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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A 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report shows that the Asia Pacific emerged as one of the major beneficiaries of democratisation, as the region has gone from having 20 per cent of the world’s top startup ecosystems in 2012 to 30 per cent this year. But after the pandemic hit the startups, they are struggling on two fronts: capital and demand.

Coronavirus will lead to the worst recession since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund has projected in a recent world economic outlook. Volatility has spiked, in some cases to levels last seen during the global financial crisis, amid the uncertainty about the economic impact of the pandemic.

For all those startup founders and leaders who are dealing with the uncertainty of the pandemic, one thing is clear: this is the time to pivot and not panic.

While many startups have seen tightened purse strings of the investor, are regulating tighter cashflows and optimising resources, they are also eyeing government subsidies and resilience packages closely. Unforeseen challenges have been thrown into this mix, where the way we used to do business in the past, has been forced to change.

Movement restrictions and remote working culture have led to a boom in digital businesses – digital payments, e-commerce and logistics, telehealth, and short-form content platforms like TikTok have seen a spike in adoption, opening lucrative doors for tech startups from such sectors. But what about other businesses that might not be relevant or are in a paused state due to the pandemic?

Also Read: How to logically decide when it’s time to pivot

Especially the enterprise sector, for whom this can be a huge challenge. First, for any business, being in the pause state is an outright no-no. Though operations could come to a semi standstill, this is the time that these companies can spend on looking ahead and innovating for the new world order. This is an evident business imperative. Startups that can adapt and fine-tune their products to the market demand will see through this time.

From skyrocketing stocks to mass layoffs, B2B SaaS companies are having a wild ride. Software-as-a-service startups are not the ones grabbing the most eyeballs since digital banks and driverless cars tend to dominate the headlines. As large companies move towards being digital due to the coronavirus crisis, the SaaS companies like Zoom and Twilio have seen their valuations jump. The litmus test with the coronavirus crisis will be whether these B2B products or services are deemed as ‘essential’ or ‘good to have’.

For us at Sansan, after witnessing the highest IPO of 2019 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange we thought the road ahead for our regional expansion is clear. But in a short period, things changed. Like others, we are also having to wage this war with the pandemic, quickly navigate the shifts, and accelerate our innovation efforts.

The fact that we have been a startup has honed us long enough to deal with the new world order we will very soon see. I believe the same goes for many other startups as well. This is the time to use the nimbleness, your capability to innovate, operational flexibility, and fluidity to adapt to the market changes.

It is also essential to seek solutions to the pressing problems that your customers are facing. If you can successfully do that, you can turn your business around. That is what we are doing.

Also Read: How startups can tap community networks to pivot for growth amidst the pandemic

We provide a cloud-based contact management solution to our customers, which allows the company to visualise all the connections within their company. These records are fed into the Sansan interface by an employee by simply scanning the business card using the Sansan phone app.

In the advent of remote working though, how do these companies continue to maintain an accurate contact database? How can companies sell effectively remotely with sales pipelines softening, meetings cancelled and lengthening sales cycles? Also, with lockdowns, the business card culture is already fading away – do we need an alternate and if so, why? These are the questions that we are answering our customers.

One approach is to reshape our business priorities and look for opportunity areas, amidst the new reality that surrounds us.

The most recent Global State of Remote Work report by videoconferencing company Owl Labs, which polled more than 3,000 employees across six continents, found that Asia had 9% more companies that do not allow remote work than the global average. Now with coronavirus-imposed lockdowns, remote work, if possible, is being adopted by organisations across Asia, as the means for business continuity.

Across ASEAN, as remote working picks up, we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in business culture and rituals, and we want to be right at the centre of all of this, helping our customers adapt to this change. We are taking business card exchange online across the region and launching new functions like integration with Microsoft Teams to make it easier for people meeting remotely to exchange contact information.

Also Read: Why moving fast and pivoting is necessary for startups

The P-word has been dominating virtual boardroom discussions world over: in this case not ‘pandemic’ but’ productivity’. The use of productivity apps will play an even greater role in helping startups weather this storm.

Every crisis has a silver lining – you just need to look for it. With sales events, customer meetings, and industry conferences being cancelled and pushed, all businesses must approach this problem with a positive outlook and a three-pillared strategy: Reshaping for the new normal, looking inwards to re-energise and embracing digital communications.

There are many startups in SEA whom I see pivoting or re-energising themselves with the current times:

• Saas startups accelerate growth amid digitisation – A Barcelona based survey provider, Typeform said that their monthly recurring revenue has gone from 1% weekly growth pre-lockdown, to 6 per cent during quarantine. Work from home is too, driving their demand, and they’ve seen more usage across education and other sectors that weren’t using them so much.
• Manoeuvring through disruption in the events industry – Spurred by the coronavirus crisis and on-ground event cancellations, Eventhub, an event technology company based in Japan has released in April, EventHub online, which can hold large scale conferences and webinars, as the future business growth avenue.
• Logistics and food deliveries space heats up – The ride-hailing sector has seen emerging startups like the social carpooling app, Ryde and ride-hailing app TADA innovate by venturing into food delivery and courier services or accelerating their existing efforts in the space. TADA Fresh is offering drivers the means to keep earning and helping wet markets to keep a steady flow of income.
• Mapping newer growth areas under healthcare – Given COVID-19, the Singaporean company WhiteCoat, a telehealth company, part of MOH’s regulatory sandbox, has been attracting a lot of patients to take online video consultations for their health problems. According to media reports, their traffic has been increasing by 25% every week, encouraging the startup to plan for expansion to other markets outside Singapore over time.

Some 3D manufacturers are now firing up printers to create personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, and startups used to making phone booths for offices are now producing coronavirus testing booths for healthcare facilities.

An EY report from March found that more than three-quarters of executives said they were either re-evaluating or already taking steps to push through automation and digital transformation.

In short, we cannot go back to the way we were. Instead, we must become a more adaptable, learning organisation competing through speed and innovation to stay relevant. It can be helpful to apply a technology mindset when rethinking the business and the roles of people.

Every decision you make signals to people and customers whether you will emerge from this crisis as the winner. Remember to send the right signals.

–

Register for our next webinar: Meet the VC: Gobi Partners

Register now: What is corporate venture building and why this is the right time to look at capturing venture opportunities across South-east Asia.

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In India, there is a growing problem of adults becoming financially dependent on their parents. As per a recent HSBC report, 55 per cent of parents still provide financial support to their adult children.

This practice is viewed as common because most adults in India only learn to become financially responsible in the later stages of their lives.

“When you are young, a lot of your decisions get taken by the parents which leads to a lot of problems, especially in India. For example, when you get your first job and start earning, you don’t know what to do with your salary. People also really think about financial planning only in their late 20’s,” said entrepreneur Bhagaban Behera.

“A 15-year-old today is quite independent and ambitious. He or she wants to follow his or her own career choices and make own decisions. He/she no longer wants to be under the parents and we feel that money plays a big role in this independence,” he added.

Behera sensed an opportunity here and he, along with Sriharsha Setty and Nakul Kelkar, started Walrus, a neobank that helps teenagers manage their pocket money.

The startup’s mission is to build a system where a child can get his/her financial independence at a very young age through savings and investment.

From banking to entrepreneurship

Behera realised the importance of good money management skills only after he switched his lucrative banking job to become an entrepreneur.

“I started my career as a banker in Singapore. Since I was earning considerably, I was not concerned about saving, investing and budgeting because there was enough money for everything,” he shared.

“When I made the shift to become a founder, my income naturally decreased and expenses increased, and there was a need to manage the business savings. So when I ran out of savings, it occurred to me that I didn’t plan well for it,” he said sharing the story behind the startup.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

Prior to Walrus, Behera has already been the startup founder of an AI-based Virtual Digital Assistant solutions called Monk.

How it works

Walrus operates as a payments platform where parents can add money on app for their children and put certain controls like spending limit. There are functionalities to set budgets. For example, a child can budget for his food and  transport.

Behera says that by setting budgets, children do not need to constantly go to their parents and ask them to buy them what they want.

“For example, if a child wants to buy a camera, he can save up for it and then plan to use the savings to purchase it within a certain period. When you are using cash, you don’t have an account of how much money you are spending. But when you are using a digital platform, you know how much money you spend and on what. This helps develop a habit of financial accountability,” he said.

Other than that the founders are also planning to add a feature in the future to help users invest in mutual funds.

Also Read: Riding the irony: Can Indonesian GO-JEK afford supporting LGBTQ rights in a country that condemns it?

But it does not want to be just a payment and banking app, which is why the founders have built a community around teens who, the founder terms, as “the aspirational children who want to go one mile more than the normal child”.

The app does this by organising events where they bring in successful investors, counsellors and entrepreneurs to help children benefit and build a perspective around becoming financially independent.

The teen-centred app even has an exclusive community page where it lets users create campaigns and designs for the application.

Behera recalls the idea of Monday quizzes which was suggested to them by the users and is now a popular feature within the app. By taking ideas from Gen Z’s themselves, Walrus manages to keep its customers more engaged.

Right now, the app is only available in India on the Google Play Store and plans to launch the iOS version in October this year.

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Image Credit: Walrus

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GoBear appoints Kent Huang as new CFO

The story: Singapore-based fintech startup GoBear announced that Kent Huang is set to join the company as CFO effective August 24, from fintech startup Funding Societies. He will be replacing outgoing GoBear CFO Frank Stevenaar.

Who is Kent Huang? He has held senior finance positions at companies such as GE, PayPal, and Intuit and most recently served as Group Head of Finance for APAC at Funding Societies.

What is GoBear? Starting off in Singapore in 2015, GoBear is a financial services “supermarket” that aims to empower its customers in improving their financial health. Available in seven markets in Asia

Woodstock Fund names Anderson Tan as Managing Partner

The story: Woodstock Fund announced the appointment of Anderson Tan to manage its Woodstock Capital Fund II.

Who is Anderson Tan? According to a press statement, as a serial investor and entrepreneur, Tan has a success rate of over 12.5 per cent for startup equity investing and over 30 per cent for investments in DLT and blockchain space.

As a partner at Philippine-based Launchgarage, he believes that decentralised and distributed technologies will be the soundest and most sought after technologies post-COVID-19. After a series of exits which includes companies such as Lyft, Pinterest, Docusign, Anaplan, Wave, Nanorep, Palantir, and Snapchat, Tan refocused his efforts to building and nurturing the blockchain and distributed ledger technology space. In this space, he has achieved success through popular projects such as Holochain, Zilliqa, Algorand, Tezos, Digitex, Bancor, Ontology, and Omisego.

What is Woodstock Fund? Founded in 2019, Woodstock Fund is a multi-asset global investment fund that is currently focused on investments in public Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Decentralised Finance & Tokenisation, and Web 3.0 protocols.

Singapore Games Association is officially launched

What is the Singapore Games Association (SGGA)? Supported by Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SGGA aims to develop and support a sustainable gaming and esports ecosystem locally while placing Singapore’s name on the world map.

What does it do? Initiatives include network, capacity development, and ecosystem.

What is next? It is set to host an Industry Day on August 7-8.

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Image Credit: GoBear

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Updates: We added a comment by Grab spokesperson.

Singapore-based ride-hailing giant Grab is raising US$200 million from South Korean private equity firm Stic Investments Inc., according to a Bloomberg report.

Despite a layoff caused by the pandemic’s effect on the business, the funding round indicated that investors continue to pour in support to the tech giant.

Seoul-based investor Stic Investments Inc –whose portfolio companies also include Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind worldwide K-pop sensation BTS– has been planning its Southeast Asian expansion and has set aside US$100 million to invest in this region.

What Grab aims to do with the funding has not yet been revealed.

Also Read: Grab CEO announces lay-off of 360 employees, addresses COVID-19 impact to business

The company is currently valued at US$14.3 billion, according to CB Insights. Early this year, it also managed to raise more than US$850 million in funding from Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and TIS Inc.

This year’s pandemic has given the various impact on the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem. While several verticals are seeing a rise in popularity, such as health tech and e-commerce, others are finding themselves in a difficult position as investors become more careful.

An example of such company is fellow Southeast Asian unicorn Traveloka, which saw its valuation decreasing with its latest funding announcement, in what it called a “historic” drop. As a travel tech startup, the company is hit hard by the downturn faced by the travel and tourism industries in general, due to lockdown and border closure measures implemented in many countries.

A Grab spokesperson has declined to comment on the story.

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Image Credit: Grab

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When Burgreen co-founder Helga Angelina Tjahjadi moved to Amsterdam 10 years ago, she met both her future spouse and her co-founder Max Mandias.

Based in Jakarta, Burgreens is an organic healthy plant-based eatery specifically designed for the Asian food palette. Its customer base is mostly non-vegetarian: the more health-conscious omnivores and people who consciously choose to eat less meat due to health and environmental reasons.

Tjahjadi was passionate about vegan diet ever since she was 15 as it had helped her recover from severe chronic ailments while Max had switched to one due to environmental reasons.

The duo started testing out their plant-based recipes in Amsterdam. Later, Tjahjadi was convinced by her husband to move back to Indonesia and start the business from there.

During their initial days, the couple did everything from ideating the menu, making the burger patties, and serving food from Max’s home basement which they converted into a kitchen.

“We started the business, honestly, without a business plan in the first three years. It was really like taking a leap of faith to follow our passion,” Tjahjadi shares with e27.

Surely enough, it was only in the third year where the business took off. However, the road to success was not always smooth sailing.

Also Read: Bühler invests in Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein Fund; to invest in up to 100 plant- and cell-based firms

“We made some mistakes during our initial years. This was because growing too fast before placing new foundations cost us some painful consequences,” she explains the challenges they faced.

“When we started, we had to deal with problems such as fraud. And we learned a lot from the process which was to improve our finance, team and control systems and have a solid foundation.”

She recalls an incident where an employee took orders but did not input it into the system.

“Even though it was a small amount of money, he did it every day, mounting up to a year. So in the end, when we summed it up, it was quite a lot of money.”

However, despite the hurdles, the couple grew their business from a two-man team to a 150 people team with 10 outlets in Jakarta, Tangerang, and Bandung.

The company also recently managed to raise Pre Series A funding from Singapore-based VC firm Teja Ventures and investors from the Angel Investment Network (ANGIN).

She attributes her success to a combination of luck, hard work, and passion, advising fellow entrepreneurs to not be afraid of making mistakes and learning.

The Vegan Landscape

What Burgreens wants to do is to make healthy food mainstream by becoming more affordable.

“In Asian countries, there’s a lot of meat available, which makes them very affordable. But what we’re seeing is that if we want to focus on healthy plant-based eating; it’s not just about the taste but also the nutrition profile. So our focus is not just to mimic the taste and the texture but to also the nutrition profile, and offer people the same amount of protein that they would find in a regular chicken,” she elaborates.

Tjahjadi further outlines that initially, their business had a niche customer base. But the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them to gain more following as many reports identify meat markets as the source of the virus.

She says that there is a growing awareness from millennial groups on healthy food discussions, climate change and reduction of carbon footprint. With all of these factors taken into consideration, the trend is here to stay.

Also Read: She Loves Tech returns for the 6th time as a fully online event

While many Western brands have also recognised the opportunity of plant-based food in the Asian market, companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat have accelerated their entrance since the start of the pandemic.

What separates Burgreens from these brands is that it focuses specifically to create a plant-based diet that suits the Asian taste palette.

In Southeast Asia, the plant-based market is estimated to be worth US$14.5 billion by 2025, according to an exclusive report published by MarketsandMarkets.

“Retailers were focused on ensuring the supply of staple foods were available and were less concerned about stocking new plant-based foods. However, consumers have been increasingly demanding more plant-based foods as concerns about food safety and the virus have contributed toward a shift to more plant-based food options,” Andrew Ive, Founder of Big Idea Ventures tells foodingredientsfirst.

The movement has been catching a new force in markets that are only just beginning to hold on to a theme that is already popular in North American and European markets.

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Image Credit: Burgreens

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