When you are just launching a business or entering the market with a brand-new product, due to resource constraints, you may be tempted to cut corners and use a minimally viable product. However, refusal from QA is not only the fastest way to exit from the market — but also missed opportunities.

QA can help your business “get ahead”, beat your competitors, and engage a lot of customers. All this because QA can be useful for startups not only in the form of testing. This is what I want to talk about in the article.

What do you see under the headings “Why a startup needs testing” most often?

•  Testing helps reduce budgets for improvements and bug fixing. The Pareto principle works here: 20 per cent of the testing budget will cost 80 per cent of the budget for improvements and bug fixing, and vice versa, 80 per cent of the testing budget will cost 20 per cent of the budget for improvements and bug fixing.
•  Your reputation and user loyalty. Yes, a new product needs to be loved by users; this is the only way to expand its audience. If your product has bugs or an inconvenient functionality, it will lose its audience and, probably, its market vitality.
• Developers are not testers. In startups, testing is often performed by everyone who can do it, for example, by developers. However, developers cannot properly test their products. They fail to look at the product from the user’s perspective, and it is more difficult for them, as creators, to evaluate its functionality and usability critically, the same cannot be said for testers.

This is the most relevant thing to come out, probably. While all of the above is actually true, there are still important things that few people talk about, but which are no less important for a startup and the growth of its business indicators. 

Competition analysis

Competitive analysis is a must-have for a new product. You need it to understand whether your product is better or worse in comparison with direct or indirect competitors. And this is what you could and should contact a QA engineer with.

Firstly, you need it to understand why competing products are better or worse; what new features they have; whether users like these features; what you can improve/change in your product to get more users. Without this information, you can hardly keep your finger on the pulse and maintain your product’s competitiveness in the market.

Also read: Why the success of your startup depends on software testing

Secondly, you need it, if you are just starting. Suppose that you have a new product. There is already something similar in the market. Ideally, you need to understand the user’s path with a competitor’s product — what users like, what is convenient for them, and what they don’t like; whether the competitor has cool features.

To do so, you collect a list of competitors and give it to QA engineers. They go through the functionality of all websites/apps, making a difference map, finding functional errors with competitors or some cool features that you did not take into account. This is your advantage and your chance to beat your competitors without making the same errors in your product functionality or to make it more convenient and more user-friendly than competing products.

Again, why a QA engineer? Indeed, you have developers, analysts, and the marketing service, after all. That is, QA engineers have a thorough vision, an extensive experience in both following the user’s path and understanding user logic. That is all you need for high-quality analysis.

Product logic

QA experts are those who would rather torment you with questions than leave any doubts concerning the product logic. A QA engineer knows what elements can interact with each other; how they might interact; a QA engineer understands the consequences of functional and logical errors.

This person starts asking questions like an ordinary user: How the system will behave further? What will the user do? If the user does this, where will this lead them? During a question session, errors in the product logic are often revealed.

We had such a case: our customer brought us some functionality for testing, and we started asking questions. It turned out that there were many inconsistencies in the product, more precisely, in the product logic. As a result, the product was sent back for revision, and not to its developers but to the marketing service, because of some issues that had not been studied initially at the stage of discussion with insurance companies and lawyers.

If such a product got to users, there would be global problems stemming from the errors in the logic itself. This is where the Pareto rule works, which I mentioned above.

Setting up work processes

As a rule, you need this in the case of a large startup and several divisions in your team. The product quality depends on how clearly the tasks and regulations for their implementation are set in your team; how transparent and understandable are the work processes.

Also Read: AI software testing platform Autify receives US$2.5M seed round, gearing up for global launch

Work processes are also interactions within your team or between teams/ divisions as well as the development processes themselves.

What is interaction within a team? Who should ask questions and to whom? What should be the form of these questions? How and to whom are tasks transferred? Who is responsible for what? And the list of questions goes on.

What are development processes? It is the development life cycle consisting of analytics, development, testing, and support. Here, it is important to understand the whole chain: How does the analytics work? Who is involved at this stage? What are the task statuses? When and to whom do the tasks transfer?

What is going on in your development team, and what are the testers’ activities meanwhile? How do they interact with analysts and developers at this stage? And many more questions to follow.

A QA engineer can set all this from scratch, adjust it, supervise it. So to speak, the QA is a big eye for the project, looking after all the processes, analysing and searching for any bottleneck that could potentially have a negative effect on the quality.

If any problems in the processes, even trivial ones: your designers and developers failed to agree, or marketers disagree with designers, the issues will occur when it comes to the product quality.

Some task may get lost in the depths of processes to eventually stay on the sidelines of the release. Finally, users will receive a low-quality product, and your business will rack up losses.

Startups need testing not only to avoid critical errors. You should not think of testers as experts looking for bugs only. Startups can find in testing a huge potential for growth and development, which is essential for a product that is just entering the market.

This is a competitive advantage that can help you acquire more loyal users and outperform your competitors in the market.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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To learn more about the costs that diners face when ordering food to their homes, ValueChampion analysed the price of test orders from three of the most popular food delivery apps in Singapore: GrabFood, Foodpanda and Deliveroo.

We found that each app has different benefits and disadvantages for consumers, including not only the total cost of ordering but also promotional offers and the selection of open restaurants.

Methodology

We simulated 60 orders from 20 restaurants in Singapore across GrabFood, Foodpanda and Deliveroo. Using each app, we selected the same order from the same restaurant and compared the resulting fees, totals, promotions and estimated delivery times.

The test orders were simulated over the course of multiple weeks at various times, including both lunch and dinner. We ordered from a variety of restaurants and ordered quantities ranging from one to four individual servings. Some of the menu items we chose for the testing included dumplings, Korean BBQ, pizza, Mexican, Indian, and poke.

Besides the cost of the food itself, most delivery apps charge variable delivery fees, service fees and if applicable, small order fees.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: ByteDance game plan, and does AirAsia foray into food delivery even make sense?

Key findings

One of the first things we saw was that restaurants almost always offered the same menu prices across the three delivery apps. However, the addition of app fees led to significant differences in cost depending on which app we used to order an entree. These extra charges included:

Because platform fees were consistently very low and small order fees only appeared occasionally, we chose to focus on delivery fees. When we analysed orders where no promotions were offered, Foodpanda had the lowest average delivery fee of S$2.94, compared to S$3.04 at Deliveroo and S$3.76 at GrabFood. This included 9 of the 20 different entrees we ordered.

How much do delivery apps charge per order?

Despite FoodPanda’s clear advantage in terms of its low fee ratio, Deliveroo did find ways to compete closely on cost thanks to its many promotions. As for GrabFood, it consistently charged the highest average delivery fee regardless of promotions being available.

Also Read: AirAsia launches food delivery services in Singapore, promises 5 per cent lower fees than competitors

Overall, we also noticed that delivery app fees are actually the highest for smaller orders. Only seven orders had app fee totals over $S5, and six of them involved a food order costing less than S$15.

Deliveroo offered free delivery promotions more frequently than either Foodpanda or GrabFood. Out of the 11 orders that received promotions, Deliveroo accounted for nine of those orders, and all nine promotions included free delivery.

When we look at orders with no promotions, Foodpanda came out slightly ahead on delivery fees with an average of S$2.94. Without the promos, Deliveroo’s average delivery fee increases to S$3.04 and GrabFood remains the highest at S$3.76.

Small order fees can be expensive, especially when compared to the lower price of an individual meal. Some apps charge small order fees on orders that are below a certain dollar amount, which varies by restaurant. Deliveroo was the most expensive in this area, charging most of the small order fees we saw in our testing.

Although we only saw small order fees on nine of the 60 orders we tested, the actual fee amount was unpredictable. The small order fees we recorded ran from S$0.25 to over S$20.00, with an average of S$3.95. Out of the three apps we used, Deliveroo charged the highest and most frequent small order fees.

GrabFood and Foodpanda did not charge small order fees as often as Deliveroo, and when they did, they were under S$1.00. Small order fees have the biggest impact on individual orders, making it even more expensive for a single person to order food.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

This makes it important for solo diners to check multiple delivery apps or consider a different restaurant to avoid small order fees.

In our experiment, it took trial and error to find restaurants available on all three delivery apps. A restaurant would often only be available on one app, or in the case of chain restaurants, not every location would be on every app.

Several times, we observed that GrabFood tended to have restaurants we couldn’t find as active on the other apps.

What’s more interesting is that for restaurants available on all three apps, operating hours varied. A restaurant would be available to order from on one app but closed on a different one.

This can be due to a restaurant favouring a certain app over another (and not using that app) or not updating their operating hours on all apps. If the restaurant you’re trying to order from is closed on one app, it doesn’t hurt to check a different app.

Delivery times and food costs are similar

Our study didn’t find major differences in the cost of actual menu items or estimated delivery times across delivery apps. When food costs differed, it was generally because of a promotional discount for the specific restaurant.

Average estimated delivery times were similar across platforms, ranging from 29 minutes to 31 minutes.

Savvy consumers will understand why it makes sense to shop around when it comes to food delivery. Our data suggests that as a rule, you should check the restaurant you want on multiple apps in order to avoid small order fees.

Deliveroo is running any free delivery promotions. If you want something that’s not on FoodPanda or Deliveroo, you may have to spend more on GrabFood to get it.

Also Read: Weekly Cornerplay: Which is Singapore’s best food app?

Restaurants can also choose which apps to use and how to use them, which affects both their open hours and menu prices. Comparing the same menu across apps can save you a few dollars on each order and get you access to the restaurant you want.

If you order delivery often, using certain credit cards can help you save money on food delivery. Some cards have introductory offers that include vouchers for food delivery apps, like the OCBC 365 Card which offers a S$100 voucher for GrabFood.

Other cards offer ongoing discounts when you use a particular delivery app or statement rebates for online food delivery. For example, the POSB Everyday Card offers an 8 per cent rebate when you use it to pay for online food delivery and dining.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Populix, an Indonesia-based consumer insights platform, announced today that it has raised US$1.2 million in a pre-Series A financing, led by existing investor Intudo Ventures.

Quest Ventures and a number of other strategic investors also joined the round.

Prior to this round, Populix has raised a US$1 million in seed financing led by Intudo Ventures.

The company said that it will use the proceeds to roll out new products, enhance marketing efforts, as well as for recurring.

Founded in January 2018, Populix offers a mobile-based platform that provides insights to businesses and researchers to help them better understand Indonesian consumers.

For large clients, Populix offers subscription-based customised services like brand health tracking, product launch perception auditing, customer satisfaction indexing, and more.

The company is currently developing dataset products that periodically track market movements, allowing businesses to closely follow market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Also Read: Consumer insights provider Populix raises US$1M to expand its footprint beyond Indonesia

It claims its technology is capable of recognising respondent invoices from across all major e-commerce players in Indonesia at a 93 per cent optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy rate.

Populix was also part of gojek’s Xcelerate programme’s second batch, which recognises outstanding female founders.

“As we roll out new products and services, Populix will be able to more accurately capture the pulse of market dynamics and create significant value for our clients. In the future, Populix will introduce even more sophisticated services for our major clients that address targeted needs while continuing to refine our mass-market offerings to open the door for more people to gain access to consumer insights products,” said Timothy Astandu, co-founder of Populix.

“Southeast Asia is fast fulfilling its potential as the epicentre of global economic growth with Indonesia as the foremost market. As global and regional brands pour resources into the region, ensnaring the growth dividend lies in sense-making the disparate markets ahead of the competition. We see that Populix has incisively deployed technology to modernise the old ‘market research’ service,” said Jeff Seah, Partner at Quest Ventures.

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Image Credit:  Lukas Blazek

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TADA, an end-to-end customer retention platform based in Indonesia, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series B1 funding, led by MDI Ventures, the VC arm of Telkom Group.

TMI, the venture capital arm of the Telkomsel, and existing investors Finch Capital (Netherlands) and Sovereign’s Capital (PE firm), also joined the round.

The capital infusion will further enhance TADA’s core technology platform and infrastructure.

Also Read: MDI Ventures’s new US$500M fund seeks to push digitisation of Indonesia’s state-owned firms

A portion of the money will go into strengthening its position in Indonesia and expanding its go-to-market strategies in the Southeast Asia region by growing its engineering teams, enterprise and SME sales teams, and recruiting strategic channel partners.

Launched in 2012, TADA aims to improve businesses’ sustainability by helping them retain customers better using solutions like digital membership, subscription, referral and digital rewards.

Its solution is adopted by both local and global enterprises in fast-growing industries in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Its clients include AXA, Allianz, DBS, UOB, Unilever, Castrol, Exxon, Kalbe Nutritionals, Erha Dermatology and Bakmi GM.

Antonius Taufan, founder of TADA, said: “We feel very grateful to be able to raise this funding in the midst of the pandemic, and for the unwavering confidence from MDI Ventures and TMI as the leading and influential companies in Indonesia. Today’s investment will allow us to deliver our mission to improve business’ sustainability by enabling them to retain customers better.”

Also Read: Meet the VC: How Indonesia’s MDI Ventures managed 3 overseas exits within a month

“We see an opportunity for a synergistic partnership between TADA and Telkom Indonesia to bring a more exciting and beneficial engagement and collaboration between various enterprise clients within the Telkom ecosystem. This funding is also aligned with MDI Ventures’ long-term goal to empower the growth of digital entrepreneurship,” added Donald Wihardja, CEO of MDI Ventures.

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Image Credit: TADA

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YC-backed startup Super bags US$28mn to grow its social commerce platform in Indonesia; Investors include SoftBank Ventures Asia (lead), Insignia Ventures, Y-Combinator Continuity Fund, partners of DST Global and TNB Aura; The company plans to double down on its presence in East Java and launch in other Indonesian provinces later this year.

Indonesia-based customer retention platform TADA secures Series B1; Investors include MDI Ventures (lead), TMI, Finch Capital and Sovereign’s Capital; TADA offers a solution for businesses that want to invest in building relationships with their customers, helping them to accelerate growth, improve sustainability, and maximise customer lifetime value by empowering them to deploy subscription businesses.

StashAway raises US$25mn Series D; Investors include Sequoia India (lead), Eight Roads Ventures and Square Peg; The capital will be used by the fintech firm to accelerate its investment product across its 5 markets, and buy back up to US$3mn in ESOPs from employees; A digital wealth management platform, StashAway delivers automated, personalised portfolio management to each client’s individual portfolios.

Temasek invests US$120mn in Indian edutech startup UpGrad; UpGrad helps working professionals, students and enterprises upskill themselves in highly courses like Data Science, Management and Law; The company claims to have an above 85% programme completion rate with over 40,000 paid learners on its platform.

‘Investors are returning to being more sensitive to value’: Goh Seng Wee of Brain Too Free Ventures; He also says the rate of unicorns/success stories from SEA will probably accelerate at the greatest pace compared to any other market continents in the world; Many winners will be from this region.

Temasek co-leads US$30mn Series C of Chin’s EAVision; The agri drone startup makes it possible for agricultural sectors to profit despite the demanding geographical constraints with the help of its stereo vision sensors and algorithms which enable it to navigate challenging terrains.

POC Pharma raises US$4.5mn to digitise pharmacies in Vietnam; Investors are Picus Capital (Germany), Goat Capital and FJ Labs (both US-based), Febe Ventures (Singapore) and 500 Startups; POC helps the stakeholders in the pharmacy industry (pharmacies, drug manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, payers) to digitally manage their interactions and collaborative workflows.

Indonesian consumer insights platform Populix raises US$1.2mn pre-Series A; Investors include Intudo Ventures (lead), Quest Ventures, and strategic investors; Populix offers subscription-based customised services like brand health tracking, product launch perception auditing, customer satisfaction indexing.

Philippine e-sports and entertainment startup Tier One raises funding; Investors include Gobi Partners (lead), Warner Music Group, Octava, KAYAC, and Atlas Ventures; The money will be used to expand operations in Blacklist International (Tier One’s e-sports team), and set up its first content creation hub in the Philippines.

Mortgage Master raises US$700K pre-Series A from angels; The Singapore-based mortgage brokering platform will use the money for customer acquisition, forging strategic partnerships, and to enter Indonesia; Since launch, it claims to have delivered advice for ~US$3bn worth of home loans and directly facilitated US$603mn in home loan transactions on behalf of partner banks.

Vietnam’s Topebox raises US$1mn to launch latest blockchain game My DeFi Pet; Investors are Axia8 Ventures, Blockdream Ventures, Megala Ventures, and Animoca Brands; Topebox is a mobile game developer that has produced hits like Pocket Army, Sky Dancer: Free Falling, and King Rivals; According to AppBrain, its portfolio of games has appeared in the top 100 apps in 10+ countries.

Indonesian fitness startup Doogether banks pre-Series A money after expanding into online classes; Investors are AsianTrust Capital, Prasetia Dwidharma, Alexander Rusli (ex-CEO of Indosat Ooredoo); DOOgether is a fitness studio and classes booking apps; It has 200+ partners and 20K+ classes available to be accessed in the Greater Jakarta, Bandung, and Bali.

UBS AG, Genting Group invest in Bukalapak; This brings the e-commerce unicorn’s latest round to US$400mn; This follows earlier investment from Microsoft, GIC, and Emtek; The round comes as the Indonesian firm prepares for IPO; Proceeds from IPO would shore up its chest war against the rising dominance of Shopee and Tokopedia.

Temasek, DBS, JP Morgan to launch new blockchain-based global payments platform; Called Partior, it aims to disrupt the traditional cross-border payments ‘hub and spoke’ model, which is typically costly and lengthy due to multiple validations on payment details by banks.

Indian food delivery major Zomato files for US$1.1bn IPO with market regulator; The company will be issuing about US$1bn in fresh equity shares, with early investor Info Edge India selling its stake, worth roughly US$100mn, in the IPO; In its filing, Zomato said its revenue from operations grew from US$62.7mn in FYE 2018 to US$350.5mn in FYE 2020.

Alibaba Business School launches ‘Netpreneur Training Program’ in Philippines; It is part of Alibaba’s wider initiative to promote inclusive development and empower entrepreneurs and businesses both large and small. Applications for this programme are open from now until June 20.

IMDA’s open innovation platform (OIP) to offer digital solutions; The OIP will soon have a discovery engine that makes the searching and matching of problem solvers to problem owners easier, through automated recommendations by analysing problem statements and recommending solvers with relevant experience; This will increase the accessibility of innovation to more enterprises.

The future of insurance lies in giving control back to customers; Hyper-personalisation is the way to make insurance more relevant to customers to continue to meet financial needs and close protection gaps in Singapore, says Income CEOAndrew Yeo; This approach is about tapping on data to support customers so that they can find the right solutions and make the best decision based on their needs.

SaaS, open source, and serverless: A winning combination to build and scale new businesses; Each of these can offer significant benefits. But the real breakthrough is in combining all three, flexibly combining services (such as a login) from a third-party SaaS provider and integrating them with other third-party services (such as recruiting management services) and company-specific functions (such as salary calculations) in a fully serverless architecture.

The future is (already) here: what FIs need to know about AI; There are countless benefits and integration opportunities for AI implementation; With increased automation of consumer interactions, financial institutions can help reduce operational costs, refocus on growth opportunities, and ultimately generate greater revenue.

From e-voting machines to blockchain-based e-voting?; Blockchain technology usually allows people to verify that their votes are recorded and counted correctly without compromising their anonymity; Moreover, anyone may be able to check the counting without the secrecy being hampered; However, there are security concerns in blockchain-based e-voting too.

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(L to R) : Co-founders of Tier One Entertainment Tryke Gutierrez and Alodia Gosiengfiao

Tier One Entertainment, a Filipino gaming, and e-sports entertainment startup has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A round of funding.

Led by Gobi Partners, the round also saw participation from Warner Music Group, Singapore’s family office Octava, Japan’s internet company KAYAC, and American early-stage VC firm Atlas Ventures.

The infusion of financing will power Tier One to set up local operations in other Asian countries.

The proceeds will also be utilised to hire back-end teams that will further support their talents, expand its e-sports operations in Blacklist International (Tier One’s e-sports team), and set up its first content creation hub in the Philippines.

Tier One was founded in 2017 by e-sports veteran Tryke Gutierrez, cosplay and gaming superstar Alodia Gosiengfiao, and seasoned entrepreneur Brian Lim.

Also Read: EVOS raises US$12M in Series B to accelerate the growth of its e-sports platform

Together, they visioned to revolutionise Southeast Asia’s e-sports landscape by turning talents into gaming superstars.

As COVID-19 accelerates gaming and e-sports interest, Tier One plans to take advantage of this growth by acquiring more up-and-coming talents in other markets.

Some of its commercial partners include Adidas, Uniqlo, Riot Games, Mountain Dew, and Tik Tok.

As of now, the company has locked in top talents in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Malaysia.

“We have come a long way since our first business meeting at my home in 2017. With the growth of mobile gaming, streaming and e-sports as an avenue for youth entertainment, we came up with the foresight to develop and house these talents by building our very own YG Entertainment of gaming,” Gosiengfiao said.

“The gaming industry is going through a golden age and this funding will help accelerate our growth by allowing us to replicate our success in other markets. In just a few years of operations, we have found a winning formula in e-sports and gaming by developing a robust business model around top-tier content creation and authentic distribution,” Gutierrez added.

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Image Credit: Tier One Entertainment

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Week after week, we continually implement improvements on e27 Pro features tp make your experience better and more valuable. One of the improvements we have made was making the Connect feature more robust, in the aim of helping you successfully make meaningful connections with investors.

One of the things we want to highlight are the investors who have been very active in responding to connection requests, as well as in providing business feedback and mentorship to our Pro members. We are planning to launch Active Investors icon and the Investor widget this quarter to better feature these investors.

In the meantime, check out 5 active investors you can get connected with:

Spiral Ventures

Investment: USD 300k – USD 1M, Series A, Series B

Straight from Spiral Ventures: Spiral Ventures (SV) is a Japanese ventures capital fund and headquartered in Singapore. SV has been investing in early stage and tech startups in Southeast Asia, India, and Japan since 2013.

Also read: Meet the engineers, developers, and products managers of e27 Luminaries

Golden Gate Ventures

Investment: USD 50K – USD 3M, Seed, Series A, Series C & Above

Straight from Golden Gate Ventures: Golden Gate Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing across Southeast Asia. Since 2011, the firm has invested in over 30 companies across more than 7 countries in Asia. The firm invests in internet & mobile startups across many sectors, including e-commerce, payments, marketplaces, mobile applications, and SaaS platforms.

Qualgro Venture Capital

Investment: Pre-Series A / Bridge, Series A, Series B

Straight from Qualgro Venture Capital: Qualgro Venture Capital is a Venture Capital firm based in Singapore, investing mainly in B2B companies in Data, SaaS and Artificial Intelligence, primarily at Series A & B. Quality & Growth.

Monk’s Hill Ventures

Investment: Pre-Series A, Bridge, Series A 

Straight from Monk’s Hill Ventures: Monk’s Hill Ventures is a Venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology startups in Southeast Asia. We take a first-principles approach and are sector agnostic, investing across industries and sectors including healthcare tech, edutech, fintech, and logistics.

Also read: “Investors are returning to being more sensitive to value”: Goh Seng Wee of Brain Too Free Ventures

Wavemaker Partners

Investment: USD 250K – USD 5M, Angel / Pre Seed, Seed, Pre-Series A / Bridge, Series A

Straight from Wavemaker Partners: Wavemaker Partners invest in a broad range of technology-driven companies in the US and Southeast Asia. With 15 member funds across 4 continents, they are able to provide their Asia-based founders with world-class access, insight and scale. It is headquartered in Los Angeles and affiliated with the investment bank, Siemer & Associates.

The Connect feature is exclusively available for Pro members. If you want to start connecting with these investors, get a Pro trial account now!

Image credit: Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

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Yesterday, together with the launch of e27 Luminaries, we have looked at the list of engineers, developers, and product managers that have played a great role in growing their companies throughout the pandemic. Through the platforms that they have worked on, they were able to make a difference, not only in their companies but also in the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem.

Now, we are moving on to the next stage of bringing innovation into the market: business development.

There are many different elements in business development. According to Investopedia, business development includes activities such as sales, strategic initiatives, business partnerships, market development, business expansion, and marketing. It plays a crucial role in getting a disruptive product out there, and eventually, bringing change to the ecosystem.

Here is a list of business development professionals at e27 Luminaries:

Andre Widjaja, Chief of Business Development at GudangAda

As one of the company’s earliest hires, Widjaja has played a crucial role in building the sales and business development team, setting the foundation for further expansion. He is spearheading the company’s business development to support business growth through customer acquisition and market outreach.

Recently, GudangAda announced a US$25.4 million Series A funding round. The company said that it has a full market coverage of FMCG wholesalers in Indonesia, and it is now targeting seven to ten per cent of the nation’s large retailer base for their next phase of growth.

Andre Widjaja, GudangAda. Image Credit: GudangAda

Also Read: Meet the engineers, developers, and products managers of e27 Luminaries

Raunak Mehta, Chief Commercial Officer at Igloo

According to Igloo, Mehta played a crucial role in the company’s success. To date, the company has entered into 20 successful business partnerships since 2016 and will be expanding its partnership to 50 by 2021, across key markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Despite the uncertainties posed by the pandemic, Raunak was able to snag swift and decisive wins for Igloo, securing partnerships with the region’s largest insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, travel and financial services companies such as Allianz, Cigna, MSIG, Sompo, Shopee, foodpanda, Bukalapak, Telkomsel, Blibli, Fabelio, RedDoorz, Union Bank of the Philippines, Mobifone and Loship to name a few; to launch lifestyle-focused products such as COVID-19 insurance, personal accident, phone screen protection and transit insurance for its partners and their customers.”

Raunak Mehta, Igloo. Image Credit: Igloo

Christine Kombong, Business Development Executive at Jala Tech

Jala Tech explains that during the pandemic, the shrimp farm owners that they are serving are struggling to monitor their farms due to travel restriction. This situation was made worse with the farm owners’ lack of understanding on how to use technology.

“Facing this issue, Christine and the team concept the Smart Farm programme … that engages farmers to work as a community and assist them in adopting the technology, also educate farmer with the best aquaculture practice. As a result … the programme also improves five to 10 per cent of farm productivity by lowering the 10 per cent of feed consumption and increasing the survival rate from 70 per cent to 75 per cent.”

“Because of the success of the programme, she got the opportunity to pitch it to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. In 2021, the government is taking this programme and willing to implement it in several locations across Java.”

Christine Kombong, Jala Tech. Image Credit: Jala Tech

Jonathan Bryan, Chief Marketing Officer at KoinWorks

According to KoinWorks, the uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to customers holding on to their cash and delay investing. But Bryan was able to handle the situation by focusing on a segmented promotion programme to re-maximise the marketing budget, and improving the company’s relationship with the media.

He also initiated the innovation in one of KoinWorks’ investment products, KoinRobo, to answer the needs of the users and people in Indonesia.

“Through those initiatives, Jonathan successfully gained user trust to keep investing and contribute to the growth of the total purchase of KoinRobo by up to 90 per cent in December 2020.”

Jonathan Bryan, KoinWorks. Image Credit: KoinWorks

Also Read: For e27 Luminaries, we are looking for companies that fulfill the following criteria

Aleksandra Hessel, Head of Business Development at The Nurturing Co

Hessel joined The Nurturing Co in early 2020, a little after the circuit breaker measure being implemented in Singapore.

“We would spend almost an hour with each team for the next few months, sharing and learning as she settled into her role. When Phase 3 started, she really started to step up. As a key person in a small team, Aleks has had to carry a lot of the weight of helping grow our Singapore customer base, across retail, F&B, hotel and corporate customer bases. Leaning into her own networks to help drive brand awareness and trust.”

“She is amazing at promoting the values of our company … We were extremely lucky to have her join us at such a key moment, and she is key to our future success here in Singapore and elsewhere.”

Aleksandra Hessel, The Nurturing Co

Jenn Lim, Business Development Manager at TurtleTree

As one of the earliest team members in the company, Lim has seen TurtleTree grow from a handful of team members to 25 full-time employees. Her contribution has helped TurtleTree to win various recognition from both investors and the startup ecosystem in general.

“She helped to build a structure to the company at the start and is active in developing the business. Her contribution has brought us to win the Temasek Liveability Challenge, which is key to exposing the company on a global platform. Following that, we also participated in the Entrepreneurship World Cup and emerged at the top.”

Jenn Lim, TurtleTree. Image Credit: TurtleTree

Carmelita Lumempouw, Marketing Manager at Quincus

As a marketing manager, there are several initiatives that Lumempouw has started. She also helped the company win several accolades, from ORIGIN Innovation Awards 2020 for Jonathan Savoir as Founder of The Year, 2020 Women in Supply Chain for Katherina Lacey (Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer) and several HRD Awards Asia 2020.

“She also successfully implemented #QuincusTalks, a monthly webinar series that covers supply chain, logistics, tech and, most recently, creating spaces for females in supply chain.”

Sujinun Jutakorn, VP of Sales at Xendit

In March, Xendit announced a US$64.6 million Series B funding round that the company intended to use to expand its digital payments infrastructure service.

Starting off in 2014 as a P2P lending platform, Xendit evolved into a payments infrastructure company that enables businesses to accept digital payments without the need to implement integrations with individual providers. It has since expanded its services to include services such as fraud detection, lending, and tax management.

Xendit claims it processes more than 65 million transactions, amounting to US$6.5 billion in payment value annually.

Sujinun Jutakorn, Xendit. Image Credit: Xendit

Joanna Chua, Business Director at Sqreem Technologies

During the pandemic, Sqreem Technologies was able to secure partnership with the government of South Africa to provide real-time contact tracing and communication system. The partnership was meant to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Channel Sqreem, their platform, can track an individual using their mobile device ID without needing to know personal information of the device owner.

Joanna Chua, Sqreem Technologies. Image Credit: Sqreem Technologies.

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The e27 Luminaries is an initiative by e27 to celebrate the unsung heroes of the SEA startup ecosystem. Discover these notable companies and individuals here.

Image Credit: Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

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The Super team

Super, a social commerce platform serving second- and third-tier cities and rural areas in Indonesia, announced today it has completed a US$28 million oversubscribed Series B round led by SoftBank Ventures Asia.

Returning investors include Amasia, Insignia Ventures Partners, Y-Combinator Continuity Fund, and Stephen Pagliuca (co-chairman of Bain Capital and co-owner of Boston Celtics).

Partners of DST Global and TNB Aura also co-invested.

The company will use the fresh capital to double down on its presence in East Java and launch in other Indonesian provinces later this year, besides developing its white-label products.

This round follows the previous oversubscribed US$7 million Series A led by Amasia, which was also joined by the likes of Y- Combinator, B Capital, Insignia, Alpha JWC Ventures.

With this round, Super’s total investment raised to date has crossed US$36 million.

A graduate of Y Combinator, Super is a social commerce platform. It offers Superagen, an agent-led commerce that empowers community leaders to become self-made entrepreneurs by enabling them to sell various products to their communities.

The startup also builds a logistics network with “the lowest cost” and facilitates communication for social-buying behaviour, so the agents can sell various products through social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Also Read: Leveraging social e-commerce to maximise your brand in China

“Imagine community leaders in remote villages acting as the Walmart of their community by aggregating demand. Super is doing the same. We deliver products to the agents once they hit the minimum order volume. They in turn carry out the last-mile delivery for their users,” explained CEO and co-founder Steven Wongsoredjo.

In his view, the price of goods in second- and third-tier cities can be up to 200 per cent higher than prices for the same goods in Jakarta. But purchasing power in these more remote areas is usually a fraction of what it is in Jakarta.

“Coming from a family business that serves the retail industry in these more remote regions, I was aware of this problem from a young age. It seemed so unfair that a mother in rural Indonesia could only buy one cup of milk for one US dollar, while that same dollar could buy you two-three cups in Jakarta. We wanted to provide fair prices for citizens everywhere, so we set up Super,” he shared.

The founding team quickly realised that the key to providing reasonable prices lay in a more efficient supply chain.

“We saw how the explosion of social commerce in China and India allowed for cheaper prices for consumers in those markets,” added co-founder and former Googler Debeasinta Budiman.

“We also find great satisfaction that our agent-based model empowers mostly female micro-entrepreneurs in areas of the country that traditionally offer less economic opportunities. The fact that we connect large suppliers to these agents eliminates the need for excess fleets and warehouses in a traditionally bloated supply chain. So as we expand our reach, we also help decrease Indonesia’s carbon emissions. Super’s business model is a win-win for everyone,” he continued.

The company mainly generates revenues through direct purchase from the principal and taking a share of the profit when selling to agents, as well as through white-labelling of products. The firm recently launched its own white-label brand, SuperEats.

Super currently operates across 17 cities in the East Java region of Indonesia. The company leverages a hyperlocal logistics platform to deliver consumer goods to agents, usually within 24 hours of order.

The CEO claims that the startup partners with thousands of community agents to distribute millions of dollars’ worth of goods to their communities each month.

At present, Super is focused on FMCG products and will look to expand its product range with the current fundraise.

Also Read: A look at the future of social commerce

Speaking of the competition, Wongsoredjo said. “If you track down social commerce in Indonesia, there are a few players, some of who do fashion products and some cosmetics etc, but there is no one in the FMCG space. Then, there are unicorns like Tokopedia but they are actually complementing our business.”

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Image Credit: Super

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of most economies worldwide, and Singapore is no exception. Singaporean SMEs employ two-thirds of the workforce and contribute nearly half of the city state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Covid-19 has wiped out thousands of SMEs, particularly in the Food & Beverage and retail sectors, with the remainder forced to go online and embrace e-commerce to ensure survival. And although the vaccine rollout is gathering steam, this consumer shift is here to stay.

While uncertainty is a constant in business, the adoption of modern technologies that provide SME owners reliable and up-to-date data reduces risk levels and allows enterprises to adapt quickly to unforeseen changes. With real-time data at their fingertips, SMEs can stay afloat during uncertainties by scrutinising cash flows, shifting business resources, and being lean, mean and responsive to sudden and unpredictable events.

Keeping SMEs afloat in uncertain times

Oracle NetSuite is one of the world’s leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, enabling businesses to manage inventory, track financials, host e-commerce stores and maintain customer relationship management systems.

Peter Quek, ASEAN General Manager of Oracle NetSuite recalled that when the pandemic hit, the immediate challenges were about securing the safety of the employees while ensuring that the operations were not impacted, and allowing business to carrry on .

“I had the privilege of talking to the CEO of Unistar — a credit and finance company based in the Philippines who invested in NetSuite almost four years ago. Amidst Covid-19, all of their offices and outlets were closed but they were able to continue business as usual. This not only helped them but their customers as well,” he said.

One such SME customer is Zilingo, a B2C fashion and lifestyle e-commerce startup operating in Asia Pacific and the U.S. The fashion industry as a whole was hard hit by the pandemic, but Zilingo was able to stay agile and adapt to the evolving needs of its customers.

Also read: Winning the deal: Meet the business development professionals of e27 Luminaries

COO Aadi Vaidya said, “The first thing we did was to see what our manufacturers were capable of doing with whatever they had. Thanks to NetSuite’s ERP, we quickly helped our lingerie manufacturers based in Sri Lanka switch to producing masks while our beauty manufacturers began producing hand sanitisers. That way, Zilingo’s operations could continue and we could weather the storm.”

Scalable, accessible and reliable

Even the smallest of SMEs use some form of accounting software to track finances, but the data collected is largely surface level and divorced from other parts of the business. NetSuite’s cloud ERP solutions streamline financial data with other key processes in the organisation, allowing SMEs to manage orders, production, supply chain, procurement and fulfilment activities as well as oversee financial planning from one platform.

Having all the necessary business data in the cloud gives SMEs added advantages such as scalability and accessibility, especially during the pandemic when employees switched to home working. Additionally, regulators and governments responded to Covid-19 with added tax incentives and deductibles, which can be reflected in NetSuite’s cloud ERP for companies to easily update and access.

Also read: Building a privacy-first internet: How developers and enterprises can adapt to the new privacy normal

The richness of data is vital even for those in the funding ecosystem, such as VC and NetSuite customer Accion Venture Lab.

Southeast Asia investment officer Paolo Limcaoco said: “It is almost impossible for a VC to invest into a startup where data visibility is lacking because that does not give us the whole picture- cash crunch, revenues, monthly burn and other key points. This was important even before the pandemic but has become even more pertinent now.”

Driving productivity and efficiency

Studies show that the digitalisation of Singapore SMEs could add up to US$24 billion to the country’s GDP by 2024 due to higher revenue and productivity gains.

Peter from NetSuite believes data visibility is more crucial now than ever before.

“With a robust ERP, you have access to a wide range of data points that you can leverage to understand the gaps in operations. From efficiently managing working capital to handling supply chains with tact, data visibility is key to all crucial touchpoints that help with business growth,” he said.

Also read: Dinner date with data: How F&B retailers can use retail data to drive sales in a post-pandemic world

The Singapore government has stepped up efforts to provide incentives for SMEs to leverage digital technologies to transform their businesses, such as the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA)’s SMEs Go Digital programme.

Grants and funding support

A notable grant under this programme is the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG), which helps fund SME adoption of pre-approved digital solutions such as customer relationship management, data analytics, financial management, inventory tracking, online collaboration tools, virtual meeting and telephony tools, queue management systems and temperature screening solutions.

SMEs can get up to 80% funding support by adopting a solution from the five pre-approved NetSuite SuiteSuccess solutions that have been designed to support growing businesses.

By reimbursing much of the cost of new technologies, the Singapore government via PSG plans to expedite SMEs’ implementation of smarter cloud solutions.

The PSG grant is open to businesses that are registered and operating in Singapore, of which a minimum of 30% is owned by local shareholders. The purchased/leased solutions (NetSuite’s ERP in this case) must be used in Singapore, and the company must have at least three local employees at the point of application or deployment of the solution.

Qualified SMEs can get pre-approved quotes from NetSuite, and discuss the specific solution with a NetSuite specialist consultant. After choosing a pre-approved solution, SMEs need to submit their application together with the pre-approved quote on the Business Grants Portal.

NetSuite pre-approved packages under the PSG will cover the first-year license, implementation services if included, Learning Cloud Support (LCS) training and the number of users included in the pre-approved package.

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Disclosure: This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by NetSuite.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

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