Vietnam’s Masan to invest US$105M in credit scoring platform Trust IQ
With this deal, Masan aims to accelerate its application of AI in retail and consumption; Both sides will work on building a credit access platform for consumers based on loyalty programs without requiring proof of income.

Indonesia’s Moladin lays off 360 workers
The used-car marketplace said the “difficult” decision was made to improve its long-term sustainability; Moladin has so far raised US$137M from East Ventures, Sequoia, and Northstar Group.

MNC Group leads US$20M round of Indonesian content distributor Migo
Through its tie-up with MNC Group, Migo gets support for its on-demand digital entertainment services by gaining access to the conglomerate’s content library.

Digital PE investment platform Moonfare raises US$15M Series C+
The investor is 7 Global Capita; To date, Moonfare claims to have offered 69-plus private market funds from top GPs worldwide, such as KKR, Carlyle, Permira, and EQT.

Asa Ren secures US$8.15M to provide D2C DNA tests in Indonesia
The investors include Top Harvest Capital, Kejora Capital, and Marcy Venture Partners; Asa Ren’s DNA test comes with 360+ reports, including predisposed health risks, ancestry, and other reports for adults, young parents and children.

Qiming Venture-backed greentech firm goes public via SPAC
LanzaTech transforms waste carbon into sustainable fuels, fabrics, packaging, and other materials; It merged with AMCI Acquisition Corp II before listing on Nasdaq on February 10.

Grab shifts SG politician to corporate development role
In her new role, Tin Pei Ling, a member of parliament in Singapore, will help the super app forge synergies across investments and acquisitions and other strategy development efforts.

BrightChamps enters Vietnam with hybrid teaching model
The BrightChamps Next-Gen Hub programme combines online and offline lessons to teach skills related to coding, robotics, financial literacy, and communications.

Restaurant search and food-ordering unicorn Zomato leaves Indonesia
The firm entered Indonesia in 2013; In October 2020, it announced the layoff of all employees in the country amid the Covid-19 pandemic; Earlier this month, the company also exited the Philippines.

‘Collaboration with startups begins with speaking their language’
Amanda Murphy, a top exec at HSBC, speaks about how the organisation works together with startups, the milestones that they have made, and what they intend to achieve in 2023.

How this 12-day programme equips you to detect potential FTX-like scams in future
The SMU Academy course aims to enable mid-career individuals, including those in employment, to make career switches to joint family offices and venture capital firms.

ShopUp’s B2B e-commerce platform helps Bangladesh SMEs to take on big players
ShopUp partners with all major mills and FMCG companies to distribute products to 20M people through its network of 500K shops; The company has so far raised US$230M in equity and debt funding.

Eleos Labs launches with an all-star team, building anti-theft system for Web3
Called FailSafe, the solution is built based on the need to have increased regulation and consumer protection in the space, with the recent collapse of well-known crypto institutions.

The future of gaming is female and mobile
There is global consensus that the year ahead will be challenging, but emerging trends have suggested bright spots for gaming businesses.

How the need to survive pushed this founder into the depths of cybersecurity
Protecting people against cybersecurity threats and ending the scourge of online sexual abuse and exploitation shaped my career.

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As part of JETRO’s Startup City Acceleration Program and under the support of the Japan Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), JETRO and Techstars have been collaborating since 2021 to launch four cohorts of the Founders Catalyst Program.

The JETRO x Techstars Startup City Acceleration Program was built to prepare active Japanese startups for the global market. To do so, startups will access a series of masterclasses, mentoring resources, and cohort-building sessions designed to provide participating founders with the necessary knowledge and skills to establish and expand their companies in a fast-changing market and amid constantly evolving consumer needs.

Additionally, startups will have access to the tools they need to overcome the difficulties faced during the early startup development phase.

Helping disruptive startups scale to the global stage

By joining the Founders Catalyst Program, startups will become a member of a valuable network and gain exclusive access to long-term mentorship, partnership, and productive collaboration. Thanks to the collaboration with Techstars, startups can tap into the organisation’s extensive global network of business owners, venture capitalists, and corporate partners. Startups also have the opportunity to use this platform to obtain expert business counselling, laying the foundation to strengthen the relationship between founders and veteran mentors. 

As a testament to this, past Techstars Founder Catalyst programs have helped establish countless connections between participants and mentors and hundreds of business and investor relationships.

In addition, during their journey with Founders Catalyst Programs, participants can take part in various professionally organized masterclasses and cohort-building sessions. In the end, 20 companies took part in the Pitch Day event that was held virtually on Zoom last January 12th and 10 of them were selected for the immersion program in San Francisco to engage with the local startup ecosystem for their oversea expansion.

The event was not only a networking and promotional activity but also a chance for startups to receive feedback to improve their products. Hence, startups are able to leverage the tools, strategies, and insights acquired from the programs to accelerate their growth and achieve global prominence. 

A diverse cohort of 20 exciting new startups

JETRO x Techstars Startup City Acceleration Program’s current cohort consists of 20 startups engaging in the verticals relating to educational technology, new styles of social media platforms, web 3 and blockchain development, environmental and agricultural carbon-dioxide solutions, and so on. 

The selected startups present new opportunities from breakthrough technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, web 3, etc. to improve product performance, security, and usability, and meet unfulfilled market segments.   

For instance, Audiostock offers a service for aspiring musicians and artists to monetise their artwork by licensing them to others. The company has contributed to a stress-free world when it comes to music distribution as people can enjoy music without any privacy concerns and artists can reach an unprecedentedly larger audience.

Operating in the retail space, KAUCHE, Inc. is a share-buying app that allows customers to enjoy an exciting shopping experience and at a great price via group-buying with “share-buying companions” such as friends, family, or someone on SNS.

The JETRO x Techstars Startup City Acceleration Program also features a slew of women-led companies operating in diverse spaces. Empowering content creators, MatchHat helps creators find collaborators for their passion projects from any city in the world. Projects can take place remotely, enabling creators as well as researchers to work on the same creative pursuits despite being countries apart.

In the FoodTech domain with a focus on the importance of a balanced and organic diet on mental health is FRESS, also led by a female founder. What started as a mental health platform, FRESS shifted their focus to revolutionising the Japanese snack industry. They provide a variety of products, particularly plant-based and additive-free snacks such as granola bars, including hemp which has mental and physical health benefits for customers.

Another exciting startup spearheaded by a female founder is Omotete, Inc. which developed unfre., a service that makes menstrual pads retrievable in bathroom stalls everywhere. unfre. is a BtoBtoC service with their core customers being the end-users, facility owners, and advertisers/marketers.

Regarding Edtech, Progummy argues that by leveraging students’ intuitive learning mechanisms, educational program applications can be both fun and effective. Hence, Progummy offers the first visual programming application to have a collaborative editing function. The program allows students to collaborate more seamlessly with their friends to co-learn while teachers can monitor the whole process with ease. The company plans to use a subscription model to monetise the product. 

The cohort also features Pit-Step, Inc. which developed the Blockchain Novel operating within an NFT marketplace for collaborative fiction writing. Through Pit-Step, users can create stories and illustration covers and trade them as NFTs.

For social media networking, recognising a growing gap in the market for more personalised and targeted market segments, the novel social networking site artics aims to foster more genuine relationships among users based on their interests and provide a platform for users to share their work. Similarly focusing on social media networking, ikigai Tech company KJ COMMONS specialises in planning and producing projects that help maximise the ikigai of each individual.

Further diversifying the cohort is healthtech startup PITTAN, Inc., a company that lets people analyse health conditions through onsite, easy, sweat amino-acid analysis methodology. PITTAN’s machine is so compact, that it could even be used in space in the future.

To learn more about 20 startups in the current JETRO x Techstars Startup City Acceleration Programme cohort and explore their innovative business ideas, visit this site for an overview or watch their pitches videos in the links below.

AndLaw – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

artics – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Audiostock – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Blue Farm – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

CULTA – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Equmenopolis – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here. 

FRESS – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Global Stage – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Goldfinch – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

KAUCHE – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

KJ COMMONS – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

MatchHat – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Omotete – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

PaylessGate – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Pit-Step – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

PITTAN – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Progummy – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Soundol – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here.

Specialist Doctors – Learn more by watching their pitch or talk to them here. 

ZUU IFA – Talk to them here. 

About JETRO

Founded in 1958, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is a Japanese government agency serving the mission of promoting Japanese investment and trade between Japanese and foreign businesses. JETRO’s “Startup City Acceleration Program” is an online program in partnership with the Cabinet Office of Japan that runs from October 2022 to March 2023. In this program, JETRO collaborates with five major accelerators to cultivate overall growth across the Japanese startup ecosystem, serving as an entry for some of the best Japanese startups to take on the global market. Through the program, startups will receive first-hand mentorship, matching opportunities with foreign investors, and new business partnerships, among many other exciting opportunities.

Learn more about JETRO at: https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/ 

About Techstars

The Techstars worldwide network helps entrepreneurs succeed. Founded in 2006, Techstars began with three simple ideas—entrepreneurs create a better future for everyone, collaboration drives innovation, and great ideas can come from anywhere. Now we are on a mission to enable every person on the planet to contribute to, and benefit from the success of entrepreneurs. In addition to operating accelerator programs and venture capital funds, we do this by connecting startups, investors, corporations, and cities to help build thriving startup communities. Through its accelerators, Techstars has invested in more than 3,300 companies with a combined market cap of more than $96B.

Learn more about Techstars at:  www.techstars.com

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

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As the dreary funding winter continues to soar, at e27, we are kickstarting a new article series called: Line of Hire to understand an organisation’s culture and hiring philosophies to empower tech workers with the right growth tools and enable business owners to attract talent.

Zelia Leong is the Co-Founder of PraisePal. With a decade of experience in the tech industry, Leong also leads the team at PraisePal to help more companies align their culture and boost employee engagement across their global teams.

Her human resources and organisational design background contributes to the PraisePal solution of creating a long-term, scalable culture of recognition for organisations.

Before PraisePal, Leong co-founded the leading travel tech company Anywhr and was an executive at German venture builder Rocket Internet. 

She graduated with an MSc from the National University of Singapore and a BSc (Hons.) (1st class) from the University of Manchester.

Leong talks about her company’s culture and hiring philosophies in this candid interview.

What personality traits/qualities do you look for in potential employees?

We value team members with a growth mindset above all.

People whose definition of success ISN’T just “to not fail”. People who might not know what the finish line looks like in their lives or careers but who share the same values as we do to get there.

How do they fit into your company culture? Tell us a little more about your company culture.

At PraisePal, we offer a high level of flexibility to all employees regarding work arrangements, career growth, and providing the right support resources. This level of trust and freedom comes with the requirements of accountability, ownership, and responsible communication.

It’s challenging to work remotely and across time zones. With instant messaging tools such as Microsoft Teams or Slack, it can also be distracting to spam each other with messages while your teammate is trying to focus on something else.

Also Read: A tech worker should be all about improving customer experience: Kim Nguyen of Recruitery

Therefore, we are strict on how we use communication platforms and value clear written communication. Such as detailed workflows, guides, and updates.

How do you foster transparency and encourage achievement in the workplace?

We have a huge emphasis on clear, written communication. As much as possible, all discussions are in group channels so all parties stay updated and included. We also share our achievements and celebrate small daily wins and the bigger ones on the PraisePal platform. 

A culture of recognition is crucial for growing remote teams like ours –where no achievement is too small to be recognised, and no individual is too junior to be highlighted.

Beyond developing a culture of recognition using habits and the praisepal.com platform, we also have weekly all-hands meetings where we take turns to keep the team updated on our projects and progress and share ideas for discussion.

Do you have a mental health policy? What does that look like?

An individual’s mental health can be made worse by poor work environments. We do our best to minimise that with active communication between employees and their leaders, as well as maintaining flexible work arrangements and managing workload expectations.

WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Work from home!

How should a tech worker prepare for the funding winter?

If you have financial responsibilities or need financial stability, it’s best to assess the company upfront and ensure your role will be essential in their upcoming business plans.

Also Read: Innovation, teamwork, open communication are valued in our culture: Farida Charania of Empauwer

In the recent tech layoffs across Southeast Asia, a bulk of the roles affected were those hired for future growth and expansion plans. Therefore they were one of the first to go during the recession when companies had to conserve resources and play it safe.

How do you measure the performance of your employees?

We look at both current work quality as well as their aptitude for growth.

Every single team member matters and creates an impact through their daily contributions. We need to ensure everyone in the company is growing because it’s the people that make up the business, and growth is essential for a healthy organisation.

Will you consider a moderately skilled person with great honesty or a highly skilled person with less honesty when hiring?

Honesty is always prioritised. The skill level depends on the role requirements.

Do you encourage ‘intrapreneurship’ in your organisation?

Yes.

How do you support upskilling for your employees?

The leadership team is clear on business outlook updates and shares constant insights on our plans and learning opportunities so that employees can understand that they are a valued part of the business and takes ownership of it. This also helps them think independently about the business and their roles and ask questions for their learning.

We also offer employees the opportunity to take courses, attend events, or be part of the local community of their career interests to expand their knowledge and learn from others.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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In today’s market, where there is greater investor scrutiny on profitability, processes, and protections, especially for companies that are well beyond their first product-market fit, in more than one market, holding licenses, or composed of several levels of management, corporate governance is front-and-centre in these considerations.

And while issues with corporate governance have been uncovered in venture-backed startups through fundraising due diligence (as they should be), the importance of corporate governance is not just “because the market climate demands it” or “without it, it’s difficult to fundraise.”

An organisation can’t run effectively beyond a certain scale without corporate governance. It also serves as a way to build trust with the organisation and the rest of the world. For example, for retail investors, knowing there is a reputable and trustworthy independent director on a public company’s board builds trust in potentially investing in that company. Corporate governance requirements are also typically sought after in applications for licenses and other government certifications.

While corporate governance is executed and handled primarily by the company’s board of directors (the formation of which over time is a topic on its own), the corporate governance issues boards have to deal with often stem from beyond the board of directors itself.

Five ways to develop a company’s corporate governance muscle

In this article are five key learnings on how to build a company’s corporate governance muscle and reduce “governance debt” early on in the life of the company, perhaps when it may not seem as much of a priority compared to finding product-market fit or raising money to keep things afloat for the next 18 months and beyond.

But it is clear that all these things — people, product, fundraising — are all related and, without processes, are ultimately a house of cards waiting to fall.

A robust finance function starts with the books

Sure, you need a finance function. But it’s important to know first what “being in charge of finance” means to the company and align the finance function development with this evolving definition. Early on, more than focusing on revenue and growth, being in charge of finance is more about having solid bookkeeping foundations.

Do you have competent bookkeeping capabilities/bookkeepers? Are you unknowingly making accounting assumptions? Rather than speed, bookkeeping should be optimised for the organisation.

Also Read: Are you a human resource?

Then when it comes to growing the finance function over time, it is important to identify how the tasks are evolving vis-a-vis what the organisation needs — do they demand investing in world-class talent? Are there audit tasks that can be outsourced?

The ideal situation is one where you are able to bring in a finance professional early on to set the standards — a great example in this regard is Alibaba’s Joe Tsai, who was there from the beginning.

Governance lives and dies on data and reporting

Beyond bookkeeping and cash management owned by the finance function, it is important for the company to also build up a way to organise the ownership and communication of operating data and metrics across the business.

For example, Slack used its own product, integrating bots to shoot real-time data into channels as they were needed. Every company will organise that differently, but it’s important to figure out how real-time data can be made available to make decisions at all levels — where does each type of data come from? How is it delivered?

Tools and processes are one thing here, but it’s also important to have trust in the people tasked with their data ownership.

Manage reporting functions not as singular requirements or events but as a continuous process to reduce the burden on finance teams

The demands of reporting periods (e.g., financial audits, fundraising, budgeting) on finance teams are rigorous, and there is pressure to move quickly while at the same time not dropping the ball on any detail.

From a management perspective, it’s important not to forsake accuracy for speed and think about reporting not just as an “event” or “exercise” that needs to be achieved at certain points in the company’s calendar but as part of a larger, continuous process of data collection and documentation that occurs beyond reporting periods.

Doing it fast is great, but the price of mistakes cannot be traded for speed.

Retain problem-solving “scrappiness” to mature financial discipline

As the company grows, it will naturally have a higher volume of cash flow to manage (the health of this cash flow is another matter entirely), and having more money to manage naturally increases the temptation to just throw money at problems.

Also Read: Boardrooms to warehouses: How SEA leaders can build cyber resiliency from top-down

A way companies have been able to stay disciplined in terms of spending is to “remain scrappy” in terms of their problem-solving mindset.

This sounds counterintuitive to maturing a company’s governance, but creativity in problem-solving as it relates to reducing burn ultimately makes an organisation more mature in the way it handles money.

Have “boards” and “watchmen” beyond the board of directors to diversify risk mitigation and governance capabilities

As the company grows, there are more sources of risk, and it can become increasingly challenging for a single group of people (board of directors) to exercise checks and balances. Companies nearing public markets debuts will often introduce sub-boards as working groups to deal with the robustness of internal controls, create an enterprise or operational waste management frameworks, serve as advisory boards for a specific market, or even facilitate succession planning.

For example, in the case of the Alibaba partnership, a working group outside of the board of directors ensures the health of the organisation’s mission, vision, and values through its leadership appointments. Apart from working groups within the organisation, companies will also engage with external auditors as they raise growth-stage rounds not just to qualify audited financial statements but also to do health checks on their organisation.

The ideal scenario is to leverage both internal and external “watchmen” to have more holistic visibility over potential risks. From the board of directors itself, risk mitigation is often done over time by building up the diversity of a board and engaging with experts across the various needs of the company.

Governance as a cyclical battle against chaos

While not an exhaustive list of practices, this list is built on three ideas about governance.

The first is that governance is often shaped by behaviours and decisions from day one — the decision on what assumptions to use when measuring product-market fit, the decision on whether to start spending more on a specific vendor or not and the decision on how data is reported to management.

The second is that governance is centred on de-risking an organisation as it grows. It is a battle against natural tendencies toward chaos (entropy, as it is called in physics).  This means that governance should be optimised to have visibility on these risks (e.g., audits, data collection, and reporting) and the capability to address these risks (e.g., diverse board of directors, solid mission, vision, and values).

The third is that, again, company growth is cyclical. Putting systems in place will not stop the emergence of risks and issues. Having one audited financial statement is not the end.

Companies already practice the items we have listed above and more, and yet these do not ensure 100 per cent protection against crises. In governance, the process and its continued practice matter more than any specific ends or results.

See the full article on Insignia Business Review with 7 practices for more robust corporate governance.

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Singapore-headquartered last-mile internet connectivity startup Transcelestial Technologies has received US$10 million in a Series A extension round.

Existing investor Airbus Ventures led the round, with participation from Kickstart Ventures, Genesis Alternative Ventures, Wavemaker, Cap Vista, and SEEDS Captial.

In-Q-Tel had also joined in a previous undisclosed round.

The new round brings Transcelestial’s total investment raised to date to US$24 million.

Also Read: ‘Internet penetration won’t be enough to bring everyone online’: Rohit Jha of Transcelestial

The new funding will enable Transcelestial to expand early market access to the US. It will also look to bridge the country’s digital divide via its lasercomms solutions for broadband and will explore collaborations over 12 months with government, enterprise and telecom leaders in select states.

The startup will also look to ramp up growth in Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. In these markets, it will collaborate with top telecom, ISPs and enterprise partners who have already deployed their systems in production, delivering 4G, home and office broadband and campus connectivity.

Besides, Transcelestial will gear up its Singapore-based Terabit Factory, which it launched in October last year. The manufacturing facility can manufacture up to 2,400 CENTAURI devices annually.

Minette Navarrete, President at Kickstart Ventures, said, “Transcelestial envisions a future where access to high-quality connectivity is a fundamental right for all, which perfectly aligns with the ACTIVE Fund’s thesis of ‘The Frictionless Future’, where data moves swiftly, securely, and seamlessly, at scale.”

Founded in December 2016 by Jha and Mohammad Danesh (CTO), Transcelestial has developed CENTAURI, a device to deliver high-speed internet and connectivity via laser beam, eliminating the need for underground cables or radio frequency-based devices. Its technology can connect a few buildings in less than a day and withstand tough weather conditions.

Shortly, Transcelestial aims to develop a constellation of small satellites positioned in Low Earth Orbit, allowing its laser network to beam across cities and upwards to connect continents globally.

Also Read: Transcelestial aims to help telcos roll out 5G rapidly and cost effectively in SEA

In February 2021, Transcelestial expanded in the Philippines by raising a strategic funding of US$2 million from Kickstart Ventures. Previously, it secured a US$9.6 million in Series A, co-led by EDBI and Wavemaker Partners. Before this, in 2018, it bagged US$1.8 million in seed funding.

The firm’s other backers are Entrepreneur First, Partech Ventures, 500 Startups, AirTree Ventures, Tekton Ventures, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator), and Charles Songhurst (Microsoft’s former Head of Corporate Strategy).

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Bangkok-based property developer MQDC has unveiled a metaverse bridging the real and virtual worlds to create a “new future” where all life coexists in well-being, kindness, equality, sustainability, and innovation.

Named MQDC Idyllias, the metaverse is under development by its subsidiary MQDC Metaverse.

The project is being developed as a “metta-verse”, named after the Thai word “metta” for generosity, kindness, and good wishes for others, the concept of Idyllias.

“We want everyone to have a memorable experience in MQDC Idyllias,” said Visit Malaisirirat, CEO of MQDC. “We’re developing this as an ‘idyllic’ place, where peace and beauty reign. The virtual world will connect to reality and foster happiness, goodwill, and sustainable innovation. Our metta-verse will help solve the real world’s problems.”

Each activity and experience in Idyllias will reflect the concept of “Metta-Verse for All Life Visible” for all life to coexist peacefully. 

According to Parut Penpayap, Project Director of MQDC Idyllias, the metaverse would not only feature virtual property but be a virtual world where users “seamlessly” connect with the real world. 

Also Read: Lighthouse Canton to offer access to venture debt to investors on Alta platform

MQDC developments will be among the first to connect with the MQDC Idyllias virtual world.

MQDC Idyllias will be where users meet and share activities and meaningful experiences. The metaverse will be developed under the “Internet of Place” concept with one-stop virtual experiences.

New concept commercial projects, ‘direct-to-avatar’, are being developed within the virtual world, enabling lifestyle benefits for residents and users through connecting the real and virtual worlds. MQDC Idyllias will help drive the economy across all sectors, from entertainment to real estate and health.

MQDC Idyllias will connect to the “Translucia Metaverse”, founded and operated by T&B Media Global (Thailand), a production company focused on entertainment content and world-class animation.

The metaverse is scheduled to operate from 2024.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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Finance OS for SMEs Aspire scores US$100M, claims US$12B annualised payment volume
The investors include Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital, Paypal Ventures, Tencent, and LGT Capital Partners; Aspire will use the funding to enhance its product offering, expand its regional presence, and add more talent across SEA.

Transcelestial raises US$10M to expand its lasercomms tech into US
The investors include Airbus Ventures, Kickstart, Genesis, Wavemaker, Cap Vista, and SEEDS Captial; Transcelestial will also gear up its US$1-million Terabit Factory in Singapore, which can manufacture up to 2,400 CENTAURI devices annually.

Foodpanda’s SEA staff face layoffs for second time
It appears that many of the affected staff were based in Malaysia, as per several LinkedIn posts; However, Foodpanda has laid off staff across the Southeast Asian markets it operates in, a source told TiA.

GoTo accelerates profitability goal by 1 year
The company expects adjusted EBITDA to become positive within the fourth quarter of 2023; Group contribution margin is set to become positive within Q1.

F&B ops management platform OrderEZ acquires Cocoon-backed FoodRazor
The acquisition expands OrderEZ’s integrated suite of inventory, procurement, and CRM software; OrderEZ now plans a US expansion in 2023 and a fundraising round.

Lighthouse Canton to offer access to venture debt to investors on Alta platform
The partnership will enable Alta’s investor community to mobilise capital for the region’s startup ecosystem; Lighthouse Canton is a US$20M venture debt fund based in Singapore.

Founder & CEO Joel Neoh to quit Fave
Co-Founder Yeoh Chen Chow will continue to lead the business together with GM Avantika Jain; Fave has evolved from offering deals to QR payments and loyalty programmes on both the Fave app and other major banks and digital wallets.

Spanish company Lifull Connect acquires Thai proptech peer FazWaz
This will see a new partnership form between FazWaz and Dot Property – a unit under Lifull Connect; FazWaz, based in Thailand, offers a range of services to property buyers, sellers, and agents.

TNB Aura leads US$5.1M series A for VN fintech firm GIMO
Other backers are Integra Partners, Resolution Ventures, ThinkZone, and YC; Gimo provides earned-wage access and other payroll services to underbanked workers.

India, SG to officially link payment systems next week
Singapore’s PayNow linkage with India’s United Payments Interface will go live on February 21; Currently, the amount of remittances from Singapore to India is at least US$749M.

Cube Asia attracts US$1.5M to help e-commerce consumers make data-driven decisions
The investors include Wavemaker Partners, M Venture Partners and angels; Cube Asia also offers granular market size and market share insights to help brands make strategic decisions on new investments or product development.

Australian agritech startup SwarmFarm Robotics banks US$8.3M
The investors include Emmertech, Tribe Global Ventures, and Access Capital; SwarmFarm develops intelligent robotics through an approach that allows farmers to tailor equipment to their needs.

Pakistani recommerce platform Swag Kicks raises US$1.2M
The investors are i2i Ventures, Techstars Toronto, CrossFund Hong Kong, Rose Lake Ventures; Swag Kicks lists pre-washed and pre-disinfected authentic secondhand clothing.

Shopee quietly rolls out SLoan in Malaysia
SLoan is already available in other SEA countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand; Eligible Shopee users can get access to loans at “competitive interest rates, with flexible options to repay in 3, 6, or 12 months.

Koina uplifts lives of VN farmers through its data-driven agritech platform
The VinaCapital-backed agritech platform helps farmers to sell products, buy fertilisers, pesticides, tools, and farming services, and access financial solutions like BNPL.

These startups focus on informal plastic waste workers in fight against climate crisis
In many parts of Asia, plastic waste is commonly processed by informal workers; According to data, these workers contribute to over 95% of the plastic materials being recycled, with many being women.

Instill AI can convert your unstructured data into meaningful data using low-code tools
Instill AI’s open-source project VDP supports image classification, object detection, keypoint detection, optical character recognition, and instance segmentation.

SG Budget 2023: Greater push towards net zero provides opportunities for startups
Carbon neutrality, defined as a state of net zero carbon dioxide emissions, has been making headlines in the past year–for the right reason.

SEA venture debt opportunity to grow 4x in 5 years: Lighthouse Canton
While US$30B was loaned to VC-funded startups in the US between 2019 and 2021, Southeast Asia saw an extremely low US$1B in debt funding in 2021.

Binance moved US$400M from US partner to firm managed by CEO Zhao
Over the first three months of 2021, the amount flowed from the Binance.US account at California-based Silvergate Bank to the trading firm Merit Peak Ltd.

Vietnamese NFT platform Aura Network raises US$4M
The investors include Hashed, Coin98 Ventures, GuildFi, and Istari Ventures; Aura Network is an ecosystem focusing on building the Internet of NFTs and bringing NFT and Web3 to the masses.

Binance may pay fines in the US to settle probes
Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief strategy officer, said the company’s executives were unfamiliar with the laws and rules surrounding bribery, corruption, and money laundering.

5 practices to improve corporate governance beyond the board
While issues with corporate governance have been uncovered in venture-backed startups through fundraising due diligence, its importance is not just “because the market climate demands it” or “without it, it’s difficult to fundraise.”

How fintechs can contribute to the world’s sustainability goals
A new report jointly produced by McKinsey & Company, Elevandi and MAS was recently released, showcasing how fintechs can contribute towards a greener future.

 

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With a large and young workforce, Southeast Asia is rapidly digitising. This paves the way for tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to drive economic growth and create new job opportunities.

According to a study by Cisco/Oxford Economics, over 10 per cent of the workforce in ASEAN could be displaced by new tech tools; lower-skilled workers in the service and agricultural sectors are the most vulnerable.

ChatGPT, a chatbot that interacts in a conversational way, has already made it into content marketing. While its full potential is yet to be realised, such tools could make some jobs redundant.

How soon can this happen, and should we really be worried?

“Tools like AI have the potential to displace jobs, but we find that more investments in technology and skills development are required to adapt to the changes,” says Ying Cong Seah, Head of Labs and Co-Founder of Glints, an online career discovery and development platform.

The market is already throwing some signals on the impact of ChatGPT revolution; On Upwork, a freelance platform, there are many listings from professional AI prompters offering their services. Seah, however, doesn’t believe that AI will steal our jobs.

“While AI will eliminate a set of job families, it will simultaneously create new jobs, increasing productivity and driving economic growth. So, not all is doom and gloom. If anything, a positive side effect of the recent hype around ChatGPT is that it has gotten many people to think about how the nature of their jobs would change. We are already seeing ChatGPT being used in many creative ways,” he notes.

Also Read: Navigate in a cookie-less world, leverage AI and think community-first

Sharing an example, Seah says content marketers use it to overcome writer’s block, bounce ideas to make engineering design decisions, and even structure performance appraisals. The upshot is that lower-value and more transactional conversational and creative work will likely be supplanted in the next few years. Higher-value work will rely on generative AI as an able partner.

Agreeing to his views, Abhinav Charan, Head of Partnerships & Business Development at Singapore-based talent platform skuad.io, says there seems to be a dystopian level of gloom and doom around layoffs and ChatGPT, with murmurs of AI-enabled systems replacing thousands of jobs worldwide.

“Since its release, ChatGPT has been used to write cover letters, poems, philosophical essays and white papers. The chatbot is powerful, no doubt. So, there is a fear that it will take over the more ‘creative’ job roles in an office setup — writers, marketers, developers, customer executives, etc.,” Charan says.

“However, it doesn’t seem likely that AI will be able to compete with humans in contextual understanding — at least, not anytime soon. AI isn’t a job destroyer. People need to be more accepting of digital and intelligent technologies and optimise them to perform better in their roles,” he argues.

While Southeast Asia sees many layoffs, white-collar jobs are the most affected. The blue-collar or the frontline workforce market is still booming in SEA. As companies start sensing economic uncertainties, the demand for managed workforce increases, which creates great demand for the workforce and services that we offer.

According to Siddharth Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of Betterplace-owned MyRobin, a platform for on-demand, pre-screened blue-collar workers, demand for the blue-collar workforce will remain despite the rise of AI solutions. “This is mainly because, at the current stage, AI is replacing jobs that are not customer intensive. However, the frontline workforce industry is a more customer-intensive workforce that directly connects with the end customers.”

AI doesn’t seem to impact these jobs at this stage significantly. If anything, it will optimise the operations of the frontline workforce and make the processes more cost-effective, he points out.

“This trend in the workforce in SEA is very similar to that of India, which is the largest market in South Asia. While white-collar workers across startups are going through tough layoffs, the frontline workforce market is expanding. In FY 22-23, 8 million new frontline jobs were created, and this number is expected to reach 9 million jobs by the end of this financial year,” Kumar states.

Also Read: Instill AI can convert your unstructured data into meaningful data using low-code tools

“I don’t think AI can steal anything from us, leave alone our jobs,” says Dhaval Thanki, VP (APAC & MEA) at LogiNext, a tech firm providing SaaS-based delivery automation services. It will, in fact, transform (and is transforming as we speak) our lives, work, and experience.

“As long as we can adapt and evolve, we will be able to take advantage of AI to help our progress as individuals and professionals. The paranoia around AI taking away jobs stems from the general fear that technology will replace humans, but that’s not true; even historically (as far as we can look into the past), technology has only been an enabler of human progress,” states Thanki.

The nature of the jobs will change (and is changing), and while that transition is happening, people might see a little chaos, but it’s only for the better. In Thanki’s opinion, AI will ensure that humans can ‘outsource’ all the mundane, repetitive, standardisable jobs to AI. Therefore we can transition to doing more creative, inspirational things that are a better fit for our capabilities as humans.

For example, AI (robots) in assembly lines are already making assembly line workers’ jobs redundant in automotive and other industries in some sense. However, these workers are now graduating to better jobs like managing robotic process automation software that requires their cognitive skills to help execute their production targets more efficiently. This is because these software tools allow them to control assembly line manufacturing activity through AI and robots more efficiently.

“So, yes, AI will take away the ‘boring’ and ‘hazardous’ jobs and will require people to ‘upskill’ themselves so that we can take advantage of all the new jobs that AI will create for us. These ‘new’ jobs will be more worthy of our skills as humans in every field of activity,” Thanki reasons.

With the right investments in technology and skills development, Southeast Asia has the potential not only to survive but thrive in this new era of AI-driven innovation and economic growth. However, an Accenture study found that less than half of the companies in SEA have a clear strategy for reskilling and upskilling their employees.

“It is important for individuals, companies, and governments in SEA to understand the potential impact and take proactive steps to reskill and upskill their workforce. The future of work in a world with AI will require a combination of human skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and empathy, as well as a willingness to adapt and embrace change,” Glint’s Seah says.

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Farmers in Vietnam faced many supply chain-related problems, including inconsistent product quality and high cost of production and distribution.

And then, COVID-19 hit, and their hardships increased.

Thi Nguyen couldn’t just turn a blind eye to their problems.

“It was during the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2021 that we realised the inefficiencies got worse,” Nguyen tells e27. Farmers couldn’t sell their crops, and consumers couldn’t buy fresh groceries. The harvested crops were spoiled during long transportation, and farmers, who made less than US$300 monthly, became broke. “We saw the urgency to do something to create a more sustainable agriculture and wanted to uplift farmers’ lives.”

Nguyen teamed up with his former colleagues and launched Koina.

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Koina is a data-driven farm-to-business agritech platform founded in 2021 by a group of former executives at Grab, VinID, and GiaoHangNhanh.

The startup aims to build an efficient agri-ecosystem. The goal is to grow, harvest and deliver fresh produce from farms to retailers with the highest quality at reasonable prices.

“We place farmers at the centre of the business,” says Nguyen. We build tech-enabled solutions to solve farmers’ various pain points.”

Standardising supply chain

The agri-farm tech platform helps farmers in three ways:

First, it helps farmers sell their crops. It offtakes post-harvest products from each farm and builds a distribution network to deliver fresh products to retailers.

Also Read: VinaCapital invests US$1M in farm-to-business agritech platform Koina

Second, it helps farmers buy better, cheaper farming inputs. The platform connects them with the suppliers of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and agriculture engineers to give relevant guidance and recipe. It also buys bulk materials and distributes them to farmers at a better price, helping reduce production costs.

Third, the startup connects farmers with scientific institutes to provide them with new farming techniques and technologies to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve product quality.

“Currently, the traditional distribution of inputs (inputs to farmers) and outputs (agricultural products to customers) is fragmented. It goes through individual traders without transparent information on the source of origin and product quality,” Nguyen shares.

“It’s also challenging for financing partners (such as banks) to support farmers, retailers and distributors with working capital and loans. We plan to introduce new services and solutions (finance, farming, food processing) shortly to add more value to the supply chain,” he goes on.

Hard to change farming habits

Most Vietnamese farmers are old and not tech-savvy; it takes hard work to change their farming habits. They also have experienced many market problems from traders/brokers. It was challenging to bring new technologies and practices to them.

The other major challenge is that farmers have no access to funds from state-owned and non-governmental institutions to support agriculture.

Besides, there are many stakeholders throughout the supply chain, and long-standing habits have been formed. The parties are small and fragmented, and the operation is complicated. “Koina is gradually standardising the supply chain one step at a time and applying technology to support business stakeholders more effectively,” he says.

Vietnam has more than 17 million farmers, 11.8 million ha of land cultivated for agriculture, and revenue from agricultural products accounts for over 10 per cent of GDP annually. However, it is a fragmented industry, which presents a massive opportunity for platforms like Koina.

Only 2,500-plus farmers have signed up with Koina, and there is an enormous opportunity to transform the supply chain.

The market is big (US$24-25 billion annually for the domestic market and US$15-16 billion for exporting). The domestic market itself is huge, and so we have no plan to expand into other markets in the next three to five years,” he shares.

Koina recently raised US$1 million as part of its seed extension round from VinaCapital. The money will be used for customer network expansion, helping to upgrade general trade selling points more effectively, thereby stabilising output to commit to farmers.

A portion of the capital will be invested in product handling, adding value for agriculture products when they reach customers to increase value.

“In the next three years, we will continue to focus on crop products, open to other products within the fruits and vegetables categories (more than US$10 billion market), and expand to other growing consuming areas in Vietnam. “After that, we may expand to other categories like seafood, which is also a big advantage of Vietnamese agriculture,” he concludes.

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Vietnamese startup Aura Network, which operates a platform for accelerating global NFT adoption, has closed a US$4 million funding round, co-led by South Korea’s Hashed and Coin98 Ventures.

GuildFi, Istari Ventures, Republic Crypto, K300 Ventures, and other angel investors also participated.

The company will use the money for ecosystem expansion, including increasing the number of global Web3 projects and products built in its ecosystem.

Also Read: Are NFTs here to stay (with or without blockchain)?

“Web3 and NFTs are here to stay. Standing on the shoulders of giants, we will use this amount of funds to set up for the next cycle of continued development regardless of any market situation,” said Giang Tran, Founder and CEO of Aura Network.

Aura Network is an ecosystem focusing on building the Internet of NFTs and bringing NFT and Web3 to the masses. It helps companies develop projects through its ecosystem. The firm’s aim is to build a one-stop shop for minting, evaluating, and transacting NFTs.

The company’s development team is currently building several new products as a part of the ecosystem.

Also Read: The future of blockchain technology goes beyond just cryptocurrency and NFTs

Founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs and engineers in 2017, Hashed is a high-profile crypto investment firm in South Korea. It has invested in over 80 projects, namely Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Cosmos, Klaytn, and MakerDAO.

Coin98 Ventures is the venture capital arm of Coin98 Finance, a Web3 Vietnam-based building hub. The firm seeks to invest in founders with disruptive ideas and innovative approaches across the Web3 stack, from layer-1 protocols and infrastructures to consumer-facing applications.

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