Qoo10 was once the top e-commerce player in Singapore, but where does it stand in today’s race?; Back in its heyday, the site used to consistently nab the top spot as the e-commerce platform that received the most website traffic; However, according to iPrice, it was later dethroned by Lazada at the end of June 2019.

Grab delays listing, will SPACs lose their sizzle in SEA?; The company says audit issues were the key drag with e-wallet OVO being the centrepiece of this accounting quagmire; Experts warn that if the downsizing of US SPACs continues to persist, many more SEA tech cos will find themselves snapped up by US bourses.

Carro becomes unicorn following US$360M Series C raise led by SoftBank Vision Fundn2, plans to go public in 18-24 months; The firm plans to use the capital to expand its retail offering across Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore; Carro claims to have closed its financial year ending March 2021 with over a 2.5x growth in revenue; Its group of companies include Genie, myTukar, and Jualo.

Grab delays listing, will SPACs lose their sizzle in SEA?; The company says audit issues were the key drag with e-wallet OVO being the centrepiece of this accounting quagmire; Experts warn that if the downsizing of US SPACs continues to persist, many more SEA tech firms will find themselves snapped up by US bourses.

Bukalapak seeks to raise up to US$800M in IPO; A DealStreetAsia report says, citing sources, that 4th largest e-commerce firm in Indonesia is aiming to sell 10-15% stake and wants a valuation of US$4-5B; The 11-year-old firm has a plethora of big-name investors backing it, including Microsoft, GIC, and Emtek.

Venturi Partners makes US$100M first close of India, SEA-focused fund; The fund has a targeted size of US$150M; It will focus on investments across the consumer space in FMCG, education, and healthcare; It intends to make only 7-8 investments, with a ticket size in the range of US$15-40M.

Asia-focused SPAC Nova Vision Acquisition files for US$50M Nasdaq listing; The SPAC intends to direct part of its efforts in Asia and focus on opportunities in proptech, fintech, consumer tech, and supply chain management; Global SPACs raised as much as US$24.26B in Jan 2021 alone.

SEA-focused early-stage fund Investible hits first close of US$39M second fund; It has increased the percentage of funding available to international businesses (based outside of Australia) from 20% to 30%; Investible’s naugural US$17.4M fund has made 36+ investments; The list included Mosaic Solutions and Eden Farm.

Turochas Fuad’s BNPL startup Pace receives debt financing from Genesis Alternative; Pace claims to have registered a 1,300% growth in user base and 200% growth in merchant partners since launching in January; Pace also inked an regional partnership with luxury goods and retail specialist Valiram.

Vertex Ventures, zVentures invest in SEA-focused crypto exchange Coinomo; Coinomo aims to be the gateway for SEA’s new and mainstream adopters to the world of crypto; This development comes just a month after Coinomo acquired Taiwanese crypto wallet Dapp pocket and yield aggregator Cappuu.

WaveScan raises funding to develop inspection and maintenance scanners for drones; Investors include Silicon Solution Ventures (lead), SEEDS Capital, Koji Ventures, she1K global, and KK39 Ventures; WaveScan’s scanners utilise EM-based microwave and millimetre waves that could penetrate a variety of structural materials, including wood and concrete.

Finantier raises 7-figure USD to take its open finance solution to Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand; Investors include Global Founders Capital, East Ventures, AC Ventures, Y Combinator, Genesia Ventures, and Two Culture Capital; As of now, the company works with over 150 companies, giving clients access to a comprehensive range of datasets.

Is SEA set to emerge as a hub for publicly traded tech giants?; Both Grab and Traveloka are primed to dive into the public domain, essentially kickstarting the long-overlooked internet scene in the region; Investor appetites for the region’s tech companies are poised to grow exponentially; The region’s internet economy is continuously growing, and by 2025, it is expected that it will nearly triple its value to US$300B.

Diego Rojas of Finantier on growth plans, Y Combinator, and identifying future market demands; Indonesia is a massive market with high internet and mobile penetration, which allows innovation to flourish but also brings a new set of challenges; The archipelago is already working on an innovative framework, he says.

RPG Commerce nets Series A to build D2C e-commerce brands globally; Lead investors are Vertex and Joseph Phua; The firm has also appointed ex-Uber GM Warren Tseng as new COO; RPG Commerce has launched 10+ brands globally in different categories such as men’s fashion, home and living, and fashion accessories.

Aevice Health bags US$2M for its wearable smart stethoscope, expands to Japan; Investors are Toho (Japan), Pureland Group Venture, Silicon Solutions Partners, AIP Ventures, and SEEDS Capital; Aevice develops non-invasive wearable devices that enable early detection of cardiopulmonary abnormalities remotely and in real-time.

pitchIN secures US$1.3M in funding via own ECF platform, in talks to raise US$1.2M more; 322 investors participated, including Aimflex co-founder Chan Kok San and Shellys Marketing MD Simpson Wong Kean Hin; It plans to open a secondary market for its extended credit facility platform later this year; To date, pitchIN claims to have funded 112 deals.

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Image Credit: Qoo10

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Jay Desan spent 20 years doing sustainability advisory for various organisations, including fortune 500 companies. In those years, Desan saw first-hand how broken the food system around the world was.

“Although we talk about progress in terms of food sustainability and we feel like we live sustainably, in reality, we don’t,” Desan, a PhD from Queens Mary, University of London, told e27. “We don’t know what kind of food we eat, where it comes from, or whether it contains harmful chemicals because we can’t see the supply chain.”

It was time to make a change and provide people with clean and fresh food, she thought to herself.

Also Read: Why agritech startups will call for the next e-commerce revolution

“My husband Murali Krishnamurthy and I looked for clean produce for our kids but realised that it was so expensive and that fresh produce was almost unattainable in Kuala Lumpur,” shared Desan. “While we saw a lot of imported produce, we had a hard time getting affordable, clean and fresh produce locally. So he and I founded BoomGrow with our close friend Shan Palani.”

Established in 2015, Kuala Lumpur-headquartered BoomGrow is an indoor farming company operating in the vertical farming and precision farming space.

It grows fresh, clean, hyperlocal produce such as butterhead, romaine, kale, Swiss chard, basil, and mint. These are otherwise imported from cold countries.

“We grow the produce all through the year in high-tech indoor spaces called ‘machine farms’. We grow without soil or harmful chemicals with a mineral nutrient solution which the plants soak up through their root systems,” Desan explained.

The machine farms

The machine farms are repurposed shipping containers (see the pic), which are about 320 square feet in size. Their yield, according to Desan, is equivalent to a one-acre external farm, as these containers can grow items vertically stacked.

The entire operations are on-site in a complete cleanroom setup — from seed transplant to harvesting and packing. Through its automated systems, it ensures that temperature, humidity and light levels are exactly the right balance.

BoomGrow operates on both a B2C and B2B models.

Subscription model

Users can order products directly from the farms. They can alternatively go for BoomGrow’s subscription plans. This way, fresh produce will be delivered at the consumers’ doorsteps once every two weeks or once a month.

Also Read: Fertile ground for partnership: How agritech boom in SEA holds a promise for Latin America

Consumers can visit BoomGrow’s site, place their orders, and then BoomGrow delivers the produce from the farm that’s closest to them.

“This has been popular, especially during the pandemic as people didn’t want to leave their houses unnecessarily. The pandemic also made consumers more conscious about their health and the importance of consuming fresh and chemical-free produce,” she remarked.

Desan further stated that the hyperlocal aspect of the business is very important for the company and therefore, it only supplies the produce to customers living nearby.

The farms are located in Kuala Lumpur and Langkawi, and the agritech firm is currently building a large in-premises farm in Klang Valley.

As for the B2B side of the business, BoomGrow caters to hotels and restaurants. It has several B2B clients in Kuala Lumpur and Langkawi.

In Southeast Asia, people are increasingly aware of the importance of organic products and their health benefits. And entrepreneurs are jumping on this opportunity. As a result, the region saw the mushrooming of many online and offline organic produce producers.

Malaysia is also realising the benefits of pesticides-free products.

“Most people living in an urbanised, industrialised society believe that food needs to come from really far away. Many of the items we consume daily, such as leafy vegetables, take at least three to four days to arrive,” she mentioned.

But if you start reimagining, she went on, you can ask yourself why that needs to happen, and why can’t the farm be in the city? So that pushes that question of how we can ensure hyperlocal food production, and that’s the opportunity here.

Also Read: Need of the hour: How agritech platforms can protect farmers from climate change

“When food production is situated very far away, we need to then use preservatives to ensure they survive shipment. So these are the things that we want to shift in terms of fresh, clean, nutritious greens in the community, in addition to cutting the carbon miles- food miles is something we’re very passionate about,” she elaborated.

Currently, BoomGrow is focused only on the Malaysian market, although it is seeing demand coming from other parts of the region.

Funding and grants

In terms of funding, the agritech company has so far received over RM1 million (US$240,000) from SME Corp, PlaTCOM Ventures as well as MDEC.

It also benefitted from being part of MaGIC’s Global Accelerator Programme.

These grants enabled the company to take a deep dive into its research and commercialise its prototype Machine Farm.

In January 2021, BoomGrow closed an angel funding round.

“We are now planning to raise our Series A funding within this year to set up more machine farms throughout Malaysia and beyond. We will be looking to drive further innovation in our product offering as well as make some key hires,” Desan concluded.

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Image Credit: BoomGrow

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Accelerating Asia (AA), a Singapore-based accelerator-cum-venture fund, announced today that it is increasing its investment size from US$150,000 to a maximum of US$250,000 per deal.

The early-stage VC fund has also announced plans to launch its second in the second half of 2021. The original plan was to launch an ‘up to US$50 million’ fund in Q1 2020.

“We’re so excited by the traction, results, and growth of our portfolio startups so far. And, with the increasing investor interest, they’re receiving, it’s early signals for us that our accelerator VC model is working. We’ve decided the time is right to increase our investment amount and take bigger bets on the startups coming through our program,” said Accelerating Asia co-founder Amra Naidoo.

While most angel investors and startup programmes in Southeast Asia focus on ideation-minimum viable product stage startups, and solid product-market fit, startups with a robust product at early stages of customer traction are often overlooked.

AA designed to support pre-Series A startups to fast-track growth and drive success.

Its programme boasts of an acceptance rate of less than two per cent with only eight selected from 450 applications, where participating startups range from B2B, B2C, and B2G verticals, including energy, transportation, healthcare, and cleantech.

Also Read: A snapshot of the 11 startups joining Accelerating Asia’s 4th cohort

Since 2019, the VC has accelerated 36 pre-Series A startups in Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and India. Its portfolio companies have collectively raised US$27 million.

As per a statement, startups who completed the programme in 2019 and 2020 have almost tripled monthly recurring revenue, up from over US$9,000 at the start of the programme to US$27,000 in 2021.

Its Cohort-4 startups have also successfully managed to raise US$5 million, besides an additional US$1 million in soft commitments.

Applications for cohort-5 are also currently open and will close on 30 June 2021.

Beyond its flagship accelerator programme, AA also supports the startup ecosystem by offering Amplify, a 6-module virtual accelerator that gives startups access to top-level resources to grow their business.

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Image Credit: Accelerating Asia

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Kuala Lumpur-headquartered RPG Commerce, a company that builds, launches and scales multi-brand e-commerce businesses globally, has secured an undisclosed amount in Series A round of investment.

Lead investors are Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia, and Joseph Phua, co-founder and Chairman of 17 Live.

The funds will be utilised to accelerate the growth of more brands and further its expansion globally, RPG said in a statement. A part of the money also will go into regional expansion, talent acquisition, brand building, and R&D.

Also Read: Former Carousell, OVO execs launch e-commerce brand aggregator Rainforest with US$36M seed funding

Incorporated in Singapore, RPG Commerce is a multi-brand direct-to-consumer (DTC) company that launches and operates a suite of e-commerce brands via a ‘shared backend infrastructure’ approach.

Unlike the recent wave of startups that seek to roll up small e-commerce brands purely via brand acquisitions and selling on other e-commerce platforms, RPG primarily launches and incubates its own native brands in tandem with acquiring brands.

The firm says it is able to develop, test and launch a brand with a lot less capital and, at the same time, being able to scale each brand quickly.

While its products are present in over 40 countries, its current main markets are in the USA, Europe, Australia and Asia.

To date, it has launched over 10 brands globally in different categories such as men’s fashion, home and living, and fashion accessories.

Currently, it has over 100 employees in several locations globally.

Appoints Warren Tseng as new COO

In line with the funds raised, RPG Commerce also announced the appointment of Warren Tseng as its new COO. He will be tasked with leading the operation of the business and championing the strategic direction in alignment with the company’s development.

Tseng was previously General Manager of ride-hailing giant Uber (Singapore and Malaysia), and helmed the APAC market as Regional General Manager at CloudKitchens, a startup venture by Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of Uber.

RPG Commerce co-founder and CEO Melvin Chee said: “This new-normal created by societal reaction to the pandemic has accelerated the entire e-commerce industry and never been a more favourable period for DTC brands to rise. Having direct access to our customers gives us a strategic advantage over better understanding of their needs, armed with our agile operations that continuously enhance our products based on our customers’ feedback.”

Also Read: Ex-CEO of Rocket Internet Asia launches new e-commerce venture Una Brands with a US$40M seed round

We firmly believe that brands will build long lasting relationships with their customers through satisfying their needs and achieving their goals,” he added.

Chua Joo Hock, Managing Partner of Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia said: “We have seen the scaling problems of first generation D2C e-commerce models that generally focus on a single product or vertical. We are happy to partner with Melvin and his team, as the first outside investor in RPG Commerce, to build the next generation leader of a D2C company based on multi-brands.”

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Image Credit: RPG Commerce

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One of the struggles fundraising startups have is getting connected to potential investors. It’s a struggle to get warm introductions, a challenge to get your pitch deck viewed. With e27 Connect, we bridge the gap between investors and startup founders, and after a successful approval to get connected, startups are set for their meeting with the investors.

Behind these successful connections are the investors who actively respond to Connect requests and review the startup’s information. We feature these active investors weekly to provide a good chance for startup founders to get their first meeting.

Here’s this week’s list of investors you should start connecting with:

1. Kairous Capital

Investment: USD 1M – USD5M; Seed, Series A and Series B

Verticals: Fintech, Insurtech, Digital Healthcare, E-commerce and others

Kairous Capital is an emerging venture capital firm that invests in seed to series-B rounds in Southeast Asia and Greater China. We invest with a cross-border strategy in mind and act as a financial investor as well as the cross-border partner for our investees. Our main investment thesis is to invest in Chinese tech companies and export their technology and expertise from China to Southeast Asia. Then, we also invest in Southeast Asian tech companies by referencing proven business models and strategies of tech unicorns in China.

Latest Investments / Portfolio News:

Mercular (Thailand), Series A, April 2021

TechNode Global (Singapore), Seed, US$1M, Feb 2021

Pulsifi (Singapore), Seed, US$1.8M, Nov 2020

Intrepid (Singapore), Series A, Nov 2019

Also read: Pulsifi bags US$1.8M angel round to expand its smart HR platform to Europe

Managing Partner at Kairous Capital is Joseph Lee, an experienced Managing Partner with a demonstrated history of working in the venture capital and private equity industry. Skilled in Financial Structuring, Corporate Finance, Project Finance, Venture Capital, and Investment Banking. Strong business development professional graduated from CFA Institute. 

2. Prasetia Dwidharma

Investment: Not Specified, Angel / Pre Seed, Seed, Pre-Series A / Bridge, Series A

Verticals: All / Any

Prasetia Dwidharma is a telecommunication infrastructure company & an active early-stage investor since 2015 with 50 portfolio companies in Indonesia.

Latest Investments / Portfolio News:

PROSPARK

In the first quarter of 2021 alone, ProSpark grew 4x in their MRR. Its notable customers are among others GoJek, Bank Sampoerna, Kopi Kenangan, Northern Star Energy, PasarPolis and RD Pawnshop. Discovering a lot of similar dynamics between Indonesia and Philippines markets, ProSpark is expanding as it sees demand across various sectors.  

MYROBIN

With over 2.5 million workers in their community, MyRobin is supporting eCommerce, Warehousing, Logistics companies in Indonesia to promote their growth, including the Top 5. MyRobin has helped thousands of workers find jobs during the pandemic, like courier, warehouse workers, drivers, telesales, customer service, field sales.

Also read: Kairous Capital, SPH Ventures join TechNode Global’s US$1M seed round to help it accelerate Asia expansion

CEO of Prasetia Dwidharma is Arya Setiadharma, with good experience in operating, expertise and extensive network, he assists founders whenever needed, in planning and executing company strategies, so that they are ready for the growth stage. In addition, as a recognition of Prasetia’s investment track record, Arya Setiadharma, has been selected to be the first MDI Telkom Venture partner in 2019. 

3. Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia

Investment: Not Specified, Seed, Series A, Series B

Verticals: Big Data, E-commerce, Enterprise Solution, Finance, Hardware, Human Resources, Information & Communications Technology, Retail

Latest Investment / Portfolio News:

Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia is the corporate venture capital arm of Sumitomo Corporation. As part of a global diversified conglomerate, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia focuses on identifying early-stage strategic investments in China and Southeast Asia. Since 2002, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia has invested in more than 50 companies and has brought in global resources and expertise from Sumitomo Corporation to assist the rapid growth of its portfolio companies.

Also read: Finantier raises 7-figure USD to take its open finance solution to Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand

The Executive Director and Board of Director is Francis Wong, he leads Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia’s investment team from sourcing, investing, portfolio management to daily operations. With his professional background as a chartered engineer and years of experience in venture investing, Francis provides deep insights into Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia’s investments and charts Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia’s investment strategies.

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

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Finantier, a Singapore-based open finance startup, has raised 7-figure seed capital in a new funding round led by Global Founders Capital (GFC) and East Ventures (EV).

Existing investors AC Ventures, Y Combinator, Genesia Ventures, Two Culture Capital, besides new investors such as Future Shape, Partech Partners, Taurus Ventures, Saison Capital, and GMO VenturePartners, also participated.

The round was raised at more than 20x the valuation the company received for its pre-seed funding in November 2020, as per a company statement.

Finantier intends to use the money to scale and enhance its product offerings within Indonesia, expand to the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, and double its team size.

Founded in 2020, co-founders of Finantier initially wanted to build an Open Banking platform but later decided to switch the idea to build an Open Finance platform as Open Banking would exclude a large amount of the unbanked population in emerging markets.

Open banking’s use cases are limited to products offered by banks (loans, credit cards, etc.). Open finance, on the other hand, allows the exchange of data between a wide range of financial companies.

Also Read: Finantier secures funding from Y Combinator for its Open Finance platform

Lack of access to consumer financial data is a big problem in Indonesia as many financial institutions don’t have access to consumer financial data. This handicaps them in providing financial services such as payments, lending, and insurance.

Finantier solves this problem by aggregating data from alternative data sources such as gig economy platforms and telcos. After the consent of the user is obtained, these datasets are analysed to provide detailed insights on consumers for financial institutions, allowing them to provide financial services for the unbanked.

This, claims the firm, significantly reduces the number of people who lack access to basic financial services, accelerating financial inclusion within Indonesia, which the government has identified as a key priority.

“Our business model is a traditional SaaS, with a recurring charge per month according to the usage of our Aggregation API. We are also launching new products later this year that has a slightly different commercial model,” Diego Rojas, co-founder of Finantier told e27.

As of now, the company works with over 150 companies, giving clients access to a comprehensive range of datasets.

Additionally, Finantier has appointed Francesco Simoneschi, co-founder of Truelayer (a Temasek-backed open banking platform based in the UK) to its table of Advisors.

“In order to accelerate financial inclusion and to increase innovation in financial services across Indonesia, collaboration is key among regulators, associations, and the private sector. The Finantier team is doing a great job by proactively engaging all the parties while building a fintech platform and a sustainable ecosystem aligned with the vision of a more inclusive country,” Pandu Patria Sjahrir, Founding Partner at AC Ventures and Chairman of Indonesia FinTech Association said.

“Accelerating financial inclusion within Indonesia is crucial given the high unbanked rate. With access to better financial services, these underserved segments of the population can lead better lives and drive growth for the Indonesian economy,” added Willson Cuaca, co-founder at East Ventures.

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Image Credit: Finantier

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pitchIN, a leading equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform in Malaysia, announced today it has raised RM5.5 million (~US$1.3 million) through its own campaign.

The capital came from 322 investors participated, including Chan Kok San, co-founder of Aimflex; and Simpson Wong Kean Hin, Managing Director of Shellys Marketing.

pitchIN is currently in the final stages of raising an additional RM5 million (US$1.2 million) from institutional investors.

“We set out to raise RM10 million in total, of which RM5 million was allocated for institutional investors. The investors have been identified and we expect to close that amount fairly soon,” CEO Sam Shafie said in a statement.

With the new funding, pitchIN aims to expand its operations to serve more businesses and investors, as well as offer new services in the next few years.

The company has also shared that it plans to open a secondary market for its extended credit facility platform later this year. pitchIN has also applied for a license to operate an Initial Exchange Offering platform.

Also Read: Malaysia’s clinical communication app MedPlanner raises US$240K in equity crowdfunding

Founded in 2012, pitchIN is a platform for Malaysia-based companies to raise funds from the general public and investment community. It launched pitchIN equity in March 2016. To date, it claims to have funded 112 deals.

“In 2015, we launched pitchIN with our own funds because we believed in the importance of democratising the fundraising industry. We are grateful that we have been able to create a platform that has helped 112 SMEs and startups raise capital from over 5,500 investors. These new funds will enable us to offer our services to more SMEs and startups,” said pitchIN Chief Security Officer Kashminder Singh.

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Image Credit: pitchIn

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We hope our handy tips on thought leadership from last week has been helpful.

For the past two weeks, we have been discussing the importance of building thought leadership and how to go about it when you have little or no resources to do so.

While speaking engagements are great way to establish yourself as a thought leader, such opportunities are hard to come by. Writing your thoughts out is one way to attract speaking opportunities. Many early-stage startups and thought leaders use platform such as Medium, LinkedIn and e27 Contributor Programme to publish their views and share them with a larger audience these days.

We know ‘writing an article’ can sound scary if you have no professional qualification or writing experience.

This is why we put together this short writing exercise for you to get your creative juices flowing.

The first half of this video added below gives you more details about our Contributor Programme, followed by tips from our editor Anisa Menur Maulani. The final 20 minutes is a live writing exercise.

You will need:

• 45 mins off your schedule
• A pen/paper or any electronic writing device

Get, set, start writing!

Feel free to reach out to me at mili@e27.co if you want feedback on your writing exercise, article pitches or any help with your thought leadership journey.

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

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An imperative vision for tech startups is emerging as the industry embraces greater disruptions in the form of new competitors, innovation and increasing regulatory and compliance demands.

With the rise of new unrivalled technologies, the race is on to elevate digital transformation beyond a surface level facelift. As such, many organisations are looking to evolve and transform with a vision grounded in superior customer experience and enterprise leadership.

However, the future demands business agility to win. And the solution lies within a holistic cloud system, capable of scaling new heights for the business.

Therefore, as the Digital Enterprise Director leading the team in a global tech company, here are three key learnings why forward-thinking businesses must deploy cloud technology as a strategic tool and navigate challenges to unlock full business growth potential:

Driving change and innovation

The first step to building business resilience begins with embracing a digital-core mindset, recognising the need to take advantage of new technologies to stay competitive, improve customer retention and increase employee satisfaction.

According to NTT’s 2021 Hybrid Cloud Report, while 96.3 per cent of Singapore firms agreed that cloud technology is critical in ensuring minimal business disruption amid the pandemic, only 63.8 per cent of local firms have implemented it.

This highlights the mindset gap in implementing cloud infrastructure, security and network architecture capabilities which is imperative to support business growth and agility.

Through cloud-based solutions, organisations can drive digital innovation, effecting a fundamental shift in IT – from an operational function to a technology business partner. We have seen this in startups where by unifying silos and automating processes, teams and individuals now provide more value-adding strategic counsel.

This empowerment breeds collaboration and transforms teams to change the way the business operates, eventually becoming more productive and efficient.

Also Read: How Globe Telecom used Google’s cloud-based services to empower its employees

Future-proofing the workforce

IT resiliency is key to future-proofing your business. Alongside realities that shifted in 2020, many employees have also experienced tech-related business disruption. This has led to detrimental consequences such as revenue loss, unhealthy employee work-life balance, security breaches and more.

In the backdrop of the Hybrid Workforce Economy, a robust tech ecosystem will help leaders navigate the digital culture and create an agile environment to future proof the workforce by reducing risk from disruption.

As we have seen with some start-ups, it is also a great opportunity to upskill employees’ digital capabilities. This serves as a blueprint not only to building high performing teams but also provides seamless digital experiences for customers.

Beyond closing the knowledge-skills gap, business owners can leverage a holistic cloud system to deliver real-time insights and make informed decisions using accessible cloud data. The increased employee flexibility and access to data enables quicker oversight to customer’s evolving needs which is essential to business agility.

A growth launchpad

Often times, business leaders and especially start-ups are challenged with strategically driving engagement and productivity through effective employee management. As a result, business scalability and growth takes a back seat due to inefficiency creeping into workplace processes.

With a comprehensive cloud-based system, organisations can now expand their global footprint with digital tools. Startups no longer need to be confined to geographic boundaries. Instead, increasingly they have leveraged cloud capabilities to rapidly establish their presence by expanding existing operations in  any country without having to set up a physical office.

This marks a new milestone for organisations, regardless of size, to build a legacy that is at low cost and minimal risk. Most importantly, the process is compliant and transformative, aimed at strengthening the business proposition in the VUCA world.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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