Line Man Wongnai — an e-commerce platform for food delivery, grocery delivery, taxi, messenger, restaurant reviews, and restaurant solutions in Thailand, and Line Company (Thailand), have jointly acquired the majority shares of Rabbit Line Pay Company (RLP) from previous shareholders RabbitPay System Company Limited and Advanced mPAY Company Limited.

The details of the deal remain undisclosed.

The acquisition aims to bring RLP payment services closer to the Line ecosystem, including Line Man, Line Shopping, Line app, and Wongnai’s merchant network.

As per the agreement, Line Man Wongnai CEO Yod Chinsupakul and CFO In Young Chung will become the new CEO and CFO of RLP, respectively.

The merger will not impact RLP users, and they can keep using its payment services in existing channels, including the BTS Skytrain ticketing system and AIS’s bill payment services.

Also Read: Line Man Wongnai secures US$265M in Series B round, enters unicorn club

Chinsupakul stated, “RLP has a long presence among Thai e-payment users, covering a wide range of online and offline payment channels. As user’s behaviours toward e-payment and overall fintech are transforming quickly, it’s an exciting time to reframe the role of RLP under the new shareholders. We want to use our strength of over 10 million Line Man and Wongnai users, over 500,000 merchants, and over 100,000 riders to create a coherent transaction experience for all stakeholders. With the addition of RLP, we believe Line Man Wongnai is uniquely positioned to help digitalises the Thai economy.”

Rabbit LINE Pay (RLP) is an integrated online and offline payment platform. RLP offers payment services, including a digital wallet and quick, on-the-go payment options for purchases, money transfers, or top-ups. RLP services can be utilised within public transportation, for purchasing goods and services from partner brands, and for various utility bill payments.

Line Man Wongnai combines an e-commerce platform for food delivery, grocery delivery, taxi, messenger, local business reviews and restaurant solutions. It became a unicorn following its US$265 million Series B funding led by GIC and Line in September last year. Line Man Wongnai employs more than 1,000 people.

Established in 2014, Line Thailand manages local sales and marketing strategies and develops new businesses and services for Thai markets.

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Image Credit: LINE MAN Wongnai.

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Amidst the AI revolution, e27 presents a new series showcasing how organisations embrace AI in their operations.

Aaron Goldsmid is the Head of Product at Deel, where he oversees connectivity and fintech products, along with a team of hundreds of global, remote product professionals.

Goldsmid brings more than 20 years of product and engineering leadership experience from companies like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and, most recently, Twillio. He joined Deel to help create the world’s friendliest worker platform, starting with the ability to work from anywhere.

In this edition, Goldsmid shares how Deel has embraced Artificial Intelligence.

Edited excerpts:

How do you perceive the AI revolution and its potential impact on your industry and workforce?

AI has and will revolutionise and reshape numerous industries and functions for the better, including the HR industry. There has always been much speculation about whether AI will eliminate jobs, but history has proven that false.

If we were to look into any time there has been a Newtonian revolution in technology, like the weaving loom, printing press or personal computer, it has only provided leverage. Humans didn’t get eliminated from the equation; they just became infinitely more efficient, and their tasks changed.

I believe that is precisely what we will see today with AI. It will allow humans to perform tasks more efficiently and scale faster.

In what ways has your company embraced AI technologies to improve operational efficiency or enhance business processes?

At Deel, we are building a system to understand our support volume and where it’s coming from, such as by identifying root causes and filtering them back into the product. We’re also leveraging predictive churn analysis and trying to determine how to be more efficient in marketing. These can be considered the newer aspects of the AI revolution, but it is essentially machine learning data science that many innovative firms are utilising now.

Also Read: AI’s distinction lies in its vast scale and accessibility: Raunak Mehta of Igloo

I’m particularly excited about how we will help customers using AI and what new products we are building with AI. We will be announcing these later this year.

Can you share specific examples of how AI has been integrated into your workforce to streamline operations or drive innovation?

We’ve built arguably the largest global employment compliance database, allowing our teams to query across all our data.  For example:

• What’s the average salary of software engineers in my organisation in Estonia?
• What is the parental policy in the Netherlands?
• What’s the prevailing tax rate?

Internally, we are now doing tens of thousands of queries against our knowledge base, saving us immense time.

Our data covers 120 countries, comes from expertise from over 100+ in-house Deel country compliance experts, and covers all of the typical questions and compliance law topics our customers ask us about. If used well, it could be a co-pilot to our employment lawyers or tax advisers.

AI takes on the repetitive queries, freeing our in-house teams to tackle the harder questions. It’s an oracle. It gives you the answers it knows and allows us to find and fill the current knowledge gaps.

What AI does as well is that it democratises that experience for everyone. For example, a business leader in a small organisation now has access to the answers to an HR or compliance question generated by AI within a couple of seconds, versus days later using human experts that they have to seek out.

What challenges or concerns did you encounter when implementing AI technologies within your organisation, and how did you address them?

The biggest challenge is trust and ensuring that data is completely secure. AI technologies are infinitely brilliant, but they are also incredibly naive at the same time. There is zero room for error when dealing with data as sensitive as employment data.

We solve this by creating sandboxes for specific data sets so there is no way for AI to access anything that is not supposed to. We have different logical instances with a specific set of permissions. Having the right guardrails in place is key.

How do you ensure transparency and uphold ethical considerations in using AI technologies within your organisation to mitigate privacy concerns?

We do this with assisted learning, where a human is involved. It can go awry with unassisted learning, where the computer tells itself whether it’s right or not. At Deel, we’ve ensured that there is human-assisted learning and that our centralised human experts are validating and training every query.

How do you ensure that AI technologies complement your workforce’s existing skills and expertise rather than replacing or displacing human workers?

There is much fear and speculation about whether AI might result in the eventual loss of the “human touch,” but we believe that it only enhances what already exists rather than fully replacing it because there are limits to the technology.

Even though AI continues to develop rapidly, it is still limited to the data that is made available to it. In this sense, there will always be a need for human intelligence or intervention to fill the gaps AI cannot.

How do you envision the future collaboration between humans and AI? What role do you see AI playing in augmenting human capabilities?

I and others see AI as a co-pilot. In flying a plane, a co-pilot’s job is to help manage the workload, filter the information and fulfil certain tasks so that the ‘captain’ can focus on what matters. This is how I see the collaboration between humans and AI.

Also Read: Balance AI tool benefits with end-customer needs: Jon Howard of Bud

Many of the tasks we do today are repetitive, and many don’t always need a high level of expertise to complete them, i.e., responding to certain emails or filling out forms. AI will hopefully make us more efficient by taking care of some of these less skill-required tasks.

AI also reduces the barrier of needing to be highly technical and democratises knowledge. For instance, before cloud computing existed, one of the advantages for bigger companies like IBM and Google was that they had data centres.

For a smaller company to build that same type of data centre required an immense amount of capital. It also used to be that the bar for programming was incredibly high. This is the next version of that. With AI, small businesses can have the same capabilities as larger enterprises, which is exciting.

What advice would you give to other company founders looking to leverage AI in their workforce?

With the ongoing developments, the market is expected to be noisy and frothy for quite a while.

AI lowers the boundaries and makes things easier. However, the underlying needs of the market have not changed; we just have a new tool now that enables us to create something that’s much more accessible and will likely make us more efficient.

Every company should have an AI strategy, but what does an AI strategy look like for every company? I would start with the assumption of infinite resources and then ask how you would deploy the resource. How would that change your business? For example, what would an advertising agency do if they had a million more copywriters?

What should not be done is to wrap ChatGPT and call it a product simply, the products still have to be built. So businesses need to invest in the people with the skills to build the right products for them.

If I were looking to invest right now, I would be looking for things with enduring prospects, helping a human or business need.

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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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Technology innovation has a critical role to play in disaster risk reduction and management, from mitigation, prevention and preparedness, to response, relief, and recovery. SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards was created by Prudence Foundation, the community investment arm of Prudential plc,  back in 2019 to find, fund, and support technology solutions that protect and save lives before, during, or after events of natural disasters.

Now in its 3rd edition, the competition received 110 applications across the world, with wide-ranging and high-quality solutions. Six finalists were chosen to compete, namely: Castomize Technologies, H3Dynamics, Kinetic Analysis Corporation, QUICKBLOCK Ltd., LivingWaters Systems LLC, and Wateroam.

The six finalists represent a vast range of solutions, from drone technology to immediate care technology to weather prediction software, and everything in between.

Wateroam emerges as the winner

The 2023 SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards recently concluded last June 15 at the Echelon Asia Summit 2023 Day 2 held at the Singapore EXPO. After a series of pitching competitions featuring startups from across the region, Wateroam emerged as the winner.

Also read: Strategic content via e27 amplifies CMI’s goals beyond numbers

Wateroam is the proponent of The ROAMfilter Plus 2, a community water filtration system that is simple to operate, long-lasting, lightweight, and cost-effective. The system’s hand pump operation requires no electricity, making it an ideal immediate solution for disaster-hit areas, particularly in rural regions. With the ROAMfilter Plus 2, a person becomes a mobile water station that can produce safe drinking water quickly for 100 people.

The ROAMfilter Plus 2 was developed after 3 years of deploying the original ROAMfilter Plus and improving its design and materials to make the ultimate disaster-proof water filtration solution that can be used to remove dirt, bacteria, and viruses from various freshwater sources.

Wateroam’s journey to victory 

According to Jaron Lim, Sales Director of Wateroam, “Wateroam was started with a shared vision to build a world without thirst. Everyone in our core team has had experiences with people in rural areas without access to safe drinking water, so we wanted to create products that could fulfil that vision.”

The ROAMfilter Plus was first conceptualised by UN Young Leader Vincent Loka to address the need for enough quality drinking water for communities that did not have electricity or elevated water tanks. The humble hand-powered bicycle pump could generate enough pressure, together with low-pressure ultrafiltration membranes, to provide sustainable safe drinking water.

Part of their successful journey came with the biggest challenge faced during the COVID period — the inability to travel across borders. Lim added, ”As a hardware product that you needed to “see to believe,” along with the fact that most of our customers were international and local NGOs that are overseas, it was difficult for us to develop those relationships and make sales to sustain ourselves.”

Lim further explained, “That’s when we developed the Home segment and developed products for urban and rural households, which we have continued to invest in. This allows us a more commercial angle to sustain the humanitarian aspect of our business.”

At the heart of Wateroam is its mission of helping communities grow

To date, Wateroam has provided safe drinking water to over 250,000 people across 40 countries and has been involved in over 10 major disaster responses. As per impact on the community, ROAMfilter Plus systems have been used in the 2017 Rohingya Refugee crisis, the 2018 Lombok earthquake, the 2018 Myanmar flood, the 2020 Vanuatu Cyclone Harold, the 2021 Myanmar refugee crisis, and the 2021 Philippines Typhoon Odette. The ROAMfilter Plus 2 systems have been deployed for the ongoing Myanmar refugee crisis, the ongoing Ukraine war, the 2022 Pakistan floods, and the 2023 Turkey earthquake.

Lim stated, “Every completed project is a milestone to us, especially the disaster relief ones since we get to partner with amazing humanitarian organisations to provide an immediate impact that saves lives.”

Wateroam seeks to expand its work in the humanitarian sector and become the go-to water filter for emergency response for government bodies, international NGOs, and the UN. The team is also developing remote sensor technology in the pipeline to increase the accountability of the water filters so that partners can track the performance of each filter product that is deployed and can provide real-time reports to donors and governments of the ongoing impact.

Also read: Redefining customer engagement via real-time interactivity

On top of that, Wateroam is also exploring the voluntary carbon market as an alternate source of funding for water projects so that it is possible to tap into non-CSR corporate funding to sustainably create long-lasting change for rural communities.

On behalf of Wateroam, Lim is grateful for the support. “We are very thankful to have won the D-TECH Awards and for the support from the Prudence Foundation. The prize money will support our expansion efforts and allow us to travel to more places to develop relationships with local and international NGOs and governments and collaborate on more water projects in these places. We are presently actively engaged in growing our impact in Indonesia and the Philippines which are amongst the world’s most vulnerable to disasters.”

Prudence Foundation as a catalyst in accelerating Wateroam’s growth

In the summary progress report released by the UN in 2021 on SDG Goal No. 6: Water and Sanitation for all, 26% of the world’s population (or 2 billion people) still lacks safely managed drinking water. When a disaster strikes, safe drinking water is critical to survival, yet is often unavailable.

Humanitarian organisations often face surmountable challenges in procurement, warehousing, transportation, and distribution, as well as managing the environmental impact, such as plastic waste, when delivering safe drinking water to disaster areas or in disaster relief operations. 

“Wateroam is a simple yet innovative and effective solution that addresses all the challenges mentioned above. It is easily deployable and scalable, not only in disaster relief situations to save lives but also for rural or underdeveloped communities with limited or no access to safe drinking water.”

“Through the D-Tech platform, we hope to raise awareness on Wateroam to as many organisations as possible, especially governments and NGOs, to bridge the supply and demand on technologies that can save lives,“ said Marc Fancy, Executive Director of Prudence Foundation.

Also read: e27-Visa partnership fosters corporate-startup collaborations and growth

 Marc shared further, “Through the startup ecosystem partnership and collaboration, we hope to catalyse more investment to the D-Tech space, increasing knowledge, capability, and awareness to support the widespread adoption of solutions and tools that bring positive impacts to communities.

“It is our hope that the D-Tech Awards not only ignites but galvanises conversations and connections to bring together governments, business, and technology innovators to solve risks faced by individuals, communities and economies”.

While emerging victorious, Wateroam isn’t alone in seeking innovative ways to help save lives in the context of disaster. It was a tight race considering the quality of applicants for this year’s SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards. Some solutions are at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies, such as AI and Satellite Communications, and some are community-based applications. There are also med-tech and health-tech solutions that can be leveraged for disastrous situations, as well as very simple yet innovative products that can be deployed at scale and speed.

About Prudence Foundation

Prudence Foundation is the community investment arm of Prudential Plc.  The organisation works closely with NGOs, Governments, Communities, and Private Sector partners to strategise and implement programmes focusing on Education, Health, and Safety across Asia and Africa.

As a company, Prudential provides health and wealth solutions to millions of customers across markets, essentially providing protection and peace of mind to individuals and families.

“As a Foundation,” Marc explained, “We aim to extend this effort by focusing on ‘creating a better future for our communities by making them safer and more resilient to life’s risks.”

For more information, visit Prudence Foundation.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Prudence Foundation

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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ST Engineering Ventures

ST Engineering Ventures is the corporate VC unit of Singapore Technologies Engineering.
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: Singapore, Israel, and the US
Stages: Seed, pre-Series A /bridge, Series A, and Series B
Verticals: Aerospace, AI, AR, Big Data, cleantech, cybersecurity, defence & military, gov-tech, ICT, IoT, logistics/supply chain, maritime, robotics, smart cities, SaaS, and transportation
Investment range: Not specified
The startup invested: Miya Health.

Elev8.VC

Elev8.vc invests in and supports talented founders building technology solutions that redefine how business gets done.
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: All/any
Stages: Angel, seed, and Series A
Verticals: AI, automotive, healthtech, ICT, IoT, medtech, PR & communications, and transportation
Investment range: Not specified
The startup invested: Miya Health.

HealthXCapital

HealthXCapital is an early-stage investment platform providing smart, connected capital to healthcare startups focused on emerging markets in Southeast Asia and India.
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: Singapore, India, Australia, and the United States of America
Stages: Pre-seed and seed
Verticals: Healthtech, medtech, and marketplace
Investment range: US$4M to US$30M
The startup invested: Miya Health.

Antler

Antler empowers early-stage founders to find a co-founder or access capital to build and scale startups faster.
Verticals: All/any
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: All/any
Stages: Pre-seed, seed, pre-Series A, and Series A
Investment range: US$125K to US$8M
The startup invested: Qashier.

Cocoon Capital

Cocoon Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focusing on early-stage, B2B enterprise tech companies across Southeast Asia.
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Cambodia
Verticals: Enterprise solution, ICT, media, real estate, agritech, AI, biotech, healthtech, medtech, SaaS, smart cities, robotics, logistics/supply chain, and insurtech
Stages: Pre-seed, seed, pre-Series A
Investment range: US$500K to US$750K
The startup invested: Qashier.

Wavemaker Partners

Wavemaker Partners invests in a broad range of technology-driven companies in the US and Southeast Asia.
Based in: Singapore
Investment locations: Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States of America, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos
Stages: Angel, seed, pre-Series A, and Series A
Verticals: All/any
Investment range: US$250K to US$5M
The startup invested: MFast.

Headline Asia

Headline Asia is an early and seed-stage venture capital firm with an eye for winners.
Based in: All/any
Investment locations: Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia
Stages: Seed, pre-Series A, and Series A
Verticals: AI, Big Data, e-commerce, Web3, and robotics
Investment range: US$1M to US$5M
The startup invested: MFast.

Do Ventures

Do Ventures is an early-stage VC firm focusing on investing in IT companies in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
Based in: Vietnam
Investment location: Vietnam
Stages: Seed, pre-Series A, Series A, and Series B
Verticals: E-commerce, education, enterprise solution, healthtech, ICT, insurtech, mobile, transportation, and travel
Investment range: Not specified
The startup invested: MFast.

Ascend Vietnam Ventures

Ascend Vietnam Ventures (AVV) is an early-stage VC firm with a mission to help Vietnam’s exceptional teams in building iconic companies
Based in: Vietnam
Investment locations: Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia
Stages: Angel, seed, and pre-Series A
Verticals: Education, finance, and ICT
Investment range: US$500K to US$2M
The startup invested: MFast.

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The image used in this feature is AI-generated.

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In August, we republished the three listicles featuring the biggest headlines in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia that year—as part of the national day celebrations in these countries which happen to fall in the same month.

These listicles give us a bird-eye view of what is going on in these ecosystems. While each market is unique with its own situations and challenges, they can help us gauge the state of the ecosystem in the first half of the year.

In Indonesia particularly, we also published two stories that stood out when it comes to their portrayal of the state of Indonesian startup ecosystem. First, we published a report by AMVESINDO which revealed a “consistent growth” of VC investments in Indonesia in H1 2023. This sounds good enough, especially as we are going through what many believe to be a funding winter—challenging time as a result of back-to-back global crises.

But the interesting part comes with this report by Tracxn, which specifically looked at the state of fintech investment in Indonesia in H1 2023.

“While 2021 marked the peak of fintech funding, subsequent years have witnessed a decline. Funding in the fintech sector fell by 46 per cent in 2022 compared to the previous year, with the first half of 2023 experiencing a 38 per cent drop in funding compared to the second half of 2022. This decline has led to the least funded half-year period (H1 2023) since 2020,” the report elaborates.

Does this mean bad news? We do not think so.

Also Read: (Updated) How GREENS building a hyperlocal food ecosystem in Indonesia

There are many reasons that could contribute to a decreasing number of VC investments going to a particular vertical. Does this mean the trend is fading to the background? People are no longer seeing this vertical as promising? (Ahem, Web3). Possibly. But when it comes to a popular and “evergreen” verticals such as fintech, the lack of VC investments in one particular year does not mean things are falling apart.

“As a consequence of the global macroeconomic slowdown, investor sentiment has been cautious, affecting funding across regions, which has led many Indonesian startups to focus more on their domestic market. However, despite the recent challenges, long-term prospects for the sector remain optimistic,” the report stated.

If anything, investors being more selective and careful with where their money is going might lead to a stronger startup ecosystem—where only the best, most resilient players are given the right kind of support.

In the past one year, the narrative about being a more resilient and sustainable startup ecosystem has been circulating in the region. The idea that VC investments are no longer the only reliable source of lifeline for a startup means that the message has been delivered: (Fintech) startups are able to self-sustain and make money.

We are certain that this is the direction that many will take in H2 2023. The pressure to become sustainable is no longer viewed as a burden; if anything, this will become the norm for most of us.

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Image Credit: RunwayML

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