Singapore-based edutech startup T-Lab today announced that it has secured a US$1.6 million seed funding round. Led by East Ventures, the funding round included the participation of K3 Ventures, Blue Elephant Capital, and Plug & Play.

In a press statement, the company said that the funding will be used to strengthen T-Lab’s research and development (R&D) division and enhance the curriculum for providing high-quality Chinese language educational resources. It also aims to acquire more users and upgrade its products.

T-Lab is an edutech startup that provides Chinese language learning for students in the US and Southeast Asia. The startup introduced its T-Lab Linnet Chinese platform in 2021; it claimed to be one of the world’s first AI+Live course teaching systems.

It leverages AI technology to optimise the online learning experience for K-12 students, T-Lab teaching team, and parents. The AI gamification teaching aims to stimulate students’ interests and allows them to enjoy and engage with the courses.

T-Lab also builds its tech to adapt to the unique learning requirements of different countries and markets, as well as the individual physiological needs of students. It also provides a learning management system (LMS) to help teachers create interactive courseware and track students’ progress.

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

In addition to a technical support team, T-Lab also owns an Education Research Team that comprises international Chinese teachers and a Teaching Team that consists of professors specialising in Chinese language at notable universities such as Peking University and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

The company’s co-founders Gin Zhang and Phillip Zhao started the company when they realised a “serious Chinese language resource and market dislocation overseas.”

“As of 2018, the number of Chinese learners worldwide has reached 180 million and kept growing up to 14.2 per cent annually, while 95 per cent of qualified Chinese teachers are mainly located in Mainland China. Therefore, offline Chinese teaching institutions cannot meet students’ needs in terms of quantity or quality. Students get poor learning experiences and learning results at a high cost,” the company stated.

“Each region has different learning expectations. Meanwhile, offline and online learning institutions still lack authoritative professional experts to formulate, research and develop a complete system of teaching models for different national markets. Despite the mushrooming of online Chinese teaching institutes nowadays, there are still very few applications with AI courses that interact with students’ individual learning needs,” said Zhang.

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Image Credit: T-Lab

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Finding a promising startup and investing in it is no mean task. It takes weeks and sometimes months to find a good fit that aligns with an investor’s goals.

VCs consider many criteria before zeroing in a startup for a financial deal, including the team, product, target market, and many other things. Even if everything falls in line, the investment can still go wrong, and the VC may lose its investment.

Different VCs adopt different approaches and have different ways of finding out a potential investee.

In this article, co-founder and managing partner Kuo-Yi Lim shares how Monk’s Hill Ventures picks a startup for investment, its due diligence process, and investment thesis.

Edited excerpts:

What are the different methods/channels through which MHV sources the deals? Do you have any formal partnerships with accelerators and incubators?

Kuo-Yi Lim: We work closely with a wide variety of co-investors and partners. These include angel investors, incubators and accelerators, venture capital firms investing across different stages, corporates/corporate VCs, and government-related investors in the ecosystem. Our co-investors and deal flow partners include Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and SGInnovate.

Also Read: Monk’s Hill Ventures’s Peng T. Ong on how to get your startup ready for the new normal

We have also recently launched our MHV Venture Scouts programme, comprising over 20 venture scouts who will invest further in high-growth pre-seed and seed startups across Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

How many funds have you launched so far/currently running? What is the corpus of the ongoing fund? Any new funds in the pipeline?

Kuo-Yi Lim: We have deployed and invested from two funds — Fund I (US$80 million) and Fund II (US$100 million). Fund I is fully deployed. We also manage an Opportunities Fund that focuses exclusively on later-stage investments of our portfolio companies.

We are actively deploying from Fund II in startups we’re very excited about, including Jenfi, CoderSchool, and Dagangan.

Can you explain your investment thesis? What is the average cheque size? How many deals do you do a year? How many firms have you invested in so far?

Kuo-Yi Lim: Monk’s Hill Ventures invests in early-stage tech companies, primarily Series A, in Southeast Asia. Our vision is to build a venture platform that allows founders and operators like ourselves to fund and support founders in Southeast Asia.

We take a first-principles approach in making investment decisions. We break down ideas and business models to understand the fundamentals. We then spend time understanding the team’s values, motivations, purpose, and ambition.

We get into conversations with founders with humility and a fundamental curiosity about why they are motivated to devote their lives and energy to the venture. By building conviction around these elements, we then seek the opportunity to partner with the founders. We are prepared to underwrite and support founders over a long period.

We usually do about five to six deals a year, and we have invested in over 30 startups so far. Our cheque size ranges between US$2 million and US$8 million, and we are focused on companies at the pre-Series A or Series A stages.

Do you actively reach out to companies for investment? Do you also receive inbound interests? Is your approach the same for startups in both these categories?

Kuo-Yi Lim: Both. Our investment team across Southeast Asia will regularly speak to and meet with founders. Additionally, the best way for founders to get in touch with us is through a warm referral in our network. Monk’s Hill Ventures typically likes to get to know our founders early (even before they are Series A) and build that relationship over time.

What are the essential criteria that you look for in a potential candidate? What is more critical — team, product, market, or something else?

Kuo-Yi Lim: All the factors are relevant, although we tend to index more towards founders. We look for teams that show maturity and level-headedness in their approach to addressing issues and challenges. The teams should also be highly motivated, ambitious, and purposeful. Alignment between the founders and us on building a sustainable business with a laser focus on fundamental metrics is essential.

We look for companies that are addressing potentially large markets with robust underlying growth dynamics. We also look for companies that have demonstrated some level of product-market fit, including early customers for enterprise-focused products or user adoption for consumer products and services.

What is the duration of your due diligence (DD) process? Can you also talk about the process? How do you do DD during the ongoing crisis?

Kuo-Yi Lim: Since the founding of Monk’s Hill Ventures, we have systematically and purposefully built out a team of investment professionals located across the region, with a presence in Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok. Our team members are typically familiar with the ground and the communities. This approach has been constructive during the pandemic.

Given our long-standing relationships with many founders and ecosystem players in various countries, we continue to engage companies and actively invest. Due Diligence is still done very much on a local basis. In-person contact between our team members and the companies is still typical for us.

How do you determine the amount to be invested in a company? What are the different factors you take into account?

Kuo-Yi Lim: At the early stage, valuing startups can be more art than science.

However, we do take into account various factors. These factors may include taking a deep dive into the business model and the industry to understand better the amount a startup needs to scale at this stage to hit its milestones.

We will draw references from comparable transactions both regionally and globally within a similar space. We also assess the quality of the team and the startup’s overall growth potential.

Also Read: Monk’s Hill Ventures head of talent’s guide to startup jobs search in Singapore

The most crucial consideration is arriving at a valuation that will set the company up for success. This often means managing dilution on the founders’ ownership while ensuring that the valuation is supported by fundamentals that the company can meet.

Do you make follow-on investments in your portfolio companies? What are the criteria/factors that you consider here?

Kuo-Yi Lim: Yes, we typically would make follow-on investments into our portfolio companies. We don’t lead in the subsequent rounds and will follow the terms of the new investors.

Can you also talk about the mentorship process at MHV, especially the venture scouts program?

Kuo-Yi Lim: When we invest in a new portfolio company, it has a core Monk’s Hill Ventures team that will support the startup throughout their startup journey from financial, legal to operations support.

In addition, we have our head of communications to support our startups on anything marketing, PR, and branding-related. We also have the head of talent to help them with anything HR and people-related and a legal counsel to support our startups on any legal matters.

For the Scouts programme, our scouts directly nurture the seed startups while the MHV team is accessible to the founders as well. We have also built a community for our Venture Scouts to support each other and for us to provide any expertise or advice needed as they nurture these startups.

Do you want to share details about your exit strategies?

We believe in taking a sustainable and more patient approach towards exits. Even in the earliest days of investment, we encourage founders to think about unit economics and profitability even as they focus on growth.

Ultimately, we want to see that our portfolio companies build sustainable businesses of scale that generate intrinsic value and can stand up to the competition. We are prepared to support the founders on this journey over a long period – sometimes ten years or more.

Monk’s Hill Ventures believe that exit opportunities will present themselves naturally to such companies. Our primary focus is to help the founders to build great companies, and exits will take care of themselves.

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Image Credit: Monk’s Hill Ventures

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While all we know how challenging it is to secure funding to develop startup technology, there are investors who are always looking for portfolio companies. Here’s the list of investors who are looking for their next portfolio company, and the best part is, they actively respond to fundraising startup’s Connect requests:

1. AC Ventures

Investment: Angel / Pre Seed, Seed, Pre-Series A / Bridge, Series A

Verticals: All verticals

Recent News: Capria Ventures injects money into AC Ventures, to co-invest in its portfolio companies

Straight from AC Ventures: AC Ventures is an early-stage technology venture fund that focuses on investing in Indonesia’s digital disruptors. We leverage our industry insights, support services and global network to empower our founders to build impactful, significant and scalable businesses for Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

As an Indonesia VC, ACV primarily invests in companies with a focus on Indonesia or with the intention to win the Indonesian market. We research technology-driven business models which have demonstrated successful adoption in more mature and emerging markets such as the US, China and India to build a localised thesis for Indonesia.

At ACV we take a hands-on approach in providing support to our portfolio companies, ensuring that they are equipped with the best resources to succeed. Our portfolio’s success is our success.​

Also read: These 3 Taiwan startups are looking to expand in Southeast Asia

2. Antler

Investment: Angel / Pre Seed

Verticals: All /  Any

Recent Investment News: Bluesheets raises US$1.5M to further expand its business, enters new client segments

Straight from Antler: We are on a mission to fundamentally improve the world by investing in the world’s most exceptional people building the defining companies of tomorrow. 

We work with founders from the earliest stages to ensure that they have a big impact and to accelerate their growth through our investment, platform and network.

Also read: Connect with these X-Pitch 2021 startups through e27 Pro

We establish a relationship as a long-term investor with our portfolio companies. We are investing in founders from around the world and across a wide range of areas from emerging sectors like robotics and AI, to sectors such as healthtech, fintech and proptech. As our portfolio companies scale, we continue to invest in them alongside top-tier VCs in the later rounds. 

3. Cento Ventures

Investment: Series A / Series B

Verticals: All / Any

Straight from Cento Ventures: Cento Ventures (previously known as Digital Media Partners, DMP) is a venture capital firm specialised in under-invested emerging digital markets, primarily Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Since 2011. 

Our investments are usually at Series A, where we lead the round. This helps us establish a solid relationship with the founder, and to influence company strategy. We only invest once a company can show that a market exists for its product and that it is ready to use extra capital to scale.

We look for founders who want to build large digital companies that are leaders in their category. In a fragmented region, such as Southeast Asia, operating across multiple countries is often essential. Our preference is for business models that are light on physical assets and where the founders have ambitious plans to scale internationally.

4. Burda Principal Investments

Investment: Series A, Series B, Series C & Above

Verticals: Automotive, Consumer, E-commerce, Education, Finance, Food & Beverage, Healthtech, Human Resources, Marketplace, Mobile, Platform, Real Estate, Sharing Economy, Software as a Service, Sports, Travel

Straight from Burda Principal Investments: BPI is a division of Hubert Burda Media which provides long term growth equity for fast-growing digital technology and media companies. Hubert Burda Media is one of Europe’s largest media and technology conglomerates with a strong investment track record in internet-centric businesses, since 1998.

Also read: Gearing up for the new normal: What do VCs want and how can startups ace their funding applications

We have been partners of visionary entrepreneurs, leveraging Burda’s capital, brands and sector expertise, particularly in the areas of business expansion, internationalization and localization.

We are invested in a portfolio of highly successful consumer internet companies in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. In the past, Hubert Burda Media has invested in internet platforms such as Etsy, zooplus, HolidayCheck, or Xing AG.

Also read: Tech-for-good: How 4 tech companies are gearing up for an uncertain future

5. RHL Ventures

Investment: Pre-Series A / Bridge, Series A, Series B

Verticals: All / Any

Recent Article Contribution: Are biomedicine and healthcare coming of age?

Straight from RHL Ventures: Based in Malaysia, we are a multi-family private investment firm championing growth for the best businesses in Southeast Asia. 

RHL was founded in 2016 and is currently led by Rachel Lau, Raja Hamzah Abidin and Jo Jo Kong. Our firm aims to drive transformative growth in the ASEAN through investing in small and medium-sized companies in the region.

Our extensive investing, corporate advisory, and capital markets experience give us scope to add value to businesses in a variety of ways. As investors, we are looking to be long-term capital and strategic partners for businesses we invest in. As fund managers, we are on the constant lookout for outsized investment returns.

The Connect feature is exclusively available for Pro members. If you want to start connecting with these investors, get a Pro trial account now!

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Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

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According to the latest edition of the Global Startup Ecosystem Report (GSER) by Startup Genome, and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Asia is taking lead as the home of unicorn startups among the Top 100 emerging startup ecosystems with 36 per cent of such startups being based in the region. This number was followed by North America with 30 per cent and Europe with 27 per cent.

Asian startup ecosystems are now worth US$1.1 trillion in terms of Ecosystem Value or about 30 per cent of the global total.

The Top 100 emerging ecosystems themselves created 124 billion-dollar startups in the 10 year period of 2011-2020, with the majority created in 53 ecosystems. With this rapid development, the emerging ecosystems represent over US$540 billion in ecosystem value, which is a 55 per cent increase from 2020.

Of these emerging ecosystems, Mumbai once again topped the list by outperforming in areas of Performance, Funding, Experience, and Talent.

“… China and India continue to attract the lion’s share of venture capital, accounting for about two-thirds of Asia’s total funding. That is due to their vast consumer markets, rapidly growing economies, and development of global enterprises. Combined, China and India account for over a third of the world’s population: two-thirds reside within a few hours’ flight time,” according to Paul Ark, advisor at Gobi Partners, as quoted by the report.

“China and India also boast growing numbers of unicorn startups and are among the fastest-growing markets for smartphone penetration, 5G technology roll-out, and smart cities development (especially China),” he continued.

In general, the Asian startup ecosystems continued to rise in the ranking with Tokyo climbing up from #15 to #9, Seoul from #20 to #16, Shenzhen from #22 to #19, Bengaluru from #26 to #23, and Hangzhou from #28 to #25.

Also Read: At the early stage, valuing startups can be more art than science: Kuo-Yi Lim of Monk’s Hill Ventures

When it comes to the Knowledge factor, Asia also took four out of the top five spots with Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Guangzhou coming in the list.

The state of the global startup ecosystems

The GSER report was made by researching 280 entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems and three million startups.

According to JF Gauthier, Founder & CEO of Startup Genome, the report was meant to serve as a foundation for deciding what policies actually produce economic impact and in what context.

According to the GSER, there are now 79 ecosystems generating over US$4 billion in value, more than double the number identified in 2017 while in 2019, the organisation predicted there will be 100 by 2029. A majority of the new entrants are in Europe.

North America continued to dominate the Global Rankings segment of the report with 50 per cent of the Top 30 ecosystems coming from this region, followed by Asia with 27 per cent and Europe with 17 per cent of the top-performing ecosystems globally.

Of this global ecosystem, the new entrant is Tokyo at number nine –up six places from last year’s standing. According to the report, this is largely due to an increased number of successful exits in Tokyo, contributing to a growth in their ecosystem value.

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Image Credit: fsstock

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SGRecycle, a Singapore-based social recycling startup, has secured US$1.4 million in a seed funding round led by recycling industry company Tai Hing Group. 

The startup plans to use the capital to expand its presence nationwide through scalable cloud computing and sensors deployed at its smart recycling stations. 

“The ultimate goal is to have all SGRecycle stations islandwide at the most convenient and accessible place, everywhere in Singapore to encourage the nation to practice the recycling habits,” said JacQueline Lim, managing director of Tai Hing Group.

Launched in 2020, SGRecycle is a network of SGRecycle stations placed around Singapore. It allows contactless recycling of paper waste by combining built-in sensors and cloud technology.

“This reduces the risk of COVID infection and also increases the general public’s awareness of returning their trash for cash at the same time saving our environment together,” said Looi, co-founder of SGRecycle. “Everyone plays a part in this ecosystem.”

SGRecycle stations allow the general public to receive cash incentives or merchant vouchers when recycling waste paper. Sensors will calculate the weight of the waste paper and credit points to people’s mobile accounts. 

Also read: How this Singaporean AI startup makes waste collection and recycling easy for cities, organisations

The startup claims it helps potentially increase 5-10 per cent of Singapore’s recycling rate, which has been at a 10-year low in 2020. This pullback is caused by the suspension of a sector (construction and demolition) with traditionally high recycling rates due to the pandemic. Singapore’s domestic recycling rate fell to just 13 per cent in 2020, compared to a domestic recycling rate of 32 per cent in the US, 46 per cent in the EU, and 67 per cent in Germany.

SGRecyle has piloted 30 stations at shopping malls, community centres, schools, and residential facilities in Singapore. The first SGRecycle station has been installed in Tampines, which strives to become a model Eco-Town by 2025 as part of Singapore’s Green Plan 2030.

The startup also plans to deploy more artificial intelligence (AI) and green components like facial recognition and solar panels in its stations. The firm could then utilise its data wall to analyse the big data received for recycling patterns and user behaviour insights.

Singapore aims to increase the domestic recycling rate from 22 to 30 per cent by 2030 and the non-domestic recycling rate to 81 per cent by 2030. 

To achieve this goal, Singapore has applied the Extended Producer Responsibility regulations for electronic waste this year and for packaging waste by 2025, which means that companies will be responsible for the material they produce and use.

According to the “Singapore Green Technology and Sustainability Market Report”, the green technology and sustainability market in the country was valued at US$6.89 billion in 2018. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26.8 per cent to US$36.31 billion by 2025. 

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Image credit: SGRecycle

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Intelligent Video Solutions (iVS), a video advertising enablement platform for Southeast Asia brands, has closed an oversubscribed US$3.2-million pre-Series B round led by Singapore-based Tin Men Capital.

Other investors are Philippines-headquartered Kickstart Ventures, besides Singapore’s Vulpes and SG Innovate.

The company will use the investment to foray into new territories in the Asia Pacific, namely Japan and Australia. iVS will also onboard more talent, including senior executive positions, in the coming weeks to aid this expansion strategy.

Established in 2016, iVS employs AI and machine learning to enable better monetisation opportunities and consumer engagement for publishers and advertisers in Southeast Asia.

It enables publishers to deliver and optimise their video advertising inventory without giving up control and customer ownership to third-party video platforms.

“We help local publishers and broadcasters retain independence and monetisation leverage while offering advertisers brand-safe in-stream video ad inventory at scale across markets,” said Hari Shankar, chief revenue officer of iVS.

Also read: Advertising with privacy: How SoMin employs AI to build brands and preserve anonymity online

The startup counts publishers such as the Philippines’s ABS-CBN, The Manila Times and Singapore’s Mothership, global media agencies such as Publicis, Dentsu, IPG, and brands such as Disney Plus, Netflix and Spotify, among its clientele.

iVS also improves viewer experience and video ads’ effectiveness through embedded (non-invasive) and engaging ads targeted contextually or through first-party data of individual viewer preference. This is also based on the advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) service model, where the revenue is earned from platforms or advertising agencies instead of users.

So far, the startup claims to serve more than 100 million unique visitors with access to over one billion premium video ad impressions per month.

iVS CEO and Tin Men Capital co-founder echo the opinions that there are large untapped opportunities in the Asia Pacific’s AVOD market. According to Digital TV Research, global AVOD revenue is predicted to expand significantly and reach US$56 billion by 2024 with the rise of advertising technology. This explains iVS’s recent launching of an in-stream video advertising marketplace in Southeast Asia, which aims to increases video inventory available to advertisers.

“Our focus remains on building out a business model with fully aligned incentives between media companies and vendors. This remains an ongoing challenge in markets where CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) are low, while costs of delivery are broadly the same as in mature markets like the US or Europe,” added Milan Reinartz, chief executive officer of iVS.

Since its last funding round in February 2019, iVS’s net revenue is reported to grow by 537 per cent despite the pandemic-induced slowdowns.

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Image credit: iVS

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Singapore-based agri-foodtech company DiMuto today announced that it has raised US$2.35 million in Series A funding round led by The Yield Lab Asia Pacific.

The funding included the participation of SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore; PT Great Giant Pineapple; Patrick Vizzone; Ocean Crest Investments; and Asia Capital Pioneers Group.

The company’s existing investors SGInnovate and Latin Leap also returned in this funding round.

In a press statement, DiMuto said that the funding will enable them to scale up product development and meet the growing demand for agro-food trade visibility as well as trade financing.

Ryan Gwee, Chairman of Asia Capital Pioneers Group, also mentioned the possibility for DiMuto to team up with its portfolio company Aleta Planet, a fintech company that works on payments.

DiMuto uses blockchain, cloud, IoT and AI to create combined visibility between the movement of goods and money on DiMuto Platform. The platform enables primary data collection for valuable insights, enabling agri-food businesses to better manage their supply chain.

Also Read: Adatos nets Series A for its AI-driven remote sensing solution for agri, carbon markets

With its Produce, Trade and Market modules, DiMuto provides visibility on product quality, documents, and payment records for each stage of the supply chain, from pre-shipment farm production to post-shipment product receipts.

The ability to capture and organise such data also helps DiMuto’s financing services to verify that Environmental, Social and Governmental (ESG) standards are being met.

The company has specifically designed their proprietary digitalisation devices –Digital Asset Creation device (DACKY)– in the form of a flyaway kit that enables implementation on the ground to be easily completed in as short as one week.

“DiMuto was really born out of my dual experiences of operating in the finance world for 15 years and operating a global fresh fruits and vegetables marketer and distributor,” said Gary Loh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DiMuto.

“During my ten-year stint in the food industry, I realised there’s an urgent need for business leaders to be able to see all aspects of their business right down to the granular detail of each box, each payment, and each receipt, as well as see the auxiliary service providers supporting their operations. Being able to capture and have the visual confirmation of such business data on a single platform helps business leaders run the organisation better,” he continued.

DiMuto said that it has executed implementations in Indonesia, China, South Africa, Ghana, Malaysia, Kenya, and Colombia over the last six months, with 25 more projects in the pipeline.

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Image Credit: gexphos

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Komunal, a fintech company offering neo-rural bank services in Indonesia, has received US$2.1 million in its Series A round of financing.

The round, led by East Ventures, saw participation from Skystar Capital. Both had invested in Komunal’s seed round in 2019.

As per a press statement, Komunal will use the new funds to boost financial inclusion in Indonesia by enhancing its product, DepositoBPR.

Launched in 2019, Komunal aims to have reliable credit methodology, alternative data & technology and community partnership with existing rural banks (BPR) and co-operative loan (Koperasi) to improve the funding access to Indonesia’s MSMEs.

The DepositoBPR product enables societies nationwide to access the highest possible government-guaranteed deposit rates from BPRs in any region without visiting the bank.

Also Read: P2P lending platform Komunal raises investment to improve the funding access to Indonesia’s MSMEs

On the other hand, rural banks can source deposits nationwide without incurring the hefty cost of opening additional branches and marketing efforts to attract more deposits. In other words, BPRs can source deposits regardless of the geographical boundaries and convert their higher fixed operational cost to lower variable fees to Komunal by using the platform.

Indonesia has 1,500 BPRs. However, they only account for a 1.5 per cent market share of the entire depositors in the country. Most of these are located in suburban areas and not equipped by digital channels — making their product inaccessible to urban depositors.

Komunal has engaged with 60 BPRs across Java and Bali and launched the beta version of DepositoBPR services in August 2021. The company focuses on doubling the BPR market share by offering a higher rate and more seamless transactions to new and existing clients.

So far, Komunal has disbursed US$50 million of loans to hundreds of SMEs in Indonesia, more than double the amount compared to the same period last year. The company said it would continuously support SMEs in getting credit access, targeting US$150 million of SME loans by next year.

During this pandemic, Komunal strengthened its cash flow with a minimum burn rate as a group — thanks to its lending businesses which has achieved profitability recently.

The neo-bank startup is now planning to launch an “e-billet” feature by the end of 2021.

“Almost all BPR deposits are using physical billet/deposit certificate. It means BPR in Bali, for instance, will need to send the physical deposit (billet) to its depositor in Jakarta (and vice versa when the depositor wants to withdraw their deposit), incurring relatively high logistics costs in the process. The e-billet will effectively eliminate this friction and help our vision to make the product accessible nationwide,” said Kendrick Winoto, co-founder of Komunal.

“We believe a strong partnership between funding agents and rural banks will boost the country’s financial inclusion tremendously. As BPRs have relatively smaller assets than commercial banks, they have dynamic lending and funding needs. While we have seen many fruitful collaborations on the lending side, unfortunately, BPRs don’t have many options to solve their funding needs. However, they offer attractive and safe products,” said Hendry Lieviant, co-founder of Komunal.

Also Read: Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam have a huge potential in APAC for neobank growth: Study

“During the pandemic, the irony was even clearer. Commercial banks are overflowing with liquidity despite offering record low rates, whilst many BPR had difficulty sourcing deposits because 95 per cent of the country’s depositors reside in urban areas. We hope this platform can bridge the gap. We appreciate OJK and BPR Association support and advice to sharpen this ‘first of its kind’ product,” he added.

Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner of East Ventures, said, “We have heard that many startups provide solutions to unbanked consumers, under-served consumers and non-credit-worthy micro and small businesses. However, none of the solutions addresses rural banks. Komunal introduced the new concept of “neo rural bank” to upgrade smaller banks with advanced capabilities. We hope this approach will accelerate financial inclusion massively and deeper to every Indonesia region.”

As per a recent UnaFinancial report, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have the highest prospects in Asia for neo bank.

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Image Credit: Komunal

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bolttech, a Singapore- and New York-based insurtech company, said today it added more funds to its US$180-million round, announced in July, to take the total funds raised from Series A to US$210 million.

US- and Germany-based global investment firm Activant Capital Group led the latest tranche, with participation from EDBI and Spanish firm Alma Mundi Insurtech Fund.

The additional capital will help bolttech further enhance technology and digital capabilities and strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia, Europe, and its other existing markets.

Also Read: The future of insurance isn’t just digital — it’s efficiently digital

The insurtech startup was launched in 2020 with a mission to transform the way insurance is bought and sold. With a suite of digital and data-driven capabilities, bolttech aims to make connections between insurers, distributors and customers easier and more efficient to buy and sell insurance and protection products.

bolttech works with insurers, telcos, retailers, banks, e-commerce and digital destinations to embed insurance into their customer journeys at the point of need.

With about 1,400 people on its payroll, bolttech claims to have built a global footprint that serves more than 7.7 million customers in 26 markets across three continents –- North America, Asia, and Europe. It transacts US$5 billion in premiums on its platform, providing a gateway to more than 5,000 products and 150 insurance providers.

In July this year, bolttech bagged a US$180 million Series A funding round led by Activant. Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape, inventor of iPod, and co-inventor of iPhone), Alpha Leonis Partners, Dowling Capital Partners, B. Riley Venture Capital, and Tarsadia Investments also joined. With that round, bolttech’s valuation had crossed US$1 billion, giving it a unicorn status.

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Image Credit: bolttech

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Evermos, a Halal/Sharia-compliant social commerce company based in Bandung, Indonesia, has received over US$30 million in an “oversubscribed” Series B investment round.

Led by Asia Impact Investment Fund II (owned by UOB Venture Management), the round also saw participation from IFC, MDI Ventures, TMI and Future Shape. Its Series A investors Jungle Ventures and Shunwei Capital also joined.

Evermos intends to utilise the financing to expand its leadership and growth teams and deepen technology development.

The company also looks to further penetrate lower-tier areas. At the moment, 70 per cent of its resellers are in Java island. Going forward, it will double down in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The startup was founded in November 2018 by Ghufron Mustaqim, Iqbal Muslimin, Ilham Taufiq and Arip Tirta. Evermos enables individuals (resellers) to sell locally sourced products to their community via WhatsApp or social media platforms. While the resellers focus on generating demand and selling the products, Evermos manages inventory, logistics, and customer support. According to the startup, this empowers resellers to operate their businesses without the need for capital.

Today, the social commerce startup claims to have generated micro-entrepreneurship opportunities for more than 100,000 active resellers across more than 500 tier 2 and 3 cities and regencies.

Products from 500-plus brands, of which more than 95 per cent are sourced from local small and medium enterprises (SMEs), are curated and made available on the platform. These encompass a wide range of products suited to the Indonesian lifestyle, including Muslim fashion, halal health, beauty and F&B products.

The founders claim the business has seen rapid growth, with total transaction value increasing by more than 60x over the last two years.

Also Read: Social commerce startup Evermos brings Halal products into Indonesia, grabs US$8.25M Series A

Co-founder and deputy CEO Mustaqim said: “Ekonomi Gotong Royong’, or ‘Collaborative Economic Empowerment’ is the underpinning philosophy of Evermos. By leveraging our network of resellers, we are providing a platform for our local SMEs to grow their business while enabling our resellers to generate additional income by selling these local products.”

Evermos president Tirta remarked: “Our vision is to empower one million micro-entrepreneurs over the next five years. One of the key factors that influence how we run our company is measuring the sustainability and societal impact of our platform. A share of the company’s income is used to uplift individuals and SMEs in lower-tier cities.”

Currently, the startup is running a pilot programme, Desa Evermos, with almost 100 villages in Indonesia to partner with the local businesses in the villages and convert the underproductive residents into community assets by becoming its resellers.

Clarissa Loh, Senior Director at UOB Venture Management, said, “The population of more than 200 million living outside tier 1 cities in Indonesia represents a huge opportunity for Evermos given the consumer demand. As e-commerce penetration in these areas tends to be low partly due to low internet connectivity, logistics challenges and distrust or unfamiliarity of online shopping, Evermos’s innovative social commerce model can bridge the gap by enabling social sellers to market products to these consumers.”

In 2019, Evermos bagged US$8.25 million in Series A led by Jungle Ventures, with participation from Shunwei Capital and Alpha JWC.

According to a 2021 McKinsey report, Indonesia’s social commerce industry is projected to grow to US$25 billion by 2022, accelerated by COVID-19, with people looking for alternate sources of income. The pandemic had impacted employment opportunities in parts of Indonesia, including job losses seen in some families. Some resellers had been able to supplement family incomes through product sales on the Evermos platform, allowing them to earn income to tide their families over in these tough periods.

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Image Credit: Evermos

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