Global startup generator and early-stage VC firm Antler has announced the 15 new companies that have graduated and received investment from its fourth Singapore programme.

The list also includes two startups from Antler’s COVID-19 Initiative. Launched earlier this year, the initiative aims to invest in startups that are working on ideas that respond to the impact of COVID-19.

About 61 per cent of these 15 companies had previous entrepreneurship experience, and 38 per cent have at least one female co-founder.

Antler held its fourth Singapore Demo Day and the first virtual one to an audience of investors, VCs and entrepreneurs from the global startup ecosystem.

“There has been a drastic change in consumer behaviour and we want to help create companies that keep this in mind when building…While most of the second phase of this programme was conducted remotely, the level and frequency of engagement increased and was intense,” Jussi Salovaara, Co-founder and Managing Partner Asia at Antler.

Also Read: How to craft your startup’s financial projections

“The Antler team adapted quickly to operating online and the current situation does not in any way deter us from working with the most exceptional founders to help them build and scale high-performing early-stage tech startups,” he added.

Below is the brief of the 15 ventures

Approvd: A SaaS for businesses to identify and assess external data risks. It  empowers businesses to check, assess and onboard external vendors quicker and cost effectively, for data protection, cybersecurity and responsible AI use.

Chloropy: An AI startup, it automates the collection and management of crop health data from farms using drones for agrochemical companies.

Empala: Works with companies to enable their employees to drawdown the salary they have earned on demand.

Moneko: Developing an AI-powered personal finance mobile app, which application combines behavioural science and game design to help millennials in Asia get better at saving and managing their money.

Pawjourr: The Yelp for pets, helping pet owners discover new products, read reviews from other pet owners and directly book pet-related services.

Pretepop: An all-in-one platform for anyone looking to organise and run retail events online.

Skibre: A social and mobile-based e-sports platform. Skibre hosts skill-based mobile game tournaments for casual games across genres like puzzles, action, and strategy

Vikree: An enterprise SaaS platform to help companies break organisational boundaries and engage with partners to build a powerful ecosystem.

Volopay: Modernises the way companies manage spending by fusing financial management software with a smart corporate card.

Workclass: A social hiring platform focused on the accelerated hiring process in the blue-collar labour market.

YourRent: A fintech startup on a mission to improve flexibility, efficiency and fairness within the real estate rental ecosystem.

Zealth-ai: A personalised digital health intervention platform to provide patient reported outcomes monitoring and intelligent symptoms tracking.

Zopnik: Connecting local boutiques with pop-up shows at home in India.

Biogenes Technologies (COVID initiative): Develops, produces and markets aptamer-based (synthetic antibody) diagnostics products via their proprietary technology platform.

Path BioAnalytics (COVID initiative): Proprietary technology to quickly produce respiratory cell cultures, known as organoids, that are biologically-relevant and ideally suited to this task.

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Image Credit: Antler

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Brian Cu leaves Grab

The story: Brian Cu is leaving his role as president of Grab Philippines.

Why: Cu has decided to focus on other business interests as an entrepreneur in the startup scene, as per a press statement.

His contributions to Grab: Cu managed Grab’s operations in the Philippines since its launch in the country seven years ago. He has steered the company since it started as a ride-hailing app and eventually transitioned into a “superapp” with multiple verticals including food and package delivery and other services.

He also oversaw the company’s merger with former competitor Uber in 2016.

NUS to nurture fintech talent

The story: The NUS School of Computing has launched the NUS-FinTechSG Programme, which aims to nurture Singapore’s next generation of fintech talents and full stack developers, FintechNews has reported.

What is it?: The programme offered by the NUS FinTech Lab and Strategic Technology Management Institute (STMI) is a platform for students to gain knowledge about contemporary issues, integration of financial domain know-how, consisting of lending, payments, insurance, regulation and management. Students will also learn about front- and back-end development, cloud systems, blockchain and algorithmic trading.

Also Read: How travel startups can survive when investors withdraw

More details: The launch of the programme builds upon the concerted efforts to strengthen Singapore’s US$861 million fintech market and to ensure that the industry can continue its growth momentum alongside financial institutions.

MDEC’s startup funding initiative

The story: The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has launched the Founders Grindstone, its sixth funding initiative in four months.

This comes after the facilitation of five alternative funding initiatives for companies seeking financial relief during the Movement Control Order that was implemented on 18 March 2020.

What is it?: The Founders Grindstone is a six-month programme, consisting of three blocks of intensive workshops conducted by global partners from venture capital firms, equity crowdfunding operators, startup-centric media and the legal practice.

Objective: It aims to offer the opportunity to leverage funding platforms of the partners on-board, granting Malaysian entrepreneurs’ access to investment offerings by the global funding network.

When: The first block of workshops will be conducted virtually by MDEC and Draper Startup House Ventures (DSH) on July 15. Participants will be guided on the creation of effective pitch decks and the art of storytelling.

Following the workshop, participating startups will be eligible to submit their pitch decks on the DSH Ventures platform where 20 chosen start-ups will be invited to pitch in the coming weeks.

Fefifo’s crowdfunding campaign

The story: Malaysian agritech startup Fefifo has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Ata Plus with a 50 per cent discount on its valuation as part of its initiatives in view of the global COVID-19 crisis.

How much: Fefifo seeks to raise up to RM4.5 million (US$1.05M) in return for a 25.25 per cent stake.

Also Read: Meet the 15 new startups that have received funding from Antler

What is Fefifo: A technology-driven, co-farming company that focuses on empowering a new generation of progressive smallholder farmers in ASEAN.

Its co-farming model enables smallholder farmers and young agriculture graduates to start their own commercial farming business with zero capital expenditure, by providing them with modern, ready-to-farm spaces called ‘co-farms’ and access to agri-science, technology and training.

‘Agropreneurs’ in Fefifo’s network can expect attractive returns and benefit from Fefifo’s established partnerships across the entire agri-value chain. Agropreneurs are also given financial support to start their farms, manage their crop growth and operations using a purpose-built digital platform, and they sell their crops to guaranteed buyers.

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Indonesian privately held Bank Central Asia (BCA) announced the launch the third batch of the programme of its SYNRGY Accelerator.

With GK Plug and Play as a collaborator, the programme focusses on supporting the startup ecosystem in Indonesia and to give a platform to new startups from many fresh industries.

The event focussed on exploring the topics of insurtech, data analytics, proptech, Enterprise 2.0, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, mortgage, and blockchain technology.

The programme started off with Kick Off Day, held virtually on July 15 to comply with the physical distancing rule of the country.

The participants will receive one-on-one mentoring and sharing sessions with key experts from different fields as well as workshops. They will also have a meeting with BCA Group’s business units, a chance to collaborate with Central Capital Ventura (CCV) and BCA Group, as well as media exposure.

“We aim to facilitate a launchpad for many potential startups that are hindered of significant growth, and SYNRGY Accelerator Program is BCA’s effort in opening many doors for these startups, be it in a form of partnership, investments, or other collaborations,” said Evans Charles Benny Hartawan, Group Head of Digital Innovation Solutions BCA.

Also Read: BCA, Digitaraya launch coworking space, accelerator programme Synrgy

There are 11 startups selected to join this batch:

• Aman, a startup that provides health insurance for employees and aims to simplify the complexity of the insurance benefit’s administration
• Bangku, a business loan marketplace that helps SMEs find the right loan through a free online service
• InvesProperti, a crowdfunding platform that lets people invest in property with a small starting capital and transparency guarantee.
• Katalis, a digital business app that provides digital bills, multifunction digital card, as well as academic administration system.
• Moodah, a platform that helps to digitalise SMEs, allows them to track their loss and profits, as well as their bookkeeping
• Nimbly, a mobile-based solution that converts manual checklists into real-time to-do list, with the goal to help frontliners in applying their SOPs and automating their works.
• Sales1, a startup that offers a CRM platform for the sales team to manage accounts, directions, and other activities from anywhere and anytime in different verticals.

Also Read: BCA, Digitaraya, Google team up to launch SYNRGY Accelerator

• Shortlyst, a human resources startup that provides a data-based and AI-based recruitment and talent solutions.
• Smarteye.id, a startup within state-owned telco PT Telkom Indonesia that focusses on immersive technology such as VR, AR, MR, and XR that offers solutions for business and consumers.
• TapHomes, a startup that provides alternative solutions for aspiring homebuyers, with an affordable monthly fee that allows them to keep building on their future homeownership portion.
• Vexanium, a startup that provides a public blockchain protocol network, allowing companies to create Smart Contract directly without any third party

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Image Credit: SYNRGY Accelerator

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A recent survey by a major publication in Singapore sparked a discussion about the value of art and artists in society. The survey found that over 70 per cent of the respondents picked artists as non-essential jobs.

It was later highlighted that the survey responses were closely tied to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic where essential needs such as health and food were arguably top of mind. However, the debate over the value of art and education in the arts persisted.

As a former scholar of an unusual combination of applied maths, engineering, and studio art, I am keen to reflect on what this will mean for the future of STEM, particularly in the field of data and AI.

There is plenty of discussion about diversity but acceptance of diversity is a larger economic, political, socio-economic question. Diversity is about accepting differences and not forcing men, women, NLP engineers, data artists, decision scientists to fit into the same mold.

In AI, this is especially true. As we advance towards a data-driven future, AI will require not just data and engineering skills but increasingly, and some argue, more importantly, there will be a need to emphasise judgment, decision-making, and people skills.

I have spent over 10 years in technology, moving from science-based health projects to pure technology across three countries. However, I didn’t choose a career path in tech. I knew from very early on that I wanted a people-focused career and tech was just the medium. My real passion was and remains mathematical storytelling.

Also Read: How learning like babies can be the future of AI?

By choosing to study the different areas that I did, I was able to combine both my analytical and creative talents and get involved in game-changing innovation like building robotic arms for smart prosthetics and then moving across the world to delve into the world of insights for large technology companies.

In my current role at GitLab, what I love most is making tech work for customers around the world through new innovation. We now have the capability to solve things that we couldn’t before through the lens of AI, but we can do this effectively only when we embrace the diversity in passions and talent.

As humans, we find comfort in certainty and reproducibility. For employers, to hire a good data scientist, they would fall back on a checklist of the robotic skills (python, stats, presentation). However, to build a good AI model, one not only needs a mathematician but also poets, storytellers, linguistic specialists, among others.

Instead of viewing analytics and soft skills as two distinct skill sets, they should be considered as part of the same genre of human problem-solving skills. How we use tools is the craft but how we apply these tools to creatively solve a human problem is an art. Analytics is, therefore, a subset of soft skills and vice versa.

In our day-to-day lives as STEM professionals, we have to be active listeners to understand the needs of customers, their problems, and their desires. Only with that understanding can we creatively craft the analytics solution to solve the need and articulate how the solution fits in the holistic journey of the customers.

We have reached the point in time where humanity and technology co-exist and our lives get more intertwined with technology in one way or another. While there is no denying that enhancing our technical skills is paramount, I believe that skills such as critical thinking, communication, and decision-making are equally important.

For example, Pure Math is a craft but Applied Math and how we use it to solve problems is art. Similarly in AI, we have data, tools, fast computing engines, fast mathematical solutions such as tensor flow, DevOps frameworks extended to Machine Learning (ML)Ops, AIOps and DataOps, but how we apply all these tools and concepts to solve a human problem is a work of art.

Also Read: How this project uses artificial intelligence to help develop restaurants’ menu

We need all sorts of minds in harmony orchestrating every gender of different myelinated fibre strength, not just in STEM but also in art to create the magic of AI. Diversity in AI is having a platform where passion and individuality are embraced and creatively used in unified machine prediction and storytelling, embracing the personalisation of strengths and complementing each other’s weaknesses, finding freedom through problem-solving in the harmony of different backgrounds, age, sex, mindsets without altering each other.

At GitLab, the phrase “Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging” (or DIB) refers to the terminology for the initiative to create a diverse workforce and an environment where everyone can be their full selves.

The approach will help us not only in creating better AI models but fundamentally change the way we interact with computers, to make human interaction and society more efficient and ultimately enable a digitised ecosystem to solve critical problems and barriers to our evolution.

In order to achieve the true potential of an AI-driven world, we need to support young people in genuinely choosing their passion without any discrimination, whether they be science, technology or art, philosophy and international relations.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been brutal to startups and small businesses. How so?

Unlike big businesses, startups don’t have large cash reserves or profit margins to keep the wheels turning during unexpected slumps.

Reverse revenue churn coupled with business overheads have pushed many startups towards bankruptcy and shut down.

Startups in the seed phase (when businesses are low on liquidity since they are mostly bootstrapped or self-funded) have been most vulnerable. As their services/products were yet to generate revenue from real customers, they were forced to fold back operations before reaching maturity. 

While new-born startups had it extra-tough, the “valley of death” (in startup language) has engulfed startups in all stages.

Now, as the business world unlocks from global lockdowns, startups that we’re fortunate to survive the slowdown are looking for recovery plans to get their revenue engine up and running.

In this post, I’ll explain a few smart survival strategies for startups to emerge stronger in a post- COVID-19 world.

Let’s get started.

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

How can startups get back on track after COVID-19

Being the worst-affected demographic, startups need risk-free survival strategies to resurrect. They might need to overhaul their business plans and long-term vision.

Whatever disaster management tactics you use, first conduct a risk assessment on them. If you miss this crucial step, you might end up investing heavily in a tactic that doesn’t give proportionate returns.

As a startup owner, here are the steps that you need to take to get your business back on its feet:

Reassess your expenses

Startups with liquidity problems need to control their expenses from mounting during this slump. You need to take a good look at your balance sheet and segregate expenses into fixed and variable categories.

Expenses that have a direct impact on revenue cannot be avoided without disturbing the income stream. On the other hand, running costs such as consumables and rentals can be minimised with smart planning.

For instance, manufacturers can automate inventory management so that they are alerted when stock prices fall. They can redesign product lines to use lower-priced items. 

Travel tech startups can divert resources from hotels and entertainment (which are halted at the moment) into more profitable service areas such as facility management. 

For startups in all domains, investment in digital experiences and tools can reduce travel overheads without affecting productivity. There is virtually no key operation area that can’t be facilitated through automated tools.

Also Read: How to emerge stronger in a post COVID-19 world

Anything else?

Yes. Monitoring your cost-revenue balance should not be a one-time activity. You need to reassess your situation every three months at least. While planning resource allocation, it’s best to create short and flexible plans as the market is very unpredictable right now. 

Approach your existing investors for reinvestment

Every business needs capital to survive. Startups, in particular, rely heavily on venture capitalists (VC) or high-net-worth individuals (HNI) for funding. Since it’s uncertain when this pandemic will end, VC/HNI investors are extra-vigilant and taking their time evaluating investment opportunities.

Sound familiar?

I bet it does. But you don’t have to panic. You can approach your existing investors with reinvestment plans. Since they already have a stake in your business, there’s a good chance that they will extend the collaboration.

If you support your investment appeal with concrete business strategies and data-backed profit projections, you can make it a no-brainer for investors.

What if your investors don’t buy your story? Should you press the panic button?

Not yet. 

If you have liquid reserves, you can tide through this period and wait till you are better placed. In the meantime, keep a close watch on your business valuation. Make a strategic call about when to approach investors for round two of funding.

I might seem too optimistic, but I’m not joking when I say that you can convert this adversity into an opportunity. Use your business acumen and adaptability to create more business opportunities for yourself and your stakeholders. That can convince your investors to increase their equity stake.

Also Read: Has COVID-19 pushed us into the digital future?

Check business model for feasibility

Your startup might be marginally lucky if you are covered under essential services defined by state governments. By tweaking your working format, your business model will be feasible during and after the pandemic. 

However, if your supply chain is affected by government-imposed lockdowns, you might have to revisit business plans. You’ll have to relook your current financial position with regard to sales, bad debts, credit cycles, and collections.

Here are some ways by which you can pivot your business model to align with the “new normal” conditions:

• Renegotiate your variable expenses (equipment rentals, office leases, and salaries).
• Change your selling strategy from in-person to virtual.
• Focus on recovering bad debts.
• Cut down on travel expenses of operations teams by allowing them to work remotely.
• Scale down your marketing plans.
• Revise sales targets and product delivery timelines.

Through all this, it’s essential that you stay connected with all stakeholders, including vendors, workers, and customers. In such uncertain times, it’s easy for them to lose faith and look for other business opportunities, which can be a big setback for you. 

Explore alternative business models

The pandemic has changed buyer behaviour in a big way. Consumers prefer to engage with trusted brands who can assure them real value, deliverability, and customer service.

Startups are suddenly finding themselves locked in a heated competition with established brands.

To capitalise on the situation, your startup can try an affiliate business model.

Also Read: Humanising customer experience is the best way to build loyalty in a post-COVID-19 world

What’s that?

You can partner with reputable brands that sell complementary products. Though these brands are targeting the same audience as you, they are not direct competitors. They refer their customers to you in return for a commission. 

In this way, you earn new leads without spending a bundle on direct marketing.

However, the affiliate model is feasible only if it’s mutually beneficial. You will need to keep a watch on performance indicators that you and your affiliates mutually decide. If you have multiple affiliates generating leads for you from multiple channels, affiliate marketing platforms can help streamline things.

You can also ask existing customers for referrals and retarget lost leads to save on customer acquisition costs.

Demonstrate empathy

Lastly, brands need to be empathetic in all of their communications with workers, suppliers, and customers.

Why is that important?

Once markets bounce back, people will remember and reward brands that displayed integrity and compassion when times were tough. 

Also Read: How to organise your workforce for the volatile world

Also, there have been cases where brands have received negative publicity for mishandling their stakeholders. That can be disastrous for growing startups.

Startups need to be mindful of how the pandemic has changed customer expectations from brands. They need to step up their customer service game to beat the competition and retain customers.

You can crowd-source service ideas from customers by asking for their suggestions. Create feedback forms asking customers to share which services they expect from your brand. Implement the suggestions on priority. In this way, you can improve customer loyalty and also prevent your existing customers from going astray. 

When it comes to workers, you need to strike a balance between their professional aspirations and your business needs. While salary cuts and lay-offs might be inevitable, it’s good to go about it in a compassionate manner. Discuss the business situation with them honestly and explain why the rollbacks are necessary.

Startups that are transparent in their communication can boost their credibility and trust quotient, which can earn them new business opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has toppled the delicate ecosystem of startups. Even mature startups are finding it hard to adapt to the unprecedented challenges they are facing.

But new challenges build new capabilities. Startups need to keep up their efforts. The survival strategies in this post can help you sail through this period. Do you need more information on any of the tips I’ve mentioned? Leave your questions in the comments below. 

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Wavemaker Partners, Southeast Asia’s leading early-stage VC firm focussed on enterprise and deeptech startups, has announced the final close of its third Southeast Asia (SEA) fund at US$111 million, exceeding its initial target of US$100 million.

Also Read: Peace of mind: Meet the coworking space that aims to facilitate mental health professionals’ practices

The backers of the new fund include new investor Concentric Equity Partners will join existing ones Pavilion Capital, Temasek, IFC, and Vulcan Capital.

As per an earlier press release, Fund III aims to invest in 60 new companies with an initial check size of about US$500,000.

Since 2012, Wavemaker has built a wide-ranging portfolio across industry verticals (e.g. financial services, healthcare, food/agriculture), horizontal processes (e.g. HR, sales & marketing, cybersecurity), and technologies (AI, IoT, additive manufacturing). It has invested in over 130 startups, of which 100 (86 per cent) are enterprise-focused with over 40 (32 per cent) of these in deeptech and Artificial Intelligence.

Companies that have received funding from the VC firm include Zilingo​, ThinCI​,​ CashShield​, L​ynk​, ​Structo,​ ​Growsari,​ ​Igloohome​, Silent Eight, Novade, GudangAda and Transcelestial.

It also has some exits to its name, including Indonesian mobile point-of-sale system Moka (acquired by Gojek), cloud communications software company Wavecell (acquired by 8×8) and regional payments solutions provider Red Dot Payment (acquired by PayU/Naspers).

Wavemaker’s second fund worth US$66 million was one of the largest early-stage fund focused on enterprise and deeptech startups in the region.

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Patsnap’s software sales were actually higher in the past few months during COVID-19 than they were at the beginning of the year before the pandemic hit the world hard.

If you are wondering how, like us, then watch the latest webinar where we chatted with CEO of Patsnap, Jeffrey Tiong. He shared their transition from a sales-led to a product-led growth model and how COVID-19 actually enabled it.

Key takeaways

• In today’s hyperconnected business environment, it is not the fittest that survive, but the most adaptable one. This is in line with the idea that British naturalist Charles Darwin had proposed years ago.
• In the 1980s, when Microsoft and other software companies came into the market, purchasing decisions were made on a top-down basis. It was done with the big bosses in command.
• Patsnap traditionally relied on a sales-led growth model where the sales team would make cold calls to potential customers.
• The typical funnel looked like this: “We talk to them and ask if they are interested. If they are, we qualify them. We will do a demo. And once they’re once they agree to purchase, we will onboard them.”
• But now the department managers have the power and the budget to make these decisions. “We are entering the end-user era.”
• With examples such as Zoom and Slack, the end-user is now opening up and guiding enterprise decisions. This is the bottom-up era that has been going on for the past few years and COVID-19 has accelerated it.
• Product-led growth is when the end-user sees the value in a product and how it can aid their lives thus influencing their companies, startups, or even communities to adopt them.
• Patsnap shifted gears to the product-led growth since COVID-19 struck China and seen considerable results.
• While they still do the typical marketing approach such as using SEO, SEM, Content marketing, and other channels, they started a free use of the product in Q1 in China. Surprisingly, it has led to higher customer interest and lead generation for them.
• This “freemium” model allows the customers to use and test the product even before the salesperson gets to them. This totally changed the customer acquisition model for Patsnap. Their conversion rate was higher and user acquisition cost went down considerably.
• “Use your product to become your spokesperson and let the customers experience its value.”
• Product-led motion worked well for Patsnap across markets such as the US, China, and Europe.
• It is important to make the product journey simple and easy to use for consumers. Even if the product is free but complex for a user to comprehend and avail without guidance, it will not yield results.
• Continue to monitor and analyse metrics for users that log in but don’t continue using the free product. So keep looking for answers to the “why”.
• The funnel looks like this: Acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, referral.
• The right timing, employee buy-in, and a strong product are the only essentials you need for driving product-led growth.
• Be prepared to change your full company DNA. It will not just affect your customer acquisition but also operations, product development, and other areas.

Also Read: From sales-led to product-led: PatSnap founder shares how COVID-19 shifted their growth strategy

Silver lining

• Tiong emphasised that usually shifting to a product-led growth model would lead to resistance from the sales teams but COVID-19 is actually a good time to bring in this model. The markets are in a tizzy and this is a great time to adapt and shift gears. It is the best time to make a big change.
• Even if your product is a service or not easy to sell, there are many valuable propositions. It can be a feature, it can be a part of the product, etcetera. So look harder.
• For an entrepreneur, anything is possible.

Worth mentioning

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”- Charles Darwin

“We have seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.” – Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Resources

To know more about what happens to your existing sales team when you adopt this model, or how to retain the new customers and more, check out the full video recording.

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Consumer spending recovers in Singapore: Revolut data

The story: Financial super app Revolut has revealed data showing the recovery of consumer spending in Singapore as it enters Phase Two of its post-circuit breaker measures.

More data: After facing a hit during COVID-19 lockdown, restaurant and in-store shopping transactions are returning to normalcy and have increased in growth up to 125 per cent and 168 per cent respectively.

Transport has also seen a spike of growth with Gojek increasing by 96 per cent and Grab by 41 per cent. Lazada and RedMart have also seen growth of 25 per cent followed by online marketplaces.

Analysis: Digital payments are expected to grow as more consumers turn to contactless transactions solutions in the current climate.

Also Read: Peace of mind: Meet the coworking space that aims to facilitate mental health professionals; practices

Walrus raises funding

The story: Bangalore-based neobank Walrus has announced an undisclosed amount of funding for its platform.

Investor: Better Capital (lead investor), Raveen Sastry (Co-founder, Myntra), Raghunandan G (CEO of TaxiForSure), Brijesh Thakkar

Plans with the capital: Hiring and enhancing current product

More about Walrus: A digital-only banking platform aimed for teenagers to help them manage their money smartly and incorporate good financial habits.

Through the app, parents will be able to set saving goals for their children, teach them how to invest small amounts of money in SIPs and mutual funds and teach them to budget their expenses. The app is currently still in its beta stage.

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Image Credit: Revolut

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Startup Impact Summit 2020 (#SIS20), a part of StartmeupHK Festival 2020, has wrapped up its online conference. Hosted by WHub, Hong Kong’s startup community platform and connector, and organised by Invest Hong Kong, the conference claimed to have attracted over 5,000 attendees across two days.

The conference featured a series of keynote sessions, panel discussions, fireside chats, and workshops with speakers from some of the biggest players in the startup scene, including Ester Wong from Sensetime, Alex Zaccaria from Linktree, Nick Halla from Impossible Foods, and Satya Tammareddy from Stripe.

“This is the first year we’ve held the Startup Impact Summit online and we are beyond thrilled by the level of attendance, the quality of speakers and the tremendous feedback from our attendees, supporters, partners and participants. Technology is changing the way we live and work and also the way we conference,” says Karena Belin, Co-Founder and CEO of WHub and AngelHub.

“This is a testament to the true potential of the startup and tech scene in Hong Kong and the power it has for doing business on an international level,” Belin added.

One of the session talked about the role of diversity and inclusion in impact and innovation. The panel of young entrepreneurs each in their own way discussed how they have developed their businesses based on different themes of diversity and inclusion within the context of the LGBT community.

Palis Pitsuttisarun, Founder of Prism; Jason Miao, Founder of Pacific Connect Group; and Ryan Figueiredo, Executive Director of Equal Asia Foundation; all found that diversity and inclusiveness in a startup ecosystem result in incredibly innovative ideas.

Also Read: Entrepreneurs share COVID-19’s impact on their businesses in a survey by Startup Genome

In addition to Startup Impact Summit 2020, Hack.Asia, the annual hackathon hosted by WHub and powered by Jardines, also took place from July 6-8. More than 800 startups, students and innovators participated in the final round of Hack.Asia, a 36-hour virtual hackathon with the support from educational institutions and startup ecosystems around the world.

This year, the hackathon received over 1,000 applications from more than 10 countries. Eighty-four finalist teams (comprising 34 startups and 50 student-led teams) were selected for developing and designing technology-driven solutions to address challenges faced by market-leading businesses in the region.

Winners received cash prizes and the opportunity to advance a Proof of Concept with the sponsor.

The final pitches and award ceremony took place on the Main Stage (powered by Visa) during Startup Impact Summit at StartmeupHK Festival 2020. The Grand Prize was awarded to FoodieXpress, an AI-enabled business intelligence platform from Boston.

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Image Credit: StartmeupHK Festival 2020

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