The travel industry took its greatest hit in recent memory during the pandemic.

Around the world, flights came to a near standstill in 2020 as part of a global effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. A report from the Economic Survey of Singapore showed that it was only in Q4 2021 that vaccinated travel lanes in countries around Southeast Asia started to open up.

As global travel opens up after two years of restrictions, Singapore expects between four to six million international travellers in 2022 alone. We are seeing a resurgence in the industry in the form of “revenge travel”, with 46 per cent of Singaporeans willing to spend to travel. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects international air travel to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023, a year sooner than their previous 2024 estimate. 

The travel industry is in a unique situation. Though it faces the challenge of being rebooted from a pre-pandemic era to rejoin other industries on a shorter runway than expected, this revival serves as an opportunity for startups to face that challenge on a fresh slate and set a new bar for disruption.

Here are four travel tech startups from the Korea Tourism Startup Centre (KTSC) programme in South Korea that have rolled with the punches during the pandemic and seek to expand our perceptions of the travel industry and the creative use of technology in a post-pandemic world.

Tripbtoz – Enhancing the physical travel experience with metaverse layers  

During the transitional periods between lockdowns, the world became more receptive to phygital experiences. Tripbtoz is a video-based travel app that leverages content travelling through Web3 and extended reality (XR) technologies, adding virtual and interactive layers to enhance physical locations.

Using Tripbtoz’s platform, government agencies and property owners can run campaigns, while users can make journals and guide for others to enjoy. This allows a single location to be experienced in many unique ways.

Tripbtoz has enjoyed good financial traction and allocates a percentage of its daily gross booking value to its loyalty currency, Tripcash. Tripcash can be awarded to users through making XR content and booking through the platform. Organisations can also reward users for specific tasks and build a body of user-generated content (UGC) to suit their needs.

The platform also empowers users to interact with remote destinations through XR and opens an avenue to earn Tripcash remotely. 

Stayfolio – A high-touch approach to creating the modern fine stay journey 

After the lockdowns, people are willing to spend more for quality travel and value experiences. Stayfolio addresses this need by providing refurbished, curated luxury accommodations to define the “fine stay experience”, an offering that boasts a reservation rate of 82 per cent. 

Also Read: How to not let the bots ruin your travel plans

Stayfolio’s full value chain model starts with an in-depth discussion with owners who want to breathe new life into their storied properties. The team revamps the property from the ground up with design, construction, and styling to accentuate its history, heritage, and charm.

After that, they implement the technological infrastructure of the property with IoT gadgets, AI concierges, reservations, and contactless systems. Once everything is in place, Stayfolio manages the property, covering backend aspects such as marketing and bookings on their site. 

Stayfolio believes their high-touch approach from start to end enables them to architect fine stay properties rooted in story and natural beauty while making them convenient and relevant for the modern traveller.

ONDA – Scaling property management solutions for everyone

The hotel industry was in survival mode during the pandemic. Staff had to double up on duties and had to scramble to cut costs by running efficiently through digitalisation. Even now, hotels are still short on staff, correlating to a significant drop in customer satisfaction.

ONDA has raised US$15 million this year for their Series B and has 110 team members around the globe and counting. Their growth through the pandemic is a strong sign that working with complete digital suites could be the industry standard.

As South Korea’s first company to be selected as a Google Hotel Partner, ONDA is poised to replicate its success in other territories. ONDA expanding its digital suite beyond a hotel property management system to scale such that smaller businesses like motels and AirBnbs can easily adapt it to be the de facto digital partner for any lodging business.

Infoseed – Travel tech and navigation for the smart city of tomorrow

Deliveries of food, groceries, and more were lifesavers during the pandemic. However, delivery crews weren’t always able to find the exact locations of the destinations.

Infoseed is ambitiously mapping the world in one-metre square grids. Their precision addressing system gives each one-metre square grid a unique geography nickname, or geo.nick for short. 

Users can personalise each square grid with specific naming conventions. Infoseed’s solution also considers verticality, so spaces above or underground can be tagged. Food delivery companies working with Infoseed have tagged specific entrances for properties in their delivery radius ideal for motorbikes, increasing delivery efficiency.

Also Read: How can influencer marketing help the travel industry in a post-pandemic world

Infoseed’s solution can be the catalyst for smart cities to improve the quality of delivery services, sync with autonomous vehicles for accurate and safe implementations, and improve the response time of emergency and municipal services.

They have worked closely with the Korean government to manage and display facilities near the Hangang river and with construction companies to provide digital twins.

What is next for travel tech in the future?

The disruptions and new takes in travel tech will not only adapt to the demands we have of travel in a post-pandemic world but also elevate the expectations we have in the space. 

Right now, we see travel tech picking up speed and taking pages from its brethren industries. We believe that as the industry starts to mature again in a post-pandemic world, certain solutions to challenges specific to travel will begin to find applications in other industries.

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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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There are benefits in shifting one’s digital business operations from a purely on-premise set-up to having the flexibility of running them on the cloud. These include better security, increased flexibility to scale operations, and catalysing a culture of innovation. Smart cloud databases allow customers to quickly adjust to operational fluctuations or upticks in transactions as customer geographical footprints expand.

When it comes to cloud migration, it is imperative that companies explore open-source technology options that can help them prevent future vendor lock-in scenarios.

Open source is not owned by one entity, and its overall framework is common to all consumers. Any updates to its core files have an impact on all projects. A business can simply migrate its application environment to the cloud without worrying about its open-source-powered backend environment. Applications and services developed or deployed by different businesses and vendors can be seamlessly integrated, kept patched and secure, and remain available at all times.

Adopting open-source technology during cloud migration also ensures interoperability with other enterprise solutions located elsewhere (such as on-prem in other data centres or on different clouds). This interoperability enables the reuse of software stacks, libraries and components. Such interoperability makes it seamless for businesses to deploy multi-cloud environments.

Creating relevant and data-intensive applications through the cloud

Aiven plays an integral role in ensuring a smooth cloud migration. Since 2016, Aiven has enabled organisations worldwide to create relevant and data-intensive applications through its open-source cloud data platform. Startups can now set up and manage their cloud data infrastructure in as fast as 10 minutes, giving them the freedom to pick from various cloud providers at their fingertips.

Teams can tailor their setups according to their preference by integrating open-source solutions. Aiven offers Apache Kafka, Apache Cassandra, PostgreSQL, MySQL, OpenSearch, Redis, InfluxDB, Grafana, and M3 in more than 90 regions around the world on AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, and UpCloud cloud platforms.

Also read: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Enterprise SG join forces for SWITCH & SLINGSHOT2022

For instance, Apache Kafka is a standard technology in modern software architectures but requires a sizeable effort to deploy and operate. Startups often outsource this to third parties with the right expertise and experience. The Aiven experience offers these building blocks of the best technologies. It takes care of operational concerns, freeing up teams and enabling them to focus on developing key builds for their business to get ahead.

With Aiven, enterprises can have more reliability in their tech operations, with their track record of high uptime stats and round-the-clock customer support. It is also kept secure and certified with the help of encryptions and dedicated virtual machines. Customisation is also easier with Aiven, enabling better ease of integration, availability of multiple options for cloud solutions, and the ability to swiftly ramp up cloud operations to an unlimited scale with minimal downtime through their automated scaling feature.

The perks of automation

Aside from making things more convenient for application developers and database administrators, there are broader organisational gains to be had. Tasks such as routine changes, installations, upgrading, and maintenance can be automated. This would then free the operational tech team to focus on performance optimisation. According to an IDC report, Aiven enables teams to perform more efficiently, reduce direct infrastructure costs, and provide improved database performance, agility, and scalability with significant impacts on the bottom line. The report finds an average ROI of 340% over three years, breaking even after only five months.

The study also cites how business customers have seen a 37% decrease in operational costs and a 78% decrease in staff time allocations for database deployments.

Many reputable global brands have trusted Aiven, including Toyota, Atlassian, Comcast, and Wolt. In Southeast Asia, GoTo Financial, a fintech provider under the GoJek group, turned to Aiven’s technology to help them optimise user experience across millions of customers while maintaining operational uptimes.

Also read: Meet the 100 nominees for Alibaba’s AsiaStar 10×10 campaign

As they were rearchitecting data pipelines and assembling everything into one system, GoTo Financial wanted to set up Apache Kafka within the region. Still, it was hard to find this anywhere else. Aiven offered this, and GoTo Financial has been happy with the uptime levels, realising better cost control and predictability. This migration with Aiven enabled easy scalability in the operations of GoTo Financial, which allowed adjustments for spikes and lulls in usage quickly and easily.

Another Aiven customer is Swift Solutions, a Jakarta-based logistics company offering delivery and order fulfilment services in Indonesia and is part of the Tokopedia Group. Using Aiven enabled them to streamline the data infrastructure components they needed and realised convenience by managing these multiple components through one console within Aiven. Another customer, Vidio, a streaming giant in Indonesia, was able to rapidly and efficiently deploy new services and features and scale their databases across fluctuations in user volume, ultimately improving customer experience.

Olivier van Grembergen, Aiven’s Regional Vice President for the Asia Pacific, shares with e27, “Aiven helps organisations by collecting all necessary components under one umbrella, offering integrations between services, ensuring that the systems are available, maintaining compliance with all major data regulations, and providing better data governance.”

A leader in cloud solutions

Headquartered in Helsinki, Aiven has been named by Forbes as part of its 2022 Cloud 100, being part of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world. It has also recently raised its $210M Series D funding round led by Eurazeo and joined by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock as well as existing investors IVP, Atomico, Earlybird, World Innovation Lab, and Salesforce Ventures, catapulting Aiven’s pre-money valuation to $3B.

Aiven was conceptualised after the founders’ own experiences as developers working with open-source technologies, encountering situations where data infrastructure tasks were getting in the way of focusing instead on innovating, problem-solving, and optimising product offerings. Allowing developers to make open-source technologies easier to adopt was the precedent to how Aiven was built. “At its core, Aiven’s vision is to establish a true, open-source data cloud that organisations can then use to build modern data infrastructure, enabling them to grow from prototyping to worldwide scale at greater velocities,” Olivier added.

Also read: Reimagining customer experience with Sendbird

Aiven’s strategic outlook and integrations are becoming more dynamic. Alongside their international expansion in Asia Pacific, they also announced accelerated growth of over 100% and a headcount increase of over 200% since October 2021. With strengthening security features a key priority, they recently acquired Kafkawize in September 2022, an open-source governance tool for Apache Kafka. This aligns with their goal to advance their open-source stewardship. 

They also recently announced the beta launch of Aiven for Clickhouse, a fast, open-source cloud data warehouse that is fully open-source. Clickhouse can help generate real-time analytical data reports using advanced SQL queries and has already been adopted by leading companies such as Spotify, Deutsche Bank, and Uber. In their pipeline is a launch of their global sustainability program to empower the Aiven community to build more sustainable cloud applications.

“The future is bright for the state of open-source in the Asia Pacific. The region as a whole is rapidly maturing from a technology perspective. Businesses are adopting cloud technologies and turning to open-source as part of their digital transformation to drive growth and innovation. Aiven is excited about the opportunities that are abound in APAC. We are committed to continue growing our footprint, working with the most progressive digital natives, elevating service delivery, and pushing the envelope further when it comes to the stewardship of open-source,” added Olivier.    

To learn more about Aiven and its offerings for startups and scale-ups, visit https://aiven.io/.

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

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

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Last week, The MoneySmart Group, which runs a financial content and comparison platform in Singapore and Hong Kong, announced its plans to go public via a reverse takeover (RTO) deal. The company said it would acquire SGX-listed hotel operator, Asia Pacific Strategic Investments (APS) in a deal worth US$161.7 million.

The listing will help the 13-year-old MoneySmart to raise capital for expansion in Singapore and the region.

In this interview with e27, MoneySmart Founder and CEO Vinod Nair discusses the RTO, its benefits, the company’s grant plans, and the trends in the financial comparison industry in the region.

MoneySmart is a 13-year-old company with a considerable presence in Singapore and Hong Kong. Why does the company prefer an RTO route to a direct listing? What are the benefits of an RTO listing?

An RTO is simpler than an initial public offering (IPO) and similar to an M&A transaction where terms are agreed upon with a single buyer.

In an RTO, the listing company and vendor agree on the valuation of the target company and pricing of the consideration shares at an early stage of the transaction. Moreover, it is faster and easier because a sponsor can issue shares directly and has the required shareholder support rather than getting help to underwrite the deal like in an IPO.

An RTO deal also brings growth capital into the company. This transaction will provide significant growth capital into MoneySmart to accelerate our growth ambitions.

Also Read: How did MoneySmart grow its revenue by 25 per cent amidst a pandemic?

Besides this, a listing provides liquidity for shareholders: It enables investors and shareholders to realise some liquidity.

Above all, a RTO listing provides us with currency to pursue M&A opportunities: While the market is volatile and uncertain, we believe this presents an excellent opportunity for well-capitalised companies to pursue strategic acquisitions.

Why SGX? Why not a global stock exchange such as NYSE?

MoneySmart is a Singapore-based tech company founded by a Singaporean and is a well-known brand in Singapore amongst retail and institutional investors. MoneySmart will be proud to be the first major local consumer technology company to list on the SGX.

How much capital does the company aim to raise via SGX?

We are unable to comment on this at the moment.

A MoneySmart release mentions expansion plans. Can you share more details about this?

With the raising of capital, we anticipate MoneySmart’s rapid growth through investments in its membership and rewards programmes designed to deliver maximum value for its customer base. MoneySmart Plus rewards MoneySmart customers with cashback for transactions they would typically perform and provides them with highly personalised financial product recommendations based on their profile and preferences.

In addition, raising capital through its listing will also power other strategic partnerships through potential M&As.

The RTO will also help accelerate MoneySmart Group’s digital disruption of the insurance industry through Bubblegum — a digital insurance platform aimed at millennials and Gen Zs, launched in recent weeks.

We’re evaluating expansion opportunities in developed markets in Asia across the group. Developed Asian markets are attractive because of the relatively high financial literacy and product penetration rates.

Can you share more details about Bubblegum? How is it different from other insurtech platforms?

As Singapore’s newest insurance player, Bubblegum intends to shake up the market, challenging the status quo where insurance products are often associated with complexity, confusing jargon, trade-offs, paperwork and long-drawn claims processes. The definition of what Singaporeans value is changing, and so must include the concept of insurance.

Bubblegum is not just here to disrupt the status quo; we are here to change what consumers should expect regarding their insurance experience. Bubblegum’s product design is guided by our extensive consumer insights from helping consumers find the best financial products on the MoneySmart platform.

Also Read: Don’t know which credit card to use for a bill? MoneySmart’s new app has the answer

In terms of USP, Bubblegum is aimed at the younger generation of digital natives who prefer to do their own research on sites like MoneySmart and want a seamless digital experience instead of having to talk to an insurance agent. Bubblegum is for the self-serve generation that is increasingly discerning and value-conscious.

Secondly, Bubblegum aims to address many consumer pain points like unclear terms and conditions, manual paperwork and opaque claims processes through its digital platform.

You raised your Series B in 2017, and there have been no public announcements about follow-on funding. Did you raise more capital after that?

We raised US$10 million in Series C in 2019 from existing and new investors.

What will happen to your institutional investors? Will they also exit?

They will remain shareholders, and major investors will have the option to sell after the lock-up period.

Are you profitable already?

We are at breakeven; low burn rate in some months and marginal profitability in others.

How many users do you have across Singapore and Hong Kong? How many deals does MoneySmart process a month?

We have about 2-2.5 million in sessions every month.

How is the personal finance market growing in Singapore and the region? What are some of the definite trends?

The personal finance market continues to grow at a healthy clip in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Increased digitisation and a more financially-savvy population mean that consumers are much more highly involved in personal finance than before. Over the last 13 years, MoneySmart has worked closely with consumers to help improve financial literacy.

Millennials and Gen Zs also think about personal finance very differently. This is where the consumer insights MoneySmart Group has amassed over the last 13 years are pivotal in helping us design personal finance products that cater to their changing lifestyles and needs.

The group aims to bring this DNA of meaningful disruption through unrivalled consumer insights to different parts of personal finance over time.

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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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Eastern Asia is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency market, having received US$777.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency between July 2021 and June 2022, representing just under 13 per cent of global transaction volume during that time period.

Eastern Asia has lost ground to other regions this year, having ranked as the third biggest region by transaction volume at last year’s Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. The region saw year-over-year transaction volume growth of just four per cent, by far the lowest of any region.

The biggest reason for this is likely the decline in cryptocurrency activity in China, the largest market in the region.

While it remains the biggest cryptocurrency market in the region, China saw its cryptocurrency transaction volume fall by 31 per cent compared to the previous year-long period; even neighbours like Japan more than doubled transaction volume.

As we’ll explore in more detail later, this is likely due to Chinese government crackdowns on cryptocurrency activity over the last year. 

Also Read: A look into the Chainalysis 2022 geography of cryptocurrency report

The data also shows that Eastern Asia has surprisingly low DeFi adoption. In fact, over the year-long time period we studied, DeFi made up just 28 per cent of transaction volume in Eastern Asia, less than all but one other region.

Below, we’ll explore these trends and more as we dive into what makes Eastern Asia’s crypto market tick.

DeFi drives outsized growth in Japan

As noted above, Japan’s cryptocurrency market has grown substantially over the year-long period studied, with on-chain transaction volume increasing 113.2 per cent over the previous 12 months, compared to 72 per cent for the next-closest country, 13.2 per cent for South Korea, and 31.1 per cent contraction for China. Why might this be? One reason could be Japan’s comparatively high embrace of DeFi. 

Despite having a smaller overall cryptocurrency market, Japan’s DeFi transaction volume is nearly double the size of South Korea’s at US$56.7 billion and close to China’s total of US$67.6 billion.

Chainalysis’ Tokyo-based Advisory Solutions Architect Hayato Shigekawa shared that “DEX trading has become very popular in Japan,” citing the importance of platforms like Uniswap, 1inch, and TokenIon in the country. He also discussed the popularity of NFTs in Japan, and the possibility of their future growth.

“Many have pointed out that Japan has lots of quality IP from anime, comics, and video games, which could be utilised in Web3 in the future.” Chainalysis data confirm that these services have played a big role in Japan’s DeFi market.

Interestingly, off-chain spot trading data released by the ​​Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchanges Association (JVCEA) suggests that DEX trading may be eating into trading on centralised services, which haven’t seen similar growth.

Also Read: From Moonshining to Shining – Story of Bobby Ong’s crypto data aggregator, CoinGecko

The reported trade volume on Japanese exchanges is lower than in 2020 and 2021, while the year-over-year creation of new accounts is between 30 per cent and 40 per cent in most months. One reason trading volume has shifted from centralised exchanges to DEXes could be the latter’s greater number of assets on offer.

“Centralised exchanges in Japan support roughly 60 crypto assets, and the process to list new coins is lengthy and rightly regulated,” said Hayato. Hayato also pointed out that, as of now, that list of available crypto assets includes no stablecoins. Given that, it’ll be interesting to see how Japan’s usage of DeFi changes as regulations evolve.

China’s market remains among the world’s strongest despite government bans

As discussed above, China has seen a large dropoff in cryptocurrency activity, likely due to government crackdowns. The Chinese government started by banning mining in May 2021, and by September moved further to ban all cryptocurrency transaction activity. “Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities,” the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in an unambiguous statement. 

Still, despite a 31.1 per cent dropoff in transaction volume, China remains the biggest cryptocurrency market in the region, the fourth overall in the world, and ranked tenth for grassroots adoption on our Global Crypto Adoption Index.

Plus, trading activity has even picked up in recent months. That hardly seems to reflect the total ban announced or the harsh words from PBOC officials that came along with it. 

Even mining, the first crypto activity targeted by the Chinese government and saw a huge dropoff following the ban, has made a comeback in China. That’s especially surprising given that you’d expect it to be easier for the government to pinpoint the increased power usage indicative of mining and take action.

The data suggests that in China, the anti-establishment ethos of cryptocurrency’s early days remains intact. While government crackdowns have had an effect, China’s cryptocurrency market remains strong, with healthy transaction volumes across both centralised and DeFi services. 

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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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Within this increasingly globalised and competitive business landscape, brand relevance is more important than ever. Companies turn to marketing strategies as they strive to make the brand stand out and enhance the desirability of their products and services against countless other competing brands.

Nevertheless, the arrival of disruptive digital technologies, combined with increasing customer experience expectations around personalised, relevant experiences, have made it more challenging for marketers to keep the brand relevant. The Internet and social media have allowed customers to have more control over how they discover and interact with different brands, share their feedback, and get inspiration for their next purchase. Social media and digital platforms can also magnify the impacts of both negative and positive publicity as a single tweet or Facebook post can go viral in a matter of seconds.

This further punctuates the importance of a brand’s online presence as brands work to give customers the best possible online experience.

The importance of building a strong online presence

There is no doubt that the Internet is taking the world by storm. This is why companies must work doubly to establish an online presence, enabling them to showcase their products and services to an unlimited number of customers as well as communicate and engage with those customers seamlessly. Moreover, according to Hubspot’s State of Marketing Trends Report 2022, social media was the top marketing channel in 2021, with Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook being the top 3 social media platforms marketers are using in 2022

There are over 2.14 billion unique online shoppers following the increased digitalisation ushered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Marketers also shared that their most common and effective digital promotional channels included social media and websites. Nevertheless, while the importance of having an online presence is widely accepted, the real challenge is to draw and sustain customer attention. With customer attention span becoming lower than ever on top of everything happening online, brands have to be easy for consumers to find, get info from and connect with, and all that can be streamlined through a functional and seamless website.

Also read: Meet the 100 nominees for Alibaba’s AsiaStar 10×10 campaign

However, building and running a website is a different struggle altogether. In the first place, the costs of building a website including web designing, functionality, domain, and hosting can range somewhere between $12,000 to $150,000 per year depending on the complexity of the requirements. Website maintenance services can also add another $400 to $60,000 per year, depending on the operation costs.

Additionally, for business owners who are not tech savvy, selecting and hiring reliable and competent web and app developers can be a huge headache particularly in light of a global shortage of software engineer supply. Once the website is set up, the owners must then continuously oversee its performance, update its content to optimise for search engines, and ensure the relevance and consistency of its brand messages and content over time. To do so, it needs another dedicated team of marketers who develop the content and tend to the customers’ online experience.

How HubSpot’s has revolutionised website creation and management

Considering the context, HubSpot was born with the mission to help businesses craft a strong online presence without breaking the bank or needing to spend a large amount of time and effort building and creating their website.

Established in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah in the United States, after over 15 years in operation, HubSpot has grown into a leading CRM platform that provides software and support to help businesses grow better. HubSpot’s platform includes marketing, sales, service, and website management products that start free and scale to meet their customers’ needs at any stage of growth. Today, thousands of customers around the world including top multinational corporations such as Spenmo, EngageRocket, Peakflo, and grove among many others, use HubSpot’s powerful and easy-to-use tools and integrations to attract, engage, and delight customers.

Also read: Reimagining customer experience with Sendbird

Among HubSpot’s impressive offerings for customers, there are several services that stood out as the most valuable to both startups and global corporations. CMS Hub launched with the Pro and Enterprise (Apr 2020) versions meant for organisations with in-depth CMS needs, and subsequently, the Starter version (Aug 2021). Seeing the opportunity in the market, the team then launched the Free version earlier this year to equip businesses with a free and sophisticated suite of content management tools to build websites or upgrade with free hosting, visual editing features, and more. This makes it easier and cheaper than ever to design and implement remarkable CRM-powered websites.

The free CMS tools consist of advanced features such as theme library, cloud hosting, custom domain mapping, and intuitive data analytics to help create the most pleasant digital experience for customers and provide beneficial insights for businesses to improve their products and services, and target potential customers more effectively. Furthermore, the newly introduced free drag-and-drop website builder tool added significant value to HubSpot’s offerings. Thanks to this feature, marketers no longer need complex technical knowledge about coding to build the website, and they can visualise and preview the content before publishing the website to ascertain their desired look and functionality

HubSpot also goes to great lengths to ensure the security of the website with SSL certification and two-factor authentication at no additional costs.

How HubSpot empowers SMEs to thrive on the digital sphere

Since its inception, HubSpot has focused on democratising the digital sphere, facilitating businesses’ access to an online presence, moving their business operation and customer journey online, and leveraging the power of the internet to create compelling advantages. “SMEs are at the heart of Singapore’s economy and having a website is an opportunity for them to ‘share their business card’ to thousands online; aiding them to build awareness and credibility, and drive greater adoption and sales. At HubSpot, we are focused on helping companies grow better, carve new niches and better engage their customer groups,” said Simon Wong, Director, JAPAC at HubSpot.  

HubSpot’s product quality is highly proven as demonstrated by its customer satisfaction and the impressive success stories experienced by its customers. Businesses have found various applications and benefits from adopting HubSpot’s free CMS and other services to streamlining sales and marketing activities, launching more personalised marketing campaigns, integrating data, generating more leads, and increasing conversion rates.

Also read: We need to accelerate progress at the frontier of innovation

“We use Hubspot’s CMS hub to create and manage the content of our website. It is straightforward and easy to use, which means almost everyone in our company can operate it. Aside from allowing us to create a visually appealing and professional website, it is an all-in-one system that provides us with content features to help our company grow. Top it off with its comprehensive analytic features, we’re able to benchmark our performance to understand and scale TyrAds’ online presence” said Zino Rost van Tonningen, CEO at TyrAds, a performance marketing agency based in Singapore.

With a user-friendly interface, easy-to-use built-in tools, and the company’s strong desires to assist customers with the most innovative and relevant solutions, HubSpot’s free CMS Tools can usher any new startup into the digital age. 

For more information, visit the company’s website here.

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

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

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