By now it’s safe to say COVID-19 has been the strongest force pushing for digitalisation in retail that we’ve seen in a long time. Within weeks, everything suddenly moved online.

iPrice Group and App Annie reported back in September that usage of Android shopping apps in ASEAN grew by 39 per cent within three months. Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines saw growth of up to 55 per cent.

Efforts of e-commerce companies to advocate for online shopping in Southeast Asia paid off overnight.

What’s next then? Now that ASEAN consumers have installed their shopping apps, and opened their digital accounts, where is the market heading towards and what exciting developments can we expect from ASEAN e-commerce in 2021 and beyond?

Here are three data-driven predictions from the researcher team at the e-commerce technology company Seal Commerce Asia.

The era of B2B

Southeast Asia has been the playground of B2C e-commerce giants for a while, but starting from 2020, it is looking more and more like a dreamland for B2B and B2B2C -commerce as well.

Amid social distancing measurements, suppliers have moved their sales operations online and rapidly redefined their supply chains and fulfilment. On the other hand, B2B buyers, especially the mom-and-pop shop owners, who account for 70-85 per cent of the FMCG retail market in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, suddenly became much more comfortable with utilising technology.

These factors combined open up a previously closed door for B2B eCommerce in the region. Forrester forecasts that B2B e-commerce in the region will grow at 12.1 per cent per annum, with B2B online marketplaces at the core of changing buyer behaviour.

That’s why in 2020, many Southeast Asian B2B e-commerce platforms have sprung up and begun to attract investors.

Telio, which is claimed to be the first Vietnamese B2B eCommerce platform, raised USD $25 million in a Series A round. While in Indonesia, GudangAda secured two consecutive rounds of financing, with a total amount of 30 to 40 million US dollars.

Also read: Is COVID-19 the catalyst B2B e-commerce companies needed?

Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup announced the launch of VinShop offering store owners a digital platform where they can order directly from suppliers and vendors.

Zilingo raised a Series D round worth US$226 million to go after the opportunity to digitise the fashion supply chain in Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia.

Other already-established players in digital payment and B2C e-commerce also seem eager to expand their reach to mom-and-pop shops. All of this is to say, B2B e-commerce looks likely to be the next frontier and the new heated competition of eCommerce in Southeast Asia.

However, the development might not be all smooth sailing

B2B e-commerce marketplaces typically promise three supposed benefits: refilling stocks fast and effortlessly, finding and ordering from multiple suppliers easily, and finance.

Although these offers look great on paper, they might not be so attractive to the mom-and-pop store owners in practice. The power to pick and choose their own suppliers and make bargains is hard to give up.

Therefore, determining product market fit will be the primary goal for most ASEAN B2B eCommerce companies in 2021. Would the answer be continuous and heavy discounts as with B2C eCommerce, or would it be the promise of more customers through a B2B2C model? Only time will tell.

Social commerce and digital payments finally take over

In Quarter 2, according to iPrice Group and App Annie, the total number of sessions on shopping apps on Android phones in Southeast Asia has reached 65.1 billion, its highest ever.

For some such as Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, the number of visits to Android shopping applications jumped over 40 per cent within just three months, an impressive statistic that surpassed all expectations.

These increases in app usage are creating huge opportunities for social commerce and digital payment in e-commerce.

These features have been key strategies of the industry since at least 2019. Every big e-commerce player in the region was looking for ways to reduce cash-on-delivery payments and implement social features to their apps, but not until 2020 with the pandemic that things were sped up significantly.

The Singapore government recently accelerated the adoption of cashless payment methods with incentives for businesses, like subsidising digital transformation costs.

In Indonesia, 55 per cent of Indonesian consumers claiming they are buying online now more than ever, and digital wallet startups such as GoPay, Ovo, and Ant Financial-backed Dana are becoming more common across the country.

In Vietnam, digital payment startup VNPay achieved the unicorn status in late 2020, while their competitor MoMo acquired 10 million new users, doubling their user base within 2020.

Meanwhile, e-ommerce giant Shopee noted a 40x increase in the number of live streams from brands and sellers in Singapore. Shopee Live also received 120 million views in Indonesia for its live streaming event in April.

Expect to see social commerce and digital payment play a central role in the Southeast Asian tech startup scene in 2021 when it changes the way consumers in the region approach shopping in general.

Cross-border e-commerce to benefit from the pandemic

Seal Commerce Asia’s own Shopify in Asia report shows that in 2020, number of new stores opened by Asian sellers on Shopify is 112 per cent higher than that in 2019. Sellers from Asia also account for 11 per cent of all new stores in 2020, up from 9 per cent a year before.

Among the top five Asian countries with the highest number of new Shopify stores in 2020, three are in Southeast Asia, namely Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Also read: B2B e-commerce in Asia is increasingly successful. Here’s what we can learn from them

Just like most things e-commerce, Shopify experienced unprecedented growth in 2020: the number of new stores created grew 71 per cent in Q2 compared to Q1, with a record number of merchants added to the platform in Q3.

With the pandemic situation not looking much better in Europe and North America at the beginning of 2021, this exponential growth rate seems likely to continue.

This means selling cross-border (either through Shopify, Amazon, or their own platforms) into the West will continue to be huge for Southeast Asian businesses.

But beyond that, one fact that is surprisingly underreported in the media is what this means for a slew of e-commerce-enabling startups in the region.

Take a look at the Shopify app store, which supplies sellers around the world with third-party apps for their online businesses, you will be surprised to find out how many of the top-ranking apps are coming from startups in Vietnam, Singapore, or other ASEAN countries.

There are enablers in store building such as Gempages, EcomSolid, or Pagefly, in marketing services such as Beeketing and LitExtension, and in logistics technology such as Parcel Perform.

By end of March 2020, over 80 per cent of Shopify merchants had used a third-party app to help run day-to-day operations.

And 2021 promises to bring things to an even higher level for them.

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The ASEAN region may not be known as a leader in blockchain technology, but it is by no means a distant laggard. Southeast Asia is home to several blockchain startups such as Indonesia’s Hara, a blockchain-based food and agriculture data exchange platform, and Singapore’s Electrify, which seeks to integrate blockchain in the electric power industry.

Most Southeast Asian countries appear to be receptive to the idea of blockchain being used in various applications. If there are challenges encountered, the government and private sectors usually come up with solutions instead of retreating from any engagement with blockchain.

Welcoming governments

There are many promising developments that signal the growing support for blockchain technology in Southeast Asia. Financial access throughout the region is still considerably below par, but this does not indicate a weak opportunity for blockchain to flourish.

On the contrary, it provides a compelling impetus for companies to innovate and for governments to adjust policies in favour of financial inclusiveness.

The Indonesian government, for example, appears to acknowledge the potential of blockchain. The ASEAN bloc’s most populous state and largest economy has softened its stance on cryptocurrencies after initially issuing an outright ban on these digital assets in 2018.

While the country still does consider cryptocurrencies as legal money, Bappebti, Indonesia’s financial services regulator, has announced the creation of legal frameworks to enable blockchain innovations and the use of crypto assets.

Singapore, on the other hand, is becoming a destination for initial coin offerings (ICOs). In late 2017, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that it was regulating digital token offerings. In the same year, MAS also introduced a tokenized version of the Singaporean dollar. Since then, ICOs in Singapore have been surging.

The Thai government has likewise helped make it easy to adopt blockchain technology and its applications. Thailand introduced cryptocurrency laws in 2018 and its central bank has been supportive of efforts to integrate blockchain-powered solutions in cross-border payments, security settlement, and supply chain management.

Also Read: [Updated] Meet the 3 Singaporean blockchain startups showcasing at Algorand Asia Accelerator’s demo day

In March 2020, Vietnam’s government released Resolution No. 17/NQ-CP, which lays out the essential tasks and solutions involved in developing the country’s e-government system. The resolution includes the creation of a legal framework for the application of modern technologies including blockchain, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, and Open API.

Meanwhile, the Philippines claims the distinction of being the pioneer in using blockchain technology for the distribution of government bonds. A collaboration by the Philippine Bureau of Treasury, UnionBank, and the Philippine Digital Asset Exchange has resulted in the launch of an app powered by Distributed Ledger Technology (blockchain) to make it easier and more efficient for people to invest in retail treasury bonds.

Thriving startups

There are hundreds of blockchain startups in the Southeast Asian region. From the fintech system Vauld of Singapore to the agriculture data exchange platform Hara of Indonesia, many ASEAN businesses are already harnessing blockchain to explore novel business models or new facets of conventional businesses.

Crunchbase currently has a list of 385 ASEAN blockchain for-profit and nonprofit organisations. These include Biconomy, a tech firm that seeks to establish a transaction infrastructure for Web 3 applications; MathWallet, a multi-platform digital wallet that supports over 50 blockchains; and Conflux Network, an open network for digital assets and decentralised applications.

One of the most notable ASEAN blockchain startups is Singapore’s Electrify. Created by Electrify SG, the pioneering retail electricity marketplace in Southeast Asia, Electrify makes it possible for consumers to find the best power rates that match their needs and preferences.

Electrify has already facilitated the buying and selling of more than 60 gigawatt-hours of electricity. Through blockchain, Electrify is looking to decentralise its marketplace and enable faster transactions with lower fees.

Another standout is Bluzelle, a platform for sharing computing power. Established in 2014, this innovative business operates like a decentralised cloud service through which users store data in multiple computers, making their data safe from cyber theft and unlikely to be affected by server downtimes. The company successfully closed a US$19.5 million ICO in 2018.

Moreover, ASEAN can brag of being the origin of the world’s first blockchain-driven point-of-sale device: XPOS. The introduction of the concept of this blockchain-based solution was convincing enough that it attracted more than US$35 million in over three funding rounds. XPos makes it possible to accept payments through multiple modes including cryptocurrency. XPOS comes with complementary apps XWallet (e-wallet) and XPass, an NFC-based contactless transaction solution.

Also Read: 2021: Predicting another bumper (un)predictable year for payments

Considering the recent developments, the emergence of more promising and trailblazing blockchain startups from Southeast Asia is going to be unsurprising. With the rise of fintech and growing investor interest in the region, it is no longer that difficult to attract funds to bring innovative blockchain application ideas to the market.

Easier blockchain product development

Thanks to welcoming governments and brilliant technical and entrepreneurial minds, the ASEAN bloc is making strides at the forefront of blockchain technology. Even better, platforms and APIs for blockchain product development have been made more accessible nowadays.

The news of Crypto.com and Alchemy’s partnership, for one, is a significant development for everyone involved in the development of blockchain apps. This collaboration entails Alchemy’s role in the building of a developer platform and API that simplifies the process of creating applications on the Crypto.com chain.

It makes it easier to integrate apps for wallets and exchanges. Crypto.com, a Hong Kong-based company, is set to serve thousands of developers in the ASEAN with its enhanced platform.

Alchemy is the entity behind Supernode, the most popular Ethereum API in the world. More than 70 percent of the world’s leading Ethereum apps use Alchemy’s APIs. This translates to over $15 billion transactions facilitated by applications that rely on an underlying technology produced by Alchemy. With the company’s record in delivering reliable, scalable, and accurate APIs, developers on the Crypto.com platform can expect better outcomes as they strive to build world-class apps.

Another example of an excellent platform that makes development easier is Game Protocol. It helps achieve faster, easier, and more efficient development through its digital currency and the creation of collaborative communities. It democratizes the development process and provides quick access to crowdfunding for developments. Likewise, it provides a decentralized marketplace where developers can sell their products.

Towards blockchain leadership

ASEAN as a global leader in blockchain application is far from far-fetched. There is abundant potential in the region especially in the field of financial technology and in novel or groundbreaking business ideas. Southeast Asia is still far from reaching its peak in blockchain applications.

Also Read: Reimagining anti-money laundering processes with blockchain technology

Introducing the world’s first blockchain-powered POS and first energy retail marketplace is just a preview of what’s to come.

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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, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Lupl, a legaltech startup founded by international legal firms, announced it has raised US$14 million in new funding as it prepares for its public launch in April 2021. The latest investment is in addition to the more than US$10 million raised prior to its beta launch, taking its overall funding in excess of US$25 million.

The US-based startup also announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Singapore’s Ministry of Law to leverage the platform to advance the digitalisation of the legal sector in Singapore.

This collaboration will begin with a series of industry engagement sessions in the first quarter of 2021.

Incubated through its development by a trio of international law firms – Germany’s CMS, the US’s Cooley and Singapore’s Rajah & Tann Asia – Lupl is an open industry platform for legal matters.

Features include a “Knowledge Hub” which provides a global repository of matter and workflow templates, designed to help users operationalise legal knowledge and repeatable process, and a data and analytics dashboard surfacing real-time analytics about legal matters.

Also Read: How Lupl aims to solve the fragmentation of technologies in the legal space

Lupl has been in worldwide private beta testing since March 2020 and claims it has over 500 companies in more than 50 countries on its waitlist. It further remarked it has over 100 industry partnerships in progress as part of its open industry platform vision.

The startup shared it is on track for a wider public release commencing from the beginning of April 2021, with an initial focus on the rollout of Lupl within participating organisations followed by a phased onboarding of legal departments and law firms.

In a press note, Lupl also announced additions to its management team with Jeff Green joining as CEO, working alongside Matt Pollins as COO. Cheryl Wilson Griffin has also joined as Chief Customer Officer.

By the end of 2021, Lupl expects to have a team of more than 75 people worldwide.

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Image Credits: Unsplash

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We can never get enough of Indonesian digital coffee chain Kopi Kenangan –and we are not just talking about their cup of iced coffee on a hot, busy day.

The startup has made headlines with their high-profile funding rounds, the latest being their US$109 million Series B funding round in May 2020. Following these updates, Kopi Kenangan has never been shy about their ambition to continuously expand.

“What if we can open, not five to 10 new stores each month, but one each day?” says Co-Founder & COO James Prananto in an interview with e27.

While the goal might sound ambitious, the results that the company made has been showing great promise. According to Jumpstart, Nielsen Company has named Kopi Kenangan as the number one in top-of-mind awareness in the milk coffee category and second only after an established multinational coffee chain in the general coffee category. This is an achievement that the magazine dubbed as “notable” given that Kopi Kenangan has only been operating for less than two years at the time.

To make that goal comes true, there are practical steps that the startup is implementing. In this deep dive series, Prananto spills the details on how Kopi Kenangan plans to open one new store each day.

In this article, you will learn:

– The importance of brand-building in scaling your business
– Using tech in scaling your business
– Why founders should always have a Day One mentality

Also Read: Kopi Kenangan snags US$109M in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital

A brand is not built in a day

Before we can touch on the topic of scaling up, first we need to learn how Kopi Kenangan builds their brand. They are certainly not the first coffee chain to ever operate in the Indonesian market, so to have a distinctive feature is a must.

According to Prananto, there are two ways the company intends to achieve it: through its brand identity and brand promise.

“What we believe is that winning is all about how you can be different from your competitor. Of course, with branding, there is a brand promise as well … the commitment from us to our customer,” he begins.

Kopi Kenangan does it by doing something that their competitors avoid. They adopt what Prananto describes as “cheesy” and cringe-worthy themes into their company’s brand, down to the names of the beverages on the menu. For example, their signature beverage is called Kopi Kenangan Mantan or “memories of the ex-lover” coffee.

“Back then in 2017, most coffee brands were really serious … It’s not approachable,” he says.

Once that brand identity has been established, the company starts to nail down its brand promise which is the use of high-quality coffee beans and machines.

“Branding is more than just graphic design or having a nice video [of your company]. It’s a whole experience that begins when you enter our store … Whether its the cashier greeting you good morning, whether they are smiling or not, whether we are using the proper machine,” Prananto points out.

“If you do [these] things right, you are creating brand awareness to your customer without having to spend so much on customer acquisition. I believe this is the biggest mistake that founders make, spending so much on customer acquisition without thinking about building their brand,” he continues.

Prananto also states that by the time Kopi Kenangan was developing its brand, the company did not have as much funding as they do today. The brand creation was done by the founders themselves.

Also Read: [Updated] Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan raises Series A extension from Jay-Z, Serena Williams’s VC firms

Even though the company now has its own creative director, Kopi Kenangan continues to see the brand building as a responsibility of every team in the company –not just the creative team. This is why Kopi Kenangan launched its own employee training centre Kopi Kenangan Academy to ensure standardised service quality.

What it takes to scale a business

Now that the brand identity and brand promise have been established, Kopi Kenangan moves on to the next steps that it take to realise its expansion plan. Prananto lays down the details on how the startup uses tech to help them launch one new store per day.

“First of all, we need to find a location, right? That is where we start on building our proprietary heatmap technology, where we try to identify where our customers are. Once we have identified [their location], we need to know whether there is already a particular store over there or not,” he explains.

Once a new location is secured, the company needs a method that will enable them to build a new outlet in a timely manner. To achieve this, instead of going to location one-by-one and build something from zero, Kopi Kenangan prepares a system that Prananto likens to a puzzle. With an existing blueprint of all the elements that should be in a Kopi Kenangan outlet, contractors only have to use these references and adjust to the needs of the locations.

This step is followed by preparing the human resource that will run the outlet –the part where their SOP and training programme come in.

But even this tidy mechanism comes with its own challenges.

“So, the biggest challenge will obviously be operational consistency, when you are aiming to open one store per day. In December 2019, we opened 42 new stores when most brands in Indonesia would open 40 to 50 outlets in a year,” Prananto elaborates.

“To overcome the challenge, again and again, we invest even more on our learning and development (L&D). On top of that, we try to use tech to tackle those challenges. I believe that as a tech-enabled company, you don’t just use it for your consumer-facing app. You use it to help you create a robust backup inside your organisation as well,” he continues.

Prananto also adds that the company is currently working on a smart management system that will allow the outlets to operate without the need of a manager. They expect to launch this system by mid-2021.

Also Read: Startup of the Month, June: Indonesian tech-enabled coffee chain Kopi Kenangan

Every day is a brand new day

While the use of tech is crucial in helping Kopi Kenangan expand its business, there is nothing that can ever replace culture.

For Prananto, it is all about implementing a Day One mentality which enables the startup to see every day as the first day they operate. They choose to adopt this mentality as there is a tendency for business operations to slow down after operating for a long time; they have to remain agile and excited for the work as the day the business was launched.

“This Day One mentality also means that you should always be customer-driven … Because the moment we become complacent is the day we become irrelevant,” Prananto says.

To unite the company into a single goal, Kopi Kenangan also implements the use of OKRs in its operations.

“Once again, branding is not just about graphic design. It’s all about the sensory experience,” he stresses.

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Prisca Akhaya T. also contributed to this article.

Image Credit: Kopi Kenangan

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Robowealth, a robo-advisor for mutual funds in Thailand, has secured an undisclosed amount in Series A round of funding from Beacon VC, the corporate VC arm of Kasikorn Bank (KBank). 

The partnership means that while Robowealth will be able to leverage KBank customers to grow its user base, the latter will be able to deliver value to its existing customers through the former’s wealth-tech services. 

Also Read: Grab’s fintech arm GFG raises US$300M Series A with an aim to close the financial inclusion gap; in SEA

Launched in 2017, Robowealth operates as a mutual funds brokerage securities company under the supervision of Thai Securities and Exchange Commission. The platform allows users to invest in both Thai and global funds, starting from as low as 1,000 baht (US$33). It targets both high net-worth individuals (HNIs) and novices with its solutions.

The startup’s flagship product suite, Odini, targets everyday people looking for simple ways to invest and grow their money via automated ready-made mutual funds portfolios.

The platform has an investment committee of fund managers and analysts, whose primary role is to select a set of suitable mutual funds both regionally and globally.

These featured funds are then directly served to customers, who can choose the right ones for themselves, depending on the market conditions and customer risk appetite. 

For HNI customers, it runs wealth management solutions under its subsidiary, Robowealth Investment Advisory Securities. 

According to CEO Chonladet Khemarattana, Robowealth customers have benefitted largely from the investment diversification to global markets during the COVID-19 lockdown. 

“Many tech stocks have greatly benefitted from the lock-down and the pandemic also encourages more people worldwide to quickly adapt to the digital platform which is the long-term benefit for wealth tech businesses,” he said. 

Khemarattana further added that Robowealth aims to reduce the economic inequality in Thai society as the country faces one of the world’s worst wealth distribution. 

Also Read: Don’t break the bank: Enabling financial inclusion and equity through tech

“Finding effective investment channels is still considered a big challenge for those who have a little cash surplus. Therefore, the core principle of Robowealth is to co-create the financial ecosystem, which enables Thais to start investing with minimal funds through convenient, user-friendly, and reliable channels regardless of the service ownership,” Khemarattana shared.

“Beacon VC focuses on investing in high-potential startups whose innovations and services can deliver real value to KBank customers through the creation of new financial products or services. While we would normally scout for new investments and find collaboration potentials with the business units, this is the first time that we invest in a startup that already has a working relationship with KBank,” Thanapong Na Ranong, Managing Director of Beacon VC, said. 

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Image Credit: Robowealth

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