By the end of 2025, the global public relations (PR) industry will likely surpass US$129 billion. Yet, despite this tremendous growth potential in the sector, the PR industry in Southeast Asia is not doing as well as it should.

Based on my experience working with over 300 entrepreneurs in the region, the lack of PR and content marketing innovation prevents startups from thriving.

As the world evolves and adopts novel solutions and technologies, the industry remains rotted in its traditional methods and processes. And while clients and entrepreneurs want effectiveness and clarity when working with partners, PR messaging is not hitting the right notes, thereby hindering collaboration.

Meanwhile, startups in Southeast Asia still face many challenges in establishing themselves. They have to deal with complicated bureaucracy, poor infrastructure, and an underdeveloped regulatory environment.

They are also constantly searching for investors to provide capital to boost their growth and product developments.

Even though these factors are vital, communication can make or break businesses. Companies need to rethink the relationship between PR, content, and startups in order to succeed and promote economic growth.

The traditional way of doing PR and content

PR firms and startups in Southeast Asia still follow traditional public relations and content creation models. While these techniques were tried-and-tested successes in the past, the world has changed and become ever-more digitised, making it challenging for the old ways to be as effective.

Some of the issues associated with traditional PR and content creating include:

High costs

Traditional content and PR campaigns are often expensive compared to digital marketing campaigns. Going digital gives cost-effective and sometimes free promotional and messaging opportunities for building a brand and selling more products.

In effect, startups are hurting their cash flow by paying for overpriced solutions.

Poor measurement

The lack of innovation in the sector restricts companies from conducting thorough analytics to understand their audience, predict consumer behaviour, and reach their PR goals.

As a result, businesses are unsure how to measure their PR success or even define it.

Success results from tying PR goals to the startup’s goals. For example, if the brand is focused on inbound lead generation, increasing web traffic, or establishing itself as an authority in its industry, then it is essential to target PR efforts toward reaching those milestones.

Also Read: How startups should approach public relations

Thus, it is possible to say that the press release, if that’s the PR tool used, played a part in raising awareness about a product, leading to website visits and boosting sales.

Zero transparency

There is a lot of bloat in PR both in agencies and in-house departments, creating a scenario where uncertainty arises about what the PR firm is doing for the company.

PR and content experts may be doing an excellent job, but they may neglect to let the business owners understand the process and the end goal.

Thus lack of transparency can cause mistrust, preventing everyone from collaborating towards success.

Lack of understanding of cultural differences

Companies that expand to other Southeast Asian countries may find it challenging to operate and communicate with a regional audience.

In some cases, PR and content consultants may not know the cultural implications of how businesses work in a different country. As such, they cannot provide suitable solutions to the startup owners for their new markets.

How to solve the PR and content problem in Southeast Asia

So, how do we solve the PR and content problem affecting startups in Southeast Asia with the above issues in mind?

Focus on results-driven campaigns

First, define how PR fits into the marketing solutions. PR must embrace the changes and evolve because technology has become part of our lives. Today, there are more digital opportunities for spreading targeted messages than ever before.

Most marketers have already adopted technology, using social media campaigns, automation, and online content marketing, and PR and content professionals must follow suit to get the results they are seeking.

PR experts can now position effective messages in multiple channels, employing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to appear in search results.

Also Read: Be credible and reliable: Key tips for startup communication in the new normal

By engaging online audiences and nurturing relationships, the sector’s professionals can boost the startup’s brand, enhancing sales opportunities. They should also remove the fluff in content to have clear, concise messages that resonate with the target audience.

Effective PR and content techniques training

Even though the PR industry’s history involves professionals learning on the job, employees require training on the significance of PR and content production and its impact on the company.

This need for continued professional development goes doubly for senior PR executives to prevent the entrenchment of bad habits at the core of the business.

Each department should also collaborate to guarantee uniformity and consistency in the brand messaging. Inconsistent communication affects branding and limits the impact of PR campaigns.

If teams are dispersed across Southeast Asia or globally, at least some of the messaging should be specific to the local area and the overall message regionally relevant.

Train business leaders 

Finally, train business leaders rather than PR or content consultants. It will help create a professional team of consultants who can customise or personalise solutions to meet the needs of the startups in various sectors.

The PR industry in ASEAN is growing and moving beyond the traditional approaches that have served it well historically. Digital transformation in Southeast Asia is driving companies to adopt technological solutions to address the challenges facing them in their respective industries.

Innovation in PR efforts and content management is crucial for startups to stand out in the competitive space.

While old techniques, such as posting stories in magazines, are still relevant in some situations, industry experts must use digital tools and media to brand startups and get their messages to the audiences quickly.

Information travels fast nowadays. Therefore, rapid, consistent messaging across all channels is essential while maintaining awareness of the communication differences between the countries in Southeast Asia.

Embracing innovation, focusing on results-driven campaigns, and training PR, content experts, and startup leaders will help achieve better PR results.

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Fintech has evolved from its early roots of finding ways to easier move money to a robust, thriving ecosystem of platforms that offer services that range from simple payments to integrated banking solutions, and even niche solutions for specific needs.

With a market size projected to grow to over US$6 billion by the year 2030, there are vast opportunities in the fintech space. Let’s talk about six fast-growing startups that are making their way ahead of the pack.

Reevoy

Founded by IIT/IIM/ISB alumni Ankur Khetan, Ishan Dadhich, and Mohit Agarwal, Reevoy is an international digital sourcing and financing platform for the fashion and lifestyle B2B global trade industry with a US$300 billion opportunity.

Reevoy has clocked over US$30 million annualised gross merchandise volume (GMV) value and US$2.4 million annualised revenue run-rate as of March 2022, working with fifteen global brands and over 40 factories. They also have a strong pipeline of more than ten global brands and over 70 factories ready to get onboarded.

With that, the startup is on track to get to approximately US$100 million annualised GMV and US$7 million annualised revenue run rate by December 2022. It has factored US$20 million over 1,000 invoices with zero non-performing assets and has an outstanding book of approximately US$4 million. The company is on track to close a US$5 million debt line at a low cost to further accelerate its platform growth.

Its asset-light, working capital enabled, and export-focused model makes it scalable and defensible to capture the market as a clear leader.

Reevoy is backed 9Unicorns, Better Capital, and marquee angel investors including Kunal Shah, Anupam Mittal, Aman Gupta, Alok Bansal and Himanshu Aggarwal.

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

OneStack

OneStack is building a plug-and-play platform to offer neobanking and fintech solutions as a service. Its objective is to make every rural and small bank a neobank by empowering and digitising all the long tail banks in the country.

It plans to onboard the banks to the National Payments Corporation of India, an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in the country, and offer all financial services to the banks to retain and acquire new customers.

OneStack is currently building services to start working with consumer internet companies by enabling embedded finance for large e-commerce companies.

Its technology enables any bank and consumer internet company to go live in as short as a few days, and offer neobanking and/or fintech services. OneStack helps its customers build backend product platforms and offer white labelled mobile applications for neobanking services. It aims to digitise over 95,000 cooperative banks and 380 million users that stay in non-metros.

The startup has already raised a seed round from 9Unicorns, AngelBay, Faad Network, and angel investors Kunal Shah and Abhishant Pant. They plan to raise US$4 million with Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns as key co-investors.

Crypso

Crypso is a vertical social network for Indian crypto users to build a social trading application.

Founded in October 2021 by Suraj Kalwani, Ravi Chirania, and Rakesh Raman, their goal is to make a billion Indians participate in the crypto and Web3 revolution.

With this platform, users get to see the portfolio and trading strategies of their peers and influencers, join community group chats around areas of their interest, share their portfolio with communities for feedback, and execute trades based on social signals.

The platform has raised US$3 million to build a public product that is expected to launch in May 2022. Currently, it is in closed beta and testing the product with a strong community of over 2,000 users on Telegram and Discord.

Crypso is focused on young Indians between the ages of 18 to 35, who are driven by economic incentives to earn huge returns on crypto investments. The platform provides one-click execution of trade signals from crypto experts, influencers, and traders.

Also Read: How this homegrown fintech is helping Singaporeans with alternate investing

Insurance Samadhan

Insurance Samadhan resolves insurance grievances like mis-selling and claim rejection for life, health, and general insurance.

The company has resolved more than 4,500 grievances in the last three-and-a-half years, with an app that assists policyholders in filing their claims, and maintains and services their insurance portfolio.

Insurance Samadhan founders Deepak Bhuvaneswari, Shilpa, and Shailesh –who are currently the CEO, COO, and Insurance Head, respectively– put together domain expertise of over 50 years. Their other team members Sanjay, their Legal head, comes with 25 years of legal expertise, and their CTO Ravi has 12 years of experience,

The startup has raised US$1 million in seed and pre-seed rounds, and it plans to raise US$10 million soon.

Glimpay

Glimpay simplifies banking for India’s 100 million creators, freelancers, influencers, solopreneurs and micro-businesses.

Compared to corporate employees, these segments of working professionals currently have no access to all aspects of finance in one place and use fragmented financial tools and services – a gap that Glimpay aims to bridge.

Most of these working professionals use traditional solutions to accept payments that jumble with other transactions, which often means minimised clarity in earnings and job expenses that make financial and tax planning difficult.

What Glimpay is creating is a seamless Earnings Management Platform to redefine credit for Independent Professionals in India.

They are looking to raise US$1.5 million for aggressive user acquisition, hiring a small team for product development, and building Applied Data Science solutions.

AlgoBulls

AlgoBulls is a platform created to provide automated, customised, and personalised stock market trading experiences.

Founded in 2019 by Pushpak Dagade, Jimmit Patel, and Suraj Bathija with an aim to provide democratisation of trading solutions for the retail audiences who otherwise could afford to access such high-end technology, AlgoBulls provides an end-to-end solution to its users with ready-to-use strategies and market knowledge in an automated form without any need of manual intervention.

The Mumbai-based startup is operational in over 15 cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Jaipur in India.

The company intends to expand their client reach to 150 cities. It also plans to launch its product in the US within 2022.

To get to know these six exciting startups better, catch Demo Day 2 (DDay2) organised by Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns. You can access the showcase by registering here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Venture Catalysts and 9Unicorns
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Singapore-based medtech startup Us2.ai, which uses machine learning to automate the fight against heart disease, has raised US$15 million in a Series A round led by IHH Healthcare and Australian healthcare-focused fund Heal Partners.

Lifesciences-focused Pappas Capital and existing investors joined the round, including Sequoia India, EDBI, and Partech Ventures.

The firm will use the funds to drive its growth targets for clinical implementation in the US, Europe and Asia. In addition, US2.ai plans to expand its commercial activities with leading pharmaceutical companies, research labs, and imaging providers worldwide.

“Our focus has been to create a comprehensive solution beyond the existing industry standard of partial automation requiring manual intervention and providing limited measurements,” said James Hare, CEO and co-founder of Us2.ai. “Our software automatically processes full echocardiographic studies of 2D and Doppler images from any vendor in less than two minutes. It thus delivers complete echo reports, with fully explainable measurements, editable annotations and conclusions for every heart chamber.”

Also Read: New technology that’s challenging the status quo in medicine

Us2.ai’s software tools improve clinical decision making and cardiovascular research for clinical trials using echocardiography, the safest cardiac imaging modality. It connects institutions and imaging labs worldwide on a platform of ready-to-use automation tools for view classification, segmentation and federated learning across diverse, anonymous patient and disease cohorts.

Its product Us2.v1 has automated measurements that include 2D (cardiac volumes, all four chambers of the heart), M-mode (e.g. tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion), spectral Doppler (blood flow across all valves, both PW and CW measurements) and tissue Doppler. They have covered most standard measurements for adult transthoracic echocardiography recommended by the American Society of Echocardiography, European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging, and British Society of Echocardiography.

Fully automated Us2.v1 measurements were utterly interchangeable with expert human measurements and were completely reproducible for a given patient study.

Us2.ai has completed multiple projects with global pharmaceutical partners and a groundbreaking approval study at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

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With the Russia-Ukraine still going in full swing, roughly 4.6 million fled Ukraine. The war has predictably destroyed Ukraine’s economy as the government revenues have shrunken and goods trade has been severely disrupted. Many businesses have either closed or are running only in a minimal capacity. The World Bank has forecast that the Eastern European country’s economy will collapse by 45.1 per cent this year.

Although diplomatic and international-level talks are on, there seems to be no end to the conflict.

As Ukrainians continue to flee their war-torn country, many startups and multinational corporations came forward to lend a helping hand. Among them are two Singapore-based companies — Ahrefs and Xctuality.

Ahrefs, an SEO service startup founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Dmitry Gerasimenko, has managed to raise US$1.3 million for humanitarian organisations in the country.

The firm, whose nearly 20 members have family and friends in Ukraine, raised the money by offering to extend customers’ subscriptions to the Ahref platform by twice the amount of their donation. It means for every US$100 donated, the customer will receive US$200 of subscription value in return.

The funds will be spent on food and medicine delivery, transportation, and temporary refugee homes.

Also Read: How Singaporean startup Xctuality helps creators, brands accelerate into metaverse

Xctuality, which helps creators, and brands accelerate into the metaverse, took a different route to help the displaced Ukrainians. The startup wrote a post on LinkedIn inviting applications for various tech jobs. The priority is given to war-affected Ukrainians, many of whom have fled to safety in neighbouring countries. However, the majority are still within Ukraine and doing their best to seek protection in less affected parts.

According to its Co-founder and CEO Warren Woon, the response to the posting has been good. Many of his friends and their contacts have shared the message, and Xctuality has been receiving inquiries and conducting interviews.

“I have many Ukrainian friends both within and outside of Ukraine. They are wonderful people with a long history and rich culture. Seeing war tearing their lives apart overnight was shocking and sad,” said Woon. “I knew immediately that I had to help somehow.”

“Xctuality is a fully remote company, comprising 25 members across six Asian countries. Hence, working with anyone anywhere in the world is fine as long as there is reliable internet. We look at the technical competency of our potential hires and their complementary fit into our company culture. We welcome all who are interested,” he shared.

He also mentioned that while some people’s bank accounts have been affected, the majority can still use their bank cards and receive deposits. “Alternatively, we can look at either crypto or paying out via more traditional remittance services,” Woon said on being asked about how to pay their salaries.

Warren added this initiative is more of a personal mission for him. “Prior to this war, Ukraine was home to many highly-skilled and experienced tech talents, and we should do what we can to help keep alive and nurture this talent pool.”

“We’ve learned about the history of World War II and seen movies about such plights in war movies. This is happening now in the 21st century, and we are living this historic event. How we react tothis and what we do about it may have an immeasurable impact for generations to come,” Woon concluded.

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Market access has become an increasingly important topic as countries are slowly opening borders and choosing to “live with the virus” so to speak by declaring the COVID-19 an endemic.

Entering a large market like China definitely is on the agenda of many corporations and startups alike where, if done correctly, has the potential to spike their growth. Considering the very different regulatory and business environment in the country, it is definitely a safer approach to enter the market by having a lead that is a locally-based company.

Local market access is key

Global Innovation & Technology Platform or GITP is one such company. Based in China, GITP provides technology companies with local expertise in the country based on a multidimensional assessment of information such as market, technology, intellectual property, and government policies. This includes the design of suitable business collaboration models, technology, or brand repositioning to suit the local market or developing brand new application market, developing a project marketing plan, providing a list of potential business partners, and providing corresponding landing services.

GITP also provides some of the valuable services a company should consider when entering China. These services are as follows:

Project Liaison: This involves the shortlisting of potential business partners from an extensive network of local connections in China and pitching projects to the shortlisted business partners of your choice via professional industry experts. Technology companies should be kept informed on the latest updates with customised progress reports.

Intellectual Property (IP): In reference to core technology or the product of technology companies, GITP helps conduct search and analysis of similar IPs filed in China, outlining the number of similar IPs, major IP applicants, and the main protection direction and other relevant information. GITP helps conduct risk assessments on IP registrations in China with expert advice from legal professionals on the technical data protection aspect.

Technology Assessment: Establish technology readiness of the project and offer project launch expertise. Provides detailed research and analysis on relevant technologies in China and evaluation of the competitive edge of the project in the China market. The result of the analysis includes advances in research on relevant technologies in China, technology application status in the local market, technology solutions employed by major local competitors, as well as competitive advantages compared to technology solutions in China.

Also Read: Could China’s CBDC threaten decentralised cryptocurrencies?

On the other hand, technology companies should also consider pitching opportunities or competitions organised by the provincial or local government of China.

The Global Entrepreneurship Competition 2022

For that, GITP would like to bring technology companies’ attention to the Global Entrepreneurship Competition. The Global Entrepreneurship Competition 2022 aims to build a multi-level, multidimensional and diversified international entrepreneurial model. This competition seeks to discover startups around the world, with the goal of facilitating entrepreneurs to grow and expand their businesses in Beijing.

The organisers and partners aim to use this competition to continuously empower entrepreneurs already in or interested to land in Beijing by providing a full range of “Beijing Services” such as talent settlement, children’s education, healthcare, designated apartments, and more.

Featuring top investors, famous mentors, and leading entrepreneurs to provide all-round entrepreneurial guidance and acceleration, this competition will be set up in seven major global areas worldwide, namely North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. There is a prize pool of over approximately US$15 million (100 million RMB) to be awarded to successful startups, with 28 Talent Scout Awards up for grabs.

This competition will also prioritise startups with a focus on seven tech verticals, including:

– AI / Virtual Reality / Fintech
– Medical Health
– Information Technology
– High-end Equipment
– New Energy / Energy Conservation & Environmental Protection
– Cultural Creativity
– Agricultural & Food Technology

Also Read: Meet the 10 startups pitching at Chinaccelerator’s 19th demo day

The project’s supporting services

Office Space: The award-winning startups would receive support with free office space of up to 300 square meters in Beijing Hycore Building for up to three years. Other than that, the industrial parks offer office space rent discounts and renovation subsidies.

Enterprise Services: Provides personnel service, social insurance service, business registration, and other whole process services to award-winning startups.

Media Communication: Media resources will be coordinated at all levels to provide opportunities with paper media, network media, short-form video interviews, television interviews, and other multi-channel for the promotion of award-winning startups.

Exhibition and Promotion: Award-winning startups will be given exhibition opportunities at Global Entrepreneur Summit as well as two tickets.

Development support

Investment Matchmaking: The startups can get direct investment opportunities from Investment Fund and more than 100 collaborative investment institutions.

Incubation and Training: Provide incubation, training, and acceleration services to award-winning startups.

Industrial Connections: Regular industrial networking will be held to provide direct opportunities for award-winning startups to work with industry giants, leading enterprises, large state-owned enterprises, and listed companies.

Capital Market Connection: The award-winning startups will have the opportunity to connect with both local and overseas capital markets.

Urban Industrial Policy Support: The award-winning startups can be given priorities to industry supporting policies at both the district level and city level, including the first set of equipment, technology acquisition, government procurement, and others.

Enter the lucrative Chinese market

The Global Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship Competition provides ample opportunities for startups to gain a chance to enter the lucrative Chinese market, as well as to capitalise on the incentives provided by the Chinese government on tech-related projects.

The sign up is 100 per cent free of charge, so come be a part of the largest global Entrepreneurship competition! The registration is closing on April 28, 2022.

Interested startups and SMEs may register here. For more information, visit GITP’s official page.

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Image Credit: mentatdgt from Pexels

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

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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