Much of the existing workplace gender equality narrative has been reactive, focused on identifying systemic weaknesses and misconceptions and then finding solutions to overcome them.

This International Women’s Day, I want to focus on a proactive way of introducing the conversation into the workplace and promote some ideas of what we can do as professionals to create a stronger foundation for women empowerment and success.

Homogeneity vs. diversity

Throughout my 15 years as a finance professional, I have noticed that a key ingredient for success, whether as a company or in any individual, is to encourage diversity, in particular diversity of thought. The past has proven how homogeneity of thought, or groupthink, can have detrimental consequences to business practices.

One example would be the banking practices that led to the economic crisis of 2008. Homogeneity can become an increasing challenge when companies grow to certain sizes and adopt more standard operating procedures as well as decision-making processes. It may even become one of the reasons why more established companies find it harder to challenge the status quo and innovate.

Groupthink often happens unconsciously. As humans, we are creatures of habit and inclined to form routines. It may appear more comfortable to approach a project in the same way as usual, instead of listening to someone challenging the standard practice. By not listening to the challenge, however, we miss the opportunity to identify new solutions and innovations.

In my opinion, most environments would benefit from having less homogeneity of opinions. One of the ways to achieve this is to encourage a more diverse workforce and ensure a more balanced representation of people during the decision-making process.

Ultimately, everyone should aim to be open to different perspectives and to be challenged by people who might think, sound or look different from ourselves.

So, how then does diversity contribute to women empowerment? Encouraging diversity of people, opinions and choices are, in fact, the key ingredients to empowering women at work.

Also Read: Meet the 6 fintech startups graduating from F10’s inaugural accelerator programme

What diversity in the workplace looks like

As the key drivers of the company’s vision, leaders have to place importance on diversity and proactively address the challenges that come with homogeneity of thought.

This means creating an environment that values diversity of experiences and backgrounds and sees the occasional challenge as a value-add to the decision-making process. We need to become better at identifying and controlling our own biases.

During recruitment processes, for example, it is essential to put in place a framework with clear criteria that reduces the risk of introducing personal bias and at the extreme, discrimination. Similar guidelines focusing on the merit and experience of an individual should be in place during the training, promotion and salary review processes.

In day-to-day work, leaders, mentors and supervisors should not expect subordinates to automatically execute what they had in mind, but instead, give them opportunities to challenge, and then take ownership of their projects, by giving them room to come up with ideas and solutions.

If certain barriers or perceived barriers continue to exist within a company, there is a need to openly address them and think about what can be done to remove those barriers. For example, if women are unable to progress beyond a certain level in a given company, management needs to identify the reasons for the lack of women in leadership roles and implement processes to develop and promote women into positions they deserve based on their merit.

In my past experiences in investment banking, venture capital and the payments sectors, I have been very lucky to have worked with amazing individuals. They encouraged me to speak up, question things, own certain aspects and gave me the space to prove myself. This has given me the confidence to develop my own career path, culminating in my present role in Southeast Asia-based payments firm 2C2P where I lead our M&A and venture arm, and manage investor relations.

Despite statistics showing that women tend to be under-represented in the financial services industry, I am happy to have seen more and more women coming up through the ranks in recent years and I am optimistic that opportunities for women in this space will continue to grow.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Singapore gets new maritime startup fund, ZASH buys Lomotif, why Indonesia’s fintech scene is thriving

Encouraging diversity from a young age

Just like how habits start forming at a young age, it is important to encourage diversity of thought from the start. And the best way to do it is to have more people share their stories, become role models in various fields, and encourage the younger generation to read up and research the areas that they are interested in.

The only way to counter preconceived stereotypes about what women can or cannot do in certain fields is to provide contrarian narratives. I encourage all of you, whether in a personal or business setting, to share your stories about successes and struggles alike.

We can all learn from each other and your story might end up motivating someone younger to explore a certain industry or career path.

Besides storytelling and information-sharing, mentorship programmes are a great way to connect professionals with the younger generation. Mentors have played a huge role in my career, in terms of creating role models as well as giving me insights and learnings from their own experiences, which have helped me to navigate many challenging situations.

Apart from demonstrating to the younger generation that it is possible to enter a diverse variety of fields, we should also encourage them to figure out what they really want to do in life, what they are good at and what energises them. If it happens to be fintech, then go into fintech.

If it’s engineering, then do that. Hearing from a wide variety of stories and having the freedom to choose one’s career is essential, but it is also important to first have the interest and passion, and not to forget qualifications.

This International Women’s Day, let us create an environment where there is diversity in choices, thoughts and people, and encourage everyone to be the best they can be in whatever field they are in.

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East Ventures, one of Indonesia’s largest VC firms, is set to take charge of EV Growth as part of a restructuring in the co-GP structure of the latter.

EV Growth, which focuses on providing capital for growth-stage startups across Southeast Asia, was originally formed in 2018 as a joint venture between East Ventures, SMDV and ZVC (formerly Yahoo Japan Capital).

The Singapore-based firm was originally led by three partners – Willson Cuaca from East Ventures, Roderick Purwana from SMDV, and Shinichiro Hori from ZVC.

As part of the reshuffle, Purwana will be appointed as a Managing Partner of East Ventures while David Tendian will be appointed as the Operating Partner at SMDV. Hori will remain on the EV Growth investment committee.

Meanwhile, EV Growth team members and part of the SMDV team will join East Ventures. Once completed, the Indonesian firm claims it will command the largest venture team in Southeast Asia, with over 60 staff members and eight partners.

Also Read: Meet the VCs: In conversation with East Ventures’ first female partner Melisa Irene

EV Growth’s Fund I (with a corpus of US$250 million) has invested in notable growth-stage companies including Ruangguru, Waresix, and Shopback, among others. The firm claims it has generated an internal rate of return (IRR) of 27 per cent as of last year with an early exit through the sale of MokaPOS to gojek.

“We have strong synergy between the EV Growth and East Ventures ecosystem. This new arrangement will strengthen efficiency and enable us to run with more boldness and speed. We will be able to assist entrepreneurs in a better, smarter and wiser manner – fully stacked to unlock their potential,” noted Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures.

Purwana shared similar sentiments. “After the initial collaboration, we felt we were ready to take the relationship even further. The alignment would allow our founders for more unencumbered access in the combined ecosystem, capabilities and network,“ he added.

“We believe that this transformation will further strengthen our presence and accelerate our investments in Southeast Asia. Z Holdings will commit more into the Southeast Asia market and leverage the group assets as part of the SoftBank Group,” closed Hori, Managing Partner of ZVC.

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Image Credit: East Ventures

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Mesh Bio, a Singaporean health-tech startup, has raised US$1.8 million in a seed funding round, led by deep-tech investor Elev8.vc and SEEDS capital.

Wealth management firm Citrine Capital as well as Singaporean VC firm Tael Partners also joined the round. 

Mesh Bio intends to use the capital to accelerate the rollout of its solution, DARA, for healthcare providers in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. The funds will also support the startup’s clinical partnerships and collaborations.

The two-year-old company was started by Andrew Wu (former COO of Clearbridge Biomedics) Arsen Batagov ( former bioinformatics scientist) and Melvin Heng ( physician and hospital administrator) when they noticed the rise in chronic diseases, making patient management increasingly complex and challenging.

Their solution helps specialists, general practitioners and doctors lacking specialist training in endocrinology predict diseases before it even occurs.

Furthermore, it also manages challenging patient cases by drawing in-patient data and translating it into actionable insight.

Also Read: Bolstering healthtech: Thailand’s bid to become Asia’s medical hub

Mesh Bio claims to have helped healthcare providers in Singapore increase report generation by up to five times with decreased human error. 

Its solution has also delivered over 60 per cent operational savings and 99 per cent in revenue growth.

Aditya Mathur, founder of Elev8.vc said: “Rapidly ageing populations across the world deserve far better healthcare. Mesh Bio’s predictive analytics offers a clinically validated technology to detect and support chronic diseases before they even occur.”

According to Deloitte, predictive analytics will play a central role in improving health and reducing mortality rates across age groups.

Digital health technologies have increasingly grabbed investor attention ever since the onset of the pandemic. 

In 2020, the Asia Pacific digital health ecosystem closed US$6.14 billion in VC funding, 25 per cent higher than 2019. The top-funded cluster was medical diagnostics. 

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Image Credit: Mesh Bio

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M Capital co-founders Joachim Ackermann (L) and Mayank Parekh

M Capital Management, a newly-established VC firm based in Singapore, announced today that it has made the final close of its maiden fund, M Venture Partners, at US$30.85 million.

The names of the LPs have not been disclosed.

The fund intends to invest in about 40 ventures — mainly in the seed and pre-Series A stages — focused on technology-enabled B2B or B2B2C business models. The average initial cheque size will be about US$500,000.

Also Read: Founders should be able to back up their ideas with sales; Golden Gates newly-appointed Principal Jeffrey Chua

“We intend to remain sector-agnostic in this maiden fund. However, we are extremely focused on investing in seasoned talent. We seek to partner with entrepreneurs who have pedigree professional experience and strong academic backgrounds,” said co-founder Mayank Parekh.

“While it may sound simplistic, at this early stage, it’s all about ensuring the talent has the mental acuity, maturity and resilience to build to last,” he added.

MVP was founded by Parekh, a former investor and management consultant, along with Joachim Ackermann, former managing director of Google Asia Pacific. Other key team members include Dr. Tanuja Rajah who joins from Entrepreneur First, and Chethana Ellepola, previously Research Director at Acquity Stockbrokers.

Since inception, the VC firm has made 11 investments in total. Its prominent investment is 3D Metal Forge, which recently got listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Other investees are health coaching startup Naluri, AI-enabled credit company Impact Credit Solutions, and health-tech startup Cipher Cancer Clinics.

“While maintaining Southeast Asian, broader regional and global aspirations, a majority of our portfolio companies will be Singapore headquartered. Singapore presents a fabulous venture ecosystem and support network for our entrepreneurs and an ideal springboard to launch innovative and disruptive technology start-ups across multiple markets,” said Ackermann.

Singapore’s early-stage VC investment space is buzzing of late even as the world is ye to come out of the COVID-19 crisis. On Tuesday, Niklas Holck, former Chairman of Nordic Eye Venture Capital, announced the launch of Tradeworks.vc. The boutique VC firm targets early-growth startups and scaleups at the seed to Series A funding stages, mainly in the logistics-tech segment.

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Image Credit: M Capital

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Xsquare forklift

Singapore-based transport and engineering group, Goldbell Corporation which recently snapped up local electric car-sharing startup BlueSG, has been monitoring the autonomous mobility segment for a long time and will enter the space at an opportune time, according to Kelvin Tay, Managing Director of its Future Mobility unit.

The company sees immediate opportunity in the ‘controlled environment autonomy’, wherein autonomous vehicles will be put in a controlled environment to reduce the possibility of accidents.

“An example of controlled environment autonomy is a warehouse, wherein autonomous forklifts are used to move items from one place to another. Here, the aisles in the warehouse are fixed and so there is the least possibility for accidents,” Tay explained.

Also Read: BlueSG: Is electric car sharing really cheaper than other alternatives like Grab and Uber?

Then, there is ‘open-world autonomy’, which is far more challenging than controlled environment autonomy. Goldbell, however, has no immediate plans to venture into this space because 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,” he elaborated.

Another concern with open-world autonomy is a liability. For instance, there are concerns about who will be held liable if an autonomous vehicle is involved in an accident on a public road.

“When these problems are solved, it may be a good time for us to get involved. So, we would like to take a watch-and-wait approach before entering this space,” he said.

Having said that, Goldbell already runs an autonomous forklift company, called XSquare. According to Tay, this firm has already deployed three units of autonomous forklifts at its customers’ locations and they have been running for 12 months.

Tay also revealed that there were many companies under its consideration for acquisition but it went ahead with BlueSG because the latter has already established a strong brand in Singapore and is well-known. Plus, its model (car-sharing between point A to point B) is suitable for Singapore.

Also Read: Tesla to scale its team in Singapore with 11 new hires

Goldbell wants to take BlueSG overseas and has already shortlisted a few cities in Asia Pacific. He, however, declined to share the cities.

“We will take BlueSG to smart cities which share similar characteristics of Singapore so that it will be much more suitable for us to apply our technology. If the characteristics are so different from Singapore, then it might require too much localisation,” he said.

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Image Credit: Goldbell

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Every year, entrepreneurs anticipate how the budget announcements will directly impact their business. The budget announcements this year are especially important to startups, as many of them are still recovering from the financial instability caused by the pandemic.

Below, we explore three ways that startups and small businesses can make better-informed decisions based on Singapore Budget 2021.

Key highlights

Recruitment was at a standstill for many companies during the pandemic. This resulted in a rising unemployment rate as well as delayed growth within small businesses.

The Job Support Scheme will support partial employee wage for the next few months, in an attempt to encourage startups to resume hiring activities. The expansion and innovation among newer businesses will translate into a more vibrant startup community.

Job support scheme

This Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme seeks to create more opportunities for long-term employment for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents.

Also Read: Due diligence meets imagination: How SGInnovate plans to further support the deep tech ecosystem

For example, the tourism industry laid off experienced staff members during the past year and with financial assistance from the Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme, businesses can gradually begin expanding their staff count in anticipation of the increasing demand for local tourism.

In addition, business owners who hire new employees within the eligible time period below will receive wage support for 12-18 months.

More specifically, the Government will compensate businesses up to 50 per cent of the first S$6,000 (US$4,400) salary until September 2021, to further incentivise entrepreneurs to hire mature employees above the age of 40 years, persons with disabilities, or ex-offenders.

Jobs growth incentive scheme

Employer eligibility requirements between March 2021 and September 2021 include:

Business owners can also receive monetary benefits of up to 50 per cent wage subsidy for the next 18 months. Depending on your business needs, the Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme makes it affordable to employ college graduates or experienced professionals who are making a transition in their career.

Supplementary scheme for SMEs and startups

Singapore Budget 2021 aims to equip businesses to ride the digital wave. With the slowdown in economic activity, traditional businesses in food and beverage as well as retail startups can redesign existing jobs and build digital capabilities with the new initiatives in the Budget.

For example, retailers that are considering expanding their offering through e-commerce or hawker stalls can partner with food delivery services to increase revenue. Besides small businesses in the retail or food and beverage industries, startups offering services in the arts and sports sectors can also enhance their operational competencies with the S$45 million (US$33 million) Arts and Culture and Sports Resilience Package.

Steps that small businesses can take include offering their arts services in smaller in-person groups or enhancing digital capabilities to offer online alternatives.

Also read: How to outsource development for a startup on a budget

Another business area that will receive an increasing amount of financial support from the Government includes the sustainability sector. As Singapore increases its commitment to sustainability efforts, small businesses that provide innovative solutions that are environmentally friendly will receive additional assistance in the coming years.

Examples include businesses which are making solar power more accessible to the public, companies selling electric vehicles, and a mobile app that helps Singaporeans capture their carbon footprint.

Other initiatives

From 2023 onwards, low-value imported goods will be subjected to GST and small businesses with vehicles can anticipate a GST hike up to 9 per cent.

One way to plan ahead would be to consider stocking up on necessary operating equipment before the implementation. There will also be a 10-15 per cent increase in petrol prices, which means that businesses should account for this cost if they are in the delivery business or other business that relies heavily on transporting goods islandwide.

Increase in Tax/Duties

On a more positive note, all commercial vehicles are entitled to a 100 per cent Road Tax Rebate for one year to cushion the increase in petrol duty. Businesses that acquire new machinery will be able to expense acquisition costs from taxable income for both YA 2021 and 2022.

Reliefs Available for Businesses

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Ganesh Rengaswamy, Managing Partner of Quona Capital

The terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘impact’ are increasing their mindshare among investors today.

From launching sustainability funds to adopting an “impact-first investment approach”, investors are increasingly applying these non-financial factors to their evaluation process, ensuring they support businesses that bring about a positive impact to the world we live in.

Despite all the buzz about impact investing, what exactly does it mean?

According to the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), impact investments are investments made with the intention to generate a positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.

Ganesh Rengaswamy of Quona Capital, a VC firm that invests in growth-stage fintech companies promoting financial inclusion within emerging markets, certainly knows a thing about the field. As Managing Partner, he oversees Quona’s investments in India and Southeast Asia.

Rengaswamy’s portfolio companies include BukuWarung, an Indonesia-based bookkeeping management platform for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and Ula, a B2B commerce and fintech marketplace. Previous investees include coins.ph (sold to gojek) and IndiaMART (IPO).

e27 sat down with him to learn more about how Quona measures impact in its investments, the extent to which impact metrics affect an investment decision and his hopes for financial inclusion within Southeast Asia.

Below are edited excerpts of the interview.

Could you run through the process of how Quona evaluates a startup?

We are focused on fintech and financial inclusion and like to invest in companies that leverage financial and digital innovation to deliver solutions that fulfil the needs of unserved or underserved segments of society. Therefore, we use our investment mandate as the first filter to identify startups we invest in.

After that, the key factors we look for are founder quality (in terms of expertise and vision), real market opportunity and moats against incumbents, potential to create an impact on low and middle-income segments, sustainability of the business model, and stage fit and overall investor syndicate.

Also Read: What investors look for before investing in a startup

We also study business-specific KPIs, which depends on the fintech vertical. For example, in a lending company, the non-performing assets (NPA) is a very important metric, whereas for a payments company the net margins on transaction volume are critical.

Given our focus on financial inclusion, we always pay attention to the impact on underserved segments, which we quantify through assessing the outreach and accessibility of the platform, product quality and overall market development.

Do you see a correlation between social impact and profitability (i.e. a company with a strong social impact will likely generate sustainable financial returns)?

We believe the social and financial impact of our investment in a company and the broader community are intertwined. Hence, we look for opportunities where social and financial drivers and returns are mutually reinforcing, rather than accepting a trade-off between the two.

We aim for risk-adjusted market returns while backing companies that are making the world a better place.

How do you measure the social impact for your potential investees and your portfolio companies?

All portfolio companies are measured and assessed against our “Access, Quality, Markets” financial inclusion impact framework, which was developed in partnership with industry leaders and is harmonized with the Impact Management Project (a forum for building global consensus on measuring, managing and reporting impacts on sustainability).

The framework is applicable across the fintech verticals we invest in, with some metrics being common across all our portfolio companies and some specific to a given vertical or company.

Also Read: Sustainability: the new business reality

This enables us to measure financial inclusion at the company level and to aggregate a set of core impact metrics across the portfolio and assess progress towards financial inclusion at a firm level.

We also measure and monitor impact throughout our investment process. The business objectives of the portfolio companies are expected to be aligned with our social mandate.

To what extent do you factor in impact returns when evaluating the performance of your portfolio companies? Were there instances where impact returns underperformed?

The KPIs established during the investment process are inclusive of impact, operational and financial metrics and indicators. Our investees report to us on a quarterly basis, with revisits conducted on an as-needed basis as business models scale and evolve.

Leveraging these insights and KPIs, we evaluate and reports on performance – inclusive of impact – on a quarterly basis. We also have internal deep dives, where we assess the overall performance of our portfolio.

Thus far we only had a rare occurrence where the impact returns were below what we expected. We believe that as our companies grow and scale up or add new products and geographies, their impact should amplify.

With over 290 million unbanked in Southeast Asia, what are some challenges you foresee in driving financial inclusion for them?

Southeast Asia is lagging behind in the growth of insurtech, financial advisory, embedded finance to address daily life needs through financial innovations, and holistic digital banking.

I hope the ecosystem and regulators can evolve and adapt to solving these issues. Progressive regulators play an important role in managing the digital infrastructure to ensure it can benefit both the supply and demand sides of the equation.

Do you think these challenges will be solved with time? Or do you think it is a larger and more complicated systemic issue?

Yes, I think so. I see many governments in the region, such as Indonesia, lifting regulation and investing in financial digital infrastructure. Large banks, insurers, and telco companies are now willing to partner with fintechs to harness the power of customer data and co-create solutions.

Also Read: Finantier raises funding in an East Ventures-led round to introduce Open Finance to SEA

We also expect digital-only banks to emerge through the issuance of new licenses, or permitting fintechs to buy regional banks in other countries. Covid-19 has been a significant wakeup call for the regulatory, ecosystem and incumbents, and is likely to lead to promising evolution of digital infrastructure.

What are some trends you are optimistic about within the fintech space in Southeast Asia?

Broadly speaking, we see growth in open banking platforms, embedded finance in different value chains like retail, digital banks, insurtech, and relationship-based, digitally-driven banking and financial services. I’m probably most optimistic about embedded finance.

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Image Credit: Quona Capital

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1982 Ventures co-founders and managing partners Herston Elton Powers (L) and Scott Krivokopich

1982 Ventures, a Singapore-based early-stage VC firm, has entered into a strategic investment partnership with South Korean investors Infobank, C&Venture Partners, and BTC Investment.

As per a press note, the parties have signed an MoU to collaborate in pursuing investments in Korea and Southeast Asia and leverage their respective resources to support market entry for Korean startups into the region.

Listed on the Korean stock exchange, Infobank specialises in messaging services and has an investment portfolio of 120 companies. Meanwhile, C&Venture Partners is an early-stage investment firm that invests in emerging technology fields including 5G, Big Data and digital health. BTC Investment is an investor in early-stage blockchain and fintech companies.

Launched in 2019, 1982 Ventures focuses on investing in early-stage fintech start-ups across Southeast Asia. Its portfolio companies include Homebase, a Vietnam-based proptech company providing home ownership and financing solutions.

Also Read: ‘Access to institutional VC funding is a major concern in Philippines’: Herston Powers of 1982 Ventures

“We are pleased to announce our partnership with 1982 Ventures to pursue strategic collaboration in pursuing investments in Korea and Southeast Asia and strengthen our capabilities to execute in the region’s high growth markets. 1982 Ventures expertise in fintech was key in selecting them as our long-term VC fund partner,” said Moonkyu Lee, Managing Director of C&Venture Partners.

“Infobank, C&Venture Partners and BTC investments collective leadership in technology and venture capital in Korea will ensure 1982 Ventures is well-positioned to leverage the Korean startup ecosystem,” said Herston Powers, Managing Partner, 1982 Ventures.

“An increasing number of Korean investors and startups are starting to see the significant market opportunity in Southeast Asia and are looking for partners to support their market entry,” Powers added.

Korea is one of the leading startup ecosystems within Asia, with nearly US$4 billion invested in its startups last year. According to Statista, the country also ranks within the top five globally for the number of unicorn companies.

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Image Credit: 1982 Ventures

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Niklas Holck, former Chairman of Nordic Eye Venture Capital, has launched his own boutique VC firm based in Singapore.

Tradeworks.vc is an investment syndicate that aims to build an ecosystem of ‘digital trade enablers’, with the purpose of driving trade and economic development through innovation in logistics primarily, crossing into e-commerce.

Also Read: 5 reasons to be bullish on logistics tech in Asia

As per a press statement, Tradeworks.vc has raised US$1.5 million at launch. with Guernsey-based OracleVC being the anchor investor.

Tradeworks.vc has a global focus, targeting early-growth startups and scaleups at the seed to Series A funding stages and is looking to invest US$100,000 to US$2 million per deal.

It will announce its maiden deals in two logistics technology scaleups, based in Singapore and Chennai (India), shortly.

Global economic development has exploded in the past 40 years as trade lifted billions out of poverty. The world’s poorest countries have the highest logistics costs and connecting the millions living in poverty to the rest of the world through trade is the best way to improve their lives and unleash the potential of those developing economies.

Lack of innovation in logistics results in high costs, which stifles trade and limits economic and human development. Compared with e-commerce, logistics is significantly under-invested; it accounts for more than double the share of Gross World Product, but attracts less than half the VC investment.

Also Read: 5G and the 5 new things it will bring to the world of logistics

Logistics is still seen as a black box for many VCs, who currently focus on last-mile operators and digital freight forwarders.

“There has never been a better time to invest in logistics technology. The sector is at the bottom of the digitalisation S-curve, with a long tail of small businesses ready to embark on their digital transformation journeys. The high labour, capital and energy intensity that characterises logistics industries, provides significant potential for improving productivity and efficiency, and generating attractive VC returns,” said Holck.

Singapore saw emergence of a couple of micro VC funds in the recent past. In October 2020, AngelList’s India CEO Utsav Somani and its former top executive Wing Vasiksiri joined hands together to launch iSeed SEA, targeting tech startups in Southeast Asia.

In November, Beamstart, the company behind global entrepreneurial platform and resource database beamstart.com, launched a US$10-million digital accelerator fund for Southeast Asia.

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Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

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LinkAja, one of Indonesia’s well-known fintech apps, announced today it has received an undisclosed strategic investment from ride-hailing giant gojek.

As per a press note, this deal brings LinkAja’s funds raised in the ongoing Series B round to the excess of US$100 million.

Interestingly, this announcement comes less than four months after the payments firm raised an investment from gojek’s close rival Grab as part of the ongoing round, with participation from Telkomsel, BRI Ventura Investama and Mandiri Capital.

The collaboration is aimed at strengthening the adoption of digital financial services and accelerating financial inclusion in Indonesia.

This integration builds on gojek’s existing partnership with LinkAja, which included payment for transportation and ticket reservation services.

As part of the partnership, LinkAja will be included as an additional payment method on the gojek app.

Also Read: gojek-Tokopedia impending merger. Is it a win or loss for Grab?

LinkAja, formerly known as T Cash, was launched as a scan-and-pay service by government-owned telecom giant Telkomsel.

In the current form, LinkAja is primarily focused on digital payments for retail, public services and other daily needs, with 80 per cent of its users coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

“We are excited to have gojek join us as a  shareholder, following the investment made by LinkAja’s other prominent shareholders in our Series B fundraising. This investment provides LinkAja with greater access to the gojek ecosystem, which will further support LinkAja’s purpose to accelerate financial inclusion in Indonesia,” LinkAja CEO Haryati Lawidjaja said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching impact have emphasised the importance of digital payments in our daily lives, which makes this collaboration especially timely. With LinkAja as a strategic partner, we hope to reach out to even more businesses and consumers and give them new ways to transact,” added gojek co-CEO Andre Soelistyo.

The fintech industry in Indonesia, the largest market in Southeast Asia with a number of unbanked and underbanked population, saw massive growth over the past few years. In the payments space alone, there are more than 60 companies. Among the major players are OVO (in which Grab is the largest shareholder), GoPay (owned by gojek), 2C2P, PayFazz, iPay88, and Shopee Pay. —

Image Credit: LinkAja

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