Singapore-based online career discovery and development platform Glints has announced a US$50 million Series D raise co-led by DCM Ventures, Lavender Hill Capital, and returning investor PERSOL Holdings.

Endeavor Catalyst and existing investors, including Monk’s Hill Ventures, Fresco Capital, and Flipkart Co-Founder Binny Bansal, also joined.

This brings Glints’s total investment to date to over US$80 million.

Also Read: Non-revenue generating jobs tend to be more affected in the current downturn: Glints CEO

The startup will use the new capital to expand its talent supply base into the Philippines, its employer demand base globally, and its product and technology teams.

“Our mission at Glints is to empower the 120 million professionals in Southeast Asia to realise their human potential. We also believe that one’s career is a journey and an entire talent ecosystem needs to be built to support these talented professionals’ lifelong career development, not just once-off job matching,” said Co-Founder and CEO Oswald Yeo.

Launched in 2015 in Singapore, Glints is a talent ecosystem that helps professionals to grow their careers and empower organisations to hire the right talent from anywhere in the region. The firm claims to have empowered more than three million talents.

Glints is used by over 50,000 clients, including AIA, IKEA, GetGo, KKday, and Gameloft.

The company operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Per a press release, its annual revenue and gross profits grew 2.5x y-o-y. Its cross-border remote work business also continues to double as employers shift to a more borderless mindset, and employers globally are increasingly interested in hiring Southeast Asia talent.

Also Read: Tech companies lay off, now or never for smaller startups

Remote cross-border job opportunities on Glints’s platform have grown more than 11x over the past two years. Its Indonesia and Vietnam markets are profitable.

As part of the investment, Xiaoyin Zhang, Founding Partner of Lavender Hill Capital and former Goldman Sachs TMT China Head, and Ramon Zeng, General Partner of DCM Ventures, join the board.

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Amidst the doom and gloom of ‘crypto winter’, there are some bright spots: Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm slated for completion by 2022 is one and a much anticipated event.

In fact, when the date of ‘the Merge’ was recently announced to be 19th September 2022, an injection of much needed enthusiasm galvanised the investor sentiment in the crypto sphere. Within a mere week of the announcement, the price of its native token, ETH, rose by about 50 per cent, from US$1,000 to US$1,500.

Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin shared that following the Merge and subsequent phases in the Ethereum transition developer roadmap known as ‘the Surge, Verge, Purge, Splurge’, Ethereum will be able to support over 100,000 transactions per second (tps), a monumental leap from its current capacity of about 15 to 20 tps.

The Merge dramatically lowers energy consumption, and is claimed to become the foundation that removes much of Ethereum’s scalability constraints, unlocking its full potential. This is probably what fuelled the community’s recent optimism.

At the height of crypto’s run-up last year, bullish investors of Ethereum proclaimed price targets of US$50,000/ETH or higher, based on the belief that Ethereum will eventually monopolise or entrench its market dominance in the smart contract blockchain segment.

This was certainly a plausible prediction given Ethereum’s immense popularity. At the peak of network congestion, users have paid hundreds of dollars in gas fees per transaction and waited days for these transactions to be processed.

Miners have meanwhile collected billions in gas fees per month as incentive for verifying these transactions. Intuitively, scaling up Ethereum is expected to compound the value being created and captured, thereby aiding the price appreciation of ETH.

Also Read: The growing adoption of Ethereum in emerging markets

However, despite current optimism in the market, the reality is often much more nuanced. Even as the Merge draws near, I contend that it is still everyone’s guess if the present ETH bull run will last for the longer term.

Will Ethereum emerge as the winner?

While the technological roadmap for Ethereum to scale up to 100,000 tps seems straightforward at first glance, it is a lengthy process undoubtedly filled with hiccups. Since the news first surfaced, key developments for Ethereum 2.0 have been repeatedly delayed.

Furthermore, the Merge is not the endgame, merely one of many milestones in the pipeline, with another four scheduled ahead: the Surge, Verge, Purge, and Splurge, and as Buterin remarked, the protocol will only be “55 per cent complete once the Merge is complete”.

If we go by its track record, we cannot guarantee that Ethereum 2.0 will be delivered on the proposed timeline, let alone expect its 100 per cent completion, which is still far beyond the horizon right now.

The development of Ethereum 2.0 is also racing against time, as other developing blockchain networks are rapidly gaining ground. For example, Solana has been able to attract a sizable community with its fast transaction speed and low latency. Avalanche was also dubbed as an ‘Ethereum 2.0 killer’, quickly gaining traction because of its developer friendliness and blockchain interoperability among other reasons.

In addition, many new blockchain networks are entering the fray. There are now over hundred blockchain network offerings at various stages of development. Aptos is just one of many examples, and it is rumored to have raised at a whopping US$2.7 B valuation prior to its launch.

Even if Ethereum 2.0 were to deliver on its vision, it is an oversimplified assumption to think all or even most of its existing users will adopt it.

Notably, dYdX, the leading decentralised margin trading platform that first was building on Ethereum, announced in late June that it is leaving Ethereum for Cosmos. The Ethereum ecosystem is simply unable to support the customisations that dYdX requires for its order book design, such as fee structures and transaction speeds.

Meanwhile, the Cosmos Network allows dYdX and other projects to build custom tailored, native blockchains with the ability to make transactions with other blockchains within Cosmos’ ecosystem, all without astronomical gas fees or compromising on transaction throughput.

Where other blockchain network ecosystems are increasingly successful and adapting to ever-changing needs of users, the Ethereum ecosystem may fail to support the heterogeneous needs of future decentralised applications.

Also Read: The transition is now: these Web3 apps are transforming global finance

Putting the promise of those blockchain network projects aside, the reality is that all of these blockchain networks are facing their own technical challenges and competing to deliver their scalability solution or other value propositions. Naturally, the first to succeed will tend to gain more market share.

Can Ethereum capture enough value?

Another key question is, even if Ethereum were to capture a significant share of the future smart contract market, would it be able to capture enough value? Delphi Research elaborated its thesis on ETH’s potential for value and revenue capture for this base asset in Valuing Layer 1s – Memes, Money, or More?

In essence, ETH captures three streams of value-productive asset yield through staking, consumable/transformable value as a rare commodity, and store of value asset as the quote currency – similar to the petrodollar system due to its ecosystem value and stickiness.

However, I would like to highlight that all these value streams are underpinned by one assumption. Ethereum block space is hard to replace, a scarce computing resource that is highly sought after, thus allowing its base asset to command a premium.

But what if decentralised computing resources were heavily commoditised? The Ethereum block space is a scarce resource, evident from its high transaction fees and users’ willingness to pay at its peak.

However, other blockchain network offerings have only become more valid alternatives recently, and evidently a lot of developers and users have already migrated out to others despite the pain of moving to a new ecosystem.

Furthermore, with more and more vibrant blockchain network offerings emerging, significant effort is pouring into cross-chain bridging projects (and layer 0 technologies) connecting blockchain network chains together, such as Layerzero, Polkadot, and Cosmos etc. These protocols would allow developers and users to tap on multi-chain linkages and interactions in a frictionless way.

In our physical world organised by sovereign states, multi-chains which are interlinked is much like how citizens of European Union’s (EU) member states can travel, work and live freely without border checks under the EU’s open border policy.

Under such a scenario, the existence of other blockchain network chains may not diminish Ethereum’s market share substantially, but it might lead to a race to the bottom with lowering fees as Ethereum’s stakeholders try to retain their user pool, culminating in the commoditisation of the Ethereum block space value.

De-monopolising the blockchain network universe in such a way will certainly diminish Ethereum’s control over value capture. Thus, Ethereum block space is probably less like petrol which shaped our current geopolitics, but more like the current evolution of electricity where solar, wind, nuclear and many other new power generation technologies are competing for the future and will co-exist.

Supporters will argue that Ethereum is more decentralised than others but remember, most users will mainly care about general user experience and cost.

Lastly, I believe that Ethereum will eventually lose its monopoly, eroding the strong premium that ETH currently commands. ETH‘s potential as a store of value and quote/reserve currency adoption will also need to be further questioned in a multi-chain world.

Overall, the multi-chain scenario is an intriguing vision and, if realised, opens up unparalleled developmental opportunities in the coming years. Thus, I retain my cautious view even as the market reacts very favorably to the announcement of the Merge. While the short term event-driven trade sounds like a workable idea, the long term investment thesis for Ethereum is much less straightforward.

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Singapore-headquartered tech-enabled real estate agency Propseller has secured US$12 million Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.

The round saw participation from existing investors Hustle Fund, Iterative, and Rapzo Capital, and new investors Partech Ventures, ICCP SBI, Vulpes Ventures, and Redbadge Pacific.

Jani Rautiainen (Co-Founder, PropertyGuru), Marta Higuera (Co-Founder, OpenAgent), Steffen Wicker (Co-Founder and CEO, Homeday), and Tushar Garg (Co-Founder and CEO, Flyhomes) also joined.

The funds will enable Propseller to scale its core business model, expand its line-up of services, and explore overseas markets.

The 50-people company plans to hire 200 new people across the marketing, operations, product, engineering, sales and real estate functions.

Also Read: What are the key emerging trends and technologies in proptech space?

Founded in 2018, Propseller employs in-house salaried agents backed by technology and centralised operations. The proptech firm controls every aspect of a real estate transaction and offers consumers a “transparent and reliable way” to sell a property for a commission as low as one per cent, half the market rate in Singapore.

In October 2020, Propseller raised US$1.2 million in seed funding from Hustle Fund, Iterative, XA Network, Rapzo Capital, Stein Jakob (Co-Founder, Lazada) and Ben Neve (Founder, Dot Property). Two years earlier, it closed a US$1 million seed funding round from industry entrepreneurs and senior executives.

Propseller claims to have grown its revenues by 1,000 per cent year-over-year in 2021 and reached profitability.

“We believe people deserve extraordinary service when selling their home, which often represents 70 per cent or more of their wealth. Yet, on average, consumers still deal with property agents who close less than two sales transactions per year each while generally charging a two per cent commission. Our business model addresses this industry challenge by elevating our service for consumers while charging a lower cost. Our real estate consultants each closed in 2021 25x more transactions than a traditional agent,” Adrien Jorge, Founder and CEO of Propseller, said.

According to him, Propseller the COVID-19 pandemic caused two shifts in consumer behaviours — 1) the flight from offline to online for everything, including high-value items such as real estate, and 2) unprecedented work-from-home movement making millions of consumers who want to move to a larger home than the one they are currently in.

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When we think of companies listed in the USA, we rarely see locals from Southeast Asia leading them.

Co-Founder of Moneylion, Foong Chee Mun, is a rare exception and trailblazer. He was the first Malaysian Founder to make it to the New York Stock Exchange in September 2021. Yes, they listed before Grab, which went public a few months later in December 2021.

MoneyLion is the go-to destination for personalised financial management, content, offerings and advice. Their main users are in the USA.

They are part of a consortium with AEON and AEON Financial Services that received a digital banking license from the Ministry of Finance in Malaysia.

As of today, Moneylion has 4.9 million customers. In their recent earnings call, they shared that their total net revenues increased 129 per cent to US$87.3 million for the second quarter of 2022 compared to Q2 2021.

What really impressed me the most about my interaction with Chee Mun was his immense courage to be vulnerable. He was open and willing to talk about mistakes and discuss topics like mental health and imposter syndrome.

This really sets a shining example for men who often struggle to talk about their challenges and their emotions due to outdated societal expectations of what masculinity is.

Among other things, we discussed a wide range of topics, including his founding story, how Moneylion is coping with the tech winter, how his leadership style changed as the company grew, a super useful process to make objective decisions and learned that we’re on opposing camps of the right way to eat Rainbow lapis sagu!

Here are three key takeaways:

Toughest challenges that leaders deal with

Chee Mun said that while things like “scaling, hiring top talent and fundraising” are hard. They are not the hardest problems. In his view, the hardest challenge is caring for one’s mental health.

Also Read: 3 lessons I learned from Halodoc’s Co-Founder, Doddy Lukito

Some of the toughest things leaders have to deal with include making difficult decisions impacting those around them. Examples he cited include letting go of someone who has trusted and followed you for three-five years but did not grow along with the company.

There also is a lot of pressure which comes from being a leader as “the moment you stop contributing, the engine stops”.

To guard oneself against what he describes as a “mental valley”, social support such as close friends, having a great Co-Founder and even leaning on coaches and therapists are key.

Making objective decisions

Since leaders have to deal with making hard decisions regularly, one needs to master the ability to make decisions without letting ego or emotions influence them too much.

Having a good process is important to him as he believes that when a company grows, it is easy for leaders to “fall into the trap of being haphazard of decision making.”

“You can use emotions to drive judgement, but just don’t let it cloud your judgement,” he explains.

I asked Chee Mun for actionable steps, and he shared a useful framework we can all use to make good objective decisions.

Firstly, making hard decisions start with listing the “inputs” and “principles behind the decisions” and using them as a basis for making a choice between the multiple options.

For instance, if one is trying to decide on which cloud provider to pick, one could decide based on security and scalability as principles.

The next critical step is also to journal the thought process behind his choices. The benefits of doing so are twofold. It allows him to refer back to them and also share them with his team so that everyone is aligned on the same page.

The importance of adaptability and humility

The key point that Chee Mun emphasised was that “Humility is extremely important throughout the process.”

Also Read: How mental health startup Intellect’s founder catalysed his personal battle with anxiety

He shared how learning about lending was a humbling experience for him and his team. Initially, they thought, “How hard could this get?” but realised they underestimated the difficulty of it.

Like Co-Founder of Halodoc, Doddy Lukito, he shared how important it was to learn from people of all levels, even from them fresh out of university.

He advocated the importance of learning not just about the industry but broader emerging world trends, citing the gig economy as one of the examples.

Overall, I enjoyed the conversation with Chee Mun. Whether you are leading a team, thinking about getting into a leadership role or looking to better balance work and your mental health, I am sure you would have a lot to learn from his story and lessons in leading a company from startup to IPO.

Watch the full interview here.

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Singapore-headquartered neobank banco has secured US$6.7 million in Series A funding led by Japan’s SBI Group.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), R3, Savills, KZM & Company, and others also joined.

With this fundraise, banco, owned and operated by RABC Group, will look to recruit talents with technology and business development expertise and market expansion within Southeast Asia.

Also Read: Singapore neobank IN Financial Technology acquires 500 Global-backed MyCash

Founded in 2018, banco is a financing platform for growing businesses in Asia. It leverages RABC group’s expertise in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) lending to developing sector-focused and sustainable financial solutions for MSMEs.

In essence, banco empowers all companies to take control of their cashflow.

In March this year, banco partnered with leading real estate advisor Savills (Singapore) to digitise financing solutions and enhance sustainability practices in the property industry1. With more industry partnerships in the pipeline, banco aims to reach out to more than 1000 MSMEs in 2022.

banco has subsidiaries in China and Japan.

Also Read: Lucy, a Singaporean neobank focused on women entrepreneurs, bags seed funding

SBI Group offers various financial services beneficial to consumers by riding the two major trends of financial deregulation and the internet revolution. In Japan, the group utilised the internet as its main channel and created a financial ecosystem in the financial services business centring on securities, banking and insurance to become a comprehensive financial group.

Moving forward, the group will focus on offering green financing solutions for MSMEs and corporates in optimising cash flow and improving sustainability in their entire value chain.

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The Lightnet Group, a Singapore-based fintech company, has secured a US$50 million capital commitment from LDA Capital, a US-based alternative investment group with expertise in cross-border transactions globally.

The funds will be utilised to facilitate Web3 payment and blockchain ledger-based remittance services across the Asia Pacific and globally.

Lightnet Group will also build a CeDeFi (centralised, decentralised finance) banking network through its licensed subsidiaries in Asia.

The group will have the option to extend the capital to up to US$100 million over the next three years.

With a mission to promote financial mobility and inclusivity, Lightnet Group empowers unbanked populations and SME trade finance with an inclusive international remittance ecosystem. The ecosystem adopts the Velo Protocol (from Velo Labs) as its blockchain transaction documentation protocol in parallel to existing and traditional documentation and process.

Also Read: How Web3 will revolutionise borderless banking in Southeast Asia

Velo Protocol is a company focused on building plug-and-play, blockchain-based remittance solutions. This project intends to be a real-time blockchain settlement flow for remittance and payments between money transfer operators (MTOs) and banking institutions under regulatory supervision and support.

With the assistance of Velo Labs, Lightnet will be able to connect to many payment partners across the globe. It makes the remittance ecosystem and payment options more affordable and accessible to businesses and customers alike.

The fintech firm also intends to utilise part of the funds to develop Velo Lab’s existing technology, and contribute to the growth of Velo anchors, and remittance partners and liquidity providers.

“Lightnet’s next generation financial infrastructure, along with Velo Labs’s disruptive technology, will be the future rails for dynamic and regulated markets providing financial mobility and inclusivity across Asia,” said Warren P. Baker III, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at LDA Capital.

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Job markets worldwide are experiencing a great deal of disruption these days as businesses wrestle with the long-term repercussions of COVID-19.

We first saw a rampant loss of employment at the pandemic’s peak, but the tides have turned following the global economic recovery. On the one hand, employees benefit from “The Great Job Boom” as there has never been a better time to look for a new job and negotiate for better roles.

On the other hand, businesses are struggling with “The Great Talent Crunch”, unable to fill the huge hole left in the labour market and increasing demand for top talent.

According to data from SEEK’s JobStreet and JobsDB platforms across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, the total number of job ads has surged by over 30 per cent during the region’s recovery phase between June 2021 and May 2022, compared to the same period in the previous year.

Meanwhile, the number of job applications has only increased by 5.5 per cent yearly. This indicates that while there is a strong hiring appetite, it is also increasingly challenging for organisations to fill vacancies.

So, what can businesses do to deal with the intensifying competition for talent and win the talent war? The answer is technology. And this comes as no surprise in today’s highly digital world.

Hire fast and hire right with a large database and Artificial Intelligence

In the pre-Internet era, businesses would simply put up a “Help Wanted” sign on their windowpane, advertise in newspapers, conduct walk-in interviews, or rely on word-of-mouth recommendations to hire workers.

Today, we see companies posting job ads on their websites and social media channels and hope for the best. That might get you in the talent game, but you won’t necessarily be winning it because the game’s rules constantly evolve.

Also Read: How to survive a recession and thrive afterward

When there’s a war for talent, it’s crucial for employers to have direct access to a large and diverse candidate pool. The hard truth is that employers cannot hire the right talent if the candidate pool is too small. This might seem daunting for many employers, especially smaller-sized businesses that don’t have the resources or access to a large candidate pool. This is where technology comes in.

Recruiting in its traditional form can be a time-consuming, inefficient, and costly process. With the rise of digital technologies, hiring has become more streamlined, which serves not only employers of all sizes but also candidates looking for jobs that match their skill sets.

At SEEK, our platforms connect millions of candidates with job opportunities. We leverage the data from these interactions through innovation and AI capability to enable us to match candidates quickly with all relevant job opportunities.

Our search engine, Smarter Search, has improved the relevance of search results to help candidates find the right opportunities faster and has contributed to a 20 per cent increase in job applications per candidate session.

The Smarter Search algorithms learn which jobs have higher relevance for candidates by applying AI and candidate preference to improve accuracy and continually learn new patterns and trends. For example, if a job seeker searches “kindergarten teacher”, AI would enable our platform to surface similar roles where titles vary, such as “early childhood teacher”.

Posting a job ad is only the first step to gaining job seekers’ attention, but employers can take it to the next level by proactively reaching out to the right talent who may not be actively looking.

Our Talent Search function enables employers to access and search for SEEK Profiles and connect with candidates using data from candidate profiles and search algorithms to identify candidates who may not otherwise have applied for their open roles.

For companies that deal with a large volume of applications, utilising application tracking systems (ATS) by HR solutions providers can help make the hiring process easier, enabling recruiters or the talent acquisition team to spend more valuable time with candidates and hiring managers.

Powered by AI and skill matching functionalities, these systems allow organisations to shortlist qualified candidates in their talent pool and match their best talent to current job openings quickly.

Transform HR to a strategic function with tech solutions

Successfully hiring a candidate might mean you have won the battle, but the war for talent doesn’t end there. It’s equally important for organisations to focus on retaining their employees when there’s tough competition out there.

Also Read: How small companies can prepare for recession

First, we must eliminate HR departments’ bandwidth by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. This could be done by leveraging tools by HR solutions providers, such as ATS, human resources information systems (HRIS), payroll solutions, and digital assessments.

The three misconceptions that SMEs in Asia commonly have are that HR software is only useful when they have a large number of employees; it is costly to adopt the software; and that it is a complex and time-consuming process to set up these systems or change providers.

However, that isn’t the case. Many providers offer digital solutions that cater specifically to SMEs, allowing them to transform their internal HR processes and remove the burden, cost, and time of regular administrative tasks.

This enables HR staff to spend more time on strategic initiatives that are more valuable to the company, such as developing career progression pathways and investing in employee learning and training, which can help attract top talent and retain people.

We believe that technology should not take the “human” out of “human resources”, but instead provide solutions that help HR to focus on other important issues.

A strategic priority here at SEEK is to deliver on our Employee Value Proposition, with quality training being a core component. That’s why we’ve recently partnered with Go1, the world’s largest professional learning and development platform.

The intuitive Go1 platform hosts over 150,000 courses from renowned education providers, empowering our employees to upskill and reskill anytime. SEEK staff from any geography can access content on-demand and tailor their learning experience across content styles, course durations, and skill levels.

Taking HR to the future

At the end of the day, it’s not just about leveraging technology for its sake of it. Rather, it’s about shifting the mindset of companies and HR departments to think digitally, especially in today’s rapidly changing employment landscape. When HR embraces the agility that comes with technology, they can start doing what they do best and take it to the next level.

To stay ahead and win the talent game, organisations must continuously evolve and innovate to keep up with the latest trends and tools that will push their boundaries to greater heights.

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AC Ventures is one of Southeast Asia’s most active VC firms, investing in early-stage startups focused on Indonesia and ASEAN. Formed in 2020 after a merger between Agaeti Ventures and Convergence Ventures, AC Ventures has over US$500 million in assets under management (AUM), invested across five funds.

The firm is run by Adrian Li and Michael Soerijadji (both Founders and Managing Partners), Helen Wong (Managing Partner), and Pandu Sjahrir (Founding Partner), who together have invested in 100+ companies.

In this interview, Adrian Li speaks about the fund, its thesis, investments, COVID-19 and funding winter crises.

Edited excerpts:

What is AC Ventures’s vision? What is your thesis?

AC Ventures combines operational experience, industry knowledge, deep local networks, and resources to create value for startups. Our vision is to be a generational partner to founders driving positive societal change and economic impact in Indonesia and beyond.

Our thesis places a premium on founding team quality at a high level. At the seed and early stages of the startup journey, we evaluate team quality and potential value creation in the market. Higher quality teams generally have higher market rate valuations as a startup progresses.

Also Read: AC Ventures hits final close of Fund III at US$205M to back early-stage Indonesian startups

We are interested in early-stage, Indonesia-focused founders who take a hands-on approach to company building. Our core investment thesis plays on four key megatrends: the country’s rapid and increasing user adoption in e-commerce, financial technology, digital media, and MSME enablement.

What are your key focus verticals and average cheque size?

We utilise a thematic approach to investment using local solid data sets and a deep understanding of proven digital business models to inform our investment decisions. ​We have built expertise in specific sectors, such as fintech, logistics, e-commerce, MSME enablement, and consumer tech.

Our average first cheque size is US$2 million. From a macro standpoint, we look to invest in the digitisation of Indonesia’s economy as the share of digital GDP in Indonesia expands to a forecast of US$350 billion by 2030. This includes early-stage companies with proven digital disruption models from more mature markets. Still, our approach is generally to back the best founders building in large multi-billion dollar potential markets.

How many deals has AC Venture sealed so far?

AC Ventures manages a portfolio of over 100 investments across five funds, of which two — Xendit and Carsome — have already become unicorns. Our partners’ track records also include prior investments in companies including Gojek, Bukalapak, SEA, and Akulaku.

Additionally, many of our portfolio companies gained massive traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include Shipper, Stockbit, Ula, Aruna, Bukuwarung, Astro, Kargo, Majoo, ESB, and CoLearn. These companies have already reached ‘centaur‘ status, which means they’re now valued at US$100+ million.

How does ACV pick startups for potential investments? What are the different selection criteria?

Our investment team is meticulous and methodical in its process. We go through more than 1,000 opportunities each year. We have well-established relationships with accelerators and early-stage facilitators locally and globally. This enables us to generate a robust deal flow of high-quality, early-stage investment opportunities.

We have several deal sourcing advantages (some proprietary) that give us an edge in seeing deals. These include, but are not limited to, global Ivy League school networks, founder referrals, scout programmes, and active pre-sourcing activities with recruiters to identify high potential entrepreneurial talents who may have what it takes to be great founders. This is based on our proprietary founder attributes analysis).

Regarding selection criteria, we start with the calibre of the founders. We dive deep into their backgrounds and analyse why we think a particular founding team is right to tackle the problem at hand. This is undeniably the single most crucial part of our process. As mentioned, we are also thematic and research-driven. We meet founders with a prepared mind and a good understanding of the industries and, typically, the products and business models they build.

From there, if we decide to proceed, we will do deeper due diligence on the company potential, traction and metrics, funding size/dilution, and target stake, as well as look at international comparisons and case studies. I can say confidently that our analysis process at AC Ventures is among the most rigorous in Southeast Asia.

What opportunities do you see in Indonesia? How has the market grown over the years?

On the macro level, Indonesia’s internet economy presents a massive opportunity. Today, the local internet economy is valued at US$70 billion. Google, Temasek, and Bain project it will reach US$330 billion in value by 2030, almost double current Southeast Asia’s digital economy value of US$170 billion.

Also Read: NOBI raises US$4M in seed funding round led by AC Ventures

Supported by strong fundamentals, it has exceptional potential as the economic powerhouse in the region. The nation’s economy is also projected to become the fourth largest in the world by 2030.

The developed internet economies of the US and China provide a roadmap for Indonesia’s burgeoning potential. This reduces innovation risk for ventures in the tech sector. Much like China, Indonesia is driven by mobile internet. This means it can quickly catch up to developed internet economies.

Further, President Jokowi’s administration is boldly undergoing what it calls the nation’s “Industry 4.0” initiative. This includes better infrastructure and education as cornerstone policies. This will only further strengthen local tech companies.

The adoption of digital financial services has also accelerated as consumers and MSMEs shift away from cash. As online transactions increase and fintech use cases continue to unfold, we believe the nation will soon see a proper credit boom for businesses and consumers.

How did you and your portfolio companies survive the COVID-19 crisis? What was your key advice for them as the pandemic wreaked havoc worldwide?

The pandemic accelerated tech adoption. This benefited most of our portfolio companies. Nevertheless, it also forced founders to quickly adapt their business models to not pursue growth at all costs but to reduce burn and focus on quality metrics like retention, unit economics, and runway extension.

Also Read: Funding winter: VCs ask startups to focus on corporate funds from developed countries

Given the uncertainty at the time, our key advice was to maintain a healthy cash balance by reducing burn rate and cutting unnecessary costs. We said that continuing growth was important, but it had to be done with solid business fundamentals. Over time, it is clear that tech companies are being relied on more than ever to help people continue their daily lives. This includes things like shopping and entertainment. These things were quickly reflected in the public markets.

How do you and your investees deal with the ongoing funding winter?

In many ways, our portfolio companies have already been primed by the pandemic to operate during this economic downturn. Much of the same advice above applies yet again today. Many of our portfolio companies raised significant capital in the past 18 months. Most of our portfolio companies have over 18 months of runway and some over 30. This puts them in a position to focus on their business fundamentals and work on acquiring strong talent in the market to build their teams.

Being well capitalised in times of uncertainty affords significant growth advantages as well. In some cases, we advise founders on the importance of gaining market share strategically beyond just organic expansion. This could even mean strategic M&A of competitors in the market. It could also mean joining forces with companies that are complementary. Also, during times like this, we tell founders to focus on the quality of their in-house teams relentlessly.

How do you look at these two world events? What are the similarities and differences?

The situations are similar in that they both made global capital allocators nervous, which has created a ripple effect in the tech startup ecosystem. I would say, however, that the pandemic was far more of an unpredictable phenomenon, with economic turmoil following each big wave of infections.

Also Read: Indonesia is ripe for further disruption by tech-enabled firms: Adrian Li of AC Ventures

However, ultimately the impact of COVID-19 restrictions also drove digital adoption bringing forward three to five years of advancement in Indonesia of commerce and fintech adoption. This was reflected in the massive progress of technology startups in Indonesia in 2021 and the resulting wave of global interest in startups here.

Our current situation is largely caused by many factors, including the US Fed’s raising interest rates to combat inflation, recessionary drivers, and political uncertainty from China, the US, Russia, and Ukraine. It is more likely that this time with the need to control inflation, we will face a protracted downturn which will make it.

Do you think we should celebrate unicorns, most of which are burning cash with no profitability in sight? Do they deserve all the attention?

Businesses (and the teams who created them) that have an outsized impact on society and the economy should be celebrated. Starting a business, particularly a highly disruptive one at scale, is one of the most challenging things to do. The core indicators of this are the company’s financial metrics, loyal user base, and the quality of the business. A valuation can be a leading signal of this potential, but this is not always the case. Hence, while billion-dollar valuation companies have generally achieved significant traction, they may still be a long way from being profitable or sustainable businesses.

If unicorns can drive outsized returns for investors and stakeholders after changing the face of Indonesia’s business environment for the better, that is a truly wonderful thing. At the end of the day – and in the long term – not all unicorns are excellent assets to own, and not all tremendous assets to own are unicorns. Celebrate them if and when it makes sense.

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Indonesian Open Finance company Brankas has joined hands with Filipino investor Kaya Founders to launch Open PHinance Challenge for early-stage startups in the Philippines.

The Open PHinance Challenge is an 8-week accelerator programme to generate innovative, high-value Open Finance products for early-stage startups in the Philippines to creatively solve their audience or operational needs.

Over the next few weeks, participating teams will undergo week-long intensives centred around product ideation, business development, user validation, regulatory compliance, pitching and fundraising. 

Under the guidance of subject matter experts, participants will develop a unique product and pitch. The teams will be fully evaluated based on their product and pitch on the Demo Day in Manila on October 14, 2022. They will be judged by a panel of investors, leading startup founders, and open finance experts on various metrics, including product and business viability, investability and pitch quality.

Also Read: Insignia Ventures, Visa join open finance platform Brankas’s US$20M Series B round

Todd Schweitzer, Founder and CEO of Brankas, said: “We are now at the very beginning of banking 3.0 in the Philippines, where we’re unbundling and embedding financial services and reducing reliance on the financial institutions (FIs) to build financial products on their own. More and more FIs see a business value in partnering with startups like the accelerator participants, where they can distribute, monetise, and share data on behalf of the FIs. This is what we hope to enable with the Open PHinance Challenge, and we hope that it benefits the users of the participants as well.”

The teams represent seven different sectors and four Southeast Asian countries.

The startups are as follows:

1. AltSwitch: A blockchain-based company building products for the ecosystem of decentralised apps and services. It aims to develop a state-of-the-art hardware and software wallet to provide digital asset

security to the growing class of more than 300 million wallet users.

2. Betterteem: A cloud-based HR integration app that uses AI to enable businesses to predict employee churn, provide on-demand mental health support, and a digital employee community platform to influence employee experience positively.  The startup recently secured an undisclosed sum in funding from Techstars, Crestone Venture Capital, 1337 Ventures (Malaysia), and Suresh Thiru (ex-CEO of JobStreet).

3. Cropital: An agriculture crowdfunding platform providing farmers access to scalable and sustainable financing. Having raised ₱100 million (US$1.8 million) to support farmers across ten provinces, it now intends to build a credit scoring and reporting service for rural banks to manage risks in extending loans to small farmers.

4. Datacultr Fintech: A digital debt collection and risk management startup, it digitalises collection processes automates customer engagement and provides lifecycle management. Having raised a US$1 million seed round in early 2022, it looks to disrupt the lending segment in the Philippines by unlocking credit access for the 67 million unbanked and under-banked population.

Also Read: Betterteem is Slack, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Intranet all rolled into one

5. Dyippay: A fintech startup servicing the public utility vehicle sector. It is an app for automated fare collection systems for cashless and cardless transactions. Ultimately, it aims to reduce the costs borne by transport cooperatives and eventually expand into a suite of services which harmonise public transportation in the Philippines.

6. KoleK: An enterprise SaaS that orchestrates receivables processes for companies by providing a complete solution that tracks receivables, increases payment conversion rate and provides data for better financial decisions. Their software is a bank-agnostic solution that leverages open banking infrastructure for finance teams to have flexibility in products for their operations.

7. Mochi: Mochi is a B2B BNPL startup that aims to help MSME merchants purchase supplies without worrying about cash on hand. They do this by working with platforms, funders, and other technology solution providers who share their mission of building a more inclusive and integrated B2B e-commerce market in Asia.

8. Rambooor: Rambooor is a Web3 startup which aims to make decentralised finance (DeFi) accessible, safe, and profitable for ordinary users via a secure non-custodial wallet. The solution intends to enable end users to derive passive income from DeFi activities such as staking and

liquidity farming.

9. Sonicboom Solutions: It is a fintech company based in Malaysia focusing on making payment efficient for building owners and drivers in the mobility and parking industry. During the Challenge, t will develop an all-in-one payment reading solution and license plate recognition technology.

10. Spiro Carbon Group: It enables smallholder farms to transition to climate-friendly farming methods, subsequently generating and selling high-quality, transparent, and socially conscious carbon offsets to SMEs globally. Their solution aims to create an open, secondary source of income for small farmers and open a pathway to net zero for business via a broad grassroots network.

11. Taikee: Taikee is a personal finance platform that uses AI to create a unique financial management plan and set up for its users. By analysing a user’s demographics, goals, and spending habits through transactional data, Taikee aims to create a personalised experience for Filipinos to get started with managing and handling their finances. 

Brankas is an Open Finance technology provider in Southeast Asia. It provides API-based solutions, data and payments solutions for financial service providers (like banks, lenders and e-wallets) and online businesses. Brankas partners with banks to build and manage their Open Finance infrastructure, producing APIs for real-time payments, identity and data, new account opening, remittances, and more. 

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After a short hiatus, NXC International Summit –commonly known as Nexticorn– is set to return to Bali, Indonesia, from August 31 to September 2.

Brought to you by WIR Group, this year, Nexticorn will be held at Merusaka, Nusa Dua, with a new focus on the rising Web3 industry as it continues the mission to advance Indonesian unicorn startups. In addition to a panel of international speakers, the event will also includes a startup matchmaking event on the last two days.

At least 50 notable Indonesian startups have confirmed their participation at the compendium programme. So if you are still wondering if you should get that ticket to Bali, perhaps this handy listicle will convince you.

1. Investree
Investree recently announced that it has completed its acquisition of Amar Bank, where it increased its stake to 18.4 per cent.

2. Wahyoo
Wahyoo aims to help traditional eating stalls have the economic makeovers “they never knew they needed. The startup has raised a US$5 million Series A led by Intudo.

3. Gajiku
Founded by former employees of Tokopedia, HRtech startup Gajiku nets US$1.1 million seed funding in January.

4. Kata.ai
Formerly known as YesBoss, Kata.ai raises its Series B in 2020 to improve interaction between humans and computers. It also unveiled social commerce platform for SMEs.

Also Read: ‘Indonesia will soon see a proper credit boom for businesses, consumers’: AC Ventures

5. Akseleran
In 2020, Beenext leads a US$8.6 million Series A in P2P lender Akseleran to develop tailored-loan for SMEs.

6. Bizhare
Describing itself as the First securities or equity crowdfunding platform for SMEs and franchise businesses in Indonesia, it won the Synergy Accelerator and Y Combinator Startup School Advisor Track 2018.

7. Doogether
Fitness and lifestyle platform Doogether teamed up with Gojek in 2019 to launch GoFitness, providing access to healthier lifestyle.

8. Yummy Corp
As one of the leading cloud kitchen startups in there region, Yummy Corp recently extended its Series B round to scale its cloud kitchen biz into 50 new locations in Indonesia.

9. Nodeflux
Backed by East Ventures,
Nodeflux is an Indonesian video analytics startup –and it just raised funding from East Ventures

10. KoinWorks
Following a US$108 million Series C led by MDI Ventures, KoinWorks intends to hire 400 new employees.

11. Agate
Founded in 2009 in Bandung, Agate has climbed its way to become the biggest game developer in the country. It had won more than 20 awards on both local and international level.

Also Read:Indonesia’s cold chain logistics startup Superkul nets funding from East Ventures

12. Qlue
In 2021, smart city platform Qlue banks Series B financing to scale its solutions to new markets in Asia.

13. Gorry Well
GorryWell aims to help individual and corporate users by combining intimate coach consultation with wellness experts, SaaS platform for personalised lifestyle guidance and monitoring, Gorry Gourmet healthy food package, and a curated shopping wellness catalogue.

14. Greens
In an interview with e27, Greens revealed how it aims to empower Indonesian farmers with its meta-farming solutions.

15. Noice
Following a celebrity-studded funding round, multi-vertical audio platform NOICE announced a US$22 million Series A funding round led by Northstar.

16. Dagangan
In June, Dagangan raises US$6.6 million in Pre-Series B round to develop new financial services, expand national reach.

17. Andalin
In February, Andalin nets US$4 million to foray into trade financing, cargo insurance, and SaaS freight management

Also Read: Why ‘Indonesia-only’ Intudo Ventures believes SEA as one cohesive market is a fallacy

18. Bobobox
At the beginning of the pandemic, Bandung-based Bobobox revealed to e27 how it was able to challenge the “doomed narratives” of hospitality sector to survive and thrive.

19. GoPlay
Launched as part of Gojek’s super app ambition, in 2020, GoPlay raises funding to support original content from Indonesian filmmakers.

20. Alami
In 2021, Golden Gate-backed fintech startup ALAMI was reported to have acquired Sharia-compliant rural bank.

21. Fuse
In 2021, Fuse announced that it further extends its Series B round by raising US$25 million to support its Southeast Asia expansion.

22. Ritase
Ritase provides digital logistics services for trucks connecting shippers and transporters via mobile and desktop apps. In 2019, Golden Gate invests US$8.5 million in the company.

23. Brodo
Brodo specialises in men’s fashion and merges the online and offline shopping experience with three brick-and-mortar shops in the archipelago. In 2020, Sembrani Nusantara Fund leads Series A round for the company.

Also Read: Funding winter? Indonesia marches on … and why it will survive the gloom

24. PanenSAHAM
PanenSAHAM is a community where users can learn about the stock market through its free educational platform. Working together with Mandiri Sekuritas, the startup also enables users to analyse and invest in stock market.

25. Klinik Pintar
Klinik Pintar is a network of digital clinics resulting from a partnership between the startup and the Indonesian Medical Council. Launched in March 2020, the platform positions itself as an operational partner for clinics in serving their patients. It is currently working with a network of more than 100 clinics across Indonesia, from Banda Aceh to Jayapura.

26. Ralali
Ralali.com is the first and largest online B2B marketplace in Indonesia. It provides business solutions through digital technology by giving access to the market, access to financial services, and access to distribution channels/supply chain.

27. Vospay
Vospay describes itself as a financial technology company connecting financing companies and other financial institutions with e-commerces or online marketplaces, online travel agents, and other digital players.

28. Nusatalent
A talent ecosystem that helps businesses connect to potential employees faster through its network of more than 700,000 talents.

29. Travelio
In December 2019, property rental startup Travelio announced funding round from Samsung’s venture capital arm Investment Corporation Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. The VC participated in Travelio Series B’s round led by Singapore’s private equity fund Pavilion Capital. This is Samsung Venture Investment Corporation’s second investment in Indonesia, after backing gojek.

30. Jojonomic
In 2019, cloud business management platform Jojonomic raises funding from Finch Capital that it used to expand its portfolio of business solutions.

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Image Credit: Nexticorn

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