Day: February 5, 2021

Expedock, a Philippine-based Artificial Intelligence startup working with supply chain companies, announced today it has landed US$4 million in seed funding.

The round was led by a US$2.5 million investment by Ali Partovi, who had previously backed notable startups including Airbnb, Dropbox and Facebook.

Additional investors include executives from global tech companies and startups including eBay, Salesforce, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Expedock said in a statement that the funds will be used to expand its team as it seeks to accommodate a growing number of international clients.

Launched in 2019 by King Alandy Dy, Rui Aguia and Jeff Tan, Expedock’s Nuance technology allows its Artificial Intelligence to understand documents even without having seen one of the same format. It uses AI to power back-offices for businesses in cross-border container trade to revolutionize the workflow of businesses in the supply chain.

The company claims it is able to generate savings of up to 90 per cent of their clients’ operational expenses by eliminating all data extraction and data entry work for airway bills, bills of ladings, invoices, and decreases turnaround time by up to 10x.

Also Read: Why it is imperative to invest in digitalising the supply chain

“We’ve seen firsthand how the errors in the first mile of shipping lead to costly corrections amounting up to US$25,000. Freight forwarders have had to manually encode and process significant amounts of paperwork which with one mistake could cost a company thousands of dollars to correct,” remarked Alandy Dy.

Despite the global supply chain market projected to reach US$37.41 billion by 2027, with Asia Pacific experiencing the bulk of the growth, Expedock noted manual data processing remains a key biggest operational hurdle for most businesses.

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Image Credit: Expedock

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GajiGesa, an Indonesian financial wellness platform, announced today it has raised US$2.5 million in a seed funding round, co-led by Silicon Valley-based Defy.vc and Quest Ventures.

GK Plug and Play, Next Billion Ventures, Alto Partners, Kanmo Group and multiple strategic angel investors also participated.

As per the company, the fresh funds will be used to expand its platform in Indonesia while also scaling its tech team in Jakarta.

GajiGesa was launched in 2020 by the husband-wife duo of Vidit Agrawal and Martyna Malinowska. Agrawal was the first Uber employee in Asia and previously the COO of automotive marketplace startup Carro. Malinowska was previously at Standard Chartered and Singapore-based fintech startup LenddoEFL.

GajiGesa’s fintech platform provides companies and their employees the tools to streamline their cash-flow by offering financial services, including Earned Wage Access (EWA), financial literacy content and bill payments.

Since its launch four months ago, GajiGesa claims it has partnered with over 30 employers and serves over 10,000 employees in Indonesia.

Also Read: Why consumers’ financial wellness is the social responsibility of fintech players

The Jakarta-based startup works with companies by integrating into their existing HR and payroll systems to ensure “hyper-efficient and immediate onboarding”. This provides employees and employers more flexibility and control over their money.

GajiGesa’s noted its app allows employees to track their earnings, access their earned wages and pay bills, among other uses. For employers, the platform allows HR teams to measure the effectiveness of financial well-being strategies and get visibility over engagement, productivity, and employee financial health.

“At GajiGesa, we’re building financial resilience at scale. EWA is crucial to increasing the short-term financial wellness of Indonesian workers by eliminating their dependence on loan sharks or other informal and expensive sources of capital,” said Agarwal.

“We’re giving hundreds of thousands of employees the tools and awareness to reach their financial goals with peace of mind. For employer partners, we help3 improve employee retention, productivity, and cash-flow,” he added.

“The lack of access to fair and honest financial services continues to be a critical problem in emerging markets. The vast majority of the 129 million workers in Indonesia remain underbanked,” commented Bob Rosin, Partner at Defy.vc.

Also Read: How fintech can help reach the unbanked and underbanked in Southeast Asia

“GajiGesa’s financial wellness platform is helping middle to low-income workers who live paycheck to paycheck deal with stressful cash-flow issues. It provides much needed financial stability for employers and their employees during a time of unprecedented and continued economic uncertainty,” said Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures.

According to BPS (Statistics Indonesia) data, there are approximately 129 million workers in Indonesia, many of whom regularly face increased financial stress and hardship because of cash flow constraints, traditional monthly payment schedules, unexpected expenses, and limited financial access.

The World Bank Findex estimates over 70 per cent of Indonesians borrow from informal sources, often with extortionate interest rates and undesirable terms.

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Image Credit: GajiGesa

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Grab raises US$2B term loan to strengthen liquidity and diversify financing sources; The loan will enable it to “strengthen its liquidity” by further enhancing its “well-capitalised position”; Grab, valued at over US$16B, is looking at a potential US IPO this year. More here

Cialfo nets US$15M Series A+ to allow students to apply directly to thousands of colleges globally; Lead investors are SIG and Vulcan Capital; In 2020, the startup partnered with 650 top institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, Brown, and University of Pennsylvania. More here

Singapore’s AI clinical assistant platform Bot MD snags US$5M Series A; Investors include Monk’s Hill (lead), SeaX, XA Network and SGInnovate; Bot MD provides doctors with answers to their clinical questions and allows hospitals and healthcare organisations to integrate their e-medical records and hospital info systems within their platform for doctors to access. More here

Philippine AI startup Expedock raises US$4M seed; The round was led by Ali Partovi (early investor in Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, Uber); Expedock is working with supply chain companies, freight forwarders, ports, carriers, customs brokers, and logistics consolidators using its proprietary technology enabling workflow automation. More here

Former Carro COO’s financial wellness app GajiGesa bags US$2.5M seed for Indonesia expansion; Lead investors are Defy.vc and Quest Ventures; GajiGesa’s provides companies and their employees the tools to streamline their cash-flow by offering financial services, including Earned Wage Access, financial literacy content and bill payments. More here

BukuWarung raises strategic financing from Rocketship, unnamed retail giant; Other investors include early backers of Adyen, Nubank and Revolut; A bookkeeping app, BukuWarung claims it serves 3.5M+ merchants across 750 cities and recorded US$15B+ worth of transactions and US$500M in payments. More here

Lack of visibility, track record deter VCs from investing in firms combating plastic pollution: Rob Kaplan of Circulate Capital; He says there is no conflict of interest in Circulate’s partnership with the likes of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola; Through its US$106M Circulate Capital Ocean Fund, the impact VC firm has invested in 7 firms, mostly in India. More here

Singapore’s digital equity management platform Qapita secures investment from East Ventures; Its platform QapMap is designed to enable cap-table management, ESOP management, and digital ESOP issuance with the aim of eventually enabling digital share issuance for companies across the region; In Sep 2020, it raised US$1.8M , led by Vulcan Capital. More here

Green Packet shareholders approve US$10M acquisition of eKYC firm Xendity; Xendity’s software complements Green Packet’s enterprise products and solutions and is expected to have a material impact to the top and bottom line of Green Packet’s digital operations. More here

Beenext promotes Faiz Rahman as Partner for Indonesia, Hero Choudhary as Managing Partner; Rahman will be heading tech investments in the archipelago, where the VC firm will largely focus on early-stage deals; To date, Beenext has invested in 80+ startups in India and 51 across SEA so far, including Zilingo, Sendo, Trusting Social. More here

Indonesia’s plant-based meat startup Green Butcher closes seed round led by Teja Ventures, Unovis; Green Butcher has also partnered to showcase a range of its products at 50 Starbucks outlets; The firm was founded by Max Mandias and Helga Angelina, founders of Burgreens, the largest plant-based eatery chain in Indonesia. More here

OceanShield raises US$800K to safeguard the maritime industry from cyber attacks; Investors include Masik Enterprise and angels; The platform offers patented cybersecurity solutions to protect the OT systems of vessels, ports and maritime and offshore infrastructure. More here

OrderEZ, a business management platform for F&B suppliers and venues, raises over US$370K seed; Investors’ names remain undisclosed; The funds will be used to consolidate its ops in Singapore and expand to Australia and New Zealand; It claims to have onboarded over 500 F&B suppliers and venues in Singapore alone and aims to grow its user base 10x by year-end. More here

Indonesia on a thorny path to electric vehicles; Research by the University of Indonesia shows that over 70% of the public are keen to have an EV; Jakarta is among a few provinces which have started to trial electric buses; Private taxi operator Bluebird has added a number of Tesla cars to its fleet. More here

Singapore excels at biggest WFH experiment of our time, says Lark study; The country is poised to offer flexible work arrangements for the long term, but there is still a need to ensure that the right collaboration tool is in place to foster a positive work environment. More here

Removing barriers to cross-border payments could be the key to unlocking SEA’s economic potential; The recent announcement of the linkage between the real-time payment systems of S’pore and Thailand is a significant step; By allowing instant money transfers with mobile phone numbers at competitive rates, cross-border remittances will be significantly simpler for businesses across the two countries. More here

Meet the 12 startups from Antler’s latest Singapore cohort; The new entrants operate in SaaS, fintech, healthtech, AI, insurtech, and art-tech; Antler runs programmes across a range of cities including Stockholm, Nairobi and Sydney, and has invested in over 250 early-stage companies. More here

Ant reaches agreement with China regulators on overhaul; Ant Group has reached an agreement with Chinese regulators on how to restructure its operations; Ant will become a holding company, subjecting its subsidiaries to bank-like regulations; The group is still exploring the possibility of reviving its IPO, which collapsed in November. More here

Singapore startup launches Asia’s first whole-plant based meat brand; KARANA’s first product is ‘pork’ made from young jackfruit; In its first phase, It is launching in Singapore with six leading restaurants; At a time when food safety, security and supply chain issues are more important than ever, its solutions deliver a new third generation meat-alternative that is minimally processed and made from whole-plants with natural meat-like qualities. More here

Inside the ‘huge untapped potential’ of SEA’s e-commerce market; Online penetration for FMCG brands in the region is still at 2% compared to 27% in China, while health and beauty is at 12% and fashion and lifestyle at 44%, compared to the 47% and 64% recorded in China for the respective categories. More here

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Photo by Ernest Ojeh on Unsplash

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Grab raises US$2B term loan; Indonesia on a thorny path to EVs; Ant reaches agreement with China regulators on overhaul appeared first on e27.

Indonesia-based insurtech startup PasarPolis today announced that it has raised US$5 million in equity finance the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group that focuses on accelerating financial inclusion and literacy in various developing countries.

The investment was the first that IFC has made in the insurtech vertical in Indonesia.

In a virtual press conference, PasarPolis Founder and CEO Cleosent Randing explained that the funding round was not considered as part of the Series B funding round that the company has announced in September 2020. It was also not considered a Series C funding round.

“We see this as a strategic partnership as it involves more than just funding … We are working together with world-class partners to achieve our mission,” he said.

PasarPolis and IFC stated that it will jointly continue and strengthen PasarPolis’ mission to democratise insurance more broadly, one of which is through the development of micro-insurance products that are affordable and in accordance with the needs of the society.

PasarPolis also aims to use the funding to support its mission to increase insurance penetration and literacy across the region, including Vietnam and Thailand in 2021.

“From industry point-of-view, Vietnam and Indonesia have similar characteristics in its insurance market, though Thailand has a relatively higher awareness of insurance. There are many things that we have done in Indonesia that we can implement in these countries,” Randing said.

Also Read: Gojek partners PasarPolis to provide users insurance products

In a statement, PasarPolis said that around 30 million users –or nearly 11 per cent of Indonesia’s population– have purchased insurance protection from the platform. The startup considered it as a “remarkable feat” as the country’s general insurance penetration rate is still less than four per cent.

It also noted that 90 per cent of its users are first-time buyers of insurance products with 40 per cent of policyholders are workers in the informal sector.

According to Arif Baharudin, Assistant of Minister for Financial Services and Capital Market Policy and Regulation at Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, the low penetration rate of insurance products provides plenty of room to grow for insurance companies.

“In the future, the growth of insurance will be driven by social insurance,” he said during the press conference with PasarPolis.

He pointed out several reasons that prevent financial inclusions in Indonesia –from financial literacy, access to financial services, to consumer protection.

“Digitalisation plays a crucial role in tackling these challenges,” he stressed.

Founded in 2015, PasarPolis announced an oversubscribed US$54 million Series B funding round from investors that include LeapFrog Investments, SBI Investment, AlphaJWC, Intudo Ventures and Xiaomi.

Its existing investors, including Go-Ventures, also took part in the round.

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Image Credit: PasarPolis

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Betatron Venture Group, a network of five prominent VC funds, and PropTech Institute (PTI), an independent, non-profit association representing Asia’s proptech community, have announced a partnership to spearhead VC investments in the real-estate industry in the Asia Pacific regions.

“At Betatron, we see compelling opportunities for digital transformation in the real estate industry. We’re looking for startups that will help shape the future of the sector across Asia,” said Matthias Knobloch, Managing Partner and CEO of Betatron Venture Group.

Also Read: Can SEA’s proptech come back to its pre-COVID-19 glory? Experts speak

According to him, the partnership doesn’t have a specific target investment number in mind. “But to give you an example, in early 2020 we launched a partnership with YPSN to target investments in the logistics and maritime sector and within half a year of announcing the partnership we sourced hundreds of deals proposals and made three investments. That makes us one of the leading early-stage investors in the maritime sector in Asia.”

He further noted that while the partnership can invest as little as US$250,000 per company, it typically prefers to invest between US$500,000 and US$2 million.

Founded in 2016, Betatron is a team of eight professionals led by two partners and includes a wider network of five prominent VC funds with a combined US$800 million in assets under management and more than 200 investments across Asia.

PTI is an independent, non-profit association representing Asia’s proptech community led by a team of seasoned professionals from the real estate industry. The association seeks to bridge the gap between real estate and technology as well as providing a platform for founders, corporates and investors to drive innovation in the real estate sector.

Investments in proptech companies globally hit US$14 billion in the first half of 2019, representing a more than 300 per cent increase year on year.

Also Read: Meet the 9 startups selected for Betatron’s cohort 6 accelerator programme

“Asia with all of its mega cities and high-rise buildings is the place to be for any tech company that looks to innovate in the sector. And with our teams in Hong Kong and Singapore and the newly formed partnership with the PTI, we’re in a prime position to help scale up companies,” added Knobloch.

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Image Credit: Betatron

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