Every month the team at e27 runs a monthly “startup of the month poll” where we pick the best startup to give it some extra coverage and attention that it deserves. Five startups are selected internally by taking into account idea, team, funding and founders. Three eventually make it to the final round, where we take in votes from our Telegram community.

The winner for January is none other than Singapore’s biotech startup TurtleTree which uses cell-based technology to create milk without requiring animals.

Reducing carbon footprint

At a time when climate change concern is drawing more and more attention –not just from the public but also the governments and businesses– Turtletree aims to make a difference by reducing carbon footprint from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy sector.

Co-founded in 2019 by Fengru Lin, Rabail Toor and Max Rye, the startup claims to be the “world’s first cell-based milk company that utilises biotechnology to manufacture milk products without any animal needed.”

While the big question remains as to how an industry can balance between reducing its environmental impact and society’s demands for dairy products, the biotech startup aims to make a leap by replicating the full nutritional content of milk using cell-based technology.

The founders also said that they “have been able to replicate the exact full composition of dairy milk,” which erases the concerns of sticking to dairy products due to its high protein content.

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As demand for dairy grows, so does its impact on the environment. Even though dairy is not the number one factor for GHG emissions, it unarguably has a significant impact on the environment.

Not limited to simply milk and milk-based products, the company has targeted to apply their methods into recreating human breast milk, targeting to disrupt the infant milk formula industry that is currently valued at nearly US$45 billion.

The backers

The startup has already attracted global investors to forward its mission and vision which include KBW Ventures, owned by Saudi Prince  Khaled bin Alwaleed.

Also joining the pre-seed funding round was US-Hong Kong venture capital fund which specialised in protein investments Lever VC, and Silicon Valley-based K2 Global. The amount of investment for this round is undisclosed.

“This is long-term investment; we’re not in this for the quick win,” HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud told Entrepreneur, expressing that “investing in the development of alternative protein sources that use less natural resources by biotech startups is one way to play a role in solving what is truly the most pressing issue of our times: the climate crisis.”

Nick Cooney, founder and managing partner at Lever VC also commented on the startup saying that the technology could be a “serious disrupter in the global dairy industry,”.

“They are the first company in the world producing real, whole milk from cell cultivation — which opens the door for safer, healthier and customised dairy products that can be produced with far fewer natural resources,” he continued. 

The fresh capital will be used by the company to make more hires and create additional fresh prototypes.

As it plans to debut its product in Spring this year, whether the company will radically change how milk is recreated, only time will tell.

Also Read: Singaporean biotech startup TurtleTree secures pre-seed from Saudi entrepreneur Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed

The runner-up

In addition to TurtleTree, the e27 community also voted for Lumitics and Gredu as the runner-up for the Startup of the Month title.

Lumitics is a company that tracks the food wasted by Singapore’s F&B outlets and restaurants and Gredu is an edutech startup that enables parents to track their children’s progress.

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Image Credit: Waldemar Brandt

 

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iFarmer, an online platform that connects small-scale farmers with retail investors in Bangladesh, is in discussion with investors to raise US$500,000 investment.

The Dhaka-based startup looks to close the round in April this year, its Co-founder Fahad Ifaz told e27.

“iFarmer is currently in talks with a number of Singapore-and Indonesia-based angel investors and are also in discussion with a number of VCs. But we cannot disclose further details at this stage,” said Ifaz.

iFarmer has previously received S$100,000 (US$73,000) in investment from the Accelerating Asia VC fund as part of its startup programme. The agritech venture also has the backing of Startup Bangladesh of the Ministry of ICT and the UNCDF Fintech Innovation Fund.

Established in mid-2018 by friends Ifaz (CEO) and Jamil Akbar (COO), iFarmer enables anyone to sponsor farmers and invest in livestock easily.

How it works

You can create an account on the iFarmer mobile app or website and transfer funds into it. Once done, iFarmer will start sending you purchasing opportunities for new assets like cattle as they become available.

The farm selection involves going through the available farms (currently, it offers cattle and livestock farms) and picking the farm you want to invest in. When you click on a farm you want to invest in, the details such as the investment/contract period, expected RoI, the harvest period, available units to be sponsored, etc. will be available.

After successfully making payments to invest in a farm, iFarmer deploys the funds to verified and trained partner farmers. iFarmer facilitates the availability of quality farm inputs, technical support, training, farm and farm produce insurance, marketing assistance and logistics.

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You can then start monitoring your virtual farm on iFarmer’s online dashboard and receive reports on your assets’ value and performance. When the assets reach maturity and are sold, the proceeds are deposited in your account. You can either withdraw it, hold it, or reinvest in new opportunities.

“We also work with farms to increase their production capacity and grow their products through its technical field experts, who guide farmers,” Co-founder Ifaz said.

Targetting 20M farming households and 30M middle-income population

About the 20-million farming households in Bangladesh are iFarmer’s targets. Most of these people are unbanked and rely on informal moneylenders and microfinance for capital.

To date, iFarmer, which is also the winner of Seedstars Bangaldesh 2019, claims to have worked with 1,000 farmers.

iFarmer targets the growing middle-income population as investors. Currently, Bangladesh has close to 30 million people falling in this space, and the number is likely to grow. A majority of them do not have access to a wide range of retail investment opportunities.

“They usually keep their money in the bank or invest in bonds; most of them are shying away from stock markets or do not get into it because they don’t understand how it works. So by investing in farms through iFarmer, they can have an annualised return of 16-40 per cent from their farm investments, which is higher than the return from bank deposits and other retail opportunities.

The farming and agriculture industry in Bangladesh — a country with roughly the size of New York but with well over 20x its population — is at an inflexion point. While the sector has so far done a great job of feeding its 170 million people, a growing population coupled with falling agri land and profitability is a cause for worry for the government and farmers.

“The population of Bangladesh continues to grow and is estimated to reach 230 million by 2050. The agriculture land is, however, disappearing and profitability is falling. Plus, farmers are finding it difficult to invest in new technology. Unless there is a technological innovation, the sector will suffer,” Ifaz said.

Ifaz and Akbar embarked on their startup journey with a mission to address this problem.

Before starting iFarmer, Ifaz worked in agriculture development and financial inclusion space for almost ten years in several countries in South Asia. He worked with organisations such as Swisscontact, World Bank, CARE Australia to design and manage projects to improve the economic conditions of smallholder farmers.

Akbar has experience and expertise in technology and technology-based project management.

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US- and Singapore-based digital identity provider GTRIIP announces today it has secured an undisclosed amount in Series B round of funding from Japanese VC firm GlobalBrain through its KDDI Open Innovation Fund-III (KOIF).

Kepventure, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore’s Keppel Corporation, and Japan’s Accord Ventures also joined the round.

GTRIIP will use the capital for expansion in both hospitality and other commercial properties in the Asia Pacific markets with ageing populations, waning workforces, and high labour costs.

The company believes that technological innovations such as Artificial Intelligence can enable hotels to work around limitations by reducing repetitive, high-volume tasks via automating check-ins and identify verifications, leading to increased productivity.

“The investment aligns with our vision to grow further in the Asia Pacific. It is an ideal opportunity to showcase the value in seamlessly checking in a large number of travelers using their own smartphones,” said Maxim Tint, Founder and CEO of GTRIIP.

Also Read: Following new funding round, PrivyID will integrate its service into Telkomsel’s platform

GTRIIP was founded in 2014 and currently has a 20-staff team. It claims to have completed installations for over 13,000 rooms and access points and facilitated over one million digital identity check-ins.

In Singapore, GTRIIP’s customer hotels are enabled with the E-Visitor Authentication (EVA) system, which the company said to help reducing guest check-in time at the front desk by 70 per cent.

“GTRIIP’s product requires no additional hardware which makes it inherently more scalable and sustainable for properties, allowing them to enjoy the full benefits of automated check-ins without incurring the extra capital expenditure. It also produces less carbon footprint and is more environmentally friendly than physical identity solutions, such as plastic ID and access cards, or hardware kiosks,” Tint added.

The firm is currently looking to diversify its product lines into new verticals beyond hospitality by launching specialised products for other commercial properties, such as tenant access and visitor access.

GTRIIP previously raised US$1 million in Series A funding from connectivity solutions provider M1. The money was used to scale its first product to serve hospitality customers in Singapore and Macau, including the likes of Park Hotel Group, Amara Hotel Group, and other major casino resort brands.

Also Read: 3 companies leveraging the power of blockchain technology in security

KDDI manages the investment portfolios of major Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI Corporation. KOIF’s Singapore office was established in June last year, but the global fund’s investment has been investing in Singapore and Indonesia-based startups since 2018.

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Picture Credit: GTRIIP

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The newly added capital will be used by Mortgage Master to drive expansion, specifically product development

Mortgage Master, a one-stop mortgage brokering platform for homeowners, has raised US$522,500 in a seed funding round via crowdfunding platform FundedHere. The participants in this round include former President of Westpac International and Founder of S Cube Capital Bala Swaminathan and Chairman of Tembusu Partners Andy Lim.

The company managed to close their funding in eight days via the FundedHere platform, according to co-founder David Baey in an interview with e27. The newly added capital will be used by the startup to drive expansion, specifically product development, in order to scale the platform better.

“Mortgage Master is effectively looking to overhaul the way homeowners in Asia make the most expensive purchase of their lives, by being the neutral party that offers personalised advice, alongside a faster and more affordable mortgage process,” said Swaminathan, one of the lead investors of the entity.

As a mortgage brokerage company, the startup deeply roots itself in the value it creates for its customers by partnering with banks who give their rates to the company.  It aims to provide the best option taking into consideration individual needs.

Also Read: If you’re thinking about being an entrepreneur, these 6 words had better be true

“Most Singaporeans do not like the jargon, they can put in the effort to filter to understand it, but wouldn’t it be better if someone came in to explain to them in layman terms?” Baey said.

“A homeowner typically conducts 10 hours of research, assesses 15 banks – with each touting the ‘best’ offering, and then spends two hours on paperwork, but often still ends up with buyer’s remorse. A home is the most meaningful purchase you will make in your lifetime, and we believe the process of financing it with a mortgage must be better. Having observed this broken system first-hand, we started Mortgage Master to empower banks to behave the way they should – in homeowners’ best interests,” he continued.

While there are other players in the market, Baey believes that the difference in values is what sets Mortgage Master apart from its competitors.

“While Redbrick Mortgage has been around longer for a longer time, their business model is actually different from us,” says the banker-turned-entrepreneur. According to him, the company focuses on fastest fingers first and hires employees as freelancers, while Mortgage Masters prefers to have fulltime employees to maintain quality control.

Housing is a big market in Singapore, and the region’s homeownership rate is estimated to be around 91 per cent with continual expectations to rise, making owning a home one of the top local millennials aspirations.

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“This differentiated model, a team with deep industry know-how, and impressive first-year revenue momentum is a sign of even better things to come. I am thrilled to come on board as Mortgage Master continues its journey toward becoming the preferred platform for all Singaporeans buying or refinancing a home,” said another investor of the startup, Andy Lim, Chairman of Tembusu Partners.

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Image Credit:  Brandon Griggs

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With the acquisition, Bento is set to rebrand itself to GrabInvest, with the product targeted to kick off in the first half of the year

Singapore-based ride-hailing giant Grab announced today that it has acquired local robo-advisory startup Bento to offer retail wealth management solutions to users via the Grab app. The amount for the acquisition was undisclosed.

With the acquisition, Bento is set to rebrand itself to GrabInvest, with the product targeted to kick off in the first half of the year. It will be led by Bento founder and CEO Chandrima Das.

The new product will allow Southeast Asian users to save and invest in “financial products traditionally limited to affluent individuals and institutional investors”, according to the company statement.

GrabInvest has also promised full transparency with their users by having “full disclosures on fees with zero hidden elements.” It has also assured users that it would be adhering to the consumer protection standards outlined by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Capital Markets Services (CMS) license.

“In Southeast Asia, there is a lack of accessibility to affordable wealth management products and retirement planning solutions for most people. As we face an increasingly volatile and uncertain economic environment, it is imperative for Southeast Asians to acquire the tools and knowledge to protect their future by sustainably building wealth for themselves and their families,” said Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director of Grab Financial Group, on the lack of awareness of wealth management products for SEA consumers.

Also Read: Grab, Hyundai launches their first electric vehicle service in Indonesia

“The launch of GrabInvest brings us a step closer to democratising access to affordable financial solutions that will help them achieve the financial stability they need well into their retirement years,” he noted.

GrabInvest will also be the fifth vertical under Grab’s financial services arm. Further verticals include payments (GrabPay), rewards (GrabRewards), lending (GrabFinance), and insurance (GrabInsure).

Bento’s platform has been known as a digital wealth platform that includes client onboarding, portfolio construction, and risk management capabilities. The technology also powers banks, wealth managers, brokers and insurance companies to launch digital wealth solutions.

Grab is also one of the contenders for the Singapore digital banking race, as it partners with Singtel at a stake of 60 per cent.

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Image Credit: Afif Kusuma

 

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