Philippine fintech and online payments company PayMongo has secured US$31 million in a Series B round of financing from investors, including JAM Fund (founded by Tinder founder Justin Mateen) and local VCs ICCP-SBI Venture Partners and Kaya Founders.

Existing investors Global Founders Capital and SOMA Capital also co-invested in the round, alongside angels including founders of European fintech unicorns and startups Qonto, Viva Wallet, Billie and Scalable.

​​PayMongo will scale its operations with this capital by strengthening the current payments infrastructure and venturing into more financial services, such as disbursements, capital lending, ‘buy now pay later’, subscriptions, and recurring payments.

Using the Philippines as a springboard, the fintech startup also looks to explore opportunities in the digital transformation of financial services in other emerging markets, noted in the official statement.

“While payment acceptance is crucial, it is just one of the many services that entrepreneurs need to build a successful online business,” PayMongo Founder and CEO Francis Plaza. “Our goal is to create a one-stop-shop for all these financial needs in the broader Southeast Asian region, starting with the Philippines.”

Also read: 2022: Making the year of the tiger a roaring success for payments

The round comes a year and a half after PayMongo raised US$12 million Series A led by Stripe in 2020. The firm earlier raised US$2.7 million seed round from investors, including Y Combinator.

Founded in 2019 by Plaza, Luis Sia (CPO), Jaime Hing (CTO) and Edwin Lacierda (COO), PayMongo empowers online businesses to accept the full range of payment options, including credit cards, e-wallets, and over-the-counter payments. It provides an easy-to-integrate PayMongo API and e-commerce plugins. 

In addition, PayMongo Links and Pages products enable businesses to provide a simple digital checkout for their customers, even without a website.

Though the startup caters to businesses of all sizes, it emphasizes underserved small (and micro) and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (account for 99 per cent of businesses in the Philippines).

Since closing Series A, PayMongo claims to have achieved 3x growth in merchant base and a 4x growth in monthly transaction volumes.

According to a report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, the Philippine digital economy is slated to grow to US$40 billion by 2025, having registered the fastest growth rate in Southeast Asia throughout the pandemic. The growth has been fueled by the wide adoption of digital products and services driven by the e-commerce boom in the country.

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Image Credit: PayMongo

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Hong Kong-based StockViva, an online platform to connect retail investors with the key opinion leaders in the industry, has received US$3 million in additional funding to close the ongoing Series A round at US$5 million.

The new tranche came from Farquhar VC (Singapore), Kharis Capital (Luxembourg), Hong Huan Group, Angelhub, and individual investors from Hong Kong.

StockViva previously raised US$2 million from Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, K3 Ventures, and individual investors across Asia.

Launched in 2018, StockViva has developed a mobile app to provide real-time online education services to individual investors by financial KOLs. In addition, it connects retail investors with different financial institutions in Asia, covering a wide range of financial products such as US, Hong Kong and Taiwan stocks, along with FX and derivatives.

Also Read: How to smartly balance crypto investments with stocks

It has built a community of retail investors and financial KOLs. While retail investors gain knowledge from the financial KOLs, the latter build their fan base and reputation in Asia.

StockViva further leverages its own technology to build its real-time data streaming platform that captures and aggregates investment insights from stock markets and sentiment data in its social community.

StockViva has adopted a scientific and data-driven approach to run its operations to grow its business quickly. The firm startup has operations in China, Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, StockViva claims to have achieved over 122 per cent revenue growth and 932 per cent growth in trading volume in 2021.

“If you read a financial newspaper in the morning, it doesn’t help you make any investment decisions in the afternoon, as the market has already changed and the information is outdated,” says Samuel Wan, Co-Founder and Chairman of StockViva. “Financial education and analysis have to be in real-time. This is the reason why we built a technology platform where retail investors will be able to find an appropriate financial KOL online for real-time education and analysis during trading hours.”

According to the annual reports published by various stock exchanges in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, the total number of retail investors is growing. Between 2014 and 2020, the total number of retail investors is growing at an average rate of 21 per cent annually, reaching over 27 million in 2020. The total number of retail investors is expected to further grow to 42 million in 2030. If we further consider other parts of Asia, retail investors will be over 100 million.
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We are witnessing the unique indigenous cultures, mother tongue, paintings that represent life, traditional arts and crafts, ancient songs and stories, and so on are disappearing. Have you ever wondered whether there is any way that we can save and keep those invaluable cultures?

What if there is a way we could save these valuable indigenous cultures and art forms and lead them to advance into the technological world? Perhaps the blockchain and NFTs technologies are the answer, making it easier for us to spread and inherit the legacy.

What is a blockchain? Why is blockchain an excellent channel to preserve culture?

Blockchain is a technology that realises trust decentralisation through a consensus algorithm. You have the power to control your asset; there is no third party to restrict you from using them.

The data stored on the blockchain is permanent and transparent; you can verify or check it at any time, no one can tamper with the data.

Also, decentralising the authentication process into an open ledger (blockchain) means that people can trust strangers to buy and sell assets. The value is no longer based on individual sales but on the art itself.

What is NFT?

NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. It allows us to tokenise anything from art collectibles to real estate.

It is secured on the blockchain— meaning no one can modify ownership records or copy/paste new NFTs.

Also Read: The art of blockchain: What is the NFT craze all about?

Traditionally it can be challenging to verify the original provenance in the art market; the beauty of NFTs is that no matter how many times the art has been traded, you can still trace the original creator.

Use NFTs to preserve the indigenous culture

The inheritance of many aboriginal cultures has no written records, often through the old tale, different art forms, or dance interpretations.

NFT is a perfect medium for expressions, whether pictures, articles, books, music, digital art, video, or 3D. What is more exciting is that it allows creators to add more value to the NFTs, such as:

• Allowing collectors to join special traditional celebrations
• Meeting the creators
• The digital ID of physical artwork
• Unique event access
• Service through the integration of virtual and real

I can go on, but the point is that NFT is truly a fantastic way for creators to approach the world 24/7 as blockchain is a global public channel. NFT made it so much easier for creators and collectors to establish relationships.

Also, creators have the right to decide whether to keep the copyright or release it to the collectors. Some successful projects allow collectors to use the NFTs for commercial; it provides opportunities to promote the traditional culture into the mainstream.

Creators can set up the percentage of royalties when they create NFTs and receive it from each transaction, and this is excellent support for the creator’s community.

The younger generation of indigenous artists can combine the rich cultural heritage and technology to carry out various experimental and innovative ideas.

NFT is also an effective method to create a personal brand. You have a better way to build consensus, get along and interact with the communities that support creators, and share resources from all over the world.

The only limit is your imagination.

Now, it’s the perfect time to harness NFT technology to pioneer a new era and spread our priceless cultures into the virtual world. Imagine the blockchain dominated by indigenous art forms?

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Carsome completes acquisition of ASX-listed content automotive platform iCar Asia
Carsome and iCar Asia will expand a suite of digital products and services that enable an end-to-end, super-app experience for more used car dealers and consumers; Carsome has bought 19.9% of AX-listed iCar Asia for US$200M in July 2021.

How Carb0n.fi aims to establish a carbon-zero world for the people by the people
Carb0n.fi builds an online platform to allow people to put their crypto-assets to work and get rewarded with carbon offset NFTs and its native $ZRO token.

Berrybenka’s Jason Lamuda launches Grow Commerce, raises US$7M seed funding
Investors include AC Ventures, East Ventures and Irongrey; Grow Commerce is an online-first house of brands or brand aggregator focusing on acquiring Southeast Asian DTC and marketplace brands.

AI-powered food fingerprint platform ProfilePrint closes Series A
Investors include Louis Dreyfus Company, ofi, Sucafina, Greenwillow Capital, and Real Tech Global; Instead of packaging labels, reports or QR codes, ProfilePrint analyses the samples directly at the molecular level and can be used by stakeholders in the supply chain

Cyber Sierra raises US$4.3M seed funding
Investors include Leo Capital, AppWorks, Credit Saison, and angels; Cyber Sierra offers cyber risk, compliance and insurance products; It delivers cybersecurity and technology insurance offerings to SMEs with a presence on the cloud.

Animoca Brands, Brinc launch new US$30M startup programme P2E startups
New Guild Accelerator aims to enable millions of people around the world to generate income by participating in P2E gaming via crypto gaming guilds; It will invest up to US$500K each in startups.

Digital freight forwarder Andalin raises US$4M
Investors include Intudo Ventures, Cardig Group, Beenext, and strategic investors; The startup also plans to create an end-to-end one-stop solution for international trade activity by providing additional services such as trade financing, cargo insurance, and a SaaS-based freight management system.

GoZayaan enters Pakistan with FindMyAdventure acquisition
GoZayaan is an OTA booking solution for flight, hotel, inter-city bus and tour booking; Focused on Bangaldesh, GoZayaan is backed by Nordstar Partners, Wavemaker Partners, Ratio Ventures, and 1982 Ventures.

SaaS platform BiteSpeed raises US$1.9M seed funding
Investors are Sequoia Surge, First Cheque, Whiteboard Capital and angels; It builds a conversational commerce stack for D2C brands; It enables online brands to interact with their customers and sell their products on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

SG
Digital wallet HolyWally raises US$1.4M in funding
Investors include M-Daq, Finmirai, and Creitive; HolyWally is a white-label solution that offers digital wallets for banks, fintech firms, and retailers; It has a no-code approach to building wallets.

Monk’s Hill Ventures names Susli Lie as new partner
She is set to build the firm’s business in Indonesia, spearhead its Environmental, Social, and Governance programme, and support the VC’s portfolio companies on the ground; Previously, she co-founded education financing firm ErudiFi.

PasarPolis names former Amazon, Expedia exec as CTO
Kumar was a software development manager at Amazon and Expedia before joining PasarPolis. He also led the engineering team of Indian online travel firm MakeMyTrip.

AC Ventures appoints ex-GGV Capital exec as venture partner
Before joining AC Ventures, Wong served as a partner in prominent VC firms such as GGV Capital and Qiming Venture Partners; She led investments in fintech firm Akulaku and hospitality startup RedDoorz.

Circles Life hires ex-GoBear exec as VP of growth
Nelson Allen was previously the chief growth officer at GoBear (acquired by Australian fintech firm Finder); He previously spent over 20 years in various roles at Expedia Group, Microsoft, and Samsung Electronics.

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Indonesian digital freight forwarder Andalin has said today it secured US$4 million financing in a round led by Intudo Ventures.

Cardig Group, Beenext, and several undisclosed strategic investors also co-invested in this round.

Andalin will utilise the funding to expand its market coverage in the East Indonesia region, scale its headcount from 100 team members to 150-200 across all functions, and introduce new products and services integrated into its main platform.

In 2022, the startup also plans to create an end-to-end one-stop solution for international trade activity by providing additional services such as trade financing, cargo insurance, and a SaaS-based freight management system. The firm will integrate these offerings with its upcoming trading service platform, which will allow manufacturers and distributors in the Andalin ecosystem to trade with one another.

This round comes nearly a year after Andalin closed its undisclosed Series A funding to establish freight consolidation infrastructure and open branch offices in the international port cities of Semarang, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar.

Also read: How the logistics partner can make or break the online shopping experience

Founded in October 2016 by Rifki Pratomo (CEO), Ivhan Famly Gunawan (CTO), and Saut Tambunan (COO), Andalin provides businesses with timely and streamlined cross-border shipment processes between Indonesia and global destinations.

Its digital platform allows customers to book shipments, receive faster freight quotations, compare services that best suit their needs, and manage hundreds of shipments in one place. So far, its logistics services cover sea freight, air freight, project shipment, and customs clearance services.

Andalin claims it helps clients enjoy savings of up to 15-20 per cent in cross-border shipping costs compared to their previous service providers, cuts down administrative work, and increases productivity.

With a coverage of over 200 global ports, the startup boasts of having worked with over 300 manufacturers and distributors, from SMEs to large corporations, such as Rentokil Initial, Hitachi, to Electrolux.

From February 2021 to December 2021, Andalin’s monthly revenue experienced 690 per cent growth, paired with a 10.6x increase in the total number of containers shipped, the startup noted in a statement.

Indonesia’s import and export value grew from around US$300 billion in 2020 to US$430 billion in 2021 and enjoyed a trade surplus of US$35.34 billion — the biggest since 2007.

Meanwhile, the value of international trade in the Southeast Asia region, both between member countries and from/to other areas, was valued at US$2.8 trillion in 2019 and is predicted to continue to rise in the next few years, per ASEAN Stats data. The sector has proven its role as one of the backbones of the Southeast Asian economy. However, it is still considered underdeveloped and overlooked, with the total value of collective investments in several local startups amounting to less than US$40 million.

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Image Credit: Andalin

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As we move into 2022, accelerated growth in the digital market has become a growing trend across Southeast Asia. According to Google e-Conomy SEA, almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic the internet economy in the region has grown by 40 million new users, increasing digital service use to 75%. After the onset of the pandemic, people more frequently turned to e-commerce and ride-hailing apps to simulate the lifestyle they once led, before quarantine measures were enforced. These new practices and habits have continued to this day.

Southeast Asian transport’s shift online

One of the industries transformed by the growing internet economy is the transport sector. Before COVID-19, digitalised transportation was already budding in the region, but with the start of the pandemic, the transport sector’s shift online has sped up. However, this shift in Southeast Asia is still in its early stages and is ripe for growth and innovation.

The digitalisation of the transport sector will require a centralised and efficient means of connecting drivers and riders to the internet. While digital platforms exist today in the region that grant access to urban transport, a single ecosystem has yet to be developed.

Creating efficient solutions with Geotab

Geotab, a global leader in IoT and connected transportation, is one of the companies guiding the transport sector in Southeast Asia into the digital era. Established in 2000, the company has grown from a modest start-up to a global titan, connecting over 2.5 million vehicles worldwide and processing billions of data points daily. The company aims to connect vehicles to the internet and provide cloud-based analytics to help customers improve productivity, enhance driver safety, achieve regulatory compliance and optimize fleet operations to help reduce and eliminate CO2 emissions.

Also read: Imagining communities: building localised digital experiences with CiPPo corporation

Geotab is helping to lead the transport sector in new directions by processing and providing telematics data. As electric vehicles continue to make waves in the transportation industry, vehicle owners and manufacturers will benefit from telematics data and telematics-driven technology innovations. Geotab currently has a complete suite of green technology to help businesses and organizations better manage and more efficiently the transition to electric vehicles.

In an interview with Geotab CEO and founder Neil Cawse, e27 gained insight into the inner workings of the world’s largest telematics company. Geotab highlights six key pillars to deliver business impact through data-driven insights and solutions. These pillars include productivity, safety, fleet optimization, compliance, sustainability, and expandability. Cawse told e27 that most customers start with engaging just one or two of these pillars but later employ all pillars holistically and experience great results. For example, customers can use solutions to improve productivity, such as routing solutions or fleet management reports.

Company successes, opportunities, and challenges

Recently, Geotab has publicly announced its commitment to climate action in its inaugural sustainability report. The report outlines the company’s corporate sustainability priorities and ambitious targets, including a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. Along with its own sustainability targets, Geotab is also committed to providing innovation that helps organizations do things better and do better things for the environment. Between monitoring driver performance for better fuel management and delivering data insights and green technology that can help businesses and organizations make the switch to electric vehicles, Geotab is in the unique position to help decarbonize the transport sector worldwide. Fleet managers who have worked with Geotab, particularly in its customer base in North America, have leveraged tools like the electric vehicle suitability assessment (EVSA) to switch to electric vehicles smartly and efficiently.

Also read: Nexmind AI is on a mission to make AI accessible to more companies

“Geotab has set its own climate goals and is working hard to achieve them. However, we can have 1000 times the impact by helping other companies achieve theirs. We are delivering data-driven insights and technologies that can help fleets understand, take action upon and scale efforts in reducing carbon emissions,” said Cawse. “The only way to a net-zero carbon future is together – businesses, all levels of government and communities across the globe – must collaborate to reimagine the way the world moves and to leave the world a better place than we found it.”

Engaging Southeast Asia as a tech hotspot 

Cawse identified Asia as one of the world’s up and coming tech hubs that Geotab could best engage to achieve its goal of creating a global operating system of connected vehicles. While the Asian market would be a different terrain altogether—something Cawse acknowledges—Geotab foresees the adoption of telematics by most countries in the near future. Data-driven insights are necessary in reducing carbon emissions by the transport sector and forming smarter, safer and more sustainable cities, all of which are in the interest of most corporations and governments, no matter where they are in the world.

With Geotab extending its services to Southeast Asia in 2021, local businesses can now expect its services to be within reach, allowing them to harness the power of data to improve their services and become more efficient. As Geotab leadership notes, things are quickly changing in the transportation sector and Geotab is eager to help empower the region with access to telematics and data.

Also read: Designing the world a century into the future

“Last-mile delivery and the ridesharing industry represents a significant opportunity in the region,” said Louis De Jong, Chief Revenue Officer at Geotab. “These verticals would benefit greatly from connected vehicle technology. With access to vehicle data, businesses can equip themselves with the right tools to help boost their efficiency and implement more sustainable driving practices – and as a result – improve the landscape of the transport sector in Southeast Asia overall.

More and more organisations are turning to data to shape the future they see for the world, and any business that wants to get in on this trend should invest in IoT technology to help improve processes. For more information on what Geotab has to offer and how you can boost your business with their services, check out Geotab’s page.

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

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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Singapore-based SME digital financing platform Funding Societies (known as Modalku in Indonesia) said today it has secured US$144 million in an oversubscribed Series C extension round (equity).

In addition, it has received US$150 million in debt lines from institutional lenders across Europe, the US, and Asia.

The equity round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from new investors, including Vietnamese tech giant VNG Corporation, Rapyd Ventures, EDBI, Indies Capital, K3 Ventures, and Ascend Vietnam Ventures.

The extension round comes on the back of Funding Societies’s US$45 million Series C raised between 2020 and 2021.

Also Read: Samsung backs Funding Societies to drive its vision of financial inclusion for SMEs in SEA

The funds will propel fintech firm’s expense management and B2B payments services for MSMEs across Southeast Asia.

It also revealed that it provided US$16 million to former and existing employees via its stock option plan in the form of share buyback.

Started in 2015 by Kelvin Teo and Reynold Wijaya, Funding Societies intends to fill the region’s US$300 billion financing gap by offering microloans from US$500 up to US$1.5 million, which can be disbursed in as fast as 24 hours.

Instead of using a traditional corporate supply chain approach to financial inclusion, Funding Societies follows an AI-led credit model to provide value-added products to under-served businesses.

The digital lender operates in five countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. To date, it claims to have disbursed over US$2 billion in business financing to MSMEs through more than 4.9 million loan transactions in Southeast Asia.

The press release also mentioned that Funding Societies’s annualised loan origination exceeded US$1 billion in Q4 2021.

Also Read: Funding Societies appoints GoBear co-founder Frank Stevenaar as CFO, promotes Ishan Agrawal to CTO

A portion of the group’s outstanding loan exposure comes from Europe-based institutional lenders.

Last October, Funding Societies secured US$18 million in debt funding led by Helicap Investments, Social Impact Debt Fund, and an unnamed Japanese financial services group. This was preceded by a round of investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. A few months earlier, it had secured US$40 million.

Funding Societies’s other investors are SoftBank Ventures Asia, Sequoia Capital India, Alpha JWC Ventures, SMBC Bank, BRI Ventures, Endeavor, SGInnovate, Qualgro, and Golden Gate Ventures, among others.

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Is all capital equal? As long as your venture gets the cash it needs, does it matter how? If you’re building corporate ventures, your answers to these questions might be more important than you think.

Today, many corporations turn to venture building to launch new businesses and capture new markets. While most understand that a diversified portfolio of innovation investments is required to secure future growth and avoid disruption, fewer know how to structure and fund each investment.

The importance of funding models

Even the most seasoned captain would find themselves lost at sea without a functional navigation system when charting unfamiliar territory. Likewise, a misaligned funding strategy with corporate ventures can spell trouble for the vessel. 

Venture capital-backed startups benefit from a large pool of potential investors who play by the same rules. Investment term sheets are today more or less standardised. The journey from angel investment to seed round to Series A and onward is predictable and well-trodden.

But while venture capital-backed startups have a single objective to build a large sustainable business, investing company resources towards corporate ventures is an exercise of balancing dual objectives:

• ventures need to be able to create long-term value for the organisation whilst also being able to
• function as standalone businesses with robust products or services at their core.

This means that the journey is not always predictable, and a ‘one size fits all approach to funding doesn’t work. 

Also Read: Gen Z is saying no to climbing corporate ladders. Here’s what it means for Singapore’s startup ecosystem

We have found four archetypes of corporate venture funding models that serve as a starting point to achieve those objectives. So, which factors determine the suitable model for a specific corporate venture?  

Risk and control: determining the sweet spot

Determining the right funding model for a corporate venture is based on two primary factors: 

• Risk exposure – The amount of risk that the corporation is willing to bear
• Strategic control – The amount of strategic control the corporation wants to retain compared to other current or future shareholders in the venture

Calibrating the optimal level of risk vs control is mainly dependent on four major factors that corporate venture builders must evaluate for each venture:

• Strategic importance – To what degree is the venture addressing a critical market to future-proofing the core corporate business?
  
• Integration with core business – How intensely is the venture reliant on close ties with the core business? Are these links there to achieve strategic goals or leverage existing capabilities and infrastructure? 
• Association risk – To what extent does the venture benefit from direct brand association with the corporation? And how much would this association impact the corporation?
  
• Affiliate and subsidiary status – Depending on the jurisdiction, would this venture be considered an affiliate or a subsidiary? To what degree would this increase bureaucratic necessities like reporting consolidated taxes and earnings? 

Also Read: BRI Agro CEO Kaspar Situmorang: Why tapping into the ecosystem is key to a digital bank’s success

Evaluating these factors helps guide a discussion to determine how much funding from outside investors will be allowed and how much equity is granted to the team building the venture (if at all).

Four archetypes of corporate venture funding models

We have found four funding models that serve as a guideline for potential funding structures, beginning with the lowest risk exposure and need for control and ending with the most risk & control. 

• Shared risk and reward – The new venture is partially funded by the corporation and external investors, and significant equity is shared with the founding team.
  
• Controlled incentives – The corporation provides 100 per cent of the funding but still allocates equity to the founding team with a buyout option. 
• Joint venture – Partially funded by two or more corporations & investors, and the founding team may be given equity, but it is shared case by case.
• Full control – Fully funded by the corporation, with little to no equity package for the founding team.

Please watch this short video to learn more about these archetypes, the tradeoffs and considerations for each. 

This article is written as part of the Corporate Venture Launchpad programme. The S$10 million (US$7.5 million) pilot programme by EDB New Ventures aims to enable large, established companies to launch a new venture in Singapore within six months.

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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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MindFi, a corporate mental health and wellness startup based in Singapore, announced today it has secured an oversubscribed US$2 million seed funding round.

Existing investor, Singapore-based early-stage VC firm M Venture Partners, and backer of Aussie tech unicorn Canva and NYS-listed Slack, Global Founders Capital, joined the round.

Other angels are Carousell co-founder Marcus Tan, Carro executive Kenji Narushima, Spin co-founder Derrick Ko, among others in the US and Asia.

The fresh funding will enable MindFi to accelerate its AI-driven product development as well as cultural localisations in key markets among its present-day 20 markets across the Asia Pacific.

Last August, MindFi raised US$750,000 in pre-seed funding from a slew of investors, including iGlobe Partners and M Venture Partners, fresh off its admission into Y Combinator’s (YC) Summer 2021 programme.

Also read: How to foster mental wellness in the workplace and boost performance

Founded in 2017, MindFi’s cross-platform mobile app delivers 24/7 guided self-care programmes, community-driven features such as forums and group therapy, and intelligent matching with diverse coaches and therapists.

HR leaders and corporate clients can access anonymised analytics to measure and support their employees’ health and productivity. The app also generates personalised recommendations, which are based on a user’s unique Human Wellbeing Profile (HWP). These profiles aggregate mental health data from MindFi app usage, such as moods and stress levels, with self-reported assessments, physical health data from wearables, such as sleep, heart rates and daily activity, as well as guidance from culturally-intelligent care providers.

The firm counts Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups such as Visa, Willis Towers Watson and Patsnap among its corporate clients, which are able to access Mindfi’s services in 16 languages.

Since completing the YC programme in September 2021, MindFi said that it has tripled the company’s employee headcount and recorded 5x annual revenue growth.

MindFi fosters the vision of “culturally competent” wellness in APAC, where cultural values such as interpersonal harmony, loss of face, and filial piety strongly influence people’s receptivity to mental health services and support.

“A mental health solution for Asia cannot be copy-pasted over from other regions,” explained MindFi CEO Bjorn Lee. “Wellbeing is multi-dimensional, and we seek to build a localised understanding of wellbeing that takes physical and cultural differences into account.”

Professor Kua Ee Heok of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, echoed this viewpoint as she said that technology products need to account for the unique cultural beliefs, mores, nuances and feelings of their users in order to deliver the best types of utility value on a regular basis.

Also Read: Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

To date, MindFi claims the usage of its app-based mental health and wellness programmes are 10 times higher than traditional teletherapy services.

The pandemic has boosted the global demand for mental health support in the last two years. According to the World Health Organisation, new depressive and anxiety disorder diagnoses spiked 400 per cent in 2021.

As per Singapore Mental Health Study conducted in 2016, despite one in seven Singaporeans experiencing mental health hurdles at some point in their lives, only a quarter of those seeks treatment for it. The digital health industry, therefore, is gaining momentum in Singapore, which is estimated to increase at a 6.94 per cent annual rate (CAGR 2022-2025) and results in a projected market volume of US$2,8 billion by 2025.

Recently, MindFi and Fitbit have teamed up on the joint pilot study to examine the impact of workplace stress among Singapore’s educational community during this pandemic period.

This January, Singapore-based Intellect, another YC-backed mental health startup, also secured US$10 million in a Series A financing round.

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Image Credit: MindFi

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According to a 2020 report around 690 million people, which is around 8.9 per cent of the global population—are hungry, a surge of nearly 60 million in five years. The food security challenge is going to become more difficult, as the world will need to produce over 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion people. On the other hand, agriculture contributes to a number of environmental issues leading to a range of challenges, including climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, dead zones, soil degradation, and pollution.

Owing to the urgent need for better agricultural solutions and the strong correlation between agriculture and climate change, there has been an emergence of climate-smart agriculture in the past few years. Climate-smart agriculture seeks to balance agricultural productivity within the bounds of our climate by leveraging digital technologies. Tech startups, founders and VCs are starting to see the potential and urgency for this industry and there’ve been significant strides in the industry in the past few years.

One such startup that focuses on alleviating the pain points in the agriculture sector while helping the environment is Tokyo-based Sagri. We spoke to Satoshi Nagata, the global business director from Sagri to understand more about the smart agriculture data and service platform startup.

Utilising technology for climate-smart agricultural solutions

Sagri is solving agricultural and environmental problems with satellite data, machine learning and grid mapping technology. One of the main challenges faced by farmers is the inaccuracy in farmland mapping and accurate delineation of farm boundaries is crucial to undertake many planning and decision-making actions. First, it enables a better estimation of cropland area, which is important information for both the farmer and agricultural managers (e.g., ministries, private sector players). Second, accurate information on farm boundaries can not only facilitate land registration but also help in the subsequent acquisition of land use rights for smallholder farmers. Hence, Sagri is developing an application for monitoring abandoned, AI mapping for farmland boundaries. The startup is also working on a soil data check system leveraging satellite data.

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“Generally speaking, everybody wants to do smart farming and do it fast. However, it is important to understand the diversity across Southeast Asia to address specific farming needs. For example, the rice in the Philippines, India, and Thailand are completely different,” explains Satoshi.

As such, for each crop cycle in specific regions with different kinds of resources and soil, smart farming has to be tailored. To support that a robust agricultural infrastructure is needed and this is where Sagri is stepping up.

“In Japan, we are a member of the committee “Digital agricultural mapping” by the Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan. Hence, we are committed to digital mapping for agri-commerce by leveraging big data and analytics,” shares Satoshi.

Southeast Asia as a potential market

Sagri is ready to expand and establish a presence in Southeast Asia through the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Southeast Asia has a burgeoning smart agriculture market. In Thailand alone, the market value amounted to around 128.7 million U.S. dollars in 2018 and is forecasted to reach 269.9 million U.S. dollars by 2022. 

Sagri is already working on a Proof of Concept project in Thailand in partnership with The Thai Ministry of Agricultural  Cooperatives (MOAC). Under this project, Sagri aims to help in the promotion of the digitalisation of agricultural land information.

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Furthermore, digital agricultural services are gaining ground across the region and transforming agriculture for smallholder cultivators. The unification of these largely unintegrated services offers a stronger proposition for actors in agricultural ecosystems. Therefore, visualisation is a key trend emerging across Southeast Asia.  

“From what we have learnt, almost all Southeast Asian governments are keen on creating a unified data platform for smart agriculture, however, there are some challenges, such as lack of input data, data traceability problems, and so on.  To address these challenges, Sagri plans to install a robust unified data platform by connecting various data resources,” shares Satoshi.

Sagri seeks to promote sustainable economic development with innovation for the farmers and to the consumers across Southeast Asia and beyond. Learn more about Sagri’s innovative and sustainable agritech solutions here.

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

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