Taiwan Accelerator (TA), the team behind X-PITCH, is once again opening its doors to early-stage startups for X-PITCH 2022. Known as the X Games for startups, contestants go through a series of high-intensity pitch challenges (15-second, 60-second, and 3-minute pitches) to win awards and investments.

Last year, 3,680 startups from 42 countries and over 28,000 ecosystem stakeholders participated in X-PITCH 2021. It has become one of the largest startup contests in Asia. In the past, the events were held in skyscraper elevators and self-driving vehicles. This year, the competition will take place in MRT trains and the Metaverse.

“We try to do something new and exciting every year, bringing an unprecedented experience to all participants. In addition to the prizes, awards, and exposure, founders also benefit from activities like pitch training, fundraising workshops, market access webinars, investor matching, and more. Last year, 70 per cent of TOP150 startups said X-PITCH added value to their fundraising campaign and business development, this is the most important purpose of this event,” said K. Yu, Founder of Taiwan Accelerator (TA), the organiser of X-PITCH 2022.

e27 joins X-PITCH 2022 as the Investor Relations Partner

The TOP150 who will make it to the investor matching programme will receive extended e27 Pro memberships to access Connect — an e27 Pro feature that will be used to facilitate the investor matching between the TOP150 startups and X-PITCH 2022 investment partners.

This year, the investment partners will be able to use the e27 platform to connect directly with the 150 startups and facilitate communications regarding potential investments. 

After X-PITCH’s investor matching programme, the TOP150 startups will be able to continue their fundraising journey on their own and connect with more investors from e27’s 400+ active and verified investors in the region. 

Also read: 18 X-PITCH startups raised cross-border funding

Open for applications

Exclusive for early-stage tech startups, X-PITCH has discovered and accelerated many of tomorrow’s stars. Past contestants successfully raised millions of dollars through the event and connected with investors, corporates, government agencies, incubators, accelerators, professional firms, and media for collaboration. 

For startups interested to join X-PITCH 2022, you can send in your application by 31 August. Founders from Asia and worldwide are welcome to sign up through their website: xpitch.io.

The TECH FOR GOOD theme of X-PITCH 2022 highlights the challenges in the post-pandemic world as well as innovations that will make meaningful social impacts for the public good. Participating teams should focus on applications and services that accelerate digital transformation around five major categories backed by Web3, AI, 5G, edge computing, and next-gen technologies. Ten awards will be presented at the Grand Finale on 10 November. The top 3 teams will win up to US$1 million in investments in total.

X-PITCH 2022 is supervised by the National Development Council and Overseas Community Affairs Council; and co-organised by global partners including Kaohsiung City Government, Startup Island Taiwan, Agorize, Block71 Singapore, BSSC, DOST-PCIEERD, HKSTP, JETRO, and MDEC. The domestic semi-final venue is sponsored by Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation. 

Connect with TA

Formerly the first seed accelerator in Taiwan, TA is a startup ecosystem connector and the organiser of X-PITCH. e27 Pro members can directly connect with TA by visiting their profile here and clicking Connect.

 

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Singapore VC Panthera Growth raises first half of US$250M Fund II
The fund plans to invest in growth-stage startups that have achieved product-market fit across India and SEA; Investments will be disbursed to about a dozen portfolio companies with an average cheque size of US$20M each.

Go-Ventures said to be closing US$200M Fund II in Q3
The fund is expected to see a mix of LPs, including sovereign wealth funds, family offices and insurance firms from across Europe, the US, China, South Africa, and APAC; Go-Ventures has about 25 firms in its portfolio.

Stripe, LinkedIn Co-Founders back Entrepreneur First’s US$158M Series C round
It will target a direct investment of US$100M over the next three years in hundreds of entrepreneurs; EF also said the aggregate value of companies created through its platform in Singapore has exceeded US$1B.

Malaysian proptech firm Speedhome to cut workforce
The number of affected staff was not disclosed; Speedhome has 99 employees; As per a spokesperson, the company was advised to “recalibrate” its business plan, citing “higher interest rates, economic uncertainty and funding environment.”

SG e-commerce roll-up firm Una Brands lays off less than 10% of staff
In SEA, the company has seen a “negligible” impact from the macro-environment due to “strong” growth from brands, especially those on the Shopee and Lazada marketplaces, says CEO Kiren Tanna.

Ascend Vietnam Ventures’s early-stage fund AVV Alpha exceeds US$50M target
AVV Alpha intends to invest up to US$2M each in 25 startups by 2023; it will then follow on with cheques of up to US$5M; In the past nine months, the VC firm has invested in ten startups, including Kilo, Virtual Internships, and Mandu.

‘Vietnam can be an excellent launchpad for regional, global startups’
Eddie Thai says the country has great tech talent, affordable startup costs, and a relatively accessible local market; The GDP is forecast to grow at least 5 per cent this year and 7 per cent next year.

Ankiti Bose resigns from Zilingo’s directorships
Bose claimed that Zilingo’s board of directors had failed to show any reports issued by Kroll or Deloitte, which were investigating her alleged misconduct, that would justify her termination as CEO.

Mapan closes US$15M Series A round to grow its ‘Arisan’ service in Indonesia
Lead backers are Patamar Capital and Astra Digital; Through Mapan’s Arisan product, lower-income groups can increase their buying power to purchase household goods such as cookware, electronics, and furniture.

HK’s FreeD raises US$15M to open Singapore office
Investors are Daiwa ACA APAC Growth, Musketeer Capital, and the SOSV Select Fund; FreeD will use the funding to expand its tech teams in HK, South Korea, and Canada and build its commerce teams in new markets.

Funding Societies acquires payments solution startup CardUp
CardUp is a payment solution that helps individuals and businesses make payments to suppliers and collect payments from customers digitally; CardUp’s payment services will complement Funding Societies’s lending products.

Philippine’s Edukasyon.ph secures bridge funding
Investors are KSR Ventures and Lorinet Foundation, and Bisk Ventures; Edukasyon.ph is an online platform that gives Filipino students access to resources for senior high school and university learning as well as scholarships, online courses, and internships.

Mastercard CMO backs yufin’s US$1M funding round
Other backers are Kathy Burdon (ex-Cadence Capital), 77 Capital, Boleh Ventures, and Zennon Kapron; yufin enables SMEs in the Philippines to accept digital payments, sell online on digital stores, order from B2B marketplaces and access better loans.

Seeds Capital backs SG greentech firm Zuno Carbon’s pre-seed round
Another investor is Blue InCube Ventures; Zuno aims to automate organisational carbon accounting and help companies measure greenhouse gas emissions and streamline compliance monitoring.

Meet the 10 Asia-focused DAOs looking to script history amid the crypto storm
The main advantages of a DAO are that every investor has voting rights and can contribute to the project.

Tencent, Ant, Baidu, others pledge to stop NFT secondary trading
While the Chinese government currently does not have any specific regulations on NFTs, it has banned crypto trading; Tencent and Ant Group have opened their online digital collectible marketplaces in recent months.

Three Arrows pulled up by MAS for false information
It is also accused of exceeding the assets under management threshold for a registered fund management company; When the firm obtained registered fund management company status in 2013, it was allowed to manage assets of no more than US$179.6M.

Taiwan to roll out digital currency for public use after trials
The digital currency will only be issued after properly educating the public about its benefits, setting up regulations, and putting up a legal framework.

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Eropa Stein is the Founder and CEO of Hyre, a hospitality platform that directly connects talented event staff with event organizers, eliminating the need for event staffing agencies altogether.

We talk about our experiences being mentored, as well as how we identify potential people we want to mentor, decide if they are teachable, and what the cross-section between what they need help with and what we can help with, and how to keep them honest and responsible and on track to success.

Talk to other entrepreneurs in this Discord server.

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The content was first published by We Live To Build.

Image Credit: fizkes

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When it comes to startup success, founders get the lion’s share of the credit. Investors come a close second. But a venture’s fate is determined by more than just founders and investors.

One crucial, often overlooked group are the various people who bring the two together. These people largely go unacknowledged because their presence goes against the mythology surrounding founders.

This prevailing myth is that of the relentless founder. The founder gets a brilliant idea, and then he stops at nothing to get the capital he needs to scale it up. He cold emails hundreds of investors, chases them at conferences and coffee shops, and even in the face of rejection after rejection, continues to pitch with unbridled enthusiasm.

This relentless founder does not even let decorum get in their way, seizing any opportunity to “elevator pitch” a prospective investor until he gets a signature on the dotted line.

While such myths make for great montage scenes in movies, reality seldom works this way. Rarely does the entrepreneur just independently and directly connect with an investor.

There are many professionals, who I genuinely believe are unsung heroes in tech, that facilitate these interactions in a wide variety of ways. They are, in short, connectors, to borrow some terminology from popular non-fiction author Malcolm Gladwell from his book The Tipping Point. 

Also Read: Finding the stars in the night: Launching Southeast Asia’s next generation of startup investors into innovation space

Highlighting these connectors is important. The tech ecosystem does not only need people who identify business or investment opportunities, we also need people who recognise opportunities at an even higher, more abstract level: They see how the right connection of entrepreneurs and investors can yield exponential results.

A diversity of connectors

These connectors span a wide variety of industries, and each archetype is as deserving of recognition as the next.

The first is event organisers, who create programming in which entrepreneurs and investors can meet. The formats of these events are wide, from a kind of free-for-all networking to a more structured, speed-dating format. 

The latter format is how Zopim founder Royston Tay, met legendary investor Tim Draper. While Tay admitted to just crashing the closed-door pitching session, the opportunity was still nonetheless generated by the event organiser gathering top-tier investors into a single point in space and time. 

Draper also did not invest at that point, but his early interest was pivotal in goading Tay and his team to build out the prototype for Zopim, which would eventually be bought by Zendesk. (As an aside, this example also underscores another important point: Investors can help entrepreneurs in more ways than just direct investment). 

Now that the world is reopening from the pandemic, we need event organisers to resume their role in crafting event concepts that are exciting enough to attract the very best investors, who will summon entrepreneurs in tow. While purely online events may occasionally work, Zoom fatigue is very much real and so on-site or hybrid events may be the best. 

Another category of connectors is what I like to call tech diplomats. They generate cross-border investment interest. Such is difficult because it requires intimate knowledge of the business opportunities in one nation and the investment appetite in another. 

One such example is Emil Banno, who represented the Philippines at the Japan Cryptocurrency Forum in 2018, and has raised over US$100 million of Japanese investment into the Philippines, across a mixture of primarily traditional and also some tech-enabled sectors.

Banno is now taking on the mantle for the Web3 industry in the Philippines, partnering with BLX to build out any tech-related investments on its blockchain. Such is key in building Japanese confidence in Philippine crypto, fintech, and other nascent Web3 verticals in the country. 

Tech diplomats like Banno are crucial. The tech ecosystem in the Asia Pacific can often be isolationist, where each country is viewed or treated as a market unto its own, rather than a part of a larger, interdependent economic region.

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

Such will require people who have the cultural expertise to bridge the gap between two cultures, and more importantly, understand what will attract investors from one market to back the entrepreneurs of another.

The final category of connector I’d like to cover is community organisers, specifically those at coworking spaces. While coworking spaces have more recently become associated as nothing more than cooly designed workspaces, this new understanding represents mission drift.

Co-working spaces were originally designed where people from diverse backgrounds and industries could, as the name implies, “co-work” with one another, and in so doing, create value. In the halcyon days of coworking, many coworkers reported closing business deals at their spaces or even fundraising for their ventures. 

There are some co-working spaces where this spirit still exists. One such example is Cerebro Labs in the Philippines, which in addition to being a coworking space, is also a tech and business incubator. Such formalises the organic investor-entrepreneur connections that could previously occur, and in so doing, gives entrepreneurs a physical hub in which to meet and learn from investors.

Co-working spaces in the Asia Pacific need to get back to these roots, whether through official programmes like Cerebro or more casual introductions between members who are entrepreneurs and members who are investors. Such elevates coworking into co-creation.  

Event organisers, tech diplomats, and coworking spaces are still just a small subset of the connectors who facilitate interaction between investors and entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific.

It’s beneficial to not fill in all the blanks when it comes to discussing this topic, so others in the community can answer the million-dollar question: Who helped you meet your investors?

The response to this question will spur long overdue recognition, and in turn, accelerate even more connections.

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Intrepid Group, a Singapore-headquartered omnichannel e-commerce solutions company, has been acquired by Ascential plc (Ascential), a global provider of information, analytics and e-commerce optimisation. 

The deal is for an initial cash consideration of US$57 million, plus deferred consideration payable over four years. This is contingent on meeting certain financial targets, resulting in an estimated total consideration of between US$100 million and US$197 million.

The maximum total consideration payable for Intrepid Group is capped at US$250 million, Intrepid said in a press release.

The acquisition will provide a strategic entry point for Ascential into the high-growth Southeast Asian market. At the same time, it will provide Intrepid access to a broader network of resources and knowledge.

As per the agreement, Intrepid will become part of Ascential’s Digital Commerce division. The Singaporean company joins Edge by Ascential, Flywheel, Yimian, Duo Zhun, Intellibrand, OneSpace, Perpetua, Sellics, WhyteSpyder and 4KMiles to strengthen Ascential Digital Commerce’s presence in the region. 

Also Read: Intrepid attracts US$11M Series B, claims profitability in 2 markets

“Intrepid’s strong presence in Southeast Asia and proven expertise operating across the major marketplaces in this important region further enhances the capabilities and global reach of our Digital Commerce business,” said Duncan Painter, CEO of Ascential.

Founded by Co-Founders of Lazada, Intrepid Group offers both enterprise-grade SaaS and end-to-end e-commerce management to brands and SMEs to accelerate their growth on platforms such as Lazada and Shopee. The B2B company has offices in six markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It has over 480 staffers across e-commerce, digital marketing and tech experts.

A year ago, Intrepid Group secured US$11 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding, led by Mirabaud Asset Management through its Mirabaud Lifestyle Impact & Innovation fund.

In August 2020, Intrepid raised an undisclosed sum in pre-Series B financing, co-led by Thakral Sun SEA Capital (a VC firm backed by Sunway Group). Ten months earlier, it had received Series A funding led by Kairous Capital.

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