Day: January 22, 2021

Several senior executives of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) resigned or tendered their resignations over the past few months, a well-placed source told e27.

Those who have left or tendered their resignations include COO Datuk Ng Wan Peng, CFO Nor Faizah Othman, CIO Abdul Malick Aboobakar, Investment Development Vice-President Wee Choong Hew, Creative Multimedia Director Hasnul Samsudin, Growth Ecosystem Development Vice-President Norhizam Kadir, Human Capital Director Suzana Nawardin, and Sharing Economy Ecosystem director Darzy Norhalim.

The news was first reported by The Vibes. As per this report, the government agency is split into two camps — under Chairman Raise Hussin and CEO Surina Shukri. However, e27‘s source dismissed this claim as baseless and unfounded.

Also Read: MDEC spearheads alternative funding to help Malaysian startups thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic

“MDEC needs to change and institute change with the changes in the system, especially with the onset of the pandemic. There have been resignations over the the course of 2020, with some leaving as early as mid-2020. However, there has been no mass exodus so to speak,” the person quoted above revealed.

“The truth is that they all left for varying reasons — some for personal, some for better opportunity, some unable to align with the new direction of the agency, who prefer exploring something else in their lives,” the person disclosed.

According to another credible source, there have been some concerns among the employees about MDEC’s vision and direction.

Following the reports of resignations, MDEC Chairman Rais Hussin came out to issue a statement saying it was normal for people to resign at the end of the year and refuted claims of a crisis within the agency, according to a Free Malaysia Today report. He remarked that when change is pushed, staff may either embrace the change, adjust or disagree by moving on.

As per another report, fresh faces have already been brought into the agency, including Nora Junita Mohd Hussaini, who has been appointed as CFO with immediate effect.

The organisation said Nora Junita will contribute to business strategy and financial leadership alongside programmes that are aligned with MDEC’s overall national strategic objectives.

MDEC is an agency under the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia and is tasked with spearheading the development of the country’s digital economy.

(Sainul Abudheen K also contributed to this report)

—

Image Credit: Unsplash

The post Key executives leave MDEC amidst reports of shake-up appeared first on e27.

Singapore-headquartered early-stage VC firm Antler has announced that it will invest US$100 million in Indian startups over the next four years.

The fund will support exceptional founders from the idea stage all the way to Series A and B.

Earlier in June last year, Antler said that it plans to invest in up to 40 companies within the first year of its operations in India.

Also Read: Roundup: Antler expands to India; Singapore’s AngelCentral invests in Pslove

“India is a priority market in Antler’s objective to create a world-changing impact. India is a hotbed of innovation and we are thrilled to double-down on the market with this leadership team,” Magnus Grimeland, founder of Antler shared. 

Apart from this Antler has also appointed Nitin Sharma as the partner and co-lead for its India operations. Sharma brings in a strong background for the company as he is an active investor of the Indian startup ecosystem.

Prior to joining Antler, Sharma ran his own VC firm FirstPrinciples, which has funded over 35 startups including Fynd, OnJuno, Niki, Kutumb, SharesPost, XOKind and more.

He learnt venture investing in the US while at NEA Ventures, where he invested in multiple companies (Millennial Media, AddThis, OPower, EverFi, among others) with successful IPO outcomes, and also co-led the firm’s first edutech investment.

After this, Sharma joined Lightbox Ventures, whose portfolio includes InMobi, Dunzo and Cleartrip. 

“Sharma is a unique investor who has invested not just across multiple stages and economic cycles but also ventured early in exciting areas like blockchain and digital assets. We look forward to his continuing impact in enabling exceptional founders from India’s digital economy, and also with new initiatives at the global level,” Grimeland added. 

Despite the pandemic causing projections about India’s economy taking a significant hit, the region has shown signs of being a lot more resilient than expected.

According to data from Amsterdam-based Dealroom.co, investment in Bangalore city has grown from US$1.3 billion in 2016 to US$7.2 billion in 2020, approximately 5.4 times, outpacing London, in terms of investment growth.

Doubling down on this it is no surprise that many investors are pouring money into this region.

“While opportunities in India are boundless, what has also become clear from my extensive work with founders is that a few key gaps persist especially at the seed and pre-seed stage: a truly global partner that can bring institutional resources and significant follow-on commitment even at the idea stage. This is exactly why Antler can fill the gaps and have a transformative impact,” Sharma said. 

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Grab’s fintech arm raises US$300M Series A; Sea buys Indonesia’s Bank BKE; Indian IPOs thriving despite COVID-19

“These strengths become even more important as we enter an era of build from India, for the world, something I am extremely excited about. I am particularly enthused about the opportunity to co-lead this with someone as inspiring as Rajiv. Besides, all FirstPrinciples portfolio startups will now have access to Antler’s vast global network, capital and resources,” Sharma added.

—

Image Credit: Antler

The post Antler to deploy US$100M in “priority market” India in the next 4 years appeared first on e27.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma makes first public appearance in three months; Ma has been out of public sight since he criticised China’s financial regulatory system in the Shanghai speech; Following those remarks, Ma was summoned by China’s regulators and an IPO offering by Ant Group was suspended at the last minute. More here

Tesla to scale its team in Singapore with 11 new hires; In July last year, the electric car giant had filled up three positions across different verticals in the island nation; Tesla ranks among the top-10 biggest companies in the US; It runs a variety of cutting-edge projects such as Superchargers and Tesla Network, with a great salary for its employees. More here

Spacemob founder Turochas Fuad launches buy-now-pay-later startup ‘Pace’, raises high 7-figure seed funding led by Vertex; Pace is available in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, HK; Pace claims to have added 300+ PoS from 200+ merchant partners; Pace will compete with the likes of Hoolah and highly-funded Rely. More here

Competition heats up in SEA’s BNPL market; In Singapore, an October 2020 consumer survey by Finder found that an estimated 1.1M people, or 38% of the population, have used a BNPL service; It suggests that the trend is gathering steam in Asia amid COVID-19 uncertainties, an accelerated shift to e-commerce, and rising mobile payments adoption. More here

Grab considering US IPO this year; The public offering could see Grab raising at least US$2B, which would likely make it the largest overseas share offering by a SEA company after Sea’s US$1B IPO in 2017; To date, Grab has raised US$10.1B and is valued at US$15B. More here

How Tencent is expanding its Singpore footprint to drive SEA growth; Tencent is said to be the biggest rival of Alibaba Group; In contrast to Alibaba, Tencent has had a smaller footprint in SEA; Last September, it was reported that Tencent will have almost 200 seats at JustCo’s co-working space in Raffles Place; Last July, it signed an MoU with Asia Digital Bank Corporation in Singapore. More here

How Kopi Kenangan achieves its goal of opening one new store per day; Kopi Kenangan does it by doing something that their competitors avoid; It adopts what co-founder James Prananto describes as “cheesy” and cringe-worthy themes into their company’s brand, down to the names of the beverages on the menu. More here

Razer to announce its breakeven for FY2020 v/s US$83.5M loss the year before; The improvement is mainly due to “the higher than expected” revenue growth, the increase in the company’s gross profit margin, and the enhancement of its operating expenses management; The co. claimed its revenue is expected to have grown by at least 40% y-o-y during the report period. More here

SGX-backed digital securities platform iSTOX closes US$50M Series A; Investors include Japan Investment Corporation, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Development Bank of Japan; The financing will be utilised to bankroll the expansion of iSTOX’s geographical footprint and investment offerings. More here

Enterprise HR-tech platform DarwinBox bags US$15M led by Salesforce Ventures for SEA expansion; It claims to have grown by 300%+ since its US$15M Series B in Sept 2019; The Indian firm says it serves 500+ corporates across 60+ countries, which include Tokopedia, Alodokter, 99.co. More here

Legal-tech startup Lupl raises US$14M, signs MoU with Singapore’s Ministry of Law; Investors are international law firms CMS, Cooley and Rajah & Tann Asia; This is in addition to the US$10M+ raised prior to its beta launch; Lupl is an open platform whose features include a Knowledge Hub, which provides a global repository of matters and workflow templates, designed to help users operationalise legal knowledge and repeatable process. More here

Singapore’s Antler to pour US$100M into Indian startups within the next 4 years; It will support founders from the idea stage, all the way to their series A and B raises; Antler also announced the appointment of Nitin Sharma as a partner and co-lead for all of its initiatives in India. More here

Ant-backed Mynt eyes more funds for Philippines fintech fight; Mynt’s GCash app is the largest mobile wallet by number of registered users in a market that is drawing investor interest from around the world; The company recently closed a US$175M funding round. More here

Vietnamese live-streaming platform GoStream lands 7-figure USD from VinaCapital; Gostream claims it facilitates 100K+ live-streaming sessions daily and serves multiple corporate clients; According to a Statista report, revenue in the video-streaming segment in Vietnam is poised to reach US$162 million in 2021. More here

Vietnamese e-wallet firm Gpay raises Series A from KB Financial; Its parent G-Group Technology also joined hands with KBF to launch a US$13M fintech JV; Last week, Gpay’s rival MoMo raised Series D of about US$100M. More here

Moneythor nets undisclosed amount of investment form Navis Capital; Moneythor provides financial institutions and fintech firms with solutions to enhance their digital banking services; Headquartered in Singapore with offices in London, Paris, and Tokyo, Moneythor also looks to working closely Navis’ affiliate, DZ Card which is a Thailand-based smart cards manufacturer. More here

Thai robo-advisor Robowealth raises Series A from Beacon VC; Its Odini product suite targets everyday people looking for simple ways to invest and grow their money via automated ready-made mutual funds portfolios; The  startup allows HNIs as well as novices to invest in both Thai and global funds, starting from US$33. More here

Expense tracking startup Volopay raises US$2.1M led by Tinder co-founder; Volopay is an all-in-one platform that combines expense approvals, corporate cards, bill payments, expense reimbursements, credit, cashback and accounting automation; The company calms it has 100+ Singaporean companies on its platform, which include InVideo, Dathena, Medline, Sensorflow and Beam. More here

SBI Ven Capital, Beenext, Heritas join Indian teleheath startup MFine’s US$16M financing round; MFine is an AI-driven, on-demand healthcare platform that provides its users access to virtual consultations and connected care programmes from India’s hospitals; It claims it has more than 1M users with over 4K doctors from 600 hospitals in India. More here

SEA’s women-focused startup fund SWEEF receives US$16.2M from Danish pension fund; SWEEF targets women-led startups in Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines; It will also invest in sectors where women comprise a large portion of labour and in companies that demonstrate a commitment to gender equality. More here

How ASEAN is shaping up to be a blockchain frontrunner; There are hundreds of blockchain startups in SEA; From the fintech system Vauld of Singapore to the agri data exchange platform Hara of Indonesia, many ASEAN businesses are already harnessing blockchain to explore novel biz models or new facets of conventional businesses. More here

3 top trends to impact e-commerce startups in ASEAN in 2021; SEA 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 e-commerce as well; Social commerce and cross-border e-commerce are also gaining momentum. More here

Malaysia and Sweden partner on innovation challenge; The Innovation Challenge invites startups registered in Malaysia to identify solutions in solving healthcare challenges, especially related to non-communicable diseases (NCD); Startups selected to participate will get access to incubation programmes, global innovation networks, mentorship and funding. More here

—

Image Credit: Unsplash

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Grab considering US IPO this year; Turochas Fuad unveils his new BNPL venture; Tesla scaling its S’pore team appeared first on e27.

Keith Tan, on an invitation from Plug N Play Japan, was pitching his robotic barista, Ella, at the country’s annual trade show CEATEC.

At the event, he met several top executives of JETRO, a non-profit governmental organisation that promotes trade and investment between Japan and the rest of the world.

And it was a turning point in his entrepreneurial life.

“After my return from Japan, I followed up with JETRO’s Singapore office, whose job is to bring tech companies from around the world into Japan and make introductions to that country’s corporates,” said Tan, a coffee lover who also runs Crown Coffee, a sustainable eco-conscious cafe in Singapore.

“I asked them if they could introduce me to Japan Railways Group. They replied in the affirmative and assured to connect me to JR East Business Development SEA, a subsidiary of East Japan Railway Company. I later came to know that JR East has a joint venture with Singapore’s SMRT,” he added, as he recounted the rendezvous to e27.

Also Read: Will China lead the Artificial Intelligence game by 2030?

A few days later, JR East executives came to Crown Coffee, where Tan showed them a prototype of Ella. “They immediately saw the relevance and use case for Ella in their train stations. This is when I was introduced to the JR EAST venture team,” he said.

What is Ella?

Ella is a robotic coffee barista powered by Artificial Intelligence and is designed for unmanned and contactless retail operations in high-volume environments.

The barista is powered by an ecosystem comprising patented proprietary Internet of Things (IoT)-connected software and external hardware, which Tan claims, will upgrade the coffee experience with speed, convenience, quality and consistency.

Each kiosk is capable of producing 200 cups of barista-quality coffee per hour and will operate 24×7.

In addition, Ella boasts of immersive and innovative digital touchpoints, such as an interactive transparent OLED screen and mobile app ordering system, with a payment gateway and e-wallet.

The motivation

According to Tan, Ella took birth out of necessity.

Crown Coffee was growing, forcing him to open four new outlets in the city-state to meet the increasing demand. However, the shortage of manpower was a problem. Tan realised that digitalisation is the only way out of this “happy” problem.

“We faced four major problems while running Crown Coffee: 1) high real-estate cost, 2) manpower challenge, 3) cost of hiring, training and retaining staff, and 4) maintaining quality and consistency,” he explained.

Ella addresses all these problems, he went on. Ella occupies only 6 sqm of the real estate space and is fully autonomous with no need for workers. Plus, it is easily scalable with its architecture.

The role of AI in Ella

On the backend, the computer vision powered by AI is monitoring the kiosk 24×7 for any abnormalities that may affect Ella’s operations. The algorithms are trained to detect anomalies, and retail video analytics are used to understand customers better.

Also Read: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Is the technology only as good as the human behind it?

“This feeds back into Crown’s backend system and we make decisions to improve user experience, predictive analytics for both upstream and downstream supply,” he explained.

The JR East investment

As part of the partnership, JR East recently made a strategic investment in Ella. This will accelerate the rollout of Ella across East Japan Railway’s network of over 1,700 train stations that serve an average of 17 million passengers daily. The project is slated to be completed before Tokyo Olympics 2020 to meet the increased demands, Tan shared.

“We are not looking to deploy Ella at every train station in the immediate future. We plan to start with Tokyo and aim to reach at least 500 locations by 2022. We are currently in conversations with another Japanese strategic investor who will offer maintenance and replenishment support,” he revealed.

In Singapore, Ella was already used by Marina Bay Sands’ MICE for the last two years at their exhibitions. The robotic barista is currently being deployed at the country’s leading shopping mall, Plaza Singapura.

In addition, Ella also serves clients in the banking, tech and healthcare sectors.

“We also operate Ella in our own locations and high-traffic locations such as train stations, commercial buildings and public attractions in Singapore.
We are also in talks with potential clients in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. The plan is to form a JV with local players for speedy access to market,” he informed.

Also Read: How the Internet of Things is making the world a safer haven

Besides Ella, Crown — with a staff strength of 20 — also runs a suite of digital solutions for F&B, such as a kitchen display system, which has been developed in house, and a mobile ordering app.

Are you in the market for the next round of funding?

“I guess we never had luck with VCs until this point. We aren’t willing to be pushed on valuations and we know we could deliver. So we will raise from family offices and corporate ventures who see the value in us. We will then execute our plans and deliver our order books, and once Ella is deployed in more locations and show revenue, I think VCs may come in on the Series B or C round,” he concluded.

—

Image Credit: Crown Technologies

The post This made-in-Singapore robotic coffee barista will receive you at Japan’s train stations ahead of Olympics appeared first on e27.

At a virtual press conference, Indonesian agritech startup TaniHub Group announced that the company is currently finalising a “massive” funding round, following a US$17 million funding that it announced in April 2020.

Set to be finalised within the next few months, TaniHub Group President Pamitra Wineka said that the funding round will likely be “the biggest ever raised by an agritech startup in Southeast Asia“.

“We see this funding round as an opportunity for Indonesian farmers and produces to be recognised internationally,” Wineka said.

The company would not share further details on the identities of the investors and the exact amount of the funding. However, the new funding will be used to further develop TaniHub Group’s upcoming projects: Digitalisation of B2B ecosystem in the agriculture sector, automation of supply chain process, farmers acquisition, and social impact measurements of the works that the company has done.

Responding to questions from the media on the possibility of acquisition as part of its growth strategy, Wineka said, “We are exploring different business strategies that may directly impact our growth, but we are not able to confirm any of it just yet.”

Also Read: What new digital solutions mean for Indonesia’s F&B sector

Launched in 2017, TaniHub Group’s business lines included TaniHub (an e-commerce platform for food and agricultural products), TaniFund (a P2P lending platform for farmers), and TaniSupply (a unit that works on improving agricultural supply chain).

In 2020, the company claimed that it experienced a 639 per cent gross revenue growth with more than 1,700 SKUs recorded up until last year. TaniHub Group attributed the growth to the rising popularity of e-commerce platforms as triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The TaniFund platform has also channelled up to IDR89 billion (US$6.3 million) of funding for farmers in 2020, with an accumulation of IDR180 billion of funds channelled ever since its launch in 2017.

In addition to that, TaniHub Group has also opened a processing and packing centre in Malang, East Java, which is set to be followed by other centres across Indonesia. The centre is part of the company’s effort to get closer to the farmers and their potential market as well as to maintain product quality.

—

Image Credit: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The post Raising new funding round, TaniHub Group claims 600+ per cent gross revenue growth in 2020 appeared first on e27.