Despite the pandemic and movement restrictions over the last two years, Southeast Asians celebrating Ramadan have been resilient. This year felt different and celebratory as family reunions became a possibility. Family, friends and togetherness took centre stage. The need to share time, space and happiness was never stronger.

I saw a flurry of activity in brand marketing war rooms as my team and the marketers planned campaigns that spotlighted the ability to share the occasion. They recognised the sentiments and planned to cut through the festive noise and reach their target audience through personalised advertisements and trusted channels.

SHAREit has, over the last few years, served as a channel for those in the emerging markets to share non-gaming or gaming apps, shopping recommendations and entertainment or educational content.

This Ramadan revealed key consumer behaviours for app sharing that will stay for the future. We compared the categories of apps shared during Ramadan in 2022 versus last year on SHAREit.

The growing prominence of app sharing in emerging markets

Are people ‘sharing’ apps? I have heard this question many times. App sharing has grown enormously in the last five years, driven by the huge populations in emerging markets like the Philippines, Indonesia in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, amongst others.

Also Read: Crypto earning apps: which type is the best for you?

It started mainly in areas where the internet infrastructure was not well established, yet digital adoption was rising. People began sharing apps that make their lives easier or useful with friends and family.

Heavy apps that would take a lot of time to download from the internet could be quickly transferred over SHAREit amongst peers. Now over 10 million apps are being shared daily on SHAREit.

The app economy has grown massively due to smartphone usage, which is becoming more affordable, and as the world population becomes more mobile-enabled. The global mobile application market size was valued at US$154.05 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 per cent from 2020 to 2027.

Over the course of 2021, over two million new apps and games were released, bringing the total number of apps released to date to over 21 million, according to App Annie’s State of Mobile 2022 report.

Consumer spending on mobile apps reached US$170 billion in 2021. Download growth today is mainly driven by emerging markets like India, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Egypt.

Gaming hits a new high during the festive season

Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing gaming markets in the world. COVID-19, too has accelerated the rise in mobile gaming, as consumers turned to the game to beat the lockdown blues.

With the practice of social distancing reducing consumer and business activity to a minimum, gaming proved to be a distraction and an engaging activity for people at home looking for social interactions. We have seen an immense demand in markets like the Philippines and Indonesia for racing, simulation and elimination games.

Interestingly despite the fact that people could finally meet and social gatherings were back this Ramadan break, gaming continued to rise. In Indonesia, people share multiple games such as action, arcade, simulation, casual and board. Share of board games was substantial and grew by 95 per cent, but trivia games led among all game types as their sharing more than doubled compared to last year.

As travel restrictions ease, holiday is top of mind

Another interesting trend that stood out was the sharing of travel apps. A travel boom is looming, and we see increased interest, especially in domestic travel.

Also Read: Mobile app trends 2022: A global benchmark of app performance

According to a recent survey in Southeast Asia, respondents from the Philippines and Indonesia have shown the highest willingness for domestic travel.

The share of travel apps rose by 69 per cent after Ramadan as people were looking to plan holidays and getaways in the afterglow of the festive season. This is extremely good news for travel brands who have faced the brunt of the pandemic for the longest time and suffered from people not being active and even uninstalling apps.

Spike in food and fitness-related apps sharing

At the heart of most festivals lies food. While the share of food apps grew by 109 per cent during the Ramadan season since people looked for new recipes to cook and order delicacies, the health and fitness app share increased by 23 per cent.

Food delivery was one of the fastest-growing app verticals globally, becoming somewhat of a much-needed tool in consumers’ lives for ordering food safely, socially distanced and conveniently. According to App Annie, sessions in food & drink apps reached 62 billion in 2021. The rise and boom in food app usage and sharing is here to stay.

Medical app sharing shoots through the roof

With the rise in health awareness, people have become more conscious of where their food comes from, what they eat and workout and exercise regimes.

During the Ramadan season, we saw people in Indonesia turn to meal plans, schedules for suhoor and iftar, hydration guidelines, common side effects and how to deal with them. The share of medical apps increased by 491 per cent.

Consulting physicians over video conferences has gathered immense popularity due to the pandemic and is no longer a rarity.

According to App Annie, worldwide downloads of health & fitness apps surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels in 2021, despite a slight softening from a pandemic-induced high in 2020 in most countries. The top five meditation apps worldwide saw 27 per cent year-over-year growth in consumer spending.

Gaming, travel, food and fitness, and medical app landscapes will only continue to grow. For the players and app developers in the segment, it is vital to ensure they tap these growing demands from the consumers, adapt to their habits and lifestyles as we go on, and stay ready for disruption.

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Singapore-based cybersecurity startup watchTowr has announced an US$8 million pre-series A investment round co-led by Prosus Ventures and Vulcan Capital.

Its seed investor Wavemaker Partners also returned to join this round, bringing watchTowr’s total funding to US$10.25 million.

The startup raised US$2.25 million in November 2021 from Vulcan Capital and Wavemaker Partners.

watchTowr will use the new funds to improve its platform and seize growth opportunities arising from markets outside of Southeast Asia.

Launched in August 2021, watchTowr helps organisations understand and identify high-impact weaknesses in their cybersecurity defences. It provides organisations with a continuous, real-time view of their external attack surface through the eyes of a sophisticated attacker. This enables it to continuously identify vulnerabilities that would allow attackers to compromise an organisation.

Also Read: watchTowr can tell an organisation in real time if it can get compromised

By leveraging data analysis and interrogation within an agile technology framework, watchTowr codifies attacker tactics and techniques that mimic how real attackers break into organisations.

Benjamin Harris, CEO, watchTowr, said “Our technology gives organisations visibility of how they could be compromised, in real-time. Traditional assurance approaches, like penetration testing, are no longer effective or rapid enough to keep organisations secure. By continuously incorporating the latest attacker tactics and techniques into the watchTowr Platform, CISOs can understand their susceptibility to emerging vulnerabilities and threats in hours, rather than weeks or months.”

Over the last ten years, organisational attack surfaces have ballooned to include outsourced technology, shadow IT, cloud environments and supply chain risks. Most organisations have lost track of their attack surface.

Harris added, “When one combines the ballooned attack surface with the ineffective and incomplete security testing approaches that are still utilised today, organisations are not able to protect themselves adequately, especially when we consider the rapid and aggressive speed of change in cyber security. Attackers know this.”

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ORZON Ventures, a US$50-million VC fund powered by the Thai oil marketing major OR, has announced its participation in the Series A round of Hungry Hub, a local restaurant and hotel reservation platform for special occasions.

Founded in 2017, Hungry Hub is a restaurant and hotel reservation platform for special occasions in Thailand. It informs its users of the net price they will pay before walking into a restaurant. In addition, it also provides fixed-price offers and gourmet delivery services.

Hungry Hub claims to have partnered with more than 900 outlets in Bangkok, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Koh Samui and Phuket. The list includes top restaurants in Thailand, such as Copper Buffet, Audrey Café, The Coffee Club (Minor Group) and global hotel brands such as Marriott, Anantara and Banyan Tree.

The firm claims to have served over two million diners and generated over 1 billion baht (US$30 million) GMV.

Also Read: Thailand’s ORZON Ventures invests in Pomelo, Carsome, Freshket, GoWabi, Protomate

In August 2019, Hungry Hub raised seed money from Expara and 500 TukTuks (a fund under Thailand’s 500 Global network). Then, the platform received its pre-Series-A stage funding from ECG Venture Capital and MOVF Media Group.

Surasit Sachdev, Co-Founder and CEO of Hungry Hub, said: “This year, we will focus more on the luxury segment—be it the fine dining, the omakase, the chef table, and the restaurants/hotels that promise exceptional experiences to fit with our concept of special occasion offers. Our target for the next 12 months is to have 2,000 restaurant partners, generate 1 billion baht annually for our partners, and expand our services beyond Thailand.”

Rajsuda Rungsiyakull, Senior Executive Vice President, Orion Project of OR, said: “We see this investment in Hungry Hub will fulfil lifestyle ecosystem and add values to F&B business in the long run while catering to the needs of the consumers for both Hungry Hub’s partnered restaurants and those under OR’s portfolios, making OR one crucial part in daily lives of consumers of all lifestyles.”

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Indonesian edutech giant Ruangguru announced the acquisition of two edutech startups, Schoters and Kalananti, for an undisclosed sum. The two companies will complement a range of K-12 product ecosystems that is already available on the Ruangguru platform. Executives from respective companies will also continue to focus on the solutions that they have built for Ruangguru users.

“We recently acquired Kalananti and Schoters. In the past years, Ruangguru’s curriculum has been focusing heavily on [the needs of students] who are preparing to enter local public and private universities. With Schoters, we can also cater to the needs of those who are aiming to do undergraduate and postgraduate studies abroad with scholarships. Schoters is the biggest in Indonesia at the moment for this kind of service,” said Ruangguru Co-Founder and CEO Belva Devara Syah in a press conference on Monday, July 4, in Jakarta.

Executives at Schoters and Kalananti gave DailySocial their statements on different occasions. Schoters Co-Founder and CEO Radyum Ikono said that the discussion regarding the acquisition had started in November 2021, but the process was only finalised in June. Following the acquisition, there will be no significant changes in the business process for Schoters –they are even allowed to continue reaching out to potential users outside of the Ruangguru ecosystem.

Schoters solutions will be available on the Ruangguru platform, accessible by any users who might need them. “We will be part of the Ruangguru ecosystem. This is exciting as we have always been targeting high school students who intended to further their studies abroad. On one hand, Ruangguru has a pool of Indonesian high schoolers as users; as a small startup, joining them enables us to reach out to a wider array of high schoolers,” Ikono said.

Since its founding in 2018, Schoters claimed to have helped thousands of Indonesian students to study in 400 universities in 43 countries, including Cornell University, University of College London, Nanyang Technological University, and Harvard University. It has also helped hundreds of students scored scholarships with a growth number that exceeds 500 per cent in 2020-2021.

Also Read: How the metaverse opens new opportunities for education

In addition to providing college admission guidance and consultation, Schoters also provides solutions that help with foreign language skills, document preparation, and even accommodation search.

On the other hand, the acquisition process of Kalananti was finalised in March this year, enabling the two companies to accelerate their collaboration. “Our main product focuses on skills for the future, including coding. Many parents see coding as a highly relevant skill; this is why many [edutech companies] put coding on the forefront of their offerings. We are being acquired for the product itself,” said Kalananti CEO Ahmad Syahid Zakaria.

Zakaria said that, following the acquisition, he and the team will focus on developing a coding learning platform for children now that they have a more extensive resource to do it. Apart from coding, Kalananti also owns several other educational products, but they will continue on this particular product before getting back to working on the rest.

“We would like to narrow it down to a single product to mature. Prior to joining Ruangguru, we struggled with optimising the sales and marketing aspects of the product, so this is really helpful for us. This is why we are able to enter the product development stage of our flagship product, before diversifying to other products.”

Kalananti is an edutech startup that was founded in 2020. It focuses on providing coding courses and innovations for children aged 5-12 years old, exploring various future skills in a fun and exciting way.

Kalananti implements a blended learning approach that puts emphasis on concept and competence. For its ScratchJr programme, which is aimed for children aged 5-6 years old, children will be introduced to coding through creating game and animation –a process that does not require reading and writing skills. This app allows parents to help teach the basic logic with only using colours and icons.

Also Read: Openness and collaboration in education is what the world needs

Feature updates on Ruangguru

Other updates that were announced at the press conference included new products and features to welcome the new school year. One of the highlights is the launch of Ruangguru for Kids, an integrated learning ecosystem to develop the academic and non-academic potentials of children since early age.

This platform provides an array of subjects and learning modes for children aged 3-12 years old, from languages, coding, writing, reading and mathematics, to online schooling. Together with Dafa Lulu, Kalananti and Alta School complement these solutions as an interactive and animated learning platforms for primary school students, combining storytelling and gamification.

The Dafa Lulu platform is now complete with a Practice Zone feature, a special section for children to learn through various educational games; Dafa Lulu Live, to facilitate live lessons with teachers using Dafa Lulu content. Apart from the launch of Ruangguru for Kids, the company also announced new features for Adapto –an daptative learning video that adjusts its plot to students’ comprehension level– called Adapto X.

Launched in 2021, Adapto X utilises simulation and interactive games to emphasise on the more practical aspects of the lessons, helping students learn more easily. The company also introduced UTBK Centre, a university entrance exam preparation platform for high school students. Everything that a student might require to prepare for university entrance exam is available on the platform, from countdown to exam day, learning strategies, practice tests, analysis of acceptance rate, to information on universities and study programmes.

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The article was written in Bahasa Indonesia by Marsya Nabila for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

Image Credit: DailySocial

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In the last decade, the complexion of the finance industry in Singapore has changed dramatically. With the digital transformation, financial institutions and their clients have embraced technological advances and changed the way that we trade, communicate, and interact with one another.

It is a good time to reflect upon Andrew Grove’s famous book, Only the Paranoid Survive, where he reveals his strategy for measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads when a massive change occurs and a company must adapt to the new paradigms or fall by the wayside. In the financial world, the paradigm we may face is “customers need banking but may not need a bank; they need stockbroking but not stockbrokers”.

A career in the finance industry has transformed in tandem, and there have been two key drivers for these changes. Firstly, we have seen a geographic shift in the balance of the finance industry, as investors look toward the faster-growing markets in Asia.

These changing tides put Singapore in a prime position to solidify its position as a global financial centre, and financial institutions will need to be quick and agile to respond to new developments in the industry.

As a financial institution, we have made it a part of our ethos to be at the forefront of new developments in the industry. In 1996, we launched Philip’s Online Electronic Mart System (POEMS), an online desktop trading platform, and changed the way people trade. We have consistently innovated and evolved, and in 2017 we launched the redesigned POEMS 2.0, to optimise the user experience.

Secondly, the digital transformation has redefined the role of the financial institution. With customers increasingly going mobile, financial institutions need to adapt their services in kind.

For instance, we launched a mobile-friendly version of POEMS to pre-empt customers’ needs in 2010, and we have continued to listen to the feedback of our clients to improve the user experience. In 2022, we launched POEMS Mobile 3, taking in the feedback from our clients to optimise the user interface and user experience.

Since our early days as a brokerage firm, we have evolved into an integrated financial house with a presence in 15 countries serving over 1 million clients, with Assets Under Management accounting for a total of more than US$35 billion.

Also Read: Mergers and acquisitions: Key to building an embedded finance ecosystem

As the complexion of the industry changes with high technology, how do we ensure we are relevant to our diverse set of clients? How can we utilise technology to provide them with the right information so that they can make informed decisions about their investments? How do we, as the financial institution, give our traders, financial advisers, and trading representatives the right tools and skills to give clients the service that they deserve.

The refinement of a ‘high-tech, high-touch’ approach

While we embrace technological advancement, we are constantly reminded that human beings are essentially “social creatures” and we strive for interactive relationship building.

At PhillipCapital, we advocate a ‘high-tech, high-touch’ approach, where we constantly look for innovation to not only provide clients with new and more efficient ways of working but to also build and maintain trust with our clients.

While we have ridden the wave of technological advances, we continue to maintain an avenue for clients to get in touch with a financial adviser or a trading representative to preserve the relationships that are key.

In the world of excess, with thousands of financial products, we need professionals to curate products and present the solutions to clients. The advancement in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence will aid us tremendously in this area.

In more recent times, we have seen a growing trend of investors starting earlier in their careers, around the late 20s or early 30s. Meanwhile, our loyal customers have grown with us, and in the later stage of their lives, they are bringing the next generation of investors to start their journeys with us. As our clientele diversifies, we are constantly looking to adapt our services to cater to their varied outlooks, objectives, and preferences.

As we see different demographics of investors emerging, we also see new roles for our sales force emerging, younger investors may prefer to have a space for constructive debate to make more informed decisions, and the role of the advisor is to educate and advise through these forums.

For older investors, the role of the advisor may be more tuned to building on the trust that we have forged over the years and helping the customers navigate their investments in the digital era. In short, we have seen the rise of influencers and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in many sectors including retail and finance.

The content curation of these KOLs and the delivery to the audience have been widely accepted and appreciated by consumers and clients, as these KOLs continue to educate and engage the investing public.

Evolution of the fintech and financial literacy space

We have seen renewed interest in the fintech space, as well as services such as user interface and user experience support for our mobile applications. We are also working hard to deepen our digital capabilities while supporting our talents to harness their potential to serve the next generation of clients.

We have built a strong local talent pool of over 100 tech specialists, all of whom have been trained to leverage tech-enabled financial solutions to cater to a diverse range of customer needs and goals.

We have also seen a growth in the information and education space. As an industry, we are constantly looking at new ways to promote financial literacy and responsible trading, through new technologies to interact with our customers, as well as experimenting with new platforms or services to give our customers the requisite knowledge and research in a timely manner.

On a regular basis, we curate topics of relevance and currency and conduct webinars for our clients and the public. Every quarter, we hold Strategy Stock Picks webinars. Picking individual stocks is time-consuming and requires expertise.

For our research team to pick a stock, for every company in their respective sector, they will need to analyse the company, prepare a financial model, interview the company management, and weigh the risks of the individual companies.

The process requires extensive time and expertise, and our research team applies the skillsets of a consultant, an accountant, an FBI agent, and an insurance actuary, it’s a lot of effort and work!

In addition, we avail a wide array of educational tools on our POEMS platforms such as market journals, research reports, and videos. Some of these materials that benefit the public are also made accessible on our social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. As such, we have seen a need to form teams to develop and maintain these platforms, as well as curate and package our research in an engaging, yet informative way.

We are also working closely with our innovation team to engage, such as hackathons and financial education programmes. Given our presence in Asia and beyond, and our commitment to promoting financial literacy, we have developed PYTCH, a studio driven by research and strategy established to create financial content focusing on financial news, industry trends, investment strategies and talks, live TV, interactive TV, on-demand streaming TV, and an educational platform for both local and overseas investors.

Building a strong learning culture

With a constantly evolving space comes new opportunities for financial institutions to learn and grow with their employees. Both companies and their employees have a shared responsibility in building a strong learning culture, one that promotes adaptability and resilience among all employees.

Also Read: From sommelier to AVP of Customer Success at a tech unicorn: Lessons from my career journey

On the part of companies, training and reskilling programmes are beneficial to help employees deepen their expertise and acquire new skills. We have developed training roadmaps across all job functions to meet both current and future skills and competencies, in areas like wealth management, tech-enabled financial services, and data analytics.

This allows our employees to acquire transferrable skills across all domains in the finance industry, and plan long-term careers with us, such as offering opportunities for trading representatives to become portfolio managers.

At the same time, training and reskilling can aid in the development of soft skills in areas like critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which allows our financial advisers and trading representatives to relate to customers, educate them, and value-add to the digital services.

Having a blend of both hard and soft skills will enable current employees to not only broaden their technical capabilities but also adapt and excel in the fast-evolving industry.

Effervescent skills for employees in the finance industry

All in all, we have seen that employees with the right mindset and ethos have embraced these challenges and found a home with us. We have identified four key attributes that have helped our employees in their careers in the finance industry:

• An eagerness to learn

Whether you are a fresh graduate or looking for a career switch, there is a seat for you if you are open and willing to learn. This industry welcomes anyone with easily transferrable skills, even if they are not from a financial services-related background.

• Being agile and staying relevant

Change is a constant in the finance industry, so it is important to always be on your toes and embrace new developments, especially when innovation continually pushes the sector to evolve. Those with the learning agility to learn, unlearn, and relearn in an increasingly flexible environment will be able to grow with the industry and find a fruitful experience in acquiring new skills, refining their current skillsets, and staying up-to-date with the new developments in the space.

• Being “paranoid” and building momentum

Reflecting on Andrew Grove’s book, it is important that we continue to strive and never rest on our laurels. With the fast-evolving world, we need this type of character and personality in employees and entrepreneurs. Momentum is such a succinct word but in business, we need momentum to keep on building and adapting to the world.

• Putting clients first

The human touch is still vital in understanding and empowering our clients to take charge of their financial future. Our role is to guide our clients along, focus on the bigger picture and recognise how we can optimise the new developments in the industry to serve our clients’ needs. As such, the onus is on us to never lose sight of their ability to effect meaningful change in our clients’ lives. In essence, be “client-centric”.

A service-oriented industry

As the financial landscape in Singapore continues to evolve, a career in the industry can be fast-paced, dynamic, challenging, and enriching. A rising tide raises all ships, and as the global finance industry looks to the East, we need to ensure that we remain at the forefront of change.

Also Read: How regulation is about to make “green finance” the new normal

However, at its heart, the finance industry remains service-oriented, and we will continue to put our clients’ needs first, as we adapt to the changing tides.

In addition, we will continue to help our employees to sharpen their skills, develop new capabilities, and keep pace with this ever-evolving industry. However, we cannot lose sight of our purpose, to help our clients achieve their investment goals and objectives.

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Zuno Carbon, a Singapore-based greentech startup, has closed a pre-seed funding round led by Blue InCube Ventures with SEEDS Capital.

The funds will be used to grow Zuno Carbon’s team and accelerate product development and marketing efforts.

Zuno Carbon provides organisations of all sizes with solutions to simplify carbon accounting through automation and process optimisation. Its goal is to enable ESG teams to shift their focus and resources from reporting to reducing their environmental impact with the help of AI-generated insights.

The startup’s solutions will initially target the energy, real estate, and manufacturing industries — which are the source of most of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Also Read: How carbon in the metaverse can help solve the real-world climate crisis

Zuno Carbon’s solutions have been deployed around the globe in Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the US, and Qatar.

“We are taking modern engineering approaches to constantly work with our existing customers to enhance our capabilities and make carbon reduction as painless as possible,” added Jon Adams, CTO and Co-Founder of Zuno Carbon.

“Sustainability has moved up the priority list for not just world and business leaders, but consumers and investors. Everyone wants to save tomorrow, and we believe that our technology gives us a fighting chance to see it through,” said Hari Nair, CEO and Co-Founder of Zuno Carbon.

“Zuno aims to simplify both the accountability “score-keeping” and engineering “take-action” aspects so an entire organisation can take coordinated actions to create an impact,” commented CL Goh, venture builder at Blue InCube Ventures.

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Juragan Material, a B2B marketplace providing a procurement solution for sourcing building materials, has raised US$4 million in seed funding led by Go-Ventures, with participation from SIG.

The startup will use this funding to grow its team, strengthen market penetration of its B2B construction and building material marketplace and innovate and deepen the capabilities of its product ecosystem.

“The construction sector is a significant contributor to Indonesia’s GDP. Building and construction materials represent a US$72 billion market with over 200,000 construction establishments. Despite its importance to Indonesia’s economy, the sector’s supply chain is highly fragmented with multiple layers, resulting in unpredictable demand and supply, lack of pricing transparency, inconsistent quality of materials, and an overall lack of coordination. Less than 1 per cent of supply chain transactions are captured digitally, so contractors and project owners must resort to highly inefficient and cumbersome procurement methods,” said Arum Putri, Vice President at Go-Ventures.

Also Read: How the construction industry got “smart” and cleaned up its impact

Founded in 2021, Juragan Material has over 9,000 SKUs and 180 brands across structural, architectural, mechanical and electrical products onboarded onto the platform. Contractors and project owners can benefit from reduced effort and time spent sourcing products, fewer errors on-site, and better control over project timelines.

It claims to have doubled its GMV monthly on average last year while maintaining positive unit economics.

Tito Putra, CEO and Co-Founder of Juragan Material, said: “We are focused on building a trusted technology platform for procuring construction materials. Building and construction materials represent one of the most complex supply chains. Juragan Material aims to provide top value to contractors and project owners by offering them the most comprehensive selection of products, improved supply visibility, and reliable logistics to manage their projects more efficiently.”

“This new funding will allow us to scale our impact through continuing to improve our platform and launch more innovative tech solutions, such as workflow management tools and services. They will drive greater efficiencies and transparency to support the productivity of our stakeholders,” he added.

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Home to 700 million people, Southeast Asia represents a large, expanding and ageing population for healthcare technology to address. Unlike the global macro markets which are correcting amidst rising investor uncertainty, healthcare in Southeast Asia is showing strong growth, compared even to the records set in 2021.

Based on data from Galen Growth, the leading digital health data platform, 21 new VC deals were closed in Southeast Asia in the first half of 2022 compared to 19 in the same period last year. In terms of the dollar value of those investments, US$452 million was invested by VCs into SEA digital health in the first half of 2022 compared to US$206 million in the same period last year.

We predict that 2022 digital health investments in full-year 2022 will land in the US$750 million range, up 20-25 per cent year on year. This stands in stark comparison to global VC funding which has pulled back substantially, falling to US$247 billion in the first five months of 2022 compared to US$257 billion in 2021, according to Crunchbase data.

This divergence is accelerating, in May 2022, global VC funding fell below US$40 billion for the first time since November 2020, whereas SEA healthcare is ramping up.

Why is SEA digital healthcare VC a bright spot in the global VC market?

We believe due to regional supply-demand fundamentals and the ground shift brought about by COVID-19. An analysis of indicative “bellwether” deals in the first half of 2022 suggests that healthcare technology-enabled primary care services are where the action is at, as reflected in recent investments.

Also Read: The emergence of telehealth in post-COVID-19 Southeast Asia

For instance, SwipeRx, an e-pharmacy platform; Us2.ai, a cardiology diagnostics platform; Jio Health, a telehealth platform; and Med247, Altara’s most recent Vietnam investment and national leader in technology-based primary care. In combination, those four SEA deals raised in excess of US$65 million in Series A/B capital this year.

Healthcare investment thesis for SEA

Altara’s Investment Thesis is focused on the five critical market segments that make up the majority of the digital health sector in this region:

• Tech-enabled providers
• Platforms and online marketplaces
• B2B SaaS
• Drug and device producers
• Digital models of health insurance

We will focus primarily on regional startups that aim to solve problems within the largest patient and revenue pools. These include digital screening and diagnosis, hybrid online-offline patient services, and digitalised pharmacies, which are forecasted to compose 75 per cent of the market in 2022, according to RedSeer a market research firm.

We will also focus selectively on the life science value chain and healthcare deep tech startups that emerge from the Singapore life science cluster.

Predictions for beyond 2022

In the longer term, we believe that as the market matures, the SEA opportunity set will move from addressing access to primary care towards a focus on the later stages of the patient journey that involve specialised and higher-value services in areas such as cancer, ageing care, and speciality pharma.

If you’re an ambitious digital health entrepreneur looking to build the healthcare economy in SEA, we look forward to partnering with you.

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ShopBack bags US$80M Series F from Asia Partners to be IPO-ready
With this latest investment, the company has raised over US$230M in total to date; ShopBack has more than 35M users across 10 countries and powers US$3.5B in annual sales; It also facilitates 1M shopping journeys for 10K+ merchant partners every day.

Indonesia’s Deliveree nets US$70M in Gobi, SPIL-led round
The logistics startup operates in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines; Deliveree’s gross transaction value grew by 3.2x over the last 24 months, and it is on track to exceed US$100M by end of 2022.

Crypto broker Voyager Digital issues default notice to 3AC
This is on account of the fund’s failure to make required payments on a loan; The loan was for 15,250 bitcoin (approximately US$324M) and US$350M worth of USDC.

Sky Mavis to make Axie hack refunds this week
Once Sky Mavis reopens the software bridge breached in the attack, affected users will be eligible to withdraw one ether for each one they had in March; In April, the firm raised US$150M from Binance, Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, and Paradigm to pay back all affected users.

Snoop Dogg’s son, Gushcloud to launch Web3 fund
The fund will provide opportunities for Asian founders based outside America; Gushcloud International has also announced its move into Web3 by signing on Champ Medici, a Bored Ape NFT owned by Cordell Broadus, son of rapper Snoop Dogg.

Solana launches web3-focused smartphone Saga to improve crypto-mobile relationship
Saga aims to implement digital asset products and services, so users can easily transact with their cryptocurrency through the device, as opposed to a laptop browser.

Kakao-backed blockchain firm Klaytn partners with OpenSea to boost NFTs in Asia
The tie-up will include conference collaborations and ecosystem grants; Through these initiatives, the companies aim to “scale-up the NFT ecosystem, strengthen ties, and bring greater visibility to Asian NFT projects worldwide.

Harmony loses crypto worth US$100M after security breach
The attack adds to this year’s litany of exploits targeting bridges, which allow users to move tokens between blockchains, taking the total lost to more than US$1B in 2022 alone: In Feb, Wormhole bridge suffered a US$326M hack, and in April Ronin was exploited for US$625M.

SoftBank to fund smaller deals after nearly US$10.9B annual loss
This year, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 investments amounted to around US$100M to US$200M, which was disbursed over 50 funding rounds; SoftBank is currently invested in 475 companies, though some of its bets have yet to yield results.

Emissary Capital closes US$47.6M fund on Fundnel
Emissary is a Malaysia-based boutique investment firm focusing on ASEAN; The microfund aims to invest in potential unicorns following Carsome’s success, propel the startup ecosystem to create job opportunities and fuel the global economy.

VinaCapital Ventures buys stake in Web3 analytics firm M3TA
M3TA’s AI-powered platform helps guilds manage their members and scholars by processing data on digital assets and performance; The platform also includes learning and education features.

Temasek unit SeaTown leads Vietnam startup OnPoint’s US$50M Series B
OnPoint provides a one-stop solution that enables consumer brands to accelerate their online growth on multiple channels, including e-commerce marketplaces, social media platforms and brand-owned websites.

Indonesia’s consumer insights platform Populix nets US$7.7M Series A
Investors include Intudo Ventures, Acrew Capital, Altos Ventures, and Quest Ventures; Populix provides research and data collection for businesses and individuals to make more informed business decisions through quantitative and qualitative studies.

PagarBook to buy Indonesian staff management firm Vara for US$5.6M
PagarBook is an India-based payroll and staff management app; Both companies were participants in Sequoia Surge; Vara had raised US$4.8M in seed funding from Go Ventures and other investors.

East Ventures leads US$4.5M in Indonesia’s Fresh Factory
Fresh Factory runs a network of hyperlocal cold-chain fulfilment centres; It currently has more than 20 warehouses across Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Bali; The funds raised will go toward expanding warehouses to smaller cities in Java.

Indonesia’s Rlvnt Art Labs raises pre-seed led by ad agency Tech Ad.
Rlvnt Art Labs is an Indonesia-based NFT studio; It is set to launch its sci-fi and fantasy-inspired NFT collection this summer; The League of Guardians collection will consist of 9,999 randomly generated digital avatars.

New China supercomputer fast enough to match human brain
the Newest Generation Sunway has a speed of a billion operations per second an over 37M CPU cores – 4x as many as Frontier, a supercomputer built by the US Department of Energy.

SG fintech firm Moolahgo launches cross-border payments for Visa accounts
It allows the firm’s users to make money transfers to over 3B Visa cards globally; Moolahgo has partnered with payments solution provider Checkout.com to launch the cross-border payments service.

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It has been talked about time and time again, how the abrupt arrival of the pandemic has led to the upheaval of the daily processes and the mass exodus of workers from a typical workplace.

In fact, in Singapore alone, 63 per cent of businesses in Singapore have been affected negatively by the pandemic, with industry challenges further exacerbated by periodic industry barriers such as manpower shortage and dynamic changes in consumer behaviour.

While the market is slowly recovering and more are pivoting digitally, we still see businesses plagued with the same challenges, especially those that choose to stick to old business planning processes.

With this, NJ Group has seen success in acknowledging how critical it is for a business to prioritise continuity planning, seizing relevant opportunities and staying vigilant in times of uncertainty.

Prioritise business continuity planning

Future planning is essential for every business to ensure survival in times of economic instability. This could entail business risk management, product development, and product innovation. Across industries, a common theme we are seeing is that businesses are infusing technology and fad trends into products as an innovation point.

Whether it is creating crypto food tech or claiming ‘healthier’ meals with plant-based options, players are trying to innovate their products to appeal to a wider range of customers. We see some businesses finding success in this while some are due to face more turbulence in their paths.

The problem with the latter is that innovation is an expensive and time-consuming process, and a failed innovation during this volatile period can cause a company to retrogress.

NJ Group launched Eagle this year in March to address how to maintain service quality and experience in our restaurant chains. Eagle is a web-based AI platform that collects, monitors and manages customer feedback in the service industry with minimal manpower.

This not only tackles service quality issues but with the power of automation technology, Eagle addresses current and future manpower crunch cycles that often occur in the F&B service industry. Our team recognised the long-standing issue of manpower shortage and how that often directly impacts the level of service quality that patrons experience.

Also Read: How barePack and &Repeat aim to reduce waste by introducing the circular approach to food packaging

This is why we thought of creating a platform that takes authentic and real-time comments from customers and uses AI to generate suggestions on how to make business processes better in just six seconds.

Be in the right place, at the right time and seize opportunities

While future planning helps chart out the next steps, unforeseen events can happen and we all saw how the pandemic took everyone by surprise. Even so, mapping out business goals ahead of time can help soften the blow and land companies in favourable market positions that offer new business opportunities when old revenue streams cease.

When a company is conscious of the changing climate, it can be of favour and be confident in implementing long-term sustainable strategies, instead of pursuing short-term gains to stay innovative and stay relevant.

NJ Group’s successful business planning allowed us to enjoy some advantages during the pandemic. We were at the right place and at the right time, two of our restaurants that were strategically placed in hotels were presented with the opportunity to supply food for people who were quarantined in the hotels or were on stay-home-notices.

NJ Group was able to maintain topline services with minimal compromise on the bottom line. We even managed to achieve a 20 per cent increase in sales revenue in the past year, in Cali outlets in Park Avenue Rochester and Citadines Balestier.

Fortunately, we were able to leverage the downtime presented by the pandemic to identify real problems that were previously overlooked and craft appropriate solutions to resolve them. In this period, we reached milestones like launching our own table reservation system, food delivery, menu management solutions and automation technologies like Eagle for our restaurants.

Leverage and keep up with research and development (R&D)

With robust plans in order, stable and resilient companies should also look deeper into investing in R&D to further innovate or reinvent their products to fit the evolving needs and wants of the market, especially in the fast-growing F&B sector.

Also Read: The future of food tech lies in building digitally autonomous restaurants

R&D can be closely associated with digitalisation and innovation. Either way, R&D ensures that the company would stay alert to market developments and be ready to equip itself to pivot for the future. Companies can now also tap into resources offered by the Singapore government which supports the creation of new revenue streams through the recently launched Food Services Industry Transformation Map 2025 (ITM).

Backed up by Enterprise SG, the ITM drives more efforts on R&D, to cater to the changing consumer preference for convenience, health and wellness, and sustainability.

Besides promoting revenue growth, R&D possesses the power to provide businesses with infinite fallbacks in times of need. In 2017, NJ Group invested in R&D to create COBIE, the Friendly Food Butler.

Before the pandemic, COBIE served a combination of technology innovation and culinary satisfaction to guests at their tables or even in their hotel rooms as an automated room service provider. This was initially seen as a value-added service that improved restaurant operations in recent years. Our R&D has been key to our expedited growth, even with unexpected limitations such as safe distancing measures and quarantine notices in hotels.

And the tides are changing, the dynamic consumer behaviour is more exciting than ever, with new products becoming more groundbreaking, made with newer flavours and unimaginable combinations of ingredients.

We are seeing F&B businesses concentrating their efforts on catering to the sustainable crowd and becoming more inclusive of a wider range of dietary preferences as well.

While the F&B landscape is a challenging one to navigate, as business leaders, it is a responsibility we should take upon ourselves to strategically plan, and always remember to stay prudent to our roadmaps, be loyal to our business goals, and keep moving forward vigilantly.

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