Singapore-based Flash Coffee, a tech-enabled coffee chain backed by Rocket Internet, announced today that it has raised US$15 million in Series A financing, led by White Star Capital.
The round was also joined by prominent investors, including Delivery Hero-backed DX Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Conny & Co.
With this round, Flash Coffee’s total capital raised to date has touched US$20 million.
The latest financing will be used to expand the brand in 10 markets across APAC, which saw the emergence of the likes of Indonesian chains Kopi Kenangan and Fore Coffee.
Flash Coffee was co-founded by David Brunier (CEO) and Sebastian Hannecker (COO & CFO). Brunier was previously foodpanda CMO, whereas Hannecker worked for Bain Consulting before turning entrepreneur.
Launched in January 2020, Flash Coffee claims it serves a menu of high-quality drinks at affordable prices. Customers can use its mobile app to order and pay online, choosing to pick up orders from its yellow storefronts, or order for delivery through major platforms in each market.
The app boasts of a streamlined pick-up feature, loyalty programme, personalised promotions and interactive challenges.
According to the startup, its unique coffee menu curated by World Latte Art Champion Arnon Thitiprasert sets it apart from conventional cafes and quick service brands. All drinks are prepared with premium ingredients and 100 per cent Arabica coffee beans. Its signature drinks include Avo Latte, Nutella Latte and Lychee Espresso, to name a few.
Flash Coffee now operates in 50 locations across Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, with majority of its stores already achieving profitability. It plans to open 300 new stores across the region by end of this year.
“Our dream is to have a Flash Coffee every 500 metres in all major Asian cities,” said Brunier. “Strong investor support for our Series A round enables us to harness untapped potential in the region and replicate our success in seven new markets this year: Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.”
“We will also build a regional HQ in Singapore and expand our regional tech hub in Jakarta to 50 people to support our vision of fully leveraging technology to improve customer experience, proactively drive growth and significantly increase operational efficiency,” he shared.
Eric Martineau-Fortin, founder and Managing Partner at White Star Capital, added: “We believe that the brand’s tech- enabled approach will drive its ability to provide high quality coffee and service at excellent value to address an underserved demand for affordable premium coffee in these rapidly expanding Asian markets.”
The Southeast Asian coffee chain market is fairly overcrowded with Kopi Kenangan and Fore Coffee being the dominant players. While Flash Coffee with a slew of high-profile backers has made its intention very clear, it will be an uphill task for it to take on the local behemoths and find a place in the market.
Kopi Kenangan, which entered the market at least three years before Flash Coffee did, raised a massive US$109 million in Series B led by Sequoia Capital in March 2020. It already operates 426 outlets in 26 cities, with plans to further expand its business. Fore Coffee — backed by East Ventures, SMDV and Pavilion Capital — is also a serious player and is ambitious to expand locally in Indonesia.
Technology has long been touted as the great equaliser that is helping solve the world’s complex problems, bringing benefits to societies and communities, as well as helping businesses keep pace with the dizzying pace of change. Yet, much has also been said about technology being an exclusive playing field for men, often leaving out women from a seat at the table.
While I have faced my fair share of challenges as a woman working in tech for two decades, it has been encouraging to see the rise of diversity and inclusion as boardroom priorities for many organisations, not just in technology, but also across various sectors in Southeast Asia.
This is indicative of real, positive change being driven by generations of female tech trailblazers who have ignited conversations and lobbied for equality. It is now up to us, the contemporaries in technology, to honour and build upon these efforts in creating an even more equitable and inclusive future for the sector.
There is still much to be done. A recent survey by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority showed that women only account for 32 per cent of Southeast Asia’s tech workforce. Building an inclusive home for women in tech remains a long and arduous journey, and everyone has a role to play in re-evaluating and challenging preconceptions and biases, as well as sustaining ongoing conversations to effect meaningful change.
Closing the confidence gap
Having had the privilege of working closely with many illustrious female tech leaders at ThoughtWorks, and through strong mutual support including deep dialogue and sharing sessions, I have noticed that many of us continue to face an unfounded lack of confidence and self-belief, despite the depth of talent and expertise that exists. Yet, these leaders have still managed to find success by honing an internal fortitude to deal with negative voices and imposter syndrome.
Women in technology need to actively remind themselves to focus on their own capabilities, rather than compare themselves with their male counterparts. And this can all begin by internalising this simple truth: that we are here because we have proven that we are capable enough to be in this position.
Mutual support is important and it makes things easier too, and I was fortunate to be placed in a positive environment where constant, strong encouragement enabled me to learn and grow in confidence. It is critical that we provide robust internal support systems for female tech talent, where they can find solidarity, empathy and dialogue with trusted coworkers and mentors.
This is especially needed due to the lack of mentors and sponsors for women in tech, whose workplace challenges are very different from men.
Challenging unconscious biases
There are unconscious biases that we all have as human beings, and these can sometimes be more pronounced in the tech sector. Research has shown that men are often advanced based on potential, while women are advanced based on actual accomplishments. Women and men also both judge resumes with female names more harshly than an identical resume with a man’s name.
Dealing with these issues eventually just gets to be too much for some women and they leave. I resonate with ThoughtWorks’ belief in building awareness and sensitising people on topics like building equitable tech, challenging unconscious bias, dealing with micro-aggressions, being a good ally, preventing discrimination and harassment in our workplaces, and more.
Tech leaders should consider investing in practical unconscious bias training for all employees. We should not assume that employees from underrepresented groups will own these initiatives and programmes, unless they specifically express their interest. People working in tech must be encouraged to regularly question their own preconceived judgements and to recognise and curb their own biases.
Recognising the existence of biases and attempting to mitigate the negative consequences of biases are essential. We need to have open conversations about the issues surrounding gender bias, and we must commit to working to overcome that bias, even when it is hard or inconvenient. All this can be achieved through leading by example.
A home for women in tech
Inclusion is everyone’s job. It unifies us as a community, and brings out the best in individuals and teams. The tech industry has made remarkable progress over the years, but we are not done yet and there is plenty to do, with no single answer to the myriad issues at hand.
Ultimately, the move towards fairness and parity in tech should not be seen as simply implementing a set of company initiatives or programmes. Rather, it has to be about sustained, systematic shifts in cultural norms and mindsets at the workplace, where everyone can truly be themselves.
This will also mean closer collaboration with public and private sector stakeholders to set agendas at the national level, from driving awareness around diversity and inclusion, to developing training schemes supporting a greater understanding of fairness and equality.
As we carefully navigate a post-pandemic world that is leaving traditional norms behind, it is my hope that the tech industry will take the opportunity to reset and effect powerful, positive change, furthering conversations around diversity and inclusion to give people an environment to belong and grow, and to feel respected, safe and valued. A home to all: regardless of gender, age, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion, disability, background or identity.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.
COVID-19 has changed how we eat. The food and beverage industry has had to adapt to massive pandemic-wrought shifts: supply chains have changed, new hazard controls have been imposed, and — perhaps most pertinent to the layman consumer — consumer preferences have been upheaved.
At some point during the quarantines, you probably gave up on cooking dinner and ordered food in. And, chances are, you did so through a food delivery platform. Food delivery services experienced an unprecedented surge in use, as an important (and in some cases, only) conduit between restaurants and grocery outlets, and their customers.
And, according to research from Bain & Company and Facebook, this habit is likely to persist even post-pandemic — people are expected to continue shopping for groceries and other essential items online even after the coronavirus pandemic ends.
And as our (quite literally) consumption habits go online and stay there, it’s become important for food services to abandon the idea of a return to old processes. They need to consider how many of the newly-implemented processes we see as part of the “new normal” will last in the long-run, and how to use them to stay ahead of the curve.
Consumer data has become even more important
Going digital makes collecting data easier than ever — and the collection and use of consumer data is a key part to the success of the new trends we’ve seen emerge during the pandemic.
Besides food delivery services, another trend that has seen a surge amidst the pandemic are cloud and ghost kitchens: food production and delivery services that are entirely online, with no physical store presence whatsoever. An idea that is more than a decade old and originally conceived as a solution to increasing property rentals, the cloud kitchen’s catapult into prominence came amidst the pandemic, when social distancing norms and quarantines kept people out of physical restaurants.
And, much like the convenience offered by food delivery, the lower overhead costs of maintaining a cloud kitchen means that they are likely to remain after the pandemic. In China, cloud kitchens are expanding rapidly, as they ride the wave of online food delivery — a market already worth a whopping US$37 billlion.
These services — be it tech platforms such as Grab Food and Foodpanda, or even the in-house delivery service of your favourite local restaurant — benefit greatly from understanding data.
With an understanding of their peak periods and their consumer preferences — such as their best-selling products and what products are bought together — restaurant and delivery companies are able to make informed decisions on sales strategies and minimise inventory wastage.
And, with information on delivery times and where their customers are ordering from, they can ensure they have sufficient riders at busy locations, resulting in a smoother delivery process and satisfied customers.
Of course, data can’t do everything yet: Ensuring the quality of food still requires a discerning tongue, and is highly subject to human error. We can only rely on data that is being collected via customer feedback, and improve from there.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room
It’s come up time and time again, but it bears being said: For all that they have been a lifeline amidst the pandemic, in the long run, these food delivery services may be hurting the very industry that they are claiming to help.
Food delivery services were conceived of in a different time: Before the pandemic, they often weren’t the only or even the primary source of revenue for restaurants. Rather, they were an additional revenue stream, and an additional way for them to manage excess inventory — they were a nice thing to have, but most of a restaurant’s income came from its physical visitors.
Yet, times have changed. Now, for many dine-in restaurants, online delivery is the only way to survive. Further, as delivery habits have shown themselves to be sticky consumer behaviour — the Asian market for restaurant dining is expected to fall to 7.5 per cent over the decade to 2026 — these changes look to last.
A once-minor revenue stream has become a major revenue stream. And, when you consider the sizeable merchant fees that major food delivery platforms charge and the fact that these restaurants are operating far under their usual profits, it’s clear that only restaurants with higher margins can sustain these operations.
So what can dine-in restaurants do?
It’s a misconception that data is only effective for big tech platforms. As I mentioned earlier, even your favourite local restaurant can benefit from an understanding of data — be it from their physical or online sales. Knowledge of your customers’ preferences and habits, your inventory and wastage, are crucial for any restaurant owner to optimise their operations and increase sales.
At Innergia Labs, we helped a local restaurant chain use data to increase their annual revenue by 8 per cent. Based on the data they collected via our Sycarda platform, their sales and marketing team analysed their store’s off-peak hours, taking note of average wallet spend, as well as the most popular à la carte items that customers tended to bundle together in their purchase.
Using these insights, the company then designed a set meal promotion to bring in more customers during off-peak hours. Over the subsequent three month campaign, they brought in MYR500,000 a month. Data is not just for the big guys.
Moreover: Competition in the online food delivery industry rising. There are new delivery platforms coming into the market everyday, and their competitive rates bode better for restaurant owners. It would be in their best interests for business owners to keep up with these alternatives, and work towards creating a more competitive climate for food delivery.
And, beyond the pandemic, the creation of omni-channel experience will be crucial. Ordering food online may be a sticky habit, but there’s occasions when we would prefer to dress up and dine out. A restaurant could use their online presence to build awareness, to pique their customer’s interest in dining in-person — and offer a unique in-person dining experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
All-in-all, the F&B industry must embrace digital transformation. It’s not just a stopgap measure amidst the pandemic — and there’s no going back to the way things used to be.
Still, if you’re a customer? Preemptively walk off your calories and dabao some food from your favourite restaurants. You’re helping them more than you think.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.
The co-founders of Friz Ash Rhazaly (L) and Nirali Zaveri
Friz, a Singapore-based fintech startup focused on providing financial services for freelancers, has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding from investors, including Y Combinator, 500 Durians, 500 TukTuks, Iterative VC and other prominent angel investors.
The company was part of Y Combinator’s recently-concluded W21 batch.
The capital raised will be used for the expansion of its engineering and marketing teams, as well as to expand into markets such as the Philippines and Thailand.
Launched in April 2020, Friz leverages data insights to provide financial products including credit cards, personal loans, insurance, savings and investment products for freelancers. With Friz, freelancers can keep track of and manage their incomes, expenses, savings, and borrowings all under one roof — hence boosting productivity and bridging borrowing gaps.
“We are currently serving white-collar freelancers in Singapore and will soon grow to support markets like the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand in the region. There are more than 80 million freelancers in Asia at the moment, and this is the fastest-growing market for freelance talent, as individuals are digitally savvy, fluent in English and have diploma/degree qualifications,” shared Ash Rhazaly, CTO and co-founder of Friz.
“Freelancers are entrepreneurs and business people in every regard. For a very long time, they have fallen through the cracks of traditional consumer and business banking — but it is high time that all these changes. At Friz, we are determined to create a new financial paradigm for the future of work,” said Nirali Zaveri, CEO and co-founder of Friz.
“Work-from-home arrangements have proven to large corporates and small businesses that remote work can be productive when managed through the right tools. This has led to a vast movement in favour of freelance jobs across the world. Employers are increasingly hiring more freelancers as they adopt agile and flexible cost structures, and individuals are enjoying the ability to access jobs from around the world and turning to freelance as a long-term career choice,” she added.
There has been a recent upsurge in the number of freelancers operating globally, which comes from the pandemic forcing individuals into working remotely.
This trend is particularly noticeable in the Asia Pacific region, where a reported 84 per cent of hiring managers are outsourcing projects to freelancers.
Circus Social, a Singapore- and India-based social media analytics company, announced today that it has raised US$1 million in pre-Series A funding.
Indian VC firm Inflection Point Ventures (IPV) led the round, with participation from several other strategic investors, including Saurabh Gupta, Director of DC OSSE; Ganesh Mohan, Head of Strategy of Bajaj Finserv; Samit Shetty, CEO of Navi FinServe; Royston Tay and Yang Bin Kwok, co-founders of Zopim; and Srinivasan Venkita Padmanabhan, President of Olam Group.
Circus Social will use the funds to scale its platform, expand globally and strengthen its team.
Founded in 2013, by Indian Institute of Technology graduate Ram Bhamidi and King’s College London graduate Prerna Pant, Circus Social is a platform that helps businesses makes decisions from real-time social media conversations.
Its offerings allow companies to track competitors, benchmark performance, analyse sentiment and predict trends using AI and Machine Learning.
The startup has clients across multiple industries in over 15 countries in Asia Pacific, including Fortune 500 clients across the Asia Pacific.
Mitesh Shah, co-founder of IPV, said: “Social listening has become a mainstay of the marketing strategy of most enterprises today. Brands want to know what their customers want and give it to them in real-time. Plain vanilla social marketing is passé. Circus Social founding teams’ understanding of AI and its use in social listening has proven its mettle based on the numbers we have seen, thus making it a good opportunity for IPV to invest in the company.”
With 4.8 billion internet users and over 3.96 billion social media users globally, roughly 51 per cent of the world’s population is on social media. An average user is on nine social platforms, making the market size and need for Big Data analytics products extremely huge.
The global social media analytics market size is expected to grow from US$3.6 billion in 2020 to US$15.6 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34.1 per cent.
Glints, a Singapore-based HR-tech company focusing on career development and recruitment, has raised US$22.5 million in a Series C funding round led by Tokyo-listed PERSOL Holdings.
Returning investors, including Monk’s Hill Ventures, Fresco Capital, Mindworks Ventures and Wavemaker Partners, besides angels such as Binny Bansal (co-founder of Flipkart) and Xiaoyin Zhang (former Head and Partner at Goldman Sachs TMT China) also participated in the round.
As per a press release, the oversubscribed round is the largest investment into an online career platform in Southeast Asia to date. The company previously raised US$6.8 million in a Series B funding round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures in July 2019.
Glints said the fresh funds will go towards developing additional features and solutions on its platform and expanding its presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan. It also intends to scale its product and engineering teams.
Launched in 2013, Glints combines community forums, skills education (Academy and ExpertClass) and job features (Job Marketplace) to provide a full-stack talent platform that supports professionals in their career discovery and development. The company claims over four million professionals visit its platform every month.
For employers, Glints provides a tech-enabled recruitment solution that it claims is twice as efficient as traditional recruiters. Its clientele includes gojek, Tokopedia, FWD Insurance, Starbucks and Mediacorp.
Despite headwinds from the pandemic, Glints noted it has seen “resilient” growth in 2020 with annual revenues more than doubling, continuing the trend of annual revenues growing at triple-digit percentages for the past three years.
The company also remarked it sees positive contribution margins across all business units, with Indonesia and Vietnam markets already profitable.
“With the pandemic accelerating the future of work and causing big changes in the labour market, our mission to empower the 120 million professionals in Southeast Asia is more important than ever. Existing solutions are transactional job portals and traditional recruiters that only provide part of the solution,” shared Oswald Yeo, co-founder & CEO of Glints.
“We are scaling Glints as a full-stack talent platform to support the professionals in Southeast Asia with their career discovery and development and to solve the regional talent crunch for employers,” he added.
“I am excited that we are strengthening our partnership with Glints. With PERSOL Group’s commercial distribution and experience in Asia and Glints’ leading tech-enabled talent platform, we will empower professionals in Southeast Asia and help solve the talent crunch in Southeast Asia,” opined Takayuki Yamazaki, CEO of PERSOL Asia Pacific.
“Oswald and his team have fundamentally reimagined a job seeker and employer’s journey in the context of the future of work. The speed at which they’ve achieved sustainable revenues with solid business fundamentals and the scale at which they have built a substantial talent and employer base is astounding,” remarked Peng T. Ong, Managing Partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.
Prestige Biopharma is one of the six companies looking to launch an IPO in 2021
SEA tech startups raised US$8.2bn in 2020 despite COVID-19 impact; The total number of deals stood at 333 in 2020, with mega deals from household names including Grab, Bukalapak, and Traveloka as well as gojek and Go-Pay accounting for about 50% of the year’s total investment volume. More here
6 SEA startups vying for an IPO in 2021; They are Grab, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Prestige Biopharma, M-DAQ, and JustCo; Singapore-based Prestige Biopharma is taking a different route: to South Korea; IPOs have become a measurable trend among startups in the region in the past year. More here
‘There’s no one-size-fits-all for corporate innovation, experimentation is key’: Sunway Group’s innovation chief; Matt Van Leeuwen believes that corporate VC has a long way to go in Asia, and a lot of corporates are only still scratching the surface. More here
In-depth: Female-led startups make strides, but venture funding lags; Recent reports demonstrate that female led startups are more likely to be bootstrapped, and less likely to be venture-backed than male-led digital health companies, which can lead to major hurdles for early-stage companies. More here
#dltledgers lands US$7M Series A to grow its blockchain-based cross-border trade digitisation platform; Investors include Regis & Savoy Capital (Bengaluru), Vittal Investments, and Walden International; Corporates and banks use #dltledgers to authenticate their commercial documents, contracts and bank interactions, enabling them to automate multi-party transactions, streamline processes and reduce cost. More here
Real estate developer sues Bukalapak for “illegal acts”, seeks US$6.2mn compensation; PT Harmas Jalesveva requested the court to confiscate 75% of Bukalapak’s shares as a collateral until a verdict is returned; The realty firm also filed a lawsuit against local property advisory and marketing company PT Leads Property Service Indonesia. More here
SEA’s e-commerce market to grow by 5.5%; According to a report by a research firm PPRO, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam are the top five SEA markets that are leading the charge; Within the region, the growing popularity of live streaming on e-commerce platforms cannot be ignored. More here
Traveloka-SCB10X JV to offer digital financial services in Thailand; Coined Trex Ventures, the JV will utilise Traveloka’s platform to distribute services, targeting travellers and lifestyle consumers; In Thailand, only 30% of the population owns a credit card, which offers significant opportunity for Traveloka. More here
Vietnam — one of the leading startup hubs of SEA; Many factors constitute Vietnam’s emergence as a startup hub of the region; These include- rising consumer spending, revenue growth in digital sectors such as e-commerce and fintech, growing interest of foreign investment funds especially Singaporean, Korean and Japanese VC funds, along with targeted support from the government. More here
Is the future e-commerce? Here’s why brick-and-mortar is still relevant in S’pore today; Opening a physical store can provide a brand’s customers with a seamless and integrated online and offline experience; With the online marketplace being so saturated, better in-store experiences can help to attract and retain customers more effectively. More here
Homebase has become first Vietnamese startup to get accepted into Y Combinator; The proptech startup has also received US$125K from the US-based accelerator; This comes off its recent fundraise from Troy Steckenrider III, Darius Cheung, VinaCapital, etc. More here
Yoan Kamalski steps down as CEO of Hmlet; As per a Business Times report, Peter Kennedy, senior advisor at Burda Principal Investments, an investor in Hmlet, is serving as its interim CEO starting this month; Kamalski’s stepping down is the latest in a series of departures by the top management; Hmlet CTO Pramodh Rai is set to leave in June. More here
Huawei backs Indonesia’s HPN in Sharia-based MSMEs’ digital push; HPN is part of the country’s largest Muslim organisation Nahdlatul Ulama; Under the plan, Huawei would help build the tech infra and nurturing digital tech talent among the Sharia-compliant MSMEs in line with the government’s initiatives to leverage the digital and Sharia economy potential for Indonesia’s economic recovery. More here
SGProtein builds SEA’s first large-scale contract manufacturing facility for meat alternatives; The facility is expected to commence production this year and will offer an initial production capacity of over 3K tonnes a year; SGProtein successfully raised US$3mn in its recent seed round. More here
5 startups handpicked for Cyberview’s CLLA accelerator programme; These startups, which successfully outpitched their peers before a panel of judges, are Roomah, Pandai, Synapse Innovation, LinkUp Smart Solutions, and Move Robotic; CLLA aims to provide a launchpad for startups and innovators to accelerate their business development and growth in Cyberjaya. More here
How upstarts and bigger players are jostling to BNPL pie in SEA; What is driving the trend is shift towards online retail and rising mobile payments adoption; As the model finds growing acceptance among millennials, Gen Z and cash-strapped consumers, BNPL players are seeing significant user traction and investor interest in SEA. More here
Funding sources — what’s the best for your startup?; Singapore, Hong Kong, and Jakarta are the leading startup ecosystems in Southeast Asia due to the presence of strong venture capital investors, availability of funding, and great talent pool. More here
Vietnam to trial 5G services on a large scale in 2021; A report shows VN’s digital economy reached a total value of US$14bn in 2020, US$2bn higher than that of 2019; Of the total number of digital service users, new users in Vietnam accounted for 41%; This makes VN the country with the highest rate of new Internet users in the region. More here
Business Mentor: Startup mistakes every entrepreneur should avoid; You may have thought of a unique product to sell, but without a market need for it, your business is bound to fail; Before you even focus on a particular product to sell, do market research on what is really needed and in demand; From there, you can make your products more appealing than your competitors’ offerings. More here
Smart technologies will continue to transform workplaces post-COVID-19; The widespread adoption of automated tools featuring developments such as AI, robotics, cloud computing and IoT has transformed manufacturing and industrial practices and the way we work. More here
Here are 5 reasons to expand your business to Philippines; With a population of almost 110mn people, a GDP of US$367bn, and a GDP growth of 6.6%, Philippines is a developing market economy—ranking 3rd highest in nominal GDP among other SEA countries, just behind Indonesia and Thailand; The main contributors to the Philippines’ GDP are the service, industrial, and agricultural sectors. More here
Why 2021 is the year to embrace creative leadership; Organisational culture is crucial to an innovative company, yet it can often seem like an elusive and intangible concept; Based on the results of the Adobe Creativity Quotient, only 29% of APAC leaders have succeeded in creating a culture that embraces creativity. More here
Crowdtesting is the key to smooth digital payments; Despite the obvious benefits, a lot of complexity goes into building and maintaining the underlying network that allows people to pay with a swipe of a card or by tapping a few buttons on their smartphones. More here
How central banks can support sustainable growth through green finance and enhance cross-border payments; Green finance today is hampered by challenges that reduce the incentive for investors to invest in green projects; Technology can be an enabler to overcome two of these challenges. More here
I have spent nearly half my career in SEA and have always been vocal about its economic potential. And the multitude of unicorn and decacorns in the region only second my view.
As do, our contributors this week, who are discussing the potential of warungs in Indonesia and why Asia is a lucrative ground for fresh investment ever more so now.
Plus, wrapping up the women’s day theme this month is a Vertex VC and her tips on how we can bridge gender inequality. Check out the top contributor posts from last week and stay up-to-date with the tech startup world trends.
We are open to sharing your views and perspectives with our readers. All you need to do is take a deep breath, think of what you want to share with the world badly, click on submit a post and write away!
“At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses that had embraced change and had the agility to launch new business models were better able to thrive in the new operating environment.
Those were the businesses whose leaders were competent in change management and were able to effectively guide their teams through a period of intense transformation.
As businesses increasingly embrace hybrid work environments, they need to find new ways to support a culture that develops employee creativity. Aim to recreate or simulate the aspects of the company culture that require in-person engagement, such as water cooler conversations and informal spaces for bonding, as these are familiar environments for collaboration that spark creativity.”
“There is no question that gender disparity is a real issue: the trailing numbers in wage amounts and leadership representation compared to men are clear for all to see. We recognise now that women are just as capable as men, especially in the workforce, and broadly agree that maintaining gender diversity is not just a sensible thing to do but it also makes a lot of business sense.
Very often, businesses see securing the best talent as one of their key priorities and may even relate it to their profitability. On paper, men are the more reliable hires because they don’t need months of maternity leave.”
“Indonesia is home to a US$380 billion retail market which accounted for about 35 per cent of total GDP in 2019.
Close to 80 per cent of the US$380 billion retail industry is dominated by the unorganised sector characterised by local “mom-and-pop” stores which come in various shapes and sizes (for simplicity, we will use a catch-all phrase “warung“).
There are a number of tech startups including unicorns (e.g. gojek), soonicorns (e.g. Warung Pintar) or upstarts (e.g. Ula) which are vying for a piece of this US$300 billion+ industry.”
“As the demand for sustainable investing peaks, funds are now taking a more holistic view of investments by taking environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into consideration. ESG funds are guided by these factors but not necessarily driven by impact.
Impact investing, on the other hand, involves specifically investing in solutions– solving global challenges while keeping in mind the risks and returns. If you are a first- time impact investor, you may want to understand the difference between the two and make your investment decision.”
“2021 may become a significant year for the Asian investment market as foreign hedge funds and individual investors alike appear to be tapping into the early pandemic recovery across the east whilst stepping away from overvalued US assets.
Although this trend appears to be largely driven by the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are indications that the shift towards Asia has been occurring at a somewhat slower pace long before the arrival of the virus.
This significant investment shift could help to foster growth in Asia’s relatively small hedge fund industry that’s centred heavily in Hong Kong and Singapore. Investors worldwide are looking for ways to profit from the region’s economic growth, and Asia hedge funds have outperformed their global counterparts.”
“The retail industry is affected the most by the effects of the pandemic. Businesses that have identified key industry and economic trends early benefited greatly, enabling them to adapt their services and operations to meet the changing demands.
There will be opportunities for growth in 2021 as we learn to adjust to the post-COVID-19 world and form business decisions around the new trends and parameters.
“As one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD strives to deliver exemplary experiences for its students, staff and faculty alike. In the face of the pandemic, which closed off most of our global campuses like Singapore, we faced a new challenge: a seamless transition to digital learning experiences.
What’s more, the pandemic motivated many to future-proof their skills and secure their position amidst a period of uncertainty. Interest in MBAs grew significantly at the peak of the pandemic, INSEAD saw applications for its MBA programme increase by 58 per cent compared to pre-COVID-19 levels.
In the face of this new challenge we found an opportunity to continue delivering the standard of experience our students and staff expect, underpinned by strategic digitalisation initiatives we’ve implemented to modernise our systems around student scheduling and enrolments.”
“Many businesses recognise the importance of digitalisation to remain competitive and future-ready, particularly with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced many businesses to accelerate their adoption of digital solutions and technologies. Nevertheless, the successful implementation of I4.0 is not easy.
Companies that have transformed successfully under I4.0 attest to the importance of placing people at the heart of their transformation efforts. Change management to get employee buy-in and involvement is crucial to keep the workforce motivated and engaged in embracing new ways of working.”
“The search for great talent is even more challenging for deep tech startups, competing with the tech giants of the world to fill highly sought-after technical roles such as robotics engineers, data scientists, and quantum researchers.
Yet deep tech startups still enjoy a certain draw, especially amongst Millennials and Gen Zs. A dipstick survey we conducted recently found that they enjoy contributing to a good cause, having more autonomy and flexibility built within the job, and being part of a team with strong potential growth.
The next generation of talent has also shared their aspirations to be part of a collective where they can make a difference and create a real-world impact on issues they care about.
This is where deep tech startups, with their promise of developing solutions that address pressing global problems, are well-positioned to appeal to this purpose-driven generation and compete to attract the ‘cream of the crop’.”
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.
One morning, the Nafas app on my phone sent a notification saying that the air quality in my neighbourhood was at a good level. True enough, I was able to see the mountain from my apartment window — a rare sight for the normally polluted city of Jakarta. I thought to myself that the app’s concept was interesting, but it’s also likely a hard thing to market.
“The air quality space is a completely new thing to think about in Indonesia,” says Piotr Jakubowski, co-founder and chief growth officer at Nafas. “You can’t see air quality, and if you can, then it’s far worse than it should be.”
Jakubowski is a familiar name among marketing veterans in Southeast Asia. He was the CMO of super app gojek from 2016 to 2018, where he helped build the brand into a household name. During his two and a half year stint at the now decacorn, gojek saw staggering business growth from five million monthly orders to more than 100 million.
Jakubowski shares three common content marketing pitfalls that practitioners today should try to avoid.
Pitfall #1: targeting “everyone” from the get-go
Jakubowski believes that marketers should prioritise targeting a specific group of people rather than a broad audience, especially when the company is still at an early stage such as Nafas. He explains, “Regardless of what you create, there is a community there — people who are either highly obsessed with the category or with the brand itself.”
The founder stresses the importance of understanding a brand’s early core audience. Even before discussing budget and strategy, marketers need to figure out who the core users are and then try to map their idiosyncratic behaviours. Eg: Athletes can use Nafas to check the current air quality level before exercising outdoors
He mentions that big companies first need to do things that don’t scale to reach their first 1,000 users. This will help marketers figure out a brand’s ideal target community and potential future champions. Then, marketers need to continuously add value to the lives of those in this community.
“Air quality affects everybody, but our target market at Nafas isn’t everybody. We have to start somewhere,” Jakubowski explains. According to him, Nafas provides the biggest value to those who spend a lot of time outdoors and eventually figured out that its early core users are in fact athletes and people who exercise regularly.
It’s a similar story with other tech companies. Facebook and Tinder, for example, started out by focusing on university students before offering access to the public. Likewise, Lyft and Uber targeted startup offices as their early core users.
Pitfall #2: publishing a large quantity of content with very little value
Content marketing as a discipline is fundamentally misunderstood. Jakubowski sees many people creating a bunch of different types of content and then trying to just see what delivers immediate results (e.g. just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks). Some marketers even publish content just for the sake of routine.
A good content marketing strategy is about creating content that truly adds value to the customer’s life. “If it looks like it’s written by someone who does very basic research on Google, then you’re not really adding value to the audience’s lives,” says Jakubowski.
For this reason, Nafas takes its content section seriously. The team hired an experienced journalist to write an in-depth report about air quality in Jakarta. He fondly remembered that some people thought the initiative was crazy, as no one was likely to read a 93-page report.
Nafas collaborated with Adinda Sukardi, the Under Armour Global Ambassador, for the launch of its report
“On the one hand, sure it’s crazy. On another, the report was geared toward athletes and people who take a great deal of data into consideration when trying to become a better athlete. So access to data falls into the habits that they already have. We’re not introducing anything completely new to them,” explains Jakubowski.
Nafas is on a mission to raise awareness around air quality in the archipelago. “In order for our mission around education to be successful, we need to publish data. But data without a story or context is meaningless,” he adds.
The report – titled Does exercising in Jakarta’s air pollution impact our health?– discovered one interesting piece of information. It turns out that Jakarta’s worst air quality happens between 4 AM to 9 AM. This is counterintuitive, as people in the city tend to exercise early in the morning to avoid pollution.
The Nafas team then unpacked the issue further by combining other research papers about the health risks of exercising in highly polluted areas.
Nafas launched the report via an online webinar. The team invited a prominent local athlete to help attract interest from the app’s target community.
The online launch helped the team garner media coverage and made sure the story reached the right target group. But the report’s biggest success came a week later via Twitter.
Jakubowski broke down the content into digestible tweets, and they went on to receive more than 1,600 retweets and a few hundred thousand impressions. Because of this, the app’s user growth tripled over the course of a single week.
Pitfall #3: underestimating the power of social impact
Jakubowski believes it’s important to build a brand that stands for something. Looking back at his time with gojek in 2016, the team was establishing itself as the people’s champion in Indonesia.
“There’s a very fine line between ‘Pick me because I’m Indonesian,’ versus ‘Hey, I’m dedicated to the future of this country,’” he explains. “Today’s consumers want quality. They need to have a strong reason to buy or join your team apart from the fact that you’re from this country.”
According to a recent Deloitte report, customers indeed care about a company’s social mission. Nineteen per cent of respondents say that it has strongly influenced their purchasing decisions. In gojek’s case, consumers aren’t just buying the firm’s product, but also helping the app do something bigger for the nation.
But Jakubowski warns that marketing social impact is also a tricky thing to do. In a highly globalised world, consumers can filter through the bullshit a lot faster. As such, it’s all the more important to create real and authentic content.
In 2016, gojek held a nationwide video competition that attracted 800 submissions. These videos showcased gojek’s social impact on people’s daily lives. This is why gojek focused on producing a variety of patriotic content during its early years. It was not as simple as showcasing that the brand was a local company.
Jakubowski’s content marketing efforts were focused on how Gojek was opening new economic opportunities for all kinds of people, be it drivers, store owners, customers, and those in cities outside of Jakarta. The key message then was (and still is today): gojek is a business that has the interest of Indonesian people at its core.
Jakubowski invites fellow marketers to tune in to Netflix’s hit documentary to learn about content marketing
Jakubowski mentions his favourite current content marketing example: Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive. It’s an eight-hour documentary series about the ins and outs of F1. According to Piotr, it’s basically eight hours of F1 advertising.
But after watching it, he learned about the intricacies of all the teams, not just Ferrari and Mercedes. He got to understand that it’s not all about the race on F1, it’s also about the emotions. He got to learn about the drivers, who they are, what’s important to them, and more.
After watching the series, Piotr says that he’s now able to see a race beyond just F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. Beyond just entertainment, Netflix also has a good record of influencing its viewers’ purchase decisions.
The company’s recent hit show The Queen’s Gambit was able to revitalise an old sport. After just three weeks of its premiere, sales of chess sets and books rose by 87 per cent and 603 per cent respectively in the US.
Jakubowski reiterates the point that content marketing is storytelling in its purest form. It’s important for marketers to leverage format and channels when executing their strategies. The format could be anything and it doesn’t have to be limited to blog posts or YouTube videos.
Meaningful content marketing adds value to people’s lives. Jakubowski says that after consuming your content, people should have a better understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and why they should care about you.
Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.
Elon Musk recently announced via Twitter that Tesla will now be accepting bitcoins as payment and will not be converting any of these bitcoins into fiat.
If you were to ask the average business owner what types of payments their business accepted, you would probably hear about cash, debit cards, credit cards, or some sort of virtual wallets such as PayPal or Monzo. What you might not hear about, however, is the use of some sort of cryptocurrency payment gateway.
Cryptocurrencies are a type of decentralised currency that has become rather popular in the last few years, especially bitcoin. A handful of businesses now accept crypto payments for goods and services but many do not. However, any forward-thinking business would do well to set up such payment structures for themselves.
Why do businesses shy away from crypto payments?
Cryptocurrency has become wildly popular, with bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, having its value skyrocket in the first few weeks of 2021 and being bought by companies like Tesla. Despite all of this, it is not overly common for businesses to accept bitcoin payments for their products and services, but why?
For many, there are concerns about setting up the payment infrastructure to accept cryptocurrency. Business owners are usually aware of how to set up debit cards and PayPal payments on their websites, but no idea how to set up bitcoin payment options. This is because bitcoin and other cryptos are stored in a different way than fiat currency and many do not know where to start.
Additionally, some are concerned about accepting bitcoin as payment because of possible price fluctuation during the time that the good or service is sold and when the payment itself is collected. While all these issues are valid, there are many reasons why any business should embrace crypto payments.
Despite whatever challenges might be involved, it would be a good idea for a business to accept bitcoin. First, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are very popular at the moment and more people are turning to them for payment. Not accepting bitcoin and other cryptos means shutting yourself out from a large potential market, and one that is very tech-forward.
As time goes on, not having a bitcoin payment gateway will be as odd as not having an option for virtual payment and will be an indicator of a business being outdated and this can turn away customers. Additionally, enabling crypto payments ahead of time will allow a business to stay ahead of the curve and secure a larger share of the market.
As a business owner, you might be concerned about how to accept bitcoin as payment with ease. An initial assumption might be that you need coding or blockchain experience in order to set up crypto payments for your business but this is untrue.
Businesses such as CoinGate allow for the setting up of crypto payment portals on any business website and allow for the seamless integration of such payment models for businesses. When a custom opts to pay for a good or service with a merchant that uses CoinGate, they are taken to a checkout page where they select what cryptocurrency they wish to pay in. For example, if it is a business where Bitcoin is accepted, it will appear on the page.
Once the payment is made, the proceeds are transferred to the merchant in either fiat currency or crypto depending on their preferences. This offers flexibility for businesses that would rather have their funds in traditional currency and those that favour crypto.
How does this benefit cryptocurrencies?
You might wonder who accepts bitcoin and if there is any benefit to doing so. Thanks to innovation from companies such as PayPal, businesses such as AT&T and even KFC in certain territories have successfully integrated cryptocurrency into their payment structure.
Cryptocurrency payments are irreversible and this reduces the instances of fraudulent transactions such as customers seeking credit card chargebacks after receiving their products. They also ensure a greater level of privacy for both the sender and the receiver due to the fact that cryptocurrency is built on distributed ledger technology.
Finally, your business might want to allow cryptocurrency payments as a way to stock up on cryptocurrency ahead of time. Many cryptos have appreciated in value over time such as bitcoin that exceeded US$50,000 in value per token in 2021 after being worth just a few dollars years before.
Allowing crypto payments could allow your business is potentially double or triple the money received overtime should you choose to hold on to the tokens. Whatever reason you choose to allow crypto payments for, it is clear that they are the future of business and here to stay.
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