Finance

Bank Mandiri’s Mandiri Capital plans to invest up to US$5M in startups

Mandiri Capital Indonesia (MCI), a subsidiary of Bank Mandiri, has said that it seeks to expand its investment portfolio in startups to tap into the growth of digital businesses in the country, The Jakarta Post reported.

According to MCI President Director Eddi Danusaputro, the company plans to provide an initial investment of up to US$5 million for startups targeting especially the e-payments sector. 

MCI stated that it would give out between US$2 million and US$5 million to acquire at least 10 per cent of the selected startups’ shares.

Danusaputro confirmed that MCI has invested a total of US$70 million in 13 startups since 2016. They include Amartha, a P2P lending platform for micro-enterprises owned by women; Investree, a small and medium enterprises-focussed lending platform; and Crowde, a P2P platform focused on farmers.

Before investing, MCI said it would take into account several parameters such as whether the startups are involved in providing solutions, have appropriate business models for sustainability, a sensible and profit-oriented projected valuation, and have reliable founding teams. 

The founding team of a startup is also an important factor in decision making as it will never invest in a startup with a single founder because of its high-risk.

Business

Blockchain startup OKCoin expands to Singapore, adding Singapore currency as digital assets exchange

OKCoin, a fiat-focussed digital asset exchange platform, has opened an office in Singapore. 

The company said it will add the Singapore dollar to its digital assets exchange, enabling traders in the country and Brunei to exchange the currency for bitcoin and ethereum, with additional trading pairs coming soon.

The Singapore dollar joins the US dollar and the euro as the third fiat currency to become available for purchase or withdrawal in exchange for digital assets through the OKCoin platform.

Also Read: Indonesian P2P lending startup Amartha snags Series B funding led by LINE Ventures, to grow lending capacity across country

Hong Fang, Chairman of OKCoin, said: “By adding the Singapore dollar to our global digital assets exchange, we’re doing our part to help make the blockchain a vital part of everyday life for the people of Singapore, while also moving closer to making digital assets readily available to the whole world.” 

Singapore’s blockchain market is predicted to reach US$272 million by 2022.

The Singapore office becomes OKCoin’s eighth international location, joining the US, Hong Kong, England, Malta, Argentina, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 

OK Group develops a range of blockchain initiatives, ranging from data and technology to education and investments. Its business lines include OKCoin, a fiat-focused digital asset exchange; OKLink, a technology service provider that provides blockchain information and big data services; OK Capital, an investment arm focussed on the blockchain industry; B-Labs, an incubator program for early-stage blockchain companies; OK Engineering Academy, an open-source developer community working on blockchain technologies.

Vingroup’s VC arm closed down, focussing its fund to real estate subsidiaries

Vingroup Ventures, the venture capital unit set up by Vietnam’s conglomerate Vingroup in December 2018, has ceased its fund operation. 

The conglomerate, as reported by DealStreetAsia, has renamed the unit to Vinhomes Industrial Park Investment JSC in February and has now transferred its ownership to its real estate subsidiaries, Vinhomes JSC and Green City Development JSC.

Also Read: Vietnamese retail tech Vingroup to sell US$1B shares to SK Group

Vingroup said that the move is a restructuring exercise to foray into the industrial real estate sector. 

“Vingroup will continue to consider venture capital investment opportunities in technology, but has delegated this mission to subsidiaries so that they can select investment options within their own sectors,” said a Vingroup spokesperson.

Vingroup Ventures’s existing website and LinkedIn page mention a US$100-million corpus with no investment made since its establishment in 2018. Just in January, the CEO of Vingroup Ventures, Linh Thai had left the firm, along with other employees.

OneDash launches personal shopping messenger app to tackle e-commerce cart abandonment issue

OneDash, an e-commerce marketing technology startup, has announced that it has launched a chat-to-checkout service in the form of a messaging platform. 

The platform allows online shoppers to perform direct, in-app, add-to-cart functions, with the option to check out in the very same chat to eliminate the need to exit a chat session to complete a purchase.

With cart abandonment becoming a major issue in online retail, OneDash is looking to address this pain point by optimising the online shopping experience, providing a real-time service for customers to see their purchases from start to finish.

OneDash’s app also enables interactive video allowing customers to connect with retail outlets, in real-time to enhance customer engagement to boost brand loyalty.

Oleksandr Matviishyn, CTO of OneDash, said: “We were driven by the idea of making video more affordable and providing the ability for every business to create, distribute, and monetise their video content, while at the same time, improving the production speed of interactive video content. During the implementation phase, we came up with a few additional ideas like advertising, Messenger commerce, and live streaming to make the platform even more robust.”

OneDash was founded by Rayhan Perera in 2017 with a vision of creating a more immersive shopping platform, allowing consumers to better engage with brands online.

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Picture Credit: Mandiri Capital Indonesia

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Why IT professionals are intrigued by EVOLVE Online

Is your business in pursuit of next-level digital transformation in 2020? Are you keen on learning how the latest cloud technologies can help you reduce costs, accelerate innovation, improve customer and employee experiences, and much more?

If so, make EVOLVE Online one of your “must-attend” virtual conferences this year. This live virtual conference explores everything you need to know about building an infrastructure platform to power your digital business.

Best of all, EVOLVE Online is designed for IT professionals of all levels, from experienced digital-savvy professionals who are looking for an edge in their careers to businesses that are taking their first steps towards digital transformation.

EVOLVE Online covers a wide spectrum of topics that are relevant to today’s IT professional, including:

• App modernization: We’re living in an app-driven world and EVOLVE Online is ready to equip IT professionals with the insights and skills needed to successfully build, deploy and manage modern and cloud-native applications.
• Multi-cloud: A deep dive into hybrid and multi-cloud solutions. Participants learn how they can prepare to build, run, manage and secure business-critical applications on any cloud.
• Networking and security: Explore the full L2-L7 stack of network services, including network virtualization, load balancing, SD-WAN, network management, extensibility and more.
• Digital workspace: As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, businesses need to adapt. Discover how to securely enable productivity across endpoints – empowering employees to work wherever they are, and on multiple devices.

Headliners and experts

The upcoming conference on 24 March 2020 features two executive speakers who are very well-respected in the industry, Pat Gelsinger (Chief Executive Officer, VMware) and Bruce Davie (Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific and Japan, VMware). Both keynote speakers have years of experience and leadership in the IT industry, as well as a wealth of knowledge that past conference attendees have gained a lot from – based on a series of glowing reviews left by the attendees.

EVOLVE Online also features many VMware experts who will share their product and solutions expertise. These experts will also answer your questions on the conference’s live chat platform.

What you can expect from EVOLVE Online in March 2020

VMware EVOLVE Online 2020 will be launched on 24 March 2020. The areas covered in the upcoming event include the abovementioned areas – multi-cloud, networking and security, app modernization, and digital workspace. For a detailed look at the specific topics that will be discussed in each of these key areas, click here.

The virtual conference also includes a lineup of engaging activities that elevate it beyond most online events. You can chat with experts, participate in hands-on labs, test your skills, apply your knowledge, and possibly even walk away with attractive prizes!

Attendees are welcome to participate in the area of interest that relates directly to your primary job function. You can also explore other areas and topics by attending the presentations and live discussions within the seamless online environment. No matter what your priorities are for digital transformation in 2020, VMware EVOLVE Online will give you the knowledge and skills you need to realize them.

Registration for the virtual conference is now open. To secure your place, submit your registration at the VMware EVOLVE Online website.

The post How EVOLVE Online is helping IT professionals level up their skills appeared first on e27.

Asia surpasses North America in corporate VC-backed deals

Asia has surpassed North America in corporate venture capital (CVC)-backed deals in 2019, according to CB Insights’s 2019 Global CVC Report. 

North America has been leading since 2014 in global CVC investments. However, last year Asia’s deal share spiked to 40 per from 22 per cent in 2014.

Most of the deal volume was driven by Japan and India, whereas China saw a drop of 19 per cent in CVC deals and 41 per cent drop in funding. This could be attributed to the trade war between the US and China.

Asia, however, has also not fared well in fundraising with a drop from US$19.9 billion a year to US$15.9 billion in 2019.

Vertech Capital partners with LAB.PH to accelerate the growth of their combined portfolio

Singaporean advisory firm Vertech Capital has announced a partnership with LAB.PH to support large-impact technology integrations in the ASEAN region with their combines portfolios.

LAB.PH is an economic development management firm in the Philippines.”This partnership furthers both organisations’ commitment to innovation that empowers sustainable development across ASEAN.

We are excited to combine LAB.PH’s economic and social analysis with our expertise in investment and smart cities to identify data-driven growth opportunities and truly quantify the impact in the region” said Sheryl Foo, Director for APAC & EMEA at Vertech Capital.With this alliance, the duo aims to grow their portfolios in the Philippines and produce opportunities for local companies.

Bytedance launches new music streaming service Resso in Indonesia

Bytedance, the company behind TikTok, has officially launched its latest music streaming app Resso in Indonesia, says a DailySocial report.

The service is currently available on a freemium model.

The streaming service also offers other features such as lyrics sharing, social sharing, commenting on songs, and music-accompanied GIFs and video clips.

Resso has already won partnerships with major music labels like Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Indian music giant T-Series.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Mandiri Capital to invest up to US$5M in Indonesian startups; OKCoin expands to Singapore

Samsung Ventures, Microsoft’s M12 fund, Comcast Ventures, and SmilegateInvestment make up the list of top 10 most active CVCs in 2019.

Right Hand, the Singaporean cybersecurity firm, raised US$1M from SGInnovate, others

Right Hand, a Singapore-based cybersecurity startup has raised USD$1M in seed funding led by VC fund Atlas Ventures. Other participants in the round include SGInnovate and Entrepreneur First.

The new proceeds will be used towards product development, research and towards data scientist teams.

Since launching Right-Hand’s solutions have been used within government and financial sectors across Southeast Asia and Australia.

Also Read: Singapore-based Group-IB opens inaugural CyberCrimeCon to the public for the first time

“Although humans present one of the biggest loopholes in cybersecurity, much of the focus from both investors and corporates alike have been on various technical solutions like threat detection systems, firewalls, and such. The human aspect is often overlooked,” said Maxim Shkvaruk, Atlas Ventures’s investment director.

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

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The Philippines has become the latest country to join in the lockdown caused by COVID-19 outbreak alongside China and Italy; both are currently among the top five countries with the highest numbers of affected patients detected. South China Morning Post reported that starting on Sunday, March 15 to April 14, Metro Manila will be on a “lockdown” with travel ban.

In a statement, Duterte also said that he might call on China to help with the outbreak as President Xi Jinping had offered help through a letter. The issuance followed Duterte’s meeting with Huang Xilian, China’s ambassador to the Philippines, on Wednesday night discussing the countries’ economic cooperation as well as the challenges caused by the novel coronavirus.

The decision is also supported by experts in the matter such as Dr Anthony Leachon, who is a health reform advocate and former president of the Philippine College of Physicians, who called the lockdown “necessary”. Leachon said that the only way to contain the virus was a lockdown of Metro Manila and its 12.8 million people.

The current situation

So far, the Philippines has 52 confirmed cases and has reported five deaths from the virus. Most of the government officials are of the vulnerable age group (including the President) and had recently been in the same room with a person who is tested positive. This is why most cabinet members have undergone tests and some even decided to undergo self-quarantine for precautionary measures.

The Philippines has a population of more than 100 million, but currently had only 2,000 novel coronavirus test kits available, as assistant health secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said. Earlier this week, persons could only be tested if they had travelled to a place with a local outbreak or if they had come physically close to an infected person.

The health department said 2,000 more test kits from the WHO would arrive this week. The Philippine Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a test kit developed by the Philippine Genome Centre at the University of the Philippines, which can be made more cheaply and provide results faster than imported kits.

Also Read: Finding solace in Stoicism as coronavirus looms over the economy

Despite the media calling it a lockdown, Cristian Jon Rillera, CEO of Gasmee, corrected the addressing of the situation, saying that the fitting term would be community quarantine within Metro Manila.

How it is affecting the startup community

e27 gathered responses from the startup community in the Philippines and how the government’s decision would affect their operation. The responses have been varied; each one depends entirely on the type of the business and how each runs the day-to-day operation.

For e-commerce, Steve Sy of Great Deal e-commerce Corporation weighed in on the situation. “E-commerce would spearhead the movement of goods for the Filipino people in this time of crisis. We will be in the forefront to deliver essential goods to the people.”

Furthermore, Sy remains positive that this crisis can “produce champions”.

“We need to persevere and we will all bounce back. But to raise funds at such time would be a vulture move from VCs and PEs,” Sy continued.

Another startup that is relatively new in the field, Apex Digital Marketing, has said that the situation is hard on their business, especially having to move the work setting to work from home.

“As a young startup, we really prefer that our employees show up at the office as communication is so much easier when the team is together. But prioritising our employee’s health, we transition to work from home setup after two years of being in operations,” said Edward Solicito, CEO of Apex Digital Marketing Inc.

Solicito added that such force majeure taught the startup that they need to be on top of any situation, especially as managers. “It can be as simple as losing a client or a pandemic. It will affect the team’s productivity and their morale. But if we pull this off, it opens up endless possibilities on how we can scale up our business,” Solicito explained.

Also Read: Coronavirus is driving the world into an economic slump. How to cope up?

However, looking at the bigger picture, Solicito said that the pandemic can be the unexpected cause of closing down of many niched startups, which he believes to be the majority of startups in Metro Manila.

“If you are not a startup that covers the essentials, or a startup that does not have excess capital, it will be tough,” he said.

Pros and cons

Gasmee, an on-demand refueling service, admitted that there are two sides of the situation and both affect the startup. Cristian Jon Rillera, CEO of Gasmee, explained that as an on-demand service, Gasmee’s customers are still able to utilise service even if they are not going anywhere.

The restriction of travel, however, has worked against the startup because it means it has limited people that can be utilised in its service.

As for HR tech field, GrabJobs’ Managing Director Valentin Berard said that the slowdown in hiring and recruitment needs for such industries is to be expected.

In the case of GrabJobs, a SaaS recruitment platform powered by interview chatbots, its mission has always been to help recruiters and job seekers connect smoothly with the help of technology.

“We feel this is even more relevant in this climate of crisis,” Berard said.

How the startups plan to continue

Most of the startups have taken precautionary measures such as temperature scanners, continuous cleaning of our facilities, social distancing as well as encouraging digital-enabled meetings. They also include their team in the decision-making, such as Solicito of Apex Digital Marketing, who asked employees to give suggestions on how they will best implement the work-from-home setup.

As for Gasmee, the precautionary measure that the company take should not compromise the business by “enhancing the technology that it has developed”.

“We need to think about ideas that can utilise our resources, not just the person who can deliver our fuel but also the safety process and other internal processes that we need to enhance,” CEO of Gasmee Rillera, explained.

Venture Capital’s woes

For Venture Capitals, the stakes are higher.

“The business of venture capital is built on relationships and so any situation that restricts our ability to meet others face-to-face and to travel affects our business,” said Bit Santos, Portfolio Operations Director of Kickstart Ventures, Inc.

Santos further breaks down the process of taking pitches and doing diligence in a VC’s daily operation.

“The community quarantine has been heavily impacted as meeting and getting to know the people and teams behind the startups that we meet with are key parts of the process,” he said.

Also Read: Blessing in disguise: How coronavirus is helping China’s tech sector

“We do a lot of business development in support of our portfolio companies, and we’re also facing many challenges to continue conversations with potential partners and customers as they themselves are having to figure out how to continue their operations while keeping their people and partners safe,” Santos added.

Santos admitted that the VC suffered lost opportunities due to cancelled and postponed events, originally scheduled for the first half of the year, as there was also uncertainty about how the COVID-19 situation will unfold beyond the next few months.

For safety measures, VC’s approach is similar to the startups’, with moving all the company’s communications digital. But in the case of Kickstart Ventures, they are also responsible for supporting their portfolio companies.

“We’ll be working closely with our portfolio companies to ensure that they have the necessary support to continue their operations. We’ve been able to extend connectivity support to our portfolio companies so that they can ensure business continuity with alternative work arrangements for their people,” Santos explained.

CEO of Talino Venture Labs, Winston Damarillo, approaches the situation by making sure the VC has instituted business continuity plans within each of its startups and teams.

“We now have a ‘buddy’ system in place to ensure that deliverables do not fall through the cracks, in case someone from the team falls ill. This buddy system also allows us to check up on each other and make sure that nobody gets left behind as we continue to operate remotely,” Damarillo explained.

Taking things to the next level, the VC has already started building a studio to deliver digitised services to partners and clients.

Damarillo also said that the VC learned the importance of being prepared.

“In times like this, having internal systems and tools from Day 1 of any operations is crucial. There’s also a need to create tighter digital collaboration with partners and clients. Being prepared helps ensure that our systems, tools, policies, and culture will be able to support such conditions,” Damarillo added.

Also Read: Finding solace in Stoicism as coronavirus looms over the economy

The takeaways
To have optimism in such distressing time is not foolish, but rather a sign of strength. That was the sentiment most of the Filipino tech communities have shared with us.

“COVID-19 crisis presents opportunities for startups–and many other companies–to seriously think about how they will continue to operate, create products and services, and reach out to their customers digitally, but without losing the human connection. We see opportunities in e-commerce, AI and automation, fintech, logistics, healthcare, foodtech. We just need to reframe ourselves and look beyond COVID-19 and ask ourselves:

“What is the COVID-19 situation teaching us about the future of work?” said Damarillo.

Santos added, “The global economy undoubtedly will slow down and it will affect all businesses, whether established or new, traditional or startup. It may affect some startups harder than others, depending on the nature of its business, its geography and market, and many other factors.”

Also Read: Keep calm and remain communicative: Startup founders share how they cope with coronavirus crisis

“If anything, the COVID-19 crisis has increased the need for everyone to review and reconsider how we live, how we work, and how we conduct business. We’ll all have to make changes and with these new needs may be the kinds of opportunities that startups are well-positioned to address.”

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Anisa Menur Maulani, Lyra Reyes, Nina Palad, Sainul Abudheen K., and Shagun Karki contributed to this story.

Image Credit: unsplash.com/@eugeniopastoral

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Remote work was first thought of as a trend. Today, that has changed substantially — especially during the coronavirus outbreak — and companies are also increasingly transitioning into remote, distributed teams, regardless of whether there’s a crisis or not. In reality, 70 per cent of people globally work remotely at least once a week, as seen in a study by real estate company IWG.

The “remote work revolution” isn’t just creating distributed teams within conventional incumbents, it has also given rise to fully remote companies such as Buffer and Reedsy. Teams live in Slack chatrooms and see each other face-to-face once or twice a year. Work is done in the comforts of their own home or desired workplace.

Remote work sounds sexy, but it’s potentially more demanding. With physical presence, sense, and emotions out of the window, manging remote teams can be tougher. Without proper execution, remote work can be more unproductive than working together physically.

Yahoo is an exemplary example: in 2013, the company forced employees to come back and work at the office, curtailing their previous remote work attempts. In 2017, IBM did the same with a harsher ultimatum: it’s either you return to the office, or you pack and leave for good. Social media photography app Timehop also failed in their remote work experiment.

One of the biggest problems with remote work is the lack of execution, stemming from a lack of good planning. Typically, companies imagine it to be the same as working in the office: the only difference is the travel to the workplace and being physically there at their desk. Instead, that’s replaced by pajamas on a swivel chair.

Also Read: The future of remote work is happening now, here’s how to make it work for you

To make things easier to manage, companies will also impose “core working hours” or “main online hours”, just so they can mimic the previous operating hours in the office. Having ‘everyone’ online at the same time during the day can seemingly make things easier to manage — especially when you communicate to everyone at the same time — but it’s a lazy remote work policy that makes no sense.

Respect the time zone difference

Not all distributed teams work in the same time zone. Unless the time zone difference is similar to how Chicago is 2 hours ahead of Los Angeles, it’s absurd to expect someone living 16 hours ahead to be awake at an ungodly hour. This can be a headache when the team is comprised of people living in different time zones (e.g. Vietnam + Australia + UK + Argentina).

Defeating the purpose of remote work

When you work remotely, you think of freedom — sure, you still have to do work, but unless there’s a video call meeting you can pretty much stay in your PJs the whole day. You can eat at any time you want and get copious amounts of coffee without your co-workers asking if you’re feeling alright over and over again.

By setting “core hours”, it forces everyone to be online at that moment in time, defeating the purpose of remote work that’s supposed to inject freedom into an employee’s daily work cycle.

Creates artificial anxiety

Suppose an employee misses a few core hours. During that time, a team video call was made. Messages were also sent back and forth in the chatroom. One might think that he can easily scroll through the chatroom and search for chat history, but it’s more likely to provide misinformation or inaccurate perspectives.

Over time, if the employee misses more core hours, he will feel anxious and stressed over it, knowing that he has no way to find out whether his colleagues are commenting about his absence behind his back.

Endangers performance evaluation

Does spending more time online means get more work done? That’s a fatally flawed mindset. Managers need to rethink how they evaluate work performance when everyone is working remotely.

Without seeing the employee sitting at his/her desk for hours (even if he/she is scrolling through Facebook), it’s difficult to have any impression of the employee being busy at all.

Managers that dictate working hours even while everyone is working remotely will send the wrong message about how they are evaluating performance.

In other words, it means that having everyone online during a period of time is equivalent to getting all the work done in that period—a quick look at a software company’s Jira will tell you something else.

Instead of setting “core hours” as part of the remote work policy, companies should give employees freedom of choosing when and where to work. The whole point of remote work is to give freedom and stimulate creativity. Hence, a great remote policy should:

• Set clear expectations of work done. Remote work measure by results and progress: how much work is being down and what is being achieved? It’s entirely fine for an employee to work only four hours a day when he is extremely capable in his role.
• Allow disconnection. If it’s urgent, you can call. If not, give it a rest and let employees fully disconnect from the incessant messages and Slack emojis.
• Create a central point of information. Don’t let employees hunt for information whenever they come online. Employees need to be in the know regardless of how long they’ve been offline. To do so, teams can create central points (i.e. wikis) of information, which can include things such as meeting notes, discussion notes, and important chat messages.

Rather than expecting remote work to occur naturally on its own, companies must take it by the hand and ensure employees can remain productive despite being at home.

In a Remote.co article, “poorly executed remote work doesn’t work”, which is potentially happening to many companies during this coronavirus outbreak. One thing’s for sure, as long as companies understand the inherent traits of remote work, they’ll never create policies and protocols that go against it.

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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.

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

Image credit: Icons8 Team on Unsplash

This article first appeared on Human+Business.

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There’s a great scene in HBO’s Silicon Valley that takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt where each founder is pitching their big idea at Demo Day.

We see each founder going up to the stage one by one where they start with “We’re making the world a better place by [insert super technical business proposition].”

One founder says, “We’re making the world a better place… through paxos algorithms for consensus protocols.” The next founder says, “We’re making the world a better place through … canonical data models to communicate between eggs.” One founder at the end finally says, “We’re making the world a better place through … scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed databases, ACID transactions.”

While the scene is a parody, in reality, this is not so far off from the stuff that reporters hear day in and day out with tech founders.

How do I know?

Other than working with reporters across the region daily, I’ve asked tech reporters from various media outlets including The Business Times, KRAsia and The Ken about their experiences interviewing startup founders in Southeast Asia.

Also Read: Using social media to grow your startup: What companies can do to avoid disappointment

Everyone thinks they are special …

Imagine yourself sitting in the shoes of a reporter, listening to a company founder droning on about how he is going to change the world.

“The thing with startups sometimes is that they believe that whatever they’re doing is the most novel thing out there. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s not,” said a tech reporter from a first-tier publication in Singapore.

So how do I stand out from the pack? What if I really am special?

Start from a clean slate and rewire yourself. Avoid technical jargon at all times. I have sat through interviews where the founder cannot help themselves from going straight into the nuts and bolts of their data-driven algorithms or proprietary solutions.

“The spokesperson should be able to explain succinctly why their solutions work, what pain point it addresses, and how they stand out from their competitors. Basically, why their news matters,” said another tech reporter.

Who should I speak to? How should I speak? And how should I know what to say?

This is what founders often ask me. So, let’s break it down:

Who should I speak to?

Let’s start with the first step. Do your homework. You have practiced your elevator pitch time and time again for your VC investors. You have by now spent hours absorbing details about the firm’s previous investments, its investment theses, what the partners like and do not like to hear in pitch meetings.

Just like the different VCs you speak to, media outlets come in different sizes, shapes and tastes — even within the tech universe. Within tech, there are reporters who cover a country, such as tech in Indonesia, reporters who cover ride-hailing only (which for the most part is Grab and Gojek), and reporters who cover tech across the region — e.g. The Information or TechCrunch.

Also Read: 3 genuine ways to get media attention for your startup in Southeast Asia

“Before pitching, it is essential to consider whether your news could really become a story on the reporter’s website. For example, at TechCrunch, I didn’t ever write about partner deals or appointments, but yet some people would still pitch these types of news. That showed they don’t read the publication. You’d expect a reporter to know something about your company before they speak to you, so it’s only fair to think you’d research the publication and reporter too,” said Jon Russell of The Ken.

So, do your research and get a sense of both what the publication likes to cover and what the reporter likes to write about. Do not send reporters the same generic email with a sales pitch for your company or product. The media landscape is small in Southeast Asia. It is even smaller for tech (and for the most part, a lot of the reporters know each other), so be sure to do your homework and shape what you say accordingly.

A good resource that takes a deeper dive into this topic is Tech In Asia’s article which is aptly titled How do I get covered by Tech in Asia? 

Many points in this article cover a lot of basic principles for approaching any tech publication.

How do I know what to say?

For the most part (and I can at least attest on behalf of our portfolio companies) as a founder, you are not in it for the money. You’ve conceptualized an idea, that became a prototype, that is now a product or solution that you truly believe will change the lives of millions. You have a team of 50, 100, 500 that you’re now in charge of that believe in you and the mission of the company.

Also Read: How effective PR can be a game changer for tech startups in 2020?

Tell a story. Show your passion. Demonstrate your expertise in the industry. And why you are the right company to do what you do.

I sat in on an interview last year with the founder of Saleswhale Gabriel Lim and the editor of Campaign Asia to discuss the growth of the company and outlook for the sales and marketing industry.

On one hand, Gabriel could have just spouted off the tech behind Saleswhale or the growing revenues they’re seeing year-on-year, and the fact that they were a recent graduate from the Y Combinator program. But rather, he started the conversation with why he decided to start Saleswhale, the pain point he was seeing between sales and marketing teams at organizations across the board, and why Saleswhale is best positioned to solve this solution and maybe even more importantly, why they are poised to solve this solution today.

Before going into the interview, think about the headline you want, the audience you’re intending to speak to and how do you provide the context and color to the reporter in an interesting and insightful way? When you are able to tell a compelling story to a reporter that is insightful and relevant, you will see it translate into a strong piece. In this situation, the published article led to sales leads for Saleswhale.

How do you be insightful? Often times, it is just about doing your homework and providing interesting nuggets of information including stats, facts or anecdotes throughout the interview.

How should I speak?

It goes without saying, reporters are people too and when you want to work with people, authenticity plays an important role.

“I hope founders or startup executives can provide honest insight, not too PR-y answers or general statements,” said Khamila Mulia of KRAsia.

Khamila cited her recent interview with the founder of Wahyoo as being honest and insightful which translated into this piece.

Where you can and without divulging any trade or business secrets, candidness and authenticity is key to not just a strong interview but a strong impression with the reporter.

“It would be great if founders can speak candidly about challenges as no one’s expecting them to be perfect,” said one tech reporter in Singapore.

At the end of the day, as a founder, you are there to solve a problem and it is okay to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the industry that you are trying to solve.

Getting burned and how to work with media

As a final note, there’s always a degree of risk when being open to speaking to reporters. Though keep in mind you take a similar risk when you want to build any relationship — whether it is with a new investor, customer or team member.

I once went to Maxwell’s one evening, ate some cockles, and ended up with severe food poisoning with an IV drip at a public hospital in Singapore. Am I going to stop eating cockles? Am I going to stop going to Maxwell’s? You may say maybe, but I say no!

Ok, it may not be the best analogy for the cockle-haters out there.

The point is, in business, there are instances where you can get burned by a business partner or someone you’ve hired, but that does not mean you stop doing business with other business partners or stop hiring talent.

Also Read: How startups should approach public relations

Similarly, one bad instance with a reporter does not mean they should be shunned or for you to be guarded in an interview.

It would be great if founders have a degree of openness and trust when meeting with reporters,” said a reporter from a first-tier tech trade.

Good reporters value your insight and the relationship. It is important to build a rapport with them and invest time in your relationship and trust with them.

“The best relationships I have with founders/PRs are those that aren’t just transactional. That means that they don’t only call when they have a story to pitch, and likewise, I don’t only contact them when I want something. Keeping in touch has never been easier with messaging apps, and having a relationship with a reporter makes pitching far easier—because often the tricky part is simply getting them [the reporter] to read and respond. Reporters are spread pretty thin across various beats and companies, so they’ll always appreciate someone in an industry who can give them straight opinions or even story tips,” said Jon.

At the same time, do understand a good reporter’s job is to tell a balanced story and there are always two sides of a coin.

“I think the common misconception is startup founders tend to think tech writers are natural evangelists for the ecosystem. All businesses and companies are open to scrutiny,” said Ka Kay.

It probably goes without saying that when a founder invests the time in a media relations and builds a rapport with a reporter, it can pay dividends in supporting the growth of the company as you hire and fundraise.

Are there any other tips for engaging with media for startups? Feel free to share any thoughts or comments on the article.

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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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They co-founded HAUZ in March 2018 as a company that specialised in security hardware. But their multiple meetings with clients led to the pivot of the product, precisely a year later.

“When we spoke with our clients in the security industry, we realised that there is a major problem in managing the workforce effectively,” said Co-founder and CMO Shah Fariq Aizal Sha Ghazni.

“Currently, there are no solutions/products to address this problem. We realise that there is a gap in the market for businesses that operate multi-location and remote workforce manually. This prompted us to pivot in March 2019,” added Ghazni, who started the firm, along with Ho Di-Yan (CEO and Wayne Woo (Chief Business Development Officer).

In the current form, HAUZ is an online platform that helps organisations streamline their workforce management process. Its app also allows supervision and remote monitoring of employees.

The app also assists in the assigning and monitoring of work schedules, leave management, and checking on live updates of all sites in real-time.

“We help traditional industries and businesses to manage their large workforce attendance and operation reporting in multi-location around Malaysia and globally with zero proprietary assets. At the same time, we also offer a cloud-based platform with real-time updates that promises business continuity with zero downtime,” Ghazni explained.

Also Read: Once a scam victim, this entrepreneur has built an escrow service to check online shopping fraud in Malaysia

The product also features payroll integration.

Primarily, HAUZ caters to companies, which deal with multi-location and sizeable remote workforce. Its clients come from across industries, including security, recruitments, facility management, construction, retail, cleaning services, F&B and education.

Clients pay a one-time fee of RM800, in addition to RM12 per user/month for a subscription.

Roller-coaster ride

The journey has never been easy, admits Ghazni. “It was never easy to build a team that shares the same values and vision for our clients. It has been a roller coaster ride to get everyone to be in sync with our company’s direction in the early stages. Active communication is key to building a strong team.”

It was not easy to convince and win clients either, as they were not familiar with the whole digitalisation and its benefits.

“However, we are grateful to see our clients took the leap of faith to jump onboard and benefited from it. Our solutions have helped them save up to 40 per cent operation cost, reducing processing time and improving productivity and efficiency,” claimed Ghazni.

Opportunities are massive — many companies in Malaysia are slowly expanding into neighbouring countries. For now, HAUZ targets Malaysian SMEs and associations by conducting workshops and seminars on how to kickstart their digital transformation journey.

“Once we seize a more significant market share in Malaysia, we will move to work with the right partners in expanding our product into other Southeast Asian markets,” he said.

“We are working on our numbers and securing better market share in Malaysia first before proceeding to expansion to other countries and going for future fundraising rounds,” he added.

Also Read: Koh Boon Hwee’s new US$100M VC fund Credence Partners to invest in Series A, B firms in Southeast Asia

Part of NEXEA’s 2019 startup programme, HAUZ has secured a small round of funding the angel network. With this investment, HAUZ was able to reach out to more clients in other industries locally and make improvements to the platform.

Key learnings

Before thinking of being an entrepreneur and coming up with a minimum viable product, Ghazni advises, aspiring founders should learn as much as they can about the industry pain points and be an expert about it. They should also look for a mentor who can answer your questions.

“Always focus on the customer experience using your products. At the end of the day, you want to see the customer transformation journey is a success and grow after subscribing to your product,” Ghazni concluded.

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Finance

Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Right-Hand raises US$1M in seed funding led by Atlas Ventures

Singapore-based cybersecurity firm Right-Hand has announced a USS$1 million seed funding round led by early-stage VC fund Atlas Ventures. Participating in the round are Singapore government’s investment arm SGInnovate and talent investor Entrepreneur First.

The company said that it will use the funding to accelerate its product roadmap development.

Right-Hand offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for companies to monitor, measure, and mitigate human-induced cybersecurity risks. It analyses employee behaviour in real-time, produces user behaviour analytics, and delivers customised and user-friendly micro-learning training modules to educate employees on their risky behaviours.

Singapore’s SPH Ventures joins the US$3M seed round in US-based global influencer marketing community influence.co

The corporate venture arm of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), SPH Ventures, has joined a US$3 million seed funding round in US-based platform for influencer marketing community influence.co, as reported by DealStreetAsia.

Bonfire Ventures led the investment with participation from ACT Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, and Next 10 Ventures.

influence.co plans to use the funding to scale its community and launch a media division to cover the influencer and creator lifestyle.

influence.co was launched in 2016 by Ryan Angilly, Niel Robertson, and Jeff Smith to connect everyone in the influencer economy through content, community-building, and collaborative commerce.

Finastra’s global fintech hackathon chooses Philippines student team as the winner

Finastra has crowned Team ‘WonderTech’ from the Philippines as the grand prize winner of its global fintech hackathon FusionFabric.cloud.

The Manila-based team was selected among five category winners for its ‘Agree Farm App’ at Finastra Universe New York.

Also Read: 5 key trends in banking for 2020 and beyond

The app aims to connect rural farmers in the Philippines to access to bank loans, built using open APIs on FusionFabric.cloud, Finastra’s open development platform. It was chosen by an audience of senior professionals representing financial institutions.

Team ‘WonderTech’ consists of four young professionals and university students in Manila: Michael Puzon, Vaniza Dagangon, John Robert Tubale, and Clyde Palattao. More than 1,000 individuals, including data scientists, developers, and engineers, from across 38 countries participated in the ‘Hack to the Future’ hackathon.

The complete list of category-winning apps includes:

• Future of Capital Markets: Stratl

• Future of Corporate Banking: Accenture, with IN-CRE-D (Intelligent Credit Decisioning using AI) app

• Future of Payment & Banking for a Better Future: WonderTech, with Agree Farm App

• Future of Retail Banking: ING, with Financial Assistant on FB Messenger app

• Best App by an Established Fintech: Manager.one

Indian teen-targeting payment app FamPay gets US$4.7M in funding from Y Combinator, others

Bangalore-based fintech startup focussing on teens as its main target market, FamPay, announced that it has received a US$4.7 million seed funding round from Y Combinator, Venture Highway, Sequoia India, and Global Founders Capital (GFC).

Also participating in the funding round are angel investors and Twitch cofounder Kevin Lin, Robinhood cofounder Vladimir Tenev, CRED founder Kunal Shah, and Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau.

With the funding, FamPay said it seeks to expand its engineering team to enhance its technology stack and improve the platform.

According to an article by Inc24, FamPay was founded by recent graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee: Kush Taneja and Sambhav Jain.

Using FamPay, students can get a debit card without the need to set up a bank account. Parents can then top up the FamPay account of their teenage children and supervise their spending.

FamPay has partnered with ICICI Bank to issue the physical card that can be ordered through the app.

Also Read: Trax acquires European image recognition startup Qopius to expand digital retail presence

Business

PropertyGuru launches mortgage marketplace with PropertyGuru Finance, targeting home financing for Singaporeans

Singapore-based property technology company PropertyGuru has announced its expansion into home financing with the launch of its mortgage marketplace PropertyGuru Finance.

The PropertyGuru Consumer Sentiment Study H1 2020 reveals only 18 per cent of Singaporeans are ‘very familiar with the home loan process’. Almost 50 per cent of home buyers are not familiar with the paperwork that is required to apply for a home loan, and two in five Singaporeans are not aware that they can refinance their home loan and save on monthly costs.

The company will offer digital home financing services such as instant in-principle approval, instant offers, refinance checks, to enable property buyers to consume home financing services conveniently, securely and instantly online.

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Shopback raises US$75M led by Temasek to expand in Asia

Singaporean shopping cashback platform Shopback is announcing US$45 million in funding led by Temasek, with participation from Rakuten, EDBI, EV Growth, Cornerstone Ventures, and 33 Capital, according to TechInAsia.

Shopback will use the funds to expand into new markets in Asia and diversify its core cashback service.

The company with 450 staff in total said that its business in Singapore is already profitable in terms of earnings before interest and tax (EBIT).

Also Read: How ShopBack sweetens shopping in Southeast Asia

It is currently operating in seven markets, including Taiwan and Australia.

Grab partners with Wirecard to widen its payment method to more merchants

Ride-hailing giant Grab has announced a partnership with Germany’s Wirecard to extend the acceptance of its payment method to more merchants via Wirecard’s digital financial commerce platform, according to DealStreetAsia.

Users will be able to pay via GrabPay for online and offline transactions, and Wirecard will be processing the transactions.

Georg von Waldenfels, Executive Vice President Group Business Development at Wirecard, said: “Together, we aim to continue disrupting the payment, tech and mobility industries with innovative solutions that can improve the lives of millions.”

Malaysian B2B wholesale marketplace Dropee joins Y Combinator’s latest cohort

Dropee, an all-in-one marketplace platform for retailers, has been accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch, making it the second Malaysian company to be selected.

Prior to this, the company had raised a USD$350,000 seed investment from Vynn Capital and Prasetia Dwidharma, both of which are investment companies for early-stage companies.

Also Read:  Morning News Roundup: Cybersecurity firm Right-Hand raises US$1M in seed funding

Lennise, CEO of Dropee believes that “independent retailers will still have an incomparable edge over large chain retail stores that no other businesses can easily replicate.”

“Mom-and-pop stores are the best when it comes to customer service, and they have been doing so for decades. The way they treat their customers is almost like family, and we want to maintain this tradition by helping them to keep their businesses around many more decades to come,” said Lennise.

Standard Chartered launches ‘banking as a service’

Standard Chartered (SC) today announced that it has launched a new solution, called ‘nexus’, which will allow companies to offer loans, credit cards and savings accounts with the bank to their customers under their own brand name, according to a statement.

SC currently has a partnership with an undisclosed e-commerce platform in Indonesia.

The company has plans to expand into markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East with established digital platforms.

“nexus is potentially transformational for the bank and our customers. We will actively partner with leading consumer platforms in our markets to enable convenient access to financial services to millions of new, tech-savvy customers. We are starting with Indonesia, as part of our strategy to grow digitally and expand our business in this important, fast-growing market,” said Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of SC.

Property Guru enters the mortgage sector, launches ‘PropertyGuru Finance’

Southeast Asia’s property technology has confirmed its expansion into home finance with the launch of its mortgage marketplace, ‘PropertyGuru Finance’.

Through this initiative, the company aims to provide Singaporeans with a cheaper and smoother experience while financing their home. 

The company will also be offering in-principle approval, instant offers and refinances checks, for property buyers online.

CMO Bjorn Sprengers said that the company wants to target the pain points of the “process of how people will finance their homes”.

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Image Credit: Markus Spiske

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The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak has resulted in empty shopping malls across Asia, especially in countries such as Singapore, South Korea, and China where the spread of the virus has been even more pronounced.

Except for the initial weeks where consumers wiped out supermarkets of toilet paper, instant noodles, and rice, most are avoiding crowded areas and delaying non-essential purchases and travel across Asia and now globally.

Besides a slow down in business travel, tourism has also been greatly impacted. According to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), tourist arrivals are expected to drop by 25 to 30 per cent this year due to the COVID-19 virus.

This would indeed have a negative impact towards retail sales, especially for a country that is highly dependent on tourist dollars. Under pressure to reduce rent by retailers, shopping mall owners such as Capitaland will be offering rental relief of 20-30 per cent at the end of March 2020 for affected tenants mainly in the downtown shopping belt.   

In Malaysia, retailers have encouraged shopping malls owners to give them rental rebates of between 30-50 per cent after seeing a decline in sales of up to 50 per cent.  The Department of Tourism in the Philippines announced that the Nationwide Mall Sale will be postponed until further notice. This event was initially scheduled to start on Sunday, March 1, 2020. 

In contrast to the depressing situation which traditional retail is facing, e-commerce has benefited from this episode of the virus outbreak as people are now turning to online grocery platforms to purchase their daily necessities.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Vietnam’s e-commerce startup Leflair accused of owing US$2M to suppliers

In China, for example, Carrefour reported vegetable deliveries growing 600 per cent year-over-year during the Lunar New Year period and JD.com saw an increase of 215 per cent in online shopping grocery sales to 15,000 tons in just the first 10 days of February 2020.

This pattern of behaviour is similar to the impact that SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) had on purchasing behaviour almost two decades ago. SARS spurred the growth of e-commerce and likewise, with the outbreak of COVID-19, it will encourage the rapid movement from traditional store-based selling to digitalisation and retail through omni-channel.

When the deadly SARS outbreak hit China then, it helped accelerate the development of the e-commerce industry in the country. SARS forced JD.com to start selling its products online in 2004 and now it is the largest online retailer in China.

Alibaba also experienced a positive impact as a result of SARS by seizing the opportunity to go C2C with the creation of Taobao as a result of reduced foreign business travellers to the country.

Just like SARS, the presence of COVID-19 will result in consumers moving their purchases online, however, the impact would be even more far-reaching as the COVID-19 spread is more global in nature. So what can retailers and shopping malls do to keep revenues up and remain relevant in these challenging times? 

Retailers go online

According to Esther Ho, Nanyang Polytechnic school of business management director, in a Straits Times article, “Physical store sales will be the most impacted in light of the COVID-19 situation. This may provide the impetus for retailers to seriously consider (going) online, especially if there are success stories to share.”

Also Read: Keep calm and remain communicative: Startup founders share how they cope with coronavirus crisis

Good examples of such success stories include Iuiga and Awfully Chocolate who have reported that their online sales have experienced a surge, even though they have been experiencing a drastic drop in sales at their offline stores in shopping malls due to COVID-19. 

Most notable retailers have begun their foray into e-commerce over the past decade as part of their overall channel strategy either as a branded online store or as parts of an existing online marketplace such as eBay, Amazon, Lazada or Qoo10.

Many more can leverage this consumer behaviour change to drive their digital transformation, ensuring that they remain accessible to their customers even in these hard times. 

What can shopping malls do to remain relevant?

Shopping malls also come under tremendous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 virus. As landlords, making sure that their tenants stay afloat has a direct impact on the bottom line, lesser tenants mean less rent revenue collected. This is especially true if a major component of rent is a percentage of sales generated by the tenant at their store in the mall. However, getting consumers through the door and maintaining the usual footfall traffic at the malls is difficult during this time. 

Retailers have shown the way to cushion the losses in their stores is to move their business online. Shopping Malls can do the same, allowing regular customers to continue shopping at their favourite stores in the malls but as a shopping mall online marketplace.

Online marketplaces are not new and they have seen tremendous growth globally.

Also Read: Coronavirus is driving the world into an economic slump. How to cope up?

In fact, Euromonitor reported that 47 per cent of all digital commerce sales in Asia are made through marketplaces in 2018. Shopping Malls are inherently physical marketplaces themselves, in reality, they are a collection of different vendors in a physical location.

As such, to remain relevant in these hard times, shopping mall owners can create an online version of their shopping malls in the form of a mall branded online marketplace by adding a digital multi-vendor marketplace platform to their current business models.

Pursuing an “offline to online” (O2O) dual strategy would not only add on a new channel of distribution for tenants of the mall but also help cushion sales losses at their physical stores.

Consumers who are loyal and regular visitors to the shopping mall would now be able to avoid catching the virus from crowds and shop at their favourite retailers from the safety and comforts of their own homes. 

The COVID-19 virus spread is, unfortunately, gaining pace around the world with no end in sight. Its sustained impact will cause a fundamental change in consumer behaviour, fuelling the growth of e-commerce and the slow demise of traditional retail.

As the saying goes, “disrupt or be disrupted.” Any retailer or shopping mall owners who do not start embracing online commerce as part of their business strategy may see themselves left behind and soon disappear as their businesses falter.

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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.

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

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