Singapore-based shared micro-mobility startup Beam has secured US$93 million in a Series B round of investment led by private equity firm Affirma Capital.

Sequoia India, Hana Ventures, ICT Capital, EDBI, AC Ventures, RTP Global, and Momentum Venture Capital also participated.

Beam will use the funds to expand into Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Turkey.

The startup also plans to introduce e-mopeds into its vehicle portfolio. The new 5th generation Beam Saturn e-scooter has 12-inch wheels (20 per cent larger than the average e-scooter) combined with hydraulic suspension for the smoothest riding experience. It has fully swappable batteries with sufficient capacity for 110 km of riding range.

A portion of the new funds will be used to introduce cutting-edge safety innovations to protect pedestrians, enhance councils’ control of city spaces for zoning and parking, and drive safer usage of vehicles by riders.

Also Read: Neuron Mobility extends Series A by US$12M to accelerate e-scooter expansion globally

Beam was founded by Alan Jiang (CEO) and Deb Gangopadhyay (CTO). Jiang previously led the APAC operations of bike-share operator ofo (shut down in 2018). He also played a key role in launching Uber across Asia, including China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Gangopadhyay has experience in building successful SaaS tech startups in Silicon Valley.

The startup claims it has grown revenues by 15x since its launch in 2020, despite experiencing mobility restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beam has operations across five countries: Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Gangopadhyay said: “We bring our 5th generation Beam Saturn e-scooter to cities with MARS technology that will provide significant advancements in safety, city zoning control, rider behaviour management, and sustainability. We have also created innovations to reduce risks to pedestrians with the Beam Pedestrian Shield, an onboard AI camera that can instantly and accurately detect pedestrians to prevent collisions. It can also detect footpaths to reduce vehicle speed or even prevent riding completely automatically.”

In June 2020, Beam raised US$26 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia India and Hana Ventures, with participation from several unnamed investors across APAC. Two years earlier, it announced a US$6.4 million seed fundraise led by Sequoia India, Founders Fund, ZhenFund, and Class 5 Global.

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EDP Renewables acquires Sunseap for US$815M, to set up clean energy hub in Singapore
The deal will enable the Madrid-based EDP to have a wider global reach and diversify its growth sources; Sunseap had raised US$4.8M in Series C led by ISOTeam in 2017.

Princeton Digital Group (PDG) raises over US$500M funding led by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala
The funds will enable PDG to deepen its presence in Japan, India, Singapore, China, and Indonesia; PDG operates a portfolio of 20 data centres with over 600MW of secured capacity and spanning five countries.

Beam secures US$93M in Series B round to introduce 5th generation e-scooter, expand in Asia
Investors include Affirma Capital, Sequoia India, Hana Ventures, ICT Capital, EDBI, and AC Ventures; Beam is expanding into Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Turkey and introducing cutting-edge safety innovations to protect pedestrians.

The inside story: How ThinkZone Ventures created a ‘pureblood’ US$60M Fund II by tapping into local resources
The unfavourable prospects due to the COVID-19 crisis forced ThinkZone to tweak its strategy and tap into local conglomerates’ funding sources.

Shiok Meats backer Aera VC hits US$30M first close for climate-tech investments
It has also launched an investment DAO, with 2000 ETH earmarked for pre-seed projects using blockchain to address climate and carbon-related challenges; Aera expects to make up to 30 seed investments over the next two years.

SG blockchain firm TenX’s CEO allegedly behind US$70M The DAO hack
Toby Hoenisch could be behind the infamous hack of the decentralised VC fund on the Etherium blockchain in 2016, claimed crypto-journalist Laura Shin in her new book; The hack resulted in the theft of 3.6M ETH, which was worth US$70M at the time.

Vietnam VC firm Thinkzone Ventures launches US$60M fund
Backers are IPA Investments Corporation, Phu Thai Holdings, and Stavian Group; Fund II will invest in pre-seed to Series A rounds of startups across various verticals; It will look to invest up to US$3M per startup.

YGG’s Axie Infinity assets grew to US$25.5M in Q4 2021
These gaming assets cost nearly US$1.7 million, which marks a 15x growth in value for the decentralised gaming company; Developed by Vietnam-based Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity continued to be the top game for YGG in 2021.

Better Bite Ventures launches US$15M fund for early-stage alt-protein startups in Asia
Better Bite Ventures has already backed ten companies in Asia and plans to back a total of 20-30 ventures; In SEA, it has backed four startups – Meatiply, Next Gen Foods, and Umami Meats (all Singapore), and Green Rebel Foods (Indonesia).

Animoca leads NFT platform Ucollex’s US$10M Series A round
Ucollex is a trading platform for digital collectible toys; Its latest raise will fund its blockchain tech and metaverse capabilities as it looks to tap into the anime and manga communities as well.

OpenCommerce bags US$7M Series A to allow Vietnam’s SMEs to bring products to global consumers
Key investors are VNG Corporation and Do Ventures; The cross-border e-commerce startup claims it has helped more than 86,700 sellers from 195 countries establish their e-commerce stores internationally.

Edutech startup Zenius acquires Indonesian cram school giant Primagama
This acquisition by Zenius potentially lead to the development of a blended learning platform that merges online, offline education infrastructure; Zenius is backed by Alpha JWC Ventures, Openspace Ventures, Northstar, Kinesys, and BeeNext.

Potato Play rakes in US$5M to scale casual puzzle games globally
Investors include Everblue Management, Play Ventures, Atlas Ventures, and Beenext; Potato Play uses data-informed rapid-iteration to create and publish casual games; The startup claims its games clocked 18.2M downloads so far.

Singapore startup MiyaHealth nets US$4.8M to take its products to Indonesia, Europe
Investors include ST Engineering Ventures, Elev8, and angels; MiyaHealth leverages AI and predictive analysis tools to help patients choose affordable healthcare, manage their chronic illnesses, and improve the experience.

Auto-financing startup Broom raises US$3M pre-seed funding
Investors are AC Ventures, Quona Capital, and co-founders of Kopi Kenangan and Lummo; Broom provides a single platform for autos-SME to digitise their business processes, such as managing their inventories, getting access to financing, and managing their sell-side tools.

Property data startup Urbanmetry scores US$2M pre-Series A led by Monk’s Hill
Urbanmetry harvests, cleans, and analyses large amounts of city data through AI and proprietary algorithms to extract trends and patterns in the built environment; Urbanmetry boasts over 150 corporate clients in the region.

Uzbek fintech startup Iman nets US$1M in seed funding
Investors include Battery Road Digital Holdings, Tesla Capital, and Uzcard Ventures; Iman is a halal fintech startup that offers investment, P2P lending, as well as buy now, pay later products, all of which follows the murabaha structure.

Singapore fintech firm M-Daq to buy cross-border payments startup Wallex
Wallex Technologies helps businesses in Indonesia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau to make cross-border payments into more than 180 countries; Wallex says it currently supports almost 2K banking and tech clients.

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Broom, an online financing company for small-scale auto dealers in Indonesia, has attracted US$3 million in pre-seed funding.

AC Ventures led this round, joined by Quona Capital and several angel investors, including Kopi Kenangan’s and Lummo’s co-founders.

Broom will use the money to introduce new products and services, expand its presence in major cities in Indonesia, and double the team by the end of 2022.

Established in 2021, Broom provides an end-to-end financial solution for auto dealer inventories. Its platform allows auto-SMEs to digitalise their business processes, such as managing inventories, accessing financing, and managing their sell-side tools.

“Broom aims to be the first choice for used car dealers to develop their business by providing various products and services,” said Pandu Adi Laras, Broom Co-Founder and CEO.

Also Read: AC Ventures hits final close of Fund III at US$205M to back early-stage Indonesian startups

Auto dealers generally work very traditionally, with most stock counts being done on a whiteboard. While trying to go online, they find it challenging to sell on platforms and find the right buyers within their locations. Financing is generally hard. Some go to loan sharks for 6-week loans paying significant interest.

Broom addresses this problem by providing dealers with three solutions through its platform, starting from operational enhancements, online sales enablers, and access to financing.

The company offers a short-term loan facility with a competitive interest rate; it has partnered with financial institutions to provide low-cost financing. This allows customers to access loan facilities by utilising their existing inventory as collateral with a fast approval process.

Currently, Broom has over 2,000 used car dealerships in the Jabodetabek area.

“As digital solutions penetrate every industry, embedded finance represents an enormous opportunity. The used car industry sees US$14 billion of annual transactions value, and MSME car dealerships represent over 80 per cent with little to no access to affordable financing. Broom seeks to empower these dealerships with financial products and enablers to help them scale,” added Adrian Li, Founder and Managing Partner at AC Ventures.

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As consumers become savvier, mall operators must move beyond performance and benchmarking to stay relevant and submit to retail trends. Malls will become the go-to place for brands to connect with their customers and create more personalised shopping experiences.

In Singapore, retail sales rose to 1.9 per cent for a third straight month in November 2021, as reported by the Department of Statistics Singapore. With increasing retail sales, the future of retail isn’t about brick-and-mortar vs online shopping.

However, the real opportunity will be consistently delivering new experiences and bringing physical marketplaces to a level-playing field with data visibility.

Retail customers have changed

As a Singapore-based retail-tech company, our retail data platform has paved the way for retailers in Singapore, Malaysia and The Philippines to make data-driven decisions by rejuvenating the mall as a retail ecosystem.

In our latest findings, retail customers have changed, with approximately 70 per cent of customers wanting mobile-first and unified omnichannel experiences.

Today, they have higher expectations of a mall and retail experience. They want mobile-first and unified experiences and will not tolerate customer friction and extra steps.

If a customer has to wait one day to receive rewards or is limited to how many rewards they can claim, they will simply go to another mall that provides immediate rewards without any minimum spend or maximum claim.

Dealing with the transformation of the mall business

Currently, malls are already finding ways to gather data at the store level and use it to further personalise their offerings, similar to ‘online malls’ and e-commerce platforms.

Access to significant amounts of mall management data such as consumer purchasing behaviour, sales, SKU data and real-time transactions can be a game-changer for most mall operators.

The question for most mall management and retailers isn’t whether or not they will consider it; it’s simply a question of how much they will continue to invest. 2022 will be about making better-informed business decisions.

Operating on the same level of intelligence as e-commerce

Even in a world of surging growth in new markets, e-commerce and technologies, one thing is crystal clear – that retail is and will continue to be king for the foreseeable future.

Companies that choose to shift their management paradigms to embrace this new normal first, will reap the lion’s share of benefits.

Also Read: How to ace your mega sales campaign: Best practices for merchants

The first on the list is putting customers at the centre of people’s businesses. Retail automation simplifies the manual processes and allows physical retail to operate with real-time intelligence, and run campaigns like live shopping events.

It also creates seamless customer experiences, such as instant earn-and-burn for mall loyalty points and instant car park redemption.

Secondly, make more merchants make more money, by increasing variable Gross Turnover (GTO) and running exciting campaigns, you are enabling your merchants to operate with the same level of intelligence as e-commerce.

Thirdly, running more effective partnerships can be a game-changer. The retail ecosystem is rich with many stakeholders such as banks and product brands, all vested in making the retail ecosystem successful. When this is done, malls tap on the expertise, resources and publicity of partners and have a great multiplier effect.

What’s stopping us from getting there?

Imagine mall-wide digital giveaways, physical live 11.11 events in malls or treasure hunts, voucher drops and gross merchandise value competition – all seamlessly enabled through real-time transaction data.

This could be the future. We have already seen clear visibility of real-time sales data, and all we need is to scale our processes and for departments to see the same thing.

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UCOLLEX, an online platform that sells unique and limited edition NFTs for toy and pop culture collectibles, has scored US$10 million in a Series A funding round. 

Animoca Brands and MCP IPX One Fund (owned by Japan’s MCP Asset Management co-led the round.

The fresh capital enables UCOLLEX to invest extensively in blockchain technology and tap into metaverse frontiers, increasing its presence across the worlds of anime, manga, and toy communities.

Also read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

Established in 2021, UCOLLEX caters to next-generation creators by making their NFT artworks available to everyone. The firm also enables creators to build their fanbase economy where fans can engage with creators’ metaverse through exclusive interviews and live-streamed drops with artists.

“UCOLLEX is closing the loop between creators and collectors, providing a world where collectors can feel at home and live their passion for collecting through the best 3D art and innovative VR experiences,” said Founder Robert Tran.

At UCOLLEX, people can invest in digital collectibles without opening a wallet, trade their digital collections on its marketplace, and discover rare projects and collaborations.

Last fall, it joined hands with crypto exchange Binance to support the first NFT launch from luxury fashion brand Jimmy Choo.

Data from market tracker DappRadar shows NFT sales volume reached US$25 billion in 2021, presenting a solid market demand for NFTs. This attracts more and more creators to use NFTs and Web3 technologies to increase their artwork’s visibility.

Founded in 2014 by Yat Siu, Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 150 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralised projects contributing to building the open metaverse. Its investments include Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, and Star Atlas.

This February, Animoca announced the launch of its Guild Accelerator Programme to foster the P2E gaming ecosystem and the acquisition of Melbourne-based Grease Monkey Games to develop its motorsports game catalogue.

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Image Credit: UCOLLECT

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