Anand Ayyadurai, CEO of Vogo.

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Image Credit:  Aaron Burden

 

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In 2008, Ryan Chin, a Singaporean, and Reggie Yam, who hails from Hong Kong, founded a B2B cybersecurity company Nexusguard in Taiwan.

In 2017, with so many cloud incidents, such as website outages due to cloud failure, including the AWS outage, Chin saw a huge opportunity and decided to start a new venture to tackle this.

Chin immediately stepped down as Nexusguard CEO and invited Yam to start a venture, with the funding support from an angel investor.

An AI solution

Headquartered in Taipei, mlytics is an online platform/marketplace, on which businesses can subscribe to multiple top-tier CDNs or content delivery networks (a solution to boost website performance for their website). mlytics’s Machine Learning-trained Artificial Intelligent solution will monitor the internet and automatically route the website traffic to the best-performing CDN. This can boost the performance of a website and avoid outages.

“It would be hard to overstate the importance of avoiding downtime. Every minute your website is inaccessible represents both a financial and customer relations hit. The cumulative effect can lead to catastrophic consequences for e-commerce sites, in particular,” says Chin, CEO at mlytics. “We are trying to address this using our SaaS product.”

Also Read: 6 tried-and-tested branding tips for your startup

In other words, mlytics enables enterprises to buy and install CDN for their website, as opposed to signing up for an account individually via a different portal. All the user has to do is add his or her website to the platform. Similar to Google Tag Manager, once an initial installation is done, they can install any CDNs on their website without having to go through the technical hassle again.

“Traditionally, if you are using only one CDN and if it is underperforming or malfunctioning, your website will stop working,” Chin explains. “But with multi CDNs, along with our AI Load Balancing feature, the system can auto-detect such situation and redirect all the traffic to another CDN.”

For example, if a news portal is using Cloudflare, and suddenly Cloudflare is down without notice, the whole site goes down. Now, if the site has Cloudflare, CloudFront, and Alibaba Cloud CDNs installed, even if Cloudflare is down, the mlytics system can redirect all the traffic to CloudFront or Alibaba Cloud depending on which performs the best.

If simplified further using an analogy, let’s say you’re an e-commerce company located in the US, with customers from around the world. If a US customer places an order, the shipping won’t take too long since it’s domestic. Now, if a customer from Japan places an order, shipping will take longer since you’re shipping to Japan.

To overcome this, hiring a shipping company and using its shipping centre to preload products in Asia can vastly decrease the time of shipping.

“This is how CDN works. You have CDN PoPs (point of presence) at some of the essential locations acting as a shipping centre to deliver the website at a faster speed,” he explained.

Now, let’s say the company you hired for shipping isn’t working for the day without notice, and if a second shipping company isn’t planned, it will delay the whole shipping schedule.

“This is what happens when you use just one CDN and it fails without proper failover planning. If you have a second shipping company (CDN) ready, you can switch the operation over to assure uninterrupted operations. mlytics is this company that helps you hire multiple shipping companies (CDN) and helps you decide which shipping company to use depending on where your customer is located in,” Chin elucidated.

The firm works with multiple top-tier CDN companies, including Alibaba Cloud, Akamai, CDNetworks, Cloudflare, CloudFront (AWS), Imperva, and TencendCloud.

Expanding to Europe

Chin claims mlytics has been “doing pretty well” lately in the Southeast Asia region, and it now aims to expand to Europe in 2020. Its potential customers are medium-sized businesses in the e-commerce, multi-media (video, streaming, news), finance, and gaming.

The company has already bagged some clients — Aurora, an Asian IT solution company; DaAi, an Asian Buddhist TV station company; CloudMile, a Taiwanese firm focusing on AI solution.

The SaaS model means clients can subscribe to the service by paying a monthly fee, and cancel whenever they like without contract and restrictions. The firm also has an enterprise-grade solution, which is customised depending on the customer’s requirements.

mlytics has a staff strength of 50 people, mostly located in Taipei.

Also Read: Ready to spread your wings? 4 ways to tell your startup should

The entrepreneur-duo has extensive experience in building a company and had clear innovative visions, goals, and execution plans on how to address the existing CDN market pain point and weaknesses. As such, they planned to need very minimum capital to get the business off the ground, and manage to get mlytics off the ground (ROI and profitable) from a single angel investor.

Chin started his career as a network engineer. He had worked in some of the biggest network/telecom companies such as Siemens and AT&T. Yam started his career as an IT and network security specialist in Hong Kong and worked his way up to CIO in Nexusguard in seven years.

Lack of trust a challenge

In Chin’s opinion, B2B companies have been constrained by a lack of innovative solutions for the modern world internet delivery requirement. CDNs came into existence in the late 1990s as a means for alleviating the performance bottlenecks of the internet, and nothing much has changed since then.

“The challenge is how to disrupt an industry that has been the same for two decades, and convince businesses to make the shift,” he said. “We’re overcoming it with the right product, but we’re missing that extra punch due to the lack of credibility, social proof, and trust, which is extremely important for a SaaS business model especially in Europe and the US.”

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Image Credit: mlytics

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Isla Lipana & Co./PwC Philippines (PwC) has conducted its second collaboration with QBO, the country’s first public-private initiative for startups, and IdeaSpace, a non-profit that supports early-stage technology entrepreneurship, resulting in the 2020 Philippine Startup Survey.

According to the survey, which covers questions directed to startup founders and investors about their current status as well as their plans, 77 per cent of the founders say that capital requirements are their biggest challenge. Regulatory and business concerns also exist.

Seventy-three per cent of the investors plan to invest up to US$5 million in the Philippines’s startups in the next three years.

The survey further reveals that the country’s startup ecosystem has changed over the last three years. However, challenges are to be expected, despite recent developments.

Diane Eustaquio, IdeaSpace Executive Director, shared: “The 2020 Startup Survey brings to fore the issues we need to address to strengthen and bring the ecosystem towards maturity. I’m glad to know that fewer founders mention that funding is an issue, it shows they are understanding how to address constraints and lessen risks.”

PwC Philippines’s Chairman and Senior Partner, Atty. Alexander Cabrera, is optimistic as the number of growing startups is on the rise. “This year, it is comforting that the majority of the founders are scaling up with them (founders) want to do business, and stay in business.”

Also Read: Why disruption is no longer a buzzword in the Philippines

The survey also features the participation of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) members, a 70-year-old management organisation whose over 1,000 members represent a cross-section of CEOs, COOs and other top management practitioners from the largest local and multinational companies operating in the Philippines. It encourages investors to support the ideas of the startups and help deepen the bench for future business leaders.

“While we need more investors to help fund our startups, we also need the private sector to help by becoming the customers of our startups. We all need to work together to build sustainable businesses that will provide opportunities for the Filipinos,” Cabrera said.

Changes and improvements in the scene

The survey notes that the Philippines’s startup ecosystem has changed over the last three years. The 2019 signing of the implementing rules and regulations for the Innovative Startup Act or Republic Act 11337 as well as the Revised Corporation Code allowing the incorporation of one person corporations show the government’s support in promoting entrepreneurship.

The recent investments from global investors poured into local startups from the likes of KKR, Tencent, and Ant Financial prove that the Philippines has a promising and stronger startup ecosystem.

According to the founders, the majority of them are scaling up. Majority of the founders are also very confident about the prospects for revenue growth, and almost all are planning to enter new territories in the succeeding years.

Similarly, startup investors are confident about the growth prospects of the Filipino startups. According to investors, fintech, e-commerce, and medical and healthcare technology are the top sectors that will be successful.

The year of scaling up

The investors also said that their top investment considerations for startups are the founding members, business model, and scalability.

This year, the majority of the startups are scaling up with the improved products and businesses, and only 5 per cent are in the ideating stage compared to when the Philippine Startup Survey first launched in 2017.

Back in 2017, regulatory requirements and the general economic/business situation were among the founders’ top challenges. This year, founders are more concerned with market readiness and talent acquisition as they wish to create sustainable businesses.

Also Read: Fintech in the Philippines: opportunities, challenges and why global participation is critical

The startups’ focus on business is also evident in the needed skills that the founders have identified. In 2017, the founders ranked software development as the top skill of its founding members. This year, however, entrepreneurship ranked first followed by project management and sales.

Fundraising climate

While fundraising is among the key priorities of the founders, 48 per cent admit to having walked away from a potential partnership or investment or terminated an existing partnership.

When asked why the founders identified not sharing the same vision as the top reason, the mismatch of personalities with the management team, weak management team, and lack of traction as major reasons for walking away. Surprisingly, having a low valuation only ranked fifth.

In 2019, there were over 20 disclosed deals, which include the US$72 million investment of gojek in Coins.ph as well as the US$175 million investment of KKR and Tencent in Voyager Innovations.

According to the investors who participated in this survey, 65 per cent have invested in Filipino startups, with a significant number saying they’ve invested between US$1 million and US$5 million.

What’s next

While startup dealmaking in the Philippines still lags behind the other Southeast Asian countries, a growing number of domestic and foreign investors are showing interest in deploying capital to the country. The Philippines’s young population, rising middle class, higher smartphone penetration, and ongoing reforms are among the factors that help drive the investors to the local startup ecosystem.

What’s noteworthy this time is more local corporations have started to formally establish their own venture capital vehicles. In 2019, top conglomerates such as Ayala Corporation, JG Summit, and Aboitiz Equity Ventures launched their corporate VC arms with the vision of investing in local and foreign startups.

Also Read: Are Philippines’s traditional conglomerates finally embracing corporate investing?

The investors agree that local startups should enter new markets in the next five years. While the founders have identified other areas in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia as priority markets, the investors, however, think that startups should prioritise Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore.

When asked about innovation, the investors identified technology, products and services, and business model as the top areas that the startups should focus on. With the growing number of startups in the Philippines and abroad, the investors are looking for target investees with distinct and competitive products and solutions.
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Picture Credit: 2020 Philippine Startup Survey

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Business

Grab launches accelerator programme Grab Ventures Ignite in Vietnam

Grab announced that it has officially launched an accelerator programme, Grab Ventures Ignite, for early-stage startups in Vietnam as part of the ‘Grab for Good’ development roadmap.

“Grab Ventures Ignite will nurture and support promising Vietnamese startups in their journey to become national champions in Vietnam’s tech startup ecosystem, in line with the government’s national strategy to create 10 technology unicorns by 2030,” Grab said in a statement, as reported in DealStreetAsia.

The six-month programme has welcomed a partnership with Vietnam’s National Innovation Center, an entity under the local investment ministry, to execute the initiative together. GVI also collaborated with Gobi Partners, Vietnam-based Toong Coworking Space, law firm YKVN, and Amazon Web Services to provide support to startups.

According to Grab, participating startups will benefit from a curated immersion programme hosted in Singapore by Infocomm Media Development Authority and cross-border sharing with the startups in the Lion City. Up to five selected winners will be offered up to US$150,000 in investments and in-kind benefits.

The application process is open until April 10, 2020. The target sectors are not limited, but GVI said it welcomes startups focussing on mobility, food, payments, financial services, logistics, e-commerce, or artificial intelligence.

LINE-owned digital currency exchange BITFRONT expands to the US

As part of the continuing expansion of the LINE token economy, LINE Corporation has launched BITFRONT, a global digital currency exchange based in the US. Operated by LVC USA, a subsidiary of LVC Corporation, BITFRONT provides a fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto market for the US dollar.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Singapore’s VC firm Reapra backs Thai edutech startup Quest

BITFRONT will become the main digital currency exchange platform for LINE’s token economy. Previously, LINE operated the global digital asset exchange BITBOX, a crypto-to-crypto exchange based in Singapore.

However, LINE has decided to expand its services and become a full-fledged exchange that includes fiat-to-crypto markets, aiming to spur the usage of blockchain by lowering the barriers to cryptocurrency adoption.

By linking other exchanges and order books, BITFRONT provides deep liquidity and users will be able to trade in U.S. dollars by linking their bank account. BITFRONT supports five major cryptocurrencies, including LINE’s digital currency LINK, Bitcoin, Etherium, Bitcoin Cash and Tether, in 15 languages.

Finance

Indonesia’s Telkom seeks to raise up to US$500M to invest in startups

Indonesia government-controlled telco, Telkom, is raising up to US$500 million in funds for startup investments in line with the company’s plan to find a new source of growth, Reuters has reported.

The fundraising is the second fund the company has raised with a goal to invest in startups. Budi Gunadi Sadikin, the deputy minister of state-owned enterprises, said the fund is set to launch soon and is targeted to be around US$300 million to US$500 million in size.

“This is important because Telkom is an industry with very high capital expenditure with declining EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) and flattening revenue,” Sadikin said. “We have to move on from only digital infrastructure to digital platform and digital sources.”

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Picture Credit: Grab

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Finance

Malaysian food delivery startup Dahmakan raises US$18 million series B funding round

Dahmakan, Malaysia-based direct-to-consumer delivery-only food startup, just closed a US$18 million Series B funding round from new investors Rakuten Capital, White Star Capital, JAFCO Asia, and the GEC-KIP Fund. Other investors include Korean food delivery unicorn Woowa Brothers, the former CEO of Nestlé Germany, and follow-on by existing investors, Partech Partners and Y Combinator.

Dahmakan said that the proceeds will be used to continue building their end-to-end operating system which powers the entire value chain from product development to last-mile delivery from a network of “satellite” distribution kitchens.

The company claims to be the first Malaysian startup funded by Y Combinator.

Dahmakan soft-launched more than 40 new dishes monthly from a growing database of more than 2,000 tested dishes. It relies on customer feedback, market insights, and other data to fuel Dahmakan’s product development approach to create a weekly changing menu of customer favourites, best-sellers, and Dahmakan-exclusive creations.

Business

EY poll: Lack of transparency, uncertainty contribute to AI trust crisis, needing risk-optimisation approach

Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated disruptive tech and will continue to transform lives and businesses despite uncertainty of the process, according to a poll conducted by EY during a webinar. This uncertainty plays a role in many Asia Pacific (APAC) organisations holding back their adoption of AI, followed by mistrust, potential bias, and a lack of transparency and explainability.

Also Read: YC-backed dahmakan raises US$5M to roll out its chef-cooked food delivery in Thailand, Malaysia

These key factors were identified by over 70 per cent of participants in a said poll, particularly in Australia.

Estimates indicate US$2.9 trillion of business value will be created through AI globally in 2021, and APAC countries stand out in AI patent filing, with China holding 46.4 per cent, Japan holding 9.5 per cent, and the Republic of Korea holding 6.3 per cent of patents filed worldwide in 2018.

Despite the clear trend and gradually increased usage, the EY poll also shows that almost half of the polling participants (41 per cent) are interested in exploring AI, but not sure where to start.

The poll results also show that many believe process automation (52.3 per cent) and generating new revenue potential through new products and processes (18.8 per cent), will be the two main benefits of AI. With the correct context, AI can be used to not only add value to businesses, but also solve many issues in multiple sectors.

“APAC organisations need to view an AI implementation through a human lens rather than treat it as a strictly technological effort. To do this, leaders have to embed risk management into enablers and monitoring mechanisms for AI by demonstrating their commitment to being accountable for AI systems predictions, decisions, and behaviours,” suggested Gavin Seewooruttun, EY Asia-Pacific Advisory Leader for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics.

Filipino motorcycle-hailing service JoyRide to commence food delivery service

JoyRide, the newest addition to the Philippines’s ride-hailing sector focussing on motorcycle ride, announced its plans to foray into the food delivery space. Currently, according to an article by DealStreetAsia, the market is dominated by foreign players such as GrabFood, Honestbee, and Foodpanda.

The motorcycle-taxi startup just held its pilot testing in December last year.

“Food delivery is a natural extension of our transport offerings. Since we have an overwhelming pool of bikers, it is really inevitable to venture into this business, especially with the possibility of motorcycle taxis service not being legalised,” said JoyRide Vice President for Corporate Affairs Noli Eala, talking about the motorcycle ride-hailing service pilot study lapses in March.

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Image Credit: Dahmakan

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10 entrepreneurs offer advice for how to run a smooth company with a positive vibe

Question: What components should a founder incorporate into a business continuity plan, and why?

Constant testing — Robby Hill of HillSouth

“Being an IT professional, I speak to business owners about disaster recovery often. The challenge being a startup founder that is you lack time. When planning for a disaster you have to take your plan and implement it a few times. Imagining that the first time you do it will probably fail you. Go ahead and make tweaks until you have a working plan. Then test that plan every six months at the least.”

A list of Most Valuable Contacts updated quarterly — Manpreet Singh of TalkLocal

“We manage our networking efforts using Streak and pretty much have case files on everyone we meet. Relationship development is key to our growth strategy, so restoring our connections when we lose a point of contact has to be a part of our growth continuity plan. Keep an updated list of the top 50 contacts and keep notes on pertinent details so that the successor can reach out ASAP.”

Backups — Vik Patel of Future Hosting

“Many businesses would cease to be viable if customer and product data were lost. Data protection should be the No. 1 business continuity concern. If data doesn’t exist in at least two (and preferably three) physical locations, then it might as well not exist at all. Catastrophic data losses regularly cost millions of dollars and many businesses simply don’t recover from the damage.”

Local regulations —Matt Doyle of Excel Builders

“You have to consider the economy, the local government and other facets outside of your business that could affect its growth and development. Even the little things such as the weather can be a factor. Consider every angle.”

A credit line when things are going great — Duran Inci of Optimum7

“Founders tend to begin searching for a credit line when things are going bad. Actually, the best time to get a credit line is when things are going great. Every business will have its up and downs.”

Also Read: Australia bans Huawei from supplying 5G network equipment over security fears

“When things get rough, the most essential thing should not be survival, but innovation. You cannot innovate with an empty bank account and without the talent that you just had to let go.”

Delegation of responsibilities —Miles Jennings of VocaWorks

“Within a business continuity plan, you need to set up a chain of command between team members that will be put into action just in case an emergency arises. This way, your managers and employees won’t be questioning (or fighting over) who has what powers and what actions each member of the team needs to take. This needs to be set into place ahead of time so that all individuals are prepared.”

Your bottom line — Abby Ross of ThinkCERCA

“For us, our perpetual KPI is “student growth and outcomes.” It’s our bottom line. From guiding our product roadmap to operationalizing our customer support, we focus on operating in a way that brings the best instruction to students with ThinkCERCA. Making decisions that could compromise that would be deviate from our business plan continuity.”

Community Disaster Response — Eric Matthews of Start Co.

“Business owners should answer: “In the event our neighborhood or city faces a disaster we can/will contribute the following to assist in recovery.” Because disruptions in the community will impact employees, resources, etc. of the business, the sooner the community recovers, the sooner normal business operations can resume. Businesses can contribute employee time, money, materials, scrap etc.”

SWOT Analysis — Kristopher Jones of LSEO.com

“Nobody is in a better position to accurately access and document the “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats” of a business than its founder.”

Also Read: The Jay Kim Show with Monk’s Hill Managing Partner Peng T. Ong

“That’s why I think a SWOT analysis is by far the most important document a founder must incorporate into a business continuity plan. The founder should also visually and verbally go over the SWOT analysis with all key employees and answer questions.”

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Photo by Michał Kubalczyk on Unsplash

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organisation comprising the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

This post was published on August 23, 2018.

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Funding societies partners SGeBIZ to lower working capital barriers for SME’s

Crowdfunding platform Funding Societies announced today that it will partner with Singapore E-Business (SGeBIZ) to provide financing solutions to local SME suppliers and buyers, according to PRNewswire.

Funding Societies offers a diverse range of loan products whereas SGeBIZ is an e-procurement management system that acts as a bridge between buyers and suppliers. Through the partnership, the two companies aim to lower the barrier of access to working capital for small businesses.

Small businesses on SGeBIZ will now be able to access funds from Funding Societies which provides loans to SMEs in as quickly as 24 hours.

American fund MDIF leads US$1.5 million investment in Indian media platform Josh Talks

Indian social tech media startup Josh Talks has raised US$1.5 million in pre-Series A funding, led by New York-based fund Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), according to a press release statement today.

The media startup has expanded to include Josh Kosh an inclusive career-guidance platform, and Josh Skills a platform for low-income students and job seekers in India to assist them with training and tools necessary to get a job.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Malaysian food delivery startup Dahmakan raises US$18M in Series B

“We are proud to partner with Josh Talks, an organisation that is leading the way in creating affordable and accessible solutions for low-income families and communities,” commented Key Kiarie, Chief Investment Officer of MDIF.

The company also revealed plans to take Josh to other developing nations with the support of MDIF.

Freshworks acquires ML and AI provider AnswerIQ to enhance customer service

Freshworks, an India- and US-based SaaS platform, has acquired AnswerIQ, an intelligent automation solution for customer service, for an undisclosed amount, according to a press release.

The startup also said that AnsweriQ complements Freshworks’s AI engine by enabling enterprises to leverage their existing customer data to scale and automate complex customer workflows.

As part of the agreement, AnsweriQ CEO Pradeep Rathinam has joined the senior executive team as Chief Customer Officer.

“Unlike clunky, siloed, legacy SaaS solutions, Freshworks is innovating to deliver a powerful and seamless experience across sales, marketing, customer success and support functions,” Rathinam said.

Also Read: Taking a glimpse into agritech startups in Thailand

Freshworks currently has more than 2,700 employees working in 13 offices around the world. The company recently closed US$150 million in funding that put the company at a post-financing valuation of US$3.5 billion.

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Image Credit:  Nick Pampoukidis

 

 

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How early-stage startups Sparadise, Omniaz, and Jadore are overcoming their fundraising woes through this programme

With Southeast Asia and its vibrant tech ecosystem currently enjoying its position as one of the best places in the world to rear and scale one’s startup vision, many obstacles still await startup founders running companies in their early growth stage. With 26,000 startups, 3,000 investors, 13,000 events, and 8,000 jobs in 2018 alone as listed in e27’s media platform, the region still finds itself in a precarious position as many founders deal with various fundraising woes.

Three overarching problems being dealt with by young startups in the region, particularly in the process of fundraising, are those affecting the areas of access, credibility, and efficiency.

Founders often suffer from a lack of access to active and relevant investors due to the limitations of their respective networks. This is most apparent to new and young founders who are not yet fully immersed in the startup ecosystem. As such, founders are often forced to accept funding opportunities that are not tailor-fit for their startup needs.

Startups in the region also find it difficult to establish credibility when seeking fundraising outlets because, for many new founders, there isn’t much track record to back up one’s promising startup vision. In effect, the lack of credibility with those possible investors prolongs the entire fundraising process, from outreach to courtship to due diligence being established from both ends.

Moreover, founders deal with efficiency problems due to the use of multiple service providers across fragmented processes, with each one trying to get a share of the fees. The lack of visibility and analytics over investor activity and the entire fundraising process also poses problems that render any active attempt towards startup growth completely inefficient.

How startups are overcoming these challenges

The malaysia-based startup, Sparadise, is a quality beauty treatment provider that implores the ease of technology to deliver their most talented beauty professionals to your doorsteps. With Sparadise, customers can book spa and beauty services like makeup, massage, manicure and pedicure, and more through their mobile app, and their qualified freelance therapists will go to the customer location.

The Sparadise model operates in three simple steps: viewing of packages where customers can choose services and the packages that they offer, booking of appointments where customers select a date, time, location, and payment method to secure booking services, and finally, for customers to sit back and relax as their squad of professionals arrive at your desired location for your respective appointment.

In an attempt to navigate their way through the respective challenges that startups in the region face, Sparadise connected with the e27 Fundraise Programme. Through the fundraise programme’s features, Sparadise is given access to e27’s network of investors, build rapport with the investor community through sustained engagement, and manage the entire fundraising process in a single online platform—effectively curbing the usual obstacles that hamper startup growth.

They are not alone in this. On the other side of the spectrum, Omniaz, an AR company builds immersive retail experiences by establishing Augmented Reality as a new media channel. Their BevTech solution, DRNK:AR, is set to digitise the undisrupted global alcoholic beverage industry by transforming bottle labels into dynamic and powerful marketing tools. Fueled by data and creative use of technology, their services are curated for the next generation of businesses and consumers.

Alcohol brands are constantly struggling to set themselves apart from their competitors. Advertising regulations and the limited space on a bottle to fit in all the mandatory information further limits consumer engagement. Merchants face similar challenges too as there is little they can do to push their products when there’s no distinct way to connect with buyers. Thus, customers have access to an overwhelming amount of alcohol yet lack the means to help them make the right choice. This undigitised industry also sees brands having difficulties with product traceability and a broken link between marketing effort and its direct impact on sales. We are industry-oriented and work alongside brands and retailers to create differentiation and appeal to millennials with unique and immersive content on augmented bottle labels.

Using AR as a communication channel, brands can engage with consumers like never before. Their business platform also connects the offline and online worlds by turning customer interactions and profiles into meaningful data and analytics, which can then be used to strengthen sales and marketing strategies.

With its very promising innovation that can radically change how advertising works, it is important for the company to gain access to potential investors that can contribute wholly to the startup’s growth, enabling them to help more businesses and craft more creative innovations in the future.

Joining them in this roster is Jadore, a trade market and development/operation support apps ecosystem provider based in Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan. Jadore resolves the conflicts between human activities and the environment via a technology-backed business mind.

The slew of business domains their services encompass is the following: app Ecosystem for sustainable development, where they establish an ecosystem for the entertainment industry to develop, trade, and operate the apps. Next is their offshore development consulting which provides matching service publishers with offshore software/application developers in Vietnam. And lastly, food tech business where they support sustainable activities in the food delivery business.

Initiatives such as the ones being put forward by the likes of Sparadise, Omniaz, and Jadore are ones that we find important, which is why it is imperative for companies like them to gain access to potential investors that can contribute a lot to their startup growth, thereby empowering these companies to help more people in the long run.

These three startups are great examples of that show the innovation and passion that young startups in the region have, not only to grow and scale, but also to provide a tangible and meaningful impact on the world. It also tells us how such tenacity must be nurtured by the tech community and the very innovation it purports, as a means for these budding visionaries to fully flourish.

e27 Fundraise Programme and its three-pronged approach

There are several solutions out there coming from different facets of society that all do their part in minimising these regional obstacles. What makes the e27 Fundraise Programme particularly unique, however, is its three-pronged approach to solving common problems.

In order to democratise fundraising for startup founders, the e27 Fundraise Programme has come up with three umbrella solutions that accommodate the three pressing challenges in the region’s tech ecosystem. These three umbrella solutions are increased visibility, sustained engagement, and digitalisation.

Through the programme, startups are empowered to let investors know that they exist. While most young startups find difficulty in carving a name for themselves, the programme—because of e27’s massive network of investors—effectively puts young startups within their radars making fundraising well within the realms of possibility.

The second prong is focused on establishing sustained engagement between startup founders and investors, thereby helping startups build rapport with the investor community. This is achieved by giving startups the platform to show investors their startup growth and progress over time.

Lastly, in a community whose lifeblood is digital innovation, the e27 Fundraise Programme makes use of digitalisation as a way to help startups manage the processes of their fundraising pursuits from end to end, and within a single online platform that they can keep track of over the course of their negotiations.

With this three-pronged approach, startups who sign up for the programme can guarantee better funding opportunities to come their way.

The e27 Fundraise Programme is in partnership with Wholesale Investor, Australasia’s leading venture capital and capital raising platform for sophisticated and accredited investors. For more information on the programme, you may enquire here.

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With the term “venture building” gaining popularity in the startup and innovation ecosystem, VCs, incubators, accelerators, technology transfer offices (TTOs) and other similar organisations have all started to label themselves as venture builders.

The truth is, however, that they are not really involved in the “building” of the venture, but rather only facilitate certain functions of the venture building. Additionally, although they will benefit from a successful venture because of their indirect involvement in its “building”, none of them will actually generate sustainable revenue from the “building” itself.

Let us break down several of these organisations.

VCs obtain a sustainable income from their management fee of the funds. Incubators and accelerators operate based on the sponsorships of corporates or VCs.

TTOs hardly run a profitable IP license business and usually survive based on the government budget of their parent public organisations. They create a portfolio of startups, leaving the venture building to the entrepreneurs and simply keep their fingers crossed, hoping for a unicorn to show itself.

The struggles of a startup are the least of their worries and each startup becomes just another number in their portfolio. With no dirt on their hands, there is no skin in this game of venture building.

Also Read: Venture builder model vs. venture capital, what are the differences and advantages?

What makes a good venture builder

A venture builder distinguishes itself by its deep involvement in the venture building and how it aims to generate sustainable revenue from that. With its own infrastructure and venture partners, they bring or create multiple, closely related startups under a single umbrella, allowing them to share resources and develop strong business synergies.

Furthermore, they are directly involved in the venture creation process and the business operation as a co-founding party. Fundamentally, there are three steps to generate a profitable and sustainable venture building business, drawing parallel to a healthy garden.

Firstly, plant the roots. Venture builders identify the soil with the fortune and plant their roots there. It can be a particular industry, regional market or category of customers where they have identified growing business opportunities and are able to create, maintain and grow their advantages over other competitors.

The roots of the source are created by building a team, setting up the operation and establishing key business partnerships. The roots are strengthened and able to further reach outwards with the progress of the individual venture companies and the business synergies among all of them.

It is the ability to hold onto the soil, look for water and extract nutrients that will be reinforced, providing an even better foundation for other new venture companies being built.

Secondly, grow the stems and leaves. With strong roots deep into the soil with buried fortune, venture builders can start growing the stems and leaves – building the ventures. The key to this part is to create interconnected venture companies with strong business synergies and team culture synergies.

Also Read: This is why I choose the Venture Builder model in starting a new business

By sharing the nutrition from the root and similar DNA (the team culture), the associated businesses or the connected stems will be able to utilise their resources efficiently to maintain and develop the vitality and adaptivity of the venture building ecosystem, as a whole.

Every startup in the venture building ecosystem is important because they are deeply connected and support each other in the small ecosystem, and this integrated approach also divides vulnerabilities and risks, making the system “antifragile”.

Lastly, keep the fruits but not forget the seeds. The thriving venture businesses and the growing revenue is not the end goal of a venture building business.

Venture building does not only create the businesses, but also the entrepreneurial talent who have acquired valuable knowledge and experience during the process from 0 to 1 to 100. Because of the synergies in business and culture among the ventures created, the skill sets, knowledge, experiences and connections from these talents can be reused and further improved for other venture companies or new venture projects.

This positive feedback loop reinforces the core competencies of the venture builder. Talents are the seeds that drive future venture building projects, making the whole venture building ecosystem even more vibrant and sustainable.

A startup is like a single cell organism: surviving and growing in a dynamic environment filled with countless dangers and uncertainties.

Venture builders create a joint force consisting of a small group of closely related venture companies. Together, they survive with their joint ability to extract and share resources through their business synergies. Just as life, while looking for new opportunities, they also reproduce and grow with their common DNAs: the entrepreneurial culture of the venture builder.

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