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In brief: Webtrace raises funding; 99 Group appoints new CTO

Indonesian vehicle tracking startup Webtrace raises funding

The story: Indonesia-based vehicle tracking and fleet management solutions startup Webtrace has secured an undisclosed amount of investment in an extension of its seed round.

Investors: Corin Capital.

The seed round was led by Prasetia Dwidharma, with the participation from Astra Ventura and a Singapore-based unnamed angel investor.

Plans: The funds will be used to strengthen its marketing and customer acquisition strategy as well as expanding sales headcounts.

What is Webtrace: Trucking companies and fleet owners in Indonesia are in the race of tight pricing competition, largely caused by the huge population of commercial vehicles (9.6 million units as of 2019). Webtrace aims to help those companies to be more efficient in cost saving as well as improve the utilisation rate, productivity, and safety by implementing IoT sensors.

99 Group appoints Shivkumar Krishnan as new CTO

The story: Singapore-based 99 Group, which operates several property portals including 99.co, iproperty.com.sg and rumah123.com, has appointed tech veteran Shivkumar Krishnan as Chief Technology Officer.

Who is Shivkumar Krishnan?

With close to two decades of experience in the tech industry, Krishnan spent more than 10 years in the US at tech giants, such as Microsoft and eBay, as well as startups.

Prior to joining 99 Group, he was the Director of Engineering at Circles.Life and the Engineering Leader at Grab.

He holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Hiring 100 people: The company also said it will boost its tech workforce by hiring about 100 additional tech staff over the next 12 months, in a move to accelerate the company’s tech innovation for an evolving real estate industry.

The company is recruiting talent such as front- and back-end engineers, app developers, product managers, UX/UI designers, and data analysts, with the job openings already live at 99.co/team.

Meet the 8 startups presented at Iterative’s virtual Demo Day

The story: Iterative, an early-stage startup accelerator focused on Southeast Asia, launched in February and on Monday hosted its first Demo Day for investors across Southeast Asia and in the US.

The virtual Demo Day was the culmination of a 12-week programme that featured eight companies from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Which are the startups?

1. Become: Affordable teeth straightening for Asia
2. Bungkus: Halal food delivery
3. Haulio: Tech-enabled first mile logistics
4. Outside Voice: No-code app builder for Whatsapp
5. Propseller: Technology powered real estate agency for Southeast Asia
6. Sendhelper: The fastest way to hire top home service professionals
7. Starboard: Xero for corporate entity management
8. TendoPay: Buy now. Pay on installments for your online purchases

Image Credit: Webtrace

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