Buying an insurance policy can be overwhelming for some. There are pages of policy details with a lot of small print and hard-to-understand terms to consider, while deciding which type of policy, such as life, health and home insurance, you need can also be a difficult decision to make.

It’s been that way for a long time, with big, slow-moving legacy insurance firms dominating the market for more than a century, investing little in innovation and technology and failing to connect with large swathes of the population.

Finally, though, the industry is on the cusp of a major transformation. It’s poised for a “PayPal moment” that will make coverage options simpler, more accessible and affordable for millions of previously excluded people.

Similar to my experience in tech-driven and customer-centric disruption in other financial services such as payments and lending, I expect that insurtech will scale up from a product-market fit and innovation theatre stage in the next two to three years, demanding that traditional firms adapt or die while ushering in innovative new partnerships and digital-first players.

The shift is already well underway, led by the US and Europe. In the first five months of this year, European insurtech firms raised US$1.9 billion across 52 deals, surpassing all of 2020’s total by US$1 billion.

Globally, the insurance industry grew sluggish three per cent from 2010 to 2019. But the best-performing quartile of players registered growth of around 19 per cent in the same period, showing that there are opportunities for players who identify promising sub-markets and are able to deliver customised products.

While Asia is still in the early stages of insurtech adoption, there’s good reason to believe it will be its most exciting frontier. The region has leapfrogged the West in many digital services thanks to its rapid adoption of mobile apps and high levels of connectivity.

Also Read: Fuse closes Series B in a GGV Capital-led round to grow its insurtech platform beyond Indonesia

This comes amid low credit-card penetration and a high unbanked population in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

Both countries have a huge population of young, digitally savvy consumers and micro business entrepreneurs who have largely been disconnected from the insurance industry and who stand to benefit enormously from better, more flexible and accessible coverage.

Less than four per cent of Indonesia’s 270 million people have insurance coverage, for example. In the Philippines, the rate is at around two per cent. With no ties to legacy insurers, these consumers represent a massive opportunity for innovative newcomers.

Since insurance penetration is low, I anticipate that more insurtech will focus on innovating the distribution of products to the unbanked and underbanked customer segments of the population.

Reforming the traditional insurance industry

The big problem for traditional insurance players in tapping this market has always been their distance from consumers. Customers tend to come to insurance companies when events dictate they need a policy, but firms have otherwise lacked a way of continuously engaging with people to better understand their needs. This is where technology and smart partnerships have the potential to supercharge the industry.

By going direct to consumers through their smartphones, insurers can finally bridge that gap and build a much richer understanding of customers through individualised data.

In doing so, they can change the current event-based model into a transaction or engagement model and lower the negativity attached to insurance from customers’ point of view.

This will enable them to create individualised, simple, low-cost policies that meet the needs of these countries’ rapidly expanding middle class.

After partnering with insurance companies, Oriente’s customer’s experience 72-hour, no-questions-asked claim processing and flexible policies based on predictive risk that fit with an individual’s work/life balance. The customer-centric features will enable these players to expand their reach and opportunities for further engagement.

Southeast Asia is already seeing a flurry of insurtech activity. In Indonesia, MicroEnsure, Qoala, PasarPolis, Fuse and bolttech are among the innovative startups that are partnering with insurers and distribution platforms in the lending and payments space and are already making an impact.

In 2020 alone, six new insurtech companies were approved in Indonesia and more have applied for a license, which reflects the willingness of the country’s Financial Services Authority to back the digital insurance industry.

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

I expect that companies like Cover Genius, iptiQ, bolttech and MicroEnsure will continue to expand their presence in multiple Asian countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, where insurtech players are starting to disrupt traditional players and annual growth in the sector is expected to reach nine per cent by 2025.

A great strength of the technology platforms will be their ability to gather data much more dynamically and in more detail than firms still relying on paper forms, enabling them to erode established companies’ century-old advantage in just a few years.

To avoid becoming dinosaurs, traditional firms will need to partner with digital platforms focused on channel distribution, customer experience, conversion ratios and performance marketing.

Oriente, for example, is already receiving testimonials from young customers in Indonesia and the Philippines, all of whom express their approval of the quick, simple onboarding process and rapid claims processing on auto and travel policies.

However, the inflexion point at which insurtech platforms will become the new normal isn’t quite here yet. Countries still have to put in place regulatory frameworks that fully clear the way, a process that’s likely to take some years and will be delayed by the traditional industry’s lobbying efforts.

But I see the inflexion point is inevitable, just as it was for the payments and lending fintech industry. Led by Indonesia, insurtech is expected to drive growth of US$8 billion in new premiums in Southeast Asia by 2024/25, becoming increasingly fundamental to the industry’s success.

Once regulations for digital insurance are in place, we will likely see a decisive shift as it moves from the area of innovation to being adopted across the industry as core to operations.

To avoid being left behind, traditional players should be developing strategies now to build the IT architecture and partnerships they’ll need to tap new customers and show them that insurance can be a much more positive experience that is aligned with the region’s untapped, underbanked population.

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In July this year, logistics and supply chain company iStore iSend announced a “seven-figure US dollars” funding round from Kuroneko Innovation Fund, a Japanese corporate VC firm owned by Yamato Holdings and managed by Global Brain Corporation.

This funding round was an extension of its US$5.5 million Series B funding announced earlier this year, which was co-led by Gobi Partners and logistics company EasyParcel.

Funding announcements are always a great reason to celebrate. But in times of pandemic, where travels in many Southeast Asian countries remain restricted, it has become an even bigger achievement. For the curious minds, this might lead to the million-dollar question: How does one manage to meet and build relationships with potential investors when events are cancelled and face-to-face meetings are limited?

In an exclusive interview with e27, Joe Khoo, Co-Founder and CEO of iStore iSend, reveals how the company builds the relationships that eventually lead to the investment. There are certainly challenges that the pandemic has brought, but the founders are able to utilise tools to help them overcome it.

It is a lesson in perseverance and faith that all startup founders can benefit from.

The decision to reach out

Before we can get to the “secret sauce” behind the company’s successful relationship building with investors, we need to understand the history behind iStore iSend. Interestingly, before making headlines with their funding announcements, the Malaysia-based company operated for a decade as a self-funded company.

According to Khoo, while the market today has an understanding of the importance of logistics in supporting the e-commerce industry, the situation was different when iStore iSend began their journey.

“We’ve been kind of under-the-radar … we’re not like the typical startup that a lot of people talked about,” he says.

Also Read: Singapore’s Janio raises US$8M to expand its logistics solutions to emerging markets

Their fundraising journey was even harder as it happened right at the beginning of the pandemic when opportunities to network became harder to find, if not impossible. This was a major challenge as they were supposed to expand their network as a foundation for their fundraising effort.

“You are building a relationship with a potential partner that you will be doing business with for a long time,” Khoo says. “So, think of [fundraising] as a relationship-building exercise first, before you can move on to pitching. I liken it to making a friend: your first meeting may not be the best, but after that, you keep on talking, sharing, and finding commonalities.”

To tackle the challenge of making a new connection from the safety of home, Khoo used tools such as the Connect feature, available exclusively for e27 Pro members. The feature enabled startups to make connections with investors in the platform, as an entry point to further collaboration.

“As a company that was fundraising for the first time, we didn’t really know anyone, and we couldn’t attend any events because of COVID-19. So we relied on the leads that we got from e27 Pro Connect. From there, we started talking to people, expanded our network, and got introduced to other people,” Khoo says.

“Global Brain was one of the leads that we got through Connect. From there, it blossomed into a relationship that we now have,” he continues.

He further explains how the tool enabled him to get introduced to people he would not otherwise know. The process itself was not always instantaneous; Khoo says that it took months until iStore iSend finally received a callback. The earlier months were all about getting themselves known and connecting to as many investors as possible.

In fact, after they had their initial contact with Global Brain Corporation in early 2020, Khoo honestly thought the deal was never going to happen. It was not until June that iStore iSend could finally move the conversation forward.

“If it was not for Connect, I would not be able to … know where to start getting contacts for the investment. It was really crucial in helping me start the process,” Khoo stresses.

“What Connect has done is create a platform for companies to connect with potential investors, and I think it has worked really well for us. After that, the constant communication via Zoom or WhatsApp continued, and that was how we maintain the relationship.”

The secret sauce to successful fundraising

Khoo says that the fundraising process is something that is often romanticised in the tech startup community, especially with Hollywood displaying popular images of founders and investors meeting in a fancy restaurant –then having the deals written on a piece of napkin.

But the truth is that fundraising is “real, serious” work.

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

“I spent the whole of 2020 learning the ropes of fundraising from scratch and that was really hard work. You need to have a lot of preparation,” Khoo stresses.

This preparation mostly involves the kind of questions that potential investors might ask founders which can include plenty of numbers.

“For a good three to six months, I was just [focussing on] learning. How to approach investors, how to give them the best version of our company’s story. Along the way, you learn which information is not that important,” Khoo continues.

“And trying to convey that message in a concise and clear way is not easy. It’s difficult; it’s definitely a skill … you can definitely learn that, but it takes time.”

This is why, during this period, it is good to have partners that founders can practice with. That way, the partner can help founders by playing devil’s advocate and asking difficult questions.

What is next for iStore iSend?

Now that the funding is secured and the company has built a network that can help it move forward with confidence, iStore iSend has plenty of plans to execute. Their main focus is to expand their business regionally, particularly to Vietnam and the Philippines.

“We are also in the middle of hiring talents,” Khoo closes.

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Image Credit: iStore iSend

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Teleport, airasia digital’s logistics venture in Southeast Asia, has acquired Malaysia-based on-demand food delivery platform Delivereat for US$9.8 million.

The deal, which values Teleport at US$300 million, is expected to close by Q3 2021 after final approvals.

Under the agreement, Delivereat’s husband-wife co-founder duo Leong Shir Mein and Tan Suan Sear will join the management team of Teleport and airasia digital.

This development comes more than a month after airasia digital acquired the Thailand operations of Gojek.

The partnership will help Teleport expand to all major cities in Malaysia while spurring the growth of Delivereat and AirAsia’s logistics venture in ASEAN. 

Also read: Gobi Partners, MAVCAP, Sunway Group launch early-stage fund for Malaysian startups

“This acquisition comes at an opportune time, as we launched airasia food in Penang in April this year,” said Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia Group. “It strengthens airasia digital’s plan to cover the end-to-end logistics chain, from first-mile to last-mile deliveries, providing a complete digital ecosystem.”

Apart from Malaysia, Teleport has made inroads into Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Singapore and China.

According to the AirAsia Group’s financial statement for Q1 2021, Teleport’s revenue has tripled compared to the last quarter of 2020. Quarterly revenues from its super app also grew 45 per cent y-o-y to RM10 million (~US$2.3 million).

Built in 2012, Delivereat claims to have completed more than one million orders to date and offers food and express delivery services on an on-demand basis from more than 4,000 merchants (consisting of restaurants, wet markets, pharmacies and groceries).

The startup owns a fleet of up to 4,000 registered delivery partners.

In 2017, Delivereat received US$450,000 from a collaboration fund between Gobi Partners and Malaysia Venture Capital Management in a pre-Series A financing round.

In 2019, Teleport and Gobi Partners co-invested US$10 million in local e-commerce and parcel delivery company EasyParcel.

Also read: airasia acquires Gojek’s Thai operations as SEA’s supper app battle intensifies

“The need for firms to complete last-mile deliveries will continue to increase across the globe,” said Dave Anderson, managing partner at the US-based Supply Chain Ventures. “The successful ones in the long term are those capable of growing rapidly to capture market share.”

Malaysia is home to as many as 156 logistics tech startups, according to Tracxn, which produces fierce competition in this space. 

Foreign giants such as Singapore’s e-commerce unicorn Shopee also look to open food delivery services in Malaysia as it opened recruitment for delivery couriers in the country this June.

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Image credit: Dealivereat

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In the context of a technological revolution that is advancing at a very high speed, the potential for development, collaboration and enrichment of the digital offer is exponential –especially for African startups in the young continent.

Admittedly, the internet penetration rate (25 per cent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa) is not yet up to the ambitions, but connectivity is advancing quickly, investments are sustained, and skills are not lacking.

If we exclude this pandemic period, the increase in the internet penetration rate has been dazzling with a growth rate of 10,199 per cent over the period 2000-2018 (570 per cent in Europe and 219 per cent in North America), according to the Internet World Stats Institute.

The first cables connecting Europe, Africa and Asia were only put into operation in 2002 and this development is mainly the result of the boom in wireless technologies and African fintech in particular.

The World Bank mentions an average of 25 per cent of internet users in sub-Saharan Africa, against 60 per cent in North Africa and the Middle East, for a global average of 50.8 per cent (against 82.4 per cent in Europe and 87.6 per cent in North America).

South Africa passed the 57 per cent mark of the population with internet access in 2019 from 70 per cent. According to figures released by the Digital Report 2020, 59 per cent (4.5 billion people) of the world’s population had access to the internet at the end of 2019.

The banking rate remains among the lowest in the world, but that does not prevent the rapid and limitless development of Mobile Money. In 2020, the African continent had 562 million Mobile Money accounts which represent 45 per cent of the number of Mobile Money accounts opened in the world with more than 500 million dollars of transactions per day. Safaricom’s launch in 2007 of M-PESA is considered a success and a global benchmark.

Also Read: iPhone co-inventor joins SG insurtech startup bolttech’s US$180M Series A round

Bolstered by this growth and access to new technologies, innovative young African startups have nothing to envy of Western or Asian nuggets. They need investment and funds to develop and are increasingly looking to Asia.

Africa is not only natural resources (biodiversity, forests, hydrocarbons, mines, phosphates, fishery resources), it is also a market that will reach two billion in 2050 and has endless opportunities for innovation and new technologies.

We see more and more African countries forging new relationships with Asian countries in a win-win relationship or South-South collaboration. African startups have a lot to gain from the Asian experience and from following the same path, believing, or even sharing the ambitions of tomorrow.

Several startups such as SunCulture and Socowatch (Kenya), MeQasa (Ghana), LIfeQ and Jumo (South Africa), VConnect and Kobo360 (Nigeria), Koolskools and Chari (Morocco), Glamera and Brimore (Egypt), Zafree Papers (Ethiopia), Enova Robotics (Tunisia), Yobante Express (Senegal), Easy Matatu (Uganda), Cowtribe Technology (Ghana), Bag Innovation (Rwanda), and Kilimo Fresh (Tanzania), in several sectors are making headlines with their prowess and inventiveness.

They are revolutionising Africa now and can go further if the opportunity presents itself tomorrow to create a better world for all.

Trade relations between the countries of Southeast Asia (SEA) and Africa have been developed in recent years and should be pushed forward in the target of South-South cooperation. The fintech sector in emerging markets and especially in Africa has exploded over the past five years according to the “State of Fintech in Emerging Markets” report.

African startups expect a lot from private and public actors in SEA to support the African digital economy by making financial and technological resources available to take a new step forward. The creation of cross-funds between SEA and African companies and states dedicated to supporting young digital entrepreneurs are certainly expected and appreciated initiatives.

The co-development of infrastructures accompanying the digital revolution that is taking place on the continent is also a means of accelerating this cooperation across the entire value chain of the technological ecosystem.

In 2025, technologies and mobile services will constitute an important part of Africa’s GDP and will have to create an added value of several billion dollars, especially with the ongoing development of platforms and open banking.

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Customer experience (CX) is one of the most important competitive differentiators for consumer brands. A brand encompasses more than just its products. Brands must also focus on how they engage with their customers, from how potential consumers navigate the product website to how they speak with customer service staff.

The leading brands of today’s internet age have successfully created a digital-first CX strategy. With the customers migrating online at astonishingly fast rates, customer support software company Freshworks, is launching RE:SOLVE, the biggest summit for digital-first CX. World-class leaders will share their secrets to delighting customers, retaining them, and growing their business.

Also read: Revolutionising the food industry with Malaysia’s StixFresh

Happening on 26 August 2021 at 10 AM SGT, RE:SOLVE is a virtual event where audiences can learn tips and tricks, borrow ideas, and get insight into unlocking business growth by leveraging the power of CX.

With diverse topics ranging from how a fintech giant uses artificial intelligence for contactless customer service to how an e-commerce leader uses instant messaging to scale reach, RE:SOLVE will demonstrate the remarkable value of digital-first CX in today’s world. Even better, attendees will also get exclusive access to live, curated masterclasses that focus on ways you can begin to improve CX in your business.

Hear firsthand from leading brands leveraging digital-first CX

As this year’s biggest summit for digital-first CX, RE:SOLVE officially kicks off at 10 AM SGT in Southeast Asia. It will also go live simultaneously across India, Middle East, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

The event will feature some of the leading names across various business sectors including retail, edtech, food delivery, fintech, and more. Sharing inspiring stories of how they disrupted CX with digital-first strategies and achieved exponential growth for their businesses at RE:SOLVE are international convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Asia’s leading online fashion platform Zalora, world’s most valuable edtech company, Byju’s, Asia’s fastest-growing fintech firm, PhonePe, and India’s leading hyperlocal delivery app, Dunzo. Other top brands who will speak about their CX stories include Lenskart, Booktopia, Multichoice, MTN Cameroon and Landmark Group.

Audiences can look forward to keynotes by guest speakers, topic-tailored sessions, and hands-on workshops.

Discover digital-first CX with immersive sessions and live masterclasses

Interested in learning how to utilise digital-first strategies to turbo-charge your brand’s CX? Here is a detailed rundown of RE:SOLVE.

The virtual event will feature six immersive sessions and three live curated masterclasses organised into three distinct tracks.

The three tracks are:

• Digital CX for Mobile Apps – Track A
• Customer Service as a Profit-centre – Track B
• Modern Customer Service Architecture – Track C

Track A focuses specifically on creating a more engaging customer experience via mobile applications. This involves two sessions: the first, “Contactless customer service with AI chatbots”, demonstrates how to create an engaging, contact-free customer service experience with artificial intelligence, and the second, “Instant responses for mobile-first customer”, zooms in on how to ace mobile-first customer service. The track will finish off with the masterclass on how to get started on creating your chatbot

Meanwhile, Track B helps audiences learn to leverage customer service as a centre for profit. It comprises two sessions, “Re-inventing CX from sales to support” and “How CX drives relationship and revenue”. The first session will cover how brands need to address the blurring lines between sales & customer support, and how customer-facing teams need to work on a common goal: the customer. During the second session, 7-Eleven talks about how their contact centre helps contribute to revenue by making it effortless for their customers seeking assistance. This track ends off with the masterclass “Calculating the ROI of your customer service”.

Also read: Messaging tips for startups: a primer on improving one’s customer service

Last but not least, Track C goes in-depth into modern customer service architecture. Like the other two, this track also consists of two sessions. The first session features Singapore’s largest omnichannel eyewear retailer, Lenskart, who talks about the importance of an omnichannel customer service architecture for today’s shoppers. The second session, “Line is the new toll-free for customer service”, will focus on how the freeware messaging app Line Messenger has adapted to the business’ CX needs. Finally, audiences can end off with a hands-on masterclass, “Getting started with Line Messenger”, where they can learn how to get started with LINE Messenger’s API.

The sessions and masterclasses will last 30 minutes each.

Some speakers who will share their own companies’ experiences of digital-first CX include:

• Zalora, Director of Payments & Customer Operations, Kannan Rajaratnam
• 7-Eleven, Business Process Innovations consultant, Allian Marie Sheila
• Dunzo, chief customer officer, Vidyanand Krishnan
• Byju’s, vice president of operations, Mohnish Jaiswal
• Lenskart, co-founder and head of Product, Ramneek Khurana

Save your seat now to unlock your company’s growth with digital-first CX. To sign up or learn more about RE:SOLVE, head to the event website.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Freshworks

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