Burgreens investment

The story: DealStreetAsia reports that Indonesian plants-based food chain Burgreens has raised an undisclosed sum in funding.

Investors: Teja Ventures, Angel Investment Network of Indonesia.

What is Burgreens?: It is a plant-based food company which operates restaurants as well as provides Asian taste plant-based meats alternative. Burgreens was started in November 2013 by a young vegetarian couple Max and Helga.

Started as Jakarta’s first organic healthy plant-based eatery and catering, Burgreens has now grown into a community-based social business connecting local farmers, a passionate team, and conscious customers to bring great tasting plant-based meals for everyone.

Shippit enters Singapore

The story: Australian SaaS logistics startup Shippit has officially launched in Singapore. The company has partnered with Shopify to launch a cash on delivery model for Southeast Asian merchants and retailers.

Plans: It aims to expand into Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia in the near future.

What is Shippit?: The Shippit platform enables retailers to instantly ship with Asia’s leading carriers, share tracking and notifications and access dedicated delivery support. Shippit serves more than 6,000 customers a month across Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. The company is backed by Aura Group.

SEA startups in MedTech programme

The story: US-based nonprofit accelerator MedTech Innovator, in partnership with Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed), has announced the 20 companies selected to participate in its Asia Pacific Accelerator programme.

List of Southeast Asian startups:

• CellWave Technologies (Singapore)
• Credo Diagnostics Biomedical (Singapore)
• FathomX (Singapore)
• Magloy Tech (Singapore)
• Naluri Life (Malaysia)
• Recornea (Singapore)
• Sporogenics (Singapore)
• X-ZELL (Singapore)

More details: Over 170 companies applied for the programme, but only four startups from the 2020 Asia Pacific cohort will advance to compete in the Grand Finals. The winning company, which will be determined by audience vote, stands to win a non-dilutive cash prize and the title of 2020 MedTech Innovator Asia Pacific Winner. In total, up to US$300,000 in cash prizes and awards will be given out to Accelerator companies.

Plum’s seed funding

The story: Plum, a Bengaluru-based group health insurance startup, providing modern health benefits to corporates, has raised INR 7 crore (over US$900,000) in seed funding.

Investors: Incubate Fund (lead), Gemba Capital, Tracxn Labs, angel investors

Plans with the capital: To scale business and engineering teams so as to solve some of the hardest engineering challenges in insurtech and build innovative distribution channels.

What is Plum?: Plum claims to provide employers and employees with more flexibility, transparent pricing, and quality healthcare experience. The platform says it understands the needs of a corporate and guides them on setting up their group health insurance in a short time.

It is working with nine insurance companies and has got 100-plus companies as customers.

The post In brief: Indonesia’s Burgreens raises funding; Shippit enters Singapore appeared first on e27.

It’s easy to assume that Fefifo is just another urban-farming-going-digital company on the surface. But dig deeper and you will understand why their approach to farming is different –if not revolutionary.

The Malaysia-based agritech startup brings in the concept of coworking space into farming. They called it co-farming, where aspiring smallholder farmers can come and rent a space to grow ready-to-buy crops and find buyers to buy the crops.

The idea of the company came when the two co-founders, Kelveen Soh and Chris Fond, were inspired by a mutual childhood friend who is a smallholder farmer. The friend started a two-acre farm three-and-a-half years ago, but still encounters many problems in ensuring the farm lives up to its standard in operation and profit.

“We realised that by focussing on solving our friend’s problem, we actually solve the smallholder farmers’ problems in general,” says Fong. So, the company was officially established a year ago in Malaysia.

The troubles with farming

After a thorough study of the problems encountered by their friend, the founders concluded that the key problems faced by smallholder farmers are along the lines of spending tons of money on farming infrastructures and securing networks of regular buyers.

Fong adds that smallholder farmers often still find it hard to grow consistently as they lack access to reliable and consistent sources of knowledge. Moreover, the number of information that they can get their hands on are also limited, such as where and how to market their harvest.

There are also issues with the management and administration side of farming itself. Things such as financials and inventory ultimately become a hiccup in smallholder farm operations.

“We aim to take over all of these problems that smallholder farmers face, so they can focus on one thing that matters: growing their farms,” says Fong.

Not to be mistaken with urban farming

During the conversation with e27, Soh and Fong highlight the fact that they are not an urban farming company.

“We provide real farming spaces that are all ready to use,” says Soh.

“What we do is digitising the process of the farm operation, making sure the smallholder farmers get immediate access not only to the farming infrastructure but also to guaranteed markets and use a standardised digital growing protocol on Fefifo’s platform,” Fong adds.

In short, Fefifo takes away all the business formality side of farming, to give agropreneurs -the term they use to describe aspiring farmers- everything they need to start in the co-farming space. Joining Fefifo’s community, daily hassles such as expensive greenhouse and fertigation systems are all taken care of.

“We use the term co-farming because it’s much like joining a coworking space. Interested agropreneurs must first register and our team will have a look at the application. Once accepted to join the co-farming community, the agropreneur will pay up three month-deposit rent for a farm space and start immediately with growing crops, all curated by Fefifo,” says Fong.

What Fefifo provides in return is pre-harvest financial support, which is a loan that can jumpstart the agropreneur in running the farm. The agropreneur will then receive a one-week training to familiarise themselves with digital protocol to run the farm.

As proper commercial farm sources, Fefifo’s proprietary platform Digital Distributed
Farms Network (DDFN) allows for a digitalised and standardised crop financial models and crop growing, with SOPs of the entire seed-to-sale process. The digital workflow platform is all AI-empowered to help farmers control, manage, and grow more with less.

Also Read: These are the 5 game-changers in Indonesia’s agritech sector

“We focus on helping agropreneurs in monitoring the farm and making sure that it’s profitable with a guaranteed market. We welcome people who want to start right away, with or without a background in farming, without access to hiring CFO or COO for the farm, but want to learn anyway and make a steady income out of it,” Soh points out.

Soh notes that the agropreneur joining co-farming with Fefifo will be business owners themselves, with US$12,000 – 16,000 per year income.

The company targets fresh graduates and smallholder farmers as well as contract farming buyers. The last group is benefited by Fefifo’s regularly available supplies of crops.

According to Soh, there are many potential parties that can be contract buyers in the future, such as chilli sauce producers and grocers in Malaysia.

Going back to its roots in Malaysia, Fefifo also works with the local community in rural areas, villages, and nearby townships.

Confidence during crisis

When asked whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down their progress, the answer is a yes for the startup.

“We’re forced to push back on the timeline, although there’s not much change in operation,” says Soh.

“If anything, COVID-19 made us relook at how to better design our systems, and how well we would stand up to in an event of a future pandemic. As long as we put a stronger scenario in a farm space and prepare from what we learned, we are optimistic that we can weather future pandemic,” he continues.

Fefifo says that having to take a second look at what they have been doing enforces the confidence in what they are doing.

“There’s a spike of visitors into our site during the pandemic, and it helps boost the confidence in this sector. Seeing the government trying really hard to keep supply chains open really propels people to open their eyes in the opportunity lies in this business model,” Fong points out.

What comes next

In August, Fefifo plans to start operating its pilot farm in Negeri Sembilan. So far, they have three agropreneurs ready to start in the first batch of five acres land, which consists of one farmer for two acres of chilli farm, and two other farmers each tending to one acre of greenhouse rockmelon crop.

Also Read: These 5 Vietnam-based agritech startups are tackling the country’s fragmented farming sector

Fong points out that while there are many new innovations meant to help smallholders farmers, such AI, vertical farming, and drones, they are still “very small and hard to work with.”

“All these wonderful things [such as] micro biotech, robots … It’s all promising for the future of farming. We play a critical role in bridging these technologies to smallholder farmers, to filter and pick out the techs, to structure the policies, and accommodate the curation that smallholder farmers can use,” he details.

Fefifo is optimistic that their 10-year plan will work out.

“Within two years, we want to get to 50 acres of land within the Malaysia market, then Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Our plan features an expansion of 25 acres each year, as we’re optimistic that it can be scaled quickly and suitable to replicate for Southeast Asia,” the co-founders said.

In the past, Fefifo has raised S$950,000 (US$682,000) from angel and corporate investors and has recently started its equity crowdfunding campaign via Ata Plus.

The development that’s already in the pipeline will get the platform starting on big data while doing research with universities in Malaysia, as well as augmented reality and machine learning to close the financial gaps between farmers. It will help them get loans with AI-based credit models, forecast problems, and assess credit risk.

The platform will also provide access to profit and loss data recorded.

“There’s no more going to the bank, where these smallholder farmers financial histories are usually required. In their case, not many smallholder farmers can provide that, and hopefully in the future, with our platform they can provide the digital record of it,” says Soh.

–

Image Credit: Fefifo

The post How Fefifo aims to make farming cool again for the younger generation appeared first on e27.

Avion School, which helps Filipinos “become software engineers in 12 weeks”, has secured an undisclosed sum in pre-seed funding, led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, a top executive of the edutech startup disclosed to e27.

San Francisco-based angel fund HEX Collective, besides several unnamed angels in the US and Europe, also joined the equity round.

“We will use the capital to help finance the next 15 batches of students within the next 12 months. This will allow us to bring over 400 new software engineering jobs into the market,” Avion Co-founder and CEO Victor Rivera said.

Also Read: How Fefifo aims to make farming cool again for the younger generation

“We are also keen on bringing an even stronger pool of engineers as instructors to ensure that their graduates are not only ready to get hired in the Philippines but also all across the world,” he added.

Avion was launched in Manila in May by Rivera and John Young (COO).

Rivera previously led Customer Success for PayMongo and also worked with WeClean (as Head of Growth) and Lalamove (as Logistics Consultant), whereas Young held various product roles in PDAX and MedGrocer.

Avion is building a new way for Filipinos to learn software development and other technical skills without having to pay upfront.

Its lessons/courses are derived from the specific skills that top startups in the world look for in their new hires.

Currently, Avion teaches a full-stack web development course, designed by MIT and Stanford computer science (CS) graduates and CTOs from well-funded startups.

The course is broken down into three parts: (1) frontend development under HTML, CSS and JavaScript; (2) backend development under Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and (3) learning to work with engineering teams.

As for the business model, Avion follows a concept called ‘income-share agreements’, which enables students to only pay for their tuition after they are hired as software engineers.

Learners are also free to make upfront payments of PHP 80,000 (~US$1,600).

The edutech venture is currently running two batches, comprising students from non-CS engineering and business school graduates to product managers. It also has a few CS graduates.

“We know the struggle of learning to code. This is why we try very hard to ensure that the courses we design are not just for computer science students, but also non-technical students,” Rivera said.

“We hold part and full-time courses on software development monthly, build real projects taken from startups in the US and Europe, and push our students to get hired globally,” he explained.

In addition to the core services on offer, Avion also helps its students find a job. For this, it has partnered with several hiring partners locally.

Huge market 

Rivera said that the Philippine market is huge with over 750,000 potential students, and there is a trend among people to learn coding. “The trend of learning to code is driven by the current shift from businesses relying on traditional business models and moving towards online. With that, we’re seeing more and more people learning not only to understand the fundamentals of programming, but more to build a new wave of products.”

Plus, the local internet economy is growing, so is the demand for more engineers.

“The country’s internet market is expected to reach US$25 billion by 2025, and we’re excited to build the engine supplying new startups with engineers,” he said.

Mateen connection

Avion School marks the Tinder co-founder’s second deal in the Philippines after a capital infusion into the online payments startup PayMongo last year.

Also Read: Facebook reveals 13 participants selected for its Community Accelerator programme in Asia Pacific

Rivera revealed that Mateen was introduced to him by PayMongo founders. When Mateen got to know about Avion’s pre-seed funding plans, he jumped in and saw potential of being able to use Southeast Asia-based engineers in Silicon Valley.

Mateen has also joined in as a Direct Advisor to the company.

 

—

Image Credit: 123rf.com

The post (Exclusive) Tinder co-founder invests in Avion School that helps ‘Filipinos become software engineers in 12 weeks’ appeared first on e27.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hits the world hard this year, the coworking space industries have been making headlines in global media, thanks to companies such as WeWork. Their IPO failure had led the public to question the future of the industry.

According to Yuanzheng Lee, founder of A Space Between, the future lies in industry-specific coworking spaces, which is going to see growth in demand.

“An observable example of innovation with regard to a central kitchen model for the F&B industry – a specific shared facility that caters to a particular vertical (i.e., bakery, desserts, hot kitchen) coupled with a business’ operational needs to manage the supply chain, versus a generic shared central kitchen that simply provides a kitchen with shared equipment,” she explains, likening the typical coworking spaces to shared central kitchen model.

“While it is industry-specific to tech startups and entrepreneurs, the primary focus caters to those reliant on desk-bound duties and traditional interactions for collaboration. I believe that there is incredible value to the sharing economy; that will evolve to provide a more customised approach to serving each vertical within the different industries,” she points out.

Understanding this insight, as a newcomer in the Singapore coworking space scene, A Space Between aims to make that differentiation by offering spaces for a specific kind of tenant: Mental health professionals.

Also Read: Holmusk closes US$21.5M Series A to build real-world evidence platform for mental health

A safe space to practice

Launched in Q2 2019, A Space Between is a coworking space that specifically targets mental health professionals –from psychotherapists to coaches to counsellors– as its tenants.

“In essence, A Space Between provides a conducive environment to conduct mental health therapy sessions with a minimal commitment on the part of the practitioner,” Lee explains in an email interview with e27.

As a space that will be used by therapists to work with their clients, there are several details that A Space Between needs to pay attention to.

“On the most basic level, it should make one feel safe, comfortable and be easily accessible. We spared no expense looking over the tiniest of details, from the size of the rooms, to the colours used, even to the layout of the furniture. All of these have been critically considered to optimise the experience for a therapy session,” Lee further elaborates.

“We are community-driven and what that means is that we are constantly working with our members to identify areas of improvement, so we can adjust according to their needs and enhance the overall experience for our members and their clients,” she continues.

Currently home to 20 therapists, the company is aiming to grow to 200 by 2022.

Also Read: Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

“We acquire our users largely through digital marketing, social media outreach and traditional word-of-mouth referral programmes,” Lee says.

A safe space during the pandemic

It is no longer a surprise that the recent global health crisis has shaken up the global coworking space industry, or even the office space in general. In an article, Vox even detailed on how the COVID-19 pandemic will “likely change the way office looks and works.”

Interestingly, Lee says that the COVID-19 pandemic and the Circuit Breaker Measures as implemented by the Singapore government did not impact the company’s business “too severely.”

Instead, she even believes that the measures will impact the business positively.

“I believe the circuit breaker measures and its impact on the way we work and communicate, will steer practitioners towards a plug-and-play sharing model like ours, where one is empowered to be self-employed yet unencumbered by lofty rental deposits and renovation costs,” she points out.

As the public struggle with having to stay and work from home in the greater part of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought greater attention to mental health issues in various countries, including Singapore. As an example, Straits Times reported that the National Care Hotline in the country saw more than 6,600 calls within just one month since its launch in April.

Also Read: Leaders, it’s time to talk about mental health

“I would say that the pandemic has brought attention to what basic healthcare services are and prioritised the need for easier access to mental health support services. We have seen an uptick in the demand for our shared space, primarily from those who traditionally have been working out of a shared clinic or office space,” says Lee, citing various reasons behind the uptick.

A safe space to expand

The history of A Space Between began when Lee’s friends –a group of psychotherapists and counsellors– moved into private practice and were looking for a suitable space to conduct their sessions.

“We discussed the issues they faced in setting up their private practice. Traditional coworking solutions such as WeWork and JustCo were not conducive and appropriate to conduct mental health therapy sessions as they are essentially an office space built around an energetic startup environment that is neither discrete nor soundproof,” Lee elaborates.

There were also other technical considerations such as lease and renovations, and the idea that traditional mental health service setups tend to be clinical and rigid.

To tackle this, Lee taps into her formal education background in strategic design management, which she describes as giving her “the ability to synthesise a business solution with a design thinking process.”

Also Read: Photographers, food loss, and mental health: Meet the winners of Startup Weekend Jakarta 2019

The company is currently self-funded but Lee says it is open to external funding opportunities.

“We are refining our current business practices and looking to secure our next few locations to provide better accessibility for our members. Regionalisation and internationalisation are part of our pipeline,” she closes.

—

Image Credit: A Space Between

The post Peace of mind: Meet the coworking space that aims to facilitate mental health professionals’ practices appeared first on e27.

Fengru Lin, a passionate cheesemaker, was working with Google Singapore as a Territory Account Manager when she met her future co-founder Max Rye, an expert in the stem cells-based alternative food.

Lin, who was looking for unadulterated and pure milk to make her dream cheese but to no avail, wondered if the same stem cells-based technology can be applied to make lab-produced milk — which is richer in nutritional value and offers the same taste as those produced by real mammals.

This research ended up with the duo starting TurtleTree Labs in 2019.

What does TurtleTree do?

Singapore-based TurtleTree offers patent-protected technology as a solution to make full-composition, full-functionality, full-flavour milk referencing humanely selected dairy cow cells, then mimicking the natural process of milk production in the lab.

This is done with the efficient use of natural resources (land, water and energy) and without pollution, pathogen and disease risks. The result is the product will be 95 per cent less resource consumptive.

In other words, the biotech startup seeks to challenge the value gap created by an insufficient and unsustainable animal-based dairy industry. The firm does so by using cell-based methods used to make ‘clean milk’ and cultured milk products.

Also Read: Startup of the Month, January: Singapore-based biotech startup TurtleTree

TurtleTree acellular technology works by culturing mammary cells in-vitro and inducing their natural ability to produce all components of milk. Cellular agriculture is entirely safe and widely used in the market today.

The first step involves obtaining stem cells from sources such as milk. They are then transferred into an environment where they convert into mammary gland cells.

The mammary gland cells interact with a special formula which causes the cells to lactate. The end product is the milk is obtained through a filtration process.

The human breast milk the company is trying to recreate is to mimic the richness of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), which are the third most abundant solid component in human milk after lactose and fat.

According to an article posted by TurtleTree Lab, the research increasingly demonstrates that much of breast milk’s value lies within these components.

Furthermore, HMOs have prebiotic properties and are incredibly complex to replicate. Previous studies have underscored the value of HMOs in infant prenatal and postnatal development.

“We are able to produce the complete biomatch of the nutritional content of human breast milk. All HMOs, proteins and fats are replicated with our technology. A few areas that are unique to the mother are antibodies (coming from the mother’s blood) and the microbiota (coming from the mother’s gut),” highlights Rye.

According to Harith Behren, who heads Business Development at TurtleTree, “For human breast milk, we’re in no way trying to replace mothers from breastfeeding their babies, but as we all know, not every mother has the ability to breastfeed due to medical conditions or other situation, and then forced to turn into a formula feeding.”

Infant formula in the market today lacks the bioactive component found in breast milk. That’s what prompted TurtleTree Lab to recreate this bioactive component in the lab, to come up with a more improved and better milk in nutritional values for mothers and babies with no access to breast milk.

TurtleTree is trying to address the US$716 billion global dairy market and environmental crisis with what they called ‘clean milk’. It is optimistic that it can transform the US$45 billion infant nutrition market, which is set to grow to US$103 billion by 2026.

Seed funding

A couple of weeks ago, the startup secured US$3.2 million in seed funding to march ahead with its plan to produce lab-produced cow milk and human breast milk from stem cells. Investors include Green Monday Ventures, the renowned Prince Khaled’s KBW Ventures, CPT Capital, Artesian, and New Luna Ventures. All they were involved in TurtleTree’s pre-seed round.

According to Behren, the returning of its previous investors despite expected delays due to pandemic is a form of reaffirmation of their trust in the company and its team.

“We’re at the scale-up stage with plans to commercialise the products according to our timeline,” says Behren.

Also Read: Singaporean biotech startup TurtleTree secures pre-seed from Saudi entrepreneur Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed

Government support

Thanks to the support from the government agency Enterprise Singapore and the firm’s investors who provided resources, the biotech startup made good progress. TurtleTree’s ability to move forward despite the heavy pandemic has a lot to do with the government’s direct support.

Besides, the company also benefitted from the support from other government agencies such as Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the national research institute A*STAR. It is aligned with the country’s goals to produce 30 per cent of its own nutritional needs by 2030.

“We think the government is doing a good job on food security emphasis as an urgent matter. It certainly helps boost the investors’ confidence that their money is going into an established, mature ecosystem of future food security,” says Behren.

An in-country-operated biotechnology company like TurtleTree Lab seeks to modify the way people consume certain foods with heavy carbon prints, and it certainly a cause that the country should rally behind.

Commercialisation stage

Contrary to popular assumption, when tech businesses were mainly forced to adjust and manage operations, TurtleTree managed to keep up with the research and development work it was doing.

“We didn’t slow down our progress. We are committed to still having a small team coming in and taking turns week by week, carrying on despite the pandemic with strict protocol in place,” says Behren.

Right now, the company seeks to first address a propitious market opportunity in Asia, then move into other promising market areas similarly driven by increasing populations seeking better nourishment or encumbered by poor dairy infrastructure and declining environmental quality.

To be able to get on the wagon, the company said that once finalised, it will offer licensing technology to powerful local processors and distributors.

TurtleTree will own the technologies that make the milk, leveraging and enabling its IP across global regions, and manufacturers.

The company’s principal revenue streams include licensing, enablement consulting, and royalties. Additional revenue may include branded consumer products distributed regionally by global dairy companies.

“Now we are laser-focussing on the technology design and creating pilot plan activity to make sure we can bring the cost down on price point, as well as working on the regulation side. We’re hoping to work with SFA closely so they can develop a regulation on this sort of novel food,” says Behren.

With the country’s economy slowly opening up, Turtletree Labs continued its strike by winning US$1 million from Temasek Foundation, plus US$100,000 in investment funding and a spot on Antler’s accelerator programme from Planet Rise.

With that being said, the company is on track of providing accessible nourishment while staving off the threats of food, economic, and socio-political insecurities, which also include cow’s and other mammals’ milk as variety.

—

Image Credit: TurtleTree Labs

The post Unable to find good milk to make her dream cheese, this founder created one from stem cells appeared first on e27.

Last 19 to 24 June 2020, The Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI), in partnership with 500 Startups, held the 2020 Vision Programme that gathered 25 tech teams in a rigorous boot camp that spanned four days. With 8 mentors, 6 guest speakers, and 8 workshops, the teams were exposed to practical training and mentorship sessions on pitch deck structure, storytelling, and shifts in the entrepreneurial mindset, among many others.

With a unique focus on navigating American laws, finance, marketing strategies, and a wide array of other related topics, the programme sought to gather startups that are equipped with stellar technical capabilities.

With the right set of teams undergoing rigorous training, the role of the Vision Programme is to ultimately help them garner new insights about working with different regions and prepare them to build connections globally.

The teams behind Vision Programme

STPI was created specifically as a support system for the Taiwan government’s technology-based policies. It is their mandate to help Taiwan address the growing demands of globalisation and the emerging knowledge economy.

In a nutshell, it functions as the main government think-tank for science and technology policy and the major platforms for incorporating Taiwan’s research communities whose primary mission is to empower Taiwan’s digital economy.

On the other hand, 500 Startups holds the reputation of being one of the most active global venture capital firms whose mission is to back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs and build thriving ecosystems worldwide.

As such, it is only fitting that the collaboration between the two institutions would result in what the Vision Programme attendees enthusiastically described to be “the best accelerator in Taiwan”.

What went down

“Taiwan does not have another programme like this. While others have classroom-style teaching formats that are theory-based, 500 Startups’ structure is very practical, hands-on, and fun,” shared the participating startups about their experience with the programme.

From a large pool of applicants that underwent a month-long intensive training under the programme, the number of tech teams was narrowed down to 25. These teams moved forward to the 4-day boot camp that happened in June.

From the 25, the programme selected 10 finalists from the pool of participants, 5 of which will be going to Singapore to work with e27, while the other 5 are flying to Silicon Valley to garner more global exposure.

The programme also boasts a stellar line up of speakers and mentors that included Co-founder and CEO of Smarter Me, Ee Ling, Entrepreneur in Residence at 500 Startups, Kenneth Low, and APAC Head of Innovation and Partnerships for 500 Startups, Thomas Jeng.

Also read: What a time to be in Taiwan!

Not only were the teams exposed to learning sessions spearheaded by industry experts, they were also engaged in one-on-one mentoring sessions. Moreover, the programme’s interactive and engaging forward allowed the budding tech teams to practice with each other and share constructive feedback from other teams.

This is a crucial element of the Vision Programme format: what ultimately sets it apart from other programmes in Taiwan is its practical and hands-on approach to learning, allowing participants to get a real-world taste of what it’s like to engage with global networks and tap markets beyond the familiarity of Taiwan.

At least year’s programme, STPI Director General, Dr. Yuh-Jzer Joung, explained that “research commercialisation refers to the process through which ideas or research are transformed into marketable products, capital gains, income from licenses and/or revenue from the sale of a new product.”

Operating under the same core vision, this year’s Vision Programme focused on teaching young startups how to translate their entrepreneurial ideas into actual commercial viability that transcends across global markets. With this, the project aims to promote a healthier and globally competitive startup ecosystem for Taiwan, and by extension, to support the country’s digital economy.

The 2020 STPI Vision Programme is currently in its fourth year.

Key learnings from the programme

With topics ranging from “The Art of Pitching” where teams are taught how to craft compelling narratives and communicating effectively when it comes to selling their ideas, to “Winning Pitch Decks” that allow teams to take a closer look at how successful pitches are rendered visually through a persuasive deck, the participating startups were able to enjoy a learning experience that struck a balance between practical approaches and theorisation.

“[We] have attended Berkeley’s Skydeck / Techstars / Plug and Play’s accelerator. and 500 Startups’ programme has been the most valuable because it is the closest to actually solving our business needs using very practical and specific guidance,” remarked the programme participants, calcifying Vision Programme’s commitment to helping young startups achieve their goals through experience-based, pragmatic learnings.

One participant earnestly shared, “even if I do not get selected in the Pitch Practice, I feel like I have learned something valuable in the short 4 days that I can use in the future.”

With STPI leveraging on leading researches and partnerships with universities to support local startups by promoting an ecosystem that welcomes enterprises, international startups, and investors, STPI and 500 Startups hope that the participating teams will be able to take the value of their learnings from the Vision Programme and bring it to a larger global audience while being able to contribute to Taiwan’s vibrant tech ecosystem.

– –

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.

The post STPI’s Vision Programme: Bridging Taiwan startups with the world appeared first on e27.

MyanCare raises funding

The story: Myanmar based healthtech company MyanCare has secured US$600,000 investment.

Investors: The SPARX Group (lead), Japanese tech company Scala, Japanese pharmacy dispensing chain AIN Holdings.

Plans with the money:

• It aims to boost its “market-leading position in the telemedicine industry” of Myanmar.
• It plans to further expand locally.

What does MyanCare do?: Started in 2018, MyanCare is a telemedicine company. It has two core businesses — MyanCare healthcare app and YinThway paediatric medical call centre service.

MyanCare healthcare app features online appointment with the general practitioners and specialists as well as voice, video, or chatting consultation directly with the doctors via the app. More than 200 doctors and 26 different medical specialties so far are connected with the MyanCare platform.

YinThway provides 24×7 voice consultation directly with the paediatricians via different telecom operators, handling more than 2,000 consultations weekly during COVID-19 pandemic.

Indonesia, Lazada to help digitise 2M SMEs

The story: The government is partnering with Alibaba-backed e-commerce company Lazada to help two million SMEs to speed up digitisation in Indonesia.

How: They aim to do so by using Lazada’s sellers. They intend to recruit the most successful sellers on Lazada Indonesia’s platform into the scheme as tutors, known as kakak asuh.

With 100 such tutors on board, they will work with SMEs in Indonesia to hone their online business skills, tapping into the knowledge and wisdom of those experienced at selling on one of Southeast Asia’s powerhouses of e-commerce.

More details: The tutors will be responsible for the education of around two or three businesses each, ensuring that time can be spent with each company individually. As they are working with small numbers, they can also give additional help to those who need more attention.

Qualcomm investment in Jio

The story: Indian telco startup Jio Platforms is set to receive US$97 million from Qualcomm Ventures in exchange for a 0.15% stake.

This follows Intel Capital’s investment of US$253 million this month and previous investment from Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, TPG Capital, L Catterton, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Plans with the money: The fresh funds will go toward supporting Jio to roll out 5G infrastructure and services in India.

What is Jio?: With nearly 400 million subscribers, Jio aims to digitise India’s 1.3 billion people and businesses, including small merchants, micro-businesses, and farmers.

—

Image Credit: MyanCare

The post In brief: Myanmar’s telemedicine startup MyanCare secures US$600K led by SPARX Group appeared first on e27.

Social media giant Facebook has selected 13 participants across the Asia Pacific region to join its six-month-long Community Accelerator programme in Asia.

The accelerator is part of Facebook’s Community Leadership programme, a global initiative which is focused on investing in leaders that drive change in the world through community building, empowerment, and encouragement.

“We received hundreds of applications across four countries in APAC – Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. In the end, it boiled down to communities that are already driving positive, lasting change, but need help to scale their efforts and grow in size,” said Grace Clapham, Head of Community Partnerships APAC, Facebook in a statement.

“We’re excited to welcome a diverse group of community leaders and look forward to working with them to meet their goals and create a further impact on their communities,” she continued.

Leaders enrolled in the accelerator programme will receive up to US$30,000 in capital along with mentorship and training from experts and coaches. They will also get a customised curriculum that will aid their community growth.

Also Read: Book Excerpt: What Google, Facebook did to grow from zero to 1,000

Here are the selected participants:

Skye Riggs (Ripple GI): Connects young Australians to career opportunities by matching them to purpose-driven careers and training for community-building.

Nur Yana Yirah (MotherHope Indonesia): Promotes perinatal mental health literacy to help support mothers and families who are affected by anxiety disorders and perinatal mood.

Yohana Habsari (Indonesian Babywearers): Community that empowers parents by promoting positive learning habits and ethics in everyday life through events.

Sepri Andi (Social Connect): Online platform for mental health survivors to share their stories and receive help through online classes and consultations.

Yves Miel Zuniga (Mental3thPH): Community that promotes awareness on mental health in the Philippines through various social media channels.

Maria Korina Bertulfo (Filipina Homebased Moms): Community that helps mothers obtain financial security and personal growth by matching them with home-based livelihood opportunities.

Also Read: gojek names Facebook, PayPal as new investors in latest funding round

Josh Mahinay (BEAGIVER): A social enterprise that develops engagement opportunities for people or organisations who want to create an impact on different communities by giving.

Ayesha Vera Yu (ARK -Advancement for Rural Kids): Partners with farmers and fisherfolk to feed children, keep them in school, and empowers rural communities to invest in themselves.

Chitsanupong Nithiwana (Young Pride Club): Community that provides safe learning space for young people interested in gender equality and the LGBT+ community.

Chatchai Aphibanpoonpon (LearnNaiDee): Program that aims to improve education for people with disabilities.

Thanakorn Phromyos (YOUNGHAPPY): An app for seniors that helps them maintain an active lifestyle to support their mental wellbeing.

Somsak Boonkam (Local Alike): Platform that develops, empowers and connects Thai tourism communities to the world.

Kanpassorn Surivasangpetch (Ooca): Helps people get through the stigma of mental health by connecting people to psychiatrists anonymously via an online video call platform.

Find out more about the Facebook Community Accelerator programme and selected participants here.

–

Image Credit: Ian Schneider on Unsplash

The post Facebook reveals 13 participants selected for its Community Accelerator programme in Asia Pacific appeared first on e27.

As of today, the economic implications of COVID-19 are felt very palpably all over the world. While China maintains an optimistic position, business confidence in many other Asia Pacific countries has declined. US firms are some of the hardest-hit despite signs of state lockdowns ending soon, while buyer intent is also slightly down in Europe despite market indicators being mostly stable.

With businesses reeling from the pressures of the pandemic, austerity measures are being applied by many companies that have resulted in a dramatic decline in IT spending in 2020. Such decline is happening globally in spite of the growing need to adopt digital solutions to address present business problems. More than ever, business leaders need to rethink their current IT strategy — to put their focus on building up resiliency and digital capabilities to meet the new norm of operating and working.

As such, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in partnership with Intel, held a webinar with e27 aptly titled, “Transforming IT Strategy to Drive Profitable Growth for cloud-native Companies”. The event’s goal is to help impart crucial information regarding technology-led priorities for 2020 and 2021 where the right mix of hybrid cloud adoption is seen as a key catalyst.

Avneesh Saxena, IDC Group Vice President for Domain Research Group APAC, mentioned in his keynote speech that “cloud was always important, but COVID-19 has kind of spiraled into this platform where everybody is looking at cloud as the biggest factor in how they can get on with some of their applications and migration plans faster into cloud.”

An important note Saxena also pointed out is that when it comes to choosing cloud, the choice is not between public or private. Enterprises will buy the best cloud for their workload, which means an enterprise will likely choose to use a hybrid combination of both. It is through this amalgamation that enterprises can interconnect between different applications, access more customers, and ultimately create more synergy.

According to IDC’s COVID-19 data on the behavior of enterprises, the primary drivers for cloud migration are improved performance, enhanced security, lower costs, and improved availability, among others.

When it comes to leveraging technology to transition to the next normal, Saxena explained that the goal is to flatten the curve for APAC companies to persevere through various economic blows brought about by recessions, economic slowdowns, and global health crises such as the case with COVID-19 —to ultimately return to growth and allow a seamless transition to the next normal.

Reverse migration to on-premise private cloud

In an audio recording, Rob Clark of HPE discussed the Dropbox model that saw a reverse migration to an on-premise private cloud after many years of using a public cloud environment. Clark explained that one of the challenges Dropbox encountered while sitting on a public cloud was explosive growth. In a matter of eight years, the amount of users using their platform grew three folds, ballooning to over 600 million users.

As they grew, the public cloud model became increasingly confined. This rendered Dropbox to become extremely dependent on their public cloud provider, forcing them to contend with an unfeasibly high-cost structure. Because the company was aiming to capture more B2B customers, they needed a robust new IT hardware infrastructure with greater scalability and flexibility.

Such a transition not only meant capturing a larger B2B audience, but also keeping the existing B2C users. To do this, Dropbox needed to build a cloud environment that supported both personal and enterprise use cases.

By migrating to an on-premise private cloud environment through HPE, Dropbox was able to meet these objectives. Furthermore, they were able to retain flexibility, accelerate enterprise-level security and scalability, drive down costs, render those costs more predictable, and reduce the cost per gigabyte to support higher ROI.

These benefits were earned through a complex combination of advanced engineering where enterprises can customise their build to meet their application needs, access a global supply chain, and global support from HPE.

Government regulations as a factor in cloud strategy

During the fireside chat, the distinguished experts shared insights about strategising one’s IT infrastructure to accommodate certain shifts in the market, innovate one’s

system without sacrificing compliance regulations, and ultimately respond to different challenges.

Norman Sasono, CTO of DANA Indonesia, explained that due to their specific business model, the company is governed by the Central Bank (Bank of Indonesia) which means there are very strict government regulations in how they operate, including in the IT space. As such, the company is strictly mandated to use only an on-premise system designed to accommodate their data centers.

DANA Indonesia is a tech startup working in the fintech space founded three years ago. The company boasts more than 40 million users in Indonesia alone and records as much as 3 million transactions per day. With the user base constantly expanding, much of DANA’s business model relies largely on its IT infrastructure.

This means it is also particularly challenging for them to adjust to spikes in their system workload when their operations are confined exclusively to an on-premise system.

“The strategy is to continue with the hybrid cloud, to always maintain the high-performance security and scalability to really deliver the best user experience for our users,” said Sasono as he explained what strategy DANA Indonesia is gearing towards as the company seeks to grow their number of users to 100 million in the future.

He added that for core payments, the IT infrastructure and workload still needs to be hosted on-premise, and that what they’re looking to explore, are ways to be more efficient in terms of running operations and managing their own infrastructures.

The IT strategy playbook

Across the spectrum, the IT strategies being deployed in the startup ecosystem are dynamic and continuously evolving. Moreover, they continue to evolve along the life cycle of the companies. Sandeep Kapoor, Senior Director and GM of HPE’s Hybrid IT Compute, discussed that in the context of what’s happening right now from the perspective of a pandemic, the IT strategy playbook has morphed into something very different.

“If you asked me a question three months ago, the answers would be a lot different. The most fundamental change in the equation is in addition to the speed, the scale, the latency, and the availability, the one aspect that COVID-19 has put on the discussion table is how investors look at startup companies and wonder how they can get profitable returns,” Kapoor remarked, adding that “this was not the situation three to four months ago where the investment community was investing to build scale and build size.”

He furthered this statement by saying, “our experience tells us that the world is going to be ‘hybrid’ and that cloud is going to be a journey, not a destination.” By this, the next decade is going to be more anchored on how they provide an experience for users to move seamlessly between different clouds.

There are three elements that play critical roles in building the right hybrid cloud model:

1.) Technology — making sure that the provider or the partner of that space is able to have the best technology that encompasses cutting edge hardware and software capabilities, and all the building blocks needed for the right infrastructure.
2.) Economics — how one delivers the right economics so they’re not just wasting a lot of money, given how the IT infrastructure is utilised during the surges and dips of a company’s profit (e.g. to be able to provision capacities when they’re needed, and to not have to spend so much for those capacities when workloads are low).
3.) People — you can have the best class of products and services, and even develop the most sophisticated charging mechanisms, but if your workforce is not equipped with the right set of skills that match the rest of the business infrastructure, the company’s objectives will still be difficult to meet.

HPE has the capability to provide these elements through their proven solutions and team of experts.

The best of both worlds

Simranjit Aujla, Distinguished Technologist of HPE’s Pointnext Advisory Services, explained that enterprises need hybrid cloud to deliver agile and efficient foundation for their digital program. To achieve this, companies need to make a complete assessment of their applications portfolio, to understand their customers and what kind of performance to provide them, and of course, to understand the economic aspects.

Aujla said that enterprises need to ask themselves the question, “what does it cost for me to run what workload, and on what environment?”

He also stressed out the need to think about security, how important it is, and the kind of control a business wants to have over the system. With all of these factors put together as a company grows and scales, they ultimately help businesses decide how to move to cloud.

Some of the benefits that come with a hybrid cloud solution are visibility, security, and control across clouds. Moreover, this kind of IT infrastructure allows real-time tracking, metering, and usage. The flexibility of this environment also means it’s more automated, programmable, and consumable, and allows companies to adapt to economic shifts due to its pay-per-use consumption on-premise, allowing companies the freedom to create, iterate, flex, and scale at speed with the controls in place.

HPE GreenLake

In order to understand a company’s IT strategy, we have to contextualise the pros and cons of cloud models. Today, companies who subscribe to public cloud enjoy the element of on-demand pricing, yet they are compromising their controls, and to a certain extent, their security.

HPE GreenLake provides an on-demand capacity in its pricing model which caters to a cloud-like experience. Most companies are stranded in a loop of overspending for their capacity provisions, or having to wait three months or longer in order to enjoy new capacities buffered by their growing workload.

HPE addresses this by providing a certain base-level capacity as well as a threshold which will ensure that a company’s cloud spending will operate on a pay-per-use basis. During the webinar’s fireside chat, Aujla explained that “HPE ensures that you are able to provision extra compute and storage while at the same time, you only pay for what you use.”

HPE GreenLake is the mechanics to which HPE provides this consumption-based approach to ensure that companies can enjoy the economics of a public cloud in a private environment, and also help companies plan their journey in terms of their workloads, security, performance, as well as the scalability that they require to run their businesses effectively.

Based on where a company is in their cloud journey and on their area of interest, HPE can come in to help them create a plan for the present and a roadmap for the future where the migration strategy will come into the picture.

Moving forward

It makes the most sense for some workloads to be on-premise, while other workloads that are non-critical can be hosted on a public cloud. The decision to get there, however, is a scientific process that HPE has the advisory capabilities to provide.

In many cases, this decision is derived based on a company’s cloud maturity cycle especially when they scale not only in terms of accommodating more customers, but also capturing customers beyond their current demographic. Much of the decision to adopt an IT strategy or to migrate to a new one can be addressed by what is called a “Proof of Concept” where companies can diagnose and identify where they are in their business journeys. HPE can step in and help companies go through this and provide a step-by-step guide on how the IT requirements should take shape.

The question then becomes: are my costs going to spike? Will I have to pay three or four times more for my workload when my business scales up?

Kapoor said that the answer is a resounding no. “You basically have with HPE GreenLake what [Simranjit Aujla] describes as a ‘consumption model’ which basically means you’re charging IT costs based on what you consume. It’s comparable to when you pay for electricity or water as you consume. You are paying for some amount for a fixed commitment and the rest could be variable.”

Kapoor encourages startups to engage HPE GreenLake and see for themselves how the company can help them build something meaningful together. To find out more, the fireside chat section of the live webinar is available on the HPE website.

If you’re interested in taking part in an HPE workshop, you may take this quick survey to let us know. The first 20 respondents stand to win exciting token premiums from HPE.

– –

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

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.

The post Driving profitable growth for cloud native companies appeared first on e27.

When the WHO announced the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus as a pandemic, no one thought that it would reveal the weakness of the conventional order of the society. But here we are anyway.

With everything closed, people having to stay at home, and the supply chain majorly disruptive, there are many questions being asked. The first and foremost of them being- how can any industry recover from the damages done by the pandemic?

There are other questions being asked as well, such as how to prepare for another disruption such as this pandemic, how to cut down extra costs till the business has finally recovered, etc. And not so strangely enough, the answer to all these questions is – digital business transformation.

At this point, it is actually a no-brainer. The speed with which technology is evolving and newer solutions being invented every day, digital transformation can and will be the only chance of survival for any industry. And just as COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the weakness in the traditional system, it is also supporting the industries to embrace digital transformation at a faster rate.

Its the time for action, not debate

The matter of digital transformation in different industries has been the topic of debate for a long time. And just like any debate, there have been many back and forth between the two groups about the effectivity of digital transformation and whether it will actually help. But this pandemic has finally shown us that right now, is the time of action.

Instead of talking and planning about transforming the industry digitally, it is time to implement those plans. The main reason for the delay in digitally transforming industries is not just a problem with legacy systems or a lack of skilled people.

It is also the sheer size of the project. The transformation of major organisations is going to take a long time. But if the pandemic has exposed anything, then it is the need to transform the industry “T minus ten minutes” from now.

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

Different industries and their digital future- what can happen?

After discussing the urgency of the digital business transformation it’s time to look at a few major industries and what can happen when they finally finish transforming into digital.

Manufacturing and supply-chain: first ones in line for digital transformation

Undoubtedly, the manufacturing and supply-chain industry need a technological revolution more than any other industry.

Despite the warp speed of digital advancements, the manufacturing and the supply-chain industry is still stuck with its legacy systems and old traditional ways of doing things. And this will soon become the downfall of the industry. The pandemic has revealed the weakness of the industry and its traditional workflow. Now it’s just a matter of time to recognise the faultlines and start mending them with Digital transformation.

However, the slowdown of the digital transformation is not without reason. The sheer size of the project can be daunting. And for a complete transformation, the technology has to be more accessible than it was a few years ago. But hopefully, in the post-COVID-19 scenario, the supply-chain industry, and manufacturing will have better chances of speeding up the process of digital transformation.

Healthcare will move forward by going digital

Healthcare has already embraced digital transformation and the benefits come with it. In fact, it is one of the prime examples of how digitalisation transforms industries. And in the post-COVID-19 scenario, it is expected of this specific industry to go farther in the digital landscape than any other industry.

Scientists and doctors are already using digital solutions to diagnose and treat patients, research medicines, and provide telehealth services to those with ordinary ailments. But in the future, we can expect these practices to go farther. Through AI imaging medical professionals can supply a perfect diagnosis for chronic diseases, and save thousands of lives. There is however one little catch.

Whatever the effects of technological transformation we are seeing in the healthcare industry are severely limited. Many areas do not even have the equipment, training, or structure in place to actually benefit from these ‘Digital transformation’ fixes. And that’s why in the new norm where we might have to start living with COVID-19 till a vaccination is invented, these digital transformation solutions need to be spread out wide into the more remote areas in the world.

Also Read: Why is Vietnam going to emerge the strongest post-COVID-19?

Education will soon go ‘officially’ digital

While digital transformation in this industry has been happening slowly, not one took it seriously. Sure having an online learning management system was a neat little addition to the industry, but it was not that important, till the pandemic hit. And now, every educational industry is leaning towards the technological transformation that is no doubt going to revolutionise education.

Imagine a world where true education is accessible by anyone from anywhere! A free world of education where even people with familial obligation can access the kind of education they want easily. That is the world we will be living in once the education industry goes ‘officially digital’ in the post-pandemic time. The digital classroom will create a more independent campus for both students and teachers to communicate without any fuss, eventually leading to a better education industry once the pandemic is over.

Are we looking towards a digital future?

As a matter of fact, we are. Soon enough we are going to be entering a future where every business-related question can be answered with digital transformation. Now a lot of people might argue that the digital transformation across various industries might be the death of originality and imagination.

And it is, in fact, a valid point. This is why the digital transformation we need has to balance between machine intelligence and human imagination. In a post-COVID-19 era, survival will be only possible through the complete balanced digital transformation.

–

Register for our next webinar: Meet the VC: East 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

Image credit: Marius Masalar on Unsplash

The post Has COVID-19 pushed us into the digital future? appeared first on e27.