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How blockchain is contributing for Scope 3 carbon emission tracking

If you’re familiar with carbon emissions, you may have heard of Scopes 1 and 2.

Scope 1 refers to direct carbon emissions created as a result of an organisation’s activities, such as manufacturing and transportation.

Scope 2 refers to indirect carbon emissions created as a result of the organisation’s energy use, such as from electricity and other sources.

Both scopes 1 and 2 are part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG), which was created by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

But what about Scope 3? Scope 3 refers to indirect carbon emissions outside an organisation’s control but still related to its activities, such as upstream supply chain emissions. This includes contracted suppliers creating products for your organisation.

Why is it important to track Scope 3 emissions?

  • The importance of data: Data is the first step to accomplishing any goal. Before reducing your carbon emissions, it’s important to know how much they are and where they come from. That way, you won’t be wasting time and money on initiatives that don’t have a big impact.
  • Scope 3 is more impactful: A company’s total emissions are usually mainly comprised of Scope 3 emissions (80 per cent or more). This fact alone makes accurately measuring Scope 3 emissions essential in an effort to reduce a company’s overall carbon footprint.
  • Scope 3 is hard to measure: Scope 1 and 2 emissions are easier to track because the company has direct control over the processes that generate them (such as production). On the other hand, Scope 3 emissions stem from external sources like suppliers and customer use of products, which makes them more challenging to measure.

Recent approaches to collecting and tracking data

Most companies are required to disclose certain aspects of their carbon footprint through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Similarly, all publicly traded companies in the US must disclose information regarding their impact on the environment in SEC filings, including statements about climate change risks, in accordance with Regulation S-K Item 101(c)(1) and 101(h).

Also Read: How carbon in the metaverse can help solve the real-world climate crisis

While most organisations comply with public reporting requirements simply because they’re obligated to do so, there has also been an increasing push for voluntary sustainability reporting. Companies are going above and beyond what law requires to report on how they manage greenhouse gas emissions from their entire value chain, known as Scope 3 emissions.

By doing this and making it part of ongoing business operations, organisations can help build trust with stakeholders who care about sustainability issues such as human rights and corporate social responsibility.

How blockchain can be used to collect and track Scope 3 emissions

Blockchain is a digital ledger that uses cryptography to record transactions in blocks of information. These blocks are linked together in a chain, and each block contains the time-stamped data and a reference to the previous block.

Once a transaction is recorded and added to the blockchain, it cannot be altered retroactively without changing all subsequent blocks, which is virtually impossible. What this means for companies looking to collect emission data from their suppliers is that once data has been committed to the blockchain, it cannot be changed or tampered with by any party except those with permission.

Accurate measurement of Scope 3 emissions to reduce carbon footprint

Scope 3 emissions, or indirect emissions from a company’s value chain, are a critical part of measuring an organisation’s overall impact on the environment. From employee travel to your company’s packaging and supply chain practices, Scope 3 emissions add up quickly and can be difficult to track.

Take the example of a consumer goods company: The packaging it uses for its products is made by another supplier, and then that packaging travels through various distribution centres before it reaches retail stores or your home.

In this case, the consumer goods company has Scope 3 emissions because they didn’t directly source the materials used in their packaging or emit the gases associated with transporting them to their final destination.

However, despite not being directly responsible for these actions, this information can still help them more accurately measure their carbon footprint and make more informed decisions about how to reduce it in the future.

In fact, Scope 3 contributes to more than 80 per cent of many organisations’ total carbon footprints. Tracking as much data as possible on an immutable blockchain ledger will ensure that everyone involved in bringing people goods and services from companies and suppliers all the way down to consumers can be held accountable for reducing their environmental impact efficiently and cost-effectively.

How GreenToken by SAP can help

GreenToken enables you to participate in a private, permissioned blockchain solution for tracking Scope 3 carbon emissions. The network comprises trusted members, suppliers, customers, manufacturers or other partners. This can be used to support the sustainability and carbon footprint accounting and reporting needs of an entire industry, providing better data accuracy as well as reduced costs and time delays in processing.

Also Read: Why the Carbon tax is just a step forward and not a solution

Why a private network? Blockchain is a shared ledger system with multiple participants across nodes connected by a peer-to-peer network. In some cases, companies may not want to share their data publicly due to security concerns.

In such cases, they need an option where everyone on the network has access, but not everyone can read or write information from it. A private blockchain provides this type of confidentiality and also makes sure that only authorised people are able to join the network with proper permissions.

With this type of architecture in place, enterprise users will have more control over who sees what information while maintaining transparency between all parties involved since they are part of one shared ledger system.

Another benefit of using a private blockchain is the low carbon footprint, which is comparable to conventional databases. This is unlike the large footprint of public blockchains, which make them unfit for the purpose of tracking carbon emissions.

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‘DAOs aren’t different from community-building efforts seen in Web2’: Menyala’s Siddharth Krishnan

With blockchain becoming popular globally, DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations) are gaining momentum. According to Investopedia, DAO is an emerging legal structure and used to make decisions in a bottoms-up management approach.

As the concept is still evolving, many are still in the dark and have no idea how it works or what are its uses and benefits in real life.

In this interview, DAO expert Siddharth Krishnan speaks with e27 about the emerging technology, its use cases and benefits.

Below are the edited excerpts:

What is a DAO? How does a DAO work? One needs like-minded people on board for a DAO to work. How can one find and get individuals with a common goal on board?

I would describe a DAO as a tool.

I would touch on certain philosophical aspects of DAO. Let’s look at how coordination has been achieved over the years. We have had massive coordination failures to address critical topics, ranging from climate change to inequality. The reason is that getting people across geographies to coordinate on a goal is very hard.

What DAO does is that it introduces a fabric or a layer for these people to engage and work with each other to achieve a common goal. It distributes power and comes up with different ways in which you can govern these decentralised communities.

It is not different from other community-building efforts we are familiar with in Web2. If anything, what a DAO does is that it breaks down certain components, which lie solely on trust.

For example, if you want to pay someone working on building a community, you need to trust him and what he does, and there’s an exchange between the work and funds.

In the case of a DAO, there are many different ways to reward contributions. For example, you can trust the tool to know that if I do some work, I could then ask to be compensated for the work retroactively.

So after I’ve done the work, I could get paid for it. DAO is essentially a trusted proposal system where people can vote to siphon funds from a treasury into a person’s account like in a shared wallet. It’s a shared wallet with permissions.

While onboarding members, the traditional marketing aspects also apply to a DAOs. We are moving towards a more organic approach. The more communities that you (as a DAO creator/member) are plugged into, the more each community you plug into to form your own circle/network within that community.

It’s through true organic means that you will find the most successful DAOs prospering. This is because they’re attracting people who share the same link. After all, being part of a community, you share the same values and likes, and then you find out about things organically.

Also Read: Zignaly’s DAO aims to remove boundaries from your crypto investment portfolio

That is essential to onboard people because it’s not just about having members in your DAO. The core thing is about getting people to contribute. And if you want someone to contribute, one needs to go above and beyond just sitting in your Discord. You need them to write things for you. More than any marketing, organic connections are the best way to grow your DAO.

There are different types of DAOs. What is a developer DAO that you are more familiar with?

A developer DAO is a DAO focused on growing the software developer community for Web3. It means giving developers a place where they can come, learn and build, and have a community to fall back on every time they need help.

Even if they want to progress out the We3 ladder, you have this kind of DAO to do these things.

They run various activities — from hackathons, education material, and partnerships to community guilds. It’s a decentralised community with members from all over the world.

 

Siddharth Krishnan

Can anyone start a DAO?

Anyone can start a DAO; all you need is a group of people with a shared bank account. You’re going to a restaurant, and splitting the bill is a miniaturised version of a DAO.

So as long as you have a clear mission as to why you’re doing this and what value you’ll bring to your DAO members, it is easy to create a DAO. The tools are available in most ecosystems.

Once the DAO achieves its mission, can it be disbanded?

As we know, a DAO is all about proposals. So if you structure your governance procedure in such a way that you should have in your process, you can have a proposal saying, ‘okay, we have achieved our mission. I am voting to disband the DAO and channel all the funds from the treasury to every member’s wallets’. If the proposal passes, the treasury will be drained, and the DAO will be disbanded.

Are DAOs relevant for Web2 as well?

I wouldn’t view Web2 and Web3 as different things. Web3 is an evolution or sequel of Web2. Often, the sequels tend to be worse. So whatever we’re building here applies to Web2 as well. I almost view Web3 as a state of mind you develop or have while building new software.

Also Read: Meet the 10 Asia-focused DAOs looking to script history amid the crypto storm

It often means you prioritise value creation and ensure that you’re extracting as little as possible because, in Web2, it’s a zero-sum game. When you want to attract customers, you make things valuable and attractive for them, but at some point, you run out of customers to attract.

To continue growing, you must extract from your existing customer base. You then realise that now if you have to extract from your customers, you also need to from your partners and stakeholders.

When you prioritise value creation, you always ensure you extract as little as possible. And that way, you always ensure that the best product wins. So the best software always wins because as long as it’s creating value, it will always grow.

And when it stops creating value, whoever else creates value should win. Because at the end of the day, the best products should have users. So that way, you’re always attracting, and you’re never extracting. It’s the idealistic model.

But I think we strive towards and can somehow come somewhere in the middle. All will be a better version of the internet than we have today.

Do you need to register a DAO? How can one register it as it is a decentralised organisation?

Legal frameworks are still evolving for this. You’ll notice that there are many different structures that people are adopting worldwide; different DAOs are choosing different ways to incorporate them. I wouldn’t say there’s a right way or prescribed way yet. The best is the way that lets you function and operate the quickest, at least right now in a legal manner.

Incorporation is something that is going to be a top priority for a long time, especially given how diverse jurisdictions are. Just the sheer diversity every day, for example, in developer DAO, you have at least one person from almost every continent in the world. And then you have people spread across distributed even within these continents. So it’s a very tricky thing that will take a long time to establish. So yeah, I would say there isn’t a standard now.

What if a few members quit the DAO before achieving the mission? Can the DAO builder onboard new members then?

If a member fails to contribute or decides to quit the DAO, one will transfer the ownership of one’s NFTs to another member. Either you transfer it out of goodwill to someone more deserving, or you could sell your NFTs on Open Sea so that someone else can buy them to gain access. Currently, that’s how it works.

Can a member manipulate the DAO and indulge in scams? How can such events be prevented?

That is how it’s structured and how the governance works. Right now, because there’s so little information outside, we’re seeing a lot more scams because there is a strong need to do your own research on these things. Over time, as with all the other things we’ve seen in crypto, you become more and more informed on the dos and don’ts in setting up these organisations.

Even with NFT projects, you now have certain signs telling you this is good or bad. These signs will get more and more codified and structured. And it will be ingrained in us. There would be the kind of society with self-imposed regulations that we are doing within our society or community ahead of regulation catching up. It is going to take time. It is up to us as a community to educate people around us. Those are the steps to take right now in forming the best practices for how a DAO could look in the future.

How is DAO relevant to the startup ecosystem?

Every software company starts as a startup, and these startups then grow and scale over time to become big. Over time, people will stop differentiating geography and boundaries, and we will have more and more decentralised communities forming.

After all, an organisation is just a group of people. It means we will see communities form who want to build many things. They want to build products for themselves as well as for other communities. This will be the foundation of the startups of the future.

DAOs, as I said earlier, are tools that enable these communities to function in a more distributed manner. It is only relevant to a startup to become a DAO when they are trying to accomplish something that requires them to be distributed somehow. You must have proposals and run on a blockchain from day one. These things would require some form of transition and should be very objective-driven.

When tools catch up over time, you could have DAOs emerging everywhere and functioning from the first day. The way blockchains work is based on how distributed consensus is achieved. You need to adopt that mindset of power DAO wields, the openness of it, the ability to enter or exit it whenever you want, the ability to have an equal say in decisions, and the ability to democratise certain decision-making processes.

Those concepts are what is relevant to startups today. And if they can leverage the good things and reduce or remove inefficient processes, they will have many benefits.

Can a DAO raise VC funding? Also, is collaboration possible between two DAOs?

Of course, we see that happening regularly. Many models are coming up for this, such as superDAOs and subDAOs. You have DAOs of DAO, and these manage a portfolio of DAOs.

Each DAO is a community doing its own processes and functions. The value of these sub-DAOs is then derived into the Super DAO. All of these community members funnel into this overarching DAO.

Also Read: Accelerating Asia on building a company culture that fosters innovation and inclusion

There are other concepts as well where you can seek funding. Every DAO will be different from other DAOs; it’s all based on how your governance mechanism is set up. If an investor wants to invest in developer DAO, he/she can do so in multiple ways.

For example, they could start by purchasing an NFT to join the DAO. One way to invest is you buy NFTs and participate in proposals. Another way to contribute is to partner with some of our projects or developers; your contributions in this process could be compensated hypothetically in whatever token the developer comes up with.

So there are multiple ways you can contribute and participate. As I said, managing a decentralised community is just a way. I think the ways of investing and ways of collaborating financially remain the same. It’s just how the structure would be, what the process would look like, and what the legality of that is, and I think, is up for regulation to catch up.

Is there a cap on the number of members participating in a DAO?

For developer DAOs, there is a cap on the initial genesis members. The cap is the total number of NFTs they are listed. I can’t remember the exact number of this, but I think it is 2,000.

For DAOs generally, there are no hard and fast rules on how many people can participate. There are different phases. You don’t want to decentralise too quickly or have too many members because you need structure and processes to manage large decentralised communities.

For that, you need to have active contributors; you need to have a motivation for people; you need that incentive mechanism in place to get people to contribute and things like that.

I’m sure we will start seeing larger and larger DAOs as this concept starts seeing more traction.

Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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How accessible robotic solutions enable business efficiency

Professional Service Robots

The time is now: robots are no longer just tackled during conversations about the latest sci-fi movies. Instead, they are among us, unlocking opportunities to live life efficiently and focus more of our time on matters that require human aspects.

The same goes for how robots can and have enabled businesses to operate more efficiently and scale at a much faster pace. Automating dull, dirty, dangerous, and dear tasks can free up one’s labour force, enabling human teams to perform higher value-adding cognitive work functions.

Human-machine collaboration is a massive opportunity to unlock greater business productivity and efficiency. With unpredictable conditions in many service-oriented work environments and the risks that accompany them, professional service robots can help ensure continued operation while cutting out vulnerabilities ascribed to human error. This is because service robots can readily step in and provide efficient and automated service without exposing customers to usual errors in human transactions.

Also read: Strengthening cybersecurity measures in the face of Web 3.0

This is evidenced by the growth of the robotics sector as technological advancements in AI, sensors, and analytics that enable more autonomy in machine operations are gaining increasing popularity in various service-based industries like restaurants and hospitals.  As such, among all forms of innovations in robotics, professional service robots are projected to dominate the sector by 2030. Because of the myriad of automation benefits that are present outside the factory setting such as efficiency, productivity, and accuracy, these professional service robots are in for new market growth opportunities.

Introducing robots outside traditional factory settings

Professional service robots present a new way of robotic automation beyond the factory setting. Professional service robots also tend to exhibit more autonomy through their ability to “learn” and respond to different problems, as well as mobility that allows them to roam around in unstructured environments as opposed to their industrial robot counterparts that are often fixed to the ground.

Used in undertaking commercial tasks, they take various forms, with many applications in industries like healthcare, retail, logistics, and facilities management.

There are various applications of professional service robots: they can be used to assist with concierge tasks or way-guiding, make deliveries of goods, and help in security patrol. Examples of this are retail service robots, front office service robots, and event service robots.

Also read: Optimising business solutions through customer-centricity

Innovations in accelerating the viability of incorporating robotics technology into business operations are also emerging. Robotics-as-a-Service business models, or RaaS, where robots are leased out instead of sold outright, present a great alternative to businesses that want to optimise their operations through professional service robots but don’t necessarily have the capital to invest in large-scale robotics augmentation. With these product and business model innovations, enabling digital transformation for businesses through professional service robot technology is now more accessible.

As robot deployments become more common, however, users are deploying more than one type of robot, with each type needing its own unique interface to command and control. Through robotmanager, a robot fleet management software, managing different types of robots has never been easier. Streamlining your robotics solutions under one universal software, robotmanager can help businesses optimise their use of service robots.

The perks of professional service robots

Professional Service Robots

The business case for incorporating professional service robots into business operations is apparent: it optimises operational resources, increases productivity, and reduces costs, enabling better business performance. This has been applied in the transportation industry, through autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery solutions. A collaboration between Grab and NCS showcases this, where they enabled a food delivery service in Sentosa, Singapore through an autonomous vehicle robot. This initiative helped cultivate a more convenient meal delivery experience for beachgoer customers in the area.

Facility management in the retail and logistics industries has massive optimisation opportunities from this technology too, through next-generation automation and AI solutions. Shopping malls and airports can use professional service robots to bolster security, deliver concierge services, make deliveries, and streamline facility upkeep tasks like cleaning.

Find out how you can get on board

To learn more about professional service robots from experts on ways and means to integrate robotics into your business operations, catch the upcoming NCS webinar Advancing Automation: Practical tips and tricks to integrating robotics into operations on August 24. You may sign up for the webinar here.

Also read: Freshworks bolsters startups with cloud-based sales and support solutions

The session panel features Wynthia Goh, Senior Partner at NCS; Matthew Festo, General Manager at Open Robotics; Alex Lai, Chairman of ICT Section at IET Hong Kong; and Siew Min Ang, Senior Vice President, Airport Operations Management for Changi Airport Group. The panel will be moderated by Connie Ang, Senior Director for Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, and Centre Director of FutureNow Innovation Centre at Singtel.

The panel session will discuss the following topics:

  • A deep dive into the robotics ecosystem and the importance of key partnerships for a successful robotics business with robot vendors and robot developers through an open-robotics collaboration approach
  • How various industries can capitalise and benefit from integrating service robots into their operations, and share trends and case studies of successful applications in different tech and non-tech industries.
  • The ROI use case of integrating robotics into business operations, assessing whether a business is ready for adopting this technology. 
  • How the Asia Pacific region has enabled best practices across different industries in both tech and non-tech sectors, as well as scale robotics infrastructure to optimise overall business operations.

NCS is a leading technology services firm with a presence in the Asia Pacific and partners with governments and enterprises to advance communities through technology. NCS provides differentiated and end-to-end technology services to clients with its NEXT capabilities in digital, cloud and platforms, as well as core offerings in application, infrastructure, engineering and cybersecurity. To learn more, visit https://www.ncs.co/en-sg/services/intelligent-platforms/mobile-robotic-workforce/

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

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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The rise of live commerce in Asia and adoption of BeLive by retailers

The rise of live streaming e-commerce, often referred to as live commerce, is a new and revolutionary marketing channel and platform based on the initial success of TV Shopping.

By borrowing ideas and formats from this traditional method, retailers are able to create live streamed content where the stream host or Key Opinion Leader (KOL) can interact with the audience, showcase the products and answer questions in real-time.

Furthermore, live commerce connects the shopping cart functionality directly with the live stream, allowing users to purchase items without leaving the stream, as well as, taking advantage of any time-limited content or deals which may be available to them during the stream time.

Retailers are exploring this new channel of marketing as a direct-to-consumer alternative to the current methods used. However, most countries in Asia are still relying on large corporates to provide streaming services, with few startups in the space to bridge the gap.

Live commerce appears to be a natural evolution from video-based marketing or video-first commerce. Most brands embraced video-based marketing by starting out on social media platforms such as TikTok or YouTube, utilising influencers in the space with a strong following similar to the company’s target demographic.

Often on-demand videos of short to medium length were used to promote and sell the products. Users could comment, but live interaction was not possible through this format, and shopping cart integration was not possible yet. However, the on-demand nature of these recorded videos did indicate a higher engagement and conversion rate compared to traditional e-commerce solutions.

Also Read: Why live commerce is here to stay in Asia

This led to the development and growth of live commerce, allowing brands and consumers to interact with each other via live streams directly. This led more retailers to embrace the sales model known as direct-to-consumer, as live commerce opens doors for this direct engagement.

Based on the strong results in this space, leading brands, such as L’Oréal and Nike, have announced that they will be focusing on direct-to-consumer solutions, like live commerce, moving forwards, and the expectation is that other brands will soon follow.

How the live streaming e-commerce space is evolving

Live commerce originated in China, and with the popularity of influencers (or KOLs), as well as the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. China has seen the live stream market grow 57 times between 2017 and 2020 and has not shown signs of slowing down. After gaining rapid traction in China, other countries around the world have slowly started exploring and adopting similar methods to drive online sales.

Asian countries, in particular, have been quick to adopt live commerce solutions, although not at the speed of China, and have found that the solution can improve sale conversion due to the following factors:

These factors are driving retailers of various sizes to explore and experiment with the opportunity of live commerce in various markets and started to evolve how people shop online.

This rise in direct-to-consumer live commerce approaches for retail companies is creating demand for platforms and services related to supporting the businesses behind the live stream. Many retailers face challenges in starting up their own live commerce channel and are seeking third-party suppliers to help bridge the technology and marketing gap generated by a new channel.

How BeLive is helping companies evolve into a new market

BeLive, founded in 2014, has been taking live commerce by storm, creating opportunities for retailers of all sizes to leverage live commerce for their own brands and tap into the direct-to-consumer market.

Unlike some of the more extensive services in the space that are currently available, BeLive has focused on identifying and resolving pain points for each retail customer, providing a tailored experience through custom live streaming platforms for the brand, and supporting the development of the stream contents. By providing end-to-end solutions and empowering retailers to leverage video and live streaming through their own platforms, retailers are able to tap into next-generation consumer behaviours.

Also Read: BeLive lands US$4.5M funding to develop AI, ML capabilities in live-streaming

As retail companies face the upcoming wave of disabling third party cookies in browsers, it becomes more important for first-party data to be able to provide the information needed for retailers to keep identifying their target audience and successfully marketing to them.

Startups such as BeLive can offer these retailers the opportunity to gain end-to-end support for their video-based marketing channels, and bolster their direct-to-consumer channel, meanwhile gathering and reviewing the analytical data through the live streams hosted on a white labelled BeLive platform hosted on the retailers’ own website or app to understand the audience they are engaging deeply.

Beyond just the idea of reaching and understanding their audiences, retailers are also turning to live commerce as a new format for entertainment sales. Real-time engagement with the audience can enable communication and entertaining content based on the products being sold as well as the influencer or KOL featured in the stream.

Based on a recent survey of South Korean users who engage in live commerce, 47.3 per cent of them highlight that they are there to support the KOL or influencer featured, while McKinsey found that a quarter of adults are more likely to purchase items recommended by them by these influencers or KOLs.

BeLive taps into their partner network solutions, an offering beyond just the platform, to support retailers in finding the right influencers, graphic designers and production houses to enable a successful live streamed show.

This support proves vital to retailers of all sizes, allowing their solutions to be streamlined into one location rather than a fragmented approach which currently exists within the market.

How BeLive is expanding into new markets

With BeLive being one of the first advocates for live commerce, their vision was to build a platform to connect streamers and their fans. After having their solution white labelled by Rakuten in 2019, they catered to an uptick of brands looking for their own live commerce solutions who were steadily moving away from the offerings on social media.

Kenneth Tan from BeLive said, “I’m pretty happy to say that right now we power 100 million viewers every single month indirectly through our solutions. So that’s a huge influence that we have, and I think this influence comes with a lot of responsibility as well.”

This demand for the live commerce sector has seen an increase in the need for solutions like BeLive’s to connect together three key verticals in the market in order to create the ideal environment for live commerce to flourish.

This includes content creator companies or advertising agencies, e-commerce enablers and systems integrators and finally, cloud infrastructure players. With these key players, BeLive is able to support the end-to-end services of their retail customers.

Also Read: The era of live commerce has finally arrived. Will retailers embrace it?

One area that BeLive has specialised in is building this network across Asia, allowing them to enable cross-border live commerce, connecting retailers to an audience beyond their country borders. Their current focus is to expand this further through their efforts in the Rainmaking Expand: South Korea program, collaborating with players in the key verticals as they explore connecting retailers with the rest of their Asian network.

How startups can support companies to keep up with the latest trends

Even as China makes record e-commerce sales every year through live streaming, there is still a significant gap in specific markets within Asia when it comes to approaching live commerce.

For example, in South Korea, we still see a strong dependence on more prominent players in the space, meaning that retailers have to utilise the tools, platforms and payment systems implemented by these companies, with a lack of deep data on the audiences, or control in the customer flow.

Although there is an increase in digital agencies that are helping retailers bridge the knowledge gap on how to manage live commerce, there is a low number of options available to enable retailers to run their own streams on their own platform or website.

This area within the e-commerce sector shows early signs that it is ripe for disruption by startups. As solutions in all stages of the live commerce funnel become developed by a variety of startups, similar to BeLive, we are expecting a shift and rapid growth within the market over the next few years, enabling the adoption of live commerce to grow.

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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Foxmont backs Filipino D2C cosmetics startup Niv Della’s seed round

Niv Della, a Filipino beauty and skincare products company operating under Colourette and Fresh Formula brands, has raised an undisclosed sum in seed capital from Foxmont Capital Partners.

The startup was founded by entrepreneur-turned-content creator Nina Dizon-Cabrera.

The firm utilises social and digital community-powered marketing strategies.

Colourette and Fresh Formula are gaining traction in the fast-growing D2C beauty and skincare category that has seen increased regional and global attention from investors.

Colourette is available on e-commerce platforms, including Shopee and Lazada.

Also Read: How technology can influence the beauty and cosmetics industry

The firm claims it has grown considerably in recent years while expanding its footprint across online and offline channels.

Nina Cabrera said that the confidence in grassroots beauty and cosmetics brands is growing rapidly alongside the rising demand for high-quality yet affordable beauty products.

The Philippines has emerged as the fastest-growing e-commerce industry in the world. The beauty and cosmetics industry’s young and tech-savvy population create a vast opportunity for homegrown beauty brands like Colourette to reach new heights and gain market share.

Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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