EQUO, a Vietnam-based startup that produces eco-friendly alternatives to consumer products, today announced that it has raised a US$1.3 million seed funding round led by NextGen Ventures with participation from Techstars, East Ventures, and professional golfer Michelle Wie-West.

Angel investors such as Luke Vigeant of Shed Capital; Jeff Hohner of Tecumseh Capital; Jack Tai, CEO & Co-Founder of OneClass; Mark Groves, Founder of Create The Love and Co-Founder of Mine’d; and Dimple Mukherjee also took part in the funding round.

EQUO said that it plans to use the funding to expand its product line, develop technical capabilities to quickly scale the business, and increase the brand’s awareness and exposure in the US, Canada, Vietnam and Singapore, while expanding to recently entered markets such as Europe, Japan and Australia.

Founded in 2020 by Marina Tran-Vu, the company aims to eliminate plastic waste by providing compostable alternatives for everyday goods such as utensils and straws. Its products are made of materials such as coffee, coconut and sugarcane to replace single-use plastics.

It aims to differentiate itself through “bright, exciting and distinct branding that captures the consumer’s attention in traditionally overlooked categories; and focuses on the education of new sustainable materials.”

Starting out with its line of drinking straws, it has expanded to include utensils and tote bags. Its upcoming product lines will include utensils made of coffee and wood, sugarcane food containers and cups, and compostable bags for grocery, retail and home use.

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

“Our vision is to replace all single-use plastic on the planet – plastic was never intended to be used for anything and everything, and using it for an average of 20 minutes or less, but taking hundreds of years to decompose – it just doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t just about the visible plastic we see in our environment, but also about the downstream effects of microplastics – which are now being found in unborn foetuses, in human blood and deep in our lungs,” said Tran-Vu.

“We are excited about the new products we are going to be delivering this year to show the world all the things we can do WITHOUT single-use plastic and (in some cases) paper.”

EQUO was named one of nine winners of the UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) S3i Innovation Center Sweden Global Challenge for startups and a Top 18 Finalist in the EPPIC (Ending Plastic Pollution Innovation Challenge) by the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).

Its products are available on Amazon in the US, Canada and Australia; on their website; wholesaler site Faire; and select F&B establishments and retailers in Vietnam, Singapore and Europe.

Prior to founding EQUO, Tran-Vu has more than 13 years of brand management experience at global FMCG companies including Unilever, Bacardi, LG Electronics and Spin Master.

The startup has also appeared in various reality TV shows such as Shark Tank Vietnam and Front Office by PlayersTV. It was the first Vietnamese startup admitted into Techstars.

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Image Credit: EQUO

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Reading the news on Amazon taking on Teladoc, CVS and Walgreens with Amazon Care, I can’t help but recall one of Amazon’s most successful failures: Haven. Less than ten months ago, this healthcare venture that Amazon was involved in was disbanded. It was surprising because this was such a high profile partnership between JP Morgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway and Amazon.

The disbanding of Haven seemed to demonstrate how complex and difficult it was to disrupt the US healthcare system.

Amazon is now making a comeback with Amazon Care, which provides users a hassle-free way to see a licensed doctor or nurse. Users can connect with care providers via chat or video and schedule an in-person visit or medication delivery when necessary.

As I read the article, two thoughts came to mind:

• Nothing is wasted on Amazon; no experiments or investments are “bad”, as it is common for seemingly “bad or failed” projects to have a second wind.
• The Amazon Care project could indicate that home-based care will gain momentum globally.

Nothing is wasted on Amazon

The Inc pointed to the FirePhone as Amazon’s most significant failure as sales failed to pick up even when it was sold for 99-cents when bundled with a contract. Yet, this “failed” project led to an even bigger breakthrough, that of Alexa, which has become a convenient voice assistant that many homes worldwide can’t do without. The FirePhone was just one example of a failure turned successful (re)deployment at Amazon.

The post How home-based care is changing the face of the health sector appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based telehealth startup Ordinary Folk today announced a pre-Series A funding of US$5 million led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

The healthtech firm will use the capital to accelerate talent-hiring to build a differentiated customer experience in healthcare using tech, expand to new markets, including Hong Kong, and scale in Singapore.

Ordinary Folk plans to hire top engineering talents in Vietnam, product, growth and design across the Singapore and Hong Kong markets.

Established in 2020, Ordinary Folk integrates its two consumer platforms — Noah and Zoey — distributed compliant medical network, electronic medical record (EMR), digital prescriptions, cloud pharmacy, and last-mile fulfilment.

Noah is a men’s telehealth platform that integrates different care areas, including sexual health, mental wellness, hair care, and weight management, creating the right tools for a better, more seamless patient experience. On the other hand, Zoey allows women to access sexual wellness, fertility, mental health, and wellbeing medical solutions in a judgment-free space.

Also Read: Why Singapore is ASEAN’s sandbox for innovation in healthtech

Ordinary Folk will use a portion of the funds raised from this round to expand its B2B partnerships with companies to provide ‘Noah’ and ‘Zoey’ services to its employees.

The healthtech startup claims its revenue grew by over 130 per cent and attracted over a million unique visitors.

“Millions of people across Asia find it difficult to access proper treatment and care for health conditions with huge taboos attached. Our mission is to use technology to simplify the patient experience. Sixty per cent of total health expenditure in Southeast Asia is out-of-pocket, making treatments for many prevalent health conditions costly,” said Sean Low, Founder of Ordinary Folk.

“We realised the need for a frictionless experience, from discovery to delivery. This is why it was essential for our digital health platforms to create access to doctors and medical solutions for sexual health, hair care, fertility, mental health and overall wellbeing together,” added Low.

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This article is part of e27’s partnership with CEO Roundtable Podcast and Asian Investors Podcast and CEO TV hosted by David Kim wherein we publish the revised transcripts from the podcast’s interviews with inspiring entrepreneurs and experienced VCs. 

Jennifer Cheng Lo is the Co-Founder and Chair of NewChic Capital, her single Family Office. Jennifer is also the Founder of JennClub, a content and commerce platform empowering creators, investors, entrepreneurs, leaders, and changemakers. Jennifer is also a Founding Partner of Ace Investment Management, a women-led hedge fund.

She is also the Founder and Director, AKA CGG (Chief Glam Girl) of Glam-it, a beauty, fashion, and lifestyle technology brand; She is the Founding Advisor of Glam-it! PPE, a Social Enterprise founded by her three children. She is also the Chair of Women With Purpose (part of Society of Family Offices).

Born and raised in the US, Jennifer started a career as an actress and a model in New York City. Prior to University, Jennifer attended Boston University Academy and Brookline High School while achieving high honours in the New England Conservatory Pre-College program for Piano Performance. Jennifer holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and an MBA from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

How many hats are you wearing now?  Tell us about your journey to founding NewChic Capital Family Office.

I’m wearing a ton of hats.  I’m a creator, entrepreneur, investor, community builder and champion for underestimated founders and funders and impactful projects for humanity.

I started out actually as a creator because true to my Chinese name which literally means “literature” and “music”.  I was a child prodigy at the piano, learning from the renowned Jean Stackhouse and Julia Bernstein at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

I was winning different international competitions from the age of ten onwards and when I was a young teenager, I became the youngest student of the famed concert pianist the late Anthony di Bonaventura who was head of the music department at Boston University.

I was also a youth writer and won a national poetry competition then too.  I started acting and modelling while I was young, but also continued it on the side during high school, college and for a few years after I graduated.

During the pandemic, I recently resumed being an actress to do shooting and filming and promotions for some of my portfolio companies and projects.  I also restarted my career as a pianist and won an international competition, in order to motivate my three children and be a role model for them in their music and artistic pursuits.  It’s been nice to have this time to revisit various passions.

It was while performing and pursuing creative outlets since I was young, that I discovered I had the natural entrepreneurial ability and worked at and did startups with my brother and others while in college and also after graduating.

I was further able to develop as an entrepreneur and a builder in tech as I held management roles in technology companies and startups during and after business school which I did at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

After some startup exits, I decided to start my family office NewChic Capital for investing in female and diverse founders and to pursue and build other impactful passion projects that help move the needle.

Aside from NewChic Capital, I’ve started a community called JennClub.com and also alongside my partner Vivian Wang, am in the process of launching publicly a private fund, Ace Investment Management; at a later date will be unveiling a micro VC with her and our other partner, Lauren Nham with occasional opportunities showing up in my JennFund syndicate on Angellist.

Tell us about your family business and how did you come up with the idea to start NewChic Capital Family Office?

My parents’ focus when I was growing up was on technology companies and also on real estate, and I realised early on the importance of entrepreneurship, investing, as well as diversifying into both physical and virtual (digital) assets.

My father and my mother recorded so many hours of my piano and acting videos growing up as he said these would be my memories and future generations’ memories.  Little did I know that the first NFT I ever minted later would be of me playing the piano, which was an NFT I made for Jin Yu and his loved ones while he was in the ICU and then passed away from COVID-19.

After being involved with startups that exited, I realised the future going forward was investing in other entrepreneurs, funders, changemakers, and community builders.  That’s what I’ve done and what I continue to do.

NewChic is a play on the words “New Girl”. I’d always been the new girl at school when we moved to different cities in the US when I was growing up, and I was the new girl when I moved to Hong Kong for business school and stayed to become an entrepreneur, investor, creator, and community builder in my own right.  As mentioned my main partners are women as well, Vivian Wang and Lauren Nham.

Please tell us about the investment thesis, e.g. strategy, sectors, focus geographic market, ticket size and stage, social impact, etc.

In terms of the investment thesis, we invest and try to abide by the mantra that “we are building the world we want our children to inherit”, and NewChic has many impact-focused investments from health therapeutics like Cambrian Bio with cancer vaccines and other longevity-focused medicines, to Climate-X which is focused on climate with their proprietary algorithm Spectra that has positively impacted the way people work ranging from how we eat, live, work, play.  We’ve invested in Pre-seed through C, sometimes as follow ons on our early investments.

What do you look for in an early-stage investment?  What do you have on your checklist?

We look for an alignment of values and vision when it comes to early-stage founders and it all comes down to the team, their ability to execute, as well as their track record.  By track record, we don’t necessarily mean exits or multiple exits (although that is nice).  We look at the team and the founders’ track record as people, are they good people?  Do they have a track record of creating value for and helping others?

Which verticals or which businesses do you think will experience explosive growth in the next couple of years post-pandemic?

I continue to believe in Web3 and the power of decentralisation, DAO for governance and financial inclusion for all as we are empowered to utilise our own data and actions, alongside the growth of a creator economy and a more ecosystem.

Also Read: The Shark Tank of Web3: How this DAO is bridging the funding gap for women founders

Throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic (whenever that is) and this new normal, we are all forced to accept, I still believe that basic human needs will stand strong including impact tech (we are all stakeholders in our collective future and the world), climate tech, ESG tech, property tech, food tech, edutech (we need to continuously learn and grow as does our next generation), fintech, wealth tech.

Please tell us a bit about a couple of your current portfolio companies you are bullish about and why you made an investment in them and are advising them.

Runway is a company we are extremely excited about as it’s led by my friend Siqi Chen (formerly Zynga, Postmates (Uber), Sandbox AR) who is an entrepreneur and investor hybrid like me, not to mention back multiple times by the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, an amazing advisor/venture partner on our investment committee.

ClimateX is a Climate change company at the forefront of bringing actionable data to people, organisations, and communities everywhere as we are all collectively impacted by climate change and the repercussions of not taking action now and recently closed their oversubscribed Seed (We invested in the Pre-Seed and Seed rounds).

HelloAva.co is our beauty and wellness AI portfolio disrupting the way consumers interact with their beauty and wellness products.

PlayGround is a creator multiverse that is empowering the way creators and communities interact and change the world together.

Votee is a company empowering consumers to monetise their data into actionable insights by brands and organisations.

Petastic is a pet metaverse helping us take care of our pet children utilising blockchain, token, and NFT technology.

All of our companies are Web3 or bridging the gap from Web2 to Web3.

I saw you are very active in philanthropic activities. What else do you do besides investment activities? Anything you are passionate about?

I am passionate about any charity that empowers women and children.  Women hold so many roles and I watched firsthand how entrepreneurial and strong my grandmothers and mother were and are.  I’ve played charity concerts using my piano as my “superpower” and I’ve been giving virtual concerts to those stuck in quarantine or recovering, or to inspire them, as well via social media.

What is your big picture, the next 5 years for you and your vision for NewChic Capital Family Office and your other businesses?

Let me flesh this out further in the future, but NewChic is going to continue to collaborate with and invest in impactful technology, Web3 communities, Metaverse, underestimated founders and funders, and more.

In the meantime, we will be also launching our MicroVC Fund as well as our Hedge Fund, and building out content and community platforms to be interoperable in this open collective future which will come down to the content (substance), community, curation, collaboration, and much more.

NFTs are the tip of the iceberg.  They are the culmination of art, culture, humanity, and technology but also they will be proofs of stake and ownership in an increasingly decentralised world where the best metaverses are underscored by the best communities.

We will continue to build and partner with projects with love and empathy as that is the ethos that makes us human.  Web3 is a cultural renaissance as much as it is a reawakening;  it is everyone currently alive right now who is truly immortalised onto the blockchain.

What are three traits you most want your children to adopt?

Resilience (grit), empathy, compassion, and moral intelligence.

What is your favourite book and why? 

I have too many favourite books to count.  However, at this moment I am remembering a book I read at a very young age called “The Diary of Anne Frank” as it’s very poignant and tells the story of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, speaking with the voice and innocence of a girl and the wisdom of an age far beyond her years, tragically snuffed short by the acts of a despot during World War II.

Also Read: Three books I loved reading in 2021 and the lessons they provided

It’s not hard to see the parallels to the current world situation.  For a happier series from my childhood, I enjoyed reading the entire “Anne of Green Gables” series about a girl coming of age and reaching full womanhood in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

What are the things you want to change most in the startup ecosystem?

In the startup ecosystem, I wish to see more of the pay it forward mentality.  It’s tempting to be heads-down on your own startup, but it’s still important to reach out a hand and help others and also, when you have that exit, or even a slight bit of success, to pay it forward and help others.

I like to invest my time and resources in others who have their hand out first to help, not take.  It’s important to understand that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you also need to be an investor and vice versa, and to always think like an operator and be a doer, not a talker.

It’s also important for people to remember to put the relationship first above all else and to prioritise friendships and relationships and people over anything else.  I try to treat my personal friends in a very businesslike way, and I try to treat my business friends very personally.

What advice do you hear most commonly that is given to entrepreneurs you disagree with.  And why?

I hate hearing entrepreneurs being told that it’s all about the idea and the pitch.  It’s not about the idea; Anyone can have a good idea, and anyone can be coached to pitch well.  It is about the follow-through, the perseverance, and the overall vision and mission, as much as it is about the ability to pivot and iterate quickly, or at least evolve amidst ever-changing paradigms.

How do you evaluate your own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?

I feel like money pales in comparison to the true assets which are family, health, and time.  I gave a TEDx talk on this almost a decade ago and I think it still holds true.  Time is the one currency that no one has enough of.  One can never spend enough time on family and loved ones, and health is something we all take for granted until it’s gone.  Same for your friends and family.  Do not take them for granted until they’re gone.

Who is the nicest person you have ever met? And why?

The nicest person I’ve ever met is my best friend Vivian.  She has always been there for me to the point of becoming family.  I met her in business school about ten years back and then I met my husband a week later.  She was my maid of honour at my wedding, and she’s now the godmother of my three children.

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The post How she made the switch from a pianist into starting her own business and impact VC appeared first on e27.

B2B business founders and venture capitalists shared their first-hand experiences on effective ways of doing business with large enterprises in the recently concluded webinar “Let’s Make a Deal: How to Do Business with Large Enterprises”, organised by SAP APAC and e27.

Watch the webinar here.

Moderated by Aaron Ang, SAP Head of Midmarket Southeast Asia, panellists included Jonathan Tan, Managing Director of Unabiz Singapore; Quah Zheng Wei, CEO of Accredify; Gitta Amelia, CEO of Atola and founder of Everhaus VC; and Badai Tanmizi, Investment Manager at Qualgro VC. 

Ang kicked off the conversation by sharing the importance of understanding enterprise customers and taking into consideration the relative complexity and strategy when working with 10-headcount businesses vs. 1000-headcount businesses, such as whether they have regional or global business-coverage, and even how one’s solution may contribute to the overall objectives of an organisation’s growth.

Given the pressing concerns of businesses both large and small such as sustainability and the ability to respond to force majeure situations like the pandemic, being creative in the positioning of one’s business combined with a deep understanding of the organisation being served are essential.

Understanding the stage a business is in

Tan further elaborates on these points through his experience in building internet-of-things company Unabiz, dealing with projects involving sensors and networks. 

With over 1.3 million sensors deployed to date around the world, and having a business footprint in Singapore, Australia, and Japan, he advised B2B facing businesses to understand the value of their product line to potential enterprise customers based on its development maturity, and to position how the business will work with the large enterprise based on whether they are in the early, middle or late stage of growth and their corresponding capability.

Tan also mentioned the importance of identifying the nature of engagement with the enterprise: it can be selling to them as an end-user, selling through them as a partner or main contractor, and/or selling by being a reseller of their solutions.

Also read: Mobile app trends 2022: A global benchmark of app performance

The sell-through model allows for a larger market size, but it is important to master system integration and leverage on opportunities of packaging your solution together with the product lines of corporates; when engaging via the sell-through model, it is important to educate and work closely with large enterprises in understanding your product properly and engaging for sustained sales push.

While indeed large enterprises present larger and more attractive deal sizes, the reality is that closing the deal will take more time. That is why it is important to focus resources on a set target of large enterprises you aim to work with rather than arbitrarily going around. 

This helps you avoid “death by proof of concept” — a usual struggle among early-stage B2B startups – by being selective in who you work with and understanding how each party is going to invest in the deal. Tan also mentioned a good practice of understanding that enterprises—with their massive size—have many agendas across different departments. As such, navigating stakeholders and decision-makers within the organisation, engaging them, and having the right buy-in from the right people is key. 

Tan argued that understanding the organisational DNA of the enterprise customer, being ready to reskill from the onset, and making sure you don’t oversimplify or overcomplicate are all key aspects of a partnership. 

Other considerations such as designing for interoperability and being ready to work with other departments within the enterprise organisation being served are important. Furthermore, growth can be enabled by strategising further on how to extract greater mileage from a successful deployment and broadening the benefit of the system with further digital transformation.

The biggest challenge of working with corporates

Zheng Wei Quah, CEO & co-founder of Accredify, a company in the business of digital trust with over 12 million independently verified credentials to date, shares that the biggest challenge of working with corporates is going through the sales cycle and maintaining a product sales role versus a service provider role.

This is especially crucial for smaller startups that are only starting out and are now suddenly confronted by situations where large enterprises seek powerfully developed solutions that you simply cannot provide yet. In the discovery, implementation, and development phases, more requirements will be asked and may creep into one’s product development strategy without you realising it.

Quah shared his first-hand experience of being able to close contracts even before their full product release. He emphasises that large enterprises are looking for problem-solvers rather than a certain product. Therefore, it is important to make the buyer remember that you are the person in the room that can solve their problem—that you are the product—especially in the early phases. This period is critical in finding out what features to prioritise in developing the product, which is a constantly iterative process.

Also read: Massive gains for global startups in China’s robust market

Gitta Amelia, Founder of Everhaus VC, an early-stage sector-agnostic VC fund, with half of its investment portfolio in the B2B enterprise space, advised startups to perform extensive research before the actual customer outreach. It is important to know who the decision-makers are, and what the key pain points are that the enterprise customer is meaning to solve.

When closing deals with large companies, she shared that winning the deal is less about pitching and more about understanding the problem and seeing how you can help. The VC fund works alongside its investee companies in securing their first portfolio of enterprise customers. 

Once this is established, it can be replicated and help bolster business credibility. As VCs look for companies that can scale, it is imperative for startups to have a proof of concept before an investor can come in and invest.

In the context of the post-pandemic situation, Amelia further shared that understanding the reality of moving targets is important, and gaining primary information and performing extensive research is even more crucial. This change can present opportunities, with more companies now prioritising their digital transformation strategies.

Amelia also discussed why the VC’s role in good capital injection, especially in the early stages, is key in establishing successful partnerships. 

VCs can help in financial planning, setting KPIs to hit, and preparing for the next stages. Introductions to other VCs for the next stages are also accessible. With the network and portfolio approach, she further recommended for startups to be ready before an introduction is made to make it fruitful and to be aware of compliance processes and other requirements needed to close a deal.

Focusing on product

Badai Tanmizi, investment manager at Qualgro VC, a sector-agnostic series A to B venture capital fund focused on B2B enterprise companies, shared the trend and opportunity of startups that leverage the strategy of shifting from sales-led to product-led processes. This entails that sales workflows do not require a human in the loop, especially in the lead generation and pitch phases.

It may eventually require human involvement for demo and sign-off stages, but product-led growth is an emerging practice among series A and B stage startups servicing enterprises. An example of this is having a ready product with a freemium model where potential customers can do a demo without heavy commitments, thereby expanding the target set of enterprise customers.

Also read: 6 fintech startups you should keep an eye out for

When asked about sharing advice to growth-stage founders for greater success, Tanmizi further shared the importance of preparing one’s business and the product for enterprises, meeting certifications to meet enterprise procurement standards, ISO, security audits and the like. It is also good to plan for complicated and multi-stakeholder processes and keep the business focused on delivering a product rather than a service, as this may compromise scale to achieve regional or global growth for a startup. 

The “Let’s Make a Deal: How to Do Business with Large Enterprises” webinar is only one of many initiatives sponsored by SAP to share insights on sales strategies for startups and to highlight the importance of acquiring large enterprise customers through partnerships with global technology providers like SAP. With all the tips, trends, and insights shared by our esteemed panel of experts, SAP and e27 hope to bolster and embolden growth among relevant stakeholders in the larger business ecosystem.

To view the recent webinar, you can visit the official video. For more information, you may contact e27’s Joel Pelo at joel@e27.co

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

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