Today marks the launch of the fintech platform Kredit Hero, designed to streamline and transform the lending process for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

By connecting borrowers with multiple lenders through a single application form, Kredit Hero leverages advanced profiling techniques to deliver rapid and accurate loan approvals. This approach promises to significantly simplify access to credit for SMEs, potentially reshaping the region’s fintech landscape.

The company is co-founded by three industry experts: Scott Moore, Mark Harper, and Michel de Rijk. Moore brings his expertise in loan origination and AI-driven credit scoring, backed by his extensive experience in fintech entrepreneurship across Southeast Asia.

Harper complements this with his strong background in business banking, credit product management, and regulatory compliance gained from managing large-scale bank portfolios. Meanwhile, de Rijk, known for his leadership in digital programmatic advertising and expertise in mergers and acquisitions, adds a unique perspective to the team, ensuring seamless operations and strategic growth. The co-founders have assembled a team with deep knowledge of credit products, risk assessment, and marketing execution.

Also Read: From fintech to blockchain: Meet Vietnam’s leading startups powering the next wave of growth

Kredit Hero is being developed under 19Volt, a Singapore-based venture builder co-founded by Moore and de Rijk. The company focuses on driving innovative solutions across various sectors. With its combined skills and experience, the team aims to achieve its ambitious goals for Kredit Hero, revolutionising SME financing in the region.

Moore explains more about the platform’s mission in an email interview with e27. The following is an edited excerpt of the interview.

Kredit Hero aims to be the first of its kind in the Southeast Asian market. What inspired you to create this platform, and how do you see it transforming the lending landscape for SMEs in the region?

Our inspiration for Kredit Hero comes from our personal experiences in lending and banking, both in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia (SEA). We have seen firsthand the challenges SMEs face when securing funding and the hurdles lenders encounter in assessing and managing risk. These challenges hit home for us and sparked the idea for Kredit Hero.

We wanted to create something that truly makes a difference: a smart marketplace that does not just connect SMEs with lenders but does so with intelligence. Kredit Hero uses advanced analysis, modelling, and risk scoring to match borrowers with lenders in a way never done before in this region.

Our goal is to make the process more efficient and to open up access to credit for more businesses. By making the lending process more transparent and insightful, we believe we can positively impact the cost of credit over time.

Kredit Hero offers borrowers a single entry point to a wide range of lenders, making it easier for them to access the capital they need. For lenders, we provide well-analysed, targeted opportunities that align perfectly with their specific criteria. It is about building a system where both sides can confidently operate, ultimately leading to a more vibrant and accessible lending landscape in SEA.

Also Read: Bridging the financial inclusion gap in Asia: The role of fintech

Can you explain how Kredit Hero’s advanced profiling system works to ensure a rapid turnaround for loan applications? What technologies or methodologies are you using to achieve this efficiency? 

Kredit Hero’s platform is fully automated and digitised, designed to make the loan application process faster and more efficient. Our system can digitise and analyse bank statements, financial documents, and other key information, transforming raw data into a consistent output in minutes—a significant improvement over the traditional approach, which can take days.

What is really exciting is that by automating the analysis, we are giving lenders the chance to focus on what matters most: making informed decisions. Lenders can even define their specific interests, ensuring that they only receive deals that match the types of loans they offer. Borrowers benefit from quicker responses, and lenders can use their resources more efficiently.

Kredit Hero leverages extensive deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and generative AI to analyse, evaluate, and seamlessly match applicants with the most suitable lenders.

The SME sector in SEA is vast and diverse. How does Kredit Hero tailor its services to meet the unique needs of different regional industries and markets? How do you promote your service and acquire your users?

Improving SME access to quality credit and lenders’ ability to rapidly assess and model applications is a universal issue.

While there are variations by industry and market, our platform is designed to address this core challenge and opportunity. Starting in the Philippines, where the SME credit gap is particularly large.

We focus on digital marketing, strategic partnerships, and active community engagement to promote our service and attract users.

Also Read: Startup resilience in economic uncertainty: Stories from Singapore’s fintech, blockchain, and SaaS pioneers

Looking ahead, what are your plans for Kredit Hero’s expansion and growth? Are there any new features or markets you’re looking to explore shortly?

There is a lot of potential for Kredit Hero, and we are definitely planning to expand across SEA to reach new markets and assist more SMEs. However, our current focus is helping as many businesses in the Philippines as possible access the quality credit they need.

Have you raised any external funding? Do you plan to?

Yes, we have already raised some external funding and plan to raise additional capital in the near future. This will help us expand our reach in new markets, develop new features, and ultimately make an even bigger impact.

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Image Credit: Kredit Hero

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Humble Sustainability, a climate tech startup based in the Philippines, announced that it has successfully closed a pre-Series A funding round led by Gobi Partners (through its Gobi-Core Philippine Fund) alongside ADB Ventures (ADBV), the Asian Development Bank’s venture arm, and the Philippines government through the National Development Company (NDC).

This strategic investment will enable Humble Sustainability to expand its operations beyond the Philippines and enhance its technology offerings, particularly by developing its proprietary Climate Dashboard platform.

In a press statement, Humble Sustainability mentioned plans to scale operations within the Philippines while entering Indonesia and Thailand by the end of 2026.

Also Read: What startups need to know about Claims Code, the new rulebook for making credible climate claims

Humble Sustainability, founded in 2021, is tackling the global problem of electronic waste, with an estimated US$62.5 billion worth of discarded technology ending up in landfills annually.

Its B2B trading platform, launched in 2022, enables corporations to securely recycle and refurbish used IT equipment, helping them achieve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals while reducing e-waste.

Led by CEO and co-founder Josef Werker, Humble Sustainability aims to increase the value of discarded assets by up to five times.

Inspired by his mother’s activism and sustainable lifestyle, Werker is on a mission to make one billion items circular by 2030. “Sustainability is a team effort,” he emphasised, highlighting the company’s role in connecting businesses within the recycling ecosystem.

A crucial part of the company’s future strategy is the development of its Climate Dashboard, which will provide real-time data on greenhouse gas emissions and waste reduction. Initially available to clients, the tool will later be made public.

Werker believes that access to accurate data will empower companies to set realistic sustainability targets and track their progress. Humble Sustainability’s platform monitors environmental impact and actively reduces waste by keeping electronic items in circulation.

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Image Credit: Humble Sustainability

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A group of private capital industry leaders have come together to launch the Vietnam Private Capital Agency (VPCA) to empower the country’s investment landscape by promoting best practices in the venture capital and private equity sectors.

The VPCA aims to channel US$35 billion in private investments by 2035 to fuel entrepreneurial growth and economic expansion.

The VPCA was founded by 40 investor veterans from over a dozen VC and PE firms, including Vy Le (Do Ventures), Binh Tran (Ascent Vietnam Ventures), Vinnie Lauria (Golden Gate Ventures), and Justin Nguyen (Monk’s Hill Ventures).

Also Read: From fintech to blockchain: Meet Vietnam’s leading startups powering the next wave of growth

“Vietnam is witnessing a pivotal moment as foreign VC and PE funds increasingly seek investment opportunities and the government implements supportive policies to foster a thriving business climate. The VPCA is committed to driving and maintaining this momentum, ensuring that strategic capital is effectively channeled to support innovation, growth, and sustainable economic development,” says Vy Le, Chair of VPCA.

The dynamic economic growth and vibrant entrepreneurial sector have positioned Vietnam as a key destination for venture capital and private equity investments. However, the need for structured capital deployment, enhanced industry expertise, and effective support mechanisms remains critical.

“While investment opportunities in Vietnam are abundant, it still trails behind advanced regions such as North America, which accounted for nearly half of the total private capital fundraising in 2023. There is a clear gap in capital flow and activity that can only be bridged through strategic initiatives and enhanced support for the private capital sector,” added Binh Tran, Vice Chair of VPCA.

The VPCA addresses these challenges by offering a platform that unites investors, industry partners, and entrepreneurs under a shared vision of growth and innovation.

The agency’s four pillars of activity will translate into tangible benefits for the Vietnamese VC/PE sector:

Building a thriving community: This includes hosting networking opportunities, social events, policy summits, and leadership programmes.

Leading with insight: VPCA will provide valuable thought leadership through publications, data analysis, legal documents, and industry reports.

Delivering essential support services: Members will gain access to legal consulting, tax advisory, accounting and auditing standards guidance, and investment connectivity.

Cultivating expertise through education: Training sessions, specialized seminars, knowledge-sharing forums, and investor-startup networking events will be instrumental in this area.

Also Read: The rise of M&A in Vietnam: Strategies and trends in the tech sector

The VPCA’s initiatives are designed to serve a broad spectrum of stakeholders:

Investors: Connecting investors with high-impact opportunities, enhancing their ability to contribute to and benefit from a dynamic and growing VC/PE landscape.

Industry partners: Collaborating with industry leaders to build a robust entrepreneurial and efficient investment infrastructure and share best practices.

Policymakers: Engaging with the government to advocate for policies that enhance the investment climate and support economic growth.
Entrepreneurs: Giving local entrepreneurs access to crucial capital, expertise, and connections to propel their businesses.

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These are tough times we live in. With the funding winter that started a couple of years ago and continued into 2023 as well as 2024, many of us businesses have had to tighten our belts.

Startups have shut down and well-funded companies have wound down unprofitable business units. Even for those of us not overly reliant on external funding cycles, we do face the brunt of our clients or customers having reduced their spends.  

But founders are nothing if not problem solvers. Right? Right.

Reducing costs in the face of an adverse external environment is only one half of the story. For startups and SMBs with strong PMF and fundamentals, demand is still there for the taking. And if we can’t reach them via the power of the dollar, then we have to find other ways. More organic ways, ways that give a bigger bang for our buck.

And that’s exactly what we at FlexiBees have been doing. We started a concerted push on organic last year and soon, we reached 100+ leads per month through non-paid channels — our ever-highest organic demand.

All without spending a dime (we did spend on our usual paid channels, but not on these).

So how did we do it? Let’s start at the beginning

We invested in organic or inbound marketing

Unlike paid channels, organic demand cannot be switched ON and OFF like a tap. It takes time to build and optimise. You hit your stride once your brand has established itself for something, when your target audience knows what you offer.

Once these fundamentals are in place and the environment is this fertile, a simple nudge in the form of a piece of communication can result in a lead.

All of which means that you must start your organic marketing today, if not yesterday.

Also Read: Why businesses must consider fractional marketing as a growth solution

At FlexiBees, we have a pretty sophisticated organic demand generation system; it is a multi-channel approach that we are always improving on. It includes:

• Content marketing across social media for branding and top-of-mind recall
• Email marketing for our 10000+ subscribers who we segment as per their stage with us and send customised content to
• Repeat marketing and referrals generation led by our sales teams
• Business partnerships with 30+ aggregators, including government bodies and VCs
• Earned PR initiatives and content partnerships

Our content pillars include multiple themes, properties and formats where we mix long form and short form, industry news and FlexiBees benefits, trendy and topical communication as well as evergreen content.

We set a target and rallied the team around it: Our mission 120!

A target only works when the people carrying them buy into it.

This is how we went about it:

• We looked at the various channels that make up our organic demand, their historical trends and arrived at a target that seemed like a good stretch yet was achievable
• Once that number was in place, we rallied various teams such as content, digital, partnership and sales around it. They each needed to know the overall targets as well as their individual ones
• We communicated why this number was crucial as well as how it could be achieved. For our sales team, repeats and referrals were the way to go, whereas for our content and digital teams, email marketing was the best bet

The point at which motivation meets actionability is where the magic happens and a target comes alive. We created both of these before handing over the baton to the teams themselves to win with execution.

We gave our prospects a trigger to purchase

When targets are ambitious, it helps to have a little something that can nudge potential customers to give you their business. What is important while designing these add-ons is to ensure they answer a customer insight. For example, for a customer segment that is trying a new category for the first time, a trial works beautifully.

For us, we tried a showcase of vetted and high-performing digital and social media candidates that helped our prospects visualize their growth strategy better.

We tracked, optimised, course-corrected 

Creating and communicating the target is only the beginning, it has to be tracked through reliable means. We created a tracker that was updated via CRM on a regular basis and sent to relevant teams. Oh and never underestimate the power of a good MIS in triggering some healthy competition, we had one team go from 85 per cent to 101 per cent within two days (it might not work for all targets and teams, but definitely works for Sales as in the above example).

Apart from tracking achievements, we also tried to understand why something might not be working. For example, we discovered early on that a certain piece of communication did not work and we quickly changed our plan.

Also Read: The key digital marketing tips to help small businesses thrive

And all of this led to us generating 117 leads from organic and unpaid sources, our ever-highest at the time. Since then we have continued this effort and have consistently hit these numbers and even beyond!

Was it easy? No. Was it fun. Yes.

And that’s why we are in the business of entrepreneurship. Not only do we entrepreneurs get going when the times get tough, doing something that has never-been-done before — be it generating more leads or creating new products and offerings — energises us.

So chin up dear entrepreneur, the winter is no match for us! 

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Data annotation, an essential step in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), involves labelling data to train models. While this process has traditionally been manual and relies on human annotators, advancements in AI technology are increasingly shifting the focus toward automated data annotation.

Ultimately, automated annotation systems were created to overcome the limitations of manual annotation, most notably in workforce management and annotation speed. Therefore, most of its benefits come from ease of use and the opportunity to forego human annotations while maintaining speed and consistency in high-functional AI teams.

Even though automated data annotation has clear benefits, there are still some challenges. First, the quality of the annotations can vary depending on how strong the model is and how similar the training data is to your own data. If your data is very different, the quality of the automatic annotations might be lower.

Another issue is customisation. If the automated tool cannot produce quality annotations, teams would need to spend time improving the model or manually fixing the mistakes. If improving the model isn’t possible, the cost of human labour to correct errors can increase over time.

Finally, if the model can be customised, it is essential to consider the ongoing cost of maintaining these customisations. The model will need regular updates to handle new types of data. At some point, companies might even need to decide whether to use different models for data annotation and prediction.

Therefore, effective automated annotation solutions should achieve accuracy and consistency, using a crowd workforce to meet every project’s turnaround requirements. 

Scaling AI projects with Tictag

Tictag aims to build the future of the AI economy. Founded in 2019 by a team of AI veterans, this Singapore-based startup, with an operational base in South Korea, has developed a user-friendly, fully integrated, mobile-first platform.

It leverages cutting-edge AI augmentation and scalable human-in-the-loop crowdsourcing to achieve the highest quality in the collection and annotation of image, text, or audio datasets for the training of LLMs (for generative AI) or machine learning, as well as the fine-tuning and deployment of AI and machine learning models.

Tictag aims to become the best way for people and companies to work with data by simplifying data annotation tasks and putting it on a groundbreaking, gamified mobile application. Whether this is for powering computer vision AI models or enhancing data analytics systems, Tictag offers high-quality, labelled datasets regardless of industry. 

Also Read: inDrive: Discovering community-driven transportation options for global commuters

Lee Jin, Co-Founder and COO, is committed to “providing the three most important aspects when it comes to data annotation—accuracy, speed, and cost.” 

He adds, “We have quality control processes to ensure the data is accurately labelled. Plus, having a large community of taggers to label the data makes the whole process much faster while bringing costs down too.”

Tictag’s technology features its mobile app, available on iOS and Android and boasting over 17,000 users, which contributes to the development and quality of AI datasets. This commitment to accuracy and scalability is reflected in its Truetag system, which targets up to 99.97 per cent accuracy through a hyperfocus on quality assurance and quality control, which is currently heavily overlooked in the market.

Beyond providing data solutions, Tictag is also dedicated to social good. Tictag was designed to be extremely accessible and inclusive, and through the Tictag #GoodData4Good initiative, Tictag collaborates with companies aiming to make a positive social impact. The initiative provides persons with disabilities or from underprivileged backgrounds with opportunities to earn income via an integrated payments system on the Tictag app.

In a recent interview, Kevin Quah, CEO and Co-Founder, expresses Tictag’s aim to bring more opportunities to the community, especially to the disadvantaged and vulnerable parts of our population. 

Tictag aims to build the future of the AI economy, citing the Philippines as one of the fastest-growing economies. Quah believes PH-based companies will be interested in deploying AI to improve their businesses. “We are excited to meet with potential businesses, extend our reach, and network with local talents.”

In particular, Tictag specialises solutions centred around the agriculture, automotive, and manufacturing landscape, especially those looking to implement AI and co-develop AI solutions that serve the Philippine market.

Explore AI capabilities in the ASEAN with Tictag and Echelon Philippines

Interested attendees looking to explore their platform can access a 10 per cent discount on their first partnership. Participants can download the Tictag app on the Play Store and App Store today to earn cash and rewards while powering AI.

Tictag is among the many dynamic industry leaders joining us for Echelon Philippines 2024. Alongside them will be other key leaders, visionary entrepreneurs, and innovative startups from across the region. They will converge for an action-packed two-day September 26-27 event at Level 2, SMX Convention.

Echelon Philippines 2024, hosted by e27 in partnership with Brainsparks, offers dedicated content stages, exhibitions, panel discussions, and much more — all designed to support and empower the regional tech startup ecosystem with practical insights through various knowledge-sharing activities.

Whether you are looking to expand your expertise, connect with influential figures in the tech startup world, or present your groundbreaking ideas, Echelon Philippines 2024 offers an unmatched experience sure to boost you and your company. Secure your spot on our official page now and join us as a participant or official partner. Together, we can shape the future and create a lasting impact.

Join us at Echelon Philippines 2024, where innovation knows no boundaries and the possibilities are limitless!

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