Day: May 20, 2021

Singapore-headquartered B2B cross-border payments company Thunes announced today it has received US$60 million Series B growth round, led by global private equity and VC firm Insight Partners.

Existing existing shareholders, including GGV Capital, Helios Investment Partners and Checkout.com, also participated.

“[This] will help us speed up investment in our operations, product and technology,” said Peter De Caluwe, CEO of Thunes.

Also Read: Payment network Thunes closes US$10M Series A led by GGV Capital

The latest round of investment comes exactly two years after Thunes bagged US$10 million in Series A in 2019.

Thunes is building a payment network that interconnects financial institutions and businesses in developed and developing markets and allows any payment player to transfer money across borders instantly without the need for countless integrations to multiple systems.

Its platform is used by global banks, money transfer operators, platforms and other businesses to make payments to bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash pick-up providers around the world.

Currently, it claims to connect more than 260 customers and network partners from across 110 countries to send and receive money globally.

Besides Singapore, Thunes has regional offices in London, Shanghai, New York, Dubai, and Nairobi.

Grab, PayPal, M-Pesa, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Western Union, Remitly, and NTUC Income are among its customers.

Thunes is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK.

“Taking an innovative approach to solving the problems of an extremely fragmented and complex global payments ecosystem, Thunes has created a unique platform that provides accessible, fast, and reliable payment solutions. We see the company as poised for massive growth as it expands its infrastructure,” said Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners.

Also Read: Indonesia’s Transfez raises seed funding to venture into B2B money remittance sector

Insight Partners will provide financial and operational resources to promote Thunes’s rapid and sustained growth.

Insight has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and more than US$30 billion in capital commitments.

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Image Credit: Thunes

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Big Idea Ventures (BIV), along with Grand Hyatt Singapore, organised its first in-person and virtual tasting for plant-based foods called Tasting Big Ideas 2021.

The culinary tasting experience took place last week and was Big Idea Ventures’s third tasting event showcasing alternative protein innovations.

BIV is a global VC firm-cum-accelerator in the plant-based food space. Its first fund, the New Protein Fund, recently raised over US$50 million.

“Working with these plant-based products is a great opportunity to share with like-minded guests who care deeply for food — things like where the ingredients come from and how it is being produced,” said chef Lucas of Grand Hyatt.

“It was like a black box competition, you receive the products, it all comes in boxes, you open and see — wow these are the products, then we think what we can create with that,” he added.

Here are the top trends that came out of the event:

Fermentation drives more options to alternative protein

Fermentation can develop everything from seafood to sustainable oils, and innovations in these areas will rise in 2021. The development of new alternative solutions entering the market will go some way to replacing their traditional products.

Also Read: Conscious consumption is driving the trend in foodtech: Study

Examples of companies developing such products are Aquacultured Foods, a whole muscle seafood alternative created through microbial fermentation, and Farmsow, a B2B ingredients company developing alternatives to tropical oils and animal fats.

Alternative protein dine-in and take-out options growing

Plant-based options have thrived despite the pandemic, and many products have launched throughout the world.

Angie’s tempeh is a Singaporean plant-based protein tempeh company launched during the pandemic and is now available in multiple grocery stores. Haofood’s from China also developed the first peanut protein-based chicken and is now served in over six restaurants in Shanghai.

In light of the pandemic, Tasting Big Ideas 2021 and 2020 also offered a virtual tasting option where guests can opt to have a tasting kit delivered to enjoy in the comfort of their homes or offices.

Improving taste and texture for alternative protein

As more consumers adopt the new diet, plant-based foods are required to have not just the right taste, smell and price but also the right texture.

Increasingly, technologies and companies like “Meat. The End” is needed that will allow plant-based foods to be indistinguishable from traditional meats.

Cell-based products futuristic concept overseas but a growing trend in Singapore

Singapore was the first country in the world to give approval to the commercialisation of cell-based meat. In late 2020, the Singapore Food Agency gave the approval to Eat Just to sell cultured chicken to customers.

Companies from BIV’s portfolio company, such as Animal Alternative Technologies and Innocent Meat, foresee this trend and provide end-to-end solutions to scale the production of cell-based meat in a cost-efficient manner.

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Image Credit: Big Idea Ventures

 

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GOOD Meat, a division of US-based sustainable food company Eat Just, has secured US$170 million in new funding.

Investors include UBS O’Connor, a hedge fund manager within UBS Asset Management, Graphene Ventures and K3 Ventures.

The company will use the fresh capital to increase capacity and accelerate R&D for high-quality, real meat without slaughter.

Also Read: SGProtein to launch large-scale production facility to accelerate Singapore’s alternative protein market

With this transaction, GOOD Meat has become a subsidiary of Eat Just, which
secured US$200 million in funding in March this year.

GOOD Meat is a meat made from animal cells instead of slaughtered livestock.

In recent months, GOOD Meat has been focused on expanding the team, technology and manufacturing infrastructure to meet the surging demand in Singapore and to prepare for market entry in the US.

The company will quickly scale production in North America and Asia through multi-million-dollar investments in facilities in the US and Singapore, while evaluating collaboration and acquisition opportunities in the fast-growing sector.

The finding news comes during a week of a historic milestone for the food industry in Singapore. Madame Fan, the renowned Cantonese restaurant run by The JW Marriott Singapore South Beach, is the first restaurant in the world to replace conventional meat with cultured meat during set times.

The new chef-inspired dishes include Asian-inspired chicken salad, steamed chicken dumplings and chicken vegetable stir-fry.

GOOD Meat will replace conventional chicken for delivery on Thursdays beginning May 20, and for once-a-week dine-in starting soon.

As per a recent survey conducted by a leading management consulting firm, two-thirds of consumers polled said they were open to substituting conventional meat with cultured meat. More than 80 per cent of restaurant operators said they envisioned cultured meat replacing all conventional meat in the next 10 years.

“This investment, along with the historic decision by JW Marriott Singapore South Beach, points to what’s ahead: meat without killing animals will replace conventional meat at some point in our lifetimes. The faster we make that happen, the healthier our planet will be,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just.

Also Read: How to become a millionaire investor while scaling sustainability impact in the world

“The US$2-trillion global market for meat and poultry is likely to experience significant change and disruption over the next 10 years as consumers increasingly recognise the environmental impact of their diet choices and search for healthier and more sustainable products like GOOD Meat to replace conventional animal proteins in their diets,” said Kevin Russell, Chief Investment Officer, UBS O’Connor.

“As part of a global organisation aimed to cut food wastage, partnering with a purposeful company such as GOOD Meat was the perfect collaboration to support our ‘Source Responsibly’ efforts whilst we continue to deliver exceptional culinary experiences,” Marco Pedrelli, Director of Food & Beverage and Culinary, JW Marriott Singapore South Beach.

Eat Just aims to build a healthier, safer and more sustainable food system in our lifetimes. Its expertise lies in functionalising plant proteins to culturing animal cells.

It is the company behind one of America’s fast-growing egg brand, which is made entirely of plants.

Of lat, the alternative protein items, such as plant-based meat, egg and milk, has caught the imagination of Southeast Asian consumers, particularly in Singapore. The city-state recently witnessed the emergence of companies such as Shiok Meats, Turtle Tree Labs and Next Gen, attracting VCs and partnerships.

In a recent interview with e27, Next Gen’s COO Andre Menezes said that global demand for plant-based meat products will be driven mostly by flexitarians.

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Image Credit: GOOD Meat

 

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Malaysia’s online shopping aggregator iPrice Group announced today it has raised US$1.5 million financing from South Korean foodtech company Woowa Brothers.

This news comes off the company’s Series B funding led by ACA Investments in March 2020, which was later joined by JG Digital Equity Ventures in September.

The fresh capital will go into enhancing iPrice product and accelerating the rollout of partnerships.

Founded in 2014, iPrice helps customers find a wide selection of products and brands from hundreds of its partners in Southeast Asia. Users can use the platform to save money by comparing products, prices, sellers’s reputation, and check delivery conditions.

Currently, iPrice has partnerships with Home Credit (Indonesia), Thairath (Thailand), GoRewards (Philippines), Boost (Malaysia), ViSenze (Singapore), and SmartPay (Vietnam).

Also Read: iPrice adds more funding into Series B to accelerate growth in Philippines

“As the Southeast Asian e-commerce market develops, the competition among e-commerce platforms is intensifying and the number of sellers is increasing. We believe that iPrice’s role of helping users find the right platform and save money will continue to be vital to the region,” Joshua Dhong, Senior Investment Associate of Woowa said.

“Consumers increasingly expect shopping experiences embedded in their phones – be it in various apps or even in the native camera apps for visual shopping. We, therefore, built a product to bring e-commerce to those places, becoming the prime partner for leading platforms and super apps in the region,” iPrice Group CEO Paul Brown-Kenyon added.

While COVID-19 has affected almost all the industries globally, e-commerce has largely been spared and it has shown immense resilience and continues to grow strong.

According to a Google-backed report, Southeast Asia’s e-commerce industry is expected to reach US$180 billion by 2025. With e-commerce’s recent accelerated adoption, the industry is expected to experience an even stronger boost.

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Singapore-based clinical-stage biotech company Hummingbird Bioscience has announced the close of its US$125 million Series C financing round, led by Novo Holdings.

The round also saw participation from new investors including Frazier Healthcare Partners, Octagon Capital, EDBI, AMGEN Ventures, DROIA Ventures, Morningside Ventures, Pureos Bioventures, Polaris Partners, Affinity Asset Advisors, Ally Bridge Group and Altrium Capital Management.

Existing investors including SK Inc, Heritas Capital, and Mirae Asset Venture Capital also joined the round.

The company will use the funds to advance the clinical development of its assets including HMBD-001, a HER3 antibody for NRG1-fusion and HER3-driven tumours, and HMBD-002, an anti-VISTA neutralising antibody for advanced solid tumours.

Also Read: Singapore biotech firm Austrianova secures US$100M investment

The funds will also be used to expand the capabilities of Hummingbird’s proprietary Rational Antibody Discovery platform (RAD) and progress the development of its next-generation pipeline of precision therapeutics, including HMBD-009, a BCMA-TACI dual-specific T cell engager.

“These new funds give us further resources to invest in our early-stage pipeline, as well as supporting the clinical development of our two lead programmes that we believe can deliver very meaningful benefit for patients,” said co-founder and CEO Piers Ingram.

“We believe that Hummingbird’s novel data-driven, systems biology approach brings new precision to the field of antibody drug discovery and development,” said Kenneth Harrison, Partner at Novo Ventures.

“There is significant potential for novel antibody-based therapeutics and through Hummingbird’s RAD platform, we can now discover high value antibodies for challenging targets. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Hummingbird to solve complex challenges in antibody development, and deliver highly differentiated therapies to patients in need,” Kiel Kim said

Hummingbird Bioscience is focused on developing precision therapies against hard-to-drug targets to improve treatment outcomes. It harnesses the latest advances in systems biology and data science to better understand and solve the underlying causes of disease and guide development of our therapeutics.

Enabled by its RAD platform, it discovers and engineers precision therapies against optimal yet elusive epitopes that have not been successfully drugged, unlocking novel mechanisms of action.

In May 2020, Hummingbird closed its extended Series B round at US$25 million.

Harrison, along with Dan Estes (General Partner at Frazier Healthcare Partners) and Kiel Kim (VP, SK Inc.) will join Hummingbird’s board of directors.

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Image Credit: Hummingbird Bioscience

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