When e27 sits down with blockchain-based fintech startup Propine, it had been a month since the company was being selected to take part in a sandbox programme by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Founded by CEO Tuhina Singh and CTO Wong Liang Zan, Propine offers services in the form of a full-service custodian for blockchain-based digital assets.

“We exist to reduce the friction in the close-bordered capital movement to increase efficiency in the capital market. We cannot do it by ourselves; we are building an infrastructure to enable other innovators to be able to build such innovative solutions,” Singh explains.

“For example, we are working with a company that is trying to come up with a new type of bond issuance which will create opportunities for startups investors which had never existed before,” she adds.

In the long run, through their works, Singh states that Propine seeks to disrupt the private capital market.

“The public market itself is already very efficient … there are lower hanging fruits to be picked in the private market,” she stresses.

The irony of the private market, according to Singh, lies in the fact that it is ripe for disruption.

Also Read: Propine Capital raises US$1.2M to help institutional investors safely store their crypto assets

“Private equity companies tend to invest in companies that are disruptive to the traditional industry. However, it seems to me that they are being kind of slow in disrupting themselves. It is oxymoronic and it is only a matter of time until they get disrupted themselves,” she says.

“Eventually, there will only be the top firms who are able to justify the illiquidity of their LP interests. Most of the companies cannot justify it and they will have to go the tokenised route,” the CEO sums.

Promoting the mission

But how does Propine promote its products and services to these private equity firms? How do they build the awareness that change is necessary?

Singh states that the company did not play a very active role in promoting itself until very recently, dubbing itself one of the most “under-the-radar” in the space.

“We had zero marketing activities and we just focussed on getting the job done first. It was only after we get into the sandbox that we realise, ‘Okay, let’s start focusing on marketing and advertising,’” she explains.

Singh describes their marketing strategy as becoming the “super early adopter” in the space –an approach that involves practical steps such as doing a speaking engagement at events.

“We’re not focussing on large blockchain conferences; we’re focussing on talking to real stakeholders, striking to the heart of it,” she stresses.

But before making an outward move such as promoting their work, the company first needs to make sure that they have the right foundation for it. To achieve that state of readiness, Propine puts emphasis on the importance of focus.

Also Read: 52 fantastic investors that might be your next match at #Echelon2019

For Singh, these are some of the most crucial lessons that they got during their time in the sandbox.

“On a company level, there are so many opportunities that are coming our way. The most important thing is to be able to say no and focus on the reason why we exist,” she says.

“For example, there are four different types of tokens in the market: Cryptocurrencies, utility tokens, asset-backed tokens, and security tokens. We need to be able to say no to the three of them and focus on security tokens. It makes sure that our resources are being focussed, even though we do have the tech capabilities to support all of them,” she further explains.

Next steps

Moving forward, in addition to launching services for their new clients, Propine Capital is also looking forward to growing their team.

One of the key elements in growing a team is making sure that the people who are leading the team are sharing the same value as the company itself. This is another reason why having a clear focus is crucial, and Propine Capital achieve it through implementing objectives and key results (OKRs).

“We need to ensure that the same value is being propagated by every single person that is making decisions on a daily basis in the company … We started by implementing OKRs in a very generic way before adapting it to the company’s needs to ensure that everybody knows where the direction is,” Singh elaborates.

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Image Credit: Propine

 

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Congratulations! You sent the deck to your target VC and the VC’s associate responded to ask you to meet to discuss more your startup company.

Many startup founders already get really excited when they reach this point but unfortunately, a lot of them screw-up the potential investment opportunity from VC because they were not prepared for the first meeting.

Meeting with VC is pretty much like any first date. It’s more of an art than a science. Hence, there’s no specific guideline to guarantee you can ace that first meeting.

However, the tips below might help you survive through that first meeting and perhaps win the VC’s heart:

Research, research, and research

Any successful warriors know that you need to know the terrain before you jump into the battlefield. You as a founder should research as much as possible about the VCs that you’re going to meet and you can never ever miss-out on things such as their existing portfolios, investment coverage, and their average ticket size.

In addition, you also need to know the associate/analyst’s profile that you’re going to meet since they are the frontline of VCs and they will have a huge influence in the VC’s decision making.

Create a conversation

Just like being on a first date, meeting with a VC for the first-time also makes a lot of founders become nervous. To help reduce your anxiety, you should always treat the meeting as a conversation meaning that it should go as a two-way street.

The VCs will most likely ask you the most questions but you should also ask questions about the VC and give them some compliments about the recent achievement they’ve made.

Believe it or not, asking questions to VC will create a long-lasting good first impression about you and your company since it shows a serious interest from you in continuing the relationship with the VC.

Also read: Meet the VC: From instant noodles to startups, Salim Group aims to leave a mark in the Indonesian digital ecosystem

Be concise

The time for your meeting with the VC will most likely be very limited so you need to be as clear as possible of who you are, what problems you’re trying to solve, how can your company provide the solution to the problems and be better than other competitors, why are you currently fundraising and what is it for, etc.

But always remember to assume as if the VC ‘does not understand’ anything about the problems you’re trying to solve or the technology you’re using so that it’s your most crucial task to make sure you explain everything to them in the most understandable way and make them curious about your company.

Always be respectful and professional

Even though the associate/analyst you’re meeting is still a fresh-graduate and being a VC is their first full-time job and they may not know much about the industry you are in, you should never treat them differently.

Most of the time the associate/analyst has a very significant influence behind the VC’s General Partner’s decision and once you create a bad-impression to the associate/analyst during the first meeting, your chance of having the second meeting with that VC will be close to none.

Never ask VC to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement

Although your first 50 minutes meeting with the VC has been going very smoothly and you think they have some serious interest in learning more about your company, many startup founders still screwed-up their first meeting just because they ask VC to sign an NDA before proceeding further.

Why? The VC-Startup relationship is quite like a marriage. If you ask VC to sign an NDA, it shows that you do not trust them and you did not do your research about them (i.e. if you’re worried they might have a similar company in their portfolio) and there’s no reason for VC to go further down with you as well.

Only ask VCs to sign NDA if it’s absolutely necessary such as when you’re about to show a prototype that is still pending for patents.

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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. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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Tranglo recently inked major partnerships to tap into China’s US$17 trillion mobile payments market.

Globalisation has led to not just skilled workers crossing borders, but with them, the rise in e-payments services such as remittances, and e-commerce transactions. Fueled by the mushrooming of e-wallets, the high levels of bank account ownership, and widespread smartphone partnership, China leads the world in the digital payments space, with total value hitting US$17 trillion as of 2017.

In its 2019 Migration and Development Brief, the World Bank found that global remittances totalled US$689 billion in 2018, with China being the second-largest remittance recipient at US$67 billion).

Just as tech has helped bridge the global communications gap via social media and broadband connectivity, so too must tech play its role in the payments systems that international payments can be made seamlessly and quickly, at affordable rates.

Fintech has paved the way in recent years through e-wallets for local payment activities and e-marketplaces, yet needs more to be done to address high remittance costs (which average 7% for US$200) as well as international transaction costs involved where merchant and buyer use different payment providers, currencies or wallets.

Tranglo, an international cross-border payments specialist, boasts a global network that spans more than 100 countries, 300 mobile operators, 50 billers, 1,300 banks/wallets, and 130,000 cash pickup points.

The fintech player recently inked partnerships with AliPay and WeChat Pay HK to integrate two of the world’s biggest mobile payment platforms into Tranglo’s cross-border payment network.

Tranglo CEO Jacky Lee said, “When you look at the customer and growth numbers of Alipay (over 1.2 billion) and WeChat Pay HK (over 400,000), the partnerships make perfect sense as they are the most direct route to the heartland of the Chinese payment industry.

“For other industry players, a Tranglo-enabled access to the wider Chinese market puts them in a prime position when we talk about branding.

“The Chinese diaspora around the world is increasing too, and we see a huge potential in terms of processing value,” he added. China (including Hong Kong) is the world’s second-largest remittance market.

Reducing remittance costs to 3% by 2030 (from 7% averaged currently) is a global target under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10.7. The same World Bank study notes that remittance fees tend to include a premium where national post offices have an exclusive partnership with a money transfer operator.

The World Bank believes the high costs of money transfers reduce the benefits of migration. Renegotiating exclusive partnerships and letting new players operate through national post offices, banks, and telecommunications companies will increase competition and lower remittance prices.

Tranglo is doing its part through its extensive network and by adding partners with wider reach such as AliPay and WeChat Pay HK.

The collaboration with Alipay is expected to benefit a multitude of users, from business payments such as e-commerce transactions to personal remittance among migrant workers, particularly in Asia, where Tranglo has a foothold in the payments market through local partners.

Meanwhile, its partnership with WeChat Pay HK allows the e-wallet’s users to transact via the We Remit function on the mobile payment platform, thereby expanding WeChat Pay HK’s footprint and offering its users more seamless, secure and easy ways to make cross-border transactions.

Lee explained: “Cross-border payments can be quite fragmented. Businesses and consumers can sometimes find the simple process of transferring money daunting, with the involvement of many different players at different stages of an inherently simple process.

“What Tranglo does with these partnerships is to consolidate the global payment services and seamlessly link businesses and consumers, making the process as painless as possible. When you don’t need to jump through lots of hoops, things get really easy and quick, as they should.”

He called on payment firms to leverage Tranglo’s global network to gain access to giants like Alipay and WeChat Pay HK.

“We act as a bridge between these firms in a huge global market (over 1,300 partners), at the lowest cost to their business. Tranglo essentially takes care of their back-end operations while they take care of their customers,” Lee said.

As of December 2019, Tranglo has processed US$5.05 billion in transaction value. In addition to eyeing more global partnerships in 2020 and beyond, Tranglo is actively harnessing and incorporating big data, machine learning and AI into its processes.

The post Tranglo eyes rising global payments with AliPay, WeChat Pay partnerships appeared first on e27.

Work-life balance is one of the most talked-about concerns by both professionals and entrepreneurs. e27 is no stranger to founders’ stories about how to be productive amidst major life changes or even personal crises.

In many fields, there’s also the proverbial glass ceiling to deal with – female entrepreneurs facing much bigger challenges because of societal expectations regarding having children and raising a family.

For Eynat Guez, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Israel-based startup Papaya Global, this could not be farther from the truth. She recalls an incident during which she had to deal with noisy kids while on the phone with a potential investor. “That was one of the most embarrassing calls because I had a screaming child in the background,” she shares.

That call was with Insight Partners, and although it was two years in the making, Papaya Global eventually got the deal.

In November 2019, the startup raised a US$45 million Series A led by Insight Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, New Era Capital Partners, and Dynamic Loop Capital, as well as existing investors. During that time, the company focused closely on growth.

“We scaled, we grew, we automated, and we invested heavily in our product, technology, and offering. We tripled the size of our team, the number of clients, and our revenues year-over-year,” shares Guez.

The company has the distinction of its growth being achieved from an initially small seed round before growing into an international company with 75 employees and US$10 million in annual revenue. It now counts over 150 customers, including Microsoft and Intel, among other major users. Papaya Global now has offices in Singapore and Shanghai to address the needs of the growing APAC market.

Does a female co-founder make a difference in fundraising and running a startup?

Commitment and dedication to the business are among the drivers of success. Between launching in 2016 and the Series A fundraising, Guez has given birth twice. She recalls returning to work shortly after childbirth.

“I came back to work two hours after I gave birth. This is my choice. This is what drives me,” she shares.

According to the Crunchbase EoY 2019 diversity report, only 20 per cent of newly-funded startups have a female founder. However, the report also stated that “many notable female-founded venture firms have been set up in the last 10 years.”

Additionally, the concept of “investor bias” is not necessarily dominant, although the opportunities might be hard to come by without the right connections. “This is an industry that has always run on relationship networks,” shares Susan Lyne, co-founder of BBG Ventures, and who established a VC that specifically invests in consumer tech startups with a female founder. “Someone you know and respect makes an introduction to a great founder and you agree to hear their pitch. But if women are not part of your network, you’re at a disadvantage — you’re going to miss a lot of great companies.”

Also Read: Women in tech: Carman Chan’s Click Ventures is one of the most consistent VC funds globally

For Guez, this rings true. Having worked in the global workforce industry for a number of years, she was introduced to Ofer Herman (who leads R&D) and Ruben Drong (who leads product development) by friends, who gave the much-needed introductions to people who eventually became co-founders.

Integration

Another factor that sets the company apart is its focus on integration. Papaya’s product integrates closely with an array of other ERP, HRIS, expense management systems, thus providing global companies a way to manage these from one single point of contact.

Having a global focus, the company ensures compliance with regional and local regulations, such as GDPR for data privacy, and local taxation requirements. The service also provides employer-on-record (EoR) capability for businesses that prefer to hire employees in other countries through local entities, rather than go through the expense of setting up a local legal entity.

Guez and co-founders conceptualised Papaya to be a global company from day one. “There is no such thing as an Israeli company,” she has shared, referring to how her startup had a global market in its sights upon launch.

The right timing

Businesses are increasingly going global, and this includes both enterprise and small-scale businesses. At least 65 per cent of small and medium businesses work with vendors and suppliers from overseas. There are nuances that these companies must deal with, including ever-changing regulations on pay, withholding tax, and benefits. Guez says that many companies around the world are still using spreadsheets to manage their global payroll — thus an opportunity to provide a disruptive global payroll and payment services to the market came about.

In the end, family matters for Guez, but she worked to ensure that the company could run itself even with her temporarily out of the picture. She says that with each of her two childbirths, she successfully delegated key decision-making capabilities: “I rebuilt the company to ensure they can all work without me.”

She highlights that motherhood has put things in perspective, “being pregnant ensures you align everything, that the company can really continue working without you, quite a lot of CEOs aren’t doing that.”

Guez concludes: “I’m a ‘people person’ and my experience has taught me that value comes from being truly motivated to help someone else succeed.”

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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.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page

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During a trip to visit his village in north India sometime in 2016, Tikendra Yadav’s two-wheeler ran out of fuel and broke down. Yadav, then an Assistant Manager at Samsung Electronics, had to walk about 10km in search of the nearest fuel station to refuel his vehicle.

When he returned to work, he thought about this incident. He wanted to put an end to this ordeal — of motorists being forced to walk or drive kilometres to refuel their vehicles — which is common in the far-flung areas of India.

Later, he discussed this problem with his former colleague Sandeep Thakur, and they created a fuel delivery startup, Pepfuels, in May 2016. The duo later on-boarded their friend Pratik Kathil.

In May 2019, Pepfuels signed a partnership with state-owned oil marketing company (OMC), Indian Oil Corporation, for doorstep delivery.

“India has over 64,000 fuel retail outlets, and over 3.5 million transactions are conducted daily at these outlets,” Co-founder Kathil tells e27.

Also Read: Why you shouldn’t let your mind dismiss your entrepreneurial dream

According to standard fire and fuel safety regulations, one can only store less than 20L of fuel in jerry cans. Saving more fuel than the restricted limit is dangerous, especially when one carries the containers in a vehicle.

“There are some businesses, industries, hospitals where fuel is required in large amounts regularly. Standing in queues during peak hours for fuel not only wastage of time but also generates a lot of pollution and traffic issues,” Kathil reveals. “Pepfuels was started to address this issue.”

Pepfuels is a location-based fuel delivery system. The startup delivers “quality fuel” to enterprises and industries at economical prices.

Customers can place their order through its app by entering the vehicle type, selecting fuel quantity, choosing a delivery slot, and entering a shipping address.

“Companies having demand less than 1,000L get fuels in drums and cans, which are transported in an unsafe manner. This method is costly and is dangerous,” warns Kathil.

For instance, industries with a demand for 5-6 kilolitres get fuels in unapproved tankers with no control on the quantity or quality. This requires additional workforce and is also unsafe. In-transit pilferage is also an issue.

“We deliver fuel in the PESO (Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation)-approved browsers, equipped with dispensing machines which are safe. We also conduct on-site quality and quantity check,” Kathil claims.

Pepfuel’s dispensers are equipped with in-built fire extinguishers. Its vehicles are also geo-fenced and equipped with GPS and fuel sensors.

At present, Pepfuels delivers to 200-plus enterprise customers (a combined volume of 300,000-400,000L/mo), and generates revenues of INR 2-3 crore (US$270,000 to US$400,000) per month.

Its customers include Delhivery, Oyo, AVG logistics, Triumph Motor, RGL Flexible, Jaquar, and SOIL Business School.

Competition

Based in Delhi, Pepfuels is not the only fuel-delivery company operating in the country. MyPetrolPump, a Bangalore-based venture, provides doorstep delivery of diesel for generators/cars/fleet vehicles in Hyderabad, Pune, and Bangalore. BookMyPetrol is another player, which also runs a similar business in Western India.

At present, Pepfuels operates in eight cities, including Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Manesar, Gurugram, Bilaspur, Delhi and Dadri. Expansion to 10 news cities, including Bangalore and Hyderabad, is on the cards.

“We receive 100-plus orders through our app, and our turnaround time is three to four hours,” claims Kathil.

The startup’s current delivery hours are between 8 am and 8 pm. It plans to launch 24×7 delivery soon.

IoT-RFID-based device

Pepfuels recently introduced a location-based fuel delivery system through its patented IoT-RFID (radio frequency identification)-based device to help industries, the farm sector, hotels and malls, save on fuel cost, time and prevent pilferage. It is a server-monitored reader which is connected through the dispensing machine. It is developed to provide accurate and theft-proof delivery, and to prevent fuel loss.

Also Read: 7 characteristics of a successful entrepreneur

India is a third-largest fuel-consuming market in the world. The country consumed approximately 84 million metric ton in 2018-19. As per the future projection, it will go by 160 million metric ton by 2030.

As India is an emerging county in technologies and infrastructure, and the consumption grows in a range of four to six per cent a year.

To date, Pepfuels has received angel funding of INR 4.5 crore (over US$600,000) from undisclosed investors.

“We are now looking to raise pre-Series A round to expand into the B2C segment this year,” Kathil concludes.

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