This article runs in collaboration with Makan For Hope, a non-profit initiative by Asia Startup Network. The Makan For Hope Festival brings together notable mentors and aspiring entrepreneurs in 30 meaningful virtual conversations over food to raise S$125,000 for Fei-Yue to support the children and seniors from low-income families.

A few traits come to mind whenever you consider the success of the Silicon Valley ecosystem: be it the steady flow of entrepreneurs, a pipeline of brilliant tech minds or groundbreaking research that flows out from the neighbouring top universities, or easy access to a saturated pool of wealthy investors and funds.

During one of 30 Makan For Hope Festival sessions, hosted by Kuo-Yi Lim, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures, a group of us gathered to discuss whether Singapore was set on its path to becoming the Silicon Valley (SV) of Asia. The question at hand has also been discussed by those beyond our shores, such as a 2020 article in Techcrunch that stated that Singapore is poised to become the next Silicon Valley.

Indeed, Singapore shares quite a few similarities with SV, while boasting our own unique advantages in the region, such as:

• Over 4,000 tech-enabled startups, a handful of unicorns and aspiring unicorns, and, over 100 accelerators and incubators, as shared in a PWC report
• High quality education institutes churning out top-notch talents
• A growing number of VC funds within the startup ecosystem – with 45 new funds authorized in 2019 alone!
• A myriad of big tech companies packed together, which provides the startup ecosystem with mentorship and early funding opportunities.
• A long-standing track record as a leader in venture capital investments, drawing in four billion dollars and accounting for well over half the total aggregate value of deals in the Asean region, in 2020
• And, strong governmental support with close to a third of a billion dollars set aside to grow the ecosystem

At present, Singapore is clearly the frontrunner within Southeast Asia. Still, what would it take for us to secure its position as Asia’s Silicon Valley?

On August 9, we turned yet another year older as a nation. I am reminded of Prime Minister Lee’s words years back, at the National Day Rally 2016:

“What I would like to have is that we are blessed with divine discontent. Always not being quite satisfied with what we have, always driven to do better. At the same time, we have the wisdom to count our blessings, so that we know how precious Singapore is, and we know how to enjoy it and to protect it.”

Let us take a moment to look back at how much our startup ecosystem has developed, and plot out what our path ahead could look like.

Also Read: Meet the new batch of 8 Vietnamese startups joining VSV Capital’s accelerator programme

While the government has done a remarkable job, it may need to place more ambitious bets to bring us to the next level

Our host for this session, Kuo-Yi, shared that the government had indeed played an outsized role for Singaporean startup ecosystem to arrive at where it is today. He credited the government’s patience and willingness to focus on the long term goal— something that may be hard for many other countries which require short-term tangible results to justify their investment into the startup ecosystem.

The government has also continued to support startups, through providing grants to entrepreneurs, such as the S$50,000 SG Founder Grant. However, given the high hiring and living costs in Singapore, Nigel Lim, CEO of Payboy, quipped that perhaps the government could consider writing larger cheques to enable entrepreneurs to cope better with the startup costs. Elise Tan, founder of Asia Startup Network, added that along with the larger grant amount, there could also be more dedicated mentorship support, as well as measurable milestones to keep these expenses in check.

While we have an undeniably well-educated workforce, mindsets and cultures need to shift to encourage Singaporeans to take more risks

Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures, reminded us that Singapore already had a high level of academic excellence – for example, other countries are often intimidated by Singapore’s Mathematical rankings, O and A level scores, or, when Singaporean students take classes in Western universities! Yet, this constant strive for academic excellence might just be Singaporean’s own stumbling block – do we dare to take risks, make mistakes and startup, or will we be held back by our own fear of failure?

Kuo-Yi also mentioned that Singaporeans tended to be overly fixated on linear career pathways, beginning from the time we start schooling. In fact, as a product of the system, he had studied to become a doctor initially, just like most of his friends – a decision that was made when he was only 12 years old! Yet, he argued, that the world is never linear. We live in societies that are in constant flux and most people in other countries actually have non-linear career paths.

To that end, Sanjay Gujral, Chairman at the Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (SVCA), encouraged Singaporeans to try and study or work overseas for at least a couple of years, as the exposure will add a differentiated world view as compared with the relative certainty and efficiency that Singapore provides.

While our educational institutions are pedagogically robust, we need to empower people to broaden their horizons and establish crucial networks beyond the island

Yiping added that, after all, going to school was not just about getting educated. It was also a lot about being in a tightly knitted community and network. In institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, INSEAD, Tsinghua, one gets more than just classes, but also an affiliation to its strong alumni network that often accords trust to its members.

These institutions also churn out many incredibly successful alumni that tended to give back to their schools too. She shared about the US-effect or China-effect, where a few extremely high-achieving entrepreneurs would not just do well themselves, but be effective in inspiring those within their own alma mater and country. To that end, she suggested the need to push Singaporeans to go overseas to broaden their networks, and for local universities to build a culture of a tight knitted alumni community that seeks to help each other and to give back.

Moving ahead, programmes such as National University of Singapore Overseas College Program or Singapore Management University’s Global Innovation Immersion would be crucial in enabling Singaporean students to broaden their horizons and networks in meaningful ways. At the same time, we need to gear these students sent abroad with the necessary networking skills to make those few months count.

Also Read: How these India-based startups are changing the way we live, play, and learn

All in all, how close is our startup ecosystem to becoming Asia’s Silicon Valley?

At present, according to The Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020 by Startup Genome, Singapore was ranked 17th place, trailing behind Beijing (4th), Shanghai (8th), and Tokyo (15th). Our ecosystem is valued at US$21 billion – in contrast, Beijing’s ecosystem is valued at ~16.4x greater, at US$345 billion.

Without a doubt, Singapore loses out by the sheer size of our population and corresponding talent pool. Ye, our strong and open business environment, coupled with our commitment to fair and safe innovation … might just be our winning edge.

After all, one would not need to look too far into the past to see the opposite scenario play out, such as when Jack Ma’s declaration that “we cannot regulate the future with yesterday’s means” crossed the Community part and led to governmental regulations being thrown his way.

In this case, could Singapore be seen as the more predictable, safer and thus more reliable alternative moving ahead? An irony that the very traits that stifle personal risk-taking that we need to address as a culture, is the very reason why we might just retain our cutting-edge position in the world.

While much remains to be done for Singapore, the future sure looks promising!

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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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Synqa Group (formerly Omise Holdings), a blockchain-powered fintech company based in Thailand, announced today it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Eventpop, an online platform for event creators in the country.

While neither of the companies officially disclosed the transaction details, a well-placed source told e27 that the amount is 8-digit USD.

“Synqa does not disclose the acquisition price, but the price is eight digit USD,” the person said on the condition of anonymity. “Early-stage investors got more than 5x returns. The late-stage investors also got some returns.”

We are contacting Synqa as well as Eventpop for more details, and will update this article as and when we hear from them.

As per a statement, Synqa believes Eventpop can help further its group vision of providing access to financial products for everyone across the globe, allowing it to reach users in new creative ways. EventPop is one of the top customers of Synqa payment gateway (Omise).

The two firms had earlier collaborated to develop an omnichannel e-commerce platform that focuses on digitising operational processes and providing a solution where business users can offer products to customers seamlessly. The product is slated to launch by the end of the year.

“Our relationship with Eventpop goes way back when we first started our payment businesses. In the past few years, we have been partnering with Eventpop, working on projects together. By collaborating on previous projects, we could have a deeper understanding of each other’s strengths. By combining forces, I believe we can grow to become a stronger company,” said Jun Hasegawa, founder and CEO of Synqa.

Started in 2015, Eventpop has developed an end-to-end digital ticketing and event management platform. It enables organisations to provide a range of services, including customising web pages for events, digital and physical ticketing, and event check-in tools. Organisers can also use its analytics tools to manage their events more efficiently.

Also Read: Synqa lands US$80M in Series C funding round led by SCB 10X, SPARX Group

The event industry was one of the hardest hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To continue to scale the business during these difficult times, Eventpop expanded into new sectors that would allow it to leverage its existing technologies, such as 020 solutions and platform user experience specialisation, bringing innovative approaches to new industries.

Since its inception, Eventpop has secured US$2.5 million in funding from five investors, including KK Fund and InVent. It includes a US$2 million Series A in September 2017.

Eventpop’s business as an event platform provider will continue to grow under Synqa, strengthening its platform capabilities to prepare as the world slowly returns to normal.

A demand for a multifaceted experience will increase, requiring innovative solutions to provide an excellent customer experience. By joining forces, Eventpop will further solidify its position as an event platform provider and Synqa to grow its product ecosystem.

Founded in 2015, Synqa specialises in online payments and blockchain technology for fintech applications. As of June last year, the company had more than 140 employees spread across offices in Bangkok, Tokyo, Singapore, and Jakarta.

A year ago, Synqa raised US$80 million in a Series C funding round, led by SCB 10X and SPARX Group. The round also saw participation from Toyota Financial Services Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, SMBC Venture Capital, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Corporation and other investors.

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Image Credit: Synqa

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Cloud kitchen is not an entirely new concept in Indonesia. In a sense, Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut are cloud kitchens and have been around for many years. These fast-food chains follow a model wherein a single kitchen is managed and operated by a single brand focused only on delivery and takeout.

This model has evolved over the years and adopted a ‘co-working style’, accommodating multiple brands from the same or different owners operating on the same premises.

Trends indicate that cloud kitchens are fast becoming a vital part of the food delivery market in Indonesia. According to a March 2021 report by Savills Research, the cloud kitchen market in the archipelago is on a growth trajectory. The tech pioneers in the space are Grabkitchen (Grab) and Dapur Bersama (Gojek).

As the industry grew, the list of companies entering the sector also increased. Savills estimates that seven operators in Jakarta alone operate 70 cloud kitchen branches comprising 500-plus kitchen pods. The names include Yummy Corp., Hangry, Everplate, Kita Kitchen, Telepot Co-Kitchen, and Eatsii.

The different models

Cloud kitchen encompasses mainly three business models:

• Online food court or space rental (e.g. Everplate, GrabKitchen, and GoFood)
• Online restaurants (e.g. Hangry and Dailybox)
• Managed kitchens (e.g.Yummykitchen by Yummy Corp.)

Then there are companies such as Lookalkitchen, which aim to connect underutilised commercial kitchens with a network of brands to create revenue-sharing opportunities. 

The archipelago started seeing some interest in cloud kitchens in late 2018, and it became a full-blown topic in 2019. An already booming food delivery industry contributed to this boom.

In addition, some F&B brands have been able to gain significant volume from food delivery channels and significantly higher ROI than traditional restaurants.

Millennials also accelerated this growth. This new generation of youngsters is already familiar and dependent on on-demand delivery due to their tech-savvy nature and busy lifestyles within urban and rural cities. 

Also Read: How Philippine cloud kitchen industry is piggybacking on the country’s unique food culture, shifting customer behaviour

The COVID-19 effect

However, the most significant contributor to this accelerated growth has been COVID-19.

“The cloud kitchens sector has been growing tremendously through the pandemic as F&B brands get disrupted in the traditional model of serving up food to consumers,” said Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures. “This trend will continue as the pandemic evolves into an endemic eventually. Indonesian F&B owners are tired of the numerous, extended lockdowns imposed and are forced to look for new models that are more endemic-resilient.”

She, however, believes that it is still early days in the cloud kitchen growth story. More innovation in the model, especially in the food delivery and experience, will continue to grow.

Momentum Works notes that the online food delivery market size in Southeast Asia nearly tripled in size from US$4.3 billion in 2019 to US$11.9 billion in 2020, mainly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Indonesia, which alone accounts for 31 per cent of the opportunity mentioned above, the growth is filled with inequity. Kitchens — which are slow to adapt, conduct rapid menu changes, and adopt new technology and marketing strategies — continue to fall behind. 

“In general, the pandemic has greatly accelerated the digital adoption of most digital services; online food delivery is no exception. This is because people are still confined to their homes, and dining out option is not feasible,” said Abraham Viktor, CEO of Hangry.

However, Mario Suntanu, CEO and co-founder of Yummy Corp., believes that regardless of COVID-19, consumer behaviour was moving towards significant consumption via food delivery due to a population that was getting busier and the traffic that was getting worse. 

“Cloud Kitchen mainly addresses the merchant problem, and the merchant problem remains the same. It’s just that the urgency was higher during the pandemic, which accelerated the adoption,” he noted.

“We learned that products that sell well via delivery channels hadn’t been necessarily the same products that sell well in malls and shopping centres, especially when seen from the perspective of form and pricing. So it means that as malls open, there may be some readjustments of share of wallet, but overall the intersection of consumers would not be large enough,” Suntanu stated.

Branding and maintaining quality are key

Viktor believes that as a brand, the most significant risk for Hangry is not earning customer’s love but maintaining food quality (and consistency) and branding.

“One one of the main challenges is how to keep our product consistent among all of our outlets, including the taste, quality, and how we package it. As a brand, we should also stand out from other F&B companies so customers can choose us from the available brands,” he said.

Also Read: Hangry swallows US$13M Series A to scale its cloud kitchen and multi-brand concept in Indonesia

The other task at hand is to ensure that delivered food is of the best quality. “For traditional F&B companies that started as a dine-in service, it will be more challenging to do food delivery. It is because their operations are designed to serve good quality food for quick consumption,” Viktor elaborated. “But when it comes to delivery, it is challenging for them to maintain the same quality even after it is prepared and delivered by the rider. 

“In our case, our operations have been streamlined since the beginning. Our recipe has been optimised to maintain the highest possible quality and consistency, even after the food delivery,” he claimed.

Hangry follows a multi-brand culinary model; it builds all of the brands by itself. In other words, it has developed its proprietary cloud kitchen-inspired concept that it uses exclusively to support its brands.

Startups such as Lookalkitchen work with highly scalable brands that are easy to prepare and have a high taste quality. “Brands invest in expansion through a revenue-sharing structure with the partner kitchen, and everybody earns revenue only when a transaction is made,” said Peter Choi co-founder and CEO of Lookalkitchen and ex-VP of Gojek.

“As a result, Lookalkitchen provides the quickest way for a brand to expand and enables them to open up new locations in less than two weeks. We help outlets onboard to the delivery platforms, and in parallel, we set up the technology and operations,” Choi noted.

Investments are pouring in

The amount of capital injected into the sector has been on the rise, evident from the number of players in the market compared to a few years ago. VCs and prominent tech companies, especially ride-hailing giants, have doubled down on their cloud kitchen facilities in Indonesia.

Recently, Yummy Corp. extended its Series B round with an investment from Sembrani Nusantara, a fund managed by BRI Ventures. This round came less than a year after it bagged US$12 million in Series B, led by Softbank Ventures Asia, in September 2020.

Hangry has also seen some investment coming in in the recent past. In May, Hangry announced “oversubscribed” funding of US$13 million in an Alpha JWC Ventures-led Series A round.

But why is the vertical attracting investors? 

The cloud kitchen startups are fixing many operational efficiencies and pain points from both the operator’s and the customer’s perspectives.

Additionally, the F&B industry always offers ample opportunities with new trends constantly emerging. As a result, this space has attracted investors from private equity, venture capital, and even strategic investors such as large F&B groups (both local and foreign).

“With a cloud kitchen, customers have instant access to many choices for cuisines with the convenience of one order and location while businesses have better operational efficiencies, better unit economics, and access to more comprehensive customer data. In addition, with multiple brands at play, operators have more customer data that they can leverage off of to have greater insight when determining the next brand to create,” according to Eko Kurniadi, Partner at Alpha JWC Ventures. 

He further noted that today, F&B infrastructure is more established with technology at the forefront, from the customer-facing point of view to the business supply chain and operations. As a result, local brands start to thrive, bringing processes to international standards. 

“Online food aggregators help F&B players to extend their coverage. Leveraging data is important to build a sustainable brand; players establish direct-to-consumer channels by launching their apps to order and even deliver. Furthermore, supporting systems like ERP and POS that allow businesses to digitise their workflow and continually improve their economies are getting mass adoption,” Kurniadi elaborated.

A bright future

Nicko Widjaja, CEO at BRI Ventures, believes that only 37 million people use food delivery, accounting for billions of dollars of untapped potential each year. As this model helps merchants grow their businesses providing more options to customers, the Indonesian cloud kitchen industry is heading to a bright future. 

“Cloud kitchens help small businesses to stay afloat amidst the pandemic by helping reduce capex and give them access to stronger partnerships with online platforms such as Grab, Gojek, Shopee and so on,” he remarked.

“There is a considerable high barrier to entry, as operating a cloud kitchen requires heavy capital. Therefore, local nuance is highly required in helping this model grow — just as home-grown startups have been successfully working in the Middle East (Kitopi), the US (Kitchen United), and India (Rebel Foods), to some sense.

Also Read: Gojek’s VC arm invests US$5M in India’s cloud kitchen startup Rebel Foods

“Providing a standardised food court does not work, as different areas have different favourite F&B types. Partnering with various cuisines makes cloud kitchen play a modular one, thus making this model very interesting to grow in Indonesia,” Widjaja went on.

But are cloud kitchens missing out on something?

Indonesia has a rich entrepreneur culture, and food-selling is the largest category among micro and small businesses. Many people make food, sells it through social media, and use services such as Gojek or Grab to deliver the food products to customers.

“This trend is growing, and these kinds of businesses are becoming more popular. However, it doesn’t look like cloud kitchens are tapping into this massive opportunity,” said my colleague Anisa Menur, who hails from Jakarta.

If the current consumption and investment trends are anything to go by, cloud kitchens are here to stay. But the success of this model depends on the quality of the food delivered in the quickest possible time. “Cloud kitchen would need to be carving out a distinctive experience to elevate the overall food delivery experience, such as speed, customer service, and packaging,” remarked Yummy Corp.’s Suntanu.

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Photo by Eugenia Clara on Unsplash

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Parcel Perform, a Singapore-headquartered cloud-based delivery experience platform for e-commerce businesses, announced today that it has secured US$20 million in Series A investments led by Cambridge Capital.

New investor SoftBank Ventures Asia also joined the round, alongside existing investors Wavemaker Partners and Investible.

The startup will use the strategic investment to expand globally, build out its technology offerings, and invest further in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. It includes scaling its proprietary ‘Date of Arrival’ prediction engine that allows customers to know precisely when their parcels will arrive.

With over 100 employees across Asia-Pacific and Europe, the new funding will also enable the company to establish a regional headquarters in North America and grow to 150 employees globally by the end of the year.

Parcel Perform was co-founded by Dr Arne Jeroschewski (CEO) and Dana von der Heide (chief commercial officer). Jeroschewski previously co-founded Zalora and was its CEO. He has also held senior leadership roles in Singapore Post and DHL, where he worked with der Heid.

Also Read: SaaS parcel tracking platform Parcel Perform lands in Europe

The startup enables modern e-commerce enterprises to create “unique end-to-end customer journeys” and optimise logistics operations with data integrations, parcel tracking, delivery notifications and logistics performance reports in real-time.

It claims its SaaS platform executes more than 100 million parcel updates daily. It has integrated with 700-plus carriers, providing real-time visibility of tracking data and helping businesses to increase customer lifetime value by up to 40 per cent.

With offices in Singapore, Vietnam and Germany, the firm claims its revenue grew 5x since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parcel Perform’s clients include Nespresso, Decathlon, and Singapore-based Love, Bonito.

The startup recently extended its B2C website Parcel Monitor — initially a tracking service for end-consumers — into a global community page providing free access to logistics data insights for e-commerce logistics professionals.

In 2018, Parcel Perform raised a US$1.1 million seed round from Wavemaker Partners, and 500 Durians.

“With e-commerce becoming the primary retail channel, the need for merchants to provide an excellent post-purchase experience has become business-critical. Parcel Perform is uniquely positioned to capitalise on this opportunity with its enterprise-grade solutions and its globally standardised logistics data integrations,” said CEO Jeroschewski.

Based in the US, Cambridge Capital is an investment firm focused on the applied supply chain. It provides private equity to finance the expansion, recapitalisation or acquisition of growth companies in transportation, logistics and supply chain technology.

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Image Credit: Parcel Perform

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Pintu, a mobile-first crypto wallet and trading platform in Indonesia, has secured US$35 million in an extended Series A financing, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Existing investors, including Alameda Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, and Castle Island Ventures, also joined the round.

The first tranche of this round came from Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures and Coinbase Ventures in late May — bringing Pintu’s total Series A investment to US$41 million.

With the fresh capital, Pintu aims to aggressively employ fresh people across all major functions and build Indonesia’s “largest cryptocurrency exchange”.

Besides, Pintu also plans to develop new products and features to improve user experience and make inroads into other asset classes, as well as to conduct mass-market education programmes.

“As the fourth-most populous country in the world and with only 1-2 per cent of Indonesians having exposure to cryptocurrencies, there is an immense opportunity for retail investors to gain access to diversified and dynamic investment opportunities through Pintu’s unique crypto assets trade offerings,” said Jeth Soetoyo, co-founder and CEO of Pintu.

Also read: Coinbase Ventures, others invest in Indonesia’s crypto exchange Pintu

Founded in 2020, Pintu provides solutions to deal with the pain points of investing in crypto-assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum for millennials and retail users. It “offers comprehensive trading tools, simple UI/UX, advanced security features”, and educational content to assist investors in trading, analysing, managing assets, and learning about cryptocurrencies.

Pintu also claims that its app downloads saw a 3.5x rise in the first half of 2021, accompanied by a 4x rise in active traders on the platform — all through organic growth.

The platform currently supports 16 different dynamic cryptocurrencies for trading. It intends to add more coins in high demand by investors, including NFT tokens.

According to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, there were over 6.6 million crypto investors in Indonesia as of June 2021, almost twice the country’s 2.2 million public equities investors.

Government support has been the strong tailwind for Indonesian crypto-assets development as it promotes regulations to ensure safe and responsible crypto asset investing activities through legally licensed crypto-assets brokers such as Pintu.

In 2018, the Indonesian Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (also known as Bappepti) under the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia has elected to regulate bitcoin and other crypto-assets as commodities.

Other Indonesian cryptocurrency exchanges are Indodax and Binance-backed Tokocrypto.

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Image Credit: Pintu

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Some of the biggest barriers to technology adoption are whether a business has a need for it, if they can afford it, and if it drives value. Perhaps this is why the food and beverage industry, a primarily offline and relationship-driven sector with tight margins and legacy practices, had never quite seen the need for technology adoption, until the pandemic. 

In what has been possibly the toughest 18 months for any customer-facing industry, F&B has been hit particularly hard. In Singapore, some venues have reported losing as much as 90 per cent of their revenue, while others went under, despite their best efforts. 

These aren’t easy circumstances to bounce back from, but there is a silver lining. Many F&B businesses are now sharing their experience of how being backed up against the wall actually pushed them to pause, pivot or overhaul how they do business.

Whether that’s exploring new avenues for revenue generation, optimising their workforce and back offices, or planning ahead to future-proof for the long-term.

Technology, while far from being a silver bullet, has played a crucial role in enabling these changes. Growing competition and demand has also driven down prices and improved its accessibility to businesses of all sizes, yet participation remains an obstacle to widespread adoption within F&B. 

At OrderEZ, we’ve seen these challenges play out in many ways for our clients over the last year, as well as the opportunities.

After speaking with countless distributors, craft brewers, distillers and roasters, here’s our take on three (out of many) crucial ways in which technology can create value for them in the near and long term. 

Cashflow security 

The elephant in the room for businesses across the board, and particularly F&B, is cash flow management. The pandemic has made it clear that F&B businesses need more diversified revenue streams if they are to build their cash reserves and comfortably pay their staff during hard times.

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

We’ve seen this play out with many F&B businesses adopting bottled cocktails, for example, and/or adopting e-commerce solutions to reach their customers.

But what this points to overall is the need for a fluid business model that is agile enough to pivot and change. Ways of working have had to change. And while technology is not the only solution, it is a critical tool in building new revenue streams by allowing businesses to take a step back, review their business and see how they can reach new customers and make money. 

Supply chain security

One of the biggest lessons for F&B  has been prioritising supply chain security – something that was almost taken for granted pre-pandemic, and particularly in a hub like Singapore. Statistics show that globally, only 22 per cent of companies had a proactive supply chain strategy and that restaurants that used SaaS ordering systems were able to reduce wastage by over 80 per cent. The writing was on the wall, but it took a crisis of this magnitude to finally bring these concerns to a head.

With so many F&B businesses seeing their cash flow seriously impacted by pandemic-induced logistics issues, forward-thinking supply chain planning is becoming an  increasingly fundamental part of future-proofing.

Technology, be it inventory management, transparent ordering processes, data analysis or simply connectivity, will play a crucial role in enabling this. 

Workforce optimisation

Technology influences every aspect of business optimisation, but workforce is an incredibly crucial area for F&B businesses that often run on lean teams.  One prominent example of this is efficiency i.e. doing more with less and with less room for error.

Already, technology platforms such as ours that digitise manual processes and integrate with other software are helping create seamless workflows between different functions, from sales to accounting and HR. 

A less obvious example is the role of technology in connectivity and helping the workforce stay connected, accountable and productive, which goes a long way in improving  employer-employee relationships.

To drive employee participation in such solutions, the onus is on businesses to adopt systems and solutions that are simple, useful and effectively cater to their specific business needs. 

Different ways of working, new customer preferences and imminent crisis situations are here to stay– for the next few years at least, if not for good. The important thing for F&B businesses at this time is to move out of survival mode and into planning mode, with the last 18 months serving as a crystal ball for the years ahead of us. 

Also Read: Ghost kitchen startup MadEats makes it into Y Combinator, in talks for fresh round of investment

Technology will undoubtedly play a role in helping F&B businesses navigate and grow into the demands of the evolving industry landscape. What they do next comes down to which technology they choose, how it will serve their business, and how they can drive participation and value for both their employees and customers.

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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

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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The Indian market is up for a creative disruption. Increasing internet penetration, on top of the presence of a vibrant youthful population who are ready to explore new things in life, has left space for startups to bloom and alter our habits and lifestyle.

The sharp shift towards digital education, the culture of work-from-home, playing indoors has altered our consumer habits. The pandemic has even motivated us to take personal hygiene and health seriously.

Let us look at some startups that are here to make our lives easier.

ByteLearn

ByteLearn, an AI-powered EdTech startup is revolutionising education by building an AI assistant for math teachers and students. The name “Byte” stems from the concept of a 1-on-1, personalised tutor for students, which is also a super-powered assistant for teachers. The pandemic has caused a sharp shift to remote learning, thus burdening teachers and demotivating students. Teachers already have spread thin managing over 100+ students, and are struggling to assign and grade homework, provide immediate and personalised feedback, track individual knowledge gaps, and provide practice to remediate gaps. Students are hurt too as they often lack the immediate, short, targeted help they need while solving math problems. ByteLearn viewed this as a big market opportunity and created an AI assistant to do the heavy lifting and equip teachers with the superpowers that they need to teach and inspire students to reach their true potential.

Also read: How Malaysia’s ServisHero transforms Southeast Asia’s home service market

The founders, Aditya Singhal and Nishant Sinha, are IIT graduates and serial entrepreneurs with 15 years of experience in the EdTech industry. The startup’s team consists of talented AI/ML scientists who previously worked at IBM and Sun Microsystems, an education and content team affiliated with Teach for America and a product design team with previous experience at Khan Academy and Imagine Learning. With a robust team and vision, ByteLearn has raised a sizeable seed funding round from marquee VCs so far. ByteLearn is aiming to become a dominant market player as it uses cutting edge AI technology to create adaptive learning tools and envisions itself as one of the pioneers in changing the education landscape, thus solving both teachers and student problems. Its business model covers all bases, B2B and B2C, with both freemium and premium pricing strategies. ByteLearn has a clear product roadmap for the next 5 years as it plans to expand to global markets and cover subjects beyond Math.

Pariksha

Pariksha, founded by Karanvir Singh, Utkarsh Bagri, Vikram Shekhawat and Deepak Choudhary in 2015, is a vernacular EdTech company that seeks to make education accessible and affordable to students who may be first-time mobile users.

Today, Pariksha operates in 16 states, 8 languages and offers around 120 courses. With the increasing digitalisation of rural India, Pariksha aims to go phygital and presently operates from 3 blended learning centres. It has also launched India’s first education stack that seeks to empower education service providers.

ImaginXP

As India is focused on skilling its youth population, ImaginXP, a virtual university platform that ties to universities to provide degree programs or certification courses ranging from Bachelor of Design, BBA, MBA, B.Tech, and the like.

Founded by Shishir Kumar and Shashank Shwet in 2013 at Pune, ImaginXP has around 2,500 students enrolled in full-time degree programs.

The MyCoach platform connects companies with students so that students are imparted industry-relevant skills which would come in handy when they enter the job market. Today, more than 15,000 students are enrolled in this platform. The pandemic which has disrupted the traditional university programs has helped in propelling its growth.

Tamasha

Founded by Siddharth Swarnkar and Saurabh Gupta in 2020, Tamasha provides the ideal space for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.

Tamasha is a unique influencer-led live gaming platform where content creators and social media influencers can have the opportunity to host live online games.

Also read: Fintechs ushering in a new era for a more digital India

At a time when social media is booming and Youtubers are the new stars, Tamasha offers an exclusive space for the young talents to engage with their audience and figure out their game-plan.

Rooter

Founded by Akshat Goel, Piyush Kumar, and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter is a game streaming app available in 10 Indian languages. It allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and even create one’s gaming content. The views may get virtual benefits as well.

Today Rooter gets an average of over 80,000 live streams in a single day, and tournaments are held almost weekly. It presently occupies the top spot in the Sports section of Google Play Store.

Power Gummies

In a fast-moving consumer-centric world, we as individuals have neglected our health for too long. Power Gummies which seem simple, nutritious and attractive have offered a new alternative.

Founded by Divij Bajaj, also known as the gummy man of India, in 2018, Power Gummies has brought forth chewable vitamin gummies thereby influencing over 100,000 lives including many celebrities. Today the gummy man has made it to Business World 30 Under 30 Super Entrepreneurs of India 2021.

PeeSafe

Many women suffer from Urinary Tract Infection due to unhygienic sanitary practices. Starting as a toilet hygiene company, PeeSafe which was founded by Vikas Bagaria, Srijan Bagaria and Dheeraj Jain has been able to venture into women’s hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups and even intimate wash products for both men and women.

Today Pee Safe is accessible in more than 3000 stores, owns more than 90 per cent of the market in the toilet seat sanitiser category. It grew 80 per cent in the last financial year and expects a growth of 100 per cent over the next three years.

TruNativ

A health-conscious mind cares about the ingredients which go into the making of whatever he consumes. As many food products produced using harmful artificial ingredients crowd our FMCG marketplace, TruNativ claims that their products are environmentally conscious, they use only real food ingredients and their products are backed by science.

Also read: Going Global: Malaysia’s homegrown fintechs take on the world

Founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019 TruNativ Foods and Beverages is aware of urban malnourishment in our cities and wants to make a difference by converging health, hygiene, convenience and taste.

Raskik

Millenials want to experiment with their beverages and Raskik, a brand that produces natural fusion fruit juice is emerging as one of their options. Founded by Vikas Chawla, Abhay Parnekar and Satyajit Ram who were veterans of CocaCola, Raskik presently offers three variants of coconut water and fruit juice fusions at just 30 bucks.

The growing $2 billion fruit juice category has offered huge scope to experiment and dismantle the way we drink our favourite fruit juice.

Coutloot

We may have noticed that our local shopkeepers do not get sufficiently empowered by the presence of e-commerce giants. Coutloot, India’s largest offline to online social commerce platform, offers a solution in such a scenario.

Founded by Jasmeet Thind, Mahima Kaul and Vinit Jain in 2016, Coutloot enables the ‘local’ to be ‘vocal.’ Almost anyone can sell their products online in under 30 seconds and customers can even bargain! This is how the online marketplace is built and can be at par with the offline ones. 

Evenflow

E-commerce is going to be a $150 billion market by 2025. Consumers usually go for trusted brands while shopping online which puts new brands at a disadvantage.

Taking a cue from the US and Europe, Evenflow which was founded by Utsav Agarwal and Pulkit Chabbra offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloguing and new product development to third party brands who raise 80 per cent of their revenue through e-commerce. This is how local brands can be adequately empowered.

Entrepreneurs, investors and internet penetration offer the foundation of any start-up ecosystem. India is going strong on all parameters. This will change our lives for the better.

These startups will be pitching at the 9Unicorns Venture Catalysts demo day with other up-and-coming startups offering their unique products and services. Join them on August 11 and 12 to connect with some of the most promising young startups in a virtual networking session. To learn more, visit their official page here.

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Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 9Unicorns

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Fuse, an insurtech startup based in Indonesia, has announced the completion of its Series B funding, led by GGV Capital.

Existing investors, including EV Growth, SMDV, Golden Gate Ventures, Heyokha Brothers, and Emtek, also co-invested.

According to a Deal Street Asia report of June, Fuse raised US$30 million in this round.

A press statement said that the startup will use the new fund for the product and platform innovation and expanding into other markets in Southeast Asia.

Two industry veterans Andy Yeung and Ivan Sunandar launched Fuse in 2017 to solve the country’s last-mile trust gap in the insurance industry (97 per cent of Indonesians are underinsured for a lack of trust in the current system).

The startup has adopted an agent-focused model. The company, which claims to be offering instant closing and rapid claims processing, currently has more than 50,000 agent partners on its platform. Its total gross written premium (GWP) exceeded US$50 million (IDR 720 billion) in 2020.

Also Read: Fuse raises Series A funding from EV Growth, to multiply presence across country

It has partnerships with more than 30 insurance companies and 300 insurance products on the platform. It covers everything, from employee benefits to digital insurance embedded in e-commerce platforms.

In 2018, it supported Tokopedia in launching its first transactional top-up micro-insurance product.

In October 2019, Fuse secured “a couple of million USD” in Series A round from investors including EV Growth.

“We have always been very focused on product and platform innovation and will continue to invest into developing products and platforms that make insurance accessible and affordable for everyone in Southeast Asia. Seven insurance companies have already chosen Fuse to be their strategic Insurtech partner in Indonesia. Lastly, we will expedite to replicate our successful experience on Agent Partner and micro-insurance model to other parts of Southeast Asia, on top of Indonesia and Vietnam,” said CEO Andy Yeung.

“We made Fuse our first Insurtech investment in Southeast Asia as we believe it has the most thoughtful and strategically sound approach to insurance distribution in the region. Our experience in other emerging markets suggests that there is a ‘trust deficit’ in local communities that can be bridged by local leaders. They function as trust nodes in these localities. Similar to how a warung owner bridges the ‘trust deficit’ between FMCG brands and consumers, Fuse agent partners can bridge the ‘trust deficit’ between insurance brands and consumers”, said Jenny Lee, Managing Partner at GGV Capital.

GGV Capital is a global venture firm that invests in local founders. With US$9.2 billion under our management, it has investments in the US, Canada, China, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, and Israel. As a multi-stage, sector-focused firm, GGV invests in seed-to-growth stage companies across three sectors: social/internet, enterprise tech, and smart tech.

Over the past two decades, CGV has backed more than 400 companies around the world, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, Big Commerce, Boss Zhipin, Grab, HashiCorp, Hello, JD MRO, Keep, Kujiale, Manbang, NIU, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Qunar/Ctrip, Slack, Square, StockX, Udaan, Wish, Xpeng, Zendesk, Zuoyebang, and more.

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Image Credit: Fuse

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Vietnam Silicon Valley (VSV) Capital announced today it has invested up to US$50,000 each in eight startups through VSV Capital Accelerator Batch 7. They range from logistics, education to recruitment and sports.

The eight companies are:

• Song Nhat Tinh: a technology platform providing digitised solutions for Vietnam’s logistics
• ThingsTwin: a smart home monitoring app integrated with Samsung SmartThings
• uCall: an AI-applied callbot platform for businesses in telemarketing and customer services
• Nerman: a health and beauty care ecosystem for men with AI-integrated app
• MyLeague.vn: a planning and managing software for sports tournaments
• MarketingWorks: a leading recruitment platform for marketing jobs
• Future English: an effective English learning application using videos and podcasts
• Sunbot: a STEAM and robotics early education programme for pre-school.

Apart from an injection of the seed funding in cash, VSV Capital will provide a four-month intensive acceleration bootcamp as well as assistance packages from Amazon Web Services and Freshworks. In addition, VSV Capital will continue to accompany the startups for six to eight years in order to boost their business indicators, optimise costs and operation systems, and provide consulting in fundraising strategies.

“Although COVID-19 brings a lot of difficulties for startups and limitations for venture capital firms in evaluating and selecting startups to invest, this is also an opportunity for us to evaluate the endurance of the founding team and the agility in pivoting their business model,” said Tra Hoang, managing director at VSV Capital. “We expect that with the financial and non-financial resources of the programme, startups will have breakthrough growth and improve key business indicators despite the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Also read: Loship rakes in US$12M to grow its B2B delivery service for small stores, F&Bs in Vietnam

VSV Capital’s programme aims to help startups verify products and markets, optimise the business models and boost their business metrics by working directly with local and global experts from the VC firm on many common topics when operating businesses. Selected startups will have the opportunity to join the demo day on the final week of the bootcamp to prove their potential to domestic and international investors.

Founded in 2014 by veteran women entrepreneur Le Anh Thach, VSV Capital is Vietnam’s first accelerator and early-stage venture capital firm. The firm has invested in over 80 pre-seed and seed-stage companies with a few exits such as enterprise SaaS platform Base.vn, which was acquired by Vietnam’s IT giant FPT this May.

The VC firm claimed that nearly 70 per cent of its portfolio succeeded with the next funding rounds, such as Vulcan, Loship, Loop POS, Ship60, and Hachi. Loship recently raised US$12 million in a pre-Series C round co-led by Ant Group-backed BAce Capital and the direct investment unit of Sun Hung Kai & Co.

Besides accelerator programmes, VSV Capital also support follow-on deals and deals pipeline coming from its global VC network, targeting pre-Series A to Series B investments.

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Image credit: VSV Capital

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Gone are the days of in-store or online. Retail commerce – even in-store – has transformed almost completely into digital e-commerce, the term used to describe the blend of online and offline commerce that we all enjoy today.

Whether it is the purchases themselves or the payment methods used to facilitate them, digital platforms are now an integral part of the retail experience.

This has empowered brands with global aspirations to scale quickly across regions, reach new markets, and to gain market share. But it goes without saying that this is easier said than done.

In many parts of the world and has been evidenced in growing Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, digital transformation represents the growth of social economic consumer groups, internet infrastructure, and the prolific usage of smartphones.

However, in more established economies, these factors have enabled a range of transactions and payment methods that we can now recognise as forms of e-commerce– but it has evolved at different stages in different regions, with some markets witnessing a more competitive e-commerce landscape than others.

To take their slice of the pie, businesses of all sizes and industries need to match their payment capabilities to the regions in which they operate, ensuring the solution offered matches the market they are targeting, and is sensitive to its complexities and nuances.

The new commerce, from E to M

There is no longer a distinct line between “traditional” retail and e-commerce. Whether shopping online or in-person, for household supplies or clothing, traditional purchase behaviour tends to be routine and considered (as opposed to a one-off purchase).

And such transactions are always conducted with a preferred payment method, if a preferred payment method is not available, the purchase is unlikely to be completed.

Also Read: 8 mobile e-commerce platforms to help you achieve great prosperity

Apps have enabled pre-programmed transactions with automated payment authorisation. In fact, apps have been found to convert three times better than mobile websites.

For example, the likes of Grab and foodpanda have built their business around this on-demand model powered by apps that function like commerce utilities – these tend to be more spontaneous purchases made whenever the need arises.

Cards? Who needs cards?

While plastic cards may be used like cash in some economies, this payment behaviour is quickly being supplanted in the Asia Pacific region by even more convenient payment methods. For example, payment wallets like Fave or GrabPay and QR code payments are commonly used forms of payment in Singapore.

Such transactions are thought of as “pull” transactions since they pull the necessary funds from a store of value somewhere else. In this case, the web browser serves as the “wallet.”

It’s worth noting that app-based m-commerce is extremely effective in driving conversions because shoppers engage with their phones in such a habitual way: messaging, scrolling through social and news feeds, playing games (which are themselves often a form of m-commerce with their in-app purchases).

This almost reflexive behaviour lowers barriers to purchase, as does complete purchases utilising locally preferred payment methods.

Banks as brands, not places

As electronic platforms continue to enable increasingly efficient commerce, the distinctions between banks and payments companies are beginning to blur, with digital payment platforms beginning to function like banks. The implication for e-commerce and m-commerce is that purchase transaction behaviour will become even more reflected.

This also means the relationships between the local payment methods and the consumers who use them will become more closely aligned. This, in turn, means that merchants conducting cross-border commerce or serving international clientele need to tap into these systems if they are to thrive and grow their customer base.

In fact, the change to more convenient electronic payment methods tends to be driven by habits adopted by youth. This means the move to truly cashless commerce that does not rely on credit cards is inexorable and will accelerate, relying on a growing range of electronic local payment methods.

Retailers looking to succeed in this world will need to look past their websites or even their apps, all the way into their customers’ wallets.

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