Month: April 2020

Buying home is still a distant dream for many millennials. The fast-increasing prices make home buying an unaffordable and expensive affair.

Although the advent of new technologies has made home buying a bit easier in Southeast Asia, it still still has not addressed the root of the problem, especially in Vietnam.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the prices of apartments jumped 22.7 per cent in 2019 over 2018, according to international real estate advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle. This has deterred many from buying homes.

The arrival of Homebase has changed things for the better in the country. The startup offers an innovative solution — it helps you own a house by becoming a co-investor in purchasing the house.

In other words, Homebase offers a path to homeownership by allowing millennials to buy a portion of a property and move in on the first day, with the option to buy out more equity over time.

To make investment decisions, the company utilises a combination of Big Data, asset valuation models and financial engineering.

A few days ago, Homebase raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from investors including Antler and Iterative to help more people achieve their dream of homeownership.

According to Homebase’s Co-founder JunYuan Tan, the problem in the property market today is caused by fast increasing prices and a high appetite for home-ownership, yet a stark lack of financing options.

“The traditional pathway to homeownership has not evolved to match the economic pathways that millennials have embarked on. We see an opportunity to develop a new homeownership journey that works for those of us who want flexibility and assurance as we work towards owning our dream homes,” he says.

In the interview, Tan shares his take on how the local market is primed with a young, educated middle-class that is growing rapidly, and the ever-increasing number of tourists, who discover the real estate market in the country every year.

Edited excerpts:

Also Read: Proptech is changing the face of real estate in Asia Pacific

What do you think is the biggest problem facing the proptech industry in Southeast Asia?

Proptech in the region is fairly fragmented and still in its early stages. It’s been observed, not just in Southeast Asia but also in other parts of the world, that the real estate space is fairly slow to adopt new technologies, and this is partly due to the fact that real estate is ultimately a business that requires a lot of human touches.

How does Homebase work for a homeowner wannabe? Please walk us through the user journey.

The notion is fairly simple: Choose your dream home and we (Homebase and customer) buy it together.

Customers work with Homebase to find any home on the market, pay the portion that they can afford, and Homebase will put up the remaining amount.

Homebase then allows customers to determine when they want to buy, whenever they’re ready. They can buy out all or part of Homebase’s stake at any time. In the meantime, they’ll pay rent for the portion that Homebase helped them pay.

The setting will last for several years. After that, Homebase only takes a portion of the capital appreciation if the home appreciates in value. Other than this, we don’t charge any other recurring interest or fees.

Also Read: How proptech is set to empower the Southeast Asian property market

What was the inspiration to start Homebase? Who are your co-founders?

My co-founders are Phillip An, Hung Doan, and Hai Vu. We were inspired to start Homebase after seeing the struggles of many of our local friends to own a home. Very quickly, we realised that the nemesis was a broken home-financing system.

Phillip is from San Francisco and realised that a few highly successful solutions/models in the US, such as Divvy Homes and ZeroDown, can be applied to Southeast Asia.

Very quickly, we interviewed more than 70 customers, and adapted the model to fit the local Vietnamese market; thus, Homebase was founded.

Can you tell us more about your team’s background?

I have previously founded two venture-backed startups in Vietnam, a software startup and a B2B Saas startup. I went to Manchester Business School, CFA.

Phillip An comes with an experience in consulting at McKinsey and investment banking at Goldman Sachs, with degrees from Caltech and Harvard.

Hai Vu was an engineer at Cisco. He has a PhD from the University of Texas, Dallas.

Doan was a Computer Science lecturer at a top university in Vietnam. He is also a Fulbright Scholar going to Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy & University of Economics.

In the past, he has personally transacted 100-plus real estate properties

What are the challenges in introducing this concept to attract potential homeowners?

Home buying is an incredibly emotional decision involving huge sums of money, especially for first-time buyers. Naturally, it takes a little more effort to convince people to try a new product. But with patience, we’ve proven that it is surmountable.

What was it like joining Antler’s accelerator programme for a proptech company? Can you share with us your experience?

Antler is an amazing programme with an incredible management team behind it. Antler has been super helpful throughout our journey by guiding us from idea generation and validation, all the way to even pitching and fundraising.

They also connected us with plenty of mentors and investors. I cannot imagine coming this far and this quickly without the support of Antler.

Also Read: tryb Group invests in Indonesian proptech startup Gradana

DivvyHome‘s co-founder Brian Ma is one of your investors. Can you share with us how you first connected with DivvyHomes?

Our co-founder Phillip has a mutual friend with Brian Ma in San Francisco. So we thought it would be great to connect and learn from them. That’s how it started.

We choose to think that Brian investing in us is a testament, not only to the soundness of the idea but also to the quality of our team.

What is the success rate of the business approach done by Homebase so far?

Even though we’ve only set foot in Vietnam for a few months, we’ve already done a few property transactions. We have a huge pipeline of customers who are eager to use our solution.

Homebase was recently named as one of the World’s Top 50 Most Promising PropTech Startups by Plug and Play, the renowned US-based venture firm.

Although still in its nascent phase, our one-year-old company is determined to tackle the millennial homeownership crisis across Southeast Asia, one homeownership at a time.

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Picture Credit: Homebase

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Singapore-based VC firm Quest Ventures has announced the first close of its second fund at US$50 million.

As per a press note, this represents more than half of Quest’s fund target for the second fund, called Quest Ventures Asia Fund II.

Two institutional investors, which participated in this investment, are Pavilion Capital from Singapore and QazTech Ventures from Kazakhstan.

The fund II will invest in startups across Southeast Asia and emerging Asia at the post-seed and Series A stages.

Additionally, Quest Ventures said it will expand its footprint to countries, such as Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines. It already has a presence in fast-growing economies such as Vietnam.

“We were deliberate in selecting our investors as we value both financial and operational contributions. As operators ourselves before becoming investors, we appreciate what a diverse team can bring to the table. With this fund, we hope to bring different skill sets, domain experience and connections to help our companies,” said Goh Yiping, Partner at Quest Ventures.

“We encourage established businesses to partner with startups beyond proofs-of-concept. Although the starting points may be different, the common objective is survivability, and sustainable business models that can scale. We are encouraged that numerous C-suites and Asian family businesses have joined us as investors — for both financial and business-transformation returns in an increasingly complex and turbulent business world,” said Jeffrey Seah, Partner at Quest Ventures.

In addition to this announcement, Quest also said it will launch an accelerator in Kazakhstan to jumpstart the region’s digital economy.

Kazakhstan’s national economic initiatives have seen increased business activities between Central Asia and Southeast Asia. This is its sovereign wealth fund Qaztech’s first investment in a VC fund in Asia, and is widely seen to be tapping into Quest’s experience in emerging Asia and in developing innovation ecosystems.

“The cooperation of Kazakhstan with Singapore’s leading venture fund is an important step in bringing together the innovative ecosystems of Southeast Asia and Central Asia. This partnership with Quest and Pavilion will enable Kazakhstani startups to secure important investments, improve competencies, and gain access to global markets,” said Adil Nurgozhin, Chairman of the Board of Directors at QazTech Ventures.

Quest is an active VC fir which has to date invested in 50-plus companies, including Carousell, ShopBack, 99.co, Carro, StyleTheory, SGAG/ MGAG/PGAG, Glife, and Xfers.

The VC firm’s first fund was invested out of the personal capital of its Managing Partner James Tan.

“As the digital economy matures across the world, the venture capital industry in Asia is now poised to play a mainstream role to bring the public and private markets closer. Besides robust financial returns, investors look for value creation derived from business models built on strong fundamentals. Our approach has been validated by more than 50 portfolio companies in the first fund. We are humbled by the belief that our investors have in us,” said Tan.

QazTech Ventures Joint Stock Company is a development institution owned by Baiterek National Managing Holding. The core mission of QazTech Ventures is the promotion of technological entrepreneurship realised through the development of venture capital funding, business incubation and technological consulting services.

Pavilion Capital, a subsidiary of Temasek, has backed funds in North Asia and Southeast Asia.

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Image Credit Quest Ventures

 

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Facebook partners with Singapore Tourism Board, Enterprise Singapore to launch training for COVID-19-hit businesses

Facebook Singapore, in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) Marketing College and Enterprise Singapore (ESG), will launch a series of training sessions via webinars to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, pivot their business operations and upskill workers to prepare for recovery.

Also Read: Facebook partners IMDA to launch Facebook Accelerator Singapore, welcoming applications for second edition

The webinars will be targeted at sectors most impacted by the pandemic — travel, hospitality, retail & BTMICE (business travel and meetings, incentive travel, conventions, and exhibitions) Events.

This is also in line with IMDA’s ‘Stay Healthy, Go Digital’ campaign, calling on businesses to embrace digitisation, so that they can continue to run their business online as much as possible, to help flatten the curve of infections.

The first webinar will air on April 30 at 10 AM SGT and will share insights on the impact of COVID-19 in Singapore and APAC, along with an interview of a Singapore-based business on how they’ve adapted to the situation.

Other webinars will include best practices for businesses to stay connected to consumers during this challenging time, dialogues with local businesses on how they pivoted to ensure the proper roll-out of the COVID-19 safe distancing measures, and training on tools across the Facebook platform.

Registration for the various sessions is open here. Facebook also launched a Business Resource Hub offering tools and guidance to help businesses manage and build resilience during the COVID-19 outbreak.

More than 90 startups join hands to fight against COVID-19 in Vietnam

Ninety-three projects and startups are ready to provide technological solutions to help solve problems and assist frontline workers, isolated communities and indirectly affected people.

The School of Biotechnology and Food Technology at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology has created a toolkit to quickly detect nCoV within 70 minutes.

Got It, a technology startup founded by Hung Tran, has introduced a trial version of COVID-19 Check, a service that helps users check the possibility of infection with coronavirus, classified from F0 to F5.

Vulcan Augmetics, a HCM City-based company specialising in 3D printing technology, which is famous for its removable robotic arms to support disable people, now gathers strength to produce anti-virus transparent covers, medical masks, breathing machines and medical equipment.

Digital therapeutics startup Biofourmis acquires Takeda Digital Venture’s Gaudo Health

Biofourmis, a digital therapeutics startup that focusses on personalised predictive care, announced today that it has acquired Gaido Health from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, which expands Biofourmis’ portfolio in the oncology space.

Also Read: Singapore healthtech startup Biofourmis inks deal with Mayo Clinic, raises US$5M Series A

Gaido Health is a Los Angeles-based digital therapeutics company focussed on the oncology market and is a part of Takeda Digital Ventures, Takeda’s corporate technology investment, and incubation arm.

The acquisition seeks to address a disconnected oncology care pathway that has led to more than 30 per cent of patients on chemotherapy being readmitted to the hospital or requiring a visit to the emergency department.

In the US alone, 1.6 million patients are diagnosed with cancer each year, and the total cost of care is expected to rise to US$170 billion in 2020.

Gaido Health’s solution, which will be supported by Biofourmis’s existing Biovitals platform, combines information on vital signs collected via remote monitoring in the home, patient surveys, and analytics to detect early signs of complications in patients with cancer who have been recently discharged from the hospital. Gaido Health’s AI-based algorithms detect signs of complications to inform the clinician, enabling earlier interventions.

The Gaido Health platform also will be combined with Biovitals platform to manage toxicities in patients undergoing CAR T-Cell Therapy, a form of immunotherapy that uses specially altered T cells—a part of the immune system—to fight cancer.

With the acquisition, Gaido Health’s CEO Gary Manning will be joining Biofourmis as senior vice president of corporate development.

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Picture Credit: Quest Ventures

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Vietnamese accelerator ThinkZone announces its latest cohort 

Vietnam’s accelerator ThinkZone has announced five startups that will attend its latest cohort.

As part of the three-month programme, the startups will receive investments and support packages from corporates, including US$50,000 each. Other perks include US$15,000 Wifi & DOOH marketing support from Goldsun Media Group, US$10,000 cloud computing services from Amazon, and US$5,000 TVC marketing support from FPT Play, three months’ workspace at Toong Coworking space, and 2000 credits for recruiting support from TopCV. 

During the programme, ThinkZone will also connect the startups with mentors and successful founders from Silicon Valley.

The 5 startups are –

iSalon: An app for spa scheduling, hair care, hair advice and discounts for customers. It also helps spas optimise the number of customers, analyse customers characteristics and come up with marketing strategies.

Bluecare: An online platform that allows users to schedule healthcare services for babies, postpartum women, the elderly, and family members at the hospital with trained and qualified experts.

Housecare: A platform that allows users to find support for household tasks quickly.

Hachium: An education-based SaaS platform that helps professionals, teachers and schools create an online training system in just 10 minutes with features like student management, curriculum management, interactive communication and exercise assignment.

Airiot: A compact IoT product that applies Big Data to sensor and analyse data of electricity consumption in home appliances

Singaporean P2P lending platform Funding Societies secures US$40M Series C

Funding Societies, a P2P lending platform, has raised US$40 million in a Series C round of funding, says a TechInAsia report.

The round was led by new and existing investors, along with an unnamed bank.

The platform, also known as Modalku in Indonesia, originally intended to utilise the fresh funds in new initiatives, however, due to market uncertainty caused by COVID-19, the original plans have now been scaled down.

Also Read: News Roundup: Facebook, Singapore Tourism Board, Enterprise SG to launch training for COVID-19-affected businesses

“We realised that with COVID-19 on the horizon and with quite a bit of work we have to do to bring [the platform] to profitability, it wasn’t something that we could invest resources on,” Funding Societies’s Co-founder Kelvin Teo said.

Lightspeed raises over US$4B to support early-stage startups

Lightspeed Venture Partners has raised over US$4 billion for its three new funds to support early-stage companies, according to YourStory.

The three funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners XIII, was closed with US$890 million, Lightspeed Venture Partners Select IV with US$1.83 billion, and Lightspeed Opportunity Fund with US$1.5 billion.

“Our global portfolio, which spans China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the US, gives us a view on everything that affects startups, ranging from early regional economic trends to spotting similar opportunities and enterprises seeking new product needs across geographies,” said Ravi Mhatre, Partner at Lightspeed Venture.

Mhatre added the company will support startups and entrepreneurs in its seed, Series A and growth stage.

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Image Credit: ThinkZone

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It seemed only a few short months ago that coworking became one of the hottest trends in the modern commercial world. Entrepreneurs who were looking to start their own businesses were relying on coworking to reduce their costs while long-established corporations were pivoting to coworking arrangements in an effort to rejuvenate their aging business models.

These days, though, coworking is incredibly imperiled by the continued spread of COVID-19, which has made shared workspaces incredibly undesirable for the time being.

Will COVID-19 mean the end of coworking?

Here’s a review of how the coronavirus is putting a strain on the budding coworking industry, and how specific companies are reacting to it. 

Coworking is hurting

There’s really no denying that COVID-19 has been an unmitigated disaster for most of the coworking industry. After all, most “non-essential” businesses have been forced to temporarily shutter their operations.

Others have simply pivoted to remote work models that are effectively the opposite of coworking arrangements in many ways. Certain coworking companies, too, such as WeWork, have been hit hard both financially and in terms of the press coverage, they’re receiving. 

Also Read: How to choose a coworking space for your startup

We can thus conclude that coworking is seriously hurting thus far, but that doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will spell out an end to coworking entirely. After all, every crisis must end sooner or later, or else it’s not a crisis and is instead simply the norm.

COVID-19 will eventually be dealt with, and in the world of tomorrow, coworking may yet flourish again as an attractive and affordable business model. For now, though, times are tough and coworking companies, in particular, are facing serious challenges.

Just take a look at how COVID-19 has helped tarnish the already-damaged reputation of WeWork. People are now writing opinion articles in Bloomberg openly calling for WeWork’s investment partners to walk away from the company due to COVID-19.

They cite the fact that COVID-19 has already sparked massive cultural changes and will likely continue to do so; by arguing that the future will be much less tolerant of things such as handshakes, let alone shared workspaces, critics of WeWork are asserting that now is the time to permanently abandon the company. Chances are, many investors will agree with them.

WeWork is just one company, though, and can’t monopolise the entirety of the coworking industry no matter how hard it tries to do so. Alternative reasons that COVID-19 may not be the end of coworking are still worth entertaining, at least for now. 

Digital workspaces can’t last forever

There are few reasons to believe that the ongoing digitisation and remotisation of our workplaces will last forever. Many people enjoy working from home, after all, but countless others require the social presence of others to remain on-track.

Some things simply can’t be done remotely or with digital assistance, either, and the economy can’t perpetually shut down in its entirety.

Also Read: [In Photos] Coworking space Kolega brings digital startup hub to Tokopedia Tower, launching a new networking spot

This is simply to say that self-isolation and quarantine measures won’t be permanent and that coworking arrangements could yet thrive when the economy re-opens. 

Regardless of whether coworking makes a comeback, we are likely to see an increase in flexible workspace solutions.

This crisis has taught us that commercial flexibility is of the utmost importance, after all, and that being able to roll with the punches is critical if we want a functioning economy that can weather modern shocks like a pandemic in the 21st century.

Coworking thus may not so much die as evolve over the next few months, as coworking companies would be ideally situated to pivot to flexible workspace solutions that fall short of coworking but don’t quite qualify as traditional work arrangements. 

Finally, there’s no real way to determine whether COVID-19 will be the end of coworking or any other industry until additional stimulus packages are considered and passed.

The United States passed a mammoth US$2 trillion spending bill that was the largest in its history as a response to COVID-19, for instance, but that was likely just the start of what’s to come.

Health experts are telling us that COVID-19 will endure for months to come at a minimum, which means billions if not trillions of dollars in additional stimulus spending will be forthcoming. How the coworking industry benefits (or doesn’t) from that money will have a huge say in whether or not it has a post-COVID-19 future.

Also Read: How coworking is reshaping the workforce

While it’s likely too early to predict the ultimate demise of the industry, there’s no denying that the coronavirus has permanently crippled some already-ailing companies such as WeWork.

Other, smaller fish in the industry will find it impossible to secure enough stimulus money to endure. The coworking industry and the related trend of flexible workspaces will endure, however, if only because some individuals will always find it profitable to offer innovative office arrangements to the marketplace.

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Food and agribusiness industry formed a US$5 trillion global industry based on a 2015 McKinsey report.

With the growing population of 7.8 billion as it stands today to the 10 billion projected by the United Nations in 2057, the market size of this industry will only get significantly bigger as demand for food worldwide increases.

This massive opportunity has, in turn, generated tremendous global investment interests throughout its value chain.

Innovation via technology and digitalisation are seen as pragmatic solutions to help address some of the greatest challenges facing the global food system. Food demand is increasing and suppliers are seeking greater distribution and access to the regional or global supply chain.

Customers are asking for food traceability, greater price transparency, as well as faster, round the clock access to information. New digital platforms have emerged in an attempt to address these market needs.

According to AgFunder’s Agri-FoodTech Funding Report 2019, US$786 million of funding – or four per cent of total investment in the agri-foodtech space – across 104 deals with a median deal size of US$1.5 million was invested in agribusiness marketplaces last year as global agribusiness moves quickly to catch up with the e-commerce trends globally.

Also Read: Here are the key challenges facing Indonesia’s agritech sector

Where are the digital agribusiness marketplaces and platforms

Two major organisation profiles emerged when we analysed the existing agribusiness marketplaces and e-commerce platforms.

First are startups, primarily based in emerging markets, seeking to disrupt the industry via digital transformation. They aim to improve and streamline procurement processes, provide greater price transparency, and enable provenance via blockchain technology. Second, are large multinationals or leading regional food service companies such as Cargill, US Foods, Bayer and Nestle.

Agribusiness marketplace startups are gaining the buck

The 2019 AgFunder report reported that the nine out of the top 20 agritech marketplace funding went to Asian startups engaged in marketplace and e-commerce operations – Six Chinese (Xinliangji, Qdama, Yimutian, Dafengshou, Just Free and Guoquan Shihui), two Indian (Ningacart and Agrostar) and one Japanese (Sorabito).

Many of the top 20 invested marketplaces are located in developing countries with a strong agricultural economy.  These agribusiness startups engaged themselves to offer different products and services within the agriculture or foodservice value chain:

• Trading platforms to facilitate sale, leasing and/or rental of agriculture machinery and equipment;
• Farmers-to-farmers or farmers-to-restaurants/retailers networks;
• B2C retail and distribution of food and equipment;
• B2B procurement of wholesale food, grocery and/or equipment marketplaces;
• Direct sales platform for agriculture inputs, machinery and replacement parts;
• Agriculture insurance and/or procurement financing; and
• Crowdfunding or financing for farmers.

Traditional multinational and regional players investing in e-commerce

Multinational or regional agriculture and/or food service players are also investing into e-commerce and marketplace platforms to augment their existing operations and increase their B2B customer offering, although the number is significantly less than those of the agribusiness marketplace startups.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Agritech startup iFarmer in talks to raise US$500K investment

In the US, major players such as Cargill and US Foods have invested in deploying their own agribusiness e-commerce and/or marketplaces last year.

Cargill launched a digital platform called myCargill.com in March 2019 with a pilot group of Cargill’s edible oil customers in the US with the intention of expanding into other food areas, as well as to its global customers and supplier base.

US Foods, a 24 multi-billion dollar distributor, has done significant business through e-commerce with 350,000 SKUs and more than 250,000 customers. It has engaged in online selling for the last 20 years, which was back then prompted by major hotel chains who needed 24/7 access to products ranging from food products and cooking equipment for their hotel and restaurant operations, and subsequently to other restaurant chains and outlets which they service.

Multinational Bayer also launched an agro marketplace called Orbia last year in October, combined with a loyalty programme for farmers called Impulso Bayer. Under the model, a rural producer accumulating points at Impulso Bayer can exchange them for products and services on Orbia.

Although Asia supports the food needs of 60 per cent of the global population with roughly 23 per cent of the world’s agriculture land, it is surprising that we have yet to see many mid- to large-sized Asian-based traditional agriculture organisations investing or launching online agribusiness marketplaces or e-commerce sites.

Most of the new entrants are deployed by Asian-based startups and spread across China, India, Indonesia (iGrow), Vietnam (MimosaTek), Malaysia (Cityfarm), and the Philippines (Cropital), with China and India dominating.

Also Read: Top-funded agritech startups in Indonesia

Where is the next wave of evolution in agribusiness marketplaces?

It is without a doubt that marketplaces will continue to grow in dominance as a business model in various stages within the value chain of the agriculture industry.

So, what are the next wave of trends impacting this marketplace platform technology?

We believe there are at least four areas where we expect increasing focus, investments and deployments:

B2B user expectations are moulded to those of B2C

There is a great upside to being one of the slower market sectors to embark on B2B marketplaces. At least 80 per cent of B2B buyers are not only looking for but expect a buying experience like that of a B2C customer.

Given many B2B buyers are interacting with B2C marketplaces in their day-to-day private lives, we will expect the B2B customer demand for user experience to grow more similar to those of B2C with every day passing.

Omnichannel communication and a personalisation experience to deliver a convenience and seamless purchasing process seem will gradually become an essential differentiator to acquire new customers and drive customer retention and loyalty.

Increasing adoption of blockchain agriculture

Blockchain agriculture is predicted to grow in importance as food quality is fast becoming an issue of concern globally. Imagine the journey our food takes after it leaves the farm as it passes through numerous hands and processes before getting onto the dinner table.

Also Read: Meet the 15 startups competing for SustainableAg Asia Challenge by Rabobank

Through blockchain technology, we will be able to attain both provenance and traceability from food source to destination via one single source of the truth. This empowers all buyers to have greater supply chain transparency and increase consumer trust in the food purchased.

Foodshed and Agrimp are two examples of blockchain-enabled agribusiness platforms. Foodshed uses blockchain technology to create transparency supply chain, reduce supply chain inefficiencies by connecting local sustainable and independent producers to local wholesale markets, restaurants and grocery stores on via its mobile marketing and logistics app.

Agrimp is a B2B cloud-based digital marketplace for transactions of food crops with complementary services including logistics, quality inspections, secure payments, and legal support. Agrimp has introduced blockchain technology to improve food traceability and sustainability, and insurance coverage for all the major risks known in the agri-business.

Despite blockchain’s apparent benefits, it will take some time for the blockchain technology to be truly affordable and scalable, especially for adoption in the developing countries where agribusiness is significant to the overall economy.

Expansion of complementary ecosystem products and services to agribusiness marketplaces

Today, most agribusiness marketplaces started off being relatively specialised in their value proposition to address specific pain points within the food chain. As they scale, they can’t rely on being a niche player.

Ecosystem partnerships become a critical competitive advantage with partners providing augmentative products and services to the different users within the agribusiness marketplace.

Also Read: Indonesia’s agritech industry is at an inflection point

The large captive user base of a successful marketplace offers massive opportunities for monetisation with limited marketing investments.

Continuing investments in online marketplaces with future consolidation

The development of agribusiness marketplaces is still in its infancy stage compared to other industry sectors (e.g. retail, consumer goods and industrial) which has been affected and reshaped by marketplace technology advancements.

We will see a greater number of new startups being founded and investment funding poured into promising startups as they address technology and supply chain inefficiencies along the food chain.

Future acquisitions are also likely to occur as larger-sized traditional agriculture organisations take an increased interest in these online agribusiness marketplaces and leverage acquisitions to gain faster market entry vs. building their own in-house digital platforms.

However, we do not foresee such consolidation efforts in the immediate two years as the general conservative nature of these businesses will more likely trigger a monitoring behaviour to identify the optimal acquisition candidates for the right time, right place purchase further into the future.

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These are not unprecedented times. There is a list of cases where change, or something unexpected, has put many companies out of business and made other companies come out stronger and reinvent themselves.

The invention of the internet has put many companies out of business, the ones who could not reinvent their companies for the internet age but rather double-down on their old way of doing business, closed down.

Every video store is already out of business not because of Netflix but because they chose not to reinvent themselves.

Social media platforms such as Facebook put newspaper companies out of business. Not because of Facebook, but because the newspaper companies refused to change the way they did business. Uber and Grab put taxi companies out of business, not because of Uber and Grab but because taxi companies refuse to change.

This is not unprecedented. This is more sudden, more shocking, but not unprecedented in the business world.

This is not the time to ask ourselves what we should be doing, but rather, what should we be doing in a different world.

There was a time in my life when like you, I thought that the best thing to do to provide for my family was to get a good education, get a well-paying job, and work in a beautiful office. I worked in a bank, in a comfortable 9-5 job, and made no effort to change my life.

Also Read: e27 COVID-19 support: Discounts/ freebies from 5 remote-working enablers

A few years later, I caught the entrepreneurial bug and started my first business venture, thinking that I was going to do things differently. I thought I was going to change my life.

Little did I know that I wasn’t being different after all. I designed my own business to be very traditional, where everyone had to come to an office to work, and our sales process involves getting that face-to-face meeting with a prospect.

I thought I changed my world but I did not, I simply doubled-down on the old way of working, the old way of doing business, and exposed myself more to the risk of a changing world.

Fast forward to 2020, the year of the Coronavirus. Governments are pulling out all stops to prevent the world from burning down. Businesses are closing everyday, and people are losing their jobs every hour.

This was what happened to the companies who did not reinvent themselves for the internet age, to video stores, to traditional newspaper companies. But same as before, there are also companies that have now come out stronger because they reinvented themselves a long time ago.

These are mostly companies that already had a strong remote work culture before the pandemic hit. Companies such as Amazon, Etsy, Adobe, and Zoom. Those companies are still aggressively looking for the right talents, and that could be you, sitting on your desk, at home.

There are still lots of opportunities to find well-paying jobs, that allow you to have the perfect work-life balance. This pandemic has presented you with the opportunity to take back control of your time, take back control of your life, take back control of your finances.

Also Read: Why a learning-integrated life is important amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

Stay in Singapore, but work globally.

Value yourself and your time

When working remotely, you take control of your own worth. Your employers have to evaluate you by your actual productivity, instead of judging who sits longest at their desk as in traditional work.

This means that you won’t have to be dragged into a meaningless and unfair competition to appear productive. Instead, you will start being valued and respected for the actual work you contribute. 

Remote work also allows you to take control of your schedule. Because now you are truly judged by your productivity, you can actually complete small tasks during those 10-15mins dead spaces before a call, such as getting up to stretch without being seen as a total slacker.

Stuck in a long meeting you need not be part of? Simply mute your microphone and continue to work. Stop subsidising your employer’s bad practices with your personal time. 

Take charge of your finances

Practically speaking, remote work also lets you take control of your finances. Think of all the money you have spent on commuting to work, on that exorbitant lunch, and on childcare for your children while you’re at work.

Remote work puts decisions back in your hand, as you need not be strung along by external circumstances. More important than saving, it also allows you to plan your day such that you can take more than 1 job at a time. 

The world is different now, and it has become more challenging to stay afloat let alone thrive. I am not encouraging you to fix what’s not working. I’m encouraging you to completely replace what’s not working with something better.

And you don’t have to do it alone. It’s easier to do it together with a group of like-minded people who seek to help each other in this moment of drastic change.

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Temasek-backed Reefknot Investments co-leads UK startup Previse’s US$11M funding round

Previse, an Artificial Intelligence- and data science-powered fintech platform in the UK, has announced a US$11 million fundraise, led by Reefknot Investments (a JV between Temasek and Europe’s Kuehne + Nagel ) and Mastercard.

Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Hambro Perks, and Augmentum Fintech, also joined the round.

Previse’s current funding round will support its growth, as the business rolls out its instant payment technology, InstantPay, to more large corporate buyers all over the world.

Reefknot specialises in investment in and support to transformative logistics and supply chain technology startups globally.

Previse’s AI analyses the data of the corporate buyer to detect the very few invoices that need manual intervention, so that the rest are paid instantly. As a result, the traditional methods that often take months no longer damage the SME suppliers’ cash flow and help them expand opportunities for investment and growth.

Previse is part of Mastercard’s Start Path programme, and Mastercard has used the company’s InstantPay with a select group of its own suppliers as part of an ongoing effort to make B2B commerce more efficient and sustainable.

Agrome IQ kicks off Brunei’s farmers-dedicated online marketplace

Agrome IQ, a mobile-based farming management platform, has launched its first online marketplace for farmers in Brunei.

Agrome IQ seeks to help farmers better market their products during the COVID-19 outbreak with plans to onboard 1,500 local farmers in 12 months.

Also Read: Bruneian agritech startup secures pre-Series A funding from Cerana Capital

Agrome IQ founder Vanessa Teo explained that the Agrome mobile can be used by farmers for record-keeping and to sell directly to customers. The data from purchases made will also help gauge customer demand, and will be shared with farmers to help them better plan which crops to plant in the future.

“What we’re looking to do with Agrome Market is to help optimise the supply chain for farmers who are struggling to market their produce. Right now several markets (Belait and Tutong) have closed, while other markets have lower than usual foot traffic (due to the pandemic),” she said.

According to report by Biz Brunei, Agrome IQ plans to do physical checks on the products to ensure customers receive quality items and handling logistics for the farmers, picking up and packing orders and making deliveries nationwide.

Farmers are charged a commission fee between 8 per cent and 10 per cent with waived registration fees during the COVID-19 outbreak.

India-based healthtech startup Plunes gets US$300K pre-Series A funding from undisclosed investors

Plunes Technologie, a healhtech platform based in Gurugram that focusses on aggregating doctors and healthcare service providers, has raised US$300,000 in a pre-Series A funding round from investors based in Europe and West Asia, according to an article by VC Circle.

In its seed funding round in August, Plunes raised US$120,000 from angel investors, including Samuel Kurian and Srinivas Sridharan, who are high-net-worth individual investors based in the United Arab Emirates.

Plunes’s platform helps users in making appointments and arranging online consultations with more than 1,000 doctors and 300 medical facilities on its platform. The company has also tied up with diagnostics chain Metropolis Healthcare Ltd to book tests for coronavirus, founder Chander Verma said.

Hong Kong’s AsiaPay to support fintech startups selected into Plug and Play Singapore Fintech programme

Plug and Play, a global innovation platform, and AsiaPay, a regional digital payment service and solution provider, have announced a new partnership to assist AsiaPay in working closely with innovative startups through Plug and Play’s Singapore Fintech programme.

The primary focus will be startups with innovative solutions to enhance the quality of the financial services and e-commerce industries.

Through the partnership in Singapore, AsiaPay seeks to specifically pilot innovation projects throughout their Southeast Asia businesses by joining Plug and Play for their fourth batch of the fintech accelerator program, which together with their insurtech program is currently accelerating 23 startups from across the world in a three-month program that started last week.

Also Read: New developments in fintech are hitting Southeast Asia in waves

Joseph Chan, CEO of AsiaPay, has announced the company’s pilot venture program in late 2019 that aims to incubate startups and accelerate them regionally.

AsiaPay is a digital payment gateway company, currently operating in over 15 countries in APAC and Europe.

Plug and Play currently runs five accelerator programmes focussed on insurtech, fintech, travel, sustainability, with future plans to launch a regional health platform.

Singapore-based construction tech startup Novade closes Series B funding led by SIG, Vulcan Capital

Singapore’s construction tech startup Novade has closed its Series B funding, led by SIG and Vulcan Capital. Joining the round are existing backer Wavemaker Partners and Enterprise Singapore.

According to The Business Times, the company plans to use the funding to accelerate its global expansion and market penetration in Europe, China, and Japan, as well as to increase investments in its technology and artificial intelligence capabilities.

SIG is a global quantitative trading and investment firm headquartered in Pennsylvania in the US. Vulcan Capital is the US-based investment house of late Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen.

Founded in 2014, Singapore-headquartered Novade’s service focusses on smart field management software for the building and construction industry. It digitises and automates critical site processes including quality controls, safety inspections, and equipment maintenance.
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Image Credit: Reefknot

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