Any successful, fast-growing startup founder in Asia can attest to this: To stay on top in today’s climate, it is important to constantly evolve and expand the business, be it in technology or business models offered to customers. 

This is a convergence of multiple forces that have shaped how businesses can excel in Asia:

• The region is developing rapidly but at a different pace in each market
• We are competing with a host of other companies from the West 
• For every successful business venture in a new space, tens of local competitors will emerge

The pandemic has also accelerated the need for businesses to go digital. As a result of this, customer needs are different in each market and also always evolving. 

The benefits are multifold. Apart from obvious things such as diversifying risk and revenue streams to your business, your customers will also benefit from constant innovation and value add, and your employees have new projects to work on and can constantly learn and grow.

As a company, we started in the advertising industry, but shortly after, expanded into influencer marketing and publisher ad monetisation.

In the past year, we expanded into the direct-to-consumer (D2C) space with products for cloud manufacturing, e-commerce enablement, and logistics management. We started with one product, but have expanded that to seven.

All this happened within a period of five years whilst scaling our operations from one market then to 13 markets today. 

Throughout this time, there were various learnings for us, let me share three of them. 

Also Read: How Thai food supply chain startup Freshket weathered through the pandemic

From the get-go

Recently, I came across a slide from our very first all-hands meeting back in mid-2016, which showed our expansion plans. Even though we started the company in the advertising industry because of our experience in that space, what we really wanted to do was to empower the digital economy in Asia.

That’s also why we expanded the company into AnyMind Group back in 2018, as we knew it was the right time for us to expand into new ventures. 

What this meant was that we had the right tech and business team in place, positioned and optimised the leadership team’s responsibilities for an expanded business, a strong base of customers that we can add new value to, and the right overall market conditions to start expanding our tech and business models. 

At the same time, it’s very important to set clear responsibilities within your leadership team during such expansions. Part of the leadership team can focus on new ventures; whilst the other part maintains and grows existing ventures, and both sides need to constantly communicate to provide alignment and transparency. 

Ensure employees are closely aligned with the progress

Since we started the business, we have had monthly virtual meetings where all staff dial in, and we did it for five years without missing a single one.

This is crucial especially in a fast-growing startup with operations across many markets, so that everyone knows what’s happening, are closely aligned with the rationale behind the moves, and can then convey it with customers.

Before the pandemic, we would also hold in-person all-hands meetings multiple times a year, where we share our short-term and long-term roadmap. The key benefit for this is that employees can have face-to-face interactions with their colleagues from other countries, since most of the collaboration is done virtually.

Also Read: How did MoneySmart grow its revenue by 25 per cent amidst a pandemic?

This has since been converted into online all-hands meetings, but all employees are still being kept updated about what we plan to do as a company. 

Customers are the core of your expansion plans

It might be obvious, but it is still something that cannot be repeated enough, customers need to be at the core of your expansion plans. If we take a look at super apps, they look to expand their services around their customers by providing parallel offerings like ride-hailing, food delivery, online shopping and more.

For B2B startups, it is not too far-fetched as well. 

For a startup like us, our core customer segments are businesses or “brands”, online publishers and influencers. When we first started the company, our products (in the marketing space) were catered for businesses.

This then expanded into providing tools for online publishers (the “supply” side of digital marketing) and tools for influencers (the “supply” side of influencer marketing). 

Today, we can provide a one-stop solution for brands, creators and publishers – something like a super app for business – where we can cater to the various needs of running a business, including manufacturing, e-commerce, marketing and logistics. Brands are the obvious beneficiary from this move, but online publishers and influencers can also tap on the tools to add revenue streams.

For example, a niche publisher covering wellness can launch their own line of exercise products, or a beauty influencer can launch their own line of beauty products. 

Ultimately, these moves were made around our core customer segments, instead of branching out into an unrelated field.

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As of today, there are over 3,000 edutech companies in Asia, over two dozen of which are unicorns.

Many of these companies popped out or attracted attention only recently because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The disruption that the pandemic caused to classroom/offline learning/teaching led new entrepreneurs to jump the edutech bandwagon and become a part of the remote learning revolution.

But the moot question is: are these companies really accomplishing their stated goals? If so, why are the dropout rates so ridiculously high?

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remote courses have an astronomical dropout rate of about 96 per cent on average. The key reason is “lack of engagement”.

One of the reasons for this is the increased amount of distractions present in a virtual environment and the fact that most of the learning materials provided by these companies are already available online and can be accessed for free on sites like YouTube.

In addition to this, the attention span in individuals has been shrinking significantly at an extremely quick pace thanks to today’s fast-paced world. A study shows that Gen Z has an average attention span of 8 seconds!

Also Read: Edutech will be a hot commodity going forward: GREDU co-founder Rizky Anies

This is a big problem facing the education industry — and this is exactly what Nas Academy aims to address.

Founded by Nuseir Yassin, a video blogger with over 40 million followers across social media platforms, Nas Academy is an online platform that helps people learn from their favorite creators. Since its launch in February this year, the edutech startup claims to have hosted 250 batches (with each batch comprising an average of 80 students) on subjects ranging from storytelling and ideating a business idea, to confidence building.

The company is on a mission to revolutionise not just how learners learn but also how teachers teach.

Mastering engagement

One of the primary goals of Nas Academy is to keep students engaged. It does this by creating a community where students can make new friends and learn at the same time.

“Popular learning platforms like Unacademy, Byju’s, and Masterclass create education that is content- and video-based. But we realise that education is not just a content business but a human business,” Yassin said in an interview with e27.

“Nas means humans. Humans love ‘community’ so we’re all about community,” he said. “When they are with their classmates, students are much less likely to drop out. So for every 100 students who join Nas Academy, we put them in a group together. This way, they not only learn but also see each other, talk about what they’ve learned, and engage among themselves.”

Yassin claimed that this practice has enabled Nas to achieve a 4x higher completion rate than other learning platforms.

But that’s not enough.

Concentrating for a long time is still difficult for many students which is why Nas provides its teachers with tools like quirky music, practical workshops, free merchandise, and memes to connect and engage with students. “Universities don’t have the same energy in their classes as we do. Every class at Nas has music. We build tools to enable creators to teach in fun and engaging ways,” he explained.

By incorporating fun elements throughout the learning process, Nas Academy has a reputation for keeping its students hooked.

Disrupting boring professors

As a popular video blogger himself, Yassin strongly believes that creators have more potential to become better teachers, simply because they are masters in audience engagement.

Also Read: Nas Academy raises US$11M to help creators make a sustainable living

“I’ve been to Harvard and seen what world-class education looks like. And honestly, being part of it is not that impressive. Even in the middle of Harvard, there are five professors from who everybody wants to learn and there are 500 others who are not that popular. And that’s when we realised that the power of education lies in the individual and not the institution,” he went on.

Unlike other platforms that give teachers control over just the monetary aspects of teaching, Nas gives its teachers full authority over their audience and distribution and helps them build their own curriculum from scratch. Moving forward, control is far more important for creators, Yassin believes.

As of now, Nas follows a strict “invite-only” policy for teachers, and those who have signed up can earn 75 per cent of the revenues generated, while the academy keeps only 25 per cent.

Building the “Nas” Culture

It’s not hard to imagine how the workplace of Nas would be like, and Yassin confirms it calling an extremely fun environment to be in.

He further tells his employees to never work for a company with “daily” in its last name (referring to the name of his own company ‘Nas Daily’) because if they work for such companies, they need to work hard. Working extremely hard every day is also part of the Nas culture, Yassin added.

With an ambition to become the biggest learning platform, Nas is fast scaling the team with an aim to add 1,000 people to its roster over the next five years across different roles.

“Are you excited about building a culture where people can work, live and make money from the most remote area in the world? That’s the kind of future we want to build and onboard people who believe in the same thing. We are looking for people who are looking to put life second and mission first,” he said.

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Andalin, an Indonesian startup providing cross-border shipping solutions, is in talks to raise US$3 million in a new round of funding from both financial and strategic investors, including existing ones, CEO Rifki Pratomo told e27.

The company plans to use the money to be raised to expand its core freight business. “The money will be used to grow our trading business, scale our trade financing offerings, and introduce our SaaS-based freight management system,” he said.

Pratomo expects to close the round before year-end.

Also Read: Teleoperation: It’s here to revolutionise the logistics and supply chain industry

In March this year, Andalin secured an undisclosed sum in a Series A funding round, led by Sembrani Nusantara Fund (SNF), a fund operated by Indonesian corporate VC firm BRI Ventures. A few months prior to this, it bagged an undisclosed “seven-digit investment” in pre-Series A round from Beenext (lead), ATM Capital, and Access Ventures, in October 2020.

Started in 2016, Andalin provides digital cross-border shipping solutions in Indonesia to help local micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) simplify their import-export processes — from freight arrangements to customs clearance and everything in between.

Despite the economic impacts of COVID-19, Andalin claims it saw demand for its services spike in 2020, with shipment volume increasing by roughly 5x and average revenue per client rising by 450 per cent year on year. From 2019 to June 2021, Andalin says it has facilitated the export and import of goods in Southeast Asia with a total value of US$50 million.

So far, the logistics startup claims to have served more than 300 clients from various types of industries, from SMEs to large corporations, such as Rentokil Initial, Hitachi, to Electrolux.

Recently, Andalin launched the ‘Andalin Go’ to improve export and import efficiency, where clients can set delivery schedules, get instant price quotes, and consult directly with the company’s expert team through a single app.

According to ASEAN Stats data, the value of international trade in the Southeast Asia region, both between member countries and from/to other areas, was valued at US$2.8 trillion in 2019 and is predicted to continue to rise in the next few years. The sector has proven its role as one of the backbones of the Southeast Asian economy. But it is still considered underdeveloped and overlooked, with the total value of collective investments in several local startups amounting to less than US$40 million.

“We believe that international trade is one of the key pillars that support economic growth in Southeast Asia. For this reason, we strive to be a reliable partner for international trade players to sustain this increasingly high growth demand. Andalin, as a local player in the Southeast Asia region, is committed to providing comprehensive solutions through our digital technology platform,” explained Pratomo.

Also Read: Andalin raises Series A funding to connect Indonesia’s MSMEs with freight forwarders online

In recent years, the rapid development of technology companies in Southeast Asia has raised the interests of both local and global investors. Indonesia shows great proof of being able to generate the first wave of unicorn companies founded by local entrepreneurs. The potential for the second wave of technological disruption in Southeast Asia is still wide open in various sectors such as health, education, logistics, finance and so on.

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Image Credit: Andalin

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DragonPay, a payments processing company in the Philippines, has received an undisclosed amount in strategic investment from Indonesian payment infrastructure startup Xendit, Tech In Asia has reported, citing its founder Robertson Chiang.

According to the publication, the deal was mentioned in a passing statement by Chiang during the fintech event, Digital Pilipinas, on Thursday. 

Xendit managing director Yang Yang Zhang has confirmed the development to Tech In Asia.

It is not immediately clear how DragonPay plans to use the newly raised funds. We have contacted the firm for details. This article will be updated as and when we hear from them. 

This deal comes fresh off Xendit’s collaboration with DragonPay and other e-commerce firms to launch an instalment payment scheme.

Also Read: Xendit bags US$64.6M Series B led by Accel to scale its digital payments service across Southeast Asia

Founded in 2010, DragonPay enables local customers to complete transactions using their selected online, over-the-counter, or non-bank methods. As of today, Dragonpay claims to have carried out close to 100 million transactions and attracted over 14 million unique users.

Originally launched in 2014 as a P2P lending platform, Y Combinator-backed 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. The company counts companies such as Grab and Traveloka among its clients.

In March this year, Jakarta-based Xendit raised US$64.6 million in a Series B round led by Accel Partners, bringing the total amount raised by the firm to US$88 million. 

Xendit is considering expanding digital payment infrastructure in Southeast Asia countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, according to Wijaya. Traveloka, Transferwise, Wish, and Grab are some of its high-profile clients.

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Image Credit: DragonPay

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Malaysia-based full-stack fintech solutions provider Jirnexu has signed strategic partnerships with more than five consortia in their bids for a digital banking license.

The details of the partnerships remain undisclosed.

This news was first reported by Fintechnews Malaysia.

Jirnexu was launched in 2012 to help banks and insurance companies manage the different stages of the customer journey, from marketing to retention, by using a data-driven platform named XpressApply.

The company owns and operates financial comparison sites KreditPlus and RinggitPlus.com in Malaysia, and KreditGoGo in Indonesia.

According to the publication, Jirnexu has reportedly facilitated 1.28 million credit card transactions and is part of the region’s central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) regulatory Sandbox.

Also Read: Experian leads US$10M funding in Malaysian fintech firm Jirnexu

“What Jirnexu brings to the table is the digital know-how to help traditional banking players digitise and optimise their operations. Meanwhile, our strong customer base puts us in a unique position in this emerging digital banking ecosystem, as we have insights into customer behaviours, demands, and also creditworthiness. With our capabilities combined, we are confident that we can elevate the digital banking space and create a holistic model with our partners to cater to the needs of the people, especially the B40 and M40 groups,” said Siew Yuen Tuck, co-founder of Jirnexu.

The race for digital banking licenses has intensified ever since BNM received 29 applications for only five licenses. The applicants include a combination of major platform companies, airlines, conglomerates, and state governments. Incumbent lenders, private-equity firms, and fintechs have also applied.

Winners from Singapore’s digital banking race, Grab-Singtel consortium, are also among the region’s contenders which have a good chance of gaining another license after its victory in the city-state.

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