TNL Media Group, a Taiwan-based multi-language media and data platform, has acquired food and recipe lifestyle media iCook for an undisclosed amount, marking its entry into e-commerce.

The deal aims to grow TNL Media’s readership, launch new products, and expand the group’s paid subscription business.

The group will leverage iCook’s experiences to integrate its current e-commerce services with other suitable media brands internally. The group also plans to connect the new app, membership and e-commerce transaction data to its other existing digital products and services.

The objective is to enhance TNL Meda Group’s data analytic capabilities, unify data across all media brands, and connect with the data sources from the group’s mobile ad tech company Ad2iction. Besides, it will look to grow its big data market research firm TNL Research and AI CDP and data exchange company DaEX.

Also Read: YouTube, Twitch co-founders invest in Taiwanese news site The News Lens

Group Chief Content Officer and Co-Founder Mario Yang said: “TNL looks forward to helping iCook’s direct media sales, social media expansion, launching new video and audio products and giving more international exposure.”

TNL Media is a leading digital advertising, data analytics, and media platform. It runs Mandarin, English, and Japanese editions.  The group has nine content brands and eleven subsidiaries, including The News Lens, INSIDE, Sports Vision, Cool3c , every little d, Agent Movie, OHSOWOW, and Business Yee.

With 7 million monthly unique visitors (MUV), the integration with iCook will bring TNL Media’s total reader scale to 25 million MUV and 100 million monthly page views.

The media group’s existing high-profile investors include North Base Media, an original seed investor in The News Lens, YouTube Co-Founder Steve Chen, Twitch Co-Founder Kevin Lin, and Tim Draper.

Also Read: Taiwan’s TNL Media Group ropes in Tim Draper as an investor

Operated by Polydice, Inc, iCook is a leading recipe-sharing social platform in Taiwan and Hong Kong, with more than 250,000 recipes, 3 million registered members, and 7 million monthly unique active users. Beyond recipes, the platform also provides content about food, cooking, life tips, and general health/living knowledge in several formats, such as blog posts, videos, and other rich experiences.

Its gross merchandise volume grew 40 per cent annually amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It also has one of the largest app downloads amongst media brands, with over 6 million and a paid subscriber base of close to 15,000.

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Ever since a conversation with a German Bitcoin evangelist back in 2014 where I learned about some of the radical ideas of the blockchain world, crypto has been a topic that has fascinated me.

I kept up with the main developments in the space over the years, I was a financial journalist after all, but it was not until last year that I decided to take the space seriously, both as a creator and as a tech founder. Specifically, my interest has been captured by non-fungible tokens.

Much has been happening in this space, but the numbers don’t lie:

• The market went from 0 to US$40 billion by the end of 2021
• January 2022 started equally strong, with US$7 billion in sales recorded

Eye-watering numbers for sure, which probably explains why the current landscape of NFT observers and users is divided between very vocal worshippers and haters.

As a cautious optimist on the potential of NFTs, I think both approaches fail. The former group fails to see that, indeed, the space is being held captive by the rampant fraud and speculation of many of its players and ignoring the climate concerns that NFTs and other uses of the blockchain raise.

The haters, however, refuse to see the simple fact that creators are, indeed, finally able to monetise content through NFT sales. This is largely achieved by artists targeting fans and communities directly, often without having to play the algorithmic lottery of platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Instagram. That, surely, must be ruffling some feathers and may explain some of the hate.

That being said, we are just at the beginning. A jpeg image or an ebook being sold as an NFT is a rather static, primitive use of the blockchain or any of the amazing technologies available to us.

If the current evolution of NFTs stops at “I sell a digital item, you buy it”, then we are not adding much to what Amazon has been doing for 15 years. And, as many critics like to say, you do not need the blockchain for that.

That is why the concept of “NFT utility”, meaning leveraging the ability of the blockchain where those NFTs sit to act as a shared, trusted ledger of interactions between holders of a certain digital currency and related NFTs, will be key.

Also Read: How NFTs are surviving and prospering in the bear market

The “ledger + utility” piece will be key to the next evolution of NFTs. These utility features are, in fact, already being used for anything from playing crypto-enabled videogames to unlocking access to special communities to providing discounted lifetime access to sales of music or art by a specific artist. Utility tokens are also being used to engage in creative, collective storytelling exercises.

Will all these projects succeed? Absolutely not. But the seeds have been planted for new ways of giving value to so much amazing work done by writers, illustrators and other artists that I do not think NFTs will disappear, even if they end up evolving into something that is not intrinsically tied to the blockchain.

Storya’s NFT Plans

The implementation of an NFT marketplace on the Storya platform in the coming months has two primary goals resulting from the above:

• Help authors monetise. This has always been a priority for Storya, and NFTs will be just another tool that creators on Storya can use if they so wish.
• Fill the gap. The tech skills gap is something that plagued the old creator economy platform, and Storya is built to fix that. We will do this for NFTs by allowing creators to ignore many of the complexities inherent to the “minting” of these tokens (e.g. understanding differences between tokens, selecting which blockchain to use, and what features to include in a smart contract). Through Storya, creators will be able to dip their toes in NFTs (and specifically on the WAX platform) with minimal knowledge at first, then choose for themselves if they wish to build all the technical knowledge required to help them do more complex NFT projects.

And, given Storya’s emphasis on collaboration, we will also work directly with ambitious creators that want to use NFTs to help them build the NFT projects that work for their specific storytelling experiences.

All in all, despite a lot of the negativity, NFTs are here to stay.

And, as platforms offering Metaverse experiences multiply and continue to rely on blockchain-related technologies to power their marketplaces and events, NFTs will continue to soar.

Storya is already working on testing what the Metaverse will mean for storytellers, but the dream is to see static storytelling experiences (an eBook, for example) transformed into an engaging, interactive “experience” within the Metaverse. The possibilities are endless. Topic for another post!

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The world is moving at breakneck speed. For perspective, the last 100 years of science and technology have transformed it like never before. Now, digital transformation is disrupting every industry, cluster, and ecosystem. However, there is one area that’s been quiet for centuries, and it seems no one has turned their attention toward it.

Broken payroll, outdated pay cycle

The concept of monthly payment of salary has remained the same for centuries. The practice of a fixed, regular payment at the end of the month started supposedly in 10,000 BC during the first agricultural revolution. It still holds today! Although there have been many technological interventions around payroll calculation and disbursements, the pay cycle frequency has not changed in the last 30-50 years.  

At the end of the month, the paycheck-to-paycheck system leaves the financially vulnerable with extremely limited options to prepare for the future. With little awareness and support, employees can break this vicious cycle of debt and take a step towards financial security.

Earned wage access to the rescue

EWA is a concept where employees can get rid of their everyday financial pressure, access their earned wages, and avail of funds when needed. It works wonders for employee benefits as, unlike payday loans, or personal salary loans, earned wage access involves little to no cost and is not a loan. Earned wage access platforms have the potential to eradicate predatory lenders and their inherent risks. 

Also Read: How payment networks are crucial to the rising fintech movement

With the proliferation of mobile connectivity, fintech innovation, and the gig economy, the solutions provided by earned wage access platforms are creating a future where every worker has on-demand financial access that is fair and transparent. According to a report by EY, in India, 81 per cent of employees face a liquidity crunch between pay cycles and close to 60 per cent said they would consider earned wage access as a deciding factor for their next job.

Running successfully across the US and Europe

Over the last decade, earned wage access has gained mainstream attention in the US and Europe. In the US and 36 other developed countries, more than US$1 trillion of accrued salaries are stuck in the employer payroll on any given day. With payroll and benefits innovations like earned wage access, hourly and temporary workers now have access to their earned wages between the two or four-week pay cycles.

Five years ago, Uber rolled out earned wage access for its drivers. Sometime later, Lyft too introduced a similar feature in partnership with Mastercard. Two years later, to reduce worker stress and increase productivity, America’s largest payroll provider ADP started offering earned wage access as part of its benefit programs. The act was swiftly followed by Sage Group, UK’s largest payroll provider.       

As momentum around earned wage access has grown globally, pioneers like DailyPay, PayActiv and Wagestream are leading the march towards faster, on-demand employee payouts. Global payment companies like PayPal, Visa and Revolut have also come forward to support their employers in enabling faster access to earned wages to the frontline workers.

Enroute Asia: Earned wage access is transforming lives

In the last 24 months, the earned wage access revolution has found strong roots across Asia too. In this region, a large number of frontline workers are desperate for faster, more flexible and inclusive financial services to meet their short-term needs. Earned wage access is proving to be a boon for millions of low to middle-income employees who are desperate to escape the vicious grip of predatory lenders and improve their financial well-being. 

Also Read: GajiGesa raises US$6.6M pre-Series A to provide earned wage access to underserved workers, SMEs

In India, a mid-month cash crunch causes an acute financial crisis among marginal workers. The unbanked and underbanked working population have no choice but to turn to high-interest payday loans, which lead to debt traps. To address these pain points, the earned wage access platform Refyne has emerged as a leading solution that claims to serve over 700,000 workers. The company recently announced an US$82 million Series A led by Tiger Global.

Over in Southeast Asia, GajiGesa is reshaping how employers think about employee benefits and financial wellness. Founded in 2020 by Martyna Malinowska and former Stripe and Uber executive Vidit Agarwal, the company has firmly established itself as the market-leading financial wellness platform at the intersection of fintech and HRtech.

It leads the effort to bring financial integrity and security into every workplace across Southeast Asia. Today, the GajiGesa platform empowers over 250 employers and serves over 750,000 workers and MSMEs across Indonesia.

As the pioneer and fastest-growing earned wage access platform in the region, the company has been quick to innovate and ship additional features like bill payment, mobile top-ups, and rewards in its quest to become the holistic employee benefits solution designed to improve financial well-being. Interestingly the company counts global EWA pioneer and leader Wagestream amongst its investors. 

The success of GajiGesa has also spawned several copycats too. Across the other SEA markets, smaller players like Circopay, Nano, Paywatch and others have popped up to capitalise on the growing momentum around earned wage access.

Coincidentally, two of the newer ones have also been founded by ex-Uber executives. It’s not hard to see why. Uber was ahead of the curve in redefining pay cycles for gig-economy workers, with weekly and bi-weekly payouts the norm since it was introduced in 2014. 

Barely a decade on, thousands of enterprises around the world, and especially across emerging markets, are actively embracing new technologies that offer a better and more inclusive financial system that works for their employees instead of against them.

EWA has a unique opportunity to not only define the future of pay but lead the effort to accelerate financial inclusion in economies around the world too.

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Singapore-headquartered Glife Technologies, a B2B marketplace to connect restaurants with farmers, has extended its Series round with a US$3 million investment from Tin Men Capital.

This is a follow-up to the US$4.96 million Glife Techologies raised during its Series A in November 2021 and the subsequent US$2.9 million funding injected by existing investors in May 2022.

Tin Men Capital joins previous Series A investors Heliconia Capital (a wholly owned investment subsidiary of Temasek) and Hibiscus Fund (a fund managed by Malaysia’s RHL Ventures and South Korea’s KB Investment).

Since its inception, Glife has raised US$13 million in funding to support its operations across regional markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Also Read: Agritech startup Glife secures US$1.18M seed funding for farm-to-table logistics service

Glife will use the fresh funds to accelerate the launch and operations of its digital marketplace for F&B suppliers and merchants in Q42022 and enlarge its market share in the Indonesian market.

Founded in 2018, Glife connects farmers in the region with F&B businesses through its full-stack solutions for restaurants.  The B2B marketplace aggregates demand for food produce from restaurants and match it with suppliers, giving restaurants better access to a variety of products as well as better prices.

The capital will also be used to strengthen its technology infrastructure to build an end-to-end digital supply chain solution.

Caleb Wu, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of Glife Technologies, said: “We aim to continue building efficiency and transparency across the food supply chain and create solutions to uplift smallholder farmers across the region.”

“The ongoing pandemic has exposed the brittleness of our supply chain. Disruptions have impacted the flow of produce from farms to customers and venture capital must support industry efforts to embrace innovation and integrate sustainability goals.”

Singapore-based venture capital firm Tin Men Capital recently announced the first close of its second enterprise technology fund. Fund II will continue to invest in B2B technology startups in Southeast Asia. It looks to invest in approximately 10 to 12 enterprises.

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Playground, a new platform dedicated to Web3 gaming and NFT discovery, has announced the completion of its oversubscribed pre-seed funding, co-led by East Ventures and Mirana Ventures.

Also joined the round were Arc Capital ( crypto fund affiliated with Pintu), James Z (Founder of Jambo), Adam Levinson, Murali Abburi (Graticule Asset Management, and Benjamin Zhu (Azure Tide, a digital asset specialist firm), and unnamed senior executives from leading blockchain firms.

Playground was founded to address the ‘Web3 information problem’ — the massive gap in the discovery process for both new and seasoned users.

This stems from the rapid growth of blockchain-enabled entertainment projects and the accompanying fragmentation of information – often subjective, outdated or unreliable – over disparate sources and channels.

Targeting this central problem, Playground has developed a platform to bridge the information gap for all users in Web3 entertainment, with a laser focus on legitimacy and experiences.

On Playground, users can interactively discover all aspects of trusted Web3 entertainment projects and be kept abreast of updates and milestones for new and existing projects.

Also Read: We’re still in the dot-com phase of Web3: Steven Suhadi of Standard Alpha

Users will also be able to engage with ecosystems and communities in debate and discourse on a neutral battleground in a burgeoning and rapidly evolving space where experimentation and new ideas abound.

The founding team of Playground has extensive experience, having worked in companies including Binance, Classpass, and Tencent. Founder Clinton Teh (CEO) previously led several strategic initiatives in Web3 gaming and NFTs for Binance’s decentralised chain and was also part of the investment team.

Teh shared: “Despite being experienced blockchain users, our excitement for the new paradigm of digital ownership and decentralisation in Web3 entertainment has been tempered by frustration in the discovery process, where we have met with great difficulty in sourcing, verifying, and aggregating information on Web3 gaming and NFT projects. We believe all users should have a seamless experience learning about projects in the space, from factual information to the actual ‘feel’ of a particular game or interactive experience.”

David Toh, Partner at Mirana Ventures, said, “We believe Playground’s focus on users, experiences, and legitimacy will be a key lever in growing Web3 entertainment adoption in the future.”

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