Tonik Financial, the parent company of Tonik Digital Bank in the Philippines, has completed its US$131 million Series B equity funding round.

Mizuho Bank, one Japan’s largest banks with a presence in the Philippines, led this round. Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), DST Partners Co-Founder Rahul Mehta, Singaporean fund Sixteenth Street Capital, and Indonesian family office Nuri Group co-invested.

Existing backers Sequoia India, Point72 Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners, iGlobe, Alpha JWC, Citius, Blauwpark Partners (Singapore), and The Kraft Group also participated.

Tonik will use the new capital to accelerate the growth of its digital bank in the Philippines.

Also Read: Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam have a huge potential in APAC for neobank growth: Study

This deal comes less than a year after its US$17 million pre-Series B round, led by iGlobe Partners, in May 2021. A year earlier, it secured US$21 million in a Series A funding round, led by Sequoia India and Point72 Ventures.

Launched in March 2021 by Founder and CEO Greg Krasnov, Tonik is a digital-only neobank in the Philippines, providing loans, deposits, payments, and card products to consumers. It operates on a private digital bank license issued by the Philippine central bank Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Tonik operates out of hubs in Singapore (HQ), Manila, Chennai (India), and Kyiv (Ukraine).

The neobank claims to have reached US$20 million and US$100 million of consumer deposits within the first and eighth months of operation, respectively.

It is now focused on rolling out a broad range of innovative all-digital consumer lending products focused on the financial inclusion clients and expanding the value proposition of its Tonik Account offering.

In the company’s estimates, the Philippines represents a US$140 billion retail savings market and a US$100 billion unsecured consumer lending opportunity.

Krasnov said: “The partnership with Mizuho will provide Tonik with enhanced access to the international wholesale funding markets and world-class managerial talent, as well as serve as a fantastic platform for our future international expansion.”

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The world’s purchasing behaviour shifted online in 2022.

This is true even for developing countries, like Ekshop in Bangladesh, Tokopedia in Indonesia. The pandemic has accelerated e-commerce adoption and also attracted significant funding interest in this sector.

Quick commerce (Q-commerce) companies promise ridiculously short delivery times, catering to the consumers’ demand for instant gratification. Blinkit and Zepto can deliver within 10 minutes in a big country like India and have raised millions of dollars of funding last year.

Social commerce companies allow you to buy the fancy shirt that someone is wearing on Instagram immediately and have it delivered to your house. While the commercial viability of these companies is still up for debate, online purchasing is here to stay.

Today, over 440 million people are online in Southeast Asia. According to a report by Google, Temasek Holdings and Bain & Company, 80 per cent of them made at least one online purchase.

More people are expected to come online over the next decade. I am sharing my thoughts from Digital for Development’s perspective.

People in rural/undeveloped areas are overpaying for their goods

I remembered from my first trip to West Papua, Indonesia — specifically to Baliem Valley and Wamena. It was a rural area, where electricity and clean water is not readily available. The net average monthly income is about US$200.

The tribal people need pigs for their ceremonies. And a tiny pig costs US$150 there, while I could get a well-roasted small pig in Singapore at US$130.

Also Read: Quick commerce startup Astro raises US$27M Series A led by Accel, Sequoia India

Electronic items are generally 20 per cent to 40 per cent more expensive in remote areas, how do people with lower income opportunities afford these goods?

Social commerce can lead to predatory behaviours

Social commerce has evolved from in-person Tupperware parties and multi-level marketing to the digital world.

In ASEAN and other developing countries, the sense of community is strong and the mistrust towards “outsiders” is high. People believe what their family or friends tell them, over any other information sources. Hence some MLM companies are more successful in developing countries than in markets like the US.

Today, social commerce lives on messaging apps and social media. Can we trust social media influencers? How transparent will people be, when recommending products to their friends?

I hope that this does not negatively impact the social fabric.

Investment in developing countries is needed for economic prosperity

While it is still unclear if Q or social commerce companies are going to be profitable for their investors, I am excited about how these investments will improve logistics to rural or remote areas. As a consequence, we are able to develop better infrastructure and bring prosperity to all parts of the world.

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Southeast Asia’s F&B tech startups — comprising fresh F&B, food delivery, restaurant discovery apps and on-demand grocery services — raised a record US$461 million across 49 funding deals during 2021, up from US$250 million over 36 deals in 2020 and US$115 million over 28 deals in 2019, says a report.

Moreover, homegrown F&B startups have raised over US$900 million of private capital funding over ten years from 2012 to 2021, with Indonesia dominating the funding size with at least US$644 million raised. Indonesia was well ahead of Singapore (US$152 million), Malaysia (US$44 million), the Philippines (US$38 million), Vietnam (US$36 million) and Thailand (US$31 million in deal flows over this period.

The report, titled ‘Tapping into Indonesia’s F&B Revolution’, was conducted by Alpha JWC Ventures in partnership with DealStreetAsia. It covers fundraising activities by venture-backed companies in the region’s F&B scene and deep dives into the exponential growth of F&B as a vertical.

In Indonesia, fresh F&B and grocery services have been the fastest-growing categories during the pandemic, as shown by the median value growth across seed to Series C investment sizes.

Also Read: Why Malaysia’s F&B industry is going digital as a means of economic recovery

Even with such growth, both in company valuation and product usage, there is still plenty of room to explore since the penetration of tech-enabled F&B services is still very low in Indonesia compared to mobile phone and internet penetration.

The report also shares insights from top-performing startups such as Kopi Kenangan, Hangry, Mangkokku, and ESB. It identifies four distinct yet connected eras of Indonesia’s F&B industry: the conventional, incubation, emerging and mature eras, with each period having its own pain points, popular business models, and key players.

Currently, Indonesia is in the middle of its emerging era, marked by the emergence of more tech-enabled enterprises and the country’s (also the region’s) first F&B unicorn startup, Kopi Kenangan.

Interestingly, from the end of the incubation through the current mature era, investor interests in the space remain strong as these startups continue to display high potential. Year-on-year growth for food delivery has maintained a consistent 30 per cent and 50 per cent increase over the past five years.

The non-restaurant-based F&B segment is expected to grow to US$426 billion by 2030 in Indonesia, approximately 6x the size of the restaurant-based segment. This is due to F&B services across the region adapting to evolving consumer preference of food delivery over dine-in, which was further fueled by the pandemic.

The food delivery GMV is set to reach US$14.1 billion by 2025, with a predicted compound annual growth rate of 21.5% between 2020-2025.

All data cited in this report is based on field research, interviews of respondents/sources from companies like Alpha JWC Ventures, ESB, Hangry, and Mangkokku, industry reports, company announcements, media reports, and regulatory filings in Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, Indonesia’s Directorate General of Legal Administrative Affairs and DealStreetAsia’s DATA VANTAGE.

Eko Kurniadi, Partner, Alpha JWC Ventures, said, “As consumers’ behaviours change and expectations heighten, founders navigating the space are also becoming grittier, with more finesse. I see this as a dynamic cycle that is much needed to keep improving the offerings in the F&B industry. The result of this is already apparent with SEA’s first F&B unicorn, Kopi Kenangan, and other up and coming F&B startups that are poised for huge growth in the coming years.”

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Selly, a social commerce platform in Vietnam, has raised US$2.6 million in a pre-Series A funding round from CyberAgent Capital, Do Ventures, Genesia Ventures, JAFCO Asia, and Kvision (from KBank Group).

Tuan Thong, Founder and CEO of Selly, said: “We will use the fresh capital to improve product features to offer the best experience to our resellers and suppliers. It will also help us expand our presence in more remote areas in Vietnam so that everyone will have the opportunity to earn a sustainable income.”

Launched in April 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Selly is a social commerce platform that makes entrepreneurship accessible for anyone and helps people generate sustainable income without any investment or sales operations required. It only takes resellers a few minutes to source products from a wide array of high-quality goods listed on its app, then share them with their network of friends. Once an order is closed, Selly will handle the delivery with full after-sales services.

Also Read: Genesia Ventures hits US$90M first close of Fund III, targets US$130M final close in August

Selly has more than 300,000 resellers on its platform, of which 80 per cent come from lower-tier cities. Most of them are homemakers and people who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. By starting their businesses on Selly, resellers could earn up to US$1,500 per month, the company said in a press note.

Furthermore, Selly is partnering with hundreds of traditional manufacturers and distributors in helping them venture into e-commerce to catch up with the rapid rise of the online shopping movement. It allows suppliers to reach out to customers in all corners of the country while taking care of the entire fulfilment process.

The firm charges fees only when products have been successfully delivered.

According to a recent report by Accenture, the US$492 billion global social commerce industry is expected to grow 3x as fast as traditional e-commerce to US$1.2 trillion by 2025.

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On 13 January 2022, Hewlett Packard Enterprise in partnership with e27 successfully hosted the first episode of “Fast Forward with HPE” — an initiative designed to identify, support, co-innovate, and go to market with the next generation of digital disruptors in the Asia Pacific startup ecosystem.

“Fast Forward with HPE” aims to bolster and embolden startups from the region in ways that can help them scale, grow, and ultimately co-innovate technologies for the digital future. While start-ups are known for disruptive ideas, it often takes the experience and global reach of a technology heavyweight to get that innovation into the hands of customers. That’s what Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Fast Forward initiative aims to do: Fuel the best of start-up culture with the insights and support needed to ensure solutions can be rolled out at scale.

Fast Forward with HPE spans three episodes with the first two rounds already broadcasted last 13 and 27 January, culminating in the final live pitch round to be held on 17 February.

Fast Forward with HPE!

Fast Forward aims to partner with the winning cohort of startups to help drive engagement for their offerings with a targeted focus. The journey encompasses many modes but may include: customer & partner introductions, solidification of joint value propositions and selling motions, or enablement of the winning startup’s product. The journey evolves with time to enable joint success; customer engagement, solution creation, GTM integration, and field enablement for scale and a robust partnership. Unlike any other existing start-up programs, the initiative is focused on building a strong community of start-ups that provides B2B services/solutions in APAC.

The competition featured a judging pool made up of leading experts including Huey Lih Heng (General Manager, Channels, Service Provider & Ecosystem Sales, APAC, HPE), Paul Glaser (Corporate Vice President & Global Head of Pathfinder, HPE Venture Capital Fund), Amit Gupta (CEO & Founder, Ecosystm), Santhosh Viswanathan (Vice President & Managing Director, Sales Marketing & Communications Group, APJ Territory, Intel Corporation) and Suchitra Narayan Director, Advanced Manufacturing & Venture Building, SGInnovate.

Also read: Australian fintech takes global No. 6 spot

Over the past three years, HPE has been on a journey to rapidly transform to better align with changing technology trends and evolving customer needs. A critical element of this transformation has been the re-ignition of its innovation engine. HPE CEO Antonio Neri talks about a strategy for HPE that’s edge-centric, cloud-enabled, and data-driven. As HPE helps customers build their technology landscape—both for on-premise data centres and extending out to the edge—it is looking for partners that can help provide that software layer,  that extends the reach of HPE’s product portfolio across that hybrid cloud experience for customers.

Ranging from AI-powered cloud solutions to supply chain operating systems, the startups in Fast Forward with HPE!’s 2022 cohort all prove to be disruptors and innovators ready to shape not only the digital landscape of Asia Pacific but of the world. After over 200 applications from across the region, here are the 10 startups carefully selected to compete in this year’s Fast Forward with HPE!

Cloudpick

In the summer of 2017, Cloudpick started the development of a smart store solution designed to power a small one-room, cashier-less convenience store. From that humble beginning, Cloudpick continued to develop and enhance its solution, bringing AI-based technology that has since become the retail industry’s leading provider of contactless, cashier-less retail shops and conveniences stores.

Cloudpick’s technology is currently used in more than 160 locations in 11 countries.

The founders of Cloudpick had a single focus in mind: to create technology that allows shop operators, owners, and entrepreneurs to transform their brick-and-mortar stores and compete with cashier-based and e-commerce stores. As experts in computer vision and machine learning, the founders of Cloudpick believe they can use the power of AI to create stores with the ability to “understand” customers’ shopping behaviours and patterns that can help operators understand which products sell best and why, more easily manage their inventory, reduce costs and human capital, and fully automate the retail experience.

Transcelestial

Transcelestial is building a space laser network to deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally. This will be the fastest way to bring the rest of the world up when it comes to the bandwidth and connectivity curve. Right now, the company is using the same technology on the ground as “wireless fibre optics” — with a much lower TCO than fibre for Telcos and enterprises.

Transcelestial has won numerous industry and global awards such as SPIFFY San Andreas Award for Most Disruptive Technology by Telecom Council, Forbes 30 Under 30 foe their CTO, Dr Mohammad Danesh, and The Most Ambitious Start-Up in Photonics Award by The Optical Society (OSA), among others.

Founded in December 2016, the Transcelestial team is located in Singapore and is backed by major investors such as Wavemaker Partners, SEEDS Capital, Entrepreneur First, 500 Startups, AirTree Ventures, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator), Charles Songhurst (Microsoft’s former Head of Corporate Strategy), Josh Manchester (Champion Hill Labs) and other investors.

DataVLT

DataVLT is a young, dynamic company that helps organisations advance their intelligence progression. From automating intelligence to building data analytics and AI systems as an outsource solution for all types of enterprises, the team Is always ready to pick up the gauntlet — from foundations to advanced requirements.

As an award-winning Data Science and Engineering outfit, DataVLT applies design thinking to solutions and can begin any AI building journey from as early as data feasibility audits, infrastructure, data processing, and modelling to visualisation. With quality validated by heavyweight industry peers, DataVLT has gained quite a few industry leaders as clients and partners.

Also read: Meet the 26 innovators pitching on JETRO x Techstars pitch day

Supporting the fundamental growth of analytical knowledge and ‘know-hows’, the team is also giving back to society by providing Data Science and Analytics training to MNCs, government agencies, and educational institutions around the region.

With DataVLT, any company can gain access to advanced analytics without the depth of expertise or high costs.

H3 Dynamics

H3 Dynamics is a workflow automation company that is digitising civil engineering inspection and rectification processes across several industry verticals — with the main starting emphasis on real estate and buildings.

Their technology turns unstructured images, videos, or LiDAR data into cloud-based intelligent inspection reports as a service for asset owners, operators, contractors, certification bodies, or insurance firms. While various data acquisition methods can be used (portable or fixed cameras, ground robots, and drones) the company developed an autonomous drone docking station for fully autonomous, remote aerial scanning operations at the client site.

Hence, the company’s cloud-based ecosystem tied to robotics stations at client sites can enable remote inspections, incident response, and monitoring as a service.

STACS (Hashstacs Pte Ltd)

STACS is a purpose-driven Singapore fintech firm, with a vision to provide Transformative Technology for the financial industry. It has an award-winning blockchain platform that unlocks value and enables effective Sustainable Finance.

The team is led by industry veterans committed to resolving problems in the financial industry with game-changing technology. STACS’ clients and partners today include global banks, stock exchanges, and asset managers.

The company is a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Global FinTech Award Winner, and also a two-time awardee of the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof of Concept (POC) grant, under the Financial Sector Development Fund administered by the MAS.

tagSpace

7 years ago, tagSpace began its journey as a cross-platform, locational AR development kit for developers. At that time, there were no powerful offerings for both Android and iOS devices so the company sought to become the enabling development platform. Shortly afterwards, they also realised that there was a greater commercial opportunity in the Social B2C space, so they repositioned themselves as the World’s first Social AR platform.

The company got the platform to a Minimum Lovable state and then raised seed-stage investment capital to grow their product to a commercial state. Around that time, tagSpace started to see rumblings from Facebook about their AR play and realised 2 things; first, that they were not ready to compete with them, and second, that they had a LOT of videogame DNA in their core team but no Social Network development experience.

Paul Simon Martin, tagSpace CEO, also realised a greater opportunity in giving all businesses the ability to create and integrate locational AR capabilities into their existing products. So the company pivoted again to become the “WordPress for Locational AR”. Currently, tagSpace is a complete no-code, location-based Augmented Reality solution for city experiences, festivals, and big events.

Quincus

Quincus is creating the operating system for the supply chains of tomorrow. Based in Singapore with offices in Indonesia, the UK, the UAE, and other countries, Quincus is developing a modular, configurable platform that utilises data and machine learning to enable visibility, control, and optimisation throughout the supply chain.

Quincus technology is trusted by logistics players across the world, from Asia to the Middle East to the US and more.

viAct

With the mission of saving lives and ultimately enhancing the productivity of the construction business; Gary Ng (Founder) and Hugo Cheuk (Co-Founder) started viAct in 2016, combining their engineering and technical knowledge after identifying that construction businesses were ready for technology use. However, on exploring the then-existing market, they found that AI models were expensive and time-consuming to upgrade. So they started R&D in AI focusing on building tailor-made AI modules for scenario-based, real-time, on-site as well as remote monitoring of construction safety and productivity in minutes.

Also read: Regional insurtech Igloo’s AI-driven capabilities drive customised products and seamless customer experience

From then, the team started to expand initially in Hong Kong being the headquarters, viAct has now become one of its a kind by providing “Scenario-based Vision Intelligence” solutions exclusively for the construction industry all across Asia and Europe by successfully deploying around 30 sites. viAct’s smart AI modules have been successfully providing extremely granular insights on safety prepositions, productivity forethoughts, and environmental compliances in job sites by not only tracking objects but by transforming vision to practical actions.

The Seventh Sense

Seventh Sense was founded to bring Machine Learning based Computer Vision to the network edge, closer to the sensors/cameras generating pixel data.

Seventh Sense brings GPU level performance on small, power-efficient, and inexpensive devices. Navigating the speed-accuracy trade-off curve with research in both more efficient network architectures (Computer Science) along with more effective inference speeds on target hardware architectures (Computer Engineering) is at the core of Seventh Sense’s work.

Seventh Sense underwent several rounds of due diligence with various bodies in the Singapore Defence forces and finally obtained investment from Cap Vista, the strategic investment arm and a fully owned subsidiary of Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), a statutory board under Singapore’s Ministry of Defence.

Seventh Sense is also funded by 500 Startups, a global venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs.

weR

weR sees a future where commercial, retail, industrial and residential users are immersed in Augmented Reality (AR). A future where man and the world around him are interfaced by the limitless possibilities of AR. weR is realising this future, starting with the retail space.

Bootstrapped since 2019, founders Amit and Tomer are experienced technical professionals with a proven track record in deeptech. In 1999, as teenagers, they published a marketing project mapping Tel-Aviv’s night scene. In the years that followed, they built successful careers in the fields of high-end, cutting-edge visual effects and financial forecasting machine learning.

Retailers and brands are struggling to keep up with the fast pace of digitisation, and are on route to ending up like books and music stores that lost a lot of business to better online shopping experiences. A gap exists between the Consumer and the Retailer. weR bridges that gap in a disruptive way.

From the Asia Pacific to the world

Fast Forward with HPE is designed to stimulate the growing culture of digital innovation in the Asia Pacific; but more than that, the programme will help benefit the participating startups as they take on the larger global market. With access to resources and insights from reputable institutions, these 10 groundbreaking startups stand a chance at taking on the world and applying their innovative products to address challenges across the globe.

See for yourself as these 10 startups showcase their best and brightest ideas in the live pitch rounds. You can view the first and second episodes to find out who made it to the cut! Register for Fast Forward with HPE! Pitch day live Episode 3 here to be broadcasted on February 17, 2022.

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

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Tentak Anak, an all-in-one parenting platform in Indonesia, announced the completion of its undisclosed seed financing round with Insignia Ventures Partners and other angels.

The proceeds will be used to expand Tentang Anak’s team and expedite its content and services on its newly launched mobile app.

The startup also plans to add more verticals to transition to social commerce shortly.

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

Tentang Anak was founded in 2020 by Harvard Business School alumnus Garri Juanda and paediatrician Dr Mesty Ariotedjo. Juanda previously oversaw Tokopedia’s marketplace, adtech, and logistics business verticals.

The startup provides access to highly-curated parenting knowledge from paediatricians, psychologists, child educators, financial planners, and obstetrician-gynaecologists. It then develops holistic science-backed products and services for children’s physical and mental development.

“Many parents in Indonesia do not have direct access to child growth experts,” said CEO Ariotedjo. “This inspired us to form an ecosystem that can bridge millions of parents in Indonesia to best in class experts in children growth.”

The company’s offerings include personalised child stimulation activities, nutritional menus, growth trackers, free consultations, and community engagement for parents on child development, especially for children from 0 to 5 years old.

“In Southeast Asia’s internet economy, we are seeing the rise of verticalised platforms and communities around specific needs of consumers,” said Yinglan Tan, Founding Managing Partner of Insignia Ventures Partners. “Parenting is one such area where we see the value of a verticalised platform.”

With around 26 per cent of the population of Indonesia being children in 2020, the next generation of Indonesian mothers has become a highly-connected and potentially lucrative consumer segment for brands, according to a report from Kantar. Management consulting firm Redseer also predicted that online demand will contribute up to 10 per cent of Indonesia’s mom and babycare sales by 2025. 

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Image Credit: Tentang Anak

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Filipino inventory and business financial management startup Peddlr has secured US$4.3 million in a seed funding round, co-led by Patamar Capital and Crestone Venture Capital.

Existing investors Foxmont Capital Partners, Kaya Founders and new investors January Capital, 500 Southeast Asia, Nordstar, Vulpes Ventures, KDV Capital and 335 Fund, also co-invested.

The round also saw participation from a host of angels, including Summit Media President Lisa Gokongwei, Zalora Group CCO Giulio Xiloyannis, Zalora Group COO Rostin Javadi, Kippa Founder and CEO Kennedy Ekezie-Joseph, Antler Co-Founder Jussi Salovaara, Antler Indonesia Partner Subir Lohani, Antler Southeast Asia Associate Partner Markus Bruderer, and XA Network.

Peddlr will use the funds to expedite its user growth to reach one million micro and small businesses by end-2022. It will also ramp up the rollout of its new app features and digital products that would benefit its users, especially sari-sari stores (Filipino convenience stores) and other micro-entrepreneurs.

The round comes seven months after Peddlr’s US$500,000 pre-seed round closed in November 2021.

Also read: Startup survey reveals Philippines is ready to scale as fintech will emerge as top sector

Founded in 2020 by CEO Nel Laygo and COO Aiko Reyes, Peddlr develops a smart point-of-sale (POS) mobile app designed to help micro and small businesses manage inventory and simple bookkeeping as create digital storefronts.

Its digital — cash, credit, and payment — ledgers also enable merchants to increase cash flow visibility with auto-generated financial reports, replacing the traditional pen-and-paper sales recording, credit management, and manual inventory stock counting process.

Peddlr claims to have experienced organic exponential growth with around 350,000 downloads and 28,000 active Facebook group community members to date.

The Philippines recorded around 952,969 micro, small, and medium enterprises registered with the Department of Trade and Industry in 2020, accounting for 99.51 per cent of all registered businesses. However, these businesses, mostly located in rural areas, are said to underperform as they comprise only 36 per cent of value-added to the economy, noted on Word Economic Forum. Barriers include the poor internet infrastructure and digital skills, funding and policy gaps of these firms, among others.

Last November, Mynt, a startup providing financial solutions in mobile money, lending, and buy-now-pay-later, becomes the Philippines’s first fintech unicorn after a US$300 million financing round.

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Image Credit: Peddlr

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Vietnam-focused retail investing app Infina today announced it has received US$6 million in seed funding from Sequoia Surge and Y Combinator.

Saison Capital, Starling Ventures, Alpha JWC, and AppWorks also co-invested, alongside other unnamed investors and the backers of Robinhood and Coinbase.

The round comes eight months after the startup raised US$2 million in an oversubscribed seed round.

The funds will be channelled towards scaling the team, improving the user experience, and serving the new investors better.

Infina was part of Surge’s sixth cohort.

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

Founded in 2021 by Silicon Valley engineer-turned-entrepreneur and investor James Vuong, Infina joins companies like Indonesia’s Ajaib, India’s Groww, and China’s Tiger to capture the burgeoning retail investing landscape in the region.

The app caters to young and first-time investors, aiming to democratise investing for everyone regardless of income group.

Infina enables users to choose from various asset classes, from fixed-income products to mutual funds and stock trading. Expensive investment products are fractionalised, allowing the users to invest in a diverse portfolio of assets with low minimum amounts. Infina claims to have achieved a growth rate of 64 per cent in funded accounts in 2021.

The firm is now expanding to allow users to invest with Infina via apps such as Tiki.

Vietnam now has over 4.3 million retail stock accounts, making up 4.4 per cent of the country’s population. More than 1.53 million new stock trading accounts were added in 2021, 1.5 times higher than the total of the previous four years. In addition, Vietnamese participating in the crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) market also reached a record high at an estimated 6 million people.

In Vietnam, Infina’s rivals include Anfin and Finhay. Last year, Ajaib, the ‘Robinhood of Indonesia’, and Mynt, a Philippines-based fintech startup providing solutions in mobile money, lending, and investing, became the region’s new unicorns.

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Image Credit: Infina

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Our starting point in developing the seventh edition of Telenor’s Tech Trends report was that technology and digitalisation could be positive forces in enabling a much-needed green shift in society.

Once we are through the present pandemic, our biggest challenge will be climate change and environmental degradation.

For us at Telenor, it is key to understand how technology can both avoid being part of the climate problem and help in the transition. Energy-efficient data centres, greenfluencers, climate micro-degrees and ‘short travelled data’ are among the trends we identified that will impact us in 2022 and beyond.

Here are ways we envisage technological and social progress in 2022 can enable green transformation:

Green clouds on the horizon

Global data traffic from mobile phones downloading content and sharing images, videos and messages is growing rapidly. Moving this data across the globe also takes a lot of electricity, and massive datacenters are energy guzzlers. More than 1 per cent of the world’s energy is consumed in this way.

With 5G, data centres are going local. We believe that energy-efficient edge data centres reachable from mobile devices over 5G networks will start popping up, at an increasing rate, in 2022. 

As a result, energy will also be saved in electricity and data distribution networks around the globe since part of the data traffic will be transferred locally only.

What’s perhaps even better is that small, local data centres can be built anywhere – in buildings, factories or shopping centres. They can be outfitted with solar cells when there is space, and in cold countries where heating rather than cooling buildings is the thing, excess heat from local data centers can be re-used.

Also Read: Sustainability: the new business reality

Big appetite for climate micro-degrees

In 2022, a growing number of businesses will implement green micro-degrees and courses as part of their ‘curriculum’ to quench the green knowledge thirst among employees.

Staff will become more eager to learn how to utilise digital technologies and innovations to help their employer is becoming more climate-friendly.

We believe that a confluence of factors will create a growing demand for climate and ‘green’ micro-degrees. The economy has to transition to sustainability which will mean more jobs with green technology and revamped processes in all industries to reduce CO2 and environmental impact.

This means that new jobs will be created and that old jobs will get new content, and this requires upskilling. Businesses that fail to facilitate opportunities to acquire green online learning credentials “on-the-job” risk being perceived as less attractive in the eyes of new talent.

Optimise everything

Computers, phones, and connected devices consuming electricity and emitting carbon dioxide now outnumber humans by four, and in the future, they will become even more dominant. Since transforming our energy supply will take time, we need to optimise everything – not least the use of energy by our devices.

A race is on to make every electronic device as energy-efficient as possible. In the future, we expect to see more companies put enormous sums of money on the table to acquire the knowledge and assets needed to come out on top of the optimisation battle.

A lot can be done in software and when building AI Models. Significant work is going into what is called ‘tiny machine learning.’ Here the objective is to run, for example, image recognition on small computers, less powerful than a mobile phone, for the internet of things.

New tools are also appearing. Apple and Google have energy measurement integrated with the developer environments they offer, and websites appear that attempt to measure the CO2 impact of your own. As always, to get to a better place, you need to know where you are starting from.

Also Read: Why sustainable power starts with data

Here comes the greenfluencers

Green activism through social media will surge, especially amongst the young, in the wake of what they perceive as yet another failed attempt by elderly politicians to take necessary actions to reach the goals of the Paris agreement.

An undergrowth of climate aware influencers and activists has emerged across niches on social media, and we believe the influencer universe’s established elite will duly notice their growing follower bases.

Influencers who appear oblivious or indifferent to climate challenges will be perceived as outdated. Instead, followers will flock to influencers who demonstrate climate awareness regardless of niche. Marketers will turn their attention in the same direction.

Don’t lose out on the ‘lost generation’

A new generation of employees is entering the workforce. Their expectations for work-life might diverge from the reality that hits them. Companies that don’t take the next generation’s expectations seriously risk facing great resignation.

The home office is here to stay, but despite the positive climate impact from reduced travel, working from home could turn out to be a bigger organisational challenge than lockdowns were.

Young people want to make a difference at the companies they join. But to be fully able to contribute to the development of their organisations, they first need to establish and grow a personal network as well as acquire a general understanding of the corporate culture.

Forming new social relations using only digital communication is much more challenging. More experienced employees, on the other hand, are having a much less troublesome transition due to already established personal networks and greater cultural understanding.

As a consequence, many companies will find that large groups of young employees who never got a proper onboarding are likely to struggle. And in 2022 their numbers could grow beyond what is manageable – unless good leadership is exercised.

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In its latest move to connect local startups to the global market, the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) introduces about a hundred up-and-coming businesses in diverse fields, ranging from retail and hospitality to machine learning. Under its Startup City Acceleration Program, JETRO has teamed up with the international support network of Techstars, among six other accelerators, to grow the potential of participating startups.

Connecting startups through the Founder Catalyst Programme

Techstars’ Founder Catalyst programme is one of the features of the Startup City Acceleration Program where 26 startups were chosen and grouped into two cohorts—General and Cleantech. The Founder Catalyst programme offers a big opportunity for early-stage businesses to showcase their services and products, and gain insight on how to enter global conversations in their respective fields.

Also read: Regional insurtech Igloo’s AI-driven capabilities drive customised products and seamless customer experience

A diverse range of businesses in each cohort

Fifteen of the 26 startups belong to the General cohort of the Founder Catalyst programme, while 11 are in Cleantech. The startups involved in the Cleantech cohort work in the fields of Climate Tech, Cleantech, energy, green-tech, materials, and sustainability. On the other hand, those involved in the General or Global Scale cohort will feature startups from broader sectors in various stages.

What to expect

From October 2021 to February 2022, the 26 startups participating in the Founder Catalyst programme will be mentored and trained to further assimilate them into a larger network of startups worldwide. The programme’s demo days on the afternoon of March 3rd and 10th present each startup’s expertise to international investors. This year’s demo days will be held virtually on Zoom. Each startup is given 4 minutes to present their pitch, after which, they can start networking with potential partners and investors.

The startups selected from the pool of early-stage businesses for the Founder Catalyst programme cohorts have some of the best potential, and it is exciting to see what they have in store for the culmination of their training. To give an overview of what each business does, here’s a quick rundown of their profiles:

Cleantech Cohort

1. Aonbarr Inc. – Founded by Shigetoshi Sakurai, who also acts as the company’s CEO, Aonbarr uses the magnesium collected in seawater to produce hydrogen. The company focuses mainly in the energy sector and is still at the pre-seed stages.

2. Acoustic Innovations Co., Ltd. – As part of the Autotech industry, Acoustic Innovations seeks to transform the driving experience by minimising noise in vehicles through vibration absorption technology. Apart from convenience, the business also highlights the effects of its services as possibly improving vehicle safety and prolonging the vehicle’s performance.

3. PJP Eye Ltd. – The business offers sustainable energy solutions by producing plant-based carbon batteries, called “Cambrian.” Such sustainable solutions will hopefully aid in the movement against climate change.

4. Water Design Japan – Water Design Japan makes use of UFB Dual technology, or technology that expedites cleaning, ensuring a mess-free and cost-saving process. The business is primarily in the Cleantech and sustainability sectors.

5. Hair Clinic Reve-21 Co., Ltd. – Hair Clinic Reve-21 offers everything to do with hair care, but also goes beyond this to tackle issues of water purification and other health and Cleantech concerns.

6. Kyoto Fusioneering – Under the Cleantech and energy industries, Kyoto Fusioneering develops advanced technologies for commercial fusion reactors to produce tritium production and generate power.

7. Fermenstation – Focusing on sustainability, Fermenstation makes use of unused resources to produce functional cosmetic ingredients, animal feed, and fertilizer. The company is headed by its CEO, Lina Sakai and is currently at the Series A stage.

8. AC Biode – Two of the business products have already been mainstreamed in the market. These are CircuLite, which upcycles ash into antibacterial materials, and TRL9, which mainly focuses on waterless composting toilets. AC Biode has already sold around 3,000 of its waterless toilets in Asia.

9. Welltree inc. – Welltree’s biotechnology aims to deliver efficient service to users, particularly those in the healthcare industry. Welltree also expands its expertise to the wellness industries by allowing users to check their biome and order products from a centralized app.

10. Fast Space inc. – Fast Space addresses the cost-efficiency of wind turbines. Providing high-rise lightweight towers for wind turbines, the company is currently at the pre-seed stage and focuses on the energy sector.

11. C’s Techno Inc. – This energy-focused startup is breaking barriers in the production of graphene-based materials. Through its innovations, the company has great potential to transform the field of electronics, particularly its use of graphene materials.

Also read: Japanese aerial-tech startup Aerosense bullish on opportunities in Southeast Asia

Global Cohort

1. Onikle Inc. – Onikle has developed a search platform of the same name, offering easy access to aspiring Computer Science researchers. The search platform, built on Artificial Intelligence, will find papers, allow researchers to organize them in a library, and share these within their scientific community.

2. Vox Japan – The retail company Vox offers a personalized vending machine that gives easy access to daily essentials. The service allows retailers to install these products in customers’ homes for all-day access.

3. ListenField – ListenField aims to improve farming productivity with its crop modelling technology. Through constant monitoring of soil and climate conditions, the business technology will hopefully increase agricultural production and promote collaboration among all stakeholders.

4. Wayfarer – The hospitality industry could possibly see fewer costs and more efficient, decentralized operations through automation with Wayfarer. The company caters to hotel owners whose aim is to streamline their hotel management brand.

5. Tablecross Inc. – Tablecorss’ byFood is a food entertainment platform that promotes global connections through its bilingual offers. While the company started out as a food booking platform donating meals to schools, byFood has since grown in the travel and food industry.

6. IDDK Co., Ltd. – Developing a one-chip observation technology, IDDK focuses on developing microscopic observation devices for the technology industry.

7. Kyoto Meditation Center Co., Ltd. – The company’s SanZen application mixes Zen practice alongside the demands of everyday work. The app lets users enjoy short meditations while simulating a peaceful experience through relaxing videos.

8. Citadel AI Inc. – Citadel AI ensures users in the machine learning sector that their Artificial Intelligence operates at optimal performance. The company provides monitoring, testing, and governance tools to help users oversee the development of their own technology.

9. yocto Co.,Ltd – yocto aims for digital transformation in the wellness industry through the use of IoT technologies.

10. Cellid, Inc. – Cellid aims to improve UX by developing display modules using Artificial Intelligence and nanotechnology. The company is focused on the AR industry and is currently in the Series A stage.

11. Canaan Advisors, Inc. – ZeniHub is the company’s real estate investment platform. The platform allows real estate properties in emerging economies accessible and affordable for potential investors.

12. Isha Health – The business connects patients with care providers through its chatbot concierge. The platform allows users to have the best experience and be matched with the most appropriate care provider using digital health.

13. Younode, Inc. – With its PULP platform, Younode will allow users to share their music and discover new tracks organically. In this way, the business aims to provide a more collaborative form of social networking.

14. RUN.EDGE Limited – The business makes use of sports technology to provide a more interactive experience for users. Using its PITCHBASE and FL-UX for professional basketball and field sports respectively, the company has just concluded fundraising of pre-series B.

15. Archelis Inc. – Archelis offers a glimpse at the future of work through its development of an exoskeleton suit for workers and professionals who engage in work that requires standing for long hours. The business aims to address the strains that standing work entails.

Also read: Innovation and collaboration will lead Malaysia’s digital health scene into the future

Those interested in getting to know each startup better and hearing their pitch can register for the Clean Tech Pitch Day and  Global Scale Pitch Day.

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

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