ShopBack acquires South Korean rebates platform Ebates

ShopBack, an online rewards and discovery platform, has acquired South Korean cash-back startup Ebates, according to a company statement.

Although the terms of the deals were not disclosed, this acquisition will grow ShopBack’s user base and strengthen its list of merchants offering cashback properties.

The company is projected to have over 500,000 customers in South Korea this year.

Henry Chan, Co-founder of ShopBack, said: “South Korea’s digitally mature mindset and rapid adoption of e-commerce makes it a core and high-potential market for cash-back platforms. By entering the market through the acquisition of Ebates Korea, we will be able to leverage its strong local presence to become the nation’s leading cashback platform.”

Ripple, Siam Commercial Bank partner to ease money transfer solutions for customers

Thailand’s first indigenous bank Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has announced a partnership with Silicon Valley-based blockchain company Ripple to ease money transfer solutions for customers, according to a company statement.

This partnership will allow Ripple to expand the coverage of its remittance services across 12 countries and help SCB to establish solutions that will enhance its financial products that can address its customers needs.

The countries where the service will be provided are the UK, the US, Singapore, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, and Portugal.

Also Read: For these 5 space tech startups in SEA, the future is as bright as the sky

ShareChat buys meme sharing platform Memer to serve the social needs of Indian masses

Regional social networking platform ShareChat has acquired a meme discovery and sharing platform Memer for an undisclosed amount, according to The Economic Times.

Post the deal, Memer’s product suite will be integrated into Twitter-backed ShareChat, and the eight-member team will join the Bengaluru-based startup.

“Today, ShareChat is on a rapid growth path, and it’s really important to keep a sharp focus on product innovation and faster execution. Therefore, we are looking for inorganic opportunities to complement our organic efforts and power the growth engine,” said Manohar Charan, VP of Corporate Development of ShareChat.

MindFi makes its mindfulness app free for healthcare workers during COVID-19

MindFi, a mobile app for mindfulness meditation, has partnered with the Labour Movement’s Healthcare Academy to offer healthcare workers free access to its service, according to the company statement.

“In these times of crisis, our public healthcare workers are at the frontline and selflessly doing their part for society. From the comforts of our homes, we want to help these carers care for themselves. We hope MindFi can be a useful tool for self-care during their brief moments of rest to restore some calm and comfort. We are also in discussions with more partners to broaden our social impact during these trying times,” said Bjorn Lee, founder of MindFi.

Also Read: e27 webinar: Sailing through COVID-19 crisis with mindfulness meditation

This initiative comes during a time when there is growing pressure on the nation’s healthcare system to combat the upsurge in COVID-19 cases.

MindFi app aims to provide a diverse set of mindfulness activities based on personal goals during this period to support the warriors of COVID-19

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Image Credit: Shopback

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Singapore-based fintech platform Helicap has raised US$10M in a Series A financing round, led by early-stage VC firm Saison Capital, according to KrAsia.

Existing investor East Ventures, and new investors Access Ventures and Lamivoie, besides unnamed individual investors also participated.

This round pushes the startup’s total funds raised till date to almost US$17 million.

Helicap said that it would use the fresh capital to grow its business further by enhancing its current platform and expanding towards the private debt space.

Helicap is an online investment platform that specialises in the alternative lending space in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

The company most recently registered its fund management subsidiary, Helicap Investments with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), according to founder David Wang. It also managed to obtain a capital markets services license by acquiring Arcor Capital last in 2019.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: HKs fintech startup Oriente receives US$50M; Singapores ZuBlu raises US$1M

Earlier, Helicap roped in the eldest son of late former Indonesian president B.J. Habibie as Special Advisor to the company’s Board of Directors. The company is speculated to be eyeing Indonesian expansion.

Habibie said: “As the Indonesian economy evolves and our labour force re-skills for the future, there will continue to be a large gap in the Indonesian credit market which is not addressed by traditional banks. As a result, there is a significant role for a rigorous data-driven firm like Helicap to play in the alternative lending space.”

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Image Credit: Unsplash

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Conicle secures US$900K from Humanica, 500 TukTuks and Stormbreaker Venture

Conicle, an edutech startup based in Thailand, has secured US$900,000 pre-Series A round of funding from Humanica, a local HR and ERP solutions company, and 500 TukTuks and edtech accelerator Stormbreaker Venture.

The funds will be used by the startup to expand into the international education market, as well as to further develop a comprehensive solution for Human Resource managers to improve their employees’ skills, drive digital transformation and respond to future work trends.

Concicle is a learning management system, which acts as an executive assistant and HR in developing the internal workforce under the concept of ‘modernise learning’.

A key strength of Conicle is its blended-learning approach with data-driven personalisation. The learning content will be personalised to each user alongside personalised recommendations for courses. Lastly, Conicle also gamifies their courses so that learners are incentivized to complete lessons to earn points.

So far, Conicle has bagged over 500,000 users from more than 30 leading companies, such as AIA, PTT Group, AIA, CPALL, Makro and Honda.

Vonder raises funding from Pongsak Trakulsuk, Stormbreaker Venture

Separately, Vonder, another edutech company from the country, has raised an undisclosed seed funding round, led by existing investor Pongsak Trakulsuk and existing backer Stormbreaker Venture.

The seed funding will be used to further penetrate the B2B corporate training market for HR, corporates and SMEs, in addition to developing and expanding new products for the regional market.

Vonder, which develops micro-learning solutions and HRD platforms, has  found a way to make learning more effective and fun by converting hard-to-digest and boring content into short gamified micro-lessons. These lessons can be effective for both the education sector and for staff training.

For corporates, HRs can create their own content, or the Vonder team can help HR to co-create or convert the organisation’s existing content into Vonder’s micro-learning format. Popular lessons are Tax 101 for employees, new product training for sales, regulations and Standard of Practice training.

Founded in 2018, the company aims to grow by 3x in order to raise Series A funding in the next 12 months.

In addition to its core products, the company also provides many features to support the HR department, such as the Vonder FAQ manager, a chat bot that helps to answer employee’s questions, and Vonder’s Pulse Survey, a feature that allows HR to survey their employees easier in a gamified way which incentivises participation.

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Khailee Ng is one of the most successful founders from Southeast Asia. In 2011, he sold daily deals site GroupsMore to Groupon, as part of the latter’s entrance into Malaysia. Just two years later, Ng sold social curation and news platform Says.com to Malaysian media giant Media Prima Bhd.

Now, as one of four managing partners of 500 Startups globally, Khailee also oversees Southeast Asia as a region. Ng is one of the few venture capitalists with direct experience in the region as both a founder and an investor. His track record in this role is equally impressive. Of the 180 investments Ng has made, three are already unicorns: Grab, Revolution Precraftd, and Bukalapak.

Gracy Fernandez: What is the toughest part about mentoring and advising founders? How do you make this investor-founder relationship successful?

Ng: I ask myself, how does this get done well, at scale? Assuming that I will be the primary mentor and advisor to founders creates limitations on how effective the firm can be at scale. The benefit of having a large portfolio the way 500 Startups does is that we have the economies of scale to run programs. We have run B2C and B2B growth programs, bringing down legendary talent from the likes of Facebook, YouTube, and Lyft, and in multiple geographies.

In Southeast Asia, for example, we have flown in 50 mentors, with 88 companies participating, clocking in over 2,000 hours of hands-on growth work! I wasn’t involved in mentoring and advising. But the team put together a successful program that did.

We noticed that founder burnout, stress, and depression were a real thing.

Also Read: Khailee Ng “angry and sad” about Dave McClure scandal, but will continue to support 500 Startups

We sought out experts. We found the Director of Emotional Wellbeing Research at Yale and his partner, a successful life coach. We tried and introduced their programs to founders in Southeast Asia. We got feedback like, “We canceled our divorce after practicing the tools we learned,” and “I was cured of my three months of insomnia and now manage my mental health way better,” all the way to entire management teams of our founders seeking more coaching. Again, when I embrace my personal limitations, I unlock unlimited potential. This is what I believe 500 to be, not a VC firm, but a VC platform.

Gracy Fernandez: Can you delve deeper into this problem, so people can better appreciate your innovative solutions? How have you seen founder burnout, stress, and depression negatively affect both founders and the companies they lead?

Ng: The divorce and insomnia examples are listed below. But across 500’s 2,000+ investments, there have been two founder suicides. That’s two too many.

On a basic level:
1. Founders may tend to over-personalize, internalize, and energize issues in business as issues in themselves, or their lives.

2. Tools and tactics to regulate awareness, communication, vulnerability, and strength are very helpful, but are not the first things they ask for. They just spend more time at work.

3. Having a foundation of friends, health, and family gives strength. But it is also the weakest part in most founding journeys with this “all in,” “go big or go home,” overglorification of over-working culture.

There is another way. Very rarely is a startup a quick sprint. We’re playing the long game here. It is better to have foundations and tools. You’ll need them.

Also Read: This world is a f**ked up place!: Khailee Ng

You don’t want to pick them up the hard way. That’s what the drive to run these programs is about.

Personally, when I was going through having my entire business wiped out at SAYS.com, from the Facebook URL ban, I had to put up a strong front every day, but I felt broken inside. That takes energy. Even after we created the new business, I felt it may happen again at any time, and I didn’t feel secure. The thing is, I still did not talk to my team about it. I only told them much later when I broke down, and they asked me “why didn’t you tell us earlier, we all could have doubled down and helped, shared the burden”. This is a familiar story that all founders can relate to. And I’m here to say, you don’t have to turn your problems into your entire universe. On the contrary, you have a universe of resources and help for you to overcome any problem at all. Anything.

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This story has been excerpted by courtesy of the publisher from Asian Founders at Work by Ezra Ferraz and Gracy Fernandez (Apress, 2020).

To purchase the book, please visit Amazon.

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With most of the world still forced to stay indoors, the gaming world in all its colourful, action-packed glory has become a ‘beacon of light’ to many. Given this recent spike in demand for gaming, ZeusX, a Singapore-based digital marketplace for gamers all over the world, is looking to ramp up its growth with more varied product offerings and aggressive user acquisition. 

e27 recently sat down with ZeusX founder Alex Tay to share his startup journey, the opportunities and challenges he faces in terms of attracting investors, clinching potential customers, and marketing.

The hurdles of being the ‘new face’ in the startup crowd

Newly established startups have to deal with several ‘birth pains’ of being new. For instance, they have to get people to understand what their business is all about and prove their reputation. Also, for marketplace platforms such as ZeusX, they must learn the ropes of seamlessly onboarding their initial partners.

While the young startup has not been immune to all of these, ZeusX utilised those disappointments and rejections as opportunities to improve their methods, product, and services.

On attracting potential customers, gaining visibility, and building trust by tapping into a reputable platform

Apart from product development, one hurdle many businesses must tackle is gaining visibility in the marketplace or ecosystem.

“In terms of attracting potential customers, the biggest challenge is that we are really new and trying to tackle an area where gamers are already wary of scams,” shares Tay. “So the number one question in their mind is — “Is ZeusX legit?”

“And because awareness and branding was a top concern, it’s important that people know about us from a reputable source and understand that we are not a fly-by-night operation,” the ex-corporate continues.

“We wanted to find a media platform which is not only reputable but is also well-known for covering startup movements in the region. Collaborating with e27 to address our top concerns was quite a no-brainer. We definitely achieved our original goal to promote ZeusX as a known startup, and had pleasant surprises in gaining visibility from investors too.”

Addressing the need to build trust among their users, Tay expresses that they “built a series of safeguards to ensure that buyer payments are only released to the seller upon successful delivery and validation of the item.” Additionally, they are adding more verification mechanisms for sellers and working with payment processing providers in filtering off problematic cards or transactions preemptively.

Key advice for those who are planning to take a leap into the same industry

“This is a bit cliché, but if you’re following your passion, it will become your engine of motivation all by itself,” Tay begins.

For Tay, this passion began at an early age of nine. “I was so enthralled with Super Mario Bros on Nintendo, and Archon and Battle Chess on PC that I wanted to be a games developer before I knew it was a real job. It motivated me to read those thick computing books even before I entered secondary school,” Tay confesses.

“Getting a desktop PC in my early teenage years also unlocked a whole new world for me. I mean, how amazing is that — being able to control colourful characters inside electronic screens?”

Get motivated by passion, but one must pursue entrepreneurship with a problem to solve and a clear monetization strategy

“The gaming industry is growing at an unbelievable rate and there is always room for more innovation. Just remember to have a clear monetization strategy from the on-start,” Tay continues.

As an avid gamer himself, who had also transacted in secondary platforms, Tay was really surprised to see most of the trades still taking place on forums, Reddit, and maybe some websites. “There have been limited innovations in this space when you compare it to the progress happening in e-commerce and even for sneakers trading.”

This was where Tay stumbled upon an old problem — there wasn’t any trusted central gaming platform where gamers can trade with peace of mind and get what they need easily.

Additionally, it was during a conversation with his friends when Tay realised that large-prized e-sports such as DOTA catered to only one per cent of gamers.

“So we asked ourselves, what about the rest of everyday gamers — the other 99 per cent? Is there a way for us to create a better living out of gaming, or even help to generate more value to our community? I carried these questions with me ever since that day.”

“The market is really fragmented,” shared Tay. “I followed the recent developments and thought I can apply both my passion and past expertise in creating that gamers’ marketplace that I’ve always envisioned.”

What’s next for ZeusX?

With more people gaming online than ever, there has also been an increase in customers and sellers who want to convert their efforts into cash. “Our approach,” shares Tay, “is not going to change much, but in order to help fellow gamers in need — ZeusX has decided to waive all sales fees until at least 30th June so that we also contribute back to the community.”

He went on, “In this unprecedented time, where COVID-19 is ravaging the globe and forcing people to stay home (and thus play more games), we do get a lot of interest all over since we are a gaming startup. Handling all these attention isn’t a bad problem to have, but we also don’t want to be distracted from the most important thing now, which is to product-fit our platform based on feedback.”

“Expanding our product offerings, introducing more payment options, and ramping up marketing efforts to acquire more users. ZeusX has a strong focus on mobile gaming and Esports games, so expect a good mix of the latest trending mobile game items as well as items from evergreen games too over time. Do watch out for us!”

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ZeusX recently partnered with e27 for a campaign to help level up their game. We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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