MoEngage, a customer engagement platform with significant operations in Southeast Asia, has announced that it has secured  US$32.5 million in a Series C extension round, led by private equity firm Multiples Alternate Asset Management.

Existing investors Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and Matrix Partners also participated in the round, which is a mix of primary and secondary investments.

This follows a US$25-million Series C round led by Eight Roads in February last year.

The company will use the fresh capital to accelerate its global growth strategies and product innovation. In addition, MoEngage also intends to improve the AI and predictive capabilities of its platform.

“Over the last 12 months, we have seen rapid global adoption of insights-led customer engagement. Our customer base and recurring revenue have doubled in the last 12 months and our business growth in the US and Europe has tripled in the first half of 2021 as compared to the second half of 2020. This funding will help us further accelerate our global growth and product innovation,” Raviteja Dodda, co-founder and CEO of MoEngage, said.

“Over the last two years, we have made significant investments in Sherpa, our AI engine, to add a layer of intelligence,” added Dodda.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news: Cross-channel engagement platform MoEngage takes home US$25M Series C funding

Launched in 2014, San Francisco-headquartered MoEngage provides marketers and product managers with consumer behaviour data and the ability to act on those insights to engage customers across web, mobile, email, social, and messaging channels. 

It claims it serves clients in 35 countries with 250 new customers landed on the platform over the past year. Its clientele includes global consumer brands such as Ally Financial, McAfee, Flipkart, Nestle, T-Mobile, JD.ID, Telekom Malaysia, and Travelodge.

MoEngage has a presence in the UK, Germany, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. The firm also says its business growth tripled in the US and Europe H1 2021 as compared to the H2 of 2020.

The startup earlier raised US$9 million in Series B funding from Ventureast and Helion Venture in 2018. 

According to Accenture’s COVID-19 Consumer Survey of 2020, 71 per cent spent more time online during the crisis with 32 per cent of purchases being made online. This indicates the shift in customer behaviours and requires companies to develop better digital experiences to mirror the new way of living and working.  

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Image Credit: MoEngage

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Flying Cape, a Singapore-based edutech startup, announced today it has secured US$1.5 million in Series A investment from startup builder Start-up O, EduSpaze, and undisclosed angels.

The startup said in a press note that it will use the money to scale its operations across China and Southeast Asia. This will enable an interconnected educational ecosystem that brings Singapore’s education curriculum and content to international learners. 

Dr Paul Kim, CTO and Assistant Dean of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, has joined the Board of Advisors of Flying Cape. He will guide the construction of technological tools to support the startup’s educational development goals, recommendation framework, and methodology for curriculum development.

Founded in 2015, Flying Cape helps parents understand their children’s learning styles, hobbies, and passions. It also helps them identify appropriate classes for their children through tailored suggestions made by its proprietary SMART diagnostic assessment tools.

The company claims it is powering 10 SMART marketplaces that cater to a diverse range of learners, from children to adults. It has collaborated with almost 1,000 partners in Singapore and overseas. 

Also Read: Indonesian edtech startup HarukaEDU secures Series C funding led by American global trading firm SIG, expanding into B2B services

As the pandemic has transformed the education landscape, Flying Cape claims that its traffic and transaction volumes have risen by more than 400 per cent over the last 12 months. “Through this period, we have seen local education players in Singapore evolve, and emerge with more innovative digitalised content and engaging learning concepts to better prepare learners for the future,” said founder and CEO Jamie Tan.  

“To give learners more options for finding just the right fit for their learning, we are also working closely with overseas education providers to offer a larger variety of enrichment options — such as Chinese Language and Art educators from China and music instructors from London,” said  Lydia Ang, Head of Business Development at Flying Cape. 

Flying Cape plans to commence the Flying Cape Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) programme in China this September. It offers students the fundamental skills needed for higher education through the design of interactive learning modes supported by bilingual teachers. 

The expansion comes at a time when China applies an unprecedented crackdown on tutoring firms that are making a profit by teaching core subjects after school, and bars companies that operate edutech platforms from raising capital through initial public offerings.

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Image: Flying Cape

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One of the world’s most exciting tech startup ecosystems right now is Southeast Asia. Despite the pandemic, the region’s vibrant landscape drew investments of US$8.2 billion in 2020. Global tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have already taken note of Southeast Asia’s potential. And it’s not just investment from existing tech giants that make Southeast Asia such a hotspot for tech startups. Different startups are making headlines for mergers and acquisitions left and right.

This growth can primarily be attributed to the acceleration of digital adoption, much of it driven by the pandemic. In fact, there were 40 million new internet users in 2020. Furthermore, the region boasts a large pool of talented, ambitious youths. More than one in three youths from Indonesia, for instance, aspire to be entrepreneurs in the future.

Even though it is still a nascent market — about one in three internet users tried new digital services last year because of the pandemic — Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem is maturing at a rapid rate. The sectors of e-commerce, online media, travel and transport, agritech, financial services, healthtech, and edtech are predicted to hit a gross merchandise volume of more than US$300 billion by 2025. This is not surprising, with the region’s startups quickly making headway and 70 per cent of the population now online.

Malaysia is a great launchpad for startups that want to establish a presence in Southeast Asia.

Located in the heart of Southeast Asia, the country is already home to several established and growing startups. According to the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020, Malaysia is the 11th emerging startup destination in the world. Aside from the capital of Kuala Lumpur, other cities like Penang and Selangor also offer low costs of living and a deep pool of talent.

Malaysia is also culturally diverse, which provides global startups with a glimpse into the rest of Southeast Asia. For example, though the official language is Malay, it isn’t uncommon to find that almost everyone is proficient in English. Located next to tech hubs like Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore, Malaysia is a great place for startups looking to collaborate across borders and enter the Southeast Asian market.

Albert Alexander, Founder and CEO of Glueck Technologies, explained that “Malaysia has the right ingredients for global startups in terms of infrastructure and vibrant ecosystem being a cost-efficient destination with easy access to the ASEAN growing market.” Glueck Technologies is a tech startup that develops next-generation solutions that transform Human Computer Interaction with effective use of Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning,  and Deep Learning to build customer-centric solutions.

Also read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

The Malaysia-based company develops AI technology solutions that help detect patterns in vast volumes of data and also interpret their meaning. Their machine-learning applications are being used for a plethora of things, including predicting what a particular customer is likely to buy, repeat customers and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration for cross-selling and customer retention strategies, identifying credit fraud in real-time and detecting insurance claims fraud, analysing warranty data to identify safety or quality problems in automobiles and other manufactured products in factory automation and office automation (OA) used cases, and automating personalised targeting of digital out-of-home advertisements and derive ROI on ad spend, among others.

“It is useful for companies to look at AI through the lens of business capabilities rather than technologies. Broadly speaking, AI can support three important business needs: automating business processes, gaining insight through data analysis, and engaging with customers and employees,” shared Alexander.

He added, “We have developed products on a generic scale and also customised for a psychology lab for research and teaching and also a tech exhibition centre for people including school children to experience AI technologies in real-life applications in Malaysia.”

How Glueck is transforming industries its next-generation solutions

What makes Glueck unique in the market is their dedication to creating solutions designed to address customer-centric problems in a cost-effective way. They also provide a slew of choices of cloud or edge processing and user-friendly dashboards that can be customised for clients.

Among their roster of products and services are the Pandemic Tracker, Smart Media, Smart City, Retail Analytics, Security Systems, and Big Data Analytics — all of which seek to address different forms of human problems.

One of the company’s key milestones in its partnership with Taylor’s University with the support of HPE and NVIDIA. Together with Taylor’s University Centre for Human Excellence and Development (CHED), Glueck created a socio-behavioural laboratory equipped with AI—the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. The lab comes with 13 face-tracking cameras, a virtual reality interface, brain scanners, and emotion recognition software.

The goal of the project is simple: to identify micro facial expressions that can lead to a life-changing diagnosis for a person with mental health problems. To capture and process these tiny expressions, Taylor’s University turned to AI to observe and interpret the emotions of people with mental illness and special needs. Using emotion recognition software and machine learning, the university’s research is changing the way mental health is diagnosed and treated.

Also read: CloudMile raises US$20M to expand: accelerating the digital transformation agenda in Asia

A recent report by the non-profit Relate Mental Health Malaysia shows suicide as a leading cause of death among Malaysians aged 15 to 29. With this very relevant issue at hand and the many necessary measures that both public and private sectors must take, this partnership between the two institutions is poised to help young Malaysians everywhere.

The project uses emotion recognition software infused with deep learning technology to mimic the brain’s ability to recognise objects and movements. CHED and Glueck have designed the software specifically to perceive different facial expressions of people from diverse countries and ethnic backgrounds so it can help address early signs of depression before any real harm has been caused.

This is only one of the many solutions and partnerships involving Glueck Technologies that has made a significant material impact on the lives of people.

Accelerating Glueck’s expansion

Glueck, which serves as original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to HPE, DELL, Gigabyte, TECHDATA, and NVIDIA, has accomplished quite a number of recognitions across the global tech sector. They previously won as best Media tech from Cradle Malaysia which funded their seed money. The company also won Best Deep Tech/AI company in Malaysia and ASEAN, ultimately representing Malaysia in this category in China.

To date, the company has worked with clients in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, India, and Japan.  Glueck Technologies hopes to continue building a strong market presence in ASEAN as it has a young growing population and a dynamic emerging market.

With Glueck’s determination, it was clear that the company was going to soar to greater heights. In its early days, Glueck was among the recipients of the Cradle Fund, an early-stage startup influencer incorporated under the Ministry of Finance Malaysia (MOF), which helped jumpstart the company and provided it with momentum to continue flourishing. Through MDEC, Glueck was able to establish its presence in the regional tech ecosystem by participating in relevant events and being exposed to overseas conferences.

Also read: How Thailand’s Ricult uses deep tech to improve the lives of smallholder farmers

The company also participated in the NEXEA Entrepreneurs Programme last year. This programme provided a platform for tech entrepreneurs to learn together and meet with potential mentors and investors, allowing Glueck to expand their professional network and tap on new business opportunities.

Helping give Glueck and other Malaysian tech startups the visibility they deserve is the Malaysia Global Innovation & Creativity Centre, or MaGIC. Headquartered in Cyberjaya, MaGIC is an innovation and creativity centre under the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation. It aims to support startups and develop a strong, vibrant tech ecosystem in Malaysia.

MaGIC offers several programmes for startups looking to enter the Southeast Asian market. One such initiative is the Global Accelerator Programme, which helps propel global startups to investment-ready status within four months. Through initiatives like this, many Malaysian startups stand a chance to pursue growth and expansion goals in unparalleled ways. MaGIC also periodically opens applications to MyStartup Hub (MSH), a soft-landing program for innovative global startups from all over the world to establish a business hub in Malaysia. Collaborating with Malaysian ministries and agencies, MyStartup Hub provides assistance in company incorporation, local talent acquisition, and Malaysia’s market access.

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Loship, a one-hour e-commerce delivery startup in Vietnam, announced today it has secured US$12 million in a pre-Series C round of equity financing co-led by BAce Capital, a VC firm backed by Ant Group, and the direct investment unit of Sun Hung Kai & Co., a Hong Kong-listed a leading alternative investment company.

The co-investors are MetaPlanet Holdings (Skype co-founder-backed VC firm in Estonia), Wealth Well (Saudi Arabia), Prism Ventures (Singapore), and SQ Capital Group (Hong Kong).

A slew of individual investors also participated, including Mojtaba Akhbari  (former Vice President of Starbucks), Tim Neville (CEO, APAC at FNZ Group), Ben Fitzpatrick (Director, Global Macro Sales at BNP Paribas), Wayne Cowden (founder and CEO at DASS-Inc.), Simon Eglise (MD at EC1 Partners), Quentin Flannery (Director of Ilwella), Jonathon Feil (Director at Prenzler Group), and Milan Reinartz (CEO at iVS).

The round comes close on the heels of Loship’s undisclosed bridge funding round led by MetaPlanet in February 2021.

Loship will use the proceeds from the latest round to deepen its presence in key markets, expand the business into new regions, and fuel its latest growth area — the B2B delivery offering for small F&B businesses and mom-and-pop shops.

Also Read: How Loship gives its rivals a run for their money in Vietnam with a unique combination of food delivery and podcasting

“We have a very clear path to profitability as well as strategic plans on how to get there. Next on our agenda is to bring Loship services to customers living in all parts of Vietnam, especially the lower-tier markets. We will also use the funding to drive forward instant commerce delivery in under an hour,” said co-founder and CEO Trung Hoang Nguyen.

As part of the deal, BAce Capital founder Benny Chen has joined Loship’s Board of Directors. He was on the board of Zomato and Paytm with extensive experience in food delivery and fintech startups across China, India, and Southeast Asia.

Established in 2017, Loship is a distribution network, filling the massive demand for immediate deliveries. It has a wide range of services including food delivery (Loship), grocery delivery (Lomart), ride-hailing (Loxe), medicine delivery (Lomed), laundry service (Lozat), package delivery (Lo-send), flower delivery (Lohoa), beauty products delivery (LoBeauty), and B2B supply delivery (Losupply).

Currently, Loship has a fleet of more than 70,000 drivers and 200,000 merchants. It serves almost two million customers across Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Can Tho, and Bien Hoa.

“Loship creates a strong ecosystem which adds value to small business, customers as well as riders. Under Trung’s entrepreneurship and leadership, we saw the company get much stronger during the pandemic by constantly bringing product and service innovation to its merchants and users. We strongly believe in local entrepreneurs to understand the market and people’s needs better in a great potential market like Vietnam,” said Chen.

Loship had earlier closed its Series A and B rounds from several investors, including South Korea’s Smilegate Investment, Hana Financial Group, and Golden Gate Ventures. Prior to these, it bagged a bridge funding in a Vulpes Investment-led bridge round in October 2020.

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Image Credit: Loship

 

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Banking major DBS and Singapore sovereign fund Temasek have signed an agreement to jointly launch EvolutionX Debt Capital, a US$500-million development-stage debt financing platform. 

Based in Singapore, EvolutionX aims to accelerate growth and nurture the next generation of technology leaders.

It will invest in ventures originating from an increasingly digital economy, spanning sectors such as financial services, consumer, healthcare, education, and industrial development. 

EvolutionX is currently focusing on offering non-dilutive funding to development stage technology-enabled businesses in China, India, and Southeast Asia, among others.

DBS’s worldwide banking networks will leverage Temasek’s investment experience to further catalyse Asia’s fast-growing technology ecosystem through EvolutionX.

Also Read: Temasek invests in Forge to help grow its private securities marketplace beyond US

The platform will currently be co-led by joint interim CEOs, namely Amit Sinha, Group Head (Telecoms, Media and Technology), Institutional Banking Group at DBS, and Aftab Mathur, Director of Investment (Innovation) at Temasek. It will appoint a full-time CEO in the coming months.

“We aim to provide a meaningful alternative for technology-focused growth companies in Asia that may face debt funding needs between the venture debt and late-stage debt financing phases,” said Rohit Sipahimalani, Chief Investment Strategist at Temasek. 

According to Tan Su Shan, Head of Institutional Banking at DBS, growth debt is quickly gaining traction as an alternative form of funding for high-growth technology businesses that have previously relied only on equity financing. This provides more resources to nurture and finance the growth of Asia’s future unicorns.  

“Apart from helping founder entrepreneurs avoid dilution of share equity in the company’s initial stages of development, growth debt also serves as a complementary tool to tide these companies, which are often cash strapped, through the unexpected market and economic headwinds by extending their cash runway,” added Shan.

Temasek currently offers venture debt to early-stage tech startups via Innoven Capital.

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Image Credit: Temasek

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Malaysia is the latest to join the countries taking action against Binance as its market regulator has ordered the company to cease operations in the country.

The cryptocurrency exchange is accused of illegally operating in the country by the Securities Commission (SC) of Malaysia.

The commission has issued a public reprimand against the firm, its CEO Zhao Changpeng, and its three entities registered in the UK, Lithuania, and Singapore.

Also Read: How Binance acquired 35 per cent market share in a year with its new crypto derivatives line

All these four entities have been ordered to cease operations, including their media and marketing activities in Malaysia, within 14 business days from 26 July 2021.

It means that the exchange can no longer circulate, publish, and send advertisements and other marketing material to Malaysian investors.

The market regulator has also advised investors to stop dealing with and investing through Binance. In addition, people who have accounts with the exchange have been warned to cease trading through its platforms and withdraw their investments immediately.

The order also restricts Malaysian investors from accessing Binance’s Telegram group.

Also Read: Thailand’s Brooker Group to invest US$48M into Binance, Uniswap, other DeFi projects

Binance has been under immense pressure from the market regulators of various countries across the globe. Last month, Italy’s financial regulator issued a warning against Binance after it was found out that the platform was not authorised to offer services in the country.

Apart from Italy, countries like Germany, Poland, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the US, and the UK are also on a collision course with the exchange.

Early last months, Barclays customers in the UK were blocked from transferring funds to Binance after the latter faced heat from global regulators. The bank told customers they would no longer be able to send credit and debit card payments to Binance.

Meanwhile, the crypto exchange has announced plans to shut down crypto derivatives trading in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

As per Cruncbase, since its inception, Binance has raised a total of US$35 million in funding over 10 rounds from investors including Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.

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Image Credit: Binance

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Get to meet 30 of India’s most promising startups at the 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts D Day, happening on Aug 11-13. Click here to reserve your slot.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new buzzword in everyone’s mind. The impact of AI in our lives has surpassed common understanding, due partly to the grave misrepresentation in many sci-fi movies depicting the innovation as something inherently opposed to mankind. The horrific ‘Man vs Machine’ trope used in most of them has cluttered our minds. In order to fully appreciate such innovation and maximise its potential, we must first understand exactly what is AI.

AI is a branch of computer science that involves the simulation of human intelligence in machines. These cognitive traits can be thinking, perceiving, learning, problem-solving, and decision making that enables the machines to work as efficiently as humans. It works on the principle of machine learning and deep learning where computer programs can automatically learn from new data and perform like humans.

Understanding the boom

The latest release of the International Data Corporation of Worldwide Semi-annual Artificial Intelligence estimates that the revenue for the artificial intelligence market, is expected to grow 16.4% year over year in 2021 to $327.5 billion.

Also read: How Thailand’s Ricult uses deep tech to improve the lives of smallholder farmers

By 2024, the AI market might grow beyond the $500 billion mark with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5% and total revenues reaching an impressive $554.3 billion.

The NITI Aayog estimates that adopting AI means a 15% boost for the gross value added (GVA) for the Indian economy by 2035.

The age of AI

AI can increase access and affordability of quality healthcare. In the field of agriculture, AI can contribute towards enhancing farmers’ income, increasing farm productivity, and reducing wastage. It can also improve access and quality of education. It can be leveraged to build efficient infrastructure for the increasing urban population like developing smarter and safer modes of transportation to address traffic and congestion problems.

Promising young startups offering unique AI solutions

Let us look at some new-age AI-based solutions to have a better understanding:

Janani.life: Founded by Nilay Mehrotra, Janani.life is a sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider based in Bangalore. It seeks to marry medical care with the latest technology so that it becomes easy to conceive. By leveraging AI a tool is being built so that embryologists can work with objectivity while choosing the right embryo. This will in turn improve the success rate of IVF thereby decreasing costs.

Alpha AI: Not everyone is an expert in the machine learning tools and algorithms which form the bedrock of AI. As businesses are making the smart choice to shift to AI-driven technologies, they need to develop the right strategy tailored to market conditions.

Alpha AI which has the required expertise and experience in the design, deployment, and application in this field steps in to help businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs. It also provides corporate training and mentoring for the same.

AI for all

AI is going to be a gigantic disruptor in this globalised world. Contrary to the public sentiment which jumps to false conclusions that Artificial Learning will lead to large scale loss of jobs one needs to look deep and understand the new talent that would be created in the field of new-age technology and the new jobs that would be added to the market that would, in turn, lead to value creation.

As the 4th Industrial Revolution is around the corner India should embrace AI with an open mind and transform itself to a knowledge-based economy. The aim should be to support more start-ups and creative ideas to ensure that we do not miss the bus and everyone can reap the benefits of this new technology.

Leveraging AI for a better future

As we move forward towards an increasingly digital world, AI’s place in improving human life will only take on a progressively prominent role in society. As we are ushered into this era, startups with promising AI solutions will be key in defining our collective success as a people.

Also read: CloudMile raises US$20M to expand: accelerating the digital transformation agenda in Asia

Janani.life and Alpha AI are only some of today’s most promising startups that help us leverage AI to improve the conditions of many people across different sectors. Through these unique solutions, we are able to intelligently approach different issues concerning various important aspects of human life including healthcare, business, and media.

These startups will be pitching at the 9Unicorns Venture Catalysts demo day with 12 other up-and-coming startups offering their own 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 Tara Winstead from Pexels

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

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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MadEats, a cloud kitchen startup based in the Philippines, has secured US$125,000 in funding from the Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator.

Manila-headquartered MadEats is the first cloud kitchen startup to be selected for the prestigious programme.

The foodtech venture also disclosed that it is currently in talks to raise a 7-figure USD in seed funding. “We have already raised one-fourth of this amount from some angel investors and former YC alumni. We target to close this round by September this year,” co-founder and CEO Mikee Villareal told e27.

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

In November 2020, MadEats bagged an undisclosed sum in pre-seed investment, led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, with the participation of Paymongo co-founder Luis Sia.

MadEats was launched in November 2020 by an all-female founding team of Villareal, Andie Cruz (CMO), and Keisha Lao (CPO) — who have been working in the F&B industry throughout their career.

An on-demand delivery-only restaurant group, it builds its food concepts, takes orders from its virtual storefront, and fulfills deliveries with its fleet of riders.

Since its launch in November, MadEats has launched three brands — Yang Gang, a Korean fried chicken shop; Chow Time, a Chinese takeout; and Fried Nice.

The company will soon launch its fourth concept focused on coffee. “We will launch high-quality coffee at affordable prices (Dot Coffee) and smash burgers, which are big competitive food categories in the Philippines,” Villareal said. The objective is to open five delivery-only brands by year-end.

The foodtech startup will also roll out a mobile app to enable consumers to order products and have them home-delivered.

“We hope to build the underlying infrastructure of ghost kitchens in Southeast Asia by creating products that are engineered specifically for delivery that can scale much faster with the help of technology,” Villareal shared.

MadEats will also be scaling its cloud kitchens across the Philippines in the recent future.

Also Read: All female-led MadEats ropes in Tinder co-founder as investor to scale its internet food brands in Philippines

“So far, well over half of our revenue comes from our madeats.co platform. We hope to expand our operations to different areas in the Philippines by the end of the year and expand to other regions in Southeast Asia in the next few years. By integrating tech into all facets of our business, the focus of MadEats is to add value to the customer’s experience,” the CEO remarked.

The Philippine food delivery market is growing exponentially (~48 per cent y-o-y growth), the fastest in Southeast Asia, and is projected to hit US$8 billion by 2025. This growth is attributed mainly to the pandemic. With many of the country’s major cities still under lockdown and the resumption of dine-in services is uncertain, customers prefer ordering food online and have it home-delivered.

The cloud kitchen industry is still in its infancy in the Philippines when compared with fast-growing markets such as the US, the Middle East, and India, and even neighbouring Singapore and Indonesia. Grab was the first to introduce the cloud kitchen concept when it opened GrabKitchens in 2019. Grab has since been building more kitchens, some of which are built together with smaller startups as a co-branded kitchen, where these startups build the kitchen and Grab operates the digital front.

Other startups operating in the virtual kitchen space are Kraver’s Canteen (which aims to help brands navigate the different ways cloud kitchens can be used to grow their brands), and CloudEats (which is more geared towards the development of private label brands).

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Image Credit: MadEats

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We are thrilled to announce that we are working with X-PITCH 2021 to provide startups with access to e27 Pro.

X-PITCH 2021 is the XGames for startups wherein participants will be going through three levels of pitching (15 seconds, 60 seconds, and 3minutes) for a chance to win up to US$1 million investment prizes.

Organised by Taiwan Accelerator, X-PITCH highlights the New Normal in the post-pandemic world; participating teams should focus on applications and services that enable digital transformation around five major categories of the New Normal. Nine awards will be presented on the Grand Finale Day on November 11, 2021.

Also read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

This partnership with Taiwan Accelerator for X-PITCH 2021 is just the first in our initiative to work with accelerators and startup ecosystem enablers to further assist startups’ engagements and conversations with regional investors.

Opportunities to build your investor network

Over the past couple of months, we have served over 3,000 connections between startups and investors through e27 Pro’s Connect feature.

In this new normal, there is a distinctive lack of ability for different parts of the Southeast Asia tech ecosystem to reach out to each other.

We used to have thousands of offline activities happening monthly, connecting various local and regional ecosystems, connecting startups, corporates, governments, and investors. Even our very own Echelon used to bring in more than 10,000 people over two days to achieve these meaningful, often serendipitous, connections.

This is a real pain, especially if you are new to the ecosystem and do not have existing networks that can introduce you to new ones. Online webinars and conferences seem to alleviate this issue temporarily, but we find that the startup ecosystem requires more.

Also read: CloudMile raises US$20M to expand: accelerating the digital transformation agenda in Asia

e27’s mission has always been to empower entrepreneurs with the tools to build and grow their companies. With e27 Pro, we’re going back to our roots and helping startups with their fundraising by providing a platform that allows not only discovery but a tool to begin conversations with investors and update them on their progress.

With over 300 verified active investors on the platform, e27 Pro members have in their reach the ability to find, connect, and engage with investors that are right for them (not a Pro member yet? Start here).

Get the chance to connect with Taiwan Accelerator

Taiwan Accelerator is formerly known as Taiwan Elevator Pitch, where contestants made their pitch in a high-speed elevator ride at TAIPEI 101.

They are the first seed accelerator in Taiwan and an active early-stage investment firm. Taiwan Accelerator is onboard e27 Pro, and members can reach out to them via Connect.

Any e27 Pro member can simply visit Taiwan Accelerator’s profile and click the Connect button to get the ball rolling.

For startups interested to join X-PITCH 2021, you can send in your application until August 31 by clicking here.

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Image credit: Michael Burrows from Pexels

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PropertyGuru to go public in merger with SPAC backed by Richard Li, Peter Thiel
This will give the combined company an equity value of about US$1.78B; This deal with Bridgetown 2 Holdings is expected to fetch proceeds of US$431M, including a private investment of US$100M from Baillie Gifford, Naya, REA Group, Akaris Global Partners, and a Malaysian asset manager.

Singapore public transport booking startup Easybook banks nearly US$5M from Malaysia’s Emissary Capital
Lee said that Easybook will use the new funds to invest in online marketing, hire new IT and operation staff, and help the company march through the pandemic; Easybook plans to keep its business anchored mainly in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Vietnam tech unicorn VNG expects loss to reach US$27M in 2021 due to COVID-19
The company, however, is targeting revenues of about US$330M this year, an increase of about 26% compared to its 2020 total revenue; Formerly known as VinaGame, Vietnam’s first tech unicorn now has an estimated valuation of about US$2.2B.

Andalin in talks for US$3M as it looks to grab a slice of SEA’s US$2.8T international trade market
The money will be used to grow its trading business, scale trade financing offerings, and introduce its SaaS-based freight management system; The startup is backed by BRI Ventures’s VC arm, Beenext, ATM Capital, and Access Ventures.

Ant-backed Philippine fintech Mynt targets ‘double unicorn’ status in future fundraising
Mynt, the group behind the popular GCash app, closed US$175M in January at US$1B valuation; The ambitions target is just the latest sign of how the fight is heating up between traditional lenders and startups like Mynt, KKR-backed Paymaya, and Grab, with each camp increasingly moving into the others’ territory.

‘Education is not a content business but a human one’: Nas Academy’s Nuseir Yassin
Unlike other platforms that give teachers control over just the monetary aspects of teaching, Nas gives its teachers full authority over their audience and distribution and helps them build their own curriculum from scratch.

Singapore sports content platform 1 Play Sports raises US$2.5M in funding
Investors are ThinKuvate, H Capital Investment, and high-profile angels; 1 Play Sports live streams sports events and publishes related stories on its social media platforms; It has broadcast 3K+ hours of sports content such as the Southeast Asia Games 2019, ASEAN School Games 2019, and AIA Singapore Premier League 2021.

Philippine payment platform DragonPay receives strategic funding from Xendit
Last year, Y Combinator-backed Xendit partnered with DragonPay to launch the installment payment scheme in the Philippines; Xendit claims it processes more than 65M transactions, amounting to US$6.5B in payment value annually.

Lippo Group’s Siloam Hospitals incubator backs 3 healthtech startups
They are Bithealth, Aido Health, and Prixa.ai; The incubator seeks to keep the hospital group’s interest aligned to growing digital innovation trends in healthcare; It invests less than US$1M in early-stage healthtech startups.

Philippine central bank orders halt on social media platform Lyka’s payment system ops
The central bank’s monetary board categorised Lyka features that let users earn and exchange in-app gems as operation of payment system (OPS) activities since this digital currency can also be used to pay for off-app products and services.

Jirnexu partners with over 5 digital banking license contenders in Malaysia
The company is confident that it can help traditional banking players optimise their operations with the newly formed partnership; The race for digital banking licenses has intensified ever since the Malaysian central bank BNM received 29 applications for only five licenses.

BNPL firm Atome records 100X order volume growth in Malaysia
The company also added that its online and offline merchant network has grown to serve more than 500 retailers now, a 500% increase from when it first launched in Malaysia at the end of 2020; The growth comes against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and the extension of the movement control order.

myTukar appoints former BMW exec Jeffrey Ong as CEO
He succeeds Fong Hon Sum, who assumed the role of myTukar’s Chairman in June 2021; Prior to joining myTukar, he spent six years at BMW, designing the blueprints for its financial services products across the APAC and launching several programmes such as the BMW Group Corporate Mobility Solutions, BMW Group Private Circle Programme.

Gojek teams up with Indonesia’s Bank Jago for cashless payment
The integration will give Jago customers increased convenience when transacting on the Gojek app; The feature enables them to connect their bank account and Jago pockets to the Gojek app and make cashless payments for Gojek services including transport, food, and bill payments.

Entrepreneurship is at an all-time high, but are you doing it right?
Entrepreneurs are hyper-focused on building their business and bringing their ideas to fruition—and they should be—leaving the non-mission critical, tedious, time-consuming administrative tasks to professional and experienced advisers, secretaries, and accountants; Business success depends on many people, including customers, investors, and team members; Businesses need people who truly believe in their mission and vision, and are willing to hustle to achieve it.

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