Singapore’s Decacorn Capital announced today it has joined the US$1.9 million seed round of Estonian Artificial Intelligence startup Fyma.

This marks the cross-border VC firm’s second investment in Europe this year.

Other investors who participated in the round include Estonia’s Change Ventures, Lemonade Stand, Superangel and UK based 7 Percent.

Fyma will use the fresh money for hiring as well as to fund its latest pilot programme that it says will help the company evaluate where it can make the biggest impact.

Also Read:  Singapore’s cross-border VC firm Decacorn Capital enters Europe with an investment in Estonian startup GridIO

Started in 2019, Fyma aims to enable businesses and institutions to make better strategic planning decisions by turning conventional cameras into smart sensors. The company extracts and analyses valuable data from thousands of hours of footage, enabling businesses to understand and contextualise the patterns in which individuals (like shoppers) shop and objects (like vehicles and machinery) move.

Use cases include finding and correcting floor plan flaws in retail shops, reducing traffic in congested areas and optimising the work of private parking lots

Fyma’s solution is asset light. It does not require clients to install any proprietary hardware in the exisiting CCTV network. Its computer vision algorithms can make sense of footage recorded by both new and legacy outdoor and CCTV cameras.

What distinguishes Fyma from many other computer vision startups is its privacy-by-design approach, which anonymises facial recognition.

Some of its successful pilot projects include helping the Dubai Road and Transport Authority gather insights on the movement of pedestrians and other traffic participants and assisting the shopping centre in the Baltics understand how COVID-19 related restrictions impact footfall.

Debneel Mukherjee, Founder and Managing Partner at Decacorn Capital, said: “We liked Fyma’s founding team and their idea of democratising CCTV footage for commercial and business analytics by mining big data using AI and Computer Vision.”

Also Read: (Exclusive) Decacorn Capital invests in Qupital to fuel expansion of B2B fintech e-commerce platform in China

Prior to this, Decacorn has joined Chinese fintech startup Qupital’s Series A+ round, which demonstrated its robust cross-border curation capabilities and ambitions of growing its global footprint.

Decacorn Capital’s other recent investments include Estonian energy tech startup GridIO, Israeli cybersecurity startup BioCatch, Perception Point and Sixgill.

The VC firm has also invested across geographies such as Israel, India, the US, China and Estonia, and is known as an investor in Snap that had exited through IPO.

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Image Credit:  Nathy dog

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In 2018, Piotr Jakubowski noticed that the air quality in his birth city Jakarta had deteriorated over years. This prompted him to conduct a research to understand the gravity of the problem, and the findings were just astonishing.

“Air pollution causes about 8.8 million deaths a year, US$2.9 trillion in economic loss and 1.8 billion days of sick leave,” said Jakubowski, who previously held the role of CMO gojek. “This is a staggering loss of health and productivity.”

So, in 2019, Jakubowski reconnected with his school friend and founder of wearables startup Zulu, Nathan Roestandy, who also shared the same concern about impact of the deteriorating air quality in the archipelago and beyond.

“Together we decided to create an ecosystem and raise awareness, and nafas was born,” he said.

Also Read: uHoo raises fresh funding led by Wavemaker to ‘meet the increased demand’ for its indoor air quality sensors

nafas — which means “breath” in Bahasa — was launched in September 2020 with the vision of bringing air quality data and knowledge to the people of Jabodetabek (the Jakarta metropolitan area).

The key component of the nafas ecosystem is a network of about 65 on-ground air quality sensors, which have been deployed in areas such as Jakarta, Tangerang, South Tangerang, Bekasi, Bogor and Depok.

The sensors were developed by Airly, an EU startup whose outdoor sensors were listed as one of the best by Airparif, a French organisation focused on air quality topics, in 2019.

The sensors — which have collected over 10 million data points over the last six months — send the data to the nafas mobile app which displays and updates air quality data every 20 minutes.

The app also allows users to save their most important locations in one place, so they can take a quick glance at the current status of air quality in their location before conducting any outdoor activity. 

Users can also set alerts to receive air quality notifications.

It also has ‘Air Quality 101’, a learning material which is available in both English and Bahasa Indonesia.

Busting the myths around air pollution

According to Jakubowski, there are many popular myths around air pollution and air quality. These include misconceptions such as ‘I live in an area with a lot of trees, so I’m safe’, ‘the worst pollution is during peak traffic on the roads’, and ‘there are no cars where I live, so it can’t be polluted!’

“Air pollution is a problem you generally can’t see; it is an ‘invisible killer‘,” he warned. “By bringing outdoor air quality data to your neighbourhood, we ensure that you are aware that living in a green, residential part of the city doesn’t mean you are not affected.”

Starting with Greater Jakarta

Of the top 10 capital cities in the world with the worst air pollution, eight are in Asia which have a combined population of over 100 million. This population breathes air that is 3-5x above the limits set by the World Health Organisation.

Jakarta is on this list, where lifetime exposure to the 2019 air quality levels corresponded to a predicted 4.8 years reduction in life expectancy, according to the Air Quality Life Index published by the University of Chicago.

(In 2010 alone, there was over US$4 billion in economic loss in the city due to the over 5.5 million cases of air pollution-related illnesses.)

Recently, Berkley Earth developed a scale comparing air pollution levels to the number of cigarettes smoked. According to this scale, just breathing outdoor air in Jakarta in August 2020 was the equivalent of smoking 84 cigarettes.

“Contrary to popular belief, our data show that the worst time for air quality in Greater Jakarta is between 4 am to 9 am,” he shared. “This is when many of the residents do their morning exercise.

“Since heavy exercise increases breathing volume, many people who thought they were getting healthy when exercising in the morning were actually putting themselves at risk by conducting outdoor activities when air pollution was high,” he warned.

nafas has also created a report, called ‘Does exercising in Jakarta’s air pollution impact our health?’. Based on the findings of the report, the startup has added a special feature on the app for athletes, which alerts them to reduce exercise when air quality levels increase risks of health issues.

“In highly polluted cities like Jakarta, prolonged exposure to bad outdoor air quality increases health risk. This is why we have added the ‘Trainer’ feature to the app,” he said.

“In Greater Jakarta, we are focusing on building communities of people who, by learning about the air quality problem, become advocates of our brand,” he remarked.

Also Read: This IoT device monitors air quality using laser tech that counts each individual air particle

The app (available on iOS and Android) is and will always be free for consumers, so more people understand the gravity of the problem.

On being asked about monetisation, Jakubowski revealed: “The possibilities for monetisation are rooted in data — there is simply no other source of on-ground air quality data at the density and size of nafas. Our mission is to grow nafas into the most robust and most respected air quality data source.”

Leveraging the gojek experience

Jakubowski, who headed the marketing department at gojek from January 2016 to August 2018, said that his more-than-two-years of experience at the tech giant has ingrained two things in his mind: the importance of prioritisation and the power of communities.

“For any business”, he opined, “it is incredibly important at the beginning to narrow down and really understand your core users; those who gain the highest value from your product/service and who have the highest potential of becoming evangelists. By focusing and prioritising on this beachhead, you have the opportunity to build an incredibly strong community that will be key to driving future growth.”

Bootstrapped until recently, nafas now has several angels backing it.

“Air pollution is not just a climate problem, it is an enormous health problem. We are glad to have conversations with VC firms that are looking to contribute in this global battle,” Jakubowski signed off.

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Image Credit: nafas

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Peter Thiel-backed Bridgetown SPAC weighs up to US$10B Tokopedia deal; Deliberations are at a preliminary stage and Bridgetown could still look at other potential targets; Tokopedia is Indonesia’s second most valuable startup, just behind ride-hailing and delivery giant gojek. More here

Tokopedia engages Morgan Stanley and Citi as plans to go public accelerate; Though a sale to a SPAC represents a faster route to a US listing, its CEO William Tanuwijaya had previously expressed his desire for a dual listing to ensure local employees and Indonesians can own shares of the firm. More here

How to pick an investor in good or bad times; It’s not about simply choosing an investor — you are hiring your next boss; You don’t want an investor who is checked out, but too much focus isn’t good, either; And, you don’t want an investor who is completely agreeable since your best outcome will be driven by a constructively demanding advisor. More here

Samsung backs Funding Societies to drive its vision of financial inclusion for SMEs in SEA; As of November 2020, the fintech startup claims to have given out more than US$1.4B across 3.3M loans; Funding Societies and Samsung Ventures, along with Samsung Life Insurance, will create a strategic alliance to introduce prospective partnerships and collaborations. More here

Ant Group’s chairman breaks silence after halt in largest global IPO; Eric Jing Jing Alipay has been managing the aftermath of the failed listing plan during the past month, under the guidance of the regulators; He promised to make Ant Group more transparent and predictable to the public. More here

Singapore healthtech firm Speedoc raises US$5M Series A led by Vertex; It will use the money to develop its in-house Chronic Disease Home Management system, a home-based management solution for chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol; Speedoc sends doctors and nurses on house calls and provides medication delivery services. More here

Helicap partners with Credit Saison Group to provide US$10M debt financing to alternative lending platforms in SEA; The collaboration aims to create a significant impact, especially for low-income borrowers and micro-enterprises in Vietnam and Indonesia. More here

Singapore’s co-living startup Cove raises US$4.6M led by Keppel Land; It plans to expand into Vietnam and Philippines; Since its launch in 2018, Cove has expanded into Jakarta with a total of 550 rooms, and partnered with Indonesian real estate developer Lippo Group. More here

Sembrani Nusantara Fund leads Series A round for Indonesia’s D2C shoe brand Brodo; Brodo specialises in men’s fashion and merges the online and offline shopping experience with three brick-and-mortar shops in the archipelago; The startup has also developed a digital marketing platform for MSMEs, called BDD. More here

SaaS e-commerce marketing platform Epsilo raises US$2M from Surge; It will use the fresh funds to bolster its technological capabilities and further expand its footprint across Asia; It is present in 7 markets across APAC and works with over 200 brands; Its software supports more than 400 online shops. More here

Vietnamese proptech startup Homebase bags 7-figure pre-Series A round; Investors include VinaCapital, Class 5 Global, Pegasus Technology, 1982 Ventures, Antler; Homebase utilises technology to offer home buyers and investors across Vietnam and SEA customised financing options for their properties. More here

Decacorn Capital backs Estonian startup Fyma that can turn your CCTV cameras into smart sensors; Decacorn has previously invested in Chinese fintech startup Qupital, cleantech company GridIO, AI company BioCatch and data protection company Sixgill; The VC firm is also an investor in Snap. More here

App integration platform Appboxo raises US$1.1M seed funding; Investors are Founders Fund, 500 Startups, Plug and Play Ventures, Antler; Appboxo plans to add new miniapps in travel, e-commerce, finance and lifestyle industries to cover more use cases for integrations by super apps. More here

Kalpha raises six-figure funding to allow P2P exchange of knowledge, skills, experiences; Investors include Nest Tech and undisclosed angels; The company claims to have shown a positive trajectory having 70K+ app downloads, 2K+ listings and 2.5K completed sessions since its launch in Jan 2019. More here

Chris Angkasa replaces Jason Lee as Indonesian co-working startup CoHive’s new CEO; Angkasa founded Clapham Collective, one of the earliest co-working spaces in Medan; Since Clapham merged with CoHive in 2017, Angkasa has been on the company’s Board of Advisors. More here

Transformation tenet: The digital customer experience is key to ‘stickiness’; As both business and consumer reliance on technology continues to increase, being able to rapidly identify and prevent technical disruptions should form part of that plan; It will be key to maintaining customer satisfaction and ultimately driving results. More here

Edukasyon promotes CMO Grace David as CEO; She has replaced Henry Motte-Muñoz (Founder and CEO), who remains as a full-time Executive Chairman; Edukasyon.ph is a marketplace for students to search, compare and apply to higher education institutions and online courses; It is backed by Alternate Ventures, French Partners, Lorinet Foundation. More here

How can India leapfrog into the league of the most innovative countries within the next five years?; In India, it will be imperative to fund specific domains such as biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biosecurity, digital health, and data science, where there are gaps in research capability and capacity. More here

3 reasons to rethink your payments strategy in 2021; Payments are a complex and high-touch function; There is a clear link between failed payments and negative impacts on customers, with payment failures resulting in churn 11 to 15% of the time; Every time a payment fails, you are asking a customer to re-evaluate their relationship with your brand. More here

Enabling technologies in agriculture: Outsized returns across the value chain?; AI is driving more effective and timely decisions; Computational biology is changing what we put in soils to improve yield; Automation is trying mechanisation to keep pace with the twin headwinds of a decreasing farm labor population and the increasing size and of farms. More here

Philippines’s Trade and Industry Department unveils digital mall for MSMEs; It allows MSMEs to offer their products while navigating their way to online selling and other e-commerce promotions; The newly launched online mall is a depository of some of the top products of some 223 businesses in the Philippines. More here

Singapore strong on digital adoption, less so on flexible work arrangements: WEF; Singapore is placed third on a list of top 10 economies with a robust digital legal framework (US is first, followed by Luxembourg). More here

Singapore lures workspace operators amid pandemic property slump; Singapore sees itself as a sweet spot for workspace operators amid a COVID-induced commercial real estate slump, as companies have cut down on office space and retreated to work-from-home arrangements to shield employees from the effects of the virus. More here

Zoom to open new R&D centre in Singapore; The centre will play a vital role as a source of innovation for the business, leveraging some of Singapore’s professionals; Zoom has seen a rise in shares of the company this year as demand for video conferencing surged due to COVID-19. More here

Singapore launches healthtech sandbox; Startups and SMEs will be able to test their innovations in the CHI Start-up Enterprise Link (CHISEL) sandbox; Firms will work with a healthcare institution to access real use cases for the trial, so that their solutions can be customised to the local context and population. More here

Reimagining anti-money laundering processes with blockchain technology; A recent study showed that Singapore, US and UK has the largest number of virtual asset service providers with weak KYC processes; Blockchain reduces exponentially the amount of manual data processing necessary for accurate and reliable KYC. More here

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Indonesia’s logistics startup Waresix announced today it has signed an agreement to acquire home-grown freight and trucking startup Trukita.

The details of acquisition were not officially disclosed. However, a DealStreetAsia report said Trukita was valued around US$5 million in the deal.

This acquisition allows Waresix to expand its offerings into first-mile logistics (transportation of goods from the port to the warehouse) and in turn, provide clients with one-stop logistics services.

Waresix focuses mainly on renting out warehouses to businesses whereas Trukita helps large and small business find the best transportation services.

Also Read: Logistics tech startup Waresix shares their achievements and target

“With the combined capabilities of Trukita and Waresix, we are now one of the largest logistics technology providers in Indonesia and will continue to contribute towards lowering costs with the effective use of technology to increase efficiency and overall transparency,” said Waresix co-founder Andree Susanto.

“Both companies share the same vision of digitalising the logistics sector and improving the efficiency of existing processes. Trukita will now be able to leverage Waresix’s technology, network of trucks and warehouses in Indonesia to better serve customers more holistically and expand beyond the first-mile space,” added Trukita co-founder Ady Bangun.

With its unique geographical landscapes, transporting goods from manufacturers to end-users in Indonesia for logistics players is often a lengthy multi-step journey. This means that goods need to go through land, sea and different warehouses before effectively reaching the island.

To solve this problem, Waresix offers multi-modal services, including land and marine transportation, general cargo handling, and cold storage to cater inter-island freight movement across Indonesia.

Currently, Waresix has a capacity of 375 warehouses and 40,000 trucks across Indonesia, and currently serves more than 100 cities within the region.

Some of its corporate clients are Unilever, Indofood, Siam Cement Group, Wings, and JD.ID.

Earlier this year, Waresix closed US$100 million in Series B round from EV Growth, Jungle Ventures, EMTEK, Pavillion Capital, Softbank Ventures Asia and Redbadge Pacific.

Also Read: (Updated) Waresix closes US$100M Series B to grow its tech-enabled first-mile, mid-mile logistics services in Indonesia

Trukita was founded in 2017 by Bangun, Panji Tri Atmojo and Ikhsan Amiarsa and is funded by notable investors such as Astra International, EverHaüs and Plug and Play.

Trukita claims to be the regions leading marketplaces for freight and trucking with a network of over 10,000 trucks.

While the acquisition has certainly made the two logistics companies stronger, Indonesia has over 110 logistics tech startups as per data by Tracxn. Some of the popular ones being Kargo, Shipper and Ritase.

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Image Credit: Waresix

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At the beginning of the year, what started as an epidemic quickly turned into a full-fledged global economic and health crisis. The ripple effects of COVID-19 can be seen clearly across the world and Malaysia is no exception. With over 66,000 confirmed coronavirus cases at the time of writing, the country has been in lockdown mode for a good part of the year and this has disrupted business and life in many ways. The Malaysian economy contracted by more than 17% in the second quarter of 2020 from a 0.7% growth in the first quarter.

From big businesses to startups and SMEs, every organisation has suffered some form of disruption amidst this crisis. As such, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), took swift actions earlier this year and announced a partnership with seven crowdfunding operators to help entrepreneurs and startup founders through this challenging time.

Turning to equity crowdfunding for support and growth

The pandemic has affected different kinds of businesses differently — some could pivot and adapt, allowing them to flourish while others succumbed to losses and were forced to layoff staff or worse, shut down.

For many startups, there was one key thing that they needed to survive and scale — cash flow. Getting funding was key to not only their survivability, but also their growth plans. However, with the pandemic raging and business not being “normal”, it wasn’t surprising that getting funding would be a challenge for many.

Simon Ulrich, CEO at ReGov Technologies, a fast-growing Malaysia based AI & Enterprise Blockchain focused venture, shared, “Many VCs we spoke to are careful about investing in new opportunities at this moment. Instead, they have redeployed resources to support their existing portfolio.”

With typical VCs being less than receptive, and normal routes for fundraising posing strong challenges, many startups saw their fundraising avenues severely limited. Fortunately, this was where MDEC stepped up by promoting alternative financing to MSMEs in partnership with crowdfunding platforms as well as offering them some financial relief.

Also read: Waresix acquires Trukita to grow its freight and trucking network in Indonesia

“MDEC helped us connect with the equity crowdfunding platforms. In addition, by far the most impactful initiative was the co-investment scheme Malaysia Co-Investment Fund (MyCIF) and we cannot give enough credit to its organisers. Initiatives such as this are exactly what the startup ecosystem needs. It was perfectly timed and was executed with speed and minimal bureaucracy,” added ReGov Technologies’ Simon Ulrich.

ReGov Technologies was not the only one that benefited. Wilson Beh, co-founder of Policy Street, the largest ECF issuer in Malaysia with the largest ECF investment raised, shared, “MDEC has been promoting ECF and P2P funding platforms and I believe that the concerted effort put in by MDEC has led to an increase in public awareness towards ECF and P2P investment. We are utmost thankful to the government initiative of establishing the MyCIF.”

Yeong Ning, Founder and CEO of Pentaip, a Financial Artificial Intelligence (AI) company also shared the same sentiment. “The partnership with MDEC has proven beneficial to us in various ways. They not only provided us with practical guidance and advice on our pitching but also recommended us an affordable working place for our business networking. Most importantly, MDEC helped us to promote Pentaip to the public and potential investors including VCs during the fundraising campaign.”

Success stories amidst the pandemic

With the right support and collaborations between MDEC and the crowdfunding platforms, many startups saw success despite the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic.

ReGov Technologies managed to expand on an international scale thanks to MDEC’s support through the ECF campaign. As a result, they managed to build and strengthen their customer base in Malaysia and expanded to Australia and the US.

“MDEC organised events where we could learn more about ECF and also explore if we were ready to utilise such platforms for fundraising. This allowed us to participate in activities intended to connect startups with investors,” Mr. Ulrich shared.

Also read: Here are ten more investors you can connect with on e27

Success wasn’t only seen by ReGov Technologies though, PolicyStreet was the first company to receive a RM1 million co-investment from MyCIF following the revision of the co-investment ratio in April this year. They plan on utilising the capital for strategic business development, licensing applications and technology development to exponentiate business growth.

That’s not all, after the investment round was concluded, Policy Street was invited by MDEC to be part of a national digital financial inclusion initiative, called the eBerkat programme, as official InsurTech partners.

As for Pentaip, they not only expanded as a team but also gained publicity during the fundraising journey. “The campaign helped us establish partnerships and allowed us to push our products to be market-ready. We managed to build partnerships in the areas of KYC/AML, Custody, Financial, Technology, and Infrastructure.”

What’s next?

ReGov Technologies is heading into 2021 on track to massively increase revenue and profitability further. Mr Ulrich said, “We are considering raising another round of funding with the aim of bringing in strong capital partners who can help us grow even faster as compared to an organic growth strategy.”

He also shared a word of caution and said that even though ECF was a highly recommended platform, one should not assume that it is easier to obtain investments on it compared to an angel or VC.

“The due diligence process is rigorous, and in our case, we were challenged by over a hundred investors that kept us on our “A” game throughout the fundraiser,” he said.

Mr Ulrich added, “I would like to encourage my fellow entrepreneurs to stay strong and be focused, in spite of the current situation. Sound business models will produce real traction and will demonstrate the very tenacity investors are looking for.”

In line with the experience this year, Policy Street continues to closely monitor unit economics to build a sustainable and impactful business. Pentaip also plans on focussing on growth and eventually scaling to a global level.

“The MDEC team has been relentlessly exploring alternative financing avenues and making these options known to businesses that are struggling to stay afloat during these trying times. I am pleased to see that our efforts have started to bear fruit. To date, our efforts have attracted more than 500 startups, totalling up to USD243 Million in funds requested. And as of September 2020, we have successfully raised close to 25% of this request,” said Gopi Ganesalingam, Vice President of MDEC’s Global Growth Acceleration Division.

Also read: This app from gojek’s ex-CMO notifies you about the quality of air in your location every 20 minutes

MDEC continues to support Malaysian startups and SMEs to help them write success stories even during trying times when most businesses are struggling to survive.

This effort is crucial in helping maintain a robust startup ecosystem for Malaysia despite the pandemic, and to ensure that the country continues in its journey to be the Heart of Digital ASEAN.

“Despite the challenges faced during a global pandemic, the Equity Crowdfunding (ECF) ecosystem has done well to support companies to raise their much-needed capital growth. This was possible with the support of business-friendly ECF policies and initiatives by the Government and its agencies. We’ve been working very closely with MDEC throughout the whole year of 2020 to identify investible companies for the investment community. The work that we do has resulted in various success in 2020, which we are more than happy to continue in 2021 and beyond,” shared Sam Shafie, CEO and Co-Founder of pitchIN.

Currently, seven startups supported under this program have gone live and pre-live for crowdfunding on the pitchIN platform. These include XTS Technologies, Bridzia, EduReviews, EVULX International, Maslaha Tech, Kravve, and Calms Technologies.

If you are a startup owner in Malaysia looking to grow and scale in the current climate, check out MDEC’s alternative funding initiative to realise your goals. You can also find out more about their other funding initiatives here.

Malaysia is poised to achieve its bold aspirations towards Malaysia 5.0 and becoming the ‘Heart of Digital ASEAN’. MDEC is driving this transformation by empowering Malaysians with digital skills, enabling digitally-powered businesses, and driving digital investments.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)

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As business begins to return to normal in Southeast Asia, the outlook is still mixed elsewhere. The pandemic forced a global slowdown, yet the economy has never fully stopped. The strength of our interconnected world and supply chains continued to power industry throughout the harshest periods of unrest.

While Singapore is uniquely placed with a pro-business economy, an innovative industrial sector, and support from progressive government legislation such as the Digital Acceleration Grant, there’s one lesson that the rest of the world can apply to their own recovery. 

Collaboration, like the recently-signed RCEP free trade deal between 15 APAC countries, has been key to building back better financial services. Only by working together can we create the conditions for a competitive marketplace in which everyone thrives. Let’s take a look into how Singapore managed this.

Long-term planning enables quick reactions

The sudden transition to global remote working has shown that even the most traditional incumbents can and will adapt under challenging circumstances. For some financial institutions, upwards of seven in 10 employees shifted to work from home. Those who laid the foundations for transformation by digitising processes and payments have seen their efforts accelerated by three to four years, in just nine months. 

Traditionally, fintech startups take their strength from their agility and ability to pivot overnight, while legacy industries looked on. But financial services providers are beginning to see the value of disruption: 94 per cent, in fact, believe that fintech will enable revenue growth.

Rather than decimate incumbents, startups have been building on the infrastructure laid by legacy players, creating a healthy symbiotic relationship that keeps financial services competitive. 

In F10 Singapore’s first cohort, Staple was a great example of this. Their advanced AI extracts data from documents, typically during identity verification checks. They have several pilots underway with institutions, where they improve processes without challenging their partner’s core business: a perfect collaboration.

Also Read: GoBear grabs US$17M in funding to accelerate its financial services across Asia

The startups’ use of APIs allows them to automate data extraction, liberating employees from repetitive tasks while speeding up the processes that improve customer experience.

Companies that have already adopted flexibility have the foundations to succeed, no matter the external pressures. Collaboration is a key element in adopting these agile practices. And a thriving industry encourages new entrants and competition – which keeps established players on their toes. This equips all ecosystem members with the capacity to react quickly to sudden shifts.

The power of partnering

While digital meetings are enabling more global interaction than ever before, there is a new appreciation for the value of authentic human connection. However, even pre-pandemic, there was a limit on how many meetings one team could attend, and on how many people they were able to access.

These constraints limit business development opportunities for emerging fintech startups without brand or reputation. But teaming up with an incumbent can provide a rich rolodex of relationships.

This allows challenger products to gain important access to the community, leveraging the trustworthiness of their partners brand. This boosts the incumbent’s reputation too, associating them with innovation without risking operations. 

Additionally, partnering offers legacy financial services exposure to cutting edge technologies while limiting its impact it has on their core business. No matter the size of their research budget, startup collaborations can help the financial services innovate in a responsible, and less risky way.

For instance, recently-graduated F10 startup DEXTF facilitates safe investment opportunities using decentralised traded funds on a blockchain, where fund managers can create funds of digital assets in mere minutes. Novel technologies like blockchain are seen as high risk, so exploring them through a startup gives incumbents exposure to the space with minimal risk.

The need for greater connection within our communities is clear: the financial services ecosystem has to come together to flourish. Accelerators can play a critical central role within the ecosystem, connecting startups, investors and partners and stewarding these collaborations.

Collaboration breeds competition

Endless pitch cycles and over-valuations created a bubble in the marketplace, where the winner took all. By instead shifting to long-term thinking and a considered approach to partnerships, the success stories of 2021 will be the products of collaboration.

Also Read: Collaboration is the key to success for evolving digital ecosystems in Southeast Asia

It is the development of monopolies that ultimately chokes innovation. Mega-conglomerates can strangle small businesses and push them out of the market. When one company dominates a sector, they no longer have the need to improve, which limits their growth potential.

For a sustainable market, we need to invest in the infrastructure that enables innovation, whether that is the ecosystem builders or the digital networks that connect services and products to end-users.

While innovation can never be completed, by coordinating opportunities for financial services and fintechs to collaborate, we can better support disruptors to build even more ambitious systems of change. Research from KPMG has indicated that 81 per cent of financial institutions favour partnering as an approach to fintech adoption.

And by drawing on the expertise of established players, we can build a competitive and varied market that drives demand for innovation and diverse offerings, and better meets the needs of customers.

In conclusion, a competitive market is healthy. Startups and corporates alike will benefit from pulling together to collaborate on products, projects and policy. In doing so, they lay the foundations for a more robust and inclusive economy, in which challengers have the space to compete, and incumbents can benefit from the exposure to emerging ideas. 

The key to recovery will be to focus on people: just as you need the right mix of corporate capital, institutional advisors, and a balanced team to build an efficient product that delivers, we need to apply this same approach to our financial services industry. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a city-state to build a thriving market.

Only by working together can we create the conditions for the whole financial services system to flourish.

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14 Day Trial for Pro Features

We launched our trial feature to allow startups to try out what Pro has to offer. Startups can now try for free the tools to access our investor database, our Connect program as well as some of our fundraising widgets. They also get access to the ecosystem roundup. This is a great to try out our Pro features for 2 weeks, fully free.

Showcase your startup video, product images and blog feeds

Startups can now better showcase their products and services through a cover photo, product screenshots and an embedded video, and connect their blog feeds. We want to provide more features for startups to showcase their work and show more in depth views on how their services work.

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Epsilo, an e-commerce SaaS startup with presence in Singapore and Vietnam, announced today it has raised US$2 million in funding from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge.

As per a press statement, Epsilo will use the fresh funds will be used to bolster its technological capabilities and further expand its footprint across the rest of Asia.

The company is part of the fourth cohort of Surge, a bi-annual rapid scale-up program for startups in Southeast Asia and India.

Launched in July 2019, Epsilo is a performance marketing platform built specifically on top of e-commerce platforms and designed for the needs of those selling goods at scale. It enables brands and merchants to optimise their ad spend for keywords, budget and inventory in order to maximise revenue.

Also Read: 5 things Saleswhale learned about building a global SaaS platform from Southeast Asia

The firm said it enables merchants to unify and automate campaigns while optimising for keywords and budget on its dashboard.

It also provides real-time inventory tracking to ensure brands are only generating demand for goods they have in stock and analyses the effectiveness of campaigns both at the user level and stock-keeping unit (SKU) level, with the ability to export real-time data to a company’s main intelligence tool.

Epsilo is present in seven markets across Asia Pacific and works with over 200 customer brands, including Unilever and L’Oreal. It claims its software supports more than 400 online shops that collectively generate over US$280 million in annualised gross merchandising value (GMV).

E-commerce has hit an inflexion point across Southeast Asia, with the market projected to cross US$40 billion in 2020. Large regional companies such as Lazada and Shopee have launched advertising solutions on their e-commerce sites.

As a result, many brands have started to shift some of their ad budgets away from Google, Facebook and other channels, and onto these e-commerce platforms.

Also Read: 5 non-technical ways to make a world of difference to digital advertising

This presents brands with a challenge as the advertising tools built by the e-commerce platforms are still nascent, requiring significant human capital to operate.

“Ninety-seven per cent of digital ad dollars are spent on ads that don’t drive a direct revenue return, and the shift of shopping on mega e-commerce platforms and the opening up of ad inventory on those marketplaces have created a new opportunity for performance marketers,” said Epsilo Co-founder Quang Tran.

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Image Credit: Epsilo

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Funding Societies (also known as ‘Modalku’ in Indonesia), an online lending platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia, has received an undisclosed amount of investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC), the VC arm of the South Korean tech giant.

As part of this investment, Funding Societies and Samsung Ventures, along with Samsung Life Insurance Co., will create a strategic alliance to introduce prospective partnerships and collaborations.

Also Read: Funding Societies appoints GoBear co-founder Frank Stevenaar as CFO, promotes Ishan Agrawal to CTO

Funding Societies intends to expand its technology team across the region to tap on the best of the tech and data talent available.

The funds raised will also be channelled towards developing the fintech firm’s strategic and new business models in its next stage of evolution, driving its vision of financial inclusion for SMEs in Southeast Asia.

“Funding Societies’s digital financing solutions effectively bridge the SME credit gap in Southeast Asia and we are confident that they will continue to lead the region’s digital lending industry and finance the future of these economies,” a Samsung spokesperson said in a statement.

Founded in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya, Funding Societies connects SMEs in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia with retail and institutional lenders.

As of November 2020, it claims to have given out more than SGD$1.8 billion (US$1.4 billion) across 3.3 million loans. The platform has also increased its individual lender base to 200,000 in just over five years of operation.

Recently, the company received an exemption from Singapore’s Ministry of Law to provide loans to sole proprietors along with a tax exemption where interest returns for its investors will not be taxable from 2020 onwards.

Earlier this year, Funding Societies raised US$40 million in a Series C round of funding from investors, including Sequoia India, Softbank Ventures Asia Corp, SG Innovate, BRI Ventures, Qualgro Partners and Endeavor.

Additionally, the platform raised credit lines from Asian and European financial institutions to further support small and medium-sized enterprises.

Ever since the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital means, fintech has been predicted to overtake traditional banking and finance sources as the leading source of financing opportunities for SMEs.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Funding Societies raises US$40M; ThinkZone announces new cohort

In Southeast Asia in particular, investors have been bullish about the fintech sector because of the market size which includes a large unbanked population size.

According to the SME Finance Forum, there is a US$320 billion SME financing gap in Southeast Asia today despite the many startups operating in the sector.

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Image Credit: Funding Societies

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Kalpha, a Singaporean edutech startup, announced today it has closed a six-figure seed extension round, led by existing seed-stage investor Nest Tech, with participation from several undisclosed angel investors.

With the new funding, the startup plans to extend its product offerings by introducing new features to its existing platform.

Founded in 2018, Kalpha is a P2P platform where individuals can connect and meet up virtually or physically to learn and share their skills and knowledge on a one-on-one basis.

Also Read: Undeterred by rejections and insults, this duo has built a cool edtech startup and got funding, too

Users on the platform can either sign up as a sharer or a learner and use the service accordingly. Sharers will have to curate a listing of their skills and knowledge and learners will then schedule the meet-up date and proceed to learn whatever skill they want to learn.

“Kalpha advocates learning beyond school. The vision of Kalpha is to promote lifelong learning where users are empowered to meet others to learn and share their experiences. Through those meetups, Kalpha hopes that users can then make better and more informed decisions before embarking onto certain life paths,” explained Co-founder Jack Soh.

“The opportunity to learn from an experienced individual in a personalised setting on real-life topics are limited, and Kalpha fulfils that gap in the market,” he added.

In terms of growth, the company has shown a positive trajectory having more than 70,000 downloads, over 2,000 listings and 2,500 completed sessions since its launch in January 2019. It also managed to successfully roll out its services outside of Singapore in Vietnam during July 2020.

“Southeast Asia will be Kalpha’s key target market as people in developing countries are always hungry to learn. Having said that, we’re experiencing a very healthy growth in user traction in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, since our rollout in July 2020,” noted C0-founder Tri Nguyen.

The firm plans to roll out its new gamification features as well as a question and answers (Q&A) forum to strengthen its existing P2P model.

Kalpha was incubated in The SandBox by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and was also awarded the SG Founder’s Grant by Enterprise Singapore.

Also Read: Singapore edtech startup Kalpha secures investment from Vietnam’s Nest Tech

Last year, Kalpha raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Nest Tech.

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Image Credit: Kalpha

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