MindFi, a corporate mental health and wellness startup based in Singapore, announced today it has secured an oversubscribed US$2 million seed funding round.

Existing investor, Singapore-based early-stage VC firm M Venture Partners, and backer of Aussie tech unicorn Canva and NYS-listed Slack, Global Founders Capital, joined the round.

Other angels are Carousell co-founder Marcus Tan, Carro executive Kenji Narushima, Spin co-founder Derrick Ko, among others in the US and Asia.

The fresh funding will enable MindFi to accelerate its AI-driven product development as well as cultural localisations in key markets among its present-day 20 markets across the Asia Pacific.

Last August, MindFi raised US$750,000 in pre-seed funding from a slew of investors, including iGlobe Partners and M Venture Partners, fresh off its admission into Y Combinator’s (YC) Summer 2021 programme.

Also read: How to foster mental wellness in the workplace and boost performance

Founded in 2017, MindFi’s cross-platform mobile app delivers 24/7 guided self-care programmes, community-driven features such as forums and group therapy, and intelligent matching with diverse coaches and therapists.

HR leaders and corporate clients can access anonymised analytics to measure and support their employees’ health and productivity. The app also generates personalised recommendations, which are based on a user’s unique Human Wellbeing Profile (HWP). These profiles aggregate mental health data from MindFi app usage, such as moods and stress levels, with self-reported assessments, physical health data from wearables, such as sleep, heart rates and daily activity, as well as guidance from culturally-intelligent care providers.

The firm counts Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups such as Visa, Willis Towers Watson and Patsnap among its corporate clients, which are able to access Mindfi’s services in 16 languages.

Since completing the YC programme in September 2021, MindFi said that it has tripled the company’s employee headcount and recorded 5x annual revenue growth.

MindFi fosters the vision of “culturally competent” wellness in APAC, where cultural values such as interpersonal harmony, loss of face, and filial piety strongly influence people’s receptivity to mental health services and support.

“A mental health solution for Asia cannot be copy-pasted over from other regions,” explained MindFi CEO Bjorn Lee. “Wellbeing is multi-dimensional, and we seek to build a localised understanding of wellbeing that takes physical and cultural differences into account.”

Professor Kua Ee Heok of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, echoed this viewpoint as she said that technology products need to account for the unique cultural beliefs, mores, nuances and feelings of their users in order to deliver the best types of utility value on a regular basis.

Also Read: Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

To date, MindFi claims the usage of its app-based mental health and wellness programmes are 10 times higher than traditional teletherapy services.

The pandemic has boosted the global demand for mental health support in the last two years. According to the World Health Organisation, new depressive and anxiety disorder diagnoses spiked 400 per cent in 2021.

As per Singapore Mental Health Study conducted in 2016, despite one in seven Singaporeans experiencing mental health hurdles at some point in their lives, only a quarter of those seeks treatment for it. The digital health industry, therefore, is gaining momentum in Singapore, which is estimated to increase at a 6.94 per cent annual rate (CAGR 2022-2025) and results in a projected market volume of US$2,8 billion by 2025.

Recently, MindFi and Fitbit have teamed up on the joint pilot study to examine the impact of workplace stress among Singapore’s educational community during this pandemic period.

This January, Singapore-based Intellect, another YC-backed mental health startup, also secured US$10 million in a Series A financing round.

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Image Credit: MindFi

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According to a 2020 report around 690 million people, which is around 8.9 per cent of the global population—are hungry, a surge of nearly 60 million in five years. The food security challenge is going to become more difficult, as the world will need to produce over 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion people. On the other hand, agriculture contributes to a number of environmental issues leading to a range of challenges, including climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, dead zones, soil degradation, and pollution.

Owing to the urgent need for better agricultural solutions and the strong correlation between agriculture and climate change, there has been an emergence of climate-smart agriculture in the past few years. Climate-smart agriculture seeks to balance agricultural productivity within the bounds of our climate by leveraging digital technologies. Tech startups, founders and VCs are starting to see the potential and urgency for this industry and there’ve been significant strides in the industry in the past few years.

One such startup that focuses on alleviating the pain points in the agriculture sector while helping the environment is Tokyo-based Sagri. We spoke to Satoshi Nagata, the global business director from Sagri to understand more about the smart agriculture data and service platform startup.

Utilising technology for climate-smart agricultural solutions

Sagri is solving agricultural and environmental problems with satellite data, machine learning and grid mapping technology. One of the main challenges faced by farmers is the inaccuracy in farmland mapping and accurate delineation of farm boundaries is crucial to undertake many planning and decision-making actions. First, it enables a better estimation of cropland area, which is important information for both the farmer and agricultural managers (e.g., ministries, private sector players). Second, accurate information on farm boundaries can not only facilitate land registration but also help in the subsequent acquisition of land use rights for smallholder farmers. Hence, Sagri is developing an application for monitoring abandoned, AI mapping for farmland boundaries. The startup is also working on a soil data check system leveraging satellite data.

Also read: How Geotab continues to reinvent the transport industry through tech

“Generally speaking, everybody wants to do smart farming and do it fast. However, it is important to understand the diversity across Southeast Asia to address specific farming needs. For example, the rice in the Philippines, India, and Thailand are completely different,” explains Satoshi.

As such, for each crop cycle in specific regions with different kinds of resources and soil, smart farming has to be tailored. To support that a robust agricultural infrastructure is needed and this is where Sagri is stepping up.

“In Japan, we are a member of the committee “Digital agricultural mapping” by the Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan. Hence, we are committed to digital mapping for agri-commerce by leveraging big data and analytics,” shares Satoshi.

Southeast Asia as a potential market

Sagri is ready to expand and establish a presence in Southeast Asia through the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Southeast Asia has a burgeoning smart agriculture market. In Thailand alone, the market value amounted to around 128.7 million U.S. dollars in 2018 and is forecasted to reach 269.9 million U.S. dollars by 2022. 

Sagri is already working on a Proof of Concept project in Thailand in partnership with The Thai Ministry of Agricultural  Cooperatives (MOAC). Under this project, Sagri aims to help in the promotion of the digitalisation of agricultural land information.

Also read: Imagining communities: building localised digital experiences with CiPPo corporation

Furthermore, digital agricultural services are gaining ground across the region and transforming agriculture for smallholder cultivators. The unification of these largely unintegrated services offers a stronger proposition for actors in agricultural ecosystems. Therefore, visualisation is a key trend emerging across Southeast Asia.  

“From what we have learnt, almost all Southeast Asian governments are keen on creating a unified data platform for smart agriculture, however, there are some challenges, such as lack of input data, data traceability problems, and so on.  To address these challenges, Sagri plans to install a robust unified data platform by connecting various data resources,” shares Satoshi.

Sagri seeks to promote sustainable economic development with innovation for the farmers and to the consumers across Southeast Asia and beyond. Learn more about Sagri’s innovative and sustainable agritech solutions here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by JETRO

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Monit, an Indonesian B2B fintech startup that helps SMEs manage their finances, has secured an undisclosed sum in a funding round led by 1982 Ventures, a Southeast Asia-focused early-stage VC firm.

The startup will use the money to hire talent and develop its products.

Founded in late 2021 by Rizki Aditya (ex-Silicon Valley engineer) and Teddy Tjahjadi (ex-Country Head at Payswiff Indonesia), Monit focuses on supporting SMEs to pay bills, manage reimbursements and disbursements, and issue corporate credit cards.

Monit, dubbed as the ‘Brex or Ramp of Indonesia’, has earlier raised funding from Init 6, the VC firm founded by Bukalapak co-founders Achmad Zaky and Nugroho Herucahyono.

In January 2022, Monit began onboarding clients and partnered with Visa, Mastercard and CIMB Niaga to provide corporate cards for businesses.

Also Read: 1982 Ventures backs Indonesian agri commodity marketplace PasarMikro

Aditya said: “Corporate credit cards are tough to obtain, especially for SMEs, and the challenges around managing finances are hurting Indonesian businesses. Monit supports SMEs by providing an all-in-one expense management platform including corporate cards for payments.”

“The next product will be focused on a complementary real card product and treasury to help companies get an all-in-one platform not only for spending but also investment return from their idle cash,” said Co-Founder Tjahjadi.

“The upside for Monit is hugely based on the fast-growing B2B payments opportunity and their mission to build the future of finance for the next wave of businesses in Indonesia,” stated Scott Krivokopich, Managing Partner of 1982 Ventures.

Based in Singapore, 1982 Ventures is a seed fund investing in fintech startups in Southeast Asia. Its investments include open banking API platform Brick, personal finance app Pina, earned wage access platform Wagely, book-keeping app Lista, investment platform Infina (YC S21), ‘buy now, pay later’ firm Fundiin, rent-to-own home financing app Homebase (YC W21), and automated financial data delivery platform Bluesheets.

Also Read: 1982 Ventures joins Singaporean ‘wealthcare’ app Hugo’s US$2M round

In December 2021, 1982 Ventures announced the initial close of its first seed-stage fund with US$12.5 million in committed capital. The fund targets to raise a total corpus of US$15 million.

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Gone are the days when digitising your fintech startup was considered an innovation unto itself. Having a website or app and enabling digital transactions is no longer considered an innovation— it’s more like a necessity for survival.

Fintech firms that want to stay ahead of the curve have to look deeper into their business model to find new ways to innovate beyond simply integrating new technology.

So how do you innovate your fintech startup in an era of digitisation? The key is to understand your customers and adopt a customer-centric approach for your entire business.

Be a creator, not a disruptor

Many entrepreneurs are still stuck on the old idea that the only way to generate new business is to disrupt an existing market. But that isn’t exactly true.

Nondisruptive creation allows you to create new market segments where there weren’t any. That way, you can build a new market for your business without destroying an existing player or running anyone out of their jobs. You can find better and lower-cost ways to solve existing problems and align your company goals with your customer.

But to be a creator, you need to understand your customer base truly. You need to be aware of their exact pain points and innovate not just for the sake of innovation but also to make their lives easier.

Also Read: How voice AI is revolutionising the fintech scene

Let’s look at an example. Hometap is a startup that allows homeowners to access a portion of their property’s future value in cash. Homeowners can access capital without selling their property to fund immediate needs such as healthcare expenses.

It’s a great example of a fintech startup creating a new market segment by solving an existing problem in a new way.

There are many more examples of fintech providers taking on the role of a creator instead of a disruptor. If there’s one thing they all have in common, it’s an acute knowledge of their customer base and market segment.

No more product-led

You’re probably familiar with the concept of product-led growth. Starting with salesforce in the early 2000s and continued by Slack and Dropbox, numerous software companies have pivoted to a product-centric business model.

Unlike the sales-led growth strategy of the ’80s and ’90s, the product-centric business model’s entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention is defined by the product itself.

Today, there’s an even better option— customer-led growth. Allowing customer needs to define your business model results in a better product that’s already tied to the requirements of an existing market segment.

This approach allows startups to serve a particular customer segment based on a deep understanding of their unique pain points. It means you can innovate the market without disrupting the existing market while still delivering value in a way that matters.

Also Read: Fintech is transforming how Southeast Asian companies process international payments

In fintech, we’re already seeing customer-first solutions taking off everywhere, from banking to cryptocurrency.

Digital and mobile-first banking

In most Asian countries, banks have been moving toward digitisation long before the pandemic came to be. However, the push toward social distancing and the need to get everything done remotely has accelerated the shift to mobile banking.

Today, people prioritise convenience and ease of access over traditional factors like interest rates, to the extent that a 2021 McKinsey report demonstrated that more than 70 per cent of Singaporean consumers are open to migrating to digital-first banks.

Banks have had to adapt to keep up with the competition, and they were quick to introduce full-fledged online banking solutions. Throughout 2022, we will continue to see banks refine their digital offering through more cutting-edge and mobile-first banking solutions.

Hybrid solutions in fintech

We are also starting to see the boundaries between banks and other personal financial institutions blur. From investment cards to smart deposits and so many more, banks diversify their portfolio of services beyond the traditional remits, often in partnership with other financial institutions.

Hybrid fintech solutions deliver more value to their customer base, which helps the companies themselves grow even further. As more banks hop aboard the digital bandwagon, we expect to see a further rise in the number of bank-Fintech hybrids going into the new year.

There are even more significant opportunities for growth, as consumers expect banks and Fintech startups also to provide non-financial services that help make their lives easier.

Social engagement in fintech

From a consumer’s perspective, digital banks are utility apps. They are useful financial tools, but there’s little to no engagement involved in the service to make people feel attached. Simply put, there’s nothing stopping customers from switching from one digital bank to another.

Also Read: Pocket power: 27 personal finance startups in SEA to help you manage money

Adding a little touch of interaction to make it social+ can change this. From PayTM in India to Venmo in the US, social+ fintech had a great year in 2021.

But what really is social+? Simply put, it’s a strategy that turns social engagement into an inextricable part of your product — so much so that the success of your business community is directly linked to the success of the product itself.

The benefits of this business model are quite overwhelming. The need to belong to a community is primal among human beings, which is why social+ brands have experienced massive growth fuelled by increased user engagement and user retention.

The social+ model also unlocks new ways to approach data and personalisation, making it a gold mine for a brand’s marketing strategy.

We expect to see many more companies hop onboard the social+ train in Fintech going into 2022, and the impacts are poised to be glorious.

Engaged customers will help you to innovate

The social+ approach isn’t just about slapping some social features to your existing product. Instead, it implies the implementation and integration of community-building into your product from day one in a way that delivers value to your customer base.

From in-app communication via emojis to competitive leaderboards and rewards, social+ can help gamify Fintech and make it more attractive to the customer base. This, in turn, will help drive higher rates of user engagement.

Unlock the power of social engagement and cement that feeling of belonging that we all crave into your Fintech service.

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Nanotechnology company PT Nanotech Indonesia Global Tbk (IDX: NANO) is gearing up for its IPO by issuing 1.28 billion shares or the equal of 29.99 per cent of funding acquired during the process. The company is said to be the first nanotechnology company to get listed on the stock exchange in Indonesia.

In its prospectus, the company puts the price at IDR95 to IDR105 per share with the target to raise IDR134.92 billion (US$9.3 billion). The initial offering is scheduled to happen on February 8-15 and is targeted to receive effective from Financial Services Authority (OJK) in February.

Nanotech began as a nanotechnology research group that was founded in 2005 by Prof. Nurul Taufiqu Rochman. After years of conducting research and development for new products based on nanotechnology, Nanotech was established as an official entity in 2019.

The company’s mission is to tackle the problems, needs, and challenges faced by academicians, investors, industry players, and the government that can only be solved through science and technology. According to a statement on its website, Nanotech offers R&D, material engineering, and nanotechnology services with more than 10 years of experience in the field.

Nanotech is connected to more than 300 nanotechnology scientists, owns more than 40 tech licenses, 29 brands with nanotechnology, and 100 formula banks.

Also Read: AI and nanotechnology are innovating healthcare

Use of IPO funds

Based on its prospectus, Nanotech aims to use the funds secured through the IPO to purchase machinery and tools for material engineering technology (IDR16.39 billion/US$1.1 million) as well as machine and tools related to healthcare, cosmetics, and pharmacy industries (IDR16.7 billion).

It will also use another IDR16.22 billion to purchase machinery and tool for R&D purposes, IDR17.04 billion for waste management machines, and IDR3.61 billion (US$251,000) to develop IT and support infrastructure.

Speaking to DailySocial on a separate occasion, Nanotech COO Kurniawan Eko Saputro said that the business plan is able to be executed collectively in 2022 as the company is supported by its joint operation with several strategic business units (SBUs).

Nanotech currently runs five SBUs: General Industry, Health, Cosmetics and Pharmacies, Aquaculture and Agribusiness, Education and Training as well as Property and Construction. “SBUs under this scheme will be executed in Q2 2022 with the goal to support the acceleration of growth in general,” Saputro said.

For the health, cosmetics and pharmacy industries, the COO believes that there is a great potential for growth in Indonesia as the country is blessed with natural diversity that consists of 30,000 identified animal, plants, and microbe species –with 950 species that have been known to have medicinal and food properties.

With this condition, Indonesia has the great potential to become a producer of natural ingredients for food, medicine, and cosmetics production. Citing Statistica, Saputro said that the market for natural and organic cosmetic ingredients have been growing rapidly in the past years and is estimated to reach US$22 billion in 2024.

Global cosmetics sales valuation is also said to reach US$145.3 billion in 2020, and is expected to grow with a 4.99 per cent CAGR in 2020-2025. According to Statista 2022, the global cosmetics market is projected to reach US$189.3 billion in 2025.

Also Read: In brief: NanoMalaysia sets up nanotech initiative targeting Indian startups

There is also the potential for pharmaceutical industry growth that reaches 12-13 per cent annually. According to the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin), the Indonesian pharmaceutical market is estimated to reach US$10 billion in 2021.

“Indonesia has natural biodiversity and demographic bonus. There is great potential for Indonesia in this. At the moment, our highest performing SBUs are the ones on general industry and health, cosmetics and pharmacy. This strategy helps to push for revenue growth by giving added value to the services that are provided to users and stakeholders,” Saputro said.

As for the waste management tech implementation, the COO added that the company is currently preparing for a system to turn waste into more environmentally friendly materials. This technology will also be offered to other companies that are struggling with their operational waste management. For example, cooking oil and textile refinements waste.

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The article was written by Corry Anestia in Bahasa Indonesia for DailySocial.

Image Credit: microgen

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