Upstage raises US$27M in Series A funding round

The company: Seoul-based artificial intelligence startup Upstage announced that it has raised US$27 million in Series A funding round led by SoftBank Ventures Asia and Company K Partners. The funding round also included the participation of other investors such as TBT Partners, Premier Partners, Stonebridge Ventures, and Primer Sazze Fund.

The plan: The startup plans to use the funds to recruit “a large number” of AI specialists and developers to accelerate the development of its ‘AI Pack’.

The company: Headquartered in Seoul, Upstage enables companies to easily adopt AI solutions that standardise and automate their key tasks. The is developing the ‘AI Pack’, an integrated AI solution.

Mobile Premier League raises new funding, values at US$2.3B

The story: Mobile Premier League (MPL), Bangalore-headquartered e-sports and skill gaming platform, announced that it has raised a Series E round of financing led by Legatum Capital at a pre-money valuation of US$2.3 billion. Existing investors including Sequoia, SIG, RTP Global, Go-Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, Play Ventures, Base Partners, Telstra Ventures, and Founders Circle Capital also participated in the round.

The plan: MPL will use the funding to support its global expansion plan, invest in its homegrown technology, and drive continued growth in the Indian market.

The company: Headquartered in Bengaluru, MPL also has offices in Jakarta, Pune, New Delhi, Singapore, and New York. It has over 85 million users across India, Indonesia and the US. It was founded in 2018 by Sai Srinivas and Shubh Malhotra. The gaming platform currently employs over 800 personnel.

Also Read: Crowdfunding for startups: Where to begin and how to go about it

1Export raises US$800K in seed funding round led by Foxmont Capital Partners

The story: 1Export, a tech-enabled exporting company based in the Philippines, has raised a US$800,000 seed funding round led by Foxmont Capital Partners. The funding round also included participation of a consortium from the Manila Angel Investors Network and Kerubin Capital, IdeaSpace Foundation, Singapore based Iterative and other private investors.

The plan: With the new investments, 1Export aims to develop and improve its order handling capabilities, marketing services, financing, and other third-party integrations within its platform.

The company: 1Export was founded in 2016 to help MSMEs in the Philippines grow their business and expand in different countries using digital tools and platforms. In June 2021, the company said it generated around US$500,000 in export sales, accounting for 0.2 per cent of the total Philippine exports. It currently lists 450 supplier partners on its platform and distributes an overall volume of 4,000 tonnes of products, which are a mix of food and non-food products. 1Export plans to expand to 60 countries by the end of 2022.

BuzzAR raises US$630K in funding from Choco Up

The story: Singapore-based deep tech startup BuzzAR announced that it has raised US$630,000 in funding from Choco Up, a revenue-based financing and growth platform.

The plan: This funding round will enable BuzzAR to further develop localised marketing campaigns across APAC, the US and China as the firm ramps up B2B partnerships in response to rising demand.

The company: Founded in 2018, BuzzAR is a technology firm offering AR and AI solutions to Fortune 500 companies in Singapore and China. It is part of the Singapore Tourism Accelerator 2020/2021. BuzzAR’s vision is to augment places and faces, connecting the next billion users by 2025. Through its AR Billboard, BuzzAR has offered gamified wayfinding to its Fortune 500 enterprise clients.

Also Read: 500 Startups is now 500 Global, closes US$140M global flagship fund

Asumsi raises US$700K from East Ventures

The company: Indonesia-based multiplatform media company Asumsi announced a US$700,000 funding round from existing investor East Ventures.

The plan: The investment aims to further expand Asumsi’s media operation and escalate the engineering team to create a more interactive platform. The company is targeting to launch a live-streaming platform by mid-2022.

The company: Asumsi is a multi-platform digital media company that covers current affairs, politics, and social issues and targets the Indonesian youth segment. The company said that it reaches more than 10 millions audience per month through various social media channels.

It also said that its revenue has grown 10 times (year-on-year) since its last funding round in September 2020, which was also led by East Ventures.

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It is a well-known fact that owning a car in Singapore can be costly for the average customer. Luckily, there are startups in the market that aim to make it more accessible. Car-sharing platform Tribecar is one.

Tribecar was started as a platform to help private-hire vehicle (PHV) drivers obtain cars for their trade. “Later on, the general public began to discover the convenience and affordability of Tribecar’s service through word of mouth. The competitive pricing of renting at S$2 an hour combined with the accessibility of the vehicles made Tribecar’s service very attractive to the general public,” says CEO and co-founder Adrian Lee, in an email interview with e27.

But then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, forcing customers to change their behaviour, eventually opening up new opportunities for the company.

“This is when we noticed more people are shifting to private cars for their daily commute, either to run errands or to send their children to school. Private cars have become a safe travel bubble for people who are concerned about their health and safety due to COVID-19 and as such,” Lee says.

To respond to the demand, especially in September, Tribecar introduced a subscription service that allows customers to rent a vehicle for only S$88 a month –instead of the usual price of S$128. It also introduces an initiative where new drivers (e.g. P-Plate drivers) can sign up for this subscription service without paying for an additional New Drivers’ Surcharge during the included free hours.

This subscription model will complement the existing ad-hoc car-sharing model.

How does this subscription model help the business forward, especially in a challenging time like this? How does Tribecar differentiate itself from other services using this model? What is next for the company?

Also Read: How Malaysia’s first unicorn Carsome practiced compassion to grow in the face of adversity

Find the answer in this interview with Lee.

Sustainability for both the business and customers

Before explaining the subscription model and its role in growing the business, Lee talks about the two types of Tribecar users — commercial drivers and the so-called “leisure drivers.”

“The commercial drivers are PHV drivers and courier and food delivery drivers who use our vans, lorries and motorcycles for their jobs. Leisure drivers include new drivers who have yet to purchase their first car, as well as young families that are looking for a vehicle to run errands or ferry the kids to school,” he elaborates further.

The subscription model is meant to make it easier for these two groups of users to get the right kind of service for their needs.

“Tribecar believes in striking a balance, which is why we have launched a new subscription service to complement our usual ad-hoc car-sharing services. We believe that meeting our customers’ demands requires flexibility, and we want to give our customers the best of both worlds,” Lee explains it from the users’ point of view.

“Additionally, our new subscription service also provides a more predictable cash flow as opposed to ad-hoc usage, since members who sign up with us have their subscription renewed monthly for their convenience,” he shares.

In addition to making car ownership more accessible for the Average Joes and Janes, in the long run, Tribecar also hopes to create a more sustainable future.

“When we started Tribecar, we did it intending to make driving affordable, which is why we feel budget shouldn’t be a roadblock to being able to have the convenience and flexibility of ‘owning’ a car. With this increased convenience, we believe that we will be able to convince our customers to let go of their privately-owned cars and work towards a green, sustainable future,” Lee says.

Nowadays, with the acceptance of ride-hailing services that Uber has popularised, one might think of companies such as Grab and Gojek when they are thinking of the modern way to commute. As a car-sharing platform, Tribecar doesn’t see ride-hailing services as competition. In fact, some private hire drivers even use Tribecar cars.

“Additionally, our members are also using our service to run errands and are often making multiple stops. Unlike taxi or ride-hailing services that charge more for multiple stops or are typically used to get from point A to point B, our platform allows users to have the freedom and flexibility to plan their time and destinations without having to pay more. Typically, for an errand run with four to five locations. At around S$10 per taxi trip, the trip would cost around S$50 in total,” Lee stresses.

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

“But, with our hourly rental, they may pay as little as S$6 for three hours of use for the same errand run.”

The next destination

Based in Singapore, Tribecar is run by a team of more than 50 members. Before founding the company, Lee and co-founder Paul Tan have worked together to build Drive.SG in 2011. Remaining consistent in the transportation sector, the co-founders then started Tribecar to use the concept of car-sharing rental on an hourly basis to cater to the rise of ride-hailing in Singapore.

Nowadays, Tribecar even has a partnership with Drive.SG, aiming to support environmental sustainability by including Tesla cars in its long-term car leasing initiative. According to a statement, although Tesla cars are not part of Tribecar’s fleet, Tribecar members will be able to lease them at an affordable price and experience “owning” a car with zero down payment.

Tribecar is currently a self-funded company. However, Lee states that it is open to the possibility of raising external funding.

As for its goals for the future, the company aims to put customer satisfaction first by continuously looking for ways to add value for customers.

“As such, Tribecar is constantly looking at how we can make commuting safer, more affordable, and more convenient for our customers. We will continue to invest in new technologies and will be expanding our team to provide better services to our customers,” he says.

“To do so, we are expanding locations beyond the recently added customer-requested locations at petrol stations, shopping centres, and HDBs. It will bring greater value as we did by introducing the subscription plan and providing long-term leases at wallet-friendly rates,” the CEO continues.

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Image Credit: Tribecar

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Launching a startup in good times is hard enough. Now, imagine launching one amid a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, don’t let the current challenging times deter you from chasing your entrepreneurial dream. History shows us that several iconic corporations and entrepreneurs were born during major economic upheavals.

For example, Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939, at the tail-end of the Great Depression and just before the Second World War broke out. Proctor & Gamble and General Electric were established during the Panic of 1837, a major financial crisis in the US that triggered a six-year depression in the country.

And there are several more examples that could inspire and motivate entrepreneurs to launch their dream startup— now.

Opportunity for entreprenurs in a time of crisis

Despite the altered landscape we are operating in, optimism reigns in the Indian startup ecosystem. According to a recent report, India produced eleven unicorns in 2020, and the number is expected to touch 100 by 2025.

Startups in the areas of edutech, fintech, insurtech and the payment industry sped up innovations, responding to the changing consumer behaviour triggered by the pandemic.

Further, the unprecedented adoption of AI by large corporations and MSMEs over the last year is likely to be a trend that will continue unabated in the post-COVID-19 world.

Numerous startups have caught onto the AI trend and are exploring the untapped opportunities in this space. AI will remain a critical tool that will fuel innovation and product-market fit to enhance the customer experience.

It was also a stellar year for the cloud-based SaaS industry, which promises to be the next big export from India, bigger than the software and IT services sectors. There is exuberance among investors for SaaS.

Also Read: Alibaba-backed eWTP fund enters Indonesia by joining insurtech startup Fuse’s Series B round

A host of Indian SaaS startups, such as Zoho, Druva, Icertis, Postman and Freshworks, among others, capitalised on the growth of the SaaS industry and focused on how to become a competitive differentiator in the long run.

In other words, the pandemic has thrown open the floodgates to a plethora of opportunities for startups. Based on my observations, the best time to launch a startup is during opportunities like the current one, when multiple sectors are struggling to stay afloat.

Now is the opportune moment for new businesses to be established, offering customers better products at more competitive rates. As per recent reports, the gloom and doom of the pandemic have resulted in a surge in entrepreneurship across the globe.

For instance, in the US alone, business startups shot up from 3.5 million in 2019 to 4.4 million in 2020, witnessing a 24 per cent jump. However, a word of caution here.

While entrepreneurs need to seize new opportunities, they should act swiftly. These opportunities may not stay open for very long. Soon, the lucrative business prospects may dwindle.

The new reality of the funding ecosystem

The path to fueling a startup’s inorganic growth is through a robust funding mechanism. I urge startups to find the key pockets of opportunities; quickly test their product and get it to market; find the early customers and iteratively arrive at the right product-market fit. This is the mantra they should follow before turning their attention to raising funds.

It is pertinent to mention here that startup ecosystems have evolved to the point where they are no longer just incubators and accelerators. They are also a funding ecosystem that attracts multiple avenues of funding—venture capital, angel investments and crowdfunding.

One of the key trends that dominate today’s funding ecosystem is agility.  VCs are more amenable to coming in early as they are scouting for diamonds in the rough. For example, Sequoia Capital offers an early-stage rapid scale-up program for startups in India and Southeast Asia called ‘Surge’ that seeks disruptive new ideas to create new categories and industries.

Venture Capital advisory firm Chiratae Ventures has launched a seed fund initiative called Chiratae Sonic that guarantees a 48-hour turnaround time on pitches for investment. Shortlisted early-stage founders will get investments less than or equal to US$500,000.

Also Read: Coping with consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis

Likewise, the Telangana government is in the process of creating a ‘T-Fund,’ with the assurance of making the funding mechanism simpler for early-stage startups.

Another unique phenomenon witnessed in the current funding ecosystem is the strong VC interest in funding high-potential startups at the bottom of the pyramid. The rising number of entrepreneurs mushrooming in Tier-2 cities and beyond has diverted VC funding from larger metros to smaller towns.

In my view, this is a healthy trend that demonstrates India’s focus on nurturing a robust local entrepreneurial ecosystem that is a thriving subset of the larger ecosystem.

Undoubtedly, it is a great time to leverage the maturation of the funding ecosystem across India and build big enterprises for the global market. The US$10.14 billion funding that Indian startups attracted in 2020, despite the pandemic, is a testament to the faith foreign investors have in our entrepreneurs’ capabilities.

However, one of the drawbacks of the shifting funding landscape is the sharp divide that exists between the blue-eyed startups that raise millions of dollars of funding and those whose coffers have almost dried up.

Amid the pandemic, risk-averse VCs preferred betting on those startups in their portfolio that held the promise of coming out stronger on the other side.

The true heft of a startup ecosystem is not measured only by the number of unicorns that exist or the mammoth funding that top-of-the-line startups receive.

The more critical parameters would be the number of startups that are founded every year and the distinction between metro and non-metro business entities.

This approach will pave the way for a more egalitarian funding ecosystem that will aid in finding local solutions to longstanding societal problems.

Engage in the process of discovery

The keywords in a period of crisis are ‘opportunity’ and ‘agility’. Clearly, the established corporates lack the agility to move forward quickly and take advantage of the new opportunities that have emerged amid the pandemic.

Several opportunities left unaddressed by large corporates are seized by nimble entrepreneurs that move fast in challenging times.

I believe an innovation ecosystem can realise its true potential only if large corporates collaborate with startups to leverage the advantages offered by emerging opportunities.

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Global investing firm Capria Ventures has invested an undisclosed amount in Indonesian VC firm AC Ventures.

As per a press release, the partnership aligns with Capria’s plans to invest and impact in Southeast Asia, India, Latin America and Africa.

Capria will look to co-invest directly in the portfolio companies, alongside AC Ventures, in breakthrough solutions with global potential.

AC Ventures is Capria’s fifth fund manager of Capria in Asia, which has 14 partnerships globally.

“AC Ventures and Capria share a similar approach as hands-on, value-adding investors bringing hi-octane capital that supports founders with collective experience, network and resources,” said Dave Richards, co-founder and managing partner of Capria. 

“Capria’s global experience in startups from the 14 partnerships bring an edge to identifying and understanding emerging market ventures. AC Ventures’ proven leadership in sourcing local startups at an early stage along with their track record of supporting founders reinforced our investment decision,” he added. 

Formed in 2019 as a merger between Convergence Ventures and Agaeti Capital Ventures, AC Ventures has a total asset under management of US$300 million. 

The VC firm is currently raising a new fund of about US$120 million, which is expected to be closed this year. It aims to invest between US$1 million and US$10 million in early-stage companies in Indonesia and Southeast Asia across sectors such as e-commerce, logistics, fintech, MSMEs, and digital media-enabled businesses.

Since its first close at US$80 million in 2020, AC Ventures Fund III claims to have achieved over 2.5x gross return on invested capital in unrealised gains and witnessed over 25 follow-on funding rounds into its portfolio startups. 

Capria is a global VC firm with expertise investing in fintech, edutech, jobtech, logistics/mobility, agtech/food, and healthcare in the Global South. It invests in regional soonicorns and also backs local and regional fund managers with capital and strategic support. 

Capria has offices in Seattle, Bangalore, Nairobi, Santiago and Washington D.C.

Indonesia’s internet economy has been growing with an average annual growth rate of 49 per cent since 2015. This growth pace has exceeded all expectations and is on track to cross US$130 billion by 2025. With this acceleration, Indonesia has welcomed six regional unicorns so far, including Gojek and Tokopedia (which have merged into GoTo Group),  Traveloka, OVO, Bukalapak, and J&T Express.

 

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Image credit: AC Ventures

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SCB Abacus, a Thailand-based alternative digital lending platform, today announced that it has raised US$12 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round. Led by Openspace Ventures, this funding round also included the participation of Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and CAI Partners.

In a press statement, the company stated that it will use the funding to accelerate product development and expansion, strengthen its technology infrastructure and underwriting capabilities, and recruit additional talent.

The company also stated that it expects to raise a Series B funding round by the end of 2022 with “a fivefold growth of its current loan portfolio compared to 2021.”

SCB Abacus is a fintech spin-off in the local banking industry which enables the company to combine “the resources of a leading national bank with the expertise and scale-up experience of international venture capitals.”

Also Read: Startup x Innovation Thailand Expo 2021: A virtual world of innovation

The company’s flagship product MoneyThunder is a digital unsecured lending application that serves the underbanked population in Thailand. The platform utilises SCB Abacus’ in-house artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to underwrite loans and provide a completely automated approval experience for consumers.

It also enables fast registration and application process in just five to 20 minutes.

“The company’s current mission is to create better access to finance through inclusive digital lending platforms. Today, at least 60 per cent of our borrowers were previously denied bank loans. With the use of our in-house machine learning credit models and AI technology, we can assess borrowers using alternative information and provide a fast and seamless loan process. We envision wider usage of our data infrastructures in other non-financial sectors as well,” said Dr Sutapa Amornvivat, founder and CEO of SCB Abacus.

As of August, MoneyThunder said that it has seen close to five million application downloads with loans disbursed surging, increasing by a multiple of 10 in 2021 versus 2020.

Lead investor Openspace Ventures has closed its third Southeast Asian fund at US$200 million in March. It has recently invested in Kumu, a Philippine-based livestreaming platform.

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Ackcio, a deep tech startup developing wireless data acquisition technology for industrial monitoring, announced that it has bagged S$4 million (~US$3 million) in a Series A funding round led by Singapore-based venture capital firm Atlas Ventures.

Other participants are Enterprise Singapore, Wavemaker Partners, Aletra Capital Partners, AccelerAsia Ventures, Seasight Holdings, and angel investors.

According to the press statement, the Singapore-headquartered firm will use the new investment to fast-track its regional expansion, strengthen its research and development operations, and expand into new industry verticals.

This plan includes new hires in sales, engineering and operation around the world, which have grown beyond Asia, the Americas and Europe. Ackcio will also further expand its client and partner network in the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania regions.

“This new round of funding will enable us to expand our offerings and continue supporting our customers to make industrial operations smarter and safer,” said Nimantha Baranasuriya, co-founder and CEO of Ackcio.

Also read: Go smart or go waste? Smart construction in Asia is up for grabs

Founded in 2016 by Baranasuriya and Mobashir Mohammad, Ackcio provides cutting-edge, long-range, mesh-based wireless monitoring solutions to industries such as construction, infrastructure, rail, and mining.

Its technology helps contractors monitor geotechnical projects remotely in real-time and enables companies to increase operational efficiency, reduce costs, improve worker safety, and comply with local regulatory requirements.

Baranasuriya said that as the COVID-19 pandemic boosted the need for worker safety and remote operations, Ackcio rises to the occasion of the industrial digitisation. The firm claims to have expanded its customer base to 22 regions across six continents over the last 12 months, yielding a significant revenue upsurge. 

“Most existing solutions for industrial monitoring are manual, costly, and unreliable,” says Maxim Shkvaruk, investment director at Atlas Ventures. “Accio is one of the very few companies in the world that addresses the issue by providing a real-time, wireless monitoring solution for sensors in harsh environments.“

The startup also targets to expand into other asset-heavy industries, such as oil and gas, energy, and power infrastructure, where data-driven risk management stands at the forefront of smarter and faster operations.

Last year, Ackcio completed its pre-Series A fundraising with co-lead investors Wavemaker Partners and Michael Gryseels.

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Image Credit: Ackcio

 

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Leading Southeast Asian  VC firm Monk’s Hill Ventures (MHV) today announced the launch of the Venture Scouts programme.

The programme comprises over 20 venture scouts, who will nurture and invest in high-growth pre-seed and seed startups across Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

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

Monk’s Hill Ventures’s Venture Scouts community brings together exceptional founders, entrepreneurs, and operators with solid startup track records. They also represent a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. The venture scouts include Bukalapak co-founder Achmad Zaky, Snapcart co-founder Araya Noon Hutasuwan, Zopim co-founder Royston Tay, R Fitness founder Gita Sjahrir,  Pace Enterprise founder Turochas Fuad, and RAENA co-founder Sreejita Deb.

According to Monk’s Hill Ventures, one of the key differentiators is the strength of the Venture Scouts in the programme. “Each venture scout has a strong background/track record as a founder, operator, and entrepreneur, which we believe will add the most value to seed-stage startups and the tech ecosystem from day one,” said a spokesperson.

Venture Scouts are directly responsible for sourcing, vetting, and investing in startups. They invest across verticals and markets.

“The Southeast Asia tech ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly with brave founders emerging to reimagine traditional business models. At MHV, we believe in entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs. Through this programme, we empower founders to support fellow founders from day one,” said Peng T. Ong, co-founder and managing partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.

Also Read: A horse of another: Here’s the full list of Southeast Asia’s 22 unicorns

To date, Venture Scouts have made ten investments in verticals, including consumer, B2B, fintech, and sustainability. This includes Crystal Widjaja, CPO of Kumu, who recently invested in ADPList, a global mentoring platform, and John Tan, founder of Doyobi, who invested in Rocket Academy, an online coding boot camp.

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Image Credit: Monk’s Hill Ventures

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Adatos, a provider of Artificial Intelligence-driven remote sensing analysis for agriculture and carbon markets, has announced the closing of its Series A round with undisclosed investment from Malaysia’s Genting Plantations.

As per a statement, the funding will enable Singapore- and Netherlands-based Adatos to foray into the palm oil and other agriculture sectors and strengthen its carbon measuring capabilities.

Founded in 2015 by CEO Jonathan Paul and CTO Drew Perez, Adatos uses AI to analyse complicated open-source satellite data sets to give operational and strategic insights for agriculture and the fast-growing multi-trillion dollar carbon markets. 

Adatos claims its solution results in higher agricultural yields, effective fertiliser use, and better pest and disease surveillance. The use of remote sensing also speeds up and lowers the cost of carbon measurement in natural forests and peat soils.

The startup boasts that it has worked on over 150 use cases and analysed over 400 million hectares of assets for clients in agricultural production, food processing, forestry, and natural resource management.

Also read: Green for good: 9 agritech startups in Southeast Asia fighting deforestation

Adatos plans to keep developing new applications across agriculture, including remote yield estimation and crop macronutrient measurement. It also expands into international carbon asset monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) services, including remotely assessing peat depth and above-ground biomass at scale. 

“Since our investment in 2016, Adatos has demonstrated profitable use cases for advanced AI from agriculture to sustainability,” said Paul Santos, Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners, an early investor in Adatos. 

Genting Plantations, a subsidiary of Genting Berhard, owns extensive land banks and oil mills in Malaysia and Indonesia and is making inroads into manufacturing downstream palm-based products. It focuses on the use of precision agriculture to leverage its operational performance. 

“Our investment in Adatos and the deployment of its cutting-edge AI will place GENP at the forefront of the Agricultural Technology revolution,” said Tan Kong Han, CEO of Genting Plantations.

According to the Asian Development Bank Institute’s paper series in 2019, emission pricing was worth US$50 billion in 2016 with growing global interest in carbon trading programmes. The number of carbon markets has also doubled since 2012.

Singapore is working towards the “30 by 30” goal to build up the agri-food industry’s capability and capacity to produce 30 per cent of nutritional needs locally and sustainably by 2030. Since then, collaboration to accelerate the growth of AgriTech businesses has gained traction. 

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Image credit: Adatos

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Just hours after Indonesian fintech startup Xendit announced its entry into the billion-dollar club, Singapore’s leading classifieds company Carosell Group entered the unicorn club by bagging a US$100M financing.

The round, led by Korean PE firm STIC Investments, takes Carousell’s valuation to US$1.1 billion.

Carousell said in a press note that it would use the money to “redefine commerce for second-hand goods and automobiles in an increasingly digitally-savvy, affluent and sustainability-conscious region”.

Quek Siu Rui, co-founder and CEO, said Carousell will deepen its investments in re-commerce across more categories and markets and will continue to seek opportunistic acquisitions in scaling up.”

Also Read: Carousell mulling US listing via SPAC merger at US$1.5B valuation: report

“The pandemic has shown us that our mission to inspire the world to start selling and buying second-hand is more relevant than ever. People in the community are using our platforms to make possible for each other—through shared passions, making ends meet, affording what they need, or simply because it is more sustainable. We believe that the accelerated adoption of digital experiences is an opportunity for us to double down on our re-commerce efforts with a focus on convenience and trust, to unlock step-change growth in our community,” he added.

Launched in August 2012, Carousell began in Singapore and is present in eight markets across Asia. As of last September, the firm had over 250 million listings across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The marketplace has a diverse range of products across various categories, including cars, lifestyle, gadgets and fashion accessories. It also owns and operates Cho Tot (Vietnam), Mudah (Malaysia), OneKyat (Myanmar), and Revo Financial (Singapore).

“We have grown way beyond categories like fashion, electronics and general goods,” said Siu Rui, “As the region becomes more affluent, people want to enjoy the finer things in life. We are looking at authentication capabilities for higher-value products, including luxury goods and cars. Our goal is to make transacting in a second-hand marketplace as convenient and trusted as any e-commerce platform so that second-hand can truly be the first choice. ”

Also Read: Exceptional founders to nurture, invest in promising startups as part of Monk’s Hill Ventures’s new programme

Early this year, Carousell launched integrated shipping with PosLaju (the Malaysia national postal service) to provide contactless transaction options for sellers and buyers during the Movement Control Order.

Before this round, Carousell has raised over US$260 million via several rounds. They included a US$80 million from a consortium of companies in September 2020 and US$56 million from OLX in April 2019. Carousell’s other investors include Telenor Group, Rakuten Ventures, Sequoia India and Naspers.

In 2019, it made a series of acquisitions to accelerate leadership in Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, including 701Search, the classifieds firm owned by Norwegian telco Telenor Group, and OLX Philippines.

In June, a Bloomberg report said citing undisclosed sources that Carousell was mulling public listing in the US via the merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The listing could occur as soon as the end of this year.

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Image Credit: Carousell

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Medigo, a Vietnam-based medtech platform, today announced that it has raised US$1 million in seed funding from Vietnam-based early-stage VC Touchstone Partners.

Medigo will use the funding to strengthen its technology and operation, increase customer base and expand the pharmacy network with a high number of stock-keeping units (SKUs).

A portion of the capital injection will also be utilised to build Medigo’s telemedicine that provides customer teleconsultation with doctors. This is in line with the product roadmap of Medigo as a connecting platform.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Ha Le, an experienced engineer returning to Vietnam from Germany, Medigo aims to connect users with remote and high-quality healthcare services that provide on-demand medicine delivery 24/7. It helps people find the nearest licensed pharmacies and order medicine to be delivered within 20 minutes.

The company claims that it has formed partnerships with more than 200 pharmacies including large pharmacy chains and hospital pharmacies across three key cities of Vietnam. These partners are all required to be certified and licensed by Vietnam’s Ministry of Health with experienced and dedicated pharmacists.

Also Read: GlobalCare bags funding from VinaCapital to provide insurtech solutions to Vietnamese insurance firms, agents

Medigo CEO said that most Vietnamese go to pharmacies as the first touchpoint for their medical symptoms. However, their quality is hard to verify. 

“We want to use medicine delivery as a feature to educate users of online healthcare services and be familiar with remote pharmacists and doctors’ consultation, building a strong foundation for Medigo’s future telemedicine services,” stated Medigo CEO Ha Le. 

Le added that Medigo is also developing more service offerings such as advertising and ordering medicine in bulk for the pharmacies in the network.

According to the press statement, Medigo is gaining traction by helping people buy medicine remotely from the comfort of their homes, especially during lockdowns. The firm boasts that its gross merchandise value (GMV) has increased eight times with more than 200,000 users in the past six months. These pharmacies partners have also registered a 20-50 per cent increase in revenue.

“We believe this trend will stay as we enter a re-opening period while still managing the pandemic in Vietnam,” said Tu Ngo, general partner of Touchstone Partners. “The investment also aligns with our ESG-friendly investment principles, building a platform for affordable and accessible high-quality healthcare services to the mass in Vietnam.”

The deal is one of the first investments of Touchstone Partners’s US$50 million debut fund since launching in April this year. The firm’s sectors of interest include fintech, real estate, healthcare, edutech, and technology that enhances efficiency in major Vietnamese value chains such as manufacturing and agriculture.

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In Vietnam, 70 per cent of the Vietnamese population is living in rural or remote areas, which is a boon for the telehealth market to help address the medical personnel shortage and reduce overall healthcare costs.

According to the Facts and Factors market research report, the global telehealth market’s revenue is slated to grow to US$475.50 billion by 2026 at an annual CAGR of 26.5 per cent during 2021-2026.

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Image credit: Medigo

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