Indonesia-based agritech startup AgriAku today announced a US$6 million Pre-Series A funding round led by Go-Ventures, with participation from MDI Arise, MDI Centauri, Mercy Corps Social Venture Fund and several business angels.

In a press statement, the company said that they aim to use the funding to grow its team, particularly in its operations, supply chain, product, and technology division; strengthening the market penetration of its B2B agri-inputs marketplace nationwide; and continue innovating on its product ecosystem.

This funding announcement followed a seed funding round that AgriAku announced in December 2021.

Launched in May 2021, AgriAku’s B2B input marketplace platform facilitates agribusiness activities for suppliers, retailers and farmers. The platform helped source farming supplies from suppliers or manufacturers to be sold to agri-input retailers. These retailers are usually in the form of toko tani or last mile, local village shop that sells farming supplies to farmers in Indonesia.

The company said that in just nine months of operations, it has seen “exponential growth, becoming Indonesia’s fastest-growing B2B marketplace for the agricultural industry.”

AgriAku said that it has seen an average month-on-month growth of 200 per cent in gross merchandise value over the past four months. The number of active users on the platform has also grown significantly with over 10,000 registered farmer stores on the platform.

Also Read: The 27 Indonesian startups that have taken the ecosystem to next level this year

“We have been fortunate to see strong month-on-month growth across all key metrics. This growth has been driven by onboarding loyal suppliers, retailers and farmers, who can all see the many benefits of improved pricing transparency, access to reliable suppliers and technology tools to boost productivity. We shall continue to improve our platform and launch more innovative tech solutions to support the agricultural value chain. This will allow us to become an integrated, full-stack digital agriculture platform, addressing inefficiencies across Indonesia’s agricultural value chain. By becoming a trusted partner to sellers, buyers and farmers, we aim to support their growth, reduce their costs and improve their profits, providing a boost to Indonesia’s agricultural sector,” said Danny Handoko, CEO of AgriAku.

Prior to founding AgriAku, President Irvan Kolonas was the founder of Vasham, an Indonesian social enterprise in the agricultural sector.

Co-Founder and CEO Danny Handoko was previously the CEO of Airy, an Indonesian hospitality startup, with prior experience in Business Development and Business Intelligence at Traveloka and Ruma (Mapan).

The team is also supported by COO Rezky Haryanto Agustia, previously the Assistant Vice President for Supply Chain & Operations at Bukalapak and the Director of Business Operations at Transmart.

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Image Credit: AgriAku

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Kyberlife –a Singapore-based e-commerce marketplace startup for life sciences, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries– today announced an undisclosed Pre-Series A funding round led by PE Global, the venture capital (VC) arm of PANSAR Group, and industry leaders such as James Simkins (CEO of GETZ Healthcare), Dr Michael Gorriz (Global Group Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered Bank), and Dr Soenke Weissenborn (Group Operations Director for IDS Immunodiagnostics Systems).

Existing investors such as Rapzo Capital and Amatar Investment also participated in the funding round.

Together with a seed funding garnered in August last year, Kyberlife said that it has raised “around one million Singapore dollars.” This Pre-Series A funding round is claimed to be oversubscribed.

In an email to e27, Kyberlife stated that the fresh funds will be used to develop user traction and growth in Singapore, and for regional marketing purposes.

Kyberlife facilitates the buying and selling between principals in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries with their B2B consumers of scientists/researchers, institutions, academia, businesses, laboratories and hospitals.

Also Read: Breaking the taboo: Meet the Singapore-based startups that are working to provide access to sexual healthcare

“With Kyberlife we are solving an imminent and overlooked problem within these traditional industries where consumers experience a laborious process of searching for products while principals have little control of their products on third-party platforms. It is our mission to achieve an efficient and active network for the community by being the one-stop shop for both parties to communicate and transact with each other. Consumers will experience higher transparency across products for easy sourcing while the principals will retain full control over their products,” said Kyberlife Co-Founder and CEO Ryan James Lim.

The company has secured partnerships with multinational companies such as Eppendorf, Merck, Roche and Tipbio Systems.

In a press statement, Lim said that there are many life sciences principals in Europe and the US who do not intend to enter Asia and Southeast Asia due to high set-up cost, exacerbated by COVID-19 travel-related restrictions. But with Kyberlife, they now have the option to reach out to their consumers conveniently and without any risk – to new market segments, via its open marketplace.

Kyberlife was founded and incorporated in Singapore by three founding partners: Ryan James Lim (CEO), Michael Tillmann (Chairman) and Wesley Lim (China Channel Lead).

Prior to Kyberlife, Ryan Lim and Wesley Lim started an e-commerce marketplace for B2C users in the cosmetics industry. Its technology was then absorbed into Kyberlife.

Tillmann has over 25 years of experience in senior executive and supervisory board positions for multinational companies in the pharmaceutical and
diagnostics industry. He held the position of President and CEO for Roche Diagnostics in North America and before that, in Asia Pacific and Europe.

He also founded a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) company, Vela Diagnostics where he met and formed a mentor-mentee relationship with Ryan Lim, who had worked as an intern at his company.

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Image Credit: Cheryl Faith Ho for Kyberlife

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Last January 2022, Malaysian tech companies took to the world’s stage to showcase their unique innovation at the Malaysia Digital Economy Week (DEW) at Expo 2020 Dubai. After a strong showing from the country’s delegation, the contingent was able to successfully land deals with international technology companies comprising 16 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs).

Organised by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Ministry, in cooperation with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), DEW was a week-long event that focused on promoting Malaysia as a globally competitive digital nation.

Malaysian innovation prove to be attractive to global players

The signing of the 16 MoUs underlines the potential of some of Malaysia’s most prominent tech companies in technology sectors, such as DroneTech, Islamic and conventional FinTech, and Blockchain. The companies involved in the MoUs include Aerodyne, Accubits, ASC, ASDAM Digital, CALMs Technologies, CreateWills, DistiChain, Examus, FREYA Capital, Galaxy Racer, Gulf Business Machines, Global Psytech, Grayscale Technologies, HID Global, KGiSL Information Systems, National General Insurance, Numa Solution, Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), The Noor and Valeuble DMCC.

These MoUs signify ongoing global interest in Malaysia’s robust digital economy ecosystem. Malaysia is a leading nation in emerging technology industries – as they received top ranking in the Global Islamic Fintech (GIFT) Index while its DroneTech innovators are globally recognised players.

The signing of these MoUs will not only allow Malaysian tech companies to expand their reach internationally but spotlight the strength of their digital ecosystem.

Global Psytech is one of the Malaysian tech companies that made their way to DEW. The company signed MoU’s with two companies from the United States to enhance their product offerings and also expand their market outreach to SEA and beyond.

Global Psytech is a data tech company developing cutting-edge analytic solutions that apply psychometrics, AI and machine learning.

Nur Ayu Johar, co-founder of Global Psytech, said the engagements with visitors or trade partners during the Digital Economy Week “served as a golden window of opportunity not just to talk about what we do, but to share with them on systemic barriers that are apparent, affecting the majority of the global population such as lack of credit information.”

“I was also a panellist for the Industry Talk: Gateway to The Global Islamic Digital Economy, alongside Global Sadaqah, and Microleap, and we had an insightful conversation on how our solutions create a dynamic and inclusive environment for society through mechanisms in line with the principles of Islamic Finance,” continued Ayu Johar.

Also read: CM.com enables growth for Southeast Asian businesses and beyond

The Digital Economy Week has been a productive and rewarding experience for Global Psytech with the company founder remarking: “As far as potential business partners, we have achieved business deals amounting to more than a couple millions ringgit. For Global Psytech, we do not just advocate for financial inclusion, but we do the groundwork and have solutions for the underbanked and underserved.”

“We have had companies who are interested in our talent analytic solutions, including vendor management, some have expressed interest in analysing the behaviour of their app users, we have also encountered with companies were are interested for us to join programmes to increase our visibility in the MENA region, specially in the FinTech space,” concluded Ayu Johar.

Meanwhile, technology solutions provider Numa Solution founder Azhim Hadi Daud said they signed a MOU with Gulf Business Machines (GBM) to act as the distributor of their financial analytics solution covering multiple industries namely banking and financial institution, oil and gas, healthcare among others.

GBM is one of the largest distributors of IT solutions in the GCC region and this deal will cover multiple countries namely United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar.

“We are targeting opportunities in excess of USD10 million for the next couple of years,” added Azhim.

Azhim feels there are a lot of opportunities in Dubai and the Gulf region for their IT solutions. “This can be attributed to multiple factors namely conducive business conditions, bigger addressable market and the appetite for the latest and greatest technologies for the business and enterprise. Talking to multiple businesses here in Dubai and GCC, the trend of the market does not show any slowing down in terms of consumption which is good news for companies like ours,” said Azhim.

On the other hand, Grayscale Technologies General Manager Tunku Izzudin Shah bin Tengku Abdul Hamid Thani, said he was happy to connect and make partnerships to explore what products and technologies they can bring to Malaysia.

“We were able to present the future direction of Grayscale Technologies as we move towards the Industrial Revolution 4.0. Being in a competitive field, we are able to potentially collaborate with IT companies from different countries, as the IT industry is huge and offers different types of services.”

Tunku Izzudin said they have signed three MoUs during DEW: “The first MoU is with Accubits, which specialises in implementing Blockchain technology in various industries, Big Data and also Artificial Intelligence. The second MoU is with FRENDS, a data integration platform that uses a low-code approach, and finally with Nordic Apiary to bring Nordic technology companies to the Southeast Asian market (SEA).”

Also read: Feeling the pressure to boost your startup? Let e27 PRO+ help you

Tunku Izzudin believes the partnerships will generate millions of ringgit in revenues over the next few years,: “For our partnership with FRENDS, we are looking to generate a recurring annual revenue of over RM 33 Million from year 4 onwards. From our partnership with Nordic Apiary, we are looking to generate a recurring annual revenue of over RM 100 Million from year 4 onwards. From our partnership with Accubits, we are looking to generate around RM 6.7 Million this year, to RM 13.43 Million in the year 2023, to RM 33.79 Million in 2024, to RM 53.45 Million in 2025 and lastly, to RM 73.31 Million in 2026.”

In addition to these deals, Grayscale is in talks with two IT solution companies based in Dubai to expand in both South East Asia and also the UAE. Tunku Izzudin added that by participating in the Expo and Malaysia Digital Economy week: “we were able to understand what the other IT companies are doing or venturing in the various countries, which strongly indicates that we are ahead technologically.”

Digital Economy Week as launching pad for Malaysia Digital

The Digital Economy Week at Expo 2020 Dubai also served as a platform to launch the Malaysia Digital programme. This project is designed to help accelerate Malaysia’s digital economy through a new framework centred on three primary components: Agility, Flexibility, and Relevance.

Malaysia Digital will offer options for companies to choose incentives and the flexibility for them to grow, expand, or reinvest anywhere within Malaysia. Improved governance and processes under the Malaysia Digital initiative will also see the Government and MDEC introducing two new initiatives, namely DE Rantau and Malaysia Digital Trade.

DE Rantau is a programme designed to establish Malaysia as a preferred Digital Nomad Hub in a bid to boost digital professional mobility and tourism across the country.

Also read: 36 unique startups to pitch before 1500 global investors

Malaysia Digital Trade is an initiative to drive interoperability and better implementation of standards and regulatory approaches in order to facilitate trade across borders and capitalise on the immense opportunities in digitalisation that has been accelerated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

These new projects are powered by MDEC’s mission to drive the digital economy through catalytic, high-impact initiatives, as well as strategic and sustainable investments and inclusive policies.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by MDEC

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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Tribecar, Singapore’s homegrown car-sharing platform, has acquired the country’s first car-sharing operator Car Club from Japanese company Mitsui & Co.

The size of the deal has not been disclosed.

The acquisition is part of Tribecar’s efforts to expand and enhance its existing services and offerings across the island.

Car Club will continue to serve its existing customers.

Also Read: How Tribecar aims to build business, environmental sustainability with a subscription-based car-sharing model

The combined entity will offer Tribecar and Car Club members access to a fleet of over 1,400 vehicles in the coming weeks at locations islandwide. Members of both firms can now access various subscription plans, corporate programmes, premium luxury car options and other transport alternatives (motorcycles, cars, vans and lorries), ranging from hourly bookings to monthly subscriptions and leasing.

Established in 1997 as NTUC Income’s car-sharing co-operative, Car Club was acquired by Mitsui & Co. in 2016, which later entered into a joint venture agreement with another Japanese company Willers.

“With this new relationship, we will have more resources to develop our car-sharing technology arm for businesses and corporations in the region,” said Lewis Chen, General Manager of Car Club.

In January 2021, Tribecar partnered with local insurance firm NTUC Income and wholesale automotive marketplace Carro to provide usage-based insurance (UBI) coverage for its fleet of rental cars.

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Philippine social commerce startup SariSuki said today it has secured US$10.7 million from investors, including Openspace Ventures, SIG, Global Founders Capital, Saison Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Foxmont Capital Partners.

The funds will be used to increase product assortment, dark warehouses, and geographic expansion.

Launched in May 2021, SariSuki is a community group-buying startup for daily essentials and groceries. The startup buys fresh produce in bulk from local farmers and offers it at a discounted price to the local community.

SariSuki adopts an agent-assisted model, servicing its consumers through community leaders. Members of communities who set up their business as community leaders earn profit from selling produce while fulfilling the last mile.

Also Read: Grab’s former Vietnam top exec nets US$3M for his quick commerce startup Rino

The startup also runs Supah, a quick commerce app to deliver groceries in 15 minutes.

SariSuki claims to have grown 36x since the launch, served about 60,000 consumers and grown to over 100 employees.

“Quick commerce is a way for us to expand into serving the segment of our market that seeks hyper-convenience for a hyper-local product mix for their daily needs,” said SariSuki Co-Founder Brian Cu, who earlier co-founded Zalora Philippines and held the role of country head at Grab Philippines.

“SariSuki’s increasing sector dominance has resulted from addressing key pain points and barriers to e-commerce adoption with a model that builds confidence amongst, and value for, consumers. We recognised that the trust that those communities are putting in their community leader, who consistently delivers high-quality local produce, will help “to accelerate vital e-commerce adoption rapidly said Hian Goh, Co-Founder of Openspace.

The Philippines’ e-commerce market size is estimated to reach US$15 billion by 2025 (Statista). Despite this huge market size, the adoption of e-commerce into the grocery sector remains low, with only 3 per cent of businesses operating online.

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Singapore-based cultivated seafood startup Umami Meats has secured pre-seed funding of US$2.4 million.

Better Bite Ventures, an APAC-focused alt protein VC, and Genedant, an investor in early-stage, deep-tech biomedical and agri-food startups in Asia, co-led this round.

Other participating investors are CULT Food Science, Impact Venture, Katapult Ocean, Plug & Play Ventures, Prithvi Ventures, The Yield Lab Asia Pacific, and Venture for America.

Umami Meats will utilise the money to advance its low-cost, scalable production system for cultivating fish by establishing robust and production-ready cell lines from multiple fish species.

Also Read: Alt.Flex.Eat: Flexitarianism is the flavour of the SEAson

Umami Meats produces nutritious, affordable cultivated seafood. The startup claims its cultivated, not-caught seafood offers equivalent nutrition to traditional seafood and provides a delicious culinary experience free from heavy metals, antibiotics, and microplastics.

Mihir Pershad, Founder and CEO of Umami Meats, commented: “Seafood is a US$180 billion industry faced with growing global demand and supply that is increasingly volatile and under threat from climate change, overfishing, and ocean pollutants.”

“Our investors’ commitment to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable food system, combined with deep industry knowledge in agri-food and alternative proteins, will be a valuable resource in establishing cultivated seafood as a viable, sustainable solution to the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressures on ocean ecosystems,” he added.

In Singapore, Shiok Meats is the other player in the cultivated seafood sector. However, its products are slightly different from that of Umami Meats. Launched in 2018 Shiok Meats has in its cap table a slew of investors, including Aqua-Spark, SEEDS Capital, Real Tech Fund (Japan), and Irongrey. Its latest investment came in 2020 (a US$12.6 million Series A funding led by Aqua-Spark).

“We are working on finfish, compared to Shiok Meats’ focus on crustaceans. Our USP is that we provide healthier seafood that is free from mercury, micro-plastics, and antibiotics while also providing a sustainable alternative for species that are IUCN-listed (i.e. endangered) and difficult to domesticate (farm),” said Pershad.

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Having a dedicated remote tech team can be a great solution to empower businesses’ IT capabilities to the next level. However, given the highly required investment that goes into your offshore tech team, it is crucial to ensure that your expansion happens at an appropriate time when the company truly needs a remote tech team.

During our previous webinar, Phuong Nguyen, VP of Hydra X, highlighted the top 3 signs for companies in dire need of a remote tech team.

Building a remote tech team

Tech startups and IT companies turn to offshore insourcing to take advantage of a more diverse talent pool and lower operating costs. The offshore team is internal. Thus, the level of control and commitment is higher than outsourcing.

Vietnam has been gaining recognition as a popular offshore destination for its low operation cost and high-quality tech talents in recent years.

As a result, their tech talents possess quality skills and great mindsets. Along with the low hiring cost, there is no doubt that tech startups and IT companies want to set up their offshore operations in Vietnam.

However, this strategy requires firms to overcome the challenges of cultural and language barriers as employees have to actively communicate and work with other teams in another country.

It is advisable for employees on both sides to have frequent work trips between the two countries to discover the cultural difference to ensure efficiency within the company.

Local tech talent shortage

The tech talent shortage is a big problem shared by many developed countries, with Singapore among the most served cases. Singapore is currently facing a talent crunch where more tech giants are expanding to Singapore, which means more job opportunities will be opened for hire.

Singapore is a small island, and in the years to come, there will be a point where we will run out of talent. The demand may be strong, but the supply is relatively weak.

To keep up with the customer’s growing demands and survive in a harsh landscape, businesses are trying to tap into the less contested tech talent pool from neighbouring countries.

This is where Vietnam comes in. The country has a pool of highly skilled tech talents with excellent English proficiency.

Also Read: Hiring matters: growing beyond 75 employees with Michael Podolsky

The government is investing US$150 million to improve further English Language education, digital skills and technical knowledge for the working population. This has led to a pool of well-trained candidates in the programming languages and protocols to tackle any of your company’s projects.

Limited budget for scaling up the team

Are you looking for a more workforce in the IT department but do not have a high budget to hire local talent? Is your company allocating too many funds in sales and marketing and affecting your fund’s allocation for the IT department?

Technology is an evolving sector embedded in almost every industry in the world. It seems disruptive to all sectors and improves the operational model of a company efficiently and productively. It is constantly improving, and allocating more funds to the IT department is essential to its success.

Companies that are currently fundraising or have limited capital to deploy funds to more crucial areas are starting to consider outsourcing in Vietnam to overcome these challenges. Outsourcing in Vietnam is regarded as one of the most affordable outsourcing destinations.

For instance, in 2021, the maximum salary for data scientists in Singapore can fetch as high as US$12,000, while the maximum salary for the same role is only US$4,500 in Vietnam. This is almost 3x lesser than Singapore’s salary.

The wide difference has impacted more companies outsourcing in Vietnam to reduce their costs. They can hire more than one headcount with the same budget or allocate the remaining funds to essential areas for its success.

They can also leverage highly skilled tech talents to further improve their company’s IT capabilities.

Diversify your tech team

Having just one dedicated tech team to handle all of your essential projects presents a dangerous risk of being disrupted when your only team is down. Moreover, as the company grows and expands, one big-size tech team becomes more difficult to control and sluggish.

In this context, hiring a remote tech team makes the most sense as they do not burn all of your budgets while the rest remains in-house.

Vietnam’s tech talent salaries can be 3x lower than Singapore, which allows your company to hire more headcount and scale up the number of teams for support or backup.

Also Read: What you can learn from Carsome about championing mental health for employees

With these remaining funds, your company can employ different IT roles with a fraction of the cost of traditional systems to boost the IT capabilities within your company.

Conclusion

With the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are trying to maximise their operational efficiency while still leaving some room for growth and expansion. As a result, building offshore tech teams has become a popular strategy for many companies.

If your organisation faces any of the signs mentioned above, we recommend contacting us for a quick detailed consultancy. At TechJDI, we specialise in offshore outsourcing software development and in-house tech team setup for growing firms.

Most importantly, we have a network of affordable and highly skilled tech talents to ease your tight budget.

Whether you are looking for support to set up your own IT foundation in Vietnam or external help on tech projects, our network of consultants, software architects, technical project managers, and UI/UX designers can seamlessly help you reach your goals.

If you are still unsure, do contact us to help you evaluate whether your company has what it takes to build your very first remote tech team.

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Taronga Ventures, a Singapore- and Australia-based tech investor focussing on the real estate sector and the wider built environment, today announced that it has secured an undisclosed investment from SGX-listed global real estate developer City Developments Limited (CDL) for its RealTech Ventures Fund.

Other investors in the most recent close of this fund include PGIM Real Estate, Ivanhoé Cambridge, APG and other leading global investors.

The fund has portfolio investments in global emerging technology companies impacting the built environment.

In an email to e27, Jonathan Hannam, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Taronga Ventures explains more details about the fund and the company it is targetting.

“When we began the fund, the target raise was AU$50 million (US$36 million). With increased investor interest we raised that to AU$75 million (AU$54 million) but we have far exceeded this amount. Under this strategy, we have now more than US$170 million (US$123 million) committed, with a number of groups completing their processes over the next few weeks,” Hannam said.

“The fund invests in emerging technology companies that are ready to scale. We have a small allocation to earlier stage opportunities but most of our investments will be in companies that have some level of customer traction and are now looking to expand either across Asia or globally. Over time, we will invest up to AU$7 million (US$5 million) to AU$10 million (US$7 million) in any one company,” he continued.

Also Read: COVID-19, the environment, and the tech ecosystem: what opportunity is available out there for us?

Taronga Ventures consists of the RealTech Ventures Fund, the RealTechX innovation programme, and Taronga Advisory.

Through its RealTechX innovation programme and direct approaches to the RealTech Ventures Fund, Taronga Ventures is “seeing many hundreds of opportunities” and aim to invest in around 20 to 30 companies.

In a press statement, CDL stated that it has identified tech solutions in the fund’s portfolio which has application across its residential, commercial and hotel asset portfolio and has embarked on feasibility assessments for the integration of these solutions. These solutions will also support the company’s goal of achieving net zero operational carbon by 2030.

“With evolving lifestyle needs and the urgent need for climate action, we are seeing a dynamic shift within the real estate sector where access to emerging technology will become a key differentiator. CDL’s investment in Taronga Ventures allows us to partner the market’s best in class to drive product and process innovation. We can leverage their expertise to glean market insights into the future of the real estate and gain access to emerging technologies that can be applied across our diversified real estate portfolio. Their focus on green innovations complements our ESG and sustainable investment initiatives, and supports our decarbonisation efforts,” said Sherman Kwek, CDL Group Chief Executive Officer.

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Vietnamese bookkeeping startup focused on small retailers, SoBanHang, has secured US$2.5 million to extend its seed investment round to US$4 million.

Existing and new investors, including FEBE Ventures, Class5 (US), AlleyCorp, Trihill Capital, and unnamed angels, also joined this round.

The company will use the new investment for product development and to transform into a business operating system for micro-businesses.

A portion of the capital will be used for market education and customer acquisition. It also plans to offer SaaS subscriptions in the next quarter and later cross-selling commissions from third-party service providers and suppliers.

Launched in mid-2021 by brothers Hai Long Bui and Hai Nam Bui, SoBanHang helps small and micro enterprises build digital storefronts, sell to more customers, and manage multi-channel operations on smartphones. Its primary clients are family-owned businesses having less than five employees. Since the launch, it claims to have onboarded over 170,000 retailers with more than 30,000 new retailers per month.

SoBanHang’s partners include Viettel, UOB, HDBank, UpSell Adtech, eRUBIK, and Selly.

In August 2021, SoBanHang received US$1.5 million in seed funding from FEBE, Class 5, and individuals, such as Business Insider founder Kevin P. Ryan.

The company has an ambitious target of signing up one million business owners, helping them serve 100 million customers and generate US$100 billion in revenue by 2025.

There are more than 16 million nano and micro-businesses contributing 65 per cent of the country’s GDP through data and technologies.

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Multilingualism is championing innovation in online expression and redefining boundaries through technology.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

This inspiring quote by the revolutionary Nelson Mandela holds tremendous significance in an era when society gradually acknowledges the critical role that mother languages play in empowering and educating people and spurring innovation and development.

The world is a macrocosm of multilingualism, with over 7,000 distinct languages and multiple dialects spoken across cultures.

A pluralistic nation like India mirrors this phenomenon with 22 official languages and 6,000 dialects spoken. Since the last few years, mother languages have been grabbing innovator attention globally, particularly in India.

Platform enterprises have long realised the potential of Indic languages, spoken by over 90 per cent of 1.35 billion Indians. They have re-engineered their solutions to offer intuitive experiences to speakers of native languages.

From digital banking, online shopping and payments to ordering food or booking office commute through ride-hailing apps, interfaces that support multiple languages have been re-shaping lifestyles in a digital-first economy.

But even as businesses have built complex algorithms to enable online payments and transactions in mother languages, the primary use case of ‘expression’ on the open internet, a fundamental need in society, has thus far remained largely untapped.

Speakers of mother languages, who otherwise lead virtual lives by shopping and transacting online, are left outside the realm of online expression due to their inability to speak English.

The need for multilingual expression to build language inclusive society

As people from other cultures, Indians are also known to have opinions on almost everything that happens in the world. People love to express themselves, and they speak best in the language closest to them.

‘Expression’ is inherent in each individual, and the need to express online holds tremendous significance in this ‘techade’.

Also Read: What is the next frontier for lending in India

However, ‘expressions’ have mainly remained offline and restricted to close social circles due to the English-centric approach of global tech giants, which has prevented native language speakers from joining social platforms and engaging in a language of their comfort.

A multilingual country like India, with 658 million internet users, including 467 million social media enthusiasts (as of January 2022), offers significant opportunities to social platforms to enable Indic language expression.

By leveraging disruptive technologies like the AI-backed Natural Language Processing (NLP), which decode human language and the attached nuances, platforms can build solutions that break down linguistic barriers and act as enablers towards building an inclusive society, where users express themselves and engage with one another in a language of their choice.

Key to hockey stick growth of social platforms

The real key to a digitally connected world, in addition to enabling expression in mother languages, is the real-time translation of a message across multiple languages, amplifying user outreach.

A seamless dialogue between speakers of two native languages like Punjabi and Tamil or Assamese and Gujarati on a real-time basis would take digital transformation to a whole new level.

Platforms that are architected to enable creators to build content in one language and users to consume it in another language induce immense gratification and build sticky user journeys.

The hockey stick growth in Indian language content through broader adoption of language inclusive platforms and translations of this content in multiple languages will result in content that everyone can generate and consume irrespective of their language preference, steering digital empowerment.

The incredible power that mother languages command will help catalyse growth and innovation, digitise the ‘un-digitised’, and democratise people’s voice in a transformative tech-driven world.

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