SINO Hua-An’s F&B biz Craveat International to go tech

Malaysia-based investment holding company Sino Hua-An International has announced its plan to invest RM30 million (US$7 million) to transform its subsidiary, Craveat International, into a technology company for the F&B industry.

This is a kickoff for Techna-X, the technology division, to grow the group’s revenue stream as a digital enabler to lead digital transformation of the old economy in the Asia Pacific region.

“In line with Hua-An’s direction of focusing on the digital transformation space, we want Craveat, our F&B subsidiary to be known as a technology company that serves excellent food and drinks. Drawing on the Techna-X infrastructure, today signifies the day of the transformation of the F&B operations and mindset,” said Jared Lim, Executive Director of Hua An.

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Homegrown F&B brand, Teh Tarik Place (TTP), will lead in the transformation which targets to open 100 outlets in 36 months throughout Malaysia and in the Asia Pacific region.

The Techna-X platform will provide advantage to TTP via its POS system, business intelligence platform and data engine as well as TTP’s Halal-certified central kitchen in order to better plan and manage operation processes with the aim to deliver a superior customer and business experience to its customers.

TTP also uses data analytics in traffic flow to allow TTP’s management to make more informed decisions in the selection of locations for outlet expansion.

Snap to open office in Singapore as part of SEA expansion

Snap is expanding its operations into Singapore, with Anubhav Nayyar tapped to lead Snap’s market development efforts across the Southeast Asia region.

According to a BrandingAsia report, Snap plans to open an office in Singapore later this year.

“The company is monitoring the global COVID-19 pandemic, and following local guidance by encouraging remote working. Once the situation eases, the company will accelerate plans to establish a local presence,” said Nayyar.

Prior to joining Snap, Anubhav spent seven years at Viber where he was the Senior Director & Head of Asia Pacific. Anubhav was Viber’s first regional employee, and was responsible for establishing it in multiple countries in Asia as well as setting up operations across the region.

GrabPay expands its merchant base in Malaysia

Grab today announced the expansion of GrabPay’s merchant-partners to include household brands from all essential categories, such as groceries, pharmacies, food, electronics and hardware across the nation.

The list of brands includes a variety of chained outlets such as MyNews, Tesco, Guardian, Watsons, KFC, McDonald’s, Mr.D.I.Y and SenHeng.

“The expansion of GrabPay’s merchant base is part of Grab’s on-going commitment to create awareness about the benefits of digital payments and nurturing the cashless adoption in Malaysia. The expansion of GrabPay’s partner base is also timely with the government’s recent PENJANA announcement to encourage Malaysians to spend as a means to help revive the economy post the impact of the pandemic and movement control period,” said Priyanka Madan, Head of GrabPay Malaysia.

Inflection Point Ventures invests in Indian foodtech startup Samosa Party

Indian angels investment platform Inflection Point Ventures (IPV) has invested an undisclosed amount in snacking startup Samosa Party.

IPV has been investing in startups in sectors like health-tech, edutech, delivery, online grocery and social distancing tech to help companies working in these areas scale up and eventually create a large-scale impact for helping people in managing the COVID situation.

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Ankur Mittal, Co-founder, IPV, said: “Samosa Party has grown tremendously over the past couple of years and has risen to amongst the top brands for Indian snack food in Bangalore. In a post-COVID world of increasing focus on hygiene standards, startups like Samosa Party will be relevant as customers would trust hygienic and professional managed brands to serve them food with safety being the guiding force from kitchen to table.”

Samosa Party was launched with a mission to make good quality samosa accessible to customers across all channels in a hygienic and trustworthy environment. It operates by solving the supply side problem with the production and consumption of samosa at scale using technology.

The startup has scaled to serve 150,000 samosas per month. It combines the traditional cooking processes to solve the problems of scale using food technology and production innovation at every stage.

Samosa Party intends to utilise these funds to set up the infrastructure for scale, open cloud kitchens across Bangalore and other tier 1 cities.

The post In brief: SINO Hua-An invests US$7M to transform its F&B biz into a tech firm appeared first on e27.