Society Pass founder and CEO Dennis Nguyen

Rahul Narain, former chief technology officer of Nasdaq-listed Society Pass Inc. (SPI), is seeking damages of over US$1.3 million from the Vietnam-focused data-driven loyalty company for allegedly breaching his employment contract.

In a complaint (a copy of which is with e27) filed before the New York State Supreme Court in December 2019, Narain alleged that Society Pass, registered in Nevada, failed to pay him his earned compensation in salary, bonus payments, healthcare reimbursements, equity awards, and severance pay.

Narain pleaded that the court direct Society Pass to pay him damages amounting to not less than US$566,000 in earned and due compensation, equity awards and severance compensation, besides US$750,000 for breaching the common stock purchase warrant.

Society Pass has denied Narain’s claims in a counter-complaint in the court. An email sent to Society Pass founder and CEO Dennis Nguyen seeking his comments elicited no response when publishing this article.

Also Read: Society Pass launches US$26M IPO on Nasdaq, shares surge 230 per cent

The case revolves around the employment agreement signed between SPI and Narain three years ago. The complaint said that Narain joined Society Pass as an advisor and consultant for a term of approximately three months in November 2018. As per the terms of the agreement, Narain — a highly experienced computer programmer and technology advisor and formerly the chief architect for IBM Mobile Appliance — would join SPI as its CTO at the end of the said term.  

Both parties extensively negotiated an employment contract in January 2019, following which Society Pass agreed to pay Narain a monthly salary of US$20,000, effective January 1, 2019. Half of the salary (US$10,000) would be paid initially, with the balance amount to be paid upon the closing of SPI’s Series C financing round. 

In addition, Society Pass also agreed to pay Narain US$36,000 annually (US$3,000 a month) towards his healthcare expenses. This payment was also due upon the closing of the Series C round. Besides, SPI would pay Narain a Series C Bonus totalling US$350,000.

As per the terms in the contract, Narain was also entitled to 4 per cent of Society Pass’s common stock upon Series C closing. The parties agreed that these shares would be issued to him in multiple tranches quarterly, with effect from February 1 2019.

According to Narain, SPI, however, failed to honour the contract. “SPI breached the terms of the agreement almost immediately by failing to place Narain on the company payroll, despite several requests from him and SPI’s then COO Thomas O’Connor. As of the end of October 2019, the amount of taxes due based on the outstanding salary, bonus and healthcare payments were approximately US$17,500,” the complaint said.

While Society Pass wire-transferred him a monthly salary of US$10,000, it discontinued the payments from August 2019 without giving him any notice.

As per Narain’s belief and information from sources, Society Pass closed the Series C round in September 2019. So, according to the agreement, SPI owes Narain US$120,000 in unpaid salary as of end-October 2019. The additional payments of healthcare reimbursements and bonuses, which were also due at the close of the Series C round, were not paid either.

“[The] plaintiff be granted a declaratory judgment determining the validity of the issuance of SPI common stock shares and their value,” he pleaded.

Even as the legal battle continues, the court, in an order dated December 02, 20121, directed SPI to produce documents related to the closing of the Series C round by December 10, 2021. (The order was subsequently amended to allow SPI time until January 14, 2022, to produce the said documents.)

Also Read: Vietnam’s data-driven loyalty platform Society Pass closes Series C, relaunches Leflair

“Mr. Narain’s claim is that he was not properly compensated and that the defendants [SPI] avoided paying him by either doing the Series C financing without telling him about it or by doing other financings instead of the Series C financing so as to avoid paying him his compensation. The evidence discussed at the conference indicates that Mr.Narain was previously told the value of his deferred Series C compensation – i.e., long before the defendant indicates that the recent financing named Series C actually happened. Under these circumstances, it is not proper for the defendants to refuse to provide discovery to Mr.Narain between the date of the end of his employment and the announced now named Series C financing so that Narain can vet his theory that the defendant avoided paying him. The defendant shall produce this material by Friday, December 10, 2021, in advance of the defendant’s CEO’s [Dennis Nguyen] scheduled deposition or Mr.Narain may move for appropriate relief including striking the defendant’s answer,” said the court ruling.

In an emailed response, Narain’s attorney Ethan A. Brecher of law firm Ethan A. Brecher, LLC, told e27 that he expects SPI to produce the required documents by January 14. “We will take Dennis Nguyen’s deposition after that. A court order was necessary for the production of these documents and Nguyen’s deposition because Society Pass has not been co-operating.”

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Daniel Shin, CEO of CHAI

Singapore-based payment solutions company CHAI has secured US$45 million in a Series B+ investment round, co-led by existing investor SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA) and US-based fintech VC firm Nyca Partners.

KT Investment, Conductive Ventures, Nordstar Capital, Samsung NEXT and B Capital also participated.

CHAI will use the new capital to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia and develop a “fully automated end-to-end payment infrastructure” for digital merchants throughout Asia.

This tranche comes exactly a year after the startup bagged US$60 million in a Series B round led by Hanhwa Investment & Securities, with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia, SK Networks, and Aarden Partners

Founded in 2019, CHAI provides a unified payment orchestration solution for local merchants through a single application programming interface (API).

Through CHAI Port, merchants can activate and offer over 30 payment options, such as credit cards, digital wallets, bank transfers and cross-border payments to their customers in under an hour. They can also optimise the checkout experience for improved conversion rates and obtain a consolidated real-time analysis of their entire payment flow from multiple payment methods.

Must Read: Ex-CTO drags Society Pass into court over “breaching employment contract”, seeks over US$1.3M in damages

Currently, CHAI claims to process more than US$6 billion on behalf of over 2,200 merchants.

The firm recently launched CHAI Port in Vietnam and Thailand — both highly fragmented payment markets — and has begun supporting local brands such as Saigon Coop (leading grocer) and SoBanHang (e-commerce enabler for SMEs).

Additionally, CHAI also operates an e-wallet in South Korea that connects to a gamified rewards platform for over 3 million users to unlock instant cashback at famous brands.

“Emerging markets in Southeast Asia represent some of the fastest growth opportunities in digital payments. With the COVID-19 pandemic making accepting digital payments a necessity, we want to empower both global and local merchants to rapidly expand into new markets and reach billions of global consumers, respectively,” said Daniel Shin, CEO of CHAI.

The rise of the digital economy and the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated digital payment adoption among both consumers and merchants. Real-time payment transactions soared by 41 per cent worldwide in 2020, and within Southeast Asia, the gross merchandise value of online transactions is expected to hit US$1 trillion by 2030.

However, the payment landscape in the region remains highly fragmented, which poses a barrier to widespread adoption due to integration and management complexities – especially among small and medium-sized enterprises.

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This isn’t for you if your company meets customers face-to-face or on the field. But, if 80 per cent or so of your interactions with leads and clients go through some form of email, phone or video call (like many others now), you might want to have a look at natural language technologies. 

When you think about those phone calls and emails, they represent pretty much every moment your customers directly talk to you. That’s when they tell you what they need and want, what they struggle with, what they like about your product, and what they don’t.  

That is a lot of critical information for your business! 

But here’s the thing. We are talking about unstructured data—a large flow of text and voice, but nothing your system can easily make sense of. Most companies don’t even have a clear record of their interactions. Let alone efficient analytics tools.  

So, the only thing you can do is rely on your customer-facing teams. They are the only ones able to analyse what’s being said, make sense of all that data and report the findings to their managers. The heroes of unstructured data! 

The post 3 ways natural language technologies can serve customer-facing teams appeared first on e27.

Pitik co-founders Arief Witjaksono and Rymax Joehana with Arise partner Aldi Adrian Hartanto (C)

Indonesian-based poultry-tech startup Pitik has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding co-led by Arise and Wavemaker Partners.

MDI Ventures also joined the round.

Pitik will use the funds to advance its product development and empower local poultry farmers to achieve higher production yields.

Launched in mid-2021, Pitik provides poultry farmers with a full-stack farm management system. It enables them to capture data across the value chain and then utilise this data to improve the efficiency of their operations. This ranges from IoT systems that enable real-time farm monitoring and farm algorithms that facilitate instant decision intervention and improve productivity.

On top of technology, Pitik also assists farmers in procuring high-quality farm inputs and selling the chickens at a competitive price, providing end-to-end value-added support throughout the production cycle.

Also Read: MDI Ventures, Finch Capital join hands to launch new US$40M fund Arise to plug ASEAN’s pre-Series A gap

As of now, Pitik has partnered with farmers in over 20 districts in Java and secured more than 4 million annual chicken production capacity and will look to continue to grow this number in the coming months.

Pitik co-founder and CEO Arief Witjaksono, stated: “Like the rest of agriculture landscape in Indonesia, poultry farming has seen very little innovation in the past decades. This results in high operational inefficiencies and multiple layers of intermediaries in the value chain. Being able to reduce inefficiencies in the farm with technology is the first crucial step to ensure that Indonesian poultry farmers can produce high-quality chicken and be profitable at the same time.”

The current market for poultry in Indonesia is sized at US$7.4 billion with a 7 per cent CAGR from 2015 to 2020. The opportunity for growth in this market is immense since Indonesia’s chicken consumption per capita reaches 5.9x lower than other Southeast Asian countries, signalling substantial room for growth.

Must Read: Ex-CTO drags Society Pass into court for “breaching employment contract”, seeks over US$1.3M in damages

Arise is an early-stage VC fund launched in partnership with Telkom Indonesia-backed MDI Ventures and Bank BCA-backed Finch Capital. It enables next-gen startups to scale up and build their businesses with proprietary technology in Southeast Asia. The fund provides long-term capital, strategic go-to-market networks, and hands-on company building capabilities.

In August, Arise announced the first close of its US$40-million debut fund from multiple third-party corporate investors, family offices, and high-net-worth backers.

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Venture Capital (VC) firms are one of the key players in the global tech startup ecosystem.

These institutions raise capital from limited partners –ranging from family offices to pension funds– to invest in tech startups in various stages and of various verticals. Made in exchange for equity or ownership in the startups, through these investments, VC firms work together with founders to grow these startups. They eventually intend to exit through channels such as acquisitions or IPOs.

Some of our readers might be reading this article to prepare themselves for a career in VC firms; they would like to get an idea of how these guys work. But we are publishing this article with startup founders in mind, particularly those who are in the midst of a fundraising journey.

It is important for founders to know the roles of the individuals working in a VC. Understanding the difference enables founders to be more strategic in their approach, as different roles have different levels of authority in deciding an investment –or one might say, the person who is eligible to write the check.

In an article published by Inc., Christine Bechhold of Empire Angels wrote that VC partnerships are “confusing even to those on the inside.” This happens because different firms may use the same title in different ways, but in general, there is a basic hierarchy that is commonly implemented in various firms. To clear out any confusion, Bechhold recommends founders not hesitate to ask questions with the venture capitalists that they meet.

In general, a VC usually consists of an investment team and a support team. As the names suggested, the first one focussed on doing the work of scouting and investing in high-growth potential tech startups in the market that they operate in.  The latter supports the VC firms and their portfolio companies in functions such as marketing and public relations or operations.

Also Read: Pitching 101: Questions that VCs will ask you during a pitch session

The following is a list of job titles that typically exists in a VC, starting from the most junior role:

Analyst

As the most junior member of an investment team in a VC firm, an Analyst may have limited decision-making power. But their role remains crucial to the VC firm as they are the ones who are in charge of doing research and due diligence, building a network, keeping up with industry trends, and making outreach to potential investees.

In terms of qualifications, analysts are usually pre-MBA degree holders and may have a background in tech, finance, banking, consulting, or even journalism. After two to three years in their position, they might get promoted to Associate, join an MBA programme, or start their own companies.

Associate

Associates focus on analysing business plans and industry sub-sectors and executing transactions. As their job involves conducting screening exercises of potential investees, despite not being eligible to make the final decisions, Associates have the ability to filter out companies and influence the principals and partners in their decision-making process.

In their fundraising journey, founders might stumble upon individuals with Senior Associate roles. Usually a post-MBA, they typically stay in the roles for two to three years before being considered for a principal position or pursuing other opportunities.

While it is easy to underestimate the Analysts and Associates in your network, due to their limited decision-making capacity, we must remember that these roles bring their own value to the VC firm involved.

As senior members of the investment teams, Principals have plenty of influence in a VC firm. They are also the ones who will be working very closely with portfolio companies following an investment. Their key strengths include their vast network in the startup ecosystem, enabling them to identify new opportunities, negotiate terms of acquisitions, and execute successful exits.

With their ability to bring in deals and generate returns to the firm, they might get promoted to Partner.

Also Read: Finance your startup: 10 types of investors you should know

Partner

The top of the food chain. Jokes aside, Partners are a group of individuals who own the firm and have control over the capital that is being invested. They are the ones with the final word on an investment deal.

The role of a Partner includes identifying key investment parameters, making final decisions about investments and exits, being a Board member in some portfolio companies and becoming the face of the VC firm itself. They report the fund’s performance to the Investment Committee.

Partnerships within a VC firm can be structured in a hierarchy or in an equal positioning.  But in their fundraising journey, founders might stumble upon a General Partner and a Limited Partner.

A General Partner invests their own money in the fund while raising the rest of it. They are also in charge of managing the fund, making investment decisions, and might even be in charge of operational and administrative responsibilities if they also have the title Managing Partner in it.

Image Credit: fizkes

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