Startup investments in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region in 2022 are not expected to exceed the record-high US$193.7 billion pulled in last year, according to a July report by KPMG and HSBC. Certain sectors are facing more bearish sentiments, such as the previously hot-ticket crypto sector, which has slowed its roll following the crypto crisis and global headwinds in May this year.

Against the backdrop of weaker sentiments and a capital downturn in 2022-2023, investors are understandably pivoting to focus more on profitable and sustainable growth. Here are three considerations for startups to better navigate uncertain times to achieve quality growth.

Understand your market fit

It sounds simple, but a key part of deciding where your startup best lands on the profitability-growth continuum are truly understanding your competition and your target audiences. Convosight is a community creator monetisation platform that was formed in the heat of the pandemic in early 2020 in Delhi. The timing was opportune as lockdowns made online communities a ripe target for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands. Two years later, over 500 million members from over 50,000 communities in 75 countries use Convosight.

Co-Founder and CEO Tamanna Dhamija said, “Being first movers, much of our time early on was spent educating the market. On the demand side, we told brands the importance of online communities and how consumers are shifting to online spaces like Facebook or Reddit. Supply-side: we upskilled and trained community creators to sustain their communities and run campaigns, which adds value to brands.”

In comparison, Funding Societies/Modalku, which began as an alternative lender in 2015, was in the middle of the P2P wave that swept Asia between 2013 and 2018. Today, the Singaporean startup is Southeast Asia’s largest SME digital financing platform, a product of zigging while competitors zagged and understood subtle differences in the SME financing landscape between markets in Southeast Asia, China, and the US.

Funding Societies/Modalku’s Co-Founder and Group CEO Kelvin Teo said, “We intentionally made certain choices that differed from our peers. First, we prioritised compliance and regulations, while other foreign players indexed on growth. Second, we decided to become a one-stop shop for financing, went regional and invested in technology and data ahead of other players. These minute choices to deviate from the norm have enabled us to become a market leader over time.”

Meanwhile, Singapore-based digital verification startup Accredify is dodging the funding slowdown affecting other blockchain startups by understanding and serving its target audiences. CEO and Co-Founder Quah Zheng Wei said, “2020 and 2021 were excellent years for Web3 startups. However, the current process of obtaining Web3 funding is longer. Instead of talking about blockchain, we explain the unique benefits of what our technology, TrustTech, can do for clients in document and identity lifecycle management and verification. Uniquely, we’ve not been that affected by the drop in the Web3 funding cycle.”

Also Read: Avoiding costly mistakes: How cognitive biases can affect entrepreneurs

Today, Accredify counts on the public and education sectors as big growth drivers. In Singapore, it assists the Ministry of Health in digitising COVID-19 medical records to allow the ease of authenticating discharge memos, test results, and vaccination records. Due to the slowdown in COVID-19 testing, Accredify is exploring further opportunities in the healthcare industry, such as verifiable medical insurance claims.

Having started out in the education space in Singapore, Accredify made Australia its second market. Accredify’s decentralised mechanism helps educational institutions verify certificates, transcripts, and other qualifications frictionlessly. This mechanism allows Accredify to scale quickly and export its education solution to new markets very easily.

Let your stage inform your metrics

As startups progress from seed to early-stage and then growth and late-stage funding, they must continuously recalibrate between profitability and growth. Funding Societies/Modalku, which raised a US$144M Series C+ round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in February, is passing the growth stage.

For Teo, this means giving almost equal attention to profitability and growth compared to the early days, when the scale was prioritised. The turning point was after 2018 when the revelation of WeWork’s losses saw a pivot towards profitability. “Our sense was that funding sentiments would eventually change, and we wanted to take control of our destiny, especially when there’s a funding gap in Southeast Asia for Series B-C rounds. Therefore, we made a choice of changing gears to profitability,” he recounted.

To better align with profit-focused investors, Funding Societies/Modalku’s profit and loss (P&L) statements have breakdowns between existing and new businesses. Teo explained, “For existing businesses, we prefer to break down to product unit economics. Though not strictly accurate, the numbers you get here are vital in giving you direction and guidance. For instance, our financing business is approaching profitability, while more experimental business units are consuming resources. Splitting them allows us to set expectations for when each unit can become profitable.”

Accredify, meanwhile, is still very much an early-stage startup, having wrapped up a US$2M round led by Qualgro in September 2021. Though the scale is the focus now, Quah believes Accredify’s high unit economics acts as a lever they can use to turn profitable.

“Around 50-55 per cent of our spending is on R&D, so we are building products for the future, either for our existing clients or products that can help us get new clients. At any point, we can flip that switch and be profitable. It does not make sense now at our current stage, but that option is always in the back pocket, giving us a strong bargaining position with clients, partners, and investors,” he said.

Also Read: Why we cannot talk of diversity without inclusion

Meanwhile, Convosight has been profitable since its founding, so the focus now is on growth and cash flows. Key metrics include burn ratio and cash flows. “We are getting into channel partnerships and hiring, which means there might be a small margin dent. Before taking this step, we stress-tested all our numbers while focusing on cash collection and ensuring that we had two years’ worth of Cash in the Bank. We want to figure out ways to shorten the cash collection cycle because eventually, it is profitability in terms of cash flows,” Dhamija said.

Always see the bigger picture

Whether it’s facing a once-in-a-century pandemic or a weakened capital environment with hesitant investors, both Dhamija and Teo took stock of different perspectives to make critical business decisions.

For Convosight, keeping a pulse on community sentiment throughout COVID-19’s various waves in India was essential. While the first wave saw large hygiene brands marketing within online communities resulting in massive demand for Convosight, the second wave was a different story.

Dhamija recounted, “It was the worst time ever, and very different from the first wave. We were amid due diligence in April 2021 and decided to halt all community marketing campaigns, even if brands wanted to run them. We told our incoming investors that we would have zero revenue as it was not right to run ads in this climate. We had to take care of our consumers and team. We were worried about scaring off new investors, but the deal went through smoothly,” she said. Convosight closed it’s US$9M Series A led by Qualgro in June 2021.

Over in Singapore, when the first wave of COVID-19 hit in 2020, Funding Societies/Modalku spoke to every economist, investor, and analyst it could get hold of to pre-empt the market.

Teo recounted, “Considering the expected growth of the market and our cost structure at the time, we realised that every company would have to rightsize. We made the painful decision to rightsize ahead of others, to protect team members so they can find (new) employers earlier. It was very painful, immediate growth slowed down, and investors panicked. In the medium term, the team became more united and resilient. They saw that we were making the right decisions.”

The results bore these out: In 2020, Funding Societies/Modalku reduced its operational costs and cash burn by 50 per cent while keeping its default rate below two per cent.

Final thoughts

If founders are still unsure about their own profitability/growth trade-off dilemma, Teo advises erring on the side of caution: prioritising profitability and lower valuations.

“The risk is asymmetric. If you’re too profitable, you can still live to fight another day. If you left money on the valuation table, you can come back and claim it in the next round when you have better financial results. Conversely, if your valuation is too high, your down round risk will be massive. If you run out of money, you are dead in the water.”

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post The profitability trade-off: How startups navigate uncertain times to achieve quality growth appeared first on e27.

Cosmart, an Indonesia-based membership-driven e-commerce platform for essential goods, has secured US$5 million in oversubscribed seed funding from Lightspeed, East Ventures, and Vertex Ventures SEA & India.

Angel investors Henry Hendrawan and Albert Lucius also joined.

The firm will use the money to step up hiring and invest in breakthrough technology. “We will deploy the funds to strengthen our technology and data infrastructure further, build a world-class team, and strong partnerships with principals and key players in the supply chain ecosystem,” said Cosmart Founder and CEO Alvin Kumarga.

Also Read: How e-commerce businesses can unlock growth using alternative funding

Founded in 2022 by Kumarga and Robert Tan, Cosmart is a one-stop solution for users to purchase their monthly recurring needs. Users pay a small amount to become a Cosmart member, after which they get access to high-quality products at competitive prices, among other membership benefits.

The startup leverages technology to make it easier for users to discover, explore and select new brands and products.

Since its inception, Cosmart claims to have delivered over 100,000 products and grown its volumes by 6x in the past three months.

The company has already partnered with over 80+ principals and 500+ brands and has thousands of SKUs in stock across ten core categories.

Pachara (Pinn) Lawjindakul, Partner at Lightspeed, said, “Today’s consumer is always looking out for the best deals and lowest prices on their monthly household recurring needs. Cosmart works endlessly to provide its members access to unmatched savings, an increased repertoire of brand and product selection and most importantly, an enhanced customer service experience. We foresee strong loyalty for the brand and offering they’re bringing to the market.”

—

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. 

The post Membership-driven e-commerce platform for essential goods Cosmart raises US$5M appeared first on e27.

In 1935, Stan Avery introduced the world’s first pressure-sensitive sticker. Off the back of a US$100 loan from his then-fiancé, Dorothy Durfee—an early VC investor, you might say—he created and patented the world’s first self-adhesive die-cut labelling machine, and The Avery Dennison Corporation was born. 

Fast forward 87 years and we are now looking at how to replicate Dorothy’s commitment to innovation through initiatives like AD Stretch, an accelerator programme that aims to pilot new technologies with a focus on value chain efficiency, sustainability, and materials innovation.

With more than 80 years of experience under its belt, and borne through the spirit of innovation, ambition, and sheer determination, Avery Dennison is partnering with like-minded startups to address some of the biggest challenges in packaging innovation.

In fact, the team has just recently announced its first cohort of the programme that will be working with them on pilots in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Specific challenges need targeted solutions

The challenges that the industry faces are specific, and we need targeted solutions to respond to the granularity of the problems. 

In setting out such challenges across three themes, Avery Dennison is aligning with partners who bring the right mix of ambition, expertise, and technology to help address them head-on.

Theme 1: Maximising consumer experiences

With packaging being such an integral part of the consumer experience, it has the opportunity to be both functional (delivering information and sustainable value to buyers) as well as inspirational (providing unique experiences that increase the value of products).

Also read: Women in Tech: Female leaders shaking up insurtech in Asia

Receiving packages should, in theory, be a positive experience for consumers; a moment of joy that connects them to brands through new experiences. Avery Dennison will be partnering with startups that can respond to this challenge by creating these sought-after experiences through both physical and digital capabilities. 

The second challenge within this theme draws on the old adage less is more. Consumers and brands alike are increasingly committed to reducing waste so the team is looking to improve demand planning optimisation, enabling them to design and produce short or limited runs of products for smaller brands with increased localisation and personalisation.

Theme 2: Creating sustainable, responsible, and efficient value chains

Responding to the need to develop innovations that advance the circular economy and reduce the environmental impact in their operations and supply chain, Avery Dennison is looking to partner with startups that are developing solutions around recycling, upcycling, and biodegradable packaging and labelling. Of course, this is with a focus on new materials that are cost-effective and will enhance the overall sustainability of packaging and labels. 

Avery Dennison is also looking for startups that can help them leverage digital and physical technologies to reduce the environmental impact of perishables. In short, the team seeks to improve food waste sustainability through labelling and packaging.

Theme 3: Materials and packaging 2.0

Theme three looks to the future. As a leader in materials science, Avery Dennison is continuously investing in new materials’ innovation, always seeking ways to reduce packaging, and increase its value and usefulness via both digital and physical means. As such, Avery Dennison will be partnering with startups that can develop functional and digital labelling and packaging solutions that enhance trust, transparency, and connectivity throughout the journey — from production to end-user delivery. 

Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum

In essence, AD Stretch offers the opportunity for innovation in its earliest form to receive the financial support, infrastructure, expertise, and insight to bring new products to market that will change the way we interact with packaging. It’s an opportunity that will place ambitious entrepreneurial minds at the cutting edge of the industry.

While Avery Dennison was founded by Stan Avery and his singular invention of the self-adhesive label, today’s reality is that innovation relies on collaboration. It will rely on the coming together of multiple minds, disciplines, and approaches, united by shared goals.

Also read: Meet the 6 companies you can connect with at Echelon 2022

The fact of the matter is that in a world facing common challenges, we can’t rely on localised solutions. The next frontiers for innovation are collective: being sustainable—to ensure that we leave behind a planet worth inheriting for the next generation; bringing transparency to supply chains—helping consumers make informed decisions, and enabling a better customer experience—personalised but not invasive. 

The years (decades, in Avery Dennison’s case) of learning, expertise in the established supply chains, customer bases, and reputation means AD Stretch can expedite the ideas of smaller companies far quicker than if they were doing it alone. It’s a journey that Avery Dennison is incredibly excited to embark on together.

To know more about the Avery Dennison’s accelerator programme, visit ADStretch.com

– –

This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Avery Dennison

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.

The post How an 87-year-old enterprise aims to change the packaging game appeared first on e27.

The startup ecosystem has been relatively resilient amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. Sure, the pandemic’s economic impact is no joke, but it also opened doors for entrepreneurs to innovate and accommodate the market shift towards digitalisation. Likewise, startups became Singapore’s lifeline as the world reeled from the global health crisis, with budding tech companies forging ahead and carving their paths towards the new normal.

Also read: Meet the 6 companies you can connect with at Echelon 2022

Think of the post-pandemic as the new era of “cloud kitchens,” telemedicine, agritechs, online shopping, fintechs, SaaS, e-sports, and regtechs, among others. As such, it is wise for governments to encourage emerging enterprises by infusing money into the startup ecosystem for early-stage and late-stage startups to thrive in a volatile market. 

The years ahead will still be all about survival

However, many challenges are still to be weathered. Survival remains the theme in the new normal as investors expect a slowdown in investments due to the pandemic’s lasting effects. Startups, in particular, will be the ones feeling its brunt. 

Another roadblock could be lower valuations as larger companies divest their assets through mergers and acquisitions. Startups may also want to pay attention to debt restructuring, expenditures, marketing, and fundraising to get to the other side.

Also read: 2022 invite-only edition: Echelon is focussing on business matching and sustainable growth

Despite the challenges, though, startups’ decision-making holds a crucial role in strengthening the economy. It’s all a matter of understanding the landscape that erupted from the pandemic by answering key questions: What are the most significant fundraising trends? What lessons can we learn from the collapse of companies? What are the fundamental shifts in customer behaviour today? Is investment really slowing down? What are the available opportunities for startups?

Hear it straight from the experts

Find the answers with Mohan Belani, Co-Founder of e27, as he moderates a panel discussion on the state of the SEA tech startup ecosystem today at the Echelon Asia Summit 2022. He will be joined by leading industry experts, Yinglan Tan (Insignia Ventures), Carmen Yuen (Vertex Ventures), Sonny Sudaryana (KOMINFO), and Aaron Tan (Carro). 

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!

The post Echelon 2022 to discuss the state of the SEA startup ecosystem appeared first on e27.

A week ago, NYSE-listed cybersecurity company SentinelOne launched S Ventures Fund worth US$100 million to invest in the next generation of security and data companies startups.

The fund, which seeks to invest across all stages, will focus on security and data companies that bring innovative use cases to the Singularity Marketplace. It is SentinelOne’s open application ecosystem that allows security teams to extend Singularity extended detection and response (XDR) use cases. 

The firm has already invested in Armorblox and Noetic Cyber.

SentinelOne CMO Daniel Bernard was in Singapore recently and spoke to e27 about S Ventures and investment opportunities in the Asia Pacific market.

Edited excerpts:

Can you give us a brief about SentinelOne?

SentinelOne is a cybersecurity firm specialising in XDR, meaning our tech protects endpoints, cloud and identity. We pioneered behavioural AI. It lets us monitor every single process happening on an attack surface. Understand using AI when something is malicious, take action to stop it, and remediate and reverse it — all without human intervention. That’s something we call autonomous cybersecurity.

Sentinel has more than 9,000 customers around the world. We went public last June on the New York Stock Exchange and have about 2,000 employees. Just over 30 per cent of our revenue comes from international markets.

We have teams in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, India, and South Korea. We have hundreds of customers in the region. We are in every vertical, from airlines, banks, healthcare providers, manufacturers, transportation companies, shipping companies and logistics to pharmaceutical.

What was the motivation behind setting up S Ventures? What are the fund’s objectives?

We created S Ventures because we want to do our part to invest in innovators, disruptors and promising founders. Part of XDR is that it integrates our cybersecurity platform into various other products and use cases.

Also Read: Why firms need a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity

We view this in two ways. 1) From an investment perspective, we can have an opportunity to invest in the next generation of exciting and innovative companies. 2) we have an exciting opportunity to help our customers and propel our growth through integrating with these companies and leveraging them to help Singularity XDR evolve and do more for our customers.

How do you differentiate from other crybersecurity funds in the market?

From a funding perspective, what makes us unique is we have the industry’s most cutting-edge XDR platform. We have over 9,000 customers, and there are a lot of companies out there looking to plug into a partner that can help them get clear that can help cybersecurity be a part of their go-to-market, and they’re offering set.

What is the structure of S Ventures? Do you have any external LPs in the fund?

It is a fund owned and operated by SentinelOne. It doesn’t have any other partners.

We invest in companies all around the world. So we’ll look at companies opportunistically in Southeast Asia as well. We’ve already invested in companies in the US and nothing in Southeast Asia yet. So far. We have four investments that we’ve announced – one each in the US and Israel.

What is S Ventures’s investment philosophy?

We are looking at cybersecurity innovation and data innovation area because our philosophy is that data is really at the centre of cybersecurity. It means we train our AI models and empower our technology with data. Attackers are looking to exfiltrate data. So we’re looking for not only cybersecurity companies that disrupt, innovate and change things but are also looking at interesting innovators in the data space and how data is understood, how we leverage data to make decisions, etc. 

What is the average cheque size? How many companies do you plan to invest in from this point?

So far, the cheque sizes have been sub-US$5 million. We have the flexibility to do what we want to do with this fund. We’re not looking to lead rounds. We are looking to either invest alongside other investors or make strategic investments opportunistically.

Also Read: Best cybersecurity practices for startups to stay ahead of the curve

The number of deals depends on how big the cheques we write and the companies we see. We can support many companies with a US$100 million fund and a cheque size of US$5 million. We can help them grow and use our expertise.

Do you see any exciting opportunities for S Ventures in Southeast Asia?

We are looking at the market, and there’s a lot of innovation going on here. And we will want to see more cybersecurity companies coming from Southeast Asia. We don’t care about markets; if an innovator is doing something interesting here in Southeast Asia, we will invest in it. It is the same for other markets, be it the US or France. So it is all about the technology, the team, and the opportunity.

What are some trends you read in the region’s cybersecurity industry?

We see a trend for desired automation. The tools in the market today have been there for decades. They produce too many alerts and ultimately create too much human work for cybersecurity teams. So automation is one trend.

The second trend is consolidation and simplification. In general, our customers are looking for companies to help them replace multiple technologies with one solution that can do more and make it easier for them to operate.

The third is cloud security. Most of the last decades have focused on securing devices and attack surfaces that are more on-premise.

With the explosion over the last decade or so of cloud services — be it SaaS apps, storage in the cloud or cloud marketplaces — we see the customer looking for new ways or purpose-built cloud security.

From a cybersecurity perspective, the Asian market still uses legacy tools. So there will be a huge revolution here as the region’s largest companies, and even SMEs modernise, revolutionise, and come up to the global standard. That’s why leading legacy anti-virus and legacy database on-prem technologies are going for cloud-based technologies like SentinelOne with Singularity XDR.

—

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. 

The post ‘From a cybersecurity perspective, the Asian market still uses legacy tools’ appeared first on e27.

Founded in July 2013 in Beijing by a metaverse engineer Dr Guo Cheng, STEPVR has emerged as a leading company in VR technology R&D and product marketisation.

STEPVR is the only VR company in the world that has cracked the secret to rebuilding the human five senses in the metaverse through the utilisation of core technologies such as laser positioning technology, full-body motion capture, haptic feedback and omnidirectional treadmill. 

Indeed, STEPVR hardware equipment is optimised for a holistic sensorial engagement instead of solely focusing on visuals and auditory senses like their competitors Meta and Pico. Dr Cheng has likened Oculus’ device to a toy compared to STEPVR’s gadgets. “Compared to STEPVR products, I can’t take Oculus seriously, I can’t help but see it as a toy with toy-like quality.” 

The company’s three business segments include large space multi-player and multi-prop free-roam VR arenas Future Battle, virtual-influencer projector called iMetastar cameras, and the world’s first portal to the metaverse, a VR treadmill called Gates01. 

From its business perspective, STEPVR is the only VR company in the world that has proven its market-product fit and become cash flow positive within two years of its consumer product launch. Within seven months in the past year, STEPVR has opened 140+ stores in China alone, onboarded up to 90 virtual influencers monthly and reached over one million repeat customers. Last month, Beijing governor Cai Qi visited Beijing’s office and officially announced STEPVR as a leading metaverse company in China. 

Now freshly relocating its headquarters to Singapore, STEPVR plans its global expansion from the city-state. Dr Cheng said that as a global technology hub in Asia, Singapore is a perfect home base to recruit talent for R&D and map out its global strategy. Talks to expand to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, The Philippines, and the Middle East are underway. America and Europe will be next in line. 

First-hand experience

I visited their pop-up store at the recently defunct New World Carnival at 313, Somerset, to give the products a try. 

Also Read: A Founder’s journey from sewing machines to blockchain gaming

Being a VR enthusiast myself, I have tried a few different products in the past. I had spent a few hours at the New World Carnival, trying out their zombie and shooting games. I had visited a few house parties where the host made us play VR games on Oculus before.

Suffice it to say that while I enjoyed those activities, it was unlikely that I would get hooked on any of the VR games. First off, neither of them was very immersive or realistic. The only reason I tried them was because of the “VR” buzzword and knowing that I was trying out cutting-edge technology.

I would only go to New World Carnival once in a blue moon as something fun to do with friends when running out of other options. Personally, I would not get any Oculus headset myself because I couldn’t imagine using it frequently enough to justify the purchase, as well as lacking big enough space at my house to fully enjoy the experience. 

As such, STEPVR’s free-roam bodysuit and headset device truly took my breath away. It was impressively immersive! I thought I was stepping into an amusement park-level entertainment ride, the likes of simulators and so on. The headset was very lightweight, and it fits snugly to cover my eyes, my nose and my ears. The team told me that the full-body VR suit helps distribute the computing load concentrated on the headset, hence making it lighter and better fitting than the likes of Oculus, and without any motion sickness side effects. 

I had never tried anything like that before, so I was blown away by the quality of the Dinosaur game I was playing. I walked around freely in a 250m2  arena inside the New World Carnival, navigating labyrinths, jungles, monsters and enemies in my field of vision.

There were a few contraptions and scaffoldings with robotic switches and handles that functioned as checkpoints in the game. Upon touch, these robots gave haptic feedback to my haptic gloves and hence my hands and my body were able to feel the sensation as intended in the game. In the metaverse, I was riding lorries, riding elevators up and down, and other forms of vehicles with utmost conviction. 

Next, I tried the Megastar camera. It also came in the form of a headset and a full-body suit. We need to download their proprietary software to use this camera on our laptop screen or our smartphone device. What is cool with this camera is that it can project our bodies into virtual characters in the metaverse.

The software was able to map the whole of my face and my expression so that my virtual character managed to convey a full range of human emotions. Meanwhile, the body suit gave me an unlimited range of motions. I was able to do yoga, cartwheel, somersault, and all sorts of athletic feats in the metaverse, and my virtual characters followed perfectly on the dot! 

STEPVR team told me that they had many influencer partners who accumulated up to eight million followers and earned up to US$200k monthly live streaming as virtual celebrities. Apparently, virtual influencers have become somewhat of a trending phenomenon in China. 

The only downside to the software that they were using was that there was a limit to the types and variety of characters to choose from. And also missing was the user’s ability to construct their own avatar persona from scratch. The team told me that the Megastar camera is compatible with many other XR software and hence a lot of influencers work separately with professional designers to construct more intricate avatars for themselves. 

Also Read: Can free-to-play models ignite new player interest for Web3 gaming?

Last but not least, I stepped onto their hallmark invention, Gates 01, a 3m2 vertical cage reminiscent of the metaverse portal in Spielberg’s seminal movie Ready Player One. Dr Cheng told me via correspondence that he did draw his aesthetic inspiration for the portal from this Hollywood movie.

“We incorporated an omnidirectional treadmill in this gate. Thus we solve the problem of positioning and spatial awareness within a confined physical space. With the 360-degree rotating treadmill, players can cover large distances in the metaverse. This is the only VR device so far that enables limitless walking and running in the metaverse.” 

I needed to wear a pair of special shoes, a headset, and a body suit as well before stepping into the gate. The shoes felt a little bit heavy and awkward, akin to wearing bowling shoes. The treadmill itself felt quite heavy. I have never been a treadmill fan at the gym, so I needed quite some time to get used to Gates01, but I would say that the sensory and muscular engagement needed were exactly the same as that of any treadmill equipment at modern fitness centres.

Once I was able to achieve my balance, Gates01 was hands down way more fun and imaginative, as I was able to participate in all sorts of immersive individual and p2p games while walking and running in all directions.  I could see this being ubiquitous in gyms and people’s houses as a wellness and entertainment machine.

The game quality for Gates 01 was not as immersive and realistic as what I played at their free-roam VR arena, and the team told me this was because I was playing games developed by external parties that are compatible with Gates 01. The games being played for Future Battle have been developed in-house with better quality control. 

In conclusion, I was all over impressed by the level of VR technology developed by STEPVR. After trying out their products, I realised that a synchronous, persistent, and ubiquitous metaverse is not so far away anymore from becoming our everyday reality. 

The company has massive ambitions for the future, aiming to penetrate and transform all industries outside gaming, such as retail, fitness, healthcare, museums, entertainment, education, community and many more. They are just getting started.

–

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 What makes STEPVR a strong contender in the global race to the metaverse appeared first on e27.

The adoption of AI across organisations in Southeast Asia is a story of  ‘in fits and spurts’, but its impact cannot be denied. By 2032, 70 per cent of the new value created within the regional economy will be driven by digital, with AI being a critical component of this transformation.

Despite the growth in adoption,  over 60 per cent of businesses have yet to invest in an enterprise-wide strategy to coordinate their AI investments. There are also existing challenges, such as the widening skills and adoption gap that continue to be prevalent as businesses lack the expertise and knowledge required to embed AI strategies into their current process and applications. 

Why is this so? For one, AI requires an extensive data and model lifecycle. This, coupled with ongoing digitalisation, might cause businesses to believe that adopting a broad approach to their AI strategy would be the way to go. However, it is quite the contrary. Leaders must ensure that they embed a tailored AI strategy that best aligns with their overall business approach and growth aspirations. 

Also Read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

With the multitude of considerations involved with AI adoption, what has once been deemed a task just for experts is now an essential concept to be grasped by all.

Why AI

Southeast Asia is an ideal breeding ground for digital potential, with a population of over 682 million. By harnessing AI, we have the chance to unlock a multitude of opportunities across industries. But it is critical to understand the importance and value of incorporating AI solutions effectively within a business framework. 

When embedded into an organisation’s operating model, AI becomes a powerful tool that can optimise processes at every level. Companies that succeed in their AI journey are ones that leverage AI at an organisational level rather than through ad hoc use cases; these companies empower their employees to make better decisions with AI.

With the careful alignment of people, processes and technology, AI can help to unblock bottlenecks in a company’s workflow. By democratising data, financial companies can improve cash management processes, reduce food waste in the supply chain, or detect anomalies and provide service failure predictions, just to name a few.

For example, through the adoption of AI systems and strategies, the financial planning and analysis division at Standard Chartered Bank was able to take full advantage of the large amounts of diverse data at their disposal, increasing analyst productivity by a factor of 30 by replacing spreadsheet-based processes with governed self-service analytics.

The formula for success

Incorporating an effective AI strategy could be the key differentiator for businesses to help improve customer insight, employee efficiency and decision-making. Singapore undoubtedly has been the leader in the region’s AI adoption space, sort of creating the blueprint for other regional markets to adapt. This is in part due to the government’s continued push for AI and the availability of both better resources and talent in the country. 

Several multinationals have their regional headquarters in Singapore, allowing them to easily pilot new initiatives. Through programmes such as Tech@SG and Tech Pass, they can scale their models across the region. 

But Singapore’s not the only place we’re seeing AI adoption taking place. There has also been growing interest from traditional conglomerates within the telecommunications, banking, insurance, consumer packaged goods and retail spaces to adopt these systems across Southeast Asia. 

Businesses within these industries are now being led by second and third-generation leaders who are trying to modernise processes to ensure that they can remain competitive against their digital native counterparts. 

Through the introduction of systemised, easily accessible and understandable AI solutions, businesses will be equipped with the capability to improve their data readiness and people capabilities alongside their technology workloads and processes.

Also Read: The Indonesian startup ecosystem today is no longer recognisable –and that is a great thing

Government support is another important pillar to ensure greater access and thus easier adoption of AI across the region. Countries that have seen success with their AI adoption processes have been those with clear and transparent digital blueprints for businesses to model themselves after.

Malaysia, for example, recently announced the launch of its sixth data centre aimed at catering to hyperscalers and high-end enterprises in a bid to accelerate digital transformation efforts across the country. Having clear measures outlining data privacy, security, infrastructure and data sharing across sovereignty enable countries to effectively embrace the new digital age.

A clear blueprint along with investment to fund the development of AI and investment into workforce readiness will help accelerate the AI adoption process across the region.

Onward and upward

When I think about the future of AI, I will liken it to the dawn of the internet. The proliferation of AI has completely changed how we live, work and play. With the advent of cloud connectivity, machine learning and the ever-evolving uses of AI across industries, this is also what we expect to see with AI and perhaps even more in the foreseeable future.

According to Dataiku’s recent InfoBrief commissioned from IDC, we now see the region’s early adopters of AI reaping the benefits of these strategies. They are expected to increase their spending by 34 per cent on average, as they are now entering a new phase, where they scale their operations thanks to their early implementation of AI models.

There is now a clear divide between the laggards and early adopters that will only continue to grow. From reshaping the future of work to the impact, AI will have across sectors such as manufacturing, telehealth and smart living, just to name a few, businesses need to get on board sooner rather than later to ensure they don’t get left behind, allowing the region to truly unlock its fullest potential.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post How to make AI accessible for businesses appeared first on e27.

Interpol issues Red Notice for Terra co-founder Do Kwon
The development follows the collapse of the Terra blockchain, leading to losses amounting to millions; This prompted an arrest warrant issued by a Korean court for six individuals, including Kwon, for violating its capital market laws.

SG’s Golden Equator partners with Snoop Dogg’s son for Web3 fund
Golden Equator is raising up to US$50M for a Web3 fund in partnership with Dogg’s son Cordell Broadus; The Welcome To The Block Fund will target early-stage businesses, specifically, startups focused on CeFi, DeFi, and Web3 infrastructure.

DBS launches crypto trading for accredited investors
With a minimum investment of US$500, users can now trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Bitcoin Cash on DDEx; This feature is linked with DBS digibank, allowing funds of clients to be directly debited for DDEx transactions.

Binance seeks Japanese operating license
The crypto exchange, which withdrew from Japan due to a lack of a permit four years ago, now seeks a license to operate in the country in light of the pro-Web3 agenda of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

What ST Chua is looking forward to during his stint in Ikano Insight
ST Chua gives us a look into what excites him the most about his new role, where he will be leading Ikano Insight’s growth in Southeast Asia.

Foodtech firm Line Man Wongnai joins Thailand’s unicorn club
The Thai food delivery company raised US$265M Series B led by Line Corporation and Singapore’s GIC; The investment will be used to expand its service categories, recruit tech talent, and improve its tech infrastructure.

Temasek leads Chinese cloud startup Well-Link’s US$40M round
Well-Link, which counts Xiaomi and gaming company MiHoYo among its previous investors, sees this round as a doorway to expanding overseas; Well-Link looks into how its cloud rendering tech can be used in virtual reality projects.

Malaysian industrial drone firm Aerodyne raises US$30M
Investors are Petronas and KWAP; Aerodyne will use the capital to expand into Europe, Africa, LatAm, and South Asia and bring its solutions to Indonesia and India.

Philippine HR and payroll firm Sprout Solutions acquires Linnia
Linnia is a process automation platform that helps Sprout users automate repetitive HR tasks and procurement efforts; The acquisition will allow Linnia to shift its focus to building a marketplace for AI-focused APIs.

Cloud kitchen startup CloudEats raises US$7M led by Nordstar
The startup will use the new funds for regional expansion and the development of its brands; On the back of its successful Vietnam launch, the company is looking to open a third market in H1 2023.

Malaysian fintech firm Revenue Monster raises US$6.5M in PE funding
The lead investor is The SEA Capital; The Revenue Monster’s has raised US$6.5M in total funding; Its products include online store front solution À La Carte, payment terminals, and an e-commerce payment gateway.

Malaysia fintech firm Instapay banks US$4.75M
The investors are ACA Investments and Spiral Ventures; Instapay provides payment solutions in the form of an e-wallet and linked prepaid Mastercard; It also has a payroll solution that enables companies to pay employees their salaries via the Instapay e-wallet digitally.

Wavemaker General Partner Gavin Lee said to be quitting
Lee, with 8 years at the VC firm, is the longest serving member; He is currently on a sabbatical leave is re-assessing his next career move; The VC firm is also understood to have selected one or two partners.

Venturra Managing Partner Rudy Ramawy passes away
Before founding Venturra, Ramawy was the founding Country Director of Google Indonesia; He founded Venturra in 2015, along with Lippo Group Director John Riady and former Rocket Internet Managing Partner Stefan Jung.

‘Events like Echelon are important during tough times because there’s strength in unity’
When people get together, we can encourage each other to keep going and provide support, says Genesis Alternative Asia Partner Martin Tang.

A Founder’s journey from sewing machines to blockchain gaming
Blockchain gaming is here to stay; with the help of Playfix, more game developers can prepare for the future.

How to make AI accessible for businesses
With the multitude of considerations involved with AI adoption, what was deemed a task just for experts is now an essential concept for all.

—

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. e27will 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. 

The post Ecosystem Roundup: Line Man Wongnai turns unicorn, Aerodyne nets US$30M, Interpol notice for Terra co-founder appeared first on e27.

The innovation scene in Asia continues to excite, with innovators changing the way we shop, bank, consume healthcare and more.

However, one area that seems to have received less attention is the second-hand trade industry under the circular economy development model. Specifically, the recycling and reuse of phones, computers, and tablets that work but are no longer used and can be brought back into service (rather than being thrown away and wasted).

The buying and selling of pre-owned products are not new. Innovators have changed how we search for and purchase pre-owned property and cars, for instance, and of course, there is a high market penetration rate for both. However, the pre-owned electronics industry has a relatively low penetration rate even though people replace their mobile phones and laptops more frequently.

Opportunities for innovators and investors

As a Chinese company, we have seen first-hand how the market in pre-owned consumer electronics has grown and developed over the past ten years, moving from a small, scattered and disorderly sector in the early years to one that has undergone a process of specialisation, standardisation and development on a large scale.

The scale of China’s pre-owned consumer electronics transaction and service market was 79 billion yuan in 2016 but climbed to 309.5 billion yuan in 2021, and the compound annual growth rate reached 31.4 per cent between 2016 and 2021. It is expected to grow to 987.5 billion yuan by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 26.1 per cent from 2021 to 2026.

Also Read: How barePack and &Repeat aim to reduce waste by introducing the circular approach to food packaging

In Southeast Asia and other parts of the world, this industry is much less developed and immature and therefore ripe for innovation. There is growing pressure among policymakers and the general public to increase recycling rates and a drive among the recycling industry to do this in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.

Automation has allowed the sector to flourish

Like any industry in its early stages, there are a series of pain points that need to be addressed. A major issue in the pre-owned electronics industry is a lack of standardisation regarding the quality inspection.

In China, we had hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, all operating independently of each other, offering second-hand electronics of varying degrees of quality, some good and some not-so-good. This created confusion among consumers and lowered trust.

Furthermore, another reason for lack of trust is privacy concerns. Data security is hugely important in China, and it is required to obey regulations which specify how operators clean up personal information left on unused electronics and protect customers’ privacy and not disclose users’ information to any third party. Technology is also needed to ensure data can be permanently erased, providing assurance and confidence to consumers.

To better protect users’ data security, we use a self-developed data removal system named AiQingChu to clear all information in used mobile phones before other quality inspection processes. AiQingChu is a targeted and exclusive privacy protection algorithm which has ADISA Certification. At present, the system has cleared the privacy of more than 10 million devices.

Next, come the quality inspection processes before the pre-owned product is sorted and stored. In China, we have developed an automatic system named ‘Matrix 2.0’ that can quickly and accurately conduct a quality inspection for targeted products at a low cost.

Aiming at the non-standardised characteristics of pro-owned electronic products, we have independently developed ‘Camera Box 3.0’, an intelligent appearance testing device incorporated with an AI algorithm; ‘007 Automatic Intelligent Detection Platform’, which can automatically check whether the function of a used phone’s receiver, screen and camera are normal; and the ‘Tianyan X-ray’, designed for identifying whether a phone undergoes disassembly and repair or replacement of its parts without disassembly.

This automatic system allows us to process millions of pre-owned electronics (31.2 million devices in 2021), quickly and efficiently transporting, sorting and inspecting electronic devices. They are then priced by a proprietary algorithm based on their service time, physical condition, depreciation, market conditions and other factors.

To date, the market of pre-owned electronics in Southeast Asia, Europe and the USA is underestimated. Many factors lead to this condition, including cost (as I mentioned earlier), as well as the difficulty of consumers in buying workable, pre-used phones and computers. There are few regulations and limited trust. These all present opportunities for regional companies to come into the market and make changes, using China as an example.

More than just business

While the business practice makes sense when it comes to the recycling of idle electronics, the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) case is even more convincing, both from an environmental point of view and a social one. This will help build a business case as investors increasingly look at ESG and other elements when making their investment decisions.

Also Read: Why GoImpact believes that education is the key to promoting ESG investment

It is important to note that ESG is rising in importance among investors. The past few years have seen record amounts of ESG investment worldwide, with US$649 billion invested in ESG-focused funds in 2021 and US$53 trillion expected by 2025. Investors are seeking innovative companies that both change industries for the better and have a positive effect on environmental, social and governance issues.

For companies in the Circular Economy, ESG and business go hand-in-hand. For instance, in July 2021, torrential rain hit the Chinese province of Henan, leading to major floods. Roads were flooded, transport services disrupted, towns were evacuated, and schools and hospitals were cut off.

The flood affected normal life for millions of people, including students from several cities. 16,800 students missed out on normal school with the fall semester disrupted by the unexpected rain. In addition to the destruction caused to the educational infrastructure, a huge amount of teaching aids and equipment were also impaired.

To help these affected schools get back on track for the fall semester, together with China Foundation for Rural Development and Pad for Hope, a charity organisation, ATRenew initiated the “AHS Charity and Love-Digital Education Aid Programme for Henan Beautiful Schools” and donated electronic teaching equipment, including 106 smart blackboards, 450 iPads, as well as office computers, printers, routers and other devices in demand, to the affected primary and secondary schools, and helped teachers’ informatization capacity construction.

In China, we have seen the pre-owned electronics sector grow from a low base a decade ago to a hundreds-billion-dollar industry, with plenty more to come. Southeast Asia is currently where we were ten years ago and is crying out for entrepreneurs to turn their attention to processing millions of pre-owned but idle devices, many of which are lying unused in people’s cupboards and desk drawers.

It’s time to enter a market that offers a perfect blend of solid business cases and environmental and social good.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post The circular economy as the next frontier for Asia’s innovators appeared first on e27.

For too long, women have been underserved by mainstream companies. Thankfully, this is changing as the femtech industry across Southeast Asia leads the way with an influx of products and services being created for women by women.

While market analysts predict that the Asia-Pacific femtech market will grow at the fastest rate between 2022 to 2030, Southeast Asia’s femtech industry continues to lag behind compared to the West, making up only eight per cent of femtech firms globally. 

Despite the advancements in the technology sector, there is still much to be done when it comes to closing the gender gap in the region. Nonetheless, in today’s landscape, there’s a myriad of opportunities for femtechs to make a difference by eliminating the traditional barriers that have held women back. But to do so successfully, they must first overcome challenges commonly encountered in the femtech space.

The challenges in the femtech space

Traditionally, women’s health issues have been deemed taboo, with sexual health often stigmatised, especially in the conservative Southeast Asian region. On top of this, men continue to dominate the fields of medical research, forming a bulk of the researchers and patients in clinical trials. This approach has resulted in a one-size-fits-all approach to medical diagnosis and solutions that often don’t serve women.

Also Read: Femtech: VC interest grows as new frontier for women’s health beckons

The good news is that we’re seeing the rise of femtechs who operate with the main goal of closing gaps in women’s health. Despite this growth, a large challenge remains to bring conversations around women’s health issues into the mainstream.

Misinformation is indeed ripe, especially as women’s health conversations remain behind closed doors and are constantly fueled by old wives’ tales. In this respect, knowledge is indeed power, and technology has played a big role in empowering more women through education.

Social media, for one, is a tool we actively use at Ease, and is one similarly leveraged by other femtechs. It has been instrumental in knowledge sharing and community building for us and has helped us and other femtechs to bring educational content to more women in the region.

That said, advertising restrictions on social media have been a pain point for femtech companies globally. A study that surveyed 60 health-oriented businesses serving women and people of diverse genders revealed that Meta rejected all their ads, and half said their accounts were suspended for supposedly violating policies.

By contrast, male ads about erectile dysfunction and manscaping were allowed. As a result, femtech companies are leaning on euphemisms and emojis to conceal words that are considered high-risk by regulators. Although these ads are more successful, they unwittingly reinforce the stigma around women’s health.

We at Ease have had numerous ads banned and even our account frozen at some point for publishing advertisements relating to female sexual health and wellness, even though these advertisements did not include any explicit or suggestive content.

To resolve this issue, we tested the algorithms on the platforms repeatedly to see how they would react to certain content and avoided or censored certain words, colours, or shapes that might lead to our posts being flagged.

We also established a communication channel with relevant decision-makers within social media platforms to get their assistance when we encounter such situations. Additionally, we’ve also turned our focus to creating organic, viral content rather than relying on paid advertisements.

Also Read: Breaking the glass ceiling: These 6 women are making their marks in deep tech field

When navigating the complex rules online, companies need to understand and uphold the compliance rules that each social media platform has in place to avoid advertising bans and kickstart their marketing campaigns. However, most femtech startups do not have the luxury and flexibility to experiment with their marketing campaigns.  To bypass ad restrictions, more creative resources will need to be allocated to explore innovative ways of storytelling.

The future of femtech in Southeast Asia

Despite the challenges, the femtech industry in Southeast Asia continues to reap massive potential, with many analysts predicting tremendous growth until 2030. Although nations such as Singapore have struggled with taboo conversations around sexual health, we have seen a vast improvement over the last five years in attitudes towards female issues and the challenges that, until now, women have faced on their own.

Femtech Analytics, for example, predicts that by 2026, the Asia-Pacific region will be seeing the world’s fastest growth in women’s health apps. Modern women are no longer suffering in silence. They are taking a proactive approach to their healthcare by tracking periods, monitoring fertility, and sexual wellness while leveraging femtech solutions to identify hormonal disorders and even screen for cancer.

Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the daunting advertising restrictions that have traditionally held the industry back, femtech companies now have plenty of options to work around any obstacles in their path. There is much more to be excited about now that even social media companies actively want to be seen as a part of the solution for women rather than part of the problem.

Women’s health is much more than reproductive health. As we enter a new era of precision medicine and precision health, it is opening opportunities to celebrate our differences while taking gender-specific treatment and care more seriously. Women-centric health technology is finally bridging the healthcare gap, and we can safely predict that the Southeast Asian region will lead the way, and femtech businesses will continue to thrive.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post Overcoming advertising woes and other challenges for the femtech industry appeared first on e27.