Thai fintech startup Lightnet, which provides blockchain-based solutions for the Asian remittance market, has received US$48 million funding from its co-founders Chatchaval Jiaravanon and Tridbodi Arunanondchai, DealStreetAsia has reported today.
Jiaravanon is a family member of Thailand’s largest private company Charoen Pokphand Group. He also boughtFortune magazine in 2018 for US$150 million.
Arunanondchai is a serial tech entrepreneur and former investment banker. His previous companies include travel club Privepass.com and digital agency Play Media.
Lightnet is based in Bangkok and headquartered in Singapore.
Founded in 2018 with Jiaravanon’s US$10 million, Lightnet leverages smart contract and distributed ledger technology to tap into “a trillion US dollar” global remittance market, connecting existing financial systems with its network of cash agents and wallets.
The startup claims it increases the efficacy of existing money transfer operators, financial institutions and other cross-border payment providers. According to it, these businesses are currently relying on “outdated, costly and fragmented” services. Lightnet pays close attention to the millions of unbanked migrant workers in major Southeast Asian markets.
In January 2021, Lightnet announced its adoption of Velo Labs’s Velo Protocol as its blockchain protocol. It now positions itself as the next generation clearing and settlement network across the Asia Pacific region.
Velo Labs develops Federated Credit Exchange Network, which allows partners in legacy finance, CeFi and DeFi industries to safely and securely transfer value between each other with maximised efficiency and transparency. The firm regards itself as one of few blockchain projects “with a clear path towards mass adoption.”
Earlier in January, Lightnet bagged US$31.2 million in a Series A financing round co-invested by six conglomerates and two VCs, including UOB Venture Management, Seven Bank, Uni-President Asset Holdings, HashKey Capital, Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital, Du Capital and Hanwha Investment and Securities.
According to the World Bank’s latest data, despite the COVID-19 headwinds, remittance flows remained resilient in 2020 in low- and middle-income countries, amounting to US$ 540 billion in 2020, down only 1.6 per cent compared to the 2019 total of US$548 billion.
In recent years, Thai fintech firms have snagged big deals, with Ascend Money becoming Thailand’s first fintech unicorn in September.
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
The word ‘trust’ holds a multitude of meanings. A quick look at the dictionary would show that “trust” is about ‘having confidence in somebody’ or ‘believing that something is true’.
But in today’s thriving digital economy, where digitalisation has completely transformed our everyday lives, the meaning of ‘trust’ is evolving and in fact, under great scrutiny in the complex digital environment.
From credit card transactions to medical records and daily social media interactions, we are all constantly sharing a multitude of personal information digitally. This requires a high degree of trust from users who have no choice but to entrust digital platforms and services with key information about their lives most of the time.
However, the reality is that we don’t actually own these data. From the moment we register for a credit card, we are effectively letting a financial institution take hold of and control our information. This is a key concern especially as the cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving and security leaks have happened at a massive scale, often transcending the capabilities of organizations as well.
Recent high-profile cyber-attacks have only proven how attackers are becoming more sophisticated and stealthier in targeting the loopholes of robust security infrastructures.
Fostering digital trust
Against this backdrop, consumers and businesses alike are increasingly vulnerable to potential threats such as loss of confidentiality, unauthorised access, and inappropriate modification of crucial information. This is why digital trust must be forged and strengthened.
Digital trust serves as the beating heart of the digital economy, and a lack of it will eventually impede wider growth.In the race towards a digital-centric society, businesses and individuals would require greater assurance and confidence in using new technologies to unlock opportunities.
It is heartening to know that countries like Singapore are making more investments to advance the city-state’s digital trust capabilities within the next few years and strengthen its position as a trusted digital hub.In fostering digital trust, efforts must enable a simpler and more convenient method of managing data and personal information.
The growth of privacy-preserving decentralised technologies
Amid a changing digital and threat landscape, privacy-preserving, decentralised technologies will increasingly take on a bigger role in fostering digital trust for the next iteration of the internet. This is where Affinidi is making a difference.
We recognise the loopholes along with the challenges that individuals face today with regards to owning their information and digital identity and we want to empower everyone to be able to safely access financial, healthcare, and employment platforms, and enable new ways to share, control and store our personal data.
To this end, we are pushing for greater use of decentralised technologies, which would award individuals with the power to fully control their data.
With decentralised technology, individuals everywhere can gain ownership of their own digital identity, claim their credentials, and share data selectively in a privacy-preserving manner as they consume digital services from different providers. These would allow them to unlock new opportunities and the potential to enjoy life to the fullest.
This new decentralised architecture fosters greater transparency and accountability between all parties, enabling institutions, governments, and individuals to participate and contribute in ways that foster great trust. Let’s look at a few examples.
For businesses, decentralised technology makes the digital infrastructure and services more resilient to cyber threats, while minimizing the attack surface, scale, and potential impact in the event of a compromise. It could also help businesses reduce costs on data management and compliance resources, especially for small business owners.
For job seekers today, many have had to pivot to a fully digital hiring process amidst the ongoing pandemic. Gone are the days when job seekers had to prepare hard copies of their certificates for physical interviews.
Now, employers require candidates to digitally share their previous employment records, education qualifications and other information for pre-employment checks. Given that these credentials are highly personal and issued by various entities, candidates should demand a secure approach to ensure their data don’t fall into the wrong hands.
Verifiable credentials– tamper-proof credentials that can be verified cryptographically – help address this. Candidates can collate their credentials in their own digital wallets and only share them with relevant employers who require this information.
This decentralised approach ensures data is shared in a secure and privacy-preserving way while empowering the individual.
The benefits of Affinidi’s decentralised technology do not stop there. Amidst the pandemic, COVID-19 tests have become a necessity for travel, but the absence of a global standard for digital health credentials impedes the verification process.
There is also the issue of fake COVID-19 certificates, as some attempt to profit from travel restrictions through selling fake negative test results.
Through verifiable credentials, healthcare providers and other relevant bodies can issue digitally verifiable COVID-19 test and vaccine credentials to travellers in a secure and privacy-preserving way.
Airlines and immigration officers can then use Affinidi’s verification technology to accurately verify the credentials’ authenticity and match these against destination entry requirements.
Beyond these use cases, verifiable data and decentralisation will have far-reaching benefits across every sphere of our life. Scheduling health checks, applying for credit cards, computing insurance premiums, and selling/buying a property are just some areas in our daily lives where these new technologies can play a role in verifying information securely while safeguarding our digital identity.
Building an ecosystem to become a digital trust hub
While much has been said about the need for privacy protection and identity management, the truth is that decentralization is not common knowledge or widely adopted among the community and the business world yet. There is a need to foster stronger partnerships in advancing digital trust and decentralized technologies to build on what we have created and to sustain it.
To do so, concerted efforts are required from everyone involved such as regulatory authorities, users, and companies operating in the private and public space.
Singapore is doing well with championing privacy-preserving models and establishing solid trust networks, but globally, there must be a greater push for government and key stakeholders to embrace and integrate this change into their business processes to award data control back to individuals for the benefit of the world.
Though we often get lost in technologies, frameworks, legislation, and economic models, it is ultimately the human aspect of it all that will define the future of the digital identity industry.
Hence, while governments and institutions should drive research and introduce solutions that support digital trust principles, we also believe that there needs to be a strong mindset shift among the wider population.
Bearing this in mind can determine the heights we scale, and how quickly we get to establish a strong and globally trusted digital ecosystem that empowers the world.
–
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
Founder of Youadme, Zhi Ying Chai (centre) with her Cambodian colleagues
My journey in tech only began after graduating from Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media. Fresh-faced and ambitious, I joined an agency to provide creative services to help businesses market and drive user engagement.
Despite running on the creative route, the company operated on the traditional model that many businesses were familiar with.
Besides, I also quickly observed that most of these businesses were not understanding the changing behaviours of consumers who are always well-connected online, and I wanted to help close this gap.
From arts to tech: A change in medium
While there were pragmatic reasons behind my decision to go into the tech scene, I quickly realised that tech was also an excellent platform for showcasing my creativity. I craved creation and engaging with my imagination to tell stories.
Tech was able to help me quickly find my audience and allowed me to resonate with them. A change in medium only affects how one’s skills are applied, and no matter the industry, there is an opportunity for creativity to be expressed.
In today’s world, expressing our creativity in varying magnitudes is key to improving our lives, and there is a lack of platforms for which creativity can be demonstrated and shared.
Trained in the arts and with the opportunities given to me in the technology scene, I was set on helping others tell their stories and bring people closer together with their communities.
Accessibility was important to me, as I felt that nobody should experience the kind of hurdles and bad experiences I did to achieve and express what they wanted. My team was aligned with me on this front, and we set out to create a platform to make this happen.
From Singapore to Cambodia: A new journey of learning
After some deliberation, the team onboard decided to venture out from Singapore into the region. We set our sights towards Cambodia, a market in which we have some experience with some clients.
Then, we had noticed that more Cambodians were turning to entrepreneurship, with many of them quick to jump onto the digitalisation trend, progressing perhaps even faster than Singapore. The youth were well-connected to different social media platforms and were putting out creative marketing ideas to promote their business.
We saw as an opportunity that different players in the market were openly willing to experiment with new technologies or new platforms.
Eventually, after much thought, I took off for Cambodia with a team from Singapore to better understand the market. It wasn’t easy at first, as I did not speak the local languages, and I could only converse in simple English.
I was also physically away from family and friends in a foreign land that not many women would subscribe to as the first choice for an overseas stint. As our company had just started, I had to go through some months without a salary too.
Adapting to the new environment proved to be a challenge for most of my team, as they eventually left and returned to Singapore, leaving me there with just one other member to manage the company.
The biggest challenge, however, was the working culture. Over there, the women I worked with within the tech scene were very active and often more than happy to speak out for themselves. They actively ensured that they were heard, which contrasted with my experiences in Singapore.
From my conversations, this respectable difference could be due to the multiple responsibilities that most women in Cambodia had to juggle, including raising their children and running the household by themselves without any extra help.
This has made them more outspoken about their wants and ideas. While their outspoken nature surprised me at first, I grew to find this determination to have your voice heard in a male-dominated industry as something we can all learn from.
This determination was especially crucial to be seen and heard for a company in a new market. I also spent a lot of time learning and understanding from the locals, so I could better leverage the team’s strengths bundled with my creative knowledge to create a more effective platform for our community of users.
After many months of hard work, we finally launched YouAdMe, a social commerce platform to connect brands to loyal customers.
Tapping into the social media habits of the society, this platform also allows the customers to show their support for their favourite brands while also helping entrepreneurs and brands to receive the benefits of marketing from the customers’ content.
Our platform has become the bridge between brands and customers, allowing their creative voices to be heard and showcased.
The successful launch of YouAdMe was well-received by many. On the international stage, I embodied the same confidence I have learnt from the Cambodian ladies I worked with and pitched our solution on several professional platforms.
We won awards with the team’s hard work, including the 2018 ASEAN Pitch Fest Cambodia and the 2018 Singapore MAS ASEAN Top 10 Innovative Fintech.
Lesson brought back to Singapore
Today, I work remotely with my Cambodian team of 30 to assist 1,500 traditional businesses on our platform of 250,000 users.
Many of my team members are women who have to deal with the everyday stresses of life on top of their work. Despite these challenges, their contributions have been greatly significant and are always deeply appreciated.
If anything is key to my own growth so far, my constant travels between Singapore and Cambodia have opened my eyes to observe the people I’m designing the platform for.
YouAdMe aims to connect the businesses on our platform with their consumers directly, so it is vital to listen to the needs and wants of both ends. Within our team, local sentiments are expressed by our members, which we consider with mindful analysis and market research.
As Women in tech, we need to remember to make ourselves heard on our terms. It might be uncomfortable to assert yourself at first, as I was when I first started.
Yet, as the extraordinary ladies in my Cambodian team have taught me, the path to success requires stepping out of the comfort zone. To achieve the things you want and find your voice, you must listen and be comfortable with the discomfort of finding your voice in the industry.
–
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
Philippine-based cloud kitchen startup CloudEats announced that it has raised a US$5 million ‘oversubscribed’ Series A funding round led by Vulpes Investment Management of Singapore and Gobi Partners, particularly the Gobi-Core PH Fund.
Alibaba-backed BAce Capital, Intera Investments Limited, GMA Ventures, and angel investors also participated in this funding round.
Following the funding round, BAce Capital Founding Partner Benny Chen is set to join CloudEats’ board of directors.
The company has also established an outstanding international Advisory Board composed of the current and former CEO of Monde Nissin, McDonald’s and Starbucks in Europe.
It plans to use the new funding to support its regional expansion plan; CloudEats plans to launch in two new Southeast Asian (SEA) markets within the next 12 months.
“We are very excited to launch operations in Vietnam this November, and continue our aggressive expansion in the Philippines,” says CloudEats Co-Founder Iacopo Rovere.
The company also aims to develop new F&B brands to follow its own Burger Beast.
In the past year, cloud kitchen has been one of the most popular sectors in SEA, as the COVID-19 pandemic changes the behaviour of F&B customers in the region to become more reliant on food delivery services.
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
Una Brands, a Singapore-based startup providing a “fast and fair way” for e-commerce business owners (vendors) to sell their companies, has raised US$15 million in Series A financing.
White Star Capital and Alpha JWC co-led the round. Besides its current investors, Ninjavan co-founder Alvin Teo also joined the round.
This investment comes just five months after Una Brands secured US$40 million in its seed round from 500 Startups, Kingsway Capital, 468 Capital, Presight Capital and Global Founders Capital.
Una Brands will use the new capital to acquire e-commerce brands in Asia Pacific and further strengthen its technology and team. “With this raise, we will continue to invest in acquiring great brands, developing our multi-channel capabilities, expanding into our newly launched markets and supporting our brands’ growth,” founder and CEO Kiren Tanna said.
Una Brands was established in 2020 by Tanna, the former CEO of Rocket Internet Asia and founder of foodpanda and ZEN Rooms. Adrian Johnston, Kushal Patel, Tobias Heusch and Srinivasan Shridharan are the other co-founders of the startup.
Una Brands acquires brands selling across multiple e-commerce channels such as Shopify, Shopee, Lazada, Tokopedia, Amazon. The firm mainly primarily focuses on profitable independent brands with revenue between US$1 million and US$50 million.
Una claims it can complete the end-to-end transaction process in under six weeks with flexible deal structures.
Currently, Una employs 90 people across seven offices — Singapore, Australia, India, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Jefrey Joe, the managing partner at Alpha JWC, added: “Digitally native brands in APAC is a secular trend growing at 4x the rate of those in the West. We believe Una Brands’s value proposition will resonate with brands across the region and further propel the growth of D2C in countries such as Indonesia.”
Brand aggregation is the new trend in Southeast Asia. In May this year, former Carousell and OVO executives launched the e-commerce brand aggregator Rainforest with a US$36M seed funding. In September, Rainforest bagged an oversubscribed US$20 million pre-Series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
Today, I am going down the rabbit hole on Bitcoin and Ethereum. When I am excited about a new space, I try to follow Feynman’s technique for learning anything:
In a nutshell, Richard Feynman observed how people mask a lack of understanding with complexity and jargon. In turn, if you can explain anything to a kid, you must have an excellent knowledge of that topic. So always strive to strip down needless complexity.
This and the following few essays are my attempt to simplify what I have learned about Web3 so far, starting with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Nothing illustrates a complex concept better than an analogy. So here you go, my favourite one.
In prison, there are no currencies. No one has access to money of any kind. But a prison, although small, is still a society. And society needs to trade goods and services.
Maybe someone is a barber. This person will cut people’s hair but wants something in return. Something that he can use to later go to his cellmate and give him in return for the book that he wants from him.
The cellmate also needs something in return for the book to use for getting himself another book.
How do you do this without money?
Well, they use cigarettes as a currency. A haircut is worth 20 packs. A chance to play basketball is worth 10 packs. A book is worth five packs and so on. There is a problem. There are not enough cigarettes inside the prison in each person’s hands to be able to do all the transactions.
But everyone knows that once a week a new supply comes in. So instead of getting the packs from each other, they start “owing” each other some packs of cigarettes.
Joey gets a haircut and he owes the barber 20 packs. The barber gets a book and owes John 5 packs. Once the new shipment comes in, everyone will settle their debts.
But how do we keep track of all this?
Well, everyone will have to carry a notebook with them. Whenever two people make a transaction, they both write it down in their books. Luke writes “I owe Johnny two packs” and Johnny writes “Luke owes me two packs”. This way we know who owes what to whom.
But we all write everything in the same format. One transaction after another. So it becomes a long chain of transactions. If I know how many cigarettes I had at any point and go through the transactions after it, I can figure out how many cigarettes I will have.
Last problem: how do we know what people wrote in their books are correct and no one is faking transactions? I can go steal someone’s book and write a fake transaction in it.
Well, to overcome this we assign the wisest most trustworthy person in the prison as a witness. Whenever two people are making a transaction, he has to witness it and sign both books with his own signature. This way, we know that each transaction is witnessed by our trusted person and actually happened.
Cigarettes are bitcoin. Notebooks are ledgers. The agreed-upon text format in the notebooks is blockchain. The wise persons are bitcoin miners.
Most people, who are not crypto fanatics, have some vague idea of what Bitcoin is. But a few people realise how in just 12 years, the cryptocurrency has become the best investment of all time as it has reached ~3,000,000x appreciation.
You can think of Bitcoin as a decentralised currency. Meaning it was not issued by a central bank like any other medium of exchange. Instead, it was issued by a computer program.
“The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be Bitcoin.”– Jack Dorsey, Founder of Twitter and Square
Not too long ago, China, the world’s second-largest economy and the most populous country declared all cryptocurrencies illegal. Yet, today’s price of one Bitcoin is ~US$61,095 (as of October 17, 2021). Proving that it’s hard to devalue it by governments.
In simpler terms, it’s akin to gold. It leverages the scarce nature of gold, but it adds an element of digital transferability.
Every currency or store of value shares similar attributes. It must be scarce, portable, fungible, divisible, durable, and broadly accepted to be considered useful.
Bitcoin scores high on all that:
Scarcity – the supply of Bitcoin is only 21 million coins.
“There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins. That property of saying there’s only going to be 21 million is guaranteed by the blockchain. It is not guaranteed by the creators of Bitcoin. It’s not guaranteed by the developers of Bitcoin, by Satoshi Nakamoto. It’s guaranteed by the very network architecture. That never existed before.”– Chris Dixon – The Potential of Blockchain Technology
Portability – Bitcoin is a lot more portable than gold. It can be transferred digitally around the globe in seconds. Therefore, it’s cheaper to store and transfer. Not to mention, it’s instantly verifiable, whereas gold can require a slow and manual process.
Source: Michael B. Rihani
Fungibility – similar to any other currency, any two Bitcoins are interchangeable.
Durability – a lot more durable than paper money and do not degrade over time.
Broad acceptability – while it has not reached the acceptability of gold and US$ levels, Bitcoin has made impressive progress. That’s especially true in markets that are less stable politically.
Crypto adoption is dominated by emerging, frontier, and politically unstable markets.
“[Bitcoin] may not seem as compelling to some individuals who believe they live in stable monetary and financial settings, or under a government that respects property rights and the rule of law – but it becomes starkly relevant in their absence.” — Nic Carter, Bitcoin Net Zero
No one knows what the future will bring. Bitcoin is up against gold and traditional mediums of exchange. Regular currencies have centuries of proven track records.
Yet, looking at the loyalty of its community alongside the underlying innovation, it’s undeniable that Bitcoin offers an improvement over gold and fiat.
Ethereum
Imagine Bitcoin as a valuable and defensible citadel that has proven to be a great place to store your gold in. Everyone races to store their gold in that impregnable castle because no one has ever successfully attacked it.
Ethereum is the city around that citadel. In fact, you can think of it as a network of cities that trade with each other using Ether (ETH). Then gas fees are paid to miners to ensure each transaction takes place as per the desired outcome.
Ethereum is the streets, land, buildings, pipes, electricity infrastructure, and everything else you need to have in order to build on. So now you can go to Ethereum and build your real estate or whatever else that’s important to you.
Ethereum is the second most valuable cryptocurrency in the world. Today, the market cap of Ethereum is about US$420 billion.
Whereas bitcoin is a combination of currency, a store of value, and a medium of exchange, Ethereum is a lot more. You can think of it as a vast distributed computer that exists around the world. Entirely decentralised.
Ethereum is so many things at once, all of which feed off of each other. Ethereum, the blockchain, is a world computer, the backbone of a decentralised internet (web3), and the settlement layer for web3. Its cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), is a bunch of things, too:
Internet money.
Ownership of the Ethereum network.
The most commonly-used token in the Great Online Game.
Yield-generating.
A Store of Value (SoV).
A bet on more on-chain activity, or the web3 future.
Developers can build applications on top of Ethereum using smart contracts. It is similar to how Excel works. In an Excel sheet, we can add a variety of formulas that are linked with one another.
Smart contracts work similarly. Each contract can be linked to another one. In the process, creating opportunities to solve complex problems.
A popular analogy for smart contracts is vending machines. You insert money into a vending machine, and it delivers something back to you. In the same way, if you pay a fee to the smart contract, the smart contract will execute an action. The fees are paid in Ether (ETH), often referred to as “gas” fees.
Another simple example is designing a smart contract to reward your family on their birthdays. Imagine developing a tool that pays each member of your family US$100 on their birthdays.
Then, add the birth dates for each family member, assign the reward (e.g., US$100/person), and the contract will handle the rest. Thus, annually on their birthdays, everyone in your family will receive US$100 without your intervention.
Currently, there are around 117M ETH. Like with everything else, the price is governed by supply and demand. More transactions and usage equals higher demand and thus higher costs. In simpler terms, that’s how a transaction on Ethereum looks like:
You send your friend John 1 ETH
You pay gas fees for that transaction. Let’s say .01 ETH
Your account balance goes down by 1.01 ETH. Your friend John’s account balance goes up by 1 ETH.
A distributed network of random miners on Ethereum gets compensated with 0.1 ETH to solve increasingly difficult cryptographic problems and thus facilitate the transaction.
“Owning ETH is like owning shares on the internet. Demand for ETH will go up with increased Web3 adoption, while upcoming changes will decrease the supply of ETH and let more value accrue to holders. It’s like a tech stock, a bond, a ticket to Web3, and money, rolled into one”, says Packy McCormick.
Lately, Ethereum has been in the epicentre of a lot of exciting innovations. Concepts like DeFi, DAOs, NFTs, Social Tokens have become all the hype around the world. Ethereum and other similar platforms are enabling people to cooperate like never before.
The open, trustless, and permissionless internet finally has strong use cases. Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin have shown us the potential behind Web3, and we are just getting started.
Unfortunately, current solutions are still slow and expensive. That was an intentional design; both Bitcoin and Ethereum are meant to be slow because of security reasons. Yet, the activity in Web3 is attracting the smartest people from all walks of life.
Strong financial incentives and incredible talent are usually a recipe for overcoming any obstacle. So I am sure that we will be able to have secure yet fast and affordable solutions in the near future. That’s why I am pretty excited about what’s coming next.
–
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
Vietnamese startup eJOY, which develops cross-platform apps to support English learners, has secured a “hundreds-of-thousand-dollars” seed financing round led by ThinkZone Ventures, a local early-stage venture capital firm.
BK Fund, founded by alumni of the Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), also joined.
eJOY will use the capital to improve the product for intermediate-level English learners and expand to the beginner-level learner group. A portion of the funds will be used to test the same method of learning with other languages.
Besides the capital investment, ThinkZone Ventures will support eJOY in the development process through a network of experienced experts and partners. The total size of support packages is said to amount to more than US$150,000.
Leveraging BKFund’s university network, eJOY also intends to broaden its user base to college students across the country.
Founded in 2017 by CEO Diep Bui, eJOY creates a tech product that lets users actively learn English while watching videos on YouTube, Netflix, Coursera, and other platforms.
The tool serves as a plug-in to web browsers and allows learners to look up, collect and understand the context of new words while consuming video (with subtitles) or article content on the go.
The company boasts it has clocked more than one million users worldwide and 300,000 weekly active users. Non-Vietnamese learners account for 30 per cent of its user base.
According to a survey by Q&Me, 37 per cent of Vietnamese respondents spend an average of one to three hours learning a foreign language, with English being the most popular option (86 per cent).
The pandemic has boosted the Vietnamese edutech industry, which has seen a slew of startups raise capital in 2021. They included educational services provider Equest (US$100 million investment from KKR), AI-powered language app Elsa (US$15 million Series B led by Vietnam Investments Group), Educa Corporation (US$2 million Series A from Alibaba-backed eWTP), Marathon Education (US$1.5 million in seed funding), and CoderSchool (US$2.6 million pre-Series A led by Monk’s Hill Ventures).
By the end of 2023, the Vietnamese e-learning market is expected to be worth over US$3 billion, according to Ken Research.
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
Multiplier, a Singapore-based startup aiming to simplify international employment, has secured US$13.2 million in a Sequoia India-led Series A financing round.
Individuals, including Deepinder Goyal (Zomato) and Amrish Rau (Pine Labs), along with existing investors, also co-invested.
The new round follows a US$$4 million investment round led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge programme in July.
Multiplier will use the new capital to boost its full-stack platform and expand globally. A portion of the proceeds will also be deployed to scale up its payroll and benefits solutions for businesses.
Multiplier was established in 2020 by Amritpal Singh, Sagar Khatri, and Vamsi Krishna. It is a global employment platform that helps companies employ, onboard and pay their global talent compliantly. Multiplier provides automated HR workflow, compliance and payroll all rolled into one integrated platform.
As per a press statement, the company has doubled its customer base since it came out of Surge, and revenues grew 3x.
Multiplier co-founder Sagar Khatri said: “Talent is everywhere, and our vision is to enable companies to hire the best person for the job, regardless of their location. We have grown exponentially since the launch, which is testament to the demand from companies—both large and small—for a simplified, international employment solution.”
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
(L-R) TurtleTree co-founders Fengru Lin and Max Rye
TurtleTree, which produces cell-based milk, has raised US$30 million in the first tranche of its Series A funding from a group of investors, led by existing investor and Finnish growth-stage VC firm Verso Capital.
Having just launched its Sacramento R&D facility in September, TurtleTree will now use the new capital to continue expanding its portfolio of sustainable, better-for-you food items.
It will also set aside funds for technology development and talent acquisition, enabling the firm to grow its world-class R&D team.
Together, these initiatives will help TurtleTree scale up its research and production of the highly functional ingredients in human milk, which offer proven benefits for immune system function, gut health, and cognitive development. One example of these ingredients is lactoferrin, a bioactive protein slated for launch as TurtleTree’s first commercial product.
“The funding received has truly opened up a new world of possibility. We can now set our sights on turning ambitions into reality. We will start with our US-based expansion plans and then move on to the development and manufacture of our first consumer-ready products,” TurtleTree’s chief strategy officer Max Rye said.
This will ultimately bring scalable solutions to the cell-based food industry, ensuring people everywhere will have access to the nourishing nutrients of mammalian milk in a uniquely sustainable and affordable way.
Founded in 2019, TurtleTree uses its proprietary technology to produce whole milk in clean production facilities from mammary cells. Moving forward, the company will expand into a global biotechnology platform with a vision for transforming performance nutrition, food systems, and cellular agriculture.
To date, TurtleTree has raised over US$40 million.
In December 2020, TurtleTree closed a US$6.2 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round from investors such as Green Monday Ventures, Eat Beyond Global, KBW Ventures, and Verso. A few months prior, it raised pre-seed funding round from investors such as KBW Ventures, Lever VC and K2 Global.
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
Singapore-headquartered accelerator-cum-VC-fund Accelerating Asia announced the first batch of investments from its US$20-million Fund II launched in September.
This is also the fifth cohort of pre-Series A startups joining the fund’s flagship 100-day accelerator programme.
The nine startups are:
Chat Genie (Philippines): An online B2B platform providing integrated online payment and automated delivery services to businesses on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber, GCash, PayMaya, and other super apps.
Dana Fintech (Bangladesh): A fintech startup that enables banks, financial institutions and fintech firms to offer digital lending and buy now pay later (BNPL) facilities to underbanked SMEs and individuals through its unique credit scoring engine, digital underwriting, and API platforms.
Ellegra (Malaysia): An online personal styling service for women.
Giftpack.ai (US): An AI-powered corporate gifting platform that digitalises companies’ relationships with customers through analyses of recipients’ social media, cultural background, and digital footprint to customise gift options at scale.
Mayani (Philippines): An agri-e-commerce platform that empowers smallholder farmers by providing them broader access to market, while minimising food loss through a digitised agri value chain.
Sohopathi (Bangladesh): An online social platform for P2P learning that enables learning and teaching simultaneously.
Supply Line (Bangladesh): A digital B2B procurement and invoice financing solution to connect local retailers with lenders and distributors through a single platform.
VIFO (Vietnam): A single SaaS platform unifying insurers, agencies, customers, and customer services to make insurance easier for everyone.
Z-Waka (Myanmar): A SaaS platform that enables doctors in developing countries to efficiently manage clinics, collaborate with other healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies in order to provide affordable high-quality healthcare.
As per a press release, 80 per cent of Cohort 5 startups address at least one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, such as gender equality, responsible consumption and production, and industry, innovation and infrastructure. In addition, 50 per cent are co-founded by female leaders.
Launched in September 2021, Accelerating Asia’s Fund II aims to bridge the gap between seed and pre-Series A investments for startups with untapped potential that are six to 18 months away from institutional funding.
The fund claims that the nine startups have increased their recurring revenue by over 40 per cent to an average of US$20,000 per month after one month of joining the programme.
Founded in 2019, Accelerating Asia has invested up to US$250,000 each in over 40 startups spanning across ten countries in Southeast and South Asia.
Accelerating Asia has also joined “Pledge 1%”, a global movement to inspire, educate, and empower every company to be a force for good. The new cohort represents the fund’s commitment to accelerating startups with scalable technology solutions and business models that combine purpose with profit.
—
Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.
