ZEBOX, a French accelerator connecting entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and ecosystem experts globally, has announced the launch of its Asia Pacific hub in Singapore.

The accelerator aims to help tackle pressing business and sustainability issues in multiple sectors, such as supply chains, logistics, transportation, and energy.

With the support of Enterprise Singapore and the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), ZEBOX Asia Pacific will identify startups in Asia, notably in Singapore, and match them to corporate partners. Together, they can embark on co-innovation projects locally and across markets in the Asia Pacific.

The company already has innovation hubs in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and West Africa.

Also Read: Validate the problem before building a solution: Surasit Sachdev of Hungry Hub

“With Asia Pacific being one of the most, if not, the most, active regions in the world, it simply made sense for ZEBOX to launch in Singapore,” said Gwen Salley, ZEBOX Chief Executive Officer. “With this regional presence, we’ll have the ability to unite ambitious corporate partners, and connect them with our global ecosystem, thanks to Singapore’s pro-business government, local talents, and vibrant tech support system.”

ZEBOX’s community of partners add up to 20 with three new industry leaders: Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore, one of the world’s leading ship classification societies; PSA unboXed, PSA International’s innovation and corporate VC arm; and Synergy Marine Group, a leading ship manager have become corporate partners of ZEBOX Asia Pacific.

They join ZEBOX’s founding partner CMA CGM and its circle of 16 other major partner groups to co-develop with startups game-changing solutions across four key areas: operational efficiency, assets optimisation and decarbonisation, workflow automation, and future of work.

—

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 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

Image credit: ZEBOX

The post French accelerator ZEBOX opens APAC hub in Singapore appeared first on e27.

Innovative startup businesses in the Asia-Pacific region have emerged at a rapid pace, reshaping global market trends. While the United States has long led the startup ecosystem, the Asia-Pacific region is demonstrating excellent success.

Reports have indicated 462 unicorns in Asian markets during the first quarter of 2022 — unicorns are private startups valued at over US$1 billion.

To ensure ongoing success, startups must market their brands to leading consumers, for many, this is Generation Z. Of course, Gen Z is an essential subset of consumers with high expectations for companies.

Here’s what Asia-Pacific startups should know about marketing their businesses to this particular demographic.

Getting to know Gen Z consumers in Asia

Every seasoned marketing professional knows the importance of pinpointing the target audience. In Asia, startups must pay close attention to Gen Z’s demands. 

A 2020 McKinsey study examined the Gen Z consumer across various Asian countries with intriguing results, including the following:

• The demographic is more thoughtful about social media engagement.
• They like unique brands that are also recognizable.
• Video content is highly influential in their purchasing habits.
• They expect eco-friendly products at zero cost to them.

Also Read: How to orient your brand to Gen Z values

They are also generally more used to receiving things they want instantly. For example, 66 per cent of Gen Z consumers in Australia search for discounts before purchasing something — about 50 per cent of Gen Z in China do the same. This is likely due to them working part-time and having less money. However, quality products still matter significantly.

Four tips to make your startup appeal to Gen Z

Once you know more about your Gen Z audience, you must modify your marketing strategy to appeal to them. Of course, that isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds. Here are four tips to strategically market your startup to Gen Z.

Make a difference

Around the world, particular issues are front and centre for Gen Z. Whether it’s climate change or social equity, Gen Z looks for brands whose missions align with their values, some might even consider brands an extension of themselves. 

The Asia-Pacific Gen Z demographic has a heightened interest in sustainability. In the climate change era, many Gen Z consumers expect eco-friendliness from startups and believe it isn’t something they should have to pay extra for. 

Young consumers are also more apt to change their purchasing, eating and lifestyle behaviours to improve their carbon footprint. If startups want to reach Gen Z, they must reexamine how they make a difference in the world.

Transparency matters

A recent study found that Asia’s Gen Z values transparent brands. To better understand transparency, it’s important to remember that Gen Z grew up in the digital era and is often more sceptical about conspiracies and misinformation. 

About 96 per cent of Gen Z would pay more for brands prioritizing transparency. However, over-transparency could hurt your business, too — especially if you don’t live up to your promises, such as achieving net-zero operations. 

If you’re too open, consumers may perceive it as mere performative advertising. Meanwhile, Gen Z is one consumer base that isn’t afraid to swiftly cancel a brand for being unethical in its practices or marketing. 

Also Read: Its time to embrace Gen Zs at work – Here are 10 ways to start

This goes for startups with a toxic working environment or those making false claims about a product. A prime example is Elizabeth Holmes from consumer health tech startup Theranos, who committed several types of fraud by deceiving investors and consumers with a defective product.

Nurture consumer relationships

Gen Z is interested in startup brands that engage effectively and nurture consumer relationships. In fact, because Gen Z is so well-connected, brands must build upon personal connections and unique interactions.

Start viewing the relationship between your business and Gen Z consumers as a partnership — the first step is understanding who they are and what they value most.

You can personalize conversations through social media, the company website and email campaigns. However, watch your tone. Gen Z consumers won’t be able to relate if you’re too formal.

Additionally, three in five young consumers purchase goods from personalized online advertisements, delivering another avenue for your startup marketing strategy. 

Create engaging content

Naturally, unique content is vital to Gen Z — of course, it is for a generation that grew up with the internet. As previously mentioned, video content can be highly influential, so you should step up your marketing game with engaging video and social media posts that target your audience.

Uncover which platform works best for your startup, which means deciding which channel generates the broadest reach among Gen Z. For example, 40 per cent of young consumers prefer using TikTok and Instagram to search for content, brands and information.

Kotex Malaysia is an excellent example of a successful ad campaign on Instagram. Using Instagram Reels, Kotex Malaysia has experienced a 9.8-point higher ad recall from consumers between 25 and 34 years old using Reels — this was followed by a 5.6-point higher intent of purchasing products.

Some consider Gen Z a challenging demographic to market to, yet they’ll be your most crucial buyer age bracket for a successful business. Start by acquainting yourself with your target audience, then cater your marketing strategy to their expectations. You’ll reap the rewards if executed correctly.

–

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: 123rf-blackandbrightph

The post Effective marketing strategies to win over Gen Z for your startup appeared first on e27.

In late 2021, engineer-turned-media explorer Vignesh R and lyricist and screenwriter Dr Madhan Karky travelled from West Coast to East Coast to learn about the creative industry in the US.

They interacted with some of the finest creative minds and organisations, including David Aaker (the creator of the Aaker marketing model) and actor-comedian TJ Miller. These meetings helped the duo understand the challenges faced by the creatives industry which included subscriber fatigue and declining customer attention spans. They realised that these challenges could be addressed using advanced technologies.

“We identified the gap of independence and ownership, including the avenues for monetisation for creative individuals and organisations. We discussed this in detail and arrived at the idea of Canvas Space,” Vignesh recounts the story to e27.

A creator-centric platform

Incorporated in the US, Canvas Space is a SaaS-based micro content monetisation engine for creative individuals and organisations. According to Vignesh, it is the “world’s first creator-centric platform” that allows creatives to choose how they wish to monetise their work and build sustainable revenue channels.

The monetisation engine enables micro-transactions for any small parts (seconds, pixels, minutes, and paragraphs) of users’ content in the currency of their choice — fiat, crypto, or even ad inventories.

Also Read: The news wars: Will tech giants soon be coughing up big bucks for media content?

“Canvas solves a unique monetisation problem for creatives as an augmentation to the declining subscriptions and advertising model,” he says.

As per research, our attention span has markedly decreased over the past two decades; it shrank by 25 per cent between 2000 and 2015. It means customers disengage with anything that is too time-consuming or complicated at first glance. If you make them wait, you risk losing them.

“Canvas Space with its micro technologies addresses those business and user challenges,” he adds. “Our USP is our easy-to-use templates and the future forward content technology that can be installed seamlessly through simple API and SDK integrations.”

Canvas Space’s key target audience includes:

1) Individual creators (creating across media, including text, audio, video, and images.

• text may include writers, storytellers, researchers, bloggers, etc.),
• image may include photographers, digital artists, doodlers, artists, etc.)
• audio may include podcasters, independent artists, musicians, storytellers, etc.)
• video may include vloggers, YouTubers, and independent filmmakers).

2) Creator collectives (like journalism schools, publishing houses, filmmaking schools, music schools, small medium creator collectives or creator communities with a sizeable audience and number of creators within their purview)

3) Creative enterprises (content and creative enterprises like Warner Brothers, Disney/Hotstar, and CNBC Network 18).

How Canvas Space works

The interface allows users to build a profile and either use its in-built editor (for text) or upload their content in text, audio, video, and image formats. Any creative entrepreneur or individual creating content can use it irrespective of their geography or follower/audience count.

They can use the platform to find novel ways of interacting with their audiences and build a sustainable revenue channel for their creative business through the ‘payblock’ feature while selling their content in full or in part with their audiences. This way, the micro-monetisation feature gives creatives the freedom to choose when what and how they wish to monetise their work in any currency.

“For example, there is a popular writers’ community of over 1,200 members from across Malaysia and India on our platform. It thrives on showcasing the prowess of poets, novelists, bloggers, and authors. While this community aspires to spread awareness and inculcate a passion for writers, bloggers, poets, and authors, it also aims to invent and enhance methods of helping them build a sustainable income source and find monetisation opportunities,” explains Vignesh.

“As a collective of some of the finest subculture-defining writers, the community discovered the micro way of innovative interactions for the audiences. Enthusiasm and passion blended with opportunity and as it experimented with locking micro content through the Canvas-powered technology, its world changed and the perspective of building sustainable creative businesses evolved multifold,” he claims.

The current revenue models for this writers’ community on Canvas Space included donations, author collaborations or sponsorships, author royalties, ads, workshops, and seminars.

The market size

The Creator Economy market is US$105 billion as of 2020, and with the onset of AI and other tech development, everyone is a creator today.

“There were 50 million global content creators and 200 million people globally contributing to the creator economy in 2022. According to Adobe, the creator economy has increased by 119 per cent in the last two years. The next creator economy influencers might emerge straight out of high school, as 29 per cent of high schoolers in America selected content creators as part of their preferred career choice as per a recent report by Antler,” he says.

Also Read: What is the future regulation of crypto?

Canvas Space claims that it already has US$110,000 in its revenue pipeline, over 25 collectives and 14 letters of intent with B2B media houses, and 5,000+ creatives experimenting with it.

However, Canvas Space as a novel concept in the market faces a challenge: making a behavioural shift for creators to understand that they can have complete control and power to monetise anything without any third-party involvement and with zero dependencies on platforms. Vignesh and the team hope to overcome the challenge as it scales.

In early 2022, the startup raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed round from a number of individuals, including Neelamani Muthu Kumar (CFO of OLAM Singapore), Gagan Gupta (CEO, Arise), Anil Advani (Director, Inventus), Gunjan Aggarwal(CPO, Confluent), Jaya Kumar (ex-RingCentral, Capital Group). Suriyanarayanan (CFO, Aujas), Jayanth Narayanan (Professor, NUS), Saibaba Talluri (Co-Founder, Disruptrs), Anuj Jain (Founder, Startup O), Amit Jain (Co-Founder, Mednet Labs), Dee Mc Laughlin (ex-MTV, Virgin, Capital Group), Ipsita Agarwal (General Counsel, Olam), and Ram (Sony Playstation) are also among its backers.

With the company achieving multiple milestones since early 2022, Canvas Space will look to expand and for that, it plans to raise Series A in the US.

“Canvas Space is an original idea from India for the world, empowering creatives with the tools they need to monetise their content, their way,” Vignesh concludes.

—

The post Canvas Space allows you to micro-monetise your content in fiat, cryptocurrencies appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based Cosmose AI, a global platform that predicts and influences how people shop offline, has received a strategic investment from NEAR Foundation at a US$500 million valuation.

NEAR Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that supports the ongoing growth and development of the Near Protocol, a carbon-neutral blockchain.

With the new investment, Cosmose will innovate within the Web3 ecosystem to create a “seamless” experience for shoppers and increase sales for retailers. By leveraging Web3, Cosmose AI can ensure that users maintain complete control over their data and benefit from the ecosystem they help create.

Through the partnership with NEAR Foundation, Cosmose AI’s products — Cosmose Media and KaiKai — will advance Web3-driven innovations. KaiKai has been leveraging NEAR Protocol by creating its own cryptocurrency utilised for payments, cash-back and rewards: Kai-Ching. Thanks to Kai-Ching, shoppers and retailers benefit from shorter payment processing times and lower fees.

Also Read: The AI revolution: Transforming industries and reshaping the world we live in

Founded in 2014, Cosmose AI connects offline and online to create a better experience for shoppers and increase sales for retailers. It gathers insights from smartphones and helps understand offline shopping habits and drives footfall across 20 million venues in Asia.

It also offers AI-driven recommendations to its users, encouraging them to shop in nearby stores saving time, money, and the environment.

The firm works with companies such as LVMH, Richemont, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder.

Cosmose AI has offices in Paris, Warsaw, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Miron Mironiuk, Founder and CEO of Cosmose AI, said: “NEAR is the most secure, scalable, and sustainable blockchain protocol. Having built on NEAR in 2022 and working with NEAR Foundation, we discovered that our visions for the Web3-driven future are aligned. Together we’ll build a future where one billion users benefit from the ecosystem they’re part of, with complete control of their data and superior AI-driven personalisation.”

The new funding announcement follows Cosmose AI’s US$15 million Series A fundraise in 2020, led by Tiga Investments, OTB Ventures, and TDJ Pitango. Since then, it expanded its product offerings and geographical footprint, with the platform currently available for customers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Southeast Asia.

—

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 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post Cosmose AI raises funding from Swiss non-profit at US$500M valuation appeared first on e27.

In March, TNB Aura announced the appointment of Glen Ramersan as the new Managing Partner & Head of Indonesia, supporting the Singapore-based VC firm’s portfolio in the country. As the firm is on its way to launching its third fund, it intends to further expand in the Indonesian market.

Various reports have highlighted the Indonesian startup ecosystem’s resilience in this startup funding winter, as it continues to become a favourite for regional investors, in addition to Singapore and Vietnam.

But how do Ramersan and TNB Aura see Indonesia? In a recent interview with e27 during his visit to Singapore, Ramersan tells us about the one thing that he would like the public to know about Indonesia: Despite a number of success stories, it is still in the “very early stage” of its startup journey.

He also shares what is behind the resilience of the local startup ecosystem.

“[No matter what the ‘season’ is,] a good company is a good company,” Ramersan says, stating that a sustainable company should be able to withstand any market condition. “And there is always enough supply of sustainable companies that are forward-looking in Indonesia.”

“Maturity of the ecosystem is also important. If you see the type of founders that are working in Indonesia … you see a lot of people who have experiences abroad. They studied abroad, they worked in PayPal, Amazon. Now that they have returned to Indonesia, they start something … they have done this before and they will do it again.”

Also Read: In Indonesia, the problem is lack of insurance accessibility, not affordability: Qoala CEO

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and other back-to-back global crises, Ramersan notes the appearance of more “thoughtful” founders in Indonesia–those who think two to five steps ahead.

“They understand how to be sustainable; they don’t just think about ‘growth at all cost.’ Because now it’s very clear that it can cost you the company … Thinking how you can do things efficiently, grow efficiently, and one day be profitable, that’s important. And we see that mindset change in Indonesia.”

In this interview, Ramersan shares how TNB Aura approaches investment and its views on ongoing trends in the startup ecosystem–including the rise of AI.

Starting from the top

In their investment philosophy, Ramersan explains that TNB Aura is taking a top-down approach when it comes to assessing a potential investment.

“We don’t just invest in deals that come to us. We invest in deals that we approach. So, we do market research, not just on the industry itself, but we narrow it down to the business models within the industry, what we like, and the players within those business models,” he begins.

“Let’s say, there are four or five of them. We speak to all five of them, we see what they do, see their strategy, and how they actually grow throughout the years. For the one that we really liked, we offer them something they can’t refuse. This company might not be fundraising; this company might actually be in the middle of fundraising. But we are so highly convinced, we invest only in those companies.”

TNB Aura focuses on Pre-Series A stage companies, which tend to be slightly later than many VC firms in Indonesia.

“If you invest in a company that is in the very early stage, usually there will be a lot of question marks. [Meanwhile] we would like to make a company that is ready to explode. We want to be that verification check. Because what we like to do is that we like to institutionalise this company … That’s how we want to add value. We want to help with governance, business plan, and everything else to institutionalise them,” Ramersan explains.

Also Read: Mobee launches crypto exchange in Indonesia, secures funding

“I think one of the things to note is that as a regional fund, how we add value to a company can come in a lot of different ways. One of them is that not only we can help them, I would say, make their business plan more efficient, but we also can help them with regional expansion. So that’s why we are investing more often later stage companies,” he continues.

Rising trends

If we look at the list of companies that are in the TNB Aura portfolio, we can see a great variety of companies working in different verticals, from e-commerce to agritech. The firm picks these companies not only for the size of their impact on society but also for how they can change the lives of millions in the market they operate in.

TNB Aura also sees that as an investor, they cannot be oblivious to trends in the market, including AI. The firm’s portfolio in the AI segment includes Ematic from Singapore.

“AI is something that is very intertwined with the startup ecosystem. A lot of startups have implemented the technology, if not on the front end, then maybe on the back end. The way we see it is that AI is an inevitability. It will become bigger, it will become more integrated,” Ramersan says.

“We always tell founders to keep a lookout. Even with the latest founder we have chatted with in our board meeting, we will say, ‘Hey, guys, have you learned about this yet? How can we implement this into your system? What feature can we add to this?’ But again, it is totally up to the founders to finalise the use case of AI. We always push them to understand more, because this thing is coming fast.”

—

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.

Image Credit: TNB Aura

The post We want to be the ‘verification check’ for growth stage companies in SEA: TNB Aura appeared first on e27.