Joel Neoh, the founder of payment app Fave, has joined hands with his former colleague Audra Pakalnyte to launch an early-stage fund called ‘First Move’ to support consumer-focused startups in Southeast Asia.

The fund will provide pre-seed funding of up to US$100,000 and mentorship to early-stage ventures in the e-commerce, fintech, and healthtech sectors. It has already invested in seven startups in the e-commerce and D2C spaces across Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Also Read: Fave Co-Founder Joel Neoh to head Prenetics’s consumer health subsidiary CircleDNA

First Move’s early investors include 500 Global.

In addition to providing direct funding to startups, First Move will partner with other regional VC firms.

The fund has also established the Consumer Tech Angel Syndicate, a close-knit group of experienced founders and executives in the consumer space. Its members, which include founders and senior executives from D2C, e-commerce, mobility and fintech scale-ups across Southeast Asia, will co-invest in First Move deals.

Audra Pakalnyte, Partner of First Move, said: “As founders ourselves, at First Move, we go beyond capital injection. We believe in providing guidance, mentorship, and access to a vast network of industry connections which is crucial in early stages of getting on the right path. We understand the pain points of founders and aim to leverage our experience to provide invaluable mentoring support during the early days of their journey and set our portfolio startups up for long-term success.”

After leaving Fave earlier this year, Neoh joined CircleDNA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Prenetics Global, a genomics and oncology company listed on the Nasdaq. He wrote the first cheque for Prenetics as an angel investor back in 2014.

Also Read: Dream big, start small: Joel Neoh shares lessons from his years with Fave

Pakalnyte is a seasoned founding team member of multiple successful startups alongside Neoh. She worked at Fave for over eight years and left the company as the Head of its buy-now-pay-later unit FavePay Later.

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My job as a business coach means I talk with a lot of people, including entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. They want to solve issues and solve market gaps, and it’s exciting, stimulating and all that, but… wait a minute.

Read that first sentence again. Why would I distinguish social entrepreneurs from entrepreneurs in the first place? Is there a difference justifying this language split?

It depends.

A lot of social entrepreneurs seem to think that, yes, there is a difference worth emphasizing, which is why I wrote my first line this way. But do I believe the distinction makes sense? Absolutely not.

Worse, that’s a real problem from a credibility standpoint and a fundraising standpoint.

In many discussions, I’ve had, “social” entrepreneurs insisted on being treated differently.

They demanded discounts on what they wanted to purchase because, well, their enterprise was a social one, so it was fair to ask for an effort. They wanted to raise more funds at a discounted rate because the purpose was social and deserved to be supported even more.

They refused to talk in terms of profit because, somehow, the word seemed incompatible with the social principles behind their enterprise.

The problem is that this type of discourse sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs and funders who know what the reality of entrepreneurship and business is like. And it isn’t something you want to inflict on your business.

Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs

Feel free to spend some time wondering about the definition of social entrepreneurship if that floats your boat. As far as I am concerned, social or not, entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs.

Also Read: Rise of the social entrepreneur: can doing good be good for business?

From a language standpoint, first, social entrepreneurs would call themselves charity people, world changers, magicians or change makers if they weren’t entrepreneurs. But since they do use the term, then that means something pretty clear to me.

From a pragmatic and operational standpoint, then, social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because, like it or not, what they do is based on entrepreneurship principles.

Yes, they want to fill a market gap, make an impact and change the world. But to get there, they have no choice but to act as responsible business leaders who know what it takes to run an organisation with teeth.

Value proposition, USP and offering

First, any social entrepreneur who refuses to think in terms of value proposition, unique selling point and offerings are driving blind.

If there is to be a beneficiary (see how I didn’t talk about ‘client here?) in the end, there must be a real issue to solve on their side and a real value proposition on your side.

Because there is always competition, you must also have a unique selling point that makes you… you! For instance, imagine how many charities seek money to help people in need and put yourself in a banker’s shoes. Why would he fund you more than another?

Hence, your social enterprise must also be able to put a clear offering in front of that banker. They get this if they pay this. But they get more if they pay more. The question is, “What’s in it for them”. And the only way to answer it is to think about market value and business opportunity.

Also Read: Bridging the gender gap and boosting women entrepreneurship with embedded finance

Business modelling and profits for all

If social entrepreneurship is not a value proposition, social leaders must also think in terms of business models: whatever comes out has to come in the first place, including profit.

Basic costs must be met, but profit is crucial if you want to go beyond just basic: it is your investment capacity-building powerhouse!

The primary focus should not be to express disdain towards profits due to their perceived negative connotations, as such an attitude can quickly lead to dismissal by others.

It is to make a profit on whatever you invest, so you can re-invest it in your cause to make a bigger impact. The issue isn’t profit, and it’s what you do with it!

Please don’t roll your eyes. I’m not being judgmental here; explaining this to social workers does really take a lot of time because when the cash historically comes from donations, this logic is not always that logic.

Keep boosting your entrepreneurial skills

In short? Invest all your energy and talent in making the difference you want to make, and don’t look back. What you are doing is fundamental, and I’m deeply grateful.

Still, keep some bandwidth to focus on the business management aspects (offering, modelling, financial planning) of what you do. This is key.

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NEU Battery Materials, a Singapore-based lithium-ion battery recycling startup, has secured US$3.7 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by SGInnovate.

ComfortDelGro Ventures, Shift4Good, Paragon Ventures I, and other angel investors also joined.

These funds will accelerate the deployment of NEU Battery Materials’s automated recycling line, which will lower operational manpower requirements. It will also develop partnerships in key global markets to support their battery requirements and forge new direct partnerships with electric vehicles OEMs and battery manufacturers to further the adoption of its technology within the transport and mobility sector.

“This achievement fuels our ambitious growth strategy, empowering us to expand into new markets and enhance the capabilities of our Singapore facility. With our advanced automated process line, we are poised to efficiently handle a greater influx of batteries from partners, further bolstering the sustainability of batteries,” said Bryan Oh, CEO of NEU Battery Materials.

Also Read: VFlow’s recyclable energy solution with an expected lifespan of 25 yrs seeks to replace Li-Ion batteries

NEU Battery Materials has developed an electrochemical redox-targeting technology for the sustainable recycling of battery materials. Its patented process requires electricity as its only consumable and utilises regenerative chemicals to avoid toxic waste and harsh acids.

Being less polluting than more commonplace methods, such as hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy, it paves the way for the broader adoption of a more sustainable way to recycle all forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries.

This technique produces battery-grade lithium, which can be supplied back to battery manufacturers, and can also process lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.

The firm has set up a 150-square-metre pilot recycling plant in Singapore, capable of processing approximately 150 tonnes of lithium batteries annually. 

In broadening its capabilities, the startup has also initiated research into recycling other lithium battery chemistries, such as the cobalt-based batteries used in smart devices and EVs.

“LFP battery recycling, when done in a sustainable manner, will be the foundation of a viable circular economy for batteries, offering new, more stable supply and revenue streams, while reducing the negative, and often unequal negative impacts of mining,” said Tong Hsien-Hui, Executive Director (Investments) at SGInnovate. “Emerging technologies that offer scalable, impactful solutions to sustainability goals is one of SGInnovate’s key focus areas, and we are pleased to support NEU Battery Materials in their wider decarbonisation mission.”

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Most of us pay online (using credit/debit cards, QR codes, GPay, etc.) for the products we purchase on Amazon and other online shopping portals. Globally, only a few e-commerce platforms accept cryptocurrencies as an alternative option. There has not been a crypto-exclusive e-commerce platform, at least not in Asia.

Julian Chow, Daniel Whyte, Lori Liu, and Ferhat Dogru — who previously founded Phantom Network (PxN), a startup focusing on Web3 e-commerce and blockchain technology — sensed an opportunity and came up with GM.co.

“GM.co was started as the flagship product of PxN, whose long-term strategy is to build a marketplace where our community can have a use case for all the crypto they hold,” CEO Julian Chow tells e27. “With PxN, we’ve built a solid following and community of over 100,000. Through conversations with our community, we noted a strong demand for a decentralised marketplace. That motivted us to create GM.co.”

Also Read: Don’t just build a Web3 community, start a movement

GM.co is a crypto-exclusive e-commerce platform that aggregates various brands. According to the co-founders, it merges the best of Web3 and traditional e-commerce to provide a better shopping experience.

In addition to the traditional items, such as apparel, luxury goods, and collectibles, GM.co also offers unique products, such as Mech pilot training, a luxurious omakase yacht experience, and the soon-to-be-launched ‘PROTHESIS’ that holds a Guinness World Record for the largest tetrapod exoskeleton.

The platform has listed over 1,000 items on its marketplace. Some of its partner brands are BLVCK Paris, OSIM, and OHTNYC.

GM.co is headquartered in Dubai, but its team members work from different locations, including New Zealand, Singapore, and the US.

How it works

To shop on GM.co, users need to connect their crypto wallets with MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, or WalletConnect. From there, they will see all the listings available on the marketplace. To see listings available in their region, they could use the shipping filter on the top right of the website (next to the wallet). Shoppers will have the option to pay with any cryptocurrency accepted by participating merchants.

Since its soft launch in March 2023, the platform claims to have seen transactions increase by 26x, with an average of 20+ items added weekly.

The concept is similar to any other e-commerce marketplace, except that transactions are facilitated by digital currencies and conducted over a blockchain to provide an added layer of security.

“As a decentralised marketplace, GM.co does not hold custodianship of the funds. Instead of having a company as a middleman, we automate that process and host it on a smart contract. This contract exists within the Ethereum blockchain and allows people to conduct transactions without a counterparty,” Chow explains.

“The smart contract is the intermediary between the buyer and seller and ensures that transactions are conducted securely. It also makes the nature of the transactions less complex because it is between a buyer and seller, and no third party can get in between those funds. This is a security protocol we’ve taken to avoid the issue of holding customer funds, which is common on decentralised exchanges,” he adds.

Enormous opportunity

According to S&P Global, the total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies stood at US$1.1 trillion as of August 2022 or about 2.5 per cent of the US equity market capitalisation. As of 2023, Triple-A estimated global crypto ownership rates at an average of 4.2 per cent, with over 420 million crypto users worldwide. “There are massive opportunities to engage crypto users and merchants,” says Chow.

As part of its launch, GM.co has collaborated with The Open Network (TON), a decentralised and open internet created by the community using a technology designed by Telegram. TON boasts a community with over one million subscribers and followers across various social platforms and a US$2.3 billion market capitalisation. TON and GM.co will look for mutually beneficial integrations, granting TON’s extensive community access to decentralised commerce.

Also Read: How to stay creative in the age of Generative AI and Web3

In Chow’s opinion, GM.co opens up a new world of possibilities for retailers, merchants, and brands; they get global reach, increased brand exposure, a new revenue stream, a broader customer base, and direct customer engagement.

“There are over 420 million crypto users worldwide, and there’s a massive opportunity for retailers and merchants to jump on the bandwagon to, firstly, lead the retail revolution and, secondly, diversify their revenue streams,” he says.

In the future, GM.co plans to integrate new functions, such as allowing users to customise their profile pictures, personalise their pages with digital collectibles, and follow others and see what they are shopping for.

The self-funded startup encounters several challenges, though. They include limited acceptance and adoption of cryptocurrency by businesses. According to him, convincing merchants, particularly mainstream brands, to join the retail revolution with cryptocurrency is a significant hurdle.

“Many of these brands are unfamiliar with digital currencies, making it necessary for us to educate and demonstrate the benefits and potential of joining us. However, we firmly believe that the brands that embrace this opportunity will gain a competitive edge, showcasing their willingness to innovate and adapt to evolving consumer needs,” Chow maintains.

Chow points out that interest and investment in cryptocurrency remain strong despite the crypto winter. According to a 2022 survey by Paxos, more than 75 per cent of people surveyed indicated they are very confident or somewhat confident in the future of cryptocurrency. Crypto owners also want to use digital assets for everyday financial transactions, including payments and remittances, and this is a sentiment that bodes well for the cryptocurrency market.

“It’s worth noting that the crypto winter is not a permanent state for the market. Cryptocurrency as a technology is relatively new and rather early stage,” he exudes confidence.

Also Read: The battle for regulation: Can cryptocurrency be tamed?

Given the volatility in the market and the overall economic headwinds, consumer confidence in cryptocurrencies remains low. Plus, regulatory uncertainties in several countries make the transaction using crypto hard. It means it may take years before cryptocurrencies are widely used in e-commerce. However, Chow is confident in scaling and growing GM.co.

“We expect volatility daily, but having said that, we as a team are optimistic about the future of cryptocurrency and the power it could hold,” he notes.

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Agriculture is more than just an economic activity; it plays an important role in ensuring sustainable development, social well-being, and food security. With the global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, demands for food and agricultural products remain very high. As a result, the agricultural sector is under pressure to keep up with the world’s growing food demand and changing trends in food preferences.

In the past years, thanks to technological advancements, agricultural productivity and efficiency have seen significant growth, resulting in increased food production and availability. Nonetheless, food security remains an important matter in many parts of the world. For instance, in Europe, it was estimated that nearly 10% of the population could not afford a healthy diet with meat or fish or vegetarian equivalent every two days. The situation is even more serious in other parts of the world, such as in Africa, where around 20% of the population does not have enough food, and over 140 million people have severe food insecurity with chronic famine and constant threats of starvation.

Challenges faced by farmers in Bangladesh and other developing countries

With the grim prospects of increasingly palpable impacts of climate change that further threaten agricultural production and place more pressure on global food security, it is vital to enhance the sector’s productivity and sustainable development to ascertain reliable food supply for more people.

In this regard, the digitalisation process that is claimed to bring about disruptive innovations and fuel growth in other industries can prove crucial in revolutionising the agricultural sector by enhancing supply chain transparency and efficiency, empowering the decision-making process with data science, strengthening sectoral resilience, and improving agronomic practices for higher production.

Also read: How Anapi’s D&O Insurance protects new startup founders

Nevertheless, the agricultural sector is still one of the least digitalised sectors in the economy due largely to the huge digital gap faced by farmers around the world. Specifically, farmers living in rural areas often lack access to stable Internet and other digital infrastructures, insufficient education and training to bridge the digital skills gap, and lower living standards in general.

This is particularly true for farmers in developing countries such as Bangladesh, where agriculture contributes to over 11.6% of its GDP and employs around 37% of its total workforce. These farmers have limited access to resources and updated insights about farming practices, financing needed to invest in their farms, or access to broader markets due to inadequate infrastructure or services like internet connectivity.

The digital divide between developed and developing countries that heavily on agriculture has created many challenges for these communities, which can lead not only to economic but also social consequences if left unaddressed — from rising inequality among countries and within countries, limited opportunities for youth who find it hard to venture out of their home environment, decreased nutrition and food security, and other long-term sustainability issues.

How iFarmer harnesses the digital power to democratise financing and supply chain in the agricultural sector

Founded in Bangladesh in 2019, iFarmer is an agri-tech company that helps farmers maximise their profit potential with data and technology, direct-to-farm commerce, financial services, and advisory services. iFarmer has been partnering with financial institutions, agriculture input manufacturers, and food processing conglomerates to craft “one-stop solutions” for farmers and their farming needs and improve their yields and income through the use of data and technology.

The core of iFarmer’s offerings includes its proprietary platform, which provides real-time information on soil analysis results, fertiliser recommendations, crop analytics, training, financing, investment, and procurement and exchange. This comprehensive suite of services allows farm owners or managers to not only track field performance but also help them boost their knowledge and capacity, gain access to wider financing options to manage their farms, and buy more equipment. Moreover, through its mobile app and web portal, iFarmer offers several additional products and services for users, such as loyalty point bonuses, news and recommendations, investment products, and so on.

Also read: WAOHire: Empowering both developers and the businesses that need them

With these solutions, iFarmer believes that it can digitalise the agriculture value chain through different initiatives. For instance, one of its key initiatives focuses on improving agricultural productivity through data intelligence and analytics. By collecting big data from farms around the world and utilising sophisticated algorithms, iFarmer can effectively collect and analyse weather information, soil fertility, pH level, and other soil attributes in real-time. Moreover, the application can also make precise recommendations for farmers to select the most suitable fertilisers to enhance their farms’ conditions and become more proliferate.

With all these features combined, it will become easier than ever before for farmers living in rural communities throughout Bangladesh and across borders to access fundamental resources for their farming operation, scale up, and spur professional development. To illustrate, Charubela Roy from Lalmonirhaat shared how she benefited from iFarmer, which has helped her with funding support, cattle feed, vaccination, veterinary services, and market access. iFarmer offers lower interest rates, flexible repayment, input services, and transport services to its farmers. “I can now grow more cattle and vegetables and have a more stable life,” said Charubela Roy.

In the next few years, iFarmer intends to embark on a more ambitious plan to better support farmers not only in Bangladesh but also globally, creating a strong network of support for farmers and making positive changes in agricultural production and food security across the world. iFarmer is currently planning to expand and bring more farmers under its network through a digitised network of micro-entrepreneurs called ‘iFarmer Centers’ for last-mile delivery as well as aggregation.

To learn more about the company, you may visit iFarmer’s official website.

About iFarmer

Founded in 2019, iFarmer has built a full-stack agricultural model which provides services ranging from distribution of agricultural inputs, customised farm advisory, access to financial services, and market linkages to sell farmers’ produce. iFarmer currently works with nearly 100,000 farmers across 25 districts in Bangladesh and has grown over 40 times in the last 3 years.

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

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