The year 2020, has been quite a ride so far, with many events tipping the world into the next world-war, trade-war, forests fire, and finally a global pandemic to trump that all. But despite all these hardships in such an unprecedented time, it is noteworthy to see how certain startups have braced them from these woes.

They have not only managed their resources but have also grown in their respective fields. One such field is that of media tech. The last decade has seen massive changes in how consumers view media, how businesses create those media, and how marketers advertise on them.

With the amalgamation of emerging technology such as AI, Blockchain and the likes with the media and entertainment industry, the consumers and the businesses have shifted their preference from the conventional mainstream media sources to newer and technology advanced modes.

For instance, Forbes is using a bot named Bertie, which recommends article topics for contributors based on their previous output, headlines based on the sentiment of their pieces, and images too, Digiday reported.

This makes it interesting to see which all startups are stepping up their game to give the incumbents are run for their money.

Partipost (Singapore)

According to the report released in March by Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is expected to be worth about US$9.7 billion in 2020, with companies spending increasing amounts on social media campaigns and working with more “micro-influencers.”

Serving this space, is a Singapore-based media tech company, Partipost. It allows anyone with a social media accounts to register and become an influencer.

Since launching its mobile app in 2018, Partipost says it has added about 200,000 influencers to its platform, and that over the past 12 months, it has helped conduct 2,500 social media marketing campaigns for more than 850 brands, including Adidas, Arnott’s, Red Bull, Chope and Gojek. Recently, it has raised US$3.5 million from SPH ventures and others.

Also Read: 5 ways to monetise social media technology for startup success

The funding has been raised to expand its operation from Singapore, Taiwan, and Indonesia to Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The company says it expects to increase its base of aspiring influencers to one million within the next 18 months.

Bitlumex (India)

With blockchain disrupting the traditional industrial process like that of media and entertainment, Bitlumex takes care of the other end of the spectrum. It provides a holistic suite of PR and news distribution services to these blockchain and cryptocurrency companies to assist them in reaching their desired audience.

Shortly after its launch, it has been able to partner with more than 100 global publications in at least eight international languages. It has experience of assisting in more than 30 ICO launches. It has leveraged its network and data analytics tools to reduce the normal PR exercise time from a usual 25 days to just a week too with just three steps.

Some of its partners include Ankr and aToken. Recently, it has partnered with Tachyon, which has a global userbase of 350,000.

Ittify (Malaysia)

Another social media influencer platform to make the cut is a Malaysian social media marketing platform- Ittify. Ittify was founded in 2015 by Guan Sheng to bring brands and influencers together. In five years of operations, Ittify has amassed more than 6,143 influencers and completed over 250 campaigns with brands from all industries.

It has made use of both macro and micro-influencer growth and self-serve platforms to run campaigns to position itself as a marketing hub. In a year’s span from 2019-2020, its revenue has increased from US$3 million to US$5 million (as per Zoominfo.com).

Kofera (Indonesia)

Making use of the big data and ML to fuel their PPC marketing model is this Indonesian startup, Kofera. Launched in 2015, the platform provides SaaS to the companies to boost their client’s campaigns providing an ad-builder technology, which can generate relevant ads instantaneously.

It also provides insights into the campaign data through its platform. E-commerce firms Blanja, Berrybenka, Tokopedia, Bhinneka, Luxola, Sejasa, and aCommerce already use the software, according to Kofera. The startup is funded and backed by MDI Ventures, Indosterling, Access Ventures, and others.

Adzymic (Singapore)

Another Singaporean startup in the list is Adzymic. It is an ad-tech company that helps brands and agencies simplify their creative management process and improve their display advertising performance. Its next-generation Dynamic Creative Management Platform transforms display advertising into high performing native advertising and performance marketing engine.

Adzymic’s proprietary Smart Tag technology allows generation, optimization, and personalisation of ads at scale, based on machine learning and the first party’s data. Incorporated in 2017, Adzymic has since worked with several leading agencies, publishers, and brands across the region.

Adzymic has operations in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Recently it has partnered with iAvtarZ digital to expand in India.

The above startups are the flagbearers of the inclusion of technology in normal business processes. They have made sure to charter their way out of these difficult times.

It’ll be interesting to see how they transform the AD, PR, and Communication industries in the coming years.

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Updates: We included additional information from Bloomberg in this article

Global SaaS platform Intuit today announced that it has entered an agreement to acquire TradeGecko, the Singapore-based inventory and order management platform that aims to ease omnichannel commerce for small businesses.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in September.

Bloomberg reported that Intuit will pay more than US$80 million for TradeGecko. Citing people familiar with the matter, this deal is “marking one of the biggest exits in Singapore since the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Following the acquisition, TradeGecko co-founders Cameron Priest and Bradley Priest will join the Intuit team and “play an integral role in the product and team integration.”

Intuit is going to integrate its accounting platform QuickBooks’ suite of financial, payment, reporting and accounting tools with TradeGecko’s inventory and order management system. This will allow customers to launch and manage products across multiple online and offline sales channels; manage orders and inventory fulfilment from multiple channels and across multiple inventory locations; synchronise inventory across online and offline channels; avoid stock-outs and access real-time insights.

“Small businesses around the world are struggling to survive in this rapidly changing environment,” said Alex Chriss, EVP and GM of QuickBooks.

Also Read: SaaS inventory management platform TradeGecko raises US$10M from TNB Aura, others

“The need for a single tool that can reduce operational complexity for product-based businesses is acute. Integrating TradeGecko’s capabilities into QuickBooks Online will give our small business customers new paths to growth.”

In a press statement, TradeGecko CEO and co-founder Cameron Priest described the acquisition as an opportunity he “could not pass up.”

Founded in 2012, TradeGecko said that it serves customers in more than 100 countries. Its latest announced funding round is a Series B investment of US$10 million, led by TNB Aura Fund 1 and Aura Venture Fund.

QuickBooks said that it is now working with seven million small businesses around the world.

This acquisition is the latest notable one announced in Southeast Asia this year. Last month, Indonesian payments platforms OVO and Dana have been reported to agree to a merger while Filipino fintech company Ayannah merged with Indian counterpart ECAPS.

In a rather unusual move, Singapore-based relocation service Moovaz acquired media company The Finder from SPH.

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Image Credit: Intuit

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Vesta raises funding to expand to APAC

The story: Vesta, a US-based startup specialising in fraud protection and payment technologies, has secured an undisclosed sum in strategic investment from Singapore-based EDBI.

The plans: This investment, along with a strategic alignment with EDBI, will accelerate Vesta’s momentum and efforts to expand its fraud and approval enhancement platform across Asia Pacific (APAC).

Vesta will have its regional headquarters in Singapore.

What does Vesta do?

It enables companies to grow their online businesses by eliminating the fear of fraud. This allows customers to focus on what really matters for success, growing revenue. Vesta’s real-time decisioning platform — built on data science and Machine Learning  — analyses customers’ online payment transactions to assess the risk of fraud, backed by Vesta’s zero-risk, zero-liability payment guarantee, means customers never have to worry about the risk of fraud again.

Removing the fear of fraud also decreases the likelihood of incorrectly declining good customer transactions and increasing revenue. Vesta provides its service directly to partners in the telecommunications and e-commerce industries around the globe and also allows merchants to seamlessly integrate through commerce and payments platforms including Plaid, Shopify, and Verifone.

Previous funding: Vesta recently raised US$125 million in new growth capital from PE firm Goldfinch Partners.

Singapore’s e-learning marketplace ACKTEC secures funding

The story: Singapore-based edutech startup ACKTEC Technologies has received an investment from a family office to scale ACKTEC KQwest, a learning marketplace that connects industrial partners that are developing accredited, immersive-learning courses with learners across Asia.

The plans: To accelerate ACKTEC’s growth, in line with its vision to serve 100 million learners with over 10,000 enterprise-grade learning contents.

What does ACKTEC do?

The startup claims to be lowering the barrier to entry to immersive learning, making it accessible to businesses across Asia. Its KQwest product digitises courses by industry partners and accredited learning institutions, and converts them to bite-sized immersive learning content, connecting them with learners looking to up-skill or re-skill with training that is immediately applicable and relevant to their work demands and learning targets.

Its flagship mobile platform ACKTEC Learn delivers engaging and immersive learning content via VR, AR and interactive 3D simulations, without requiring any expensive VR hardware.

Korea’s NOROO launches biotech startup in Singapore

The story: South Korea’s leading industrial and chemicals company NOROO Holdings has selected Singapore for its global agri-solutions (agriculture solutions) hub to drive innovation in the food industry through its food solutions business and agri-tech offerings.

What is agri-solutions hub?

The hub includes a seed biotech startup that combines plant biology, data analytics, Machine Learning and novel genomic innovation to unlock the natural genetic diversity of plants. According to Yip Hon Mun, CEO of NOROO Singapore, the firm’s goal is to promote crop development through conventional means and to use these innovations as a way to complement what’s natural. Using them will help to predict better farming outcomes and food systems, he said.

NOROO Singapore will expand the availability of its seeds to farmers in Southeast Asia to reduce the need for fertilisers and improve crop protection.
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Image Credit: ACKTEC

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Throughout history, several tech inventions had triggered debate regarding the ethics of its implementation –or even the principle behind its existence. Some of us may have been fortunate to witness the debacle caused by the successful reproductive clone of Dolly the sheep decades ago. It had led to questions about the possibility of a reproductive human clone, and many were triggered by both the philosophical and practical aspect of it.

Today, while discussions about reproductive human cloning have calmed down in the media, the debate surrounding human gene editing continues.

A similar nuance happens with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the ethical issues surrounding it which, according to the World Economic Forum, there are nine of them.

When it comes to the discussion on the ethics of AI and how the tech can “go wrong”, the public’s minds remain affected by scenes in Hollywood movies (“What if it turns against us and starts shooting people on the street?”). While we must be open to all possibilities, there are more grounded concerns on the ethics of AI.

In this article, we are going to have a look at the various aspects of ethics and AI.

On the issue of fairness

On the first day of the virtual EmTech Asia 2020 conference, organised by Koelnmesse Pte Ltd and MIT Technology Review, Google director of research and renowned scientist Peter Norvig presented about the issue of fairness in the implementation of AI.

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

He brought the example of Google Images search results. In the past, when users searched for the keyword “doctor”, the images would likely be of Caucasian men in white lab coats. But today, there is more gender and racial diversity in the results.

Reflected through data quality and decision-making process, Norvig pointed out that fairness, when achieved through unawareness, remains a problem. There is got to be a conscious effort from scientists and engineers to ensure it, but this process can be complicated.

“There is the mathematically impossible approach of … If you are maximising one thing, then you cannot maximise the rest,” he explained. “A parallel example would be getting user manual in English, Chinese, or Spanish which is sufficient only if you speak these languages. But to develop a manual available in every language would take developers away from developing quality products.”

Despite this challenge, Norvig believes that it is not enough for scientists and engineers to simply minimise errors.

“We want to convince people that fairness does exist,” he stresses.

As his recommendation, he suggested for product developers to pay attention to the following checklist: Data collection, model and objective choice, testing, deployment, and monitoring/maintenance.

When asked by an audience member about the success rate of tech companies in trying to reduce bias, Norvig says that this checklist has helped developers to be more aware of it.

“We also keep on adding new factors. Back then we focussed on security, but now we also focus on fairness,” he reveals.

Also Read: 3 of the strangest uses of artificial intelligence that could make sense in the future

What they don’t talk about when they talk about AI: Human labour

This might come off as surprising, as the aspect of human labour is often missed in the discussion about AI and ethics. But anthropologist Mary L. Gray elaborated in her book Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass about the unseen human labour that is working to enable the implementation of AI as we see today.

These people are working on tasks such as data labelling and there is a growing population of people offering the service. But Gray defined the work as a “ghost work” as the labour conditions are often “devaluing and hiding the people who contribute to better search results and projects in the startup world.”

“As these people are largely unregulated, they are seen as easily disposable and often seen as temporary help,” she pointed out.

While the prospect might seem daunting at first, Gray stresses that these jobs can actually give value especially in time of a global health crisis like this. But there are steps to take to prevent and stop potential abuse.

She stressed how there is currently no law that governs on-demand contract workers; the public has to keep on pushing for one.

“The market isn’t going to fix this,” she warned.

Tech and human

In February, in a workshop organised by the Pontifical Academy for Life in the Vatican, Pope Francis stated that “… the digital galaxy, and specifically artificial intelligence, is at the very heart of the epochal change we are experiencing.”

This reflects the importance of AI technology in our lives today. Ideally, we want to be able to implement it in the most ethical way possible.

Also Read: Artificial intelligence has been flourishing incredibly in these 5 Southeast Asia technology hubs

But now that we have seen the complexity of the issue of fairness in AI implementation and the more practical labour issues behind it, it is time to examine the big question: Is technology only as good as the human behind it?

This might remind you of the argument about knives: As a tool, it is neither evil nor good. Its value depends on the person who uses it, and what they are using it for.

Does this mean that the concerns are real? That AI is nothing more than a knife and that we can only hope it does not fall into the wrong hands?

Norvig sent out a hopeful message. When an audience member raised this concern, he reminded why humans are developing tech in the first place.

“We have the system so that they can do better than we can,” he stresses.

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Image Credit: Franck V. on Unsplash

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An avid footballer, Baru Walia used to play for his college, university and a few other social teams in Singapore and Australia in the past.

Now 34 years old, this staunch Manchester United fan always nursed an ambition to turn his passion into a business.

More than a year ago, he realised it was time to use his skills acquired from running his family business with his father to realise the dream.

“Asia’s grassroots-level football has not kept pace with technology despite a spurt in the cropping up of football courts/pitches/turfs in the region in the recent past,” he complains.

“The experience is still as same as ten years ago: bookings are still done via phone and payments via cash. Plus, the burden to organise the game always falls on the team captain or manager, and communication was basic among teams and players,” he says.

Also Read: Move over VR: XR in sports is the future

“One day, I asked myself what I could do to change this. And Footsy is the culmination of these thoughts. A super app, Footsy aims to transform the football scene in the region and the way players and fans interact with the various elements within football,” he adds.

The startup, which has been in the works since 2018, was founded by the father-son duo of Baru and Jatin Walia.

A graduate in Banking & Finance from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Walia previously worked in the banking sector to join the family business. Jatin, himself a sports enthusiast, is a business veteran and has run businesses in Singapore and India.

Launched in January 2019 in Singapore, Footsy enables users to perform all the different functions of a football player and team on a single platform.

The app’s key functionalities include pitch booking, e-payments for venues or amongst teams, joining leagues, managing fixtures and attendances, tracking statistics even for amateurs, team chats or even finding players to fulfil games.

The platform also has content-related features such as news, videos, and fan clubs, which are supported by Footsy’s backend systems and are provided to venues, leagues, tournaments and clubs.

The market opportunity

In Singapore alone, there are over 300 pitches (200 ’11-a-side’ and over 100 Futsal pitches), which is a huge number for a small island nation. In bigger countries such as Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, the numbers are in the thousands, which bodes well for the startup.

“It’s a mammoth market, as football is the biggest sport in the world,” Walia says. “We at Footsy have on-boarded at least 20 pitches in Singapore within their first year and continue to add more. Although the COVID-19 situation has halted the process with businesses shutting down, we hope to bounce back once things normalise.”

A free-to-use app, Footsy primarily earns money through subscriptions (it provides backend systems to the different entities in the industry, commissions from pitch bookings, and advertising.

Footsy also has plans to expand the revenue streams by adding new features such as e-commerce and e-sports in the future.

With an estimated market size of over SGD80 million (US$58 million) per annum, the opportunity in Singapore is huge, as the country constantly upgrades its processes through new and better digital systems. The local market, however, is a drop in the ocean compared to the other markets in the region.

Other markets such as Australia and India are also massive opportunities where football is coming up fast and quick.

“We have provided language options for Malaysia and Indonesia and will roll out language options for other countries down the road. We customise the app for each country to meet their local demographics and football DNA,” he discloses.

Also Read: Time to pivot, not panic: The startup advantage to dealing with a pandemic

The challenges are aplenty, admits Walia. Building an ecosystem of this scale in such a short time and with the limited resources at hand has been challenging. COVID-19 has also been a hurdle as it forced many a country to close down entertainment and sports.

“However, as countries slowly emerge out of the lockdown and things return to normal, we pivoted to add on more ‘virtual football’ features to keep our users engaged,” Walia shares.

At present, Footsy has a team of six employees on its payroll. The startup also has set up smaller team in Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia to manage local expansion in respective markets. India expansion is also on the anvil.

Walia says that as the company grows and expands regionally, it will require funding to achieve its plans.

“We are looking to raise SGD500,000 (~US$360,000) in funding, which will be used for expanding our team further that will aid in regional expansion and further development of the Footsy ecosystem,” he signs off.

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Image Credit: Footsy

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