Plagued in the past by SARS, some of Asia’s top innovation capitals —-such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan— have fought previous health battles, prompting governments and businesses to put in place stringent measures ensuring the continuation of business operations.

Lauded for their swift reaction to the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments have ensured companies remain running despite the ongoing disruption by enacting business continuity plans. With the current economic turmoil, it is increasingly imperative to know how to navigate through today’s uncertain economy.

From one entrepreneur to another, here are some tips that have proven to be successful in maintaining strong entrepreneurial prowess through unfavourable economic conditions.

People come first: Unity in the face of adversity

Now, more than ever, building stronger relationships with employees and business partners should take precedence over aggressive competitive behaviour. Strengthening ties with employees build a united team which is important in maintaining the efficiency and resilience of the business.

As employees are at the heart of the business operations, ensuring their positive wellbeing and boosting morale amidst the grim economic outlook can be the fuel that keeps the business running smoothly. Yet, with the uncertain impact of the virus and indefinite working structures, employees may struggle with anxiety and lack of motivation, aggravating what is already a sluggish output.

As such, creating unity through virtual social gatherings or checking in with one another when working from home can relieve the added pressures on the business.

Also Read: Leadership in times of crisis – how to lead efficiently when the pot is boiling

Besides stronger employee relations, building robust connections with other industry leaders is an opportunistic way of forming beneficial ties and potential business partnerships. While corporate events and trade shows are on halt, it does not necessarily mean that networking has to cease.

Instead, networking can evolve alongside the changing business environment by keeping it strictly virtual. Connecting with other industry professionals can keep you in the know of new trends, placing you and your business at the forefront of new innovations for when the economy recovers.

Stay curious -—this was how you became an entrepreneur in the first place

More often than not, most businesses are often preoccupied with the productivity and execution of work while the economy is healthy, giving little to no thought for reflecting and planning. When we are overwhelmed by speed and efficiency, our approach to solving a problem is often clouded by merely a solution-oriented approach which may not be the best and most effective formula in the long run.

However, with the slowed economy and free time on our hands, there is more opportunity to reflect on the triumphs and stumbles of the company and source for more innovative ways to improve the problem. Taking stock of what has been done thus far and how operations can be improved is a simple measure that goes a long way.

As entrepreneurs, we have already learned the importance of being nimble and resourceful and today’s uncertainty will put what we have learned to the test, challenging us to rethink our business decisions and innovate further. Besides, curiosity was the determining factor that launched businesses in hopes of improving services and resolving problems.

Minimising costs does not mean skimping on every penny

When it comes to minimising costs, most would choose to reduce expenditure by cutting production costs and possibly considering retrenchment. However, lowering costs does not have to always be at the expense of employee’s job security but could be at the betterment of the business through streamlining productivity and improving efficiency.

Also Read: SMU’s Protégé Ventures as a catalyst for entrepreneurial education

Additionally, keeping costs to a minimum can be done with the support of government stimulus packages which can give much needed monetary relief especially when the budget is tight. Currently, trillions will be pumped across various countries to bolster industries and sustain economies hit by the economic slowdown.

For a tiny nation, Singapore has already committed SG$59.9 billion (US$43 billion) to combat the pandemic and to curtail the economic impact on SMEs.

With the recently launched Jobs Support Scheme, the Singapore government has also made it a point to ensure job security and refrain employees from going on no-pay leaves or face retrenchment. Whereas Taiwan’s stimulus measures totals at over NT$1 trillion (US$34 billion) and Hong Kong’s initiative under the SME Financial Guarantee Scheme of HK$20 billion (US$2.5 billion) will support the operational burden for SMEs.

No doubt the developing pandemic is still marred with uncertainty and unknowns, however, adversities can build the strength and resilience of businesses, positively challenging entrepreneurs to broaden horizons and grow an innovative entrepreneurial spark with the resistance to weather through any storm.

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Register for our next webinar: Meet the VC: Vertex Ventures

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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For decades, Taiwan has been synonymous with hardware, being home to computer brands like MSI and Asus or chipmakers like TSMC and Foxconn.

In the past few years, however, there has been a strong push to pivot Taiwanese tech players towards software, using the country’s strong hardware base and tech-savvy 23.5 million population as a jumping point.

In addition to having some of the savviest consumers in the globe when it comes to smartphone use and Internet access, almost half of online transactions are done on mobile now. This is set to hit 61% in just two years.

Due to the country’s hardware background, Taiwanese citizens have often been the first adopters of key technologies — making the local population a hotbed for innovation and disruption where new startups and ideas flourish.

Add to that the fastest broadband speed in the world at 85.02Mbps and ranking within the top-20 in the world in terms of intellectual property protection, its local startups have a solid pool of resources to access in their quest to grow.

Working in tandem

Over the last decade, there has been a concerted effort across both the public and private sectors to encourage Taiwanese technopreneurs to not just innovate in their own market but also tap the 1.2 billion China consumer market, with an eye on global reach.

In 2015, Alibaba set aside TWD 10 billion (US$332 million) for its Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund to help local startups crack the China market and grow the nascent tech community.

In 2017, the Taiwanese government earmarked a US$3.3 billion startup fund, tax credits, and new laws to build a tech talent pipeline. A new fintech sandbox law was approved the same year to help technopreneurs test ideas with the typically strictly-regulated financial sector.

On artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, the government again led the way with a Government Information Open Platform which allows anyone — including AI and IoT players in Taiwan — to access government data across 27,000 categories.

Tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Google quickly followed suit. All set up AI or IoT development centres in Taipei, while Google announced a plan to train 5,000 Taiwanese students in AI programming in 2018.

Envisioning future Taiwan tech

Recognising that Taiwan’s small consumer market is only the stepping stone to global reach, in 2017, the Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI) launched its Vision Programme to give high-potential tech startups a global boost.

Backed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology, this year marks the 4th edition of the Vision Programme. For 2020, the global partner is 500 Startups, the most active early-stage investor in the world.

From a large pool of applicants that underwent a month-long intensive training under the programme, the number of tech teams in the 2020 cohort was narrowed down to 25. These startups moved forward to a four-day boot camp that happened in June.

Also read: STPI’s Vision Programme: Bridging Taiwan startups with the world

During the bootcamp, these 25 teams immersed in a sophisticated learning model headed by eight mentors, six guest speakers, and underwent eight workshops where they were exposed to practical training and mentorship sessions on pitch deck structure, storytelling, and shifts in the entrepreneurial mindset, among many others.

This year’s cohort runs the gamut of industries from social enterprises to dental tech, proving that Taiwanese innovation remains at the forefront, even when it comes to software.

Health tech to the forefront

Given the increase in global consumer spending and aging populations, healthtech is well represented in the 2020 Vision Programme cohort.

SingularWings Medical offers real-time telehealth care, backed by AI and machine learning technologies. Utilising hardware such as straps, patches and smart clothing, SingularWings allows clients to remotely monitor patients.

General manager David Lee said, “Our tech can be applied even outside the healthcare sector. We see the Vision Programme as an avenue towards creating strategic partnerships with channel partners, distributors, and agents that have a better understanding of Southeast Asian markets.”

Meanwhile, Dent X combines both hardware and software solutions to improve the dental x-ray process in terms of patient comfort and imaging accuracy for diagnosis. The company is in the midst of clinical trials and filing for patents.

Due to the highly-regulated nature and complexity of individual countries’ dental healthcare systems, Dent X is looking to connect with life sciences institutes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other members of the dental community.

Social, environmental concerns

Rising awareness among consumers of both social and environmental concerns have led to more scrutiny in product labelling and more accountability demanded from producers. Several cohort members of the 2020 Vision Programme have sought to embrace this change.

Social enterprise Impct started off with a B2B model that sold socially and environmentally-conscious food products to offices and then reinvesting the proceeds in social causes.

As customers have become more aware of the products they buy, Impact is developing a B2C approach and looked to Vision Programme to raise its fundraising profile, said chief operating officer Jessi Fu.

Another member of the 2020 cohort is Kiwi New Energy, which allows individual consumers to directly purchase “green” electricity with a single click on its app.

Backed by blockchain technology and AI analysis as well as hardware to monitor solar panel productivity, Kiwi digresses from the traditional model of centralised electricity supply.

Helping traditional sectors innovate

One startup is helping Taiwan’s entrenched manufacturing sector embrace digital transformation and Industry 4.0. GoodLinker’s cloud-based technology utilises sensors to integrate machinery and increase productivity on the factory floor without large infrastructure spending.

“Through the Vision Programme, we are looking for channel partners that can guide us in our expansion strategies, and to better understand ecosystems outside of Taiwan,” said business development manager Bruce King.

Another cohort member is Turing Chain, which utilises blockchain to verify and validate certificates and resumes.The company is creating a centralised database where individuals’ certifications are consolidated.

Founder Jeff Hu said, “We aim to bring in more stakeholders into our ecosystem, including educational institutions, professional certifying bodies, as well as recruiters of organisations.”

From the 25 teams that participated in the June bootcamp, STPI will select 10 finalists. Of these, five will head to Singapore to work with e27, while the other five will fly to Silicon Valley to gain more global exposure to the tech ecosystem.

In addition to tapping STPI’s vast linkages with educational institutions, investors, and advisors within Taiwan, the Vision Programme cohort members also gain key entrepreneurial skills that can translate their businesses and scale their tech for a global audience.

In turn, the success of these tech teams will hopefully breed a more vibrant tech ecosystem in Taiwan and encourage more Taiwanese youth to join the local tech talent pipeline as the country’s software pivot continues.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
STPI.

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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After letting go of numerous employees in April, Indonesian travel-tech giant Traveloka has confirmed to have raised US$250 million in a new funding round from a host of investors, including East Ventures.

The confirmation comes three weeks after Bloomberg reported that the Indonesian firm was in advanced talks with investors, including Siam Commercial Bank, FWD Group, GIC, and East Ventures, to raise US$250 million at about US$2.75 billion valuation — roughly 17 per cent less than its most recent fundraising.

The new capital is expected to further strengthen the Indonesian firm’s  balance sheet and boost its efforts to deepen its offerings in select priority areas, Traveloka said in a statement.

The plans will include building a more robust and integrated travel & lifestyle portfolio in key markets, as well as expanding its financial services solutions to better support ecosystem partners.

Ferry Unardi, Co-founder and CEO of Traveloka said in a statement: “I am happy to share that on the business front, we are seeing encouraging recovery across all of our key markets. Our business in Vietnam is approaching steady pre-COVID-19 levels and Thailand business is on its way to surpassing 50 per cent.”

“Indonesia and Malaysia are still in the early stage, but they continue to demonstrate promising momentum with strong week-to-week improvement, especially in accommodation with the emergence of shorter distance staycation behaviour. We acknowledge that the sector may go through further turbulence as it navigates new waves, but we feel we are prepared to take on the challenge and emerge on the right side of it,” he added.

Also Read: Innovate and go: How Traveloka revamps its services to comply with changing travel behaviour 

According to the company, the COVID-19 crisis has put the travel sector in an unprecedented challenging state. Since the pandemic broke, the restrictions on travel and many other activities to curb the spread of the virus around the globe inevitably created a potent combination of stricken demand and travel disruption.

Traveloka also witnessed a historic drop in business activity to levels never seen before. Its partners across transport, accommodation, activities, and dining also experienced significant disruption to their business — there was feeble demand for transportation with the contrasting escalation of refund requests; hotels saw the lowest occupancy ever; several domestic and regional activities and dining partners chose to shut their doors temporarily due to high uncertainty.

“Without a doubt, Traveloka has been profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have experienced the lowest business rate that we have ever seen since our inception. However, we always believed that the company will prevail by rapidly adjusting our strategy, working with our industry and ecosystem partners, as well as continuing to innovate for our users, our ultimate focus,” Unardi added.

Traveloka has reportedly implemented necessary business optimisation measures to conserve capital and refocused its effort to prepare for effective action in the new normal.

For example, in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, the firm has seen a resurgence of domestic, short-distance travel and activities bookings as the population learn to live responsibly with the pandemic.

Also Read: KiotViet gets US$6M Series A funding from Jungle Ventures, Traveloka, eyeing expansion

In an interview with e27, Andhini Putri, Head of Marketing, Transport, Traveloka says that despite the impact caused by the virus, it is always important to identify customer pain points and try to solve them.

Domestic travel in Indonesia has already resumed and the company’s goal is to seize this opportunity even further –by providing ease and convenience of access to the mandatory travel requirements set by the government.

Some initiatives launched to cater to shifting demands included COVID-19 test bundle with flights, a flexible open-dated voucher for hotels in Buy Now Stay Later, and Traveloka Clean campaign, allowing users additional peace of mind when booking via Traveloka.

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E-commerce tops VC investments in SEA in Q2

The story: Southeast Asia has seen an increase in startup investments in the Q2 2020 despite COVID-19, which has mainly been led by e-commerce and fintech companies, according to Vietnam Plus.

Also Read: Meet the first batch of e27 Pro Perks partners

The rise is attributed to the pandemic which is causing consumer habits to shift and causing some sectors to potentially benefit.

Industry breakdown: E-commerce emerged at the top raising US$691M in total, followed by logistics (US$360M) and fintech (US$496M).

Top startup fundraises: Tokopedia  (US$500M), gojek (US$300M), Ninja Van (US$279M).

GreenPro makes strategic investment for 15% stake in Ata Plus

The story: Hong Kong-based investment company Green Pro has bought a 15 per cent stake in Malaysia’s equity crowdfunding platform Ata Plus.

The benefits: 

• By leveraging on GreenPro’s considerable regional financial assets and global presence, Ata Plus will be able to fast track its focus on becoming a regional fundraising platform (in the short-to-mid term) and a global one (in the longer term).
• The aim is to immediately create a ‘10+1’ market reach potential comprising the 10 member states in ASEAN plus China, where GreenPro has access via their Hong Kong presence.
• This strategic acquisition also enables Ata Plus to utilise the digital assets and technology recently acquired by GreenPro via their investment in First Bullion Holdings, Philippines.

Swiggy cuts 350 more staff

The story: India’s food delivery unicorn company Swiggy has said that it is laying off 350 executives as part of its restructuring exercise, according to Entrackr.

The company has said that all of the laid-off employees will receive at least three months of salary along with health insurance and accelerated stock vesting until December.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

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Before 2019 ended, the global events industry was expected to reach US$2,330 billion by 2026. Companies like PouchNATION seem to be looking at continuous growth for the next half a decade at least.

PouchNATION has successfully sold millions of wearables across different industries in events like conferences, concerts, festivals, sports events, and more. With six physical offices across Southeast Asia, the company has successfully established itself as the market leader in the space.

Then the pandemic happened.

Events started to cancel — first, one by one, then seemingly all at once. Huge losses were seen, and the future of the industry turned somewhat hazy.

It was either sink or swim.

For PouchNATION, it was a swim and step up. They have recently launched their latest project that integrated a Body Temperature Sensor into their wearable technology to allow all businesses and households to do health screening checks.

Launched as PouchPASS, the vision for this project is to promote a safe and healthy environment both at home and at business locations powered by the latest state of the art contactless IoT technology.

In an email correspondence with PouchNATION CEO, Ilya Kravtsov, he talked about this exciting new milestone, why the company saw a pivot in the health tech space, and the company’s decision to explore opportunities with e27 Pro.

The birth of PouchPASS

PouchNATION has always been at the forefront of new guest technologies. RFID enabled cashless payments, geolocation, ticketing, POS development — all these are part of the company’s suite of traditional tech tools that provide detailed analytics and patron behaviour reports.

“Over a 5-year period, we have launched and built our business to be Southeast Asia’s leader in wearable technologies for mass participation events and venues. We were handling hundreds of events every year and our technology was managing millions of guests across the region, providing insights to consumer behaviour, ticketing, and crowd management,” explained Kravstov, highlighting PouchNation’s extensive experience in crowd management technology over the past few years.

“Then all of a sudden, COVID-19 happened — the largest event of our lifetime,” Kravtsov said, “understanding immediately the gravity of the situation, we decided to redirect our knowledge and resources to something that we knew would help in protecting lives and establishing the fundamentals for a better tomorrow. I am extremely proud of the result that the team managed to achieve in this short period of time.”

Also read: Event tech platform PouchNATION raises Series B round from Traveloka and SPH Ventures

The PouchPASS wearable technology utilises sensors to provide high-accuracy body temperature data every minute and, coupled with the PouchPASS application, allows the users to monitor body temperature continuously, remotely, and without interpersonal or physical contact.

All data synchronised real-time in the PouchPASS online dashboard are stored on the cloud and treated with extremely high privacy standards. They may only be viewed with the consent of the users. The PouchBAND is also comfortable to wear, dust and water-resistant, and requires no charging.

Using solutions of tomorrow to address the problems of today

For those who know PouchNation for its “can do” spirit, it is no surprise that they have now turned years of guest, organiser, venue, and event management experience into one brand new product — all with their hallmark data analytics, practical applications, and insights.

“The World Health Organisation studies completed in China and Europe indicate that 89.1% of the COVID-19 patients had fever as the major symptom, so adding a temperature monitor to our wristbands adds a layer of reassurance for guests and organisers alike when activity and businesses resume,” said Kravtsov.

He added, “the scenarios where this technology can be used are endless: sports, venues, events, factories, schools, hospitals, prisons, public transport, and so on. We also wanted to make sure this product would be available to the masses, so the price point has been a very important consideration for us in the launch of PouchPASS.”

Such initiatives in the health technology space are not only crucial in helping curb the spread of viruses and the ballooning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it may also redefine our new normal. This is why it’s important to bolster and embolden access to these technologies and bring them as far and wide as possible.

The company also secured an experienced Board of Investors & Advisors with a background in selling electronic products globally in order to counter foreseeable challenges. Kravtsov explained that it is never easy to roll out a new product, especially globally. As such, he predicts that there will be challenges in logistics and distribution, but nothing that they believe the company is unable to overcome.

Taking PouchNation to a whole new level

With today’s precarious global market, bringing new products to consumers is quite a daunting task. In order to push initiatives like PouchPASS further and help benefit businesses and households that stand to gain from their contactless IoT technology, the company needs to supercharge its efforts with the right tools and insights.

Access to different networks of global investors, getting the latest news about the tech ecosystem, and gaining visibility for your business — these are only some of the necessary tools they need in order to penetrate markets on a larger scale.

Also read: Disaster Tech innovation is key in mitigating the impact of natural disasters


As such, among the series of exciting new developments in the company, PouchNation also recently signed up for an e27 Pro membership.

One of the key challenges they faced was meeting investors and partners at a time when opportunities are limited. Through e27 Pro’s Connect programme, they were able to meet as many investors and partners as possible in a short time without the need to go anywhere.

“I love the virtual investors matching, I had a lot of great calls all from my bedroom,” remarked Kravtsov.

With e27 Pro, PouchNATION was able to connect with numerous investors and build new business relationships, helping fuel their goal of bringing their new tech to the world.

With the goal of supporting businesses across the world transition to the new normal, PouchNation is more than ready to take on the challenges of today using the solutions of tomorrow.

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Disclosure: PouchNATION is a member of e27 Pro. Find out more about what e27 Pro here.

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After seven years of helping more than 200 Singapore early stage tech startups with their tech product development, our team has seen lots of issues that can trigger Oh-Sh*t moments.

Below are the most common struggles that many early stage tech startups face with their new tech product development.

While these struggles are most commonly seen among early stage tech startups, they sometimes (can still) happen in more mature startups. If your startup is developing or planning to develop a tech product, watch out for the three most common mistakes early stage tech startups make below.

Over-development

Often, founders, especially first-timers, spend too much time perfecting their products: they want to have all the great features in the first release, no bugs, and every design to be aesthetically perfect. However, what you think your customers need is likely to differ from what they really need. Worse, your customers often do not know what they really need until they actually have their hands on your product.

All these factors make the usefulness of all your white-board scrabbles and customer surveys very limited. So why bother wasting all your money and time developing what your customers do not need? For most startups, the cost of under-development is usually much lower than of over-development. Instead, you should:

• Develop only essential functions
• Release to the market as soon as possible to test the market
• Iterate according to actual user behaviours

Once you have launched your product to the market, you will have the best insights into what your customers really need and how much they are willing to pay. If we can point to a single most important factor that our successful clients have in common, it is speed.

Also Read: A multi-disciplinary approach to product development requires collaboration

Communication friction between business and tech

Expectations are the root of all heartache. Most tech people are not experts in communication and thus expectation management. This is not a big issue for more mature startups that can afford to hire product managers.

However, for early stage tech startups, to save money, CEOs tend to play the role of Product Managers as well.

Also Read: A multi-disciplinary approach to product development requires collaboration

Sales-driven, these CEOs often have unrealistic deadlines for tech people. Without any formal document to record all the specification and agreement, the writing of which is usually a job every business or tech person abhors, friction usually occurs when a feature is not as per the CEO “says” or deadlines are missed. Even if deadlines are met, software engineers may be forced to go for shortcuts, sacrificing the code quality that may backfire later on, hard.

Software engineers do it all

If you hung around job portals as much as we do, you would be unsurprised to see job posts that essentially go like this: looking for a software engineer who can design, code, test, write architecture documents, swim, dance, climb mountains, etcetera.

If we follow the 80:20 rule, 80 per cent of the time of software engineers should be spent on coding. But in reality, software engineers are usually forced to support customers, attend sales meetings, test their products, etcetera.

But wait, are software engineers supposed to test their products? Trust me, they will test but if you are really serious about getting a quality product, you should get dedicated testers and technical leads because if software engineers saw issues in their codes, they already fixed those issues, right?

So founders, please repeat this mantra three times so that we will not commit this sin again: “Software engineers are supposed to code only. Software engineers are supposed to code only. Software engineers are supposed to code only.”

In a nutshell

Many may find the above issues laughing stocks and other people’s problems. However, those issues are probably closer to home than many may think. Even more mature startups who are aware of the above issues tend to overlook them until it is too late.

Resonate with the above struggles? Share your story so that other founders can learn from your stories, too.

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Register for our next webinar: Meet the VC: Vertex Ventures

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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

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William Bao Bean, who holds over 20 years of experience in investing and is currently the general partner of SOSV, has said that COVID-19 will be the driving factor behind both a recession and a tremendous change in customers’ habits.

As the pandemic strikes the economy, there has been a general discussion of a potential recession hitting nations.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore was the first country confirmed to be in a recession last quarter, according to a Bloomberg report. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has predicted a four to five per cent decrease in the country’s GDP in the third quarter, leading it to a potential recession.

“There are two things to take note of. First, that people need to understand we’re heading into an economic downturn. The second thing is that this type of shock is quite special because it’s driving an equally massive change in habits,” Bean says in an interview with e27.

“Stay at home is driving the adoption of digital [platforms] extremely quickly. So on the one side, it’s an economic apocalypse, but on the other side, people are focussed on the change of habits,” he continues.

While balancing these two directions can be tough, there is plenty of good news on the ground.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: SOSV’s mobile-only accelerator MOX reveals 10 startups from 8th cohort

Good businesses are still trading at a premium price. The fact that many investors continue to fund startups such as Ula, Tiin Tiin, and TurtleTree indicating that some companies are not cracking under uncertainty.

“You want to position on companies that are prepared to, or at least, going to be in a position to do well during this very uncertain time,” Bean stresses.

He gives the example of VR technology which was on no one’s radar before COVID-19. But now VR headsets are selling out because people are bored and can’t go outside.

Bean’s 2020 industry predictions

Winners of the future will be very different from the winners of the past which, according to Bean, will mostly be driven by newly formed habits.

E-sports is expected to be “fricking huge,” he says.

“With an audience larger than the NBA, tennis and American football, it’s over half a billion people who watch these sports. Plus, you know, some people [prefer to] watching it, instead of playing it. Right now, a lot of sports are not airing and who is the beneficiary of [having] no sports on TV?” the investor points out.

Gaming has become one of the most common past times of entertainment and experts predict that the trend is here to stay.

Twitch, a leading live streaming platform for gamers, noted a viewership increase of 56 per cent this quarter compared to Q1 2020 while growing 60 per cent year over year. Facebook Gaming also saw a boost from the lockdown growing 75 per cent throughout Q1 until now.

Also Read: What gaming industry can teach the fashion industry amidst COVID-19

Aside from gaming, Bean also expects online education and online media to have a longevity period of growth.

This is mostly driven by the needs of parents and students who were forced to study from home during the circuit breaker measures implemented in Singapore, and similar approaches taken in other countries.

As with the case of e-sports, online media are also experiencing a surge in popularity as customers see their offline entertainment sources becoming limited.

Investing in the previously unreached

As predicted by many, the health tech sector is also experiencing growing popularity amidst the global health crisis, particularly for products or services that enable users to interact more safely and ease the burden of the healthcare system. One example of such platforms is telemedicine or telehealth, which enables distance consultation between doctors and patients.

According to this CNBC report, in the US, social distancing measures at doctor’s offices and hospitals could push telehealth interactions to one billion by the end of 2020. The case in Southeast Asia can be quite similar as telemedicine platforms claim rapid growth during the crisis.

Naturally, Bean’s biotech accelerator also expects to see growth in the health tech sector. Started in 2014, the US$3.2 billion-worth accelerator sees a “heavy focus” from investors on COVID-19-related health investments.

“We’re focused on investing, not only in the people who already have access to technology but also in the billions of users in emerging markets who are moving from offline to online,” Bean explains how they aim to do it.

Also Read: SOSV, 500 Startups invest US$2.55M seed round in deep tech startup SEPPURE

For them, this is the major trend that they want to focus on, particularly in markets such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, Latin America, and Africa.

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Image Credit: SOSV

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Singapore-based StashAway, a digital wealth manager for both retail and accredited investors, has closed a US$16 million in Series C funding round, led by Australian VC firm Square Peg.

Burda Principal Investments (the growth capital arm of German media and tech company Hubert Burda Media) and existing investor Eight Roads Ventures also participated.

This takes StashAway’s total funding raised to date to US$36.4 million. This includes a US$12 million Series B round in July 2019, led by Eight Roads.

Also Read: ‘It’s gonna be an economic apocalypse but some industries are here to stay’: warns William Bao Bean

“This new round of financing further strengthens StashAway’s balance sheet position, bringing our paid-up capital to MYR 153.8 million (US$36.2 million). This latest round will enable us to accelerate product development to both broaden and deepen our wealth management offering for our clients in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as support new market entry,” said Michele Ferrario, Co-founder and CEO of StashAway.

StashAway was founded in 2016 and operates in Malaysia, besides Singapore. The company offers investment and cash management portfolios for both retail and accredited investors. It delivers automated, personalised portfolio management for each client’s individual portfolios.

The firm offers global growth-oriented investment portfolios targeting different levels of risk — yield-focused Income Portfolio, and straightforward cash management solution StashAway Simple.

StashAway claims its portfolios have generated annualised returns ranging from 11.1 per cent for its highest risk portfolio and 4.3 per cent for its lowest risk portfolio since its launched in July 2017.

Currently, StashAway employs 85 people across five countries.

Also Read: Fostering a dynamic business culture through digital change

According to Raj Dugar, Managing Partner (India & Southeast Asia) at Eight Roads, “The strong customer value proposition and StashAway’s stellar execution has been demonstrated by its rapid growth. Its AUM has grown over 4.3X in the last year alone in an extremely volatile market.”

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Image Credit: StashAway

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She Loves Tech’s Annual Global Startup Competition, which is said to be the world’s startup competition for women and technology, is returning for the sixth time this year with fully online competition and conference.

Despite the pandemic, the organiser stated that the competition will expand yet again due to overwhelming response. It will be held virtually for startups in over 30 countries across North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.

It counted institutions such as ATAST, Circle, Girls in Tech Macau, Gobi Partners, Hatch, Kerala Startup Mission, Longyan, NCSF, QBO, Yazamiyot, Raintree, Tanggram, Techcode, Turtle Venture, Unlimited, and Women In Tech HK as organising partners and Asian Development Bank Ventures as Official Impact Partner.

“One of the things we’re most excited about is that going fully online gives us a great opportunity to reach a wider audience and help even more entrepreneurs than we ever could have,” She Loves Tech co-founders Leanne Robers, Rhea See, and Virginia Tan said in a press statement.

The competition is searching for startups that filled the following criteria:

1. Early stage startups
The startups should be seeking for angel, seed, or Series A funding round of under US$5 million with at least a minimum viable product (MVP).

2. Gender lens
The startups should fulfil one of the following gender lens: Having a female founder, a majority of female users/consumers, and a tech that impacts women’s life positively.

Also Read: Intelligent energy management startup wins She Loves Tech Singapore 2019

For Singapore-based startups, the registration deadline will close on August 7 while the competition will be held on August 26. For details on other countries’ deadlines and competition dates, please refer to this site.

The competition gives the world’s most promising women-led or women-impact startups mentorship and guidance to grow and scale their business and showcases them to a global audience of top investors and influencers from the tech community.

Previous ambassadors, mentors, judges and speakers include Tim Draper (Founder, Draper University), Ankiti Bose (CEO, Zilingo), Arielle Zuckerberg (Partner, Coatue Management), Jane Sun (CEO, CTrip), and Lesly Goh (Former CTO, World Bank).

From the previous years, alumni startups of the programme have gone on to raise over US$100 million in aggregate funding from some of the world’s top investors, including Sequoia Capital, Vertex Ventures, Wavemaker, Microsoft and Amazon.

The She Loves Tech conference itself has gathered more than 3,000 delegates (with 67 per cent of them being women) from at least 30 countries within the last five years. It consisted of keynote speeches, pitches, panels, and breakout session.

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Image Credit: She Loves Tech

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The news of Indonesian firm Sorabel’s (erstwhile Sale Stock) plans to shut down by the end of this month sent shockwaves across Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem — more so because the VCs-backed fashion e-commerce startup was believed to be going strong after its rebranding sometime last year.

Sorabel, which has so far secured about US$27 million in four rounds from the likes of Gobi Partners, Golden Equator, Open Space Ventures, and InnoVen Capital, was on the verge of raising a new massive funding round when it decided to pull the curtain down.

COVID-19 hit the business but it was not the only reason behind the decision.

Also Read: ‘It’s going to be an economic apocalypse but some industries are here to stay’: warns William Bao Bean warns

e27 talked to Jeffrey Yuwono, Co-founder of the 6-year-old company, to know what made them to take the extreme step.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Sorabel was being led by an experienced team, was going strong until the end of 2019, had a good amount of venture capital, and was close to raising a new round of funding. What went wrong all of a sudden?

Indeed, Sorabel was going strong, and the strategy was to make sure our Series C raise is followed and leveraged strong, post-rebranding growth.

From the rebrand in February 2019, our revenue grew 2.5x by December but it took until the end of Q3 2019 to build that momentum.

In Q4, the revenue was growing between 10 per cent and 20 per cent monthly, and the company was generating positive margins after marketing costs, clearly demonstrating the brand’s strength.

However, this also meant that the window for closing the next round of financing would be March/April 2020 — the period, it turned out, when COVID-19 would hit the hardest.

From a capital perspective, despite the uncertainty, the company did procure several offers, including a term-sheet pulled at the last minute as uncertainty reached new levels in late March.

It is important to keep in mind that these are investors from outside of Indonesia, who were unable to travel to the country to simply verify that the physical operations existed — that is a lot of risk to ask any investor to accept in any circumstances, let alone the economic uncertainty of March and April of 2020 (or even now).

This meant that as COVID-19 hit, the company’s cash reserves were already depleted.

Then from a sales perspective, Sorabel’s positioning could only have been worse if it were an offline retailer.

We sell fashion, a luxury item all about representing oneself to the outer world when people weren’t even allowed to go outside.

We target the mass middle and middle-low income market, and these were the people losing their jobs and worrying if their next pay-check would be their last.

In other words, the last thing the company’s core market wanted to do was buy fashion.

Thus, COVID-19 struck during the most vulnerable point in our funding strategy and devastated our core customer base.

Q: Do you think the management failed to anticipate the impact of the pandemic? Shouldn’t you have taken steps such as pivoting and cost cutting to salvage the business?

The facts say quite the opposite, as the company was already implementing cost reduction measures even before the onset of COVID-19. By March, we had already cut core opex by 20 per cent and marketing costs by 80 per cent, in part as a pre-arranged strategy to reach profitability by Q1 of 2021, and in-part as a defensive move in anticipation of worsening economic conditions related to the pandemic.

Once COVID-19 hit, in addition to further cuts that slashed opex in half, the company moved aggressively to find new sources of revenues:

• We began selling masks (so popular that our first batch sold out in seven hours), but unfortunately margins on masks were simply too small and the supply of materials too limited;
• We tried to sell medical PPE kits and even had a buyer overseas ready to purchase. However, it was prevented by law from exporting and could not find ready buyers domestically.

Q: But as per some news reports, Sorabel became breakeven in 2018 and was on its way to become profitable?

Sorabel was never break-even, nor was it even on its way to break-even before the brand change.

In fact, the unit economics were the core rationale for the brand change: only by improving the brand and its image could the company command enough margin on its goods to be profitable (indeed, the achievement of positive margins in Q4 2019 is proof that the brand change strategy was working, albeit too late).

Simply put, COVID-19 crashed squarely through the company’s fundraising window, choking off the flow of funds when it was most vulnerable.

Arguably, Sorabel could have pursued a more defensive strategy (lower operating leverage in the form of trading fixed for variable costs) but it was too late to do that in 2020, and frankly the evidence shows that demand from April-June 2020 wouldn’t sustain such a strategy anyway.

Q: Despite being an e-commerce firm, why did Sorabel fail to take advantage of the pandemic (like most of its peers)? Many fashion e-commerce firms are still going strong in the region…

Frankly, I strongly disagree with the premise of this question: fashion e-commerce firms and most other “non-essential” e-commerce firms have found it tough going during COVID-19.

COVID-19 was a boon to innovative startups focused on bringing essentials to e-commerce such as Sayurbox and Tanihub with groceries or Halodoc with healthcare, or even Carsome with financing through second-hand vehicle sales.

Unfortunately, fashion is not an essential, particularly when everybody is in lockdown. In fashion, the impact ranged generally between a 50 per cent and 70 per cent drop in revenue (particularly devastating as it occurred during the Ramadan sales season), with only those companies more focused on the upper end of the market spared.

Also at issue was the ability pivot. As discussed earlier, the company tried to pivot to masks and PPE, but it takes cash pivot. Some fashion e-commerce companies had strong cash reserves heading into COVID-19, but Sorabel did not.

Q: What do you think a typical fashion e-commerce startup should do at the time of an unprecedented crisis like this to salvage the business and save jobs?

COVID-19 is a global pandemic and a force majeure: by definition it is difficult to predict, and its effects difficult too. Even larger companies with deep cash reserves had to lay off 40-60 per cent of their headcount, but in this is probably the real commercial lesson.

Also Read: Does profit matter more than impact?

Companies, especially startups, need to blend their fundraising/cash reserve strategy with both market risks and business model risks. The greater a company’s burn from fixed cash expenses, the more cash the company needs to have in reserve to survive a severe economic downturn, and thus the longer cash runway the company needs to build and protect.

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Image Credit: 123rf.com

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