Day: February 12, 2020

Updates: Tourkrub representative has issued a correction to clarify that King Power Click does not lead Tourkrub’s ongoing Series B fundraising.

Thailand-based travel tech startup Tourkrub, which acts as an online travel agent for tour packages, is raising a US$5 million Series B funding round.

The funding round followed a US$3 million round that the company has raised previously from King Power Click, the digital arm of Thailand’s leading travel retail group King Power Group.

Other participants in the previous round were SMEs Private Equity Trust Fund by the Government Savings Bank (GSB) of Thailand, the third lot which managed by Premier Advisory Group, Tao Kae Noi by Itthipat Preeradechapan, and 500 TukTuks.

According to the company statement, Tourkrub will use the funding to support its regional expansion plan and improve the travel experience. It plans to strategically take advantage of the fact that Bangkok is one of the top choices of transit for outbound travellers.

Founder and CEO Jakapan Leeathiwat commented that outbound tourism has been booming over the past six years with 8.8 per cent annual growth on average thanks to the growing middle class, the emergence of an ageing society and baht appreciation. Group tour alone shared around 25 per cent of Thai outbound travellers with 10.2 per cent growth on average. The figures showed that outbound tourism outpaced the growth of Thai GDP of 3.5 per cent growth YoY.

This raises high optimism for the travel company who aims to build a strong footing through this data.

Also Read: Understanding China’s market as a first time traveller

“It can be seen that travelling abroad has become a norm and culture of Thai people, whether the first jobber, working parent and senior. Tourkrub saw the important role of technology to address complexity in tour business and that’s why we jumped onto this bandwagon,” he continued.

Since its establishment in 2016, the company claimed to have experienced 700 per cent growth.

Leeathiwat further detailed that there were around 40,000 users booking a tour service via Tourkrub last year, up 53 per cent compared to the previous year. The transactional billing valued more than THB1 billion (US$32 million) last year, up 33 per cent compared to the previous year.

Tourkrub expects its customers to reach 100,000 (up 250 per cent) and worth more than THB2.5 billion (US$80 million) this year.

For King Power Group, the investment marks its first in the travel tech startup scene.

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Image Credit :  Tourkrub

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Carousell, a leading B2C and C2C consumer marketplace in Singapore, announced today the appointment of Jennifer Lim as Head of People.

In the new role, Lin will be responsible for operational excellence and talent strategy for the rapidly scaling organisation.

Lim’s appointment follows Carousell’s recent merger with 701Search. The company plans to continue its focus on accelerating growth with Lim leading efforts in scaling the organisation.

In doing so, Lim will leverage her experience with M&A integrations to harmonise operations and company culture across Carousell Group.

Lim was previously Chief People Officer at video-on-demand service HOOQ, and Human Resources Director (APAC) at Nike.

Also Read: [Updated] Reaching Singapore’s unicorn status, Carousell expands its presences to eight markets through 701Search’s mergers

Her 20-plus years of expertise in organisational development, talent acquisition and change management was instrumental in building the HOOQ’s leadership team in the region and optimising its talent strength to set up its creative centre in Manila and engineering hub in Bandung.

During her stint with Nike, she led numerous organisational transformation efforts to support its growth objectives for their APAC Apparel office based out of Hong Kong.

“Today, we’re privileged with the opportunity to serve tens of millions of users across eight markets. We’re at a stage where we can really redefine e-commerce in a meaningful way, address overconsumption and make second-hand the first choice,” said Siu Rui Quek, Co-founder and CEO of Carousell.

“One of our greatest strengths now is having a passionate and talented team of over 750 who are deeply committed to our mission. With Lim’s experience in scaling talent, engagement, and synergy across complex global organisations, we can focus on realising the full potential of our people, and reimagining classifieds for our users,” Quek added.

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Picture Credit: Carousell

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GAIN, a programme launched in 2015 by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), aims to provide end-to-end expansion support to local companies.

The programme was launched to render business-growth interventions to local tech scaleups, spanning the sectors of cloud, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), e-commerce, blockchain, cybersecurity, drone technology, robotics, finance, fintech, etc. It is spearheaded Global Growth Acceleration (CGA), a newly-minted division of MDEC.

As per a press statement, more than a hundred local and regional tech entrepreneurs and digital ecosystem partners gathered at the recently-held GGA Kick-off 2020 to learn how CGA division to assist in fuelling high-potential Malaysian headquartered tech companies to skyrocket on the global stage.

“In a short time span, the GAIN Programme has achieved exceptional results, yielding a cumulative export revenue of over RM4 billion. We have also witnessed an upward trend of Malaysian tech companies expanding exponentially into the region. These success stories must be amplified without reservations,” said Surina Shukri, CEO of MDEC.

Also Read: Malaysian edutech startup Forward School raises US$500K pre-seed funding for expansion

Shukri also emphasised that Malaysia is increasingly recognised as the destination of choice for digital initiatives in ASEAN, and the country has been actively rolling out business-friendly initiatives and policies to encourage higher foreign direct investment.

“The Malaysian government has laid a strong foundation for stable and sustainable economic growth. The time is ripe for tech entrepreneurs around the world to capitalise on Malaysia’s potential as the Heart of Digital ASEAN,” she added.

Gopi Ganesalingam, MDEC Vice President of GGA, said: “Starting 2020, the GAIN Programme will be embracing prolific tech startups to leverage on the tried and tested growth-intervention strategies that we have been deploying for tech scaleups. This will allow MDEC to provide clear end-to-end expansion support for Malaysian tech companies at all growth stages.”

ASEAN is on track to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030 and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) projects that ASEAN’s digital economy is expected to expand 6.4 times from US$31 billion in 2015 to US$197 billion by 2025.

“As ASEAN’s digital economy is increasingly driven by younger tech-savvy entrepreneurs, we welcome companies to leverage on our eight tech ecosystems in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Australia and the UAE. With over 200 strategic partners consisting government and trade agencies, investors, business associations, resellers, end customers and regional media, the GAIN Programme has positioned itself as a credible business growth enabler that has united the digital ASEAN landscape,” added Gopi.

Also present at the GGA Kick-off 2020 were founders of three prominent Malaysian tech companies — Forest Interactive, Innovate2U, and Softspace.

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Bangkok-based PeerPower, a digital financing platform connecting business owners and investors, announced today it has received an undisclosed sum in pre-Series A round from InVent, the venture capital arm of Intouch Holdings.

Joining this round is existing investor Business Online Public Company (BOL).

PeerPower will use the funds to invest in product development and broadening its digital financing services.

The fintech startup claims it is the first in Thailand to issue Crowdfunding Bonds, approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission Thailand (SEC).

PeerPower leverages technology to provide better returns to investors. Investors can open an online account and choose to invest in businesses based on individual risk appetite. Its crowdfunding platform utilises data to maximise risk for investors and makes it easy for them to quickly build a portfolio of crowdfunding bonds, diversify risk, and earn steady cash flows, it claims.

Also Read: InVent makes 1st US investment in VR advertising startup Social Nation

For business owners, issuing crowdfunding bonds signals the readiness to engage with savvy investors. Facilitated by PeerPower, crowdfunding bond issuers provide quarterly financial updates to investors.

“In 2019, SMEs contribute 43 per cent of Thai GDP and drive 85 per cent of Thai employment (Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion). However, one of the challenges facing SMEs today is timely access to financing. InVent sees an opportunity to solve the financing gap for SMEs through the use of technology and product innovation, empowering business owners to strengthen their capabilities and grow their business,” said Dr.Narongpon Boonsongpaisan, Head of InVent.

With its Crowdfunding Bonds, Boonsongpaisan said that PeerPower has brought a viable asset class for investors to invest in.

“Last year, 2.3 trillion Thai baht of unrated bonds were issued in Thailand (Thai Bond Market Association), which presents a significant opportunity for SMEs. In the past, bonds used to be accessible only by large companies, now SMEs can issue crowdfunding bonds through PeerPower,” said Vorapon Ponvanit, Founder and CEO of PeerPower.

PeerPower said that crowdfunding bond issuers on the platform so far has included businesses from media to food production, software house and a rock climbing gym. Eligible businesses can raise funds through PeerPower’s crowdfunding platform with interest rates ranging from 6 to 22 per cent depending on their PeerPower assessed credit grade.

PeerPower said it will continue to enable financing access to business owners including high-growth companies and mid-cap companies.
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Picture Credit: PeerPower

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SoftBank-backed e-commerce platform Brandless shuts down – TechCrunch

San Francisco-based Brandless, an e-commerce platform that sells a variety of cruelty-free products, is the latest of SoftBank Vision Fund-backed company to face trouble that eventually led to its shutdown.

The update will lead to further scrutiny over SoftBank Vision Fund’s reputation. When SoftBank made its investment into Brandless, TechCrunch dubbed it as a “surprising development” as the company was considered “relatively nascent” to raise such a big amount of funding. Once again this is a lesson on the importance for startups to have a build a strong brand presence before scaling their business, and for investors to ensure that process.

What happened to WeWork in 2019 had led to a growing trend of investors expecting a clear path towards profitability from its portfolio. This latest development will further strengthen that awareness and demand.

Video platform Clipchamp raises US$8.8M in Series A funding round – Press Release

Australian video creation platform Clipchamp announced an AU$13.2 million (US$8.8 million) Series A funding round led by Tola Capital with participation from TEN13 and existing investors.

With the funding round, the company also announced that it has reincorporated in the US while its headquarters will remain in Brisbane, Australia.

As a video creation platform, Clipchamp enables creators to produce a video without having to rely on expensive or complicated equipment or software. This investment showed once again that content is king –particularly video content. Especially since the company itself stated that the video content creation market is now an AU$135 billion industry with 720,000 hours of new content updated on YouTube every day.

Also Read: SoftBank, Grab show interest to invest in Indonesia’s new capital city

Circles.Life raises funding round by Warburg Pincus, reportedly closer to unicorn status – e27

Singapore-based digital telco startup Circles.Life has raised an undisclosed funding round which was reported by Tech In Asia to have brought the company “closer” to the unicorn status.

Once again this indicates Southeast Asia’s strength as a market in drawing investors’ interest, as global investors continued to invests a large amount of funding into growth-stage companies. However, as predicted in a report by Cento Ventures, in the upcoming years, this type of funding might become rarer as investors will focus more on investing in more early-stage companies –with smaller ticket size.

Medicinal cannabis startup HempStreet raises US$1M in Pre-Series A – Tech In Asia

India-based healthcare startup HempStreet, which focuses on research and retail of cannabis for Ayurvedic medicine, has raised US$1 million in pre-series A funding round led by US-based pharmatech firm Pharmacon and private investor Romain Barberis.

This is a relatively exciting update for an Asia-based cannabis startup, and it is in line with the potential of the global medicinal cannabis industry. Even within Southeast Asia, countries such as Thailand had seen a “green gold rush” following the recent legalisation of cannabis use.

HempStreet will not be the last Asia-based startup to raise funding. However, this development will certainly be limited to markets where the use of medicinal cannabis is legal.

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