The Accredify team

Singapore-based Accredify, a company that allows organisations to create and issue verifiable documents, today announced the closing of a US$2-million financing round led by VC firm Qualgro.

Pavilion Capital, Endeavour Ventures, and K2 Global also participated.

Accredify was founded in 2019 to provide a solution to combat a rise in fraudulent education degree certificates in the higher education sector. It assists Asia’s top universities in the creation and issuance of digital tamper-proof graduation certificates and transcripts.

To verify documents, users can drag and drop the digital document into an online verifier portal. The results are instantaneous.

The company says all digital documents issued by Accredify’s cloud-based system are tamper-proof and traceable back to the source of issuance.

The startup is currently expanding its services to enable universities to create modular learning programmes for students. This initiative allows students to customise their degrees based on individual courses they apply for.

Also Read: Accredify, SGInnovate partner to launch Digital Health Passport that will accelerate travel post-COVID-19

In addition, Accredify offers a suite of APIs and options for systems-to-systems integration. Organisations can create and prepare individualised tamper-proof digital credentials in large batches at the single click of a button.

The firm works with more than 900 clients in Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, and the UAE. It claims it has verified more than seven million documents so far.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Accredify expanded its offerings and entered Singapore’s healthcare industry by pioneering the issuance of verifiable COVID-19 swab results following a rise in cases of forged COVID-19 negative test results. Accredify also co-developed HealthCerts, an internationally recognisable standard for COVID-19 test results. The test results issued by Accredify are recognised in 82 countries and by 70 airlines.

Accredify co-founder and CEO Quah Zheng Wei said, “Over the decades, there has been a transition from physical to digital documents, and we believe the next phase is an evolution towards verifiable digital records. Our goal is to be the leader in Asia in digital document verification.”

In September 2020, Accredify announced a partnership with SGInnovate to launch a digital health passport that would help accelerate the re-opening of travel borders. The passport allows individuals to store their medical information, including COVID-19 testing and vaccination reports digitally signed by accredited bodies, on the app. By using blockchain technology, medical records in the app can be traced back to the source.

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Image Credit: Accredify

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Friz co-founders Friz Ash Rhazaly and Nirali Zaveri (R)

Friz, a neobank for freelancers, has announced the completion of its oversubscribed seed funding round of US$1 million from a host of investors, including Indonesia’s Amand Ventures, Iterative Ventures, and Y Combinator.

An Ivy League University Endowment Fund, founders and CEOs of unnamed Indian e-commerce startups, and early Qonto and Funding Societies employees also joined the round.

This deal follows a pre-seed round from investors, including Y Combinator, 500 Durians, 500 TukTuks, and Iterative in April this year.

According to The Online Labour Index, the freelancer economy has almost doubled since 2016, with 70 per cent of the global freelancing talent coming from Asia.

Workers are embracing project-based work increasingly due to trends in remote work and growth in freelancing platforms. However, most non-salaried, contract freelancers face difficulty accessing basic banking products like tailored debit cards, credit cards, or invoicing.

Also Read: Friz raises seed funding from YC, 500 Durians to help freelancers manage their finances better

A considerable part of the problem is that traditional consumer banking is built for salaried employees, and most freelancers cannot open a business bank account without business entities.

Friz wants to solve this issue by providing a neobank in partnership with Matchmove, Mastercard and Funding Societies.

Launched in April 2020, Friz leverages data insights to provide financial products including credit cards, personal loans, insurance, savings and investment products for freelancers. With Friz, freelancers can manage their incomes, expenses, savings and borrowings, all under one roof.

Since its inception, Friz claims to have registered 500 per cent growth month on month.

“70 per cent of our customers are very unhappy with mass-market banking and want a personalised financial tool that solves their problems. Our users are tired of broken financial solutions and being excluded from basic financial services,” Nirali Zaveri, CEO and co-founder of Friz, said.

Since its launch in Singapore, Friz has seen organic traction amongst digital marketers, content creators, programmers, accountants, lawyers and many more knowledge economy freelancers who cannot wait to experience financial freedom.

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Image Credit: Friz

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Japan’s heavy manufacturing conglomerate Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., through its Precision Machinery Business Division, has partnered with the Intellectual Capital Management Group (ICMG) Co., Ltd. to hold the Co-Creation Challenge, a competition that calls upon innovators to collaborate on solving four pressing sustainability challenges faced by the world today.

Selected entities such as startups and research institutions will gain the opportunity to leverage KHI’s assets and expertise to co-create innovative solutions. This opportunity includes conducting PoC and scalable projects in collaboration with the KHI Precision Machinery Division team. The location of PoC is to be determined as it depends on the entities selected. Those interested in this Challenge are highly encouraged to sign up through the website.

Since its establishment in 1896, Kawasaki has positioned innovation front and foremost, captured by its “Global Kawasaki” value centred on advocating for environmental sustainability in creating a brighter future for generations to come. This value carries over to the Precision Machinery Business Division, Kawasaki’s hydraulic components and systems maker founded in 1968 that has adhered to its principal creeds of “consideration for the global environment” and “safety and security”.

ICMG, as a partner in the competition, shares the same spirit of leveraging Asia’s innovation ecosystem to address social issues, with the aim of “creating purposeful and impactful innovation to the world”.

The DNA of innovation

Through the competition, Kawasaki and ICMG call upon innovators, or co-creators, who are also pursuing “the DNA of Innovation” to put their best ideas related to four distinct challenges on the table, with the end mission of delivering “abundance” and an “enjoyable daily life” to those coming into contact with the resulting products.

The theme of the first challenge is creating a sustainable housing development ecosystem, which falls under the Challenge Statement for Housing. This challenge correlates to providing a safe, secure, and comfortable living environment for the global population, estimated by the United Nations to hit 9.7 billion, of which 72% will live in urban areas, by 2050. Here, Kawasaki looks forward to collaborating with co-creators to reduce the negative environmental impact of housing developments by optimising construction processes as well as utilising sustainable natural materials and manufacturing equipment.

Moreover, Kawasaki aims to boost the energy efficiency of the construction process to attain carbon neutrality from upstream to downstream, with smart construction as one of the potential solutions. Given the focus on sustainable construction, co-creators that KHI seek include those with the expertise to develop new housing development materials, especially natural, and technologies as well as those that have automation, mechanisation, and digitalisation solutions for the safety and security of construction sites. To facilitate co-creators, Kawasaki will provide working assets, from hydraulic technology to teams of experts knowledgeable in mechanical technology.

Also read: Industrial IoT startup Sophic Automation set to scale up Industry 4.0 projects in the region

The second challenge adopts the theme of creating a sustainable energy ecosystem with hydrogen energy as it is linked to the Challenge Statement for Energy. The challenge is a response to escalating climate issues and the falling behind of sustainability goals outlined in the Paris Agreement by the United Nations. Kawasaki intends to accelerate the implementation of sustainability measures by promoting decarbonisation through the heightened use of hydrogen-related technologies for producing, transporting, and utilising hydrogen which is a clean and readily available source of energy.

Therefore, co-creators that KHI seek include those that intend to leverage hydrogen, including using hydrogen to replace fossil-fuel-powered equipment, to forge a sustainable energy society. Co-creators will have at their disposal Kawasaki’s invaluable assets, such as high-precision control technology for hydrogen gas and wave power generation systems producing clean energy, to design and deploy the solutions.

The third challenge marked by Kawasaki is creating sustainable smart ports, which slips under the Challenge Statement for Logistics. As the world economy becomes more enmeshed with one another through the global division of labour, cargo volume has shot upwards as local producers spread across continents export their products. Kawasaki observes the need for marine logistics to maintain agile supply chains, especially at a time when COVID-19 has forced ports to curtail their activities. Congruently, the exposure of port workers towards risks, including physical injuries due to their heavy nature of work, requires significant reductions for the safety of all. Here, technology can offer breakthroughs via sophisticated port operating systems embedded with Internet of Things (IoT) and digital transformations (DX) that enable the realisation of sustainable “smart ports”.

These technologies must also enhance workplace safety and operational efficiency, allowing ports to run smoothly even when human resources are deficient. Communities surrounding the port need to feel the positive impact for these technologies as well, considering that a win-win solution contributes positively to the working environment. The considerable focus on logistics necessitates co-creators to be fluent with smart port systems and technologies, encompassing freight management, port equipment manufacturing, and automation solution providers. Co-creators have the freedom to access Kawasaki’s assets, which also comprises software and IoT-compatible control technologies, besides the company’s worldwide production and sales bases.

The last challenge has direct implications for daily life since it borrows the Challenge Statement for Food Security, which is creating a sustainable ecosystem promoting food circulation. The first challenge has already raised the issue related to the global population explosion, which will potentially trigger a food crisis due to various causes, notably climate change and the decreasing number of workers in primary industry. All this raises the world’s susceptibility to food crises induced by inadequate food production. Kawasaki sees the urgency in tackling this issue by advancing sustainable food production via sensing technologies, digitalisation, and robotics.

Also read: Protégé Ventures as a gateway for VCs to invest in the future

These innovations will digitally transform agriculture, producing machinery and systems that can withstand harsh environments, maintain yields amid labour shortages, and ensure safety for the present workers. More than possessing a deep understanding of food production and consumption, co-creators must have the know-how of inserting technology such as software into food production machines.

Co-creators with the capacity of designing technologies to transform waste into valuable consumption will be at an advantage as well. These co-creators will gain access to Kawasaki’s range of agricultural assets, also comprised of Hydro Static Transmission (HTS) systems that can act as human limbs and Camera Stabiliser that will benefit automation to reduce workload and promote workplace safety.

Submit your entries today

Co-creators keen to spell out their solutions to the above challenges can submit their entries up to the deadline of 15 October 2021.

Upon the receiving of proposals, Kawasaki will announce on 12 November the selected applicants who will move to the next stage, namely the Co-Creation Session which will be held up to 27 January 2022 to further delve into the business opportunities of the solution with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. Precision Machinery Business Division and ICMG.

Kawasaki’s internal panel will finally organise the judgement for the continuation of the next steps as a co-creation partner on 28 January 2022. Interested co-creators can check out further details and send in their entry here.

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

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Banks are about to be hit by the same sucker punch that e-commerce landed on brick and mortar stores and how Netflix landed on cable TV.

Banks need to start adopting digital asset services solutions in this digital era, just like how every retailer needs e-commerce to be a part of their core business to avoid being left behind.

The financial industry has adopted digital solutions on a piecemeal basis with a disjointed assortment of systems and integrations as a result, with fintech companies building sleek UX and top-layer solutions on top of a complete mess.

Emergency loans in the US, for example, are a lot quicker with fintech through traditional banks, Small Business Administration loans or virtual banks in HK.

Fintech was a false dawn for internet-based money and innovations that banks have mainly co-opted and the industry, serving up better user experiences but very little else. Existing fintech is classified as the old guard of TradFi, with a fancy frontend on the same banking technology that existed 20 years ago. 

DeFi represents a step-change in providing more than just digitisation. It creates an all-encompassing base layer, always-on and does not have a central point of weakness. We have already seen crypto trading take off in a big way and believe that lending protocols will change how money works. 

TradFi has yet to decide how it feels about crypto

Traditional finance (TradFi) is not ready to go entirely into the crypto industry, just like Walmart has only half-heartedly embraced early e-commerce. Some legacy institutions like JP Morgan are co-opting with crypto and, at the same time, occasionally dismissing it. 

Banks need to stay on top of how DeFi can change the modern financial system, similar to how e-commerce has disrupted industries. With banks trying to adopt DeFi, fintech will become increasingly meaningless. 

The promise of DeFi is a lot bigger than fintech, and we are building an efficient lending protocol with greater transparency where investors can continuously monitor loan payments, spread their risks geographically and by sector without risks of system failure.

Also Read: All you need to know about the fintech boom in Vietnam

Will TradFi be as forgotten as brick and mortar?

Blockchains are exciting places to build new infrastructure, especially for financial services. Crypto has already shown that you can swiftly launch and attract funding for new ventures. In addition, public blockchains such as Ethereum provide the rails for building new financial tools in an efficient way.

The crypto lenders have grown immensely by attracting liquidity and providing a beautifully simple way to deposit assets and earn interest through them or even borrow assets. Soon, crypto native and DeFi will become by-words for the e-commerce world.

To keep up, banks and finance companies will need to embrace crypto as part of an “omnichannel” offering, in the same way, Walmart and IKEA have Click & Collect.

Otherwise, TradFi will be classified as the same negative frame of reference as “Brick and Mortar”.

Momentum is building now

DeFi is still in its early stages, but the ecosystem will continue to mature with more experienced TradFi players joining the front. Not only mirroring TradFi but also improving for better options.

Initially, we were focused on servicing borrowers who struggle to attract debt financing from traditional channels and where over-collateralisation is not an option. 

However, we quickly see a future where companies with global business opportunities will unlock economic potential through connection to redefined capital markets. We are already seeing banks starting to serve cryptocurrency and traditional institutional investors getting excited by DeFi, not just for the attractive yields on offer but because of the transparency, security, and ease of use through web apps. 

We believe that DeFi represents the e-commerce moment for finance. If you are building a new financial service, you either make it on legacy systems with massive operational risk and liabilities, or you build it on a public blockchain at lightning speed. 

Public blockchains like Ethereum will be a natural choice for building financial services and businesses in the future. Investors are already allocating funds to DeFi as they agree that this is the future. However, banks moving into crypto are trying to square a circle and have introduced further liabilities by building on top of their legacy systems.

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DutyCast co-founders at the signing ceremony

DutyCast, the creator of a browser extension that helps consumers buy online globally with ease, has scored undisclosed funding from Vietnam-based VinaCapital Ventures.

It is not clear how DutyCast is going to utilise the capital. We are contacting the startup for more details and will update this news story accordingly.

Founded in 2020 by four Vietnamese, DutyCast aims to improve the cross-border e-commerce experience for shoppers by providing transparency and security around final prices, duties, taxes, and related logistics expenses.

As stated on the company’s website, the startup ensures “no hidden fees or surprise charges” for customers.

After adding DutyCast extension to the browser, users can then shop and put products of multiple stores in one single Dutycast cart, checkout once, and pay in local currency with a credit/debit card, bank transfer or cash on delivery (COD).

Also read: 3 reasons why SEA’s e-commerce sector is set to explode 

“Anyone living here or in other countries knows how difficult and sometimes frustrating it can be to order from online retailers based overseas. Dutycast provides a straightforward solution to that,” said Trung Hoang, partner at VinaCapital Ventures. 

He believes that the DutyCast solution can scale beyond Vietnam and said that the VC would assist DutyCast in realising this international ambition.

DutyCast supports customers to shop at several sites, including Amazon, iHerb, Sephora, ASOS and Ulta Beauty. The startup claims it is expanding its global partner network to more than 1,000 stores with the likes of Victoria’s Secret, Nike, and Bath&Body Works.

In 2020, Vietnam’s e-commerce market reached US$11.8 billion, which accounted for 5.5 per cent of the total retail sales in the country, as per a report released by Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency, Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

According to Facebook and Bain & Company’s annual Southeast Asia report, Vietnam’s e-commerce sales is forecast to upsurge from an estimated US$12 billion in 2021 to US$56 billion in 2026, ranking only after Indonesia.

This growth rides on the tailwinds of the young and digital-savvy population and a widening middle class of the country.

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