ShopBack bags US$80M Series F from Asia Partners to be IPO-ready
With this latest investment, the company has raised over US$230M in total to date; ShopBack has more than 35M users across 10 countries and powers US$3.5B in annual sales; It also facilitates 1M shopping journeys for 10K+ merchant partners every day.

Indonesia’s Deliveree nets US$70M in Gobi, SPIL-led round
The logistics startup operates in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines; Deliveree’s gross transaction value grew by 3.2x over the last 24 months, and it is on track to exceed US$100M by end of 2022.

Crypto broker Voyager Digital issues default notice to 3AC
This is on account of the fund’s failure to make required payments on a loan; The loan was for 15,250 bitcoin (approximately US$324M) and US$350M worth of USDC.

Sky Mavis to make Axie hack refunds this week
Once Sky Mavis reopens the software bridge breached in the attack, affected users will be eligible to withdraw one ether for each one they had in March; In April, the firm raised US$150M from Binance, Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, and Paradigm to pay back all affected users.

Snoop Dogg’s son, Gushcloud to launch Web3 fund
The fund will provide opportunities for Asian founders based outside America; Gushcloud International has also announced its move into Web3 by signing on Champ Medici, a Bored Ape NFT owned by Cordell Broadus, son of rapper Snoop Dogg.

Solana launches web3-focused smartphone Saga to improve crypto-mobile relationship
Saga aims to implement digital asset products and services, so users can easily transact with their cryptocurrency through the device, as opposed to a laptop browser.

Kakao-backed blockchain firm Klaytn partners with OpenSea to boost NFTs in Asia
The tie-up will include conference collaborations and ecosystem grants; Through these initiatives, the companies aim to “scale-up the NFT ecosystem, strengthen ties, and bring greater visibility to Asian NFT projects worldwide.

Harmony loses crypto worth US$100M after security breach
The attack adds to this year’s litany of exploits targeting bridges, which allow users to move tokens between blockchains, taking the total lost to more than US$1B in 2022 alone: In Feb, Wormhole bridge suffered a US$326M hack, and in April Ronin was exploited for US$625M.

SoftBank to fund smaller deals after nearly US$10.9B annual loss
This year, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 investments amounted to around US$100M to US$200M, which was disbursed over 50 funding rounds; SoftBank is currently invested in 475 companies, though some of its bets have yet to yield results.

Emissary Capital closes US$47.6M fund on Fundnel
Emissary is a Malaysia-based boutique investment firm focusing on ASEAN; The microfund aims to invest in potential unicorns following Carsome’s success, propel the startup ecosystem to create job opportunities and fuel the global economy.

VinaCapital Ventures buys stake in Web3 analytics firm M3TA
M3TA’s AI-powered platform helps guilds manage their members and scholars by processing data on digital assets and performance; The platform also includes learning and education features.

Temasek unit SeaTown leads Vietnam startup OnPoint’s US$50M Series B
OnPoint provides a one-stop solution that enables consumer brands to accelerate their online growth on multiple channels, including e-commerce marketplaces, social media platforms and brand-owned websites.

Indonesia’s consumer insights platform Populix nets US$7.7M Series A
Investors include Intudo Ventures, Acrew Capital, Altos Ventures, and Quest Ventures; Populix provides research and data collection for businesses and individuals to make more informed business decisions through quantitative and qualitative studies.

PagarBook to buy Indonesian staff management firm Vara for US$5.6M
PagarBook is an India-based payroll and staff management app; Both companies were participants in Sequoia Surge; Vara had raised US$4.8M in seed funding from Go Ventures and other investors.

East Ventures leads US$4.5M in Indonesia’s Fresh Factory
Fresh Factory runs a network of hyperlocal cold-chain fulfilment centres; It currently has more than 20 warehouses across Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Bali; The funds raised will go toward expanding warehouses to smaller cities in Java.

Indonesia’s Rlvnt Art Labs raises pre-seed led by ad agency Tech Ad.
Rlvnt Art Labs is an Indonesia-based NFT studio; It is set to launch its sci-fi and fantasy-inspired NFT collection this summer; The League of Guardians collection will consist of 9,999 randomly generated digital avatars.

New China supercomputer fast enough to match human brain
the Newest Generation Sunway has a speed of a billion operations per second an over 37M CPU cores – 4x as many as Frontier, a supercomputer built by the US Department of Energy.

SG fintech firm Moolahgo launches cross-border payments for Visa accounts
It allows the firm’s users to make money transfers to over 3B Visa cards globally; Moolahgo has partnered with payments solution provider Checkout.com to launch the cross-border payments service.

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It has been talked about time and time again, how the abrupt arrival of the pandemic has led to the upheaval of the daily processes and the mass exodus of workers from a typical workplace.

In fact, in Singapore alone, 63 per cent of businesses in Singapore have been affected negatively by the pandemic, with industry challenges further exacerbated by periodic industry barriers such as manpower shortage and dynamic changes in consumer behaviour.

While the market is slowly recovering and more are pivoting digitally, we still see businesses plagued with the same challenges, especially those that choose to stick to old business planning processes.

With this, NJ Group has seen success in acknowledging how critical it is for a business to prioritise continuity planning, seizing relevant opportunities and staying vigilant in times of uncertainty.

Prioritise business continuity planning

Future planning is essential for every business to ensure survival in times of economic instability. This could entail business risk management, product development, and product innovation. Across industries, a common theme we are seeing is that businesses are infusing technology and fad trends into products as an innovation point.

Whether it is creating crypto food tech or claiming ‘healthier’ meals with plant-based options, players are trying to innovate their products to appeal to a wider range of customers. We see some businesses finding success in this while some are due to face more turbulence in their paths.

The problem with the latter is that innovation is an expensive and time-consuming process, and a failed innovation during this volatile period can cause a company to retrogress.

NJ Group launched Eagle this year in March to address how to maintain service quality and experience in our restaurant chains. Eagle is a web-based AI platform that collects, monitors and manages customer feedback in the service industry with minimal manpower.

This not only tackles service quality issues but with the power of automation technology, Eagle addresses current and future manpower crunch cycles that often occur in the F&B service industry. Our team recognised the long-standing issue of manpower shortage and how that often directly impacts the level of service quality that patrons experience.

Also Read: How barePack and &Repeat aim to reduce waste by introducing the circular approach to food packaging

This is why we thought of creating a platform that takes authentic and real-time comments from customers and uses AI to generate suggestions on how to make business processes better in just six seconds.

Be in the right place, at the right time and seize opportunities

While future planning helps chart out the next steps, unforeseen events can happen and we all saw how the pandemic took everyone by surprise. Even so, mapping out business goals ahead of time can help soften the blow and land companies in favourable market positions that offer new business opportunities when old revenue streams cease.

When a company is conscious of the changing climate, it can be of favour and be confident in implementing long-term sustainable strategies, instead of pursuing short-term gains to stay innovative and stay relevant.

NJ Group’s successful business planning allowed us to enjoy some advantages during the pandemic. We were at the right place and at the right time, two of our restaurants that were strategically placed in hotels were presented with the opportunity to supply food for people who were quarantined in the hotels or were on stay-home-notices.

NJ Group was able to maintain topline services with minimal compromise on the bottom line. We even managed to achieve a 20 per cent increase in sales revenue in the past year, in Cali outlets in Park Avenue Rochester and Citadines Balestier.

Fortunately, we were able to leverage the downtime presented by the pandemic to identify real problems that were previously overlooked and craft appropriate solutions to resolve them. In this period, we reached milestones like launching our own table reservation system, food delivery, menu management solutions and automation technologies like Eagle for our restaurants.

Leverage and keep up with research and development (R&D)

With robust plans in order, stable and resilient companies should also look deeper into investing in R&D to further innovate or reinvent their products to fit the evolving needs and wants of the market, especially in the fast-growing F&B sector.

Also Read: The future of food tech lies in building digitally autonomous restaurants

R&D can be closely associated with digitalisation and innovation. Either way, R&D ensures that the company would stay alert to market developments and be ready to equip itself to pivot for the future. Companies can now also tap into resources offered by the Singapore government which supports the creation of new revenue streams through the recently launched Food Services Industry Transformation Map 2025 (ITM).

Backed up by Enterprise SG, the ITM drives more efforts on R&D, to cater to the changing consumer preference for convenience, health and wellness, and sustainability.

Besides promoting revenue growth, R&D possesses the power to provide businesses with infinite fallbacks in times of need. In 2017, NJ Group invested in R&D to create COBIE, the Friendly Food Butler.

Before the pandemic, COBIE served a combination of technology innovation and culinary satisfaction to guests at their tables or even in their hotel rooms as an automated room service provider. This was initially seen as a value-added service that improved restaurant operations in recent years. Our R&D has been key to our expedited growth, even with unexpected limitations such as safe distancing measures and quarantine notices in hotels.

And the tides are changing, the dynamic consumer behaviour is more exciting than ever, with new products becoming more groundbreaking, made with newer flavours and unimaginable combinations of ingredients.

We are seeing F&B businesses concentrating their efforts on catering to the sustainable crowd and becoming more inclusive of a wider range of dietary preferences as well.

While the F&B landscape is a challenging one to navigate, as business leaders, it is a responsibility we should take upon ourselves to strategically plan, and always remember to stay prudent to our roadmaps, be loyal to our business goals, and keep moving forward vigilantly.

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