Founded by ex-Google and Splunk executives, Indonesian data management startup Delman has secured US$1.6 million in a seed funding round led by Indonesia-focussed VC firm Intudo Ventures, according to a press statement.

Other backers who participated in the round include early stage tech startup investor Prasetia Dwidharma Ventures and smart cities company Qlue Performa Indonesia.

The company has said that will use the newly raised capital to establish an R&D centre in Surabaya and make fresh hires, specifically earmarking Indonesians who are currently working as data scientists in Silicon Valley.

Delman is a big data management and analytics, providing startup that leverages in-house developed solutions to simplify, validate, and automate the data management process to help businesses make more accurate business insights.

According to the co-founder of the company, Surya Halim, an average company in Indonesia sends 70 per cent of its time and around US$200,000 on cleaning enterprise data. This creates inefficiency in both cost and process.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Data management company Cohesity raises US$250M in Series E funding led by DFJ Growth, others

“The most typical data quality-related issues in Indonesia have been related to unstructured or unmatched data, either traditionally managed or handled by inexperienced teams,” Halim added.

The two-year-old startup claimed to be able to expedite data integration and management from multiple sources up to 30 times faster, using artificial intelligence and machine learning for data cleansing and warehousing.

Its backer believes that big data solutions us still a growing market in Indonesia and is yet to be taken to the next level.

Qlue founder Rama Raditya said that in the middle of the pandemic, the company actively invests in startups with great potentials such as Delman.

“As the market for big data in Indonesia continues to grow, the demand for big data solutions is shifting to local providers who better understand Indonesia’s unique circumstances,” he said.

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Image Credit: Arga Aditya

 

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LongHash Ventures, a global blockchain accelerator and venture capital fund headquartered in Singapore, has officially announced the launch of its fourth batch of startups under LongHash Hatch, an accelerator programme designed for blockchain startups.

LongHash Hatch is a 12-week programme that includes modules in strategy formulation, go-to-market execution, and subject matter guidance across technology, marketing, and fundraising.

Some of the industry leaders who will be participating in the programme include Fenbushi Capital, HashKey Capital, Kenetic Capital, and Dragonfly Capital, with Ethereum Foundation, Maker, Synthetix, and InstaDApp.

The accelerator has raised over US$16 million in funding for its portfolio to date, with projects including AID: Tech, AlphaWallet, Keyless and Xanpool.

“The growth of the blockchain ecosystem needs to be an undertaking that is both directed and purposeful. LongHash Ventures has demonstrated its unparalleled sourcing network and hands-on venture building capability in the past two years,” said Deng Chao, Managing Director at HashKey Capital.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

Here are the seven startups in the programme:

CredMark
A digital asset credit bureau that equips financial institutions with non-traditional credit data based on blockchain financial history and private data

Hashtacs
A white-label solutions platform which helps financial institutions with efficient records consolidation and easier transactions via blockchain

Pravica
An email and communications software which provides privacy and security blockchain,  also enables payments via email

Puma Browser
A mobile browser which is private by default, and able to stream micropayments to websites via blockchain

StaTwig
A SaaS startup for efficient tracking of vaccines and food supply chain using blockchain and IoT

Viewbase
A blockchain analytics platform for cryptocurrency traders, with data models including Exchange Deposit Tracker, Inflation Tracker, and Crypto Sector Indices

Xend
An African end-to-end merchant solution including inventory management, payments and business intelligence

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As an entrepreneur and angel investor, I have invested in more than 24 companies, including PropertyGuru, Tickled Media, and ReferralCandy. Today, I am the Managing Partner and co-founder of Cocoon Capital.

Thank you to all those who attended this month’s AMA with e27 and Cocoon Capital. Due to time constraints, we were not able to address all the questions. Here are my views on the additional questions asked during the webinar:

What are the requirements and criteria for companies to prove their worth and business investment attractiveness further, especially in this current era?

The most important criterion is still the strength of the founding team. Where cash is now king, founders should ensure that the expectations of what they are able to raise, and at what valuations are aligned with the current market. 

Additionally, a clearly identified problem, a well-defined go-to-market strategy, and a big enough market opportunity are three areas that are clearly required. Furthermore, if founders have shown flexibility in onboarding clients to build up their future pipeline and revenue potential, it would make them stand out. 

What trends will we see with VCs saving dry capital for existing portfolio companies and struggling with capital calls from LPs, and corporations cutting down on cash outflow?

We see four key trends: Firstly, investment rounds are becoming smaller as VCs reserve funds for their current portfolio companies. Secondly, we believe deals will take longer to complete due to the inability to travel and meet founders. Lower risk appetite will also result in longer due-diligence processes.

Also Read: Meet the VC: Philippines’s Kickstart Ventures on becoming the country’s gatekeeper for startup ecosystem scale-up

Thirdly, we see a fall in valuations across the board. Lastly, we believe investors will put a higher emphasis on reaching profitability within a defined time frame. Previously, startups could raise money to buy the market share for the future, but we think investors will be much more focused on the present and how to create positive cash flow.

Singapore is such a small market. Is it viable to conquer the home market first to prove your company before you expand regionally and globally?

For most businesses, it would make sense to prove product-market-fit in their own markets first and expand to other markets after based on where the best opportunities lie, whether regional or global. As Singapore is a developed market, the next logical market is often on the global level, rather than regional. 

For companies that focus on events and travel experiences (which is pretty much non-existent now), how will you advise them in this period? Pivot out of their core, double down for the future, or maybe to hibernate?

Instead of focusing on revenue generation, think about where your sector will be in the next few months. When businesses and countries begin to open up again it will be a new world. Identify core problems to solve and keep building your product to match your vision of how that new world will look. 

We typically advise companies against hibernation as it will be difficult to regain any traction or rebuild the team. However, if that is the only option due to the lack of funds, then companies may go into hibernation.

While stressful, founders can also possibly take on other jobs to make sure their business can keep running and pay salaries to key staff.

Also Read: In conversation with Will Klippgen and Michael Blakey of Cocoon Capital

We expect this crisis to move into one of the worst recessions the world has experienced. How would the monetary and fiscal policy changes affect the risk appetite for the investors?

As long as there is uncertainty in the market, investors will take a more cautious approach to invest, bringing us back to our point around longer due diligence processes and smaller rounds.

Many large venture capital funds have closed billions of dollars over the last few years meaning there is still ample capital to deploy. But they will be more selective and take longer to do deals. Also do note that most of the capital is tied up in Series A and later stage funds.

What are the three most common denominators between the companies you have already invested in?

They are all mostly B2B, tech-enabled companies that are able to scale regionally or globally in markets where they have a good chance to build significant barriers to entry.

How would you assess early-stage startups now at this juncture given the pandemic and the budget worries?

We will assess startups the same way we normally do. We would, however, place more emphasis on capital conservation and prudence in spending. We are spending more time on doing due diligence on each investment and we need to see that 

What are the requirements for companies to apply for funding with Cocoon Capital?

We welcome all seed-stage, enterprise and deep tech companies to apply to Cocoon Capital for investment. Companies may apply for funding at cocooncap.com/apply. 

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

Is there a singular most important trait that Cocoon is looking for when hiring new team members for the fund?

Not really, but we require a passion for entrepreneurship and for solving meaningful problems.

Is there an age limit on founders/co-founders applying for investment with Cocoon Capital?

None. We are open to all ages, and we are also actively encouraging women to apply to us. We also encourage founders to create both age and gender diversity in their teams!

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The post Preparing for the future in a fireside chat with Cocoon Capital co-founder appeared first on e27.

In May, we noted 28 early stage funding announcements made by startups in the Southeast Asia startup ecosystem.

One of the notable trends during the month is investments into big data, which was prevalent in markets such as Indonesia. Throughout the years, the market is known to attract more investments in the fintech and e-commerce sectors, but investments into Delman and Bonza indicate the wide variety of verticals operating in the market.

These funding rounds also saw the participation of fellow startups such as Qlue, in addition to angel investors and VC firms.

Vietnam also continued to attract investors’ attention with at least six early stage investments announced in May.

But perhaps the most interesting one is the investment into Bobobox, which happened at the peak of a pandemic that has threatened the travel and tourism industries.

GudangAda

Funding: US$25.4M in Series A
Investor(s): Sequoia India, Alpha JWC, Wavemaker Partners

This round brings the company’s total fundraising to date to US$36 million.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Tigerhall, Growthwell Group raise funding rounds

FoodHub

Funding: “Hundreds of thousands in US Dollar” Seed
Investor(s): MP Solution

The funds will be used to scale FoodHub’s business with a focus on Vietnam’s Northern market and to further promote its supply chain growth.

JobHopin

Funding: US$2.45M in Series A
Investor(s): SEMA Translink, KK Fund, Mynavi Corporation, NKC Asia, Canaan Capital, angel investors

JobHopin has previously raised US$710,000, which brings its total fundraise to over US$3 million since inception.

Klikdaily

Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): Global Founders Capital

The fresh funds will be used by Klikdaily to focus on developing technology and infrastructure “to expedite its mission to empower the development of mom n pop stores across the country”.

Entropica Labs

Funding: US$1.8M in Seed
Investor(s): SGInnovate, Wavemaker Partners, TIS Inc, Entrepreneur First, Lim Teck Lee Group, V1 Capital, Rigetti Computing

Entropica plans to use the funding to expand its technical team and continue the development of its proprietary software architectures as well as gaining greater access to a growing number of quantum computing systems.

Flow (AsiaCollect)

Funding: US$6M in Series A
Investor(s): DEG, Dymon Asia Ventures, SIG Asia, SCB10X

The company said that it will use the capital for expansion as well as acquire loan portfolios.

IUIGA

Funding: US$10M in Series A
Investor(s): Konimex Technologies

The fresh money will be invested across IUIGA’s Singaporean and Indonesian operations, with Indonesia being the key focus for 2020.

Also Read: Roundup: ShuttleOne raises US$500K seed funding round led by Sirius Venture

Dathena

Funding: US$12M in Series A
Investor(s): Jungle Ventures, Caphorn, SEEDS Capital

Dathena will use the capital for R&D and hire staff across sales, marketing, and customer success functions in New York City.

FoodRazor

Funding: US$900K in Seed
Investor(s): Cocoon Capital, Found.Ventures, 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.

BravoHR

Funding: Undisclosed in Seed
Investor(s): Zone Startups Vietnam, 1005 Ventures

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.

JobsGo, WindSoft, EcomEasy

Funding: US$200,000-500,000 in Seed
Investor(s): Viet Valley Ventures

Viet Valley Ventures is a newly-established homegrown venture capital firm that was founded in 2019 by senior tech executives working in Silicon Valley. The three investments were announced on the same occasion.

Pintek

Funding: Undisclosed Seed
Investor(s): Accion Venture Lab

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

LeadIQ

Funding: US$10M in Series A
Investor(s): Eight Roads Ventures, Tim Draper, LAUNCH Fund

The fresh capital will be used by the company to invest in R&D, and for market expansion and hiring talent.

Also Read: Property tech startup Hoozing raises pre-Series A funding round from SmileGate Investment

GoodWork

Funding: US$1.6M in Seed
Investor(s): Chaac Ventures, Elysium Ventures, Kairos K50, angel investors

Andrew Koger, co-founder and CEO of GoodWork, said that GoodWork plans to expand into Vietnam and Thailand by the end of this year or early 2021.

Holmusk

Funding: US$21.5M in Series A
Investor(s): Optum Ventures, Health Catalyst Capital, Heritas Capital, angel investors

The new funding round allows Holmusk to expand its US operations in New York City.

Bizzi

Funding: Undisclosed Seed
Investor(s): 500 Startups, angel investors

The company is focused on helping accountants automate financial processes like pay bill, approvals, receipt scanning, compliance, and book-keeping using its RPA (robotic process automation) technology.

Shipper

Funding: US$20M in Series A
Investor(s): Naspers, AC Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Shipper was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch.

TADA

Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): Shinhan Bank, Samkee Automotive, iloom

The funding round followed a US$5 million Series A investment announced in December 2019.

Hoozing

Funding: Undisclosed Pre-Series A
Investor(s): SmileGate Investment

The investment, according to Hoozing CEO and co-founder Hai Le, will be used to make sure the business is ready to assist the needs of landlords and customers in the middle of  COVID-19 pandemic.

Also Read: Roundup: Filipino startup Advance raises seed funding; SoftBank Vision Fund to cut staff

ShuttleOne

Funding: US$500,000 in Seed
Investor(s): Sirius Venture Capital, Andromeda GmbH, private investors

ShuttleOne CEO Lim Hong Zhuang stated that the company will use the fresh funding to expand the company’s operations in Malaysia and Indonesia and to launch its services in Thailand and the Philippines.

Bobobox

Funding: US$11.5M in Series A
Investor(s): Horizons Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, Kakao Investments, Sequoia Surge, Mallorca Investments

The Bandung-headquartered startup will use the money to accelerate its product improvement and location expansion. It wants to enhance ‘Pods’ features and overall experience by growing its tech team and strengthening its manufacturing and operating models.

Delman

Funding: US$1.6M in Seed
Investor(s): Intudo Ventures, Prasetia Dwidharma Ventures, Qlue

The company said that will use the newly raised capital to establish an R&D centre in Surabaya and make fresh hires, specifically earmarking Indonesians who are currently working as data scientists in Silicon Valley.

Bonza

Funding: Undisclosed Seed
Investor(s): East Ventures

The company’s new funding will be used to scale up its new operations and focus on product development.

GoBear

Funding: US$17M
Investor(s): Walvis Participaties, Aegon N.V.

The company said that the latest round of capital will be utilised for continued expansion across three growth pillars: An online financial supermarket, digital insurance brokerage, and digital lending, “all built on a strong foundation of alternative data”.

Sentient.io

Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): Digital Garage Group, ABC Dream Ventures, Leave a Nest Group

The company said it intends to use the new fund to scale the platform to the global market, especially to fulfil the surging demand for the Digital Transformation from Japanese corporations.

Also Read: AI-empowered data platform Sentient.io secures Series A funding led by Digital Garage Group

Advance

Funding: Undisclosed Seed
Investor(s): Next Billion Ventures, Dymon Asia Ventures, Accion Venture Lab

The latest round of capital will be used to improve Advance’s current technology and operations, as well as to explore different products and new markets.

Wiz.ai

Funding: US$6M in Pre-Series A
Investor(s): GGV Capital, Wavemaker Partners, ZWC partner, Insignia Ventures, and Orion Fund

The money will be used to expand Wiz.ai’s product offerings and grow its team in Southeast Asia. It also plans to expand its geographical coverage globally.

Voiz FM

Funding: Undisclosed Seed Funding
Investor(s): 500 Startups Vietnam

The Vietnamese startup will spend the money on product development and market expansion.

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The post Here are the early stage funding rounds announced by SEA startups in May appeared first on e27.

The most notable fact about later stage funding rounds in May is that there are more funding announcements being made compared to the previous months. While we saw eight funding announcements in this stage in April, this month we saw 11 later stage funding announcements.

One of the most notable funding announcements was the Series D funding round made by Ninja Van, one of the more prominent names in the logistics tech scene.

Fintech also continued to dominate with investments announced by companies such as Nium, Validus, Digio, CXA Group, and KoinWorks.

Kopi Kenangan, which had attracted the attention of prominent global investors, returned with another announcement of its Series B.

Ninja Van

Funding: US$279M in Series D
Investor(s): Geopost, B Capital Group, Carmenta Capital, Zamrud Sovereign Wealth Fund, Bangkok Bank, Intouch, Grab, Monk’s Hill Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures

This funding round followed Series C round in January 2018, led by international parcel delivery firm DPD Group.

RWDC Industries

Funding: US$133M “two-stage” Series B
Investor(s): Vickers Venture Partners, Flint Hills Resources, CPV/CAP Pensionskasse Coop, International SA, Eversource Retirement Plan Master Trust, WI Harper Group

This comes exactly a year after RWDC raised US$22 million in a Series A round, led Vickers and US-based Eversource Retirement Plan Master Trust.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Tigerhall, Growthwell Group raise funding rounds

Nium

Funding: Undisclosed Series C
Investor(s): BRI Ventures, VISA

A part of the money raised will also be used to “tuck-in acquisitions” and growth in markets such as Europe, India, the UK and the US.

Validus

Funding: US$20M in ongoing Series B
Investor(s): Vertex Growth Fund, K3 Venture Partners, FMO, Vertex Ventures, Openspace Ventures, Siam Cement Group, VinaCapital Ventures

The new capital will be used by the company to invest in technology and data capabilities to further improve the use of its AI and machine learning as well as to establish a strong presence in the ASEAN market. It has also revealed plans to fund its new upcoming venture in Thailand which has been slated for Q4 2020.

Digio

Funding: US$4M in Series B
Investor(s): Beacon Venture Capital, PCC, Private Equity Trust for SME Growing Together 2

Digio said that the funding will enable it to expand capacity to provide innovative payment technology for financial institutions and strengthen Thailand’s digital payment infrastructure.

Kopi Kenangan

Funding: US$109M in Series B
Investor(s): Sequoia Capital, B Capital, Horizons Ventures, Verlinvest, Kunlun, Sofina, Alpha JWC Ventures

The company plans on using this round of funding to strengthen its operations in Indonesia, launch new products, invest in technology to better serve its customers, and protect employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

CXA Group

Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Humanica, HSBC Life

Humanica has doubled its investment in CXA as a continuation of last year’s convertible note bridge financing.

Dekoruma

Funding: Undisclosed Pre-Series C
Investor(s): InterVest Star SEA Growth Fund 1

Co-founder Dimas Harry Priawan said Dekoruma will use the funding to develop its interior design and project management app SOMA.

Also Read: Vietnam’s podcast platform Voiz FM snags seed funding from 500 Startups

Spark Systems

Funding: US$15M in Series B
Investor(s): Citi, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, OSK Ventures, Vickers Ventures, Dymon Asia Ventures, Dymon Asia Capital, Jubilee Capital, FengHe

The company said that the funding would be used to enhance its current platform, develop analytics, advance its team training and build rapid modules that can onboard clients quickly.

KoinWorks

Funding: US$10M
Investor(s): Lendable

This round comes just over a month after KoinWorks raised US$20 million in  debt and equity investment from Quona Capital.

Endofotonics

Funding: US$12M in Series B
Investor(s): Singapore Medical Group (SMG), Tony Tan Choon Keat, Dr Beng Teck Liang

Endofotonics will use the funding to commercialise its early gastric cancer detection system within Asia and grow its cancer detection technology coverage to other organs. It also plans to launch its system in Europe in 2021.

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The post Meet the most notable later stage funding rounds announced in May appeared first on e27.