Sembrani Nusantara Fund, launched recently by Indonesian corporate VC firm BRI Ventures, has injected US$2 million Series A investment into local made-to-order (MTO) drinks brand Haus!

This marks Sembrani’s debut investment since its launch in June 2020. It also marks BRI Ventures’s first step outside of its core fintech and financial services mandate.

According to a press note, there are several more deals in the pipeline for the fund.

Also Read: BRI Ventures’s Sembrani Nusantara fund hits first close at US$10M; Grab and Celebes Capital among investors

Founded in June 2018, Haus! is engaged in the F&B industry with the MTO beverage concept serving tea, milk tea, chocolate and coffee. The brand targets the middle and middle-low market segments. It said its affordable pricing and scalable business model caters to the majority of millennials and Gen Z consumers in the archipelago.

Currently, Haus! operates 103 stores across Greater Jakarta (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi) and Bandung.

It claims to be selling more than 1.5 million cups per month.

“With this series A investment, we are excited to see Haus! continue expanding its offerings across second-tier cities in Indonesia. Its integration to our MSME thesis will also unlock a trove of mass-market B2C opportunities that we look forward to collaborating on,” said Nicko Widjaja, CEO of BRI Ventures.

“The plan is to bring Haus! to more cities across the country. Our brand is a humble one, but we are more than certain that we’ve found the right alchemy and product-market fit here in Indonesia,” said Gufron Syarif, CEO of Haus!

“Haus! focuses on penetrating a wider segment than the other high-end brands in the market. We simply believe that better quality beverages at lower prices are the best way to attract millennials and Gen Z shoppers in Indonesia,” Syarif added.

The capital injection into Haus! is timely. Growing awareness of health and wellness has pushed middle-class Indonesians away from sugary mainstays like carbonated soft drinks, and toward ready-to-drink and MTO beverages, which consumers perceive to be of higher quality and freshness.

However, the economic impact of COVID-19 has led to lower discretionary spending across the board, and MTO drinks have not been exempt. Sales of MTO products have taken a hit through walk-in and takeaway channels but have seen online deliveries jump in light of stay-at-home and social distancing orders.

Also Read: Coping with consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis

The two largest food delivery apps in Indonesia, GrabFood and Go-food, have both reported a spike in food delivery orders, with total the former’s transactions rising 4 per cent in March 2020 compared to October 2019, at a 9.4 per cent increase in average basket size over the peak lunchtime ordering period.

“As Indonesians work, play and study from home more, they are turning toward comfort foods and bulk purchases to be enjoyed with the entire family. Here, MTO drinks like those from Haus! have shown stability in both demand and popularity, especially for the coffee and tea categories,” Widjaja continued.

Launched in June 2020, the Sembrani Nusantara aims to build a pipeline for Indonesian startups to grow and find good exits. The fund looks beyond typical investment areas such as fintech, and focuses on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) while aligning their investment thesis around the areas of education, agro-maritime, retail, transportation and healthcare.

Last month, the fund announced that it has hit the first close at US$10.62 million.

“Sembrani Nusantara’s investment into Haus! dovetails nicely with this thesis, as the company’s business model targets consumers who have less than IDR6 million (US$425) in disposable monthly income to spend on food,” Widjaja remarked.

“This contrasts with the majority of venture-backed players in Indonesia’s F&B space such as Goola, Kopi Kenangan and Fore, who are jostling for market share among customers who spend up to IDR12 million (US$850) monthly on food,” Widjaja pointed out.

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Image Credit: Haus!

The post Sembrani Nusantara Fund debuts with a US$2M investment into Indonesia’s made-to-order drinks brand Haus! appeared first on e27.

Every entrepreneur has to start somewhere –and somewhere along the journey, their approach to running a business might differ depending on the challenges that they are facing.

Starting off his journey at 19, Ryan Chew, Co-founder and COO of Tribe, had faced different kind of challenges that required him to adapt and adjust the way he is running the business. And these challenges seem to have brought results.

His company Tribe –which consists of Tribe Accelerator, innovation and educational ecosystem Opennodes, and Tribe Academy, an academy focused on developing job-ready deep tech talents– counts leading government and corporate organisations such as Enterprise Singapore, IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority), Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Dubai government, AXA, BMW Group Asia, Citibank, EY, IBM, Intel, Nielsen, PwC, R3, SGInnovate, Temasek, Ubisoft, and WeBank.

In addition to that, together with co-founder Yi Ming Ng, Chew has also been named in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia 2020 list.

Chew sits down with e27 to share his views on taking up challenges –and what he sees will be the next big thing in the tech startup ecosystem.

The following is an edited excerpt of our conversation:

What has been the toughest challenges that you have to deal with throughout your entrepreneurship journey?

At every stage of my career, or entrepreneurship journey, I have faced different challenges along the way. When I was at the very, very early stage of my entrepreneurial journey, at 19, the challenge was the ability for me to be able to meet groups of people or different individuals … and to align them on to a single kind of vision.

Also Read: In brief: TurtleTree Labs wins Entrepreneurship World cup 2020; IoT Tribe accelerator announces new cohort

You have this grand vision of the kind of business that you want to build, the kind of application it should be, and the purpose of this application. But as you communicate it, sometimes things get lost in translation. Or sometimes, whatever you say down the road just get forgotten. You know, like a broken telephone scenario.

I had to engage designers, app developers, and different stakeholders for just one particular app. The challenge was, how do I get them in line to the vision or to the goal that I have? Also, at the same time, allow them the flexibility to leverage their own creative inputs, so that we can make this better together as a team.

Is there any specific approach that you took to deal with these different parties?

So, the first-ever app that I learned to build when I was 19, 20 was a social app inspired by Ellen DeGeneres’s Heads Up!. Basically, it’s an app that you put on your head and the person opposite have to try to guess exactly what the name of the person is.

I created it in the first place because I realised that a lot of these characters in the Ellen DeGeneres game were Americans; a lot of my friends didn’t know who exactly they were. And I thought that it would be quite interesting for us to have a local version as well as to allow having our friend’s name on the app, so you can see how this person is perceived and acted out from someone else’s point of view.

What I didn’t do back then was understanding the entire application building process.

The first iteration came out quite bad. I then implemented what we call a “single source of truth”. How do we put this single source? So, everybody, no matter from which different stakeholders, can refer to this and go on to the wireframe to see how the action looks like, and how to actually behave to the intended target audience of the app, to the deadlines that we are expected to achieve.

It is no secret that this year has been a challenging one for entrepreneurs worldwide. How does it affect your approach to entrepreneurship?

[The pandemic] is a Black Swan event, so we try to look at things that are most affected and the things that we cannot change. And then we try to understand it from that point of view.

What are the opportunities that lie beyond here? Based on research, it has been shown that more and more startups are usually born after pandemics –because that’s when people feel the most pain. That’s when people feel a lot of discomforts. And that’s where people want innovation to come. So from that point of view, pandemics usually offer opportunities for change … to spur innovation.

From this particular pandemic, we have seen that.

Also Read: In brief: TurtleTree Labs wins Entrepreneurship World cup 2020; IoT Tribe accelerator announces new cohort

With the global pandemic, we are going to see more government investments in the startup scene, and right now, the approach will be to identify how we can leverage such a resource?

Let me give you an example for Tribe Academy. When the pandemic hit, we realised that … inevitably, the economy will be affected by pandemic. What it means is a lot of jobs will be lost, a lot of people will be left stranded.

So the opportunity here is, okay, now we have a pool of people that are looking for a job. What we can do is to push on this right and to train up these people, to ask them to improve their social mobility, so that they will be hired and continue to maintain relevance in this particular industry.

There are multiple government grants that the students can tap to attend these classes to upskill themselves.

Any specific advice for entrepreneurs who are undergoing this difficult time?

It’s important to main flexibility, whether internally or externally. For example, if you are in the travel industry, there won’t be many customers out there.

You always have Plan A for when things are going smoothly, but what happens when things are not?

In January, when the news hit, because we have partners globally, [we thought], “Hey, this is not to be taken lightly.” So we sat all the upper management down and we realised that we need to start a few contingency plans.

For example, if something happens that triggers a potential cash flow issue, what is the Plan A that we should do? And the Plan B, C … so that we won’t be caught off guard.

So the advice is to, number one, give yourself options. Number two, prepare a contingency plan.

Pandemic aside, what are the most influential events in the startup ecosystem today, in your opinion?

The one that will influence the startup ecosystem the most is the global emphasis on ESG –environmental, social, and governance. The model is essentially a set of guidelines that investors will look at when investing in startups.

Also Read: In brief: Singapore’s blockchain accelerator Tribe goes virtual for batch 3

So with this shift in focus in identifying startups, the focus is on identifying whether this startup is doing something that is environmentally moral, socially moral and has very strong governance. This will likely dictate the kind of startups that will get investment, and the kind that does not … So it’s important for us to really understand.

Where the capital goes, the majority of the time, the startups will have to follow. Because startups want to raise investments.

We also realised that there is more attention placed in the energy and environmental sector.

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Image Credit: Ryan Chew

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With news about the vaccine, we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But we can’t heave a sigh of relief just yet. One of our contributor reminds us of the logistical challenges associated with distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

And with increasing anxiety for the vaccine, the tech space is also abuzz with anxiety over ethics of AI and other emerging tech. Learn more about the future of self-driving tech and AI bots from our contributors.

Here’s a good fix of our top contributor posts for a relaxing weekend! If you have a counter view or more, share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

How business owners can outwit even the most sophisticated hackers in a post-pandemic world by Andy NG, CEO of Nexusguard

“Organisations deploying heightened security into their infrastructures, elevating the need for a generation of cybersecurity experts with adaptable technical skills, who are able to respond to mitigate even the most critical threats. This means more specialised training is first required to mould these experts.

These talents must not only be skilled in tackling all forms of attacks but have a thorough knowledge of the evolution of cybersecurity threats affecting digital systems around the world, on top of real-world experience in mitigating cyber threats.”

Approaching AI-rmageddon: Will AI talkbots make our lives better or worse? by Deon Tan, outreach executive at Block71 Singapore

“Ethical issues concerning AI have been like a sea of dark clouds threatening a thunderstorm ever since the advent of AI technology. Despite the initial excitement over AI talk bots, many people – from tech experts to restaurant owners – have expressed ethical concerns over the proliferation of AI talk bots. Ironically, making talk bots extremely human-like poses the biggest ethical concern: How would we know if the person we are talking to is really who they say they are?

This concern is not a trivial one by any measure. In an era of fake news and identity theft, it is extremely worrying that a single person with nefarious intentions could so easily disseminate false information and plunge communities into a state of panic. What’s disturbing is that this is already happening without the help of AI.”

6 ways sentiment analysis is changing the e-commerce experience by Jacob Davis from Revuze, an AI-enabled tech startup

“Getting customer feedback is very important for any e-commerce business, especially now that the business world is becoming more customer-centric. In the world of big data, the essential thing is not just to have the data but to make meaningful insight out of the data at your disposal.

While you can get online reviews of your product from review sites and social media, you need to understand that the data you get from these channels are mostly unstructured. To gain any reasonable insight out of this data, you may have to devote hours of manual labour.

Opportunities in SEA

Why Southeast Asia desperately needs innovation in HR and how one accelerator is facilitating it by Daniel Callaghan, CEO of Veremark and The Workplace Accelerator

“HR Tech has seen investment treble from US$1.8 billion in 2017 to nearly US$6 billion in 2019 by VCs globally however only a fraction of that comes from Southeast Asia as a region despite the fact that exit multiples at seven times sales on average are significantly higher than most marketplaces, content or e-commerce businesses.

The region has yet to see its first HR Tech equivalent of a NinjaVan or Carousell or Zilingo and as such fantastic businesses that can make a massive difference often go under supported. We want this to end.”

Paving the way for Asian edutech to soft-land in Latin America by Alfreda Lee, Project Manager at Latin Leap VC

“As Asia is moving full steam ahead with technological innovations in the sector, the region could benefit from looking outward and lending a hand to those who are falling behind so that they may also improve and scale in the process.

Latin America, on the other hand, could stand to take some notes and capitalise on its potential for improvement by embracing Asia’s tried and tested solutions for emerging markets. This is especially relevant in light of COVID-19, which has forced more than 1.4 billion students worldwide to stay home. For students and education systems to stay relevant and competitive in these times, it is thus essential to capitalise on the benefits of technology.”

What Asia’s smallholder farmers really need and why startups should lead this uncontested race by journalist, Zuzanna Kamusinski

“Though these smallholder farmers remain some of the world’s poorest people due to reasons that were present long before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global smallholder agribusiness market is estimated to be worth more than US$400 billion.

If that’s the estimate now, what would the market look like if rural, smallholder farmers across Asia could harness digital technology to tap into the solutions and opportunities that are currently out of their reach?

Furthermore, if a technology company could tap into the smallholder market, they wouldn’t just be holding a huge slice of global food production, they would be presented with the opportunity to help lift a lot of people out of poverty.”

The world of logistics

Teleoperation: It’s here to revolutionise the logistics and supply chain industry by Amit Rosenzweig, founder and CEO of Ottopia

“Simply put, teleoperation empowers a human to remotely monitor and control a motorised vehicle. From the operator’s standpoint it is deceptively simple. But that’s only because an ingenious and enormously complex blend of technologies makes it so.

Teleoperation enables the transmission of multiple video feeds from the vehicle to the command station, and instructions from the command station to the remotely operated vehicle, in virtual real time. However, unlike robo-taxis, autonomous pods and autonomous shuttles, teleoperation technology is road-ready right now. There is no need for new, specialised vehicles, even existing fleets can be retrofitted for remote operation.

Teleoperation’s relevance is all the more timely on account of COVID-19.”

Addressing the logistics challenges of transporting the COVID-19 vaccines in and out of Asia by Kay Banzon, fintech and security enthusiast

“The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are set to be manufactured in the US and in Europe. Moderna’s vaccine, officially called mRNA-1273, will be produced in facilities in the US and Switzerland. The manufacture of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, on the other hand, will take place in Germany and Belgium.

Ordinarily, the main concerns regarding these vaccines are their availability and prices. Over the past weeks, discussions in the media have focused on how lower-income countries worldwide can avail of these products. However, it appears their storage and delivery are even more critical challenges.”

Being an entrepreneur

3 questions that will help maximise every entrepreneur’s productivity by Dhaval Sarvaiya, Cofounder of Intelivita

“For any entrepreneur, growth should be the primary focus and purpose. As an entrepreneur, you are solely responsible for charting the future growth story of the business. There are vital decisions to be taken as to how the business can enter and establish a presence in new markets, how the existing product line can be expanded to serve customers better, and also to bring in more revenue.

In other words, every single action of the entrepreneur should be geared towards bringing growth to the business. That calls for great decision-making skills. Taking a tough business decision is no mean task. You need a process, a framework, a structure to create great decisions.”

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page

The post From our community: Why SEA needs HR tech, better cybersecurity talent, open conversations on ethics and more… appeared first on e27.

When Arun George and Anoop George from Kerala developed a US$1,000 small wind turbine — which could power an entire house for lifetime — back in 2015, little did they expect it to become what they claim to be a “highly sought-after” product.

Fast forward to 2020, the siblings’ device in its new avatar is not only receiving enquiries from every continent except Antarctica but has also been recognised by the United Nations for championing the cause of clean energy.

“Our startup Avant Garde has made big strides since we last spoke. The latest version of our wind turbine is incomparable to our first one,” co-founder and CEO Arun George told e27, referring to our interview back in 2016.

The previous version, he explained, required about 3m/s (meter per second) wind speed to start up. But thanks to their three-four years of intense R&D, the team managed to make the device sleeker and more efficient.

“We put in years of efforts and invested a tremendous amount of money for product development, field testing and multiple iterations to come up with a higher efficiency wind turbine,” George shared.

“Avatar has the world’s lowest startup speed for a 1kW Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine with just 1.4 m/s wind speed required. This is less than half of what was needed earlier and still applicable to most other wind turbines in the market.

Also Read: JM Newton secures US$700K+ in crowdfunding to help enterprises save energy using its green-tech solutions

As a result of this efficiency, Avatar was once again chosen as one of the top 20 cleantech innovations by the United Nations at its Innovation Summit held in September 2019,” George continued.

The latest version is designed to be compatible with both on-grid and off-grid models. As for the on-grid model, the electricity generated via Avatar can be exported back to the grid. In the second model, the energy can be stored in batteries for later usage.

In George’s own words, Avatar’s “super-efficient” Axial Flux Direct Drive generator keeps the wind turbine quiet, meaning it is optimised for rooftop installation without noise or vibration.

One of the main gripes against large wind turbines currently available in the market is that they cause bird collisions. This is because large wind turbines often come up with a height of 50-100m (which is the altitude where birds fly) and they have long blades with wingspans measuring up to 80-100m.

However, this issue doesn’t arise in the case of small turbines as their heights don’t exceed 20m and wingspan length is just 3-4m in diameter.

“We have made Avatar bird-friendly using special visibility paints on all the three blades, which can safely deflect them,” George elaborates.

“Avatar is also built to be deployed in a wide range of climatic regions such as deserts, snow and even harsh marine conditions with temperature ratings ranging from – 40°C to +70°C,” he claimed.

Weathering strong winds

The new turbine is also built to withstand extremely stormy wind speeds up to 60 m/s (214 kmph), which is category 3 cyclone.

Owing to its scalable technology, Avatar also comes in higher capacities of 3kW and 5kW and is also being planned to be made available in 10kW and 20kW.

The price starts at INR 60,000 (under US$1,000) for a 1kW Avatar wind turbine.

Also Read: Digital green economy: How technology can help save the planet

“In conjunction with the Avatar wind turbine, we have also developed a ‘wind power conditioning unit’ (WPCU) product, called Aura, which is used with the off-grid wind turbine for charging batteries,” he continued.

The WPCU comes with 4-in-1 integration of an inverter, charge controller, dump load and auto grid changeover.

Furthermore, it’s designed with an aesthetic look for wall mounting and with a soft LED halo light around it to display the name Aura.

So far, Avant Garde has won government (B2G), business (B2B) and individual clients (B2C).

In B2G, it has been deployed by the Indian Navy at its Naval Base in Cochin and recently, as well as by the Indian Army at Ladakh near the Himalayas, located at an altitude of 11000ft from the sea level, where temperatures dip to -30°C.

In B2B, it was installed on the premises of FMCG major Unilever, as well as various other commercial clients from multiple industries across India.

“In B2C, our customers range from home owners to farmers to apartment dwellers. Avatar is now the most sought-after for exports where it is finding the demand coming from all major continents,” he shared. “We received orders from regions as diverse as the UK, Africa, Ecuador, Iceland, Colombia, Morocco even in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis.”

As of now, Avatar has received a combination of sales, partnership proposals and enquiries from over 160 countries.

The startup is now setting up a factory in the western Indian state of Gujarat to meet its rising demand. In this factory, it is now preparing to manufacture higher capacity models of Avatar, besides a few other new products.

He also revealed that Avant Garde continues to receive high volume of investment proposals from across the world but it has adopted the path of organic growth supported by its own revenues and non-equity funds.

Also Read: These 3 trends will help you to get back on top in the post-pandemic world

Currently, the cleantech company is in discussions to open associate offices in Europe and South America. With an aim to scale up across 100 countries within 2023, it wants to become one of world’s leading enterprises focused on the distributed/decentralised renewable energy (DRE) segment.

“We are convinced that the post-pandemic period is going to be the most critical and important time for adopting clean energy solutions for a green recovery as well as for urgent climate action. In this crucial turning point for our collective humanity, Avant Garde is prepared to touch the lives of people across the world for a better, cleaner and sustainable future,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Avant Garde

 

The post Remember the under US$1,000 wind turbine? It has now become sleeker, quieter, more efficient in its new ‘Avatar’ appeared first on e27.

With today’s global business challenges amplified by the COVID-19 situation, the global tech ecosystem is grappling at ways to address these challenges and move forward as a resilient community. The special SFF x SWITCH edition this year will celebrate the defiant people who are creating new opportunities to stand together and advance our society by showcasing today’s role models who persevere through the tides, as well as rising stars and pioneers transforming global industries.

Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) is known for spearheading challenging topics and sparking important conversation in the financial services industry — from financial inclusion to sustainability. Meanwhile, the Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH) is focused primarily on championing the exchange of ideas in the innovation space.

Coming together in SFF x SWITCH, the joint project is a celebration of people and ideas working towards the common goal of addressing today’s challenges.

As such, in the interest of building a stronger, more resilient future, the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) in partnership with SparkLabs is fielding 15 startups into this year’s SFF x SWITCH. These startups were carefully chosen after a rigorous selection process that included application review and in-person interviews, conducted as a part of 2020 Global Pitching Competition Programme that aims to help Korean startups showcase their businesses to international investors and potential business partners in some of the biggest tech events in the world.

Also read: Building your investor network? Here is the first part of our active investors list in SEA

The 15 Koreans startups who will be participating SFF x SWITCH’s various events cover a range of diverse verticals including Food&AgriTech, Urban Solutions, Customer Services, Healthtech, and so much more. Not only do these startups offer promising business models and innovative products and services, they also show a keen interest in penetrating global markets and expanding to various other regions in the world.

“Korean startups have the DNA to enter the global market and we believe that through participating in these competitions, it will be an important first step towards global expansion,” share Eugene Kim, General Partner of SparkLabs.

Meanwhile, Edward Lee, Director of KISED, explained that “through participating in this event, teams who have advanced to the final rounds and even those that have not, will be able to gain a lot of valuable experience and be more prepared to venture into these countries’ markets in which these competitions take place.”

KISED creates a startup-friendly environment in a bid to globalise domestic startups and support global startups to enter the Korean market based on 10 years of global expansion experience and know-how and the best and greatest network.

15 participating startups

Qualifying in the 2020 Global Pitching Competition Programme and joining in this year’s SFF x SWITCH are 15 of South Korea’s top early-stage startups. They are the following companies listed below:

N.thing – an automated modular vertical farming solution to feed the world sustainably.

Marvrus – online test cheating prevention solution.

Visualcamp – eye-tracking technology for eye gaze input and data analysis.

Ssenstone – password-less user authentication to prevent privacy information leakage and provide safe and convenient user login process.

Smart Diagnosis, Inc. – automatic vital sign extraction and big data service only using smartphone and without the need for wearables.

Gene on biotech – easy, fast, and accurate COVID-19 diagnostic kit with naked eye.

Timo Inc. – the company develops children’s life skills and supports healthy family relationships.

Also read: Sustainability: the new business reality

MOIN, Inc. – cross-border remittance service based on blockchain.

Tenqube – a mobile app for gens M to Z to explore global fashion items.

Lives’talk – Lives’talk creates affordable and accessible solutions for the nomadic pastoralists.

Wonderbros – Wonderbros’ Smart Grab&Go connects people and brands by innovating offline retail experiences.

KEMEDI – a chat-based one on one expert-driven care advice service as family caregiver.

Marine Innovation – eco-friendly products from algae to be used as alternatives to plastic and wood.

Reziena – an AI-based home doctor platform with highly-effective Beaty IoT Homecare Solution using medical technology

GENE ONE ON ONE – a personalised lifestyle (nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management) managing coaching service platform for human microbiome recovery

Entering the Southeast Asia market

What makes this opportunity fantastic for these early-stage startups is how the companies themselves have been able to scrutinize and understand how to position their businesses in the Southeast Asian market. They have also identified which particular gaps their solutions will be able to bridge, and are keen on being exposed to stakeholders and other entrepreneurs from the region.

For example, N.thing’s automated modular vertical farming solution is particularly beneficial to the region as it eyes the production of 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030. Singapore’s agricultural land is now less than 1% of overall land use. The challenge there is that the country’s global population density ranking is at number 3, making it more difficult to feed Singapore without using more land and while cutting back on emissions.

N.thing developed the world’s first modular farm concept that offers both productivity and sustainability. It consumes only 4% water of the traditional farming method while increasing the yield tens of times. N.thing’s farm can localise operation processes and distribution services for crop production in areas where it is needed.

On the other hand, within the Edutech market of 500 trillion, there are many opportunities, especially in Southeast Asia, with Singapore being known for its powerful education system as recognised in the region, making it an effective regional test bed. Marvus plans to proceed with Singapore as a base for establishing a corporation and IPO in the future.

Also read: Why Southeast Asia desperately needs innovation in HR and how one accelerator is facilitating it

Marvus’ language content provided within its virtual education platform is in high demand in the Southeast Asian market, coupled with advantages in content, price competitiveness, similar education systems, and customer preferences that are more fit for Southeast Asian region than British/American solutions.

Currently, due to COVID-19, VisualCamp is providing a solution that identifies students’ learning attitudes and concentration levels to domestic education companies. Southeast Asia has the same market needs because of its high emphasis on education. In addition, VisualCamp has established a research/development partnership with a shopping mall company that sells K-Pop products to create an e-commerce platform with applied eye tracking. As the K-Pop market in Southeast Asia is huge, they believe it is an important test bed to verify the marketability of new solutions.

Southeast Asian countries rank high in the IT software outsourcing country rankings. The IT distribution rate is also increasing steeply. VisualCamp’s artificial intelligence eye tracking SeeSo SDK does not require separate hardware and supports iOS and Android, so it has an advantage when it comes to technical application and collaboration.

Lastly, Gene on biotech intends to enter the market for the simple reason that they want to help as many people as possible. Their service will be distributed at a low price so that accurate results can be inspected in a short period of time, and testing experiments can be conducted with inexpensive general equipment, allowing for it to become commercialised and administered for home use.

These are only some of the solutions and innovations South Korea’s top early-stage startups may offer to other global markets with the goal of yielding better results. This only proves once again that the country’s global stamp in technology is here to stay. With the 2020 Global Pitching Competition Programme, KISED and SparkLabs hope to introduce more of Korea’s finest to the global market.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SparkLabs

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