Singapore-based Tazapay, a fintech company specialising in cross-border payments, has received US$16.9 million in its Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital.

EscapeVelocity, PayPal Alumni Fund, Gokul Rajaram, Foundamental, January Capital, RTP Global, and Saison Capital also participated.

Tazapay will utilise the money to scale its business across Asia and expand in other key regions, such as the Middle East and Europe. This includes the application of payment licenses in major markets that will broaden Tazapay’s payment network globally.

Also Read: Tazapay snags US$3.2M to expand cross-border SMB commerce platform in Southeast Asia

The startup will also improve its core capabilities and add more local payment methods.

Tazapay enables companies to do cross-border payments. It provides checkout, payment links, and escrow solutions to simplify international transactions and help reduce the risk for buyers and sellers online.

The firm has card coverage in over 170 markets and local payments collection coverage in 85 markets. This allows businesses to accept low-cost and secure payments from their customers without having to create local entities everywhere.

The company plans to expand its real-time local collection channels to above 100 by year-end. It serves enterprises across cross-border e-commerce, edutech, SaaS, and travel.

Its customers include IndiaMART, BrightCHAMPS, WTX, Rezlive, and Advantage Club. In addition, Tazapay has also partnered with Standard Chartered to offer innovative commerce-enabling payment solutions for enterprise marketplaces.

In March 2021, Tazapay secured US$1.75 million on top of its original round of funding of US$3.2 million announced in early 2021.

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Dr Carl Jones is Managing Director (Southeast Asia) at SAP Concur. He leads a multinational cross-functional team with sales, pre-sales, client success and cloud channel partnerships, ensuring alignment for strategic projects within SAP Concur.

An industry veteran, Jones has held various regional leadership roles in Asia Pacific countries, including Singapore and Thailand. He has 20 years of experience in Asia’s travel and payments industry.

Jones is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, he talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

Imagine going to a park with your aunt, and she wants to have some ice cream with you, but she forgot her purse. So, you pay for the ice cream first with your pocket money and expect her to pay you back.

Similarly, I ensure employees get their money back when they go somewhere for work and pay for work-related things.

Note: SAP Concur helps companies manage travel, expense, and invoicing.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

My biggest challenge was managing the business through the pandemic and maintaining our business when travel almost completely stopped. It was tough seeing colleagues around the industry, particularly the travel industry, being heavily impacted. Thankfully, I stayed focused and kept my spirits up to motivate the people around us.

Also Read: Being a first-class listener will serve you best: Jon Howard of Bud Communications

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I’m fortunate and excited to work at SAP, which gives employees various career options to explore and grow in different roles. For the next five years, I hope to continue to grow as an individual and maintain success for the team I represent and the company.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

I must admit that I didn’t initially appreciate Microsoft Teams when the pandemic struck, but I now love it despite its one or two shortcomings. What I’ve enjoyed most about Teams is its ability to allow us to strike a balance between virtual and hybrid work arrangements. Technology has enabled us to blur the lines between working from home and working from the office, which is very useful.

When I travel, I use Concur TripIt. It is my favourite work tool because it keeps me up-to-date in terms of itinerary changes. It’s especially handy when I am overseas.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Most people are surprised to hear that I have been to nearly 100 countries. This includes North Korea. That was a personal trip back in 2005 when I travelled there to watch the World Cup qualifying match between North Korea and Iran.

However, the match was moved to Bangkok at the very last moment. I didn’t manage to catch the game live, but I did spend ten days in North Korea, across various locations and landmarks. It was fascinating.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Hybrid. I love the flexibility hybrid gives me in my role — partly because I have many calls during unsocial hours, such as late at night and when I travel. I like the fact that hybrid has now extended to conferences and webinars, too, meaning in-person and virtual together. 

SAP Concur held many online conferences during the pandemic, and we are now running events in a hybrid fashion, where people can choose to attend physically or remotely. Technology has advanced so much in the last couple of years to allow this to be still effective.

What would you tell your younger self?

Always be adventurous and inquisitive. I am where I am because I took risks with my career in my 20s and 30s. For instance, moving overseas from the UK in my late 20s was a risk that I took. I ended up in Asia because I got a one-way ticket to Hong Kong with no firm plans, job, etc.

Also Read: Be hungrier and bolder to explore a variety of industries: Sharina Khan of Thoughtworks

From there, I ended up living in China and stayed there for a year, studying the Chinese language. I didn’t know how things would pan out because there wasn’t a plan, but I followed my passion. I did what I wanted to do, and I have been very fortunate with how they have played out.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Energetic, resilient, and, I hope, fun!

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

Ideally, hanging out with my wife and dog, Pinot. Pinot is a Singapore special. My wife and I got her from Singapore Action for Dogs four years ago. She was only three months old when she was found on the streets as a stray in Jurong.

We adopted her, and she’s beautiful! I also like to travel with my wife; we just returned from Croatia, having spent a week on a sailboat in the Croatian Islands, which was fantastic!

What are you currently reading/listening to/watching?

I’m currently reading a book titled On Roads that Echo by Charlie Walker, where the author penned his adventures in cycling across Asia and Africa. He spent four years cycling around the world because he wanted to see the world, and I find it inspiring.

I’m a cyclist, too, and a budding adventurer. I cycled 1,600km from Laos to Cambodia a few years ago for three weeks. I aspire to be like Charlie Walker and would like to bike around the world when I retire, particularly the Andes.

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Remember the “information superhighway”? How about “New Media”? They sound quaint now, but this is how the internet (which, incidentally, was spelt with a capital “I” back then) and digital media/online content, respectively, were hyped back in the late 20th century. 

The same thing will happen to Web3. When we look back years from now, we will also cringe at how we referred to many things related to Web3. Especially by how people talked and acted to show they’re part of the Web3 in-crowd and that they’re so much cooler and smarter than “normies”.

It’s this kind of us-versus-them effect, to use the psychological term, that we need to guard against in our efforts to make Web3 more mainstream and extend its benefits to more people. It’s one thing to embrace Web3 and champion it. It’s quite another to alienate the very people we’re trying to educate and onboard by talking over them and turning them off with technical jargon and toxic behaviour.

For Web3 to truly become mainstream, it must disappear into the background and become integrated with the way we work and play. Just like what happened with Web1 in the first place. Once upon a time, email and websites were frighteningly new and complicated platforms for the average user, but thanks to advances in technology and better user interfaces, we now just take them for granted. 

Here are three ways we can help make Web3 disappear.

Embrace what’s good, discard what’s bad 

As I’ve said in a previous article, I’m firmly in the camp of Web3 revolutionaries. This doesn’t mean, however, that I will condone the toxicity of some Web3 people, particularly on crypto Twitter. 

We can embrace the Web3 ethos of decentralisation, empowerment, transparency, and community without adopting the excesses of the internet subculture that has sprung up around cryptocurrency.

Obviously, it’s not limited to crypto Twitter, but it’s also true that many crypto bros revel in toxic masculinity. It’s actually quite laughable how content and engagement on crypto Twitter have been reduced to memes and tropes, which everyone then wants to emulate.

Also Read: Web3 marketing: Building a cult-like community

Becoming a Web3 builder involves more than creating memes, shitposting, calling people MFers, saying this project will go to the moon, and so on. Social media has always been a form of performance art, but it’s become even worse on Web3, especially when it comes to NFT projects that are vaporware relying on the cult of personality and shilling powers of the founders. 

It would be sad if Web3 ended up replicating the bad practices of Web2 marketing, such as paying influencers, using bots, and buying followers. As individuals and as communities, I believe we can learn from both Web2 and Web3, adapt what’s useful, and discard what’s not. 

The so-called conflict between Web2 people and Web3 people is based on two extreme views, both of which are wrong. 

On the one hand, it’s the mistaken belief of Web2 people that they can just waltz in and succeed in Web3. And on the other hand, it’s the misconception of Web3 people that they have nothing to learn from Web2 people.

If we truly want more people to embrace Web3, however, then we have to set aside our egos and work together. Again, let’s get rid of the us-versus-them mentality.

Keep it simple, stupid

One of the biggest challenges to onboarding the general public to Web3, however, is that the process is too complicated and tedious for the average user. 

Imagine being excited to play a Web3 game. Only realize that you first have to buy NFTs to play the game. But wait, you need to connect your crypto wallet first to buy the NFT. So you create a crypto wallet, going through each step of the tedious process, including writing down your seed phrase.

So now you can finally play the game, right? Nope, now you have to load your wallet with cryptocurrency to buy the NFTs. You have to understand which blockchain the game is using, as that will determine the cryptocurrency you need to buy, as well as the gas fees. 

Yes, play-to-earn showed us that the prospect of earning money could motivate people to put up with horrible user onboarding experiences and technical jargon. But as the subsequent decline of play-to-earn proved, this is hardly sustainable–and will not allow Web3 gaming to become mainstream.

The reality is that most gamers aren’t motivated by chance to earn money but see games as a form of entertainment. Which they are and should be. So we need to focus on making fun games and providing a good user experience to the players who are migrating to Web3. 

This is why educating people about Web3 is not enough. Why are we putting the burden on users and requiring them to know how to create a crypto wallet and buy cryptocurrency? Instead, we should simplify the process. 

Also Read: The future of lifestyle tech: How Rebase is leveraging Web3 to enhance real-world interactions

Thankfully, this is already happening with the second generation of Web3 games. For instance, some of them have a free-to-play option so that people won’t be required to buy NFTs before finding out if the game is actually fun. Also, some games automatically create a wallet for the player and allow them to pay via credit cards or other non-crypto means.

Focus on customer benefits, not technology

When we withdraw from the ATM, we don’t care about learning the technology that makes this possible. All we want is to get our money. The same thing goes for switching on the TV, using our mobile devices, or buying things online.

Sure, we may occasionally geek out over gadgets. But generally, as consumers, we don’t really care about knowing the technology behind the things we buy and use. And we shouldn’t have to. Because what we are concerned with is what benefits we’ll get from using these devices, not which microprocessor is powering them or what technology was used for higher-resolution video quality.

This is the mistake many Web3 companies make when they focus on talking about their technology instead of communicating the customer benefits. 

As Reddit Head of Global Client Solutions Neal Hubman said, what made the Reddit NFT launch wildly successful was that they didn’t refer to them as NFTs and made the backend technology invisible to their users.

“‘The consumer doesn’t care about [jargon],’ Hubman said. ‘The industry will continue to evolve and make it easier to onboard to Web3 whether they know it or not. I’d just like to encourage everyone to remove the jargon and speak like a normal human or brand, and you’ll be a lot more accessible and approachable.’”

Another great example is Starbucks Odyssey, which seamlessly integrates Web3 into its existing Starbucks Rewards loyalty program. Their customers get to enjoy new gamified experiences and unlock digital collectibles that come with real-world benefits. All without having to worry about technical jargon. 

Web3 is the future. It will shape society in ways we might not even be able to imagine for now. But this will only happen when Web3 disappears and becomes part of everything we do.

Now, isn’t that more meaningful than diamond hands and laser eyes?

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Ouch!, a next-gen, tech-enabled insurance platform in Malaysia, said today it has secured an undisclosed sum in a pre-Series A round of investment.

Neither the names of the investors nor the size of the investment hasn’t been disclosed.

Following the investment, Ouch! will look to acquire the final approval from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to operate in its regulatory sandbox.

Founded in September 2019, Ouch! utilises technology to make the insurance process pain-free — from plans purchasing, claims, and managing policies. It offers insurance solutions across life, home, travel and motor, all powered by an app platform that makes the process and tracking easy and transparent.

Also Read: Ethis Group, Gobi Partners to launch Shariah-compliant US$20M seed fund

The startup’s mission is to become Malaysia’s first digital Takaful operator with the planned launch of its new digital Takaful product within the first quarter of 2023.

“Providing a painless insurance service is our ultimate goal — breaking the norms of this long-established industry to cater to a new generation of consumers. With the impending introduction of the first pure tech-enabled Takaful solutions provider, this successful round of funding will allow us to deliver affordable cover at a bigger and wider scale,” said Shazy Noorazman, CEO of Ouch!

Ouch! also aims to obtain a Digital Insurers and Takaful Operators license which will be open for application later this year. “Obtaining the license will expand our market and, thereby, potential. This is all in line with our ambition to be a first-of-its-kind digital Takaful operator, especially focusing on the younger generation bringing our signature approach to insurance to a new space,” added Noorazman.

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A new report jointly produced by McKinsey & Company, Elevandi and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) reveals that fintech companies could play a significant role in helping to mobilise the capital required to create global sustainability, particularly in the effort towards decarbonisation (net zero).

“Fintech could play a significant role in helping to mobilise the capital required to create global sustainability. So far, only a very small portion of the total need is covered through financing. In recent years financing for projects targeting reduced emissions grew, but remained well short of the total needs,” the report states.

There are several ways that fintech companies can contribute to the move towards net zero. This includes the companies’ technological know-how that is believed to be “pivotal” in developing and funding innovations related to carbon capture or the protection of natural resources.

Fintech companies can also play the role of educators in educating clients on the implications of the climate transition for their businesses and helping them move forward.

Also Read: ‘There’s a lack of urgency among companies in achieving net zero targets’: Unravel Carbon’s Grace Sai

The report lists specific activities in the fintech industry’s effort to support sustainability which encompasses six identifiable themes:

Sustainable everyday banking
Products and services that match customers’ environmental values, such as rewards for responsible shopping.

Impact fundraising
Raising funds for environmental and social causes.

ESG intelligence and analytics
Sustainability-related data and analytics, ESG ratings and research services.

Impact investing and retirement
Opportunities that generate social and environmental impact along with financial returns.

Green and accessible financing
Financing for sustainability projects and providing credit access to underserved groups.

Carbon tracking and offsetting
Tracking individual and corporate carbon footprints based on financial transactions and identifying ways to offset them.

What blockchain can do

As one of the most talked-about subjects in the tech industry today, naturally one would be curious about the role that blockchain can play in meeting net zero goals. According to the report, blockchain can play a significant role in the matter of deconstructing and securing data.

Also Read: Fireside chat: Racing to net zero with the voluntary carbon market

“Given that ESG data is fundamental to sustainability investment and lending decisions, there must be a way to deconstruct the data and verify its integrity. Otherwise, decisions based on this data have the risk of being illinformed and companies remain open to accusations of greenwashing. Blockchain technology could address this challenge,” it explains.

But this technology is not without criticism. Cryptocurrencies, as the most popular implementation of blockchain technology today, are known for their massive electricity use and eventual environmental impact.

There have been several initiatives to help reduce the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, such as through “The Merge” for Ethereum. The switch saw the cryptocurrency moving to a new algorithm Proof of Stake which is said to reduce power consumption by almost 100 per cent.

Apart from that, AI and machine learning are also the technologies that have been named to help in the process of vouching for the validity of data. “They could seek out and identify data abnormalities that could call into doubt the sustainability claims of particular instruments,” the report says.

Moving towards net zero

The report stressed that in our effort to transition towards decarbonisation (net zero), by 2050, the global economy will require “the greatest reallocation of capital since World War II coupled with a massive influx of financial innovation.” But as stated earlier, to date, financial mobilisation towards the goal still leaves much to be desired.

“In its January 2022 report, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) calculated that capital spending needed for the transition would total US$275 trillion between 2026 and 2050 or about US$9.2 trillion a year … The need represents
an average increase in annual spending of about US$3.5 trillion or, for illustration, an amount equal to about half the annual global corporate profits,” the report elaborates.

Also Read: BillionBricks closes US$2.45M seed round to build affordable net-zero homes

The details are described in the following illustration:

There are also other factors that make the prospect seem darker when it comes to fulfilling net zero goals, at least temporarily. This includes the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent global crises which may force investors to take the safer, more careful approach when it comes to investing.

” … the geopolitical shocks of 2022 might tempt many to set aside sustainability goals at least temporarily in favour of tried-and-true fossil fuel-based operations, for example stopping or delaying investment in renewable energy sources. This might especially be true for the manufacturing, transportation, and energy sectors,” the report states.

However, it highlights that this approach might be a “false trade-off.”

“Companies can be flexible and maintain a long-term focus on sustainability while creating the necessary resilience to withstand shocks. Indeed, continued efforts toward sustainability can build energy independence and add substantially to resilience,” it stresses.

Also Read: Singapore’s climate change: Moving towards net-zero through greener buildings and emerging technology

In order to reach the goals of decarbonisation through this dual-focus approach, companies are encouraged to explore materials transition and other green business approaches early to secure access to the most promising innovations, according to the report.

It stated that while the risks may be significantly higher for first-movers in the field, the rewards are also said to be “proportionally higher”.

“For example, early investors can benefit from policy incentives, skilled talent attracted to cutting-edge employers, partners who are equally willing to explore the potential, and securing a place in emerging value chains,” the report stresses.

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Singapore-based PixCap, a web-based 3D design platform, has raised US$2.8 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Surge.

Cocoon Capital, Entrepreneur First and angel investor Michael Gryseels also participated.

“The new funding will contribute to talent acquisition, product development and community building for global expansion,” said CJ Looi, CEO and Co-Founder of PixCap.

Founded in 2020 by Cyril Nie (CTO) and Looi, PixCap allows users with no 3D experience to find, edit and export 3D content, including images for graphic designs and animations for landing pages and social media.

Also Read: Always be adventurous and inquisitive: Carl Jones of SAP Concur

Designers, developers and consumers can use PixCap to create 3D content for graphic designs, games and AR/VR. The firm provides an “extensive library of 3D templates and models” (users can also import their own) for users to edit and customise on the platform and export unlimited images and videos based on these templates – all without requiring 3D experience.

With PixCap, designers can source 3D assets and characters for social media posts and landing pages, while developers can find thousands of 3D assets and animations to use in-game engines. PixCap also enables real-time collaboration with teams.

For advanced 3D users, the platform supports GLTF and FBX exports to 3D software such as Unity, Maya, Cinema4D and Blender.

PixCap claims to have over 30,000 users from more than 60 countries, including the US, India, the UK and Southeast Asia.

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Will Stephen Hawking’s forecast that “AI will result in the extinction of humanity” come true? Consider Asia, where artificial intelligence is driving the e-commerce sector.

40 per cent of online shoppers use chatbots to acquire products and services, while 51 per cent of consumers are open to making purchases from them.

By 2025, 95 per cent of all customer contacts, including live phone and online discussions, will be driven by AI (without human agents). Consumer expectations for businesses to embrace visual technology like holograms and virtual and augmented reality are projected to soar simultaneously. Businesses that don’t get ready for this future run the risk of falling behind their rivals.

The e-commerce business is booming in developing nations. Vietnam, Thailand, and other Asian countries demonstrate the involvement of numerous e-commerce businesses with widespread public backing.

Due to the positive feedback from many clients, internet shopping has been more popular recently. Nevertheless, regardless of whether AI “wipes out” humans, this combination may one day result in a boom in the retail industry.

AI – Stealth 24/7 supporter in e-commerce customer service

Chatbots and digital assistants are the areas of AI that are currently most often employed. Customers are gradually beginning to find these characteristics to be trustworthy and useful. They are there to support and assist people when they need it, not to entirely replace people.

Also Read: #dltledgers unveils 2023 trends in supply chain digitisation

AI-powered chatbots can solve many simple and minor difficulties, leaving customer care to handle more complicated problems. Compared to a standard human-driven help desk, this method is far more effective and time-saving.

Chatbots have now become “hard workers” handling simple tasks related to e-commerce, such as recommending products, encouraging purchases, tracking shopping carts, and updating financial information accounts. Chatbots also can issue a notification to end the automatic process and resume the conversation through real person-to-person interaction.

E-commerce Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and AI-powered digital assistants, like Google’s Duplex engine, are gaining the ability to make shopping lists using a customer’s genuine voice and even place an order for them online.

Some of the key AI applications in e-commerce are more successful than others at achieving online or in-store commerce objectives. From this vantage point, it should be emphasised that although artificial intelligence in e-commerce has many advantages, these are the most prevalent uses of AI in the sector.

Chatbots have now become “hard workers” handling simple tasks related to e-commerce, such as recommending products, encouraging purchases, and tracking shopping carts. They also can issue a notification to end the automatic process and resume the conversation through real person-to-person interaction.

AI support customer service for Shopee in Vietnam

Shopee, the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, has been active in the Vietnam market since 2016 and has achieved a lot during that time. We may ignore the poor quality of the retailers on this online marketplace and focus on how Shopee has pleased customers with the standard of its chatbot-based customer support.

Shopee is dedicated to the buyers on this platform and the stores linked to it for sales operations. They are the ones who give Shopee the majority of its income.

Shopee’s chatbots address problems with payment methods, shipping times, purchase options, and resolving complaints. Chatbots are installed by Shopee’s algorithm to provide automated client service. The chatbots will immediately transmit the pre-set responses to clients if they have any questions.

One Shopee user reported that the company’s chatbots satisfied his needs even at the busiest hours of the day. When he wishes to ask, the issue of not being able to pay for his order is also resolved because the system is already in place.

However, when urgent issues require quick attention and clients are not satisfied with the chatbots’ responses, AI is not always a useful tool in customer service.

Once, a glitch with my account prevented me from logging in, and using chatbots was also unavailable. Calling the radio and scheduling a meeting with customer service was my best action. Only humans can directly address issues at times like these.

Human resources are still “in the town” of supporting e-commerce

Even though the world is going more quickly toward AI or automated sales, human psychology still favours learning from a human. Shortly, 85 per cent of sales will reportedly be made without the involvement of any human beings. Since AI is more efficient, intelligent, and sensible. You might also discover that the seller’s website has answers to many of your questions.

These efforts are being made to help you save time and money. As a result, software businesses are competing to eliminate human needs from customer support, and they are somewhat effective in doing so.

Also Read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

Despite having access to these services, customers still prefer to speak with a live person before buying. Customers’ preference for in-person sales encounters can be attributed to several factors. AI won’t entirely replace humans in the early future. 

People enjoy hearing from a professional salesperson about a specific product. Your consumers will therefore perceive that you are interested in them if you use human sales contacts. Sharing individual selling experiences fosters the development of enduring bonds between buyers and sellers.

It appears that consumers still do not have the habit of making purchases solely through automated means. An actual human voice can assist them in moving down the sales funnel instead.

AI and humans – A perfect combination

We believe that combining AI and humans is the perfect solution. Since AI and humans can do various duties, it would be beneficial for online retailers to incorporate their advantages into their business strategies.

The use of cutting-edge technology in your company is something you should do as a modern business owner. However, you should add human contacts to your online store to satisfy customer demand. If not, you risk alienating a lot of potential clients. Live chat for e-commerce may be a clever modern strategy to maintain contact with your leads.

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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

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For many merchants – whether they be enterprises or SMEs – creating simple, seamless checkout experiences that meet the needs of a diverse set of customers in different geographies is a challenge that only seems to get more complex. 

For online merchants, the value of investing in payments is well recognised. Payments are the gateway to their customers, inextricably tied to the growth of their business.

The long and winding road of payments

But the payments roadmap is also notoriously long and expensive. It kills innovation by diverting resources from strategic business objectives to operational functions. 

In the face of a looming recession, merchants increasingly face another problem: staying competitive while adjusting their business expenditures to the current economic environment. 

If there is anything to be gained from weathering the storm of an economic downturn, it’s learning how to do more with less. It forces us to ask: are we optimising our business? Are we incorporating the resilience and flexibility to pivot (again) if we need to?

Also Read: Year of the rabbit: Leaping into a bumper year for digital payments

You would think that we’d have learned about resilience, having just emerged from the pandemic. But with parts of the digital economy enjoying the tailwinds of the pandemic online boom, many in the sector are only now feeling the pinch.

There’s one area that’s not set for a downturn: digital spending. In fact, recent forecasts from Gartner expect tech spending in 2023 to rise by more than six per cent from last year. 

There’s a reason for that. Essentially it’s about digitising to optimise: automating processes to accelerate sustainable growth and create efficiencies. I have seen this firsthand, particularly how automating payments has streamlined and simplified our clients’ processes, enabling them to focus their development resources towards building their core business.

So, why payments?

Firstly, payment tools are expensive and notoriously difficult to implement. This is particularly the case in the Asia Pacific, where the network of payment providers is fragmented and spread across geographies.

Payments automation  – like the solution offered by Primer – has come a long way in a short time. And the benefits have been game-changers.

More than just cross-border functionality, incorporating and offering new payment methods like e-wallets, bank transfers, or BNPL allows customers to have more choices according to their personal preferences.  Expanding the breadth of payment options immediately increases a business’ addressable market. 

When your business goes global (or perhaps it already is), consolidation of all the payment methods on a platform that is automated to meet customers’ preferences can kill the integration roadmap, helping businesses go to market faster. Smoother and easier payment processes help to see through the checkout process, eliminating redundancies like complex reconciliation and risk management.

Also Read: Navigating the payment regulations in Singapore

Further, in the context of a dynamic fintech sector and its constantly changing landscape (think crypto and its volatility), building resilience is also about incorporating flexibility into your payments infrastructure.

Importantly, resilience is also about utilising what automation provides you with – data. The Primer team has helped businesses of every size integrate infrastructure to help them customise payments based on powerful insights from their data. 

To automate or to not

But payments are just the beginning. Establishing a simple e-commerce offering is more accessible to small businesses than it ever has been before. But historically, integrating all of the functionality and efficiencies that commerce tools have to offer has not been so simple. 

Multiple payment options, automating sophisticated, professional commerce functionality like fraud detection, shipping and returns and customer loyalty tools are no longer limited to large enterprise merchants with swathes of developers at their disposal. 

Now, automating these tools can help a business of any size to create the foundations to scale quickly and efficiently – and to achieve more with less. 

Having an open, agnostic infrastructure for easy integration of payments and commerce tools is not just about saving time on back-end costs. It’s about getting access to services that businesses may not know they need today.  In this sense, it’s built-in future-proofing.

Automation of payments and commerce is levelling the playing field by enabling companies to do more with less. I have seen clients with small teams achieve things that were previously the domain of much larger organisations. In the years to come, even as recessionary pressures ease, more businesses will learn to operate with this principle in mind, freeing up their resources to focus on the important task of accelerating the growth of their business.

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Instill AI, a startup providing tools to derive insights or generate meaningful content from unstructured data, has secured US$3.6 million in a seed funding round.

RTP Global led the round, with co-investments from Lunar Ventures and Hive Ventures.

Charles Songhurst, former Microsoft executive; Demetrios Kellari, Head of Systems and Technology Integration at Cavnue; Mehdi Ghissassi, Director of Product for Google’s AI/ML research org; also joined.

The investment will enable the startup to launch later this year a fully managed cloud service to remove the stress of infrastructure maintenance for community members. To accomplish this, Instill AI will expand its hiring efforts and double its headcount by the end of 2023.

Also Read: Taiwanese enterprise AI startup Profet AI secures US$5.6M Series A

Founded in 2020 by Ping-Lin Chang and Xiaofei Du, Taiwan- and London-based Instill AI provides modern data and AI teams with no/low-code tools to streamline the process of distilling the value of unstructured data and converting unstructured data into meaningful data representations.

By integrating Instill AI’s solution into their data stack, data and AI teams can glean richer insights, uncover unknown patterns, develop AI applications faster, and work more efficiently.

Instill AI has also introduced its open-source project — Versatile Data Pipeline (VDP) for unstructured data ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) — which brings AI into the modern data stack.

“It is about time to give unstructured data more love. Unstructured data can be more valuable if AI is more accessible. We at Instill AI are fully committed to solving the problem,” said Chang, Co-Founder and CEO.

In 2021, it secured a pre-seed round from Cornerstone Ventures.

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In 2022, Singapore secured its position as the leading market and hub for femtech innovations with 32 companies founded and operating in the country, a 45 per cent increase from the previous year. Its neighbouring country Malaysia caught up as runner-up with 12 companies; this number is a 500 per cent increase from the previous year in the country.

According to a report released by women’s wellness solutions provider Fermata, there was a steady growth in femtech companies across the Southeast Asian (SEA) region, including the Philippines (nine companies), Thailand (six companies), Indonesia (five companies), and Vietnam (four companies).

However, for emerging markets such as Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, the growth had been stagnant since last year, when the report acknowledged difficulties in finding femtech companies operating in the countries through desktop research.

For these markets, the report pointed out that there is a need “to be more focused on general public health issues, period poverty, and hygiene safety” which might be the reason why femtech industry is not growing rapidly. Political instability such as the Myanmar coup in 2021 also further escalated the issue of period poverty as women struggled to afford period products due to rising prices.

Also Read: Femtech: VC interest grows as new frontier for women’s health beckons

Coined in 2012, femtech (“female technology”) was defined as an industry of tech companies that addressed women health’s needs. Companies in the sector can be divided into the B2C and B2B categories, each of them with its own unique products and target audiences.

B2C companies mostly provided services and products related to sexual wellness, sexual health and intimate care, fertility and infertility, period health, perimenopause and menopause, pregnancy and post-partum, and general women’s health. These companies might implement an element of e-commerce in how they distribute their services and products to customers.

In the B2B sector, tech companies worked together with institutions in the medical industry to provide tools for diagnostics and testing.

From policy to social media

This led to a big question: What did it take to build a robust ecosystem for femtech startups?

Singapore was already well-known as a leading startup ecosystem on a global scale, according to various reports. However, in the case of femtech, there were several factors that helped secure its status as a femtech hub.

There were commonly known factors such as Singapore’s ability to become a “great” test bed for new innovation before a company can further expand to another market. But Fermata highlighted “societal, legislative, and governmental forces that have created new avenues for dialogue in women’s health and wellness.”

Also Read: Overcoming advertising woes and other challenges for the femtech industry

There were two ways in which these conversations were being brought to the public:

1. Research and Development

In December 2020, The Singapore National Research Foundation launched the Research Innovation Enterprise Plan 2025 (RIE 2025) with an approximate S$25 billion (US$18 billion) budget. There were two research domains that are relevant to the femtech industry: Human Health and Potential (HHP) and Smart Nation and Digital Economy (SNDE).

“Supporting research and development funding in this field is critical to tackling the issue of women’s health at the root,” the report stated.

2. Social and media conversation on fertility

There were several notable moments in social media and media that helped to skyrocket the discussion on women’s health, creating further awareness and opening up new business opportunities. In early 2021, following a report about Singapore’s declining fertility rate, social media was rife with a conversation regarding fertility and family planning. This included an online petition and Instagram account MyEggsMyTime by user Emma Zhang.

What is next for femtech in SEA?

Seeing how the femtech industry in SEA had progressed in the past few years, Fermata predicted that the industry will continue to grow in SEA.

There were several points that the report believes will be relevant:

1. Education and awareness activities will continue to focus on taboo and stigmatised topics in women’s health. This includes events and conferences on women’s health

2. Funding programmes for research on women’s health and reproduction will continue to flourish

3. A greater variety of B2B solutions in the femtech industry

“We will see industry players rethinking existing and established markets, while others explore completely uncharted or ‘white space’ opportunities,” the report closed.

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