According to Mckinsey’s 2020 report on Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts, by 2050, parts of Asia may see increasing average temperatures, lethal heat waves, extreme precipitation events, severe hurricanes, drought, and changes in the water supply. With Asia being one of the world’s most affected in terms of climate impact, it is socially and economically imperative for the region to take action.

Buildings generate almost 40% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions every year. They are also responsible for about 35% of resources, 40% of energy use, and utilise 12% of the world’s drinkable water. Embodied carbon, which refers to carbon dioxide emissions generated as part of the materials and construction processes throughout a building’s life cycle, accounts for 11% of yearly greenhouse gas emissions and 28% of building sector emissions.

In fact, all greenhouse gas emissions must be eliminated from the built environment by 2040 in order to meet the Paris Climate Agreement targets.

Also read: How businesses can maximise their growth using the right financial tools

Furthermore, with urban populations growing rapidly, about two-thirds of the world’s expected population of 10 billion will be living in cities by 2050. This means that global building stock will have to double in area. Correspondingly, these new buildings must be designed in such a way that they meet zero-net-carbon standards.

This is why smart construction is crucial. Smart construction refers to buildings and infrastructure which fully leverage digital technologies and manufacturing techniques to improve sustainability and productivity, maximise user benefits, and minimise whole life costs.

With smart construction, the building sector can meet this worldwide growing demand for more buildings in a more sustainable, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly manner. Aside from productivity and efficiency, smart construction also emphasises the wellbeing of each building’s occupants and finds solutions that help reduce running costs while improving the overall quality, performance, and durability of the building.

Conversations about Asia-Pacific’s climate innovators with Climatic

 Smart construction is the first topic that will be covered during Climatic, a series of videos and conversations related to climate and the environment. Powered by the Asian Development Bank’s ADB Ventures — sponsored by the Climate Technology Fund — and made possible in partnership with e27, New Energy Nexus, Plug and Play, and Third Derivative, Climatic will bring together the innovators decarbonising Asia-Pacific, the entrepreneurs making our region more resilient to climate change, and the corporate leaders partnering with them to scale.

Climatic is kickstarting at a crucial time. Key industries across the region are increasing their appetites for technological innovation and adopting solutions that improve business performance as well as climate impact. Industries are streamlining their business practices to decrease operating costs, adapt to evolving policies, strengthen their relationships with the community and other stakeholders, and achieve Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agendas.

The Asia-Pacific region is also brimming with technological solutions that help do just that. These technologies help to conserve energy, reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and build communities’ and economies’ resilience against climate change. For example, Singapore-based startup SensorFlow’s solutions help buildings regulate their own energy systems and automate room temperatures by using real-time data. This makes infrastructure more energy efficient while helping reduce operating costs.

Also read: e27 Pro member-companies describe their experience with e27 Connect

Investment-related aspects of decarbonisation and innovation across the region will also be covered during Climatic. Despite recent trends toward climate-relevant funds and investments, there is still an acute shortage of private risk capital for early-stage companies in these verticals such as those in cleantech and agritech. This is especially so for companies in smaller and frontier markets, serving more remote geographies, and operating in capital-intensive sectors.

These issues will be covered during Climatic, which will span four series, each one focusing on a specific theme or industry.

Each series comprises:

1. Climatic, a talk show that will bring together Asia-Pacific’s industry leaders, the entrepreneurs making a climate impact, and the investors funding their growth,
2. Climatic Startup Showdown, a show in which the world’s toughest venture capitalists give their hot takes on up-and-coming climate startups, and
3. Climatic Clubhouse, an open forum for discussion on currently available technology solutions, their impact, and opportunities to scale in Asia-Pacific.

Moving forward with the first theme of Climatic — Smart Construction

Climatic has selected smart construction as the central theme for its first series. This is unsurprising. Merely building the places where we live and work already contributes 11% to global greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, construction contributes almost as much to climate change as all the cars and trucks on the world’s roads. However, new technologies present a more environmentally friendly, energy-efficient path forward. These solutions will change the way buildings and infrastructure are built and make construction cleaner, greener, and far more climate-friendly.

Also read: Startup Thailand Marketplace: a gateway to new markets

Fortunately, Asia-Pacific’s construction industry realises this too. Companies are welcoming the arrival of these new technologies, which reduce the climate impact of construction and reduce building and operating costs of infrastructure.

As part of Climatic’s first series on smart construction, the following events will be held:

1. Climatic Smart Construction, 1 September
2. Climatic Startup Showdown, 8 September
3. Climatic Clubhouse, 15 September

This series will be hosted by Linh Thai, senior advisor to Openspace Ventures and chief executive officer of TVL Group, a consulting company focusing on skills-gap training and development. She has extensive experience in managerial roles at multiple venture capital funds, such as Vingroup Ventures and DFJ VinaCapital, one of Vietnam’s first venture capital funds. Notably, she is one of the main judges on the reality television show Shark Tank Vietnam.

Other guests include:

• Thomas Abel, chief of digital group, sustainable development, and climate change department at the Asian Development Bank
• Jojo Flores, Co-founder of Plug and Play
• Daniel Hersson, senior fund manager at ADB Ventures
• Shannon Kalayanamitr, partner in Gobi Ventures and judge on Shark Tank Thailand
• Juan Nieto, Asia representative for CEMEX Ventures
• Akinori Onodera, chief executive officer of Earthbrain
• Christian Sanz, chief executive officer of Skycatch
• Ricky Togashi, global head of innovation at Komatsu
• Hara Wang, investment director at Third Derivative

To join the conversation or find out more about Climatic, you can check out this video teaser from ADB Ventures or visit their official website.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by ADB Ventures

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With the ongoing pandemic and its impact on the global economy, it’s no surprise that thrift stores and used clothes are enjoying an increase in sales during this period. However, it might surprise you to know that this boost in the sale of vintage clothes started long before the pandemic started, and is on a  global upward trend.

In a 2019 resale report by ThredUP with research firm Global Data, the US second-hand clothes (also known as fashion resale) market size has grown 21 times faster than the new apparel market in the last three years.

In 2019, the market size was at US$24 billion, and in 2021, at US$36 billion, and is expected to reach US$77 billion by 2025.

ThredUp is a US-based online used clothes store that went public in March this year at a valuation of US$1.3 billion, at the time of its initial public offering (IPO).

It might surprise you to know that back in 2019, a Lithuanian online second-hand fashion marketplace, Vinted, was valued at EUR1 billion (US$1.1 billion), as it operated in eleven European markets.

What about the fashion resale market in Asia?

Malaysia

To find out more about the used clothing market prospects in Asia, I spoke with the CEO of Lokein.com, a Malaysian online marketplace that focuses on vintage and used clothes, Wan Mohd Hafiz Wan Idris (Hafiz).

Lokein started in 2019 and is backed by NEXEA Venture Capital.

According to Wan, the fashion resale market clothing in Malaysia can be categorised into three: first, the thrift stores (known as bundle shops) where the customers are usually the low-income foreign workers, second, the vintage market, where the clothes are closely linked with the music industry and fashion icons, and third, the used luxury goods where branded clothes, footwear, and accessories, such as original Louis Vuitton handbags, or original Nike shoes can be sold for significant prices.

In the first half of 2021, Lokein.com has at least MYR1.6 million (US$377,000) in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which compared to the same period in 2020, is an increase of 573 per cent, and an increase of 1,0247 per cent compared to 2019.

Lokein focuses more on the second and third categories of used items, vintage clothes and original branded goods while for the first category, it is assisting with their brick and mortar thrift shops to digitalise.

Part of this increase can be attributed to the fact that they created a more secure place for buyers, where a money-backed guarantee to ensure the item bought is received and of good quality.

The buyers are not just local customers, they have seen regular purchases from US buyers as well.

Also Read: From our community: Hiring tips from Glints CTO, 4-day work week, the rise of slow fashion and more

China

Lokein is now part of the Alibaba ecosystem, and thus, has insights into the second-hand goods market in China too.

“Alibaba had an 11.11 sale last year and focused solely on the sale of second-hand goods, including the luxury used fashion items, with original labels such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and so on. They made such a success on this, with a record sale of over 563,000 transactions per single second with their Alibaba Cloud infrastructure in their single event day on 11.11.2020,” said Wan.

Idle Fish, the second-hand marketplace of TaoBao, under the Alibaba group, is seeing a GMV of RMB500 billion (equivalent to US$77 billion) this year compared to RMB100 billion in 2019.

Overall, the used goods reached RMB1 trillion (US$154 billion) in 2020. According to a study by Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics, China has potential for more growth in the second-hand goods market.

The US, the UK, Japan, France account for 22-31 per cent of the sale of pre-owned luxury goods to the overall luxury market. China, on the other hand, only accounts for five per cent of used luxury goods in the overall luxury market.

What drives this market growth?

While the pandemic may have been the push factor for the rapid growth in the used clothes and luxury goods market due to consumers being more conscientious about spending habits, and lack of in-store shopping, the market was steadily increasing before the pandemic started.

So there must be other reasons involved. More importantly, will these upward sales trends continue post-pandemic? I asked Hafiz for his insights.

“Fashion resale market is about sustainability and supports a circular economy. An individual may have items that are not needed anymore. However, instead of throwing it out as a waste, why not resell that item and earn money on it?”

“The awareness for sustainability is not just driven by the young people anymore. In China, in the rural areas, the rural “aunties” are buying up used luxury goods, such as second-hand LV handbags and other branded goods.”

Luxury brands’ e-commerce growth in Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities has seen an increase of 80 per cent growth over the year, according to Alibaba.

More people are now concerned for the environment, with a preference for higher-quality clothes rather than fast fashion that are of lower quality, and they do not want their items to go to waste.

Also Read: Slow fashion is back: How environmental sustainability becomes the hottest trend this season

People are now used to the sharing economy, from ride-sharing, bike-sharing, e-scooter sharing, and so on, and hence are also used to having a used item.

Technology, such as online marketplaces, has been the enabler for the vintage and fashion resale market to grow, around the world.

Wan ends the discussion with that second-hand marketplace platforms, other than connecting buyers with sellers, provide the assurance service for the quality of the used items sold are as described.

In addition, he said that that Lokein, as a technology startup company, in the e-commerce space, has also expanded to provide e-commerce mobile storefronts software as a service known as Lokein.Store to the Malaysian small, medium enterprises (SMEs), to help SMEs to continue to operate during the lockdown periods, under the Belanjawan 2021 e-commerce initiative, partnering alongside Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Ministry Of Finance.

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The COVID-19 pandemic exposed businesses to major disruptions and forced them to pivot their working models. As experts postulate on the future of supply chains, healthcare systems, and the workplace in a post-COVID-19 world, the funding engines have already adapted to transform and support sectors that will incorporate the challenges of the COVID-19 landscape.

The shift to becoming an online and digital-first economy is well underway in three to four quarters, what would have otherwise taken three to four years.

This is a pivotal moment in the growth of the Indian economy, which is best exemplified by the rise of digital-first homegrown SMEs across the consumer, startup, and SME ecosystems.

Platforms will accelerate the growth of digital-first homegrown SMEs

A robust ecosystem of SaaS platforms, digital marketplaces, and marketing platforms has sprung up to support business owners every step of the way, making it easier than ever to start a brand.

Consumer SMEs are currently experiencing a golden age, and digital-first SMEs hold a $10 trillion market opportunity, with 10 million sellers onboarded to marketplaces in 2020 alone.

Despite strong tailwinds from the supporting ecosystem, capital constraints continue.

While platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, and Flipkart, have changed the game for merchants by democratising e-commerce infrastructure and empowering merchants to go D2C, the landscape of financial products has continued to be limited to traditional forms. With 800,000+ players across D2C, marketplace sellers, Shopify/Magento users in India, we had seen only 100-150 VC investments in 2020.

On the other hand, banks tend to support mature businesses with onerous terms such as personal guarantees and fixed EMIs. While SME financing has started addressing some gaps, fluctuating seasonal revenues and business unpredictability make them harder to utilise.

With the online retail market in India expected to reach ~40 per cent penetration of organised retail by 2027, the funding gap remains large. Businesses will continue to seek innovative financing options that are mindful of the current economic climate.

Also Read: Future-proofing Singaporean SMEs for a stronger digital future

Revenue-based financing: The perfect mix

Revenue-based financing (RBF) is a form of capital best suited for high ROI use cases such as marketing, inventory, and CAPEX. It blends the best of equity and debt. Like equity, capital from revenue-based financing helps scale a brand but without any loss of ownership.

Instead of a large quantum of financing, RBF provides repeat tranches as the SMEs revenue scales. Instead of diluting equity or fixed EMIs, repayments happen as a portion of the brand’s revenues. During lean months and low seasonality, the overall impact on the business is also lower, making it a skin-in-the-game financing solution.

With repeat tranches every two to three months, we have seen some SMEs become category leaders in their segments with upwards of 100 per cent CMGR.

The right time to avail revenue-based financing

Simply put, RBF is right for any brand if it is revenue-generating. With data-driven models to assess risk, RBF has the ability to support a business at any stage and provide capital within seven to 15 days.

A lot of companies value the speed, certainty, and flexibility of RBF. Companies across their early growth and even later stages of growth are now seeing the benefit of this flexible non-dilutive financing.

Alternative or complementary?

As a company scales, it requires different forms of financing to meet recurring capital use cases. While many would claim that RBF is alternative financing and competes with traditional equity and debt capital, it essentially is complementary financing. For high-growth businesses looking to scale rapidly, ideal capital sources would be a mix of traditional financing and RBF.

Global trends suggest RBF will become a complementary offering for companies

With global players such as Clearco, Uncapped, Wayflyer, Capchase, and Pipe cumulatively raising upwards of US$500 million, the RBF market is expected to grow to US$42 billion by 2027.

If mature financial markets in Western countries can see this scale, it is anticipated that the capital needs in the Indian market to support local home-grown SMEs are even higher.

In COVID-19 times and beyond, companies can benefit from funding high ROI parts of their business by utilizing RBF as a complementary source of capital.

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Unicorns are rare all over the world, but female founders were even harder to find. Among all 23 unicorns in Southeast Asia, only two startups were co-founded by women: Tan Hooi Ling from Singaporean ride-hailing unicorn Grab, and Liu Lu of workplace innovator JustCo.

According to Statista, in 2019, only a small fraction of startups worldwide (about 20 per cent) have at least one female founder, registering a steady growth from 10 per cent ten years ago. Moreover, only around 12 per cent of venture capital funding were invested in startups with at least one female founder, remaining plateau ever since 2011.

The pandemic has posed further barriers to these entrepreneurs. During this period, though it is not clear that how female startup founders are discouraged, the women workforce faces more challenges as they are more likely to lose their jobs and be economically affected compared to men. Even if they could continue to work, the disparity in salaries and access to funding was exacerbated due to COVID-19. Funding to female founders dropped 31 per cent last year compared to 16 per cent for ventures run solely by males, according to PitchBook.

However, there is a global trend of investors who are betting on female founders. Women-led businesses took in US$46.3 billion in funding in 2019, according to data from PitchBook . That’s more than twice the year before and more than 15 times that in 2010.

Strikingly improved return on investment

In 2017, Patamar Capital launched a partnership with Investing in Women to foster the growth of women-owned SMEs in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Just last month, its Beacon Fund received investment from Sasakawa Peace Foundation, moving closer to the initial target of closing a US$50 million fund. This reinforces the goal of building a steady investment market around women entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia.

“We are excited about the opportunity to tap into each other’s networks and expertise to push the boundaries of gender lens investing,” Shuyin Tang, co-founder and CEO of Beacon Fund, said in the statement.

Patamar Capital is not the only firm jumping on the bandwagon. This strategy has actually become an increasingly common approach to either institutional investors, angel investors to family offices.

Also Read: Female Entrepreneurs Worldwide (FEW) partners with e27 to empower women founders in growing their businesses

Simply put, gender lens investing (GLI) refers to the integration of gender-smart indicators into the analysis and/or decision of the investment. It is often considered a part of impact investing strategy. Gender lens investors look at key indicators such as the proportion of women in the founding team, in the senior management, or whether the company offers products or services that are beneficial to women.

Global community Women in VC and 500 Startups launched 500 Female Forces last year, aiming to boost representation, resources and outreach for female founders.

Former lawyer Virginia Tan also founded Teja Ventures in 2018, contributing to the rising startup ecosystem of Singapore with a community of women entrepreneurs. She then established the global startup competition She Loves Tech in 50 countries, enabling more than US$250 million funding for roughly 5,000 female-focused startups.

In a kickoff event of the training programme about GLI last week, Tan said that in 2020, about 80 per cent of Teja’s companies raised new funding and the portfolio doubled in value.

Either with venture capital or developmental platforms backing, GLI helps deploy capital to where it is needed and bring return from the prospective growth. Moreover, taking up GLI will open new opportunities for investors to discover untapped innovative ideas and invest in social causes such as workforce participation balance, gender equality and the development of a diverse ecosystem for economic growth.

Evidence has shown that mobilising women’s equality in the workplace could fuel financial returns. A 2015 report from McKinsey said that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 per cent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. In another global analysis of 2,400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with women on boards yielded higher returns on equity and higher net income growth than those lacking a women representation.

“The higher the percentage of women in top management, the greater the excess returns for shareholders,” Credit Suisse noted in the report.

SoGal Ventures, a thriving female-focused fund based in Beijing, has generated an internal rate of return at 80 per cent since it was first launched in 2017. The VC has a total of US$15 million worth of assets under management. Among its 38 portfolio companies, 35 are founded or co-founded by women.

“There is gold in investing in women,” Pocket Sun, co-founder of SoGal Ventures, told Bloomberg.

Evidence from BCG proved that startups having women in the founding team delivers twice as much revenue per dollar invested than those run with sole male leadership.

This is even more interesting when we see funds with female leaders. A report from IFC found that funds with gender-balanced senior managers generate 10 per cent to 20 per cent higher returns than unbalanced ones in both public and private markets.

In Southeast Asia, we have seen several prominent female names in the investment domain such as Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures in the Philippines, Shuyin Tang, CEO of Beacon Fund and Vy Le, co-founder and general partner at DO Ventures in Vietnam.

Beyond women-led ventures 

GLI isn’t limited to profits, returns but it also encourages more innovation and most significantly contributes to the social fight for gender equality on all fronts. Therefore, not only women entrepreneurs but also girls, women customers, and female employees, can be the beneficiaries of this investing model. GLI has gone beyond the scope of women-led startups.

Also Read: Levelling the playing field: How to build a home for women in tech

“There are three gender lenses that we use,” said Virginia Tan of Teja Ventures, “the first is that at least one founder is female; the second one is women as sole or disproportionate beneficiaries; the third gender lens looks at women as a full demographic, whether they are consumers, whether they are traffic, whether they are a mobile workforce, whether they are distributors.”

One of Teja Ventures’s earliest deals is with social commerce startup Frontier Markets in India. The last mile-assisted e-commerce addressed the gap of the underserved markets of 165 million rural households in India, including women. Its founder and CEO, a female entrepreneur, built up a network of tech-enabled women agents to market and sell commodities on their own across rural India.

“We saw that many women are micro entrepreneurs or village agents, a huge mobile and rural workforce,” said Tan. “In this case, women were not just beneficiaries by earning income, but they were also the drivers of revenue.”

By 2025, Frontier Markets anticipates expanding its personnel to 1 million rural women entrepreneurs, which could serve up to 100 million consumers with products and services ranging from agriculture, insurance and environment to drive economic empowerment in Bharat, India. The company will leverage its B2B2C e-commerce with support from digital marketing tools, AI-enabled digital training, and a B2C solution to power the digital services and bring a stable income for women across rural India.  

More investment firms have also considered incorporating GLI into their investment processes for better supporting social well-being through gender-smart products that benefit women and girls. According to Wharton Social Impact Initiative’s Project Sage 3.0, gender-based investment raised US$4.8 billion in capital in 2019, more than twofold the amount raised in the previous year.

In another perspective, encouraging more wealthy women to invest in startups is another critical objective of GLI.

“We know that a very small percentage of women feel comfortable doing investing or are involved in investing,” Vicky Saunder, founder of SheEO, said at the kickoff event of the GLI training program. “So the root for our community is being in a relationship, instead of transactions. We want to meet the entrepreneur, watch them execute, give advice, and see where that goes.”

Brigitte Baumann, founder of Efino and GoBeyond Early Stage Investing, shared at the same event: “We learn while we’re making investments. For us, we call it group investing. We learned together and we invested together.”

This approach, however, is still unfamiliar in Southeast Asia’s nascent startup ecosystems.

“Gender lens investing is just the starting point to promote the concept of co-investment between local investors and overseas capitalists,” Minh Nguyen, co-founder of Vietnam’s ecosystem builder KisStartup, told e27. “The shortage of angel capital in Southeast Asia in general and in Vietnam in particular is tremendous and need to be addressed in multiple ways.”

Snapshot of gender lens investing in Southeast Asia

Even though GLI investors are still scattering, the opportunities of scaling up and growth have motivated them to take up this new investment approach, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The three countries accounted for 80 per cent of GLI deal volume in the region, 85 per cent of which came from angel investors, according to a report co-published by Investing In Women and Value For Women in March.

“Increasingly, we see Southeast Asia as a popular place for a lot of global impact investors as it is accelerated by technology and the digital economy,” said Virginia Tan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also been a boon to this trend as overseas investors can now meet companies, assess investment opportunities, and support post-investment all online.

Also Read: 3 leadership lessons for women in tech

“This has opened investors to the realisation that they can invest anywhere, and the result has been a massive growth in investing in different regions including Southeast Asia,” said Luan Tolosa, director at Spring Activator, a Canada-based incubator-cum-accelerator.

Leveraging on these insights, Spring Activator, Indonesia’s largest angel investors network ANGIN, Philippine early-stage impact incubator Villgro, Pakistan’s first female-led venture capital fund Invest2lnnovate, and Vietnam- based ecosystem builder KisStartup, are hosting a training program about GLI and cross-border investing for investors across Southeast Asia. 

According to ANGIN, 11 per cent of investments by impact investors in Indonesia are GLI deals, focusing on sectors such as food and agribusiness and financial services. Of which, 22 per cent are tech-enabled startups.

Identifying GLI as one of the four impact investing opportunities in Indonesia, David Soukhasing, managing director at ANGIN, shared with e27 his observation that investors are investing massively in more women entrepreneurs during the 2019-2021 period and from this year onwards, they will be raising dedicated gender funds in GLI.

In fact, the growth of gender lens investing in Southeast Asia has been exciting with the number of gender lens investment vehicles increasing by 77 per cent since 2018. While this means that there is more interest and capital available for women entrepreneurs, most of this is at the US$500,000 or even larger ticket sizes.

“Despite the presence of high-potential women-led enterprises, many of them are in the early stages, needing smaller investment ticket sizes to allow entrepreneurs to test and validate their models and establish a path to scale,” said Katherine Khoo, program manager at Villgro Philippines. “In the Philipines, while we are seeing more interest from angels, deals are few and far between, and risk appetite is still low.”

This is similar to Indonesia and Vietnam, where the financing gap for women-led MSMEs equals US$26.1 billion. Meanwhile, the gap in East Asia totals US$2.3 trillion, according to the report from Investing In Women.

Attracting more foreign capital comes as a promising option, but local regulatory frameworks and currency risks remain as the key challenges for foreign angels to invest further in Southeast Asia countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. Many entrepreneurs are now choosing to set up entities outside of their home countries (such as Singapore or the US) to navigate some of these challenges and to allow for easier transactions for follow-on funding from overseas angels or funds.

Nguyen of KisStartup and Khoo of Villgro echoed this insight as they said that when global investors approach the Asian market, they often encounter legal barriers, which can be effectively minimised through co-investing with experienced local angels or request to implement the deal in a third country. 

Also Read: Women in tech: Carman Chan’s Click Ventures is one of the most consistent VC funds globally

“We have seen angel investors from outside the Philippines express interest, but investments are usually made along with local co-investors, whose knowledge of the market the cross-border angels rely on,” said Khoo. “We have directly facilitated deals from angels from Japan and the United States, for example, so there’s definitely a growing interest.”

But in the case of Vietnam, even though Vietnamese tend to trust the experience, network and resource of overseas investors, local angels here are still reluctant to co-invest, largely due to the entrenched mindset of “lone wolf”, or investors who prefer to source, analysis, or invest alone, Nguyen said.

She suggested the country promote the adoption of mentor và advisor culture among wealthy individuals, who can support new businesses with their expertise and then turn angels later on. This would help solve the shortage of early-stage capital for startups in general and female entrepreneurs in particular.

In addition, Tolosa at Spring Activator offers two lessons that ecosystem players in Southeast Asia can learn from. First, build relationships with established capital in communities like Singapore, London, San Francisco to create access to capital and act as role models. Second, develop the local investing community to be able to work and invest alongside cross-border investors.

“This will ensure the growth of a vibrant local investing community that will fuel the long term growth of the local ecosystem, and connect it well with global markets and capital,” noted Tolosa.

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Image credit: 123rf, KisStartup

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Vietcetera, a digital media network headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, has secured US$2.7 million over two successive rounds led by media-focused venture capital firm North Base Media.

This round sees participation from a slew of regional investors, including Gojek’s corporate venture firm Go-Ventures, East Ventures, Summit Media, Genesia Ventures, Hustle Fund, and Z Venture Capital, besides several Singaporean and Vietnamese family offices.

A part of the capital injection will be used to strengthen Vietcetera’s content, launching new shows and podcasts with underserved topics targeting the country’s emerging middle class. 

As per the press statement, the startup also prioritises developing its mobile application, investing in business intelligence, licensing franchise and content, and deploying acquisition deals in 2022.

Founded in 2016 by Hao Tran and Guy Truong, Vietcetera was initially a blog for overseas Millennials and GenZ who are linked to or interested in Vietnam. The startup made a strategic pivot in 2019 to become a venture-backed scalable tech company that claims to have attracted more than twenty million users per month. 

Also read: Why do journalists start up? To not be kept down by uncaring journalism

Aiming to become the media hub bridging Vietnam with the world, Vietcetera pursues a bilingual content format in both Vietnamese and English. Before venture firms embarked, the media startup itself achieved profitability and positive cash flows from the early days, according to Hustle Fund, one of its early investors. 

“We are delighted to welcome such a strong group of investors as backers of Vietcetera,” added CEO Hao Tran. “They are a perfect complement to the global standard we aim to set in our products.”

Prior to leading the round, North Base Media has a specified appetite for media startups in markets with growing mobile internet penetration. The venture firm was co-founded in 2013 by Marcus Brauchli, former lead editor of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, and Media Development Loan Fund chief executive officer Saša Vučinič. Its portfolio companies include The News Lens, Atlas Obscura, Rappler and Majarra. 

“North Base Media seeks out high-quality, well-run media companies serving new audiences in markets where demand for content is rising as more and more people get smartphones and access to mobile data,” said NBM co-founder and managing partner Saša Vučinič. “Vietcetera understands its market and has enormous growth potential.”

During the COVID-19 crisis, as the media industry witnessed a surge in demand, Vietcetera’s readership has grown steadily during 2020. As a result, the company continues to earn profit from advertisements from large corporations and brands that endeavour to reach Vietnamese end-consumers. 

Vietcetera counts multinational firms such as AIA Life Insurance, Google, Facebook, Nestlé, and Mastercard and Vietnamese conglomerates and industry leaders such as Vingroup and Tiki, among its advertising base.

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Image credit: Vietcetera

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Tessaract.io, a Singapore-based cloud-native, no-code workflow automation platform, has secured US$3.3 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Wavemaker Partners.

PE firm CMIA Capital Partners, M Venture Partners, and angel investors including Anand Swaminathan and Doug Parker also co-invested.

Tessaract intends to leverage the new funding to enter new markets. It will also extend its product portfolio to accommodate a broader range of company types and sizes in legal, accounting, consulting, finance and insurance, amongst other sectors. 

Additionally, the company has appointed Colin Lee as the new Chief Operating Officer. Lee has 20 years of experience in the US tech industry. 

Launched in 2018, Tessaract is a no-code B2B SaaS technology provider aiming to assist professional services firms across the region to automate repetitive operations and focus on priorities that deliver a better experience to their customers.  

“As digitalisation and cloud integration become workplace norms, businesses need to streamline their workflows and optimise their resources to stay abreast of the changing landscape,” stated Cherilyn Tan, CEO and founder of Tessaract.

Also read: How automation and innovation will boost SME success in Singapore

Tessaract’s solutions include the Tessaract.io platform and the TessaCloud document management system (DMS). 

Tessaract.io platform allows end-to-end management of various workflows, including project tasks, schedules, sales leads, customer relationships, and accounting and reporting. The TessaCloud DMS, on the other hand, features enterprise search functionality, with built-in Optical Character Recognition and secure digital signing via SingPass.

Tessaract’s products are integrated with third-party cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services or Azure.

As of 2021, the platform has established partnerships with a clutch of IT managed service providers such as Singapore-based Stone Forest and government agencies, including the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, and Infocomm Media Development Authority.

Workflow Automation market is predicted to surge to US$42.3 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 5.6 per cent from 2021 to 2026. This hyper-growth is attributed to the growing business process automation adoption and demands for improving productivity, efficiency, and customer experience.

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Image credit: Tessaract

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Do Ventures, an early-stage VC firm in Vietnam, has announced an investment in VUIHOC, a primary school-focused online education platform.

The startup will utilise the funds to strengthen its technical capacity, upgrade product features, and improve the quality of learning materials.

Started two years ago by Do Ngoc Lam and Do Minh Thu, VUIHOC helps students cultivate their self-study from an early age. It covers all three core subjects for primary school students: math, Vietnamese, and English, based on the entire sets of textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education and Training.

The startup currently offers more than 150 courses, nearly 9,000 video lectures, and a repository of 240,000 quiz questions. Its teaching framework is built every week, closely following the textbook curriculum.

More than 100,000 parents across Vietnam have used the platform so far.

Also Read: Naver, Sea, Vertex invest in Vietnamese VC firm Do Ventures’s US$50M fund I

With VUIHOC, which means “fun learning” in Vietnamese, the founders want to create a delightful environment for students to build up learning passion at their earliest stages of life. Its educators design learning materials based on a deep dive into the psychology of each age group, ensuring that every student will find matching content at their preference.

Video lectures are vividly presented through eye-catching animations, gamified exercises to keep students engaged and enable them to assimilate knowledge quickly. Questions will be answered instantaneously by teaching assistants via the online chat tool.

VUIHOC also provides live classes to augment teacher-student interaction. Live classes take place weekly on the app under a team of expert teachers with online communication prowess.

Shortly, VUIHOC will broaden its learning courses to include high school students.

The platform organises monthly tests to track students’ learning progress and measure learning efficiency. Then, based on detailed analytics of each student’s level, the teachers at VUIHOC will suggest learning paths to help realise their potentials.

Student’s learning history is stored on an electronic school record system for parents to access daily and accompany their children on the studying journey.

“What set VUIHOC apart is their ability to develop an online educational product that won the attention of young-age students. In the company’s next phase of growth, Do Ventures will support in fostering the application of AI technologies, such as recommendation engine or adaptive learning, to enhance personalisation in education,” said Vy Le, General Partner of Do Ventures.

Do Ventures is a US$50-million VC firm. In September 2020, it announced the first close of its first fund from investors, including Naver, Sea Group, Vertex Holdings, and Woowa Brothers. The final close is expected this year.

According to Tracxn, there are 149 edutech startups in Vietnam as of June this year. The leaders are Topica, Point Avenue, Rockit Online, Prion, Ella Study, Rabiti, and Kyna.vn.

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Image Credit: VUIHOC

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The rate of digitalisation in Southeast Asia was fast-tracked after COVID-19 hit late in 2019 as governments in the region mandated lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus. This forced many office workers to quickly adapt to work from home arrangements and school-going children with online home-based learning.

In 2020, it was found that 40 million new users came online, and 95 per cent of consumers who formed new digital habits in 2020 due to the pandemic, have since fully integrated them into their daily routines.

As the pandemic wears on, it has become apparent that certain insurance packages, or health and wellness benefits may no longer be relevant due to the new ways of working with the workforce being more distant from office.

A recent Swiss Re COVID-19 Consumer Survey revealed that 68 per cent of respondents in Southeast Asia consider the availability of an end-to-end digitalised journey the next most important factor when choosing their new insurance policy after pricing.

This is a good opportunity and the right time for the insurance industry to accelerate their digital transformation in order to meet customer expectations.

Disruption in the insurance industry has been extremely limited, limited to consumer discovery, compare and purchase experience along with churning out faster and efficient policies.

Job bands, level based standard employee benefits and group benefits worked well 20 years back where the workforce was homogenous, however with a diverse workforce and newer ways of working such as work from home, the traditional one size fits all approach has lost its shine.

With the large younger workforce being added, this generation is expecting a personalised and customised experience which barely exists in the current benefits.

Holistic health and pre-emptive insurance

The definition of health and wellness has also shifted in the last decade. Twenty years back, “Mental Wellness” was not a common term used in corporates.

As people struggle to find work-life balance due to remote working, there has been a rise in discussions among employees on health and wellness – a topic that has come under the spotlight due to the pandemic.

With a significant shift with millennials joining the workforce along with the change in the external variables, the health and wellness definition is going beyond the standard group insurance and company organised health events.

Also read: How Manulife aims to make lives better and healthier in Asia through startup partnerships

For some employees, going to the gym or even listening to music is health and wellness, but for others, it might be hospital coverage and retirement planning.

The spectrum is vast and rapidly changing, and thus, the regular traditional group insurance is no longer excite, attract or engage the employees, thus defies the core reasons why Companies give health benefits to employees. Companies should offer benefits that are more relevant and are customised to suit the needs of the diverse workforce.

SMEs– A massive underserved segment

In Singapore, SMEs contributed to 43 per cent of the nation’s GDP in 2020, and employ about 70 per cent of its workforce. Despite being a key pillar of Singapore’s and every country’s economy, SMEs are an underserved by insurers due to high cost of acquisition due to high reliance on distribution channels, smaller premiums and manual processes, thus have low ROI and not profitable in the current construct.

What can insurers do differently to cater to this segment? With SMEs being increasingly multigenerational, represents 70 per cent of the markets’ workforce and becoming adopting more technology in their workflows, insurers have to focus on creating a digital experience where SMEs can come and give their requirements and the platform can provide optimal plan options based on the SMEs needs.

This should be an end-to-end digital journey for the SME, where they can search, sign up, adopt, onboard and employees can personalise their benefits and start using the company benefits as compared to waiting for an agent to call after filling up a lead generation form.

Some insurance industry players are happy with the 1.5 per cent conversion on leads, where SMEs have called into to check on group insurance, which is a complete disaster as they would miss out on the 98.5 per cent who had a need and went through the entire process.

The pandemic has not only disrupted many businesses globally but it has also demonstrated the value of insurance protection. SMEs are more likely to review their insurance policies during this pandemic for business continuity and protection.

As group insurance is being further commoditised, price wars between insurers and lower sales closure rate, together with a high productivity rate, insurers should take the opportunity to offer a simplified and personalised experience to entice SMEs to take up coverage, helping them to convert sales at a lower cost of acquisition and also enabling a direct relationship with the company and their employees.

Insurance companies which can offer SMEs the right and relevant services and products through online channels will have the competitive advantage.

Singapore serves as a good test bed for new innovation

Singapore is a small, highly controlled market with multiple insurance players. It also has one of the highest insurance adoption rates in the region with an average of 1.7 insurance coverage per person compared to Indonesia, where only 13 per cent of its population has access to insurance coverage.

Also read: Why Asia’s insurance industry is poised for collaborative disruption

The city-state has also nurtured a supportive tech startup ecosystem with a lot of support from the government, with grants from Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which helps new, innovative startups to move at a faster and effective pace.

The region also always looks up to Singapore as a hub for innovation. Therefore, whatever new innovations that work well in Singapore will become extremely easy to replicate in other markets.

Future of the insurance industry

Generation Z, which forms part of the young and diverse workforce today are used to a customised and personalised experience. A survey commissioned by WP Engine revealed that 75 per cent of Gen Zs are more likely to buy a product if they can customise it.

The ability to personalise and customise insurance will be a critical aspect for insurers in future. The insurance target audience is getting more evolved and consumers are increasingly asking the question of whether an insurance coverage package meets their requirements, and what’s in it for them.

Even in terms of marketing efficiency, currently the cross sell and upsell are inefficient from a conversion perspective. There is significant opportunity for a platform which can analyse work life, health, fitness data and actively recommend the right products and services to the relevant users.

With the capability of offering a customised and relevant user experience, this will help create employee engagement, thus leading to enhanced stickiness and with enhanced relevant marketing, it will help create additional monetisation for the insurers.

Group insurance is just ripe for disruption. With the ability to tap into the SME segment with an end to end digital experience, providing a personalised, customised and holistic health and wellness experience to employees with enhanced marketing and analytics capabilities, it’s a great opportunity for insurers to maximise the impact and win the market.

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Indonesian e-commerce platform for modest fashion HIJUP today announced the launch of an IDR100 billion (US$6.9 million) fund.

Called HIJUP Growth Fund, it aims to invest around IDR2 billion (US$138,000) each in local modest fashion brands.

The fund offers three different schemes depending on the companies’ stages and needs:

• Implementation of outright sales scheme for earlier stage companies
• Provision of working capital under a Sharia-based business financing scheme for mid-stage companies
• Growth investment for later-stage companies.

In addition to funding, HIJUP Growth Fund will also provide mentorship for the fashion brands. The fund has already invested in Buttonscarves and Puru Kambera.

“The goal of this fund is not to dominate but to empower,” HIJUP CEO Diajeng Lestari said in a virtual press conference. “This is a solution to help [small businesses] survive and grow stronger … It is also a proof of our commitment to support modest fashion industry by becoming more than just a marketplace. We intend to become an ecosystem.”

Also Read: Slow fashion is back: How environmental sustainability becomes the hottest trend this season

The CEO also stated that Hijup does not intend to fully acquire the companies/brands it backs.

Started in 2011, HIJUP was founded to seize opportunities in the modest fashion segment in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. As of now, it works with up to 300 brands through its online mall.  

According to Sandiaga Uno, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, who was present at the press conference, fashion is the second-largest contributor to Indonesia’s creative economy sector. “This is strongly related to the industry’s ability to digitalise early on,” he explained.

There has been an ongoing trend of tech founders setting up funds to invest in fellow startups and/or small businesses in Southeast Asia. 

This trend can also be seen in Indonesia. 

In March, founders of online coffee shop chain Kopi Kenangan announced an angel fund to support local startups. Kenangan Fund is sector-agnostic and invests between US$10,000 and US$150,000 each. It has invested in logistics startup Dropezy, fintech platform Bukukas, podcast company Noice, and automotive firm Otoklix.

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Image Credit: tuiphotoengineer

 

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Woman on woman bullying and violence is common around the world. From the playground in school to between the cubicles at work, this practice continues to prevent women from maximising their potentials.

People don’t normally talk about it because of fear of retribution, but we MUST talk about it. Not talking about sensitive issues such as bullying is one of the reasons why it remains prevalent; we are not encouraged to seek a solution for it.

Women already have a tough time in the workplace and are constantly passed over for promotions or investment because of their gender, so instead of women treating each other badly to cement their own position, they should be helping each other. But how can they do it? What is exactly the barrier that prevents us from stopping this practice?

Our guest today is Susan Blanchet, the CEO and founder of Origen Air. Having experienced bullying in the workplace, she is willing to discuss the experience with us.

If you don’t see the player above, click on a link below to listen directly!

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This article was first published on We Live To Build. For more discussions on bullying and other relevant topics for entrepreneurs, you may visit the site.

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