Temasek to invest US$740M deep-tech firms a year
Some of the industries that it will focus on include advanced manufacturing, disruptive materials, net-zero tech, life sciences, and foodtech; The government earlier pumped US$222M into the Startup SG Equity scheme specifically for deep-tech firms.

Carousell acquires Ox Street to double down on its re-commerce efforts in Greater SEA
Carousell intends to deepen Ox Street’s reach and scale to become a fashion and luxury goods market leader; Ox Street is an online marketplace for authenticated sneakers and streetwear and focuses on the 85M Gen Z and Y consumers in the region.

Why Vertex Holdings CEO is optimistic about the VC industry in SEA
With higher valuations, VCs may overpay slightly, but the returns will come back if it’s the right tech and right people; While VCs in Southeast Asia are just counting IPOs by the fingers now, the IPO bell should be ringing every day at some point in the future, says CEO Chua Kee Lock.

Singapore’s Coda Payments buys BAASH to further expand its gaming goods and solutions
BAASH allows users to create e-sports events, compete in contests, and discover a community of like-minded gaming fans; They include Codashop, a marketplace for digital game content, and Codashop Global Series, a free-for-all community e-sports tournament.

US-based Bow Wave Capital makes another close of PH-focused fund at US$68.6M
ASP Philippines participated in the US$175M funding round of local payment app Mynt in January; The deal was in line with the fund’s mandate to invest in global online and mobile payment ecosystem companies;  Last month, Bow Wave invested in Thailand’s digital payment company Ascend Money.

Malaysian F&B and retail tech solutions firm eatcosys raises US$2.4M via Fundnel
Over 90 investors from the retail, financial services and consumer sectors participated; eatcosys provides an integrated platform that works across three fundamental verticals: platform services, tech-enabled services, and fintech.

GoCement nets funding to address problems plaguing Indonesia’s construction industry using tech
Investors are Arise (a JV between MDI Ventures and Finch Capital), Beenext, and Ideosource; GoCement digitises the construction industry by creating a marketplace that utilises its decentralised building material distribution through cloud manufacturing.

How EngageRocket co-founders built a sustainable partnership
Finding a co-founder that shares your vision is a big challenge, but making the relationship work in the long run is a bigger one; Even if you’re one of the lucky few, who have found a co-founder that shares your vision and ambitions, sustaining this partnership for 1, 5, and 20 years down the road will pose a new set of dynamics to navigate.

Bangladesh Angels Network pumps US$1m in textile waste recycler Reverse Resources.
The SaaS platform maps, matches, and traces waste from textile factories, then helps fashion brands recycle them to achieve full circularity; Reverse Resources is working with 43 factories, 8 textile-to-textile recyclers, and has signed a contract with a global fashion brand to onboard the retailer’s first 100 factories.

SEA fintech opportunity pushes startup valuations further up
Despite currently lagging behind more developed markets like Australia, the US and the UK, the region is set to leapfrog in digital infrastructure and will see a slew of fintech-only unicorns being birthed within the next decade, says Golden Gate Ventures.

How startups can foster resilience and break barriers
With the unpredictability of markets and the ever-changing trends, startups that are not agile and resilient enough to adapt will eventually get left behind; Moreover, startups have to rise above challenges and realise their business goals in order to achieve long-term business sustainability and ultimately break barriers in the industry.

How Singapore is nurturing innovative startups
Enterprise Singapore (ESG), an agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, has been working to make it easier for startups to enter local and international markets raise funding and nurture talent; ESG is working with institutes like NUS to inculcate a sense of resilience among students at an early stage.

5 promising social commerce startups in Indonesia
The Indonesian social commerce scene is booming because its citizens are very active on social media; On average, they spend twice as long accessing the internet as Americans. However, there are still challenges when it comes to promoting goods and transacting on public platforms.

Singapore JV to offer green solutions to SMEs
CO2X is a JV formed by Singapore-based tech firms STACS, Ascent, and Evercomm; The JV will develop a platform that will provide local SMEs with accessible carbon tracking solutions and green financial services through a data-driven approach.

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Image Credit: Temasek

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Singapore-headquartered advanced aerial mobility company, H3 Dynamics Holdings, has completed its US$26 million Series B investment round led by Japan’s SPARX Mirai Creation Fund (backed by Toyota Motor and SMBC).

Singapore’s EDBI, ACA investors, Capital Management Group, the Grosvenor Group, Audacy Ventures, Ascent Hydrogen Fund, and French strategic investors ATEQ also joined the round.

“Our investors recognise that this is a long journey and that we must first address our immediate markets while solving key technical and regulatory challenges before adding more complexity,” said H3 Dynamics founder and CEO Taras Wankewycz.

In June 2019, e27 reported that the startup was in the process of closing a US$16 million Series B round, led by SPARX Mirai Creation Fund.

Also Read: Drone deployment from anywhere brings completely new possibilities: H3 Dynamics CEO Taras Wankewycz

Founded H3 Dynamics in 2015 by Wankewycz with a mission to decarbonise the world, H3 Dynamics focuses on hydrogen propulsion, aerial systems automation and software service sales. It aims to create a scalable path to low-carbon hydrogen-powered flight in three development phases — drones, cargo, and passengers.

Initially, the company started building an autonomous charging infrastructure for battery drones and a range of maintenance and monitoring services. It then applied the same infrastructure to support much longer-range, unmanned systems capable of flying for hours using hydrogen technology. This opened up possibilities in the autonomous, zero-emissions cargo for the company.

H3 Dynamics has a three-phase roadmap. In the first phase, it focuses on supplying autonomous inspection and incident response solutions powered by drones. It has built and commercialised a proprietary, all-digital inspection and rectification automation software, starting with smart-city applications such as high-rise façade maintenance. Started in Singapore three years ago, it has now been expanded globally and across industries.

The drone venture is also releasing an advanced autonomous drone nesting station. These cloud-connected vertiports for industrial drones can send data through 5G, become visible in real-time in the national airspace, with permanent set-ups on rooftops or remote industrial sites.

It has partnered with air traffic control major Thales Group to build an autonomous urban air mobility infrastructure, starting with tiny camera drones, with plans to evolve towards larger, unmanned cargo. The next step is to enable cargo flights of up to 400km or even 800km.

In the second phase, the company will expand its first-phase revenue streams to ensure an optimal path to profit. It will build on this first success to introduce longer-range hydrogen-powered aircraft that can carry more and more weight in the mid-mile, beyond the visual line of sight parcel and cargo operations sector.

In its final phase, H3 Dynamics plans to shift from unmanned cargo to manned hydrogen aircraft, including passengers.

Also Read: FROGS wants to become the first startup in SEA to fly passenger drones

David Wu, President at Ascent Hydrogen Fund, commented: “Air mobility is one of the hardest yet most important industries to decarbonise. H3 Dynamics is ideally placed to overcome this challenge. It is already generating revenue with a clear path to profit using a scalable SaaS model while benefiting from two decades of ultra-light hydrogen fuel cell system development.”

The company intends to expand its engineering and sales teams in Austin/Texas — where it currently produces and ships complete hydrogen drones, integrated aerial fuel cell propulsion and refuelling units. I will also hire people for its operations in Toulouse/France, where it develops larger hydrogen systems, works on hydrogen aircraft integration, and carries out test flights.

H3 Dynamics was the winner of e27’s Echelon Asia Summit 2019.

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Image Credit: H3 Dynamics

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Vonage, a New Jersey-headquartered global cloud communications company, has acquired Singapore’s omnichannel conversational commerce startup Jumper.ai.

Transaction details haven’t been disclosed. 

Under the transaction, Vonage could employ Jumper.ai’s technical- and developer-focused talent pool to complement its Vonage Communications Platform and broad API portfolio’s capabilities in conversational commerce.

The acquisition will also expand Vonage’s total addressable market with Jumper.ai’s packaged AI-enabled conversational commerce offering.

“With conversational commerce capabilities, we are meeting new and existing customer needs, providing businesses with embedded commerce capabilities to simplify the way they serve, connect with, and sell to their own customers from anywhere, on any channel,” said Rory Read, CEO of Vonage.

According to an April 2021 Conversational Commerce forecast by Juniper Research, the total addressable market in this space will be worth US$27 billion by 2025.

Also read: Is omnichannel commerce a fairy tale for SMEs in Singapore?

Founded in 2020, Jumper.ai creates omnichannel, messaging-first customer engagement and shopping journeys across social, messaging, and web.

It allows businesses to turn shoppers’ conversations into richer AI-enabled customer experiences with rapid service and sales follow-through.

Social messaging on platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, has become a trend in the in-demand retail space where people prefer a seamless shopping experience. 

“It [Jumper.ai] transforms customer interactions from notifications and simple communications to conversations across the spectrum of customer engagement points,” Read stated.

Meanwhile, Vonage’s Communications Platform includes programmable unified communications and contact centre applications. It allows companies to integrate video, voice, chat, messaging and verification into existing products, workflows and systems.

“The addition of Jumper.ai’s conversational commerce and omnichannel capabilities fits perfectly into Vonage’s strategy and is a natural extension of Vonage’s offerings,” added Read.

Vonage counts brands such as L’oreal, Kiehl’s, Disney, Axe, Dove, Ben & Jerry’s and Burger King among its existing customers.

“Combining our market-leading technologies presents an opportunity to create new, amazing customer experiences, leveraging Jumper.ai technology and the global reach of Vonage,” said Yash Kotak, CEO and Co-founder of Jumper.ai.

In 2019, the US-based firm acquired Tel Aviv-based conversational AI startup Over.ai’s team and intellectual property. This is among Vonage’s seven deals that are worth US$884 million in total, according to data recorded on Tracxn. Its sectors of interest include customer service software, speech and voice recognition and more.

According to Statista’s data, over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide in 2020, with the global social media usage rate standing at 49 per cent. Forbes’s recent research also found that about two-thirds of shoppers employ social media in their shopping journey.

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Image Credit: Jumper.ai

 

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Being part of disruptive industries should be the headline of Igloo Insurance Chief Commercial Officer Raunak Mehta’s resume. Prior to insurtech, Raunak honed his skills in e-commerce which, as everyone knows, has changed the retail industry for the better.

“The journey started when I joined Flipkart in 2011 — pioneer of India’s e-commerce and startup landscape. The objective was to be part of an idea to revolutionise the retail industry to bring greater value to both existing and new consumers,” he shared with e27.

At first glance then, switching to the insurance industry seemed like a 180-degree shift from e-commerce. After Flipkart and prior to Igloo, Raunak had worked at a Southeast Asian fashion e-commerce company, Zalora. “Fashion is glamorous, provides instant gratification. More often than not, it’s an extension of one’s personality,” he said. “Insurance on the other hand, while necessary, does not have that pull associated with it. At best, it provides peace of mind and provides monetary support in the unlikely occurrence of an unfortunate event,” Raunak noted.

“Selling and marketing insurance is hence driven by completely different supply-demand dynamics compared to most other industries, especially fashion,” he added.

The insurance industry is more complex in the face of heavy regulation and incumbents are unable to address the needs of today’s consumers. Raunak has experienced many brands in fashion that have run aground due to their inability to keep up with consumer trends and he believes the insurance industry is at that inflexion point.

Seizing opportunities to disrupt

The opportunity for disruption in a 300-year-old industry that is still finding it difficult to make its core products and services accessible and affordable is a key reason why Raunak decided to shift lanes to insurtech in 2018 to drive Igloo’s business and insurance partnerships. The Singapore-based regional insurtech player has the mission of making “insurance accessible and affordable using data and technology”.

“A rigid product-based approach catering to downside protection has resulted in unmet demands. A wide swath of the population is uninsured and underinsured in Asia-Pacific,” Raunak pointed out. “There seems to be a generational gap between the customers’ problems and the solutions being offered today in the insurance marketplace and this is where companies like Igloo step in to transition the industry to a more proactive platform, one that is more customer-centric and goal-based, less cookie-cutter.”

Also read: Why startups should invest in interns hungry to change the world

Raunak’s swapping of fashion with insurance has a personal side to it as well. “As you move up the career ladder, the potential impact that you can have on society could be quite significant. I find it surprising that even with aggregated household wealth slated to become the highest in the world, insurance is still not mainstream for most of the Asian countries,” Raunak noted. Insurance has the power to grant people peace of mind as discretionary spending increase in asset (house, automobile, gadgets) acquisition, and as longer life expectancy and health take centre stage.

Be it fashion e-commerce or insurtech, Raunak has applied a founder’s mentality — built around bias for action, customer advocacy, and cash management — throughout his career. Raunak can lay claim to taking Flipkart Logistics to more than 100 cities In India, and at Zalora, expanding the fashion category to over $100 million in a short span. ”Growth, when built on first principles and aided by technology, is never short-term nor unsustainable,” says Raunak. 

From fashion to insurance, the basics remain but with better tech

Naturally, technology became one of the elements Raunak was keen to carry over from fashion to the insurance industry. Since it relies on forecasting trends, fashion has become a pioneering industry in its use of data and technology. Insurance is at the beginning of using data beyond assessing risks. “Insurance always had a rich pool of data which had not been utilised in the best way to bring the right set of products and services to the market. There are green shoots in the auto and health space and Igloo is at the frontlines of these changes,” he pointed out.

With Raunak at the helm, Igloo has expanded its operations exponentially. From just a handful of employees and operations in Indonesia and Singapore, Igloo now has commercial, product, marketing, operations, and customer service teams spread across six markets and an engineering hub in Chengdu. The company has grown its employee base by five times since 2018.

It currently works with over 30 partners across Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Australia in the e-commerce, telecommunications, banking,  and lifestyle industries to deliver more than 10 product lines to the region. To date, it has facilitated over 100 million policies across Southeast Asia.

Also read: Explore cutting-edge cybersecurity tech at SINCON 2021

Leadership skills are even more critical for Raunak as he leads Igloo. Other than his responsibilities as CCO, Raunak now has the expanded responsibilities of running the day-to-day business as well as managing investors.

“Ownership and accountability are important, as is inculcating an entrepreneurial mindset within the organisation. These serve as foundations for a performance-oriented culture,” he noted, adding that empathy has become key in managing an organisation spread across multiple countries, cultures, functional domains and skill-sets, especially during the pandemic which saw various members on frontline teams get impacted.

At the same time, for people interested in insurtech as a career or investment opportunity, Raunak has advice, “Unlike e-commerce, ride-hailing or any consumer-focused industry, insurance, being one of the oldest, would take longer to disrupt but has profound societal impact compared to others.” Hence, only by having a strategic mindset and ability to chart and support a long term vision would there be a requisite return on effort and investment. “Insurance is not a fad. Insurance is eternal.”

Accelerated adoption rate amidst COVID-19

According to Raunak, the COVID-19 pandemic has also woken people up to the importance of having insurance. This is an encouraging sign for Igloo, who looks to plug the gap in insurance products for low and middle-income households – segments which traditional insurers shy away from due to higher risks.

Another underserved segment of the market is micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), besides independent workers who are more vulnerable to economic shocks given their reliance on informal labour with inadequate social safety nets. Igloo offers insurance products for the gig economy and MSMEs across Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines and plans to double down over the next 3-6 months. He said, “We practice what we preach. We are the only insurtech in the region that gets deep into insurance product design to offer what is really needed and our product portfolio reflects this approach”.

Also read: How startups can foster resilience and break barriers

The future of Igloo Insure

Raunak is also excited to see developments in insurance related to cybersecurity threats, considering that Asia is 80% more likely to be targeted by hackers compared to the rest of the world due to the speed and scope of the digital transformation. He said that Igloo in collaboration with its reinsurance partners has come up with modular products that give coverage to victims of cybercrime. 

And Igloo has been busy pumping out new products to meet market needs. With new partnerships and product launches happening nearly every other week, Raunak noted, “We are probably the only player in the region that can have such expedited go-to-market timelines. And we will continue to bring to market innovative distribution models, at pace, to realise  Igloo’s vision of ‘Insurance For All’.”

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This article is produced by the e27 team in partnership with Igloo Insure.

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A Cap (Capitalisation) Table, at the most fundamental level, is a record of all the equity that is owned by various entities (founders, employees, consultants, investors etc) in the company.

It is very important that you keep an accurate record of the equity ownership by various entities at all times. Most investors will ask for a cap table when you go to seek funding and it will determine the per-share price that will be used in the financing.

Note that in calculating your ownership in the company, you should do so on a “fully diluted basis” i.e. taking into account your option pool as well as any warrants that have been issued.

The share price for any financing will also be calculated by dividing the pre-money valuation by the fully diluted number of shares.

An entrepreneur’s journey

To understand how cap tables work, let’s follow the funding journey of a hypothetical company, ABC, Inc started by John and Jane Doe from seed funding through Series A funding. When John and Jane start the company, they decide to split their stake 50/50.

In addition, they set aside an option pool of 20 per cent for their employees. They also decided to set up the company with a total of 10 million shares with a par value of $0.001 per share which is pretty typical. The cap table will now look as follows:

• John Doe: 4,000,000 shares (40 per cent)
• Jane Doe: 4,000,000 shares (40 per cent)
• Option Pool: 2,000,000 shares (20 per cent)

Seed Round

Now let’s say the company raises a Seed round of S$500,000 from a seed VC firm Vista Capital as a convertible note with a valuation cap of S$4,000,000 and a 20 per cent discount to the next round.

This means that when the company raises a Series A, the valuation that the angel investors will get for their shares will be the lower of $4,000,000 or 80 per cent of the share price paid by the Series A investors.

Since no new shares were issued at this stage, the Cap table remains the same.

Series A funding

Now imagine that the company is doing well and has reached a milestone of S$1 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenues). This is typically the milestone that most VCs will consider funding a company.

The company gets a term sheet from Sunrise Venture Capital to fund the company with S$6 million in funding at a pre-money valuation of S$24 million. The term sheet also stipulates an employee option pool of 20 per cent post-funding.

Also read: Future Flow’s cap table helps founders easily monitor the evolution of their stake, equity dilution

Since the term sheet requires an employee option pool of 20 per cent post-funding, the Employee option pool will need to be increased by another 1.0 million shares. This results in a total number of shares of 11 million prior to funding.

The share price for the Seed investor will be calculated as S$4,000,000/11 million shares = S$0.36 since they have a S$4,000,000 valuation cap which is lower than 80 per cent of S$24 million.

On the other hand, the share price for the Series A investor will be calculated as S$24 million/11 million shares = $2.18. The resulting cap table looks as follows:

• John Doe: 4,000,000 shares (26 per cent)
• Jane Does: 4,000,000 shares (26 per cent)
• Option Pool: 3,017,026 (20 per cent)
• Vista Capital: 1.377,128 share (9 per cent)
• Sunrise Venture Capital: 2,754,256 shares (18 per cent)

Post funding, the Company will need to do a 409A valuation to determine a new valuation of the common shares. The common shares will have a value that will be significantly less than that of the preferred shares issued to investors since they have many preferences and rights that the common shareholders don’t have.

For example, they typically have a liquidation preference where they get their money first in the event of a sale and if the sale price is not high enough there may be no distribution to common shareholders.

There are many tools available like Carta and Capshare to manage your equity. However, in the initial stages, it will be sufficient to manage your cap table using a simple spreadsheet.

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As a kid, Jack Yap spent a lot of time with animals on his grandmother’s farm at Jeram in Kuala Selangor. He loved them and considered them his friends.

When he was seven years old, he witnessed a chicken being slaughtered. Upon realising that they were being killed for consumption, he vowed never to eat meat again. And his compassion for the animals deepened further when he discovered the dark side of factory farming.

“As the global population grows, the demand for food production also grows. This has put massive pressure on the planet to provide enough livestock, water, space and plant nutrients to produce more food,” said Yap.

“Although it is a highly inefficient form of food production, animal agriculture dominates and is responsible for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions,” he explained. “I believed there had to be a more sustainable and nutritious way to feed the population, so I began researching plant-based foods.”

This prompted him to launch a plant-based meat startup out of Kuala Lumpur.

Launch in 2018, Phuture provides a range of products, from plant-based mince and burger patties to the High-Fibre Chick’n brand. These items will be widely available at selected restaurant partners and grocery stores by the end of the year.

Also Read: No animals were harmed in the making of this ‘meat’ burger

“One of our key unique selling points is the products themselves.” Yap boasts. “For example, High-Fibre Chick’n. Our leading food technology and research led us to create this plant-based chicken brand, which does not compromise taste, flavour or texture. A perfect balance of soluble and insoluble fibre helped us achieve the desired physical, functional and nutritional profile. We replicated the chicken texture and taste by using our Phuture 4-fibre blend, which includes oat fibre and apple fibre.”

In Yap’s opinion, Phuture’s products will help solve fibre deficiency among Malaysians.

“Although the plant-based food market in the country is rich in high-protein options, it lacks fibre, with Malaysian adults-only consuming about half the required daily amount on average. As this deficiency can lead to life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks and diabetes, we needed to create a plant-based alternative that doesn’t just appeal to the Malaysian palate but directly addresses dietary deficiencies in our community,” said Jack.

Lack of education and awareness

Malaysia is a relatively young alternative meat market. The adoption of plant-based meat products is yet to be widespread when compared to neighbouring Singapore and Indonesia.

“We can attribute the delayed wider adoption of plant-based alternatives in the market to several factors, including education and awareness,” Yap shared. “While Phuture products are priced comparably to their ‘real meat’ counterparts, many plant-based meat options are still priced at a premium due to high development costs. This can then become more of an investment for the consumer. So to purchase plant-based meat alternatives, the consumers need a strong sense of why they are doing it.”

He remarked that having more discussions on and education around factory farming, sustainability, food production, and nutrition is the first step to helping the consumer understand why it is worth it to choose meat alternatives.

Although a nascent market, Malaysia already houses several plant-based meat brands, such as Nanka (minced jackfruit meat) and Phuture Daging (minced meat made out of soy, rice, peas and chickpea protein). OmniMeat also has a presence in Malaysia. This Hong Kong startup makes meat strips, mince and luncheon meat crafted out of shiitake mushrooms, pea, soy and rice.

In April, Nestlé opened a new manufacturing facility to produce plant-based protein products for Asian markets under its Harvest Gourmet brand.

Phuture currently works with restaurant partners to prepare its ready-to-eat meals and has recently partnered with KyoChon in Malaysia, which will offer Phuture on its menu as plant-based alternatives.

Fighting misconceptions

According to Yap, there are some misconceptions about processed food in Malaysia: it is ‘bad’ and ‘unhealthy’ — when, in fact, it is the future and is both healthy and sustainable.

“To remove these perceptions, we need to design food with the right intentions and understanding at the molecular level and with the right food technology and processes. Such food items can address specific nutritional deficiencies, overcome food allergies and nourish people,” he added.

Also Read: Bühler invests in Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein Fund; to invest in up to 100 plant- and cell-based firms

There’s also a lot of room for more financial support, grants, and accelerator and development programmes to increase the region’s global competitiveness in the plant-based meat sector.

The impact of COVID-19

Yap shared the pandemic has caused a lot of people to prioritise their health and well-being, and therefore re-evaluate what they put into their bodies. This has helped create more awareness about the alternative meat market globally and locally, creating more demand for plant-based meats in general.

“This is very heartening to see, given the state of the environment. We hope that this increased demand will create more opportunities for companies like Phuture to innovate further and create healthy and sustainable alternative meat solutions,” he noted.

As the business grows, Phuture has plans to take its products beyond Malaysia. “We have designed the High-Fibre Chick’n range to address the dietary fibre gap found in most Malaysian diets. But this is not just a local problem but a global burden. Therefore, we aim to extend our fibre solutions to more places, especially in Southeast Asia.”

Funded by accredited investors based in Singapore, Australia, and the US, Phuture Foods is currently out to raise follow-on investment. “This funding will help us develop our products further and support our expansion into new markets,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Phuture

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We have seen an acceleration of digital transformation in the last year and a half. Companies today face an urgent need to regenerate all business interactions and brand experiences into something more adaptive and remote.

While some businesses might find this transition tricky, it is proving to be a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs and startups in the age of the “new normal.” Compared to established businesses, startups can incorporate digital transformation practices swiftly.

There is no need to upgrade, change, or optimise legacy operations. The natural adaptability of entrepreneurs makes the adoption of digital transformation easier to process.

That is why all startups should take advantage of this opportunity to address prevailing issues of the day.

How customer-centric is your business?

As the customer engagement journey is now in disarray, customer-centricity has come into question. How ready are businesses to adopt new ways of ensuring they ‘follow’ a customer thoroughly — from awareness to conversion and beyond?

How are startups ensuring they can fully maximise customer lifetime value?

Also Read: How HackerNoon uses customer-centric approach to build meaningful new features on their platform

The business opportunity that customer-centricity presents is immense. According to our data and the work being done with the Infobip Startup Tribe, organisations that have shifted their focus from only improving products to meeting customer needs first have experienced an 80 per cent increase in revenue.

Startups are in a solid position to embrace modern digital practices ahead of more traditional companies, to address customer-centricity. Let us take a deeper look at how digital transformation can help with that.

Data-driven decision making keeping the customer in mind

The last 18 months have helped data and analytics become more visible in business, and many entrepreneurs are turning to advanced AI capabilities to modernise their existing applications while quickly and more efficiently harnessing user data.

By incorporating more AI-based technology into business models, it’s possible to gain access to vast volumes of big data that can drive critical decisions — such as 360° customer profiles.

When deploying the right technology, you can connect insights from all online and offline sources — from websites, apps, contact centres, customer relationships, enterprise resource management, loyalty cards, even payment systems, and more. In doing so, they unlock a full view of customers.

With access to these valuable insights, startups can provide fast and personalised customer support. This is critical to providing an everyday customer experience and will help to prevent and avoid a fragmented and impersonal user journey.

Omnichannel experiences are no longer a luxury

New ways of working and doing business have conditioned customers to get what they want when they want and however they want it.

Today, more than 50 per cent of consumers expect to receive a customer service response within 60 minutes. They want equally speedy response times on weekends as they’ve come to expect on weekdays.

Also Read: Why a customer-centric digital marketing strategy is the way to go?

The perpetual engagement imperative means that businesses not switched on 24/7 all year round are putting themselves at a disadvantage to rivals with more efficient operations in place.

Today’s consumers don’t dwell on a single channel. A Microsoft study shows that 66 per cent of consumers used at least three different communication channels to contact customer services. They visit points of sale and websites, leave feedback through mobile apps, and ask questions for support teams on social media.

Combining these interactions makes it possible to create complete digital profiles for customers whenever they interact with your business, helping entrepreneurs provide significantly more immersive experiences.

Pervasive rewards for customer-centricity

Although digital transformation could begin with addressing just one facet of a startup’s operations, its benefits can be far-reaching for employees, consumers, and stakeholders.

It can limit the mundane tasks required of workers, offer greater levels of personalisation for clients, and free up new skills to be developed in other areas of a business.

This, in turn, helps to build a more positive and virtuous work culture of engaged and invested teams that know the value of fresh ideas and new perspectives.

Seize opportunities in the startup ecosystem

As funding and accelerator programmes are starting to re-emerge, startup decision-makers have an excellent opportunity to adopt new approaches, technologies, and tools to ensure that business navigates the age of the new normal with the greatest efficiency.

Also Read: Is customer-centric approach applicable in B2B structure?

If you are a decision-maker in a startup, the ball is in your court to leverage these opportunities and future-proof your business with customer-centricity.

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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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Are you a startup seeking to scale internationally? Listen to the newest Global Class podcast episode featuring Jan Van Casteren, Head of Europe at Flexport. The company is a freight forwarding and customs brokerage company based in San Francisco, California

In this episode, Van Casteren talks about the early days of Flexport, how it had to be a global company almost from day one, and how Flexport had to adapt core values in order to scale and manage a global footprint.

Learn about some of the often overlooked parts of expanding to new markets and how to build a strong team.

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This article was first published on Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

The post Jan van Casteren of Flexport on the most overlooked part of international expansion for startups appeared first on e27.

Physical retailing is not dead, so long as retailers develop innovative ways to create a memorable experience for consumers.

Malls may die a slow (or fast) death if the following foundations of transparent, real-time data, and synergy between stakeholders, are not made a reality today. In Singapore, three factors can compete with the rise of online shopping.

Firstly, an operating model of win-win relationships exists between all stakeholders, including landlords and merchants, with consumers in the centre.

Secondly, a fundamental shift from silos and distrust to trust and cooperation and thirdly, a data infrastructure (hardware and software) that enforces trust and provides superior business insights and changes in productivity.

The retail mall of tomorrow will not succeed unless they have complete real-time data visibility and sharing, just like e-commerce marketplaces.

Shop in any online marketplace today, from multiple stores. This marketplace has real-time and itemised information about every single purchase that you make.

Step into any mall today to buy your latte and bagel, your pair of shoes and your dress; the mall doesn’t have this information.

A critical edge that e-commerce marketplaces have over physical malls is the real-time visibility of granular sales data. E-commerce marketplaces can tell you how many people shopped at midnight and how many transactions were made, and what that average basket size was per transaction. Malls cannot.

Also Read: How can European companies win in Indonesia’s e-commerce market?

Systems, contracts and approaches in offline retail today is outdated, and thus the physical retail ecosystem cannot keep pace with the exponential growth of e-commerce.

Actual omnichannel retail with malls requires complete data visibility. No one has achieved this before because of POS fragmentation, the difficulty of integration, and a non-data centric approach.

Take a look at any POS system in any shop, in any mall in Singapore. Right this minute, POS machines all over the island are clocking in thousands of transactions concurrently.

The problem?

Malls today are not equipped with the systems to view, analyse and use this data to grow with merchants and delight customers.

Again, e-commerce marketplaces can, and they routinely tell the market and each of their merchants how many people shopped at what time, how the merchant did on the day compared to their competitors and the whole market. Malls, on the other hand, are unable to provide this information in real-time.

Inability to respond to crisis

For example, during a lockdown of 14 days, should a mall be able to understand how sales fare day to day, before, during, and after the lockdown? In reality, yes, they should, but it hasn’t been reflected in all malls. It is information that the vast majority of malls do not have, and therefore, no merchants receive as insights.

Also Read: Offline is the future of online retail

It makes it challenging to negotiate subsidies and waivers in tripartite discussions, turning to pictures of empty malls and ‘he-said-she-said back and forths.

Based on observations in the industry, it is commonly known that landlords and merchants distrust each other as a rule of thumb. They doubt the data each present, question each other’s intentions and actions, and each party claims that the other does not share data transparently.

You only have to look at any social media post within merchant groups, business publications, and the conversations and comments that unfold to understand the intensity of these feelings.

Is this the only way to operate? With distrust and keeping our cards to our chest?

Workable models for data transparency

Why is it that merchants are more than happy to share all sales data with e-commerce marketplaces? Why is it that retailers routinely sync their customer database with tech giants like Facebook and Google for loyalty and retargeting purposes?

These business relationships are underpinned by the three principles shared above—an operating model of win-win, trusting relationships, and an automated, scalable data infrastructure.

E-commerce is new, shiny, and revolutionary. Physical marketplaces, on the other hand, has been around for centuries. With this, malls must disrupt themselves and meet evolving consumer demands and behaviours.

Also Read: Carousell acquires Ox Street to double down on its re-commerce efforts in Greater SEA

We already know that tech giants like Amazon, JD and Alibaba own their retail stores and complexes. Perhaps it is time for big tech to disrupt and best landlords at their own game?

Transformation involves upgrading physical systems, changing the hearts and minds of these organisations, and maintaining open mindsets surrounding legacy SOPs and beliefs, such as data sharing between stakeholders.

Building alignment, consensus and trust are close to our hearts which is why we created The Future of Retail Asia Podcast interviewing retail ecosystem leaders from all around Asia.

Unlocking value, revenue and investments into the retail ecosystem

As more retailers opt for the omnichannel approach, the question arises of how these value-adds to the consumer and drive higher sales and revenue.

Ultimately, it all boils down to creating a seamless online to offline shopping experience for the customer. That can only be enabled with data that lay latent and trapped in the fragmented Point-Of-Sale systems market in Singapore’s retail scene.

For retailers and brands, showing data is the ‘proof of the pudding’ – driving more sales effectively and harnessing data to do that predictably and efficiently, is what will save the retail ecosystem, not arguing about rents.

Interestingly, it will also be why the largest brands in the world, FMCG brands like PepsiCo and CocaCola, P&G and Unilever, would invest more money.

Do you think they would be interested to know how their SKUs move every hour, day and week in the mall or retail ecosystem?

Also Read: Beyond e-commerce: How omnichannel experiences can shake up SEA retail

Understanding demand flow to plan marketing, manufacturing and distribution better saves brands billions of dollars a year if achieved – this unlocks tremendous value.

Fintech partners like banks, card issuers and e-wallets would love to understand customers, purchases and how they perform in the market, and predictable and measurable ways to acquire and have users spend more with them.

Show your partners the data of how spending can be increased, and you will see money flow in like a gushing river – all because you can show these partners how they can increase ROI and decrease costs – while all other competing malls struggle to calculate rental monthly.

The Great Singapore Sale (GSS) has died. The only honourable way is to recreate a new, data-centred and customer-centred version of it.

When was the last time you saw a GSS print ad and specifically went to town to catch the sales?

The popularity of the GSS has dwindled sharply in recent years, and this has been prominently replaced by catchy online ads and jingles shouting every double number you can imagine (11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99), but that doesn’t have to signify its death.

Could the Great Singapore Sale be reincarnated and brought back to life with real-time data, omnichannel marketing and engagement?

Want to give people real-time sales figures in the malls? Top-selling brands and shops for the day?

You need aggregate real-time data.

Want to challenge your shoppers to shop all day if the mall hits S$10 million spend for the day everyone in the mall receives a S$10 voucher?

Also Read: B2B e-commerce platform EI Industrial attracts seed funding from Cocoon Capital, Beenext

You need aggregate real-time data. Any omnichannel future, customer-centric future, experience innovated lot – requires aggregate real-time data.

The best part is that the technology, the processes, and the steps already exist to make it happen.

The Fair Tenancy Framework, while a good start, will not work by itself, as the rental calculation isn’t exciting for retailers and even malls. Growing top line is.

If there is one thing that retailers care about, it is sales. Growing whole retail ecosystems, whether it is a mall or a precinct, requires every party working together in the ecosystem, for the good of the ecosystem. This interestingly applies to malls, but to also precincts (for example 600 merchants in Kampong Glam, or in Chinatown).

If data can unlock how to double or triple spend in a mall, that’s what will work, and you only need to look at e-commerce use cases to see how to bring it into the mall.

The future of offline retail is an exciting and promising one for landlords, tenants, and shoppers alike, if and only if all of the above happens.

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Gamification has become a buzzword in recent years. Simply put, gamification uses game elements in a non-game context, offering a great way to retain customers.

It’s a growth strategy straight out of China, which has seen many major e-commerce companies, including Alipay, Alibaba’s Taobao and Pinduoduo, incorporate gamified elements into their apps to increase user engagement and draw in repeat customers.

Learning from the Chinese experience with gamification, many Vietnamese companies have started to leverage the strategy of incorporating gamification in business as a solution to target customers more engagingly and effectively.

Growing gamification adoption in Vietnam

The value of the gamification market worldwide has skyrocketed from US$4.91 billion in 2016 to US$11.94 billion in 2021, according to Statista.

In the Asia Pacific, the gamification market is projected to grow exponentially at a rate of 27 per cent. China and India will help drive the market by focusing more on using gamification to enhance user experience.

In Vietnam, MoMo is at the forefront of the trend toward gamification with offerings such as MoMo Academy, MoMo City, and the most recently launched MoMo Jump. It allows users to jump into gift boxes that appear on the road to collect coupons, promotions, and discounts to use various services available in MoMo e-wallet.

Vietnam-based one-hour delivery startup Loship is also upping its engagement tactics by launching two new gamified features called Daily check-in and Quest hunt.

BAce Capital suggested the strategy– their partners are directors at Ant Group. Drawing on their knowledge of Chinese trends, Loship incorporated mini-games into its app, just as China’s Pinduoduo added gaming to its e-commerce platform. 

“It was not something done with a strong sales objective in mind, but rather an experience that would allow customers to enjoy. Users visit Pinduoduo without any specific intent, much like visiting a real-world shopping mall. Likewise, Loship users may pull up the app for gaming, not shopping, but wind up making purchases,” Loship CEO Trung Hoang Nguyen shared.

Another startup that has incorporated gamification into its platform is Fika, a dating and social networking platform focusing on female users in Asia. With gamification, Fika broke the mold of traditional dating apps.

Also read: How gamification is increasing productivity during COVID-19

Each day users will receive a series of mini-challenges such as “Match someone new today” or “Text 2 days in a row”, etc., and for each completion, users will receive a Fika Coin reward. These Fika coins are used to unlock many premium features in the Fika app, such as seeing who liked you, rewinds, unlimited likes, etc. 

Gamification done right is key

Gamification is supposed to be a product longevity booster, not a replacement for the app’s inherent utility. Gamification plays a pivotal role in improving the user experience, engagement, and appeal of the app.

Let’s walk through some of the benefits that gamification brings to the table:

User retention

Gamification is a retention machine when done well. All gamification types have the same standard hook, where you can log in daily, perform a specific action to get rewards. Psychologically, these rewards motivate users to keep going on with the game and achieve more rewards. T

The principle here is that high-frequency usage would cultivate a user habit, leading to user stickiness. This user stickiness is tied to purchasing products.

China’s Pinduoduo is a leader in using gamification to promote frequent usage and purchases on its platform. The average number of monthly users in Pinduoduo increased more than twofold from 195 million in 2018 to 487 million in 2020 thanks to this engagement strategy.

Vietnam-based Loship has also followed this strategy to develop its daily check-in challenges. Each time users check-in, they are granted a certain number of Lo-points, which can be redeemed for in-app vouchers and coupons.

“While each check-in doesn’t generate direct revenue for Loship, the product experience eventually ties back to commerce if/when users redeem their points. This theoretically should yield a higher customer lifetime value,” shared the Loship representative.

User acquisition

Games that require users to invite or introduce their friends are the perfect vehicle to acquire new users. 83 per cent of consumers say they either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products.

Vietnam’s MoMo uses the referral program to have existing users invite their friends to install the app in exchange for extra turns to play games and incentives of VND500.000 for each successful referral.

The highest amount receivers get their name displayed on the app’s leaderboard feature.

Referral mechanics was also the fuel that propelled Pinduoduo to spectacular growth at its inception. Once the user is hooked, they’ll happily acquire on behalf of the company.

As such, the company can reach out to more potential customers without any advertising dollars invested. 

Data collection

Gamification can help companies understand their customers on a deeper level. When playing games, users reveal their preferences regarding time, capacity, attitudes, and willingness to pay, allowing for more precise targeting.

This insight becomes the foundation of better customer experience and engagement, leading to loyalty and trust. Historical data can also be used to make better predictions and build more effective marketing campaigns. 

In the case of Fika, for instance, Fika encourages users to take on mini-challenges such as “Match someone new today” in exchange for Fika Coins.

The more users join the challenge, the more insights and customer data are revealed. Fika can build up robustly personalized constantly and matchmaking algorithms to find more meaningful connections for their users.

Gamification is not a trend. It’s a future

Gen Z makes up 1/7 of Vietnam’s 92 million population. Being in tune with this large and growing generation of consumers means mastering gamification – and applying this tactic to the business context.

With the impact of COVID-19 leading people to aggressively search for online entertainment, more and more applications coming to market, and the concept of gamification gaining more credibility, it is only a matter of time before gamification takes off in a nation that loves gaming like Vietnam.

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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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