There’s nothing quite like being able to connect with a startup in real life: being able to immerse at the intangible qualities and energy they exude and inspire — The Harvard Review calls this “the soul of a startup”. As founders, investors, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts, there is nothing we find more thrilling than getting a peek at new innovations being brewed by startups out there. On top of great networking opportunities, connections, collaborations, and potential business partnerships, the best part about Echelon 2022 is finding out all the new things that startup founders are coming up with!

In true Echelon fashion, this year’s edition of the Echelon Asia Summit will feature some of the most exciting and innovative startups from the region and beyond. As with previous editions, e27 is fully committed to bringing together today’s leading entrepreneurs and investors from the region to showcase what’s in store for Southeast Asia’s vibrant startup ecosystem.

Also read: Echelon 2022: A peek at the future of marketing measurement

With the fast-paced digitalisation happening around the world, new products and services are sprouting left and right. As such, we want to give Echelon participants the opportunity to take a closer look at these exciting new developments. Meet and connect with select Pro Connect members at Echelon 2022. This year we are partnering with 5 of our Pro members to exhibit their products and services.

Without further ado, here are 5 e27 Pro startups showcasing at Echelon 2022!

5 startups to showcase at Echelon Asia Summit

• ArmourZero

ArmourZero is All-in-One Cybersecurity for Business. They help you to protect, monitor, report, detect, and stop breaches faster through their all in one service platform.

Cybersecurity protection is a necessity today and rather good to have, and the protection should cover everyone, anytime and anywhere.

Most companies have 4 or more disconnected and silo cybersecurity solutions. With ArmourZero’s integration and services, you can better manage risk and increase security operations productivity by reducing gaps and vulnerabilities between legacy silos.

• Alphaswift Technologies

Alphaswift is a company that provides customised drones (UAV) and robotics design and development for industrial clients. Based on clients’ requirements, Alphaswift can provide the best combination of drones, robots, ground control stations, and specialised payloads to maximise efficiency.

• Tokenizer Banx

Tokenizer Banx is a centralised crypto wallet for Crypto and Fiat that consolidates all your crypto assets under one account for all your financial needs.

The money and digital assets superapp lets your buy digital assets with one click or swipe, transfer money globally with a click, and transact with crypto at any shop that accepts VISA cards. Through Tokenizer Banx, users can grow their wealth over time, in tokenised assets, NFTs, tokens, stocks, ETFs, commodities, and FX, among others. The apps also lets you get high crypto rewards whenever they use Tokenizer for shopping or payments.

• Empauwer

Combining technology, AI, & machine learning to enable seamless communication between neurotypicals and neurodiverse, Empauwer is an AI-driven platform that helps companies engage and employ neurodiverse talents to cultivate a more inclusive workplace.

• MindNation

MindNation is one of Asia, Middle East, and Latin America’s pioneer mental healthcare systems for teams and organisations. With the aim of happier, healthier employees, MindNation provides mental healthcare services such as teletherapy consultations with psychologists and WellBeing Coaches, Company Culture Drives (talks and workshops), and access to valuable resources, analytics and insights that companies need to improve their organisations’ overall mental well-being.

Also read: Echelon 2022: Ninja Van’s steady path to profitability

Engage with these Pro Connect startups

These are only 5 of the exciting Pro Connect startups that will be joining us at Echelon Asia Summit 2022. Pro Connect is a Pro membership plan that lets its members access relevant tools, insights, and connections to boost their visibility and growth at various stages of their company.

A Pro Connect membership includes access to:

1. Investor network.  Members can connect with 400+ investors who are actively looking for investment opportunities.
2. Ecosystem Insights. Curated from 150+ sources, incl. general tech media and hyperlocal channels delivered bi-weekly.
3. Company Visibility. Members get to highlight their fundraising efforts in front of ecosystem stakeholders through priority listing on e27’s Companies Fundraising widget.

Want to get to know, connect with, and strike business partnerships with these 5 startups and more?

Register for Echelon Asia Summit 2022 now!

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Indonesia-based beauty ecosystem platform Social Bella today announced that it had received a new investment led by existing investors Temasek and L Catterton. East Ventures, Jungle Ventures and other existing investors also contributed to the investment, totalling over US$60 million.

The funding round followed a US$56 million funding round that the company announced in May 2021 which it used to support its regional expansion plan.

Social Bella President and Co-founder Christopher Madiam commented, “Sustainability has been our core principle since day one, and all of our bold moves are always well calculated. This is why we have been able to generate stellar growth despite the pandemic and raise new funds from marquee investors, validating our business model and robust fundamentals.”

Also Read: How Indonesian beauty e-commerce startup Social Bella finds a balance between commerce, content, community

“While we have never been afraid to be an industry game changer, our relentless pursuit of sustainable growth over the long run defines us and will continue guiding our path forward,” he continued.

e27 is reaching out to Social Bella to find out their plans with the new funding

Also known as the omnichannel speciality platform Sociolla, Social Bella claimed to have margins increasing and its footprint expanding 20x since 2020.

Targeting Southeast Asia’s US$60 billion SHEconomy categories, it aims to start with the region’s over US$10 billion beauty market.

Following its 48 stores across 15 cities in Indonesia, the platform has also started expanding into Vietnam with 13 locations at the moment.

In addition, it has also launched Lilla, a business unit focusing on the mother and baby market. The store has recently opened its first physical store in Indonesia.

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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.

Image Credit: Social Bella

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The world today runs on data, and it is a double-edged sword. Marketers have plenty of information to gather to understand consumer behaviour, but at the same time, delving deep into the massive volumes of data to make sense of them is a daunting task. So what future lies in marketing measurement? 

The end of third-party cookies

One of the challenges in marketing measurement is the decline in trackability, with big players such as Google and Apple cracking down on third-party cookies. As a result, marketers will have significant hurdles in monitoring online behaviour to reach the right audiences.

Data explosion and tougher competition

About 10,000 marketing platforms and tools are out there, making it excruciatingly difficult to find the best way to handle all the data companies generate. Many companies gather more data than they can deal with, resulting in mountains of siloed data left ignored. 

Adding to the explosion of data is the rising competition in online marketing. The more ads running down feeds, the harder to stand out. The crowded market filled with too much noise also pushes up the cost of ads.

Preparing for the future

With the evolving marketing trends, it is necessary to brace for what is coming. At Echelon Asia Summit 2022, Victor Audienne, Sales Team Leads at AppsFlyer, will moderate a fireside chat with Zalora Group Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer Achint Setia. They will discuss “The future of marketing measurement” and tackle relevant topics such as:

•   Impact on measurement in the new privacy-centric world
•   Mobile ad fraud
•   Customer retention with re-targeting and how to measure its true impact

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Echelon Asia Summit 2022 (October 27-28) returns after a three-year hiatus. It aims to gather the most influential decision-makers and industry leaders from the Southeast Asia tech and startup ecosystem.

Register for Echelon Asia Summit 2022 now!

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Photo by Pixabay via Pexels

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Singapore-based insurtech startup bolttech announced today that it has secured an undisclosed sum in Series B financing led by Japanese insurance holding company Tokio Marine.

The names of co-investors in this round were not disclosed.

The round values bolttech at approximately US$1.5 billion.

Tokio Marine’s partnership as a strategic investor will complement bolttech’s capabilities and reach, enhancing its distribution strength, product innovation, and balance-sheet capacity. The startup will use the money for its continued global growth.

Also Read: iPhone co-inventor-backed insurtech unicorn bolttech adds US$30M to Series A

Launched in 2020, bolttech aims to make connections between insurers, distributors and customers easier and more efficient to buy and sell insurance and protection products. It works with insurers, telcos, retailers, banks, e-commerce and digital destinations to embed insurance into their customer journeys at the point of need.

The firm claims it serves customers in 30 markets across North America, Asia, and Europe. Its network has more than 800 distribution partners and 200 insurers and is licensed in 36 international jurisdictions.

The company now quotes approximately US$50 billion worth of annualised premiums through its technology-enabled insurance exchange, the largest in the world.

Early this month, bolttech announced the completion of the acquisition of a majority shareholding in Indonesian insurance broker Axle Asia. This followed bolltech’s strategic investment in UK-based digital insurance advisory Sherpa.

Last year, bolttech secured US$247 million in its Series A round via multiple rounds.

bolttech’s other backers are BRV Capital Management, EDBI, Spanish firm Alma Mundi, Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape, inventor of iPod, and co-inventor of iPhone), Alpha Leonis Partners, Dowling Capital Partners, B. Riley Venture Capital, and Tarsadia Investments.

Tokio Marine was founded in 1879 as Japan’s first insurance company. It has established digital laboratories in seven locations worldwide.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post Japan’s Tokio Marine leads insurtech unicorn bolttech’s Series B round appeared first on e27.

Fano Labs, a partner company of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and provider of an AI voice analytics system, has raised an undisclosed sum in funding from AEF Greater Bay Area Fund managed by Gobi Partners GBA.

The round also saw participation from New Vision Capital.

The funds will accelerate Fano Labs’s business expansion across the Greater Bay Area and Southeast Asia.

In today’s growing and complex financial legislations, financial service institutions such as banks are looking into ensuring that their relationship managers (RM) interact with customers in compliance with regulatory requirements.

Also Read:  To Voice AI or not – The changing face of customer experience

When RMs take an order to execute a transaction, they must take their customer through an extensive product suitability assessment, risk assessment, and risk disclosure before the transaction can occur. The bank records all these conversations so that its risk and compliance departments can later run a sample check and ensure that the sales processes are appropriate, the service quality is good, and the customers’ interests are protected.

However, it is very labour-intensive and costly for banks to arrange a sufficient workforce to manually listen to these tapes and catch the rare bad apples.

Fano Labs’s AI voice analytics system, Callinter, uses language AI technologies to analyse all the banks’ audio records and automatically flag recordings that might contain mistakes, misconducts, or misselling practices. The bank’s risk and compliance professionals can dive deeply into the flagged recordings for closer inspection.

Callinter can operate 24×7 and process audio 100x faster than humans (it can process 100+ hours of audio within one hour of real-world time). This enables banks to monitor sales compliance internally and take remedial actions before things go sour.

With the conversations between RMs and customers fully processed and analysed, banks also use the analysis results to understand better customers’ investment interests and satisfaction levels with the banks’ services. Banks have devised better ways to serve customers and make better investment advice based on such insights.

Also Read: Aiello banks US$5.8M to take its voice AI assistant for hotels beyond Taiwan

“As of today, our technologies have been adopted by 10 of the top 15 banks operating in Hong Kong, five of which are among the world’s top 10 banks by asset values. Our technologies are also used by 12 different public bodies exercising regulatory powers in different sectors to help them conduct supervision tasks more effectively,” said Dr Miles Wen, Co-founder and CEO of Fano Labs.

Fano Labs was started in 2015 by Dr Wen and Professor Victor OK Li. Previously, it received funding from HKSTP, the University of Hong Kong, Horizons Ventures, Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, and Saltagen Ventures.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post HK’s voice AI company Fano Labs nets funding from Gobi Partners-led fund appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based digital wealth advisory platform Endowus has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Carret Private Investments.

Carret is a Hong Kong-based multi-family office asset manager focused on wealth management, private investments and multi-generational wealth planning.

With this acquisition, the Endowus group of companies will now vertically integrate to serve the needs of different client segments and look to provide superior investment and advisory solutions.

Together, the two firms manage client assets of over US$4 billion as of end-June.

The Endowus Group, through Carret Private’s minority shareholding, will also have a strategic partnership with Lumen Capital Investors. Licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Lumen is a Singapore-based wealth advisor and multi-family office founded and led by private banking veteran Wilfried Kofmehl, former CEO of Bank Julius Baer Singapore.

Also Read: Waste4Change grabs US$5M to shrink Indonesia’s landfills

Samuel Rhee, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Endowus, said: “The combination of Endowus, Carret Private and the partnership with Lumen will allow us to scale and grow faster and lead the industry towards greater transparency and integrity in providing the highest quality wealth advisory services as fiduciaries and the lowest cost access to solutions that help our clients achieve better outcomes.”

Founded in 2017, Endowus has raised US$67 million in funding from investors such as UBS, EDBI, Prosus Ventures, Z Venture Capital, Samsung Ventures, Singtel Innov8, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and SoftBank Ventures Asia.

As of August, Endowus has more than US$2 billion in assets under advice.

Gregory Van, CEO of Endowus said, “We are here to advance the human wealth experience through technology, bringing the right level of personalisation and automation to make expert investing better for all of us. This mission transcends online and offline and touches everyone, from those at the beginning of their wealth journey to the ultra-wealthy.”

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon.

The 2022 Echelon edition will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

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Southeast Asia’s leading proptech group PropertyGuru has acquired Sendhelper, a Singapore home services technology company.

The transaction details haven’t been disclosed

With this deal, PropertyGuru intends to provide access to home management and maintenance services.

The acquisition is in line with the group’s growth strategy of expanding into adjacencies of fintech and data while investing in its core marketplaces business towards creating a digital property ecosystem for property seekers, sellers, agents, developers, banks, and valuers.

Shyn Yee Ho-Strangas, MD, Data and Software Solutions, PropertyGuru Group, said: “Our entry into home services is an important step as we create solutions that provide guidance and make each step of the property journey more efficient, transparent, and trusted for everyone in the ecosystem: homeowners, buyers, agents, and developers.”

“Given our shared vision of harnessing data and technology to improve our customers’ experience, we aim to be a force for innovative and game-changing solutions that guide people to make confident property decisions. Over the coming months, we plan to develop Sendhelper solutions and synergies for our partners,” she added.

Founded by Rupam Biswas and Bogdan Metehoui, Sendhelper allows homeowners and tenants in Singapore to search for and book home services for their daily needs through an app that connects them to verified service providers. Its services include cleaning, air conditioner maintenance, and handyman and repair services, among other necessities.

Also Read:Sustainability starts at home: How I aim to tackle climate change as PropertyGuru CEO

Sendhelper network includes over 2,000 trained and verified freelancers in Singapore.

With the addition of Sendhelper, PropertyGuru.com.sg will become a one-stop destination to enable property seekers to find, finance, own, manage and maintain homes.

PropertyGuru’s partners (real estate agents) will also be able to offer home services to their clients (property seekers and landlords) and cater to all their property needs, from housing options to home finance solutions and home maintenance.

Sendhelper is a strategic addition with long-term growth opportunities and is not expected to have a material impact on the group’s 2022 financial results.

Rupam Biswas, Co-Founder, General Manager, Sendhelper, said: “Post-COVID-19, as more people continue to use online solutions for their daily needs, with PropertyGuru, we aim to digitise the customer journey for home needs effectively. We look forward to co-creating tech solutions that will further ease the home services booking experience and increase users’ access to organised help as opposed to informal or ad-hoc sources.”

According to a 2021 report of the Department of Statistics in Singapore, households in Singapore have brought in higher incomes over the last ten years amid a growing trend of married, dual-career couples. This suggests that households will increasingly depend on outsourced help to manage and maintain their homes and home services will be in high demand.

PropertyGuru claims it empowers over 40 million property seekers with more than 3.5 million real estate listings, in-depth insights, and solutions that enable them to make confident property decisions across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post PropertyGuru forays into home services with Sendhelper acquisition appeared first on e27.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, remain one of the major healthcare concerns in the world today, claiming over 40 million lives every year. It is also a key driver of healthcare expenditure for households as the chronic nature of NCDs requires long-term care, which can pose a huge financial burden for patients and their families.

A study highlighted that adequate and reliable social protection interventions, on top of existing health coverage plans, must be introduced to help families who are struggling with the financial pressure that comes with managing the chronic conditions of their loved ones.

Additionally, with the rise of an ageing population, poor lifestyle choices, and urbanisation, there has been a substantial increase in NCDs in Southeast Asia as well. According to WHO, 55 per cent of deaths in the region are caused by NCDs, which is nearly eight million people every year.

The growing incidence of chronic diseases in this region has also strained healthcare systems, especially in developing countries. These areas often struggle with poor healthcare and finance infrastructure, inadequate manpower resources, and vulnerable information systems. Although there is an emergent need for the management of chronic diseases, patients who are central to this care paradigm continue to face challenges in their healthcare journeys.

Significant gaps persist in patient journeys

System complexity

With multiple administrative and clinical processes overlapping one another, our healthcare systems are complex by nature. Accompanied by the usage of technical language, these intricacies may seem overwhelming for patients. If not guided properly, it can affect their overall healthcare experience and their ability to make informed choices.

According to the Bain Front Line of Healthcare APAC survey 2021, more than 90 per cent of consumers surveyed in Asia said that they preferred a single touchpoint to manage all their healthcare needs.

Also Read: Healthtech data: The race for new oil in Southeast Asia

Furthermore, the National Institute for Health and Care Research in the UK reported that 23 per cent of patients raised concerns about their healthcare experience, with most of their concerns relating to communication between healthcare providers and patients.

Lack of integrated healthcare guidance

With the pandemic bringing healthcare to the forefront, patients are more invested than ever in health maintenance, treatment options, and preventive care. They are willing to pay for healthcare guidance both digitally and in-person through online education, diagnostic health check-ups and chronic care treatment.

For example, according to a 2018 Deloitte survey, Americans are increasingly looking for convenient, reliable, and affordable healthcare services, with nearly one-third of them using digital apps for health coaching and identifying symptoms.

However, while technological advancements have made access to virtual health and care possible, more remains to be done regarding remote chronic disease management for patients. Nearly two in five adults in the world are managing two or more chronic diseases.

This makes the widespread adoption of remote monitoring tools difficult as different chronic conditions require care from doctors specialising in that field. Therefore, creating a unified patient experience that considers multiple chronic conditions across the clinical workflow is critical in driving adoption and scale.

Health insurance-related challenges

Most insurers in Asia highlight morbidity rather than the well-being of people, with little to no focus on health insurance. As a result, consumers in many markets are often not informed about health insurance, let alone understand the scope of coverage and benefits.

Moreover, product descriptions and recommendations can be difficult for consumers to comprehend due to the usage of technical lingo, making it challenging for them to make an informed decision.

Technical jargon, accompanied by costly premiums, is a key barrier for consumers. For example, in major developing markets across Southeast Asia like Indonesia, the gross written life insurance premiums grew at 11 per cent per year between 2013 to 2017.

Additionally, less than a third of policyholders feel sufficiently covered by insurance, with Indonesians, in particular, feeling least protected.

According to Willis Towers Watson’s 2022 Global Medical Trends Survey, the primary driver of medical costs remains the misuse of care due to the “overprescribing” of health services by medical professionals for their patients.

Additionally, 38 per cent of insurers surveyed said that the underuse of preventive services was a significant cost driver of increased year-over-year costs due to the avoidance of medical care during the pandemic.

These rising costs continue to serve as a key barrier of entry for consumers, especially with the onslaught of COVID-19. Across the Asia Pacific, consumers have become more price sensitive towards insurance purchases amidst concerns over financial stability post-COVID-19.

Poor healthcare delivery

Although patients are the core of the healthcare industry, their healthcare journeys are often fraught with challenges. At least 5.7 million people lose their lives in low and middle-income countries every year due to poor quality healthcare, while 2.9 million die due to lack of access to care.

Improvement in healthcare delivery is of utmost concern today since a person has a greater chance of dying due to poor quality care rather than the absence of care. The Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) Patient Satisfaction Survey (2015) reported that although 85 per cent of patients were satisfied with the service at hospitals and polyclinics, they cited long waiting times, health procedures and facilities as areas that needed urgent improvement.

Technology as an enabler

Digitalisation is revolutionising the healthcare delivery system by redefining patient access to care, enhancing patient engagement, and providing them with the opportunity to actively participate in their healthcare journeys.

Also Read: How mental health startup Intellect’s founder catalysed his personal battle with anxiety

Purpose-built, patient-centric technologies can help overcome various patient pain points – from personalisation and optimisation of healthcare delivery to reliable management of chronic diseases.

More specifically, intuitive artificial intelligence (AI) based tools can improve patient journeys by providing a one-stop integrated platform that brings together patients, payors, and providers at every step of the treatment continuum.

For example, AI technologies and apps can be used to provide patients with personalised chronic disease management plans, including automated monitoring of changes in vital health-related parameters, check-up reminders, and early warning signals.

Patients are also provided with reliable guidance via patient self-service facilities (chatbots) and computer-aided detection systems for diagnosis. By capturing data and utilising it effectively, such tools can enhance efficiency and reduce time and expenses spent on unnecessary procedures.

These digital ecosystems can also connect hospitals and insurance systems to enhance efficiency across the board. For example, it can help to streamline health insurance claims processes, thereby reducing claims turnaround time and fraud and leading to better outcomes for patients, payors, and providers.

They also ensure the safe and integrated handling of medical information, allowing healthcare professionals to leverage the power of analytics and create personalised treatment plans that better address the needs of patients.

AI can thus enhance the overall patient experience so that patients are kept informed and empowered at every step of their healthcare journey. However, it is important to remember that technology does not substitute in-person medical care and attention but instead complements it.

With technology as an enabler, patients can anticipate simpler and more convenient healthcare processes and services which helps in building trust and accountability and is critical in protecting the relationship between healthcare practitioners and patients while making healthcare accessible and affordable for all.

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If we are talking about edutech startups in Indonesia, most of the time, the names that come to mind would be those that target K-12 education, such as Ruangguru and Zenius. But there are also companies that are targeting higher educational institutions with Neliti being one of them.

Neliti is a free-to-use website builder and content management system (CMS) that creates aesthetically pleasant web interfaces for academic content providers.

In an email interview with e27, Neliti CEO Anton Lucanus writes that the company is aiming for three different types of academic content providers: institutional repositories, academic journals, and academic conferences.

“Our users are librarians and academic journal publishers. They simply sign up to our website for free and are then provided access to a publishing management system,” he explains.

” … They can perform important steps in the creation and management of their repositories and journals, such as creating a website with their own custom domain name, managing and editing research articles, indexing their articles in databases like Google Scholar, analysing the usage of their research (views, downloads, citations, etc.), as well as a lot of other important technical capabilities that repositories and journals need,” he continues.

Also Read: In this age of digitalisation, is edutech a bane or boon for educators?

Why is this solution better than the existing ones?

Lucanus begins his answer by explaining the two main types of existing solutions: free open-source solutions (such as OJS for journals or ePrints for repositories) or paid solutions (such as Silverchair for journals or Pure for repositories). But these free solutions are not user-friendly, requiring them to learn how to host and build their own websites.

“But because the users are librarians or academics, not trained web developers, the resulting websites are often ugly and riddled with bugs. Paid solutions are unaffordable to most institutions and reserved only for wealthy institutions in developed countries,” he says.

“We aim to make a free solution that is infinitely easier to use than existing free solutions yet produces infinitely more beautiful and functional repositories than even the most expensive paid software. We want even small universities in the middle of a developing country to produce more beautiful and functional websites than wealthy publishers who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their websites – how disruptive would that be? This has been a huge focus of our UI/UX team.”

Neliti also aims to completely handle the entire tech stack for its users, such as hosting, indexing content, and more. According to Lucanus, no other free software has achieved this.

“We want our users to be free from any technical burden and focus on what they’re good at [which is] publishing impactful research.”

Also Read: Edutech in a post-pandemic world: Where do we go from here?

Academic orientation

The story of Neliti began in March 2015 when Lucanus was interning at the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta, a leading research institution in Indonesia. Founded in 1888, the government-funded institution conducts basic medical molecular biology and biotechnology research. Its founder Prof. Dr Christiaan Eijkman received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in 1929.

During his internship, Lucanus found that the institute had “an enormity of impactful data that was previously unavailable publicly.” This includes data on Japanese Encephalitis rates in Central Java and the genetic sequencing results for Indonesia’s first-ever case of Zika.

“I built the first version of Neliti as a way to deposit this data publicly, should it ever be needed by local or international health authorities. Beginning as a small repository for my laboratory only, Neliti expanded rapidly (and entirely organically) to include over 1,000 other institutions and receive millions of monthly users,” Lucanus explains.

“We are trying to solve access to scientific knowledge. A lot of important scientific knowledge is hidden behind paywalls or sometimes not available online at all! We believe that research is key to solving the world’s biggest challenges and that scientific knowledge is so vital that it deserves to be free. By providing free tools that help with publishing and accessing knowledge, our mission is to improve accessibility to scientific knowledge and move one step closer to an open-access world.”

In developing the platform, Neliti started by conducting ideation on what solutions our users need.

“We then review about 100 websites/platforms with such solutions – both in the academic industry and outside – to see trends and use cases. Our UI/UX team then creates a design and UX that aims to improve on all previous solutions. We then ship it to our CTO and development team, who begin work on JIRA and handle the entire development side,” Lucanus says.

Also Read: How edutech is solving the global teacher’s crisis

As a platform, compared to many other startups operating in Indonesia, Neliti has a very specific target audience. Interestingly, the company has not made any particular acquisition moves to secure its customers.

“All customers have come to us organically (e.g. via word-of-mouth) – that is, 1,000 institutions and 3,000 journals. And the demand is only growing, so our existing resources are spent catering to this demand rather than trying to increase it. It’s a good problem to have!” Lucanus says.

The year of expansion

From its base in Jakarta, Neliti is currently run by a team of seven that includes Lucanus himself. The company is largely bootstrapped but has received equity-free grants from both the Indonesian and Australian governments.

“We may aim to raise capital in the future when we are ready to take things to another level,” Lucanus says.

One might wonder how a platform with a strong academic orientation such as Neliti monetises. According to Lucanus, it monetises through various advertising opportunities –from banners to sponsored content- and through the provision of essential tools in the publishing workflow.

Also Read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

“For example, we offer a digital object identifier (DOI) registration feature, where users have to pay for every article that they register. DOIs are a unique code that almost all modern academic articles have; it is really important and stores all the metadata for that article,” Lucanus explains.

“They are particularly important in the academic citation because they are more permanent than URLs, ensuring that readers can reliably locate the article’s source as journal articles can often be found on multiple different websites and databases. Think of it like every book’s’ ISBN’ on its barcode. Unfortunately, registering DOIs is a cumbersome process fraught with technical difficulties that laymen just cannot understand! We handle that entire DOI registration process and charge our users for it.”

The company is also looking forward to implementing more business models, such as premium features and plagiarism checking.

Now that they have secured their place in the Indonesian market, Neliti is looking forward to expanding its business to other markets.

“We are currently really popular in Indonesia and have worked with almost every major Indonesian institution. In 2023, we want to focus on expanding geographically to other developing countries. We’ve already received some users from other developing countries, including Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and dozens of others. We’re a bit spoilt for choice on which countries to focus on, and the early part of 2023 will be focused on an expansion strategy,” Lucanus closes.

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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.

Image Credit: Neliti

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Cryptocurrency has become a phenomenon in the global financial market in the past few years as Bitcoin reached a market capitalisation value of US$380 billion. Moreover, cryptocurrencies have had more real-life applications and have become increasingly accepted by global governments and organisations as payments for various purposes such as investment, operations, and transactions.

Venture capital organisations have also invested over US$25 billion in the market with over 12,000 big projects, leading to the formation of dozens of Web3 unicorns. Consequently, there is no surprise that crypto will be here to stay, creating exciting disruptions in the financial market and transforming other aspects of society. 

Challenges with cryptocurrency transactions

Despite the hype towards the security of blockchain technologies that power cryptocurrency development, transactions still pose some vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit unless users take precautionary actions. While blockchain technology produces a tamper-proof ledger of transactions, blockchain networks are not immune to cyberattacks and fraud.

As the values of such cryptocurrencies have increased exponentially, attacks against such transactions have also proliferated. As pointed out by Financial Express, crypto theft reached an all-time high record in 2021 with brazen attempts to breach the crypto-exchange security systems, and hackers stole approximately US$12 billion worth of cryptocurrency. Moreover, many crypto-mining malware attacks have been aimed at Internet users, hijacking the users’ devices and associated resources for cryptocurrency mining.

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Hence, various startups have stepped up to share their challenges when conducting crypto trading. “In my early days of dabbling in cryptocurrencies, I performed most transactions via centralised exchanges. Trading or transacting through centralised exchanges is very convenient. Still, user accounts are often protected by usernames and passwords,” shared by Eric Wong, the Chief Operating Officer of Jupyton, a Singapore-based trust and provenance engine technology startup that specialises in providing security services such as identity authentication, secure digital signing, information security and consent-based data sharing.

He added, “The users do not hold the cryptocurrencies, which are instead in the custody of the centralised exchanges. With more cases of centralised exchanges being hacked or going bankrupt, users also lose their cryptocurrencies along with these centralised exchanges. The message of “not your private keys, not your crypto assets” becomes increasingly important to me as an end-user.”

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Additionally, human errors still occur when it comes to conducting crypto transactions, posing further challenges to transaction security, and becoming a weakness often exploited by hackers. “Hugware protects you from seed phrase errors, which is currently the biggest vulnerability in private key management. With Hugware®, there is no need to write down or keep seed phrases, minimising human errors in the process,” explained Ben Chan, co-founder and director of UKISS Technology.

Hence, cryptocurrency owners should protect themselves from fraudulent risks by taking preventive measures such as sticking to safe and reputable exchanges, using blockchain analytics software and backup, reliable crypto wallet services, etc. Consequently, to enhance protection efficiency while minimising human efforts, an all-in-one product that generates and stores private keys inside the hardware, enabling backups through device pairing will help to set crypto owners’ minds at ease and optimise the values of cryptocurrency applications in the business. 

How UKISS Hugware® helps businesses to enhance the security of cryptocurrency application

Established in Singapore with a team of experienced experts in the field of blockchain, data security and fintech, UKISS Technology is proud to introduce UKISS Hugware®, the innovative crypto hardware wallet that promises to facilitate the mass adoption of Web3 by making it safe and straightforward for the average user to secure their private keys. The product also addresses a significant pain point for cryptocurrency owners: losing their seed phrase error or copying them wrongly. Since the seed phrase is basically the recovery wallet password, losing it can equate to losing their entire crypto fortune in case malicious phishing attacks compromise the account. 

“All hardware wallets currently in the market require end users to copy down a 12-, 18-, or 24-word seed phrase as a backup of their hardware wallet’s private key in case they lose it. This process creates an additional burden to end users because they have to ensure that they copy the seed phrase accurately and protect the seed phrase from being accessed. With a hardware backup through device pairing, there is no chance of human error in copying the wrong seed phrase. It’s also harder to gain access to assets protected by such hardware than assets tied to seed phrases copied to a piece of paper”, expressed Eric Wong regarding the challenges with seed phrases.

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Hugware’s phrase-free feature is made possible through its master seed synchronisation technology, complemented by its patented recovery mechanism with a pair of keys, including the Authentication Key (A-Key) and the Rescue Key (R-Key). “The A-Key generates and stores the master seed or master key and backs it up through synchronisation in the R-Key. The R-Key comes in handy when resetting passwords or restoring the wallet, eliminating the need to input or keep a seed phrase. This feature also makes UKISS Hugware® unique and superior to other products of the rivals”, claimed Co-founder & Director Ben Chan about UKISS Hugware®’s superiority. 

“UKISS Technology is developing a host of software applications and services around Hugware. Together with our partners and solution providers, we want to create tools and utilities to enhance the Web3 experience and make mass adoption feasible. These developments will form the UKISS Decentralised Security Ecosystem, powered by the KISS token,” shared by Ben Chan about UKISS Technology’s upcoming plan.

For more information, please visit UKISS Technology’s website.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by UKISS Technology

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