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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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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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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