Philippine social commerce startup SariSuki said today it has secured US$10.7 million from investors, including Openspace Ventures, SIG, Global Founders Capital, Saison Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Foxmont Capital Partners.

The funds will be used to increase product assortment, dark warehouses, and geographic expansion.

Launched in May 2021, SariSuki is a community group-buying startup for daily essentials and groceries. The startup buys fresh produce in bulk from local farmers and offers it at a discounted price to the local community.

SariSuki adopts an agent-assisted model, servicing its consumers through community leaders. Members of communities who set up their business as community leaders earn profit from selling produce while fulfilling the last mile.

Also Read: Grab’s former Vietnam top exec nets US$3M for his quick commerce startup Rino

The startup also runs Supah, a quick commerce app to deliver groceries in 15 minutes.

SariSuki claims to have grown 36x since the launch, served about 60,000 consumers and grown to over 100 employees.

“Quick commerce is a way for us to expand into serving the segment of our market that seeks hyper-convenience for a hyper-local product mix for their daily needs,” said SariSuki Co-Founder Brian Cu, who earlier co-founded Zalora Philippines and held the role of country head at Grab Philippines.

“SariSuki’s increasing sector dominance has resulted from addressing key pain points and barriers to e-commerce adoption with a model that builds confidence amongst, and value for, consumers. We recognised that the trust that those communities are putting in their community leader, who consistently delivers high-quality local produce, will help “to accelerate vital e-commerce adoption rapidly said Hian Goh, Co-Founder of Openspace.

The Philippines’ e-commerce market size is estimated to reach US$15 billion by 2025 (Statista). Despite this huge market size, the adoption of e-commerce into the grocery sector remains low, with only 3 per cent of businesses operating online.

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Singapore-based cultivated seafood startup Umami Meats has secured pre-seed funding of US$2.4 million.

Better Bite Ventures, an APAC-focused alt protein VC, and Genedant, an investor in early-stage, deep-tech biomedical and agri-food startups in Asia, co-led this round.

Other participating investors are CULT Food Science, Impact Venture, Katapult Ocean, Plug & Play Ventures, Prithvi Ventures, The Yield Lab Asia Pacific, and Venture for America.

Umami Meats will utilise the money to advance its low-cost, scalable production system for cultivating fish by establishing robust and production-ready cell lines from multiple fish species.

Also Read: Alt.Flex.Eat: Flexitarianism is the flavour of the SEAson

Umami Meats produces nutritious, affordable cultivated seafood. The startup claims its cultivated, not-caught seafood offers equivalent nutrition to traditional seafood and provides a delicious culinary experience free from heavy metals, antibiotics, and microplastics.

Mihir Pershad, Founder and CEO of Umami Meats, commented: “Seafood is a US$180 billion industry faced with growing global demand and supply that is increasingly volatile and under threat from climate change, overfishing, and ocean pollutants.”

“Our investors’ commitment to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable food system, combined with deep industry knowledge in agri-food and alternative proteins, will be a valuable resource in establishing cultivated seafood as a viable, sustainable solution to the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressures on ocean ecosystems,” he added.

In Singapore, Shiok Meats is the other player in the cultivated seafood sector. However, its products are slightly different from that of Umami Meats. Launched in 2018 Shiok Meats has in its cap table a slew of investors, including Aqua-Spark, SEEDS Capital, Real Tech Fund (Japan), and Irongrey. Its latest investment came in 2020 (a US$12.6 million Series A funding led by Aqua-Spark).

“We are working on finfish, compared to Shiok Meats’ focus on crustaceans. Our USP is that we provide healthier seafood that is free from mercury, micro-plastics, and antibiotics while also providing a sustainable alternative for species that are IUCN-listed (i.e. endangered) and difficult to domesticate (farm),” said Pershad.

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Having a dedicated remote tech team can be a great solution to empower businesses’ IT capabilities to the next level. However, given the highly required investment that goes into your offshore tech team, it is crucial to ensure that your expansion happens at an appropriate time when the company truly needs a remote tech team.

During our previous webinar, Phuong Nguyen, VP of Hydra X, highlighted the top 3 signs for companies in dire need of a remote tech team.

Building a remote tech team

Tech startups and IT companies turn to offshore insourcing to take advantage of a more diverse talent pool and lower operating costs. The offshore team is internal. Thus, the level of control and commitment is higher than outsourcing.

Vietnam has been gaining recognition as a popular offshore destination for its low operation cost and high-quality tech talents in recent years.

As a result, their tech talents possess quality skills and great mindsets. Along with the low hiring cost, there is no doubt that tech startups and IT companies want to set up their offshore operations in Vietnam.

However, this strategy requires firms to overcome the challenges of cultural and language barriers as employees have to actively communicate and work with other teams in another country.

It is advisable for employees on both sides to have frequent work trips between the two countries to discover the cultural difference to ensure efficiency within the company.

Local tech talent shortage

The tech talent shortage is a big problem shared by many developed countries, with Singapore among the most served cases. Singapore is currently facing a talent crunch where more tech giants are expanding to Singapore, which means more job opportunities will be opened for hire.

Singapore is a small island, and in the years to come, there will be a point where we will run out of talent. The demand may be strong, but the supply is relatively weak.

To keep up with the customer’s growing demands and survive in a harsh landscape, businesses are trying to tap into the less contested tech talent pool from neighbouring countries.

This is where Vietnam comes in. The country has a pool of highly skilled tech talents with excellent English proficiency.

Also Read: Hiring matters: growing beyond 75 employees with Michael Podolsky

The government is investing US$150 million to improve further English Language education, digital skills and technical knowledge for the working population. This has led to a pool of well-trained candidates in the programming languages and protocols to tackle any of your company’s projects.

Limited budget for scaling up the team

Are you looking for a more workforce in the IT department but do not have a high budget to hire local talent? Is your company allocating too many funds in sales and marketing and affecting your fund’s allocation for the IT department?

Technology is an evolving sector embedded in almost every industry in the world. It seems disruptive to all sectors and improves the operational model of a company efficiently and productively. It is constantly improving, and allocating more funds to the IT department is essential to its success.

Companies that are currently fundraising or have limited capital to deploy funds to more crucial areas are starting to consider outsourcing in Vietnam to overcome these challenges. Outsourcing in Vietnam is regarded as one of the most affordable outsourcing destinations.

For instance, in 2021, the maximum salary for data scientists in Singapore can fetch as high as US$12,000, while the maximum salary for the same role is only US$4,500 in Vietnam. This is almost 3x lesser than Singapore’s salary.

The wide difference has impacted more companies outsourcing in Vietnam to reduce their costs. They can hire more than one headcount with the same budget or allocate the remaining funds to essential areas for its success.

They can also leverage highly skilled tech talents to further improve their company’s IT capabilities.

Diversify your tech team

Having just one dedicated tech team to handle all of your essential projects presents a dangerous risk of being disrupted when your only team is down. Moreover, as the company grows and expands, one big-size tech team becomes more difficult to control and sluggish.

In this context, hiring a remote tech team makes the most sense as they do not burn all of your budgets while the rest remains in-house.

Vietnam’s tech talent salaries can be 3x lower than Singapore, which allows your company to hire more headcount and scale up the number of teams for support or backup.

Also Read: What you can learn from Carsome about championing mental health for employees

With these remaining funds, your company can employ different IT roles with a fraction of the cost of traditional systems to boost the IT capabilities within your company.

Conclusion

With the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are trying to maximise their operational efficiency while still leaving some room for growth and expansion. As a result, building offshore tech teams has become a popular strategy for many companies.

If your organisation faces any of the signs mentioned above, we recommend contacting us for a quick detailed consultancy. At TechJDI, we specialise in offshore outsourcing software development and in-house tech team setup for growing firms.

Most importantly, we have a network of affordable and highly skilled tech talents to ease your tight budget.

Whether you are looking for support to set up your own IT foundation in Vietnam or external help on tech projects, our network of consultants, software architects, technical project managers, and UI/UX designers can seamlessly help you reach your goals.

If you are still unsure, do contact us to help you evaluate whether your company has what it takes to build your very first remote tech team.

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Taronga Ventures, a Singapore- and Australia-based tech investor focussing on the real estate sector and the wider built environment, today announced that it has secured an undisclosed investment from SGX-listed global real estate developer City Developments Limited (CDL) for its RealTech Ventures Fund.

Other investors in the most recent close of this fund include PGIM Real Estate, Ivanhoé Cambridge, APG and other leading global investors.

The fund has portfolio investments in global emerging technology companies impacting the built environment.

In an email to e27, Jonathan Hannam, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Taronga Ventures explains more details about the fund and the company it is targetting.

“When we began the fund, the target raise was AU$50 million (US$36 million). With increased investor interest we raised that to AU$75 million (AU$54 million) but we have far exceeded this amount. Under this strategy, we have now more than US$170 million (US$123 million) committed, with a number of groups completing their processes over the next few weeks,” Hannam said.

“The fund invests in emerging technology companies that are ready to scale. We have a small allocation to earlier stage opportunities but most of our investments will be in companies that have some level of customer traction and are now looking to expand either across Asia or globally. Over time, we will invest up to AU$7 million (US$5 million) to AU$10 million (US$7 million) in any one company,” he continued.

Also Read: COVID-19, the environment, and the tech ecosystem: what opportunity is available out there for us?

Taronga Ventures consists of the RealTech Ventures Fund, the RealTechX innovation programme, and Taronga Advisory.

Through its RealTechX innovation programme and direct approaches to the RealTech Ventures Fund, Taronga Ventures is “seeing many hundreds of opportunities” and aim to invest in around 20 to 30 companies.

In a press statement, CDL stated that it has identified tech solutions in the fund’s portfolio which has application across its residential, commercial and hotel asset portfolio and has embarked on feasibility assessments for the integration of these solutions. These solutions will also support the company’s goal of achieving net zero operational carbon by 2030.

“With evolving lifestyle needs and the urgent need for climate action, we are seeing a dynamic shift within the real estate sector where access to emerging technology will become a key differentiator. CDL’s investment in Taronga Ventures allows us to partner the market’s best in class to drive product and process innovation. We can leverage their expertise to glean market insights into the future of the real estate and gain access to emerging technologies that can be applied across our diversified real estate portfolio. Their focus on green innovations complements our ESG and sustainable investment initiatives, and supports our decarbonisation efforts,” said Sherman Kwek, CDL Group Chief Executive Officer.

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Image Credit: Taronga Ventures

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Vietnamese bookkeeping startup focused on small retailers, SoBanHang, has secured US$2.5 million to extend its seed investment round to US$4 million.

Existing and new investors, including FEBE Ventures, Class5 (US), AlleyCorp, Trihill Capital, and unnamed angels, also joined this round.

The company will use the new investment for product development and to transform into a business operating system for micro-businesses.

A portion of the capital will be used for market education and customer acquisition. It also plans to offer SaaS subscriptions in the next quarter and later cross-selling commissions from third-party service providers and suppliers.

Launched in mid-2021 by brothers Hai Long Bui and Hai Nam Bui, SoBanHang helps small and micro enterprises build digital storefronts, sell to more customers, and manage multi-channel operations on smartphones. Its primary clients are family-owned businesses having less than five employees. Since the launch, it claims to have onboarded over 170,000 retailers with more than 30,000 new retailers per month.

SoBanHang’s partners include Viettel, UOB, HDBank, UpSell Adtech, eRUBIK, and Selly.

In August 2021, SoBanHang received US$1.5 million in seed funding from FEBE, Class 5, and individuals, such as Business Insider founder Kevin P. Ryan.

The company has an ambitious target of signing up one million business owners, helping them serve 100 million customers and generate US$100 billion in revenue by 2025.

There are more than 16 million nano and micro-businesses contributing 65 per cent of the country’s GDP through data and technologies.

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