Day: November 12, 2021

TreeDots, a Singapore-based food surplus marketplace, has secured US$11 million in a Series A funding round co-led by East Ventures and California-based Amasia.

ACTIVE Fund, Seeds Capital, and angels, including bestselling writer Nir Eyal (the author of Hooked) and Singaporean actress Fiona Xie, also co-invested. 

Founded in 2018 by Tylor Jong, Lau Jia Cai, and Nicholas Lim, TreeDots targets to tackle the “trillion-dollar” global problem of food waste and loss and reduce the carbon footprint associated with food wastage. 

Also Read: Fixing food waste problem means less hungry people and a great economy

TreeDots redistributes unsold stocks from suppliers to businesses, such as restaurants and cafés, allowing them to source affordable food supplies. On the sell-side of the platform, suppliers would often pay money to send their surplus goods to the landfill, but now, they can earn incremental revenue for these goods when selling on Treedots. 

The startup also provides logistical services, including cold-chain logistics service TreeLogs, and an online management app to assist suppliers as parts of its vertically integrated food supply chain ecosystem. This allows upstream suppliers to focus their efforts on food processing and manufacturing. 

TreeDots has also set up a social commerce network that allows customers to buy these same products at discounted prices. In a group-buying approach, TreeDots delivers many orders to a single location, and neighbours pick up their items from this household.

The firm claims that this method helps save logistics costs for buyers and decreases emissions compared to a traditional e-commerce model.

Also Read: Singapore startup TreeDots clinches Judges’ Choice award at Echelon Asia 2018

With the mission to be a catalyst for a modern-day food supply chain in the region, TreeDots hopes to save two million tonnes of food that would have been wasted. By 2025, the company targets to cut carbon emissions by 18 million tonnes.

Last year, it expanded into Malaysia, with plans for more regional development in the future. To meet the new demand, the company recently expanded to logistics optimisation services to help enterprise customers build more efficient supply chains.

“Food loss is already a trillion-dollar problem, but what got us really excited was the fact that suppliers started to use the system for all of their revenue, not just food loss products,” said Roderick Purwana, managing partner at East Ventures.

Also read: Foodtech in Singapore through the eyes of startups

“We realised that a grocery chain might not buy a chicken that’s too big or has a broken bone because it looks funny on their shelves. But F&B outlets don’t care because they will cut it, plate it and make it look nice before serving. So if they can purchase essentially the same product at prices up to 90 per cent cheaper than alternatives, they are very happy,” said Tylor Jong, co-founder and CEO of TreeDots. “This original insight drove us to start an oversupplied foods marketplace to match supply and demand for these products.”

According to UN Environment Programme, one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted on a global scale, which is caused mainly by inefficient supply chains.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe also unveiled that methane emission, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more detrimental to global warming than carbon dioxide, is attributed to the burning or decomposing of oversupplied foods.

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Image Credit: TreeDots

 

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GoTo Group, one of the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, has secured more than US$1.3 billion in the first close of its pre-IPO funding round.

Investors include a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Avanda Investment Management, Fidelity International, Google, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), Primavera Capital Group, SeaTown Master Fund, Temasek, Tencent, and Ward Ferry.

The ADIA subsidiary is the lead investor in the round, and it has injected US$400 million into the firm. GoTo expects more investors to join the pre-IPO round ahead of the final close in the coming weeks.

In August, Reuters reported citing sources that GoTo was set to close an up to US$2 billion pre-IPO funding round in a few weeks. Various reports suggested GoTo plans to list in Indonesia by the end of 2021 before proceeding with a US listing with a potential valuation of US$40 billion.

Also Read: 5 lessons from GoTo and Traveloka on building the future of fintech in SEA

The company will invest the money in customer growth and engagement, to expand its payments and financial services offering, and leverage its integrated transport fleet and logistics network to enhance hyperlocal experiences.

Andre Soelistyo, CEO of GoTo Group, said: “Consumer demand is being unlocked by growth in digital adoption that has brought many new users online. As a result, demand for our services continues to increase, underscored by our commitment to continuously deliver selection, value and convenience to users across the ecosystem.”

Michael Woo, Singapore-based MD of Primavera Capital Group, commented: “We foresee secular growth opportunities for Indonesia and GoTo across e-commerce, on-demand mobility and fintech – all segments in which Primavera has extensive investment experience.”

Indonesia has a GDP of more than US$1 trillion and is the fourth most populous country in the world, with a young, tech-savvy population of 270 million. GoTo’s ecosystem encompasses nearly two-thirds of Indonesian consumer expenditure, and its total addressable market is set to grow to over $600 billion in Indonesia by 2025.

The country also has almost 140 million people with little or no access to the country’s formal financial system, presenting a significant growth opportunity for the company in payments and financial services.

Also Read: Abu Dhabi wealth fund to inject US$400M into GoTo’s pre-IPO round

GoTo was formed through the merger of Gojek and Tokopedia in May. It is the largest digital ecosystem in Indonesia, whose services span on-demand transport, e-commerce, food and grocery delivery, logistics and fulfilment, and financial services.

The Group claims it generated over 1.8 billion transactions in 2020, with a total group gross transaction value of over US$22 billion and contributed to more than 2 per cent of Indonesia’s GDP.

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Image Credit: GoTo

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Vietnam’s stock trading app Anfin gets US$125K from YC 

The crux: Anfin, a Vietnam-based stock trading app development company, announced it raised US$125,000 from YC and will join YC W22 Batch from January to March next year.

Investors: Besides YC, Anfin also took angel investments from unnamed directors at Temasek and Coinbase.

Plans: The proceeds are utilised to further develop Anfin’s product into a full trading app for beginners. The startup will also focus on building and strengthening features, such as education, fractional shares and company storytelling.

About Anfin:

Founded in June 2021 by CEO Phuoc Tran and CPO Michael Do, Anfin is a stock investment app that enables users to buy and sell stocks with small capital starting at only VND50,000 (around US$2). The app also allows the trading of fractional shares, which is counted as one of Anfin’s unique selling points.

Last month, the startup raised US$510,000 from First Check Ventures, R2 Venture Partners, and Global Founders Capital (GFC), which is an early investor of companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Lazada, and Slack.

Also read: Pocket power: 27 personal finance startups in SEA to help you manage money

Rosetta.ai raises US$2.4M pre-Series A to scale AI-based fashion e-commerce service globally

The story: Rosetta.ai, a Taiwan-based AI technology company, has closed its US$2.4 million pre-Series A financing round led by Dr. Pehong Chen, the founder of NASDAQ-listed software vendor BroadVision.

Co-investors: 500 Global, Artesian VC, Angel To Venture Accelerator, Loyal VC, and SOSV MOX.

Plans: The new funding will be channelled to develop Rosetta.ai fashion-optimised personalisation products and broaden its talent pool to foray into the US and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) markets.

About Rosetta.ai

Launched in 2016, Rosetta.ai employs image-based machine learning to provide online fashion retailers with products including website personalisation, marketing email personalisation, and preference analysis insights.

The startup claims that its insights, including colour, material, and style, cannot be observed in other analytics tools such as Google Analytics, and can generate accurate recommendations for brands. This is thanks to the in-house fashion industry experts that train the AI to recommend visually precise images and well-written fashion-industry attributes.

So far, Rosetta.ai has a client base of over 1000 Asian businesses, including both small and midsize merchants on Shopify and large brands such as L’Oréal, Codibook, and Blue Way.

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Image Credit: Anfin

 

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GuildFi, a Thai startup that aims to create an ecosystem that connects the intricate jigsaws of the metaverse, has completed a US$6 million seed round of financing.

Singapore-based crypto-asset fund DeFiance Capital and South Korean early-stage VC firm Hashed co-led this round.

Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Play Ventures, SkyVision Capital, Coin98 Ventures, and other notable investors also co-invested.

GuildFi is developing a Web3 infrastructure to connect games, NFTs, and communities to maximise players’ benefits and enable interoperability across the metaverse.

With several Web3 games being unveiled, players and enthusiasts cannot easily navigate and dabble in them. Players face high startup costs for joining new play-to-earn games, and scholarship funds are fragmented.

Furthermore, players’ efforts are siloed within a game, hampering their earning potential and defying the maximal possibilities of the metaverse.

Also Read: DeFi is pushing finance towards its e-commerce moment

GuildFi envisions a future where these intricate jigsaws are interlinked into an ecosystem. The firm serves as an infrastructure to onboard, connect, and add value to players, guilds, games, and investors alike.

“We solve discovery and access challenges for players by helping them discover new games, enhance performance with gaming tools, and track their engagement. With GuildFi ID, one ID serves all players’ metaverse journeys, and their achievements are no longer limited to specific guilds or games. Instead, they contribute towards their ranks and elevate their lifetime benefits,” said co-founder Jarindr Thitadilaka.

GuildFi looks to develop new features such as:

• GuildFi ID: a metaverse ID that is embedded with a levelling system that tracks players’ achievement and footprint across the metaverse. Players receive engagement points and ranking, which translate into the rewards they deserve,
• Game discovery: it helps players discover curated games and game creators discover the right player base for their game launch,
• Proof-of-Play Rewards: it enables play-to-earn on any games by analysing your lifetime activities and giving out the right benefits to you whether it’s an allocation to an NFT campaign or a bonus yield from our tokens,
• Metadrop Launchpad: it offers a special NFT and token deal from its partners where an allocation is determined by players’ ranks. 
• GameFi tools: They enhance players’ performance by providing gaming tools, for instance, the Axie Infinity toolkit that features scholarship management, daily SLP shares, PvP simulation, team status, and card explorer.
• Scholarship portal: it offers a built-in scholarship programme provided by GuildFi’s treasury and guild partners, reducing the barrier to entry for play-to-earn games and unlocking the opportunity for players anywhere in the world. 

To achieve this mission, GuildFi will collaborate with game creators globally to identify and attract the right players while supporting them through in-game asset investment and campaign collaboration to ensure successful launches and healthy growth.

Also Read: Metaverse is around the corner and you should play a role in it

“Hashed strongly believes the new paradigm for the gaming industry will be decentralised platforms. The more authority games give to the players, the more successful the game will be. In that respect, GuildFi has a solid potential to solidify its position as a new gaming platform,” said co-founder and partner Ethan Kyuntae Kim.

With a strong base in Thailand, the GuildFi team has launched a prominent gaming guild and the most popular Axie Infinity gaming tools on the market. It claims to have attracted over 100,000 registered users, 20,000 daily active users and 1,500 scholars within three months of inception.

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Image Credit: GuildFi

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This is the fourth and final article in this series of helping SMEs chart the course of digital transformation.

We will now look at arguably the most important stage of digital transformation, and that is its implementation into the organisation’s structure and processes.

How to go about implementing?

First and foremost, the CEO/Board/Entrepreneur should be passionate, educate themselves, and amply set clear objectives.

The absence of in-house expertise, as well as security concerns, cannot be an afterthought. While the security concerns can be handled technically, an enterprise’s lack of requisite skills does dissuade and further delay adoption.

Then create a small Digital Transformation team– include youngsters and experienced staff. Send the senior employees for credible training.

Identify and join hands with the right partner who can help lay the digital transformation journey roadmap and identify the priorities that can ensure a quick return on investment (RoI).

It also helps to define the budgets broadly and do a rough RoI calculation. A well laid out digitalisation plan can simplify enterprises to consider the whole while taking manageable small steps towards the larger goal.

As in the above table, many areas within an enterprise can benefit from digitalisation. It is important to prioritise the ones with maximum impact to set the momentum and build confidence.

Specific parameters vary in a small range that would give you a significant impact or identify the low hanging fruits in layman’s terms. The right technology applied in the right way on a well-defined problem can provide a very quick return on investment. Implement the solution and book profit.

Also read: Digital transformation for SMEs, Part 3: Data analytics in the enterprise

Next, identify critical bottlenecks, convert them into an appropriate business use case. Once a business use case is established, it becomes the focal point driving all other decisions– technology, domain experts, integration, and solution partners.

• Measure the current process. Remember, if you can’t measure, you can’t improve.
• Implement the technology solution meticulously. Your team should be as much involved as the partner organisation.
• Measure the benefit.
• Continuously refine to reap better benefits.
• Replicate the process for the rest of the objectives.

Don’t spend too much time and effort trying small initiatives across multiple business areas with no definite value coming forth. Letting technology fatigue set in that dissuades the team from pursuing all such initiatives further.

I want to leave you with a thought.

Often in small and simple changes lie big gains

The uninformed CEO might look at the 10 per cent year-on-year profit (per left bar chart as below) and be happy with the outcome. At the same time, a data-driven one would realise shedding (discontinuing) which products could have made more profits and take corrective measures unless they are produced for strategic reasons.

A Delta Drill chart is capable of segregating the loss-makers from the profiteers.

Malaysia may have scored high on digital readiness rankings. Still, digital adoption by SMEs and traditional businesses are often hindered by, among others, a lack of awareness, readiness, know-how, and appreciation of the benefits of digitalisation, as well as the oft-misperceived high cost of implementing new technologies.

I hope this series has given our readers, particularly SMEs, a better understanding and more positive attitude about embracing digital transformation, starting with small but impactful areas in the organisation.

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Image credit: stnazkul

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