The global blockchain market is predicted to rise to US$23.3 billion by 2023. Following this growth, mainstream investors are becoming more attracted to venture into the crypto space. To be successful, one would be better off equipped with the right mindsets to win in this booming market. To get started, we’ve shortlisted seven tips that will help you become a more intelligent crypto investor.

Always have a plan

Yes, we know that this might sound cliche, but having a plan is crucial to your investment success. You don’t just go to an exchange and buy on a whim; you need to clarify what exactly you desire to get out of your investment. For example, is it a short-term or a long-term investment? What do you plan on doing with the profits?

By formulating a concrete plan, you can follow a course of action to achieve your ultimate investment goal. It won’t take long to build a plan, but it will have lasting effects that will help you win. Have an end goal in mind, and then work backwards to increase your chances of success.

Timing is key

If you are FOMO-ing in your crypto investment, consider it a sign of caution. FOMO, if you are not aware, means fear of missing out. It is a notorious reason why many investors fail. It can be tempting to jump into a lucrative trend, especially if you see others make massive profits in a short period.

Instead of becoming a victim of FOMO, think about rewiring your brain to do what 90 per cent of investors don’t –wait and be patient to buy when assets are relatively low in price, not when it’s high and overbought. For example, back in 2017, when almost all cryptocurrencies recorded their all-time-high prices, many people bought highly overpriced assets simply due to FOMO. Unfortunately, these investors saw their investments lose over 95 per cent of their value in the year after.

Also Read: NFT adoption is soaring in Southeast Asia. Here’s why 

Buy low and sell high

This may seem like pointing out the obvious, but in reality, many people end up doing the exact opposite! This is one of the most common mistakes that crypto investors make. Having a plan to time your purchases in advance and knowing when to sell is a crucial step. Be patient and buy when it’s priced low relative to the asset’s true fundamental value.

No one has the crystal ball to know when prices will top out. Instead, setting price targets to sell at which you’re comfortable with is a smart move to bolster your investment skills.

Focus on net wins

While winning or earning money is your ultimate goal, you need to accept that you will lose some of it along the way. Some investments will not realise returns as you expect them to be. Remember, the goal is to make net profit.

It’s okay to lose some, as long as you can win more. Net profit is what matters, not the individual wins and losses. Otherwise, you’ll be attached to your losses and will feel unmotivated to continue. Let’s paint an example: if you invest equal amounts into 10 different assets, two might not perform well, three of them might perform moderate, and the remaining five may do exceptionally well. These five assets alone may reward you with substantial results.

Don’t forget to cash out

Unfortunately, many investors become content when their investments are growing. But seeing your portfolio grow along the way is not the final goal of crypto investing. You need to enjoy your hard work. Once the value of your crypto increases to your expected (or unexpected) goal, don’t forget to cash out. The cryptocurrency market is volatile. Your gains today may become your losses tomorrow. So remember to realise your profits in cash or stablecoins.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

Take time to research

In this digital age where you can access the internet pretty much anywhere you go, there is no excuse not to make informed investments. Smart investors conduct due diligence before buying into any cryptocurrency, whether it’s a popular coin or a new one. This allows you to better understand where and how you’re investing your money. Crypto is one of the fastest evolving industries. Therefore, proactive research is key to thriving.

Diversify your portfolio

Investments are unpredictable. Even those that seem to offer promising returns can crumble down in a flash. As much as you can get thousands of profits in a day or less, the opposite is also true. To futureproof your investments from uncertainties, diversifying your portfolio is a battle-tested strategy that has led many famous investors to success.

With this in mind, many investors opt to keep a large percentage of their total portfolio in major cryptos such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. High-risk assets can make up a smaller portion of your portfolio to balance risk and reward. Therefore, even if your high-risk assets don’t perform well, you still have a majority of your portfolio that is relatively stable.

It all starts with the right mindset

By employing these mindsets when investing in cryptocurrency, you can avoid common pitfalls that many investors experience time and time again. At the same time, it will allow you to become an intelligent investor by empowering yourself with a solid footing to win in the ever-evolving crypto space.

No content herein is financial advice.

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The content was first published by The Human & Machine.

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Digitisation has progressed and grown from Web1, the first worldwide web built on open source technologies and open standards such as HTML/HTTP. These protocols served as the foundation for technological giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. Then came the Web2 shift; the technology was primarily focused on user-generated content; the most significant innovation brought about by this progression are social networks such as Facebook/Meta, Twitter, and many more.

Notably, the majority of Web2 technologies were based on the same open and standard Web1 technology. The internet on which the web is built was the result of work from the 1960s to 1990s from research labs and universities largely in the public sector. As not-for-profit, they focused on establishing open standards for ease of information sharing. The only difference is that user-generated content and information on Web2 platforms are contained within siloed ecosystems. Today the internet Web2 giants such as Amazon and Google come from the foundations laid in the internet era.

We are once again at a crossroads in the evolution of the Web into a new decentralised iteration known as Web3. Through features such as value exchange and decentralization, Web3 aspires to shift the paradigm of previous iterations. Users will now be able to get value in exchange for the content value they contribute, and decentralised systems will be built to empower users. In another sense, however, Web3 is an attempt to return to the earliest visions of the open web, built on a common neutral network.

As the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee said: “The web was designed to be decentralised so that everybody could participate by having their own domain and having their own webserver and this hasn’t worked out. Instead, we’ve got the situation where individual personal data has been locked up in these silos. […] The proposal is, then, to bring back the idea of a decentralised web.”

With Web3, who we are online as individuals is becoming increasingly significant, and it will become even more so in the future. Most significantly, Web3 contributes to the development of a framework and infrastructure for the metaverse, an activity-based immersive ‘always on’ digital environment. Therefore, in this article, we will investigate the concept of the metaverse and the importance of interoperability to enable a sustainable digital world.

Also Read: To infinity and beyond: Why 2022 will be the year of Web3

What is the metaverse?

When you think of an HTML interface, you are looking at a product of the Web1. At the dawn of the internet, the HTML interface was a basic and straightforward way for individuals to engage with the digital world. With the introduction of video calls and other features, the second version of the worldwide web, Web2, resulted in a more sophisticated and social media-oriented way to use the internet.

In comparison the Web3 is a complete paradigm shift, bringing an improved interface that will expand to spatial computing, AR wearables, virtual reality, and other connected devices, enabling unprecedented levels of creativity and engagement. Our ability to connect more in the digital world of the metaverse will result in the formation of entirely new marketplaces and the emergence of new protocols and ecosystems. As metaverse guru Matthew Ball explained: “The Metaverse will not develop as the internet did. Public institutions, military research labs, and independent academics led the latter’s development because they were effectively the only ones with the computational talent, resources, and ambitions to build a World Wide Web, and few in the industry understood its commercial potential. None of this is true when it comes to the Metaverse.”

The importance of ‘interoperability’ in the metaverse

One of the most popular and most powerful Web2 platforms, Facebook, recently announced a rebranding as Meta, a metaverse-focused company. Meta and other Web2 juggernauts such as Amazon, Facebook, and Apple are developing and acquiring the technology and toolsets needed to build their ‘walled garden’ version of the metaverse.  These platforms all want to establish their own rules for what the metaverse should be like, but they refuse to give up their feeling of propriety ownership.

Gaming ecosystems such as Unity used to be the sole understandable concept of the metaverse, but as new standards are developed, there is bound to be more uncertainty about a metaverse built on open standards and easy interoperability. “For the Metaverse to thrive, we need developers to thrive. And this means making it as easy to take a virtual immersive educational environment or AR playground from one platform to another as it is to move a blog or newsletter,” argues Ball.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

The rise of centralised Web2 platforms in the Web3 world may stifle the development of decentralised systems in the metaverse. The epitome of Web20 is siloed ecosystems, harvesting your data to turn a profit through hyper-targeted advertising; if each platform sets its metaverse standards, the risk is that Web3 will simply become a more hi-tech version of the current siloed ecosystems. As Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney warned in 2016 when talk of the decentralised web was starting to become popular, the metaverse is going to be “far more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control of this, they will become more powerful than any government and be a god on Earth”.

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), created in 2003, is one alliance that has had a significant impact on the World Wide Web. It was a group of global companies who came together to make it simple to connect and enjoy photos, music, and video across networked consumer products, PCs, and mobile devices. This, according to the Alliance, meant that industry collaboration and standards-based interoperability resulted in attractive products. This collaboration resulted in the simple, innovative digital products that we now have on the market, including TVs, DVD and Blu-ray players, games consoles, and digital media players.

Also Read: ‘NFTs provide new ways to handle IP management, empower content creators’: Inmagine CEO Warren Leow

BigONE believes that a similar partnership for Metaverse companies would aid in the establishment of a common standard protocol for metaverse interoperability. The key challenge for such open standards to be fit-for-purpose for the metaverse is this: they need to offer a compelling financial incentive to developers above and beyond a ‘wall garden’ platform from a Meta or a Disney.

There are grounds for optimism. Take the example of venture capital platform Outlier Ventures which is working on an operating system called Open Metaverse OS, a decentralised set of tools and technologies designed to operate only through open standards and APIs. In addition, they’ve developed a framework for assessing metaverses and toolkits for creating “user-centric” metaverse solutions based on Web3 principles.

While Boson Protocol aims to provide a decentralised platform for commerce, “a peer-to-peer system which replicates the benefits of a market intermediary, without the disadvantages of centralised systems”. There is already an open standard that allows for inter-operability from the get-go, with a payments system that is metaverse-friendly: the blockchain and the cryptocurrencies that sit on top of it.

What lies ahead?

The world is starting to get a taste of what the metaverse can offer to our lives and businesses. People can now work in a foreign company from the comfort of their own home, blurring the divide between the physical and digital worlds. We have to understand that metaverse is another unit, another, another universe that we can play in and do a lot of things and activities together in a virtual space. If I wanted to order some fried chicken or pizza, I could do it in the metaverse and have it delivered to us.

BigONE and I believe that there will be several metaverses or different types of personalised digital worlds where people can connect. Still, the most important thing is that there will be a standard and that these platforms will be interoperable in such a way that developers can profitably build new services. The metaverse may be still in its early stages, and there is much to learn, but one thing is sure: interoperability is required for an open metaverse to succeed.

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X0PA AI, an AI-powered hiring solutions company in Singapore, has secured US$4.2 million in Series A funding, led by ICCP SBI Venture Partners (ISVP), a partnership between ICCP Venture Partners and SBI Holdings.

Co-investors of this round are SEEDS Capital, AI8 Ventures, XCEL NEXT VENTURES, and SASV Investments (X0PA got connected with XCEL NEXT through e27 Connect).

The startup plans to use the capital to expand into Asia, the US, Latin America, and Europe. The funds will also support its product enhancements and innovation.

Now more than ever, organisations are looking to increase diversity in their workplaces and reduce bias while lowering the time and cost to hire the best talent. A SaaS firm, X0PA helps in talent acquisition, hiring, assessment, using Machine Learning and Robotic Process Automation. It offers a range of AI-powered products, developed on Microsoft Azure, aiming to reduce manual recruitment and selection processes, increase inclusion, and solve people sourcing problems for enterprises, academia and government.

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

X0PA claims its intelligent hiring solutions are designed to maximise objectivity in talent selection and leverage automation to empower candidates and employers to get the most equitable and desirable hiring outcomes.

“Recruitment and selections can have significant bias, inequity and inefficiencies. We are looking to change the game in equitable hiring and selections by reducing unconscious bias and subjectivity, leading to more diverse workplaces and better selection outcomes,” said Nina Alag Suri, Founder and CEO of X0PA.

Said Tan Kaixin, GM of SEEDS Capital, said, “Equitable and inclusive hiring practices are emerging priorities for organisations worldwide as they look to increase diversity in teams. Through advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, X0PA’s solutions enable an objective and seamless hiring process, which has the potential to transform and uplift HR practices.”

 

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Indonesian e-commerce giant Bukalapak today announced that Willix Halim has been nominated by the company’s board of commissionaire as its new President Director and CEO.

Following the resignation of Rachmar Kaimuddin on December 30, 2021, Halim has been in charge as interim CEO of the company.

Kaimuddin left Bukalapak to join the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment as a Technology & Sustainability Development Special Advisor.

According to the Forbes report, the company’s shares fell as much as 4.9 per cent after the resignation was being announced, touching an all-time low of IDR430.

Also Read: The 27 Indonesian startups that have taken the ecosystem to next level this year

In addition to this announcement, the company also announced that the board has nominated Victor Putra Lesmana and Howard Nugraha Gani into the Board of Directors. Teddy Nuryanto Oetomo and Natalia Firmansyah will continue to serve as Directors of the company

Halim joined Bukalapak in 2016 as COO. The company named him as one of the key players in securing its unicorn status.

Throughout his time at the company, he had also contributed to the development of Mitra Bukalapak, its online-to-offline (O2O) offering, in addition to expanding its variety of digital services and products.

Halim has a First Class Honors degree in Computer Science and Mechatronics from the University of Melbourne.

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Malaysia’s global drone services company Aerodyne Group has agreed to acquire a principal stake in Malaysia-based AI and data analytics company Synapse Innovation for an undisclosed amount.

Aerodyne expects the investment to “supercharge” its AI and data analytics capabilities and strengthen the technology support for its international operations, spanning 35 countries.

Together, Aerodyne and Synapse will develop the next-generation drone data intelligence platform, coupled with smart nested autonomous drone solutions.

CEO Dr Afnizanfaizal Abdullah, a prominent AI scientist in Malaysia, will continue to lead Synapse and remain a business shareholder.

Aerodyne Group Founder and CEO Kamarul A Muhamed said, “This investment into Synapse is the first of many future M&As focusing on enhancing the breadth and depth of our second data technology pillar. Aerodyne Group also intends to accelerate Synapse’s growth plans exponentially under its technology ecosystem building agenda to champion Malaysia’s technology.”

Also Read: Malaysian drones services firm Aerodyne adds Japanese investors to its cap table

Headquartered in Johor, Synapse focuses on designing and developing machine learning algorithms for cloud-based predictive analytics services for various sectors, including agriculture, infrastructure and oil and gas. Its services cover big data analytics, automation in data processing, and mobile-based applications.

According to Abdullah, being an Aerodyne-backed company will help accelerate Synapse’s scale-up plans to grow its operations from 30 data scientists to 500 AI engineers and data scientists within two to three years.

Established in 2014, Aerodyne Group is a DT3 (drone-tech, data-tech and digital transformation) company. It uses Artificial Intelligence as an enabling technology for large-scale data operations, analytics and process optimisation. The group employs over 700 drone professionals to operate in the UAS services sector. It claims to have managed more than 560,000 infrastructure assets and surveyed over 380,000 km of power infrastructure across 35 countries globally.

In May 2021, Aerodyne announced a strategic investment from a consortium of Japanese investors, comprising Real Tech Fund, Kobashi Holdings and ACSL.

Two years earlier, the group secured US$30 million in a Series B investment round, led by InterVest/Kejora Ventures, with participation from VentureTECH, Gobi Partners and 500 Startups. This round was extended with an investment from North Summit Capital, Arc Ventures, and Leave a Nest in February 2020.

In December 2019, Aerodyne acquired a controlling stake in the services business of Measure UAS, an aerial intelligence company in the US.

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Pandai, an edutech startup based in Kuala Lumpur, has secured a total of US$2.03 million across pre-seed and seed rounds of investment from a group of investors, including Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital, 500 Global, Soma Capital, and Harvard.

RHL Ventures, Falnas Capital, and Kembara Kapital, besides an ex-Google director, unicorn startup founders, and several unnamed prominent entrepreneurs from Malaysia, Australia, India, Indonesia, and the US co-invested.

Also Read: How edutech is solving the global teacher’s crisis

Pandai is the Malaysian edutech startup to be accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator programme.

“The fund will be used to enhance the app to give a better learning experience for school students, as well as assist their parents and teachers. We are also looking to collaborate with educational institutions and other education providers,” said Pandai Co-Founder and CEO Khairul Anwar bin Mohamad Zaki.

Pandai was founded in January 2020 by Zaki, Akmal Akhpah and Suhaimi Ramly, who have worked in the education industry for the past 14 years.

A mobile app, Pandai focuses on learning and assessment to help primary and secondary school students improve their academic performance. It allows students to learn using gamified quizzes aligned to the national curriculum. Students also receive personalised analysis using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

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

Dedicated modules for parents and teachers are also integrated within the app to monitor and support students’ progress.

The edutech startup claims it has more than 300,000 registered students registered on the app.

“We launched Pandai in 2020 to make quality, personalised education accessible to every student. We want to bring impact not only in Malaysia but also in other countries by expanding Pandai to other markets in the future,” added Zaki.

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Startup Oi, a Singapore-based social media and talent matching platform for engineers, has bagged US$1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by local VC firm January Capital.

Co-investors are Goodwater Capital, SonTech Ventures, Mohammed Alabsi (ex-Bukalapak SVP of engineering), Pritesh Gupta (ex-cofounder of Zipgo), and Nikhil Lalwani (president and CEO of ANI Pharmaceuticals).

Startup Oi plans to utilise the money to expand its global team. Its goal is to reach 2 million users throughout Asia and beyond in the next two years, starting with engineering talent hotbeds such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.

The company has just launched its flagship app on iPhone and Android. It will be launching blockchain gamified e-learning and community building features to encourage high engagement from users over the next year. 

Also read: Is Southeast Asia facing a tech talent crisis in the midst of rapid growth?

Startup Oi was founded in 2021 by Sakshi Jawa (CEO) and Rob Creekmore (CPO and CTO) — both have extensive experience as high-level executives at e-commerce giants, including Amazon, Coupang, and Tiki. 

Startup Oi positions itself as a work-and-play social network for engineers. It addresses the gap in legacy social networks and communities by supporting engineers in all aspects, including finding jobs, joining e-learning, finding mentors, building careers, and having fun with common interests.

The startup helps connect global engineers and link them with companies, serving as a personalised job search. 

“Our vision goes beyond just Startup Oi. We want to connect engineers around the world to foster innovation at a global level,” said Jawa.

The company claims to have formed direct connections with more than 50 businesses in the area, emphasising filling the engineer shortage in Vietnam first. It has also appointed Phuc Truong as COO, formerly a senior manager (talent acquisition) at Tiki. 

The startup boasts of listing hundreds of jobs in Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia in less than a month, with a waitlist of more than 20,000 engineers. 

So far, the startup has made a presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India.

According to US Labor statistics, as of December 2020, the global talent shortage amounted to 40 million developers worldwide and is expected to reach 85.2 million by 2030. Companies worldwide risk losing US$8.4 trillion in revenue because of this lack of skilled talent, opening up room for innovative solutions in both edutech and human resource (HR) tech.

In Vietnam alone, there is a shortage of 500,000 IT personnel, especially high-skilled engineers, according to a report of Vietnam’s IT recruitment platform TopDev. 

Meanwhile, only around 5,000 IT students graduate annually from universities, of which the training programmes do not fully meet businesses’ requirements.

Last year, some startups addressing this challenge also secured initial fundings. They include Singapore’s Rocket Academy and Vietnam’s CoderSchool.

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Singapore-based Smarter Health has announced an SG$5.15 (US$3.8) million in Series A fundraise led by East Ventures.

Orbit Malaysia, Citrine Capital, HMI Group, and Emtek also co-invested.

As per a press statement, the health-tech company will use the funds primarily for product development and market expansion in Southeast Asia.

Founded by Liaw Yit Ming (CEO) and Dr Lee Hong Huei (COO), Smarter Health is a unified platform that facilitates secure data exchanges between insurers, healthcare providers and patients throughout the entire healthcare journey. This enables the use of data to guide decision-making for patients and improve the accuracy and speed of claims processing.

The startup claims to have achieved good traction in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Also Read: Meet the VCs: In conversation with East Ventures’ first female partner Melisa Irene

Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has forced insurers and healthcare providers to reflect and re-strategise on their operations, catalysing digital transformation. Smarter Health is here to make healthcare accessible, affordable, and accountable by providing an AI-powered interoperable platform.”

East Ventures is a sector-agnostic VC firm and is the first investor of Indonesia’s unicorns Tokopedia and Traveloka. Its other notable companies in the portfolio include Ruangguru, Warung Pintar, Kudo (acquired by Grab), Loket (acquired by Gojek), Tech in Asia, Xendit, IDN Media, MokaPOS (acquired by Gojek), ShopBack, KoinWorks, Waresix, and Sociolla.

Orbit Malaysia is a series A regional fund co-managed by Kejora Capital and Sunway Group of Malaysia. It is also part of the fund portfolio of Mavcap Malaysia.

Citrine Capital is a principle-based investment firm committed to global sustainable development.

HMI Group is a regional private healthcare provider with a presence in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. It owns and operates two tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. In Singapore, the group operates a healthcare training centre, a primary care clinic chain with 25 locations, and a private one-stop ambulatory care centre.

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American venture capitalist, well-known author, and entrepreneur Brad Feld once said, “they say it takes a village to raise a child and a startup is not different.” It takes a whole community to raise a successful startup company that can grow, scale, and contribute to a healthy economy, he added.

It is true that to achieve success, startups need to operate within a larger network of reputable companies that can help lift each other. Collaboration and innovation have been at the heart of the success of businesses forever but in light of the ongoing pandemic, working together and fostering ecosystems that help startups and SMEs grow has become a necessity.

In fact, several studies and reports have cited collaboration and partnerships to be key for post-pandemic recovery for startups in the APAC region and across the globe. A 2020 PwC study states that for complete economic recovery amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and after this crisis, stakeholders need to realign their future path based on strategic intent and focus. The study highlights “fostering a collaborative innovation ecosystem” as one of the key pillars that will be critical to Asia Pacific’s journey over the next 10 years.

Collaboration is key when it comes to early-stage startups

In 2019, the failure rate of startups was around 90%. The research concludes 21.5% of startups fail in the first year, 30% in the second year and 50% in the fifth year, and 70% in their 10th year, and one of the main reasons for their failure is the lack of a collaborative ecosystem.

While collaboration is important for small and big companies alike irrespective of what stage they’re at, when it comes to young startups that are still in Series A to C stages, collaboration is an absolute imperative. An ecosystem that boosts business growth, guides these young companies towards success, and fosters partnerships that result in business development and scalability, is a necessity.

Also read: China Mobile International hosts mCloud Carnival 2021

Some of the key elements that a collaborative ecosystem can help young startups with include:

• Exposure: Startups need to be able to engage with peers and learn about best common practices, industry standards, and so on.
• Technological know-how: They need knowledge and skills to be able to leverage technology and gauge the right platforms to test and develop products.
• A robust network: Growth and expansion can only happen if they have access to the right network of both investors and B2B startups for partnerships and collaborations.
• A supportive community: Startups also need access to global markets with the help of partner organisations and network retailers and distributors, among others.
• Mentorship and guidance: Startups can future-proof their growth and scalability through continuous mentorship and support.

These elements are not easy to come by, especially for newcomers in the startup ecosystem. While there is no dearth of programmes like accelerators and incubators that claim to help young startups thrive, unfortunately, rarely are they able to offer benefits as complex and comprehensive as the ones mentioned above.

Enter Fast Forward with HPE!

To fill this gap and help series A to C startups, Fast Forward with HPE is fostering a robust and supportive community for startups that focus on providing B2B services and solutions.

Fast Forward with HPE! is a unique startup programme that focuses on helping startups accelerate innovation, create collaborative opportunities, develop business strategies for future growth, and ultimately expand their footprints beyond the APAC region. This programme brings the smartest ideas and entrepreneurial spirit of digital startups, top venture capitalists, accelerators, and leading technology vendors together with industry leaders, consultants, and experts.

With a keen focus on early-stage digital startups that have proven B2B Enterprise Solutions and have raised funds within the past 1 year, Fast Forward with HPE aims to help build a community that cultivates startup growth and scalability.

Also read: Expo 2020 Dubai: The Malaysian companies ready to break into the global Islamic fintech market

Fast Forward with HPE! 2021’s list of qualifying startups is a rich mix of tech startups working on the latest and most cutting-edge technologies such as cloud, AI, and AR across different industries like construction and retail. These promising early-stage startups are based in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Series A qualifying startups in this year’s cohort are Cloudpick, DataVLT, viAct, Transcelestial, Quincus, Tagspace, and weR. H3Dynamics is the only Series B startup. This year’s cohort also includes two pre-Series A startups Hashstacs Pte Ltd and SeventhSense.

Participating startups were judged by industry leaders and experts, including Paul Glaser, Corporate Vice President & Global Head of Pathfinder, HPE Venture Capital Fund, Huey Lih, Heng General Manager for Channels, Service Provider & Ecosystem Sales Asia Pacific, Santhosh Viswanathan, Vice President & Managing Director, Sales Marketing and Communications Group, APJ, Intel Corporation, Suchitra Narayan, Director, Advanced Manufacturing & Venture Building, SGInnovate and Amit Gupta, CEO & Founder of Ecosystem.

Nurturing leaders of tomorrow through collaborations and support

With this programme, startups are able to learn from industry experts from HPE, Intel, and HPE’s ecosystem partners as well as from successful peers such as Tookitaki, Ninja Van, Netflix, Dropbox, Logitravel, and GoJek. They are also able to develop their products by leveraging mentorship on technology as well as utilising test and dev environments. The programme connects these startups with industry-relevant VCs, investors, and other B2B startups in the region looking for partnerships and collaborations.

The cohort also gets a chance to grow with HPE’s select installed base customers and partner network of resellers, distributors, Sis(System Integrators), ISVs (Independent Software Vendors), OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), and alliances on top of the unique opportunity to reach out to HPE global customers.

Also read: How you can be part of solving global challenges with Leave a Nest

Furthermore, HPE Fast Forward’s live pitch day series will see the top ten startups present and pitch their business proposal before a select group of HPE leaders, partners, and venture capitalists.

With an array of benefits, community support being one of the highlight advantages, participating startups from HPE’s Fast Forward are poised to reach great heights. To learn more about the programme, visit their official page here.

You can access the pitches at FAST FORWARD WITH HPE “Pitch Day” Live Episode 1 on January 13, Episode 2 on January 20, and the final Episode on January 27.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by HP Enterprise

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Who would have imagined Vietnamese blockchain game developer Sky Mavis to become a unicorn within just three years of starting up? No one. Not even the founders or its investors. 

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), metaverse, and Web3 were the definite trends of 2021. Many companies operating in these domains attracted eyeballs and investors’ attention. These verticals will continue to take centre stage as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc worldwide.

We bring you a list of companies in the NFTs/Web3/Metaverse segments that drew attention in 2021.  

Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity)

Sky Mavis was founded in early 2018 by Aleksander Leonard Larsen, Nguyễn Thành Trung, Đoàn Minh Tú, Hồ Sỹ Việt Anh and Jeffrey Samuel Kim Zirlin. It is the creator of Axie Infinity, a popular NFT-based play-to-earn (P2E) game where players breed, battle, and trade digital pets called Axie.

NFT-based P2E games are decentralised, meaning that the players own the in-game assets that they purchase and can generate real-world rewards for their in-game activities. Axie Infinity says it has helped create income-generating opportunities for underserved people worldwide; 25 per cent of players are unbanked, and 50 per cent have not previously used cryptocurrencies.

Axie Infinity has amassed players worldwide, with more than 1.8 million daily active users logging into the platform in August. It claims to have achieved US$33 million in everyday transactions, for a total volume of over US$2 billion.

In October, the Vietnamese company scored US$152 million in a Series B financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Accel Partners and Paradigm also joining. This followed a US$7.5 million Series A funding in May, led by Libertus Capital. Previously, Sky Mavis raised US$1.5 million from several backers such as Animoca Brands, Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, Consensys, and 500 Startups Vietnam.

As per the Crunchbase data, Sky Mavis is already a unicorn.

Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia

Led by CEO and co-founder Evan Spytma and co-founders Dan Wang and Irene Umar, YGG SEA is an official sub-DAO of YGG, which launched as a decentralised autonomous organisation in July 2021. YGG SEA leverages the parent’s infrastructure and assets to serve communities within the region to join the metaverse through localised investment, education and on-the-ground services.

So far, YGG SEA has helped more than 2,500 players and investors in the region to generate additional revenue streams, including over 600 in Thailand. The regional guild plans to increase the customer base to about 10,000 by 2022.

In December, the Philippine company announced raising US$15 million over two rounds of funding. The seed round, which took place in August, was led by the parent company and Infinity Ventures Crypto. The additional funding, which came in November, was led by Crypto.com Capital, Animoca Brands, MindWorks Ventures, Poloniex, Jump Capital and Sembrani Kiqani by BRI Ventures.

Sipher

Founded by prominent Vietnamese entrepreneur Nguyen Trung Tin (CEO), Sipher aims to unify state-of-the-art blockchain tech, artwork, storytelling, multiplayer gaming with decentralised financial technologies. Its vision is to create an expansive world that attracts and keeps the player base engaged for years to come as new worlds, characters and factions are introduced.

Sipher intends to create an ecosystem where people can play for fun while earning rewards for their time spent in-game. It also provides the community with ownership of in-game assets, which directly contributes to the growth and success of the gaming industry.

In October, Sipher announced the closing of a US$6.8 million financing round, co-led by Arrington Capital, Hashed and Konvoy Ventures. Defiance Capital, Signum Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMT Digital, BITKRAFT Ventures, Delphi Digital, Alameda Research, Fenbushi Capital, Sfermion, Hyperchain, GBV, Kyber Network, Coin98 Ventures, YGG and Merit Circle also participated.

GuildFi

GuildFi is a Thai startup that aims to create an ecosystem that connects the intricate jigsaws of the metaverse. It develops a Web3 infrastructure to connect games, NFTs, and communities to maximise players’ benefits and enable interoperability across the metaverse.

GuildFi looks to develop new features such as:

• GuildFi ID: a metaverse ID that is embedded with a levelling system that tracks players’ achievement and footprint across the metaverse. Players receive engagement points and ranking, which translate into the rewards they deserve,
• Game discovery: it helps players discover curated games and game creators discover the right player base for their game launch,
• Proof-of-Play Rewards: it enables play-to-earn on any games by analysing your lifetime activities and giving out the right benefits to you whether it’s an allocation to an NFT campaign or a bonus yield from our tokens,
• Metadrop Launchpad: it offers a special NFT and token deal from its partners where an allocation is determined by players’ ranks. 
• GameFi tools: They enhance players’ performance by providing gaming tools, for instance, the Axie Infinity toolkit that features scholarship management, daily SLP shares, PvP simulation, team status, and card explorer.
• Scholarship portal: it offers a built-in scholarship programme provided by GuildFi’s treasury and guild partners, reducing the barrier to entry for play-to-earn games and unlocking the opportunity for players anywhere in the world. 

To achieve this mission, GuildFi will collaborate with game creators globally to identify and attract the right players while supporting them through in-game asset investment and campaign collaboration to ensure successful launches and healthy growth.

In November, the startup completed a US$6 million seed round of financing, co-led by Singapore-based crypto-asset fund DeFiance Capital and South Korean early-stage VC firm Hashed. Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Play Ventures, SkyVision Capital, Coin98 Ventures, and other notable investors also co-invested.

OFF

OFF was co-founded by three crypto-natives, including Jinwoo Park (co-founder of South Korean crypto-asset investment firm Hashed).

OFF’s goal is to create an open ecosystem for avatar-based micro verses, and its first product is an NFT-based social metaverse platform, called MYTY.

MYTY is a decentralised social platform where people can escape the limitations of the physical world using NFT avatars. Its MYTY Camera app converts CryptoPunks NFT into avatars. It enables users to show up as the visuals of their own NFT avatars in Discord, Zoom, and other webcam-based applications.

OFF is currently working on “Ghosts Project”, the first collection of NFT avatars designed in partnership with MrMisang, the top artist in SuperRare. Ghosts Project, which is a prequel to MrMisang’s original series Modern Life is Rubbish, is being optimised for face tracking and motion tracking. It is designed to show the full capacity of MYTY’s avatars full-body tracking, including nodding, raising hands, and various emotional expressions.

GhostsProject is currently building Twittxer and Discord communities and planning an NFT avatar sale. Ghosts will be supported by MYTY Camera after the sales.

In November, OFF announced a US$3.5 million seed funding round co-led by Hashed and Collab+Currency. The round also saw the participation of BITKRAFT Ventures, Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures and SamsungNEXT.

Fantico

Fantico is a digital collectible platform catering to celebrated movies, artists, musicians, and sports for the Indian market. A portfolio company of Singapore-based diversified media and entertainment firm Vistas Media Capital, it builds its own version of metaverse, dubbed VistaVerse.

VistaVerse consists of virtual land, blockchain games, curated and user-generated experiences, and an NFT marketplace. It will be launched in the coming months with premium curated experiences, including from top Indian celebrities.

The marketplace has already been launched, focusing on both crypto and non-crypto user bases with marquee items to pique the interests of both segments.

The metaverse firm will leverage the parent company’s content, such as movies, music, and gaming resources, to build an experience-first approach.

In December, Fantico raised an undisclosed sum in a private financing round from Animoca Brands. Individuals, including Hemant Tucker, segment head for technopreneurs and market head (South Asia & Middle East) at Bank of Singapore, also joined the round.

Cosmic Guild

Cosmic Guild is a play-to-earn (P2E) community of gamers. The startup has run scholarships in Axie Infinity to incentivise players. The one-month-old startup operates as a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) focused on maximising yield and building communities.

Currently, the community-first guide provides NFT assets for more than 600 scholars and is said to reinvest the earnings into breeding more Axies and growing its pool of scholars.

The team believes that P2E games will increase in complexity and skill requirements. The meta changes from time to time in all games, challenging both the managers and players to rethink strategies and deploy capital constantly.

As a result, Cosmic Guild holds a portfolio of NFT game assets of crypto games loaned to guild members who can play using the NFTs and earn yields on games.

In December, it secured US$1.5 million in seed funding led by Binance Labs, the VC and incubation arm of Binance. Co-investors include DeFiance Capital, Alameda Research, and Play Ventures.

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