Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Sequoia Capital (India and Southeast Asia) and Surge, has said that companies will need to redefine themselves and become leaner to prepare themselves for uncertainties during the uncertainties caused by COVID-19.

Also Read: e27 Pro Perks; New Campus 1 Month Free

While early-stage deals took a dire hit during the initial phases of the pandemic (pre-July), things are slowly starting to get back to normal. “Digitisation” seems to be becoming the new normal and companies are quickly pivoting from being partial to completely online.

However, the road has not been easy. While some are struggling, others are keeping afloat and the rest is growing.

“Companies that survive the pandemic will end up becoming stronger and more focused. Founders need to spend this time in trimming the fat from their business and building leaner more efficient organisations,” said Anandan, who was previously VP of Google SEA and India.

“For businesses that are focused on user love and unit economics, growth opportunities will always present themselves. But you can only grow if you survive. And that’s what the current focus should be. Keep your business alive, so you can emerge on the other side of this crisis,” he adds.

Also Read: It’s going to be an economic apocalypse, William Bao Bean warns. But some industries are here to stay

In his view, building a company that is efficient and can provide maximum value to a customer will become the winner during this unprecedented time. The best companies are almost always able to raise funding, no matter what.

“For those who are building must-have products v/s nice-to-have products, fundraising will not change drastically even during this time. Startups that may be adversely affected are the ones that are either focused on sectors that are largely offline, or ones that have high burn and may not have solid unit economics. Such companies will not be very attractive to investors right now,” Anandan stresses.

Anandan’s golden rules for startups

Focus on the core

Family and close friends make up the core. Focusing on the well being and health of “the core” is what can lead to one’s work to be done more effectively.

Have good unit economics

Building a leaner company will be valuable and this can be done by focusing on having good unit economics. “The one thing that will be non-negotiable going forward will be the value placed on having good unit economics. Growth at all costs will no longer be acceptable,” he says.

Listen to your customer

Since customer needs are constantly changing and competition is increasing, listening to their complaints and suggestions can be important for a startup.

Also Read: Sequoia India brings on ex-gojek CTO Ajay Gore as operating partner

“Early customer love and ongoing customer feedback are the most effective tools in knowing if you have a product-market fit (PMF). And if you don’t have a PMF, no amount of pivots or capital will ensure your success,” he points out.

Create a psychological safety at work

As startups move from offline to online, beer nights, game nights and ping pong tables are suddenly no longer relevant. In this case, it is extremely important for leaders to ensure the physical and mental well-being of the team.

“At Surge and Sequoia India, the team has been working hard to make sure that there are regular catch-ups between managers and their teams along with 1-1 talks. This is in addition to all-hands meetings where we might have virtual quizzes or other fun, non-work related activities to engage with teams at scale, online,” he shares.

He concludes by telling founders not to be afraid to show their vulnerability as this creating authenticity can go a “long way in making the team feel like they matter beyond the 9-5”.

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Image Credit: Sequoia

 

 

 

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With the increasing internet penetration and smartphone usage in the Asia-Pacific region, more and more businesses are going online. This also translates to new challenges — losses due to connectivity outages being a primary issue. In 2018 alone, WiFi connectivity downtime caused losses worth around US$51 million for APAC-based enterprises.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited the transformation of all sectors towards digitalisation, exposing more enterprises to losses due to connectivity outages not only in APAC but around the globe. According to a survey by Open Gear, in which 500 global senior IT decision-makers participated, over 31% stated that outages have cost their business more than $1.2 million while a further 17% said such shutdowns hit revenues by more than $6 million with 83% of the respondents saying that network resilience was their number one concern.

Also read: How ZeusX empowers virtual gaming with its secure online environment

As such, Switzerland-based insurtech startup Riskwolf is protecting enterprises against losses due to connectivity outages with a mission to make the digital economy more resilient. Founded in November 2019, Riskwolf’s entry to the market comes at a time where digital has become a necessity amidst the ongoing pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and movement restrictions. On one hand, while retailers and businesses are surviving by switching to online channels, on the other, they are concurrently exposed to connectivity outages and the losses that follow.

In an email correspondence, the co-Founder and CTO of Riskwolf René Papesch spoke to e27 about the company’s goals and vision, tech disruptions in the insurance industry and Riskwolf’s future plans.

Providing coverage against growing digital risks

In line with their vision, Riskwolf has built a platform that allows insurance companies to create coverages and help close the protection gap for growing digital risks. Working hand-in-hand with their partners, Riskwolf enables the creation of innovative insurance coverage to automatically compensate business interruption losses due to connectivity issues.

Since their launch, Riskwolf has gained considerable traction, especially between early spring this year and now. “We have built partnerships with local insurers in Vietnam and are close to an agreement with a reinsurer in the Malaysian telco market. Also, we have started to work with a European based carrier,” shared Papesch.

Riskwolf has integrated the premier global data providers and has engaged with online food delivery platforms in ASEAN and India. Riskwolf is also participating in one of Europe’s most prestigious accelerator programs (F10) and the world’s most prominent accelerator program, Plug and Play Tech Center’s program in Singapore.

Papesch has always had a data-driven mindset as well as a keen interest in the application of cutting edge technology to drive digital transformation.

“I was fortunate to have been hired for a multi-year digital transformation project at a leading reinsurer in Switzerland. This turned out to be the perfect place to put my interest in new technology and data to work. It was also on this project that I met my co-Founder, Thomas Krapf,” he shared.

Also read: Rajan Anandan to entrepreneurs: ‘Trim the fat and build a leaner organisation’

He believes that incumbent insurers suffer from legacy systems and procedures making it unnecessarily difficult for them to innovate into new markets, risk pools and products at scale and speed. “This is where Riskwolf can step in and help solve this problem by employing real-time data in an innovative technology platform,” he added.

Riskwolf’s alternative data provider uses 3 billion measurements a day to generate a robust statistical regional index of 130 global business centres. Using these measures, they are able to identify when suddenly the Internet goes down in a region. In case of an outage event, policy buyers are automatically reimbursed with a predefined payout.

Emerging tech disruptions and other trends in the insurance industry

The insurance industry has been undergoing massive tech disruptions over the past few years, and this trend has been accelerated amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Distribution processes for simple risks are digitized and Grab-like insurance services are emerging as strong growth drivers in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, insurance companies are in the process of upgrading and modernizing their core systems to be compliant to new standards such as IFRS 17 (an International Financial Reporting Standard that was issued by the International Accounting Standards Board in May 2017 and has an effective date of 1 January 2023.)

Papesch believes that in addition to the cost-saving and automation aspects that most of the insurtech startups are addressing, a strong differentiator will be the capability to understand and underwrite emerging digital risks, such as internet outages. “Insurance will remain a high-margin business and new risk pools will begin to drive the industry’s top-line growth,” he said.

Another significant shift in the industry as outlined by Papesch is that insurance and reinsurance companies were previously closed systems, however, recently, the industry is moving towards becoming an ecosystem in a collaborative environment to embrace digital transformation in its entirety and future-proof business scalability and growth.

“Riskwolf benefits directly from this trend as we have built a platform to insure the emerging digital risks for the entire industry on a global scale. Our team’s first-hand industry experience and our data-provider partnerships give us the credibility to work with the world’s most sophisticated insurers and reinsurers,” Papesch explained.

Scope, opportunities, and challenges

Papesch explained that last year, in the telecoms space alone, one billion user hours were lost due to connectivity outages. “We are working very closely with a large telco in Southeast Asia to protect their users against connectivity outages,” he added.

Riskwolf is working with a reinsurance company and two leading data providers to build an automated and targeted compensation scheme for telco users. This will be a data-driven product that will provide parametric insurance coverage to telco customers in cases where connectivity outages are caused by weather disruptions, undersea cable cuts or other issues, enabling telcos to compensate their customers faster than ever.

Also read: How to know if your startup is ready for growth

Currently, Riskwolf’s biggest challenge is the speed, at which their incumbent partners can work with them. Working closely with their incumbent insurance partners, they continue to refine their product proposition funnel and decide which product cases have the best chance for success.

On the distribution side, Riskwolf is continuously approaching large digital distribution platforms and telcos along with leading reinsurance companies that will help them with the B2B sales cycles. In addition, they operate a lean remote-first team that allows them to keep building with efficient use of capital.

Taking Riskwolf to a whole new level: Entering new markets and scaling worldwide

The next big step for Riskwolf is to establish a strong footing in Southeast Asia. In their pursuit of expanding and building a better network here, Riskwolf has signed up for an e27 Pro membership.

“We have used e27 since we decided to enter Southeast Asia. In March, we were excited about the prospect of participating in e27’s virtual investor roadshow. This made us decide to opt-in for e27 Pro,” shared Papesch.

“The virtual roadshow was a great opportunity that helped us connect with investors in Southeast Asia. We liked the focused format with a high investor-to-startup ratio. We were able to introduce Riskwolf to approximately 20 investors in 30-minute video sessions. This will be our baseline for our fundraising efforts,” he added.

Riskwolf is launching a fundraising campaign this month (October 2020) and they plan on leveraging this membership to reach out to the VCs plus provide key stakeholders with regular updates on Riskwolf’s progress.

On the features of e27 Pro that attracted them the most, Papesch said, “For us, it was the ability to reach out to the community and investors in the region, and also the resources that help us shape our brand”.

Riskwolf is focused on getting a pilot product to the market that allows them to raise a seed round by the second quarter of 2021. With their strong growth commitment to creating protection for digital platforms and their users, we believe that this a startup to look out for in the coming years.

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Sometime in 2017, at an event organised by the Amikom university in Jogjakarta in Central Java, UMG Myanmar’s co-owner and CEO Kiwi Aliwarga, challenged the participants to build a big passenger drone.

Asro Nasiri, an avionic engineer with years of experience, emerged from the participants to accept the challenge.

Soon, Aliwarga and Nasiri found themselves working together on a startup that develops not just passenger drones but also other unarmed aerial vehicles that could be used in various industries.

Also Read: UMG Idealab invests in Jari to help grow its team monitoring app in Indonesia

“The duo ended up developing drones for the agri and logistics sectors, besides transportation,” says Alexander Ludi, who joined Aliwarga and Nasiri in the management team a few months later.

Born in Jakarta, Aliwarga (Founder and CEO) graduated from the Institute of Technology of Indonesia in 1992 with a Degree in Industrial Engineering and also holds a Master’s in Civil Engineering from the Asia Institute of Technology in Thailand.

Nasiri (co-founder and COO) has 13 years of experience as an Avionic Engineer and is Director of Innovation Centre at AMIKOM.

Christened FROGS (which stands for Flexibility, Relentless, Objective, Growth and Solution), the brand is owned and operated by Jogjakarta PT. Inovasi Solusi Transportasi Indonesia.

Primarily, the firm designs surveillance, cargo, sprayer and passenger drones. The sprayer and surveillance ones help in smart precision farming, whereas cargo drone is meant for the logistics industry.

Also Read: Drones will revolutionise these 3 industries, so watch out

Sprayer drones are already in the use and have become FROGS’s “bread and butter”, says Ludi. Surveillance drones, on the other hand, are useful in times of pandemic to ensure that people follow specific protocols.

Cargo drones, dubbed as an ideal solution to transport and distribute medical supplies while minimising physical contacts, is not hit the market yet.

Passenger drones, considered to be the future of transportation, could be used to ferry passengers from one city to another. The air taxi, whose test run was successfully done early this year, will have a capacity to carry up to two passengers and can fly at 100 km per hour. It will have a 30 minutes flight time.

“We had our preliminary discussions with the DGCA for certification and registration and are awaiting its approval to kickstart operations, hopefully in 2023-24. We want to be the first in the country to operate an air taxi,” Ludi tells e27.

FROGS plans to launch operations in the new capital city of Kalimantan in Borneo Island. “As you may already be aware, our country is in the process of relocating its capital to Kalimantan, which is being developed as a smart city. We already have the infrastructure ready and will use some the nearby airports/helipads to run our operations,” Ludi as sharing more details.

Also Read: 16-year-old Indian prodigy has developed a drone that can detect and destroy landmines

Since its inception in 2018, FROGS has received a round of seed funding from UMG Idealab. The founders are now receiving interests from global investors, says Ludi.

“For a high-tech startup like us, we always need not just funding but also network, contacts, mentorship. We also hope to partner with the government for subsidies,” he concludes.

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Image Credit: FROGS.

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Sea food producer Thai Union Group has announced investments in four companies, including diabetes foodtech innovation company Alchemy Foodtech and investment fund VisVires New Protein (VVNP) — both based in Singapore.

The other two investees are Manna Foods, an insect tech and e-commerce company based in the US, and HydroNeo, an aquaculture technology company based in Germany and Thailand.

The investments were made from Thai Union’s recently-created venture fund, which focuses on alternative protein, functional nutrition and value chain technology startups.

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

Alchemy Foodtech is a food science and technology company that develops novel active food ingredients that fight diabetes. By sourcing from nature and proving with science, Alchemy ‘makes bad carbs good’ without change in taste to provide disease management and general public with diabetes prevention.

VVNP backs founders developing transformative solutions for a healthier, safer and more sustainable agri-food system. Founded in 2014, VVNP manages two funds with a global portfolio that includes Ynsect, Nuritas, Mitte, In Ovo, Nutrition Innovation, ViAqua, Aleph Farms and Mushlabs.

HydroNeo develops comprehensive solutions for smart aquaculture management. Its IoT system is designed to integrate into existing production sites to monitor the quality of water for breeding and farming of shrimp and to automate operations.

Through the detection of fluctuations in water quality, farmers are enabled to take countermeasures for reducing the risk of animal losses while the optimised controlling of energy-intensive aeration and feeding increases farm efficiency.

Alchemy, Manna and HydroNeo were part of the first cohort of SPACE-F, the first food tech incubator and accelerator programme in Thailand, which Thai Union is a founding partner of, alongside Mahidol University and Thailand’s National Innovation Agency.

Also Read: 5 foodtech startups in Asia Pacific to watch in 2020

Thiraphong Chansiri, President and CEO of Thai Union, said: “We are committed to Open Innovation as an important part in Thai Union’s innovation strategy, complementing our in-house innovation efforts. As such, we are working with external parties including universities, research institutions and the broader food tech ecosystem to support and fast-track innovative ideas and technologies.”

“Our venture capital investments in the foodtech space are an important part of this. Of course, our investment in these companies goes beyond a financial commitment as we also intend to provide guidance and support and will look to pursue collaborations wherever possible,” he added.

Thai Union’s venture fund was launched in 2019 with an initial commitment of US$30 million and focuses its investments on three strategic areas: alternative protein, functional nutrition and new technologies along the food value chain.

The fund is investing in early-stage entrepreneurial companies that are active in these areas and will actively partner with these companies to support and accelerate their development.

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Image Credit: Thai Union

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According to the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Market 2016-2022 report, the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Asia-Pacific region is estimated to grow by almost 47% between 2016 and 2022. Another research suggests that the Big Data market in APAC is likely to progress at a rate of 21.42% CAGR between 2019-2027.

Advanced tech disruptions are happening across all sectors today and innovations enabled by AI and Big Data are spearheading the 4.0 revolution making the on-demand software market even more robust as users get access to extremely personalised SaaS solutions — from online shopping to banking to ride-hailing and even to healthcare consultations. No wonder why the APAC SaaS market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34.28% during the forecast period of 2018-2023.

While the entire world has been riding the tech wave with the APAC emerging as a hub for innovation and disruptions, 2020 has been a year of reality check highlighting infrastructural gaps and lack of digitalisation across different sectors. It has become clearer that to truly future-proof businesses across industries, there is a dire need to encourage founders that lead startups with innovation at the core and this is where venture capital firms like Qualgro are taking the lead.

Qualgro is a Venture Capital firm based in Singapore, investing mainly in B2B companies in Data, SaaS, and AI to support talented entrepreneurs with regional or global growth ambitions. Qualgro invests across Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, primarily focusing on Series A and B.

Despite the pandemic, they have been quite active, having made four investments across the region this year so far. This is followed by a significant exit they had last year as anchor investor with the acquisition of Wavecell by a US-listed company for US$125 million. This was voted ‘Exit of the Year 2019’ by the Singapore Venture Capital Association.

Also Read: How businesses can protect themselves from digital risks

We recently spoke to Minh Vu Hong to explore the emerging industry trends in the region and discuss Qulagro’s vision and plans ahead.

Empowering founders and enabling innovation

Hong shared, “We see a vast playground in Southeast Asia for B2B data, AI and SaaS companies to scale and become at least regional or even global players. With the increasing digitalisation of SMEs as well as large corporations across the region, we are looking forward to backing more founders who want to build regional or global winners, able to compete against US, China, or European companies.”

The team at Qualgro brings in a unique combination of entrepreneurship, business acumen, expertise in investments, and deep knowledge of technology as well as consulting experience to help founders navigate the world of B2B sales and international expansion.

Hong, for example, comes with a background in strategy consulting. “I used to help corporations work with startups (or try not to lose market shares to), so it is quite a natural move to now back founders who want to sell to or compete with these corporations,” he shared.

Key sectors and Vietnam as an emerging B2B market

Amidst the coronavirus crisis, as digital use is expedited, sectors like education and healthcare are clearly at the forefront of transformation. Recent deals and funding rounds are reflecting this trend. “In Vietnam, for example, dozens of companies have gained significant traction over the last six months in online education, test banks, digi-health, or drug delivery,” Hong said.

“How long will the momentum last is the big question as not all companies have the same angle or approach to their respective markets and some will have to emerge as winners at the expense of others,” he added.

While the pandemic has brought along some challenges like movement and travel restrictions, Qualgro’s vision remains the same with an even stronger focus on business fundamentals and the quality of the team.

Also Read: How to know if your startup is ready for growth

Qualgro is currently focusing on Vietnam by doubling down with its first investments in the last few months.

“While the ecosystem in Vietnam has been historically more centred around B2C startups, we are starting to see more and more quality companies and founders in B2B Data, AI, and SaaS with amazing opportunities to scale in the country and beyond. The talent pool in Vietnam with skilled software engineers, data scientists, and data engineers is also a competitive advantage of the country to nurture regional winners,” said Hong.

Challenges, opportunities, and growth

Hong shared that currently, the inability to travel is proving to be a major challenge. “Not being able to be on the ground to spend time with founders and their teams, requires a bit more “leap of faith” on both sides (founders as well as investors),” he explained. They are having to rely a bit more on the information available online via credible sources as well as external views of other founders and industry experts.

To be able to maintain a robust network while connecting with new people on an everyday basis and get access to reliable information related to the tech startup ecosystem of the region, Qualgro has decided to opt for an e27 Pro membership.

Hong shared, ”We have had a long-standing friendship with e27. We also participated in the Echelon Asia Summit and have been relying on e27 for news and networking. So, when we had the chance to be a part of the first “alpha-testers” of e27 Pro we didn’t think twice before accepting as we saw this membership as another step in the right direction to build a stronger ecosystem.”

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: SEA’s PE firms start to attract money from Europe; Sea is surfing region’s digital wave

Hong explained that the core features of the e27 Pro membership that they appreciate at Qualgro are the access to information and the inbound connection requests from startups. He shared, “The daily news digest helps us a lot in our news crawling internally. We are using it to augment our own research. Plus, the connection requests we received are from companies we had not heard of before, which is a great sign.”

Qualgro has had more inbound deals thanks to the connection requests and also the various e27 featured publications and webinars that helped promote the brand as highlighted by Hong. With ever-increasing digitalisation across all industries, Qualgro’s innovative vision, and support form the e27 Pro membership, the possibilities for the VC firm are endless.

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