KiotViet, a Vietnam-based merchant platform for MSMEs, has secured US$45 million in a Series B funding round led by global investment firm KKR.

Singapore’s Jungle Ventures, Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank, and Vietnamese family investment holding company Cao Viet My, also co-invested. 

Tri Cao, deputy general director of Citigo, the parent company of KiotViet, told e27 that the company will use the new investment to enhance its products and services. 

Besides, KiotViet intends to recruit international talent to support new businesses, including fintech, B2B e-commerce, and expand to global markets.

“The addition of this new capital will only enable them to provide more services to small businesses, who as a segment are a major contributor to GDP throughout Southeast Asia,” stated David Gowdey, managing partner at Jungle Ventures.

Launched in 2014 as a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system, KiotViet aims to accelerate the digital transformation of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which accounts for around 40 per cent of the Vietnamese economy.

KiotViet is riding on the tailwind of the country’s digital transformation push to assist traditional retailers in adopting online platforms, especially during the pandemic. 

The firm claims it provides a full-suite software solution, including POS, inventory management, CRM, and employee management services for more than 110,000 MSME consumers. Last year, KiotViet had 1,000 employees across 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and claimed 50 per cent market share.

“Our main barrier is the status quo. Many family-owned small business owners have been running their businesses using traditional book-keeping processes for decades. This is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process,” added Cao.

KiotViet has also expanded its offerings to include a B2B procurement marketplace and integrated logistics services for its merchants. The platform is also set to offer financial services such as payments and lending.

Also read: Our main barrier to growth is status quo in retail sector: KiotViet’s Deputy GM Tri Cao

In 2019, the startup raised US$6 million in Series A round from Jungle Ventures and Traveloka.

As reported in “E-commerce market value in Vietnam from 2014 to 2020”, e-commerce revenue in 2020 was estimated to be over US$11.8 billion, accounting for around 5.5 per cent of total retail sales of products and services in Vietnam.

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Image credit: KiotViet

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Antler names Subir Lohani as Partner, country head for its operations in Indonesia

The person: Lohani will be leading Antler’s operation in Indonesia from Jakarta. Prior to this appointment, he was known as a founding member of Digiasia Bios and former CEO of Rocket Internet-backed Carmudi. Lohani began his career in Investment Banking focusing on debt capital markets across South and Southeast Asia.

The company: Global early-stage VC firm Antler plans to kick off the Jakarta programme in January 2022 and invest in companies through its Southeast Asia fund. In Indonesia, the target is approximately 10-15 startups in the first cohort with the goal of 100 startups in the next four to five years.

EventX raises US$10M, forms strategic alliance with HTC VIVE

The funding: Enterprise virtual event management company EventX closed a US$10 million series B funding co-led by HTC, a virtual reality (VR) leading company, and Gaocheng Capital, a China-based private equity fund focused on enterprise software and technology-enabled services sectors.

The plan: EventX is going to invest heavily in products and engineering for leading the recovery of the events industry during the current pandemic, which will not only stabilize and solidify existing virtual event services but carve out new spaces and opportunities for the marketing and event industry.

The company: Founded in Hong Kong in 2014, EventX provides digital event management solutions for enterprise businesses. It allows companies to multi-host virtual events of any kind with features such as interactive exhibition halls, online registration forms and webinars. It currently caters to 135+ countries and has organized 20,000+ events with more than five million attendees.

Also Read: Antler partners with e27 to assist startups with cross-border investment opportunities in a restricted travel environment

Ryde announces a rebrand as part of its growth plan

The story: Singapore-based mobility services company Ryde Sharing (Ryde) today announced a rebrand as part of its growth plan in the country. In a press statement, the company explained that its new logo adopts softer edges for a friendlier look and feel, to further signal its commitment to being a company that is accessible, approachable and in-tune with their riders’ and drivers’ needs. It also features a geopin to symbolise the business and mission of Ryde. The new logo ultimately takes on a younger and more modern look, to appeal to Ryde’s largest customer base –Millennials and Gen Zs.

The company: Ryde was initially launched as a carpooling app, and has since expanded its services to include ride-hailing and the delivery of goods. Terence Zou, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ryde, said that, “Driven by this overall growth in users across services, we are well on track towards achieving a market share value of more than 15 per cent of Singapore’s ride-hailing market.”

Airwallex secures money services business license in Malaysia

The story: Melbourne-based fintech platform Airwallex announced that it has secured a money services business (MSB) licence issued by Bank Negara Malaysia. The new license will allow the company to offer payment solutions for Malaysian businesses of all sizes. The movement is part of Airwallex’s move to expand to Southeast Asia.

The company: Founded in 2015, Airwallex recently announced an additional Series D capital raise of US$100 million which increased its valuation to US$2.6 billion. The company has over 900 staff across 12 global offices today. Airwallex currently has licences and is operational in Australia, Hong Kong, the UK & EU, and the US.

 

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Image Credit: Antler

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Gwendolyn Regina has joined as an investment director at Binance to head its new US$100-million Binance Smart Chain (BMC) fund.

The BMC fund, announced last year by Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, aims to empower emerging projects and drive collaboration between centralised finance (CeFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi).

“Excited to announce that I’ve joined Binance to lead investments of the Binance Smart Chain US$100M fund (denominated in fiat but distributed in crypto),” Regina said in a LinkedIn post. 

Regina has 16 years of experience in the media and technology startup industry across Asia Pacific, Paris, and Silicon Valley. She was most recently an intrapreneur at Facebook, building up a new business unit of VC partnerships and startup growth. Before that, she was entrepreneur-in-residence at Entrepreneur First, based in Paris.

Previously, Regina built and sold tech media startup SGEntrepreneurs to Tech in Asia. She was also a founding team member of Thymos Capital, an early-stage technology investment firm in Singapore. She also spearheaded Mashable’s expansion into Asia.

Regina is an alumnus of the National University of Singapore.

Also Read: More troubles for Binance as the startup ordered to cease operations in Malaysia

“I was mind blown the first time I saw Bitcoin in 2010; I thought to myself, ‘this is how money should be moved and this is how the world should collaborate’. A few years ago, at the beginning of my sabbatical, I tried to do a startup in this space focusing on identity, but it didn’t work out. Now four years later, I’m finally full-time in the space,” she noted in the LinkedIn post.

As an early-stage VC firm, the BMC fund provides US$100,000 in funding. It will also provide liquidity support for DeFi projects that pass security audits and the due diligence process. 

Selected startups will also get support from Binance’s resources, including access to millions of customers, media information in the ecosystem, knowledge education, incubation financing, derivatives, financial management, and other comprehensive resources and financial support. High-quality projects have an opportunity to participate to be listed on Binance.

Aside from the US$100 million fund, BMC has also launched a Token Canal project, by which it is working with the Binance Smart Chain community to help developers connect the Binance Smart Chain with other public chains. Through the secure custody service of the Binance CeFi platform, tokens on other public chains can be connected to the Binance Smart Chain, including BTC, ETH, and other ERC20 tokens (LINK, USDT, DAI, and more), as well as XPR, BCH, LTC, ADA, DOT, XTZ, EOS, ONT, etc.

Also Read: How Binance acquired 35 per cent market share in a year with its new crypto derivatives line

“Some dismiss blockchain technologies as ‘just another tech’. I would argue you’re half right. We want it to be ‘just another tech’ someday. But it’s not now. It has opened up different possibilities for how we can do things and foreshadows how society will continue to be shaped. When you decrease the world’s collaboration costs, more amazing things can happen,” Regina added. “Thrilled to be leading the BSC Fund and ambitiously, to play a part in bringing more possibilities to our future.”

Binance has been under immense pressure from the market regulators of various countries across the globe. Last month, Malaysia’s Securities Commission took action against the cryptocurrency exchange for illegally operating in the country. This followed legal actions against the company by several countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the US, and the UK.

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As India’s startup funding landscape strives to reach new heights every day, leading accelerator VC fund, 9Unicorns and its parent firm Venture Catalysts, have facilitated a $108 million fundraising for 32 portfolio startups in their first virtual demo day. By the end of the programme, 70% of the startups received interest and subscriptions from nearly 900 participating VCs from 18 countries in the two-day event.

A first cohort of 32 startups were mentored for the global demo day (D Day) of which about 45% of the startup founders were either serial entrepreneurs or have previously worked in a startup setting, have inferred that investor sentiment for entrepreneurs was twice as high.

The Demo Day, conducted on August 11-12, also witnessed massive participation from women founders. Women founders led about 30% of the D-Day startups. This is part of an attempt by 9Unicorns and VCats to reinforce support for female founders who often struggle to access capital even when there is massive liquidity in the startup ecosystem.

9Unicorns and its mission to champion startups

Co-founded by Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based $72 million sector-agnostic funds provide up to $100k per startup in the first round and up to $2 million in successive matches with its ecosystem of co-investors.

Also read: Gotrade: fractional investing powering access to US stock in 150 countries

“We are overwhelmed with the response from the global investor community on our first Demo Day. It speaks volumes about the positive sentiment in international VCs for Indian tech startups. A few of them individually raised over $20 million during the demo day. While a few of them have closed deals, a few others have received investment interests, and we hope to complete their respective rounds in the next few days and weeks. The idea is to conduct at least 3 demo days in a year,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President of 9Unicorns.

Demo Day startups

The firm is on a mission to help strengthen early-stage investing and help create potential Unicorns. Let us look at the startups that participated in the D-Day.

• ByteLearn: This edtech startup is an AI assistant to create adaptive learning tools for kids learning math.
• Pariksha: A vernacular Edtech startup to provide affordable education to students in rural India.
• ImaginXP: It is a social impact higher education platform that provides embedded degrees, online work-integrated degrees, and subjects to universities in a B2B model.
• Tamasha: An ideal platform for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.
• Rooter: Allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and create content.
• Power Gummies: Power Gummies has created chewable vitamin gummies for healthy hair and nails.
• PeeSafe: is a female toilet hygiene company making hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups, and even personal wash products for both men and women.
• TruNativ: It is an environmentally conscious food brand founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019. Its F&B aims to tackle urban malnourishment.
• Raskik: A natural fusion fruit juice brand for millennials at just Rs 30.
• Coutloot: The largest social commerce platform to buy and sell online in under 30 seconds on a bargain.
• EvenFlow: Evenflow is India’s Thrasio. It offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloguing, and new product development to third-party brands that raise revenue through e-commerce.
• ExtraaEdge: This SaS based edtech is empowering admission teams across the globe to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.
• Eunimart: AI-powered SaaS platform for businesses to grow online by leveraging intelligence, reducing cost, and improving efficiency.
• Prescinto: AI-powered SaaS platform to collect clean energy plant data and apply data science models to identify causes for underperformance.
• GeoIQ: It assists some of India’s leading brands with live data insights for some of the most crucial business decisions involving consumers on a day-to-day basis.
• Gully Network: Gully Network is building India’s largest asset-light modern retail network of tech-enabled mid-sized grocery stores in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
• Hesa: one-stop solution for corporates, banks, governments, and NGOs to explore and invest in rural India.
• BluSmart: India’s first and largest zero-emission ride service that operates a fleet of 400 cabs in the South Delhi-Gurugram region.
• Zypp Electric: EV-based last-mile delivery company with battery swapping infrastructure.
• Charge+ Zone: One-stop solution to locate charging points, booking slots for charging, and payment through QR code.
• Klub: A revenue-based finance firm that uses data analytics to provide capital to brands across sectors.
• Inai: It enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration.
• Numadic: It revolutionizes India’s fleet management system using analytical data.
• Castler: It uses technology and innovation to digitize escrow accounts for safer transactions.
• Homeville: Is a fintech housing credit enablement network built on Open banking principles. It creates significant operating leverage with an in-house built technology stack.
• EnsuredIT: Empowers end customers and Insurance Intermediaries with AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
• OTO: OTO offers customers a convenient option to finance their vehicle by introducing two-wheeler leasing in India.
• Janani: Is an AI-based sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider.
• Alpha AI: Helps businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs.
• Toch: An AI-driven platform can help broadcasters, OTT platforms, media platforms, and creators.
• Hoopr: Hoopr is India’s first AI-Powered Music Licensing Marketplace, built to soundtrack the world’s burgeoning video creator economy.
• Instoried: Helps large companies make their marketing and communications content more human with a data-driven, scalable, and repeatable approach using AI.
• ai: SaaS based employee service desk platform built for Microsoft Teams, designed to help address problems in terms of low self-service adoption, slow service, and long wait times.
• Rage: An innovative coffee brand targeted towards young millennials and small towns to create a cafe-like experience at home.

The future is bright 

With this diverse and competitive pool of startups sparking the interest of some of the world’s leading VCs, the future is bright for India’s tech startup ecosystem. As 9Unicorns continues to power through its mission of championing local startups, they expect to attract more promising young startups from the country’s vibrant ecosystem.

Also read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond

For more information on 9Unicorns future cohorts, you may visit their official website at 9unicorns.in.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 9unicorns.

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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True Global Ventures (TGV), a blockchain fund based out of Singapore, has just announced the closing of its fourth fund at over US$100 million. The new fund, True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV 4 Plus), focuses on blockchain companies, primarily in the Series B and Series C stages. Animoca Brands, a blockchain unicorn, is an investee of TGV.

In this interview, TGV founder Dusan Stojanovic talks about TGV, the blockchain industry, its future, NFTs and CBDCs.

Excerpts:

Blockchain has existed here for quite a few years, but its adoption is still moving at a snail’s pace, especially in Asia Pacific. What are the reasons for the slow adoption rate? What is hindering its growth?

We have been monitoring the four blockchain verticals (gaming, infrastructure, fintech, and AI) since our 2018 Blockchain competition. The absolute highest adoption vertical is within the NFTs space, and it’s massive.

From a fintech payments’ perspective, we see fastest in the in-game currency of the gaming metaverse. Thus, naturally, the first case adopted would be linked to these in-game payments as the most robust use case within blockchain payments.

5G is coming, and AI and ML are hot. How do you think a combination of different new-age technologies such as these can change the world we live in?

We see 5G as a booster for any gaming experience on the mobile, but also when combining gaming and VR/AR with a focus on the gaming metaverse. These new-age technologies will bring people even closer together and automate even more processes.

Why haven’t there been many unicorns in Blockchain (Asia in particular) despite being a hot sector?

We have seen one of the first NFT unicorns worldwide in Animoca Brands based out of Hong Kong. Its growth has been enormous, and it raised US$138 million in May-June 2021. It has also won exclusive rights to NFTs for the next Olympics in Beijing.

NFTs are taking the world by storm. What factors are contributing to this euphoria? Do you think Southeast Asia is ready for NFTs? What are its different applications?

We believe that NFTs are growing strongly and exponentially in Japan and South Korea, and Southeast Asia. What is driving NFTs is the more digitalised economy and the COVID-19 crisis, which has made people use even more digital collectibles.

They have driven the NFT burst in collectibles to start with and later metaverse gaming. Therefore, the essential applications of NFTs are collectibles, metaverse gaming, digital art, film, video, content, and music.

Many governments in Asia still look at cryptocurrency with an eye of suspicion? How can their perception be changed?

We are seeing more and more corporates investing in cryptocurrency. Pension funds have also started investing, and we believe that this will change the perception of cryptocurrency as an asset class.

Also Read: The art of blockchain: What is the NFT craze all about?

However, we are mainly focussing on equity investments in NFT companies.

What are your thoughts on central bank digital currency (CBDC)? Do you think it can democratise access to finance across the world? Should Singapore and other fast-growing economies in SEA introduce CBDCs?

We do believe that CBDC is important. We see breakthroughs in significantly developed countries such as Sweden, which has been piloted already for several years. We believe the enormous potential probably lies in emerging countries rather than developed countries.

We believe that Singapore will follow countries such as Sweden that have completely digitalised payments. Singapore will embrace CBDC, given that it is growing quickly into a wholly digitalised economy and cashless society.

We believe that it is a perfect instrument, especially for countries that are highly digitalised.

Digital-only banks will soon become a reality in Singapore and Malaysia. How do you think players in this sector can adopt blockchain, DeFis etc., to promote financial inclusion in these markets?

Digital-only banks, if they tap into the gaming sector, will capture consumers in the below-40s age group. Going into the gaming community will give them an unfair competitive advantage since gamers spend a lot of their time on gaming. Being present at the very outset when gamers open up their first wallet in a game is how digital-only banks should think about capturing the youngest population and keep them until they become adults.

Last but not least, many of these gamers are young and are already making a lot of money and have considerable revenues. Examples of this would be Axie Infinity (by Sky Mavis) which has made enormous breakthroughs in emerging countries such as the Philippines (play-to-earn model)

What is next for blockchain?

It needs to have consumptions that use less energy, and it is coming. It needs to have renewable energy as the only source. The green aspect of blockchain would be one of the most critical aspects in the next 12 months.

Do you see any new unicorns in the making in the blockchain sector?

Yes, we believe that the prominent unicorns in the blockchain sector will be coming from the gaming blockchain area in the short term. Later on, companies linked to renewable energy will have a significant impact.

Also Read: How blockchain-powered fintech services can improve financial inclusion

Last but not least, we think that companies related to the identity infrastructure will be important in terms of the future unicorns in the sector.

Can you talk about TGV 4 Plus’s investment thesis? What is the average ticket size? How many companies do you plan to invest in, and how many this year? Any new investments in the pipeline?

We have quite a few investments in the pipeline that we will be announcing soon. Our objective is to invest in around another 10-20 companies, mainly in Series B and C, with a ticket size of between US$3-10 million.

TGV4 plus has 40 partners, which is rare in the VC industry. Was it a deliberate decision to keep the list long? Why so?

Yes, it was. We have four investment committees with roughly ten partners in each. We want to spot the very best companies in terms of who we want to invest in and support them in the best possible way.

We do not believe that the traditional VC structure with two to six general partners can optimally help 10-20 portfolio companies.

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Image Credit: True Global Ventures

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