With Malaysia being one of many countries that are highly vulnerable to global shocks affecting its food supply chains, both consumers and producers have been hard hit. Often, food consumers have to contend with limitations in supply volume and options, as well as the quality of goods.

On the supplier side, a lack of insight into the volume of demand for certain ingredients arising from market access challenges makes it difficult to plan, and order management and fulfilment are often done manually. Other factors influence these conditions, such as fragmented stakeholder linkages across the supply chain and rudimentary supply and demand monitoring, making it a challenge to see opportunities for optimisation quickly. Efforts to streamline food supply chain processes come at an opportune moment, presenting efficiencies, resource sustainability, and cost savings for both business buyers and farm producers.

One such solution is spearheaded by Secai Marche, a cloud-based farm-to-table B2B platform that links farmers and food businesses by building more economically viable and sustainable operations of small-scale farms as well as F&B retailers, hotels, restaurants, and cafes through improved access to good & delicious food. This is done through streamlining agricultural logistics, realising cost efficiency and product bundling across farmer suppliers that unlock more options for fresh food ingredients, through a process that enables transparency and optimised product value.

Bolstering the food supply chain

Headquartered in Japan with Malaysia as its first global branch, Secai Marche co-founders Ami Sugiyama and Shusaku Hayakawa have had personal experience in food supply chain pain points, running retail food shops and farms themselves for over a decade. In the past four years, they have built the company to address the pain points of scale challenges for farm operations through full-stack tech solutions from online marketplaces, order management, logistics and fulfilment, which also broadens the array of food options and SKUs that are available to hotels, restaurants, and cafes to choose from as their raw ingredients for their food offerings.

Also read: On a mission to reform and simplify cross-border supply chains

While they started as an online marketplace between food producers and food and beverage retailers, they have since expanded to include order fulfilment as that is what is lacking in current market solutions. Through a marketplace SaaS model, Secai Marche is also the first provider in the region to offer this solution, including cold storage, thereby mitigating food waste challenges in the current supply chain conditions of the region. Their key focus is to enable optimisation, making things efficient for businesses, lessening produce wastage for the farmers, and working with existing warehousing and logistics providers to enable this.

Using technology also generates information that can be used to further optimise the farm-to-table process, realising operational efficiency and greater convenience that benefits farmers, food businesses, and consumers. It also generates positive impacts on sustainability via mitigating the occurrence of food waste. Their data shows that the platform has minimised food loss and waste among their customers’ current supply chain by as much as 75 per cent.

B2B e-commerce for F&B retailers

To address market access and sales channel challenges for farmers, Secai Marche has its B2B online platform where F&B retailers can directly connect with them, much like an online grocery shopping experience for hotels, restaurants, and cafes. It further enables efficiency by providing order management and processing solutions, including streamlining payment collections, thereby addressing multiple collections and variable payment term cycles across buyers.

Also read: How accessible robotic solutions enable business efficiency

The platform also streamlines anticipated market demand, enabling feedback loops for food producers. It streamlines logistics and distribution as well by covering the fulfilment function from farm-to-restaurant through the pick-up goods, quality check, washing of goods, repacking, sorting, picking, and last-mile delivery to restaurants by combining goods with other products and bundling them into one order. Especially for perishables, Secai Marche has been focusing on operational excellence in cold chain facilities to ensure its produce does not lose the required standards — something which many players in the market find challenging to execute.

Through this end-to-end service, restaurants enjoy more product variety and freshness with lesser minimum order quantity requirements, being able to choose products through the online platform, receiving one invoice, and paying everything together, instead of dealing with multiple suppliers and invoices.

Formidable track record

What differentiates Secai Marche is its ability to power a shared supply chain with precision where the delivery needs of various food suppliers can be catered to. To date, they are working with 300 food producers in Japan and Southeast Asia, as well as 400 hotels, restaurants, and cafes, *processing monthly transactions of over USD100,000 (*as of publishing. The current monthly transaction ranges between USD200,000 as of August 2022).

The startup has since raised a total of 2.5M USD from its previous funding rounds to focus on growth by building out its technology stack further, bolstering its talent pool, and expanding its reach to more countries in Southeast Asia. Rakuten is an investor and serves as their strategic partner as well, being the biggest e-commerce company in Japan. Their experience in the field can accelerate Secai Marche’s journey to expansion.

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

The Secai Marche team is keen to engage with strategic partners to further accelerate their growth and impact in the markets that they serve, with Singapore as its next target country for expansion, followed by Thailand and Indonesia, and with possibilities of engaging more farmers across the region to source produce.

The startup is also gearing up for its series A raise, expanding its service key units to 3,000 products with transparency in sourcing, serving a growing number of consumers who are more conscious of food product sources. Secai Marche is bullish on its mission to build a better supply chain that connects producers and end users most efficiently, maximising value for them through new direct channels and fulfilment.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Secai Marche

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Yes, you read that right. Historically, crypto has repeatedly undergone cycles of dramatic rises and abrupt falls. At one point in 2017-18, Bitcoin slumped by an astonishing 84 per cent after attaining a peak of US$20,000. And now, we have experienced another major crypto collapse.

First came the devastating Terra Luna crash. Then, major crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital was assuaged with major liquidity issues. This double whammy consequently led to a massive sell-off in crypto assets, causing crypto to enter a bear market territory, with Bitcoin (BTC) slipping by more than 65 per cent and Ethereum (ETH) by 75 per cent. 

“Crypto winter is here”, so the word goes on the streets. Some investors are even predicting that the slump could persist for at least two years.

But the present situation doesn’t spell the beginning of the end for crypto. The cogs are already shifting, poised to introduce a wave of change that will positively transform and strengthen the crypto ecosystem. Furthermore, major crypto companies Binance, Kraken, and Polygon are actually accelerating their hiring efforts with over 3,000 open jobs amidst the madness of layoffs and selloffs. 

To understand why crypto remains firmly entrenched in the fintech ecosystem, let’s go back to the fundamentals of why crypto was created.

The guiding principle of crypto

The year was 2008. The world was reeling from the shock of the Global Financial Crisis, which triggered several bank failures and caused many economies worldwide to slow down. 

Crypto was created on the coattails of this disaster, as people began to question and doubt centralised institutions like banks and their involvement in the financial system. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be created, serving as a means for people to directly control their money without relying on said central authorities. 

Herein lies the key draw of crypto: it is decentralised. It speaks to and encourages the notion of a free world where power is returned to the users, allowing payments to be made swiftly and securely without being hampered by regulatory roadblocks. The 21st-century version of ‘Power to the People’, so to speak.

Also Read: Are we prepared to embrace the possibilities of Web3 beyond crypto?

Let’s not forget this even as crypto nosedives into its current bear market situation. As with every other market that carries some measure of risk, crypto’s core values remain unchanged despite its ups and downs.

And it is these very core values that have spurred crypto to develop interesting use cases beyond just being a vehicle for investments. These use cases ensure that crypto endures well into the future. As more use cases are devised as answers to new problems, the longevity of crypto will be further prolonged.

Without further ado, let’s move on to examine some of the known use cases of crypto.

The use cases of crypto

While it’s easy to write crypto off as just an asset and occasional payment method, the reality is that it’s more than that: it has been used for other innovative purposes, ranging from lending platforms to non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Let’s consider three distinct use cases of crypto below:

Lending

Crypto lending is one of the more popular DeFi use cases that have been around in the market for years, with billions of dollars of crypto assets secured across various lending platforms. Decentralised lending protocols like AAVE and Compound Finance allow users to lend, borrow and earn interest on crypto assets without the requirement of a third party or an intermediary. 

While crypto lending started out as a vehicle for crypto users operating in the decentralised space, both AAVE and Compound Finance have launched products to drive more institution adoption into the DeFi ecosystem. Known as AAVE Arc and Compound Treasury, respectively, these products serve as conduits for financial institutions and non-crypto native businesses to directly access decentralised markets.

Even amid the crypto bear market, lending continues to be a popular use case in the world of crypto. Recently in May 2022, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) entered the DeFi space via its digital venture arm SCB 10X, where it will use Compound Treasury for conversions between USD and the USDC stablecoin.

According to Mukaya Tai Panich, chief investment officer at SCB 10X, this is a key step in the right direction for SCB 10X’s institutional DeFi efforts. Despite the recent events, Panich believes that the accelerated education of regulators, board members, and top-level management has helped to mitigate panic reactions.

SCB 10X isn’t the only financial institution to venture into the DeFi space too. Crypto custody firm Fireblocks’ CEO, Michael Shaulov, noted that more high-end institutional clients are exploring DeFi, with AAVE Arc and Compound Treasury helping to ease their transition into this space.

Commodity storage

Centralised cloud storage services are a fantastic idea and have enabled businesses and digital services to scale effectively and efficiently. They store users’ data on the cloud, freeing them from the shackles of external hard drives.

However, this service often comes with a caveat: cloud services are monopolised by a few companies, who control prices, legislation, and even those who use these services.

Enter decentralised storage networks like Filecoin. These systems work to eliminate bad monopoly practices by incentivising storage providers to securely and transparently store their clients’ files. Now, this system may not sound feasible at first, but it actually works. 

For Filecoin, it rewards storage providers with Filecoins when they store data securely. Filecoin verifies such good practices via cryptographic methods. By earning these Filecoins over time, storage providers stand to benefit from block rewards doled out by Filecoin.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

And now we come to our last but most probably best-known use case, non-fungible tokens. You’ve probably seen these around on Instagram and Twitter, with owners and notable celebrities showing off their NFTs (ranging from Pudgy Penguins to Bored Apes) by using them as profile pictures. And NFTs are closely intertwined with crypto. 

Digital assets that represent real-world objects like art, music, in-game items, fashion and videos, NFTs operate on the same blockchains that host crypto. Also known as Layer 1 platforms, these blockchains serve as ecosystems that cryptographically secure NFTs. 

Also Read: Where is the future of NFTs and metaverse heading towards?

Of all the blockchains that NFTs operate on, Ethereum is the best known. It pioneered the ERC-721 token standard, which is currently the most commonly used standard for NFTs. 

While NFTs are typically used for art collectability, their potential doesn’t start and end there. Looking ahead, NFTs can be evolved for business use. This boils down to their ability to serve as immutable proof of ownership. Beyond art and games, NFTs could potentially be used to tie house ownership or even university applications to you. 

Furthermore, a key feature of NFTs is that they are transparent, which means you can track their full journey when you get involved in any transaction. Couple this with the encrypted nature of NFTs and the risk of identity theft and other identity-related risks are greatly reduced.

Regulating the unregulated

Although the manifold use cases of crypto point towards its survival into the future, we mustn’t overlook the white elephant in the room: the lack of appropriate regulation. This might seem ironic since crypto was conceived to be unregulated. 

Yet we can’t turn a blind eye to recent events that made it remarkably clear that some regulation is necessary; it’s pretty much a necessary evil. After all, during the Terra implosion, reports of people losing their entire life savings began to surface, causing them to rapidly lose faith. 

At present, the material value of crypto is impaired by the abuse of a lax system, alongside the wider lack of trust that the public has in it. Hence, when I talk about regulation for crypto, I’m really looking at putting up robust safeguards that regulatory authorities manage to make the overall environment safe for all stakeholders involved. 

Such regulation would theoretically serve as a safety net for investors when the wider crypto market undergoes an unfavourable downturn. This is especially important for less sophisticated investors or investors who have devoted a substantial sum of money towards crypto.

At the same time, we should use this opportunity to hold open talks with relevant stakeholders, educate users, and refocus the conversation on the intrinsic benefits that crypto provides.

It’s also helpful to remember that crypto has a history of being highly volatile, going through steep climbs and sudden slumps throughout its intense 13-year life cycle. 

While seasoned investors would be unfazed by the volatility, the same cannot be said of inexperienced retail investors who were banking on a quick buck.

Singapore’s measures

Project Guardian

Singapore is taking the lead in piloting a project to explore viable methods of regulating the crypto market without being overly intrusive. Dubbed Project Guardian, this initiative is a collaborative effort between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the financial industry to explore the economic potential, harness the benefit of DeFi and value-adding use cases of tokenisation.

Under Project Guardian, a key objective is to manage risks to financial stability and integrity, precisely the core concern that arose following the Terra Luna crash. While nothing is set in stone yet, Project Guardian symbolises an enormous step in the right direction for the broader crypto ecosystem. 

Currently, crypto is risky precisely because of the absence of tangible safety barriers to protect investors from losing their investments. 

Also Read: Cryptocurrency, money laundering and KYC: Why are regulations important?

With initiatives like Project Guardian in place, we could potentially see the crypto ecosystem becoming less speculative and more secure for DeFi participants.

Tighter regulatory measures

At the same time, the MAS has also recently pledged to be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on bad practices in the crypto industry. While this move has been called out for “not being friendly” by many crypto companies, I think it is, in fact, a step in the right direction. 

I don’t disagree that such tight regulations may hamper the operations of crypto companies. But if the Terra Luna crash has taught us anything, it is that without a clearer regulatory environment, it inadvertently gives space to bad practices that will actually be more harmful to the development of the crypto industry in the long run.

The MAS’ recent stance may be harsh, but it bears mentioning that this is consistent with its opinion that crypto is not for retail investors. While accredited investors are armed with a robust understanding of market volatilities and how to respond to them, retail investors often lack this fundamental knowledge.

I, therefore, believe that the MAS’ crackdown on bad practices will mould the crypto industry to be a better and safer environment for all participants.

Crypto is not dead

While crypto’s bear market situation is undoubtedly a cause for concern, we shouldn’t mistake it as a sign that spells the end for the broader crypto-universe. Key stakeholders are already in conversation to work out viable solutions to better manage the system for everyone. 

It’s also worth remembering crypto’s key selling point as a tool designed to empower the user. Swift and transparent, crypto transactions are not bound to the whims of a central authority; they are instead authenticated by the user. 

That’s why crypto isn’t dead. Given how compelling its principle of decentralising and freeing the financial ecosystem is, it’s hardly any surprise that people aren’t quite ready to give up on it.

That said, crypto is going through a rough spot that could persist for years. While I can’t say for sure when things will pick up again, the crypto community continues to believe in HODL (holding on for dear life) and maintaining diamond hands (refraining from selling crypto investments despite downturns). To this, I’ll add a caveat: only do so if you’re financially able to!

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The Masters of Cashflow Podcast is hosted by Andrew Senduk, and is all about venture capital in South East Asia. He interviews the leading investors in South East Asia, from prolific angel investors, upcoming VCs, and leading CVCs in the game.

Andrew Senduk is a serial venture builder, who raised $ millions of venture capital for his ventures, and is currently the Managing Director at Workmate, Indonesia. Workmate’s vision is to help companies simplify the hiring and management of their blue-collar workforce and by doing so make an impact on the millions of blue-collar workers across SEA. Senduk has built multiple high-growth companies from scratch since 2009 and is a global keynote speaker and author of Ignite Millennial Leadership (2018).

Nicko Widjaja is the CEO of BRI Ventures, the venture capital arm of Bank BRI, the biggest bank in Indonesia based on assets that launched its’ first US$250+ million venture fund. In November 2020, its second fund, called Sembrani Nusantara (SN), was launched, which is a mix of equity and venture debt funds.

Widjaja is an early tech investment pioneer, his career spans over 15 years in venture capital, corporate transformation, and startup ecosystem. He was formerly the CEO of MDI Ventures, a Telkom Indonesia-backed venture capital with investments in over ten countries. Under his leadership, MDI Ventures has become one of the most profitable venture capital firms in the region, with two international IPOs (ASX and TSE) and four trade exits in just four years since inception. 

Indonesia’s ever-growing stature

“Silicon Valley is the centre of innovation, South East Asia is the centre of opportunity, and Indonesia is going to be the centre of development and engineering.”

This is Indonesia’s 11th year of the tech ecosystem, and there weren’t a lot of “pearls” back then. There weren’t any “US$100 million funding” headlines or guaranteed unicorns in the making. Sure an angel check or seed round here and there, but nothing spectacular. It’s amazing to see how the ecosystem has evolved into the eight unicorns Indonesia counts at the moment (2022) and the massive value creation that is produced by homegrown companies.

Investment funds usually have a three-four year investment period and a five-six year harvesting period. This means the first full investment cycle has been completed. In other words, it’s the moment of truth for the ecosystem, and several homegrown startups have “made it” to the big league, unicorn status. On the day of the recording of this podcast, Grab went IPO via a SPAC with a valuation of US$40 billion. A major milestone for SEA’s tech ecosystem.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) vs traditional venture capital (VC)

CVCs differentiate because they follow a strict investment thesis and, therefore, usually are not agnostic. There should be synergy with the core business, and before CVCs invest, they usually ask questions like:

• Does the startup fall in the category of investment? 
• What stage are they in? 
• What market are they serving?
• What is the synergy with the core business?

Is it strange that a company like Grab can double the valuation in 18 months? 

Also Read: How AlphaJWC Ventures built Indonesia’s largest early-stage fund

No, because most companies are still undervalued. Compared to companies like SEA, many homegrown companies have not shown their full potential yet. Even though the pandemic has accelerated growth and digital adoption for many tech companies, there is still much room for growth.

Is there a shortage of money?

Money is overflowing in the region, it’s becoming a commodity instead. Money is not the challenge. The challenge is more on the founder’s side, from who will they accept the money? Investors are increasingly thinking about how they can convince founders to accept their money.

The myth of being an investor is that any startup will take their money. But if that’s the case, you’re not a good investor, because clearly, you’re fishing in the wrong startup pond. Investors need to create stories and make sure they work for startups, and not the other way around.

Role of (hyper) growth nowadays

Growth is not a matter of metrics anymore, it’s about the founder’s vision. Will they stick with the old playbook, or can they evolve into a multiple-arm strategy? Look at how Gojek or Bukalapak have evolved into mini conglomerates.

Comparison between the investment space and the music space

• Investors are the record label
• Startups are the artists
• Verticals (i.e. e-commerce, logistics, fintech, edutech) are the genres

It’s the investor’s goal to make their artist into top-selling artists!

Listen to the full podcast episode here. Check out the podcast on Spotify and Apple.

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Singapore-based fintech startup FOMO Pay today announced that it had secured a US$13 million investment for its Series A round led by Jump Crypto. Other participating investors include HashKey Capital, Antalpha Ventures, Ab Initio Capital, and Republic Capital.

In a press statement, the company said that with the injection of fresh funds, the firm will accelerate its growth and will invest in talent acquisition and its infrastructure. It will also strengthen research and development capabilities, expand geographically, extend its client base, and diversify product offerings following the crypto adoption curve, including working closely with regulators on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) projects.

“2022 has so far been a breakout year for FOMO Pay – we are seeing significant growth across all business lines. Our volumes for the first half of 2022 have surpassed the full year 2021 levels, and our client pipeline is extremely strong. We attribute this success to the hard work of our team and their effort always to put customers first,” said FOMO Pay Founder and CEO Louis Liu.

“This is a milestone year for us as we turn eight. We will continue to strive hard toward building Asia’s first licensed payment ecosystem with interoperability between fiat and crypto currencies, and we are grateful for the unwavering support and belief from our investors, stakeholders and partners. We are extremely proud and grateful to be one of the front-runners in this industry in Singapore.  Singapore has been at the forefront of innovation with a world-leading licensing and regulatory framework. Our goal is to work in harmony with all stakeholders on both developmental and regulatory approaches to achieve the vision of Singapore as an innovative and responsible global digital asset hub,” further added Liu.

Also Read: News Roundup: Singapore’s online hiring demand dips due to COVID-19; FOMO Pay forays into Malaysia

Founded in 2015, FOMO Pay is a payment institution that aims to enable the digital economy with global virtual banking solutions for financial institutions and enterprises. Its flagship solutions help institutional clients connect to e-wallets, credit cards, cryptocurrencies, and more with its global banking solutions.

It was the first firm in Singapore granted approval by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for Digital Payment Token Services. It is licensed to provide Merchant Acquisition Service, Domestic Money Transfer Service, Cross Border Money Transfer and Digital Payment Token Service.

The company said that it is working with several thousands of clients across Web2 and Web3 industries. Over the past year, FOMO Pay has announced several strategic partnerships with firms such as Circle, Acentrik (​​initiative by Mercedes-Benz), and Ripple.

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Image Credit: FOMO Pay

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The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged many creative individuals to come up with solutions to tackle different challenges in our everyday life –including those that may not seem to have a direct correlation with the pandemic. Natural Trace, a Singapore-based biotech startup, is one of those companies that is providing an innovative solution inspired by a tool that is commonly used during the pandemic: the PCR testing system.

The company is developing NaturalTag, which it describes as a world-first DNA-based food-grade tag to protect supply chain integrity. Simply put, this solution is in the form of powder or liquid that is added in minimal amounts to food products and ingredients. Businesses can later use the traces of these additions to track every ingredient in every product along each stage of the supply chain.

In the status quo, businesses use solutions such as blockchain, barcodes and serial numbers, as well as other external, non-food-grade tags, to track ingredients in the supply chain. What Natural Trace is offering is believed to be a better solution because, in addition to being food-grade, it is also tamper-proof.

“With a minimal quantity of NaturalTag microbial identifiers, each containing a natural and unique DNA sequence, the unique serial identifiers are captured into a traceability report, which generates origination information of each ingredient in a food product. Stored in Natural Trace’s cloud solution, companies and growers can retrieve the traceability report with fast turnaround times. This tamper-proof technology makes authenticating the origin of every single ingredient in a food product possible,” the company further explains.

By creating this solution, the Singapore-based startup aims to tackle the food safety, compliance, and integrity issues of the global food supply chain.

To understand better how the product functions, and the work that the team had done to create it, e27 speaks to Natural Trace co-founder Dr Chantal Roth. In this article, we will also look at what is coming up for the biotech startup.

Also Read: How Secai Marche champions farm-fresh food in Southeast Asia

Understanding where our food comes from

Natural Trace was founded by Switzerland-based Dr Roth and New York-based Prof. Lukas Muller, two scientists who specialise in genomics, and several angel investors at the height of the pandemic.

In our interview, Dr Roth explains how they came up with the idea for NaturalTag, starting with the problem that industries are facing when it comes to tracing food origins.

“There is a lot of ambiguity around the origin of raw foods. There is also quite a large percentage of counterfeiting going on. Apart from that, there is also the question about supply chain integrity, product integrity, and compliance … and it is quite a large percentage of the supply chain that is affected. We are talking about the market size of approximately US$3 billion,” she explains. “As you can see, there are existing solutions that are well known. For instance, barcodes or holograms, but they are externals,” she continues.

Dr Roth gives the example of vanilla exports from Madagascar to the US, an expensive product priced at about US$500 per kilogram. The problem with existing solutions such as external tags is that they can easily tamper. “With an external label, you can swap the product with a cheaper product … you can imagine that it makes a huge difference. Clearly, we need to be able to tag the product itself,” she says.

In the market today, there are other solutions such as chemical markers, but they certainly came with their own problems. For example, many of them are not made of food-grade ingredients. “That is one of the big concerns that partners have voiced to us. They told us that they have looked at different products, but nothing is food grade, and that is our big advantage, because our product is completely natural,” Dr Roth says.

Together, Dr Roth and Prof Muller have a combined experience of 40 years in the genomics industry, with a deep understanding of DNA sequencing and the advances in detection technology. Throughout the pandemic, they witnessed how testing tools are becoming more sensitive, affordable, and easy to use. It seems like the right momentum to try implementing the same concept, with all its advantages, for a different purpose.

The founders harvested the microbes that are being used in NaturalTag from food products such as yoghurt, milk, or cheese; once they are able to identify it, then they add a trace amount to the food product that they wish to track. After that, they use the existing PCR technology to detect the tag.

“We have both the short-term and long-term plans. As the technology evolves, we can also adapt our strategy, but in the short-term, we are using the PCR technology for the detection process as it is already well-established,” Dr Roth says.

Also Read: How digital technology can transform the food and beverage industry

As a B2B solutions provider, Natural Trace works with agents worldwide who are reaching out to companies that are looking for a tamper-prrof method of authenticating the origin of their products.

Moving towards the future

In June, Natural Trace announced the launch of its global headquarter in Singapore. In a press statement, the company dubbed Singapore a “natural choice” due to its food innovation and R&D ecosystem, which it saw as a conducive environment for a biotech startup.

It has also secured a partnership with the National University of Singapore (NUS) since September to conduct various experiments and testings for its food supply chain traceability solution. An example of food products that they are testing through the partnership includes red wine and how the solutions aged after a while. “We want to make sure that the tag is still detectable after, say, it sits on the shelf for six months,” says Dr Roth.

Beyond the existing partnership, Natural Trace has many big plans for 2022. First and foremost, the company is looking for a professional CEO –a position that is currently held by Dr Roth. The new CEO will join a team that consists of six core members, plus another group that is working on marketing and legal.

Second, Natural Trace is currently fundraising for its latest funding round. After successfully raising seed funding to kickstart operations in Singapore, which counted angel investor CL Goh from Blue InCube Ventures as one of its backers, the company is raising US$3 million in seed funding to support its expansion.

“A large percentage [of the funding] will go into production fixed costs. Another part will go into R&D; it is really important because we are in here for the long haul. So we want to make sure that we can develop our product for the next five to 10 years, make it better and better,” Dr Roth says. “There are also packaging and distribution and some other business functions.”

In terms of the characteristics of investors that they are looking for, Dr Roth says that they are looking for those with the same vision and ideology in building trust and increasing the traceability and transparency of the food we eat.

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