TrueFoundry, a machine learning (ML) developer platform, has announced the completion of a US$2.3 million seed funding led by Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Surge.

Eniac Ventures and prominent angels like AngelList Co-Founder Naval Ravikant also participated.

Other participants include Deutsche Bank Global CIO Dilip Khandelwal, Head of GitHub India Maneesh Sharma, Greenhouse Software CTO Mike Boufford, and Kaggle Founder Anthony Goldbloom.

TrueFoundry will use the funds to expand its specialised technology team and further product development. 

Headquartered in the US, TrueFoundry was founded in June 2021 by Abhishek Choudhary, Anuraag Gutgutia and Nikunj Bajaj.

During their stint at Facebook, the Co-Founders recognised that smaller companies in the market required a significantly longer time to build and deploy machine learning models than big tech companies. This led to the founding of TrueFoundry, which automates repetitive tasks in the ML pipeline to accelerate ML deployment and live endpoint monitoring.

Also Read: How machine learning really impacts us in our daily lives

Machine learning offers immense business opportunities, yet the development and launch of ML models is a time-intensive and complex process for software engineers, ML engineers and data scientists.

As a result, almost 90 per cent of ML models do not end up in production. For the models that make it to deployment, 50 per cent fail due to the absence of monitoring systems, and 30 per cent have to be reverted due to scaling and latency issues often overlooked during the data training stage.

While large companies can bridge this gap by deploying large, high-end ML platform teams to design and launch ML models, it is less feasible for smaller companies and startups to commit such high investments while building their companies.

TrueFoundry aims to transform the process by automating parts in the ML pipeline that can be automated and empowering ML developers to test and launch models in production quickly and with as much autonomy as possible.

“TrueFoundry was born out of the idea that no business – big or small – should miss out on machine learning opportunities. With our automated platform, data scientists and engineers can deploy machine learning models at the speed and maturity of big tech, cutting their production timelines from several weeks to a few hours. Data is the new oil, and we want to enable companies to use machine learning faster and generate greater business value,” said CEO Nikunj Bajaj.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon.

The 2022 Echelon edition will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

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Singapore-based homegrown direct-to-consumer (D2C) consumer electronics brand PRISM+ has secured SGD 45 (US$32) million in a funding round from TNB Aura.

The company will use the funds for geographic expansion and foraying into the smart home appliance space. It has set its sights on the Philippines market by Q1 2023.

Founded in 2017, PRISM+ offers lifestyle electronic goods and services. Launched as a display specialist, the brand expanded to include audio products and smart home appliances.

Last month, PRISM+ launched its line of air conditioner systems with the PRISM+ Zero Series. The brand introduced a full suite of aircon maintenance and installation services with this launch.

Also Read: ‘Economic crises become less important when investing with a longer-term mindset’: Qin En Looi

It will look to introduce more home appliances in the coming year.

The company is now venturing out of e-commerce into offline channels as it anticipates demand for a physical experience to touch and feel products before purchasing. While most brands shifted their businesses online during the pandemic, PRISM+ quietly prepared for the return of the offline retail experience. In 2021, it partnered with popular furniture retailer Hipvan for a permanent in-store PRISM+ pop-up at Suntec City.

The brand has plans to launch a chain of retail outlets in Singapore and Malaysia. It has already established three outlets in Singapore and plans to open six outlets by the first quarter of 2023.

In Malaysia, it recently launched its first outlet in Kuala Lumpur and will announce more stores in 2023.

Charles Wong, Founding Partner of TNB Aura shared: “We believe the regional D2C market has reached an inflexion point, with digital penetration, payments and fulfilment infrastructure increasingly able to support high-quality D2C offerings across both online and offline formats. PRISM+ is primed to become the regional champion of a market traditionally dominated by East Asian giants such as Xiaomi, Samsung, and LG.”

 

“In this post-pandemic landscape, we are seeing consumers return to malls and retail spaces in full force. People crave the personal touch that has been missing. The electronics industry has long relied on brick-and-mortar stores to sell the immersive experience of their products. We hope to shake up this age-old formula by showing customers that a premium home set-up need not come with a hefty price tag as we retain our direct-to-consumer approach across all our channels,” said Jonathan Tan, Managing Director of PRISM+.

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Respond.io, a Malaysia-based conversational commerce company, has raised US$7 million in Series A funding, led by global VC firm Headline.

AltaIR Capital, Smart Partnership Capital, Sterling Oak Group, and Calendula Ventures also co-invested.

Respond.io will use the funding to continue its push into large enterprises by extending its integration capabilities.

A portion of the money will also go into expanding from its home in Asia to build a presence in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

Respond.io was launched in 2017 by Gerardo Salandra, Hassan Ahmed and Iaroslav Kudritskiy as an omni-channel messaging inbox. It helps businesses leverage this channel and reach their customers directly on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE, Viber, Telegram, and WeChat from a centralised dashboard.

Also Read: How SMBs can use conversational commerce to boost year-end sales

On top of that, the platform provides flexible automation via workflows — you can build chat menus, drip campaigns, internal pipelines, and invoke external actions. Managers can quickly pick up on any conversation and notice if any have been dropped. In turn, clients can enjoy competent and swift responses to solving their problems.

The company claims that over 10,000 companies in 86 countries use the platform, including Klook, Decathlon, Abenson, Yoho, Roche, ShareChat, and Bigo use respond.io. “We process over 140 million messages monthly,” said CTO Ahmed. 

Its revenue claims to have grown 25x since the previous round. 

‘The latest wave of digital commerce innovation was pioneered by small brands using Instagram. It uses social commerce to drive buyers onto tailor-made social accounts and enables consumers to accelerate their purchase decisions through WhatsApp & other messengers,” said CEO Salandra. “We’ve built a platform that enables multi-national brands to deploy that highly innovative strategy at a scale of a million conversations per day across dozens of teams.”

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If you are working in an organisation where business divisions are hoarding work information for their benefit, I would suggest you find another job.

Having worked in a large organisation, I experienced a silo mentality that narrowed the vision. This created a lack of communication, deprived me of inspiration and creativity, built walls between departments, and hampered my ability to work with my teammates.

It is only natural that there are many business units and divisions within a large organisation. However, when working towards a common project, it’s important for employees in a company (or people from different departments) to avoid working in silos. There must be an initiative to collaborate on their projects.

The company I worked for presented a siloed environment, with hardly any inter-departmental interactions or collaboration. This led to people becoming ‘experts’ in one area and only solving one type of problem.

What is Silo in business?

Working in silos is like operating in a bubble independently. You avoid sharing information about the project or task at hand. Worst yet, if you are a senior manager, you are unwilling to share knowledge with your teammates. Ultimately, silos are inefficient and lead to resentment and frustration.

What is the difference between a silo and an enriching company culture?

Silos discourage collaboration between departments, whereas an enriching company culture encourages collaboration between departments.

Also Read: How Gojek built an intentional work culture for a thriving workforce

Unfortunately, as a newcomer, I did not receive this vibe. The hierarchical structure, coupled with a siloed environment, stagnated my progress. The bureaucracy and lack of collaboration across departments further fuelled my disinterest. Coming from the tech industry, all these roadblocks slowed innovation and prevented work from getting done smoothly.

5 steps that can be followed to avoid a silo mentality at work

It is important to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses before forming a strategy.

Free flow of information

The most efficient way to share best practices is through presentations and workshops. Creating an open culture at work can help remove any mystery from the company.

For example, by having an open office space where people can see each other and talk openly. For remote teams, getting the members into a shared chat space, communicating and coming on a video call to share ideas. In the end, ‘Don’t be afraid to talk about what you don’t know’. Share your ideas freely.

Socialise and co-operate

Be sociable. Be aware of others in the group and let them know if they are missing out on something. Show empathy for others and see their emotions. Acknowledge those emotions and validate them. By doing so, employees are liberal with ideas and encouraged to mingle with those from other teams or departments.

Collaborate

Share and brainstorm. The group should collaborate on a project and share ideas on a cloud communication platform. When I started the project with my previous organisation, many departments were involved. Product development, Sales, Marketing, Legal and Finance.

Also Read: The Indonesian startup ecosystem today is no longer recognisable –and that is a great thing

Silos were already starting to take place when there were no proper brainstorming and sharing of ideas. People don’t talk enough, and some keep to themselves. That’s when the effects were felt.

Inspire

Let each individual flourish. Some members have trouble finding motivation. They feel like their contribution is not significant. Listen to their ideas and let them present them. By doing so, you care about their inputs and inspire your team members that no idea is bad.

You should also be given opportunities to express your own work. Encourage members to actively take part and promote independence.

Encourage remote work

In this day and age of the gig economy and freelance revolution, more companies are seen hiring remote workers. What happens to the current group of full-time employees?

During the pandemic, many companies shifted their operations to fully work from home. These people could still foster communications and workflows. Technological advancements in recent times have led to the possibility and convenience of remote work. Have a safe and secure space like CINNOX, Skype, and Hangouts for communication.

For example, Roche Hong Kong Ltd, a research-intensive international healthcare company, adopted CINNOX as part of their digitalisation pilot programme customer enquiry handling and team collaboration.

Online collaboration tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are also available for use by remote teams. Give the full-time employees a fine balance to work outside of the office because this allows them more time to pursue hobbies, spend more time with their family and volunteer opportunities outside of their field of expertise.

Final thoughts

I eventually walked away from my siloed environment because there was no clear direction. The primary goal for everyone in an organisation should be to reach out to others. In my situation, I had to deviate from the idea every now and then. It was difficult to find common ground.

For people reading this article, silos can become a problem for workplace cohesion and employee engagement. Trusts can be weakened, and relationships between team members will be unhealthy.

So, if you are in an environment where the above steps are not observed, reflect on what you should do next.

Don’t dismiss yourself, and bring in what you’re good at.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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On his LinkedIn profile, Qin En Looi introduces himself as a venture capitalist by day, podcaster by night, and dad transitioning from Web2 to Web3.

Looi, currently principal at Saison Capital, an early-stage VC fund that has backed over 30 startups across South and Southeast Asia, has all the ingredients for a venture capitalist. In his previous avatars, he was a founder, angel investor, coach, and Forbes 30 Under 30.

He previously co-founded Glints, a leading talent discovery platform in Southeast Asia; invested in student-founded startups at Dorm Room Fund; coached students at Singapore Management University and Ngee Ann Polytechnic; and rolled out nationwide sales programmes for clients at BCG and built ventures at BCG Digital Ventures.

He speaks at Echelon Asia 2022, to be held in Singapore from October 27-28.

e27 chatted with Looi, who shares why offline events like Echelon are crucial for the region’s startup ecosystem.

Offline events are making a comeback after a break of over two years. Do you think offline startup events are still relevant?

We often have a bias toward the familiar — reaching out to familiar faces and speaking with people we already know. Offline industry events give us all an opportunity to connect with peers we otherwise may not meet.

Also Read: Nothing can truly replace the offline element of community building: Yinglan Tan

We have seen this firsthand from some of the community offline events Saison Capital has organised. What began as a once-off breakfast for ten product managers in May 2022 blossomed into eight breakfasts of 12 product managers, with more than 90 per cent saying they would return and bring a peer product manager along with them. This underscores the desire people have to reconnect offline.

How are startup events like Echelon important in times like these when the startup industry is going through a tough time?

In challenging times, it is necessary for founders, investors and startup ecosystem participants to rally together and support each other. Many challenges founders face are not uncommon, and being able to exchange ideas and brainstorm solutions in person is unparalleled.

Furthermore, founders often find themselves more candid in person, with less fear that they will leave behind a ‘digital trail’ as they open up and be vulnerable to each other.

How is Saison Capital helping its portfolio companies tackle this crisis? Has this situation forced you to become more cautious about investing?

Economic cycles or even crises become less important when you invest with a longer-term mindset, and at Saison Capital, we’re focused on growing with companies across a 10-year timeline.

Also Read: ‘Absolute decentralisation is unlikely to be the panacea for everything’: Chris Sirise of Saison Capital

The current market has offered us many more avenues to support our portfolio companies and the broader startup ecosystem. An example would be our partnership with Stripe to support portfolio founders across product, sales, hiring and legal. Another example is our first-of-its-kind employee stock option (ESOP) reports in Southeast Asia and India, which published benchmarks on best practices around ESOP as founders think about retaining and attracting talent.

Sustainability has become a new buzzword in the changing investment climate. Why is sustainable growth crucial in Southeast Asia?

Sustainable growth in Southeast Asia encompasses several components across a lens of economic sustainability, environment and social sustainability. On economic sustainability, startups would be well served to keep a close eye on business fundamentals and not pursue growth at all costs. What worked in a capital-rich, low-interest environment (as we were a year ago) does not work in today’s climate.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

We are looking for top-notch speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here.

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Alternative Proteins (AP), also commonly known as plant-based and lab-grown meat, is a foodtech segment that has seen soaring investor interest and mass media coverage in recent years. AP is hailed as an integral part of the future sustainable food system.

With the media attention showered on the space, the temptation is for AP startups to channel resources elsewhere instead of marketing. When a startup does not have a product immediately ready for market, marketing may seem like an unnecessary expense.

But should AP startups forgo marketing at this early stage? The reality is that most AP startups will not find commercial success, despite having visionary founders and products built on sound innovations. A strong pre-launch marketing approach could be the difference between success and failure.

Start by talking about it

Here are four compelling reasons why AP startups should consider a well-planned pre-launch marketing strategy:

• Creating investor awareness

Investor interest is high and growing, but there is also a rapidly growing number of players. Fundraising is constantly ongoing, and a startup will benefit from standing out in the increasingly crowded foodtech space.

Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult to raise capital for a startup that might not be profitable in the near term with the rising global interest rates. Hence, it is important for the AP startup to clearly demonstrate its market potential through the initial marketing efforts.

• Catalysing consumer awareness

AP startups can increase the credibility of their products. Most consumers tend to distrust novel innovations and startups. By building awareness and anticipation, AP startups can prime themselves for a successful launch by nurturing a small group of potential customers to evangelise the coming product and help attract new customers by providing social proof of product desirability.

• Building a robust feedback loop

It is never too early for AP startups to identify and pilot a reiterative information funnel that grows and improves as the startup matures. The fundamental key to commercial success is learning how to meet customer needs better than the market incumbents, and a good feedback loop is critical to that.

• Strengthening the talent pipeline

By creating more visibility in the public domain, social proof spills over into recruitment benefits. Competition for talent in this sector is fierce, and the ability to amplify your brand and attract strong talent is a critical must for any AP startup.

Given the potential benefits of a pre-launch marketing campaign, how can AP startups in the pre-revenue stage embark on such a campaign?

Also Read: Can alternative proteins help build a more secure and sustainable food system?

A major consideration for many startups is the potentially high marketing costs while already incurring major R&D costs before revenue flows. The following pre-launch marketing recommendations will suit those on a tight marketing budget.

Start by creating awareness and conversations

The experience at this early stage of the customer journey shapes people’s perspectives of the brand. So, what kind of marketing communication should startups focus on at this stage?

First, it is important for an AP startup to build its brandings around a personality, such as its more personable founders or key employees, to increase trust. Even though it is imperative to craft a compelling narrative about how the brand is going to revolutionise the world and the market gap it is trying to fill, the brand story also must centre around people.

Their motivation to be part of the venture. Potential customers will then be more inclined to trust the brand. Moreover, a brand story with a human-interest angle will also get traction in the news and social media.

Second, there should not be a focus on one-way marketing communication about the potential product/brand. By working on two-way interactions with a focus on empathy and understanding, start-ups can focus on the potential customers’ needs. These two-way interactions can be facilitated easily online by hosting regular discussions in Clubhouse and Discord, or webinars in Zoom.

The main obstacle will be to start a conversation that is relevant to the potential customers that they are willing to engage. AP often appeal most to the segment of customers who are often concerned about climate change, animal welfare, and the impact of industrial animal husbandry on their and their families’ health.

AP startups should focus on expressing their brand purpose explicitly and attractively in educating their audience on these pertinent issues. This programming builds trust and establishes a position of thought leadership.

Last, all available touchpoints of a startup should be ready to engage and provide key relevant information.

Robinhood, a fintech startup, had one million sign-ups for its waitlist for early access to the private beta for its investment app before the app was publicly available. Robinhood’s early-access landing page had a basic description saying, “Commission-free trading, stop paying up to US$10 per trade” targeting potential customers’ desires and needs.

Harry’s, a men’s razor brand, had also managed to have a successful prelaunch referral programme with a simple prelaunch landing page to get potential customers to sign up to learn about the launch of the new brand.

Getting followers and funding

Thirdly, AP products are being marketed based on credence attributes, which are attributes that are difficult to verify even after use. An example of a credence attribute is the impact of consumption of such alternative proteins on long-term health.

Consumers often rely heavily on word-of-mouth from family, friends, acquaintances, and even online influencers to help them evaluate such attributes. Hence, it is important for AP startups to get opinion leaders/influencers onboard early. AP startups can start small by engaging with micro- and nano-influencers to build relationships with them.

These influencers have shown to have a great impact on their followers due to the frequent and intimate interactions they have with their followers. This approach allows the AP startups to build ground-up engagement at the grassroots level that increases online conversations around their brands.

Finally, AP startups can consider crowdfunding websites (e.g., Kickstarter) for getting early feedback from consumers in those specific communities. Such platforms are experiencing a current renaissance with major consumer firms, including P&G and Lego, using them to get feedback on their pre-commercialisation innovations.

Also Read: How foodtech startups are bridging the tech gap in restaurant ecosystem

Of course, if done correctly, it will also be a valuable source of cash flow for the startups, as consumers might pay to have early access and/or support the R&D.

Understanding and meeting consumer needs are the roads to success

The foundation of a successful venture is not the technology behind the product but being able to meet the customers’ needs better than others. Engaging with potential customers at the early stages of the development allows for an AP startup to test potential prototypes and get direct feedback to improve the product concept.

However, testing prototypes is not always feasible given that some AP will need to be approved first by regulatory agencies. AP startups might consider using the concept of a minimum viable product.

Drew Houston,  Co-Founder of Dropbox, created a Dropbox demo video to show how the technology is meant to work due to the technical difficulty of creating a prototype to work as expected.  The interest from potential customers provided feedback to Dropbox and its potential investors that the vision of Dropbox is one that had traction in the market.

Marketing is not just about communication with the customers

Moreover, building the brand through pre-launch marketing will enable the startup to attract stronger talents at a better price performance since these talents believe in the vision and purpose of the brand. It also helps existing employees understand the brand vision of the start-ups. These employees can be strong brand advocates for startups to external parties.

Marketing generates value

In sum, AP startups should stop considering marketing as a cost centre and start to consider how marketing can create value for the customers, the enterprise, and other stakeholders.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

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It isn’t always easy to secure external financing for your startup. Banks are often hesitant to lend you or demand a personal loan guarantee. On the other hand, VCs, PEs, or angels (if willing to invest at all) seek significant returns and a hefty slice of equity.

For budding entrepreneurs, this poses enormous challenges. There are not many options for them to raise capital without diluting equity or acquiring crippling debt.

This is where revenue-based financing fits in. For the uninitiated, revenue-based financing enables startups to raise funding by pledging a percentage of their future revenues. It allows companies to invest in growth while tying their repayment to a percentage of their future sales instead of a rigid fixed repayment structure. It is also one of the popular fundraising models in other parts of the world.

Singapore-based Jenfi is a leading company in this space. Its creation was motivated by some of the challenges its Co-Founders, Jeffrey Liu and Justin Louie, faced while financing a high-growth startup. “We saw that many startups and digital native companies did not have many options for raising capital aside from venture capital, which is dilutive and requires founders to give up control (e.g. board seats),” said CEO Liu. “We wanted to offer every digital company a quick and easy solution while allowing them to retain full control.”

Jenfi was launched in 2019. Liu and Louie earlier built GuavaPass, a social community of premium fitness studios and healthy-living experts across Asia and the Middle East. GuavaPass was acquired by ClassPass in 2019. Liu said building GuavaPass gave them firsthand experience in understanding the pain points in scaling a business quickly and, more importantly, understanding how to underwrite businesses better.

Also Read: GuavaPass co-founders’ new alternative lending startup Jenfi lands US$6.3M led by Monk’s Hill

A dock of distinctive offerings

According to Liu, Jenfi aims to democratise access to quick and efficient growth capital. “Our experience running GuavaPass made us realise that many companies were not getting approved by traditional banks because they did not fit their underwriting criteria. Many of these firms are actually fast-growing companies and represent the future growth opportunities of Southeast Asia. It is important to cater to this untapped market. This is where Jenfi’s solutions assume significance; we use alternative data, such as revenue and marketing data, to drive our underwriting decisions.”

He pointed out that traditional funding uses stale, backwards-looking data, such as historical financial statements (cash flow analysis) or historical bank statements. Jenfi, on the other hand, leverages alternative real-time transactional data to understand a company’s performance.

For instance, e-commerce companies have a high volume of daily sales. At the same time, they have substantial working capital requirements where they constantly need to front-load their investment into marketing or inventory to deliver future growth. Traditional funding is rigid and forces e-commerce companies into a precarious position during a downturn, as they are made to repay a fixed amount, regardless of their revenue. This makes it particularly interesting for Jenfi to underwrite.

To top it all, revenue-based financing offers a highly flexible alternative. Companies repay less (based on per cent of sales) during a downturn, giving them more free cash flow to navigate a downturn.

“In essence, traditional funding penalises a business at its worst time, while revenue-based financing supports a business by giving them more leeway during a downturn,” Liu shared. “Alternate funding solutions also help businesses look past short-term profitability and strive toward sustainable scalability. They are more sensitive to data inputs; they pick up real-time trends and changes to a business significantly earlier than traditional underwriting.”

He further noted that since businesses are becoming more dynamic, alternative funding offers better flexibility. Revenue-based financing smooths out a business’ free cash flow margin since it’s based on a percentage of sales instead of a fixed amount. 

On the other hand, with traditional funding, debt servicing becomes an enormous burden to the company (since it represents a more considerable percentage of sales).

“We offer fast and efficient funding (as quickly as the same day) vs six to nine months, which is typical for VC/PE funding. Companies can qualify for high amounts of funding if they grow efficiently. Jenfi is one of the only fintech platforms that offer credit for efficient marketing spending,” he claims. “We are also non-dilutive; companies will not experience any loss of ownership and can retain full control (no board seats).”

Jenfi follows a ‘subscription financing’ model, wherein companies can draw additional capital to fund recurring growth activities, guaranteeing rapid growth and scalability. According to Liu, Jenfi has backed hundreds of digitally native companies to date.

Last August, the fintech firm raised a US$6.3 million Series A led by Monk’s Hill Ventures, with participation from Korea Investment Partners, Golden Equator Capital, 8VC, ICU Ventures and Taurus Ventures. Jenfi previously raised US$25 million in debt financing from San Francisco-based Arc Labs.

Also Read: How e-commerce businesses can unlock growth using alternative funding

As for competition, Liu said Jenfi has no direct competitors in its markets. However, it competes indirectly with other fintech firms and banks, which provide capital to companies at a competitive rate. 

It is not the competition but education that is more challenging for Jenfi. He remarked, “The biggest challenge is educating the market on revenue-based financing. Since it is still a new concept, most companies are unaware of this model. To overcome this, our local sales teams spend time educating prospects and walking them through the benefits of revenue-based financing.“

What the future holds

Envisioning the next few years, Liu says that Jenfi will continue to focus on offering the best customer experience to digital native companies looking to obtain growth capital across Southeast Asia. “We are constantly investing in expanding our technology, data coverage and underwriting capabilities to deliver financing at an even more efficient pace. We must continue innovating to meet our customers where they are – whether they adopt new technology or business models.”

The firm, with staff strength of 30 people, is also opportunistic and will continue to align itself with strong investment partners to help it reach its growth objectives. “We are excited to offer a brand-new asset class to serve the millions of consumer tech startups and digital native companies to help them reach their true growth potential,” concluded Liu.

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Hong Kong-based Web3 investor and open metaverse company Animoca Brands has agreed to acquire WePlay Media Holdings (the sole shareholder of XXL Racing, an official licensee of MotoGP) and WePlay Media LLC (the developer of MotoGP Championship Quest).

The intended acquisition of WePlay Media is an all-cash transaction. The completion is subject to the satisfaction of certain customary conditions.

Animoca Brands is the title sponsor of the MotoGP Gran Premio Animoca Brands de Aragón.

Following the acquisition by Animoca Brands, WePlay Media COO Graeme Warring will continue to lead the firm and drive MotoGP projects. He will work with Animoca’s REVV Motorsport team, which operates the blockchain game MotoGP Ignition.

Also Read: Animoca Brands rakes in US$125M from Temasek, TGV, others

WePlay Media was founded by 20-year video game veteran Mark DeSimone and Warring to bring AAA-quality mobile experiences and content focused on MotoGP to market. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, with additional offices in the Philippines, it was established to develop MotoGP Championship Quest, a major mobile game for the MotoGP brand.

MotoGP, which claims to reach nearly half a billion homes and have more than 40 million social media followers, first partnered with Animoca in 2019. The two companies partnered to produce MotoGP Ignition, a competitive management and collectibles game platform based on MotoGP, and that is part of the REVV Motorsport ecosystem of play-and-earn games.

In June 2022, Animoca Brands announced that it would assume top billing as title sponsor for multiple MotoGP Grands Prix in 2022 and 2023.

The acquisition of WePlay Media will allow Animoca Brands to expand on its existing relationship with Dorna Sports as a sponsor, NFT licensor, collectible cards provider, and blockchain game developer and publisher.

With MotoGP Championship Quest, the official MotoGP mobile racing game on its stable, the company will be able to develop an integrated experience for MotoGP Ignition players and beyond.

MotoGP Championship Quest, launched in 2017, has over 50 million downloads on mobile platforms and around 1.2 million monthly active users globally.

In 2021, players of MotoGP Championship Quest took part in more than 68 million races, taking the number of races up to half a billion since launch, with fans investing around 1.7 million hours playing the game. Meanwhile, the MotoGP Fan World Championship metagame continues to grow in popularity and is backed by some of the biggest names in motorsport.

After completing the intended acquisition, Animoca Brands and WePlay Media will begin integrating the REVV ecosystem with WePlay Media’s products to deliver play-and-earn opportunities, build on existing partnerships, and welcome new partnerships to amplify fan engagement.

Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “The acquisition of WePlay Media will boost our engagement with fans of the amazing sport of MotoGP, unlocking powerful exposure in both the metaverse and traditional gaming. We are gaining a unique platform to implement our Web3 strategy by incorporating our motorsport-based REVV Token and NFT programs with the official MotoGP mobile game and deepening our strategic relationship with MotoGP.”

Graeme Warring, Co-Founder and COO of WePlay Media and co-creator of MotoGP Championship Quest, said: “Animoca Brands has the ability to reach hundreds of millions of users in core growth demographics to expand the sport’s fan base and create engagement opportunities for the riders, teams and sponsors. Our powerful reach in Asia, in particular, aligns with the largest markets in the world for motorcycle sales and fans.”

Animoca Brands develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products, including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilising popular IPs including Disney, WWE, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP, and Formula E.

Its subsidiaries include The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise Entertainment, Notre Game, TinyTap, and Be Media.

Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 340 investments, including Colossal, Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others.

Also Read: Animoca Brands banks US$75M+ more to fund strategic acquisitions, investments

In July this year, Animoca Brands completed a capital raise of US$75.32 million. It was the second tranche of the US$359 million funding round led by Liberty City Ventures, announced on 18 January 2022.

Last month, Animoca Brands’s Japan unit raised a total of US$45 million from MUFG Bank and its parent.

TGV has been an early backer of Animoca Brands since early 2019.

 

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Think about the last time you bought something:

• Why did you choose to buy the product?
• Where did you go to find out more about the product or brand?
• What channel did you use to complete the checkout?

For the most part, I can guarantee that you have, at some point during the buying journey, engaged with a social media platform.

The reality is that consumers are now spending 80 per cent of their time on social media platforms, and 98 per cent of them are making direct purchases and discovering new products online via these platforms. This means that the current retail landscape has evolved into a highly social, customer-centric, and omnichannel activity. And it’s growing fast.

As the modern-day consumer becomes more reliant on their mobile devices, convenience, integration, and promptness is valued above all else when it comes to social commerce. To respond to this demand, social media platforms have introduced social commerce tools, such as Instagram Shops, Facebook for Business, Pinterest for Social Commerce, and even TikTok Shopping, enabling businesses to build meaningful audiences and drive product discovery.

What is social commerce?

In essence, social commerce is the idea of buying and selling any kind of goods or services through a social media platform.

Here are two significant challenges in e-commerce that social commerce has managed to overcome:

• Mismanagement of inventory control due to the lack of visibility across both online and offline channels
• High operating costs associated with the setup and management fees across independent sales channels

The global pandemic has intensified the urgency to overcome these challenges as the lines between shopping physically and digitally become blurred, and buying becomes a more interconnected experience.

Also Read: Accelerating Indonesia’s rural economy through social commerce

So, if your business involves selling products or services, it is important to focus resources on building a strong digital and social media presence where customers can discover your brand and products, what they like, connect with your brand through customer support and checkout seamlessly, all in one centralised location.

That is why it comes as no surprise that the social commerce market is now expected to reach US$3.37 trillion by 2028. And this market potential is exactly what SaaS solutions like SleekFlow are excited to tap into.

Why should e-commerce brands leverage omnichannel platforms?

Nearly 50 per cent of brands say unifying online and in-store operations and data will be their biggest challenge in 2022. As more consumers demand the best out of every commerce interaction,  retailers must now manage multiple communication channels to engage with their existing customers.

To set themselves apart from their competitors, retailers are turning to omnichannel platforms to drive sales conversions through both online and offline channels, manage multiple communications platforms with minimal resources, and maximise customer touch points and data.

Many e-commerce brands find it challenging to keep customers updated across numerous social media platforms, especially when 82 per cent of consumers now expect an immediate response to their sales enquiries.

When a customer reaches out via Facebook Messenger to request clarification about product details outside of business hours, merchants must immediately respond. Otherwise, they risk losing an offline lead due to a lack of follow-up by the salesperson online.

As an all-in-one omnichannel social commerce hub, solutions like SleekFlow help businesses retain and convert leads both online and offline.

Drive conversions with smart routing and in-chat payment

One out of every five shoppers will abandon their cart if they find the checkout process too complicated or involves many steps. SleekFlow allows businesses to send product catalogues and payment links in chat so that customers can check out with ease.

Whether it’s a birthday offer, product promotions, or abandoned card notifications, chatbots can offer a highly personalised customer service experience by extracting essential information from the consumer, and then routing them to the relevant team member.

Also Read: How retailers could prepare for the next consumer recession, if it were to come

SleekFlow, for instance, merges instant messaging channels in a unified omnichannel inbox for your team to manage your customer conversations efficiently. You can even set up an auto-reply function on Instagram and Facebook messages and posts to avoid ever missing an opportunity to connect with customers.

How SleekFlow helps e-commerce brands boost sales

The key to boosting conversion rate is to build authentic engagement with your customers.

That is why SleekFlow centralises over 2,500 tools and messaging channels such as Official WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger, Instagram chat, SMS, and Telegram to streamline communications for businesses.

We aim to bring useful customer data and actionable insights right to your fingertips so that you can eliminate the manual processes that are draining your team’s time and money. By allowing for multi-agent collaboration, SleekFlow’s automation feature enables businesses to route incoming messages and send auto-replies to segmented contact lists. You can also integrate your e-commerce tools, like Shopify, to trigger abandoned cart messages.

For example, alfred24, a green delivery solution provider, created a stable and effective communication channel with SleekFlow. alfred24’s team used the auto-assignment feature to route conversations to the right team member and auto-reply to customers outside business hours.

They also sent out WhatsApp broadcast messages and used the unified dashboard to understand that their WhatsApp message open rate is four times more than EDM’s open rate. These insights allowed their team to quickly develop follow-up actions to resolve customer enquiries and enhance customer satisfaction.

SleekFlow now serves over 5,000 businesses globally, including Bossini, Lalamove Hong Kong, and PSB Academy. Following our 7-figure pre-Series A funding round last year, SleekFlow recently completed its US$8 million Series A funding round, led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global Partners, an early investor of Facebook and Bytedance.

Final thoughts

Consumers now spend 80 per cent of their time on social platforms and have more options now than ever. Shopping on social media is already becoming a habit, and so is discovering and buying products directly from these platforms. This means that businesses need to innovate to make the buying experience easier, more convenient and more compelling for consumers.

SleekFlow aims to drive this e-commerce revolution by being the top social commerce unified hub merging conversations, product catalogues, payment solutions, and order management into one for businesses.

Besides our latest social-to-payment feature, SleekFlow will continue developing products, including detailed buyer journey tracking and analytics, which will provide invaluable actionable insights for enterprises to unlock their social commerce power as they embrace this unstoppable megatrend. 

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Amasia, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on sustainability and climate, today announced the creation of its impact assessment framework to assess and manage the climate impact of investee companies. In introducing this framework, the firm works with Malk Partners, an advisor to private investment firms on impact and ESG.

The framework was created with the background of the rising popularity of climate tech and sustainability startups. According to the firm in a press statement, despite more regulators requiring companies to disclose their climate impact and risks, there is still a lack of a universal sustainability reporting standard which poses an obstacle to maximising positive environmental impact. This challenge may pose an obstacle to maximising positive environmental impact for tech startups and their investors.

To tackle this problem, Amasia comes up with a framework that evaluates each potential investee company’s impact potential on a three-point scale across five qualities of impact.

“Our impact framework informs our investment decisions and tracks our portfolio’s impact after the investment. We make investment decisions based on our climate-focused investment thesis, and this framework helps us assess a company’s thesis-specific impact potential more robustly,” explains Ramanan Raghavendran, Managing Partner at Amasia, in an email to e27.

“The framework also serves as a shared language for the impact which can be understood by companies and other stakeholders. We believe that our portfolio companies can benefit from assessing and managing impact through this framework – it enables them to find specific areas for improving their impact potential, guiding their business decisions.”

Also Read: How Third Derivative assesses the impact of a potential climate tech investment

In developing the framework, Amasia leverages principles from existing models for impact assessment, such as the Impact Measurement Project (IMP) and IRIS+ by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). But it aims to set itself apart by focusing on early-stage companies and climate impact supporting Amasia’s investment thesis.

At the core of the framework is a concept called Impact Screen, which is used to evaluate a potential investee company’s impact potential. It looks into five qualities of impact: Positive Impact, Intentionality, Scale of Impact, Depth of Impact, and Additionality. Scores for each quality help the investor understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses in impact, alongside other business factors, to decide whether to move forward with the investment.

“For our larger investments, investee companies undergo a more thorough diligence process, engaging directly with Malk Partners. This diligence involves a deeper assessment of the company’s impact potential under our thesis and the extent to which the management team is currently aware of and managing impact. Malk also evaluates material ESG risks that threaten the potential for impact. One of the key results of this assessment is providing recommendations on how the company can maximize, manage, and measure its impact potential, which is later shared with the company,” Raghavendran elaborated further.

For example, in assessing a potential investee, Amasia may look at how the company aligns with its “4 Rs of Behavior Change” investment thesis, which is captured under “Positive Impact” in its Impact Screen.

“Under this quality of impact, we first assess which of the ‘4 Rs’ the company falls within, and then how well its product and service supports the intended environmental impact of that ‘R’. For example, ‘R4: Rebuild’ is around making supply chains for consumer consumption less wasteful, so that is the core criteria we use to assess the company’s alignment with our thesis,” Raghavendran said.

When asked about the advantage of the framework compared to existing methods, Raghavendran said that the core purpose of any impact framework is to create a shared language for impact which can be understood by companies and other stakeholders.

“Existing models for impact assessment typically do not focus on early-stage companies and investors, so we felt it was difficult to apply those models exactly as they were for our use cases. Additionally, we wanted to assess and manage the impact specific to our investment thesis, so we felt the need to create our own framework.”

Also Read: As the demand for energy soars, climate tech is here to save the day

In the email interview he did with us, Raghavendran stated that the firm would be “delighted” to see more investors in the same field assess the climate impact of its investees. “Although our framework is specific to us and our investment thesis, we hope that our framework can help guide and inspire other investors to assess impact.”

“However, we are cautious of ‘green-washing’ and would like to see more investors who are truly committed to assessing and managing climate impact. We believe that reporting on impact is nuanced, and we cannot, and should not, overburden either ourselves or our companies with box-checking measurement exercises – something that we see happening within ESG and, to a certain extent, with ‘climate tech’ investing,” he stressed.

For Amasia, the framework is the firm’s first attempt to asses the impact of its portfolio companies in a structured way. It reveals plans to continue working with Malk Partners, staying up to date with developments in this space and evolving its methods as necessary.

“Additionally, the deeper impact diligence we conduct for our larger investments includes recommendations on how the company can maximise, manage, and measure its impact potential. We would be delighted to see our companies implement some of these recommendations and more actively manage their impact,” Raghavendran closed.

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