Author: Ruthc

ClassPass, a global fitness and wellness marketplace, today announced the close of a US$285 million Series E investment, led by L Catterton and Apax Digital.

Existing investor Temasek also chipped in.

The investment will enable New York-headquartered ClassPass, which now has over 650 employees across five continents, to continue scaling its proprietary reservation and booking technology across the globe.

As per several reports, this round took ClassPass’s valuation to over US$1 billion to make it to the Unicorn startups club.

Founded in 2013 by Payal Kadakia, ClassPass is a flexible network of fitness and wellness experiences. Members gain instant access to over 30,000 pre-vetted global exercise studios, which offer diverse fitness options including yoga, cycling, Pilates, strength training, and boxing.

In addition to workouts, members can instantly book inspiring wellness experiences, such as massages, acupuncture and spa treatments.

Also Read: How a data deep dive can help Asian startups succeed

ClassPass uses Machine Learning to provide catered recommendations to each member based on his/her goals and preferences. The firm is also working directly with studio partners to merchandise their excess inventory, find new customers and generate new streams of revenue.

As of today, the firm has operations in 28 countries. “In 18 months, we’ve scaled from four to 28 countries,” said ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman. “Our goal is to be the brand of choice and leader in every country we enter. This investment will allow us to expand more rapidly within existing geographies, add more countries to our network, and scale our corporate program globally.”

As part of the investment, Marc Magliacano, Managing Partner at L Catterton’s Flagship Fund, and Daniel O’Keefe, Managing Partner at Apax Digital, will join the ClassPass Board of Directors.

With approximately US$20 billion of equity capital across seven fund strategies in 17 offices globally, L Catterton is a consumer-focused private equity firm. Since 1989, it has made over 200 investments in leading consumer brands.

Apax Digital Fund specialises in growth equity and buyout investments in high-growth enterprise software, consumer internet, and technology-enabled services companies worldwide.

ClassPass entered Asia in August 2018 with a launch in Singapore. Exactly a year ago, it acquired its top Asian competitor GuavaPass.

 

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Global startup generator and early-stage venture capital (VC) firm Antler announced that it has invested US$1.4 million into 14 companies from the third batch of its Singapore programme.

The firm showcased the startups in a demo day event on Wednesday in the city.

“The growth in the Southeast Asia tech landscape is evident. There is a huge opportunity for founders who join our programme in Singapore to build, work on and mould an idea from the very beginning for this region. As a VC and startup generator, we have the ability to accelerate the innovation created by entrepreneurs,” said Jussi Salovaara, co-founder and Managing Partner Asia at Antler.

Selected out of 3,000 applicants, the programme brought together 100 qualified individuals from 30 nationalities, with an average of eight years working experience, to set up an “ideal” team.

The companies that have made it to the list are:

Appboxo
Team: Nursultan Keneshbekov (CTO), Kaniyet Rayev (CEO)

An open-platform and SaaS solution to make native apps into super apps such as Grab and Gojek.

Also Read: Antler raises US$50M from investors including Facebook co-founder to expand into new locations

Capture
Team: Abdul Aziz (CTO), Josie Stoker (CEO)

An app that enables users to track, reduce and remove CO2 emissions from everyday life.

Evercare
Team: Sohail Khan (CEO), Gourav Goyal (CTO)

EverCare said that it is the first platform in Asia that takes care of users’ parents after they have
moved away.

Goblin
Team: Jim Nadackal (CEO), Phaneendra Chiruvella (CTO)

Goblin provides mobile developers visibility into app performance from a user-point-of-view, helping them understand, track and resolve user issues quickly.

Homebase
Team: Phillip An (co-founder), JunYuan Tan (co-founder)

A co-investment platform that aims to make homeownership more affordable and accessible.

Kotoko
Team: Cynthia Krisanti (CEO), Kanta Nandana (COO)

Kotoko aims to be a dominant Indonesia-focus omnichannel solutions provider for
Southeast Asian independent brands.

Nectico
Team: Rani Yanarastri (CCO), Amry Fitra Amanah (CEO)

Nectico provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in a B2B marketplace for cooperatives in Indonesia to ease their business processes and to add business value by enabling them to operate digitally and connect them to the larger ecosystem.

Also Read: New Antler-NUS initiative to nurture deeptech talents, to invest in 30 startups annually

Playy.World
Team: Alvin Tjhie (CTO), Mark Thong (CEO)

Playy.World is a trusted marketplace for trading card games as well as collectible toys where enthusiasts can gather, share knowledge, compete, and trade with each other on a global platform.

Reebelo
Team: Philip Franta (CEO), Fabien Rastouil (CPO)

Reebelo.com is Singapore’s leading marketplace for pre-owned electronics.

Sova Health
Team: Max Kushnir (CSO), Tanveer Singh (CEO), Rahul Tiwari (CTO)

Sova is a precision nutrition platform that guides users towards a healthier lifestyle with personalised nutrition advice based on blood biomarker analysis.

StoryBrain
Team: Jikku Jose (CEO), Jibin Mathew (CTO)

StoryBrain is an application programming interface (API) that transforms the way images are consumed by using optimised images generated using AI to improve UX.

Tokobox
Team: Jaco Ahmad (CTO), Matthew McDonnell (CEO)

Tokobox uses technology to connect brands and e-commerce platforms with offline consumers, while providing income to casual workers.

Tradedi
Team: Lance Ma (CEO), Hai Duc Nguyen (CMO)

Tradedi.com is a B2B digital marketplace that enables cross-border trading between Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the US. Their platform brings international traders, wholesalers, retailers and Vietnamese manufacturers on a single platform.

Also Read: Startup generator Antler to start its first program in Jakarta, gearing up supports for early-stage startups

Zengage
Team: Jim Dabell (CTO), Lisa Sorensen (CEO)

Zengage is a consumer confidence tool for e-commerce. Their SaaS increases online revenue by displaying the information consumers need to feel confident to make their decision while buying products.

Repeat, repeat, repeat

In addition to pitches from the startups, the demo day event also saw an opening remark by Enterprise Singapore Chairman Peter Ong, followed by keynote speeches by theAsianparent founder and CEO Roshni Mahtani and content creator Nas Daily.

In her speech, Mahtani shared the nine lessons that she had learned about running a business in Southeast Asian. One of her notable advice was to “ignore 99 things [posts] you read on Medium about UI/UX.”

“Most of our users are not even aware that the three short bars at the top corner of our page are a menu bar,” she explained. “Because the Southeast Asian users are more accustomed to the super app model as introduced in China, where all the features they need are available in just one page.”

As a content creator whose claim to fame was his daily videos of his travels, Nas Daily put emphasis on the importance of repetition in his speech. To improve the quality of the videos he produces, he produces his videos on a daily basis, claiming that he never misses a day.

On Antler

Launching its first programme in Singapore in 2018, Antler has generated 47 tech companies from Southeast Asia. These companies have raised more than US$10 million in follow-on funding since finishing the programme; their examples include coliving company Cove, on-demand job platform Smapingan, e-sim marketplace Airalo, robotics company Cognicept, and personalised skincare products Base.

Also Read: Antler pours US$2.4M into its second batch of 17 startups

Globally, Antler has over 120 companies in its portfolio through its programmes in London, New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Sydney, and Nairobi.

The announcement of this new batch closely followed the news of Antler’s US$50 million global funds, which saw the participation of investors such as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Its Southeast Asia fund itself was closed in November 2019.

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Image Credit: Antler

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Sea Limited, one of the leading consumer internet companies in Southeast Asia, today announced that it has applied for a Digital Full Bank License in Singapore.

The digital bank will focus on addressing the unmet needs of millennials and SMEs, with a mission to better the lives of individuals and businesses in Singapore with financial services through technology, Sea said in a statement.

Sea intends to innovate processes, products, and services that will improve lives of individuals and SMEs by reducing the barriers to accessing financial services through technology.

“Sea has a truly unique position at the heart of Singapore’s digital ecosystem. We believe this will enable us to make a real and lasting impact in support of Singapore’s growth as a global financial centre and the development of its digital economy as a whole,” said Forrest Li, Chairman and Group CEO of Sea.

Also Read: Accelerating Asia unveils new cohort of 10 startups with over 40% female co-founders

Sea was founded in Singapore in 2009. In 2017, it listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, it has a market capitalisation of more than S$25 billion as of December 31, 2019.

Besides Shopee (e-commerce marketplace) and Garena (online game developer and publisher), Sea runs SeaMoney, a digital financial services network in Southeast Asia. SeaMoney’s offerings include e-wallet services, payment processing, micro-lending, and related digital financial services and products. These services and products are offered in various markets in Southeast Asia under AirPay, ShopeePay, Shopee PayLater, and other related brands.

A number of companies from across Asia have recently applied for a Digital Full Bank Licence in Singapore, including Grab, Razer, Ant Financial, and Beyond Consortium.

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Dash Living, a Hong Kong-based property tech startup announced today that it has expanded its presence to Asia Pacific by acquiring Singapore’s coliving company EasyCity, according to a statement.

The company, which now has 900 units across two of the most vibrant cities in the Asia Pacific region, has raised US$10 million of funding till date from MindWorks Ventures, Capital Union Investments and ClearMind Capital.

In Hong Kong, Dash Living has over 100,000 sqft under its management, spanning across prime locations such as Causeway Bay, Wan Chai, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui, and Jordan in Hong Kong.

Also Read: Qupital gets US$2M seed funding from MindWorks Ventures, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund to help SMEs get through the month

As for its latest additions in Singapore, the Dash Coliving units are located in CBD areas as well as city-fringe areas such as Geylang, Paya Lebar, Farrer Park, Balestier, Pasir Panjang, and Clementi.

An “aggressive expansion” is being planned in Singapore according to Dash Living founder Aaron Lee and Easycity founders Alex Liu and Wesley Wen. 

“Dash Singapore is aiming to provide its members with much wider choices of locations and features across the island. Enhanced by the upgraded services, new perks, and the tenant community, living with Dash will be more convenient and exciting than ever before,” said Liu.

The startup aims to tap into millennial demand by targeting young professionals who are looking for reasonably priced housing in a thriving city, along with a community they can easily interact with. 

“All-inclusive, affordable and flexible accommodation for millennials is a sizable problem which impacts the next generation. Being a millennial myself, I’m excited to share Dash’s offerings regionally beginning with Singapore,” said Lee.

Also Read: 3 biggest mistakes founders make when telling their story 

Apart from being a residential firm, DashLiving also offers community services where members, also known as “the Dash community”, can get connected via an app, which can be used to access rooms, common spaces and discounts.

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Image Credit: Dash Living

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Fresh out of a doctorate program, Jane is a proud graduate in the life sciences faculty, joining the ranks of many other women on stage. In this era, the gender gap in science is increasingly narrow and Jane is proud to be part of the pool of female researchers closing this gap.

She dreamed of this moment—the future of experiments and lab research is finally here and perhaps, she could spearhead an experiment with her own research team.

Unfortunately, the statistics are against Jane, as only one in four female researchers get a full professorship in a research university.

If Jane is expecting a more competitive salary after the doctorate, that will happen—only if you don’t compare it to men, as empirical evidence showed that there are significant differences.

Women also typically receive less credit for citations and funding, as a 2018 study shows.

Research has even suggested that women, in general, receive less recognition than men, even if the achievements are equivalent.

The big question is this: why?

With more scientific publications published each day, the number of life science articles published per year has reached a staggering one million threshold—it comes with poverty of attention.

Also Read: Asia Pacific markets see a significant jump in women entrepreneurs: Mastercard study

To make sure scientists allocate time to read their articles, authors have to self-promote through different avenues, be it through social media or presentations. This way, grants, and salaries are much easier to obtain; such resources are typically scarce in the research world.

With resources being so scarce, statistics are showing that women have an even smaller chance of obtaining any of them, relative to men.

Fortunately, there is a core reason, as Marc J. Lerchenmueller and his co-authors Olav Sorenson and Anupam B. Jena discovered in their study: women used positive words to describe their work less frequently than men.

Self-promotion gap amongst academics

Researchers often use positive words in their abstracts and subtitles in an attempt to get the eyeball of a gleaning scientist. Words like “novel”, “unique” and “excellent” are part of the norm. There are times where you can get phrases like “promising result” and “groundbreaking research”.

The study discovered that articles written by female junior researchers and female principal investigators were 21 per cent less likely to use positive terms.

In fact, their research is more likely to be framed as it is: no additional self-promotion and nothing exaggerated. Though both men and women use such words throughout history, women were shown to be using them much infrequently.

The consequences were severe for women: authors that did not self-promote received less attention, especially when they were published in the more prominent journals.

Hence, the gender gap appears—in fact, the study suggested that women gained confidence as they rose to senior ranks, which thus caused the gender disparity to disappear at the most senior levels.

Self-promotion gap at work

Some may argue that the aforementioned study only describes a unique situation: it pertains to the life sciences sector, and particularly on female researchers and scientists.

To extrapolate and have it represent the self-promotion gap in other careers would be too much of a stretch—unless you are referring to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that women also constantly self-promote less at work.

Also Read: Women in tech: A global evaluation

The statistic corroborates with Lerchenmueller’s study; men rated their performance 33 per cent higher than women who performed at equivalent levels.

In the study, 1500 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers answered 20 analytical questions on mathematics and science. They were asked to predict how many questions they got correct (to measure their confidence) and asked four subjective questions that typically appear in a performance review (to measure how much they self-promote). The study found:

• When women were told that their answer to a self-promotion question will be communicated to an employer for them to determine whether to hire and how much to pay, women self-promoted less.
• If there was no financial incentive to the self-promotion question, men and women both decreased their self-promotion levels equally—thus the gender gap still persists.
• When told that there might be a chance employers would learn about their true performance in addition to their self-promotion, women still self-promoted less.
• When told about the average level of self-promotion of others, women still did the same.

The persistent gap indicated that women self-promoted less systematically. In every situation, women would generally self-promote less as compared to equally-performing men.

The question rises up again: why?

One of the biggest speculation would be that women, due to a culmination of different reasons, choose to stay out of the center stage.

Yet, it can be difficult to ascribe this gender gap to a core reason—rather than doing so, leaders need to start shaping the workplace environment and employee experience so that women can self-promote without repercussions.

One of the biggest reason that has been suggested is that women suffer from more potential backlash, which can deter them from self-promoting.

There are well-documented cases and studies of women being viewed as “bossy” and “loud” even though they are self-promoting at the same level as their male counterparts.

Self-promotion is a necessity at work as leaders are not always able to know about everyone’s work performance, as accurately as possible.

As such, there are times where employees would have to specifically bring achievements up in order to remind the leader that they did perform well, which can bring recognition and at times monetary benefits.

Unfortunately, gender bias can lead to people believing that women who self-promote are overconfident.

You need to address this elephant in the room. You would have to self-reflect: do they have that gender bias in them? Once there is self-awareness, the problem can be systematically dealt with:

• Treat women and men equally. If they are self-promoting, then it is the performance that matters. For instance, someone staying past office hours to complete the project, instead of whether it was a female or male doing it.
• Understand that not due to that existing bias, some women may take a more passive role. It’s time to throw away your previous assumptions about the characteristics and personalities of your employees. Observe keenly for actual work performance, rather than listen to someone’s self-promotion.
• Look at actual work performance. Ask the employees about their contributions, specifically those who self-promote less.
• Evaluate based on data. Numbers will never fail you. When the performance of the work can be measured against a numerical benchmark, it is easy to evaluate their work performance. For instance, if your goal for the blog post was to reach 50,000 pageviews, that can form a minimum goal.
• Create an environment of psychological safety. Women—and all employees—can give feedback about their work performance without worrying that it might change their superior’s perception of them. For example, if they were to struggle at understanding something, they can ask for help without fearing that it will impact their overall work performance.

Instead of changing the way women work, it is much better to redesign the workplace. When you use a subjective view (i.e. “do I think that this employee is performing well the past month?”), you are much more prone to cognitive biases.

Also Read: Women in tech and a competitive advantage

By restricting yourself to being objective before using your intuition and sense, you can evaluate work performance more accurately.

The problem is that there is still a culture of self-advocation. Employees still have to tell others that they are doing a good job in order to get noticed.

Which begs the question: what are the leaders doing for the employees?

Though it is understandable that leaders cannot observe everything at once, there must still be an effort made to truly understand the level of contribution, by each employee.

Hence, you can create benchmarks, minimum targets, and objectives to help measure actual work performance. You can also give regular feedback to individual employees, which can help reinforce the message that you know what good work they have been doing. It also helps to add some rewards to it.

Through such an approach, every employee can benefit as you reshape the workplace culture. Since employees know that their superiors will notice if they work hard and are rewarded for it, employees will be substantially more diligent, which creates a win-win situation for everyone.

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This article first appeared on Human+Business.

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Singaporean medtech startup eko.ai has raised US$4 million in its very first funding round, co-led by early-stage VC firms Sequoia India and EDBI.

Partech Ventures, SGInnovate and Startup Health were also some of the investors who participated in this round.

The funds will be used to grow the company’s development team and accelerate commercial operations in the US and Europe as stated in the press release statement. 

“With this funding, we can further develop our innovative solutions with the ultimate goal of democratizing echocardiography – the safest and most commonly used tool to image the heart,” said Dr Carolyn Lam, co-founder of eko.ai.

Eko.ai is a healthcare company which integrates Machine Learning into its software to predict and treat early-stage heart diseases. The platform provides tools to improve cardiovascular research and lowers the speed of clinical trials bringing it down to seconds, using ultrasound waves.

Potential applications of the eko.ai platform and tools range from expanding the use of echocardiography in clinical care to improving the performance of cardiovascular clinical trials, especially for the early detection and prediction of heart disease.

Also Read: Meet the 8 Southeast Asian startups who will receive US$1-2M each from Sequoias Surge programme

The company has already teamed up with AstraZeneca, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Samsung Medical Center’s Heart, Vascular and Stroke Institute, and the University of Alberta for commercial and academic research.

“Our ultimate goal is to put heart health screening into everyone’s hands. Cardiovascular disease remains the top cause of death for men and women globally and we’re excited to help address this global health issue in a meaningful way,” Lam added

Founded in August 2017, co-founders Dr Lam and Dr Yoran Hummel were both in the medical field prior to starting up the company, where Dr Lam happened to be a senior consultant cardiologist at the National Heart Centre Singapore and Dr Hummel, general manager of the Groningen Imaging Core Laboratory of the University Medical Center Groningen, whereas James Hare has been a serial entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of a travel company eDreams.

Also Read: Sequoia wants to help young companies get their product right at #Echelon2019

Both the investors are active in the startup ecosystem with Sequoia Capital India, having over US$4 billion in assets according to Crunchbase and EDBI a Singapore-based global investor, making over 100 investments with an estimated annual revenue of US$15.3M. 

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Image Credit: eko.ai

 

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Digital banking is at a tipping point in the Asia-Pacific region and the financial services industry needs to be prepared for a transformative year ahead.

Banks and financial institutions need to be proactive in their response to the looming digital revolution if they’re going to effectively capitalise on this new era in banking.

One of the biggest mistakes any bank can make right now is to do nothing; it is imperative that banks and financial institutions evaluate their existing strategies and look at how they can evolve with the times rather than remaining stagnant.

We know that a digital transformation is inevitable in the APAC financial services industry, but what we’re seeing is that many established institutions are in urgent need of a cultural transformation before they can embrace this brand-new world.

Banks are now realising that they can’t continue to think and operate the way they always have because the industry is undergoing constant transformation. They really need to start thinking and operating like fintech’s if they’re going to thrive in this new era – technology needs to underpin the entire business model.

Also Read: Threat or opportunity? boosting digital banking in Asia

While enhancing customer offerings is a key benefit of digital banking, the impact on regulatory compliance can also provide a competitive advantage.

Digital banking makes it easier for financial institutions to comply with all the different regulations, making it easier to track transactions, keep data safe and also reduce duplication.

So those organisations that make the transition from less secure legacy systems to cloud-based digital platforms, where security improvements are constantly made, will be able to boast greater peace of mind and set themselves ahead of competitors.

To stay in the game, banks need to be able to roll out products and services at a rapid pace, adding new features to platforms while simultaneously enhancing existing ones. This kind of agility is next to impossible to achieve with most institutions’ legacy systems.

However, composable banking architecture – the quick and flexible assembly of independent systems on a cloud platform – can provide the opportunity for organizations to create dynamic products with intuitive, responsive features that can be quickly and continuously updated.

Also Read: Embracing Singapore’s digital bank shakeup in 2019 and its consequences

A cloud-based platform is designed to undergo short, regular updates with a constant pipeline of improvements that are automatically layered on top of existing technology, which frees up the business to run uninterrupted on the front end. This allows financial institutions to make minor changes regularly, rather than major, infrequent updates that can cause significant disruption and draw the ire of customers, as has been the case with some traditional transformations.

The APAC financial services industry looks set to be turned on its head over the next 12 to 24 months, and as the fintech age forces institutions to digitise, innovate and scale to adapt to customer needs, it will be those banks and financial institutions that can move at the pace of a technology company, while remaining committed to strength, security and service, that will be the leaders of this new era.

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SVARA, a broadcasting and media startup, announced today, that it has secured an undisclosed amount of capital in a pre-Series A round, from corporate VC firm UMG Idealab, in a press release statement. With this, SVARA’s valuation has reached a total of US$10 million.

The capital will be used to develop products, strengthen marketing and development teams, expand strategic partnerships, and educate the radio industry on being more digitally focused.

Founded in 2017 by Hemat Dwi Nuryanto and Farid Fadhil Habibi, SVARA is a platform where users can stream live radio and listen to music.

SVARA also uses a cloud-based system in supporting media industry, such as professional radio station, on how they operate their end-to-end business process, such as scheduling pre-on-air, execution the broadcasting activity, and reporting after on-air. So that the radio crew, can handle all operational radio remotely.

It consists of an on-air platform (broadcaster automation) and an online platform. Users can enjoy various audio and non-audio content in the app, including radio, music, and podcasts.

Also Read: Leisure marketplace SelenaGO raises seed funding from UMG Idealab

SVARA has collaborated with various parties, including PRSSNI (Indonesian National Private Broadcasting Radio Association), Collective Management Institute (WAMI – Wahana Music Indonesia), Telkomsel, LPIK ITB (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Institute of Bandung Institute of Technology), and IDX (Indonesia Stock Exchange) Incubator.

The creative digital firm claims the platform is used by more than 100 AM/FM radio broadcasts in Indonesia.

Also Read: These later stage funding rounds of December are the perfect closure to the year 2019

UMG Idealab being one of SVARA’s first investors is a unit of UMG Group Myanmar and has actively been investing in nearly 30 startups in Indonesia.

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Image Credit:  neil godding

 

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PLDT exiting Rocket Internet by selling US$50M worth stake this year [DealStreetAsia]

Philippine-listed telecom and digital services firm PLDT is selling its remaining stake in German e-commerce investor Rocket Internet worth $50 million to finance its capital expenditures this year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PLDT Senior Vice President June Cheryl Cabal-Revilla confirmed reports that the company is disposing some of its real estate assets as well as its about two million shares in Rocket Internet on opportunistic basis to bankroll its capex for 2020, which the company said is “slightly bigger than 2019”.

Chinese EV maker Byton debuts SUV with 48-inch dashboard screen at CES 2020 [KrAsia]

Beijing-based electric vehicle (EV) maker Byton debuted the production version of its M-Byte SUV model on Sunday at CES 2020, the annual tech trade show in Las Vegas, local media Tencent News reported.

The long-awaited M-Byte model features a 48-inch screen that spans the whole dashboard, offering content such as weather, GPS, media, and stock prices, among others. The firm has also announced a wide range of key partnerships to power various functions of the vehicle’s massive screen, including one with mass media conglomerate ViacomCBS and ACCESS, which will allow passengers to stream television programming and movies in the vehicle.

Ex-Coty Executive Venkatesh Babu Joins Blockchain Solutions Provider Aqilliz [press release]

Aqilliz, a blockchain-enabled digital marketing solutions provider, has announced the appointment of ex-Coty Regional Sales Director for Southeast Asia Venkatesh Babu as Chief Revenue Officer, effective January 1, 2020.

With an established career in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector spanning almost 25 years, Babu has held roles at multinational cosmetics, fragrance, and skincare conglomerate Coty and leading global multinational FMCG corporation Procter and Gamble (P&G).

In his capacity as Chief Revenue Officer, Venkatesh will be responsible for all the go-to-market initiatives at Aqilliz across key geographies in the Asia Pacific region, in order to drive long-term growth and scalability.

With two decades of experience at Coty, Babu is a seasoned emerging markets expert with a proven track record in implementing market entry strategies and business development across diverse geographies spanning ten countries in Europe and Asia Pacific. Before Coty, Venkatesh began his professional career at P&G Prestige Beauty (formerly Cosmopolitan Cosmetics) as the Market Development Manager for Russia where he managed the business during the 1998 Russian Crisis, mitigating losses by over 50 per cent.

Super Surfaces raises US$500K funding

Super Surfaces, a design and delivery company that specialises in the luxury wall and surface finishing, has raised US$500,000 from Vishnu Reddy, a serial entrepreneur and an investor based out of Washington DC.

With the funding, Super Surface will scale up and grow its brand.

The company targets to achieve a delivery capacity of 10 lakh sqft per month by March 2023 and is also planning to enter the global market starting with Srilanka and Bangladesh by 2022 and the US and Australia by 2023.

Kumar Varma started his company with the main reason to offer design and delivery solutions of surfaces with primary focus on architects and interior designers. He holds 12-plus years of professional experience in the Amusement & Theme park industry and has worked with many reputed global amusement brands.

OVO launches crowdfunding campaign for flood victims of Greater Jakarta [e27]

Indonesia’s leading fintech firm OVO has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help the victims of the massive floods that devastated parts of Greater Jakarta since last Wednesday.

For aid distribution, OVO has partnered with Grab, Indonesian Red Cross, Baznas, Aksi Cepat Tanggap and Rumah Zakat. Online mutual fund marketplace Bareksa has also expressed its support for this movement as a corporate social responsibility act.

Users can donate by accessing ‘special donations home’ banner on the OVO app. Ride-hailing firm Grab has also pledged to match up to Rp1 billion for the donations thus collected.

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Antler, a global startup generator and early-stage venture capital firm, today announced that it has raised additional US$50 million for its funds in Amsterdam, London, New York, Stockholm, Oslo, Sydney, Nairobi and Singapore.

Amongst the new investors are Facebook Co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Elaine Saverin, investor and philanthropist Christen Sveeas (through Kistefos), Canica International, and Japanese financial services company Credit Saison, amongst other independent investors, entrepreneurs and finance industry leaders.

Also Read: Use this eSIM wherever you go in the world, thanks to these 2 Turkish entrepreneurs

Magnus Grimeland, CEO and Founder of Antler, said: “Raising funds across seven geographies means that we can spread our impact across the world. We are looking forward to seeing our existing portfolio of exciting startups expand and launching further Antler programmes in 2020.”

Founded in Singapore in 2017 by Grimeland, who earlier co-founded Zalora, Antler identifies and enables exceptional people to build groundbreaking tech companies — regardless of gender, socioeconomic background or ethnicity — from the ground up through its programme.

Antler then provides pre-seed and later-stage capital to successful companies. In order to provide this funding, it has local funds in each geography.

Antler invests US$100,000-200,000 into select teams.

Since its launch in Singapore in 2018, it has invested in over 120 companies. The portfolio is diverse, with companies in 17 industries, founders from 36 nationalities and 52 per cent of companies having at least one female co-founder. Its portfolio firms Airalo and Cognicept have both raised investment from Sequoia, Sampingan from Golden Gate Ventures. Base, another Antler startup, secured money from East Ventures.

Antler already runs programmes in eight global locations and will soon launch in Jakarta and other locations globally in 2020.

“More than half of Antler’s portfolio companies have at least one female founder, which is above the industry average. We need to champion and back female leaders as an industry, and it’s great to see Antler doing its bit,” said Elaine Saverin.

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In November, Antler announced a partnership with National University of Singapore (NUS) via its Graduate Research Innovation Programme to launch an executive programme to enable more entrepreneurs to build successful deeptech startups.

 

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