Thailand SEC files criminal complaint against crypto exchange Binance; The complaint says Binance operates digital asset biz without a licence; Britain’s financial watchdog had last week barred Binance from carrying out regulated activities in the country.

Singapore flags Binance worries; The MAS says it is aware of the regulatory scrutiny that Binance is facing elsewhere and that it is following up as required with a local unit; MAS said it is following up with Binance Asia Services, a local entity, as part of standard processes to review applications for a license to provide digital payment token services in the city-state.

Tiki said to have secured US$100M in first Series E tranche led by a global strategic investor; DealStreetAsia has earlier reported the Vietnamese e-commerce major was planning to raise up to US$200M in its latest round; Tiki was most recently valued at around US$600M when it raised US$43M for the sale of corporate bonds between March and June.

Startup valuations see a correction in Vietnam amid COVID-19 crisis; The markdown in valuation has particularly gripped sectors such as travel, hospitality, and transportation that have been the worst affected by the pandemic; In new-economy sectors like fintech, education, healthtech, and logistics, however, the changes in valuations are not all that visible.

‘US startups practise a global mindset that drives them for exponential growth from day one’: US Embassy Singapore’s Digital Trade Attaché; This is supported by access to funding but is also supported by other driving factors like risk tolerance, and an open and collaborative mindset, where there is a flow of information and ideas, says Christian Koschil.

iPhone co-inventor joins SG insurtech startup bolttech’s US$180M Series A; This takes the one-year-old company to unicorn club; bolttech works with insurers, telcos, retailers, banks, e-commerce and digital destinations to embed insurance into their customer journeys at the point of need; It claims it transacts US$5B in premiums on its platform, providing a gateway to more than 5K products and 150 insurance providers.

Workmate raises US$10M from Lendable to help businesses find, manage quality blue-collar workers; The startup has raised a total of US$15.2M so far from a slew of investors, including Atlas Ventures, Gobi Partners, and Beacon VC, the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank; Workmate will use the fresh capital to onboard more workers in Indonesia and Thailand on its platform.

NFT minting platform Mintable nets US$13M from Ripple, ex-advisor to Bill Clinton, others; The SG startup also offers an online marketplace that aims to make the buying and trading of NFTs easy and accessible for the masses; To date, approximately 700K items have been minted on its platform.

Accelerating Asian IPO markets: How long can the IPO boom last?; The IPO landscape across Asia faces the challenge of crackdowns on the dominance of Chinese tech firms that have dominated fundraising across the continent; Tensions between the US and China have been ramping up of late, too.

SCI Ecommerce closes ongoing financing round at US$65.4M, inks partnership with TikTok; The additional capital came from EDBI, Financial Investments Corporation, Soriano Corporation; With the help of SCI, brand partners in Indonesia can carry out sales directly through TikTok, activating a new channel for social commerce; The company further claimed that it more than doubled its 2019 revenues to over US$100M in 2020.

iMedia fully acquires online beauty store favful’s Malaysian parent Lovelife Technologies; The deal is the company’s first entry into the commerce business and goes in line with its mission of becoming the country’s #1 integrated digital media group; Over the last year, iMedia has acquired 6 firms, including Ittify, Goody25, BeautifulNara, and Moretify.

Grab-Singtel JV joins race for digital bank licences in Malaysia; Separately, AirAsia’s fintech arm BigPay is also in the race to secure a licence in Malaysia; Malaysia has receives 29 bids for digital banking licences; The central bank BNM will issue up to five licences by Q1 2022; Grab and Singtel had previously partnered to secure a digital banking licence in Singapore.

The future of food: here’s a look at the foodtech industry landscape in Singapore; According to the Asia Alternative Protein Industry Report, several leading startups in the foodtech field are HQed in Singapore; The nation-state is investing heavily in alternative protein research and development, as well as biotechnology to ramp up local food production.

Singapore Airlines launches travel experience digital platform; Pelago is both an online magazine and booking portal that publishes listicles of suggested activities in a destination city and lets travelers reserve slots; The portal focuses on Singapore for now, where visitors can book anything from a beer-sampling experience US$30 to a two-hour Singapore Airlines’ flight simulator session for US$517.

Tokyo and Singapore trail Melbourne in ‘digital nomad’ ranking; Asian cities broadly lag behind on the list of the best spots to live and work remotely, says a Nestpick report; The leading four cities — Melbourne, Dubai, Sydney and Estonia’s capital Tallinn — are all in countries listed as offering digital nomad visas or similar permits that allow people to stay longer than tourists and work independently.

A closer look at Singapore’s emerging AI-based startups; Already, the country accounts for many of the AI-based startups SEA offers; These emerging startups are enhancing innovation and providing solutions to the government, industry and the public to realise the positive impact of AI; For example, national organisations are using AI-based communication tools to improve customer engagement and deliver timely assistance.

Twitter partners with Singapore gov’t for digital skilling of workforce; In a bid to meet SG’s growing demand for a skilled digital workforce, Twitter will work with Institutes of Higher Learning and government agencies to develop a series of virtual programmes designed to introduce current students, recent graduates, and mid-career individuals to digital skills and career opportunities in technology.

 

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Deploying AI capabilities across the organisation requires a scalable, resilient, and adaptable set of core-technology components. When implemented successfully, this foundational layer can enable a bank to accelerate technology innovations, improve the quality and reliability of operations, reduce operating costs, and strengthen customer engagement.

An AI-first model places demands on a bank’s core technology

Financial institutions that have shifted from being intensive consumers of technology to making AI and analytics a core capability are finding it easier to shift into the real-time and consumer-centric ecosystem.

As AI technologies play an increasingly central role in creating value for banks and their customers, financial-services organisations need to reinvent themselves as technology-forward institutions, so they can deliver customised products and highly personalised services at scale in near real time.

At many institutions, standard practices now include omni channel engagement, the use of APIs to support increased real-time information exchange across systems, and the use of big data analytics to improve credit underwriting, evaluate product usage, and prioritise opportunities for deepening relationships.

As financial-services organisations continue to mature, the increasing demands on the technology infrastructure to support more complex use cases involving analytics and real-time insights are pushing firms to re-examine their overall technology function.

Once they have committed to modernising the core technology and data infrastructure underpinning the engagement and decision-making layers of the capability stack, banks should organise their transformation around six crucial demands: technology strategy, superior experiences, scalable data and analytics platforms, scalable hybrid infrastructure, configurable product processors, and cybersecurity strategy.

Also Read: Are banks dying? Why fortune favours the bold and ASEAN’s neo banks

Robust strategy for building technology capabilities

Banks should develop a road map for transformation that focuses on three dimensions of value creation: faster time to market with efficient governance and productivity tracking, clear alignment of demand and capacity to meet strategic and near-term priorities, and a well-defined mechanism to coordinate “change the bank” and “run the bank” initiatives according to their potential to generate value.

Faster time to market requires efficient and repeatable development and testing practices, coupled with robust platforms and productivity-measurement tools. Aligning demand and capacity according to strategic priorities works on two levels.

On one level, banks need to ensure that execution, infrastructure, and support capacity are optimised to ensure constant operation of all use cases and journeys. In addition, with constant uptime assured, work should be organised and scheduled to expedite projects having the greatest impact on value.

Finally, financial institutions should establish clear mechanisms for setting priorities and ensuring that each use case is designed and built to generate a return exceeding capital investments and operating costs.

Technology leaders should prioritise interconnected capabilities

Given the broad scope of components to be transformed, organisations should bear in mind that optimal outcomes are much likelier when they first establish a holistic strategy for technology transformation. Unfortunately, not all have found the resources to embrace fully the potential offered by the rapid advancement of AI technologies and the steady rise in customer expectations.

Some financial institutions, despite seeing the imperative to change, have maintained and modernised their legacy platforms. Various business lines have set up organically built platforms upon this foundation, making it costlier and more and more complex to maintain.

Many organisations have spent billions of dollars on multiyear technology initiatives within silos, only to find that they fail to generate the scale benefits required to justify investments. Leaders should heed these lessons, adopt a holistic perspective, and map priorities according to the end-to-end impact that each step in the technology transformation has on the value of the enterprise.

Also Read: Singapore’s Float Foods banks US$1.7M for its plant-based egg substitute

Technology transformations are fraught with risk, including delays and cost overruns, and only those organisations whose leaders are prepared to commit the energy and capital necessary to carry through with the comprehensive effort should embark on the journey.

Ultimately, this is a decision not just to survive, but to thrive, and it requires a change in mindset. Specifically, traditional financial institutions will need to break out of their legacy technology architecture and explore AI-and-analytics opportunities.

If banks are to thrive in a world where customer expectations are increasingly shaped by the AI-and-analytics capabilities of technology leaders, they must rebuild their core technology and data infrastructure to support AI-powered decision making and reimagined customer engagement.

These are the three “technology layers” of the AI-bank capability stack. The full stack also includes a leading-edge operating model to ensure that all layers work together in unison to deliver intelligent propositions through smart servicing and experiences. The AI bank of the future requires an agile culture and platform-oriented operating model that respond promptly to emerging opportunities and deliver innovative solutions rapidly at scale.

The full report, Beyond digital transformations: Modernizing core technology for the AI bank of the future, deep dives into the considerations and key transformation required when modernising an organisation’s core technology, as well as 12 actions that banking leaders should consider taking to ensure the transformation creates value for customers and the bank.

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After building Hmlet into a co-living company with a reported value over US$150 million, I was ready for time away from the pressure and pace of venture-backed startup life.

Right at this time, my best friend, who founded the sunglasses brand Rocket Eyewear, was having trouble with prescription orders, which required coordination between customers, optometrists and optical labs.

Whereas leading online eyewear stores offered guided checkout processes that accepted prescription files and showed customers many lens options, smaller eyewear brands couldn’t offer a similar experience without spending tens of thousands of dollars on custom plug-ins.

Inspired, we decided to build a public Shopify app that levels the playing field for independent eyewear brands, allowing them to compete with larger retailers.

Development began in June 2020, and we launched LensAdvizor on the Shopify App Store three months later. By June 2021, we were profitable with monthly revenues growing over 20 per cent a month.

Here are ten valuable lessons I learned from this experience.

A successful precedent is half the battle won

When customers are familiar with your idea, they require less “education” to understand your value proposition.

When we were pitching LensAdvizor to potential stores, our opening line referenced successful precedents by name: “Dear Store X, would you like to sell prescription lenses the same way leading online eyewear stores like Zenni Optical and Warby Parker do it?”

Also Read: Dollar online store ShopinSEA expands to Malaysia (and beyond)

As a result, stores grasped our value proposition immediately and could see real-life examples of how our app would work (before we’d even built it).

Being first has its advantages

When you’re the first player in a market, you can launch a minimum viable product and iterate because there is no competition. You can solve your customer’s problem in a rudimentary way and still be 10X better than what existed before you.

In contrast, entering a crowded market requires your initial solution to at least match the benchmark established by existing players. To build the next Zoom, your solution would, at a minimum, have to offer video calling, chat, mute etc. before you add your X factor.

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is

There’s a simple reason LensAdvizor is the only app of its kind: our market is tiny.

Before launch, we estimated around 700 eyewear stores on Shopify. Today, we serve over 50 per cent of the market.

Concocting a unique idea can feel exhilarating. Before you blaze your trail, however, try to understand why your idea does not exist.

In a world with over 8 billion people, there’s a high chance that someone has already thought of your idea and even tried to build it!

When you’re first, unknowns abound, and potential competitors scrutinise your every move.

Also Read: 10 lessons on building a great team  by a marketing employee

The world is a Zoom call away, so validate before building

Before writing our first line of code, we contacted all 700 eyewear stores on Shopify and arranged 50 Zoom calls with interested users from Shanghai to Sao Paulo. Through this process, we built our app with the conviction that at least someone out there would use us.

Always be prepared to follow up

When we email potential customers, we always expect to have to send a follow-up. Just be a little thick-skinned. Some people are busy and forget to reply. Others don’t take you seriously until they’ve received two emails from you.

You could even email a third time, but there’s a fine line between being persistent and spammy.

(Subjective) “Make more money” is the strongest value proposition

In Mark Cuban’s words, “Sales cures all.” If your value proposition centres around increasing revenue or lowering expenses, you’ve grabbed my attention. On the other hand, if your value proposition is about convenience, I tend to label it as “nice to have” and de-prioritise it.

Customers have really high expectations of technology

Things are supposed to just work. In our experience, stores rarely praise us when LensAdvizor works and convey zero tolerance if bugs appear.

Forget office hours. Do things that don’t scale

We offer in-app chat support for LensAdvizor clients, and I respond to customer inquiries about 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Being always online can disrupt my day, but I continue to do so because customer conversations can reveal new ways to improve our app.

One morning, a store in Australia wanted to add images to their lenses; in the afternoon, a store from Taiwan needed help with installation, and in the evening, a Brazilian store wanted to translate their app from English into Portuguese.

Through these interactions, we built a JavaScript insertion section allowing stores to insert images anywhere on our app, a button for stores to publish theme files if Shopify installation fails; and a translation template, stores can use to customise all our text.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Will the likes of Grab, GoTo crush competition in SEA?

Build just enough and listen to your customers

For launch, we replicated the user flows of Zenni Optical and Warby Parker and thought every store would be overjoyed. We were wrong.

As soon as we went live on Shopify, stores asked if they could reverse the flow so that customers could choose lenses before entering their prescription.

When you launch, you have hypotheses about what would be awesome, and you build it. However, there’s only so much you know before you’re just guessing.

Instead of obsessing over the future, build the foundation and listen to customers for next steps. Soon, patterns will appear, and you’ll know with conviction what features to prioritise.

Small can be sexy

Not every idea needs to command a billion-dollar valuation. Compared to Hmlet, LensAdvizor is a minnow.

However, whereas Hmlet required tens of millions of dollars in funding and hundreds of staff to run, LensAdvizor needed only a team of two to bootstrap and reach profitability.

As we continue to reinvest our profits into upgrading our app, we hope we can continue to be the leading solution in our nascent niche of online prescription eyewear.

Set your expectations, remember to breathe, and go for it!

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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.

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Forty million.

That was the number of new users from Southeast Asia who came onto the internet in 2020. With lockdowns from the pandemic catalysing the ‘flight to digital’ and forcing consumers to shop online, the e-commerce industry has witnessed unprecedented growth.

Within the region, the industry experienced a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 63 per cent from 2019 to 2020.

And this growth is sticky. According to Google’s e-Conomy SEA 2020 report, nine in 10 users intend to continue using digital services going forward. Consequently, e-commerce within Southeast Asia is projected to grow 23 per cent CAGR to hit US$172 billion by 2025.

Amidst these eye-boggling statistics, it also means the e-commerce industry would get more competitive as more players enter seeking to get a slice of a growing lucrative market.

Retailers will need to fight harder for loyalty by establishing competitive advantages in user experience. Put simply, the best experience wins.

Besides, the increased adoption of digital services will see e-commerce platforms emphasise fighting online fraud. In 2019, US$260 million was lost to digital fraud in the region, with identity theft (71 per cent) and account fraud (63 per cent) among the leading methods. 

This figure, which puts Southeast Asia among the top regions for fraud worldwide, has been largely caused by inefficiencies in identity verification.

Also Read: Locad lands US$4.9M seed funding to provide logistics infra for e-commerce businesses

Therefore, how can e-commerce platforms stand out from the competition while fighting fraud?

All hail open banking

Leveraging on open APIs, open banking enables e-commerce platforms to securely connect to a consumer’s bank account for purposes including initiating payments or retrieving data on their behalf.

This enables e-commerce companies to build a better user experience by allowing shoppers to pay directly from within the app.

Besides bypassing traditional card interchanges and eliminating platform fees, a frictionless payment process would also decrease drop-offs, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

Open banking APIs also enable e-commerce platforms to offer alternative payment options such as buy now, pay later (BNPL). With open APIs facilitating an accelerated credit scoring process, platforms can provide risk-adjusted financing plans to increase checkout rates, without running the risk of high default rates.

With Open banking, merchants can also look forward to a more convenient onboarding process. By allowing the e-commerce platform to access their bank account data, verification of account ownership and other know-your-business (KYB) processes can be accelerated, allowing for trusted sellers to start quickly.

Crucially, open banking reduces the possibility for fraud to occur. As transactions payments are processed by the consumer’s bank, they are subjected to bank-grade security guidelines, thereby significantly reducing identity theft and account fraud.

Also Read: Why banks will benefit from open API

From the e-commerce consumer’s perspective

Firstly, the user would have the option to select their preferred payment method. If they had selected a direct bank payment, they would be automatically directed to their banking app, where the authentication and authorisation processes would take place.

Once verification and consent are given, payment is sent directly from the user’s bank account to the e-commerce platform. During this, the user is redirected back to the platform to continue the checkout process, preventing drop-offs.

Led by API platforms such as Finantier, Open Banking is changing the future of how consumers use financial services by enabling various sectors, including e-commerce, to create seamless customer experiences.

It is allowing a new generation of e-commerce platforms to emerge – one that prioritises the needs of both retailers and consumers.

This post was originally published on Finantier’s blog.

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Nium, a leading cross-border payments company with significant operations in Southeast Asia, announced today it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wirecard Forex India, a foreign currency exchange, pre-paid card, and remittance services provider.

Wirecard Forex India is a unit of German fintech giant Wirecard Sales International Holding GmbH, which hit the headlines last year when it filed for insolvency in June 2020 due to one of the biggest accounting scandals in modern European history.

The acquisition includes Wirecard’s Authorised Category II Money Exchange Dealer (AD II) licence issued by India’s central bank, the RBI. With this license, Nium can directly engage in a variety of payment services activities across the subcontinent, including currency conversion, money transfer, and pre-paid card issuance.

The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

This deal, Nium’s second in just over a month after its acquisition of Ixaris, is expected to close in Q3 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the local banking control authority.

Post-acquisition, all of the 190 employees of Wirecard Forex — which has 23 branch locations across India — will join Nium.

Also Read: Digital remittance startup InstaReM rebrands into Nium, offering global enterprise payments platform

“We’re seeing an accelerated move to digital payments as companies modernise their infrastructure to capitalise on the post-COVID economic recovery,” said Prajit Nanu,​​ Nium’s co-founder and CEO. “More companies are turning to our global payments stack to embed financial services quickly. This acquisition broadens our licensing portfolio, extends the suite of digital payments services we can offer in India, and provides us with a physical footprint to provide more support in metro areas.”

Founded in 2014, Nium (earlier known as InstaReM), is a global payments platform to enable businesses to send, spend, and receive money from around the world, in addition to empowering them to develop their own products that simplify cross-border payments.

The firm claims it issues approximately 30 million physical and virtual cards today and is licensed in 11 jurisdictions, including direct card issuing capabilities in 24 countries and in 40 currencies.

The company is regulated in the US, the European Union, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Australia, and Malaysia.

Nium is backed by the likes of Vertex Growth Fund (Singapore), MDI Ventures (Indonesia), Beacon Venture Capital (Thailand), GSR Ventures, Rocket Internet, and SBI-FMO Fund.

This Wirecard India acquisition comes at a time when the country’s prepaid card market is expected to boom at CAGR of 40.5 per cent between 2021 and 2026. Driving this growth is an expected increase in adoption by businesses looking for fast and easy payment processing, payment flexibility, and elimination of delays related to reimbursements.

As consumer spending returns post-COVID-19, gift cards, meal cards, travel cards, and payday cards will become increasingly popular with businesses and consumers.

“Nium continues to expand its global operations through strategic acquisitions,” added Pratik Gandhi, Nium’s Chief Operating Officer. “Wirecard Forex has extensive reach throughout India and will enable us to deliver next-generation payment services across all major metropolitan cities.”

Founded in 1999, Wirecard offers electronic payment transaction services, risk management, and physical and virtual cards. The firm, which was once valued at US$42 billion, collapsed on June 25, 2020, owing creditors approximately US$4 billion after disclosing a gaping hole in its books. According to Wirecard’s then auditor EY, it was the result of a sophisticated global fraud. Reports said quoting German law agencies that fintech giant had been manipulating balance statements to boost sales earnings at least since the end of 2015.

Although Wirecard said the missing money had been sent to two banks in the Philippines, this claim was refuted by both the banks as well as the Philippines’s central bank. Its then CEO Markus Braun was arrested and is currently being investigated.

Over the past few months, Wirecard sold many of its subsidiaries, including in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam following its insolvency proceedings.

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Image Credit: Nium

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The top two of the UNDP’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are to end poverty and hunger by 2030. These may seem like lofty goals, but the world has, in recent decades, made great strides toward achieving them. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has stalled progress with disruptions to global food supply chains exacerbating hunger and nutritional insecurity.

The current agriculture and food system, which is struggling to keep up with the demand for food from a growing global population and changing diets, has been criticised as part of the problem. Investors pouring billions into alternative protein sources are betting that foodtech can be part of the solution by building a more resilient agri-food system.

How alternative proteins contribute to food security?

Advances in foodtech have made it easier and cheaper to produce animal-free meat and many see cultured meat (also referred to as cultivated or cell-based meat) as an opportunity to diversify our food sources and enable food production closer to consumers. Cultured meat is grown from animal cells and uses fewer resources than traditional livestock farming.

The fast-growing field has attracted some of the world’s biggest companies and top investors. Companies such as Tyson Foods have partnered with cultured meat startup Future Meat, while Mosa Meats counts Google co-founder Sergey Brin among its investors.

New plant-based meats have also become popular with consumers, with startups whipping up new products using anything from soy and pea to jackfruit and algae.

Taken together, wider offerings of alternative proteins could go some way toward addressing concerns about overconsumption of meat in more prosperous nations such as America, where more than 70 per cent of adults are obese or overweight.

Also Read: How New Zealand-based Sustainable Foods is harnessing the power of hemp to produce meat products

Some experts argue that if these alternative proteins can be produced at a lower cost than traditional livestock and include most of the nutrients found in animal proteins, they could prove to be an attractive option for many developing nations looking to improve their food security.

While much of the meat consumed in Southeast Asia is produced within the region, the industrialised systems churning out this meat is highly dependent on imported animal feed.

Moreover, traditional agriculture is also a big contributor to climate change due to livestock emissions and resource use. “One-third of global grain production – enough to feed 4 billion people – is fed to livestock,” wrote Paul Laudicina, Chairman, A.T. Kearney Global Business Policy Council, in an article published on the World Economic Forum.

“This alone is enough to raise eyebrows. But livestock also contributes about 15 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. And producing one kilogram of beef can require between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water,” he added.

Singapore as a window to the future

In December last year, Singapore became the first country in the world to allow cultured meat to be sold to the public.

Singapore has set out to build up its capabilities as a hub for the fast-growing, US$10 billion alternative protein market as part of its “30×30” ambitions.

The approval of cultured meat sales follows a multitude of plant-based meat products hitting the market in Singapore, with consumers becoming increasingly aware of such products.

This also makes it a natural launchpad for related research. In May, Pinduoduo announced it would conduct a nutritional study with the Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI) to investigate the impact of plant-based meat protein consumption on human health.

Singapore also provides an interesting testbed as researchers will be able to study whether different ethnic groups respond differently to plant-based novel proteins.

“Human nutrition is a complex field, and we need more studies that look holistically at the nutritional impact of these food products over time, to inform the food industry of its potential benefits or the need for reformulation,” said Professor Christiani Jeyakumar Henry, Senior Advisor at SIFBI and Principal Investigator for the study.

“Health concerns are a major driver in Asian consumers’ decisions to choose plant-based proteins over conventional meats, especially in China,” said Mirte Gosker-Kneepkens, Acting Managing Director of The Good Food Institute APAC.  “The results of this study could further accelerate consumer interest and encourage plant-based meat producers to prioritise the nutritional value in their products when targeting Asian markets.”

Also Read: The spotlight on foodtech: Why we believe that what we put on our plate will determine the future

Indeed, for consumers to make the shift, questions about health and nutrition will have to be better addressed.  This applies to both plant-based and cultured meat.

For food systems to adapt to these new modes of meat production, the development of related infrastructure and supply chains will also require more intensive investment.

If the industry can continue to fire on all cylinders, alternative proteins could be a promising option for building more flexibility into our food systems.

Pinduoduo is hosting a Food Systems Forum on July 14-15 that includes speakers like Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute, as well as the founders of Mosa Meat and Future Meat. Register here.

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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.

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A fresh round of funding recently value cryptocurrency financial services firm Amber Group at US$1billion after raising US$100 million. In the second quarter of 2021 alone, venture capital investment into cryptocurrency and blockchain startups amounted to US$14 billion, according to PitchBook.

For the same period last year, only US$600 million was raised.  The crypto market has been put on a pedestal over the past few weeks given the high-frequency oscillations the market has been experiencing. 

Being one of the most thrown around word of the hour, blockchain, the peer-to-peer network that sits on top of the internet is an open distributed ledger that records transactions between two parties efficiently and can be validated by a selected or public audience.

It features “smart contracts” that are triggered automatically after conditions are met. The advancement of technology has spawned new variations of blockchain technology. Today we explore the latest manifestation of this vanguard, non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

nonfungible.com reported that more than US$2  billion was spent on NFTs in Q121, an increase of 2,100 per cent compared to Q4 2020. Coined as the art of blockchain, NFTs took the blockchain world by storm.

Marrying tech and art indefinitely, NFTs created a new wave of an asset class. They are built and supported by the Ethereum blockchain as the protocols designed by Ethereum positions themselves on smart contracts. 

These tokens that can be used to identify an item or product gives the minted digital asset a unique cryptographic serial number that affords prominence to that individual piece. It is essentially a one-of-a-kind tokenised deed.

Also Read: Are digital art NFTs horrible for Mother Earth? BoT gearing up for digital currency test

Non-fungible means that it is not replaceable by another of the exact same matter. Technically speaking, every NFT is a unique token on the blockchain where there is only one definitive actual version of it. The best example of a non-fungible product would be a one of one trading card with a unique code identifier. 

The most fascinating aspect of an NFT is that it can be anything digital one can think of including immutable ownerships where collectors own instead of lease any item or artwork.

Of prominence now being art, music, gaming, sports, collectibles, metaverses, and even utilities. The majority of NFTs are used in gaming (33 per cent) and collectibles (47 per cent). This is indicative of the option of tokenising real-world assets onto the blockchain. 

The very first ideation of NFTs dates to 2012 – 2013 where it was first introduced as Colored Coins, which was made in the smallest denomination of bitcoin, a single Satoshi.

Due to the nature of bitcoin being fungible, the “colouring” in essence made every coloured coin unique to its own and this term made it non-fungible. It was created with the purpose of representing a property, coupons, or even issues of shares, but at its time it was limited by the coding behind bitcoin’s framework. 

Fast forward to October 2017, a market-ready version of the token called CryptoKitty quickly found its way into vogue. It was a blockchain-based virtual game that allowed players to adopt, raise, and trade virtual cats. Players could buy, breed, and trade the cats. To date, with already 50,000 generations of kitties bred, more than $30,000 in transactions still occur on the platform every single day. 

Outside of artwork and collectibles, the main driver of the NFT market is blockchain-based gaming. Valued at US$180 billion, the gaming industry showed promising growth with the usage of NFTs and blockchain integration.

This decentralisation of the gaming engine gives real-world value to digital in-game assets as players now own instead of leasing gaming assets with it being pegged onto the blockchain. The significance of this integration was expedited by an announcement from Atari on the creation of the Atari blockchain division, bringing modern NFTs into retro gaming. 

Sony is looking to release The Six Dragons in which the game’s item trading and crafting are pegged to the Ethereum blockchain, making it one of the first releases by a mainstream gaming platform to incorporate NFTs.

Also Read: HashMix raises US$3M funding to roll out its mining power NFT in June

On June 11, Mythical Games, an LA-based NFT games startup secured a US$75 million round of funding led by WestCap to support its first NFT-based title. 

Notably, major NFT marketplaces such as Opensea and Rarible have experienced exponential growth of between 50 to 100 times in Q121 sales. Opensea saw US$5 million in cumulative sales in the first week of January 2021 and since then has racked up sales of more than US$100 million. The group has also been successful in raising funds of up to US$23 million led by A16Z. 

Even giants such as Nike look to implement their own NFTs for the purpose of authentication. It patented CryptoKicks,  a platform that allows for the attachment of cryptographic IDs to physical products like shoes. 

With basic economics of supply and demand disparity driving prices, there were 73,000 NFT buyers and 33,000 NFT sellers in 1Q21, exhibiting bullish signals of interest from newcomers. 

In a time where taking a screenshot creates a replicate digital file, a non-fungible token proves that only one digital file is the original or authentic. The uniqueness that comes with each NFT is supported by proven authenticity, traceability via the blockchain, and ultimately its value. Minted on the blockchain itself, NFTs are indestructible and cannot be removed. 

In recent years, we have seen the rise and fall and another subsequent rise of blockchain as a technology. Each step sees advancements and progression in this technology and now virtual currencies have started inhabiting our everyday lives as it becomes more pervasive.

All-time high prices have soared to a place where the top line is a constant moving target that inches higher every time. More so after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold a screenshot of his first tweet in 2006 at a price upwards of US$2.5 million.

Understanding the crypto art hype may be a bit of a brain teaser. In truth, it has helped provide artists from emerging economies and underrepresented groups entry to the global art market that was padlocked before.

Also Read: Blockchain and Bitcoin for business 101 with Justin Renken

Tokenising real-world assets and creation of ownership of digital assets are nascent concepts. As we move along, infrastructure for NFTs will improve and chances are it will only get better with higher adoption.

Until then, the mainstream market’s acceptance will be a hurdle interwoven in the path of NFT. 

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GREDU, an Indonesia-based edutech company, has raised US$4 million in a Series A round of financing led by Intudo Ventures, with participation from existing investor Vertex Ventures.

With the new funding, GREDU intends to expand into Java and major cities throughout Indonesia, accelerate product development, and recruit new talents.

Founded in September 2016, GREDU aims to increase the level of engagement in a school environment to improve the overall schooling experience for teachers, parents, and students.

Through its centralised management system, its platform helps administrators handle documentation, compile syllabuses, manage teaching schedules, improve big data management, and increase transparency. It also facilitates communication between administrators, teachers, students, and parents to improve the overall education experience.

Working with school districts and administrators, GREDU’s subscription-based services allow schools and teachers to track the performance and progress of students in line with the national curriculum to improve oversight and effectiveness of instruction.

Also Read: It takes a village to raise a child, so GREDU builds a platform for schools and parents to collaborate

GREDU targets Indonesia’s K-12 National Curriculum, which includes both public and private schools — while also offering solutions for the country’s large Islamic Curriculum programmes.

The startup claims to be working with over 400,000 users in 400 schools. It is also developing products for new verticals, including preschool and university programmes, facilitating digitisation across the entire education value chain.

In the future, GREDU plans to enhance user engagement through interactive features, such as extra content and gamification.

“The current pandemic has accelerated the need for digitalisation and transformation in the education industry. We believe that GREDU, with its holistic approach to serving all the school’s stakeholders and value chain, is in a great position to capitalize on this change as well as help improve the education quality in Indonesia,” added Joo Hock Chua, Managing Partner at Vertex Ventures.

Prior to this round of financing, GREDU has raised a pre-Series A round led by Vertex Ventures.

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Image Credit: GREDU

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With a boom in the edutech industry, many companies are coming up with innovative solutions for the sector. But more players also mean more competition.

Also Read: Edutech in SEA is ripe for acceleration. This is why they can help build a more inclusive society

GREDU is one such company that operates in the edutech space.

Founded in September 2016, GREDU aims to increase the level of engagement in a school environment to improve the overall schooling experience for teachers, parents, and students.

While its co-founder Rizky Anies agrees that the edutech market is a booming industry, he believes that GREDU’s model is unique. This is because its model aims to complement other platforms rather than compete with them.

In this interview with e27, Anies discusses the startup’s growth plans, the future of edutech, and more.

Below are edited excerpts of the interview.

What first got you into entrepreneurship and why did you decide to start your own company, GREDU?

Entrepreneurship has always been my passion, regardless of my background — entrepreneurship runs deep throughout my whole family, so it’s always been an interest for me.

And as for the reason for GREDU, it comes from a personal pain point that I (and the other co-founders) have, with the schooling environment, as a student and as a guardian (for my youngest sister). I always felt that there is a lack of engagement that creates all sorts of issues, and that’s how we came up with GREDU.

Since its launch in 2016, how have the objectives and goals for your company evolved?

The objective and goals always remained the same what differs is our approach. 2016 marks the moment where the founders decided that we wanted to do something in education, but we also realised at the time that the market was not yet ready, so we bided our time and focused on research until we felt the market was ready and we officially launched our product in 2020.

Since ideation in 2016, the iteration has certainly changed, especially towards the needs and implication of technology in the day to day activities, that was only made possible by the advancement of our technology and intimate collection of user feedback to better meet the needs of administrators and educators in their daily work.

What are your short-term goals for 2021 considering the current exponential rise of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia?

The short-term goal for use right now is to expand to targeted cities and be able to help schools as much as we can in their efforts to transition towards online learning, which we know has been a big issue here in Indonesia and other parts of the world.

Our team’s focus is to measure how learning can still be done effectively in online environments and refine our offerings to help teachers and students excel in this new learning environment.

The edutech sector is currently booming and digital learning solutions have risen due to the pandemic. What differentiates GREDU from other online learning platforms?

What differentiates us the most is our service, our aim at this point is not to disrupt but to be a solution to the changing landscape of education that has been forcefully altered due to covid.

Also Read: GREDU raises US$4M to allow Indonesia’s schools, teachers to track K-12 students; performance

Hence, instead of an online learning platform as an alternative to educational materials, GREDU offers tools that enable learning and teaching to still be conducted by schools, effectively and with ease through online requirements.

How do you see the future of edutech?

Firstly, due to COVID-19, now we can no longer separate education from technology, and we see edutech will be a hot commodity going forward. With many players jumping into the scene due to this pandemic and with the competition heating up, there is bound to be a big evolution and breakthrough in the market.

Our solutions do not necessarily compete with other edutech players but complement their offerings. In the future, even after the pandemic, many of the digitisation adopted during this period will continue to be used, resulting in more efficient school administration and targeted solutions for students that create better educational outcomes.

What’s the one piece of advice you would like to give to founders struggling due to the current pandemic situation?

Efficiency and innovation will be the key. If the situation creates a big hindrance towards your business, the first thing to do is to make room to breathe, and then go back to the drawing board for alternative approaches given the changing landscape.

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airasia acquires Gojek’s Thai operations as SEA’s battle for supper app supremacy intensifies; In return, Gojek will receive shareholding in the airasia Super App, whose market value is said to be around US$1B; The deal is expected to rev up the expansion of the airasia Super App in ASEAN, while enabling Gojek to increase investments in its Vietnam and Singapore operations.

Bukalapak increases IPO target to over US$1B on strong demand; The books for Bukalapak’s IPO will open this week for about 10 days, and will be followed by a listing in August, says a Reuters report citing sources; Bukalapak, which counts GIC and Microsoft among its backers, is set to be the biggest local listing in 13 years and the largest ever by a startup in the SEA country.

Nium acquires India unit of scam-hit Wirecard; Wirecard Forex India is a foreign currency exchange, pre-paid card, and remittance services provider; The German fintech giant hit the headlines last year when it filed for insolvency in June 2020 due to a massive accounting scandal; The deal is Nium’s second in just over a month after its acquisition of Ixaris and is expected to close in Q3 2021.

Insignia Ventures targets to raise US$250M third fund by end-2021; The focus sector of the fund couldn’t be ascertained, but Insignia’s stated aim is to make early-stage tech investments in SEA; In an earlier interview, its founder Yinglan Tan said it sees Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines as key markets and it is bullish on the healthcare and education sectors.

Magic Fund closes US$30M second vehicle, backs 4 Asian startups; Magic Fund typically invests around US$100K-300K in early-stage companies across Africa, Europe, LatAm, North America, and SEA; Its investees include Vietnam’s proptech startup Homebase.

Expara Ventures shelves plan to raise US$30M fund; The VC firm had planned to raise 4th fund to invest in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam; COVID-19 appears to have sealed the decision for the firm; Last year, it launched an accelerator programme to back startups developing solutions to challenges that emerged due to the pandemic.

On-demand delivery startup Pickupp closes US$15M Series A; Investors include Taiwan e-commerce giant PChome, Cornerstone Ventures, Swire Properties, and Cathay Venture; Pickupp will use the money to add 10 more dispatch points in Singapore within the next 12 months.

iMedia enters e-commerce by acquiring Malaysia’s community beauty store Favful; Favful’s social commerce platform curates recommendations from its community members based on the customers’ skin type, skin concerns, and lifestyle choices; iMedia will be responsible for the acceleration of Favful’s revenue for its influencer advertising unit as well as branded content.

Singapore’s Janio raises US$8M from revenue-based investment and fintech co. Choco Up; Choco Up’s investment is part of a wider closed round bridge investment, which also includes funding from Singapore-based Innoven Capital and Janio’s existing shareholders; Janio is a cross-border platform that provides integrated, end-to-end e-commerce logistics solutions in SEA.

Indonesia’s micro-retail tech startup Warung Pintar reportedly raises US$6M; Investors are East Ventures (led) and Vertex Ventures; This round is expected to bring Warung Pintar’s valuation to US$169M; It followed a Series A round in 2019; Earlier this year, Warung Pintar acquired Bizzy for US$45M.

OsakaKuma raises US$6M from SEEINFRONT Capital to open 3 outlets for Japanese cosmetic brands in S’pore; The firm uses data from over 100K surveyed customers from 15 online stores worldwide to target consumer needs and demands so that solutions can be offered in a more precise way; This round brings its total funds raised to date to US$8M.

Singapore’s smart living startup HiLife Interactive secures US$6M Series A from Shanghai 2345; HiLife Interactive expects to double its presence in SEA with new markets such as Cambodia and plans to break into the Australasia and European markets by the en-2021; It offers hiLife, an all-in-one lifestyle platform that integrates smart home, smart community and smart estate.

Singapore biotech startup Allozymes raises US$5M; Investors include Temasek’s arm Xora Innovation (lead), SOSV, TI Platform Management, and Entrepreneur First; Allozymes’s proprietary platform can analyse and maps millions of enzyme variants per day; It can also generate larger datasets than competitors, the company claims, and has the potential to become the largest enzyme data library.

Locad lands US$4.9M seed to provide logistics infra for e-commerce businesses; Investors include Sequoia Surge (lead), Antler, Febe Ventures, Foxmont, and Global Founders Capital; Through its platform, brands can manage their orders and stocks from a single virtual pool across multiple sales channels, with visibility of sales, orders, inventory, and service levels.

Carsome makes strategic investment in Indonesia’s PT Universal Collection; Through this investment, Carsome intends to accelerate its automotive transaction volumes in Indonesia and expand its network coverage and access to financial and leasing providers; As part of its investment, Carsome’s dealer partners will enjoy more inventory diversity and broader options through PT UC.

LendMN’s Singapore parent AND Global lands funding from SBI VEN Holdings; LendMN offers AI-based instant collateral-free loans to customers in Mongolia; As of June 2021, it claims to have over 930K registered users; LendMN uses non-traditional data sources, along with traditional data, to identify the customers’ credit risk instantaneously and issues loans within less than five minutes of signing up.

Indonesian edutech startup GREDU raises US$4M; Investors are Intudo Ventures and Vertex Ventures; Its subscription services allow schools and teachers to track the performance and progress of students in line with the national curriculum to improve oversight and effectiveness of instruction; It also helps administrators handle documentation, compile syllabuses, manage teaching schedules, improve big data management, and increase transparency.

Dagangan bags pre-Series A for its one-stop platform for household needs in Indonesia; The capital that came from Spiral Ventures, CyberAgent Capital, 500 Startups, and Bluebird Group will be used for expanding into 7K villages; The startup is currently operating in more than 4K villages spread across Yogyakarta, Central Java, and West Java.

Grab PayLater, Atome, Hoolah gain traction amid BNPL boom in Singapore, says report; About 19% of Singapore’s population above the age of 16 has tried a tech-enabled BNPL service, according to a report by Milieu Insight; 30% of Singaporeans aged between 25 and 34 were “most likely” to have used a BNPL service.

One in four remote workers in Singapore feels less connected to their firms, finds Qualtrics study; Creating a culture of belonging is the top driver of employee engagement, as well as a positive influence on engagement, intent to stay, and wellbeing; Stress, anxiety, and concerns about job security continue to have an adverse effect on the workforce.

E-commerce for the future: How open banking enables greater security and trust; Leveraging on open APIs, open banking enables e-commerce platforms to securely connect to a consumer’s bank account for purposes including initiating payments or retrieving data on their behalf; Online retailers and e-commerce platforms will need to fight harder for loyalty by establishing competitive advantages in user experience.

Can alternative proteins help build a more secure and sustainable food system?; The current food system is struggling to keep up with the demand from a growing global population; Investors pouring billions into alternative protein sources are betting that foodtech can be part of the solution by building a more resilient agri-food system.

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Image Credit: airasia

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