The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a flurry of activities on online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplaces. Initially locked down at home and later continuing to work from home, people spent a lot more time at home than ever.

Some turned from selling items at home to decluttering. Others turned to buy secondhand items for their temporary home offices, gaming, exercise, baking, and anything to make their stay home more pleasant.   

According to a McKinsey survey, transaction volumes of secondhand goods on both horizontal and vertical C2C marketplaces worldwide climbed in 2020, with some sites seeing more than 50 per cent growth between 2020 and 2021. 

This is not a short-term trend. Transactions on C2C marketplaces will continue to grow with consumers’ growing concerns about climate change. Gen Z, especially, is growing up to be more environmentally conscious than all previous generations and advocating for a more circular economy. 

To facilitate this rise, C2C marketplaces must build trust between the consumer, the platform, and the people making the transaction. Design is an important tool in this complex trust-cultivation exercise.

In this context, ‘design’ stretches beyond execution to something more strategic.

Before designers bustle over the right colours, layouts, graphics and user experiences, they go out to understand people and their needs and work with their teams to channel this understanding into solutions.

This is part of design thinking, a methodology many companies, including online marketplaces, leverage to solve users’ problems and drive innovation. 

One in three people in Singapore are users of our online marketplace Carousell. Design thinking is integral to building our product and marketplace and helping our community feel safe when they buy and sell secondhand items through us. 

As the broader C2C environment evolves in the years ahead, the exact problems to solve may change, but trust will always be a fundamental need. It is thus important that the solutions we design for trust remain effective and seamless.

Design from the inside out

Many components are needed to ensure the trust is cultivated and resilient, and designing for trust is much more than the visual cues we place in the user interface. It begins with designing how the platform should work based on research into the users and their needs, as much as the needs of the business.

Having an identity verification process to know about the platform’s user is a good first step toward cultivating trust. This could be through account verification via SMS, email or social media, and in Singapore, we have SingPass, our national digital identity. The knowledge that the platform is aware of its users goes a long way towards reassurance.

Also Read: How to set up your business processes for scaling your growth

The reviews feature key too. Platforms like Airbnb and Uber have two-sided reviews where service providers and users rate each other after their transactions.

This way, both parties know they have a reputation to maintain on the platform and would act in a prosocial manner to earn positive reviews.

The caveat to this is that the review system cannot be too easy to game or too punishing when recovering from a negative rating. For instance, it could be reset regularly, similar to seasonal competitions for video gaming or the demerit point system for vehicle drivers.

Safety nets matter

A third feature that helps cultivate trust is the chat function. This is the space for people to understand and get to know each other before deciding on the next steps.

At Carousell, users tell us that they pick up cues on the kind of person on the other end, like how fast the other party responds, how many details they offer, etc.

We also have technology that detects patterns that might raise a red flag. A system message is auto-generated to warn either party to beware when this happens.

Should an unpleasant experience occur, the platform needs to be counted on for users to fall back onto through its policies.

For instance, Airbnb has host damage insurance and host liability insurance to insure against the event that their property is damaged by their guest and the event that they are liable for a guest injury on their property.

Carousell Protection is an escrow payment service offered in Singapore and Malaysia so that if any disputes occur, the platform can facilitate a resolution. It comes in handy, especially when users cannot meet up and transact via shipping.

Finally, the platform needs to clearly state its values, such as anti-discrimination, and encourage community policing.

An incident happened on Airbnb where an Asian American guest showed up at a host’s house and was rejected based on her ethnicity. Airbnb went on to remove the host from its platform and, in doing so, proved that it stood firmly for inclusion.

Similar incidents have happened in Singapore where landlords indicate race preferences in rental listings or sellers display offensive behaviours.

When we receive such reports on Carousell, we impose an account restriction on the user such that they are not able to start new chats or list new items until they amend their listings or agree to refrain from offensive behaviours.

Also Read: Using design sprints to solve COVID-19 business problems

The design should be intuitive enough for users to report offensive behaviour or material. This is a way to demonstrate to the online community that they can also help to regulate the marketplace and prevent others from encountering unpleasant experiences.

Trust in the design process

Ultimately, what matters most is that time and money are continually invested in research to understand a platform’s users and their needs. This will then inform what features it will have and how they can be helpful to the users.

These steps: identity verification, reviews, chat function, policies and stated values, are just five areas to consider before creating the interface and working on the experience design.

There is no one size fits all solution. At the end of the day, trust can only be successfully cultivated if the user feels the platform has created a safe, reliable and useful space for transactions to take place.

C2C marketplaces started as a place for anyone to sell secondhand items but are growing rapidly to include sought after items such as luxury bags and collectibles and digital goods such as in-game items and NFTs.

As more people come online to sell more goods, and as technology supporting marketplaces evolves, we will have new opportunities to cultivate trust around the item, the people, and the marketplace.

By adopting design thinking as a practice, platforms can keep themselves grounded on their users and fulfil their users’ needs for trust.

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Philippine-based e-commerce startup GrowSari, who builds a platform to help digitse local small businesses known as sari-sari, today announced a US$77.5 million Series C funding round that brings its total funding to US$110 million, according to various media reports.

Led by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and KKR, the Pavilion Capital of the Temase Group also participation in the funding round.

This funding round followed an undisclosed Series B funding round that the company announced in June 2021.

In a statement, GrowSari CEO and Co-Founder Reymund Rollan said that the company plans to use the funding to support its expansion plan.

“Not only will this funding allow us to fuel our growth, but this will also help us bring top global quality talent in Operations, Technology, and Data Science into the startup ecosystem of the Philippines,” he said.

The startup said it is also in talks for its next round of funding.

Also Read: Meet the 22 notable startups that have brightened up the Filipino tech ecosystem

Founded in 2016, GrowSari aims to help sari-sari store owners transform into comprehensive service hubs for the nation’s grassroots communities. It intends to grow the stores’ potential to be the biggest and most accessible distribution channel in the Philippines by driving efficiencies in route planning while collecting valuable insights on store behavior.

Sari-sari stores can access better pricing for more than a thousand fast-moving store stock-keeping units (SKUs) from the largest brands across all the major FMCG categories through the GrowSari app.

The startup also provides microfinancing support and assistance, and other e-services including telco, bills payment, and remittance.

GrowSari said that from a base of 1,000 sari-sari stores in three cities back in 2018, it has grown to service more than 100,000 stores in over 220 municipalities across Luzon.

It has also expanded to the Visayas over the last 12 months and will soon also be in Mindanao.

In addition to existing services, it will also begin offering financial services and logistics.

In Southeast Asia, startups that are working with mom-and-pop stores is one of the verticals that have been getting investors’ attention recently. In Indonesia, companies such as Kioson have listed in the Indonesia Stock Exchange, being one of the first tech startups to do so, while Warung Pintar has recently been acquired by SIRCLO Group.

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Could blockchain have been used to help people fleeing the ongoing Russia-Ukrain conflict?

Blockchain could have eased the lives of many of the people fleeing the Russa-Ukraine war, believes Michelle Chivunga, CEO and Founder of Global Policy House (GPH), an organisation aiming to close the digital, identity and finance divide, primarily in Africa.

Speaking at a panel session on the first day of the Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai, Chivunga said that blockchain is all about people and can be used to support people during various calamities such as war, conflicts and pandemics.

“One of the biggest challenges the victims of the ongoing conflict in Europe is leaving their homes with almost nothing; they have no access to wealth. But most of them have their mobile phones. If they had cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin available and accessible on their phone, they could have used them to pay for things,” she said in the session “Embracing Social Responsibility in the Blockchain Industry”.

Also Read: Thai bank SCB’s venture arm launches new US$50M VC fund for blockchain, DeFi, digital assets

During the war, digital assets could have benefitted many people displaced by conflicts. We must start thinking beyond the financial aspects of blockchain and use it to support the refugee communities.

“So the role of these digital assets is starting to evolve. You’re starting to see these digital assets used in non-conventional environments, not just in the traditional finance industry. What I mean is that these currencies will evolve and will be utilised in trade and other areas, even in conflict situations.

From a social impact angle, one of the most transformational things about blockchain is that it helps build social capital, meaning we can get people working and collaborating. Because of the nature of blockchain and how it helps make things a bit more trustworthy, it could bring transformational change. “We’re starting to see blockchain used in social and sustainability sectors, not just in the financial industry,” she said.

The panellists also touched upon the other critical use cases of blockchain, such as in supply chain and trade finance: “We are starting to see more use cases coming within the trade and supply chain areas. It will benefit, for example, small and medium enterprises in addressing the sustainability issues.

Also, we can apply this technology to eliminate corruption and money laundering, etc. It can also deliver on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, reduce poverty and hunger, and promote education. We, at GPH, have invested in women-led businesses to educate them on crypto and blockchain and how we can use digital assets and blockchain to act and create work for themselves. So, with blockchain in place, we can start to measure social impact. In other words, we must contextualise how we can use blockchain to bring benefits to people.

GPH’s goal is to evaluate, educate and empower through cutting-edge emerging technology innovations, providing digital, financing and policy solutions that are inclusive and sustainable. It also focuses on the development and reskilling of people, including women, youth and underrepresented marginalised groups’ development and empowerment.

(The writer is currently on a visit to the UAE)

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Web3 is the next internet revolution where every platform, organisation and digital economy is being decentralised. Women, often underrepresented in emerging industries, are leaping to the forefront in the Web3 space.

At e27, we are giving the spotlight to the women advocates of Web3 who are passionate about communities, narratives, and emerging technologies.

We celebrate the contributions of these female writers through our Contributor’s Programme as we aim to see many more female voices in the near future.

For better or for verse: Focus of 2022 is Web3 and Metaverse by Madhura Moulik

Of late, two terms that are generating a lot of hype and excitement in the world of business technology right now are Web3 and Metaverse. While they both point to a vision of a decentralised future of the internet, there is still a long winding road to their full development.

Madhura Moulik, CEO and Co-Founder at Skilfinity, a Singapore based full-service digital marketing and analytics business for creating brand narrations and personalised user experiences, in her article anticipates 2022 will be about brands taking a blazing leap headlong into digital transformation using tools of Web3 and Metaverse.

“A lot of Web3 and Meta plays are very much in the novelty zone with plenty of opportunities to harvest the crazy bounties. There is no doubt in my mind that your industry and your discipline will be re-engineered by blockchain and Web3”, she says.

How this startup is making NFTs more than a speculative investment and a status symbol by Alfreda Lee

NFTs, an asset that is completely unique and irreplaceable have taken the world by storm. Once a fringe movement associated with crypto, today, NFTs are a global innovation that everyone wants to get in on. So many are opting to learn how to invest in NFTs, and many even want to learn how to make an NFT of their own and mint it.

Alfreda Lee, Management Associate at Enterprise Singapore showers bright light on the hype surrounding NFTs and brings attention to a Singapore based startup. So-col, short for social collectibles, is on a mission to make NFTs useful for everyone by harnessing its technology to transform the creator economy.

How blockchain can enhance sustainability in fashion by Sarah Garner

Transparency and sustainability remain two of the largest topics within the global fashion industry today. However, thanks to the emergence of new technologies, like blockchain, retailers can improve supply chain traceability while offering more transparency into their manufacturing streams.

Sarah Garner is the founder and CEO of Retykle, a sustainable haven for fashion-conscious parents their little tykes. A vocal advocate for sustainable fashion, Garner’s Retykle marches with the mission to make trading high-quality pre-loved items as easy and convenient as buying new ones.

Resale and regeneration is a crucial part of facilitating the extension of a product’s lifespan, refuelling our nature’s ecosystem, and dramatically reducing carbon emissions. Since its founding in 2016, Retykle has recirculated more than 150,000 items of clothing to date, saving 407,100 lb of carbon and 313 million litres of water!

If all our waste can be repurposed then demand for virgin materials will be greatly reduced. Designing with the end in mind is the way forward for an industry in peril.

3 lessons I learned in my transition from VC firm to crypto company by Nat Wittayatanaseth

Nat Wittayatanaseth’s life centres on democratizing access to tools to help people improve their growth potential. She deeply believes that financial access and literacy is some of the best tools and leverage to improve one’s life.

After having ended her career as a venture capitalist to embark on a startup journey by joining an early-stage crypto company, reality hit her hard. For a startup to continue growing, it needs to continuously find and hit new product-market-fit for a new product, new business line, and new geography. Rapid growth means continuously finding growth drivers from existing products or new products, existing business lines or new business lines, existing geography or new geography.

At the end of the day, what keeps you going is your inkling of possibilities, an inkling that this may actually work, and you’re super excited about what could happen if it works.

Seriously! We need to talk about cryptocurrency responsibly by Deborah Tan Pink

The popularity of crypto continues apace with more everyday investors, many of them complete novices, enjoying the benefits and rewards. However, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has recently taken steps to discourage the advertising of digital payment tokens (DPT) trading in public areas, citing the “highly risky” nature of such activities. So how can crypto companies communicate about DPT trading in a responsible manner?

Deborah Tan Pink, Head of Communications at Revolut Singapore elaborately pens down what is it that makes it so “highly risky”? As the crypto industry matures and sheds its image as a collection of novelty investments, companies will have to arm their customers with the power to make the best decisions for their money through education and thought-leadership and find ways to make such content engaging across generations.

Top people to follow for developments in blockchain and crypto in 2022 by Mary Ritz Pay Seng

Social media has changed the way we function as a society, including the way we connect with one another. It is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing which provides incredible benefits by reaching millions of customers worldwide. They help you to connect with the customers, increase your brand awareness, and boost your leads and sales.

It isn’t enough for CEOs to show up in conferences, do interviews, and give talks, they now have to be present online. If not, they risk losing lucrative opportunities to not only promote their organisation but also share their breadth of industry knowledge. Fortunately, CEOs of blockchain and crypto communities are already ahead of this.

Mary Ritz Pay Seng, Senior Manager for Strategy and Performance at ADA takes us through an intriguing journey to take a look at some of the most active crypto CEOs on social media and how they’re spreading their influence in and outside the crypto community.

More than hype: 3 reasons why NFTs are here to stay by Soh Wan Wei

Soh Wan Wei, Founder of IKIGUIDE and Head of Ecosystem at Multiverse Labs, an open metaverse with a mission to empower promising individuals and groups to become leaders in new digital spaces, believes that NFTs are the key building blocks to the open metaverse.

In her piece, Wei writes about NFTs’ incredulous statistics and the reasons why NFTs are not just a temporary hype. “The key takeaway here is this; just because something isn’t widely understood, it doesn’t mean that it won’t last. In the fast-moving blockchain world, we really don’t know what we don’t know! So perhaps it might be wise to rethink that assumption,” she says.

How is NFT transforming the art world and empowering artists by Faye Yang

In the last couple of years, the influx of attention and investment in the NFT space has proven there is vast interest not just in digital art, but specifically in the unique value proposition of digital scarcity and verifiable ownership.

Faye Yang, the founder of Stealth Startup is a passionate advocate for the conduit between art and technology. Yang delves deeper into the realm of NFTs and gives us her views of how NFTs are transforming the art world and where it stands among the general mass.

Yang writes, “So how do we get the masses involved with art and truly democratise the industry? It likely isn’t with NFT, as crypto is hardly a mass-market product. But from NFT, we learnt that more people would be excited about art as an investment product. Money speaks louder, fact of life. Penny stocks have their places too.”

13 years on since the birth of Bitcoin, it’s now blockchain’s time to shine by Katherine Ng

It’s been 13 years since the birth of Bitcoin, the world’s most well-known cryptocurrency which jump-started the decentralised blockchain revolution, now underway across the globe. As they enter the mainstream, the growth potential they hold is enormous and bright.

What has spurred crypto’s mainstream recognition? With blockchain having cemented its place in our digital future, what can we expect to see as we take stock of how far it has come in 13 years? Katherine Ng, the Head of APAC Marketing for TZ APAC, the leading Asia-based blockchain adoption entity supporting the Tezos ecosystem answers our concerning questions in her article.

The Shark Tank of Web3: How this DAO is bridging the funding gap for women founders by Maddy Bergen

“The funding gap between male and female-led ventures worldwide is still far from close to being equal. While women have proven their ability to become successful in business, they are still forced to face hurdles such as societal expectations and lack of representation, capital, and support, resulting in fewer entry points for women to break through into strong business networking opportunities.”

Being a VC Analyst, Maddy Bergen realised the underrepresentation of female entrepreneurs and felt inspired to do something about it, which is how Angel Alliance was formed. Angel Alliance is a Web3 initiative empowering female entrepreneurs by providing them with grants, exclusive access to resources to scale their businesses, and connecting female founders. Bergen is the CEO and Co-Founder of Angel Alliance.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

The post Women of Web3: Top women contributors tell us all we need to know about Web3 appeared first on e27.

e27 sat down with Raunak Mehta, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Singapore-based insurtech firm Igloo, a leading insurtech startup, to discuss how the company is leading the way in making insurance accessible to everyone.

“Igloo started focusing on the gig economy segment around the same time that the pandemic began. In Southeast Asia, 70% of the workforce belongs to the informal sector. With the pandemic this segment got disproportionately hit — a lack of health or income protection when they lose their jobs, fall sick, or run into accidents, can have far-reaching consequences for their ability to make ends meet.”

Igloo recognised that gig economy workers — particularly food or goods delivery riders — now had to meet a surge in demand for deliveries resulting from nationwide lockdowns across the region. With more time spent on the roads fulfilling orders also came increased risk and exposure to accidents.

The gig economy — a growing, vulnerable segment

According to the 2018 International Labour Office report on the Informal Economy, 68.2% of the labour force in Asia belongs to this segment, beyond the global average of 61.2%. Industry 5.0 and digital transformation have revolutionised the way people work and live, as demands and opportunities presented to today’s workforce ushered in by technology have enabled changes in higher velocities, and has provided a wider array of options for people.

Digital adoption has spurred the growth of demand for ride-hailing, food delivery and e-commerce services, providing more flexible jobs to people. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this has also made the gig economy a rapidly growing sector, either for people who choose more flexible ways of work, to augment their income, or for those who undertake gig work by necessity.

Also read: oVice, a virtual office platform, uses innovative technology to redefine remote work

Gig work comes with its corresponding risks; much has been made, worldwide, about the lack of protection and benefits like unemployment insurance, medical and accident insurance usually covered by traditional employment models. Exacerbating the problem is a lack of awareness;  gig workers may not even know the risks they face, thereby reducing their likelihood of getting insured. For example, personal liability insurance may have loopholes when covering certain accidents and coverage. In instances where insurance is provided, it may not be robust and commensurate to protect gig employees from the risks, liabilities and damages they may take on in the line of work.

“The severity of these disparities are well documented,” said Mehta. “So much so it’s a key focus for Singapore, to look at increased  protection for gig workers and ensuring a more balanced relationship between platforms and platform workers.”

Changing the protection game for the gig economy

Igloo is revolutionising protection for the gig economy by making insurance accessible and affordable to this segment — one step at a time, but at a clipped pace. In 2019, partnering with foodpanda Thailand, Igloo created the competitively-priced PandaCare protection – comprising motor, personal accident and hospitalisation income protection – covering riders while providing a seamless claims process and customer service support.

The partnership has now extended to foodpanda in Singapore and The Philippines. In Singapore, PandaCare covers Accidental Death, Accidental Medical Expenses, Accidental Mobile Phone Screen Damage, Daily Hospital Cash, Permanent Total/Partial Disablement and Temporary Disablement. PandaCare is available through monthly coverage plans for as low as S$9/mth, instead of the typical annual plans in the market. It even covers riders when they are off-duty and can be purchased by immediate family members as well.

Besides food delivery riders, Igloo has also tailored insurance solutions for delivery drivers in Vietnam through its partnerships with one-hour-delivery e-commerce platform Loship and on-demand delivery company Ahamove.

The former allows Loship to offer first-of-its-kind failed delivery insurance to its 70, 000 delivery drivers so they can complete their jobs at ease. At an affordable rate of US$1.25/month, the protection covers shipping costs incurred for returned goods should consumers return their orders due to product discrepancies. The protection mitigates the problems brought about by delivery and fulfilment hiccups especially when Vietnam saw a 25% surge in online shopping during COVID-19 (Deloitte’s 2020 report).

Also read: Game on with MongoDB: Challenges and insights on the future of gaming

Meanwhile, Igloo’s partnership with Ahamove has it offering Personal Accident Cover and Hospital Cash Allowance protection to over 120,000 Ahamove drivers through a seamless and easy-to-purchase journey via Ahamove’s driver app.

Beyond these, Igloo’s suite of products geared for gig workers includes COVID-19 insurance, natural calamities insurance, and family relief insurance. What sets Igloo apart from other players are its digital native offerings, a wide array of microinsurance options, and the ease of buying and claiming insurance benefits. This will increase as gig work options continue to expand from digital disruption.  Raunak further elaborated on the growth of the gig economy, “That is what I’ve seen over the last 2-3 years and I believe this trend is only going to continue as the economy opens up. We are already seeing the great resignation; people are, for various reasons, choosing flexible gig arrangements that may allow them to focus on other aspects of their lives.”

Mehta added, “Our products have one striking similarity: in the event that there is a claim, none of the policyholders have to call up an insurance company and try to file for a claim and then receive their compensation after a long time. Almost all these products are end-to-end digital which means that in the event someone has an accident, they just need to go to a portal, submit their claim, and the claim gets processed at a fairly fast pace. This is what has enabled us to build a very strong business, which I believe more than the quantifiable monetary numbers, tells you how much of a societal impact that we are bringing forth.”

Financial inclusion for all

Igloo has other insurance product offerings that address various segments, apart from gig workers. A truly regional player, it has a substantial Southeast Asian footprint through key strategic partnerships — over 30 to date that help offer products that address the needs of the workforce across various industries. Their partners include Shopee, PhilInsure, GCash, Bukalapak, Lazada, RedDoorz, Lotte Finance and key regional insurance partners with Allianz, Baoviet, Mercantile, and Sompo.

They are optimistic in their mission to further cement their position as a leading regional insurtech and expand their offerings in the region. Raunak explained, “If 20 million policies are being facilitated just in the gig economy segment, Igloo itself is building a network effect to the forefront. We are able to come up with a good portfolio of products and services so that the next driver and the next to whom our solutions are offered benefit from it even more.

Also read: Seeding ideas, nurturing explorations with Leave a Nest Grant

“We are working with that mindset, deploying a lot of data and tech in ensuring that we come up with new, relevant products to match the inherent and new risks that populations face with socio-economic changes, as well as when consumer behaviour trends evolve and change.”

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

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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When it comes to climate change, Southeast Asia, with its long coastlines and heavily populated low-lying areas, is among the most vulnerable regions. Extreme weather events, typhoons and floods are frequent in this part of Asia.

Sustainable development and living are the only way forward. Innovative tech solutions need to be developed to achieve sustainability and address this crisis.

New startups have emerged in climate tech of late, but their number is scarce (a large chunk of which is in the alternative food and electric vehicles domains). Predictably, the amount of investments flowing into the sector is also inadequate; as per a report, roughly 0.8 per cent (US$396 million) of the total funding invested globally came to SEA in 2021.

The reasons for this slow growth are many.

“In our experience, three things are holding back climate tech investments in Southeast Asia,” said Rob Kaplan, Founder and CEO of Circulate Capital.

Firstly, the pipeline isn’t perceived to be strong enough, he said; if you want to invest US$100 million in climate tech, you would like to see over a US$1 billion opportunity because you only want to invest in the top 10 per cent. There is no visible pipeline of that scale in SEA. As a result, investors are reluctant as they don’t have access to the information and tools they need.

The second reason is, Kaplan added, there’s not been a successful investment track record for investors to look at in climate tech in SEA. It is a chicken-and-egg problem. On the one hand, investors aren’t confident in evaluating the risk as they have no previous investment experience. On the other, they won’t get that experience until they start investing.

Also Read: There’s a mismatch of investment and entrepreneur focus in SEA’s climate tech: Steve Melhuish

Third, there haven’t been enough investment products focused on climate tech in SEA historically. “When we launched in 2018, finding investors and funds using the words’ impact’ and ‘ESG’ were few and far between. Today, so many folks are looking at the space that we have multiple WhatsApp groups!” Kaplan noted.

Circulate Capital, based in Singapore, invests in companies addressing plastic waste and climate change crises. The 4-year-old firm has invested more than US$50 million in over a dozen companies, including Tridi Oasis, ACE Green Recycling, and Reciki.

Amasia’s Managing Partner John Kim echoed Kaplan’s views and said the region lacks a robust and collaborative ecosystem for climate tech startups to thrive. “I would compare climate tech development to the development of the digital ecosystem.”

When Amasia started investing about a decade ago, said Kim, the ecosystem was still nascent. Certain key players, like Temasek, worked hard to demonstrate the potential of SEA’s digital ecosystem by providing funding and leveraging its network to make key connections in the space. “The Temasek Foundation is doing something similar with climate now: they are running the Liveability Challenge to generate interest and awareness of the potential for climate tech in Singapore and SEA more broadly.”

In Kim’s view, developing climate technologies requires a robust and collaborative ecosystem that includes top research institutes, significant VC investments, and capable entrepreneurs. SEA has a keen interest in fighting climate change, given how acute its effects will be here. All the ingredients for development are here; they need to be melded effectively.

All the climate tech VCs e27 spoke to for this story, including Earth Venture Capital’s General Partner Tien Nguyen and Aera VC’s Founding Partner Derek Handley, shared similar sentiments.

“Entrepreneurship and venture investment develop through the history of economy, education, and culture, which the US or Europe has longer tractions than SEA. The region needs more time not only to improve startup quality but also to attract more relevant capital. We have the potential of a large and young population, a growing source of tech talents and a supportive government in terms of climate change,” said Nguyen. Headquartered in Vietnam, Earth Venture Capital seeks to support pre-seed to Series A-stage climate tech companies with a potential to expand globally.

Alt-food, EVs attract the most capital

It is not just that the venture money being poured into the region’s climate tech is paltry, but a large chunk of it is consumed by alt-food (plant-based meat, milk, etc.) and EV players. VCs believe this is because these are the sectors that existing investors are more familiar with.

Also Read: How electric mobility startups are tackling climate change in Asia

“Foodtech (and fintech) are some of the strongest entrepreneur and VC communities in SEA. It’s only natural that as folks started looking at climate tech, they would start by digging deeper into the areas with strong networks, experience and interest,” stated Kaplan.

Further, these sectors [alt-food and fintech] have received significant support from the government over the past five years. There are tons of incubation and acceleration programmes and a robust support ecosystem.

“Most often, innovation and technology [in SEA] are considered synonymous with specific industries, such as fintech or e-commerce. But innovative materials, waste management technology, and advanced recycling techniques are critical for the circular economy ecosystem,” Kaplan pointed out.

Steve Melhuish, a distinguished entrepreneur-turned-climate tech-investor and Founding Partner of Wavemaker Impact, concurred with Kaplan’s views. “Alternative protein has attracted substantial investment over recent years globally including in SEA — given the meat industry contributes roughly 15 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions and contributes massively to deforestation and poor animal welfare; for instance, TurtleTree Labs and Shiok Meats.”

TurtleTree is a cell-cultured dairy company that in November 2021 secured US$30 million in a Series A round of funding led by Verso Capital. Shiok Meats, a cell-based crustacean meat company, netted US$12.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Aqua-Spark, in mid-2021. Another key player is Next Gen Foods. This plant-based chicken startup recently raised US$100 million in Series to expand in the US.

However, Melhuish of Wavemaker Impact has a different experience to tell. “Over 80 per cent of the climate tech deals that I receive every month are non-alt-protein. They span energy, nature/land use, building & construction, manufacturing, and transport-related. Over the last three years and a half, only two of my 16 Asia climate tech investments have been in the alt protein space.”

Kaplan suggests that structured incubation mechanisms need to be created to attract new innovators into climate tech. His firm Circulate Capital has initiated specific programmes to make the sector more attractive. One such initiative is a partnership with The Incubation Network (TIN), which sources, supports and scales innovative solutions that tackle plastic pollution. Together with TIN and global impact innovation agency SecondMuse, Circulate Capital encourages more and better ventures to get involved in the circular economy.

Also Read: ‘Climate tech: SEA needs more time to improve startup quality, attract capital’, says Earth Venture Capital’s Tien Nguyen

“We encourage all investors to get off the sidelines of investing in this sector. Large, institutional investors have not been allocating Capital to ClimateTech or any related sectors. The more they can signal their demand and interest in the space, the more likely we will be able to start seeing the scale of investment needed to drive returns,” Kaplan pointed out.

Kaplan also maintains that there’s a significant opportunity to invest in the waste and recycling space in South and Southeast Asia. Solving the plastic waste issue and capturing the economic value of plastic waste will help lessen the pace of global warming.

“Geographically, Asia represents an enormous opportunity to deploy interventions as the largest volumes of mismanaged plastics over the 2020-2040 period are expected in this region. We see this as a tremendous opportunity to invest in infrastructure and innovation to get circularity as a default option in rapidly developing parts of Asia. We want to skip incremental change of outdated systems and drive straight to exponential impact. Asia can build the next-generation model, and we have started seeing it already,” said Kaplan

Singapore-based Amasia also is doing its bit for a flourishing climate tech ecosystem in the region. It has developed a ‘4Rs framework’ (Review, Renew, Rethink, Rebuild) that considers the climate crisis more broadly as a symptom of certain behaviours we have developed as a society. Given that these broader behaviours are the problem, the solutions are broader than people typically think.

“For example, our wasteful behaviours around food production and consumption have an immense impact on the climate. Six per cent of the world’s carbon emissions result from food waste (3x the emissions from aviation),” said Amasia’s Kim.

“Materials production is another place where more can be done to fight the climate crisis. At Amasia, we have an experimental bucket, including companies like Seppure in Singapore, making industrial processes more efficient. Companies such as Unravel Carbon that collect data are also essential to measuring and managing the problem. We see plenty of impactful startup activity here in Southeast Asia, but they are not of the air-into-diamonds variety yet,” Kim remarked.

The government role

To stimulate the growth of climate tech in the region, different stakeholders have different roles to play. “We certainly need to allocate funding for R&D, though VC is not always the place for that funding to originate. VCs also need to understand developments in climate technology and become comfortable investing in technologies that help the climate in many ways. Entrepreneurs need to recognise that their particular skill sets can impact the fight against climate change and leverage those strengths,” Kim said.

Also Read: Wavemaker Impact, Enterprise SG to groom 12+ climate-tech firms over the next 3 years

The governments in the region also have a role to play in accelerating adoption and providing individuals and companies with incentives for change. “This comes with the caveat that startups should not become too reliant on government subsidies to make their tech competitive, lest we repeat some of the failings of the late-2000s cleantech bubble,” Kim concluded.

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The post Climate tech is in a chicken-and-egg situation in Southeast Asia appeared first on e27.

Something every entrepreneur goes through but is not often talked about before, during, or after the experience, is feelings of isolation.

Being an entrepreneur puts you in a lonely place mentally because you are at the top of your organisation, and no one can understand what you are going through in trying to build, launch, and grow a successful company.

Add on to that the pandemic forcing people to be literally isolated from each other, and you have a recipe for success (or disaster).

In this very candid and frank episode about loneliness, I talk with Janet Semenova, the co-founder and CEO of Boutique Travel Agents and Centered CEOs about her experience as an entrepreneur, and how important it is to understand and develop coping mechanisms.

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

More specifically, we talk about:

– What is isolation?
– How long after starting your company did the pandemic force your team to go remote?
– What is the difference in a normal day between working in an office with your team and being remote?
– How did this experience change you as a person?
– Did the feelings of isolation get worse, better, or no change?
– Do you think working fully remote long-term is making people stronger, or weaker/causing a soon to be seen mental health pandemic?

If you don’t see the player above, click on the link below to listen directly!

Acast
Apple
Spotify
Stitcher

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The article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: chalabala

The post Coping with loneliness as an entrepreneur with Janet Semenova appeared first on e27.

Up and down the island, Taiwan boasts a professional, well-trained workforce.

The salary scale is key among the essential factors in deciding where to locate, whether as an employer or an employee. Stable salaries attract a greater range of talent in a virtuous cycle that enables workers to feel their full value and employers to maintain reasonable labour costs.

Sourcing a qualified, educated workforce is a similarly important consideration, and the Taiwan labour market offers companies a pool of educated candidates without exorbitant salary premiums for advanced degree holders.

Taiwan’s online job banks are a common hiring platform for both employers and employees, but there are some variations in salary trends among the two major sites.

A deeper breakdown of salary insights

Data from the 1111 Job Bank site show labour costs across the island to be surprisingly consistent, as seen in the table below. Salaries in the north are only fractionally higher than salaries in central and southern parts of the island in virtually every examined industry, including marketing, sales, human resources, finance and accounting, and general staff.

To illustrate, a business salesperson in northern Taiwan can expect to earn only about 7 per cent more than a counterpart in central or southern Taiwan. This salary trend is consistent across experience levels.

A senior human resources director, for example, earns a monthly salary of just 2 per cent more in northern Taiwan than in central or southern parts of the country; someone in the same job with only one to three years of experience similarly earns just 3 per cent more for locating in the north.

The sole exception here seems to be bookkeepers, who see a 10-15 per cent higher salary in northern Taiwan than the remainder of the island.

The post How remote work has changed the salary scale in Taiwan appeared first on e27.

E-grocery firm Sayurbox bags US$120M
Investors include Northstar, Alpha JWC, and IFC; Sayurbox is a farm-to-table distribution platform for fresh produce; The startup claims it works with more than 10,000 farmers, offers more than 5,000 products, and serves around 1M customers.

Climate tech is in a chicken-and-egg situation in Southeast Asia
Developing climate tech requires a robust and collaborative ecosystem that includes top research institutes, VCs, and capable entrepreneurs, say the region’s climate tech experts.

Finch, Indogen, Tokocrypto launch Web3-focused fund for SEA
Cydonia Fund will primarily invest in pre-seed to Series B startups; The investment vehicle is led by top Tokocrypto executives Teguh Kurniawan Harmanda, Chung Ying Lai, and Nanda Ivens.

Indonesia B2B marketplace Ralali closes first tranche of Series D round
Investors include Bee Accelerate, SBI Group, ICMG Partners, Beenos Asia, and Arbor Venture; Ralali connects suppliers with SMEs through its marketplace; Last year, the company said it had more than 1.5 million business owners on its platform.

Google launches US$6M sustainability fund for startups in Asia
The fund will be disbursed to startups that are addressing the “most pressing sustainability challenges” such as pollution, waste, biodiversity, renewables, and the circular economy.

Nium raises US$5M more in new funding
Investors include Moore Strategic Ventures; Its valuation stands at US$1.97B; The new round brings Nium’s Series D+ funding to US$8M and follows a US$2.96M in February; Nium last raised ver US$200M in July 2021 in a Series D led by Riverwood Capital.

Vickers Venture SPAC to merge with US pharma firm
Scilex is a subsidiary of Sorrento Therapeutics, which produces non-opioid pain management products; The combined company will have US$140M at closing and is eyed to be worth US$1.6B.

Ride-hailer Taiwan Intelligent Life nets US$5M from Japan’s Headline Asia
Headline Asia will acquire a seat on the Taiwan Intelligent Life’s board; The investment aims to accelerate the expansion of 55688, a ride-hailing platform created by the Taiwanese firm in 2011, into a super app that offers lifestyle services.

Handprint raises US$2.2M seed funding
Investors are Thunes and unnamed angels; Handprint allows companies to select from verified impact projects, embed impact into their business functions, and track how their positive impact grows over time.

AppWorks launches dedicated accelerator, Web3 arms
It will provide entrepreneurs with resources and support Web1 and Web2 founders as they transition to the new model; The VC firm also announced that it will begin raising capital for its AppWorks Fund IV in Q2; It has a target size of US$360M.

Singapore’s BNPL players eye ground rules
The city-state is setting up a buy now, pay later working group (BNPL WG) as an industry-led initiative to develop a framework for the market; The framework will mitigate risks of consumer over-indebtedness, ensuring that BNPL offerings will have a positive impact on Singapore consumers.

Singapore Airlines, NUS set up aviation lab to transform air travel experience
The lab will co-create innovative technologies and solutions that would accelerate the digital transformation of Singapore’s aviation sector, and help redefine the air travel experience for passengers.

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The post Ecosystem Roundup: Sayurbox nets US$120M+; Google’s US$6M sustainability fund for Asian startups appeared first on e27.

The lack of gender diversity is more pronounced in the real estate industry compared to other sectors. Real estate as an industry is stuck in the past, from a manual collection of data and analogue systems to poor female representation.

With digital transformation, progress towards gender equality and the growing relevance of sustainability to respond to the current climate emergency, we are witnessing the smartest companies across the real estate sector identifying now as the time to transition the way they operate. 

The real estate industry on its own is broad and can be categorised into corporate, financial, and property management, as well as operations and service groups. Currently, less than five per cent of senior positions are held by women in the real estate industry.

When it comes to tech and real estate, the outlook is bleak. The ‘proptech’ industry sits at the intersection of real estate and technology, with very low female representation. Still, for an “in-between” industry that is a niche in an emerging area, there are not enough female founders, and there is a lack of funding to kickstart their businesses. 

The bleak female representation in the industry

Historically, women tend to succumb to the lack of self-actualisation and are saddled with impostor syndrome when looking for careers, missing out on their full potential. Being a woman in proptech is a triple whammy, making it tougher to enter than other tech industries. 

Additionally, the property industry is deeply traditional, and core leadership teams tend to be sexist, with women having a reduced chance to be hired at higher hierarchical levels due to their ‘old school’ ways, all evidenced by the pay gap, lack of female founders, low percentage of women in the sector and hiring women at lower-skilled roles. 

Also Read: Why your next tech startup should be in the real estate industry

The main issue starts with entry barriers as many leaders in the industry worked their way up from skilled trades and other careers that are traditionally male-orientated, such as electrical, mechanical and facilities management. 

With the need to be more data-driven than ever before, the real estate industry is opening up to people who have not come through these traditional routes. There are more opportunities for university-educated professionals from fields such as sustainability, mathematics and data science.

This provides a huge opportunity to level the playing field and increase visibility to new and accelerated careers, particularly for young people and female talent. 

The underlying solution

As a smart building software company focused on evolving the way the built environment is being utilised for people and organisations, there is an urgent need to turn the tide and play a critical role in banishing hierarchical structures and creating a gender-equal workplace.

It starts with setting diversity metrics, and this also requires hiring managers to understand the difference between men and women in the application process and end bias-driven recruitment cycles.

Women often apply for professional jobs based on role descriptions they are fully qualified for. Men tend to be more aspirational, where a 30 per cent skill gap would not deter them from applying for the role. 

We believe one of the ways to reform or improve the industry for proper female representation is to have quotas on senior management and down. Some countries have soft and binding quotas that have performed better in terms of board gender diversity than those that have not adopted any quotas.

In Asia-Pacific, while some improvements are being made, up to 30 per cent on average for women on the board, there are still improvements to be had for specific industries, such as the real-estate sector. 

More women are entering who are interested in sustainability, engineering, and data science that can greatly change the way the real estate and proptech industry is operated.

Also, Read: Why Singapore becoming a tech hub is a great boost for the proptech sector

This proves a need for a broad range of technical and digital skills, as the industry is rapidly creating new, high-growth, lucrative and forward-facing careers.

The future is golden

There is a new generation of women who are facility managers and operators, asset managers and property managers, who are all skilled and technical. They are not going to stand for business as usual. 

Currently, the digitalisation of smart cities will be accelerated as more women become involved. Could female representation change the way buildings are operated at the macro level? Would new buildings and blocks feel different if women were in charge of design and construction plans? 

The fact that today’s smart buildings already follow an ‘a la carte’ data-driven approach that is aligned with what the owner, operator and contractor need. There’s no reason why women with their capital efficiency traits and listening skills cannot radically change the way buildings are operated. 

What’s needed is for the real estate industry to better show the variety of roles needed. This undoubtedly needs to start with education in schools and universities, followed by hiring women who may not have had direct exposure to the built environment or not know about the opportunities that exist in property, tech and other overlapping areas. 

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The post Why the real estate sector needs more female representation appeared first on e27.