Month: February 2020

Cross-channel engagement platform MoEngage raises US$25 Million Series C funding led by Eight Roads Ventures

Having recently achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Retail Competency, MoEngage, intelligent customer analytics, and cross-channel engagement platform have raised US$25 Million in Series C funding. Eight Roads Ventures led the round with participation from its US-based sister fund, F-Prime Capital, along with Matrix Partners India and Ventureast.

“The latest round of funding will help us reach more brands and empower them with the next-generation customer engagement platform built for the mobile-first world that is easier to use, fully integrated and intelligent,” said Raviteja Dodda, Founder & CEO, MoEngage Inc.

More and more digital platforms are going for a one-dashboard approach in mobile apps, especially in the field of customer engagement. The end-to-end and one-for-all model has been proven effective as it centralises the process and the analytics, insights reports, and automation.

In MoEngage’s case, brands can engage with their customers across channels and personalise touchpoints in one dashboard. MoEngage’s AI and automation platform map customer journeys and develops personalised offers, updates, recommendations, and other communications across mobile, web, email and SMS- thus delivering an omnichannel experience.

Also Read: The changing focus of mobile commerce in Southeast Asia

“The rapid rise of mobile has increased the complexity of how digital-first and consumer-focussed enterprises interact with customers. Marketers now need to seamlessly engage with customers in a personalized and real-time manner across different channels,” Shweta Bhatia, Partner at Eight Roads Ventures concluded the trend.

JPMorgan reportedly plans to merge its blockchain entity Quorum with ConsenSys [Channel News Asia]

JPMorgan Chase & Co reportedly is in discussion to possibly merge its blockchain unit Quorum with Brooklyn-based startup ConsenSys, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The merger signals how cryptocurrency is still relevant and continues to become an option despite its often volatile values. With the largest bank by asset in the US enters into the next step of blockchain capability with the planned merger, it shows that blockchain still got a bright future to consider moving forward.

JPMorgan’s Quorum blockchain uses the ethereum network, the software that underpins ether, one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies. JPMorgan uses its blockchain unit to run the Interbank Information Network, a payments network that involves more than 300 banks.
JPMorgan also said it would use Quorum to issue a digital currency called JPMorgan Coin that is designed to make instantaneous payments using blockchain.

ConsenSys is a blockchain startup that grew rapidly during the 2017 crypto bubble. It was founded by Joe Lubin, one of the co-founders of ethereum.

As for ConsenSys, a merger with Quorum would align with its shift toward growing its software division. The plan after the merger is to maintain the Quorum brand and keep it open source, one of the sources said.

Seqoia Surge’s graduate Classplus nabs US$2.5M in Pre-Series A funding [Inc42]

Delhi-NCR-based edutech startup Classplus announces that it has raised US2.5 million in Pre-Series A round of funding from Blume Ventures. Classplus was a part of the Sequoia Capital India’s Surge programme, and the venture capital company has also invested in this funding round.

Angel investors such as Cred’s founder Kunal Shah, general manager of Xiaomi Indonesia Alvin Tse, partner at Locus Ventures Eric Kwan also participated in the funding round.

The interest in backing edutech around the Asia Pacific continues to rise, with Gredu from Indonesia that offers a similar platform to teachers, parents, and students who also raised Pre-Series A funding in January.

Edutech continues to become a frontrunner in the tech-enabled field, with the next unicorn from Southeast Asia is expected to be edutech, showing how it becomes more relevant for consumers.

Also Read: Leading Southeast Asian tech companies share insights on user engagement, brand loyalty at MoEngage #GROWTH19

Founded in 2018 by Rustagi and Bhaswat Agarwal, Classplus lets coaching institutes, tuition centres, and private tutors to manage its class online with a mobile app. The startup takes a subscription fee from coaching institutes for its software suite, which handles class communication, payments, assessments, online learning programmes, and attendances.

London-based AI startup accelerator Skymind to expand to Indonesia, Malaysia

Skymind Global Ventures (SGV), an Artificial Intelligence-focussed startup fund-cum-accelerator based in London, is planning to expand to Malaysia and Indonesia in Southeast Asia.

In January, Skymind launched a US$800 million fund to back promising new AI companies and academic research across the UK and globally. Skymind plans to train up to 200 AI professionals for its operations in London and Europe and eventually expand the programme into Southeast Asia.

According to an e27’s article, the use of AI and industry acceptance has been growing steadily internationally, particularly in Southeast Asia. The region has been identified as one of the target markets for the investment fund, with a significant portion of the US$800 million to be made available to growing the region’s ecosystem.

SGV is a dedicated AI ecosystem builder, enabling companies and organisations to launch their AI applications and bring their business cases to life. It provides clients with supported access to Eclipse Deeplearning4j and other open-source tools as well as global capital funding and talent development.
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Picture Credit: MoEngage

The post Today’s top tech news: Cross-channel engagement platform MoEngage takes home US$25M Series C funding appeared first on e27.

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.

The post Time is ripe for startups around the world to capitalise on Malaysia’s potential as the heart of Digital ASEAN: MDEC’s Surina Shukri appeared first on e27.

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.

The post Today’s top tech news: SoftBank-backed Brandless shuts down, Aussie video platform raises US$8.8M appeared first on e27.

Startup research and advisory firm Startup Genome and the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation have announced a partnership to boost the growth of the country’s startup ecosystem, starting with Kuala Lumpur.

An official statement said that Startup Genome will perform its startup ecosystem assessment to identify policies and initiatives to support the potential of Malaysia’s startups and the wider innovation ecosystem as part of the partnership.

Startup Genome will engage the country’s startup founders along with investors, policy leaders, and other key stakeholders for inputs.

JF Gauthier, Founder, and CEO of Startup Genome. “We look forward to working closely with the startup community to bring the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to the Malaysian startup economy. Malaysia certainly has the potential to be a regional and world leader in multiple startup sub-sectors.”

Also Read: MDEC partners 9 Digital Transformation Lab for tech enabling support

Startup Genome is the research and policy advisory organization for governments with a commitment to accelerating startup ecosystems in a country. It claims to have more than 100 clients across five continents in 38 countries.

Malaysia’s ecosystem reported a digital economy that contributed to 18.5 per cent of GDP in 2018. Its internet economy was valued at US$8 billion with growth rates at an average of 19 per cent between 2015 to 2018.

Malaysia’s numbers are reflective of ASEAN’s internet economy hitting US$100 billion in 2019 and expected to grow to US$300 billion by 2025.

“Malaysia is an ideal place to testbed and launch tech startups due to its cultural and demographic diversity as well as its business-friendly environment. The government also continues to play an active role in supporting startups and entrepreneurs,” said Surina Shukri, CEO of MDEC.

“This partnership between our two organisations will build on the momentum established by MDEC. We are confident that Startup Genome’s insights and track record in space will help us to realise our startups’ potential and firmly establish Malaysia as the Heart of Digital ASEAN,” she added.
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Photo by Omar Elsharawy on Unsplash

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Singapore government-owned startup builder and investor SGInnovate has announced that its founding CEO Steve Leonard would be concluding his term in May 2020.

Leonard will continue to serve as the CEO in the remaining months of his term.

As its Founding CEO, Leonard has been instrumental in forming and building SGInnovate as an entity whose mission is to help entrepreneurial scientists build investable deeptech startups.

Also Read: Startup Genome, MDEC partner to boost Malaysia’s startup ecosystem, focussing on policy action

“Helping to create and build SGInnovate has been my complete focus for four years. From imagining it in 2015 to its launch in 2016 and operating as a highly-professional group as we enter 2020, I feel tremendous personal pride,” said Leonard.

“The conclusion of my current term in May represents a good time for organisational renewal. Every team moves forward based on fresh ideas and energy, and I’m very confident in the men and women of SGInnovate to continuously bring new capabilities to the deep tech startup ecosystem in Singapore,” he added.

Leonard is a technology-industry leader with a wide range of experience, having played key roles in building several global companies in areas such as software, hardware and services.

Prior to his role as the CEO of SGInnovate, the US-born Leonard served three years as the Executive Deputy Chairman of the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), a government statutory board under the purview of Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information. In that role, he had executive responsibility at the national level for various aspects of the information technology and telecommunications industries in Singapore.

Leonard serves on the advisory boards of a range of universities and organisations in Singapore. Leonard also serves as an independent non-executive Director at SingPost, and AsiaSat, a Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed commercial operator of communication spacecraft.

Also Read: Great Deals raises US$12M from Navegar to be the Alibaba of Philippines

Yong Ying-I, Chairman, SGInnovate, said, “The Board and management want to thank Steve for his leadership in building up SGInnovate as a leading entity in Singapore to support entrepreneurs to build deep tech startups. We wish him every success in his future endeavours. SGInnovate will continue its work to build the deep tech ecosystem and entrepreneurial community as we look to the future.”

SGInnovate works with local and international partners, including universities, venture capitalists, and major corporations to help technical founders imagine, start and scale globally-relevant early-stage technology companies from Singapore.

Since its launch in 2016, the SGInnovate team has been part of the building and investing in 90 deeptech startups, as well as creating an engaged deep tech community of more than 33,000 people.

The organisation said in a statement that it would continue to work closely with a wide range of partners and co-investors to back entrepreneurial scientists through equity-based investments, access to talent and business-building advice.

The post SGInnovate Founding CEO Steve Leonard to leave in May appeared first on e27.

As a followup to the previous article in this series, today we are conversing with another two startups from the latest batch of startup generator Antler’s Singapore programme.

Selected out of 3,000 applicants, Antler brought together 100 qualified individuals from 30 nationalities, with an average of eight years working experience, to set up an “ideal” team. This arrangement leads to the founding of 14 companies.

While the previous article dug deeper into the work of EvrCare and Nectico, today we are looking into the works and inspiration behind Appboxo and Playy World.

The following is the edited excerpts of the interviews:

Appboxo

Very much like its predecessors in China, various tech companies in the Southeast Asian region are jumping on the trend of offering third-party services on their platform. Often dubbed as the “super app” concept, the goal is to generate additional revenues from the traffic they send.

In China, they do it through a special development framework called mini programmes.

Also Read: Following new global funds launch, Antler invests US$1.4M into 14 startups in latest Singapore batch

“So the problem is that most companies might miss technology like mini programmes in China, which can enable easy integration of beautiful mobile experiences without spending a lot of time and money on each integration,” explains Appboxo CEO Kaniyet Rayev.

To solve that problem, Appboxo provides a super app platform that aims to enable any app to become a super app.

“We identified this problem during the development of our previous product called mitty, which was supposed to become an all-in-one travel app. We basically wanted to integrate all essential travel services into one app, but API integration with each service is super costly and takes a lot of time,” Rayev says.

“So after thinking a bit about it, we actually realised that we can create a solution that can help, not only us, but any other app that wants to offer third party services,” the CEO continues.

The company already has travel tech and fashion tech companies such as SkyScanner, Agoda, and Zalora agreeing to use its platform. It is also currently in talks with “the largest consumer app in Southeast Asia” to roll out the pilot.

For the year 2020, Appboxo wants to focus on building its technology and growing its network.

“Our goal is to cover key use cases in travel, e-commerce, and finance verticals,” Rayev says.

Also Read: New Antler-NUS initiative to nurture deeptech talents, to invest in 30 startups annually

The company was founded by Rayev and CTO Nursultan Keneshbekov. Both co-founder originated from the Kyrgyz Republic and met during their studies in the UK.

PlayyWorld

PlayyWorld, an e-playground for trading card game enthusiasts, is an example of startups participating in the Antler programme that has a strong offline element in their business.

“The trading card game market is primitive and outdated. In a world of e-commerce and online content, game cards purchase process is outdated; it is conducted offline and unsecured. There is also a lack of a global social community for players to gather, compete, and trade,” says PlayyWorld CEO Mark Thong.

In addition to publishing and generating content, PlayyWorld also invites expert players to share knowledge and experience. It also enables players to compete against each other through online tabletop play.

“We don’t want to be another e-commerce site that is all about finding the cheapest stuff and getting rewarded for it. We want to build value and share with the community,” says Thong.

Understanding the negative image that card games can have in the eyes of some parties, PlayyWorld is working on an outreach programme with universities to prove that card games are not a taboo. It can even help promote analytical skills, as has been proven by academic research.

As expected, the startup was founded by a card game enthusiasts.

“While working in the same team for one of the hackathons, we got to know each other better, and our similar interest in trading card games came up. We decided to build Playy World and the rest is history,” Thong spoke of his introduction to co-founder Alvin Tjhie.

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Image Credit: Antler

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At Ohmyhome, we recently launched a new iOS application for our DIY users to buy, sell and rent their properties.

Now, this new app isn’t just a patch update but a complete overhaul of our iOS app.

It features graphical updates like a new landing page with our top services on display and, more importantly, a new robust engineering framework that allows us to scale the application easily.

Ohmyhome is constantly looking for ways to simplify property transactions for our users. We were also gearing up for regional expansion making easy scalability a priority. However, that meant moving away from some of our app’s architecture and software.

With those goals in mind, we discussed, deliberated, and debated, before finally deciding to take a built-from-scratch approach.

It was a difficult decision but ultimately, we went with what would not only result in a better app for our users but also give our developers an opportunity to design a clean coding architecture.

Also Read: Singapore’s proptech marketplace Ohmyhome raises US$2.9M to expand into Malaysia, Thailand

The overhaul was a herculean task. It was painful to have to throw away everything familiar about the app and re-build it from ground-zero. But we succeeded in our endeavours and gained precious experience on how to revamp our app. 

Here are some of the key learnings that I would like to share with the community.

Break it down 

We categorised the essential features of our app and then broke those features down into further smaller sets. We then prioritised working on the features our users found most useful based on analytic data collected from the existing app.

For example, a single listing on our app represents a node in a complex network of interconnected features and sub-features. By cataloguing all the features and sub-features that engage a particular node, we are then able to zoom in on discrete sub-features, such as location and more readily identify areas of improvement. 

Create multiple mock-ups

Some of you might be tempted to jump right into coding. Don’t do that. You might end up wasting hours building something utterly different from what your team envisions. 

Instead, take the time to create different mock-ups of the new app to see which feels better. Designers at Ohmyhome went back to the drawing board and churned out multiple versions of landing tabs, empty state illustrations, and icons for all the different sections in the app.

Also Read: Importance of UI/UX design interaction and why it will matter for your business

This helped us explore what looks and feels best, which is important for a seamless UI and enhances the overall UX. It also allowed us to see what we want the final product to be even before we begin redevelopment. 

Once we settled on the final mock-up, we began our code sprints and never looked back. 

Consistency is key

From an engineering standpoint, one of the main reasons for an overhaul was that the app was in urgent need of fine-tuning as it had passed through different developers across multiple phases.

Being a lean team in a fast-paced startup environment, we had to make a lot of inelegant hacks to get our features ready in the fastest way possible for our users, which led us to a stage where our code was a haphazard mix of UIKit and Texture written in different styles.

This hindered our ability to scale the app quickly. Furthermore, some of our codes followed Android-driven UI/UX which takes longer to write. 

When we began rebuilding the application, we decided to stick with only Texture for all UI across the app along with a framework built by the amazing team at Instagram called IGListKit.

Later, Apple proved that our decision was a step in the right direction when they launched SwiftUI at DubDub-DC (or WWDC for those not familiar with nerd-speak), which follows code-driven, stack-based semantics. We also stayed away from Storyboards.

Also Read: From Cantopop to commissions: Ohmyhome wants to change Singapore’s public housing game

Maintaining a consistent programming language for our app greatly enhanced our ability to identify and fix problems and at the same time allows for scalability and the flexibility to adapt to changes in the future. 

Iterate, iterate, iterate

All of our engineering efforts went through multiple designs, programming, and product iterations in parallel to rigorous Quality Analysis (QA) and internal testing before we make new features available to our users.

We also consulted our customer service team, who are the most familiar with users’ wants and needs, on how to refine and tweak the product.

Our team of techies seized every opportunity to gain insight into our user’s concerns and thought processes, especially when it came to simplifying the user experience. We leveraged existing resources within Ohmyhome, for instance when our colleagues hosted seminars educating our users in Singapore about property transactions, we made sure to collect data on what users wanted in our app.

Also Read: 8 things to consider when choosing a mobile app development platform

We were also fortunate that our product owners welcomed feedback on our existing app and interactive mock-ups, which helped our design team to constantly refine the UX based on how our users were using the app.

The organisational structure of Ohmyhome was conducive to the process of iterating on the app design and it emphasised how important it was to identify and facilitate avenues of feedback and incorporating that into our process of iteration.

After many tribulations, the new app is now ready to take in changes and challenges that come with global expansion. 

One aspect we are particularly proud of is the improvement of app performance.  Not all countries have the same internet speed as Singapore and it was a challenge to make the app robust enough to adapt to a wide range of connection speeds.

Now that we have crossed the finish line, we are incredibly happy to share our labour of love with all our users in Malaysia and Singapore.

For those of you curious about how the final app looks like: 

  

To sum up, I’ll leave you with a quote that encapsulated our ethos as we built the new app.

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.”  —  Richard Branson

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