Golden Gate Ventures (GGV), one of Singapore’s active VC firms, has promoted Jeffrey Chua as Principal.

Chua has been at the heart of numerous investment-related activities and has helped founders grow ever since he joined the company as an intern five years ago.

In an interview with e27, Chua said that he will continue to focus on processing venture deals. Moving forward, he will also become more active on the portfolio management side.

Being the only junior investment professional at GVV since a long time, Chua brings the experience of being involved in almost all of its major deals. Among them are BukuWarung, Funding Societies, KooBits, and Carro.

In this interview, Chua discusses his personal investment strategy, what he looks for in founders, the GGV’s investment thesis and how deals might change post-COVID-19.

GGV is among one of the most well-renowned early-stage VC firms, globally. How did your journey in this space begin? 

Chua: I ended up in the VC space by accident. It wasn’t something that I had planned.

After studying in the US, I decided to move back to Singapore and was basically helping out my mother with a couple of side investments and everything.

A friend of mine, whom I had known during my time in New York, convinced me to join GGV as an intern, and I decided to give it a shot after staying home for the longest time.

Also Read: Top contributions this week: Golden Gate’s Vinnie Lauria shares pitching from home tips and more

Could you also share a little bit more about the GGV investment thesis and the kind of investments that you largely focus on?

Chua: We are a consumer-focused VC that focuses on software-based tech companies in Southeast Asia, therefore we tend not to play in hardware. The general thesis is the consumer journey within Southeast Asia and the focus is consumer upliftment and improvement. So it could be like payments and logistics companies that make the daily lives of the general population smoother and more efficient.

What are some of the key qualities that you look for in founders?

Chua: For me, I must walk away from the conversation learning something new. If I walk into a meeting and happen to know more about the business model or industry than the founder himself/herself, it’s a red sign. So I like to look for someone who can teach me something new.

Another thing that I look for are people who can change my mind. I might come into a meeting with a certain view or thesis on something. But I’m open to having my mind change if they’re able to change my mind in a very convincing way. That’s usually a very positive sign.

So, the founder has to have some qualities of a good salesman?

Chua: The founder should be able to back up his ideas with sales.

Adding to that, how often do you look at numbers for your early-stage deals? Are you more founder-focused or number-focused?

Chua: It really depends on the stage of the startup that we’re looking at, and what the context of the conversation is. I think, in the VC space, at least in the early stage, I’m probably one of the more numerically-inclined people, where I like going through Excel models and financial plans.

So, if you have data on your current business model, what I’m looking for are things that show me that what you are telling me has been proven or are based on numbers.

At the end of the day, I’m not an accountant. I won’t say ‘hey, your balance sheet doesn’t balance’.

Also Read: Golden Gate Ventures, INSEAD on the state of Southeast Asia’s future exits: trade sales, secondary sales to lead

What are some deals that you passed on that eventually went on to become successful startups? 

Chua: We try not to look back at this because we understand that we’re not going to hit every single unicorn. For us, we like to play in the space where we would like to make the best quality decisions based off of the data available. The outcome, there could be various different factors that play into it.

Speaking more broadly, what signal is the market currently sending post-COVID-19 in terms of investments? Should we expect more deals?

Chua: Overall I think investments will get easier and things will move faster and smoother. Due to the pandemic, a lot of deals that were in the US$10-million range and above were slowed down or stalled since people were not allowed to travel and visit these companies in person. But going forward, when people are able to travel, they’re able to get back to their regular due diligence process.

For GGV, in terms of the number of deals that we’ve seen, things haven’t really changed much since pre-COVID-19. So our pipelines were still pretty full of companies.

We also heard that you beat a couple of investors at the reverse startup competition organised by Slush? What was the winning idea?

Chua: The reverse pitching competition is where investors have to pitch to startups, and I had signed up for it and gone up there and pitched a company called ‘Uber for trains’.

My pitch was that I was raising US$1 trillion to cover Singaporean railroads so that people would be able to hail trains from anywhere. And then I ended up winning because I made everyone laugh the most.

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Image Credit: Golden Gate Ventures

The post ‘Founders should be able to back up their ideas with sales’: Golden Gate’s newly-appointed Principal Jeffrey Chua appeared first on e27.

Hi, I’m Jack. I joined AppWorks as an Analyst in April 2019, not long after I burnt through two startups –one I co-founded in 2017 and the other as a founding team member. My experience taught me that building a successful company is extremely difficult, and if I wanted to improve my odds, I needed to learn from people who have successfully built them.

Now at AppWorks, I get to work alongside 1,300 founders of all stages amongst a variety of startups, 395 active ones to be exact, across the most exciting region that is Greater Southeast Asia, giving me truly a grand scope of founders to learn from.

This year, the coronavirus disrupted the normal world order, taking millions of lives in the process and slowing down economies all around the world. Amongst the chaos, startups from all stages were affected. Besides the select few that prevailed, most startups either saw stagnant growth or worst, shut down their business.

On my journey to become a better founder myself, behind this very unfortunate event was a learning opportunity of a lifetime. This is why I set out to write this piece, to document my learnings and improve my understanding. I got to see just how startups that overcome the pandemic reacted differently to those that didn’t.

Amongst our network of founders, I had the chance to closely observe Ming Ming Chen, the founder and CEO of KKday – a travel platform that provides local experiences and tours across Asia.

I got to witness first hand how he coped with drastic changes that affected his business, how he made quality decisions that pushed KKday to prevail, and how he quickly mobilised the entire company to effectively weather the storm.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Tech investments in Vietnam drop by 22% in H1; KKday raises US$75M; ShopBack, RedDoorz face data breach

I believe the key lessons distilled here are applicable to early-stage founders all the way up to founders heading into Series B, especially for those that want to learn how to lead a team through uncertainties.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-generation crisis, pushing founders to the test in every single aspect possible, so the lessons observed here should be great additions to your arsenal.

First, plan for the worst to conquer yourself

Back in January when the pandemic first broke out, I hopped on a call with Chen to check in on KKday’s pulse. I remember distinctly that he was very calm and collected. It was hard to tell from his demeanour that 90 per cent of travel in this region was wiped out almost overnight.

I asked him what’s going through his head. Chen mentioned that in his 20+ years of entrepreneurship, a key principle he practised was to always plan for the worst.

By always planning for the worst, KKday has been extremely disciplined in managing their cash flow and balance sheet. The key principle is to not sink short-term assets into long-term investments, optimising for cash flow flexibility in return.

This played a major role in neutralising the initial shock of the outbreak, allowing KKday to protect their brand and refund customers fully, despite a significant drop in revenue.

The other benefit of planning for the worst is better-managed expectations. When bad situations don’t turn out as bad as you had anticipated, then your own morale and energy are left unperturbed.

Also Read: KKday raises US$75M Series C to meet the demand surge for local experiences as Asia’s travel market reopens

This side effect may seem negligible at first, but being the captain of the ship that’s lost at sea, the crew’s attitude is an extension of its captain. Displaying the slightest frustration and anger does not instil confidence in your team, but only serves to discourage them. What seemed like a minuscule change in perspective can actually impact the entire company.

By simply planning for the worst situation possible, Chen and KKday were able to soften the initial blow of the pandemic. But as the travel industry came to a near freeze, how can a founder turn around their startup’s fate from barely managing survival to proactively creating opportunity?

A decision framework against uncertainty

Having led two companies to IPO before starting KKday, Chen draws from a wealth of knowledge and experience to overcome the pandemic. He explains that the result of any decision is amplified during troubled times, either directly adding more uncertainty to your team or reducing it.

Furthermore, the result also impacts the decision maker’s future credits to lead their team. Thus, increasing the decision quality across the company was a key lever to pushing KKday forward.

Chen distilled his decision framework into four steps “seek-digest-strategise-decide” and every decision made within KKday goes through this rigorous process.

The first step is to “seek” information and data that’d accurately represent the reality of the decision. The second step is to “digest” the information and to understand the scope and the stakes.

The third step is to “strategise”, plan and test the hypothesis of your decision; it is important to stress test your thesis and evaluate whether or not it adequately stands up to reality by inviting other stakeholders into the discussion to either validate or invalidate your understanding.

The last step is to “decide”. The founder or the leader of the team needs to make the decision alone, as they need to carry the responsibility for the result. They need to decide on the tradeoffs of making the decision, and whether or not to proceed or revisit the preceding steps.

Also Read: Lessons from a travel tech startup founder on navigating the pandemic-stricken business landscape

Throughout 2020, KKday has transitioned from selling tours for foreigners travelling in a new country to weekend getaways and other domestic excursions for people living in Taiwan, while also branching into products that extend far beyond their typical offering including protective masks and packets of mala hot pot.

In the process of venturing into the unknown, Chen and his team carefully used this framework to test their hypothesis, efficiently and effectively pushing forward their progress without losing precious resources and energy.

And as the year draws to a close, we are seeing all of these initiatives not only making up for the missing revenue but also enabling KKday to strengthen its brand and build goodwill among its customer base, while acquiring a slew of new users in the process.

But making better decisions is only part of the equation, what truly pushed KKday above the line was their execution upon these decisions. So just how did KKday, a company with hundreds of employees, with operations in more than 10 countries adapt to the new normal so swiftly?

Using organisation structure to drive your strategy

Much like a sports team that changes their lineup according to their game plan and the opposing team, a founder needs to structure their organisation and teams relative to the environment and strategy, to maximise the organisation’s output.

Once Chen and his team decided to introduce new products and focus on domestic travel, the way the organisation was previously structured needed to be reshaped, as it no longer yielded optimal efficiency in promoting the new strategy.

Rather than having the Taiwan HQ team approve all products for travellers on their platform, KKday adapted to procuring products locally, authorising local teams to source products for their own markets allowing them to move much faster than before.

Also Read: Taiwan’s travel experience e-commerce platform KKday raises funding from Alibaba to expand to China

The teams also overhauled their KPIs to focus on improving new product sales and domestic travel sales. These new KPIs became the guidelines and instructions that empowered the new teams to directly facilitate the change in strategy, enabling the company to quickly transition from serving outbound travellers to domestic travellers.

COVID-19 hit different countries with varying severity, creating non-linear recovery across all of KKday’s active markets. The organisational restructuring served as an effective way for local teams to rapidly respond to local conditions as needed, helping the travel company to pull off an incredibly successful year by all standard measures—no doubt exemplified by the US$75 million Series C they recently raised in the midst of a pandemic.

There is much more to learn

By always planning for the worst, Chen was able to soften the initial impact for the pandemic, and by improving the decision quality across the board, KKday was able to create opportunities even when the odds were stacked against them.

Most importantly, by efficiently managing the organisation, KKday was able to execute quickly upon the opportunity they identified and improve their chance of survival at every corner and every turn.

These lessons observed here are not commonly found in public domains, and only really shared from one founder to another. As I tried to build my first startup at the age of 25, I mostly did it in isolation without knowing any other founders at all. Looking back, so many mistakes could have been avoided, and so much time could have been saved if I had just learned from founders who were a few years more journeyed than me.

So if you are like me, and you wish to become a better founder and build a successful company in the future, then I encourage you to join a community like AppWorks Accelerator, where you can interact with and learn from over 1,300 founders just like Chen.

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Image Credit: KKday

The post 3 learnings from KKday CEO and Founder on how his travel startup overcame the pandemic appeared first on e27.

Snap yourself using your smartphone camera and have your vital health signs displayed in under a minute? Though it may sound too good to be true, that is exactly what Nervotec promises its users.

All you have to do is to scan your face and the app will measure your oxygen saturation, heart rate, heart rate variability and stress level. After filling up a symptom checker, a health score is generated on the platform.

However, Nervotec had not always set out to serve to provide health tracking solutions for the public. Initially named Flaiight and started in June 2019 by former fighter pilot Jonathan Lau, the Singapore-based healthtech startup had targeted providing health management and workplace wellness tech solutions to ensure pilots were physically healthy before taking to the skies.

“In the beginning, we used wearable technology and gamified traditional psychometric assessments to generate a flight risk score for pilots. It was in this journey that we discovered that predictive analytics could have applications well beyond the flight assessment context,” shared Lau in an interview with e27.

Having faced difficulties in supplying off-the-shelf tracking wearables to corporations due to high costs and challenges in data collection, Lau shared the Nervotec team decided to develop an in-house solution to solve this issue.

Also Read: Singapore startup StretchSkin develops wearable sensors for the healthcare and gaming industries

Technology

The firm’s Awareness platform consists of two core technologies. The first is remote photoplethysmography (rPPg), which analyses the natural light reflected off a user’s face to detect and process signals that measure their vital signs including heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration and oxygen saturation level.

rPPg leverages computer vision and signal processing to generate vital sign readings on any smartphone camera. The app is compatible with older mobile Operating Systems, including Android 8.0 and iOS 10.

The second core technology is an AI predictive algorithm. Leveraging research in deep learning and neural networks, the algorithm is trained with clinical data from research partners to generate insights. This enables the platform to generate risk scores for “influenza-like illnesses”.

Besides enabling individuals to monitor their long-term health, the score also enables companies to track the physical wellbeing of employees.

Lau claims the accuracy of results on Nervotec’s platform is comparable to lifestyle trackers and smartwatches — which are within the four per cent threshold required for theUS Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification.

The startup has filed a local IP patent and is working towards being FDA- and CE-certified.

When asked how the firm handles the personal health data of users, Lau emphasised that Nervotec adopts “internationally-accredited best practices for information security”.

Also Read: Data will help public-private partnerships build future resilience in SEA. Here’s how

“The entire scanning process is done on the smartphone with no connectivity to a cloud service required. This ensures that no recording of the face takes place and there is no possibility of interception of the measurements taken,” he elaborated.

Assisting firms in tracking employee wellness

He further noted that Nervotec has enabled its client enterprises to overcome health challenges posed by the current pandemic and ensure continued operations of their businesses.

As compared to conventional health tracking devices, Nervotec’s solution has a lower cost of adoption as the platform utilises the personal phone of employees, as compared to purchasing a tracking device outright.

Apart from monitoring vital health signs, the app can also store vaccination and swab tests reports to ensure companies remain compliant to new workplace management measures imposed by authorities.

According to Lau, Nervotec has been well received by firms in the construction industry. Besides signing a proof-of-concept contract with Japan-listed construction conglomerate Kaijima Corporation, it also has other pilot tests with undisclosed companies in the shipping and logistics industry. Lau expects Nervotec’s user base to hit upwards of 20,000 post-pilot.

Also Read: The changing face of healthcare in a post pandemic world

With global personal health and diagnostics technologies sector valued at close to US$90 billion, health tracking looks set to remain a key concern for governments, businesses, and individuals post-pandemic. With a switch to remote working, companies are placing a greater emphasis on employee wellness and there has been an uptake in digital solutions supporting this shift. Nervotec is looking to capitalise on this growing market.

With S$450,000 (US$399,000) in pre-seed raised from angel investors in September 2020, the startup is now looking to raise its seed round next month.

“For the foreseeable future, developing new technologies that improve public access to affordable and convenient healthcare solutions will continue to be our priority,” Lau signed off as he shared about Nervotec’s future plans.

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Image Credit: Nervotec

 

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Meet Frank Oelschlager, who helps companies digitize and automate. Today, he shares how you can get started!

We discuss:
* What is automation + why is it important?
* Examples of automation
* How can you start automating NOW?
* Why Millenials + Gen Z are making companies more honest!

If you don’t see the Apple player above, click on a link below to listen directly!

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: Michal Czyz on Unsplash

The post Automation should eat your company with Frank Oelschlager appeared first on e27.

ELSA, a mobile app that uses Artificial Intelligence and speech recognition technology to help language learners improve their English speaking skills and pronunciation, has secured US$15 million in Series B funding, co-led by Vietnam Investments Group and SIG.

Also participated in the round are returning investors Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund), SOSV, and Monk’s Hill Ventures. New investors are Endeavor Catalyst and Globant Ventures, which will assist ELSA’s expansion efforts in Latin America.

This new capital will go towards R&D to further develop its voice recognition AI, build a scalable B2B platform and hire new talent.

With this round, the startup’s total financing has touched US$27 million. This includes its Series A round of US$7 million in February 2019.

ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant) was founded in 2015 by Stanford alum Vu Van and Dr. Xavier Anguera.

Also Read: 3 learnings from KKday CEO and Founder on how his travel startup overcame the pandemic

With over 13 million users worldwide, the app claims it helps language learners with an easy way to improve their English speaking ability by listening to how they pronounce words, sentences or conversations to pinpoint exact errors and provide real-time, accurate suggestions on their pronunciation mistakes.

ELSA recently piloted its B2B efforts with schools and companies in Vietnam and India. As a result, the company will now focus on creating a scalable B2B platform that allows cooperation with corporate partners around the world.

With the increase of remote work and investment from companies looking to improve the English speaking skills of their staff, especially in Asia and LatAm regions, ELSA said it has inked many partnerships with corporations and educational institutions worldwide.

Headquartered in the US, ELSA also has offices in Portugal and Vietnam. It claims the app is used by many private schools, public schools and language learning centres.

Also Read: ‘Founders should be able to back up their ideas with sales’: Golden Gate’s newly-appointed Principal Jeffrey Chua

As per the company, in 2020, ELSA nearly doubled its customer base, increased revenue by almost 300 per cent and introduced multiple product enhancements.

The firm’s geographical expansion will focus on the LatAm region where it has experienced exponential growth, plus ongoing investment in Vietnam, India and Japan, where growth was 5x last year with additional demand anticipated in 2021.

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Image Credit: ELSA

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