Ajaib Group, an Indonesian online investment platform targeting millennials and first-time investors, has raised an additional investment of US$65 million for its Series A round led by Silicon Valley-based fintech VC firm Ribbit Capital.

Participating investors include ICONIQ Capital, Bangkok Bank, and notable angels such as Nubank’s David Velez and Toss’s SG Lee.

This marks Ribbit’s inaugural investment into a Southeast Asia company.

Ajaib said that the proceeds from the round will go towards investing in its product development and engineering capabilities.

The latest tranche of funding comes after the investment platform raised US$25 million in a Series A round led by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures in January this year.

When combined, the mega US$90 million Series A round would be among the largest rounds at that stage within Southeast Asia.

Also Read: The lure of the orient: How retail investors are being drawn to Asian investment markets

“The market has witnessed an unprecedented revolution in retail investing around the world. Ajaib is at the forefront of the revolution and on their way to building the most trusted brand in the market,” opined Micky Malka, Managing Partner at Ribbit Capital.

Founded in 2019 by Anderson Sumarli (CEO) and Yada Piyajomkwan (COO), Ajaib claims it runs the fourth-largest stock brokerage in the archipelago by the number of trades. The firm claims it has processed over 10 million transactions in the last four months and has over a million monthly users on its platform.

Following the blueprint set out by Robinhood in the US, Ajaib leverages the high smartphone penetration rate in Indonesia by operating as a mobile-first stock trading platform. By incorporating a simple user interface and investment education features, Ajaib is able to appeal to novice investors and millennials with elementary financial literacy.

Furthermore, it requires no minimum sum to open a brokerage account — further attracting cash-strapped millennials into investing.

Despite its large population, Indonesia has a low penetration rate for stock investments. There are only 1.6 million capital market investors in the country, which is less than 1 per cent of its population of 273 million, making it an attractive market for investment platforms that target millennial and first-time investors.

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Image Credit: Ajaib

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SGProtein, a leading contract manufacturer of meat alternatives, has announced that it will be launching a production facility for plant-based meat companies in Singapore.

This development was first reported by Vegconomist.

With the new facility, SGProtein aims to support plant-based meat alternative companies to grow their business with R&D, pilot trials and commercialisation with full flexibility. It will support food startups, multinational food manufacturers and FMCG companies.

Also Read: Bringing home the bacon: How Burgreens aims to transform Jakarta’s vegan food market

The production in the facility will commence this year, with an initial capacity of over 3,000 tonnes per year, the report further said, citing sources.

“By manufacturing locally and at scale, brands can also significantly shorten supply chains, resulting in a much lower environmental impact and additional cost savings,” SGProtein told Vegconomist.

“We help innovative food startups bridge the gap between plant-based meat innovation and commercialisation. At the same time, we offer our multinational customers access to fast-growing Asian markets through a local production facility that ensures the highest standards of food safety, quality, and certification. Democratising access to the most advanced technology for meat alternatives manufacturing adds to Singapore’s attractiveness as a world-class regional hub and ecosystem,” said Riccarda Züllig, co-founder of SGProtein said.

SGProtein recently raised SGD$4 million (US$2.9 million) in a seed round, led by biscuit maker Khong Guan to further accelerate the sustainable food market in Singapore.

Conscious consumption or a more healthy way of diet has been the driving trend in the foodtech sector for the last five to ten years, according to White Star Capital study.

This is largely due to a shift in people’s values of food consumption, towards a healthier lifestyle.

According to Pitchbook, a company providing private market data, a significant chunk of the market share will be taken away from the US$350-billion annual meat market.

Food innovation and bio-engineered food have been predicted to continue growing annually by 10 per cent with the possibility of reaching US$104.6 billion by 2025,

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Photo by LikeMeat on Unsplash

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Sea to support NUS School’s research and education in AI, data science

The story: Sea Limited announced today that it has made a corporate gift of S$50 million (US$37 million) to support the advancement of research and education at National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Computing, one of the world’s leading computing schools.

Objective: The commitment will support NUS Computing in its efforts to substantially enhance and develop pivotal areas such as:

• Cutting-edge research and education in critical, fast-growing areas such as Artificial Intelligence and data science;

• Recruitment and development of academic and research talent through scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate students, research fellowships, visiting professorships, support for professional development and more;

• Strategic initiatives including seed grants for enterprising projects and outreach programmes.

Also Read: Sea Group’s venture fund to invest US$1B in tech startups

More on the deal: By combining the strengths of academia and industry, both parties plan to work closely together to nurture and grow Singapore’s research and education ecosystem by leveraging impactful technologies such as AI. This will help raise the profile of local talent, create many rewarding jobs, and position Singapore as an attractive global hub for innovation and technology investment.

To this end, Sea recently announced the establishment of Sea AI Labs (SAIL) in Singapore to push the frontiers of AI research and develop leading technologies in the field. Sea is committed to advancing technology to drive the development of the digital economy in Singapore and across the regions where it operates.

TurtleTree, JSBiosciences enter into a strategic partnership

The story: JSBiosciences has just announced a partnership with TurtleTree Scientific. Both parties have signed a letter of intent to collaborate in the development of cell culture media at a commercial scale.

What is the deal about?: JSBio will provide TTS’s customers with a supply of food grade basal media and media formulation services, also expanding to other services including large scale manufacturing.

JSBio will leverage its strong media development expertise and established local raw material supply chains in this partnership. The group company’s (Thousand Oaks Pharmaceuticals Group) unique “integrated cost control programme” in the field of biological products will help TTS to achieve high-efficiency, and low-cost production capabilities.

After low-cost upstream processes are established, JSBio will help TTS achieve pilot production capacity and subsequently, commercial production scale in Singapore.

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Image Credit: Sea Limited

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Vietnam has released its first autonomous vehicle.

Manufactured by local conglomerate Phenikaa Group, the self-driving vehicle boasts Artificial Intelligent (AI) features including 3D maps, Lidar sensors, SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping technology), and incorporates machine and deep learning within its software.

The vehicle also has nearly 40 level-4 self-driving features based on the standards of the Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE International). The electrical vehicle can be operated through a customised platform.

Despite the fanfare over its release, the vehicle is required to undertake additional safety tests and more research has to be carried out to reduce production costs before it can be commercially launched for the general public.

“We hope the introduction of Vietnam’s first level-4 smart autonomous vehicle will facilitate the development of the self-operating industry, localise technological products and meet the market demand for high-quality, internationally standardised products and services,” said Le Anh Son, Director of Phenikaa-X JSC.

Also Read: Singapore testing on-demand courier delivery by autonomous robots

“If self-driving vehicles are regulated by law like other vehicles in the future, they can solve all transportation issues. Self-driving vehicles could be our future,” he added.

Last week, Phenikaa Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nippon Koei Vietnam, SICK Sensor Intelligence, Advantech Vietnam Technology Co Ltd, BAP Group, and VEDAX to partner in releasing products that would stimulate the development of the autonomous industry.

In an interview with e27, Kelvin Tay, Managing Director of the Future Mobility unit of Singapore-based transport and engineering group Goldbell Corporation noted that while autonomous vehicles could thrive in a controlled warehouse environment, there are challenges facing their application in an uncontrolled ‘open-world autonomy’ due to the presence of ‘edge cases’.

Edge cases refer to cases where autonomous vehicles don’t know how to react in situations with which they are not familiar.

“For instance, an autonomous car may consider a simple plastic blag lying on the road as an obstacle. If it comes close to this object, it may send an emergency alert and apply a sudden break. To stop it from doing so, you have to tell the vehicle/programme it in a way that it doesn’t stop at minor obstacles. Because when it applies a sudden break, the vehicle coming from behind is likely to collide with it, causing an accident,” Tay elaborated.

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Nongsa D-Town held a virtual grand launch on March 2nd, 2021. Opening statements for the event were officiated by Airlangga Hartarto, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, and Chan Chun Sing, Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry. The event was then subsequently split into three “fireside chats” — themed discussions, each featuring their own array of panellists and moderated by E27 co-founder Thaddeus Koh.

Speakers for each fireside chat hailed from all stakeholders involved with the development of D-Town, including government officials as well as current tenants at Nongsa, providing a glimpse of what Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), the initial tech office campus at Nongsa D-Town, has blossomed into so far since it started operation in 2018, and what the future may hold with the Nongsa D-Town masterplan to create a vibrant regional tech hub that represents a digital bridge between Singapore and Indonesia.

Introducing Nongsa D-Town

D-Town is a proposed digital hub built on the Indonesian island of Batam, situated a mere 40 minutes off the coast of Singapore. Nicknamed “The Digital Bridge between Singapore and Indonesia”, D-Town grew out of the existing tech ecosystem at NDP and the creative community that is spawned from Infinite Studio’s animation and film studio that has been in Nongsa for over a decade. Nongsa D-Town is designed with the tech and creative industries in mind with the intention to grow a digital ecosystem filled with regional talent between Indonesia and Singapore.

Also read: Here are 5 reasons to expand your business to the Philippines

Every element in D-Town was designed for the express purpose of building a vibrant community of digital talent who can work, live, and play, within 62-hectares of developed space.

The vision behind Nongsa D-Town

A common point of discussion throughout the webinar was the apparent tech talent gaps in Singapore. Being a small nation-state, Singapore’s small population alone is unable to meet the demands of its booming economy despite its technological and economic advantages, which larger populations like Indonesia are able to supplement.

Wilson Tan, the co-founder of the Webimp group, a bespoke IT solutions firm that set up shop at Nongsa three years ago, described the role businesses based in Nongsa have in bridging this talent gap during the event’s third fireside chat.

Also read: Making smart manufacturing a cost-efficient reality for SMEs

“In an entrepreneurship perspective, it doesn’t make sense for Singapore to keep treating Indonesia as a ‘factory,’ in the sense that local workers remain as programmers who only do work. At Webimp, we promote organically and train our local technical talent for the opportunity to become senior programmers and engineers so that they can fill the apparent gap.”

This kind of on-the-job training is exactly why the Indonesian government is so eager to support the project. An exchange of talent and technology between Singapore and Indonesia seems inevitable at a place like NDP, where tech talent from the two countries are able to collaborate with each other.

“Nongsa presents an opportunity to upskill our younger workforce for the digital economy,” said Tommy Suryopratomo, Indonesian ambassador to the Republic of Singapore, at the first fireside chat of the webinar.

How D-Town serves as a digital bridge between Singapore and Indonesia

Indonesia is a young country with a deep talent pool. Roughly 60% of the country’s 257 million people are within the productive age range of between 15-64 years old. It is not surprising, then, those hopes are high for Indonesian youth working for tech companies and startups at Nongsa to eventually bring back their newfound knowledge to their hometowns and villages across the archipelago.

This arrangement is a win-win situation for both employer and prospective employee as an operation in Nongsa also serves as a springboard for international, especially Singaporean, companies who want to expand into the Indonesian market.

Another overarching topic discussed during the grand launch is the geographical advantage of establishing a tech team in Nongsa for Singaporean companies or other multinational organizations. Batam’s close proximity to Singapore allows it to serve as a springboard for Singaporean companies, as the 40-minute commute between the two islands makes it possible for an executive or entrepreneur working in Singapore to visit the tech team in Nongsa and return home within a single day.

Also read: Innovating medical devices towards better dental patient care

Indonesia’s current tech capital in Indonesia is Jakarta, but NDP is an ideal bridge for Indonesian tech talent who desire to work for overseas companies due to said proximity to Singapore. Simultaneously, the increased flow of talent to Nongsa-based Singaporean companies solves Singapore’s finite tech talent gap.

NDP builds on Infinite Studio’s decade-long presence in Batam, which has been a success and a sort of “microcosm,” to quote Mike Wiluan, President Director of Nongsa D-Town, of what the settlement will look like in the future.

The future of D-Town

When asked about the estimated completion date, Marco Bardelli, Boardmember and Senior Director of NDP, and Andrew Wee, Director of Design at Surbana Jurong, predicted that the entire Nongsa D-Town would take 10 years to finish, with Phase 1 of development coming to a close in 2023. At that point, around 8000 tech and creative talents will be based in NDP in addition to the roughly 1000 currently living and working there.

As D-Town opens for business to the outside world, the incentives for companies on both sides of the Singapore strait to set up shop on Batam will continue to grow.

Interested in learning more? Watch the full Nongsa D-Town Virtual Grand Launch through this playlist on YouTube.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
Nongsa D-Town

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