TikTok is finding itself entangled in yet another controversy as the popular short-video app is facing a law suit for alleged copy-right infringement in Vietnam, says a Reuters report, quoting unnamed sources.

According to this report, local tech giant VNG, which has business interests in online gaming, music streaming and messaging apps, has accused the Chinese app of using audio tracks owned by its subsidiary Zing without adequate licences.

Also Read: I tried TikTok out and now I get why it is the future of digital marketing

The lawsuit wants TikTok to remove all the songs taken from Zing records and also seeks for damages of over 221 billion dong (US$9.5 million).

TikTok is quite popular across the world, including in Vietnam where it had 10 million users as of August. However, the firm has of late faced challenges in many of its key markets, including India and the US.

In India, the government imposed a ban on TikTok, along with many other Chinese apps, in July over concerns that these firms were engaging in activities that threatened “national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India”. This move came in the wake of a border dispute between the two countries.

Also Read: Who will benefit from America’s attacks on Chinese tech giants?

The app is also mired in legal controversy in the US after the President imposed a ban on the app earlier this month over concerns that it could pass American users’ data to the Chinese government, something ByteDance has denied doing.

However, TikTok is challenging the US ban in the court, saying the move was motivated by politics, not national security.

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Beijing-headquartered online insurance company Waterdrop, with subsidiaries in Southeast Asia, has secured US$230 million in Series D financing, led by Zurich-based insurance company Swiss Re Group and Tencent.

Existing investors IDG Capital and Wisdom Choice Global Fund also joined the round.

This deal comes over a year after Waterdrop raised two rounds of investments — US$74 million Series B led by Tencent in March 2019 and US$144 million Series C led by Chinese PE firm Boyu Capital in June 2019.

Founded in 2016 by Peng Shen (a founding team member of Meituan), Waterdrop distributes insurance policies online via Waterdrop Insurance Mall, besides providing crowdfunding to fund illness treatment via its platform Waterdrop Crowdfunding.

It also operates mutuals funds.

The firm claims that the insurance mall has enrolled 100 million users and reported a total written premium of US$865 million in the first half of 2020.

Also Read: Insurtech Waterdrop Company closes nearing US$74M Series B funding

At the same time, Waterdrop Crowdfunding has raised US$4.6 billion from 320 million users.

Waterdrop Mutual has helped 12,819 families by appropriating mutual fund of US$233 million in total.

The insurtech company will use the fresh capital to tap into Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (which can help to process vast amounts of information, increase workflow efficiency, and reduce operational costs).

Yu Haiyang, Managing Director of Tencent Investment, said: “As the Chinese commercial health insurance market is expanding rapidly, Waterdrop seizes the market opportunity and succeeds in meeting user needs, use technology and innovation to provide tens of millions of families with protection, and helps to further complement the personal healthcare system.”

Singapore VC firm Jubilee Capital Management is one of the early investors of Waterdrop.

According to statistics from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), the insurance penetration in the first half of 2020 reached 5.95 per cent, an increase of 0.73 percentage points over the same period in 2019.

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Jubilee Capital Management is an investor of Optimatic Pte Ltd, the parent company of e27.

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Global manufacturing is on the cusp of a major reset through the COVID-19 and beyond, which opens up new avenues for enterprises in Southeast Asia (SEA). Supply chain as a business function breathes “connectivity”, both logistical and digital into businesses.

Southeast Asia has a strong foundation in logistical connectivity and can lean on the success stories of Indian startups to build digital connectivity and scale-up. Almost 80 per cent of volume and 70 per cent of the value of global trade happens through the sea, of which 60 per cent passes through the South China Sea.

When it comes to digital connectivity, it is projected that the digital economy of SEA will triple its current size by 2025 and breach the US$300 billion mark.

Enterprises in SEA are sitting on a pile of opportunities and if they can leverage the digital transformation of their business processes as some leading Indian tech startups have done, they will be able to synergise the best of both worlds; logistical and digital connectivity.

When it comes to scaling up, Indian startups can serve some important lessons that hold relevance for enterprises that are looking to deepen their roots in SEA economies. These are as follows:

Adopt a product mindset instead of a service mindset

The Indian digital ecosystem has been through three stages of maturity: outsourcing, software services, and now software products. Currently, India has 30,000 active technology startups with more than US$4 billion in funding, and the trend towards software products has only continued to grow.

Enterprises in SEA need to embrace a product mindset right from the word “go” to create new avenues of value creation apart from cost. Price sensitive models provide a cost advantage but also make customers price-sensitive, thereby heightening the risks of erosion of market share to competitors.

Also Read: What it means to have a product-first company

Third generation Indian startups that have focused on products are extracting higher margins as compared to those with a focus on outsourcing and services.

Building the MVP from the ground up

SEA –like India– offers a lot of cultural, economic, and geographical diversity. For enterprises in SEA to transcend the challenges emanating from a diverse customer base, they need to replicate what some leading Indian tech startups have managed to pull-off.

The latter have embedded diversity into the core visualisation of their minimum viable product (MVP) while building it from the ground up. This has allowed them to be more agile and correct the course of their product development strategy to fit customer needs. Indian tech startups have been able to differentiate their products by embracing pluralism in pricing, compliance, regulations, and governance, language, and device categories across the web and mobile platforms.

Reduce supply chain length

SEA economies, like India, offer significant synergies owing to the demographics and high rates of GDP growth rates. The six SEA countries that comprise of ASEAN together have a total population of 600 million people which is larger than that of NAFTA, a combined GDP of US$2.3 trillion, and total goods exports of US$1.2 trillion.

For a region that is as diverse as India, it makes sense for enterprises to explore opportunities to stay in proximity to the points of consumption, reduce the length of the supply chain and thus, reduce distribution and downstream logistics costs.

Digitalise supplier networks

One of the major challenges of operating in a geographically diverse terrain governed by different governments is supplier collaboration. The weakest link in the supply chain and procurement network can set off a ripple effect on the manufacturing of finished goods.

For instance, if one out of 50 suppliers for an automotive OEM fails to deliver its components of the right specifications at the right time, it leads to a delay of eight days in the downstream distribution of the finished goods.

Also Read: Will South Asian tech startups thrive in the new normal? 

Indian startups are leveraging digital procurement platforms to improve the accuracy of their bidding processes and make their strategic sourcing more performance-driven. SE Asian enterprises can look to explore digital procurement to navigate across their supplier networks across several countries in the region.

Focus on core competence

Focus on core competence has enabled Indian tech startups to stay cost-competitive. They have been able to migrate towards an analytics-driven culture to map their competence, build their category expertise, and specialise while outsourcing everything else.

SEA enterprises need to do the same to scale success in the region; pivot their make or buy decisions on data, manufacture what they should, and procure everything else from suppliers that can provide it at a better cost.

One of the prime reasons for China’s cost competitiveness in addition to cheap labour is its procurement of intermediate goods from SEA. Enterprises in SEA need to leverage the cost-advantages of local manufacturing of intermediate goods and consumables such as MRO items, packaging, spare parts, accessories, and low-value components of finished goods by embracing the digital transformation of their procurement.

Leverage automation to access new markets

SEA, like India, is the home to some of the world’s most tech-savvy consumers which presents a great opportunity to enterprises in the region. With the roll-out and scaling up of the Adhar initiative, e-governance has enabled 1.2 billion Indians to have biometric identities.

This has, in turn, enabled higher financial inclusion through the creation of 500 million bank accounts for the previously unbanked and created tremendous opportunities for fintech startups, digital payments platforms for B2C transactions, community lending, crowdfunding, etc.

Also Read: A beginner’s guide to the B2B e-commerce business

Similarly, SEA enterprises need to leverage opportunities presented by the automation of business processes to access new markets, reduce transaction costs, and costs of customer service. Disruptive technologies hold great potential for SEA enterprises and can create an additional annual impact between US$10 billion to 20 billion, approximately accounting for 5-10 per cent of the projected annual GDP of SEA economies in the next five years.

Embrace B2B e-commerce

SEA and India share a common trajectory of cross-border commerce and distribution which is likely to gain higher momentum after the COVID19 pandemic. The roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India based on the principle of “one nation one tax” boosted inter-state commerce and distribution by transforming the country into a compact and borderless economic union.

Similarly the existing strategic and economic partnerships enabled by ASEAN offer a tri-polar edifice to the global supply chain from Japan through SEA to the US. Interestingly three ASEAN member nations are home to the suppliers of OEMs in Japan: Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

The strengthening of cross border trade partnerships in ASEAN in combination with B2B e-commerce models can enable SEA enterprises to reimagine cost and technical efficiencies in trade and distribution, just like Indian startups have done in the aftermath of the GST.

This will allow SEA enterprises to not only leverage export opportunities in the United States and Japan but also explore endogenous growth opportunities within the region of SEA.

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Agritech and food tech startups have been increasingly receiving recognition. Just recently, in 2019, a pan-Asian-Pacific competition called Future Food Asia was awarding one finalist out of the 10 with a $US100,000 grand prize as they present a wide range of technologies to address some of the most critical challenges of the food supply chain.

With food tech companies continually innovating, there’s been plenty of new technologies and developments in the market from food techniques in distribution and automation to creating new superfoods that are not only tasty but can also be part of a healthy diet. 

Who are some of the food tech startups leading the way? Below is a curated list of a few incredible startups making their mark in the foodtech world. 

Grain – Singapore

With plenty of delivery food services such as Deliveroo, Grabfood, and Foodpanda in Singapore, how has Grain managed to differentiate itself from the competition? Instead of partnering with restaurants, Grain has adopted a different approach and prepares its own dishes instead. 

Grain focuses on providing a unique range of menu items to its customers from local favourites with a unique twist to truffle pasta and more. Since Grain rotates its menus weekly, customers won’t get bored of the choices, and it’s decently priced with meals usually priced between SG$10.95 to SG$19.95 with a varying delivery cost.

Also Read: Bringing innovation to the table: Why foodtech is the next frontier in Southeast Asia

Currently, the company is also trialing menu plans and is offering it to a small group of customers. 

Dahmakan – Malaysia and Bangkok

Another great on-demand food delivery service is Dahmakan in Malaysia and Bangkok. The company provides healthy, fresh meals to customers that are cooked by a friendly chef with fast delivery.

The process is simple: the company sources fresh local ingredients from their suppliers, then you can order your preferred dish from the website or app, a chef will help cook the meal for you, and it’ll be delivered right to your doorstep. 

Some items that Dahmakan has on their menu include a minced pork bowl, chicken rice, and spicy chicken quesadilla. They’ve even got dessert from passion fruit cheesecake to an apple crumble yoghurt, and you can choose to have the items delivered the day of, or sometime during the week. 

Gathar – Australia 

Do you love entertaining but find it a chore to set up and cook for a large group of people? If so, Gathar would be right up your alley. The company takes the stress out of entertaining by connecting individuals with chefs that’ll come by and do all the work. Since its launch, the company has achieved plenty of success and has expanded into 10 locations in Australia. 

Also Read: Setting new rules for the food delivery industry in a post-pandemic world

While the recent pandemic may have caused many companies’ demise, Gathar has managed to shift gears and innovate. During this period, they’ve catered to parties of two that may be celebrating their anniversary or small weddings and even hosted a virtual dinner party with chefs cooking the same four-course meal in various locations before delivering it to the guest’s home.

Phyto – South Korea

Finally, you’ve got innovative food tech startup Phyto that has created a plant-based salt that can reduce sodium intake by 20 per cent. By using and extracting salt from an aquatic plant that’s also known as Salicornia, the company has managed to produce a naturally low in sodium salt that’s great for those with high blood pressure, and reducing body fat.

The company has recently launched in Korea but is also planning to launch in other markets such as Japan, China, Europe, and the United States. Recently, the company has also developed PhytoMeal – a new superfood ingredient that is also made of Salicornia.

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One of the most common reasons why a company fails is not because the quality of the technology or the size of the market, but rather, it is because of a misalignment between the co-founders of the company.

Just in the past two weeks, I’ve dealt with two strong startup teams that are dealing with a “co-founder break-up” –without having to ruin the company.

Let’s face it, every person has a different reason for why they start or join the founding team of a company. Some want to “change the world.” Some want “to build things that impact millions of lives.” To be honest, many people are in it to have the chance to win the venture lotto, hitting the jackpot of having more than one per cent of shares when a company get listed or acquired, acquiring “life-changing wealth.”

Of course, 99 per cent of startups fail, so it might have been better for most to just work a corporate job. Regardless, it’s very important to know what each other’s motivations are before you commit yourself and spend 10-12 (or more) hours per day with a group of people for at least three to five years.

Also Read: Finding the right co-founder is worth the trek

When I was starting Plentina, a new fintech startup focused on alternative credit scoring and micro-lending in the Philippines, I met one of my Stanford friends who has successfully built a company and exited her startup.  She gave me very important advice on cofounder alignment.

She also exclaimed that it is important to develop this transparency early on because, like marriage, there is typically a “honeymoon period” of 12-18 months where everything seems to be fine. But when sh*t hits the fan, then this conversation will be most important to come back to understand each other.

Here are the most important questions to sit-down with your co-founder when you start or shortly thereafter. My advice is to do a “double-blind test” where each one of you writes down the answers separately and discusses.

• How does this startup align with your personal purpose?
• Why are you personally building this startup?
• What is a good outcome for the startup and when do you expect this?
• What is your end goal in 10 years and how does this startup help you achieve this?
• Any life changes over the course of the startup that we must anticipate?
• What are the non-negotiables for you (meaning the situations or values where you will stop everything)?
• What are the areas where you are best at and areas where you are weak at?
• How can I as your co-founder help you achieve your 10-year goal?

Starting a company is hard, and often come with many risks. It is undoubtedly an emotional roller coaster. I hope that you all get to ask these questions to each other early on; not just to avoid heartache later on, but also be able to focus on building the business rather than dealing with co-founder drama.

Also Read: Fantastic tech co-founders and where to find them

Have you asked these questions already? If so, would love to hear what other questions you think should be asked as the founding team gets formed.

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