Registration for TOP100 is now open and we are looking forward to seeing your startup on the list!

TOP100 Program gives you the one golden chance to connect with hundreds of investors, showcase your startup at Echelon, pitch on the TOP100 stage, and access special programs. Find out what’s new in TOP100 2023 and join here: https://bit.ly/TOP100_2023

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Now that Echelon Asia Summit is coming back in full swing, e27 is determined to make one of its key features, the TOP100, one of the best yet!

The TOP100 program is an annual initiative organised by e27 to showcase and recognise the most promising startups in the Asia-Pacific region.

The program is open to exciting new startups from the Asia-Pacific region with innovative ideas that break barriers across different industries. The selection of the TOP100 involves a rigorous screening process, including an evaluation of the startup’s product or service, team, market potential, and traction.

Also read: 9Unicorns announces 3rd Edition of DDay on April 11th 2023!

The selected startups are given the opportunity to pitch their business ideas at the Echelon Asia Summit this June 14-15, 2023, at the Singapore Expo. The program also provides exposure to investors, mentors, and potential partners, enabling growth among participating startups and helping them expand their networks across the larger global tech ecosystem.

The TOP100 program has become one of the most prestigious startup competitions in the region, attracting thousands of applicants each year and providing valuable visibility and support to the most promising startups in the region.

15 startups closer to competing at this year’s TOP100

Being a frontrunner refers to startups close to making it to this year’s TOP100 program.

With all the amazing startups sprouting across the Asia-Pacific region’s vibrant tech startup ecosystem, we now present you with 15 frontrunners closer to competing at this year’s TOP100. Get to know them here!

iFarmer Ltd

iFarmer is a full-stack agritech startup that provides a one-stop solution for smallholder farmers by providing them with access to finance, high-quality inputs, agronomic advisory, and access to the market. iFarmer started in 2019 and currently has 85,000+ registered farmers, and to date, has facilitated $24M in farm and input financing.

The company has been partnering with financial institutions to facilitate Agri financing directly to the farmers, and substantially increased the supply chain capabilities in the Agri input and output verticals. iFarmer has piloted IoT and satellite-based advisory services to improve productivity, reduce costs, and reduce climate risks for farmers.

Finext

Messy receipts? Tedious and time-consuming to track your personal expenses? Have to keep physical receipts for 7 years for claiming tax relief? Worry no more! Finext helps you to automate all these work within one app.

Just snap your receipt, and they do the rest with the help of Artificial Intelligence! Submit your personal income tax with just one click, FInext calculates payables and rebates, and submits them for you easily. The company’s vision is to become users’ everyday personal finance app.

bubbME.AI

bubbME.AI is an integrated and gamified Adolescent Healthcare Monitor to combat bullying + gender-based violence using AI and Big Data. The company impacts UN-SDG No. 3 and 5.

bubbME.AI is addressing the ongoing development from physical to digital spaces of the metaverse. Offering wellbeing services as a partnered SaaS or as a standalone RPG game model, bubbME.AI is moulding itself as the future of digitalisation.

Hello3Dworld

Hello3Dworld wants to build a Metaverse, a 3D digital world that simulates our real world. Inside this Metaverse, users can create their own 3D Avatar from a single photo in just a couple of seconds. Then they can participate in activities similar to our real world, such as: shopping, entertainment, working, studying, and travelling, among others.

The company’s slogan is “Real World on the Internet”. Their competitive advantages are that they own the 3D Avatar Creator Tool and simulate the Metaverse as close to real life as possible with a fair cost. Leveraging the experiences of its founders, Hello3Dworld is trying to make the product ready to exploit the new & potential market, estimated to be about 700 billion in 2027.

Castomize Technologies Pte. Ltd.

Castomize is revolutionising medical devices with 4D-printing technology, starting with orthopaedic casts and splints.

Castomize’s 4D-printed casts provide a myriad of benefits to both doctors and patients. For doctors, they reduce the amount of manpower, time, and tools needed to apply and remove casts. For patients, they accelerate the healing of their fractures and provide them with unprecedented comfort.

Truffle Technologies

Truffle Technologies is a Singapore-based technology startup. They are building an AI-powered, short-video-based professional networking and recruiting platform, Haloed, to help young professionals to access new job, internship, and networking opportunities, connect with new people virtually, get noticed by recruiters, and participate in automated interviews with their video job applications. On the other side of the platform, to help employers attract young professionals, Truffle Technologies help find and quickly assess candidates with automated video interviews allowing them to replace screening interviews and speed up recruiting.

Storya

Storya is building the most advanced creator economy platform ever made thanks to AI and blockchain features. The goal is to help millions of emerging market creators earn a sustainable income.

Storya is the first creator economy app to fully embrace the power of the two greatest technological revolutions for writers since the printing press: Artificial Intelligence and the blockchain. The Storya platform is built with creators from emerging markets in mind, and as a bridge to fill the massive infrastructure, capital, and tech skills gaps that prevent talents from around the world from finding an audience and earning a sustainable income.

FLEXWAVE CO., LTD.

FLEXWAVE builds embedded PV energy harvester for IIoTs with 75% more power, which can reduce the size of the device and make the “wireless” come true.

FLEXWAVE offers an innovative optical method to overcome the limits, and the company gave a name for this fibre-like technology, calling it Flexible Waveguiding Photovoltaics. According to the nature of waveguide material, FLEXWAVE makes PV panels that can collect photon energy from a wider angle.

AI Communis

AI Communis is proud to be the first B2B ASR-based solution provider in Southeast Asia with local language adaptation. As a business, they provide Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) based solutions to help enterprises capitalise their audio data.

Whether you are a startup, freelancer, or content creator, AI Communis’ flagship product, Auris, can help you transcribe audio files accurately and insert subtitles into your videos, thanks to their ASR and machine translation technologies!

METAIN INVESTMENT GROUP INC.

The global real estate market is characterised by cyclical trends, with values fluctuating based on location and time. However, investing in global real estate can be complex and time-consuming, requiring significant paperwork and legal fees. As a result, it is typically only accessible to wealthy investors. For retail investors, it may not be practical or feasible to invest in global real estate due to the barriers to entry and the costs involved.

The prospect of investing in real estate South East Asia has always been alluring. At Metain, they utilise blockchain technology (DeFi, NFT, Smart Contracts) to make investments in income-producing real estate affordable, convenient, transparent, and safe for retail investors.

Aphelia

Aphelia creates a wireless charging station in space that’s dedicated to a smallsat constellation to enable its highest potential of capabilities and reliabilities by having a kW-level of power delivery at a low SWaP ratio & cost, having no dependence on the short period of solar exposure, and no limited precious power for on-demand, flexible satellite operations. The values include increasing user capacity, enhancing data computing performance, increasing data throughput, having operational flexibility of electric propulsion, and others.

Aphelia aims to make interplanetary smallsat space missions more economical while having higher capabilities so that everyday people on Earth can be part of a space-faring civilisation, venturing into the unknown.

EQUO

EQUO Co. is a sustainable brand providing 100% plastic-free and compostable solutions for everyday single-use items including drinking straws, utensils and stationery.

Their aim is to make plastic alternatives widely available in order to force single-use plastic production to slow down and eventually be eliminated altogether.  We will work to reduce costs year after year through economies of scale and pass that on to the consumer in order to make sustainable products affordable and accessible to the masses.  EQUO addresses SDG goals 11, 12, 13 and 14, and 15.

NurtureRN Pte Ltd

NurtureRN aims to create and enable a sustainable ecosystem for the international nursing community by collaborating with the key stakeholders to address the different challenges faced by both international nurses and nursing students globally through technology, data and personalized care with an objective to strengthen the ecosystem for the global healthcare community.

NurtureRN aims to create more transparency in their career journey by helping international nurses break the barriers of entry, to expand their job opportunities beyond their home borders.

Paladium Technologies

Paladium is an up-and-coming data company that is focused on the collection and processing of consumer data with analytics as an added layer to provide greater value to Consumer-Facing Businesses. They offer actual monetisation of the consumer’s data to the consumer – a unique proposition unheard of in Developed Countries (DCs) within Asia Pacific, where consumers are starting to be aware of how the Big Tech Companies are exploiting their data without consent. 

Paladium Acquires & Analyses first-party purchase data to help B2C merchants increase revenue with strong market intelligence. Through this, they also enable consumers to monetise their personal data. The venture is also privately invested.

VITA

VITA app is a mobile health record which is synchronised to laboratory information systems to get the latest updated blood biochemical and immunological data. From the available data, VITA is able to provide deeper insights into the risks of heart attacks and biological stress index. 

They also focus on making health services accessible and easy to understand through visualisation. They want to enable better lifestyle choices through the Health Compass feature on the app. (GPS location-based services for health)

A step closer to the 2023 TOP100

After a rigorous screening process, these startups are a step closer to qualifying for this year’s TOP100.

If you are one of the founders of the startups above, a representative from e27 will be reaching out to you soon to discuss with you the next step in your application process. Feel free to get in touch with us for any inquiries.

Also read: Industry giants helping make Echelon Asia Summit 2023 possible

If you have an exciting startup with innovative ideas that can eclipse the best and the brightest in the region, join the 2023 TOP100 and stand a chance to pitch your ideas to some of the top investors in the Asia-Pacific at this year’s Echelon Asia Summit. Register for TOP100 here.

The post 15 startups that are among this year’s frontrunners for TOP100 appeared first on e27.

Singapore-headquartered Proxtera, a digital platform aiming to make MSMEs’ cross-border trade easier, has made the first close of its Series seed round of funding.

The investors are Ant Group, CerraCap Ventures, and EDBI.

The financial details remain undisclosed.

The funding will be used as working capital to further develop Proxtera’s innovative digital cross-border trade and financial services enabled by trusted credentials.

Also Read: 15 startups that are among this year’s frontrunners for TOP100

“This funding will allow us to bring our product to more Singapore businesses, spread to select global markets, expand our bench of talented individuals and positively impact MSMEs in the world of cross-border trade and finance,” Proxtera CEO Saurav Bhattacharyya said.

Proxtera operationalises the Business sans Borders initiative by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).

Proxtera uses digital technology to help MSMEs gain trusted credentials and make marketplaces efficient and discoverable globally. MSMEs can connect with B2B marketplaces, financiers, payment providers, and other cross-border trade experts to save time and money.

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Even before the rising popularity of ChatGPT and similar tools, the finance industry has begun to explore the use of AI in its various sectors.

According to Bharath Vellore, General Manager, Asia-Pacific, Provenir, in an email interview with e27, there are three notable use cases of AI in the finance industry today:

Identifying Fraud

“A key benefit of using AI for fraud detection is its ability to get smarter with each transaction it processes. So, even when fraudsters evolve their methods, AI models can use real-time data to identify new patterns, learn, and adapt decisioning to maximise the right fraud alerts and minimise false positives,” he explains.

Credit Scoring

“According to our global survey of 400 decision-makers at fintech and financial services organisations, only 18 per cent of participants believe their credit risk models are accurate at least 75 per cent of the time. This uncertainty results in less inclusive credit, fewer approvals and reduced opportunities for business growth,” Vellore says.

“In addition to information that lenders have in their own systems, alternative data from third-party providers such as mobile data, IP and geolocation, identity verification … provides a more holistic view of the applicant’s financial health across the entire customer lifecycle. Alternative data is especially helpful when scoring thin-file and or no-file individuals that have not had credit in the past,” he continues.

Also Read: How will generative AI advance embedded lending

Risk Management

“AI can support the industry in understanding and mitigating risks by analysing complex data and operationalising financial risk models. Through AI-powered platforms, banks can create loan origination experiences that drive customer loyalty,” Vellore points out.

“Other benefits including improving overall efficiency and productivity cannot be overlooked. The ability to generate large amounts of timely and accurate insights will be fundamental in building overall competency around customer intelligence and will be instrumental in providing a vastly superior forecasting ability – which will lead to potentially richer data segmentation. These will essentially be a juncture in maintaining effective risk strategies.”

With these trends identified, we move on to the next question: What challenges remain? How can we continue on improving?

“While AI is being more widely adopted by more companies across a wide spectrum of industries, integration of the technology into real-world applications is not as straightforward – and it is important to recognise that AI is not a ‘magic pill’ solution. Firstly, the technology is rarely a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, and while use cases within the same industry may be similar, data integration will be vital,” Vellore elaborates.

“Secondly, organisations also need to consider the infrastructure needed to support an AI solution. For example, are datasets integrated and in a format that is easily accessible to AI platforms? Are sufficient computing resources dedicated to processing to generate real-time insights? All these technology infrastructure requirements need to be addressed alongside implementing AI, unless you partner with a vendor that offers a purpose-built AI platform,” he says.

Also Read: AI-powered Betterhalf aims to make online matchmaking easy for urban Indians

Last but not least, Vellore points out that organisations may also struggle with finding the right talent to implement and support AI solutions.

But in the next few years, Vellore says that growth in the use of AI in the finance industry will increase “dramatically”.

“Organisations that can leverage additional data sources and use AI to test and deploy new strategies quickly will be able to better serve their customers, detect fraud, and capture new market share,” he says. “This means that we are likely to see AI being adopted across multiple business units and functions – encompassing everything from credit and risk analysis, and fraud detection to task automation.”

How Provenir seizes these opportunities

Now that we have an understanding of the ongoing and upcoming trends in AI usage in the finance industry, what opportunities does Provenir intend to pursue as a data and AI-powered risk decisioning software?

According to Vellore, credit risk decisioning is becoming prevalent across many industries, such as healthcare, pet care, travel, auto repair, utilities and telco, especially with the growth of BNPL providers.

“Changing demographics also provides an opportunity to modernise decisioning approaches. For example, digital natives, who account for 40 to 50 per cent of all consumption in the region, are more likely to use credit but are less willing to engage in conventional banking. They have always had instant access to services and expect that same level of responsiveness from financial service providers,” he elaborates.

“SMEs are still underserved by traditional institutions or fintech services, yet they represent more than 90 per cent of businesses in APAC. We see a growing number of fintechs serving this audience with automated risk-decisioning technology embedded with AI models that provides instant approvals and funding in hours, not weeks.”

Also Read: Archireef secures funding to restore degraded marine ecosystems using 3D printing, AI

In the past year, Provenir has achieved several key milestones, including the launch of its AI-powered data and risk decisioning platform and the growth of its marketplace data partner. The company said it achieved 106 per cent growth in revenue and expanding its customer base by 67 per cent in the past year. It has also expanded to include more than 100 data partners, achieving 57 per cent growth over the past year.

Vellore said that the company intends to invest “significantly” in Asia Pacific, especially in Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia.

“These plans include a focus on R&D, growth and most importantly, our customers,” he says.

“Developing new, innovative technology remains a top priority and the company invests 25 per cent of its revenue in R&D each year to ensure that we are always at the curve of development.”

He also shares more about the company’s user acquisition strategy.

“In the spirit of innovation, we have trained our global sales team to be entrepreneurial, crafting targeted solutions for customers and audiences with specific use cases in mind. It is critical that we understand a customer’s objectives and position ourselves as strategic partners to address their challenges and goals. This level of collaboration helps build a customer advocacy to be our very own Provenir ambassador,” he explains.

“We have also been selected to participate in TransUnion’s Strategic Alliance Distribution Program and Visa’s Ready for BNPL program, which allows their clients to take advantage of our industry-leading platform,” he closes.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 is bringing together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here.

Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups get the chance to pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

Image Credit: Provenir

The post Infrastructure, talents are some of the challenges finance industry faces in adopting AI: Provenir appeared first on e27.

SESAMm, a French AI company empowering users to generate NLP insights from web data on companies, has expanded into Southeast Asia by opening an office in Singapore.

The Singapore business will be led by Thibaut Gunsey, Head of Sales (Asia), who brings nine years of financial-industry experience to the company.

The island nation will be a hub for SESAMm’s regional operations, driving growth through new business development. It is the fintech firm’s first business residency in Southeast Asia, where private equity (PE), public equity, and asset management are ripe for solutions focused on alternative data sources, particularly those sourced with NLP solutions.

The new location will also support its employee growth, with plans to expand the team in the coming months.

“This move represents a significant milestone in our growth strategy,” said SESAMm CEO Sylvain Forté. “Singapore is a key financial centre in the region, and our presence here will allow us to serve our existing clients better and tap into new business opportunities.”

SESAMm was founded in 2014 by Sylvain Forté (Co-Founder and CEO), Pierre Rinaldi (Co-Founder and COO) and Florian Aubry (Co-Founder and CTO).

SESAMm’s off-the-shelf platform TextReveal empowers users to generate NLP insights from web data on “millions of companies in less than a minute”. The firm analyses more than 20 billion documents in real-time to generate insights for controversy detection on investments, clients and suppliers, ESG and positive impact scores, PE due diligence and sourcing, and sentiment analysis on financial assets.

Also Read: Startups that can reflect and pivot in time will thrive during funding winter: Ivan Ong of AFG Partners

The startup operates in two areas: NLP and Sustainability (ESG) insights. Its vision is to continue expanding in those two areas in high demand in the APAC region. The market needs will help them continue focusing on further developing technologies applying NLP to serve sustainability-related use cases while serving local clients and positively impacting their strategies.

With operations in six countries, the firm claims it tracks over five million public and private firms providing insights in 100+ languages.

“APAC is diverse, so doing business in Japan differs greatly from Australia or Singapore. However, our solutions’ flexibility and relevance have proven helpful for multiple use cases in the region. In particular, we see a lot of interest in ESG controversies for portfolio monitoring and alerting,” said the SESAMm team in an email interview with e27.

“As with most markets, local expertise is critical We have experienced the nuances of each market, and despite the success, we could have in other markets, we remain humble and have hired local talent from the start for all of our offices worldwide. In Japan, we have two employees and have a couple of positions opened for our Singapore office. We see both offices growing over the upcoming years and even opening more offices in the region,” the team added.

Recently, SESAMm closed its Series B2 round with €35 (US$37) million from France and US investors along with Singapore-based AFG Partners.

“SESAMm’s proven traction in international markets positions it well to enter Asia, and we see a clear strong appetite from financial institutions and corporates to adopt their solution. We look forward to scaling the business across Asia with them,” said Ivan Ong, Principal at AFG Partners.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post Exclusive: French AI company SESAMm expands into SEA, opens office in Singapore appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based digital mental health company ThoughtFull has raised US$4 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A funding round.

Temasek’s wholly-owned healthcare entity Sheares Healthcare Group led the round. Returning investors Vulpes Investment Management and The Hive Southeast Asia, founding members of Grab and Zalora, and global private family offices also joined.

The startup will use the funds to scale its business across Asia further and deepen its product offering across the end-to-end spectrum. The company plans to conduct clinical research to provide more Asia-focused insights for personalised mental healthcare.

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

ThoughtFull’s digital platform, ThoughtFullChat, aims to address the challenges faced by traditional mental health systems. It offers self-care resources, such as personalised content, progress-tracking tools, and professional support through video calls and text-based mental health coaching.

Each wellness tool on ThoughtFullChat is curated and verified by mental health professionals or global experts in these fields.

In 2022, ThoughtFull partnered with insurers such as AIA Malaysia to provide their corporate customers with end-to-end mental health support. It also runs similar propositions with FWD to scale affordable mental healthcare across Hong Kong and Thailand.

ThoughtFull claims its revenue has grown 30x since the launch. The platform’s mental health professional network has grown to 57 locations across Asia, and its user base now covers 95 locations worldwide.

Joan Low, Founder and CEO of ThoughtFull said: “Building on the work we do with healthcare professionals, employers, and insurers, we are yet another step closer to realising our vision to empower everyone to make mental health a priority every day by bringing seamless end-to-end care to all.”

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