Accacia, a decarbonisation platform focusing on the real estate and infrastructure sectors, has completed its US$6.5 million pre-series A funding round.

Illuminate Financial led the round with participation from an unnamed VC firm, AC Ventures, Accel Partners, and B Capital.

Also Read: A deep-dive into Wavemaker Impact’s decarbonisation strategies in SEA

Established in 2022 by INSEAD alum Annu Talreja (founder) and Piyush Chitkara and Jagmohan Gaarg (co-founders), Singapore-based Accacia offers an AI-enabled SaaS platform that helps real estate asset managers, owners, and developers track their emissions and design their decarbonisation journeys. The platform allows customers to measure and benchmark the transitional risks on their portfolios, while the AI-enabled recommendation engine suggests decarbonisation strategies at the asset and portfolio levels.

Accacia’s platform integrates with existing property management, energy management, and procurement systems to automate real-time data capturing and tracking, making it the quickest and most affordable solution for real estate companies on their path to net zero.

“This funding comes at a crucial juncture as the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and Singapore Exchange (SGX) have announced regulations on carbon emissions reporting, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive and real-time climate risk data. We have already deployed our solution to over 25 million square feet of real estate and are poised to leverage this opportunity and scale globally,” said Annu.

“Measuring and managing climate risks has become imperative for large financial institutions, especially on real estate, one of the most significant and most affected asset classes in their portfolios. We felt Accacia is the right fit to take on a leading position in the global real estate decarbonisation market and are pleased to partner with the Accacia team,” said Rezso Szabo, Partner at Illuminate Financial.

Also Read: B Capital believes in startups, corporates collaboration to bring decarbonisation efforts forward

Real estate and construction activity contribute approximately 40 per cent of global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. It is one of the biggest opportunities today, and a staggering US$18 trillion of investment is required over the next decade to bring the real estate industry to net zero.

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X marks Echelon. Join us at Singapore EXPO on May 15-16 for the 10th edition of Asia’s leading tech and startup conference. Enjoy 2 days of building connections with potential investors, partners, and customers, exploring innovation, and sharing insights with 8,000+ key decision-makers of Asia’s tech ecosystem. Get your tickets here.

Want more from your Echelon experience? Be an Echelon X sponsor or exhibitor. Send enquiry here.

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You have a startup idea. Now what? This blog is going to take you through the key facets of a business model and the industry environment to help you build conviction that your startup idea makes sense before you start. It’s not just a list of things to test in coffee shops and with a live product to validate it.

If you internalise all the key factors, you’ll be able to rapidly evaluate each and every idea you have and hopefully help you mitigate wasting time on ideas that are doomed to fail for reasons you could have predicted.

When you have an idea, you will have a torrent of thoughts, especially if this is your first startup rodeo:

• Will VCs fund my idea? (No)
• Should I sell my house and just build this idea? (No)
• Should I validate my idea? (Yes!!!)
• Will it cost me a lot of cash to validate my idea (Not really)
• Can I validate this without talking to customers? (Yes)
• Should I talk to customers before building something? (Yes)

Clearly, you should start out doing the groundwork to really validate an idea. If you are not flush with cash, then you might be happy to know that spending money to validate your idea is actually the last step. There is a whole lot you can do if you understand business models to figure out if you are dead on arrival first, or if this idea is worth actually spending any time on at all.

Let me take you through the thought process of how to evaluate a business idea. First, let’s start by creating a baseline for your objectives to ensure the idea meets it.

Is this a side hustle or your big idea?

First, you need to set your personal expectations with any idea you will have. Are you doing a ‘side hustle’ and want to make some cash, or are you planning on going VC crazy and gunning for a monster exit? Both are equally fine. But there are large implications of both that heavily impact how you review the idea.

Side hustle

I bosh out some ‘startups’ which are basically passive income. If I make a few grand a month from them and I don’t have to do too much work, what the heck, right! But if you want to go big or go broke then the bar is really different, not just higher.

If you have a family, aren’t a big risk taker, but have an entrepreneurial itch, then why not launch something small? You never know, this could grow and become something big?

Ideally, it’s something close to what you do for a job or that is your hobby.

• If you have experience in M&A you could set up a course for budding analysts to get into M&A? Maybe you make models for PE investors?
• If you work in customer care, you might notice you built a handy little time-saving tool you built for yourself. Perhaps, other people would like that too? Why not polish it and sell it as a little SaaS business?

The main benefit of doing something ‘close to home’ is you really know what you are doing and are the customer yourself. You know already what people need and want, you might even know the market size and how much people will pay? That’s really handy, right! Might you even build something and get your company to be the first customer?

If this is your goal, you need to view your ‘idea’ through the lens of a side hustle. You might spend a few $k of your savings, but you don’t intend raising investment, so what you build has to be within these constraints. If it involves hiring 40 people and doing field sales, you should probably drop the idea and look for something easier to ship and manage.

Also read: Is Singapore’s early stage startup scene dead? What happened?

Gunning for a billion

If your goal with the startup idea is to make a tonne of cash which will involve raising a load of venture capital, you need to view your idea through an entirely different lens. The bar is 100x everything than for a hustle.

It needs to have a potentially huge market, there need to be scaleable acquisition channels, you need to be able to recruit an elite team, you need to think critically of your unit economics and you will want to have a special sauce that will imbue you with an enduring competitive advantage.

Figuring out an awesome VC fundable startup idea is not easy. When analysing your model you need to think far more critically than you would for a side hustle. Your idea might be fine for a side hustle, but you are going to drop most ideas as they just won’t meet the bar for investible. That’s fine, but be ok to kill your darlings. Don’t start something that doesn’t make sense, just because you want to do something.

How much do you want to sell for?

This is a question I ask all founders that I mentor and do consulting calls with. It’s is honestly incredible that 100% of people that I pose this to have no answer. They often say “hmm … I didn’t think about this.”

Whilst you care about your exit, it is all that investors think about. I’ve written about this in detail here: A meaningful founder exit is not the same thing for venture capital.

If you are setting up a side hustle you need to answer this question:

How much do I want to make each month to make this worthwhile?

This could be $5k a month. If you don’t think your idea can generate this much income, then you need to kill the idea.

If you are setting a VC fundable startup, you need to answer this question:

What do I want to sell this for and will someone buy it?

There are a lot of implications for how much you sell your startup for. If your goal is $20m it’s only likely at best fundable by one small angel round. That’s the only way the numbers work. If you are gunning for a $billion, then you are VC backable, but you’re going to have to build something really massive.

My recommendation is that you should aim to sell your startup for at least $200m. Sure, that’s still a large number, but VC’s business model needs you to have the ‘potential’ to be really large, assuming things go to plan.

For any VC fundable startup you are seeking an idea for, you need to write a $ number and figure out if your idea can get there. If not, then you need to drop it and keep looking. Don’t forget it’s ok to enlarge the market opportunity by redefining the market over time. Uber started with the market for black cars and then redefined it as the market for mobility. That’s a big claim, but hopefully, you get the implication.

It is worth bearing in mind though, that your pool of potential acquirors gets smaller and smaller as you become more and more valuable. There’s really only a handful of companies that can buy you for a billion. The number for $100m is vastly larger, as it is for sub a hundred. Consider the acquirers for different levels of success- are there many people who could buy me for $200m? Would anyone buy me for a billion, or do I need to IPO?

Additionally is what you are building a potential financial or strategic acquisition? You get better multiples for a strategic acquisition, but then why are you really strategic?

Ok, we are getting into the weeds too much now, but there are some of the ‘advanced level’ factors that you can retain in the back of your mind when evaluating an idea. I ask these questions to myself, but it happens in 20 seconds and not 5 hours. It’s a quick sense check.

Problem

By hook or crook you had an insight into a problem that people have and you think many people will share. This is always the first step. To be clear though, figuring out tech or a solution and then go looking for a problem is almost always a terrible idea.

I wrote about this in detail here: Your solution is not my problem.

The solution may sound good, but not solving a real problem is a key reason for failure (42% of the time). See the main reasons for failure here:

Here is a presentation I wrote for a talk at Oxford about dumb ways startups die:

I highly recommend getting an idea for what your CAC and LTV will be. All startup is just a function of these two numbers. Your forecasts will be wrong, but you need to fathom what you can play with on the CAC side to get a sense for what channels you can afford, or not. If your LTV is about $50, you can’t afford paid channels with $200 CAC (CPC x conversion rate).

If you want to get into some more detail, I wrote a blog about why you should build a startup and why passion is overrated. This is incredibly linked to what we are discussing in this blog. Another recommended reading: Passion is over-rated. Build a better mousetrap instead.

Acquisition strategy

I talked about market education, which sort of addresses this, but get really clear on how, where and for how much you will acquire your customers from.

You really need one channel that works. Do you know what this is going to be? How scaleable will these marketing channels be?

If it is paid, it’s easy. You just get ideas for search volume, CPCs and then make assumptions on a conversion rate to get the CAC. I would inflate this number as it doesn’t get cheaper over time as you scale (assuming you plan on scaling).

I wouldn’t rely on something like channel sales at the start. That’s just not going to happen. Platforms are not interested in giving you their customers, they are interested in taking your customers. For enterprise, S&I is the same. Don’t go there till you have already scaled a bit.

If you are doing SEO, can you actually compete? What is the search volume and how competitive are the keywords?

You want to have a quick think about these, but if you aren’t sure, that’s ok. You can launch and figure it out…. but it is something you can develop a go or no go thesis for.

Founder-market fit

You should really question if you want to do this idea and if you are actually the best person for it. Founder market fit matters.

You will only really kill it if:

• You know everything about the industry and are an insider
• You have the network for deals etc
• You have a pool of talent to hire
• You understand the ‘why’ behind the what and when

Sure, plucky kids can do cool stuff, but would you not prefer to back an insider as an investor? If you are building a VC funded startup then understand that the team is 70% of an investor’s investment decision.

If you want to learn more about what an investible founding team is, then I wrote a presentation on this topic: Investible Founding Startup Teams.

Ask yourself if you are the best person to do this… if you are doing the VC thing anyway. But learn if it is a side hustle.

Execution complexity

There are reasons why people in Asia copy startups in America. You don’t get it if you are in America. There is a contiguous land mass and sure there are state laws, but everything is basically the same. There is a tonne of service provers, yada yada.

Try doing ecommerce when your logistics providers suck and you need to teach them how to do their job. I’m not fricking joking. At Lazada, we had more data about logistics company operations than they did and we had to teach them. Everything is hard in new markets. Make no assumptions.

Now let’s pick on enterprise. Sales cycles suuuuuuuuuuuck. 12 months plus is a nightmare and real. I know. I sold to insurance companies and banks. One mate at the investment bank with the largest tech budget on the street said it would realistically take 13 months to be in production (and getting those licence fees).

I can go on, but the point is this. How hard is it for you to execute on your startup? If you are in emerging markets, don’t make assumptions …

Also read: From startup idea to success story: 7 things all entrepreneurs should know

Investment thesis

As a final point, before you start, write an investment thesis. Explain why this makes sense and what you need to prove for this to work in the short term. Be explicit. Then set out to test it.

Write it down so it is real. I don’t have any examples to share right now. I’ve been meaning to write a blog on how to do it.

Testing

Ok, we went through the fundamentals of a startup idea. That is real validation, not just a cheaper alternative to test your idea with AdWords.

Once you really believe you are on the right track, it’s time to actually do some startup planning. How do you execute this?

If we are talking tech product, you need to figure out your starting value proposition. I talk in terms of minimum desirable product, not MVP.

Here is the The real reason to launch faster (not talked about) and I highly recommend reading if you intend raising money.

But… you don’t start with the tech. You want to do some testing, so do this:

• Talk to potential customers. Do they like it and will they pay? Actually, pretend you have product and ask them to pay for it. That’s the difference between talk and walk. Most people will say they like it and will pay it to be nice, but they won’t cough up the dough when you ask for it
• Starbucks ambush. If your market is consumers, ask your avatar in Starbucks in return for a coffee. Tell them it’s your brother’s idea, not yours as they will be more likely to be honest. People are generally nice and don’t care enough to be honest if there is even the inkling of it getting weird for them
• Do a survey. Post if on FB, Hackernews, Reddit, message people etc. Get feedback on the concept, pricing etc. You can chuck in a prize of an Amazon voucher.
• Ask your smartest contacts for feedback. Pitch them the idea. You will learn. Yes, your idea sucks and yes you should share. You can only learn. No one is going to copy you
• Pitch an investor if you have the network. Again pretend it is real and get feedback (negative too)

This blog is more about fundamentals than the customer testing part, but this graphic is pretty interesting and informative, to get an idea of how much work you need to do vs the amount of customer validation. You can see an actual beta product is in the top right and interviews are in the bottom left.

Refine your pitch and product. Figure out if this actually makes sense.

Live test

Don’t build a product first. ‘Ship’ vaporware.

• Name the company
• Buy domain
• Set up a landing page
• Ensure your hero has a ‘to the point’ statement and CTA
• Populate a pretty site which sells benefits
• Set up GA and GTM to track
• Buy some targeted FB ads- key is you want ideas around CAC
• Post to Quora, Reddit, HackerNews, Medium, Startup FB groups…
• Track metrics
• Goal is sign ups

Does it convert or not?

If so, congrats, you have a lead list. If not, you failed fast.

Example

Here is a real example of a consulting like startup I started this year, Perfect Pitch Deck. It helps founders unsuck their pitch decks and help them look fundable.

What was my thesis?

• Pitch decks suck. I know because I get them every day
• There is a large market as there are hundreds of thousands of startups looking for investment and there are competitors in the market already
• Founders don’t know how to write them and would pay for a service with guaranteed pricing
• A lot of issues can be removed by simply redesigning them and rewriting the content
• I’m the best person for this as I am already an expert at pitch decks
• The unit economics will work under certain time constraints and being able to leverage lower cost base of certain countries to execute some of the work
• The cost to launch the service will be low and I can do it fast
• I can acquire customers through Facebook ads profitably
• This isn’t a massive business, but the RoI is enough to warrant me testing it

So I launched it.

What were the exact steps I did to launch this?

• Saw someone do AdWords for pitch decks. Wtf?
• Saw they had 8 people on their hiring page
• See they raised $500k or so on angellist
• Google who else is doing this. Eh, whatever, I’m not going to raise, who cares about competition but understand pricing.
• I’m an expert on pitch decks (founder market fit) so I don’t care as nothing to learn to start
• Do excel model to understand unit economics (Watch it)
• Only costs me a site and some time to launch, f*** it, launch it
• Copy site. Copy … everything. Ghetto on WordPress, Buy theme for $59 and host. (Step by step guide). Just get it done
• Pay chick on Fivrr to make logo for $20
• Set up Stripe
• Get my girl in Phillippines to set up GA and GTM for me
• Pay a dude to build a pricing form on Upwork which sucks. Pay a chick on fiver to build on Jotform (works better) but takes time. FML. Down maybe $150
• Steal my own blogs from alexanderjarvis.com on pitch decks and post on ‘blog’ to fake content
• Steal my ‘featured in’ type logos to add social proof to the site
• Learn how FB ads work
• Brainstorm problem statements to market this
• Use Canva to make some ads
• Set up FB myself and do retargeting on my blog (focused on startup founders also). Scream f*** FB ads is such a crap platform…
• Get a customer for €380 the first day I start ads. Holy crap that was fast. Screw it, let’s put in more work
• Make site nicer (ish)
• Set up some basic marketing automation and lead magnets for an email automation course (Step by step guide)
• Get €22k worth of clients in 2 weeks
• Make site better. French designer says site is terrible, so learn about design. Redesign.
• People start saying site looks awesome.
• Add a new lead magnet to do ‘free pitch deck audits’ and start getting a load of leads which 70% convert (most are too poor). Make template deck which is backed by AI analysis which people think is cool
• Clients start returning for other kinds of help. bla bla bla…

That’s literally what I did to launch and test a startup idea.

Conclusion

Most of the work to validate a startup idea is on the back end and business nerd orientated. I’m certain most founders are not aware quite how much that can be done to derisk their startup idea. The reasons for failure are so common. Of course, your assumptions may all be wrong, but I’d prefer to go into a market with my eyes wide open about what I am seeking to solve for, then just winging it.

Once you have done the groundwork, then it’s time to apply what you have read or learnt about CDM (customer development methodology) and get customer feedback. Yeah, that matters, but there’s a lot of work to build a compelling thesis first.

I hope this guide is useful to help you think about how to review startup ideas. If you need some help figuring out if your business model makes sense or not, you can book a one on one call with me and I can help you with the thinking. Book a time here.

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This article was originally published on alexanderjarvis.com.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Image Credit: 123RF

This article was first published on November 14, 2018

The post The ultimate guide to validating your startup idea appeared first on e27.

Anh Duong, a climate tech enthusiast, noticed that farm by-products like coffee grounds and rice and coconut husks ended up in landfills in agricultural regions like the Mekong Delta in his home country Vietnam. It occurred to him that repurposing these materials into valuable products would not only help manage these wastes but also reduce carbon emissions.

“We saw an opportunity to innovate within the plastic industry by creating biomaterials from renewable sources. Thus, AirX Carbon was born,” he tells e27.

Also Read: Coffeefrom: Brewing sustainability from bean to product

Founded in 2020 by Duong and Thanh Le, AirX Carbon makes carbon-negative materials from agricultural by-products (mainly coffee grounds, rice husks, and coconut husks). It works closely with local communities and international organisations (NGOs) to source biowaste materials and then turns them into useful products.

The production process involves converting the wastes into bio-based polymers, which are then pelletised using environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques to create carbon-negative biomaterials.

AirX provides two types of bioplastics. The first type is used for multiple uses and applications, such as shoe soles, electronic devices, household appliances, and furniture. These are designed to be recycled after the product life cycle has ended.

The second type is designed to biodegrade more rapidly, often within two years under suitable conditions, reducing their environmental impact.

“Through innovative material science and engineering, we ensure that our biomaterials offer comparable strength, durability, and performance to traditional plastic, making them suitable for various industrial applications,” he claims.

Priced on a par with traditional plastic

AirX Carbon’s products are cost-comparable with fossil-based plastics. This has been possible due to the low production costs; the locally available, cheap and abundant biomass materials minimise input material costs and reduce reliance on imported raw materials.

The climate-tech startup has also developed advanced formulae and manufacturing techniques that efficiently convert agricultural waste into bio-based polymers using less energy. The company plans to leverage economies of scale and volume to drive down production costs as demand for sustainable alternatives to fossil-based plastics continues to grow.

AirX primarily targets the packaging, consumer goods, and footwear industries with its products. It also explores opportunities to develop bio-based products for the textile, construction, and toy industries.

Expanding production capacity

AirX Carbon has set up a production facility in Long An Province (Mekong Delta) with a production capacity of 100 tons per month. It plans to increase the capacity to 500 tons of biomaterials/month in 2025 to meet the demand of ongoing customers. This will allow the venture to meet the rising demand for its biomaterial products across various industries.

The firm collaborates with waste management companies and brand owners to create a circular bio-economy for plastics through various initiatives, such as:

• Supply chain integration: AirX Carbon works closely with waste management companies to source biowaste materials, such as agricultural and forestry by-products, for its biomaterials production. By integrating these materials into its supply chain, the company ensures a steady and sustainable source of raw materials.
• Strategic partnerships: It forms strategic partnerships with brand owners and manufacturers to co-develop and commercialise bio-based plastic products. These partnerships often involve joint R&D efforts, as well as shared investments in production facilities and distribution networks.

“We will also establish strategic partnerships with suppliers, distributors, and manufacturers to optimise its supply chain and distribution network. By collaborating with industry leaders and experts, we can access additional resources, expertise, and markets to support its growth trajectory,” Duong remarks.

Also Read: Why ‘Iron Man’ star placed a bet on Singapore’s biodegradable plastic startup RWDC Industries

How does the company measure the environmental impact of its products compared to traditional plastics? “We employ comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies to measure the environmental impact of our products. Through LCA, we evaluate various environmental indicators, such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, water usage, and waste generation, across the entire life cycle of its products, from raw material sourcing to end-of-life disposal.”

“The LCA results enable AirX Carbon to quantitatively assess the environmental performance of its biomaterials products and identify areas for improvement,” he shares.

AirX Carbon was one of the three startups that won the inaugural Net Zero Challenge 2023, a climate innovations competition in Vietnam by Touchstone Partners and Temasek Foundation. The firm is in the market to raise US$2 million in seed financing from VCs and impact investors. By diversifying its funding sources, the company aims to reduce reliance on any single source of capital and increase financial resilience.

Amidst the rice fields and coconut plantations of Mekong Delta, Anh Duong saw not waste, but opportunity. With plans to scale production and expand partnerships, AirX Carbon is poised to lead the charge towards a circular bio-economy.
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X marks Echelon. Join us at Singapore EXPO on May 15-16 for the 10th edition of Asia’s leading tech and startup conference. Enjoy 2 days of building connections with potential investors, partners, and customers, exploring innovation, and sharing insights with 8,000+ key decision-makers of Asia’s tech ecosystem. Get your tickets here.

Want more from your Echelon experience? Be an Echelon X sponsor or exhibitor. Send enquiry here.

The article was first published on March 20, 2024

The post AirX Carbon turns coffee grounds, rice and coconut husks into bioplastic appeared first on e27.

In the dynamic landscape of Indonesia’s burgeoning creative economy, traditional monetisation models often fall short, leaving many industry players struggling to unlock their full potential. As the global creator economy skyrockets towards a projected valuation of $480 billion by 2027, innovative solutions are imperative to address the pressing challenges faced by creators and communities alike. This is where TipTip, a pioneering platform at the intersection of technology and creativity, steps in to reshape the landscape.

In recent years, Indonesia’s creative industry has experienced exponential growth, driven by rapid technological advancements and changing consumer preferences. However, despite this growth, creative industry players and communities grapple with significant hurdles in monetisation and audience engagement.

Traditional revenue streams such as advertising revenue and subscriptions often prove inadequate, leading to a reliance on limited avenues like brand partnerships and digital platform royalties. Moreover, accessing brand partnerships and sustaining community growth remains a daunting task, with many facing barriers due to a lack of access and resources.

Navigating the diverse content creation and distribution landscape further compounds these challenges, especially for independent creators vying for visibility against established players. Real-time trend insights are also elusive, hindering informed decision-making and strategic planning.

A comprehensive solution to creative industry challenges

The burgeoning and diverse creative economy in Indonesia presents a substantial opportunity within the commerce sector, given its status as the largest market in Southeast Asia. Despite this, many industry players struggle to access and benefit from this trend, falling behind. The varied spectrum of industry players, spanning Key Opinion Leaders, Content Creators, and Celebrities, offers distinct prospects for the industry, each category possessing avenues for monetisation and audience influence. Nonetheless, they all predominantly rely on two primary revenue streams: Brand Partnerships and Digital Platform Royalties.

TipTip emerges as a beacon of hope in this landscape, offering a comprehensive solution to the multifaceted challenges plaguing Indonesia’s creative industry. At its core, TipTip leverages cutting-edge technology, including natural language processing and data analytics, to build clusters of databases that group communities based on their interests and match them with brands seeking authentic connections. This automated AI-driven approach revolutionises the brand-community partnership paradigm, accelerating the process of finding ideal matches and unlocking new monetisation opportunities for creators and communities.

Also read: ADA unveils AI CoPilots to revolutionise marketing and commerce for global enterprises

Moreover, TipTip’s real-time trend insights empower users with actionable data, enabling them to anticipate market shifts and tailor their strategies accordingly. With automated suggestions tailored to local communities and trends, TipTip ensures that users stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving landscape.

By providing end-to-end solutions for event organisation, content distribution, and brand partnerships, TipTip positions itself as the cornerstone of Indonesia’s creative ecosystem, empowering creators and communities to thrive in the digital age.

The TipTip platform thrives on the network effect, with each new community and event joining TipTip exponentially increasing the value proposition for both communities and brands. As TipTip’s user base grows, so do the options available for brands seeking authentic connections with communities aligned with their values and objectives.

Through their automated matching capabilities facilitated by natural language processing, TipTip streamlines the process for brands to identify the perfect community-brand partnerships. By leveraging technology to analyse brand needs and community interests, they provide a tailored approach that ensures optimal matches. This not only enhances the efficiency of brand-community collaborations but also fosters a thriving ecosystem where both parties can mutually benefit.

Empowering Indonesia’s creative economy

Albert Lucius, CEO of TipTip, emphasised the platform’s mission, stating, “At TipTip, our goal is to empower Indonesia’s creative economy by providing innovative solutions that bridge the gap between creators, communities, and brands. With our cutting-edge technology and user-centric approach, we are committed to revolutionising the way creativity is monetised and shared, unlocking new opportunities for growth and collaboration.”

Also read: Sinar Mas Land: How Indonesia’s trendiest Digital Hub is pushing for innovation

In essence, TipTip’s scalability lies in its ability to harness the collective power of communities and brands, facilitating meaningful connections and unlocking new opportunities for growth. TipTip’s dedication to democratising content and media entertainment through innovative platform features is unparalleled. Ultimately, TipTip’s end-to-end solutions empower creatives across Indonesia by providing comprehensive tools and resources to maximise their reach and impact.

As the company continues to expand their network and refine their matching algorithms, TipTip is primed to revolutionise the way brands engage with communities and catalyse the future of Indonesia’s creative economy.

For more information, please visit their official site here.

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

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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The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to be one of the most important technology trends in the business world. From healthcare to retail, every business sector has found essential use cases for connected devices, and the possibilities in automation have effectively redefined entire industries like manufacturing.

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region has become a frontrunner for connected technology. IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide estimated IoT investments saw 10.6 percent growth over 2022. The analyst forecasts total APAC IoT spending to hit US$436 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 10.4 per cent between 2023 and 2027.

This growth comes despite several limiting factors, such as the global economic downturn, supply chain disruptions, and semiconductor shortages. Nevertheless, the growing demand for automation and remote capabilities and the increased deployment of 5G have ensured steady growth.

The interest in large-scale smart projects in APAC has accelerated the use of IoT. Singapore, for example, launched its Smart Nation initiative in 2014 and has injected several billion to support the introduction of more smart tech in both the public and private sectors. Meanwhile, China has launched over 900 smart city projects over the last few years, spanning hundreds of cities.

How IoT can increase cyber risk exposure

Nevertheless, while IoT’s capabilities around automation and remote operations have kept it high on corporate and government agendas, it is crucial not to lose sight of the risks these opportunities bring. Unless adequately secured and monitored, each IoT device added to a network can introduce new cybersecurity vulnerabilities and increase the attack surface. Threat actors, from opportunistic criminals to organised nation-state groups, are looking for unsecured devices that will grant them an easy attack path into the system.

Weak default passwords, a lack of data encryption, and poor software patching processes are some of the most significant security issues inherent in connected devices. The rush to implement new technology and stay ahead of the curve also means organisations can quickly lose track of their deployed devices, how they relate to the network, and what a security incident might mean for them.

Attack Surface Management (ASM) is one of the most critical processes for understanding and mitigating the increased risk from IoT. However, “surface” is often misunderstood as only relating to the outermost layer of the organisation.

Also Read: The perils of oversharing: How social media feeds cyberattacks

ASM is something of a misnomer as it covers every asset that could be exposed to cyber threats, inside and out. This means every externally facing element, like deployed IoT devices, public clouds, user endpoint machines, and all of the organisation’s internal systems.

Before we go deeper into ASM works and why it’s essential for securing IoT, let’s nail down that definition.

The basics of ASM

Beyond the name being somewhat misleading, ASM is part of another umbrella term, Exposure Management (EM), which forms a trio of key processes alongside Vulnerability Management and Validation Management.

ASM also comprises three main sections with yet more acronyms.

• External Attack Surface Management (EASM): Centred on public-facing assets like public clouds and customer-facing IoT, EASM is the subset people are most likely to confuse with ASM.
• Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS): Using sources like deep web, social networks, and open data containers to provide visibility into threat intelligence. This is a more advanced capability and requires a higher level of cyber maturity.
• Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM): CAASM focuses on collating data relating to the organisation’s vulnerabilities and managing it effectively. It could be considered the cornerstone of ASM.

With so many similar but distinct acronyms and processes, the confusion is understandable. The issue isn’t helped by the fact that ASM is commonly misrepresented as a specific solution or process, often by overly enthusiastic vendor marketing. However, ASM cannot be achieved with any one tool – it is a strategy that must span multiple solutions and processes.

How ASM helps combat cyber risk

With the definition in hand, let’s look at why ASM is so important today. The primary goal is to gain an accurate, unified view of all cyber threats facing the business. Achieving this big picture enables firms to realistically assess their risk levels and prioritise their security activity accordingly.

Without this overview, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees, focusing on individual problems and missing the more comprehensive strategic agenda. Firms that have yet to implement ASM effectively will find their security teams running from urgent task to urgent task, unable to prioritise or get ahead of security issues.

This is particularly problematic with IoT since many connected devices remain prone to vulnerabilities and password management and security patching issues. An extensive suite of IoT devices (think the vast number of sensors and automation points in a smart factory or city) can result in a nearly endless list of security tasks and no clear idea of what to prioritise.

IT and security teams could unknowingly spend their time resolving minor issues that pose little threat to their organisation. At the same time, a single critical vulnerability makes a connected device a ticking time bomb waiting for a detonation-happy cybercriminal.

Alongside prioritising activity, a lack of ASM capabilities also makes it difficult for CISOs and other security heads to communicate cyber risk to nontechnical decision-makers. When requesting a budget and explaining the value of the activity to the board, the focus needs to be on potential business impact, not specific technical details. However, this is hard to explain without the context that ASM provides.

The first steps to get started with ASM

While some companies have little to no ASM capabilities, others have tried implementing the processes but lack the tools to make them work. We often encounter enterprises relying on heavily manual processes, with risk management data and tasks logged in Excel spreadsheets.

This is far too inefficient to keep up with an ever-evolving field like security and increases the chances of errors or critical threats going overlooked. Manual processes are also hard to scale, and even a well-thought-out system won’t last long as an IoT network expands.

Also Read: Securing the future: Navigating the digital transformation in BFSI amid cybersecurity challenges

Firms that have realised the importance of ASM are investing in the right tools and processes to pursue it effectively.

The first step is to ensure a solid understanding of the organisation’s ASM needs and how these align with other fields like EM. Once gaps have been identified, the demand can be more clearly communicated with the board to secure the necessary budget. The focus here should be on how ASM will address business risks and what this means for the overall resilience and performance of the organisation.

Before settling on solutions to aid with ASM, look at processes. One of the most significant issues with achieving a unified view of risk is that different departments are often heavily siloed. DevOps, cloud, and web teams will usually work to their own agendas and likely be unaware of what other departments are doing.

Responsibility for IoT can often be splintered across the organisation, with separate areas pursuing their own deployments without a cohesive vision. Finally, when organisations have grown enough to have external and internal security and IT teams, even these groups often work separately.

Each of these groups will have its own tools and processes, usually developed organically over several years. This means multiple overlapping solutions for tasks like scanning vulnerabilities and configuring code, all operating independently from the rest.

These silo walls need to be knocked down to create a single, normalised view across all business areas. There needs to be a single point of control that enables the CISO and other stakeholders to have a clear picture of all risk data in the same format.

With the right tools, threat data from all the various security solutions and feeds across the organisation can be aggregated to provide a single pane of glass for all cyber risks facing the business. Redundant tools and processes across different departments can also be merged or replaced, allowing for a more efficient approach with greater automation.

A unified approach to securing IoT

Getting everyone on the same page can be a challenge. Smaller organisations with low IT and security headcount will have a reasonably easy time achieving this. Still, larger enterprises will need to overcome years of organic growth that have thrown different departments out of sync. Clear communication and collaboration between department heads will help pave the way.

The goal is a unified vision of risk and a universally agreed set of KPIs for monitoring and mitigating vulnerabilities. Once the internal ASM strategy has been successfully implemented, the organisation can expand by implanting CAASM and taking on more threat intelligence.

With the right tools and processes to detect and prioritise threats, the organisation will be far more efficient in mitigating cyber risk. This will be increasingly important for those firms pursuing ambitious IoT strategies.

As the volume of connected devices integrated into the network grows, so does the attack surface present to threat actors. Organisations must have a clear and reliable picture of these risks and how they permeate the rest of their operations, or a serious breach is only a matter of time. Implementing an effective ASM strategy goes a long way to enabling firms to pursue ambitious IoT strategies without creating unnecessary risk.

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