In October, the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) and ReGov Technologies unveiled the APU-myBID Web3 Innovation Lab (WIL) to promote and nurture Web3 talents in Malaysia.

Through this collaboration, APU and ReGov aim to respond to the global need for Web3 talent as the world gradually shifts from Web2 to Web3. APU will conduct the Innovation Lab with support from ReGov, which specialises in eKYC for financial institutions and owns the Web3-based identity management platform myBID.

The Web3 Innovation Lab will be open to APU students from all faculties, granting students access to specialised Web3 training and opportunities to sharpen their skills through experiential learning.

In this conversation with e27, Jasmine Ng, Co-Founder of myBID and founding member of Women In Blockchain Asia, discusses the programme and its objectives.

Excerpts:

How severe is the Web3 talent crunch in Malaysia? How the APU-ReGov collaboration aims to address this?

There is a growing demand for Web3 developers, but less than 1 per cent of programmers have the necessary skills to do the job. Due to this, companies that require this skill set are often forced to look elsewhere. For instance, ReGov recruited our blockchain engineers from India and China.

Web3 Innovation Lab is a not-for-profit aiming to empower the next generation of Web3 developers from within the university students with the skills, real-life experience, and training necessary to address the technology talent gap.

Also Read: Breaking the bro code: How women are taking over the Web3 world in Asia

To address the Web3 talent crunch in Malaysia, we are also working on securing two more universities to set up Web3 Training and Innovation Lab.

How is the overall Web3 ecosystem growing in Malaysia? Is there an eagerness among local companies to embrace Web3 and blockchain?

Web3 as a whole is a relatively new technology to Malaysia as the government is still evaluating and understanding the impacts of Web3. It is one of the most popular terms associated with the next digital leap forward in data security and privacy.

The importance of Web3 is rapidly being recognised by startups and large and established companies. This is represented by the fact that over 80 of the world’s top 100 listed companies currently employ some form of blockchain.

The potential benefits are not just limited to reduced cost but also improved security and compliance. These benefits are too good to ignore. The dilemma is whether they have the willpower to embark on Web3 transformation as it will consume resources.

Can you share more details about the programme? How many candidates do you expect to join it? Will you help the successful candidates with placements etc.?

We cannot share more details as it is still in the execution phase.

Once students complete their training and practical assessments, they will be given opportunities to work on myBID use cases supervised by ReGov. They can choose from various use cases depending on their interests, allowing them to pick up real-life Web3 knowledge.

Upon completion of the programme, students can enter the workforce with a healthy blend of hard skills and professional experience, maximising their employability within the Web3 industry.

One of the benefits of this programme is that ReGov ourselves are willing to hire participants who impress during the programme immediately. By doing so, we can offer these candidates stable employment and prove that the demand for Web3 is not just hot air.

What is the role of ReGov here?

ReGov will assist APU in designing the course syllabus to ensure the students receive a curriculum that fully addresses the market’s current needs.

Additionally, students will be working with ReGov during the practical portion of the course to develop Web3 projects that may be deployed within APU or even to other commercial entities.

—

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.

The post Malaysian startups, MNCs have started recognising the importance of Web3: Jasmine Ng appeared first on e27.

NOVI Health, a tech-enabled chronic disease and preventive healthcare company in Singapore, has announced closing its Series A fundraising at US$5 million, led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

The funding will be used to accelerate hiring for the company’s technology, growth, and product teams while investing further in its online platform.

Globally, one in ten adults lives with diabetes. Diabetes was responsible for 6.7 million deaths in 2021, one every five seconds.

NOVI Health aims to bring a change. It provides hyper-personalised holistic health solutions integrating precision medicine and behavioural and lifestyle interventions to prevent and better manage metabolic disorders such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity.

Also Read: How new technology is improving patient journeys

The company offers two core products through its digital platform.

NOVI Magnum combines continuous glucose monitoring technology with medical care and dietary and lifestyle coaching to optimise diabetes control. This product targets individuals with diabetes.

NOVI Optimum Plus is meant for those with excess weight. It builds on the fundamentals of healthy eating and exercise by integrating validated medical treatment to complement health coaching to achieve sustainable and healthy weight loss.

“Our vision is to empower people to live free from the burden of diabetes and other chronic weight and lifestyle-related conditions. We enhance clinical care by incorporating holistic lifestyle interventions, supercharged by deep human expertise and data insights for better outcomes,” said Sue Anne Toh, Co-Founder and CEO of NOVI Health. “Our digital-first approach allows us to increase accessibility and affordability of our services and impact more lives.”

—

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.

The post NOVI Health bags US$5M Series A to tackle diabetes, obesity using tech appeared first on e27.

Growth capital firm Venteny Fortuna seeks to raise US$27M via IPO on IDX
Venteny plans to use the funds to increase the group’s working capital and support its business development and growth; With this, Venteny is set to become the first Japanese founder-led startup to be listed in SEA.

SEA food and grocery delivery spending up 30%: Grab report
The report said that in Southeast Asia, consumers in Singapore spent the most on deliveries, while those in Vietnam ordered most frequently during the period.

Malaysian startups, MNCs have started recognising the importance of Web3: Jasmine Ng
There is a growing demand for Web3 developers, but less than 1 per cent of programmers have the necessary skills to do the job, says Ng, Co-Founder of myBID and founding member of Women In Blockchain Asia.

‘In Web3, talent is hard to find and expensive’
According to experts, the best Web3 talents can be found in India, Vietnam, the US, France and the UK. Regulations are currently quite fuzzy, and clarity about this will go a long way in helping people become more. comfortable.

Singapore-based Flash Coffee lays off employees
According to LinkedIn, the startup employs over 600 people; The Rocket Internet-backed firm raised US$32.8M in July; It has a presence in Indonesia, Singapore, HK, Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.

Indonesian e-commerce enabler Sirclo lays off 8% of employees
The layoffs are part of the efficiency measures policy amidst the “current macroeconomic conditions”, it said in a statement; Sirclo stated that all aspects of the group’s business are in the optimisation stage to achieve long-term growth.

East Ventures launches startup programme amid layoff wave
The fourth edition of PASTI BISA, called Terus Pantang Mundur (Keep Moving Foward, Never Give UP), was launched in response to the massive layoffs in Indonesia recently.

Vietnam’s EV firm Dat Bike raises US$8M
The investors are Jungle Ventures, GSR Ventures, and Delivery Hero Ventures; It plans to expand beyond Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang to other Tier 1 cities; Dat Bike claims its revenue rose by 10x in the last 12 months.

NOVI Health bags US$5M Series A to tackle diabetes, obesity using tech
The lead investor is Monk’s Hill Ventures; NOVI provides hyper-personalised holistic health solutions integrating precision medicine and behavioural and lifestyle interventions.

Fintech firm BayaniPay nets US$4.5M seed funding
The investors are East West Bank, Wavemaker Partners, and Talino Venture Labs; BayaniPay provides access to a digital checking account, a debit card, and zero-fee remittance forex rates for Filipino Americans sending money home

Accelerating Asia invests in 10 startups as part of cohort 7 programme
The new startups have an average monthly GMV of over US$46K and revenue of over US$13K, and they collectively address at least one sustainable development goal.

Fonos raises US$1.8M in funding to expand into podcasting
The investors include North Base Media, AngelCentral, Vietcetera’s fund; Since its launch in 2020, Fonos has established itself as the audio content leader in Vietnam with over 2,100 exclusive pieces of content.

SOSV backs 5 startups as part of latest Orbit cohort
The startups are NewCampus, Kreate, Nandi Labs, PriyoShop, and Fullfily; Each participant of the Orbit Startups programme received US$150K in initial funding; Orbit encompasses SOSV’s Chinaccelerator and MOX programmes.

Saison Capital, Mixpanel launch product manager peer-support community
The first cohort of the analytics programme will connect Saison’s 2-3 product manager community directly with Mixpanel leaders across product management and engineering.

Sequoia apologises for investing in FTX
Sequoia has funnelled US$214M into FTX.com and FTX US; It clarified that it had reviewed FTX’s unaudited statements before investing and conducted rigorous due diligence.

FTX owns Indonesian crypto exchange Bitocto, court document shows
Separately, data from the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights showed that 99% of Bitocto shares are owned by FTX, while the remaining 1% is owned by Genesis Block, an HK-based crypto platform.

Rakuten Capital to invest in SG Web3 entertainment company DEA
DEA also signed an MoU with Rakuten Group for a collaborative partnership in the Web3 domain; DEA operates the PlayMining GameFi platform, which features a catalogue of P2E NFT games, including Job Tribes and Cookin’ Burger.

Filipina actor Yassi Pressman nets US$2M for her new Web3 startups
Yassi Pressman’s startups PEG is a gaming guild, while BrandNation is an influencer marketing platform for digital and Web3 brands; The funding was led by cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset custodial provider Sonla.

URECA, a Blockchain-based marketplace for carbon offsets, raises US$1.5M
Originally from Mongolia and HQed in Singapore, URECA aims to empower and mobilise grassroots communities against climate change by providing a universally accessible platform for carbon offsets.

Singapore police begin probe into Hodlnaut
The police said they have received multiple complaints between August and November outlining how Hodlnaut and its directors allegedly falsified the extent to which the firm was exposed to a digital token – presumably UST.

Hex Trust wins license for virtual asset services in Dubai
The company, which offers services including staking, brokerage deals, and virtual asset custody, secured a minimum viable product license a few months after getting a provisional license in June.

The future of recruitment in Web3 era
Web3 can provide an ecosystem where a credential holder can share a zero-knowledge proof presentation without sharing the original credential.

How I bootstrapped my company and what I learned through the process
Geraldine Pang, Founder of Creative For More, talks about some lessons she has learned along the way in bootstrapping her company from the ground up.

How to scale up your DTC game with payments
Those looking to grow their business must move fast and embrace new ways of operating, and payments is an integral part of the plan.

A walk through the growth of e-commerce in Singapore
The future of e-commerce in Singapore looks bright with the continued growth of online stores and high demand for quality products.

9 tips for creating a remote work cybersecurity policy
From ensuring systems are up-to-date to installing VPNs, cybersecurity is essential and requires the collaborative work of the entire team.

—

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Venteny gets the nod to go public; Flash Coffee, Sirclo axe jobs; Sequoia is sorry for FTX investments appeared first on e27.

Saying salamat (thank you) to Filipinos for being inextricably linked to the Axie Infinity story, Sky Mavis Co-Founder and Growth Lead Jeffrey Zirlin cited blockchain gaming as a possible vehicle for the rise of the Philippines as a digital powerhouse.

“The Philippines can be the Korea of Web3,” Zirlin, known to legions of Axie Infinity fans by his nickname Jiho, said in his speech at the Philippine Web3 Festival.

This weeklong Web3 celebration in the Philippines, touted as the “epicentre of Web3 adoption”, includes the three-day main conference from November 15 to 18. Besides the conference and other side events and activities, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis is also holding the Axie Open Manila esports tournament. The biggest onsite Axie Infinity tournament in the Philippines to date, Axie Open Manila, is offering a prize pool of US$120,000 or almost PHP7 million.

StarCraft and South Korea

Zirlin pointed out how Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft changed South Korea and spurred the growth of its broadband internet infrastructure on its way to becoming virtually the national pastime.

This 2010 Kotaku article sheds light on how StarCraft became a phenomenon in South Korea.

Also Read: Axie Infinity hack reminds us about the vulnerabilities in crypto markets: Advance.AI’s Ravi Madavaram

“The game’s popularity in South Korea is due to, in part, good timing. When Blizzard launched StarCraft in the late 1990s, South Korea was building up its (sic) online infrastructure and creating the fastest internet in the world. Online cafes began sprouting up, and the cafes needed games.

“It’s a matter of which came first — the chicken or the StarCraft — but the game ended up in more and more net cafes. The release of the game also coincided with the creation of South Korea’s first pro gaming league in 1998. A couple of years after the game launched, pro gamers began organising into teams, and big-time sponsors like Samsung moved in.

“Yet, StarCraft’s success in South Korea was not simply good timing. Blizzard did get lucky, but luckily for Korean gamers, the studio offered a compelling title. StarCraft was (and is) fun. A series of events might have set the stage for the game, but the compelling experience the game offers is why generation after generation of Korean gamers continues to enjoy the title. At this point, StarCraft has become something like the Monopoly or Chess of online gaming. It’s a classic title that continues to pull in new players.”

Axie Infinity and the Philippines

Meanwhile, Axie Infinity, a Pokémon-like NFT game that enables players to collect, raise, and battle fantasy creatures, transformed the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Simply put, when players win battles in Axie Infinity, they are rewarded with Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens, which are the in-game currency. They can then use these tokens for breeding the digital pets known as Axies to win more battles and earn more SLP. By using a cryptocurrency wallet, players can accumulate SLP and convert their digital wealth into real-world money.

The Axie Infinity story is also linked to the decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) Yield Guild Games, one of the organisers of the Philippine Web3 Festival. It was Axie Infinity that inspired YGG Co-Founder Gabby Dizon to launch the DAO in 2020, together with Beryl Li and another individual known as “Owl of Moistness”, who is represented by a plush toy owl.

In August 2021, YGG raised US$4.6 million in a financing round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the first time a16z has invested in a Philippine startup.

Filipinos and play-to-earn revolution

The meteoric rise of Axie Infinity in the Philippines brought global attention to play-to-earn, which was the term coined for blockchain games that allowed users to own the game characters as NFTs and earn from playing. Axie Infinity even led to the birth of the blockchain gaming platform startup I work for, Playfix.io.

“The interesting thing about play-to-earn is that through the act of gaming, which billions of people around the world can do, you can actually enable financial inclusion by the element of having NFTs that earn yield. What excites me the most as a gamer is that there are so many ways you can express yourself by playing these different games. There are just so many games to look forward to and so many creative ways to earn an income,” Dizon told this author in an interview last year after their financing round.

The birthplace of play-to-earn in the Philippines is Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, a province in the Central Luzon region, as recounted in a YouTube documentary that YGG commissioned Emfarsis to produce.

Among the Axie Infinity players interviewed for the documentary were an elderly couple, sari-sari (small neighbourhood store) owners Lolo Silverio, 75, and Lola Vergie, 65. To them, play-to-earn wasn’t a buzzword but a godsend that enabled them to keep earning an income amid the hardships of COVID-19.

Also Read: Play-to-earn: Understanding the popularity of Axie Infinity

In the documentary, Lolo Silverio said playing Axie Infinity was his only form of entertainment, sharing that sometimes he can finish 100 games a day.

“Sana huwag mawala yung Axie (We hope that Axie won’t go away),” he said.

E-sports and grassroots transformation

The growth of Axie Infinity and play-to-earn faced challenges this year due to the influx of players that affected the game economy, causing the price of SLP to plummet. It also took a serious blow because of the exploit on Axie Infinity’s Ronin network that resulted in the loss of over US$625 million in USDC and ETH. This was followed by the current bear market in cryptocurrencies and NFTs, the so-called Crypto Winter.

Axie Infinity, however, has evolved, with Sky Mavis announcing new features and products during its first-ever AxieCon conference.

At the Philippine Web3 Festival, Zirlin gave attendees a sneak peek at new Axies and other improvements to the game.

Sky Mavis is also doubling down on turning Axie Infinity into an e-sport, just as what was then known as pro gaming helped StarCraft transform South Korea.

“We need to democratise e-sports,” Zirlin said, emphasising the importance of supporting grassroots e-sports tournaments.

Judging by the reception that Zirlin has gotten at the Philippine Web3 Festival and wherever he went, the love affair between Filipinos and Axie Infinity is far from over.

Just ask the couple who posed with Zirlin with their baby named Ronin.

–

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

The post The Philippines can be ‘Korea of Web3’, says Axie Infinity Co-Founder appeared first on e27.

Y Combinator-backed Philippine fintech startup PayMongo has announced that its Co-Founder Francis Plaza has stepped down as President and CEO effective November 30, 2022, to pursue other ventures.

He has been replaced by Chief Operating Officer Isabel Ridad, who is the acting CEO. Ridad joined PayMongo in early 2021 as Chief of Staff and has worked as its COO since February.

Plaza will, however, act as an Advisor to the Boards of PayMongo Philippines and PayMongo Payments.

Plaza’s stepping down comes months after PayMongo was hit by many crises, including the fallout among top leaders, the firing of two co-founders, allegations of questionable spending by co-founders and employee harassment. The infightings and scandals in the company were broken by TechInAsia in a report published in August this year.

Also Read: PayMongo’s ex-CFO denies stealing money, apologises for remarks against female colleagues

As per that report, Plaza allegedly splurged money on extensive trips to Europe and the US and bought a luxury Porsche car. Some of his business class flight trips and a company loan taken to finance a property rental in the Philippines are also under ongoing investigation.‍ The PayMongo board, chaired by co-founder Luis Sia, had opened a formal investigation against Plaza, who was also a board member.

Founded in 2019 by Plaza, Luis Sia, Jaime Hing, and Edwin Lacierda, PayMongo empowers online businesses to accept the full range of payment options, including credit cards, e-wallets, and over-the-counter payments.

In February this year, PayMongo secured US$31 million in a Series B round of financing from investors, including JAM Fund (founded by Tinder founder Justin Mateen) and local VCs ICCP-SBI Venture Partners and Kaya Founders. Previously, the fintech firm bagged US$12 million Series A led by Stripe in 2020 and US$2.7 million seed round from investors, including Y Combinator, in 2019.

-‍-

The post Francis Plaza steps down as PayMongo CEO appeared first on e27.