As one of the leading names in the alternative protein industry, Buhler has teamed up with several organisations and institutions in the industry to help propel it forward.

In this interview with e27 for the Asia’s Alternative Protein Showcase, Dr Aparna Venkatesh, Collaborative Innovation Lead at Buhler, explains the important role that partnership plays in their mission to support the alternative protein industry.

Also Read: Bühler invests in Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein Fund; to invest in up to 100 plant- and cell-based firms

Dr Venkatesh also shares with us some of the most important milestones that the company has made as of July 7.

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This article was produced in partnership with Brinc for Asia’s Alternative Protein Showcase. Asia’s Alternative Protein Showcase brings together the region’s alternative protein ecosystem of startups, professionals, and investors to share their latest innovations and developments, while also inspiring one another, driving further growth and adoption.

Image Credit: inspirestock, 123RF Free Images

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Animoca Brands, a leading digital entertainment, blockchain and gamification company based in Hong Kong, has completed a capital raise of US$75.32 million.

This is the second tranche of the US$359 million funding round led by Liberty City Ventures announced on 18 January 2022.

Investors in the current tranche included Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Alpha Wave Ventures, 10T, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Generation Highway Ltd, and Cosmic Summit Investments Limited.

Animoca Brands will use the fresh infusion to continue to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, and product development, secure licenses for popular intellectual properties, and advance the open metaverse, including through its efforts to promote digital property rights for online users.

Animoca Brands is working to advance digital property rights and contribute to the establishment of the open metaverse. The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products, including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilising popular IPs including Disney, WWE, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP, and Formula E.

Also Read: Web3 is going to redefine labour in Asia in a big way: Animoca Brands’s Yat Siu

Using technologies including blockchain and NFTs, Animoca Brands is working to deliver true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, enabling various DeFi and GameFi opportunities (including play-and-earn), asset interoperability, and an open framework that can lead to greater equitability for all participants in the open metaverse.

It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise Entertainment, Notre Game, and TinyTap. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 340 investments, including Colossal, Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, and Star Atlas.

In 2021, Animoca Brands raised US$216.28 million to power its vision of digital property rights and the open metaverse, while its subsidiary The Sandbox completed a capital raise of US$93 million.

Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands, said: “Digital property rights represent a society-defining generational shift that impacts everyone online and will set the stage for the emergence of the open metaverse.”

Emil Woods, managing partner of Liberty City Ventures, commented: “Over the next decade, humanity will discover and embrace the game-changing power that blockchain-based digital ownership of assets will bring to countless aspects of daily life.”

The global video game market was estimated to generate US$180.3 billion in 2021 (source: NewZoo), while the metaverse market size is expected to grow to around US$829 billion by 2028 (source: Emergen Research).

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Asia is home to nearly half of the world’s population with cancer, with 9.5 million new cancer cases and 5.8 million cancer deaths reported in 2020. This can be traced to population growth, ageing population, and lifestyle or socioeconomic changes.

With a burden estimated to double by 2040 to 30.2 million cancer cases,  swift prevention, detection, treatment and supportive care programmes are critical to saving lives.

Pathologists from the core of cancer care delivery for cancer detection and treatment and oncologists (doctors who treat cancer). Pathologists are specialists who examine diseased cells and tissues for the presence of cancer (i.e. malignancy) and help decide the further course of treatment. The pathologist’s investigation impacts nearly 70 per cent of clinical decisions.

Challenges in pathology

The rising cancer trend and the backlog of cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic have brought the need for trained pathologists to the fore. With advancements in R&D, more effective pathology tests are now available for cancer detection and evaluation.

However, their application requires an experienced workforce. Insufficient inputs can cause delays in cancer diagnosis, consequently impacting patients’ treatment and survival.

Key challenges in this sector include an overall shortage of pathologists, a lack of a trained workforce (it can take up to 15 years to train pathologists) and increasing complexity of analysis, all of which need to be addressed to ensure the quality of cancer detection and staging remains uncompromised.

Under these circumstances, pathologists continue to face tremendous pressure and concerns, such as the possibility of burnout.

Digital pathology facilitates remote diagnosis

Depending on the tissue being analysed, a pathologist performs tests and typically views the tissue on a glass slide under a microscope to arrive at disease-specific scores or diagnosis.

Digital pathology, in simple terms, allows scanning of the slides or whole slide imaging (WSI) so they can be viewed on a computer monitor. Thus, high-resolution images can be conveniently viewed from remote sites without travelling and can even be shared to facilitate consultation with other specialists.

Also Read: MedHyve raises pre-seed round to make medical procurement easy for small hospitals

While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digitalisation in several other sectors, its use in pathology is still nascent.

As digital adoption accelerates, the digital pathology landscape in Asia will continue to evolve. By 2027, it is estimated to reach US$125 million from US$74 million this year.

Integrating AI into pathology

AI involves computers that mimic the processes of learning and interpretation by the human mind. AI-integrated digital pathology can help streamline workflow, enhance efficiency, and improve diagnostic concordance.

On the one hand, it can help automate several complex tasks. For example, computer-based analysis of the digitised tissue images can assist with time-consuming yet essential diagnostic tasks (e.g. counting the total nuclei or classifying tumour tissue), easing the overall workload of pathologists.

Conversely, AI integration enables the system to ‘learn’ image analysis per pre-established parameters, thereby supporting the pathologist’s diagnostic acumen. For example, AI has shown to be capable of assessing features indicative of high-risk colorectal cancer from tissue images.

AI-based digital imaging analysis also helped detect metastatic areas (cancer which has spread to other organs). It showed great sensitivity in scoring certain markers that predict survival in breast cancer.

Hence, it can be used as an effective screening tool for detecting malignancy and metastases and evaluating prognosis. These assistive technologies help improve efficiency, freeing up pathologists’ time for other important tasks requiring specialised input.

When associated with pathology, deep learning (a more complex subtype of AI) can assist with diagnostic evaluation (e.g. differentiating between diseased and normal tissue, grading cancer or distinguishing cancer types) and offer deeper disease insights.

This includes predicting the status of gene mutation, outcomes and disease recurrence. The synergy of human and AI-based insights in cancer pathology no doubt opens avenues for early cancer detection, with the potential to offer patient-specific disease assessment and treatment. Ultimately, this inflicts less strain on the healthcare system and enhances patient care.

Future perspectives

Lastly, managing pathologists’ perceptions of AI and enhancing their adoption is critical to aiding this transformation. Educating and supporting pathologists using such cutting-edge technology can help alleviate pressure on the system and manage the rising disease burden.

AI-integrated digital pathology can thus work in synergy with the pathologist to deliver optimal patient-centric care, right from detection to the treatment of cancer.

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Indonesia-based manufacturing hub startup Imajin raised pre-seed funding from Init-6 for an undisclosed amount. This funding will be used to accelerate digitalisation in the manufacturing industry through market expansion and new product development.

In a discussion with DailySocial, Imajin Co-founder & CEO Chendy Jaya said that Init-6 is currently the sole investor for this round. However, the Global Fund is said to participate in this funding.

In Indonesia, Imajin plans to expand to several cities in Java and Riau Islands province. In addition to that, the company is strongly considering an expansion to Japan. After his recent visit to Japan, he implied gaining a positive response from the local companies.

“I think we’ll need representatives in the country, in order to onboard [prospective customers] to Imajin,” he added.

Imajin is a platform that bridges demand and supply in the manufacturing industry. By positioning itself as a manufacturing hub, Imajin offers three business models: (1) a platform to gather business players in the manufacturing industry, (2) project financing, and (3) a marketplace to supply raw materials.

Also Read: Startup Studio Indonesia names the 15 startups shortlisted into its third batch

Throughout the first semester of 2022, he continued, Imajin has recorded an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) contract of almost ten times growth compared to two years ago. The company has just started its expansion to East Java and released an AI-based Quick Note feature to detect 3D files and instantly determine the price range of the goods.

On his LinkedIn page, Init-6 Venture Partner Rexi Christopher believes that Imajin will have a significant role to play in revolutionising the manufacturing industry in Indonesia. Moreover, 20 per cent of Indonesia’s total GDP is projected to come from manufacturing. Its growth is also predicted to be faster due to the adoption of new technologies.

In addition, he believed that Imajin is backed by know-how founders in this sector. “We believe that Imajin can accelerate digitalisation in manufacturing so as to make its industry in Indonesia more competitive in the global market,” he said.

In fact, Init-6 was founded by Bukalapak Co-Founders Achmad Zaky and Nugroho Herucahyono with a focus on investing in early-stage startups. Recently, Init-6 channelled funding to edutech platform Dibimbing.

Manufacturing digitalisation

On a separate occasion, Imajin said that it works closely with the Sole Agents of Brand Holders (ATPM) in the automotive and other sectors and cooperates with the Ministry of Industry to accelerate the digitalisation of manufacturing in the country.

Also Read: Growthwell Foods raises US$22M Series A to manufacture plant-based meat, seafood for F&B businesses

In its efforts to enter the Japanese market, Chendy said that the automotive industry in Indonesia has great potential. Moreover, some high technology for automotive products such as servo-brakes, gearboxes, and drive-axles, are still imported from Japan. According to a report by the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyo with Mizuho Bank, the import value reached US$1 billion.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian government is aggressively encouraging domestic digitalisation in order to meet the regulation of the Domestic Content Level (TKDN) of at least 35 per cent and increase to 80 per cent in 2026, especially in electric vehicles.

“We found a classic problem that often occurs in the manufacturing sector, which is finding trusted vendors. We want to digitise the procurement process to production, therefore, the Indonesian market can compete with other countries,” he said.

Currently, Imagin has more than 400 local manufacturing partners and 80 customers including Japanese companies in Indonesia. Imajin strives to provide dozens of customers from leading companies, such as Tom’s Racing, Toyota Motor Corporation, Mitsubishi Motor Corporation, so that they comply with product standards owned in Japan.

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The article was written by Corry Anestia for DailySocial.

Image Credit: Imajin

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Indonesia-based proptech startup Tanakuhas secured US$5.5 million in a pre-seed funding round led by East Ventures. 

The round included equity and debt capital from an international bank. 

The fresh capital will be used to build the product, expand the team, acquire homes, and execute the go-to-market strategy.

Tanaku was founded by Jonathan Ma (CEO), Andries De Vos (Head of Product), Bhanu Prakash (Head of Marketing) and Alwin Hajaning (Head of Commercial).

Headquartered in Jakarta, Tanaku aims to build a ‘pre-mortgage solution’ for owning a home. It builds an end-to-end technology platform to facilitate the purchase and transaction of homes entirely online.

Also Read: Indonesian proptech startup Jendela360 secures US$1M led by Beenext

Prospective home buyers can get pre-qualified with Tanaku at much simpler terms than a traditional bank, pay just 2 per cent of the down payment (DP) for their home and move in immediately. 

They can then focus on building their remaining DP with monthly instalments and decide to either upgrade their house with Tanaku.

In the initial rollout, prospective home buyers can select the home from Tanaku’s curated list of properties. In the future, it will facilitate the purchase of any homes in the open market with partner agents across multiple cities in Indonesia.

Since 2000, homeownership has declined in Indonesia by 2 per cent each year, and 70 million millennials are the most impacted segment, with 70 per cent unable to afford their own home.

The problem stems from how the home needs to be purchased. Many millennials do not have large funds saved for the initial down payment, and banks reject the majority when applying for a mortgage. 

Property developers often offer instalment plans called ‘cicilan’, but they come with expensive hidden fees, high-interest rates and predatory terms. This leaves millennials frustrated and resorting to long-term rentals, causing a steady decline in home ownership.

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