With activist investors and shareholders now putting more emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, the corporate embrace of sustainable elements like renewable energy (RE) is no longer limited to corporate social responsibility or public relations efforts.

RE100, a global corporate RE initiative bringing together hundreds of large businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity, currently boasts over 290 members including multinationals like 3M, Accenture, BMW, Danone and PepsiCo. Collectively, these corporations are present in 175 markets worldwide and account for 315 terawatt-hours per year of RE demand.

However, connecting green energy committed businesses and individuals is no simple matter. The power sector is highly regulated, and in many nations, users have no direct access to green and RE power sources due to energy monopolies, a high entry barrier.

Pioneering online energy marketplace

This is where KiWi comes in. The Taiwanese startup revolutionises access to green energy for individual consumers and businesses, enabling direct purchases of green electricity with a single click on its app.

Backed by blockchain technology and AI analysis as well as hardware to monitor solar panel productivity, the Taipei-based startup digresses from the traditional model of centralised electricity supply.

Co-Founder and CEO Steve Huang said, “Our AI-based RE exchange platform directly connects users to get 100% green energy from solar plants or wind plants locally. It leverages AI to analyse user behavior and provides insights to users, making the transition to green energy easy for everyone.”

Also read: Solving multiple medtech problems with a single device powered by AI

KiWi is the first startup to bring to fruition an online-based direct energy marketplace. Its understanding of the power is backed by Huang’s expertise as a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in green energy.

Huang has also overseen the successful listings of two solar energy businesses — Gintech Energy and E-ton Solar — on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Those looking to revolutionise the power sector and energy sources face three key challenges across the globe: energy monopolies that fully centralise control, high green energy conversion costs as a barrier to entry and lengthy administrative processes often lasting more than six months.

Backed by AI, validated by blockchain

KiWi offers speed, efficiency and transparency for green energy adopters: users can sign up in just three minutes and one click, while all transactions are validated by blockchain. Its fully decentralised platform gives users insights into usage analysis and forecasts energy demand.

KiWi buys green energy from project developers using long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs), with energy received validated by blockchain. On the end-user side, households and businesses directly purchase green energy and certificates — green premium products — from KiWi’s website. The process is almost immediate, with zero conversion costs incurred and AI-enabled optimisation of energy usage.

Closer to home, KiWi sources power from Taiwan Power Company (TaiPower). The first part of the process begins with power generation. KiWi secures volume long-term RE supply from main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies like solar and wind plant developers. These EPCs then sign energy surplus PPAs with TaiPower.

Also read: TuringCerts combats fraud with blockchain-powered certificate validation

Second, KiWi and TaiPower sign an RE transmit and distribution contract, after which TaiPower installs smart meters at both energy generation and usage ends.

Third, users who subscribe to KiWi’s green energy supply sign an online PPA and join its Green Partner Programme. KiWi’s Smart Energy AI then analyses and optimises energy usage models for every customer.

The fourth and final part of the process is KiWi’s Smart Energy Monitoring user interface, which provides users with real-time energy usage data so users can save energy and reduce costs based on individual usage profiles.

Fundraising, partnerships as a gateway to ASEAN

Building on its web presence, KiWi is targeting to bring its mobile app online by June 2021 — first in Taiwan and then ASEAN by way of Singapore. The platform is also planning a California launch in the second half of 2021, backed by its U.S. project team and the state’s receptiveness to energy exchange models.

“Thanks to our core team of 15 technology, engineering and project management experts in the U.S. and Taiwan, KiWi has secured more than 500 megawatts of RE supply in both countries,” Huang noted.

Also read: Nongsa D-town: bridging the digital talents of Southeast Asia

KiWi is now in the midst of closing an Asia-focused round of fundraising and is considering bringing in an RE investor. Huang expects to close a major Series A round next year.

“We are looking to partner with both EPCs and corporates that have ESG commitments in Singapore, especially those who are members of RE100. We are considering corporate VCs as well as co-marketing partnerships with large corporates like Singtel to help bring KiWi to its network of affiliates and clients.

“Singapore will be a testbed and launchpad for us to enter neighbouring nations with much larger energy markets such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia,” he said.

Embracing a cleaner, greener future

The World Health Organization estimates that around seven million people die every year from exposure to polluted air, of which 4.2 million mortalities are attributed to ambient air pollution.

This has put pressure on governments, companies, and individuals to pivot from coal-fired power plants that contribute to ambient air pollutants.

In 2019, global sourcing of renewable electricity hit 200 gigawatts and was valued at US$300 billion. Corporate PPAs accounted for 25% of the market (50 gigawatts; US$75 billion) while SME and household purchases accounted for 10% (10 gigawatts; US$15 billion).

“We are moving towards a future where green energy will be a mainstream source of energy. For corporations making the switch, 87% are driven by customer expectations and 76% by shareholder requests for ESG elements. Over 80% of companies embracing green energy are doing it to save costs, while 84% do it to manage long-term risks,” Huang said.

To learn more about KiWi New Energy, check out their website here.

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Singapore-based Tazapay, which provides a digital payments platform for small and medium enterprises engaging in cross-border trade, announced today it has secured US$1.75 million on top of its original round of funding of US$3.2 million announced in early 2021.

Investors who participated in the latest round include Sequoia India’s Surge, Saison Capital, and new partners RTP Global and January Capital.

The fresh capital will go towards ramping up the startup’s customer acquisition resources and scaling its technology and growth teams.

Started in 2020 by the trio of Arul Kumaravel, Rahul Shinghal and Saroj Mishra, Tazapay provides secure digital escrow to help reduce risk and increase confidence for both parties in a transaction. It also provides SMEs with fast, simple background checks on potential business partners. Tazapay holds funds for its users securely until both parties have confirmed their obligations of the trade.

Also Read: Tazapay snags US$3.2M to expand cross-border SMB commerce platform in Southeast Asia

“The markets in which we initially operate are significant trading corridors within Asia Pacific, and with the support of our growing team and investment partners, we look forward to expanding our global footprint and offering more services in the future,” said Shinghal.

Most recently, Tazapay announced a partnership with Rapyd, a global fintech-as-a-service provider, to be its exclusive payments facilitator.

As of today, it operates across India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

According to a McKinsey report, global payments revenues went down by 7 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019, however, Juniper Research has found that the total value of payments will reach US$35 trillion in 2022.

“We project the market size of protected B2B payment solutions for cross-border trade will increase by 25 per cent per annum in the next five years. The current market size is estimated at US$500 billion across Southeast Asia and India — and we are well-positioned to bridge this gap and help businesses accelerate with ease,” Shinghal had said in a press statement last year.

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Image Credit: TazaPay

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In 2016, a Pakistan-based diploma mill was found to have made US$140 million from selling global customers bogus university degrees. The ramifications reached as far as the U.K., Malaysia and the Middle East, as many job applicants raced to soup up their resumes to match employers’ rising demand for degrees.

Years later, diploma mills have become a billion-dollar industry. Yet human resource managers and recruiters cannot keep up, with many still using old-school expensive and time-consuming ways to verify qualifications such as agencies that conduct background checks.

TuringChain, a Taiwanese startup, is looking to revolutionise the way certificate and authentication is done with TuringCerts, a blockchain-powered solution that creates an anti-counterfeit e-portfolio for individuals, with verification possible with a single click.

CEO and co-founder Jeff Hu said: “A quarter of all data on LinkedIn is fake or exaggerated, while 27% of university degrees can be bought online. Meanwhile, hiring managers are still using very traditional ways to verify qualifications.

“Usually it takes six weeks on average and US$150 to verify a single certification. Those who skip these steps and end up hiring people with fraudulent qualifications, years later the cost is even higher as it costs an estimated US$40,000 to replace a fraudulent employee,” he remarked.

Extrapolate this to the 3.38 billion working population worldwide and 1.7 billion students at every level of education, each having multiple qualifications and certificates, and TuringCerts’ market is astronomical.

Protecting data, privacy

“TuringCerts solution is sort of a global e-portfolio for students, powered by blockchain. We can onboard educational institutions within 15 minutes and give them a digital stamp, which they then use to issue tens of thousands of certifications right away. These certificates will be stored in the Turing Certs e-portfolio, matched with IDs unique to individual students.

“Students will be notified and can view these verified certificates, which are stored permanently in the IOTA blockchain. This also simplifies the job application process for graduates: instead of filling up a 10-15 page form about their awards, qualifications and certificates, they can simply share their unique TuringIDs with recruiters and employers,” Hu added.

TuringCerts uses Smart Identification that is globally accessible and uses the W3C DID, the identifier standard. This protects digital certificates from manipulation – a significant upgrade from PDFs, which can be forged easily.

Also read: Nongsa D-town: bridging the digital talents of Southeast Asia

It already has a provisional patent in the US and expects to receive its Taiwanese patent soon. TuringCerts’ contract with Italian institutions on volunteer certificates and National Tsing Hua University, a top-tier university in Taiwan, compelled it to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU standard for data protection and one of the world’s strictest privacy protection regulations.

In addition, TuringCerts utilises approval-based sharing of information and the development of zero-knowledge proof cryptography currently ongoing — meaning no one has knowledge about what is stored on their servers until approval from individuals. It also creates SmartLinks, a short and verifiable link, which can easily be integrated with large-scale HR platform such as LinkedIn.

“We are in the process of becoming compliant with ISO 27001 and additional commons, the international standard for information security. This is necessary, as a lot of our interactions are with governments and universities handling sensitive private data,” Hu said.

Tiered, targeted pricing

Turing Certs caters to three groups of users: educational institutions, students, and enterprises.

Hu said: “We use a multi-tier pricing model. In the first tier, we make it free for all students, universities, or colleges registered with governments to access and add certificates to our database, and are therefore welcome to contact and join us.

“The second tier involves education or examination institutions that issue certificates to generate revenue, like Coursera. These we charge an annual subscription fee that accounts for a quarter of our revenue. In this tier, TuringCerts’ digital solutions dovetail with the digitalised experiences these institutions offer their students.

“The majority of our revenue surprisingly comes from industries such as Real Estates, Agriculture, and Artworks. These traditional industries are obsessed with a strong motivation for digitalisation. TuringCerts serves as an important role to deal with long-term contract storage, e-signing and e-stamping, traceability records, originality proofs, and digital footprints,” Hu said.

Also read: Here are 5 reasons to expand your business to the Philippines

“We are excited to see there is much more opportunity to brings blockchain to many angles that are close to our daily life. Now we can see TuringCerts’ logo on soybean sauces, rice packages, and soaps made from crops,” he added.

Today, TuringCerts houses over 5,700 certificates from more than 40 schools across the globe, including executive education qualifications issued by Berkeley Law Executive. Half the schools are from Taiwan, including the country’s top two institutions: National Tsing Hua University and National Taiwan University.

In addition, Macao uses TuringCerts for its K-15 educational institutes and universities. Although the Taiwanese startup has yet to enter Southeast Asia, it already has a partner in Indonesia and Macau, which is trying to convince the Indonesian government to adopt e-verification for the country’s education sector.

Cross-industry demand for verification solutions

While TuringCerts’ end goal is to track students from kindergarten, to high school, college and even beyond through executive and postgraduate education, its solutions have been adopted by industries as varied as real estate and agriculture.

“We have a very large contract with a real estate company in Taiwan, which uses TuringCerts to store all their e-signed documents. Real estate contracts need to be stored for decades, and so this client views TuringCerts as a secure, confidential database that ensures key information cannot be manipulated,” Hu noted.

Also read: Making smart manufacturing a cost-efficient reality for SMEs

In agriculture, traceability has become a key component of tracking a crop’s lifecycle and journey from farm to fork, due to increasing customer awareness of food origination as well as rising health and environmental concerns.

“We work with a soybean sauces producer, who wants full traceability. The entire lifecycle of crops is recorded module-by-module on a digital record, which will be stored with blockchain on TuringCerts. These digital records are converted into QR codes, which customers can scan and immediately learn the entire story of the soybean,” Hu said.

Eyeing Southeast Asian debut

Fresh off a seed fundraising round that valued TuringCerts at US$3.4 million, Hu is considering a pre-A round either in the fourth quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022 to fund the startup’s expansion into the Southeast Asian region via Malaysia and Indonesia.

“Our latest injection from a well-known capitalist investor can sustain us for 1.5 years so in the near future, our focus is on building partnerships with universities that are keen to digitalise their campuses in Southeast Asia.

“We will also reach out to traditional industries such as agriculture that need valid certifications for health and safety purposes or as a differentiator to their customers,” Hu said, noting that TuringCerts’ angel backers so far hail from the medical, music, and investment banking sectors.

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Dash Living, which provides serviced living and co-living spaces in Hong Kong and Singapore, said today it has raised over US$8.8 million in a Series A round of financing from a clutch of investors including Grosvenor Asia Pacific, an international property company.

Gobi Partners and Taronga Ventures, besides existing investors Clearmind Capital, Mindworks Ventures and a group of individual investors, also co-invested.

The capital will help Dash Living launch its serviced rental solutions in Japan and Australia. It also plans to expand in Southeast Asia beyond Singapore, focusing on countries and markets with a high density of hyper-mobile millennials and where accommodation is expensive.

Also Read: How Dash Living built a social media community of 13K+ members for its co-living platform across Singapore, HK

Dash Living will also use the cash for expansion of its asset-light management model for long-stay and software as a service for landlords, implement new features on its mobile app, improve existing AI tools, broaden the access of its global premium amenities and stimulate more user-generated content and events.

Founded in 2014 by Aaron Lee, Dash Living is a “new generation of rental solution” for urban professionals. Its mission is to create a global accommodation community through sharing economies, tech and Artificial Intelligence, empowering today’s hyper-mobile, tech-savvy millennials to live in the most expensive cities in the world.

Dash Living offers a collection of apartments, co-living homes and hotel rooms across prime areas of Hong Kong. It also has over 600 units in multiple prime locations across Singapore.

The firm claims to have grown to manage and operate over 1,300 units across serviced apartments, co-living homes and hotel rooms across Asia. It has more than 280,000 square feet under its management.

In addition to the above features, Dash Living also provides a series of perks to its tenants, including free access to a variety of co-working spaces, free professional fitness centre membership, and a multitude of wellness, dining and shopping options with discounts.

Apart from this, Dash Living invites its tenants to attend and host events to bring the “serviced living community” to life through yoga, fitness, and other leisure activities.

“Affordable housing is a huge problem in Hong Kong and other major cities in Asia that affects young professionals immensely. Dash Living addresses this problem directly by using technology and the sharing economy, while creating a lifestyle atmosphere and community around it that will open up future growth opportunities for the space,” said Lee.

Also Read: How gnomadic is making its mark on the crowded co-living space by focusing on expats

“The line between traditional residential and experience-centric accommodation is increasingly blurring. A rapidly emerging consumer segment seeks connected premium amenities, with the flexibility offered in a shared economy,” said Avi Naidu, Managing Partner at Taronga Ventures.

“For landlords to succeed in this space, location is simply not enough. It is essential to have the right mix of technologies to understand tenant needs and bring operational efficiencies to the landlord, balanced with a deep appreciation of customer-first hospitality,” Naidu added.

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Image Credit: Dash Living

 

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Nimbly Technologies, a Singapore-based company specialising in supply-chain risk management, has raised US$4.6 million in pre-Series A funding led by Insignia Ventures Partners.

Sovereign Capital and Saison Capital also participated in the investment.

The fresh funds will be used to accelerate Nimbly’s growth across markets within Southeast Asia.

The company also noted it recently sealed a partnership with Express Food Group as part of its regional expansion plans.

Founded in 2018 by Daniel Hazman and Jonathan Keith, Nimbly enables companies to monitor and verify the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in multiple locations, uncover data-driven operational insights and track issues until resolution.

By improving efficiency, Nimbly claims it is unlocking cost savings for its customers by making their human resource allocation more efficient, minimising paper spending and reducing man-hours spent on reporting, compiling and analysing data.

It also aids companies in minimising fraudulent behaviour in frontline operations with validation methods leveraging computer vision and geo-fencing.

Also Read: Why it is imperative to invest in digitalising the supply chain

Nimbly’s clientele comprises food & beverage companies, including KFC and Kopi Kenangan; retailers like 7-Eleven and Under Armour; and global agriculture corporations such as Wilmar and Cargill.

“With the close of our recent round, we look forward to delivering even more value to our customers by expanding our product offering to include deeper analytics, mystery shopper and employee training,” said CEO Hazman.

“We will continue to invest heavily in our technology, developing a better experience and further automating routine tasks by leveraging computer vision and machine learning,” he revealed.

“SaaS enterprise is an emerging vertical in Southeast Asia with more businesses of all sizes and across industries seeking to transition and even upgrade their capabilities to software tools,” opined Yinglan Tan, Founding Managing Partner of Insignia Ventures Partners.

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Image Credit: Nimbly Technologies

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Much of the world’s healthcare concerns and funding have been diverted to battle the Covid-19 pandemic over the last year, understandably. However, with hospitals and existing healthcare resources overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases, people experiencing chronic health problems started putting off appointments and checkups for fear of contracting the coronavirus.

During the first lockdown in the U.K, daily admission for heart attacks or heart failure dropped by more than 50%, and only increased again when daily Covid-19 cases fell. This pattern was seen across the globe, raising major concerns for healthcare infrastructure and needs post-pandemic.

And while the rise in tech adoption due to the pandemic bodes well for telemedicine, medtech and other healthcare innovations, oftentimes these solutions are only able to address a single ailment at a time.

One solution to address them all

Taiwanese medtech startup Singular Wings Medical is hoping to change the game by reducing healthcare burdens and costs on hospitals for multiple chronic conditions using a single device. It aims to do this by combining its in-house hardware, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms and an ecosystem of connected devices.

General Manager David Lee believes better connectivity infrastructure will lead to faster broadband speeds, wider bandwidth, and more devices connected to the Internet.

“Pair this with AI prevalence, and we will soon see the change from IT to OT or operational technology. Today, we are used to technology processing information, but soon technology will also help carry out operations.

“Previously we would need to go to a hospital to take multiple tests like MRI and ECG or measurements and then wait a day or two to get the results due to hospital processes and slower connectivity. Now, with connected devices, high-speed networks and AI, we can see results instantly, with readings taken from the comfort of your home,” he said.

Singular Wings’ single medical device can take key readings and measurements, transmit them in real-time to its in-house AI-powered algorithm, and when necessary, alert assigned persons (family members, doctors, and emergency personnel). Its system allows doctors to view multiple patients around the world, tagged by location using Google Maps.

“Our innovation model is built on 5S – Semiconductor, Software, System, Solutions, Services. For Semiconductor, we have our own hardware and devices. The gap between Semiconductor and Solutions will be filled by our algorithm and Big Data i.e. System and Software.

“We have different solutions to different problems, using a single device. Our Services component is localised to local healthcare services, paramedics, doctors, and other professionals. Typically, one solution addresses one problem, and is powered by one type of hardware,” Lee added.

Changing the way we approach chronic diseases

Thus far, the startup is working in two trials (independent review boards or IRBs) across five Taiwanese hospitals to test its device in addressing three key chronic ailments: Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), and hemodialysis risk management.

SCA is a silent killer as there is barely any indication when, who, or where SCA will happen. Anyone can be a candidate — even athletes and youth — as it is asymptomatic prior to occurring. It even happens to athletes and young people.

Yearly, US$1 trillion is spent on addressing heart diseases, so this is no longer a health issue – it is an economic problem worldwide. The economic costs of these conditions are huge: only in the US, annually, Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) costs US$6 billion while stroke incidents cost US$34 billion.

Singular Wings’ device — which patients wear over their chest skin — live streams ECG readings and features true respiration detection, which can improve diagnosis and outcomes.

Another problem it addresses is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and Singular Wings is currently working on an IRB for this at Taipei Medical University.

“OSA is prevalent in intense, high-paced environments – cities like HK, Tokyo and Taipei. Around 30% of people suffer from sleep disorders, of which 90% are undiagnosed or untreated.

“If we extrapolate this 30% figure to the U.S. market alone, it would mean sleep disorders affect up to 70 million people. The majority of sleep tests can be done at home, so the total addressable market is US$11.2 billion yearly,” Lee said.

If untreated, obstructive sleep apnea can lead to hypoxia as well as chronic diseases like high blood pressure, cardio and kidney problems.

For this sleep disorder, the pain point lies in the diagnosis, where typically patients have to go to the hospital to undergo overnight sleep tests polysomnography that is often expensive, complex, and uncomfortable.

How the solution works

Singular Wings innovated the traditional polysomnography test into a single sticker attached to the same basic device used for our cardio solution, enabling OSA diagnosis at home. This has resulted in improvements in cost, convenience, and time spent.

The same device also aids in hemodialysis risk management, where Singular Wings has an ongoing IRB in partnership with a local medical center.

“During hemodialysis when the kidney is flushed, patients run the risk of both low and high blood pressure, muscle cramps, anemia and high potassium levels. Some of these can be fatal. Through this medical trial, we are testing our risk management system to raise early alarms before problems escalate,” Lee remarked.

Singular Wings has received the ISO13485 certification specific to medical devices and is currently working towards U.S. FDA, TFDA (Taiwan FDA) and European CE approval, with hopes of receiving these by the first quarter of 2022.

Moreover, the startup has received international recognition for its device, nabbing two iF Design Awards and six innovation patents – four in Taiwan and two in the U.S.

Singular Wings is eyeing entry into ASEAN markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, with Lee noting that CE certification is accepted in some ASEAN countries.

The future of Singular Wings

The startup is eyeing business development partners in the telecoms and insurance spaces due to their large user bases, steady income stream, and need for value-added services to be provided to their users as differentiators.

Thus far, it has fundraised US$3.5 million across seed, angel, and pre-A rounds. Singular Wings will remain in pre-A until it receives FDA approval.

“Taiwan has excellent engineers and doctors, but they don’t talk to each other. Our team has both, building a device from ICT engineers but adding value by integrating it with medical knowledge from doctors. Our real success is in getting these two groups to talk to each other to build something for the betterment of all,” Lee said.

To learn more about Singular Wings, check out their official website here.

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Ajaib Group, an Indonesian online investment platform targeting millennials and first-time investors, has raised an additional investment of US$65 million for its Series A round led by Silicon Valley-based fintech VC firm Ribbit Capital.

Participating investors include ICONIQ Capital, Bangkok Bank, and notable angels such as Nubank’s David Velez and Toss’s SG Lee.

This marks Ribbit’s inaugural investment into a Southeast Asia company.

Ajaib said that the proceeds from the round will go towards investing in its product development and engineering capabilities.

The latest tranche of funding comes after the investment platform raised US$25 million in a Series A round led by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures in January this year.

When combined, the mega US$90 million Series A round would be among the largest rounds at that stage within Southeast Asia.

Also Read: The lure of the orient: How retail investors are being drawn to Asian investment markets

“The market has witnessed an unprecedented revolution in retail investing around the world. Ajaib is at the forefront of the revolution and on their way to building the most trusted brand in the market,” opined Micky Malka, Managing Partner at Ribbit Capital.

Founded in 2019 by Anderson Sumarli (CEO) and Yada Piyajomkwan (COO), Ajaib claims it runs the fourth-largest stock brokerage in the archipelago by the number of trades. The firm claims it has processed over 10 million transactions in the last four months and has over a million monthly users on its platform.

Following the blueprint set out by Robinhood in the US, Ajaib leverages the high smartphone penetration rate in Indonesia by operating as a mobile-first stock trading platform. By incorporating a simple user interface and investment education features, Ajaib is able to appeal to novice investors and millennials with elementary financial literacy.

Furthermore, it requires no minimum sum to open a brokerage account — further attracting cash-strapped millennials into investing.

Despite its large population, Indonesia has a low penetration rate for stock investments. There are only 1.6 million capital market investors in the country, which is less than 1 per cent of its population of 273 million, making it an attractive market for investment platforms that target millennial and first-time investors.

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Image Credit: Ajaib

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SGProtein, a leading contract manufacturer of meat alternatives, has announced that it will be launching a production facility for plant-based meat companies in Singapore.

This development was first reported by Vegconomist.

With the new facility, SGProtein aims to support plant-based meat alternative companies to grow their business with R&D, pilot trials and commercialisation with full flexibility. It will support food startups, multinational food manufacturers and FMCG companies.

Also Read: Bringing home the bacon: How Burgreens aims to transform Jakarta’s vegan food market

The production in the facility will commence this year, with an initial capacity of over 3,000 tonnes per year, the report further said, citing sources.

“By manufacturing locally and at scale, brands can also significantly shorten supply chains, resulting in a much lower environmental impact and additional cost savings,” SGProtein told Vegconomist.

“We help innovative food startups bridge the gap between plant-based meat innovation and commercialisation. At the same time, we offer our multinational customers access to fast-growing Asian markets through a local production facility that ensures the highest standards of food safety, quality, and certification. Democratising access to the most advanced technology for meat alternatives manufacturing adds to Singapore’s attractiveness as a world-class regional hub and ecosystem,” said Riccarda Züllig, co-founder of SGProtein said.

SGProtein recently raised SGD$4 million (US$2.9 million) in a seed round, led by biscuit maker Khong Guan to further accelerate the sustainable food market in Singapore.

Conscious consumption or a more healthy way of diet has been the driving trend in the foodtech sector for the last five to ten years, according to White Star Capital study.

This is largely due to a shift in people’s values of food consumption, towards a healthier lifestyle.

According to Pitchbook, a company providing private market data, a significant chunk of the market share will be taken away from the US$350-billion annual meat market.

Food innovation and bio-engineered food have been predicted to continue growing annually by 10 per cent with the possibility of reaching US$104.6 billion by 2025,

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Photo by LikeMeat on Unsplash

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Sea to support NUS School’s research and education in AI, data science

The story: Sea Limited announced today that it has made a corporate gift of S$50 million (US$37 million) to support the advancement of research and education at National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Computing, one of the world’s leading computing schools.

Objective: The commitment will support NUS Computing in its efforts to substantially enhance and develop pivotal areas such as:

• Cutting-edge research and education in critical, fast-growing areas such as Artificial Intelligence and data science;

• Recruitment and development of academic and research talent through scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate students, research fellowships, visiting professorships, support for professional development and more;

• Strategic initiatives including seed grants for enterprising projects and outreach programmes.

Also Read: Sea Group’s venture fund to invest US$1B in tech startups

More on the deal: By combining the strengths of academia and industry, both parties plan to work closely together to nurture and grow Singapore’s research and education ecosystem by leveraging impactful technologies such as AI. This will help raise the profile of local talent, create many rewarding jobs, and position Singapore as an attractive global hub for innovation and technology investment.

To this end, Sea recently announced the establishment of Sea AI Labs (SAIL) in Singapore to push the frontiers of AI research and develop leading technologies in the field. Sea is committed to advancing technology to drive the development of the digital economy in Singapore and across the regions where it operates.

TurtleTree, JSBiosciences enter into a strategic partnership

The story: JSBiosciences has just announced a partnership with TurtleTree Scientific. Both parties have signed a letter of intent to collaborate in the development of cell culture media at a commercial scale.

What is the deal about?: JSBio will provide TTS’s customers with a supply of food grade basal media and media formulation services, also expanding to other services including large scale manufacturing.

JSBio will leverage its strong media development expertise and established local raw material supply chains in this partnership. The group company’s (Thousand Oaks Pharmaceuticals Group) unique “integrated cost control programme” in the field of biological products will help TTS to achieve high-efficiency, and low-cost production capabilities.

After low-cost upstream processes are established, JSBio will help TTS achieve pilot production capacity and subsequently, commercial production scale in Singapore.

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Image Credit: Sea Limited

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Vietnam has released its first autonomous vehicle.

Manufactured by local conglomerate Phenikaa Group, the self-driving vehicle boasts Artificial Intelligent (AI) features including 3D maps, Lidar sensors, SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping technology), and incorporates machine and deep learning within its software.

The vehicle also has nearly 40 level-4 self-driving features based on the standards of the Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE International). The electrical vehicle can be operated through a customised platform.

Despite the fanfare over its release, the vehicle is required to undertake additional safety tests and more research has to be carried out to reduce production costs before it can be commercially launched for the general public.

“We hope the introduction of Vietnam’s first level-4 smart autonomous vehicle will facilitate the development of the self-operating industry, localise technological products and meet the market demand for high-quality, internationally standardised products and services,” said Le Anh Son, Director of Phenikaa-X JSC.

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“If self-driving vehicles are regulated by law like other vehicles in the future, they can solve all transportation issues. Self-driving vehicles could be our future,” he added.

Last week, Phenikaa Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nippon Koei Vietnam, SICK Sensor Intelligence, Advantech Vietnam Technology Co Ltd, BAP Group, and VEDAX to partner in releasing products that would stimulate the development of the autonomous industry.

In an interview with e27, Kelvin Tay, Managing Director of the Future Mobility unit of Singapore-based transport and engineering group Goldbell Corporation noted that while autonomous vehicles could thrive in a controlled warehouse environment, there are challenges facing their application in an uncontrolled ‘open-world autonomy’ due to the presence of ‘edge cases’.

Edge cases refer to cases where autonomous vehicles don’t know how to react in situations with which they are not familiar.

“For instance, an autonomous car may consider a simple plastic blag lying on the road as an obstacle. If it comes close to this object, it may send an emergency alert and apply a sudden break. To stop it from doing so, you have to tell the vehicle/programme it in a way that it doesn’t stop at minor obstacles. Because when it applies a sudden break, the vehicle coming from behind is likely to collide with it, causing an accident,” Tay elaborated.

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The post Vietnam launches first autonomous vehicle appeared first on e27.