BuyMed, a Vietnamese B2B startup that provides a healthcare and personal care distribution platform, has raised US$8.8 million in a new round of funding, led by South Korea’s Smilegate Investment.

Smilegate invested US$3 million while the remaining amount came from Cocoon Capital, Sequia Surge, Genesia Ventures, B Capital, TSP Consulting, and Nexttrans.

Co-founder and CEO Peter Nguyen said BuyMed will use the money to build a fully integrated e-commerce platform, enabling practitioners to research educated sources and receive delivery for their medicines, medical supplies, supplements and so forth. 

The company also plans to develop its app with more medical services, such as financing solutions and a system to manage clients, patients, and prescription drug dealers. It will transform independent pharmacies and mom-and-pop pharmacies in Vietnam into more network-oriented pharmacies.

BuyMed is also looking to expand into other markets in Southeast Asia. 

Without an official multi-brand distributor, most pharmaceutical companies and brands have launched their own distribution networks, resulting in a fragmented distribution of medicines and pharmaceuticals to medical institutions. “This situation is also happening in many Southeast Asian countries. So we have many opportunities to explore,” stated Nguyen.

Also read: Vietnam’s BuyMed raises US$2.5M to expand its pharma distribution marketplace in Southeast Asia

Co-founded by Nguyen, COO Vu Vuong, and CPO Hoang Nguyen, BuyMed aims to assist Vietnam’s healthcare system to grow by modernising the country’s traditional distribution channels. Its exclusive B2B platform Thuocsi.vn connects licensed distributors with healthcare providers, automatically matching orders and end-to-end logistics.

In January 2021, BuyMed expanded to Hanoi to establish its national distribution and fulfilment platform, allowing it to deliver products across 63 provinces and cities. The company claims it has grown four times over the last 12 months, currently processing over 30,000 orders per month having shipped supplies and pharmaceuticals to over 16,000 pharmacies across Vietnam.

The platform now has 1,000 suppliers, distributors and manufacturers.

During the COVID-19 spread, BuyMed allowed partners to sell online and offer safety features such as regular office and warehouse cleaning, delivery, and ongoing payment without direct contact. 

Even though its operations in Ho Chi Minh City have been adversely impacted due to the lockdown and surging caseload, it is picking up pace with new opportunities. 

“The lockdown has caused those wholesale markets to shut down, so there are a lot of pharmacies in the country that don’t have medicine or don’t have a supply of medicines,” said Nguyen. “Therefore, we have become one of the main forces of medicine for a lot of pharmacies.”

The firm has also ramped up its business in Hanoi, as it has been operational here for nearly six months.

Besides, BuyMed plans to provide more product categories in the healthcare industry, such as cosmetics, medical equipment, functional foods, forging ahead to become a commercial site.

As noted in “Healthcare Providers in Vietnam – Market Summary, Competitive Analysis and Forecast to 2025”, the Vietnamese healthcare providers industry generated total revenues of US$17.1 billion, indicating a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5 per cent between 2016 and 2020.

The country’s healthtech startups drew VCs attention in recent years, with companies such as Medici, Nhi Dong 315, eDoctor, JIO Health, and Med247 raising significant venture capital.

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Image credit: BuyMed

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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, we started to see the shift from physical to online e-commerce happening. Smartphone technology, Artificial Intelligence, improved cameras and sensors, and 4G combined will allow for a next-generation shopping experience. This will be the key to innovation in the future.

Mike Dragan is the founder and CEO of Streams Live, which is taking advantage of all these technologies to push the boundaries of the shopping experience.

In this fascinating talk, we started discussing what it was like to be an entrepreneur born and raised in the European Union, but who straddles the EU and the US physically and professionally. It certainly gives a different experience –and advantage– for any entrepreneur.

Later in the conversation, we moved towards what the future of technology and the shopping experience might look like. What kind of changes in customer behaviour that we can expect to see? How will technology catch up with the needs and demands of a new era? What opportunities are there for us to pursue, and how can we best use them? What are the possible challenges?

Also Read: Capturing the next frontier opportunities in the Indonesian e-commerce landscape

So if you’re interested in extrapolating and predicting the future of shopping, you’ll love this conversation with Dragan. Make sure you do not miss this one.

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

Acast
Apple
Spotify
Stitcher

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This article on the future of shopping was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: nomadsoul1

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In today’s age of globalisation, the success of a startup doesn’t just lie solely in having a breakthrough idea or business model, but also in the speed of expansion and growth.

International expansion is a strategic step that entrepreneurs need to keep in mind if they are looking to grow their business. 

Startups often think that only businesses with abundant resources can expand into overseas markets. However, the reality is that international expansion becomes possible and faster with advancements in technology and globalisation.

Compared to large enterprises, startups although smaller in size, have an easier time evolving and adapting to specific markets. However, make no mistake, this is still not an easy task for startups. 

So what should entrepreneurs keep in mind when they want to expand into overseas markets? 

When is the right time to expand internationally?

Founders often question whether they should expand to the international market from the start or wait until the business has established a foothold in the domestic market. There’s no specific answer to this question, and it depends on the nature of the business.

Basically, founders need to consider things such as finances, internal resources, products and customer groups. Building out a successful product in Singapore does not mean it will also be successful in Vietnam, Indonesia, or China. 

To do this, founders need to think about international expansion when forming a business idea or developing the very first product. This will help startups to avoid being too narrowly focused and creating products or services that only meet the needs of one market.

For us, this came one month after we started operations in Singapore. Thailand was our market of choice for the first expansion, due to the speed at which the country was advancing. In fact, we started operations in April 2016, but by the end of the year, we were already in Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Taipei and Jakarta.

For us, time was of the essence as we wanted to capture market share as quickly as possible. Since we had an easily scalable product, we also wanted feet on the ground. These are people who understand the local nuances and were able to support our customers.

Also Read: Taiwan’s AI ecosystem map: Deepening synergies between startups and corporates

Which market should you head to?

Running a startup targeting domestic markets is challenging, but looking at the wider region is even more difficult. There are various challenges to tackle, from languages and business culture to customer needs and behaviors, and this is just one market, and not to mention competition from local players as well. That’s why it’s highly important to prioritize the markets to expand into first, and which can be left to later.  

There are various factors to consider when planning for this, including growth potential, market demand, our own understanding of that market, and more. Before I started AnyMind Group, I was tasked with expanding the business of my previous company into Southeast Asia, and I saw first-hand the potential of this region.

Selecting which market to expand should be done carefully because each market will have its own nuances and customers in each market also have different expectations, especially in one as diverse as Asia. It’s important to throw away your preconceived assumptions of any market and instead focus on researching and surveying the market.

Lessons cannot be imposed from one market to another, but instead you should thoroughly research even the smallest points and build the right customer touchpoints.

As such, it’s important to also localise your products and services through integrations and partnerships with local players. 

Building out versus using available infrastructure

Compared to large enterprises, startups do not have as abundant the resources to expand internationally. The hardest thing for startups is a lack of scalable data infrastructure and resources to reach new markets quickly, leading to a loss of advantage over local and more established competition.

This includes difficulties in managing functions at scale such as logistics, inventory, manufacturing, or even building out the right touchpoints to reach target customers. 

Unless you are a business in the technology space, having to invest in building infrastructure from scratch will sometimes become a major hurdle for startups. Companies should instead harness ready infrastructure from cloud platforms and online software to run their business; thereby eliminating barriers between markets or departments, or even between customer segments. 

For example, tapping on a logistics management platform simplifies the logistics process such as building and operating, monitoring product quality, and even managing the entire logistics process remotely.

A business in Vietnam produces goods in Indonesia and wants to ship these goods to Thailand. A typical process involves goods shipped from Indonesia to Vietnam for quality control, and then to Thailand.

However, cloud-based logistics management means that goods can be monitored once it’s produced in Indonesia, and then shipped directly to Thailand, saving cost, time and resources.

Also read: Meet the e27 Luminaries startups that are making life easier through tech in these emerging markets

In addition, startups can also take advantage of e-commerce-enabled platforms to put themselves right into their target customers’ screens. 

Building a scalable business model based on digital and cloud-based technology will be easily replicated without consuming too much resources to operate, compared to building your own infrastructure. 

Finally, expanding internationally is a challenge for any startup, but that does not mean there’s no efficient or effective way to do it.

Planning from day one means that you’ll be able to scale and optimise actions and processes as you continue to grow as a business.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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Cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens are the new growing trend in the foodtech sector. The vertical has witnessed a boom of late, thanks to the emergence of COVID-19. As the pandemic adversely affected the F&B industry and threw life out of gear, many traditional restaurants started relying on ghost kitchens to reduce overhead costs.

Ghost kitchens are commercial facilities purpose-built to produce food specifically for delivery. Also known as ‘shared kitchens’, ‘dark kitchens’ and ‘virtual kitchens’, they are centralised licensed commercial food production facilities where multiple restaurants rent space to prepare delivery-optimised menu items.

Generally, traditional restaurants handle various aspects of operations, including employees and rentals. In addition, they provide facilities for customers to dine in. Ghost kitchens save brick-and-mortar restaurants from all these hassles.

While the concept existed in one form or the other for a long, it has been gaining immense traction and popularity of late.

Below is a list of 27 ghost kitchens operating in various countries across Southeast Asia.

GrabKitchen

Owned and operated by on-demand services giant Grab, GrabKitchen brings together popular restaurants in one place. According to the firm, such centralised food preparation facilities enable merchants to meet the rising demand for food delivery services cost-effectively.

GrabKitchen enables consumers to combine their favourite menus from two or more restaurants in one order and delivery.

First introduced in Jakarta in 2018, GrabKitchen has rapidly expanded to 55 locations throughout the region. Its service is currently available in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

GoFood

A unit of Indonesian tech unicorn Gojek, GoFood was initially a food delivery app. Also known as Dapur Bersama GoFood, it aims to help culinary SMEs develop their business.

GoFood is an economical choice for brands to get closer to customers in new areas. It helps you minimise high costs for employee salaries, building rentals, cooking facilities, and the cost of finding the usual strategic location.

Everplate

Based in Jakarta, the startup partners with companies to help them create their brand. Partners can run their entire restaurant from a single tablet in Everplate’s ghost kitchen. Restaurants can also sync all the orders in one easy-to-see screen, manage multiple restaurants, and get all the data.

Also Read: How millennials and the pandemic are driving the growth of ghost kitchens in Indonesia

Everplate also provides tools and insights to help manage the business of F&B operators, predict demand, and increase the return.

Its services are available in seven locations in Jakarta.

Hangry

Hangry follows an asset-light business model wherein it produces “quality food at affordable prices” to cater to the urban, mobile-first consumers in the archipelago.

Founded in 2019 by Abraham Viktor, Robin Tan and Andreas Resha, it has opened multiple brands with large culinary varieties, such as Moon Chicken (Korean-inspired fried chicken), San Gyu (authentic Japanese cuisine), and Ayam Koplo (a new take on traditional ayam geprek and various chicken delicacies).

As of today, Hangry runs more than 40 outlets in Greater Jakarta and Bandung. In 2020 alone, it opened more than 35 outlets and claims to have grown 22x over the year.

In May, Hangry announced oversubscribed funding of US$13 million in an Alpha JWC Ventures-led Series A round.

Yummy Corp

Launched in June 2019, Yummy Corp. operates the online catering brand Yummykitchen, which uses the latest technology to develop innovative solutions for corporates and F&B brands. The startup rents out shared kitchen space and carries out operational procedures on behalf of partner brands to help them accelerate their expansion and reach wider consumers.

To date, Yummy Corp claims to have served over five million meals and has over 70 kitchens serving more than 50 brand partners to manage their daily F&B operations.

In September last year, the Indonesian startup raised US$12 million in Series B funding, led by SoftBank Ventures Asia.

Dailybox

Dailybox was set up in 2018 as part of the Indonesian F&B company, The Daily Group, which also owns beverage brand Anytime and sushi label Shirato.

The startup collaborates with individual partners as well as cloud kitchen services such as GrabKitchen and Yummykitchen.

In H1 2021, the startup opened over a hundred outlets in Java, Bali, and North Sumatra. Dailybox claims it has the largest number of ghost kitchen outlets in Indonesia among F&B brands.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Dailybox saw a surge in purchases, especially from its online delivery service, which contributed 80 per cent of total transactions.

In March, the company’s gross revenue increased 8x compared to the same period last year. The company is backed by Vertex Ventures.

Kita Kitchen

Kita Kitchen’s mission is to assist foodpreneurs focus on what really matters: food and branding.

A model established to seize the online delivery food market, Indonesia-based Kita Kitchen is a platform where restaurants can increase their delivery coverage. It innovates to provide advantages in the food delivery market at low capital expenditure, high expansion opportunities, and reduced overhead costs.

Telepot Co-Kitchen

Based out of Tangerang, Indonesia, Telepot Co-Kitchen is an online platform that offers cloud kitchen solutions to restaurant businesses. It provides a shared infrastructure facility to build the virtual restaurant through an integrated application, with services such as brand management, personal kitchen, and periodic cleaning operation.

Eatsii

The company offers both kitchen space and infrastructure to restaurants. In addition, it operates dedicated delivery and pick-up-only hubs. This way, it helps food businesses expand their delivery and takeout and enables restaurants to expand their operations conveniently and affordably.

The startup is based in Jakarta.

Kraver’s Canteen

Based in Metro Manila, the Philippines, Kraver’s Canteen provides online food ordering services. Its cloud kitchens cater to online orders and have no physical dine-in space, thereby enabling customers to get food faster and more efficiently. Currently, it supports brands such as Tiger Sugar, Yogost and Tonkatsu Maisen (Bench Group).

Also Read: How Philippine cloud kitchen industry is piggybacking on the country’s unique food culture, shifting customer behaviour

Launched in 2020 by Eric Dee, Victor Lim and Victor Mapua, Kraver’s Canteen in April secured US$1.5 million in a seed round led by Foxmont Capital, with participation from Lance Gokongwei (Chairman of JG Summit, Robinsons, Cebu Pacific), Brian Cu (co-founder of Grab PH, gojek, Zalora), and Paulo Campos III (co-founder of Zalora).

MadEats

MadEats was launched in November 2020 by an all-female founding team of Villareal, Andie Cruz (CMO), and Keisha Lao (CPO). It is an on-demand delivery-only restaurant group building its food concepts, besides taking orders from its virtual storefront and fulfilling deliveries with its fleet of riders.

Since its launch in November, MadEats has launched three brands — Yang Gang, a Korean fried chicken shop; Chow Time, a Chinese takeout; and Fried Nice. The company recently launched its fourth concept focused on coffee.

Early last month, Manila-headquartered MadEats secured US$125,000 in funding from the Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator. It is the first cloud kitchen startup to be selected for the prestigious programme.

CloudEats

CloudEats, which was launched in June 2019, develops its ghost kitchens in non-retail and cost-efficient spaces, with operations and layouts specifically designed for food delivery. It currently has five ghost kitchens in the Philippines that house 70 in-house restaurant brands.

Unlike GrabKitchen, it does not lease kitchen spaces to third parties. Instead, the startup operates its own kitchens for its in-house restaurant brands.

In April 2020, the Filipino startup raised US$1.4 million in a seed funding round led by local family offices with large stakes in the real estate and food and beverage industries.

KitchenConnect

Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, KitchenConnect provides professional kitchens designed to accommodate every chef or cuisine, to let them open up nearly any type of restaurant. Each space is outfitted with all the essentials.

It integrates services that complement the kitchen space, such as quick onboarding with local food delivery apps, marketing growth consultation, front-of-house operation management, insurance, and maintenance.

COOX

COOX is like a co-working space for food operators. It has several exclusive cooking suites (from 88-132 sq ft) in Kuala Lumpur’s flagship location. It offers delivery, takeaways, dine-in and even drive-through for patrons to get a taste of all their favourite food from one single spot.
Each F&B operator will only need minimal staff to do the cooking, and COOX will handle things on the front-end, such as delivery orders and license applications.

Co-founded by former Youth & Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, COOX was conceptualised after restaurant and stall owners were forced to either close down for good or scale down their operations due to the pandemic.

CookHouse

CookHouse is a shared kitchen, cloud kitchen, co-working space, community club — all rolled into one. According to its founder Huen Su San, Cookhouse stands out from other ghost kitchens because it’s a community-centric ecosystem.

Besides the infrastructure and equipment, the Kuala Lumpur-based company has built a community and networks to support the food businesses. A member of the Cookhouse community benefits from these networks and working alongside a community made up of passionate food entrepreneurs from all walks of life.

Pop Meals

Pop Meals is a full-stack food delivery service based in Malaysia.
Launched initially as dahmakan by food delivery industry veterans, it claims to be the first Malaysian startup to participate in Y Combinator’s accelerator programme.

It operates on a full-stack platform, an operating system that allows us to control nearly every step of its operations — from recipe development to last-mile delivery.

Loop Foods

Loop Foods is a multi-brand cloud kitchen that leverages data and a tech-enabled network to serve great food through food delivery channels. Users can order from these three restaurants/brands via our Loop Foods website within a single delivery order.

It currently has Spargo Eats, a farm-to-fork healthy meal delivery service, as one of its brands operating since March 2021. Loop Foods is launching two brands. Busy Bee focuses on sourdough sandwiches and good coffee from its friends at Nespresso designed for busy bees (corporates). Plant Nation offers a plant-forward menu offering, which caters for plant-based diets, vegan and vegetarian customers.

Loop Foods was part of Sunway iLabs Super Accelerator Programme. It secured up to RM100,000 (US$24,000) funding from Sunway and a potential pilot project across 13 of its business divisions.

Smart City Kitchens

SmartCity’s state-of-the-art virtual kitchens in Singapore are optimised for food-delivery businesses intent on keeping costs low and profits high. Its kitchens boast anywhere from 20-32 units, some of which have dine-in availability.

It offers a low-risk, low upfront capital investment and high upside opportunity for small to medium-size F&B operators to launch and expand their restaurant or food delivery business.

Kitch

It is Les Amis Group’s first-ever cloud kitchen concept.

Based in Singapore, Kitch is a venture-backed marketplace that connects commercial kitchens with food business. It brings consumers a wide variety of cuisines for takeaway and islandwide delivery from Serangoon Gardens.

Tiffin Labs

Tiffin Labs, based in Singapore, creates and scales delivery-optimised digital restaurant brands crafted by its culinary team and proprietary food trend analytics engine.

Its digital restaurant brands are carefully prepared and cooked out of its own network of partnered leading restaurants.

TiffinLabs was founded by industry veterans with leadership experience at the world’s leading restaurant, hospitality, food delivery, technology and real estate companies.

JustKitchen

JustKitchen operates a network of delivery-only commercial kitchens in the city-state, using a ‘hub and spoke’ model and marketing a proprietary and partnered food brands portfolio. Orders are automatically routed to ‘spoke kitchen’ nearest to the customer.

JustKitchen combines underutilised real estate, algorithm-driven supply chain optimisation and last-mile food delivery apps to reach underserved markets. It gives customers quick access to the freshest delivery foods they want and wherever they want.

Deliveroo

Deliveroo’s Editions help restaurants set up kitchens in new areas within just eight to 12 weeks, without the upfront costs of a high-street premise. It provides restaurants with data insights to know which cuisines will be popular in specific local areas.

Whether it is a local restaurant looking to expand, street food entrepreneurs seeking new customers, or a restaurant launching a new menu, Editions are designed to support innovation. Editions identify the cuisines that people want but do not have access to locally and then invests in restaurants that excel in those foods to help them set up in those local areas.

Foodpanda

Foodpanda is a satellite kitchen that assembles an array of items from different restaurants under one roof. Patrons of the 30-seater dine-in space will have the option to choose from (deep breath) Ichiban Bento, Crystal Jade Kitchen, Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, Coca Cola, Nene Chicken, Saap Saap Thai, Kaffe & Toast, Ben & Jerry’s, and Wingzone.

The Social Kitchen

The Social Kitchen is a social enterprise with a mission to benefit the vulnerable community. It partners with community organisations to operate their kitchen and cafe to benefit the disadvantaged communities by creating employment optimally.

It converts under-utilised kitchens into ghost kitchens, operated by well-known F&B brands, serving quality mid-tier to high-end dining options, takeaways & deliveries.

Tastes.co

Based in Thailand, Tastes has gathered more than 15 restaurants of various styles in one place, including a la carte food, noodles, chicken rice, spaghetti, Mexican food, bubble tea and Taiwanese shaved ice. The company helps restaurant owners who want to expand their branches do it at lesser costs.

Tastes provides restaurant management systems and equipment and increases restaurants’ marketing opportunities through online content creation and ads on Tastes social media.

Chef Station

Chef Station is a delivery-only platform in Saigon, Vietnam, that lets diners order from over 30 dishes from different F&B brands in one transaction. It brings various offerings from five trusted restaurants famous in both Saigon and Hanoi.

Chef Station boasts a broad menu with over 60 items, including Vietnamese, Korean, and US-style food. The company claims that Chef Station has a significantly wider selection of dishes to choose from when compared with food aggregators such as Now.vn, Foody, or GrabFood.

Tasty Kitchen

Tasty Kitchen follows a “home restaurant” concept in Vietnam, bringing unique and new culinary styles to diners. It promises pure taste from natural and fresh ingredients selected according to high standards from leading prestigious farms in Vietnam.

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Image Credit: KitchenConnect

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The term “tokenisation” has been all the rage in the last few years across all regions of the world. It’s not only the crypto community that has recognised the digital mapping of almost all assets is possible with blockchain-based tokens.

Anyone can become a shareholder in a company or a ski resort by buying tokens and consequently reap the rewards of business’s success.

Key milestones of the asset tokenisation trend development

The trend for asset tokenisation goes back to 2016 when a number of companies perceived the benefits of blockchain. They mainly used the Ethereum blockchain, allowing anyone to create tokens of the ERC-20 standards, which was first utilised during the ICO hype in 2017.

Around the same time, tokenisation was pioneered in the banking sector. Thus, the Visa and Mastercard payment systems started implementing Token Service – an original security technology that replaces the cardholder’s data with a unique digital identifier (token). It can be used for payment without disclosing bank card credentials.

During 2017-2018 an easy access to the information and willingness of masses to invest in digital assets created new momentum for tokenisation of various real assets, from real estate and art objects to company shares. Elevated Returns demonstrated the most successful cases (deal with St. Aspen Ski Resort), as well as logistics company CargoX (innovative bill of lading – Smart B/L). 

Among the most well-known tokenisation platforms are:

• Polymath Network is an all-in-all solution for creating security tokens
• Templum is a comprehensive solution for raising capital and trading tokens on private markets
• Harbor, a platform for tokenising funds, private equity, and commercial real estate
• Tokeny, a platform, which offers to digitally issue, manage and transfer security tokens

However, there are few successful cases, since not every business trusts cryptocurrencies and blockchain. 

In recent months the fundraising platforms, offering small businesses the opportunities to grow, have proved to be the hottest trend.

Also Read: PDAX raises US$12.5M to take advantage of the popularity of cryptocurrencies in Philippines

For instance, launchpads, the decentralised VC investment platforms, are known for promoting new token sale models. One of them is DYCO, the Dynamic Coin Offering, which presents the opportunity for participants to get a refund in case they are not satisfied with the deliverables of the project they supported. Binance Launchpad, Pokastarter and Duck Starter caught up at the beginning of 2021. 

Another fundamental concept is combining tokenisation services with other functionality, which is convenient for startups. This is how digital asset exchange Binaryx decided to stand out.

The project offers tokenisation services plus the functionality of cryptocurrency exchange – available on the same platform. It means, businesses can tokenise their assets, list coins on the exchange and distribute them among the community using one platform. 

Why tokenisation is such an attractive concept

Naturally, there are many benefits of digitising assets that can drive the growth of businesses of all types. Let’s have a closer look at some of them.

Fast and affordable 

Traditional financial instruments, like initial public offering (IPO) can take more than a year. The tokenisation of assets, in the meantime, happens in a matter of hours, as the transactions are carried out almost instantly.

IPO has a number of requirements that many small businesses don’t meet, such as independent audit or a certain level of return.

Tokenisation on the blockchain offers low-cost and fast solutions for transforming physical assets into digital ones and allocating them all over the world. 

Accessible for masses

In previous decades a lot of investment opportunities have only been accessible to accredited investors. Today regular people can invest in many products and services through technology.

The same applies to businesses – they do not necessarily need qualified investors. There are currently avenues to attract investments from people, who are willing to support their products from any part of the world.

Impact of the asset tokenisation on businesses

The primary goal of tokenising assets is to increase liquidity. Businesses are now faced with the major challenge of low liquidity, which gravely hampers their development. 

Lately, big companies have been trying to bring liquidity through securitisation. However, this method has significant drawbacks, such as preparation time (from six months or more) and cost (US$300,000 and more). Hence, the creation of security tokens is not suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

There is an alternative option. Businesses can use the blockchain system. It’s much cheaper and can attract the maximum number of assets into the total turnover. Even assets that were previously considered illiquid will be able to generate revenue.

Also read: Are CBDCs better than Bitcoins? Here’s why Asia should bank on them

Adoption: what’s taking so long

It’s also worth considering some of the nuances that slow down the widespread use of tokenisation.

Poor access to financial services in some countries

Financial integration is underway at a relatively slower pace than expected. According to the 2017 Global Findex report, about 1.7 billion adults worldwide are still not using mobile banking.

Therefore, the main objective is to make the Internet available to everyone, especially in developing countries, and educate the population on mobile apps. 

Dealing with cryptocurrencies requires efforts and skills

Not everyone appreciates the need for cryptocurrency, as most people do not have a good grasp of the issue. It’s no surprise so many people still recoil at the mention of the word “cryptocurrency”.

The first step that should be taken in this regard is to implement educational programs to raise awareness and help anyone interested to gain knowledge or upgrade their skills in operations with cryptocurrencies and tokens. 

The tokenised asset market has an increasing impact on the entire economy. However, there is no unified approach for the implementation of tokenisation yet, and clearly, this process will require compliance regulation.

It’s entirely possible to expect the achievement of consensus between blockchain projects in a few years. Their interaction with existing government institutions should also be improved.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Building communities has always been at the centre of our lives. From connecting with peers at schools as adolescents to making friends at work as young adults, who we are and how we live have always been shaped by some form of a larger community. It is in acknowledging this importance that Facebook, one of the world’s most innovative game-changers in community building, has made it its mission to equip community leaders with the right tools to grow.

Facebook defines a community as a collection of people, in which they receive a sense of belonging, connection, and feeling of safety, and they give trust and investment over time. Threaded together by identity, interest, location, activity, experience, and institution, Facebook’s onus is to help strengthen communities and foster safe spaces for all.

As such, the social media organisation is launching the 2021 Community Accelerator Program Training, a program that helps leaders harness the power of their community to turn impactful ideas into action.

How the community accelerator works

Emotional well-being, civic engagement, instrumental support — these are only some of the benefits that come with being part of a community. In order to help community leaders foster such nurturing environments that don’t only help enrich the lives of people but also help their respective communities establish and achieve crucial goals, the 2021 Community Accelerator Program Training operates under a three-pronged approach:

• Training & Coaching: Participants learn how to organize and strengthen their community through custom training, one-on-one coaching and meaningful partnerships.
• Access to New Products: Participants are granted early access to new products aimed at helping them manage and activate their community.
• Funding: Facebook works with GlobalGiving to offer participants $50K USD to help fund their community’s initiatives.

Coaching and mentorship under the program will expose participants to world-class experts in business strategy, growth, and operations, who will be imparting key insights and industry expertise regarding relevant matters. Educational content will be focused on developing the business, leadership, and community skills needed to bring the community to the next level. They will also be offering product education and support on community initiative execution.

Also read: 32 startups raise US$108 million in 9Unicorns-VCats maiden Global Demo Day

Participants will also enjoy early access to new products aimed at helping them manage and activate their respective communities.

Through the programme, participants get to enjoy connections to leaders across the world who are going through similar journeys of building impactful communities through the program’s Global and Regional Facebook groups. Moreover, participants will be introduced to and connected with actors in the local and global ecosystem who can help them achieve their goals. Some of these key stakeholders including funders, corporations, and connectors.

In addition, the Community Accelerator Program Training offers financial support to fuel the initiatives and operations of the communities. Also, with the support of Facebook’s marketing team, the program creates avenues for recognition for participants to tell their stories in. This helps put a spotlight on their efforts to attract future partnerships, it also helps institutionalise and the projects which can ultimately help communities establish credibility and gain traction. Lastly, the program provides a slew of important forms of support carried out through the Facebook platform.

Selection criteria for potential participants

Of course, with all the fantastic communities out there being led by some of the most brilliant and most forward-thinking individuals, the selection of participants is going to be close to impossible. Thankfully, for this accelerator programme, Facebook has streamlined their selection criteria based on several key factors.

To start with, Facebook is looking for the best program fit. This refers to communities and community leaders that seem to be at a good stage of development. These are communities whose goals are generally aligned with regional priorities. The leadership team must also be committed to fully engaging at every stage of the program, must have a good vision for the future of the community, and whose members interact horizontally instead of simply connecting at a network level.

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

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is also an important consideration given the variety of communities out there that need the opportunity for growth. Communities must have a clear purpose and understands how such purpose positively impacts the lives of their members and the larger society beyond it. The leadership team should have clear and defined ways of working that are distributed across the organisation, leveraging volunteers in a recurrent and significant manner.

Another key indicator for potential participants is the sustainability of these communities, whether this is being prioritised by the leadership team, and what steps they have taken towards keeping the communities sustainable. Other important factors that are also going to be largely considered are activities, regional goals, and product fit.

Partnership with e27

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with e27 once again this year for the Community Accelerator Program, and looking forward to welcoming this year’s cohort as we help these leaders build thriving communities,” said Grace Clapham, APAC Community Partnerships Director.

This is the second year that the Facebook Community Accelerator will be partnering with e27. Last year, the social media organisation partnered with e27 to capture the company’s community-building expertise and vast network, particularly in the Asia Pacific. Coming from last year’s leg, we saw how collaborations between Facebook communities have yield better impact in terms of meeting intersecting goals across different verticals.

This year’s partnership between the two community-building leaders is poised to achieve similar success, which is fitting considering e27’s role as one of APAC’s go-to platforms for news, community, events, talent, funding, and more.

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

“It is in our DNA to work with small organisations and enable them to succeed. As a community ourselves, we understand the pains of growing a community and know how to solve them,” said e27 CEO and Co-Founder, Mohan Belani, about last year’s programme.

Having established countless collaborations and partnerships among community members within its vast network, e27’s active role in the APAC tech startup ecosystem puts it in the best possible position to lead the charge.

2021 Community Accelerator Program Training

The project is a comprehensive training program that will immerse participants in rigorous and often rewarding world of community building. The program will last for approximately six months starting from August 2021 to March 2022.

The event will culminate in a demo day which allows participants to demonstrate their key learnings and to ultimately discuss to the rest of the program the nature of their communities, including the goals they are working towards. Interested participants who meet the criteria and are keen on building purposeful communities may visit their official page for more information.

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Photo by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels

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Sunday, a Bangkok-based fully-integrated sales and services insurtech startup, disclosed today it has secured US$45 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round. 

New and existing investors joined the round, including Tencent, SCB 10X, Vertex Growth, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, Quona Capital, Aflac Ventures, and Z Venture Capital.

As per the press statement, Sunday will use the money to strengthen its online platform architecture to offer a retail product suite comprising health insurance and electronics and motor insurance protection. 

Also read: Why now is the right time for disruption in the insurance industry?

The startup also intends to grow its portfolio to Indonesia and extend its product and platforms to insurance agents, SMEs and partners.

“Awareness for health insurance will continue to increase, and we believe more consumers would be open to shop for insurance online,” said Cindy Kua, CEO and co-founder of Sunday.

Founded in Bangkok in 2017, Sunday aims to solve the current inefficiencies of the whole insurance value chain, from the development of disruptive products, faster complex claim settlements to a preventative approach.

Its USP is the end-to-end insurance value chain, from underwriting to distribution of personalised insurance products and services. 

Capitalising on its handcrafted AI engine, Sunday can scale its underwriting process for complex risks of both individuals and businesses, automate pricing, and early screen and detect symptoms through AI chatbot. 

It also provides an HR administrative platform for corporate clients and a super-app for everyday members to access cashless primary care and manage their coverages. 

Besides, the company distributes subscription-based smartphone care and insurance through its partner network.

“With our strong analytics foundation, we are well equipped to scale our capabilities to swiftly respond to the risk and customer expectations that are changing rapidly,” said Suradej Panich, chief data scientist of Sunday.

Also Read: Sunday raises US$9M to grow its AI-powered insurance business in Thailand, Indonesia

The platform claims to have clocked a total of 1.6 million customers with over 90,000 current health members from its banking, manufacturing and retailers, and services sectors. Its revenue doubled in 2020. 

Last year, Sunday received US$9 million in a pre-Series B round led by Siam Commercial Bank’s venture arm SCB 10X. 

In recent years, insurance tech startups have drawn attention as the pandemic put much of people’s focus on healthcare. While insurers suffered from a loss of around US$55 billion due to COVID-19, global investors still funded insurtech firms to the tune of US$7.5 billion last year and were expected to accelerate in the Southeast Asia market in 2021.

Vietnam’s Medici, Indonesia’s Fuse and Lifepal, Thailand’s Fairdee and Singapore’s Bolttech are some prominent insurtech startups that have received funding in 2021.

In April, Malaysian early-stage VC firm 1337 Ventures and pan-Asian insurance firm FWD Insurance joined hands to launch a bi-annual pre-accelerator programme for Malaysian fintech and insurtech startups.

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Image credit: Sunday

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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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