Danish occupational pension scheme Paedagogernes Pension (PBU) announced it has committed US$16.2 million into Southeast Asia-focused SEAF Women’s Economic Empowerment Fund (SWEEF).

According to an announcement, the pension scheme has become the cornerstone investor in the official launch and first close of the fund.

The fund also received financial backing from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the regional development arm of the UN, and Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

SWEEF is a regional investment fund targeting women-led startups in Vietnam, Indonesia and the 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”.

The fund will be managed by a local team, the majority of which consist of women investment professionals.

PBU is a pension scheme for early childhood teachers and youth educators in Denmark. Online data reveals it has a total asset under management (AUM) of EUR 9 billion (US$ 10.9 billion).

Also Read: How the tech industry can become friendlier for women

“The investment into SWEEF has a clear link to our strategy for responsible investments, where we focus on empowering women and strengthening gender equality,” said Sune Schackenfeldt, CEO of PBU.

“Women in developing countries are the foundation of the family. With investments that have a special focus on women’s conditions, we strengthen their employment, earnings and opportunities for social and economic advancement,” he added.

“We have learnt that meeting the needs of women entrepreneurs requires us to innovate and go beyond the usual lending modalities towards promoting mentorship, business development support services and access to growth capital and that is exactly what our partnership with SEAF offers,” said ESCAP Deputy Executive Secretary Kaveh Zahedi.

US-based impact investment fund manager SEAF will manage the fund. The firm claims it has committed capital of US$1.2 billion with 40 funds in over 30 countries.

The launch of SWEEF follows SEAF’s Women Opportunity Fund. Launched in 2018, the latter has invested in six women-led startups in Southeast Asia, including Philippine-based cosmetics firm Ellana Cosmetics.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

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Last year, the pandemic changed radically the way we host events. While most events were cancelled, others quickly shifted from in-person to virtual venues or incorporated hybrid events. Now that we know what event trends work in the new normal, many event planners are looking for ways to establishing these solutions in their event strategies this 2021. 

At EventXtra, we’ve rounded up the latest event trends and technologies that will help your events pivot this year.

Physical events will make a comeback with hybrid events

With the COVID-19 vaccine in production, the event trend will slowly shift back to in-person events with a mix of virtual event formats. According to a Bizzabo survey, 97 per cent of global event marketers believe that hybrid events will gain popularity.

In hybrid events, event marketers and organisers can vastly expand audiences and transform their in-person events into a formidable integrated engagement vehicle. This is possible through event technology adoption, either when streamlining the pre-event processes or hosting different types of events. 

In 2020, software solutions that streamline business workflows skyrocketed, mostly video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype. While this trend will continue to rise, the demand for an all-in-one event solution will likely increase this year.

We’ll see most event-driven businesses use an all-in-one event solutions that can facilitate online registration, attendee management with integrated virtual event hosting, and post-event analytics.

Hybrid events as a marketing platform

With integrated event solutions, we’ll see more frequent event experiences that cater to “niche” interests and personal living online other than business events.  Live and on-demand events will also become more popular this year, given the available features in most event platforms like recording and live streaming. 

Also Read: With Altafy, picking the right speakers for your events will be as simple as shopping from Zara

There will be an increase in pre-recorded sessions in hybrid events to build preview teasers or “anticipation” to audiences attending either in-person or virtually. This way, event organisers can also minimise the technical pitfalls that may happen during a live-session.

As virtual events reach more audiences, more and more businesses outside the events industry will incorporate virtual events in their marketing strategy, especially hosting personalised events that build communities and online following. 

Personalised events will help build communities

Building community is one of the most crucial success factors when hosting virtual and hybrid events. In the past, this was quickly done as event-goers can simply rely on physical interaction and networking opportunities at physical events.

However, in the new normal, building a genuine connection is challenging to be done digitally. Thus, personalisation in virtual and hybrid events is critical.

Personalised events will help build niche communities with more “intimate” and shareable experiences. Businesses and event organisers must ensure that their virtual and hybrid events are interactive, valuable to attendees, and not just a “one-time event.”

To do this right, prepare by finding ways to build extended experiences like online networking and learning opportunities that cater to different community interests. Develop avenues for attendees, speakers, and exhibitors to interact through live-streaming sessions, online apps, or social media groups.

How should you host physical events today?

When hosting physical events today, consider hosting your event in multiple venues to attract more attendees and ensure that your event follows social distancing measures in your country. Prepare to layout your event space and make sure your entrance can accommodate health screening areas equipped with thermal scanners.

Also Read: The future of events with Mind The Product CEO James Mayes

This will ensure that no attendee is unwell when they arrive at your event. It’s also essential that your event provide masks, sanitisers, and testing options to all your staff and attendees. 

Designing a safe event space using event tech tools

Most “pre-event” processes, along with registration and ticketing, will take place digitally to practice safety measures. Based on Juniper Research, contactless ticketing users will leapfrog to 468 million by 2023, a 160 per cent increase from last year.

This means that there would be an emphasis on completely touchless interaction in pre-event management this year.  If you’re an event organiser, prepare by finding ways to integrate online registration, online payment, and self-check-in in your event management process using tech tools.

Online registration with integrated payment transactions

Explore event management software that can streamline or integrate lead capture and payment transactions so you can easily control the limit of your attendees. There are touch less event registration tools can that can generate timed entry slots like Eventbrite.

• Self check-in

Explore RFID wristbands or badges and mobile ticketing applications that enable “tap and go” experiences through scanning QR-codes such as EventXtra; NFC technologies such as SafeTix and Pouchnation, or facial recognition tools. 

• Contact Tracing

When hosting in-person events today, designing contact tracing guidelines for your attendees is essential. It’s a best practice always to request your attendees’ information after the event to establish your contract tracing. Before doing so, ensure that you gather the right attendee information aligned with your country’s data protection laws. 

If you want to learn more about the latest event trends, please join us in our upcoming free webinar event, “Event Trends in 2021,” and get exclusive event insights straight from Asia’s leading event experts!  At the end of the webinar, there will be a fire chat session where attendees can ask our speakers questions, so don’t miss this opportunity!  

Are you or your organisation interested in organising virtual events? Click here to learn more about EventXtra.

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A few friends asked me what my 2021 New Year’s resolutions were. I couldn’t give a proper answer. Still feeling 2020 drained all my energy. It didn’t feel like it would make any sense to have New Year’s resolutions.

In an attempt to understand why I wasn’t all cheery about 2021, I looked back at 2020. The year going down in history as lockdown year was supposed to be a year to get my sh*t together.

No travel and working from home should have led to more downtime with the family, more exercising, reflection, writing, reading, and being more productive.

I was not as productive as I would have hoped in 2020. I missed most of my personal training goals, I was more tired at the end of the year than I felt in a while, and I was more stressed than I can remember. The mental challenge of not being distracted was far worse than I expected.

A usual year consists of meetings, travelling non-stop, short trips with the family, hanging out with friends, speaking at conferences, and half-ironman races. Always on the move was the way to go. It gave me comfort.

It gave me the feeling I was achieving something. I felt productive. Whether I was or wasn’t didn’t matter. Like everyone else, 2020 forced me to sit down and think.

Think about work, life, friends, my health (increased alcohol consumption didn’t help), and the future for our children. Speaking with friends and colleagues, it turned out I wasn’t the only one. The happy hour seemed to have moved from Friday, 5 PM to Tuesday, 12 PM in more households.

Also Read: Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

Having all of this on my mind, without my regular distractions, was hard. The daily grind taxed me mentally— signing in and out of Zoom calls, getting bombarded by news of injustice and tragedy every time I refreshed the page on CNN, and knowing that the return to ‘normal’ was a long way away.

It seemed like each week, each month, a new personal or societal challenge would come to bear, mentally taxing a system already stretched to its capacity and leaving me more tired than I’ve felt in a long time.

In the meantime, I also suffered a knee injury after an ultra run. It is the first time I have to deal with an injury that keeps me away from running for a while. This was the final straw. I wanted to know how I can fix this before going into 2021.

Assuming the new year’s start would be very similar to how the year ended (working from home, limited to no travel, etc.), after looking back at my journals and speaking with friends, I picked up a gift I received in March 2020 from my good friend Dennis List. The gift was Jerry Colonna’s Reboot, Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.

We all went through our number of self-help books, but this one hit home the hardest. Two parts of the book left a big impression on me because it helped me answer how I can approach 2021 differently than 2020.

“How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?”

“What I am not saying that needs to be said?”

~ Reboot, Jerry Colonna

I took a renewed look at why I have felt less productive than I hoped and what I was actively doing to improve. One of the significant learnings was that I tried to copy how I worked in 2019 to 2020— a full schedule, always on the go, not taking any breaks from work, social life, and sports. Instead of taking the time to clear my head, I filled the day with more Zoom calls.

Also Read: How to embrace mental wellness in startup culture

Instead of taking time to reflect, I worked more hours to make myself feel “productive”. Of course, the opposite happened. The hope of feeling I am getting things done turned into frustration and exhaustion. Being tired more often and not producing the work with which I am familiar.

Doing the same over and over and expecting a different outcome has never worked. I am not sure why I assumed it would lead to a better result this time.

The most significant step I took was to build white space in my schedule. Creating room in my schedule was difficult for me because I want to be available for anyone who needs support — going against my advice of saying no. My takeaway was that I don’t have to solve everything through a meeting or zoom call.

A quick text back and forth is sometimes enough to be helpful. I have become religious about building time on my calendar to reflect, read, or write. Slowing down helped to provide more clarity, be more diligent, and feel less anxious. I am curious to see if the effect will last and see more improvements throughout the year.

The other major lesson I learned was that it’s okay to feel like crap at times. It was good for me to recognise how I feel and to address the origin of this feeling. It is not always possible to solve feeling like crap but recognising it was a huge step forward.

I hope that everyone who struggled to get through 2020, has a better 2021 kick-off. The lessons I learned were invaluable and I hope sharing these with you will give a few insights on how I navigated difficult times.

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iSTOX, a Singapore Exchange (SGX)-backed digital securities platform, announced today it has closed its US$50 million Series A funding round, as two Japanese government-backed investors joined the round.

The VC arm of Japan Investment Corporation, JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC-VGI) and government-owned Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) joined other new investors including Japan’s Juroku Bank and Mobile Internet Capital (MIC) in the latest round of financing.

Existing investors SGX, Japan’s Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings and Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management also made fresh investments.

Oi Yee Choo, Chief Commercial Officer of iSTOX, shared in a statement the new financing will be utilised to bankroll the expansion of iSTOX’s “geographical footprint” and investment offerings. She shared the platform will roll out private issuances by blue-chip issuers for individual investors and expansions in China will continue. The company is also seeking issuance deals involving Europe and Australia.

Founded in 2017, iSTOX is a financial technology company regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a multi-asset platform for the issuance, custody and secondary trading of digital securities.

iSTOX said it allows multi-asset issuances of fractionalised private market securities, including equity, bonds and funds, making them accessible to a much larger pool of investors. It graduated from the MAS Fintech Regulatory Sandbox in February 2020.

Also Read: Capital markets platform iSTOX raises US$5M from Korea’s Hanhwa

After obtaining a full MAS license in February 2020, iSTOX signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chongqing Monetary Authority in November 2020 to set up a digital securities exchange in Chongqing to serve the Chinese market, marking the first overseas expansion by iSTOX. In December 2020, iSTOX listed the world’s first unicorn fund in digital securities form.

“Capital markets are transforming rapidly because of advancements in technology. MAS and our institutional investors have been far-sighted and progressive, and they support the change wholeheartedly,” she further added.

“We have decided to participate in the launch of the next generation of digital financial services and platforms covering Asia. We believe that this project will also contribute to the development of Japanese financial services,” remarked Hideki Yarimizu, CEO of JIC-VGI.

iSTOX claims the Series A announcement takes place at a time when private markets are outperforming public markets. In the past decade, global private equity returned 13.2 per cent on average, approximately double the returns from global public equity. Private market assets under management grew to US$6.5 trillion in 2019, almost 2.7 times more than in 2010.

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Image Credit: iSTOX

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Erik Cheong is a serial entrepreneur from Singapore. In 2016, he co-founded Park N Parcel which employs an asset-light business model to deliver logistics services to the major e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Lazada. Erik switched his venture-building focus to the Central America market where very few Asian entrepreneurs have explored before. In 2019, a super app, dubbed as OMNi, was launched in Costa Rica as a joint effort spearheaded with his Costa Rican partners, Moises and Samuel. In the same year, Erik was invited to join the eFounders Fellowship (Southeast Asia) organised by Alibaba Group and UNCTAD, and was nominated as one of Forbes 30 under 30 Asia (Consumer Technology).

Meet the OMNi mafia at the headquarter office in San Jose, Costa Rica

Recently, Polymath Ventures spoke to Erik about his stories of founding businesses over the years and to seek his advices on building technology-empowered businesses in the Central American region. Below is the extract of the interview.

Polymath Ventures: Could you share with us the vision and mission of launching OMNi? What brought you to build a company in Costa Rica, which is located in a far-flung continent from your home country?

Erik Cheong: Our team aims to make OMNi the leading super app in the Central American region. So far, we have built a team of over 600 employees and activated four major service modules, namely the fintech, the mobility, the healthcare, and the lifestyle, achieving around 800 thousand downloads in Costa Rica. In terms of downloading, OMNi is already ranked as Top 5 mobile applications in the Central America, competing against Uber, Rappi, and Glovo.

Also read: Preventing burnout for entrepreneurs with KC Rossi

While I was working on Park N Parcel, I have encountered many Chinese entrepreneurs as well as the corporate executives from the Internet companies in China. My interactions with these Chinese business partners allowed me to understand how they leverage on technologies to vastly disrupt the commercial activities in arenas of E-commerce, financial services, sharing economy, healthcare, etc. My participation in the eFounders Fellowship deepens my knowledge base further and personally, I am also tremendously influenced by the speed of company building in the Chinese style and the Chinese way of viewing companies as inter-connected modules in an ecosystem rather than stand-alone silos.

When I launched Park N Parcel, I could sense the accelerating momentum and increasing intensity of peer competition in Southeast Asia with unicorns emerging in several aspects. At that time, I happened to know my current Costa Rican business partners who introduced me to the huge untapped market in Central America, which could be examined as an integrated market with shared culture and uniform language. Such market characteristics project a great potential of regional market expansion unlike Southeast Asia, where the market is extremely fragmented in terms of economic status, language, and geography. Based on all of these considerations, I’ve decided to give a business trial in Central America.

PV: According to your observation about the Asia and the Central America status quo, what is your opinion about the ecosystem gap between these two markets?

EC: Simply referring to the fintech sector, I’ll say it probably takes 3 to 5 years for Central American countries to reach the current status of the cashless society in China. Our team is working hard to bridge this gap with our payment methods.

PV: Could you elaborate more about the payment service offered by OMNi?

EC: Our fintech team is currently pushing on the B2C QR payment. In Asia, the processing fee charged on the bank card payment is capped at 3% while in Central American countries such as Costa Rica, the payment processing fees charged by the banks and payment processors commonly range from 5% to 13%.

Also read: How art consultant The Artling uses AI to help interior designers pick the best sculpture for the hotel lobby

QR payment by OMNi helps the local merchants to save on the transaction fees paid. Moreover, contactless payment is much safer and strongly recommended by the government worldwide to replace paper payment or even card payment. The COVID-19 situation in fact encourages the local residents to adopt OMNi payments such as virtual wallet, peer to peer, or QR, at a faster rate across several geographies. As a next step, we hope we can develop more use cases such as utility bill payment and payroll payment via OMNi.

PV: Undeniably, the pandemic hammered the economic growth globally. Nevertheless, a lot of disruptive businesses — such as OMNi Moni —benefited from the consequences stroked by Covid-19.

EC: Yes, and it is not limited to the payment sector only. Under our Mobility module, we have launched the shared services targets on the last mile transportation for the commuters and students in the city and suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the local government published a series of regulations such as the restriction on the taxi services after 10PM on weekdays. Nowadays, we have observed a service peak after 10PM on a daily basis as OMNi Bike is the only biking service provider in Costa Rica, so far free of competition from Uber or Didi.

PV: OMNi successfully turned a crisis into an opportunity of growth, that’s impressive!

EC: Timing really matters. During the COVID-19 lockdown, OMNi also launched the OMNi Session under the lifestyle section — an entertainment channel for the citizens who have to stay at home over the past months. So far, we have accumulated millions of views on our OMNi Session, taking the first-mover advantage compared to other similar offerings.

PV: This is really an act demonstrating sharp business acumen. Besides OMNi Session, what other services are also available under Lifestyle section?

EC: We also provided asset-light B2C Ecommerce services via Ingo. Our users can browse the store catalogue on our website, placing orders online and subsequently collecting the goods directly from the stores by themselves or choosing a delivery. We offered the API backbones to connect the shop POS front-ends with our website, enabling the real-time inventory updates for OMNi users.

Also read: SGX, Temasek team up to advance digital asset infrastructure in capital markets

PV: You sound like a priest who travelled to the Central America to spread your experience and knowledge of building Internet companies in Asia.

EC: I genuinely learnt a lot from how modern Chinese build the Internet businesses. For instance, I have studied the business case of Ping An Good Doctor, which in turn inspired me to launch the OMNi Healthcare that aims to provide digitally enabled medical services to the community in the Central America in the near future.

PV: It is unbelievable to hear what OMNi has achieved in so many sectors within two years. Along the way, have you and your team encountered any difficulties or challenges?

EC: I find two issues bother many entrepreneurs here. First would be the bureaucracy of the governments. I’ve seen the resistance to innovate or change the old practices and how there’s fear when these authorities are faced with new technology.

The second challenge I found in the Central America is that the local community’s unfamiliarity about Internet business conducts, posing huge friction for us to deepen the market penetration rate within a short time span. Again, I was inspired by Taobao’s create approach, sending salesman to villages or wet market where they teach the farmers how to use Alipay. I also let my sales team head to the local markets, teaching the fruit sellers and coffee retailers how to use OMNi to collect payments. Furthermore, OMNi has launched a 24/7 hotline service, allowing OMNi users to consult anytime when they encounter any problem while using OMNi services. I believe the community education would help the local users to learn about the new Internet services.

PV: Could you offer some advice to the entrepreneurial community on company-building in the Central America?

EC: I personally believe in two things. The first success factor would be localisation. For instance, during the market research before launching OMNi Bike, I found there was a strong biking culture in Costa Rica while no technology companies were offering the shared bicycle services at that time. This somehow indicates a chance of success if we are the first to bring in the idea of shared bicycles.

Another case of localisation strategy would be how we target our first badge users for OMNi FinTech services. Though the local community hasn’t used QR payments at all, the Chinese migrants in Costa Rica heard about WeChat Pay and Alipay before. Therefore, we decided to push our sales resources to the local Chinese community before influencing the native Costa Ricans to adopt this digital mode of payment.

Also read: This eco-friendly and energy-efficient air-conditioner cools you, not your room

Market product fit is such a determining factor for a new venture’s success, especially in its premature stage. Besides localisation, I think branding also plays a critical role. For example, we did spend effort in designing the OMNi logo as well as the color theme of our shared bikes, embedding the sense of high-tech and modernity to attract the young users such as the university students and young working professionals in San Jose.

PV: Insightful sharing! I sincerely appreciate this interview session today as I’ve learnt so much from you.

EC: You are welcome. I hope to have more conversations with entrepreneurs who are also interested in building something interesting in the Central America and Latin America in general. I always believe that discussion breeds excellent ideas.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
Polymath Ventures

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