Having been in business for years and like many other business professionals, I have to attend a fair share of meetings. At many of these, I’d be meeting someone for the first time. Of course, we’d greet one another and exchange business cards, and at the end of a day of several such meetings, I’d have collected between five-20 business cards.

Now some unfortunate soul (usually myself) would have to deal with typing out the names, job titles, emails, phone numbers, etc. from each card and saving it to our CRM. Oh, and then occasionally, there would be conferences and networking events I’d have to attend. My work bag would need a separate compartment for all the business cards received.

So being a sucker for efficiency, I searched for tools which would solve this niggling problem. There were a handful of apps which using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology scans printed cards to grab the contact data automatically. Problem solved, right? No.

Only some of the scanned data would be accurate and then I’d still have to copy and paste the data into my CRM. So essentially, only part of the problem was being partially solved. Not good.

As a result of recent restrictions on physical mobility and more regional and international business, remote meetings are here to stay. Fewer cards to collect then! Yes, but we still have to manually copy and save names, phone numbers, emails, etc. into a CRM or contact list.

It’s time to fix this

Being a designer and entrepreneur my entire career, my natural instinct is to come up with new and innovative ways to tackle challenges in the best possible manner. And given that this challenge continued to hinder me personally, I decided to investigate.

Why has no one successfully fixed this problem? Well, none of the attempts had really and thoroughly addressed the complete needs which businesses and business people have in this process.

When I analysed the deeper issues at hand, I realised that it wasn’t simply about making business cards fully digital. Nor just about facilitating easier contact data exchange.

It is much more about data integrity and automating the storage of that data centrally. And this would then contribute to the necessary digital transformation for every company.

Is it the biggest problem we encounter? No, but it’s one which everyone who takes meetings has. And on a daily basis. And this made it clear to me that this seemingly small problem invariably aggregates to being a very big one begging for the proper fix.

The journey required exploring the fundamental values which contact data provide as an asset for both individual business people as well as to the companies who employ them. Then it required creating and refining the product such that the user experience would be as seamless as possible.

Also Read: Succeeding as a technical founder with Dave Shanley

But building a great product is only part a of creating a business. The key is to create practical and viable strategies to market and scale the company with a revenue model which the market would accept and embrace.

No easy feat, I assure you. But having grown various businesses over the years, the process, whilst challenging, was something I was confident of handling.

A complete solution to bring efficiency

This is what gave birth to my company, Shake. Shake is a contact data exchange and management app platform which truly digitises the business card and makes for seamless data distribution and collection. More importantly, the platform addresses a variety of needs and problems which businesses and business people likely didn’t even realise they have.

And the benefits are real and tangible. By fully digitising contact data, the process of exchanging and saving this data is made far more simply, which clearly increases productivity. Because the data is in the cloud, the data integrity is never outdated.

Furthermore, with many people and companies placing more priority on CSR and environmental concerns, Shake promotes a greener carbon footprint for sustainability contributions whilst reducing measurable costs.

Of course, we ensure that the data privacy is optimised not only for individual users but also for companies to save and access this data automatically.

Having already signed up close to 100 companies not only in Asia but also in Europe, the Americas and even the Middle East, our ultimate goal is to solve the problem with contact data, for business people and companies, throughout the world.

Aside from our team injecting our own cash into the business, we’ve had the fortune of securing angel investment from a number of quality investors. As we are continuing to grow our sales team and presence, we’re also continuing to fundraise.

So, we welcome every business person to try Shake and soon, your bag and your desk will be free of the clutter of business cards. More importantly, you’ll have added an integral step to your and your company’s digital transformation journey.

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When Eddy Chan and Patrick discussed starting an Indonesia-only venture capital firm in 2017, many frowned upon and laughed at them. But nothing could prevent them from launching their dream company, Intudo Ventures, which boasts of being the first VC firm focussing only on the archipelago’s home-grown startups.

Today, Intudo manages three VC funds and has over two dozen investments to its credit, of which one is a unicorn.

e27 spoke with Intudo’s Founding Partner Eddy Chan about the VC firm’s investments, philosophy, opportunities and deals.

Edited excerpts:

What is Intudo Ventures? What was the motivation to start Intudo Ventures in 2017?

Intudo Ventures is the first “Indonesia-only” independent VC firm with an involved/concentrated portfolio approach. 

Back in 2017, if you were to get on Google to search for phrases like ‘Indonesian venture capital firm’, ‘Jakarta-based venture capital firm’, or “venture capital firm in Indonesia’, you would come up with a smattering of results. There were maybe a few pages representing minor snippets of activity in an otherwise unoccupied terrain. 

While there was a handful of VC firms headquartered in Indonesia, none of them took the stance of being ‘Indonesia-focused’ or ‘Indonesia-only’. Instead, they opted for the more geographically diverse mandate of ‘Southeast Asia regional’, jet-setting between Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and beyond to hunt down founders.

So it is no surprise that many people saw it as more novelty when we decided to create the Indonesia-dedicated VC firm in 2017 that would become Intudo Ventures. 

Looking back to those days, Indonesia was still a nascent market—booming with potential but lacking in concrete results. The country had just crowned its first unicorn with local ride-hailing startup Gojek’s US$1.4 billion valuation. There was a shortage of exits — no one had the money to prove that Indonesia worked. Instead, investors opted to take Southeast Asia piecemeal, believing that cross-border synergies would create a bigger pie for both entrepreneurs and investors.

For us, we believe that regional mandates often compel funds to invest in Southeast Asia as one collective market, underestimating the difficulty presented by fragmentation that such a strategy faces hopping from market to market. 

Instead, we held a contrarian belief in the market that Southeast Asia as one cohesive market was a fallacy and that focusing on one market –Indonesia — would lead to better investment and entrepreneurial outcomes. It was a simple matter of common sense for us.

Also Read: Of COVID-19 and funding winter: Why these 2 VC firms are bullish about SEA amid back-to-back crises

Based on the characteristics of the market, at the outset of creating Intudo Ventures, we believed that a successful Indonesian VC firm would need to demonstrate the following characteristics:

Dedication to the Indonesian market: As the biggest and most consequential market in Southeast Asia, success in Indonesia is paramount for success in Southeast Asia. By focusing on Indonesia, we can concentrate our resources to maximise value for our founders and investors, more effectively source and secure deals through reputation and network effects, and become a go-to partner for global capital wanting exposure to Indonesia. Very few companies can be successful in Southeast Asia without going through Indonesia.

Owned and operated independently of any external group: Indonesia’s VC market has traditionally been dominated by local conglomerates and their associated families and state-owned enterprises, in each case, which exerts sway over major portions of the economy. 

As an independent firm, Intudo can work with a diverse group of conglomerates to help them navigate the Indonesian digital economy and create diversified value for founders to connect them with corporate partners. This is why Indonesia’s more than 30 most prolific families and their associated conglomerates have come onboard as Intudo LPs, building synergies between our investors and our founders, allowing everyone involved to become more significant than the sum of our parts.

Globally connected with access to smart capital and elite talent: Indonesia has always been off-the-radar of global capital; even today, it is still considered exotic for many institutional investors. It is still to this day a non-consensus market. 

However, in 2017, we believed Indonesia could be the next emerging market success story based on historical trends and on-the-ground dynamics. By building up awareness of Indonesia among international investors and acting as a beachhead for global capital, Intudo could provide global capital for our founders and create unfair advantages within our portfolio for future financing. 

Based on this strategy, 30-plus leading global funds and managing partners, including ten global Forbes Midas List VC investors, have joined us as LPs to gain exposure to Indonesia. 

Moreover, nearly a third of our founders were sourced from overseas through our Pulkam S.E.A. Turtle founder recruitment strategy. To this date, we are the sole Indonesian homegrown VC firm with a global presence in 1) Silicon Valley and Indonesia.

Able to make concentrated bets on a small stable of companies at an early stage: To have a seat at the table and provide meaningful value to founders, we knew that we would have to focus our efforts on a select group of companies. Indexing deals is great for accumulating logos, but it means that efforts are stretched out among many companies, and returns are diluted after several financing rounds. We wanted to be a trusted partner for Indonesian entrepreneurs from the first check all the way through IPO.

These four characteristics would make for a powerful mandate and is a fantastic technical way to build a firm. 

However, we are running a business driven by people and character. We wanted to build something that would be both unapologetically Indonesian. More importantly, we represent the spirit of our core values not only as investors but also as people. We decided upon the amalgamated word ‘Intudo’. It is a stitched-together combination of the Bahasa Indonesian words representing the firm’s core values of integrity (integritas), sincerity (tulus), and serendipity (jodoh). 

These three ideals embody the spirit we aspire to achieve in everything we do — from the managing partners, team members, advisors, and advocates. We also look for these characteristics in the founders that we back.

Why is there an emphasis on ‘Indonesia-only’? Why don’t you expand to other SEA markets?

“Indonesia-only” is a common-sense proposition; we exclusively back Indonesian homegrown companies. When we talk about Southeast Asia’s economic growth and market potential, what we’re talking about is Indonesia is pure and simple. It is the elephant in the room for many corporations and investment managers operating in the region due to its sheer market size, vibrant consumer base, and opportunity for generating outsized investment returns.

Also Read: Indonesia-only Intudo Ventures hits final close of Fund III at US$115M, to back 12-14 firms

From a macro perspective, the numbers say it all. No matter how you slice it, Indonesia makes up more than 35 per cent of the region’s GDP, 35 per cent of economic growth, and 35 per cent of the region’s population. 

With no other market in Southeast Asia even coming close in terms of market share, businesses and investors cannot claim to be covering Southeast Asia as a region without a significant commitment to Indonesia.

It is a market with both scale and momentum. With its young population of 270 million and growing, Indonesia has a domestic consumer market dwarfed only by China, India, and the US. Over the past few decades, Indonesia has experienced a massive poverty reduction, dramatic urbanisation, strong income growth, and an increasingly affluent middle class. Alongside significant regulatory reforms, this has created comfortable conditions for cultivating startups and the digital economy.

Non-Indonesian homegrown deals in the region are not in our mandate. Generally speaking, we have the flexibility to cover companies that become regional over time. However, our baseline is derived from the company’s headquarters in Indonesia. As we take relatively concentrated positions among our portfolio companies, we want to be sure that we are creating the greatest possible value for our founders and investors by focusing on what we do best, Indonesia.

Who are your LPs?

Black Kite Capital: Singapore-based family office of Koh Boon Hwee;

Wasson Enterprise: US-based family office of former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Greg Wasson;

PIDC, the investment arm of Taiwan-based international food/beverage and retail conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises Corp;

30+ of Indonesia’s most prolific families and their associated conglomerates;

30+ leading global funds and managing partners—including ten global Midas List investors; and

20+ tech unicorn founders.

What is your average ticket size? Has it increased over the years?

Seed/pre-Series A: US$1-3 million; 

Series A: US$3-8 million; 

Series B and beyond: US$8-25 million.

Our ticket size has gradually increased over the years with the maturation of Indonesia’s venture landscape. Larger tickets have allowed us to put more skin in the game for our founders and enhance concentration among breakout deals.

What are your key focus verticals? How many investments have Intudo made so far? Has any of your portfolio companies become unicorns?

Intudo Ventures is investing in industries poised to define the future of Indonesia, driven by the dual economic engines of private consumption and digitisation. We actively seek opportunities in agriculture, B2B & enterprise, education, finance & insurance, healthcare, logistics, and new retail & entertainment.

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

In six years, we’ve invested in a total of 25 companies, as we generally try to adopt an even keel approach and invest in 4-6 new companies a year in bull (greed) and bear (fear) market cycles.

Xendit is an Intudo portfolio company that has become a unicorn.

How many funds have you launched so far? Can you share the sizes and their respective investments in Indonesia?

Intudo manages three Indonesia-dedicated venture funds.

Fund I – US$20 million (2017 vintage)

Select deals include: Xendit, Pintu, and BeliMobilgue (acquired by OLX Autos), Kargo.

Fund II – US$50 million (2019 vintage):

Select deals include: Xendit, Pintu, Kargo, PasarPolis, and Halodoc.

Fund III – US$144 million (2021 vintage):

Select deals include: Xendit, Pintu, Pinhome, Nalagenetics, Populix, and Andalin.

How does Intudo pick startups for potential investments? What are the different criteria that you look for in them?

Intudo is not a trend-driven investment firm; we believe companies make trends rather than trends make companies. This is reflected in our backing of many non-consensus overlooked companies over the years. 

We focus on sectors that we and our LP network can deliver tangible value before and following the investment process. Companies that operate in non-consensus, overlooked and underfunded sectors can develop multiple moats due to their unique business models, access to specialised resources and networks, leverage technical advantages to attract talent and customers, and have stronger operational and economic fundamentals that lead to profitability. What may be non-consensus or overlooked today will likely create new company categories and industry leaders—and we see that already in our portfolio.

Indonesia’s regulatory and business landscape remains highly dynamic as an emerging market. It presents opportunities for companies to change how people do business and live their lives by filling significant unmet needs and creating a reliance on their products and services through compelling value-add. In this spirit, Intudo Ventures aims to invest in companies that build powerful “moats”—businesses that leverage unfair advantages to amass market position and gain category leadership.

Some types of moats we look for include:

Commercial distribution: Companies that develop offerings with immense “stickiness” or intellectual property advantages, causing customers to be operationally dependent upon their products and services.

Regulatory: Companies that operate in heavily regulated spaces and have received or are soon to receive official licensing to become critical partners for private and public sector customers.

Deeptech specialisations: Companies that adopt deep-tech as a core component for their business, allowing them to attract the unique human capital to join the team and making their offerings difficult for others to replicate.

With our focus on moat-driven businesses, Intudo Ventures aspires to invest in three categories of companies. They include non-consensus companies early in overlooked and underfunded sectors; emerging category leaders demonstrating breakout potential and establishing strong moats and profitability, and undisputed category winners on a trajectory to define entire segments of the economy.

Globally, Intudo Ventures aspires to bring Indonesia to the world—while bringing the world to Indonesia. The firm is highly active in the US through Intudo’s Pulkam S.E.A. Turtle Fellowship, closely mentoring aspiring Indonesian founders, sponsoring and hosting major university and industry events, such as the annual Harvard Asia Business Conference, MIT Asia Business Conference, Southeast Asia MBA Weekend, weekly discussions with Indonesian professional and student associations, and visits with Indonesians at top tech companies in Silicon Valley. 

As a result, Intudo has sourced one-thirds of its deals from university campuses and tech community engagement in the United States through the firm’s three funds.

What is more critical for a startup to get your attention or funding — the team, product, market or something else?

For the seed to pre-Series A investments, we are investing mainly in the talent of the founding team and the initial level of traction. Some of these investments may be considered ‘non-consensus’, meaning they are building models entirely new or unique to the Indonesian context. 

Working with Intudo, companies at this stage (even before term sheet discussions) can receive hands-on mentorship, sign business contracts with Intudo-sourced partners, and build fundamentals to help them raise future financing rounds. We have subsequently co-led the Series A rounds of several of our early plays as they have proven their business models.

As we get into Series A investments, our focus shifts to companies where we believe in their potential to become category leaders, where they have the possibility one day to dominate their respective verticals or transform entire industries. We can boost these businesses by sourcing key talent, helping them in distribution and business development opportunities with domestic and international corporate partners, and gaining access to global capital.

For Series B and beyond, we are only looking for proven consensus winners who are already achieving escape velocity and are on a trajectory to claim dominance in one or more sectors. As we do for our Series A companies, we can boost these businesses by sourcing key talent, helping them in distribution and business development opportunities with domestic and international corporate partners, or gaining access to global capital.

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

Indonesia’s startup industry is entering a maturation stage, where capital, talent, and ideas are more abundant than ever. The influx of global capital has changed the game, with more investors looking at the market. We are seeing more capital and talent being recycled into the ecosystem, creating new companies and opportunities for growth.

For Indonesia, the underlying dynamic is digitisation and transformation of traditional industries—a process that has only accelerated with the pandemic and correlating economic fallout. Whereas technology enablement was historically a nice-to-have for companies of all sizes, post-pandemic, it has become a must-have. There will be a continuation in the scaling of pick-and-shovel foundational businesses such as payments, logistics, and enterprise services to support e-commerce and key traditional economic sectors.

Digitisation is happening across the Indonesian economy, ranging from conglomerates, the government, SMEs, and small mom & pop businesses. We have witnessed this throughout our portfolio in the sectors in which they operate. Consumers have also flocked to digital offerings throughout the crisis, and many will continue to adopt technology to meet daily needs. This dominant trend will continue to be the driving force for the Indonesian venture market for the foreseeable future.

However, as optimistic as we are about the future of Indonesia, it has been a long journey to get here. Over the past decade, Indonesia has gone from a venture capital backwater to becoming one of the most compelling emerging markets for investors. 

For fundraising, founders had few options, with only a few mainstay firms to choose from at the early stage and even thinner in growth. From an investor landscape perspective, Indonesia has evolved from a market dominated by corporate venture capital firms (CVCs) and regional fly-in investors to one where local investors have begun to dominate the landscape and gatekeep access to the market. Talent, still cited as an issue today, was even more scarce.

Awareness of Indonesia among investors has grown dramatically. When we started as a firm, some investors even laughed at us for the notion of setting up a firm to invest exclusively in Indonesia. We had to spend hours educating potential investors on Indonesia, including what now feels like basic market knowledge. Those days are gone.

Founders are now blessed with an abundance of options. Capital has become a commodity through the maturation of Indonesia’s venture market. With the market flush with capital, founders now want more than just money. Unless it is a global firm with significant brand power and know-how, founders expect their investors to offer concrete value-add deliverables—in particular in-country resources, access to customers and regulators and hands-on guidance. Gone are the days of fly-in fund managers.

 

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edamama, an e-commerce startup targetting millennial mothers in the Philippines, has announced a US$20 million Series A funding round led by Alpha JWC Ventures.

Existing investors, including Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings, and Kickstart Ventures, joined the round. Temasek affiliate Innoven Capital, Foxmont Capital, and angel investor Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng also participated.

This capital will fuel the expansion of edamama’s operations, including same-day and next-day delivery solutions to more locations across Metro Manila and beyond. It will also enhance its content and community elements, launch its own offline stores and scale its private label portfolio.

Also Read: Innoven Capital backs Philippine e-commerce startup edamama

Launched in May 2020 by the husband-wife duo of Nishant D’Souza and Bela Gupta, edamama offers a personalised shopping experience through content, community, and commerce-driven strategies that simplify decision-making for parents.

The Series A funding comes on the back of the 100x growth the e-commerce firm achieved amidst the global pandemic. The startup claims it has delivered over 1.5 million products to Filipino doorsteps across the country, leveraging its embedded warehousing and logistics fleet.

The firm also runs an online gift registry, subscription services for everyday essentials, and an integrated portal for content and services.

Last October, edamama secured undisclosed debt funding from Innoven Capital. A few months earlier, it bagged US$5 million from a clutch of investors, including Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings, Kickstart Ventures, Foxmont Capital and angels.

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The 5G FHNet Accelerator, an accelerator targeting companies operating in 5G, recently announced the culmination of its programme with an online international conference held in July 2022. 

The programme was launched by FHNet (Foxconn Global Network Corporation), a company that offers system integration services to drive digital transformation and accelerate artificial intelligence empowerment. This program, organised in partnership with Asia IOA and e27, supported 14 startups across Southeast Asia.

Partners, mentors and speakers from active VCs, telecom firms, and 5G startups in the region, including Farquhar Venture Capital, Golden Gate Ventures, MDI Ventures, True Digital Group, PT Indosat Tbk, and Seashore Network attended the event. 

Here are seven insights we gathered from dignitaries, as well as the responses we received from some of the speakers and mentors during the interview:

• Untapped opportunities in digitisation: Digitisation is accelerating in all areas. New use cases such as Automated Guided Vehicles, Digital Twins, Bots and Sensors are now common in factories and public spaces. However, the current network approaches are inadequate for the IoT and digitisation journey. Most of them still rely on internet cables. And, of course, cables are quite costly; existing factories need a future-proof network to iterate without changing their hardware footprint. Check out Seashore Network‘s excellent work on how it covers and connects more access with its network.
• 5G is beyond high speed: 5G will bring more speed, which, in turn, will accelerate IoTs and new use cases that warrant flexibility in underlying network technologies. Multiple industries require more digitisation use cases in different sectors such as healthcare, warehousing, venues, mining, schools, retail, manufacturing.
• Investments are still galore: Although the market seems bearish, some regions, including Asia, are still seeing active investments. While growth-stage companies find it hard to raise funding, early-stage startups continue to attract capital. 
• Opportunity in countries with good tech infra: In countries with excellent infrastructure and regulations, 5G implementation and acceleration could be easier. In some countries, such as Indonesia, some cities have excellent infrastructure, but others are yet to catch up.  
• Companies using deep learning: Deep learning and machine learning techniques simulate how a human brain works, creating accurate predictions, which are now common practices used by enterprises. With further coverage by 5G, expect more and more enterprises to further predict and understand how a person connects more accurately.

Also Read: Top 5G Startups in 2022 Announced

• Cookies will be phased out by 2024: According to Park Pedro of True Digital Group, data-sharing cookies used in advertising for the past 20 years will phase out at the end of 2024 because privacy regulations are changing the strategy. Excluding the first-party cookies (those created by and used by a website), third-party cookies (those that websites can put on your computer and read your locations) will be phased out soon. Marketers cannot use it anymore, and there is even a privacy-aware algorithm. However, there is no clarity on what could substitute cookies. The key here is to build partnerships with companies having third-party data. Many companies will need to develop partnerships with companies that own the data. With 5G on a growth path on the data side, companies must find a new way to target people online.
• New data governance: Various data governance and privacy laws formulated in different countries will regulate how we govern the data. As per the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union, third-party cookies need to get users’ consent. In the past, they tracked you without your knowledge, but they cannot function now without getting your permission. These regulations are being implemented in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and many other ASEAN countries. From now on, companies need to handle data properly.

What is next?

With its tremendous opportunities and changing landscape, companies are now starting to see the importance of data and 5G adaptation as part of their digitalisation efforts. Startups tapped this opportunity early on due to their high-tech and agile speed. To further accelerate their growth, startups can now consider working with telcos.

Telco data is huge and can be used to micro-segment big subscribers more granularly. Some common use cases, such as finding the highest traffic for coffee chains, opening a branch store, or even analysing billboard prices, can be done with the telco data. With cookies phasing out, telcos can enrich enterprise data in a PDPA/GDPR-compliant way, respecting people’s privacy.

On the other hand, Telcos, like any other corporate, also need startups. Even though there are a lot of new corporate ventures emerging in the regions, most corporate ventures fail due to improper corporate governance and processes of the support functions. In addition, most of the new talents in data and 5G would come from the new generation; and a corporate structure would not interest this talent.  Check out Pedro notes on top 25 mistakes corporate make in advance analytics programme 

Wrapping up

5G is one of the most exciting untapped opportunities. While the opportunities are enormous, some challenges prevail, including phasing out cookies. While telco leads this effort, startups and corporations can work together to accelerate this growth.

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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

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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Diri Care, a consumer health technology startup in Indonesia, has closed its oversubscribed seed round of US$4.3 million, co-led by East Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Surge.

Angel investor Henry Hendrawan also joined the round.

The capital will be used to expand Diri Care’s offerings to millions of customers and further enhance the platform’s technological capability.

Diri Care was founded by CEO Christian Suwarna (formerly Traveloka Group’s CMO), COO Armand Amadeus, and Chief Clinical Officer Deviana Himawan.

Diri Care (‘self-care’ in Bahasa) is an on-demand, one-stop digital clinic for skin, hair and intimate health conditions. Users receive rapid health assessments by certified physicians, personalised treatment prescriptions, and clinically-proven products delivered to their doorsteps in as fast as two hours.

Also Read: Bolstering healthtech: Thailand’s bid to become Asia’s medical hub

Customers suffering from chronic skin, hair and personal health conditions, such as acne, dark spots, skin ageing, hair loss, and performance anxiety, can connect to Diri Care’s 24×7 virtual support and receive treatments.

The startup launched the beta version of the platform in March 2022. Since then, it claims to have recorded more than 13,000 consultations and seen revenues grow by 600 per cent.

Indonesia’s beauty and personal care industry is growing rapidly and is expected to reach US$9.6 billion by 2025. Easy healthcare access is also crucial in a country with an estimated 0.4 doctors per 1,000 persons. Residents often have to contend with long wait times, lengthy commutes or expensive products and services.

“Indonesia has a thriving consumer health market, with over 270 million of the population seeking quality and affordable health and well-being solutions. Digital transformation is a key lever that presents enormous opportunities for Indonesia to elevate the quality of our health services sector. We see Diri Care as a high-performing team that is uniquely well-equipped to integrate its care model with various revolutionary consumer health services and products in one seamless digital platform,” said Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures.

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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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Recessions are hard on retailers. A high employment rate, drop in sales volumes, and GDP shrinkage certainly doesn’t sound like the ingredients for successful retailing. However, there are reasons to be optimistic about a recession if it were to come. 

First, it will not be the same as the previous recession in 2008 or 2020, when a financial crisis and a pandemic spread into a global economic shock on both demand and supply sides. What is building up to a potential recession this time is the monetary policy.

The US Federal Reserve and many central banks around the world have been raising interest rates to fight inflation induced by energy supply shortages and global food insecurity. Main Street consumer demands remain strong, and people’s personal finances are in good shape as governments around the world pumped rounds of stimulus spending into their society during the pandemic. 

Besides, considering the baby boomer generation is retiring, the labour market in some major economies is tight at a historical level. “We not only have low unemployment, but we also have a talent shortage,” says Ken Dychtwald, US researcher on ageing and financial habits.

Therefore, with high consumer savings and reasonably good household balance sheets, retailers should not be too worried about a recession over the next year. Instead, it’s the best time to evaluate and future-proof your retailing strategy.

Retention over acquisition

Inflation has taken a bite out of the spending power of the lower-income group. As things are gloomier, it’s normal to observe a weaker consumer demand. Hence, instead of acquiring new customers, retailers should turn efforts to keep the right customer happy for as long as possible.

Also Read: How to survive a recession and thrive afterward

A study has shown that retention is more cost-efficient than acquisition, five to 25 times less expensive. Bain and Company suggested that repeat customers will likely spend more over time, refer products to their friends and pay for upgraded services.

Reward programmes are no secret in the retail world for retaining customers. But do rewards really create loyalty? To answer this question, retailers have to track and record the results, including new membership sign-ups (awareness), immediate sales growth (campaign-based actions), and long-term measurable profit increment (individual loyalty).

Small leaks in the sales funnel have a significant sales impact. If people are not reading your reward email, ask yourself this: 

• Are you delivering the message through the right channel?
• Is the reward programme too generalised? 
• How to better segment customers and send targeted rewards?
• Which part of the pipeline did your prospects get stuck in, and why is it? (The list could be long, like payment failure, poor mobile design, and slow loading website.)

For example, Asia’s leading casual wear brand, bossini, has recently improved the distribution management of its membership reward programme. The brand used to update its members about the latest membership benefits through in-app push notifications.

However, one-way communication was not very practical for selling. The brand was also uncertain of its marketing investment returns because the mobile operating system did not allow developers to track open rates.

Members could simply opt out of notifications without them noticing. Besides, the notifications were basically one-liners, making it very challenging to catch the attention of different target groups (ladies, men, kids) with such a generalised message.

In early 2022, the brand deployed WhatsApp Business API to distribute exclusive coupon books to more than 100,000 members. They personalised the messages with variables and added a WhatsApp quick reply button.

When the members clicked the “redeem in store” button, it automatically triggered a pre-customised message with redeeming details. They also created automation settings to assign conversations to a human agent for converting high-potential leads. Bossini saw a record high message open rate of 80 per cent for this campaign. As a result, 18 per cent of its members were directed to retail stores and spent on buying, even amid social distancing.

Reduce bad costs

Cutting costs is necessary when nobody knows what the future holds. But careful not to sacrifice product quality, which loyalty greatly depends upon. Focus on expenses that are not aligned with the company’s growth strategy. 

Bad costs have different definitions for each retailer. ‘Bad’ could refer to the unused retail space or retainer fees to maintain different IT systems. These fixed costs are incurred regardless of how much revenue your business is generating.

For others, it is the time cost to complete repetitive administrative duties like data entry. As many retailers adopt an online-to-offline approach, order fulfilment could also create bad costs if too many resources focus on maintaining regular operations rather than nurturing growth.

Here are some suggestions on how to spend your expenses wisely:

• Start audit expenses and compare the cost-benefit in a different situation.
• Run a pop-up shop instead of maintaining a brick-and-mortar all year.
• Check for pay-as-you-go services and flexible monthly subscriptions.
• Use commerce software that integrates automation for order fulfilment, payment solutions, and customer service workflow management.

Use savings to reinvest and gain new market share

Researchers suggest that recession creates a less rivalrous environment, in which early movers gain significant profit advantages and become the dominant player. If you have strong cash flow, detailed market research, and excellent products, go against the ordinary intuition. Don’t be afraid to expand and gain new market share.

Also Read: How small companies can prepare for recession

For growth in retail, tapping into the social commerce market is an unstoppable trend. People spend more than 80 per cent of their screen time on social platforms. By 2028, the market potential is expected to rise to 3.37 trillion. 

Social commerce essentially means creating a complete customer journey within social media apps (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok) from discovering new products, checking reviews, comparing prices, making an order, and paying. Investing in social commerce makes launching in a new market overseas easier and cheaper without hunting for physical stores. 

Note that selling on social media is different from the e-commerce realm. Traditional e-commerce is very much calculated. Customers actively identify their needs before proceeding to a retail site. Buying on social media is much more spontaneous.

People are inspired by what shows on their feeds and influenced by friends’ recommendations. Retailers definitely need to update their approach and meet the customer where they are.

Besides creating a shop in the socials, many brands also use automation tools to optimise conversions from comments, live streams, and story mentions. For example, sending customised shopping cart details and one-click checkout links through DMs encourages live shopping.

Concluding thoughts

Doing business in a challenging economic climate where a recession is looming in the corner, is a time for reflection and transformation. Retailers should consider this as an opportunity to evaluate their sales, inventory, and customer habits, reduce bad costs and invest in building better market expansion strategies. It will be a bumpy ride while sailing into a storm, but it will also make us more resilient.

If you are looking for social commerce solution services, check out SleekFlow’s retail O2O solution. We enable a complete customer journey across SMS, live chat, and popular social and messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, or whatever your clients prefer.

Our customer engagement solution allows businesses to enhance cross-departmental collaborations, manage all customer interactions, blast out automated campaigns, and optimise the payment process to boost sales all in one.

Interested? Talk to our localised experts in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Europe.

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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-based ProfilePrint, an AI-powered food fingerprint platform, has onboarded US-based global food supplier giant Cargill as a strategic investor.

The firm will invest the capital in product development, talent acquisition and team expansion.

A food ingredient search engine, ProfilePrint predicts the quality and profile of a food sample “within seconds”. With 5g of the sample, the analyser acquires the unique fingerprint without destroying the samples. Sellers and buyers can objectively ascertain the agreed quality of a food ingredient in an online transaction.

ProfilePrint’s solution has been deployed in over 26 cities across five continents (North America, Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia).

Also Read: Wake up and smell the coffee: Check your coffee beans’ quality using ProfilePrint’s AI tool

Cargill’s investment is an extension of its partnership with ProfilPrint. Over the last six months, Cargill has completed pilots with ProfilePrint’s solutions across its portfolio of ingredients, such as cocoa and chocolate. 

“Cargill continues to strengthen our solution and accelerates our vision of establishing ProfilePrint as the industry’s global digital standard for food ingredients,” Alan Lai, CEO and Founder of ProfilePrint, said.

“ProfilePrint’s digital food fingerprinting technology holds the potential to transform the global food-ingredient supply chain, strengthening the sensory innovation capabilities of our ingredient portfolio without compromising on taste and quality. This can help Cargill deliver against our high standards for food quality and enable faster and more precise product development for our customers,” said Francesca Kleemans, MD for Cargill’s Cocoa and Chocolate business in Asia Pacific.

The Singaporean startup has earlier closed two rounds of financing. This includes a Series A round in February from Louis Dreyfus Company (Netherlands), Olam Food Ingredients (an operating group of Olam International Limited, Singapore), Sucafina (Switzerland), a Southeast Asian agrifood conglomerate (Indonesia), Greenwillow Capital Management (Singapore), and Real Tech Global Fund (Japan). In 2021, it closed a pre-series A from Glocalink Singapore, Leave-a-Nest, and Seeds Capital.

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e27 was founded to empower founders, investors, innovators, and technicians with tools to build and grow their businesses. Since its inception, we have tried to nurture this one big happy family. Everything we do, whether online or offline, leads back to this.

While at it, we have realised that nothing is more enriching and heart-warming than learning from each other. And that is why we have been running the e27 Contributor Programme for five+ years now. Learn about our motivation and why we are running this programme.

We all have opinions. But more often than not, we fail to communicate them with the larger world simply because we are unsure how to put our thoughts into perspective. The e27 Contributor Programme addresses just that by helping you distil and present your perspectives and insights to the tech startup ecosystem. Simply put, the Contributor Programme is where you voice your views.

Trending contributors

Over the years, we have onboarded over 2000 contributors from across startups and corporates, including Meta, Adobe, PatSnap, PPRO, Hublio, Shopback, Monk’s Hills Ventures, Vextex Ventures, Grab, ABCC Exchange, Payoneer, and more.

Our bandwagon is open to startup founders, corporate professionals, VCs, angel investors, business leaders, industry experts, journalists, researchers, data analysts, and government officials. Meet our top 50 emerging thought leaders of 2021.

Below are some of the most popular contributors from the last quarter.

To ease the process and help you put words to your thoughts, we are bringing in the e27 Writing Club. While writing is typically a solo endeavour, finding a community of kindred spirits supporting one another can be a great source of inspiration, encouragement, and network building.

Also Read: A beginner’s guide to thought leadership

May the writing force be with you

Whether you are a startup founder, investor, professional, or advisor, our writing club is here to offer a supportive hat to your writing journey and become a celebrated expert in your niche.

Our Writing Club is here to assist you in seeking your own ilk and giving a wholesome voice to your thoughts. Nurture your thoughts, improve your skills, and engage with the community; we are here to make your words shine and establish you as a sought-after thought leader in your niche.

So, what does the writing club entail?

• Every quarter we will share a few trending themes and topics relevant to the tech world to activate your thinking hats.
• In addition to food for thought, we will also share writing guidelines and provide editorial support in the weekly writing hour. You can share your ideas or first drafts with our editors for feedback and guidance via email (writers@e27.co).
• Once your article is ready, we will publish it on e27.

What’s in it for you?

• Your article will be shared with our 70k+ newsletter subscribers and promoted 3x on all our social media channels.
• The best articles on each theme will be highlighted on the e27 homepage and news page with a special mention.
• This is also your shot at climbing the ladder of fame; if your article receives <1000 page views in a week, you will be featured on our leaderboard.
• You can also leverage the article’s reach to brand your company by simply creating a company profile that we will tag in your article. Here’s a guide on how to make a company profile.
• A chance to expand your network and connect with potential clients, investors, and strategic partners via our Connect feature.
• Your articles will also serve as a springboard to speaking opportunities in the region and ecosystem.
• The shared learning and exchange of views and insights will also help you gain a seat at the table in the wider community
• Establish your own unique voice and confidently share it with the world.

I’m game. What are the next steps?

Firstly, you will need to create your profile at e27.co. The only way to do it is by linking your LinkedIn or Facebook. Make sure it is complete with a bio, image, and designation. If you already have one, voila! move on to the writing bit.

• Set aside an hour on your calendar. Stop all notifications
• Use the writer’s guide below and fill in your thoughts under each section
• Sleep on it. Give it a good read. Add or remove words/sentences as you feel
• Voila, you will have your article

Things to keep in mind while you put on your writing hat:

• Keep your paragraphs short and crisp
• Ensure that your article isn’t too promotional
• Use short headings as necessary

Themes for this quarter

Life and work amidst a recession

How are you navigating the economic slowdown? Are you doubling down your efforts on what works or pulling the trigger on layoffs and cost-cutting? Share your stories, pains, motivations and more on how you manage your runway, tips on fundraising in this climate, compassionate leadership, dealing with layoffs or even a macro view of when you think this will end or how.

Web3 beyond crypto
Are there enough Web3 applications outside of the crypto world? What are the exciting moves in this space you are observing or making? Are ASEAN governments even thinking correctly about it? What should they do or know better? Share your thoughts on where you think this space will be by the end of the year and if Asia is ready for it.

Innovations in climate tech and sustainability
Over the past year, we have seen some breakthroughs in climate tech that have brought this sector to the forefront (even if the sheer need did not). Share your views on what are the areas that have not been looked at deeply yet. Is there a climate tech innovation the ecosystem needs to know about? Have you considered shaping an ESG policy for your organisation? How does that look? How did you go about it?

Through e27 Contributor Programme’s Writing Club, you now get a chance to share your thoughts and opinions with this community and shine bright as an expert in your domain.

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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.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post How to leverage the e27 writing club to gain fame and respect in the startup ecosystem appeared first on e27.

Expedock, an Artificial Intelligence startup working with supply chain companies, has secured US$13.5 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners.

The round also saw participation from existing investors Neo and Pear, besides undisclosed executives from Salesforce, Meta, eBay, Clearmetal, and Project44.

This round brings US-headquartered Expedock’s total amount to US$17.5 million and comes over a year after raising US$4 million in seed funding.

The startup, founded initially by three Filipino entrepreneurs in the Philippines, will use the new capital to expand its team to allow supply chain businesses to further understand their data more efficiently at scale.

Also Read: Why it is imperative to invest in digitalising the supply chain

Expedock uses AI to transform paper documents into data, quickly classify them, and bring them into existing freight forwarder tools. Automating invoices and statements of accounts, including their entry, reconciliation and posting, ensures on-time payment to vendors while bringing accurate visibility to margins when billing shippers.

The startup works with several global supply chain brands, including Wayfair, ClearFreight, JUSDA, and Ascent, a subsidiary of Roadrunner Freight.

“Expedock is reinventing how supply chain businesses harness their data. Given our 600 per cent growth this past year, we are going to do even better by bringing on engineers to expand our use-cases and our account executives to support more customers,” said King Alandy Dy, CEO of Expedock.

“With their innovative use of AI to automate the time-consuming documentation process, Expedock is modernising freight forwarding and reducing inefficiencies to keep goods moving,” said Connor Guess, Senior Associate at Insight Partners.

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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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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

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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The post How blockchain is contributing for Scope 3 carbon emission tracking appeared first on e27.