Vietnam’s NextPay aims to raise US$60-100M in pre-IPO private placement; The e-payments firm is in talks with 5 investors in from the US, Japan, Korea; It plans to use the money to expand locally and also to Indonesia, Myanmar; NextPay is the result of a merger between VIMO and mPOS. DealStreetAsia

Indonesia’s business packaging specialist Tjetak raises Series A led by Vertex; The startup uses tech to bring specialisation into the US$6B plastics and paper packaging market; Clients can track their real-time production progress on the Tjetak.com platform. e27

Indonesian social commerce startup KitaBeli raises seed funding from East Ventures, AC Ventures; It plans to expand into 2-4 cities; KitaBeli is a social commerce platform where users can invite their friends to form groups to receive discounts from suppliers of FMCG products. e27

VNG sues TikTok over alleged copyright infringement in Vietnam; The local tech giant accuses the Chinese app of using audio tracks owned by its subsidiary Zing without its consent; The lawsuit wants TikTok to remove all the songs taken from Zing records and seeks for damages of over US$9.5M; As of August TikTok has 10M users in Vietnam. e27

Expect more investments and good jobs despite COVID-19, says S’pore minister; The minister for Trade and Industry (MTI) says the government will implement new programmes to bring in investments, support local entrepreneurship; MTI will help firms in biomedical sciences and electronics to invest and expand. Channel News Asia

Insurtech startup Waterdrop raises US$230M Series D led by Swiss Re Group, Tencent; Waterdrop distributes insurance policies online, provides crowdfunding to fund illness treatment, and operates mutual funds; The firm claims that the insurance mall has enrolled 100M users and its crowdfunding service has raised US$4.6B from 320M users. e27

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, Plug and Play announce 11 finalists  inducted to their startup programme; They are from Australia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, UAE; The programme is designed to focus on collecting, managing, and sorting plastic waste; recycling and processing technologies; and creating value from post-recycled plastics. e27

One size doesn’t fit all: Why consumer personalisation is a must for all businesses; There is no longer a lineage to a transaction alone; It’s personalised scalable options that are the new norm and is being largely driven by the customer’s need for instant gratification. e27

The changing face of healthcare in a post-pandemic world; With COVID-19 halting physical consultations, the point of care for most consumers has shifted to the digital realm; Digital health tools are enabling physicians to treat patients from safe distances while providing new efficiencies to the healthcare system. e27

SEA leads fintech funding in APAC in Q2; Fintech investments in APAC grew 9.1% to US$1.4B in Q2 2020 v/s Q1, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence; Of this, SEA and Australia drew in US$455M and US$369M, respectively. Fintech News

Malaysia’s B2B fintech firm JurisTech acquires financial products comparison platform iMoney; This announcement follows reports of iMoney’s largest shareholder iSelect exiting the company by selling its investment back to one of the founders for a “nominal value” due to uncertainties caused by the pandemic. e27

How Ant Group turned into the Alibaba of Chinese finance; Ant’s evolution into the Alibaba of finance has been fuelled by a desire to claw back customers who began using WeChat more as it broadened out from a messaging service to an online platform for services of all sorts. Nikkei Asia Review

The DNA of a successful early-stage entrepreneur; Entrepreneurs are made as opposed to born; They do depend on the socioeconomic status of the family they were born in; However, if one is intelligent and hardworking it is likely that they will eventually acquire knowledge and build a network through their education and work experience. e27

Finding love in the pandemic-stricken world: How online dating has changed for the better; Video-based dating sees a rise in SEA; There was a slow-down in the number of paid users for dating apps but new sign-ups for premium membership picked up as the life is returning to normal. e27

How 5G will empower startups and SMEs in the new normal; At a basic level, 5G offers lightning-fast speeds, low latency, and the capacity to carry a massive number of connections simultaneously; One area that holds tremendous promise is healthcare, specifically patient applications that are traditionally performed in hospital settings by health specialists. e27

SEA firms looking to biometric tech to be more secure; Fingerprint recognition is currently the most common type of biometric tech with many people accessing their mobile phone, banking apps, unlocking doors; Facial recognition, palm-vein detection solutions are also being explored. Tech Collective

Venturing into China: The challenges and key success factors of localisation; Besides standard market segmentation and targeting activities, cultural differences is another dimension that needs to be considered; China’s complex cultural landscape proved to be a challenge for foreign entrants; Different cities need to be treated differently. e27

What innovation looks like in a pandemic; UNDP’s Global Strategy Lead Giulio Quaggiotto says governments are focused on building high-profile tech startups rather than achieving economic or social benefits through innovation; They should look at overall societal outcomes, which is not simply saying we generated 20 unicorns, but to actually say we reduced inequality. GovInsider

Eduardo Saverin on the world of innovation past Silicon Valley; As for whether companies think about creating offices in Silicon Valley, absolutely if it fits the requirements of that particular business; The Valley is a tremendous enabler, but it’s also challenging because for talent, you’re in competition with a wide array of heavily funded companies. TechCrunch

Global spending on AI expected to double in 4 years: IDC; The CAGR for the 2019-2024 period will be 20%; Two of the leading drivers for AI adoption are delivering a better customer experience and helping employees to get better at their jobs. Newsbytes.Ph

MDEC launches initiative for youths in digital economy; #YoungCreators will provide an opportunity for young and budding content creators to learn how to leverage digital platforms as a means to upskill, empower creativity and generate income. HRAsia

Investment tech won’t solve systemic wealth gaps, but it’s a good start; Exposure to new wealth-building tools and financial literacy — in a tech-powered, millennial-friendly way — can help solve the barrier-to-entry problem and open up access to more stable investments. TechCrunch

Malaysia’s Securities Commission inks fintech co-operation agreement with OJK Indonesia; It is aimed at facilitating info sharing on emerging trends and regulatory developments in fintech, provide joint innovation project opportunities and facilitate referrals of fintech businesses seeking to operate in each other’s jurisdiction. Fintech News

Vietnam aims for 100K digital tech firms by 2030; By 2025, the nation hopes to achieve 70K-mark with a workforce of 1.2 million; Digital tech companies are expected to have revenue growth 1.5-2 times higher than the country’s GDP expansion rate and export growth at 10-20% per year. OpenGov

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Growing up in the steel city of Jamshedpur (east India) in the 2000s, Rohit Jha was frustrated with the poor internet connectivity in his locality. He carried the frustration with him until he went to Singapore for higher studies after completing his schooling in 2007.

On his very first day at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Jha was astonished by the high-speed internet connectivity on the campus and the content and collaboration that came with it.

“It was revolutionary,” Jha said about his experience at NTU. “We wanted to offer such an opportunity and experience to everyone who wishes to push our civilisation faster and further. That was the inspiration to start Transcelestial Technologies.”

Founded in December 2017 by Jha and Dr Mohammad Danesh, Singapore-based Transcelestial is building a space laser network to “deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally”.

Also Read: How 5G will empower startups and SMEs in the new normal

The startup has developed a device, called Centauri, which provides a wireless distribution network between buildings, traditional cell towers, street-level poles and other physical infrastructure.

With the size of a shoe-box, the device weighs less than 3kg and is capable of delivering fibre-like speeds to customers, claims Jha. It is a rapidly-deployable, low-cost and high-speed solution, which can be used in dense residential areas that require bandwidth upgrades.

Two versions of the device are available — 1 Gbps Full Duplex (4G & Enterprise ready) and 10 Gbps Full Duplex (5G-ready).

“Last-mile connectivity is a big challenge in countries like India where extremely complex land rights issues prevent high-speed fibre deployments and ownership at low cost,” he says.

Education is one sector which has born the brunt of slow internet connectivity. Students and generally those who come in that age group have a huge consumption of content, which puts a lot of pressure on university networks. Most schools and universities don’t see this as a priority. Hence, they don’t invest better internet infrastructure.

Also Read: The proliferation of 5G will transform businesses and societies: Here’s how

This is where Centauri assumes significance. “Using Centauri Wireless Laser Communication, a high-speed dedicated infrastructure could connect main telecom servers in the city to student campuses. This can happen within a few days at a fraction of the cost that goes into deploying dedicated fibre infrastructure.

The device can also interconnect various buildings, street furniture and hostels for increased local collaboration, local streaming of classes and lectures, as well as opening up doors for 5G, self-driving cars and other testbeds for students to learn from,” he claimed.

The beginning

The Transcelestial team

Jha met his co-founder Mohammad Danesh at Entrepreneur First’s first batch in Singapore. After several brainstorming sessions, the duo set up Transcelestial in December 2017 with a pre-seed round.

“We then raised one of the largest seed rounds (US$1.8 million) of that time in Southeast Asia to build the best team globally to address this technology, develop the first version of the core capability and a product, with which we could go to market for early commercial validation,” he shared.

In Q4 2019, the pair decided it was time to scale up the team to put the product in the hands of many telcos, internet service providers (ISPs) and enterprises worldwide.

Also Read: ‘Asia Pacific is rich in innovation’: Airbus Ventures Partner Lewis Pinault

For this, the firm reached out to several VCs and successfully raised a US$9.6 million Series A round, which was led by EDBI and Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, Partech, and Tekton Ventures.

The underlying tech

Centauri is sold along with a network monitoring and management software and is used to transmit extremely high-speed data, matching that of fibre up to a certain level, Jha brags.

“The underlying technology that carries data is a laser light beam. This is the same technology used inside a fibre cable to carry data. Our effort has been to take this technology out of the confines of a fibre cable and make it reliably transmit internet data wirelessly between two Centauri devices (one acting as a transmitter and another receiver). The data transmission follows traditional fibre optics protocols and can support all kinds of traffic as it is a Layer 1 technology,” he said, sharing more details of the product.

The device, when used as part of a telecom network or enterprise network, generates certain network-level information which can reveal the status of the connectivity on a large scale. The software is used to monitor and manage such a network, he detailed.

“We can help telecom companies rapidly set up high-speed cell tower networks (especially for 5G) and for enterprises on their internal networks,” said Jha, who holds an Engineering Degree in Electrical and Electric Engineering.

The price of the device depends on the volume of devices ordered. Usually, a telco deploys 1,000-1,500 cell towers every year in an average-sized country.

“From a price point perspective, it is commercially competitive to existing options for transferring data (fibre, microwave antenna, etc.) which are either slower or more expensive at our current capabilities. So it’s affordable even though it is a super new technology,” he added.

Jha also revealed that the company also has requests coming from individuals to buy the device for personal use.

Currently, Transcelestial has a presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea. It plans to go deeper into the remaining Asian markets, as well as target global markets which have similar issues in fibre connectivity and poor last-mile internet distribution.

Centauri and 5G rollout 

As Singapore getting ready to roll out 5G, Transcelestial claims Centauri can help rapidly accelerate the process because it takes less than 10 minutes to set up compared to fibre, which could take a lot of time to plan and coordinate.

“Deploying a 5G network will require a lot of last-mile connections, as it is much shorter radius technology than 4G,” Jha said.

Elaborating further, he said 5G is a much shorter distance (mmWave) technology in a radius of coverage than 4G and requires near Line of Sight from device to tower. If a 4G tower can cover three to five kilometres, a typical 5G tower should cover something from 500 metres to one-kilometre maximum (which will be even lesser in a dense urban building scenario).

“In Singapore, the government has chosen to build a 5G standalone network, which brings in all the benefits of 5G (high-speed, low latency, massive IoT, network slicing) but it also means a huge amount of infrastructure costs (roughly 3-5x increase in cell tower sites due to shortened radius of coverage),” he revealed.

For this, Telcos will have to spend a massive amount of money on new towers (5G radio + tower + rooftop rental) and backbone (usually, fibres in most places since you need a minimum of 10Gbps connectivity to every 5G radio).

Also Read: How Circles.Life aims to leapfrog Singapore telcos by appealing to internet-savvy users

“In Singapore, fibres go to most buildings. But to get a 5G network dense enough, the telcos will need to deploy on-street furniture, shophouses, street lamp posts, etc. All of this will incur massive costs and lots of time (it takes usually ages to get permits in Singapore to dig roads) if fibre is used,” he said.

“Transcelestial’s Centauri helps offset that massive additional cost and time of fibre rollout for SG telcos. 5G can hence be rolled out significantly faster and with much scalable CAPEX to telco and end customers,” Jha claimed.

With 5G becoming the new buzzword around the world, companies like Transcelestial could play a crucial role in making it the rollout faster. But can it make this tech affordable to the masses?

Let’s wait and watch.

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Image Credit: Transcelestial Technologies

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Australia-based Afterpay, a ‘buy-now, pay-later’ platform that facilitates e-commerce between retail merchants and customers, has acquired EmpatKali, which operates a similar service in Indonesia.

The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

When contacted EmpatKali’s Co-founder Jamie Camidge told e27. “Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, is massive and a fast-growing market, and it represents a unique opportunity for both firms to grow together.”

Also Read: 500 Startups invests in buy-now-pay-later services startup Split

Started in 2018, EmpatKali is a payment solution that allows consumers to shop and pay in four equal instalments with no interest. They can do shopping at its merchant partners, both online and offline.

Camidge claims that the startup has 150 merchants on its platform. Afterpay’s acquisition will further boost its growth in the region. “We want to get on with the current growth and acquired more merchant partners.”

Founded in 2015, Afterpay allows shoppers to receive products immediately and pay in four simple instalments over a short period of time. The service is free for customers.

Afterpay is offered by more than 42,500 retailers and is used by more than 6.6 million customers globally.

Its services are also available in New Zealand, the US and the UK where it is called Clearpay.

As per a Financial Review report, Afterpay is adding 20,500 new customers a day and plans to expand into offshore markets – with Canada and select Asian countries next on the itinerary.

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Image Credit: EmpatKali

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Indonesian Communication Ministry introduces Startup Studio Indonesia

The story: As a way to accelerate digital transformation, the Ministry of Communication and Information of Indonesia (Kemenkominfo) will host Startup Studio Indonesia, an intensive programme for ​an early-stage startup​ to scale its business. This will be the third project initiated by Kemenkominfo after Gerakan Nasional 1000 Startup Digital in 2016 and Nexticorn (Next Indonesia Unicorn) in 2017.

The programme: The Startup Studio Indonesia targets startups that are in Angel to Pre-Series A funding stage, including those who were formed through Gerakan Nasional 1000 Startup Digital, so these startups can scale up faster with various supports that focus on product and team acceleration, fundraising strategy and growth marketing validation, as well as technology development support​, and sharpening ​business skill​.

The program will run for three months with intensive coaching and mentoring every week to make sure the startups participating hit the Key Performance Indicator determined in the beginning.

The program welcomes applications from August 18 to September 4 through its website ​.

Indonesia’s The Shonet launches social commerce to help fashion, beauty industry survives

The story: Indonesian fashion social commerce startup The Shonet launches its social commerce officially, as its contribution to push industry productivity through its platform. The Shonet launches a share and earning service to be able to buy and get a commission through referrals and content sharing from official brand collections available on the site.

Also Read: [Exclusive] Raising a new funding round, The Shonet aims to push for greater growth

CEO of The Shonet Indonesia, Elisabeth Kurniawan, explains that this initiative would be a way to help push the national economy through digital transactions.

What is The Shonet: The Shonet (short for Shopping Network) is Indonesian social commerce that facilitates its customers to buy and sell fashion and beauty products based on The Shonet’s local and international brand collection. The fashion social commerce claims to have more than three million users per July 2020 and carries 500 fashion and beauty brands in its ecosystem.

Nex Cubed, ESG support 16 Singaporean digital health startups through Innovation Launchpad Program

The story: Nex Cubed, a San Fransisco-based early-stage innovation and startup accelerator, has announced a partnership with Enterprise Singapore (ESG), the government agency that supports enterprise development and startup innovation, to run Innovation Launchpad Program for Singapore’s digital health startups that are interested in expanding their business to the US market, as reported by Biospectrum Asia.

The partnership: According to the CEO of Nex Cubed Marlon Evans, the accelerator will run the programme in two cohorts for a three-week virtual acceleration program. It will provide companies from outside the US with the tools, resources, and knowledge required to successfully and affordably scale their business into the US Market.

Applications are now being accepted for the first cohort which will take place from November 2, 2020, through November 20, 2020.

What Nex Cubed is: Nex Cubed is an investor and innovation partner that empowers startups, investors, corporates, and governments to bring new technologies to market, helps rising companies scale, and provides paths to liquidity.

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It’s been approximately six months since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Back then, in Malaysia, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued the Movement Control Order (MCO) in an official speech that would greatly leave a dent in the local startup ecosystem.

During the MCO, many startups have learnt to adapt to new setups such as the work-from-home scheme, which enables them to balance their safety and business operations. For Malaysian startups working in the logistics or travel sector, which are directly impacted by the situation, they even found themselves having to adapt their business strategy.

Back then, it seemed like the startups had found the band-aid solution for the looming crisis. However, they quickly burned through their runway to maintain business operations as their revenue got affected by halted projects, a decline in consumer confidence, and even outstanding long term office rental and employee salaries.

In order for these startups to sustain themselves today and potentially thrive post-pandemic, they need funding, resources and cost-effective measures.

Assistance in fundraising needs

According to The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), funding was a major issue for many startups during the pandemic. The organisation was also mindful that many entrepreneurs may not be successful in obtaining bank loans, government grants and other financial aids. There are reasons why this can happen, but generally, it is due to their inability to meet the requirements.

Also Read: Malaysia’s JurisTech acquires financial products comparison platform iMoney

MDEC’s Global Growth Acceleration division had then come up with several initiatives to assist with the startup’s fundraising needs. The initiatives range from partnering with local equity crowdfunding (ECF) and P2P platforms, M&A workshops, startup-investor business matching with KK-Fund and collaborating with Malaysia Debt Venture Berhad (MDV) to facilitate MYR100 million (US$23 million) funds to address startups cash flow issues by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

These are some of the many opportunities for startups to consider to help sustain their business.

The pandemic has also affected established startups, especially in continuing their business operations as they were faced with difficulties such as paying high rental costs and long-term contract durations. With these startups looking to have a flexible and cost-effective option for an office, MDEC has partnered with the Malaysia Digital Hub operators to provide startups with an affordable “Digital Hub Pass” to assist them with coworking spaces and resources to drive growth.

In total, there are seven certified Malaysian Digital Hubs supporting over 400 startups and through these hubs, startups can access vital assistance such as mentorship, funding opportunities, accelerator programmes, corporate partnership and other business and digital development programmes. These are all possible with partners such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Cradle, Gobi Partners.

What is next for the Malaysian startup ecosystem?

The Malaysian startup ecosystem certainly was not alone in facing this pandemic. Regionally, in Southeast Asia, startup funding throughout the COVID-19 outbreak fell 13 per cent to US$5.6 billion in H1 2020.

Also Read: Digital hubs take center stage as the Malaysian startup ecosystem leans into developing the digital economy

But this is not the first time the world has gone through a crisis. Throughout history, we have even seen in various markets how the startup ecosystem actually experienced massive growth right after a crisis of such level. An example given by CB Insights is of the Zika pandemic several years ago, where the Latin American startup ecosystem experienced growth as soon as the disease was contained.

For the Malaysian startup ecosystem, its prospect of survival is strengthened by the fact that Kuala Lumpur has recently been ranked as the 11th emerging startup ecosystem and fourth emerging ecosystem in Asia Pacific in the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020 (GSER2020) by Startup Genome.

We will continue to remain hopeful and optimistic about the Malaysian startup ecosystem.

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