By confusing policy with ethics, the framework fails to take on the big issues in artificial intelligence

This week, the global elite have gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Idealists see it as a great opportunity for world leaders to meet in-person. Cynics (like myself) view it as an ostentatious gathering of an elite class who don’t particularly speak for most people.

That being said, Davos does consistently produce meaningful results (this year, it seems David Attenborough’s speech on the environment will steal the show, which is nice change of pace from the years dominated by Donald Trump or Xi Jinping).

For Singapore, Minister S Iswaran also used the summit to introduce a new tech initiative aimed at creating ethical guidance the for artificial intelligence industry.

It is called the Model Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Framework and is meant to help steer the industry towards positive development.

Overall, the framework is fine. Frankly, it is hard to get overly worked up about the initiative (yes, not a good statement in an opinion piece). But, because it confuses policy with ethics, the framework is essentially irrelevant.

Let me explain

The two guiding principals of the plan are as follows:

1. Decisions made by or with the assistance of AI are explainable, transparent and fair to consumers
2. Their AI solutions are human-centric.

These guiding principles are benign, and fall into the realm of platitudes. If they were backed with legal consequences (like GDRP) then it would make a difference. But they are not, and that is by design.

Now to the crux of the issue. The Infocomm Media and Development Authority (IMDA) used an example of a company targeting soft drinks towards certain consumers. In this hypothetical, the algorithm is telling the company to push sugary drinks towards a buyer.

Selling products is generally a low-harm use of AI because it is up to the buyer to go through with the purchase (and IMDA admits as such). However, the use case also suggests the algorithm should be tweaked because high sugar intake can lead to diabetes.

This confuses ethics with policy. In Singapore, there is a gigantic push to get people to consume less sugar because of the city-state’s high rate of diabetes. But it is not unethical to sell someone a Sprite and should not be viewed as such.

Furthermore, one of Singapore’s most famous use-cases for artificial intelligence (putting facial recognition software on lamp posts) would be considered an egregious ethical violation in many nations.

Also Read: Howa taxi company launches app to challenge Grab and Go-Jek in Thailand

The big issue with artificial intelligence is that it is taught by humans, and thus follows the morality of its creator. There are certain issues we can all agree on (thou shalt not kill), and it is those ethics we need to drill into AI.

But once we start to confuse politics/policy with ethics, it creates a situation whereby the guidelines become largely ignored.

This gap in focus can be highlighted by Iswaren himself. At Davos, he was asked why large countries like Japan and the United States should take the AI framework seriously. He said,

“I think one of the questions is really around how – and this is again one of Singapore’s key value propositions – we are a small, open economy. We are pro-business. We are also keen to engender a rules-based, norms-based trading and economic environment globally. Therefore, when we propose some of these ideas, they tend to be seen in that context. It is more objective as opposed to some certain other jurisdictions that – maybe because of their size, or because of what is presumed to be their larger agenda or objective – the response from more neutral players can be different.”

Also Read: Retrenched and dejected, this entrepreneur proved that a lot can happen over coffee

Iswaren is one hundred per cent correct. But it approaches artificial intelligence from a business-first logic. In this world, issues of free trade, politics and economics trump the other debates in the artificial intelligence field.

Singapore is a business-first country, so this makes sense. But the framework ignores large questions like, “who is responsible if AI kills someone?”, “How do we provide jobs to people displaced by AI?” and “How do we prevent self-fulfilling prophecies?”

Because these questions, and other truly ethical dilemmas, are not actually addressed by the framework, most people will forget this exists in a few months time.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the AI initiative, and it is better than nothing, but it will make zero impact on the industry as a whole.

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During the crypto winter, the number of blockchain companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein grew by 20 per cent

The 2018 severe crypto market reversal –which is also known as the “crypto winter”– has affected the valuation of leading blockchain companies Switzerland and Liechtenstein, but it has failed to negatively affect the growing number of blockchain companies in these two hubs.

Investment company CV VC, in collaboration with PwC Strategy and inacta, has published its quarterly list of the 50 largest and most important companies in the two markets’ Crypto Valley Blockchain cluster.

The list revealed that market capitalisation of the top 50 companies have dropped from US$44 billion to US$20 billion in Q4 2018 or a 55 per cent decrease.

Globally, most crypto companies also lost their value during the period, and the top 50 companies in the list account for nearly 20 per cent of this market.

Interestingly, it is also revealed that at the end of December 2018, the cluster contained 750 blockchain companies.

Also Read: Stop blaming the blockchain, crypto and ICO community, but rather join and help them

This corresponds to a growth of 121 companies, or almost 20 per cent compared to the last count at the end of September 2018.

On average, the top 50 companies are valued at US$400 million each. Excluding the five largest, the average figure is still US$365 million, which the list interpreted as a sign that concentration is relatively low.

The average valuation of all 750 companies was estimated at US$27 million.

Switzerland has been perceived as one of the leading crypto hubs in the world, thanks to its open-minded bank industry and favourable regulation.

As for Liechtenstein, its rise as a crypto hub is attributed to its location and financial inclusivity.

Also Read: What is an ICO, STO and TSO?

Four unicorns that are present in the Crypto Valley are Ethereum, Bitmain, Dfinity and Cardano.

Around 480 people work in Switzerland and Liechtenstein in the 50 largest blockchain companies.

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Image Credit: Tom Parkes on Unsplash

 

 

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Not only can omni-channel commerce help with branding, but it can make a huge difference in supply chain management

E-commerce is a unique business. Among all the internet-based business models — content, community and commerce — e-commerce has the highest offline component because merchandise has to be transported and delivered to customers physically, unlike other businesses, where end-to-end transactions can get completed over the internet.

E-commerce has always been just another retail channel like offline stores, phone ordering, mail ordering. Unfortunately, because of the strong technology layer, it has been cleverly positioned as a technology business.

American e-commerce giant Amazon drove this tech narrative strongly in the early years because it created a moat, which their competitors — primarily offline retailers — could not cross since they were weaker on the tech front. Amazon, along with other pure-play e-commerce companies, also created an impression that offline properties like stores, warehouses, offices, which had been assets so far, were now liabilities.

It took offline retailers over a decade to realise that offline assets were really valuable and consumers were looking for seamless experiences across mediums, which can best be delivered by tight digital integration of offline assets. So, they started on the omni-channel journey. However, by this time Amazon had gone very far ahead in e-commerce.

As offline retailers scrambled to execute their digital strategy, Amazon took steps to make sure they were not left behind in this omni-channel game, hence their recent efforts globally in the offline space — bookstores, no-people grocery stores, and Whole Foods. Taking a leaf out of Amazon’s book, many online retailers in other parts of the world have started to adopt a similar strategy, as they cannot afford to be left behind in the race.

Clearly, hybrid is the future — close integration of offline and online assets, and the fight between Amazons of the world and offline giants are only going to be intense.

Boosting credibility

The e-commerce business, which has been growing world over, captures just small percentage of the business. With time, each e-commerce company is gaining experience and access to customers. While they are catering to online customers, they are missing on offline ones, which is a big chunk of the market.

With their experience and better insight on customer behaviour, online players are better placed to also play in offline space, hence it is natural for them to explore brick-and-mortar space allowing them to scale and growth.

More importantly, a hybrid model helps online retailers gain credibility (as it provides an opportunity for them to reinforce the online brand), win a huge consumer base, as well as to gauge the market.

Also Read: Best practices for navigating the corporate-startup relationship

As for customers, they can browse online retail inventories while on-the-go using their smartphones or tablets. In this context, choosing a product online and checking it out at the physical store can give the much-needed reassurance to consumers about a brand’s credibility.

In Asia, e-commerce is still unknown to a vast majority. So going hybrid is the best option. Having an offline presence will always help them find their product-market fit with a minimum burn, although it takes some time.

The shift is already visible. Many e-commerce companies in this part of the geography have already started working on an omni-channel strategy. For instance, in India, the second fastest-growing e-commerce market in the world, giants like Flipkart and Snapdeal have already initiated to set up offline stores in different cities. Smaller players are not far behind; women fashion e-tailer Voonik is also mulling to open physical offices in Bangalore, and furniture e-tailer Pepperfry is also setting up their offline retail stores at various shopping malls of late.

According to experts, this is just a beginning and this trend is going to become more intense in future.

The key advantages of hybrid model

An offline strategy offers quite of a few advantages to e-commerce companies. Below are some:

1. Reduced marketing spend and increased sales

In a dog-eat-dog market , e-commerce companies are leaving no stones unturned to capture market share. This often leads them to make insensible spending on different forms of marketing techniques, which lead to huge cash burn. Advertisements and events are where thee firms spend a large chunk of there money. This has caused the customer acquisition cost to go through the roof and this has severe effect on their revenues; no wonder majority e-commerce companies in the world are not even breakeven, let alone profitable.

On the other hand, opening a physical store is far more cost-efficient. Although the overhead and maintenance cost are high, they are much lesser than the recurring ad spending cost an e-commerce company incurs. Combining both online and offline store inventories can provide the optimum balance to a retail business.

2. A touch-and-feel experience for customers

Online retails have long realised that providing a ‘touch and feel’ shopping experience to consumers is all the more important. In order to provide a virtual ‘touch and feel’, companies are heavily investing on virtual reality technology but it has failed to achieve the desired results. In Asia, customers still prefer shopping offline to get this experience.

Keeping this in mind leading online retailers are opening offline stores.

3. Enables better capacity planning

Customers these days demand a wide range of products to choose from. Disliking products result in large volumes of returns. In this scenario, retailers need to carefully build, buy or acquire new distribution centres to meet customers’ demand. Retailers should also assess the overall labour impacts and analyse their historical sales data to create the right capacity

Also Read: Shoot for the moon: Identifying your target audience and developing a superb marketing plan

Managing inventory properly is an ongoing challenging task. Hybrid model enables companies to expand their customer reach and better control on inventory. The hybrid model certainly allows them to explore economy of scale and better reach to customer

A threat to traditional retailers

Opening of brick-and-mortar stores will definitely grow the competition, as e-commerce companies will be in position to operate large scale. This certainly impact the modern format stores but not much impact to mom & pop store as they will keep serving the hyper local needs of the consumer.

But can e-commerce still survive without an offline strategy? The answer to this question is a resounding ‘yes’. However, going hybrid provides them better handle on the business and economy of scale.

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(K Vaitheeswaran, Indian e-commerce veteran and author of ‘Failing to Succeed – the story of India’s first e-commerce company’; Sujayath Ali, Co-founder and CEO of Voonik; Ankiti Bose, Co-founder and CEO of Zilingo; Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures; and Anup Mohan, a former executive at Voonik, contributed to this story)

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

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For JD, the success of this drone delivery test will open up opportunities for future use in Indonesia and Southeast Asia

Chinese e-commerce giant JD and its joint venture in Indonesia JD.ID had completed a drone delivery test in the country on January 8.

Conducted in rural West Java province, the drone delivered a package of school books and bags donation for students at a local elementary school.

The project was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Transportation, the Indonesian Air Force, AirNav Indonesia, Indonesian Aero Sport Federation (FASI), and the Association for Drone Systems and Technologies (ASTTA).

For the company, the successful completion of the test will open up opportunities for future use in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

In a press statement, JD.ID CEO Zhang Li said that the project was part of the company’s commitment for the advancement of Indonesia beyond its business side.

JD itself is a strategic partner of the World Economic Forum and a partner of Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR).

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Video and Image Credit: JD

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Justika is a subsidiary of hukumonline, which was co-founded by a senior partner at Assegaf Hamzah & Partners

Indonesian legaltech startup Justika announced an undisclosed pre-Series A funding round on Tuesday, January 22.

According to a report by KataData Indonesia, the funding round included the participation of leading Indonesian law firm Assegaf Hamzah & Partners.

The law firm aimed to contribute in providing greater access to legal services by investing in the startup.

Led by CEO Melvin Sumapung, Justika provides a marketplace for various legal services ranging from legal counsel to document creation.

It also provided a phone-based legal consultation service with an affordable cost.

Also Read: Hong Kong-based legaltech startup Dragon Law rebrands to ZEGAL as it enters the UK

The startup is a subsidiary of hukumonline, an online platform that offers law advocates services.

hukumonline itself was co-founded by Ahmad Fikri Assegaf, a Senior Partner at Assegaf Hamzah & Partners.

In Indonesia, an example of legaltech startup that has recently raised funding is Kontrak Hukum, a digital platform that provides legal services to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The company raised a strategic investment from KASKUS, leading Indonesian content and e-commerce platform, who aimed to provide legal and educational support for content creators and small businesses on its platform.

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Image Credit: rawpixel on Unsplash

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Credit Culture will kickstart its operations in personal loans space with the funding

Credit Culture, Singapore-based fintech that is among the six entities selected as part of a pilot by MinLaw, announces S$40 million (US$29.5 million) funding from Malaysian-listed investment holding company, RCE Capital Berhad.

The funding is to be directed to build up Credit Culture’s operational capability as it gathers pace to be one of the first pilot licensees to operate under the new pilot by the Ministry of Law on new business models for the personal loans industry.

Also Read: Mapan reveals its current focus following new CEO appointment

In December 2018, Credit Culture, which is a subsidiary of Dey Private Limited, was selected as one of six entities that are part of a pilot by the Ministry of Law. The pilot seeks to professionalise the personal loans space.

Credit Culture is said to be the first Singapore fintech startup that provides digital solutions for personal loans.

Founded by a group of former bankers, Credit Culture’s use of proprietary technology allows applicants to apply online using a simplified process. It’s then supported by instant and personalised loan terms from its credit-scoring engine to assess the creditworthiness of a customer instantly.

It proceeds on to allow loan application process that can auto-populate the necessary fields using government sites like MyInfo. The system reduces the need for often cumbersome processes which in turn makes the application more convenient for consumers.

In terms of saving costs, reduced manpower and competitive rates capped at 1% per month once operation begins are what the company offers.

All rates and fees are presented upfront when presenting loan offers so the consumer is able to make an informed decision before taking up the loan. Credit Culture also ensures the removal of high late interest and extra charges for early settlement.

Edmund Sim, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Credit Culture, said that its approach increases transparency and brings costs down.

“This investment aligns with RCE Capital’s core business of providing personal loans and bringing opportunities to the underbanked,” said Shahman Azman, Chairman of RCE Capital Berhad.

Also Read: Indonesian legaltech startup Justika raises pre-Series A funding by top law firm

Credit Culture plans on championing clearing debts towards its consumers and is committed to providing funding options across all income segments.
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Image Credit: Credit Culture

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Also, Printerous to expand regionally, Vertiv Academy opens in Singapore

Vietnam-based fintech firm Finhay raises US$1M from Insignia Ventures Partner [Viet Nam News]

Finhay, a Vietnamese fintech firm that allows customers to invest as little as VNĐ50,000 (slightly more than US$2), announced that it has raised nearly US$1 million from Singapore-based Insignia Venture Partners and other investors.

“With new capital of nearly US$1 million, Finhay will focus on user growth this year as well as looking for talent to join the team,” Finhay’s founder and CEO Nghiêm Xuân Huy shared in official statement published by Viet Nam News.

Also Read: Mapan reveals its current focus following new CEO appointment

Finhay was established in 2017 as a micro-investment platform targeted at millennials. It allows customers to start investing with as little as VNĐ50,000, or slightly more than US$2, in mutual funds in Việt Nam upon Finhay’s investment portfolio and related risk assessment recommendation based on the applicants’ information.

Besides the main investor Insignia Venture Partners, Finhay also received seed round investment funds from Hong Kong and the US.

Indonesia’s Printerous to expand regionally this year [Press Release]

With the official announcement of its revenue increase that hit over 300 per cent last year, Indonesia’s online printing platform Printerous shares its plan to expand to other regions in Southeast Asia within this year.

Printerous said that it aims to focus on B2B market, as 98 per cent of the total transactions were contributed by B2B segments.

“Printing demand from B2B segments has increased significantly, thus we do lots of development to provide real solution through e-commerce and e-procurement,” said Kevin Osmond, Founder and CEO of Printerous

Some of the products that Printerous provided for B2B are packaging printing, marketing materials, and office supplies. It currently serves micro and small businesses.

Vertiv Academy expands to Southeast Asia through its first training facility in Singapore [Channel Asia Singapore]

Vertiv Academy has opened up its first training facility in Singapore, bring aboard the mission to equip channel partners, customers and engineers with the technical know-how to properly and effectively manage critical infrastructure.

“With the comprehensive course offerings of the Vertiv Academy, customers and partners attending our trainings will develop the technical agility to allow them to respond to any business challenges,” said Chris Mandahl, vice president for service of Asia at Vertiv.

Vertiv Academy is located at New Tech Park in Singapore. It will be tailored for partners or customers who have purchased Vertiv solutions, with customisable classes that have a mix of both classroom time and practical exercises, as well as a comprehensive safety overview.

In Asia, other Vertiv Academy locations are in Sydney, Australia and Shenzhen, China.

Singapore sets up US$72M training fund for “smarter” processes [The Straits Times]

In a bid to establish a building industry that’s no longer labour-intensive and more about “smarter” process, Singapore has set up US$72 million funding, officially announced by National Development Minister Lawrence Wong yesterday.

The funds are said to go towards boosting skills in the building sector, including financing existing scholarship and sponsorship programmes for students and adults. The funds itself have been earmarked from June last year to May 2020, expected to benefit 118,000 locals working in the construction industry as well as architects and facility managers.

Minister Wong noted that venture funding in building technology is growing and traditional firms are starting to do more to transform how they build, picking up new capabilities in automation, prefabrication, and digital building and design methods.

“Our people are at the heart of this transformation journey. How far we go depends on the quality of the people we have,” added Minister Wong, who was speaking at an iBuildSG scholarship ceremony at the National University of Singapore.

The $72 million fund will support an enhanced iBuildSG Scholarship and Sponsorship programme for those seeking academic qualifications in a full-time undergraduate, diploma or Institute of Technical Education track.

All those awarded scholarships and sponsorship will now receive a $3,000 training grant to boost their skills and competencies through courses. They will also be encouraged to stay on in the industry with a $7,000 retention incentive one year after their bond ends.

First-in-the-region Tourism Lab and Tourism Development Fund for Sustainability set up in Bali, Indonesia [Press Release]

A partnership of World Economic Forum Global Shapers Denpasar Hub and Five Pillar Foundation with the strategic support of Mayor Office of Denpasar, Indonesia Creative Cities Network (ICCN), Bali Tourism Board, University of Udayana, and Kumpul Coworking Space hosted the first regional industry design jam by Public Private Partnership by Youth (“PPP by Youth”) themed as “Bali Beyond Tourism” on January 12 – 17, 2019 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.

The program gathered 120 guests and delegates from 29 cities in Asia with notable guest speakers include The Honorable Ida Bagus Rai Dharmawijaya Mantra, Mayor of Denpasar, Mr. Maxwell Nie, Doctor of Urban Design of Harvard Graduate School of Design, Ms. Faye Alund, Founder of Kumpul, Mr. Agus Teja Sentosa (Gus Teja), world-class Balinese flute class music performer, Ms. Ni Komang Ayu Suriani, Curator of Global Shapers Denpasar Hub and Mr. Shadman Sadab, CEO of Future City Summit.

An intensive industry design jam was carried out by 18 regional teams with 4 scenarios of tourism industry, including segments of urban design, eco-tourism, tourism financing and policy innovation. The event aims to explore how to make Bali become beyond tourism, tackling multiple issues in the industry from water crisis, plastic waste, culture degradation, urban design, and many else.

The preliminary Memorandum of Understanding was signed with 18 cohorts of public and private sectors from 10 countries in Asia including Indonesia, Mainland China and Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Sudan (Africa), Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, and so on to encourage the economic sustainability and development of Denpasar city, with the government committing to bringing forth innovation and design of the city through Creative Economy Committee of Denpasar. Public Private Partnership (PPP) via the founding of Tourism Lab.

Also Read: Indonesian legaltech startup Justika raises pre-Series A funding by top law firm

Tourism Lab is to establish pipelines of tourism companies and project among the connected cities towards Bali tourism, which would be assessed by the committee to be formed.

“Startups are early stage business that seeks to disrupt the market with innovation – and that is exactly how startups can play a role in the Tourism sector, by bringing in new perspective, ideas and inevitably changing the behavior of the industry,” said Faye Alund, CEO & Co-founder KUMPUL Coworking

As for the setting of Tourism Fund, it aims to aggregate financing resource from Hong Kong and Indonesia to provide development financing to potential projects and innovation of tourism for proper growth and development. “It will lead to groom the next unicorn of tourism in the region,“ said Zaki Yamani, Founder of 1001Teras and City Partner (Indonesia), Future City Summit.
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Image Credit: Printerous

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Ghazi also admitted there was some intention at the government level to shut down MaGIC, in order to avoid overlapping, as well as to streamline things

Ashran Ghazi, who stepped down as the CEO of Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) in November last year, feels that the country has all the ingredients to turn it into a startup hub, but what it lacks is the “Michelin Star Chefs” who can mix these ingredients in the right proportion.

Ghazi, who is currently serving as the CEO of Dattel Asia, a home-grown consumer intelligence company, also believes that the local market is the perfect test bed for a Southeast Asia’s startups.

In an interview with e27 (the full text of which will be published in the coming days), Ghazi said that Malaysia has a great potential and is quite ripe for growth within Southeast Asia. However, it needs to still churn new ways of thinking from the bottom up.

“We need to have raw entrepreneurial spirit that is resilient in the open market and also need to build more creative and innovative thinking people. People who cannot stand status quo. We have the ingredients, but sometimes what we lack is enough “Michelin Star Chefs” who can mix these ingredients in right proportion,” he commented.

Ghazi joined MaGIC in April 2016 after its founding CEO Cheryl Yeoh departed in January that year. During his tenure, Ghazi brought in several initiatives, including the Corporate Entrepreneurship Responsibility Program (designed to bring startups and corporates for mutual benefits), Impact Driven Enterprise, Global Entrepreneurship Community Summit, PUSH (Great Social Entrepreneurship Programme), Corporate Open Innovation Program, and Mentorship Platform.

Towards the end of his period, MaGIC went through a controversy when the newly-elected Mahathir Mohamad government intended to wind up the agency in May 2018. Talking about this, Ghazi admitted there was some intention at the government level to shut down several agencies, including MaGIC, in order to avoid overlapping, as well as to streamline things.

Also Read: MaGIC or no MaGIC, Malaysia’s startup ecosystem is bound to flourish!

“MaGIC, like many other agencies, was in a pretty unique situation then. True there was some intent as a whole to tighten the ship within the government. In most conversations happened around that time, there was a sentiment that many agencies were overlapping. This seemed to be the case at a macro level, but if you closely analysed things, you will get a different picture. Indeed, all these organisations are doing different activities,” he clarified.

He went on to say that there were naturally many views during that time. So, before MaGIC stabilised and landed as an agency under the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (MED), Ghazi had to educate and inform relevant stakeholders about the work MaGIC has done, its impact, as well as its future aspirations. “We were meeting with different people in the new government. Finally, we got an audience in the form of the Minister of Entrepreneurship Development. He immediately saw the value of the organisation and thought about how MaGIC fits in his aspirations in driving the entrepreneurial community to be future ready.”

As soon as the Minister got convinced and appreciated the context, he decided to move MaGIC to the MED family. It was indeed an exciting time for the agency, he added. “So it wasn’t so much about the government changing mind but, from my perspective, various ministries needed to get clarity on what they wanted to do and ensure that they had the right agencies under them. But I must say that we had a nerve-wrecking experience during those four to five months due to the uncertainties.”

Ghazi also added that MaGIC, under the new leadership, is getting ready to execute big things in 2019. It is tuned towards working closely with private sector and is designing programmes in a strategic manner to scale new heights.

“I cannot agree with the opinion of several people that MaGIC has not done much. I think we have done quite a bit and we wish we had done more. I feel there are naturally certain things that the agency can be done well, but there are certain things that can be done better as a private entity. MaGIC is in a transition to scale its impact, and this is what I have been instilling since day one of joining MaGIC. I think MaGIC under the new leadership will be able to see the results of this as the seeds of scale has been planted over the last 2.5 years,” he noted.

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Indonesia-based Jojonomic secures the new undisclosed round of funding led by the fintech VC fund Finch Capital

Southeast Asia-operated expense and business management platform Jojonomic has announced an undisclosed amount of funding raised led Finch Capital. Participating in the round are Jojonomic’s existing investors East Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures.

This round makes for Jojonomic’s shareholder base, which now covers Europe, the US, Japan, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia.

Jojonomic had said it intends to use the funding for completing Jojonomic’s portfolio of business solutions, integrating external data, expanding its customer base across Indonesia, and beyond, and developing further Jojonomic’s use of machine learning.

Also Read: Singapore’s Travelstop officially expands to seven markets in Asia

With the investment, Finch Capital brings its financial technology and will put Hans De Back, partner of Finch Capital on the company’s board.

“Jojonomic addresses the inefficiencies businesses often face by providing an expense and business management platform to managers and employees. We are look forward to working together in facilitating the daily activities of Southeast Asian businesses and creating the future of work,” said De Back.

Jojonomic first introduced JojoExpense to be the digital expense management platform in Southeast Asia with the aim to help employees achieve work by automating and bringing transparency to manual processes such as expense reports.

“By using Jojonomic, professionals hopefully will increase their productivity, focus on the things they are passionate about, and let the platform handle time-consuming administrative tasks,” said Jojonomic’s CEO and founder Indrasto Budisantoso.

Jojonomic offers a cloud-based business suite that helps companies manage business expenses with JojoExpense, enhance employee productivity with JojoTimes, manage procurement with JojoProcure, create a cashless ecosystem with JojoCashCard, and handle digital documents with approval flows. These applications can all be accessed under its Saas platform called JojonomicPro that target SMEs and enterprises.

Currently, Jojonomic is integrated with cloud-based accounting and business platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Xero, and OpenBravo. The system is integrated with Indonesia’s five largest banks to enable direct account payment and reimbursement, allowing end-to-end expense and cash management.

Also Read: Mobile is the US$120B future of tech business, report by App Annie

Jojonomic claims that it has tens of thousands of active users and support corporations and SMEs across sectors.
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Image Credit: Jojonomic

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Following the funding round, Motorist plans to open a new office in Thailand

Singapore-based auto-concierge platform Motorist today announced that it has raised an undisclosed seed funding round from JobsCentral co-founders Der Shing Lim and Shao-Ning Huang as well as Zopim co-founder Royston Tay.

The company plans to launch a new office in Thailand, complementing its existing offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

“The next six months will be very exciting for the Motorist team,” Motorist Founder Damian Sia said in a press statement.

“We will focus primarily on marketing and supercharging our products and services to show future investors the scalability of our business model,” he continued.

Sia also added that the company plans to have another round of fundraising in 2019.

Also Read: How much can technology actually help Singaporeans save on car insurance?

It will also launch a nation-wide campaign in February to promote the launch of its new app.

Founded in 2015 by Sia, Motorist started off as a vehicle transaction platform. The company is now looking at the “car management aspect of vehicle ownership.”

Having been bootstrapped since its launch, Motorist claimed to have been profitable since the beginning.

The company said it has transacted more than 9,200 vehicles worth over S$176 million (US$129 million).

“I chose to invest in Motorist.sg because it has enormous growth potential in not only Singapore, but also
the ASEAN region,” said investor Royston Tay.

“The company offers a unique service to car owners, disrupting the usual automotive model we have grown accustomed to,” he added.

 

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