Bangkok-based biotechnology firm UniFAHS has secured US$1.4 million in seed funding, with A2D Ventures leading the investment.
ADB Ventures and Thailand’s InnoSpace also participated.
UniFAHS plans to utilise the funds to expand production capacity and increase market reach in Southeast and South Asia through strategic partnerships, targeting a 20 per cent growth in customer segments by 2024 to influence global food production.
Founded in 2020, UniFAHS utilises its patented phage technology for sustainable and safe food production, specialising in meat alternatives. The company actively contributes to combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and advocates for climate-friendly agriculture.
UniFAHS adopts a ‘One Health’ approach, recognising the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health to address challenges holistically.
Dr Kitiya Vongkamjan, Co-Founder of UniFAHS, stated, “Our vision at UniFAHS is to create a sustainable future for food production. This funding is a financial boost and a strong endorsement of our phage technology’s potential to revolutionise the agriculture and food safety sectors.”
UniFAHS has partnered with leading poultry producers, employing phage technology to address bacterial control challenges and combat antimicrobial resistance in agriculture and animal health.
“This investment underscores our confidence in Thai founders and Thailand-based startups’ potential to redefine and recreate industries, offering solutions that can be exported to global markets and achieve substantial growth quickly,” said Ankit Upadhyay, Founder and CEO of A2D Ventures.
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Be Group, the Vietnamese startup behind the multi-service consumer platform ‘Be’, has secured VND 739.5 billion (US$30.3 million) funding from VPBank Securities Joint Stock Company (VPBankS), a subsidiary of VPBank.
The fresh capital injection will enable Be Group to accelerate its expansion, particularly in the realms of ride-hailing, delivery, and digital finance services.
With plans to explore new markets and services within the consumer and transportation sectors, Be Group aims to serve 20 million users in collaboration with strategic partners.
The company has set an ambitious target to achieve EBITDA-positive status in the 2024 financial year.
Upon completion of the deal, VPBankS will acquire shares in Be Holdings, the parent company of Be Group, becoming its first institutional investor.
The investment comes as a follow-up to a prior financial arrangement with Deutsche Bank Singapore in 2022.
A representative from VPBankS said: “By officially becoming a shareholder of Be, VPBankS anticipates that this deal will bring great investment return by riding on the potential presented by the multi-service consumer platform Be, which is one of the frontrunners to become one of Vietnam’s technology unicorns.”
Started around five years ago, Be Group has worked with over 300,000 drivers. In 2023 alone, the company facilitated over 120 million rides, maintaining a dominant 35 per cent market share in the ride-hailing sector across 40 cities and provinces in Vietnam.
The platform currently offers more than 15 services, including multimodal transportation, express delivery, food delivery, insurance, and telecommunications.
2023 has been one of the most exciting years to witness the breakthrough of AI technology and Generative AI in particular, with the increasing popularity of ChatGPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) and LLM (Large Language Models). This is thanks to its impressive ability to comprehend human languages and make decisions that remarkably mimic human intelligence.
ChatGPT reached an unprecedented milestone of 1 million users within five days. Since then, big tech giants have been quickly entering the race, releasing dozens of LLMs both open source and proprietary, such as LaMDA (Google AI), Megatron-Turing NLG (NVIDIA), PaLM (Google AI), Llama-2 (Meta AI), Bloom (Hugging Face), Wu Dao 2.0 (Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence), Jurassic-1 Jumbo (AI21 Labs) and Bard (Google AI), etc.
Alongside the race of big tech giants, the adoption of ChatGPT and LLMs in business is growing rapidly. According to the Master of Code Global report “Statistics of ChatGPT & Generative AI in business: 2023 Report”, 49 per cent of companies presently use ChatGPT, while 30 per cent intend to use it in the future.
Another report by Forbes suggests that 70 per cent of organisations are currently exploring generative AI, which includes LLMs. This suggests that LLMs are gaining traction in the enterprise world and that more and more companies are seeing the potential of this technology to revolutionise their businesses.
Multimodal Generative AI
Although ChatGPT and most other LLMs have been demonstrating superior performance in human language understanding (in text form), text is just one kind of data modal human beings perceive every day. However, multimodal data is ubiquitous in the real world, as humans often communicate and interact with all types of information, including images, audio, and video.
Multimodal data also poses significant challenges for artificial intelligence systems, such as data heterogeneity, data alignment, data fusion, data representation, model complexity, computational cost, and evaluation metrics. The AI community, therefore, often opts to successfully address the unimodal data before dealing with more challenging ones.
Multimodal Generative AI
Inspired by the tremendous success of LLMs, the AI community has been creating Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) that can achieve similar levels of generality and expressiveness in the multimodal domain. LMMs can leverage massive amounts of multimodal data and perform diverse tasks with minimal supervision.
Incorporating the other modalities into LLMs creates LMMs, which solve many challenging tasks involving text, images, audio, videos, etc., such as captioning images, visual question answering, and editing images by natural language commands etc.
GPT-4V and LLaVA-1.5
OpenAI has been pioneering the development of GPT-4V, the upgraded multimodal version of the GPT-4 model that can understand and generate information from both text and image inputs. GPT-4V can perform various tasks, such as generating images from textual descriptions, answering questions about images, and editing images with natural language commands.
LLaVA-1.5: This is a model that can understand and generate information from both text and images. It can perform tasks such as answering questions about images, generating captions for images, and editing images with natural language commands.
Alpaca-LoRA: This is a model that can perform various natural language tasks by providing natural language instructions or prompts.
Adept, on the other hand, has been aiming at a bigger ambition: building an AI model that can interact with everything on your computer. “Adept is building an entirely new way to get things done. It takes your goals in plain language and turns them into actions on the software you use every day.” They believe that AI models reading and writing text are still valuable, but ones using computers like human beings are even more valuable to enterprise businesses.
This is driving the race among big tech companies to deliver Large Multimodal Models. It will take a few years for LMMs to reach the same levels as LLMs today.
Generating vs leveraging Large Foundation Models
Producing AI applications for many diverse tasks has never been easier and more efficient than before. Recalling several years ago, if we would like to make a sentiment analysis application, for example, it may take a few months to implement POC with both in-house and public datasets.
It also takes a few months to deploy the sentiment analysis models into the production system. Now, LLMs facilitate the development of such applications in a few days, simply formulating a prompt for LLMs to evaluate a text as positive, neutral, or negative.
Large Foundation Models in AI
In the field of computer vision, visual prompting techniques, introduced by Landing AI, also leverage the power of Large Vision Models (LVMs) to solve a variety of vision tasks, such as object detection, object recognition, semantic segmentation, etc.
Visual Prompting uses visual cues, such as images, icons, or patterns, to reprogram a pre-trained Large Vision Model for a new downstream task. Visual prompting can reduce the need for extensive data labelling and model training and enable faster and easier deployment of computer vision applications.
Generating pre-trained Large Foundation Models (LFMs), including LLMs and LVMs, requires not only AI expertise but also a huge investment in infrastructure, i.e., data lake and computing servers. Hence, the race to create pre-trained LFMs among big tech companies this year will continue in 2024 and in the years to come.
Some are proprietary, but many others are open source, leading to diverse alternatives for enterprises. Meanwhile, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and AI startups will be the main forces in realising the commercials of LFMs. Thus, they will primarily focus on the creation of LFMs applications.
Agent concept in Generative AI
The agent concept is a new trend in Generative AI that has the potential to revolutionise the way we interact with computers. Agents are software modules that can autonomously or semi-autonomously spin up sessions (in this case, language models and other workflow-related sessions) as needed to pursue a goal.
One of the key benefits of using agents is that they can automate many of the tasks that are currently performed by humans. This can free up humans to focus on more strategic and creative tasks. Agents can be designed to be more user-friendly and easier to use than traditional Generative AI tools, making Generative AI more accessible to a wider range of users.
Agent Concept in Generative AI
Here are some of the trends of agent concept in Generative AI:
Increased use of agents to automate tasks: As Generative AI becomes more powerful and sophisticated, we can expect to see a greater use of agents to automate tasks that are currently performed by humans. For example, agents can be used to automate the process of creating and deploying AI models.
Increased use of agents to make Generative AI more accessible: As agents become more user-friendly and easier to use, we can expect to see greater use of agents to make Generative AI more accessible to a wider range of users. This could lead to a new wave of innovation as more and more people are able to use Generative AI to create new products and services.
Development of new agent-based Generative AI tools and platforms: As the agent concept becomes more popular, we can expect to see the development of new agent-based Generative AI tools and platforms. These tools and platforms will make it easier for developers to create and deploy agent-based Generative AI applications.
Here are some specific examples of how the agent concept is being used in Generative AI today:
Agent-based Generative AI tools: There are a number of agent-based Generative AI tools that are currently available. For example, Auto-GPT and BabyAGI are two tools that allow users to create and deploy agent-based Generative AI applications.
Agent-based Generative AI platforms: There are also a number of agent-based Generative AI platforms that are currently available. For example, Google’s AI Platform and Amazon Web Services’ SageMaker platform both allow users to deploy and manage agent-based Generative AI applications.
Agent-based Generative AI applications: There are a number of agent-based Generative AI applications that are currently in use. For example, agent-based Generative AI applications are being used to create new products and services, automate tasks, and make Generative AI more accessible to a wider range of users.
Overall, the agent concept is a new and promising trend in Generative AI. It is being used to develop new tools, platforms, and applications that are having a significant impact on a variety of industries.
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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
Silicon Box, an advanced semiconductor packaging company specialising in cutting-edge chiplet integration services, has secured US$200 million in a Series B fundraising round, bringing its valuation to over US$1 billion.
The capital came from the company founders, as well as other strategic investors, including BRV Capital, Event Horizon Capital, Maverick Capital, Prasedium Capital, Tata Electronics, TDK Ventures, and UMC Capital.
The money will be used to expand production in its advanced US$2-billion packaging factory in Singapore, which has been in mass production for early customers since October 2023, shortly after its grand opening on July 20, 2023.
Current semiconductor chips are hitting a wall in scalability, limited by conventional packaging approaches. Meanwhile, chip designers’ development and manufacturing costs have become cost-prohibitive except for the most well-funded players, leaving the industry bottlenecked and consumers paying high prices.
Founded in 2021 by semiconductor design and packaging industry titans Dr Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai and CEO Dr Byung Joon Han, Silicon Box aims to bring affordable, high-performance, power-optimised, scalable solutions that enable next-gen large language models (LLM), generative AI, automotive, data centres and mobile computing.
The startup enables chiplet architecture, allowing chip designers freedom from the constraints of a single, monolithic chip for processing. By leveraging multiple smaller chips interconnected in a single package, chip designers can create the equivalent of a “system-on-a-chip” (SoC) in a package.
Chiplets enable dramatically better performance, smaller device sizes, and better device reliability. Most importantly, they make it easier for foundries and chip designers to collaborate to build chips for the most cutting-edge applications.
The company claims its solutions are more reliable and cost-effective due to the standardised packaging process for the shortest chiplet-to-chiplet interconnection, reducing the manufacturing costs for high-performance devices by up to 90 per cent, with better thermal and electrical performance. This is especially crucial for the high-growth AI accelerator market.
“We are leading the pack to bring high performance, power-optimised, affordable, and scalable solutions that enable next-gen large language models (LLM), generative AI, automotive, data centres, and mobile computing globally,” said CEO Joon Han. “Our state-of-the-art factory and advanced panel-level packaging are delivering a solution to scale high-growth markets, such as AI accelerators, to the masses.”
Indonesia-based HR tech company VENTENY today announced that it has acquired 30 per cent of shares in PT Digitalisasi Perangkat Indonesia (DPI), a fintech holding company providing integrated digital banking services which includes rural digitalisation, financing, e-money, and e-remittance.
In a press statement, the company said that the acquisition is a way for VENTENY to acquire DPI’s e-money license, which it has secured for its Dipay platform.
The integration of Dipay into the VENTENY ecosystem will allow users to pay bills, top-up credits, and send remittances. It is also expected to increase the level of security in the ecosystem.
In the future, VENTENY also wants to introduce new features, such as enabling users to pay employee salaries using the e-money feature.
“Through this corporate action, VENTENY aims to optimise the integration of digital payment technology to help users perform transactions. In addition to giving added value for users, the e-money integration will enable a more practical and efficient payment experience through the VENTENY Employee Super App,” said VENTENY Founder and Group CEO Jun Waide.
IDX-listed VENTENY provides an “employee super app” ecosystem with features including insurance, employee benefits, and corporate training for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The company operates in the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan. It claimed 9,600 SMEs onboard its platform, with over 250,000 users of its app in Indonesia.
VENTENY said it recorded a 125 per cent increase in revenue in Q3 2023 compared to Q3 2022. It has also experienced a 57 per cent increase in profits from Q2 2022 to Q3 2023.
VinFast’s recent agreement to build its first electric vehicle (EV) facilities in India marks a significant stride for the Vietnamese automaker. The US$2 billion investment in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu signals the car maker’s ambitious foray into the world’s third-largest vehicle market.
With an initial commitment of US$500 million over five years, the company aims to commence construction later this year, creating 3,000 to 3,500 local job opportunities. In Thoothukudi, the facility plans to manufacture EV batteries, anticipating an annual capacity of up to 150,000 vehicles.
While this falls short of its Vietnam plant’s capacity, VinFast envisions Tamil Nadu evolving into a pivotal EV production hub. As India targets 30% electric vehicle sales by 2030, VinFast’s strategic move aligns with the government’s initiatives.
The success of this venture could not only propel VinFast’s global presence but also contribute significantly to India’s burgeoning electric vehicle landscape.
Sainul,
Editor.
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Asia Partners hits final close of Fund II at US$474M
The LPS include IDFC, FIC, DEG, and Generation Capital; Asia Partners, which typically invests between US$20M and US$100M, has already backed companies such as ShopBack and Doctor Anywhere.
Vietnam’s VinFast to set up US$500M EV facilities in India
VinFast and the southern state of Tamil Nadu agreed to work toward an investment of up to US$2B; Construction on the project’s EV and battery manufacturing plants is expected to start this year and generate 3,000-3,500 jobs locally.
Komunal lands US$5.5M in Series A+ round to digitalise rural banks in Indonesia
Investors include Sumitomo Corporation, Jafco Asia, Skystar Capital, and Gobi Partners; Komunal offers neo-rural bank services and has so far partnered with 376 rural banks and channels productive loans to MSMEs based in tier 2 and 3 cities.
Ant Group close to buying Dutch payments firm MultiSafepay for US$200M
The acquisition follows Ant Group’s purchase of Singapore-based payments firm 2C2P in 2022; Ant, which operates cross-border payments platform Alipay+, also bought British payments group WorldFirst in 2019 for US$700M.
Salarium halts operations amid salary disbursement trouble
In an email sent to clients, Salarium mentioned “issues affecting its ability to continue operating effectively,” including an incident happening on December 18; It had “until now been unable to be resolved,” leading to the shutdown.
Semaai nets US$4.7M to expand its agritech, fintech solutions to Central Java
Investors are CyberAgent Capital, Sumitomo Corporation, Ruvento, MyAsiaVC, Heracles Ventures, and Beenext; Semaai helps farmers and rural MSMEs in Indonesia maximise their earning potential and access better financing, services and new markets.
Volkswagen is bringing ChatGPT into its cars and SUVs
Volkswagen has integrated ChatGPT into the backend of its IDA voice assistant, which drivers can use to control the infotainment, navigation and air conditioning, or to answer general knowledge.
North Korean hackers stole US$600M in crypto in 2023: Report
With nearly US$1.5B stolen in the last two years alone, North Korea’s hacking prowess necessitates constant vigilance and innovation on the part of businesses and governments, the report suggested.
Climate tech funding drops 30% in 2023
Despite a notable peak in financing in the third quarter of the year, which reeled in US$12.5B, funding in 2023 was in a notable decline compared to the previous years since 2020; Deal counts also decreased for the first time since 2020, with figures down 3% y-o-y.
What founders need to know about creating a cap table
When preparing for a cap table, pre- and post-money valuations are some of the key elements that founders must consider and include; One of those mistakes is forgetting to add ESOPs, which will lead to a piece of missing info that can affect the accuracy of the calculations.
GenAI could make KYC effectively useless
Viral posts on X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit show how, leveraging open source and off-the-shelf software, an attacker could download a selfie of a person, edit it with generative AI tools and use the manipulated ID image to pass a KYC test.
The canary in Singapore’s retail coal mine is ‘kiasu’
While the average Singaporean is even more picky than usual this holiday season, adjusting their spending to combat the rising cost of living, high inflation, and a looming recession, under these economic challenges, the kiasu shopper is more deal-hungry than ever.
Navigating the regulatory landscape: Malaysia’s startup outlook in 2024
The Securities Commission of Malaysia in December 2023 said that it is seeking to introduce a “small offering exemption” in the current securities law in 2024; The exemption may permit safe harbour for offerings of a “certain size” to sophisticated investors.
(L-R) Infobank iAccel’s Gil Chang-Gun and Farquhar’s Jason Su
South Korea’s early-stage startup investor, Infobank Corporation, has partnered with Singapore’s Farquhar VC (FVC) to help Korean startups succeed globally.
Under this partnership, iAccel, the investment department of Infobank, and Farquhar will collaborate comprehensively on exchanging innovation and investment ecosystem insights, mutually supporting each other’s portfolio companies and jointly participating in bids for global acceleration initiatives.
Both parties will also explore potential opportunities for joint funding that could support Korean startups seeking global expansion and global startups seeking to establish a foothold in South Korea.
Infobank iAccel Deputy CEO Gil Chang-Gun said that both parties would commence their cooperation via potential co-investment into data-centric Infobank portfolio companies that are advancing into Southeast Asia. Also, the Infobank-FVC partnership shall strengthen the ecosystem between North Asia and Southeast Asia.
As of November 2023, iAccel has invested more than KRW 20 billion (US$150 million) into more than 80 companies. Two of its portfolio companies (Crowdworks and Qualitas Semiconductor) have made IPO debuts on KOSDAQ.
Established in 2020, Farquhar VC has invested in nearly 40 startups to date, with Lomotif as one of its early exits. It also works closely with early-stage startups to support their growth through targeted market access with its mid-sized and large enterprises network.
In particular, FVC’s innovation advisory arm recently undertook an accelerator programme on behalf of the Seoul Business Agency, which garnered three cross-border strategic partnerships and one investment commitment.
Kiasu, a Hokkien term referring to the “fear of missing out,” perfectly describes a special class of Singaporean shoppers.
While the average Singaporean is even more picky than usual this holiday season, adjusting their spending to combat the rising cost of living, high inflation, and a looming recession, under these economic challenges, the kiasu shopper is more deal-hungry than ever. And this Christmas, luring these thrifties who will go to any length to avoid missing out on a deal will be harder than ever for retailers.
Great deals are certainly out there already. The abundance of second-hand trading platforms, ultra-low margin e-commerce sites, and increasingly competitive loyalty programmes available to Singaporeans mean that the island’s retailers need to do a whole lot more than just lower prices or launch sales. They need to use their data to make kiasu shoppers an offer they can’t refuse.
Traditional retail tactics, like promotions, price markdowns, and interactive customer experiences, can create value for customers. However, without understanding customer behaviour and sales trends, these tactics are a gamble.
Retailers in Singapore need to push themselves to create more value for kiasu shoppers during the festive period and beyond by gaining an extremely intimate understanding of their customers’ behaviours. Data collected across the retail workflow can answer the who, what, where, when, why, and how kiasu customers shop.
Timing is key
While data intelligence can boost seasonal sales – guiding the duration, timing, and best-fit products for price discounts – well-timed sales are crucial to acquiring the kiasu shopper. A recent study showed that 36 per cent of Singaporeans are waiting for big-ticket sales like the year-end holiday shopping season to start spending.
Australian grocer Woolworths offers a case study of how well-timed sales strategies can create impact. Woolworths used insights gathered from segmented customer data, sales patterns, trading hours, and expiry data to schedule time-precise markdowns for individual stores. This improved its perishable goods sales, generating AU$55 (US$40) million in savings annually.
Local retail businesses can find inspiration in Woolworth’s data-driven approach. A well-timed price markdown, powered by customer and sales data, can help larger retailers in Singapore clear their large inventory of goods, spanning toys, clothes, and more while delivering great value to the kiasu shopper.
Staying well stocked
Data can also help businesses pre-empt the needs of the kiasu shoppers who want to purchase specific products at reasonable prices and receive them on time. Sports retailer Al-Ihksan Sports, which has more than 125 stores across Malaysia, highlights the need for a well-curated and stocked inventory to meet the needs of its customers.
“Consumers are willing to buy an MYR 400 pair of Adidas shoes but not for another brand… so, we need to bring the right products, right sizes, and colours at the right price points,” said Vach Pillutla, CEO of Malaysian sports retailer Al-Ikhsan Sports in a separate interview.
Retail businesses can turn to data for answers instead of second-guessing what customers want. Data like month-on-hand inventory can uncover hot selling items through easy-to-use analytics software and communicate these insights clearly through intuitive dashboards. Al-Ihksan Sports did exactly that, ensuring it brings in the right products at the right time.
A smarter way to sell
Understanding sales patterns or creating better experiences could become even easier in the next few years, with retailers already infusing technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) into their practices.
For example, today, companies use AI models to analyse supply chains and distribution channels and store machine sensor data to prevent out-of-stock scenarios. However, ironically, retailers could find themselves in a kiasu situation, with the real threat of losing out on sales if they don’t join the AI scramble now.
Meanwhile, generative AI is poised to revolutionise the retail industry by enabling personalised product recommendations and creative content generation, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction. In the future, retailers will harness the power of generative AI to streamline operations, anticipate consumer preferences, and deliver more immersive shopping experiences.
Cosmetic retailer Sephora, for example, has adopted generative AI to create interactive “in-store” shopping experiences for Singaporean customers, providing a virtual assistant that provides personalised consultations and query responses that are comparable to their onsite beauty advisors.
Data is the fuel for these retail innovations, and it is crucial that businesses engage with the best technology partners to use their data efficiently and safely with the right protocols and systems.
A win-win scenario
Kiasu shoppers are the canary in the coal mine for retail businesses in Singapore. In a challenging and rapidly evolving socio-economic climate, retail businesses on the island need agility to “not miss out” themselves.
Data delivers this agility, not only making retail businesses intelligent, but far more alluring to the kiasu shopper. This Christmas will prove that data can help both businesses and customers make the right decisions – creating a “win-win” situation for retailers and kiasu shoppers.
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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
2023 was a roller coaster ride for regulators around the world. From figuring out how to regulate new emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT to managing data leaks to high-profile crypto prosecutions, 2023 was an exciting time throughout the year.
In 2024, there are several upcoming regulatory changes that may be taking place in Malaysia.
Regulatory clarity on the use of SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and convertible notes
The Securities Commission of Malaysia, the capital market regulator, in December 2023 said that it is seeking to introduce a “small offering exemption” in the current securities law in 2024.
The exemption may permit safe harbour for offerings of a “certain size” to sophisticated investors (i.e., high-net-worth people or accredited investors). To illustrate, Singapore’s threshold is capped at an SG$5 (US$3.70) million funding limit to selected investors.
The new exemption rule would likely provide better regulatory clarity in line with international practices for startups and small and medium enterprises in Malaysia seeking to raise funds using legal instruments like SAFEs and convertible notes, which are the usual norm for early-stage startup funding in Silicon Valley.
Cyber Security Bill
Current cyber security offences are regulated by multiple key laws that need serious overhaul, including the Computer Crimes Act 1997, the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the Malaysian Penal Code and the Personal Data Protection Act 2010.
The new Cyber Security Bill is likely to be an omnibus bill form, which means that the bill may cover changes in other present legislations, such as the ones highlighted in the earlier paragraph, to ensure that existing laws may be streamlined, including distinguishing the roles of different entities to minimise any overlaps.
The government also said the National Cybersecurity Agency (NACSA) under the present National Security Council will be designated as the main entity to regulate and enforce cyber security laws and enhance the country’s cyber resilience. Separately, there is also a plan to form a Cyber Security Commission to strengthen cyber security, but the discussion is still at the preliminary stage, and we may likely hear more updates this year.
A government official said that the Cybersecurity Bill may likely be tabled during the third or the fourth quarter of parliamentary sitting this year. Ordinarily, a draft bill would be made available for public consultation, which we would expect in this quarter or so.
As a startup that may not already be in a regulated space, such as a fintech startup, you may likely need to assess your cyber security policy and internal processes with your IT team to ensure that you are in compliance with the new Cyber Security Bill once it comes into force.
Amendments to the Personal Data Protection Act
Another long overdue bill that has yet to be tabled by the parliament is the amendments to the current personal data protection laws. The minister in charge mentioned that the bill is in its final stages and is expected to be tabled in March of this year.
Among notable improvements include a mandatory obligation for data users to designate and appoint a person as a ‘Data Protection Officer’ and mandatory data breach notification to the Personal Data Protection Department. The bill was meant to be tabled in 2022 but was put on hold due to the general election, so we may likely see the long-awaited changes to be tabled this year.
The Personal Data Protection Department will also further be empowered as a statutory authority as opposed to its present role as a government department under the ministry to better address data leaks and execute its functions more effectively.
In early 2023, the Singapore and Malaysia governments signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on personal data protection areas, including the promotion of cross-border data flows and sharing of expertise on personal data protection policies, including monitoring cyber security incidents. So, we may likely hear more updates on this this year.
As a company, you need to take proactive steps and speak to your usual startup lawyer to help assess and update your existing data processing systems and processes in anticipation of it being rolled out in the near future.
The new Companies Act amendments bill will include new requirements for companies to maintain a register of beneficial owners (RBO) to enhance corporate transparency.
Under the amendments, a company needs to maintain a register of beneficial owners (RBO) at the registered office of the company and report any changes to the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) within 14 days.
The amendments were initially tabled for the first reading in the parliament in October 2023. The second reading may likely be expected to be this year, but it is unclear when the amended Companies Act will come into force.
The regulator may likely need to release further guidelines on how these provisions will be implemented. Ordinarily, the government may likely allow a certain grace period for companies and relevant parties to adhere to these new provisions. As a founder, you may likely need to speak to your usual service provider to ensure compliance.
Capital gains tax on disposal of unlisted shares
Starting 1 March 2024, a capital gains tax of 10 per cent will be enforced against gains or profits received pursuant to the disposal of unlisted shares held in private companies.
There are still many questions that need to be answered with respect to the proposed capital gains tax. For example, it is unclear if founders and angels may also be subject to capital gains tax or not, as venture funds are likely to be exempt from such tax.
Also, companies that elect to get listed on the local stock exchange may also be exempted from capital gains. These exemptions are not mentioned in the recent bill, so they may be likely to be included in a subsidiary legislation this year.
The new capital gains tax may likely impact the local startup scene. Several investors and founders have indicated that they may be considering redomiciling the entity elsewhere to avoid tax exposure. To illustrate, in Asia, only Singapore and Hong Kong do not tax capital gains.
As a founder, you will need to stay up to date to ensure necessary actions may be taken in a timely manner to manage any potential tax implications together with other shareholders that may be impacted by the new proposed tax.
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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
(L-R) Semaai co-founders Muhammad Yoga Anindito, Gaurav Batra, and Abishek Gupta
Indonesian agritech startup Semaai has secured US$4.7 million (approximately IDR 73 billion) in a mix of equity and debt financing led by CyberAgent Capital (Japan).
New investors Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Ruvento, MyAsiaVC, and Heracles Ventures, besides existing backers Peak XV’s Surge, Accion Venture Lab, and Beenext, participated. This brings its total funding raised to date to US$7.6 million.
“With the new funding, our company will collaborate with financial institutions and fintech providers to expand our embedded fintech solutions, having already doubled Semaai’s total transaction volume in the last 12 months. This is part of our goal to provide an integrated digital ecosystem that addresses disruptions in the supply chain and fills knowledge gaps for Indonesia’s agri-retailers and smallholder farmers,” said Muhammad Yoga Anindito, Co-Founder and CEO of Semaai.
It will also use the new funds to expand its agronomy advisory service to agri-retailers and farmers and strengthen its presence in Central Java. Semaai plans to cover 75 per cent of the over 8,2001 villages by the end of 2024.
Semaai is a ‘farmer-first’ company building full-stack agritech solutions to help farmers and rural MSMEs such as toko tanis in Indonesia maximise their earning potential and access better financing, services and new markets.
The agritech firm provides three essential services:
B2B digital marketplace for agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilisers,
agronomy advisory services to improve their farming practices. The agronomy advisory service allows access to educational content organised by crop type and focused on crop-related pests and diseases. The content aids users in thoroughly understanding the complexities of crop issues and empowers them to prepare to mitigate and address future problems. Users are then recommended products from Semaai’s marketplace platform, culminating in hassle-free doorstep delivery,
financial services in partnership with financial institutions and fintech providers.
Semaai claims its net revenue has increased over 15x in the last 12 months, and its Toko Tani marketplace user base has doubled. Furthermore, its advisory feature has witnessed an 8x increase in adoption in the last six months and is used by most of Semaai’s active users.
In February 2023, Semaai closed a bridge funding round led by Accion Venture Lab and XA Network.
Indonesia’s agricultural sector, together with forestry and fisheries, grew 1.46 per cent every year and 1.61 per cent on a quarterly basis. Badan Pusat Statistik 2023 data shows that the agricultural sector contributed 12.71 per cent of the country’s total GDP.
