Creative Galileo, a Singapore-based edutech startup focussing on children in the three to ten age bracket, has raised US$2.5 million in a round led by Indian VC firm Kalaari Capital.

Harish Bahl (Smile Group), Shashin Shah (Think Investments), Jinesh Patel (Integra Partners), Atul Nishar (Hexaware Technologies), Ashwin Puri (Facebook), and Giridhar Malpani, also co-invested.

The capital will be used for scaling, product development and enhancement, creating new engaging content, forging partnerships with leading animation houses, and hiring.

Also Read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

Founded in July 2020 by Prerna Jhunjhunwala and Nikhil Naik, Creative Galileo aims to transform early learning globally. It focuses on the six learning domains — numeracy, language, arts and aesthetics, social and emotional learning, motor skills, and world discovery.

Its Kids Early Learning App is a character-based app that leverages technology to emphasise personalised needs, inquiry-based learning methods, and experiential activities via narrative videos, gamification, and personalised learning journeys.

According to the startup, this results in a fun, interactive curriculum for children and their parents. Parents can also keep track of their children’s performance via success rates and graphs to provide individualised and customised experiences.

Since its launch, the app claims to have clocked over four million downloads and over 500,000 monthly active users.

Apart from the Indian subcontinent, the app is also gaining traction in international markets, with 10 per cent downloads recorded from Nepal, Bangladesh, UAE, the US and other countries.

Creative Galileo’s immediate expansion plans will focus on scaling up in emerging markets within Southeast Asia. It will integrate local languages from the region, such as Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia, into the app.

Over the next 12-14 months, Creative Galileo aims to achieve ten million downloads across all markets.

The company has also partnered with leading industry players and studios for kids’ content such as Big Animation, Toonz Animation, Amar Chitra Katha, Shemaroo and Periwinkle to continue providing quality content, gamification, and interactive learning journeys.

Also Read: Edutech is opening up opportunities, but we need to get it right

Jhunjhunwala said: “Early childhood learning lies at the heart of kids’ future and greatly determines their long-term success. We envision providing millions of children in emerging markets in Southeast Asia with access to high-quality content for learning in their early years to provide a robust educational foundation while also keeping the process fun. Alongside enhancing our app by adding more kids’ characters and region-specific languages, the funding helps us onboard talent and enter new markets. This will propel our efforts to create more personalised, inclusive and relatable content that helps with the early development of children.”

Southeast Asia is home to 700 million people, of which 26 per cent fall within the school-attending age group. However, access to quality education is still often limited and unevenly spread across the region, a gap primarily attributed to the region’s large rural population, often inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of trained educators and funding.

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Image Credit: Creative Galileo

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Fika, an AI-powered social and dating platform in Vietnam, has secured US$1.6 million in seed funding led by Swedish firm VNV Global.

Global Founders Capital and Keith Richman’s angel fund 31 Atlantic are the co-investors in the round.

A handful of global angels also participated, including Bryan Pelz (founder of VNG), Brian Ma (from Iterative Capital and founder of new unicorn Divvy Homes), Sebastian Knutsson (founder of Swedish unicorn King), Jussi Salovaara (co-founder of Antler), Madeleine Magnerius (VP at EQT Ventures), and Therese Mannheimer (CEO at Grace Health).

With the new investment, Fika targets expanding its talent bench, developing the app’s AI capabilities, and enhancing its exposure in Vietnam. 

The startup also looks to grow into new Asian regions before expanding globally in the long run.

Also read: Is AI the future of dating in 2021?

Founded in 2020, Fika is a female-focused dating platform that prioritises safety and authenticity for users while forming and maintaining meaningful friendships. It focuses on creating an environment that is better suited to females instead of skewing towards men, who make up 75 per cent of the user base of traditional dating apps.

The startup uses AI technology to understand users’ interests, likes and the kinds of profiles they swipe for and against to create tailored matches, suggestions and recommendations to support long-lasting relationships. 

Besides, it also assists them from making friends to finding love and then deepening relationships through its Couple’s Version. This version serves as a private online area for the couple to plan dates, chat, and receive information about their relationships, such as birthdays and anniversaries.

Fika requires registers to pass a manual verification check to protect its users. About 40 per cent of Fika’s users were recorded to fail.

The platform currently focuses on Vietnam, a country with 100 million people and a median age of 32. 

The app has clocked over 600,000 downloads so far.

“Fika is dedicated to helping find meaningful connections. The only way such truly meaningful connections are made and maintained is by creating an environment that encourages more women, one that makes women feel safe and secure,” said CEO and co-founder Denise Sandquist.

According to a report by Statista, revenue from the online dating market in Vietnam in 2021 is expected to reach US$26 millio. It will rise at a CAGR of 10.13 per cent during the 2021-2025 period.

By 2025, the number of Vietnamese users in the online dating sector is slated to reach 4.8 million.

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Image credit: Fika

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Vietnam in 2020 overtook Singapore’s GDP and became the third-largest economy in ASEAN. Immediately after the new national ​leadership was elected at the Communist Party of VVietnam’s Congress in January 2021, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed a vital document entitled National Strategy on R&D and Application of Artificial Intelligence or the Strategy Document.

The 14-page document outlines plans and initiatives for Vietnam to “promote research, development and application of AI, making it an important technology of Vietnam in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Vietnam aims to become “the centre for innovation, development of AI solutions and applications in ASEAN and worldwide” by 2030.

The strategy document provides some directions to where Vietnam should go in the next decade with ambitious goals.

Vietnam follows China’s and other Asian countries’ footsteps in becoming a techno-developmental state which takes advantage of technological changes for economic developments.

It outlines what 16 ministries and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology need to do in the next 10 years. But the document does not show how other players such as startup founders, civil society, and the primary beneficiaries of AI –i.e. everyday users in Vietnam’s AI economy– should do.

It also has no mention of the role of AI ethics in this development.

Without any consideration to important ethical issues such as privacy and surveillance, bias and discrimination, and the role of human judgment, AI development in the country might only benefit a small group of people and possibly bring harm to others.

Also Read: Leveraging AI, big data and blockchain to build your dream home

Funding

AI developments need a large amount of funding from various sources such as international venture capital firms, local venture capitalists, government fundings, or companies’ profits.

Funding of AI development in Vietnam is lagging behind other Southeast Asian countries. In 2019, Vietnam’s AI investment per capita was under US$1, while the Southeast Asian leader Singapore has US$68 worth of AI investment per capita.

VC investment suffered in the first half of 2020 due to COVID-19. However, with the government’s assistance, there has been some sign of improvement regarding fundings shortly.

At the Vietnam Venture Summit 2020, both foreign and domestic investors pledged to invest US$800 million in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem.

According to Crunchbase, currently, there are 155 venture capital investors with investments in the country.  

Tech startups that received the most investments are in e-commerce, fintech and AI. The government also provided state funding at the national and city level to encourage entrepreneurship.

As a result, the startup ecosystem in cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi thrived in 2020, before the fourth wave of COVID-19 hit the country in April 2021. 

The strategy document outlines the role of the Ministry of Planning and Investment to “attract venture capital funds to innovative AI startups in Vietnam.” The question remains open as to what the plans to bring international capital for domestic technological development are; which specific areas of AI should be the main areas of investment; how would the money be distributed, and will there be any accountability mechanisms, and who are these accountability entities?

Businesses

The development of AI in Vietnam has been driven primarily by private businesses. The strategy document outlines a push towards digitisation and industry 4.0 to create incentives for companies to become more aware of the potential of data science and AI.

Vietnamese companies are still in the early stage of development.

Also Read: Why is Vietnam going to emerge the strongest post-COVID-19?

Only a few large corporations are prominent in the AI space, notably FPT, Vingroup, and Zalo, who have the resources to invest in AI research, development, and deployment.

From our conversations with professionals in the space, smaller companies run into a critical challenge: product-market fit. To what extent is the Vietnamese public willing to adopt new AI solutions as opposed to existing solutions?

As Nam Nguyen, the CTO of an e-commerce company in Ho Chi Minh City puts it: “fit takes a lot of money to invest in AI, but its economic benefits are not yet significant. Businesses in Vietnam will not jump on this AI bandwagon. Only big companies with extra capital can be in this AI playing field.” This problem is also prevalent in countries where AI is more mature. Many companies in the US, for example, are still struggling to scale AI solutions where AI was developed before finding customers who are willing to adopt it.

Vietnamese companies also have to compete against foreign or imported AI solutions and the lack of venture capital from domestic and foreign funds. Future strategy documents should address these particular issues in detail. 

Talent pool

There is no shortage of technical talent, but AI education is relatively new in Vietnam. Most of the tech workforce is still working in outsourcing.

The talent pool is young and specialised: young because the majority of the talent pool is IT graduates, working data scientists, or software engineers with few years of experience, and specialised because there is a strong affinity to acquire a technical skillset in niche machine-learning areas (e.g. deep learning, GANs, reinforcement learning)— as opposed to a more general product or project management skillset.

Skilled talents often look for professional opportunities abroad, where salaries would be drastically higher.

Furthermore, these opportunities would enable them to actively participate in the research, development, and deployment of state-of-the-art AI technologies in more AI-mature countries.

Given this landscape, there are challenging conditions to retain talents in Vietnam effectively:

• Salaries have to be competitive, compared to regional (i.e. Southeast Asia) and global markets.
• There have to be professional development opportunities for talent (e.g. courses, international conferences, etc.) to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and practices in AI development.

As Tuan Anh, a research scientist at VinAI, claims: “We need to attract Vietnamese scientists back to Vietnam. The key issue is still the salary. It’s difficult for a Vietnamese-based company to compete with Google, DeepMind, Microsoft when it comes to salary.” It is worth mentioning that there is also a language barrier to learning AI. As AI education material is predominantly in English, it is crucial to enable young talents with the necessary language learning support and more technical education in AI.

Also Read: Why BNPL will change the payment landscape in Vietnam?

“Students in special programmes have English curricula. However, it only accepts 50-60 students per year,” says Khoat Than, a professor at Hanoi University of Science & Technology.

Public perception of AI and the missing ethics conversation

In Vietnam, AI is viewed overwhelmingly positively. It is regarded as a catalytic force for economic and technological advancement. In the public mind, the concept of what AI is, how it is used, and who it affects are not as clear.

Due to the push towards digitization and industry 4.0, the Vietnamese may see AI only as a tool reserved for industries. Some implementation of natural language processing and computer vision is used to further business objectives.

However, these cases are only among many AI applications that the public has already been using in their everyday lives. It might not be immediately apparent that the routes that Grab drivers use to navigate the heterogeneous street network in Saigon are selected by an algorithm, or that the discounted products they see as they log onto e-commerce websites such as Shopee or Tiki may be recommended to them by an algorithm.

This acute awareness is essential because it expands the public’s perspective on the role AI plays in benefiting or harming their lives.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, “rice ATMs,” the automatic rice dispensing machines, were invented and deployed in many cities to provide rice both contactless and free-of-charge to low-income communities. What is often left out in the reports of this story is that facial recognition was also used to ensure compliance with the authorities.

This critical emphasis on AI involvement is the first step in shaping the conversation around AI and its impacts in Vietnam as a part of the much larger global discourse.

The public needs to start having the many conversations about AI around privacy, trust, bias, cybersecurity, and ethics, as well as the nuances, risks, and trade-offs of these aspects (e.g. privacy paradox).

AI ethics is an emergent field concerning the moral agency of machines and humans who design, develop, and deploy them. In practice, AI ethics is understood as a set of ethical principles, informs designers and developers about the harms of AI systems.

Specifically, the harms pertain to various areas: bias (e.g. gender bias in computer-aided health diagnosis), transparency, explainability, and sustainability (e.g. carbon emission of training large language models), among many others.

Also Read: Vietnam’s audiobook app Fonos raises US$1.1M seed round to become “super app”

The responsibilities of creating ethical AI systems and mitigating harms caused by these systems have fallen onto both corporate and societal organisations. Furthermore, ethical issues and impacts of AI are discussed widely among media, the public, policymakers, academia, and industry, thus establishing a dynamic and interdisciplinary environment where AI systems are created and criticised.

In Vietnam, not only is AI ethics absent from media and public policy discussions but it is also missing in engineering education.

Than, a professor at Hanoi University of Science & Technology notes: “I ethics at the college level lacks for engineering students. What students learn at universities are still ethics in computer science.” Colleges and universities should invest in not only learning from the learning and teaching of this curriculum,  adopting terminologies from the global discourse; they should also invest in doing research, particularly social science, that examines societal impacts of technology in Vietnam.”

At the governmental level, Vietnam can look to other Asian countries which have drafted national strategy documents that created a framework to make AI. One example is the Responsible AI for All Strategy Document, recently published by Niti Aayog, a premier think-tank by the Indian government.

It outlines potential ethical issues that AI would create and that many of those issues need new legal frameworks that different governmental bodies need to work together to address. 

Conclusion

Vietnam has entered the early phase of AI development; the strategy document is by no means the last that the government would produce.

We recommend the new leadership consider other aspects of AI development, including ethical considerations, legal frameworks, and creating partnerships with investors, civil society, and common users to create frameworks to address ethical problems native to Vietnamese community.

Vietnam should be conversing with global AI technologists and ethicists as AI development is truly a global phenomenon. 

This article is co-written by Khoa Lam, For Humanity.

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AUM Biosciences, a Singapore-based global clinical-stage biotech company, has completed its US$27 million Series A financing round.

The round was co-led by Singapore-based Everlife (an analytical, medical and lab devices market access and distribution platform) and health sciences VC firm SPRIM Global Investments.

Upon receiving the funding, AUM will expedite the clinical development and business growth of oncology therapies, particularly for cancers with a clear genetic marker.

According to a press statement, the proceeds from this round will be used to immediately initiate the startup’s phase II programmes for oncology drugs — MNK and TRK inhibitors.

Also read: Are biomedicine and healthcare coming of age? 

Founded in 2018 by industry veterans Vishal Doshi (CEO) and Harish Dave (CMO), AUM develops innovative and affordable oncology therapeutics for Asia. It focuses on drugging what might be considered the undruggable targets and addresses the need to delay and overcome resistance to targeted drugs in oncology.

AUM claims that it has clocked annual peak sales up to US$3 billion, contributing to the development of several currently marketed oncology treatments.

Leveraging its in-house research capabilities, the firm leads a multi-modality lineup of small molecule targeted therapies — one antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) and four biologics.

Earlier this year, AUM formed a strategic collaboration with two Korea-based pharmaceuticals manufacturers — Handok and CMG Pharmaceutical. It also seeks more strategic associations in the coming two quarters, with an upcoming partnership with Singapore’s healthcare company MSD and Handoc.

AUM Biosciences and Newsoara Biopharma also announced a 5-year transformational strategic partnership in 2020 to co-develop and co-discover next-generation cancer therapeutics.

The pandemic has been a boon for Singapore’s biotech startups, which attracted total funding of US$360 million only during the first half of 2021.

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Image credit: AUM

 

 

 

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InnoVen Capital, a debt provider to venture-backed tech companies, today announced a new Southeast Asia-focussed fund: InnoVen SEA Fund.

The fund has completed its first close of US$50 million with InnoVen Capital and will be seeking additional investors to participate in the fund. It will be led by Partners Paul Ong and Ben Cheah. Its launch followed the recent launch of its US$100 million InnoVen Capital India Fund in September.

“The Southeast Asia venture ecosystem is maturing, with a record number of unicorns minted, notable exit activities and significant global investment capital inflows observed this year. We have laid the foundations for a franchise that is synonymous with venture debt in the region, and the new fund will help us deepen our engagement and collaborations, and strengthen our continuity in supporting the region’s technology companies and its talented founders,” said Ong.

Also Read: A horse of another: Here’s the full list of Southeast Asia’s 24 unicorns

InnoVen Capital is a joint venture between Seviora, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek, and United Overseas Bank. With presence in India, China, and Singapore, it has worked with leading names in the SEA startup ecosystem such as Carsome, Ruangguru, Tiki, Akulaku and eFishery, with cumulative loan disbursements of more than US$180 million.

A typically sector-agnostic fund, InnoVen Capital seeks to work with tech companies that have raised capital from VCs and other institutional investors.

Mainly focussing on Series A and beyond, the firm also looks at seed and Pre-Series A deals selectively. They also provide follow-up loans to existing portfolio companies as it continues to grow.

Cheah said, “Venture debt in Southeast Asia has come a long way from being relatively unknown five years ago to being an integral part of the entrepreneur’s fundraising toolkit. As the Southeast Asian ecosystem continues to mature, we expect the demand for venture debt to increase as more companies take advantage of less dilutive capital to grow even faster.”

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Airalo, a US-based e-SIM startup with hubs in Singapore, Toronto, and Istanbul, has secured US$5.4M in a Series A investment round led by Japanese corporate VC firm Rakuten Ventures.

Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Antler, Singtel Innov8, Wayra (Telefonica), LG Technology Ventures, GO Ventures, Ground Control, Plug and Play, and I2BF Global Ventures also participated.

With this new capital, Airalo will continue to expand by increasing its global eSIM coverage, in-app services and refining its user experience. The travel-tech firm will also scale its team and partner with new telcos and travel companies.

Airalo was established in early 2019 by Abraham Burak and Bahadir Ozdemir. Airalo — a combination of ‘Air’ and ‘Alo’ (which means ‘hello’ in many parts of the world) — aims to bring instant connectivity worldwide by allowing travellers to purchase virtual eSIM packages.

Also Read: Use this eSIM wherever you go in the world, thanks to these 2 Turkish entrepreneurs

The firm allows users to download an affordable plan directly to their phone without the hassle of needing to exchange a SIM card. It essentially means that if you are on a foreign trip, you no longer need to go through the hassles of buying local physical SIM cards at the airport and installing it or carry multiple cards — no matter where you are in the world.

How it works

Getting and installing an eSIM is simple:

• Go to the Airalo.com site.
• Download its mobile app (Android and iOS ).
• Choose your travel destination and purchase a local eSIM QR code for that country.

Then you scan that QR code using your eSIM-compatible device, and the eSIM gets directly installed on the device.

In October of 2019, Airalo secured US$1.9 million in seed funding from Antler and Surge. Since then, it has expanded its service to cover more than 190 countries and regions.

“We want to create the gateway to instant travel connectivity worldwide. eSIMs enable a smooth and seamless solution where people no longer need legacy roaming systems or physical SIM cards,” the founder-duo said in a press release.

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Image Credit: Airalo

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When one brings up digitalisation, many retailers have the impression that it is merely about offline businesses going online, because that is just how things are currently.

Tap on a link, add to cart, check out, and wait for purchases to arrive at your doorstep — easy. E-commerce simply seems like the way to go, especially when even schools are actively promoting e-commerce skills to upskill students.

However, having a one-dimensional definition of retail digitalisation might not be as effective as everyone imagines it to be. For one, many have the misconception that e-commerce is meant to be a replacement of the brick-and-mortar retail channel, rather than as an additional channel for the business to generate sales and engagement.

Some businesses also have the impression that the process of digitalisation ends once they set up their e-commerce sites.

Many businesses who have set up their e-commerce presence have, however, learnt that getting web traffic and visitors is challenging, especially at the start. Brands have to invest heavily to drive traffic, and competition is often at the global level.

Even when building on a third-party platform or marketplace with established consumer traffic, competition against other brands on the same platform remains intense.

For SMEs and startups without a strong customer base, investing adequately to drive online impression and traffic is often an overlooked necessity and some default to accepting that their newly set up e-commerce site is just not working out.

According to Singstats, while e-commerce has grown to 15.4 per cent of Singapore’s total retail sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that offline retail retains the lion share at 85 per cent.

Also Read: How Warung Pintar builds tech solutions to help warung owners embrace the future

Evidently, both channels — online and offline— have a role to play, and retailers big and small can benefit from integrating both of these channels to create a frictionless sales experience.

If anything, one of the clearest lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is to avoid being overly dependent on a single sales channel amidst regulatory uncertainty. Globally, we already see major e-commerce players acknowledge the importance of going omnichannel to capture the full breadth of retail opportunities.

As COVID-19 restrictions begin to relax, consumers are starting to head back out for retail. We have since observed many businesses re-prioritising towards offline in-store sales or omnichannel sales. After all, statistics from Rakuten Insight revealed that 72 per cent of respondents preferred shopping in-store, so they can inspect products before purchase.

A recent forecast of 2025 Singapore retail sales even predicted that e-commerce will only account for 6.7 per cent despite the growth in online retail. This underscores how offline retail still forms the majority of the retail sector in Singapore, especially given our high population density and good transport infrastructure.

What really works for local retail businesses now

The short answer: going omnichannel instead of focusing on just the online channel. In recent years, many global and local pure-play e-commerce players have begun to take their business offline as they embrace the importance of an omnichannel world.

Some local SMEs that come to mind include local women’s fashion brands Fayth, Love, Bonito, and HerVelvetVase, who all began online but have now added physical stores to complete the omnichannel loop.

The Business Times had also previously reported that omnichannel presence would be the most crucial for businesses in the future. Still, challenges are ahead for many SMEs as they face the need to reconfigure retail operations and service delivery for personalized and curated omnichannel experiences.

From my perspective, one other key challenge might be a lack of understanding about what omnichannel really entails. Going multichannel and omnichannel is different. A key difference is the depth of integration and how unified the channels are. For example, is customer data unified?

Is there a consistent experience for all customers across the board? If the answers are yes, then chances are there is a successful omnichannel structure in place. Some examples of true omnichannel experiences we might be familiar with are: try in-store and buy online, buy online and pick-up in-store, buy in-store and deliver to home and geo-fenced promotions of personalized offers.

In essence, an omnichannel retail approach is far more immersive and cohesive, whereas multichannel retail often involves little or no integration between the online and offline experience. Sephora for example has made use of digital tools to create a personalized customer experience that encourages both online and offline sales.

Also Read: Multichannel vs DTC marketing: What works better for e-commerce players?

Each time a sale occurs offline, loyalty program participation allows for identifying purchases at the individual level and profiling of users for online promotion and advertising. At the same time, operational targets are focused on overall sales as opposed to siloed views on sales for individual channels.

Tackling the challenges of going omnichannel

Through my journey with GrowthDesk and Skale, I had the opportunity to speak with many SME brick-and-mortar retailers who were reliant on a single sales channel. When COVID-19 broke out, many did not have an e-commerce game plan to fall back on, and many didn’t have a customer database of who their existing offline shoppers were.

Those who had also found it difficult to translate offline data into something tangible. Today, few retailers have an established game plan for effectively driving integrated sales across channels.

With Skale, we want to help solve this recurring challenge for the many brick-and-mortar SMEs in Singapore. We are focused on offering a seamless, and easy-to-use all-in-one marketing tool that integrates online and offline sales.

This includes geofencing digital ads to reach and acquire shoppers nearby, since they are the most likely and actionable customers, capturing every prospective shopper’s details through gamified digital vouchers and being able to let our SME partners form a single view of their customers and use the data to effectively drive shoppers to return, be it online or offline channel.

With such data, retailers have a deeper understanding of their customers and are further equipped with a myriad of ways to re-engage them. Some of these strategies might include Whatsapp conversations with salespersons, in-store sales, and e-commerce sales.

Ultimately, this facilitates better resource allocation and promotional efforts for brand building or driving sales uplift.

Going omnichannel might sound complex, but it is the way forward for many retailers, not just in Singapore. The past 1.5 years have been challenging for many retailers, and for that, Skale is currently collaborating with hundreds of Singaporean SMEs ranging from restaurants, to local fashion brands to drive omnichannel sales in its ongoing nationwide Digital Voucher festival, named Voucher Fest 2021.

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

Since 2019, the tools we have offered via Skale have worked for many retail brands. Within 1.5 years, we’re also very happy to share that our user base has also grown to 6,500 SMEs not just in Singapore, but across Asia, including Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, and more – a testament that retailers across the board are also beginning to recognise the importance of omnichannel sales.

E-commerce adoption has grown over the past 30 years and is fast approaching maturity. The next wave of offline digitalisation and omnichannel is similarly not just a fairy tale, but a reality that many businesses will begin to face, and we aim to facilitate that journey.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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Last Monday, Singapore-based Her Capital’s co-founder Gail Wong sent an email to inform us that the seed fund targetting female founders in Southeast Asia was shutting down. As per a Deal Street Asia report of August, there were differences between Wong and her co-founder Tanya Rolfe.

“I am entering the last quarter of 2021 with the optimism and possibility of new beginnings, having filed the paperwork to close Her Capital’s doors last month formally. I wholeheartedly believe in the hard decisions taken and give thanks for the many lessons learned,” she said in the email.

“I am excited to continue building my original vision of inclusive finance — investing for a better world, bringing women/ feminine energy into the economy’s centre, and the conversations needed to facilitate that,” she added.

Also Read: Her Capital invests into AI video interviewing platform Neufast

e27 spoke to Wong to know what exactly led to the shutdown of Her Capital and about her new projects.

Edited excerpts:

You announced the launch of Her Capital with a target size of US$10 million in July 2020. However, you couldn’t raise funds for this. Why was it hard to raise money and was there a reluctance among Limited Partners to support a female VC fund in general?

Launching a fund as a first-time manager amidst the COVID-19 pandemic was never a slam dunk. Much has been written about the challenges — lack of track record and entrenched investment requirements like ticket size/fund size, etc. Some of these do not favour female general partners who are a minority in the industry.

I was prepared to move forward on the basis that first-time funds raise and invest simultaneously in the early years.

Her Capital had seen investor interest and was working towards a first close earlier this year. The decision to stop was driven more by concerns around the partnership’s ability to deliver on our commitment to LPs and founders. Fiduciary obligations and integrity are paramount to me, and sometimes that involves hard choices.

As per the Deal Street Asia article, there were differences in working styles and views on the fund management and investment process between the co-founders/general partners. What is your comment on this?

Over time, it became clear that the partnership was not aligned around Her Capital’s thesis and other fundamental operating principles. With every yin/yang partnership, there is a fine line between being complementary and untenable. There were stark differences in abilities, working styles and opinions about making the fund a success.

Aside from the fund thesis and vision, there were also investment process and team culture issues.

What will happen to your existing portfolio companies?

“The fund was never established, and no capital was called. Her Capital was a fund manager that ceased operations before the fund (usually a separate entity from the fund manager) was formally established to take in external capital. The two investments (e.g. Neufast) announced under the Her Capital brand were initially privately funded, with the intention to transfer those investments to the fund entity at a future date. The investments remain and will be supported like other angel investments in my portfolio.

What is your next project? Do you plan to set up a new fund with a new team?

I remain committed to direct and mobilise capital inclusively. Starting a fund is not the only way to drive that — setting up a fund requires the right partner(s) and strategy. This is an opportunity to refine that and identify other capacities within the ecosystem to tackle that mission. I will keep you posted on this.

Do you think there is a conducive environment for female-led startups to survive and thrive in Asia?

In my opinion, there is a healthy supply of education, raw talent, and startup support (incubators and accelerators) in developed economies in Southeast Asia.

Also Read: These four women are changing the venture capital landscape across Southeast Asia

There are countries where network, connectivity and access are more challenged, especially for female founders. But the pipeline is there. The data has been there, too, for some time.

Along with the supply of capital, a conducive environment comes about through a willingness to shift mindsets. You cannot do what you cannot see — I believe the onus lies on the investors to awaken to the opportunity in examining their investment frameworks/lens. It’s not an easy fix, but those who do the work will reap the spoils.

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The global initial public offering (IPO) momentum has shown no signs of slowing, fueled by liquidity in the system and a robust global equity market performance. Asia Pacific (APAC) has remained a growth hotspot, with the region accounting for 44 per cent of international IPO activities in 2021.

Companies in Southeast Asia raised a record US$4.9 billion through IPO activity in the first half of the year. This number is poised to climb even further with the realisation of several ambitious deals in the pipeline, including the US$1.5 billion IPO by Indonesia e-commerce giant Bukalapak in July and other planned blockbuster IPOs by Grab and the GoTo group.

While many in the region may be raring to follow in the footsteps of these giants, the road ahead as a public company will not come easy.

Going public entails a company’s financial statements being subjected to rigorous scrutiny from various entities, with little room for error. Startups who have conventionally prioritised innovation, business development and go-to-market activities may find themselves inadequately prepared to handle the new requirements as a public company.

Without a finance and accounting (F&A) function that is in order, transparent, and ready to scale, companies could face delays in the IPO timeline. Moreover, financial figures that do not stand up to the test may negatively affect brand reputation and investors’ confidence in the company’s economic performance.

Gearing up before taking the leap

Before plunging head-first into the public spotlight and scrutiny, startups should strive to manage their internal processes as if they are already a public company.

From an F&A perspective, this means meeting reporting deadlines and keeping up with the internal controls testing to deliver an accurate, reliable and timely close consistently.

Also Read: As IDX commissioner, this is how Pandu Sjahrir aims to help more Indonesian startups go public

Startups can use these four steps to maximise their IPO readiness:

Take stock before selling your stock

Going public means that past and present financial records will be made available in the public domain. Any historical accounting issues will need to be addressed and aligned with the Singapore Financial Reporting Standards (SFRS) or the regulations in the country you intend to list early on to avoid roadblocks in the IPO process ahead.

Companies must engage relevant experts to identify any accounting issues and address them swiftly before being subjected to intense scrutiny from the public.

Evaluate your people

Getting the IPO and functioning as a public company is hard work, and companies would most likely require additional capacity and resources to keep up with the new requirements.

Planning to identify and fill any talent gaps, either by hiring new talent, outsourcing work or conducting training internally, would be essential in preparation for the IPO. In particular, revenue recognition, SEC reporting and general technical accounting are some of the most profound skill gaps that need to be addressed.

Invest in scalable processes

Companies will need robust systems to handle growing transaction volumes, and accounting complexities as the business evolves.

Before an IPO, it will be crucial to evaluate systems put in place for billing, expense reporting, stock administration, procurement and close management against the new requirements of the business.

Strengthen internal controls

Internal controls are the policies, procedures and processes established by the Board of Directors and senior management. They are meant to assure the institution’s operations’  safety, effectiveness and efficiency, the reliability of financial and managerial reporting,g and compliance with regulatory requirements.

It would be wise to implement new processes and systems early on as it will take time for everyone within the organisation to get used to the recent changes.

As a public company, stakeholders and customers will have expectations about the company’s growth, financial results and ethical behaviours.

Having comprehensive controls in place sets the stage for good business practices and enables better decision-making, increasing confidence for all parties.

Business owners must spend time understanding the controls in place and evaluating whether they are sufficient to mitigate risks posed to the organisation as it grows.

Also Read: What does Peter Thiel-backed Bridgetown’s IPO mean for SEA’s startup ecosystem?

Building solid foundations early will go a long way

 Going public is an exciting milestone for any company and especially significant for startup founders who have invested massive amounts of time and energy into building a company ready to be listed on the stock exchange.

However, business owners need to recognise that getting an IPO is not the end goal but the beginning of an incredible journey ahead.

To move forward as a successful public company, it would take more than a great product or service offering, but also expert management of a host of undertakings, such as paying attention to reporting and control requirements and handling increased scrutiny from shareholders, the government, regulatory bodies, customers and the media.

It will be of utmost importance for companies to start early and build solid foundations in their people, processes and controls to set themselves up for success as a public company.

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UnaBiz, a Singapore-based customised IoT solutions provider, has secured over US$25 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by Tokyo-based SPARX Group through its US$700 million Mirai Creation Fund II.

Other co-investors who participated in the round include CDIB Capital Growth Partners, a fund managed by Taiwan’s CDIB Capital Group; Singapore-based G K Goh Holdings; and TOP Ventures, the investment arm of Thaioil.

With this latest injection of funding, UnaBiz will scale its foothold in strategic regions, such as Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

So far, UnaBiz has set up two offices in Taiwan and Japan, besides its headquarters in Singapore.

The startup also plans to strengthen the growth trajectory of its latest data platform UnaConnect, which aims to bridge the gap between fragmented IoT data collection technologies and enterprise systems.

“The IoT industry has become too fragmented, and it is our mission to simplify it and eradicate frictions to truly enable massive IoT, from 0G to 5G,” said Henri Bong, co-founder and CEO of UnaBiz. “Our vision is to accelerate corporate digital transformation with optimised end-to-end solutions which include hardware, software and connectivity.”

Also read: How to firm up your IoT strategy to combat online risks

Launched in 2016 by Henri Bong, UnaBiz aims to provide scalable, energy-efficient IoT solutions for firms in critical verticals, such as aerospace, facilities management, F&B, healthcare, logistics, supply chain and smart cities.

Its unique selling point lies in its advances in hardware designs and the company’s deep connection to Singapore and Taiwan’s supply chain and innovative ecosystem. UnaBiz counts sizable firms in Japan (Nippon Gas), Taiwan (Shin Kong Communications), Singapore (UEMS), and more among its clientele.

One of its prominent partners is French low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) provider Sigfox, which together rolled out the first IoT network in Singapore at a 95 per cent outdoor coverage island-wide in 2017.

UnaBiz claimed that the firm reached a triple valuation in its Series B compared to the last round, with total funding of US$35 million since inception.

In 2018, UnaBiz raised over US$10 million in its Series A funding round led by corporate VC arms of Global Brain and ENGIE.

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Image Credit: UnaBiz

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