Pintu, a mobile-first crypto wallet and trading platform in Indonesia, has secured US$35 million in an extended Series A financing, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Existing investors, including Alameda Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, and Castle Island Ventures, also joined the round.

The first tranche of this round came from Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures and Coinbase Ventures in late May — bringing Pintu’s total Series A investment to US$41 million.

With the fresh capital, Pintu aims to aggressively employ fresh people across all major functions and build Indonesia’s “largest cryptocurrency exchange”.

Besides, Pintu also plans to develop new products and features to improve user experience and make inroads into other asset classes, as well as to conduct mass-market education programmes.

“As the fourth-most populous country in the world and with only 1-2 per cent of Indonesians having exposure to cryptocurrencies, there is an immense opportunity for retail investors to gain access to diversified and dynamic investment opportunities through Pintu’s unique crypto assets trade offerings,” said Jeth Soetoyo, co-founder and CEO of Pintu.

Also read: Coinbase Ventures, others invest in Indonesia’s crypto exchange Pintu

Founded in 2020, Pintu provides solutions to deal with the pain points of investing in crypto-assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum for millennials and retail users. It “offers comprehensive trading tools, simple UI/UX, advanced security features”, and educational content to assist investors in trading, analysing, managing assets, and learning about cryptocurrencies.

Pintu also claims that its app downloads saw a 3.5x rise in the first half of 2021, accompanied by a 4x rise in active traders on the platform — all through organic growth.

The platform currently supports 16 different dynamic cryptocurrencies for trading. It intends to add more coins in high demand by investors, including NFT tokens.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, there were over 6.6 million crypto investors in Indonesia as of June 2021, almost twice the country’s 2.2 million public equities investors.

Government support has been the strong tailwind for Indonesian crypto-assets development as it promotes regulations to ensure safe and responsible crypto asset investing activities through legally licensed crypto-assets brokers such as Pintu.

In 2018, the Indonesian Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (also known as Bappepti) under the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia has elected to regulate bitcoin and other crypto-assets as commodities.

Other Indonesian cryptocurrency exchanges are Indodax and Binance-backed Tokocrypto.

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Image Credit: Pintu

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Some of the biggest barriers to technology adoption are whether a business has a need for it, if they can afford it, and if it drives value. Perhaps this is why the food and beverage industry, a primarily offline and relationship-driven sector with tight margins and legacy practices, had never quite seen the need for technology adoption, until the pandemic. 

In what has been possibly the toughest 18 months for any customer-facing industry, F&B has been hit particularly hard. In Singapore, some venues have reported losing as much as 90 per cent of their revenue, while others went under, despite their best efforts. 

These aren’t easy circumstances to bounce back from, but there is a silver lining. Many F&B businesses are now sharing their experience of how being backed up against the wall actually pushed them to pause, pivot or overhaul how they do business.

Whether that’s exploring new avenues for revenue generation, optimising their workforce and back offices, or planning ahead to future-proof for the long-term.

Technology, while far from being a silver bullet, has played a crucial role in enabling these changes. Growing competition and demand has also driven down prices and improved its accessibility to businesses of all sizes, yet participation remains an obstacle to widespread adoption within F&B. 

At OrderEZ, we’ve seen these challenges play out in many ways for our clients over the last year, as well as the opportunities.

After speaking with countless distributors, craft brewers, distillers and roasters, here’s our take on three (out of many) crucial ways in which technology can create value for them in the near and long term. 

Cashflow security 

The elephant in the room for businesses across the board, and particularly F&B, is cash flow management. The pandemic has made it clear that F&B businesses need more diversified revenue streams if they are to build their cash reserves and comfortably pay their staff during hard times.

Also Read: How Warung Pintar builds tech solutions to help warung owners embrace the future

We’ve seen this play out with many F&B businesses adopting bottled cocktails, for example, and/or adopting e-commerce solutions to reach their customers.

But what this points to overall is the need for a fluid business model that is agile enough to pivot and change. Ways of working have had to change. And while technology is not the only solution, it is a critical tool in building new revenue streams by allowing businesses to take a step back, review their business and see how they can reach new customers and make money. 

Supply chain security

One of the biggest lessons for F&B  has been prioritising supply chain security – something that was almost taken for granted pre-pandemic, and particularly in a hub like Singapore. Statistics show that globally, only 22 per cent of companies had a proactive supply chain strategy and that restaurants that used SaaS ordering systems were able to reduce wastage by over 80 per cent. The writing was on the wall, but it took a crisis of this magnitude to finally bring these concerns to a head.

With so many F&B businesses seeing their cash flow seriously impacted by pandemic-induced logistics issues, forward-thinking supply chain planning is becoming an  increasingly fundamental part of future-proofing.

Technology, be it inventory management, transparent ordering processes, data analysis or simply connectivity, will play a crucial role in enabling this. 

Workforce optimisation

Technology influences every aspect of business optimisation, but workforce is an incredibly crucial area for F&B businesses that often run on lean teams.  One prominent example of this is efficiency i.e. doing more with less and with less room for error.

Already, technology platforms such as ours that digitise manual processes and integrate with other software are helping create seamless workflows between different functions, from sales to accounting and HR. 

A less obvious example is the role of technology in connectivity and helping the workforce stay connected, accountable and productive, which goes a long way in improving  employer-employee relationships.

To drive employee participation in such solutions, the onus is on businesses to adopt systems and solutions that are simple, useful and effectively cater to their specific business needs. 

Different ways of working, new customer preferences and imminent crisis situations are here to stay– for the next few years at least, if not for good. The important thing for F&B businesses at this time is to move out of survival mode and into planning mode, with the last 18 months serving as a crystal ball for the years ahead of us. 

Also Read: Ghost kitchen startup MadEats makes it into Y Combinator, in talks for fresh round of investment

Technology will undoubtedly play a role in helping F&B businesses navigate and grow into the demands of the evolving industry landscape. What they do next comes down to which technology they choose, how it will serve their business, and how they can drive participation and value for both their employees and customers.

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Image Credit: amlanmathur

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The Indian market is up for a creative disruption. Increasing internet penetration, on top of the presence of a vibrant youthful population who are ready to explore new things in life, has left space for startups to bloom and alter our habits and lifestyle.

The sharp shift towards digital education, the culture of work-from-home, playing indoors has altered our consumer habits. The pandemic has even motivated us to take personal hygiene and health seriously.

Let us look at some startups that are here to make our lives easier.

ByteLearn

ByteLearn, an AI-powered EdTech startup is revolutionising education by building an AI assistant for math teachers and students. The name “Byte” stems from the concept of a 1-on-1, personalised tutor for students, which is also a super-powered assistant for teachers. The pandemic has caused a sharp shift to remote learning, thus burdening teachers and demotivating students. Teachers already have spread thin managing over 100+ students, and are struggling to assign and grade homework, provide immediate and personalised feedback, track individual knowledge gaps, and provide practice to remediate gaps. Students are hurt too as they often lack the immediate, short, targeted help they need while solving math problems. ByteLearn viewed this as a big market opportunity and created an AI assistant to do the heavy lifting and equip teachers with the superpowers that they need to teach and inspire students to reach their true potential.

Also read: How Malaysia’s ServisHero transforms Southeast Asia’s home service market

The founders, Aditya Singhal and Nishant Sinha, are IIT graduates and serial entrepreneurs with 15 years of experience in the EdTech industry. The startup’s team consists of talented AI/ML scientists who previously worked at IBM and Sun Microsystems, an education and content team affiliated with Teach for America and a product design team with previous experience at Khan Academy and Imagine Learning. With a robust team and vision, ByteLearn has raised a sizeable seed funding round from marquee VCs so far. ByteLearn is aiming to become a dominant market player as it uses cutting edge AI technology to create adaptive learning tools and envisions itself as one of the pioneers in changing the education landscape, thus solving both teachers and student problems. Its business model covers all bases, B2B and B2C, with both freemium and premium pricing strategies. ByteLearn has a clear product roadmap for the next 5 years as it plans to expand to global markets and cover subjects beyond Math.

Pariksha

Pariksha, founded by Karanvir Singh, Utkarsh Bagri, Vikram Shekhawat and Deepak Choudhary in 2015, is a vernacular EdTech company that seeks to make education accessible and affordable to students who may be first-time mobile users.

Today, Pariksha operates in 16 states, 8 languages and offers around 120 courses. With the increasing digitalisation of rural India, Pariksha aims to go phygital and presently operates from 3 blended learning centres. It has also launched India’s first education stack that seeks to empower education service providers.

ImaginXP

As India is focused on skilling its youth population, ImaginXP, a virtual university platform that ties to universities to provide degree programs or certification courses ranging from Bachelor of Design, BBA, MBA, B.Tech, and the like.

Founded by Shishir Kumar and Shashank Shwet in 2013 at Pune, ImaginXP has around 2,500 students enrolled in full-time degree programs.

The MyCoach platform connects companies with students so that students are imparted industry-relevant skills which would come in handy when they enter the job market. Today, more than 15,000 students are enrolled in this platform. The pandemic which has disrupted the traditional university programs has helped in propelling its growth.

Tamasha

Founded by Siddharth Swarnkar and Saurabh Gupta in 2020, Tamasha provides the ideal space for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.

Tamasha is a unique influencer-led live gaming platform where content creators and social media influencers can have the opportunity to host live online games.

Also read: Fintechs ushering in a new era for a more digital India

At a time when social media is booming and Youtubers are the new stars, Tamasha offers an exclusive space for the young talents to engage with their audience and figure out their game-plan.

Rooter

Founded by Akshat Goel, Piyush Kumar, and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter is a game streaming app available in 10 Indian languages. It allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and even create one’s gaming content. The views may get virtual benefits as well.

Today Rooter gets an average of over 80,000 live streams in a single day, and tournaments are held almost weekly. It presently occupies the top spot in the Sports section of Google Play Store.

Power Gummies

In a fast-moving consumer-centric world, we as individuals have neglected our health for too long. Power Gummies which seem simple, nutritious and attractive have offered a new alternative.

Founded by Divij Bajaj, also known as the gummy man of India, in 2018, Power Gummies has brought forth chewable vitamin gummies thereby influencing over 100,000 lives including many celebrities. Today the gummy man has made it to Business World 30 Under 30 Super Entrepreneurs of India 2021.

PeeSafe

Many women suffer from Urinary Tract Infection due to unhygienic sanitary practices. Starting as a toilet hygiene company, PeeSafe which was founded by Vikas Bagaria, Srijan Bagaria and Dheeraj Jain has been able to venture into women’s hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups and even intimate wash products for both men and women.

Today Pee Safe is accessible in more than 3000 stores, owns more than 90 per cent of the market in the toilet seat sanitiser category. It grew 80 per cent in the last financial year and expects a growth of 100 per cent over the next three years.

TruNativ

A health-conscious mind cares about the ingredients which go into the making of whatever he consumes. As many food products produced using harmful artificial ingredients crowd our FMCG marketplace, TruNativ claims that their products are environmentally conscious, they use only real food ingredients and their products are backed by science.

Also read: Going Global: Malaysia’s homegrown fintechs take on the world

Founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019 TruNativ Foods and Beverages is aware of urban malnourishment in our cities and wants to make a difference by converging health, hygiene, convenience and taste.

Raskik

Millenials want to experiment with their beverages and Raskik, a brand that produces natural fusion fruit juice is emerging as one of their options. Founded by Vikas Chawla, Abhay Parnekar and Satyajit Ram who were veterans of CocaCola, Raskik presently offers three variants of coconut water and fruit juice fusions at just 30 bucks.

The growing $2 billion fruit juice category has offered huge scope to experiment and dismantle the way we drink our favourite fruit juice.

Coutloot

We may have noticed that our local shopkeepers do not get sufficiently empowered by the presence of e-commerce giants. Coutloot, India’s largest offline to online social commerce platform, offers a solution in such a scenario.

Founded by Jasmeet Thind, Mahima Kaul and Vinit Jain in 2016, Coutloot enables the ‘local’ to be ‘vocal.’ Almost anyone can sell their products online in under 30 seconds and customers can even bargain! This is how the online marketplace is built and can be at par with the offline ones. 

Evenflow

E-commerce is going to be a $150 billion market by 2025. Consumers usually go for trusted brands while shopping online which puts new brands at a disadvantage.

Taking a cue from the US and Europe, Evenflow which was founded by Utsav Agarwal and Pulkit Chabbra offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloguing and new product development to third party brands who raise 80 per cent of their revenue through e-commerce. This is how local brands can be adequately empowered.

Entrepreneurs, investors and internet penetration offer the foundation of any start-up ecosystem. India is going strong on all parameters. This will change our lives for the better.

These startups will be pitching at the 9Unicorns Venture Catalysts demo day with other up-and-coming startups offering their unique products and services. Join them on August 11 and 12 to connect with some of the most promising young startups in a virtual networking session. To learn more, visit their official page here.

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Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 9Unicorns

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Fuse, an insurtech startup based in Indonesia, has announced the completion of its Series B funding, led by GGV Capital.

Existing investors, including EV Growth, SMDV, Golden Gate Ventures, Heyokha Brothers, and Emtek, also co-invested.

According to a Deal Street Asia report of June, Fuse raised US$30 million in this round.

A press statement said that the startup will use the new fund for the product and platform innovation and expanding into other markets in Southeast Asia.

Two industry veterans Andy Yeung and Ivan Sunandar launched Fuse in 2017 to solve the country’s last-mile trust gap in the insurance industry (97 per cent of Indonesians are underinsured for a lack of trust in the current system).

The startup has adopted an agent-focused model. The company, which claims to be offering instant closing and rapid claims processing, currently has more than 50,000 agent partners on its platform. Its total gross written premium (GWP) exceeded US$50 million (IDR 720 billion) in 2020.

Also Read: Fuse raises Series A funding from EV Growth, to multiply presence across country

It has partnerships with more than 30 insurance companies and 300 insurance products on the platform. It covers everything, from employee benefits to digital insurance embedded in e-commerce platforms.

In 2018, it supported Tokopedia in launching its first transactional top-up micro-insurance product.

In October 2019, Fuse secured “a couple of million USD” in Series A round from investors including EV Growth.

“We have always been very focused on product and platform innovation and will continue to invest into developing products and platforms that make insurance accessible and affordable for everyone in Southeast Asia. Seven insurance companies have already chosen Fuse to be their strategic Insurtech partner in Indonesia. Lastly, we will expedite to replicate our successful experience on Agent Partner and micro-insurance model to other parts of Southeast Asia, on top of Indonesia and Vietnam,” said CEO Andy Yeung.

“We made Fuse our first Insurtech investment in Southeast Asia as we believe it has the most thoughtful and strategically sound approach to insurance distribution in the region. Our experience in other emerging markets suggests that there is a ‘trust deficit’ in local communities that can be bridged by local leaders. They function as trust nodes in these localities. Similar to how a warung owner bridges the ‘trust deficit’ between FMCG brands and consumers, Fuse agent partners can bridge the ‘trust deficit’ between insurance brands and consumers”, said Jenny Lee, Managing Partner at GGV Capital.

GGV Capital is a global venture firm that invests in local founders. With US$9.2 billion under our management, it has investments in the US, Canada, China, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and Israel. As a multi-stage, sector-focused firm, GGV invests in seed-to-growth stage companies across three sectors: social/internet, enterprise tech, and smart tech.

Over the past two decades, CGV has backed more than 400 companies around the world, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, Big Commerce, Boss Zhipin, Grab, HashiCorp, Hello, JD MRO, Keep, Kujiale, Manbang, NIU, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Qunar/Ctrip, Slack, Square, StockX, Udaan, Wish, Xpeng, Zendesk, Zuoyebang, and more.

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Image Credit: Fuse

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Vietnam Silicon Valley (VSV) Capital announced today it has invested up to US$50,000 each in eight startups through VSV Capital Accelerator Batch 7. They range from logistics, education to recruitment and sports.

The eight companies are:

• Song Nhat Tinh: a technology platform providing digitised solutions for Vietnam’s logistics
• ThingsTwin: a smart home monitoring app integrated with Samsung SmartThings
• uCall: an AI-applied callbot platform for businesses in telemarketing and customer services
• Nerman: a health and beauty care ecosystem for men with AI-integrated app
• MyLeague.vn: a planning and managing software for sports tournaments
• MarketingWorks: a leading recruitment platform for marketing jobs
• Future English: an effective English learning application using videos and podcasts
• Sunbot: a STEAM and robotics early education programme for pre-school.

Apart from an injection of the seed funding in cash, VSV Capital will provide a four-month intensive acceleration bootcamp as well as assistance packages from Amazon Web Services and Freshworks. In addition, VSV Capital will continue to accompany the startups for six to eight years in order to boost their business indicators, optimise costs and operation systems, and provide consulting in fundraising strategies.

“Although COVID-19 brings a lot of difficulties for startups and limitations for venture capital firms in evaluating and selecting startups to invest, this is also an opportunity for us to evaluate the endurance of the founding team and the agility in pivoting their business model,” said Tra Hoang, managing director at VSV Capital. “We expect that with the financial and non-financial resources of the programme, startups will have breakthrough growth and improve key business indicators despite the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Also read: Loship rakes in US$12M to grow its B2B delivery service for small stores, F&Bs in Vietnam

VSV Capital’s programme aims to help startups verify products and markets, optimise the business models and boost their business metrics by working directly with local and global experts from the VC firm on many common topics when operating businesses. Selected startups will have the opportunity to join the demo day on the final week of the bootcamp to prove their potential to domestic and international investors.

Founded in 2014 by veteran women entrepreneur Le Anh Thach, VSV Capital is Vietnam’s first accelerator and early-stage venture capital firm. The firm has invested in over 80 pre-seed and seed-stage companies with a few exits such as enterprise SaaS platform Base.vn, which was acquired by Vietnam’s IT giant FPT this May.

The VC firm claimed that nearly 70 per cent of its portfolio succeeded with the next funding rounds, such as Vulcan, Loship, Loop POS, Ship60, and Hachi. Loship recently raised US$12 million in a pre-Series C round co-led by Ant Group-backed BAce Capital and the direct investment unit of Sun Hung Kai & Co.

Besides accelerator programmes, VSV Capital also support follow-on deals and deals pipeline coming from its global VC network, targeting pre-Series A to Series B investments.

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Image credit: VSV Capital

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