FoodRazor raises US$900K led by Cocoon Capital, aims to create a smart ecosystem

FoodRazor​, the invoice management platform based in Singapore, announced that it has raised a US$900,000 seed financing round led by early-stage venture capital firm Cocoon Capital alongside Found.Ventures and angel investors.

Niles Toh, CEO, and Founder of FoodRazor, said that the company will use the fund to support FoodRazor’s expansion into new markets and to support other invoice-heavy industries such as accounting, manufacturing, and logistics.

FoodRazor offers an end-to-end online platform that seeks to address the pain point of F&B operators by saving time on menial data entry tasks and helping make smarter purchase decisions. It digitises the entire invoice management process as well as provides restaurants with actionable insights, price analytics, and streamlining of the accounting workflow by scanning and extracting information from paper receipts and imports each line item to leading accounting software packages.

Global companies, law firms launch an open industry platform for lawyers

A group of law firms and corporations have come together to support the development of Lupl, the open industry platform for legal matters. The venture is a result of more than 12 months of work with in-house and private practice lawyers and industry experts to “solve shared frustrations relating to the handling of legal matters”.

Lupl has been formed as an independent corporation to develop, own, and operate the open industry technology platform. It is currently incubated through its development by a trio of international law firms, CMS, Cooley, and Rajah & Tann Asia, working with input from an advisory board of 16 in-house lawyers from blue-chip multinationals to the world’s fastest-growing tech companies.

Also Read: Cocoon Capital announces US$22M second fund to invest in enterprise tech startups

The goal of Lupl is to synchronise everything that goes into a legal matter – including people, documents, information, communications, and technology applications – in a single secure space, empowering lawyers and legal departments to work together on complex, high-stakes legal matters in a better and more efficient way. An open approach means any legal department and the law firm will be able to use Lupl, and any technology provider will be able to integrate with it via open APIs.

Entrepreneur First launches the Amplifier Network talent affiliate programme, strengthening access to deep tech talent

Entrepreneur First (EF), the talent investor, has revealed its first line up of nine EF Amplifiers, as part of the Amplifier Network – its new and exclusive talent affiliate and advisor programme.

The Amplifier Network is designed to leverage synergies amongst key players in Singapore’s deep tech ecosystem by providing a structured platform for established industry professionals to refer talent to the EF programme. At the same time, it also aims to drive deeper connections and sparking collaboration within the global community.

The pioneer batch of EF Amplifiers consists of key individuals who have been significant to EF Singapore’s growth since its inception four years ago, which is a mix of business and public sector leaders, academics, investors, startup founders and advocates across the deep tech community, armed with global networks covering Asia, North America, and the UK.

Promising deep-tech entrepreneurs referred by EF’s Amplifiers will be granted priority access to interviews with the EF admissions team for consideration for the next cohort. EF Amplifiers will also be invited to participate in community programmes such as panel discussions, webinars, as well as regular community and cohort.

The EF Amplifiers will be participating in the Launch programme of EF Singapore’s seventh cohort, as well as in the preparation for the upcoming eight cohort in August.

Vietnam’s HR tech startup BravoHR secures seed funding from tech startup accelerator Zone Startups Vietnam

Zone Startups Vietnam, tech startup accelerator has invested seed funding in HR tech startup BravoHR, with the participation of former Google, Alibaba, and BCG executives-owned VC firm 1005 Ventures.

Also Read: E-commerce wars in Vietnam intensify. Here is all you need to know

According to DealStreetAsia, BravoHR was launched in August 2018 to provide digital solutions for staffing, employee benefits. and rewards.

Involved in the round is 1005 Ventures, the investment fund founded by former executives of Google, Alibaba, and BCG to support startups, especially in the fields of transportation, medical, and human resource management

Three Vietnamese tech startups receive funding from Viet Valley Ventures

Viet Valley Ventures, a Vietnam-based venture capital firm, has invested in three tech startups: mobile recruitment platform JobsGo, software solutions startup WindSoft, and marketing tech startup for e-commerce setup EcomEasy.

Viet Valley Ventures is a newly-established homegrown venture capital firm that was founded in 2019 by senior tech executives working in Silicon Valley. According to DealStreetAsia, it is seeking to invest US$200,000-US$500,000 in five startups each year in Vietnam.
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Image Credit: KOBU Agency on Unsplash

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But first, let’s address the elephant in the room and get it out of the way. Not all corporate-startup relationships work. According to a report published by 500 startups, the vast majority of corporates see less than 25% of their initial pilots with startups scale into solutions that can be taken to the market.

So why are we still talking about corporate-startup collaboration? Oh yes, the other 75% narrative. Corporates today recognise this need to work with startups to enable innovations, propelling them to step up their startup collaboration initiatives. 

In fact, the number of corporate investments in startups has nearly tripled in volume from 980 in 2013 to 2,795 in 2018, increasing over 9 times in value from $19 billion to $180 billion based on a study by GVC Analytics, a company that tracks corporate venture deals.

To quote Jerry Maguire, ‘you complete me’

The value of such collaboration to both parties is clear. Corporates bring the networks and resources to enable the startup to reach scale at a reasonably early stage. On the other hand, startups provide corporates with ideas, technologies, or solutions that they can quickly test and bring to the market. They are also viewed as beacons of creativity and innovation.

Yet, only a handful of startups will thrive and ultimately disrupt the entire industry. This is why corporate-startup collaborations mesh beautifully with the sequence.

So if corporations learn the steps well — set clear objectives and identify their capabilities and process of working with startups — there’s a higher chance they’ll finish the business dance with an encore.

Corporates looking to advance their innovation agenda through collaboration with startups possess these common objectives:

First objective: to solve immediate problems and priorities faced by internal BU stakeholders

Innovation champions within large corporates realise that in order to build organisational support for their programmes, they must build organisational support which sets up the foundation for more ambitious innovation initiatives or moonshot projects down the road. This is why innovation teams are now looking into startups as an alternative to traditional solutions suppliers and various corporates.

Not only do startups have the agility to test ideas fast, but they may also bring a new perspective of attacking the problems that hurt the business unit stakeholders — whether in terms of increasing revenues, or of decreasing expenses, or even of both.

To produce tangible results and early wins, the corporate innovation team needs to carefully choose startups with a strong execution track record, and ensure the readiness of stakeholders to support initial pilots and integrate startups by understanding their stakeholder priorities. On top of this, they may need to rethink the lengthy onboarding or procurement process that works for larger or traditional ventures and streamline them to make them more apt for startups.

Second objective: to explore and develop use cases for proprietary assets and technologies

It is not only funding that startups look for when working with established corporates. Corporates, for example, are often sitting on tons of underutilised data which startups lack access to and through which they can quickly turn into insights, business models, or products. 

For instance, we’ve seen opportunities for corporates to leverage our corporate-innovation programme to find best-in-class startups that can use corporate’s newly developed technologies to produce success stories that will hopefully drive future adoption leading to new business lines and revenue streams for the company.

Third objective: to explore sustainable technology solutions and accelerate the adoption of ESG principles

Doing good is doing good business. Large corporations today are beginning to integrate sustainable and circular practices into their tactical operations. And with more and more everyday consumers requiring their brands to adhere to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures, big corporations are stepping up their efforts to find innovations that will lead to:

• greater corporate transparency through automation of monitoring and reporting of impact
• more efficient use of resources and reduction of wastes and carbon emission
• alternative materials to plastics for packaging
• improved access to knowledge and financial inclusion of smallholder producers

Fourth objective: to develop investment opportunities or deal flow

Large corporations are turning to startups for cutting-edge technologies with the potential to disrupt their current businesses and provide a competitive advantage in the next 5 to 10 years. For these types of innovations that require a longer-term horizon and are non-incremental in nature, corporates are looking at startups across different stages for potential deal flow or investments. 

The good news? We are looking for corporates to be part of the innovation dance

We’ve discovered startups whose tech innovations present potential tech solutions for your business.

Our great strength as a company is our large network of relevant startups in the region and we think this can be of immense value to regional corporations, wherever they are in their innovation roadmap. Also through our regional reach, we are able to find and connect corporations to the startups most relevant to their innovation objectives.

If you’re interested in this initiative and would like to fast-track your corporate innovation and business transformation through co-creation of solutions, let us know by filling out this form.

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Dustin Masancay, who handles e27’s corporate innovation & ecosystem building, co-wrote this article.

The post The corporate-startup tango and why it continues to be relevant appeared first on e27.

Pintek raises seed capital from Accion Venture to improve quality of education in Indonesia

Pintek, a fintech platform in Indonesia, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Accion Venture Lab to improve the quality of education in the country, according to a press statement.

The new capital will be utilised to enhance Pintek’s platform to meet the needs of underserved students and schools during COVID-19.

“There is a clear need for educational financing in Indonesia, and Pintek’s unique model, strong leadership team, and promising growth potential make them the ideal partner to address that need,” said Vikas Raj, Managing Director of Accion Venture Lab.

“We also want to assure parents and the wider education community that Pintek is here and always ready to assist any financial needs for education,” added Ioann Fainsilber, Co-founder of Pintek.

Founded in March 2018, Pintek aims to democratise access to education in Indonesia through affordable and flexible credit.

RedDoorz launches mental health support programme

Online hotel management and booking platform, RedDoorz, announced today the launch of its mental health initiative called “Hope Hotline” to provide support to the mental wellbeing of its employees, hotel partners and staff via online counselling sessions.

It has united with counsellors and psychologists across the region to conduct free counselling sessions remotely through online platforms for all RedDoorz employees and its hotel partners’ staff.

Also Read: News Roundup: FoodRazor snags US$900K seed funding led by Cocoon Capital

As part of the initiative, RedDoorz is also conducting a webinar with a panel of certified counsellors and psychologists for individuals working in the travel and hospitality sector to offer them psychological support.

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Image Credit: Pintek

 

 

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• What are investors looking for in startups?

Klippgen and Blakey emphasised that it is the quality of the founding team more than anything else. The model and product will always change but how founders approach VCs tells a lot about them.

In addition, they look if the market is big enough and look for the quality and originality of the product to see if the idea is sound enough as a potential customer before investing.

Blakey said he rarely looks at pitch presentations. If a founder takes the effort to get an introduction, a reference, etc. improves their chances of success. How to approach a VC is a critical thing and if a founder takes effort to do that well, half the battle is won.

• Is there anything positive about this crisis?

Klippgen reiterated that startups should be able to solve a problem cheaper and faster. So a recession or any kind of financial problem (like this crisis) is, in fact, an opportunity. With the added layer of social distancing, this crisis will force everyone to move online and come up with more efficient business models.

Most brands become more successful after a crisis, they said. Since fundraising is tighter and money is difficult to raise, founders value it a lot more and use it more effectively.

• What about expansion and overseas markets?

SEA or APAC is not the worst-hit markets, so the general advice is to capture your home market first. It is probably wiser to wait till mid-2021 to make a push to be global. And be open-minded about where to go as you depending on where you gain traction.

• What kind of startups is Cocoon looking for?

At Cocoon, they are focussed on great teams. “We are not so much after the sector. Very rarely startups have the right product-market fit,” said Blakey. They are looking majorly at logistics, fintech, health tech, deep tech, and medtech.

• How should VCs manage their portfolios?

For a VC, communication is crucial. Essentially saying what they require and what they are willing to offer. Don’t over promise what you are going to deliver as a VC. Founders get very frustrated sometimes as the connections promised may not come through. They want to know exactly what they are getting when it comes to working with VCs.

• Are we going to see more M&A now?

Cross-border M&A will likely go down. Companies are dealing with local issues and need to reserve capital for running the business. But in-country or in-region M&As may take on a different form, said Klippgen, although not too popular. He also noted that M&A activities are relatively still low in SEA.

• Is it better for startups to hibernate right now?

In a crisis, companies will raise fewer funds although they should raise more. Basically, they have to save and develop more slowly. We generally ask companies to raise for 18 months but now we think it’s good to buffer for 24 months.

Don’t go completely into hibernation, find innovative ways to manage cash flow. Eg: one startup is renting its tech team to another one to continue their payroll.

“We have advised our portfolio firms to survive until Q2 2021. If there is no way to do, you may hibernate for a bit. The main objective is to not run out of cash. If you are a smaller team, this is a good time to compensate key people with equity.”

Use this time to raise small amounts of money if you can identify interesting pivots or opportunities. And try not to seek shelter in VCs to extend your runway, those requests will most likely be turned down.

Quote of the day

Failure and entrepreneurship are strongly interlinked.

– Michael Blakey

Food for thought

• For a company that focuses on events and travel experiences, what is the way forward?
• How would the monetary and fiscal policy changes affect the risk appetite for the investors?

Resource

Watch the full recording below.

Stay tuned for their thoughts on several other interesting questions raised in the webinar.

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e27 Pro membership will further empower you with insights, tools, and opportunities that help you solve the problems that hold you back. Begin your company’s journey to success here.

The post In conversation with Will Klippgen and Michael Blakey of Cocoon Capital appeared first on e27.

 

More than half of the Singaporean consumers make big decisions based on emotions, experiences and intuition, in comparison to factual data and technology, according to new research from Qlik conducted by YouGov.

Yet, this is not the case for smaller decisions.

For minor decisions such as picking the fastest route to a destination (81 per cent), booking a movie ticket (67 per cent) or generating a travel itinerary for the next vacation (55 per cent), consumers tend to place more trust on technology possibly because these decisions aid convenience and do not have a significant impact on one’s life.

So naturally, for major decisions that involved dating life or choosing the right career path, people trusted humans more than robots.

There has been a surge of mobile fitness apps, in recent times, many of them utilising “virtual nutritionists and fitness coaches” to help other people work out effectively.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

But according to the report, more than half of the individuals would instead rely on humans than mobile applications.

Concerns about data and privacy

Qlik’s data comes alongside another report that indicates the growing concern for privacy issues.

About 51 per cent of Generation Zs said that they were warier about how online companies were handling their data.

This number is comparatively higher compared to Millennials (42 per cent) and Generation X (48 per cent), but lower than Baby Boomers (56 per cent).

Suganthi Shivkumar, Managing Director of ASEAN, Qlik, matches this behaviour to the easy access of internet experienced by Generation Zs from an early age.

Unlike Millennials, this generation has received the full benefits of technology early on, causing them to be “less charmed by the novelty and make them warier of its potential consequences”.

“Each generation relies on and trusts data and technology more than the previous one,” she said.

“Surprisingly, Generation Z bucks this trend, putting them more in line with older Baby Boomers. This could be a sign of tech fatigue or a more pessimistic view towards technology in general. Generation Zs are digital natives, meaning they’ve been raised with computers and on the internet. More experience with digital connectivity could make them less charmed by the novelty and warier of its potential consequences.”

However, if trust issues can be resolved, data and technology can have a much more significant impact on consumers’ lives.

Qlik’s report also found that in the next five years, almost half (48 per cent) would allow integrated body sensors to measure their vitals and inform their doctor about any abnormalities.

Also Read: Dathena closes US$12M Series A led by Jungle Ventures to protect businesses from cyber attacks

More than a third (35 per cent) would permit an app to limit or prioritise spending based on their savings plan, while just under a third (30 per cent) would allow data and technology to secure their next job.

“Only when companies start to remove the ‘black box approach to AI’ and show consumers what data is collected and how it is used to make recommendations, will they trust data more when making higher-impact decisions,” concluded Shivkumar.

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Image Credit: Mathieu Bigard

 

 

 

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