San-Francisco-based global e-signature platform DocuSign announced the launch of DocuSign Ventures which is set to invest in startups that aim to innovate the agreement process, including startups in the Southeast Asia region.

DocuSign Ventures are looking to invest and partner with startups that are working to build solutions in the following areas:

– Agreement process automation and workflows
– AI and smart contract technology
– Identity verification and management
– Digital payment platforms
– Legal and compliance automation technologies
– Vertical solutions in areas such as mortgage and lending

Describing itself as a stage-agnostic investor, DocuSign Ventures said that it targets early stage companies that have achieved early signs of product-market fit or Series A to C stage companies.

It does not typically lead funding rounds and look to co-invest alongside other credible and qualified investors.

Also Read: Legal tech platform INTELLLEX raises US$2.1M funding round led by Quest Ventures

The firm is also “flexible” in its check sizes with no stated maximums or minimums with typical deals that are up to 10 per cent of a round size.

“Agreements are fundamental to everything, traversing how we conduct business and defining the important life commitments we make and depend upon. Despite their essential nature, the agreement process today is still largely manual, static, and rooted in paper,” said Eric Darwin, Head of Corporate Development at DocuSign.

“More and more businesses are recognising the power and urgency of digitising their agreement processes in order to meet the new ‘anywhere expectations’ of their customers, partners, and employees. DocuSign Ventures is excited to partner with the disruptors who are propelling smarter, simpler and frankly better ways of executing and fulfilling agreements,” he continued.

DocuSign Ventures will give its portfolio companies access to its knowledge and experience in the space as well opportunity to develop closer partnerships with the DocuSign Agreement Cloud platform and work with DocuSign’s broader ecosystem of customers, developers and partners.

It has invested in BlackBoiler, DataGrail, Pactum, Snapdocs, and a recent investment in The LegalTech Fund.

e27 has reached out to DocuSign Ventures to find out more details of their plans with Southeast Asian startups.

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Doyobi, a Singapore-based provider of STEM teaching resources and teacher professional development to school, has bagged a US$2.8 million pre-Series A funding round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. 

Tres Monos Capital, Novus Paradigm Capital, and XA Network also joined. 

Carousell CEO Quek Siu Rui, Glints co-founders Oswald Yeo and Seah Ying Cong, and Head of Grab Financial Group Reuben Lai, also co-invested in the round.

Doyobi intends to use the money to build new cohort-based courses focused on upskilling teachers. It will also develop new resources to help teachers effectively deliver STEM and 21st-century skills, including creative and critical thinking, in the classroom.

The capital will also be allocated to expand ‘Instructors As Humans’ — an online community for teachers to seek peer support and professional development chances.

Doyobi also plans to launch the STEM School Leader Fellowship. It aims to assist school leaders, such as principals and department heads, learn how to effectively apply STEM principles in the classroom and develop students’ skillsets and attitudes necessary for more career choices as inventors, entrepreneurs, and changemakers.

Also read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

Founded in 2020, Doyobi is a spin-off from Singapore’s coding school Saturday Kids. 

CEO and co-founder John Tan witnessed a gap between what is taught in schools and what children need to know to be prepared for future employment.

“Curiosity, imagination and empathy are just as important as literacy and numeracy skills. We believe teachers are integral to transforming the classroom experience,” he said.

Therefore, Doyobi enables teachers and school administrators to integrate STEM and 21st century-related classes in a fun and engaging way with guided courses that include videos, quizzes, and projects.

Since its inception, the startup claims to have onboarded nearly 2,000 instructors in over ten countries to use Doyobi’s virtual learning environment.

It counts Leap Surabaya, Codercademy, and private schools, such as HighScope Indonesia, Mutiara Harapan Islamic School, and Stella Gracia School, among its partners. 

While Indonesia and the Philippines are Doyobi’s biggest markets, African educational institutions are also adopting the Doyobi curriculum, said the company.

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Novatti Group, an ASX-listed Australian fintech company, announced today it has acquired Malaysian digital payments firm ATX Fintech Holding.

Novatti will acquire all of the issued share capital of ATX for a minimum consideration of approximately A$8.4 million up to A$9.9 million (US$6.2-7.4 million ).

The agreement is pending due diligence and regulatory approvals. The two companies expect to close the deal by the end of next month.

Novatti, whose solutions include issuing, acquiring, processing, and billing, has been a partner of ATX since 2015.

As per a statement, the acquisition offers an opportunity for Novatti to use its ecosystem and resources to scale the existing ATX business in Malaysia, introduce new services, such as billing, and further expand across Southeast Asia.

Also Read: 5 lessons from GoTo and Traveloka on building the future of fintech in SEA

In addition, there is potential to add other value-added products to ATX’s customer base.

The deal also presents strategic value for Novatti on several fronts, including access to an established network of 30,000+ payments touchpoints across Malaysia, providing an on-the-ground presence in Southeast Asia for further expansion (including leveraging Novatti’s partnerships with other fintech leaders, such as Ripple); and access to ATX’s leadership team and its existing innovative solutions and technology, including its e-wallets.

This announcement follows Novatti’s closing of A$10.5 million (US$7.8 million) Series A round.

Founded in 2011 by Sashie Kumar and Kelly Koh, ATX provides traditional retail stores and kiosks with digital payment services, such as third-party bill and product payments.

ATX owns and operates several B2B and B2C brands — PayHub (B2B payments aggregator), GoPay (B2C digital wallet), MyPOSPay (B2B2C platform for traditional retailers), and RuncitHero (B2B2C online marketplace for grocers).

In FY21, ATX claims to have generated normalised annual revenue of A$3 (US$2.2) million.

Also Read: 21 Southeast Asian startups that help banks gain ground in fintech competition

Novatti MD Peter Cook said: “The acquisition will not only provide Novatti with a strong business in Malaysia but also provides a platform to continue our expansion in Southeast Asia, where we see increasing growth in digital payments. This growing demand has already supported some of Novatti’s other recent activities in the region, including the expansion of our partnership with Ripple into Thailand, after launching in the Philippines earlier this year.”

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Geniebook, a Singapore-headquartered edutech startup, has secured US$16.6 million in a Series A financing round co-led by East Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Individuals, who participated in the round, include Dunce Capital’s John Danner, Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini, Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and other senior executives from Southeast Asia’s unicorns such as Grab, Shopee, and Gojek. 

With the new investment, Geniebook intends to scale its current global personnel of 350 people with strategic hires in curriculum, engineering, product, and growth teams.

The funds will also be used to innovate existing products, including AI-personalised worksheets GenieSmart, live online classes GenieClass, and real-time teacher chat GenieAsk. 

Also read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

Launched in 2017 by Neo Zhizhong and Alicia Cheong, Geniebook employs AI and machine learning to assist students in improving their academic performance through personalised experiences on its platform.

“More than ever today, with online pedagogy becoming essential, we must greatly enhance the digital experience to accelerate students’ learning,” said CEO Zhizhong. 

Geniebook supports the home-based learning gains through self-directed and social learning methods.

As per a press statement, Geniebook has achieved a 2,000 per cent growth rate since the beginning of 2019, with more than 150,000 users in Southeast Asia. Its revenue in Vietnam has increased 3x since its expansion into the country earlier this year.

So far, Geniebook has made inroads into Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia, besides Singapore.

The startup claims it maintains profitability and positive cash flow thanks to a solid financial year in 2020.

“As we enter the second year of the pandemic, when schools and students have to seek online arrangements, edutech companies are playing an important role and have accelerated their delivery of solutions to users,” said Roderick Purwana, managing partner at East Ventures.

Before this round, GenieBook received US$1.1 million in pre-Series A round led by Apricot Capital, a Singapore-based diversified multi-asset private investment company. 

Global edutech revenues are anticipated to reach US$40.9 billion (S$56.3 billion) by 2022, with the Asia Pacific region accounting for more than half of worldwide market demand, reports Research and Markets.

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Also read: Geniebook

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In the cybersecurity industry, there is an arms race. Cybersecurity services providers and products are increasing their efforts in detecting new attacks (called zero-day vulnerability exploitations).

At the same time, cybercriminals are finding unheard ways to exploit networks. So far, ransomware gangs are winning – now is the time to invent or re-think if the current detection-only methodology is working.

In an arms race, the end result is that damages or threats are getting more destructive. First-generation ransomware only encrypts files.

Now, the latest ransomware attack uses inventive methods to maximize their threats. The attackers would extract a large quantity of sensitive information from victims before encrypting data, and then threaten to release or sell the stolen information, exerting greater pressure and urgency on the victims to pay the ransom.

Lockfile evades detection

AI and ML are used to detect abnormal behaviour in the network or PCs. But ransomware developers are not sitting ducks. Recently, there is new ransomware called Lockfile, using an innovative file encryption technique to evade detection.

It does not continuously encrypt files, it encrypts 16 bytes of data in a file and then skips 16 bytes. This saves time and is also harder to detect by cybersecurity tools. The data file is damaged (or taken hostage ) nevertheless. LockFile is just one example of this cat and mouse game, never-ending!!

“The use of blacklisting as a form of cybersecurity protection is common, but it requires ­security ­personnel to keep a permanent eye out for any ­malware they want to block from an agency’s IT ­environment. That can be a daunting prospect.” said Erin Brereton from fedtechmagazine.

Also Read: Explore cutting-edge cybersecurity tech at SINCON 2021

One method able to end this arms race is URL whitelisting. IT managers can isolate their network using whitelisting and only allow a list of trusted or pre-approved domains for users to access. These whitelists should only include well known, vetted and trustworthy websites, like banks or government websites.

Since ransomware is not hosted on these websites, it is impossible for ransomware to download or upload data as each network connection to malicious websites is blocked by default.

Whitelisting websites has its disadvantages and it is why it is not popular. Firstly, it reduces productivity – users are not able to access new websites or anything outside the whitelist. Secondly, maintaining the whitelist is resource-intensive with a complicated risk assessment process to approve new websites and add the domain name into the whitelist.

The inversion of whitelisting is blacklisting, which most of the security vendors are offering. They constantly collect logs, netflow or file hashes and then send alerts, threat intelligence or Indicator of compromise (IOCs).

Company security teams convert these alerts or threats intel into firewall rules or web filtering rules. It is a never-ending game and only effective if your company has a team of cybersecurity professionals. Collecting logs and user activities without violating privacy laws is also challenging!

“At first blush, this (whitelisting) seems to make security a snap: you don’t have to worry about new malicious code emerging as a threat to your infrastructure because the only things your machines can access are things you already know are safe.” by Josh Fruhlinger, journalist from CSO Online.

Augmented whitelisting

Traditional whitelisting is not user-friendly. Hence, we propose a new augmented whitelisting, which allows users to access unknown or not yet approved websites in a walled garden.

With AP Lens augmented whitelisting, pre-approved or well-known websites are allowed and users access it directly. For example, the top 100K websites in users’ countries. When accessing a new website outside of this 100K domain, users are forwarded to an AP Lens virtual browser session.

Also Read: Practical tips to protect your business from cyber attacks

The virtual browser is delivered to the end-user instantly without any software install and in the same Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Edge. The website is opened automatically inside AP Lens with full user interactions.

In this new setup, the user’s freedom is not restricted and there is no blocking of information flow. The new website is fully operational inside a remote sandbox totally segregated from the company network.

The organisation should develop a web domain whitelist for each HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure domain and Secure Socket Layer domain.

Augmented Whitelisting means you enforce 100 per cent network protection without sacrificing users’ freedom or productivity. The walled garden by AP Lens is the key to augmented whitelisting. Users are using the internet inside a sandbox hosted in a cloud-based system.

Any attack or exploitation is totally separated from the company network. The uniqueness of AP Lens is that users can access the Internet instantly without IT support manually updating the whitelist which solves the major drawback when implementing whitelisting — a time-consuming process to update the URL whitelists.

With AP Lens,  productivity and cybersecurity are balanced, by combining whitelisting and cloud-based remote secure browsers.

Agentless and supports four popular browsers (Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Edge) on smartphone/desktop, AP Lens is a distributed cloud system that offers both low latency and also robust cloud infrastructure. Each AP Lens session is disposable which means that any attack or downloaded code is not stored or affecting the next session.

Also Read: What is web 3.0 and why should you care?

In 2021, we are facing an increasing level of targeted cyberattacks, at the same time cybersecurity industry is short-handed. It is time to adjust our cyber defence strategy with a new paradigm.

Do not overly rely on resource-intensive cyber threats detection and blocklist. Lockdown the network and let users access the internet in a walled garden offers simple and balanced web access protection.

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Auspac Investment Management, an investment vehicle of Australia’s Auspac Financial Advisory, has launched its first fund focusing on Series A-stage startups in Southeast Asia.

The Singapore-based investment vehicle targets to raise US$50 million over the next 18 months from wealthy individuals, corporates and family offices after closing the first tranche of US$5 million from its Australian parent in September.

The vehicle recently joined the US$6 million Series A round of Malaysian insurtech startup PolicyStreet and plans to deploy its new capital in two to three more in the next four months in tandem with Auspac’s fundraising process. 

Allen Cheong, co-founder and CEO of Auspac Investment Management, told e27 that it would adopt the “1,2,3,4,5” investment approach. In this model, ‘1’ refers to the Southeast Asia region; ‘2’ means megatrends of digital transformation and adoption; ‘3’ means three sectors (healthtech, fintech and e-commerce); ‘4’ refers to four countries (Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia); and ‘5’ means five investment principles. 

“We adopt this kind of a pyramid approach that provides people with a simple snapshot of how we go about looking at investments,” said Cheong. “Our principle is to look at the addressable market, the revenue business model, the pain point, the management team, and lastly, the valuation and exit step.” 

Cheong added that Auspac intends to invest in 15-20 businesses over three years at cheque sizes ranging from US$1 million to US$3 million. With two to three deals in every half year, the vehicle expects to generate a 30 per cent internal rate of return.

Also read: A horse of another: Here’s the full list of Southeast Asia’s 24 unicorns

With a team of six Singapore-based people, Auspac prioritises a co-investment strategy to leverage its portfolio’s due diligence process and advisory component.

“The collective team experience, both on the buy-side and sell-side, should be Auspac’s strong selling point that helps us evaluate the deal more holistically,” Cheong added. 

The VC firm noted that it only invests in startups that have started to earn money to reduce the failure rate. The founder is also concerned about regulatory hurdles in the rapidly evolving digital markets in Southeast Asia. 

“Something that we always need to be mindful of is how regulation affects the operating environment under which these startup models operate,” said Cheong. “But I believe that the governments are actually more inclined to promote the ecosystem so this regulatory risk can be managed and compensated accordingly.”

According to Singapore’s Cento Ventures report, VCs invested in a record-high number of deals in Southeast Asian startups in the first half of this year. Indonesia led the chart with half of the capital raised in the region, followed by Singapore, which accounts for 32 per cent of the total fundings.

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We have all heard about impact investing by now. Why are so many famous investors and entrepreneurs diving into it? And what is impact investing actually about?

Impact investing is the fastest-growing investment category in private markets. Unlike ESG in public markets, it’s not just about avoiding harm. It’s about actively generating positive outcomes alongside financial returns.

In a world facing unprecedented global challenges, this can be game-changing. At Top Tier Impact, we see companies addressing impossible challenges – from detecting wildfires before they even spread, to making cement sustainable.

The thing is that there are giant markets waiting to be unlocked by solving these issues. Making our planet sustainable is the quest of our century. It’s big business too. In this article, we’ll explore how impact investing is set to become mainstream investing quicker than any of us could expect.

Impact investing covers the biggest investment opportunities of this decade and beyond

Impact investing tackles the big issues of our time, from scaling renewable energy to making quality healthcare accessible for all. The way we define “impact” inside the global TTI community is as a global paradigm shift towards sustainability and equality, across all economic sectors.

That means it’s not just the sustainable part of the food or fashion industries, it’s about shifting those entire industries towards sustainability.

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

There are massive regulatory changes pushing in this direction. The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) implements a framework for public companies to disclose their climate-related risks and opportunities. First, it became mandatory in the UK.

G7 countries are now following suit, alongside Singapore and Switzerland among others. There’s more to come in relation not just to climate, but also to nature and water.

Let’s not forget about other acts too, such as the EU sustainable finance disclosure regulation. It happens to be the biggest piece of EU legislation since the Second World War.

As Larry Fink, the founder and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said in multiple statements, “Sustainability is the biggest corporate transition taking place in history”.

Impact investing focuses on enabling utopia, not avoiding dystopia

Impact investing is where growth and future-focused innovation are at. That’s because it has a positive focus on creating a better world. As an example, take the waste management industry, overall, it’s been growing at low-single-digit figures for the past 10 years.

When it comes to AI-driven waste robotics companies, which enable us to redeploy waste and recycle more efficiently, growth is in double digits.

When you look at it, you realize that it unlocks a lot of value.

Companies using such technology can reduce their costs and tap into new revenue opportunities. After all, waste doesn’t actually exist. It’s simply materials that aren’t in the right place. When they are, things change positively for everybody involved – companies, consumers and our planet.

Also read: Why is impact investing suddenly so hot?

Impact investing is where the brightest and most ambitious minds are at

When I graduated from Oxford University, the buzz was all about tech and startups instead of banks and finance. Today, I’m on the advisory board of my Oxford degree and I notice that the most ambitious graduates all want to make a positive impact on the planet.

They are well aware of the issues we are facing. They studied the problems and are thinking about the solutions. For them, the purpose is not an added career bonus.

Purpose has to be embedded at the core of a company’s actions, philosophy and structure. They are also naturally good at distinguishing greenwashing from a real commitment to impact.

Impact investing enables a planet where our species actually survives and thrives

When you dive into the numbers and science behind what we are currently facing, you understand that climate change, biodiversity loss and other trends aren’t just something ‘nice to avoid.’ You grasp the systemic implications for the survival of our species.

We haven’t been around that long on this planet and we are very delicate. When dinosaurs walked on earth, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were orders of magnitude higher than today.

It would have been impossible for us to cope with it. By accelerating changes in our biosphere, we’re not killing the earth, we’re killing ourselves, as we are way less resilient than this planet.

Impact investing is what both Millennials and Gen-Z are all about

Impact investing is part of a macro shift that is already underway. Generational shifts like this are huge and it’s not a question of if, just when.

Also Read: A wave of change: What sets impact investing apart from traditional investing

This is where the opportunity lies for us all: by proactively embracing impact, we can help make a positive difference sooner rather than later and we align with where the world is naturally going anyway.

Personally, I feel a connection to future generations. You can call it responsibility or simply recognizing that we are all on the same big rock together, floating in a universe we still have no clue about. This might sound daunting, but it’s also very beautiful. Showing up with care, compassion and commitment is something that we owe to each other and to ourselves too.

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MarketWolf, an ‘intra-day options only’ trading app, has bagged US$5.5 million in a fresh round of seed funding from a slew of high-profile individual investors.

These individuals hold senior positions in renowned PE firms, investment funds, fintech and consumer internet startups. Among them are Anil Thadani, Ashutosh Sinha, Roy van Leeuwen, Tomas Urbanec, Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma.

Also Read: How cloud technology makes trading a hassle-free experience

The startup will use the new funding to build new products, expand its user base and attract top talent.

Vishesh Dhingra, founder and CEO of MarketWolf, said: “We aim to create a global community of MarketWolves – people who learn psychology, knowledge and tools to trade well in all market conditions and train each other to become better traders. In an industry that has been largely categorised into only bulls and bears, MarketWolves will be a worthy addition.”

The company was started in 2017 by Vishesh Dhingra (CEO) and Thomas Joseph (COO). MarketWolf helps people interested in short-term trading by simplifying the trading experience, removing unnecessary jargon and complexities associated with options, and educating them while protecting their capital with built-in risk features.

The firm does not give tips; instead, it “creates the right conditions and ecosystem for users to make better trading decisions”. The startup charges brokerage only when a trade makes a profit.

India is MarketWolf’s first market where its trading accounts increased by 4x, and monthly active users multiplied to 10x over the last few months. The company claims it has clocked over one million app downloads (Android and iOS) so far.

Also Read: How tech-driven trading can help enhance liquidity for investors

MarketWolf earlier raised US$1.7 million in angel funding and has raised a total of US$7.2 million to date.

Besides Singapore, the firm has offices in Mumbai, India.

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Five years ago, Dorothy and I left our jobs as Regional Senior Management at reputable global research and consulting firm to start EngageRocket. EngageRocket started as an answer to our frustration over how employee engagement surveys were being conducted across companies.

Now, the platform has evolved beyond what we could have imagined at first, with over 10 million survey answers collected from more than 200,000 users to date. 

We recently celebrated our startup’s fifth anniversary and this milestone made us reflect on our journey not just on the business side of things but also on our partnership.

Finding a co-founder that shares your vision is a big challenge, but making the relationship work in the long run is a bigger one. Even if you’re one of the lucky few, who have found a co-founder that shares your vision and ambitions, sustaining this partnership for 1, 5, and 20 years down the road will pose a new set of dynamics to navigate.

Nowadays, breakdowns in communications between co-founders have become a public secret within startup communities.

In his book The Founder’s Dilemma, Professor Noah Wasserman even stated that 65 per cent of failures in high-potential startups are due to interpersonal relationship problems, especially between co-founders.

Putting things into perspective made us realise how lucky we are to be partners that truly bring the best out of each other.

Also Read: A new approach to hybrid working: Let the employees decide when, how and where to work

Before EngageRocket, Dorothy and I had worked together for many years in our consulting job. Growing a regional business before together gave us insight into our common values, complementary strengths, and a foundation of trust.

We imported a high degree of commitment and accountability to each other into EngageRocket, which has infused our company values from Day 1. Now, we’re proud to say that we’ve found the right balance that works even as EngageRocket scales up its operations.

Here are some of the things we did to secure our partnership’s future.

Dropping C-suite titles

Looking at our contributions over the past five years, we have decided that holding ‘CEO’ and ‘COO’ titles are quite meaningless. The reality is to play to our strengths where we are most needed and cover for each other seamlessly when required.

We know the importance of maintaining swim lanes for decision-making clarity and speed. Within EngageRocket, Dorothy handles product decisions broadly while I deal with the go-to-market, and we respect each others’ decisions in both domains.

Other key business areas such as fundraising, key hires, and strategy are tabled for joint alignment. So far, we have found this to be a unique feature of EngageRocket that optimises decision-making, made possible by 10 years of collaboration prior.

Maintain utmost respect for each other and build a mechanism for check-ins

Conflict is unavoidable in any form of relationship, and our partnership was no exception. With 10 years of collaboration, we have faced many challenges that sometimes led to heated situations over differing opinions.

The frequency of conflicts was higher during the early days of EngageRocket as we made crucial decisions for the business. 

This is the true nature of any business relationship, but just like any other setback, there is a way to navigate it healthily. What we have learnt is to always return to our common values and never waiver on our trust and respect for each other.

This aspect of our partnership also influences how we lead our team; we always listen and understand the other first. This has served us well to this day as we ensure that all voices are heard.

The other thing we did was to build a mechanism for check-ins. Our schedules fill up fast, and while we prioritise responsiveness to each other in day-to-day operations, we’ve built ways to keep aligned in a scalable way.

Also Read: Some things to consider when finding your cofounders

Dorothy and I have a recurring 30-min weekly Monday morning operational sync, a one-hour monthly strategic alignment review, and a three-hour quarterly long-term planning in our calendars.

These check-ins keep us constantly aligned and leading with one voice at all times.

Balancing our friendship outside work

We are both founders and good friends– and we found it important to nurture both aspects of the relationship as they are mutually reinforcing.

Work and personal matters are separated by platform (we chat on work matters on Slack and personal matters on WhatsApp). We regularly show a genuine interest and concern for personal lives outside work.

We were there for each other through major personal events, and we make an effort to include our spouses when we connect outside work.

Even as we run our independent families, we find opportunities to check-in and build relationships with each other’s personal support network and feel joy in celebrating each other’s personal wins.

Moving forward

Of course, this is far from the end (or even the middle) of our journey with EngageRocket. Just a few weeks ago, Dorothy and I sat down for hours discussing our goals, ambitions, and aspirations for the next five years down the line. As we expand our team, we’re eyeing a larger scale expansion across APAC, followed by global expansion afterwards.

To fulfil this, we know clearly what needs to be done; strengthen EngageRocket’s product capabilities to answer the challenges that businesses in different regions face.

We also have one significant non-revenue related ambition in mind: to grow as founders while we empower our team to grow and become leaders themselves.

After all, EngageRocket’s vision is to create a world where people thrive, and organisations succeed and the best place to start realising this is in our own backyard.

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The accelerated digital adoption since the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed businesses. Meanwhile, cybercriminals took this opportunity to exploit the increased digital exposure to the Internet (with work from home being the norm) to tap on vulnerabilities in the computer networks of individuals and institutions, be it local businesses or global organisations.

A report by IBM shows that 2021 witnessed data breach costs rising from US$3.38 million to US$4.24 million per breach, the highest average total cost reported in the last 17 years. A cyber threat assessment of the ASEAN region by Interpol pinpointed a number of prominent cyber threats throughout 2020, which included business email compromise, e-commerce data interception, and crypto-jacking, the latter related to the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency.

The above highlights the urgency of addressing the latest challenges in cybersecurity. And with projections that digital technology, be it mobile apps or the Internet of Things (IoT), will progressively be entrenched into the daily lives of Southeast Asians, addressing and preparing for potential issues by cybersecurity experts is timelier than ever.

Bringing cybersecurity knowledge to the region

Multiple forums exist to convene cybersecurity experts, enabling a robust interchange of ideas on the latest situation and solutions. However, not all of these forums adequately create a space for such discussions to occur. To attend the most established annual cybersecurity conferences and training in the world — Black Hat USA and DEF CON, combined — can cost upwards of S$10,000 for Southeast Asians to attend. Meanwhile, the CODE BLUE in Japan and HITCON in Taiwan, which are part of the East Asian Conferences, present 50% of their content in the local languages, adds a language barrier to non-native attendees. 

The lack of techno-centric cybersecurity conferences in the region — especially ones that are tailor-fit for the specific and unique context of Southeast Asia — became the impetus behind the creation of SINCON in 2018. The pandemic has not thwarted the annual conference with SINCON announcing the Infosec in the City, SINCON 2021 which will run on November 5-6 2021.

Infosec In the City, or IIC, is an international cybersecurity capability and capacity development network that aims to enhance the global cybersecurity capacity through training, events and conferences. IIC’s Singapore network — SINCON —  is based on the principle that expanding access to the latest cybersecurity information and updates will further impel the development of the regional cybersecurity industry, which already is growing rapidly.

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Furthermore, SINCON has been developed as the international flagship event of Division Zero (Div0). Div0 is the leading community in Singapore in terms of cybersecurity knowledge sharing, practice and development. Leading SINCON are Adrian Mahieu, an established international cybersecurity expert and organiser of 44CON, and Emil Tan, co-founder of Div0 who has built a solid reputation after working in cybersecurity for over 10 years. 

“SINCON will address the gaps and challenges in the cybersecurity space, particularly in Southeast Asia, through affordability of conferences, accessibility to great techno-centric practice and content, and bringing the best cybersecurity conference experience to Singapore and the region,” said Emil Tan.

Emil added that SINCON 2021 stood out from the previous iterations as this year’s conference marked the “coming together of the vision of SINCON on an online platform”.

“SINCON 2018, as the first iteration, was all about the techno-centric practice, with SINCON 2019 adding on the business and community side. Then, SINCON 2020 focused on the 2018 experience due to the move to an online platform. So, it can be said that SINCON 2021 is the online version of 2019 in the sense of the features and experience,” he added.

Making cybersecurity accessible to all

On keeping prices affordable, SINCON does this to ensure that as many cybersecurity professionals, practitioners, and enthusiasts as possible can benefit from the event, which will be conducted virtually due to the ongoing pandemic. Unlike bigger conferences in Singapore that charge S$1,500 and above for their physical conferences, SINCON made it a point not to go over S$1,000 (SINCON 2019 was S$595).

Currently, with everything online, SINCON tickets go as low as S$0 during the early bird period which lasts until 24 October, with the highest being S$75 for late purchases. SINCON releases three ticket categories, with the most basic being Open Access. Up one step is the Standard Access which unlocks the entrance to all the conference tracks, with Patron Access being the top-of-the-line ticket carrying additional perks such as being listed as a patron on the conference platform.

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The quality of the event’s content also certainly surpasses its price tag. SINCON 2021 will feature experts, practitioners, and thought leaders who are ready to share their wealth of knowledge and perspective on innovative solutions and real-life experience connected to managing next-generation cybersecurity risks, threats, and vulnerabilities. Here are some examples of the talks at the main event:

• Alex Matrosov, Founder and CEO of Binarly Inc., will be speaking on how to manage hardware and firmware security challenges to ensure holistic platform security in the current supply-chain world
• Global automotive security experts, Alina Tan, Edmund Lim, and Kamel Ghali, will be conducting workshops on car security.
• Aaron Aubrey Ng, Strategic Threat Advisor at Crowdstrike, will be conducting an exposè of the criminal underground.

Simply put, SINCON 2021 has content for everyone – whether you’re an expert, intermediate or beginner. There is something for you to learn and be able to apply immediately back at work, home or even school. 

Helping the region learn the hoops around cybersecurity

Knowing that attendees desire more than just passively listening to experts, SINCON has designed the Workshop Track for compact training courses that help attendees sharpen their expertise and careers. Furthermore, the BizComm Track will foster open conversation among cybersecurity industry leaders, professionals, practitioners, and enthusiasts to share their know-how, be it insights or tools.

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SINCON has put much thought into shaping a fine conference experience by forging a community vibe because it wants everyone to be equal as practitioners, instead of just as corporate representatives. Therefore, SINCON will also set up a Conference Foyer comprising Kampungs (aka Villages) as dedicated spaces for a specific domain or topic, and Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions for those up for a challenge. These villages and community events are held on the SINCON Discord channel for people to converse and share knowledge throughout the event.

Get your tickets today with an exclusive e27 offer

So, for those eager to take home fresh ideas on securing the latest technology while immersed in a participative conference environment, go over to SINCON 2021’s website at https://www.infosec-city.com/ to access all the tickets and details. 

To get our exclusive e27 offer, use the coupon codes below for the respective tickets:

Open – “E27OPEN”

Standard – “E27STANDARD”

Patron – “E27PATRON”

Future attendees can also follow SINCON 2021’s social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to get the latest updates.

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This article was sponsored by the Centre for Cybersecurity (CFC) in support of Infosec In the City: SINCON 2021. CFC will be hosting 2 talks at the BizComm track for “How to enter cybersecurity as a career” and “What companies actually need in cybersecurity” at SINCON 2021.

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