In today’s age of globalisation, the success of a startup doesn’t just lie solely in having a breakthrough idea or business model, but also in the speed of expansion and growth.

International expansion is a strategic step that entrepreneurs need to keep in mind if they are looking to grow their business. 

Startups often think that only businesses with abundant resources can expand into overseas markets. However, the reality is that international expansion becomes possible and faster with advancements in technology and globalisation.

Compared to large enterprises, startups although smaller in size, have an easier time evolving and adapting to specific markets. However, make no mistake, this is still not an easy task for startups. 

So what should entrepreneurs keep in mind when they want to expand into overseas markets? 

When is the right time to expand internationally?

Founders often question whether they should expand to the international market from the start or wait until the business has established a foothold in the domestic market. There’s no specific answer to this question, and it depends on the nature of the business.

Basically, founders need to consider things such as finances, internal resources, products and customer groups. Building out a successful product in Singapore does not mean it will also be successful in Vietnam, Indonesia, or China. 

To do this, founders need to think about international expansion when forming a business idea or developing the very first product. This will help startups to avoid being too narrowly focused and creating products or services that only meet the needs of one market.

For us, this came one month after we started operations in Singapore. Thailand was our market of choice for the first expansion, due to the speed at which the country was advancing. In fact, we started operations in April 2016, but by the end of the year, we were already in Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Taipei and Jakarta.

For us, time was of the essence as we wanted to capture market share as quickly as possible. Since we had an easily scalable product, we also wanted feet on the ground. These are people who understand the local nuances and were able to support our customers.

Also Read: Taiwan’s AI ecosystem map: Deepening synergies between startups and corporates

Which market should you head to?

Running a startup targeting domestic markets is challenging, but looking at the wider region is even more difficult. There are various challenges to tackle, from languages and business culture to customer needs and behaviors, and this is just one market, and not to mention competition from local players as well. That’s why it’s highly important to prioritize the markets to expand into first, and which can be left to later.  

There are various factors to consider when planning for this, including growth potential, market demand, our own understanding of that market, and more. Before I started AnyMind Group, I was tasked with expanding the business of my previous company into Southeast Asia, and I saw first-hand the potential of this region.

Selecting which market to expand should be done carefully because each market will have its own nuances and customers in each market also have different expectations, especially in one as diverse as Asia. It’s important to throw away your preconceived assumptions of any market and instead focus on researching and surveying the market.

Lessons cannot be imposed from one market to another, but instead you should thoroughly research even the smallest points and build the right customer touchpoints.

As such, it’s important to also localise your products and services through integrations and partnerships with local players. 

Building out versus using available infrastructure

Compared to large enterprises, startups do not have as abundant the resources to expand internationally. The hardest thing for startups is a lack of scalable data infrastructure and resources to reach new markets quickly, leading to a loss of advantage over local and more established competition.

This includes difficulties in managing functions at scale such as logistics, inventory, manufacturing, or even building out the right touchpoints to reach target customers. 

Unless you are a business in the technology space, having to invest in building infrastructure from scratch will sometimes become a major hurdle for startups. Companies should instead harness ready infrastructure from cloud platforms and online software to run their business; thereby eliminating barriers between markets or departments, or even between customer segments. 

For example, tapping on a logistics management platform simplifies the logistics process such as building and operating, monitoring product quality, and even managing the entire logistics process remotely.

A business in Vietnam produces goods in Indonesia and wants to ship these goods to Thailand. A typical process involves goods shipped from Indonesia to Vietnam for quality control, and then to Thailand.

However, cloud-based logistics management means that goods can be monitored once it’s produced in Indonesia, and then shipped directly to Thailand, saving cost, time and resources.

Also read: Meet the e27 Luminaries startups that are making life easier through tech in these emerging markets

In addition, startups can also take advantage of e-commerce-enabled platforms to put themselves right into their target customers’ screens. 

Building a scalable business model based on digital and cloud-based technology will be easily replicated without consuming too much resources to operate, compared to building your own infrastructure. 

Finally, expanding internationally is a challenge for any startup, but that does not mean there’s no efficient or effective way to do it.

Planning from day one means that you’ll be able to scale and optimise actions and processes as you continue to grow as a business.

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Building communities has always been at the centre of our lives. From connecting with peers at schools as adolescents to making friends at work as young adults, who we are and how we live have always been shaped by some form of a larger community. It is in acknowledging this importance that Facebook, one of the world’s most innovative game-changers in community building, has made it its mission to equip community leaders with the right tools to grow.

Facebook defines a community as a collection of people, in which they receive a sense of belonging, connection, and feeling of safety, and they give trust and investment over time. Threaded together by identity, interest, location, activity, experience, and institution, Facebook’s onus is to help strengthen communities and foster safe spaces for all.

As such, the social media organisation is launching the 2021 Community Accelerator Program Training, a program that helps leaders harness the power of their community to turn impactful ideas into action.

How the community accelerator works

Emotional well-being, civic engagement, instrumental support — these are only some of the benefits that come with being part of a community. In order to help community leaders foster such nurturing environments that don’t only help enrich the lives of people but also help their respective communities establish and achieve crucial goals, the 2021 Community Accelerator Program Training operates under a three-pronged approach:

• Training & Coaching: Participants learn how to organize and strengthen their community through custom training, one-on-one coaching and meaningful partnerships.
• Access to New Products: Participants are granted early access to new products aimed at helping them manage and activate their community.
• Funding: Facebook works with GlobalGiving to offer participants $50K USD to help fund their community’s initiatives.

Coaching and mentorship under the program will expose participants to world-class experts in business strategy, growth, and operations, who will be imparting key insights and industry expertise regarding relevant matters. Educational content will be focused on developing the business, leadership, and community skills needed to bring the community to the next level. They will also be offering product education and support on community initiative execution.

Also read: 32 startups raise US$108 million in 9Unicorns-VCats maiden Global Demo Day

Participants will also enjoy early access to new products aimed at helping them manage and activate their respective communities.

Through the programme, participants get to enjoy connections to leaders across the world who are going through similar journeys of building impactful communities through the program’s Global and Regional Facebook groups. Moreover, participants will be introduced to and connected with actors in the local and global ecosystem who can help them achieve their goals. Some of these key stakeholders including funders, corporations, and connectors.

In addition, the Community Accelerator Program Training offers financial support to fuel the initiatives and operations of the communities. Also, with the support of Facebook’s marketing team, the program creates avenues for recognition for participants to tell their stories in. This helps put a spotlight on their efforts to attract future partnerships, it also helps institutionalise and the projects which can ultimately help communities establish credibility and gain traction. Lastly, the program provides a slew of important forms of support carried out through the Facebook platform.

Selection criteria for potential participants

Of course, with all the fantastic communities out there being led by some of the most brilliant and most forward-thinking individuals, the selection of participants is going to be close to impossible. Thankfully, for this accelerator programme, Facebook has streamlined their selection criteria based on several key factors.

To start with, Facebook is looking for the best program fit. This refers to communities and community leaders that seem to be at a good stage of development. These are communities whose goals are generally aligned with regional priorities. The leadership team must also be committed to fully engaging at every stage of the program, must have a good vision for the future of the community, and whose members interact horizontally instead of simply connecting at a network level.

Also read: Gotrade: fractional investing powering access to US stock in 150 countries

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is also an important consideration given the variety of communities out there that need the opportunity for growth. Communities must have a clear purpose and understands how such purpose positively impacts the lives of their members and the larger society beyond it. The leadership team should have clear and defined ways of working that are distributed across the organisation, leveraging volunteers in a recurrent and significant manner.

Another key indicator for potential participants is the sustainability of these communities, whether this is being prioritised by the leadership team, and what steps they have taken towards keeping the communities sustainable. Other important factors that are also going to be largely considered are activities, regional goals, and product fit.

Partnership with e27

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with e27 once again this year for the Community Accelerator Program, and looking forward to welcoming this year’s cohort as we help these leaders build thriving communities,” said Grace Clapham, APAC Community Partnerships Director.

This is the second year that the Facebook Community Accelerator will be partnering with e27. Last year, the social media organisation partnered with e27 to capture the company’s community-building expertise and vast network, particularly in the Asia Pacific. Coming from last year’s leg, we saw how collaborations between Facebook communities have yield better impact in terms of meeting intersecting goals across different verticals.

This year’s partnership between the two community-building leaders is poised to achieve similar success, which is fitting considering e27’s role as one of APAC’s go-to platforms for news, community, events, talent, funding, and more.

Also read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond

“It is in our DNA to work with small organisations and enable them to succeed. As a community ourselves, we understand the pains of growing a community and know how to solve them,” said e27 CEO and Co-Founder, Mohan Belani, about last year’s programme.

Having established countless collaborations and partnerships among community members within its vast network, e27’s active role in the APAC tech startup ecosystem puts it in the best possible position to lead the charge.

2021 Community Accelerator Program Training

The project is a comprehensive training program that will immerse participants in rigorous and often rewarding world of community building. The program will last for approximately six months starting from August 2021 to March 2022.

The event will culminate in a demo day which allows participants to demonstrate their key learnings and to ultimately discuss to the rest of the program the nature of their communities, including the goals they are working towards. Interested participants who meet the criteria and are keen on building purposeful communities may visit their official page for more information.

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Photo by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels

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The term “tokenisation” has been all the rage in the last few years across all regions of the world. It’s not only the crypto community that has recognised the digital mapping of almost all assets is possible with blockchain-based tokens.

Anyone can become a shareholder in a company or a ski resort by buying tokens and consequently reap the rewards of business’s success.

Key milestones of the asset tokenisation trend development

The trend for asset tokenisation goes back to 2016 when a number of companies perceived the benefits of blockchain. They mainly used the Ethereum blockchain, allowing anyone to create tokens of the ERC-20 standards, which was first utilised during the ICO hype in 2017.

Around the same time, tokenisation was pioneered in the banking sector. Thus, the Visa and Mastercard payment systems started implementing Token Service – an original security technology that replaces the cardholder’s data with a unique digital identifier (token). It can be used for payment without disclosing bank card credentials.

During 2017-2018 an easy access to the information and willingness of masses to invest in digital assets created new momentum for tokenisation of various real assets, from real estate and art objects to company shares. Elevated Returns demonstrated the most successful cases (deal with St. Aspen Ski Resort), as well as logistics company CargoX (innovative bill of lading – Smart B/L). 

Among the most well-known tokenisation platforms are:

• Polymath Network is an all-in-all solution for creating security tokens
• Templum is a comprehensive solution for raising capital and trading tokens on private markets
• Harbor, a platform for tokenising funds, private equity, and commercial real estate
• Tokeny, a platform, which offers to digitally issue, manage and transfer security tokens

However, there are few successful cases, since not every business trusts cryptocurrencies and blockchain. 

In recent months the fundraising platforms, offering small businesses the opportunities to grow, have proved to be the hottest trend.

Also Read: PDAX raises US$12.5M to take advantage of the popularity of cryptocurrencies in Philippines

For instance, launchpads, the decentralised VC investment platforms, are known for promoting new token sale models. One of them is DYCO, the Dynamic Coin Offering, which presents the opportunity for participants to get a refund in case they are not satisfied with the deliverables of the project they supported. Binance Launchpad, Pokastarter and Duck Starter caught up at the beginning of 2021. 

Another fundamental concept is combining tokenisation services with other functionality, which is convenient for startups. This is how digital asset exchange Binaryx decided to stand out.

The project offers tokenisation services plus the functionality of cryptocurrency exchange – available on the same platform. It means, businesses can tokenise their assets, list coins on the exchange and distribute them among the community using one platform. 

Why tokenisation is such an attractive concept

Naturally, there are many benefits of digitising assets that can drive the growth of businesses of all types. Let’s have a closer look at some of them.

Fast and affordable 

Traditional financial instruments, like initial public offering (IPO) can take more than a year. The tokenisation of assets, in the meantime, happens in a matter of hours, as the transactions are carried out almost instantly.

IPO has a number of requirements that many small businesses don’t meet, such as independent audit or a certain level of return.

Tokenisation on the blockchain offers low-cost and fast solutions for transforming physical assets into digital ones and allocating them all over the world. 

Accessible for masses

In previous decades a lot of investment opportunities have only been accessible to accredited investors. Today regular people can invest in many products and services through technology.

The same applies to businesses – they do not necessarily need qualified investors. There are currently avenues to attract investments from people, who are willing to support their products from any part of the world.

Impact of the asset tokenisation on businesses

The primary goal of tokenising assets is to increase liquidity. Businesses are now faced with the major challenge of low liquidity, which gravely hampers their development. 

Lately, big companies have been trying to bring liquidity through securitisation. However, this method has significant drawbacks, such as preparation time (from six months or more) and cost (US$300,000 and more). Hence, the creation of security tokens is not suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

There is an alternative option. Businesses can use the blockchain system. It’s much cheaper and can attract the maximum number of assets into the total turnover. Even assets that were previously considered illiquid will be able to generate revenue.

Also read: Are CBDCs better than Bitcoins? Here’s why Asia should bank on them

Adoption: what’s taking so long

It’s also worth considering some of the nuances that slow down the widespread use of tokenisation.

Poor access to financial services in some countries

Financial integration is underway at a relatively slower pace than expected. According to the 2017 Global Findex report, about 1.7 billion adults worldwide are still not using mobile banking.

Therefore, the main objective is to make the Internet available to everyone, especially in developing countries, and educate the population on mobile apps. 

Dealing with cryptocurrencies requires efforts and skills

Not everyone appreciates the need for cryptocurrency, as most people do not have a good grasp of the issue. It’s no surprise so many people still recoil at the mention of the word “cryptocurrency”.

The first step that should be taken in this regard is to implement educational programs to raise awareness and help anyone interested to gain knowledge or upgrade their skills in operations with cryptocurrencies and tokens. 

The tokenised asset market has an increasing impact on the entire economy. However, there is no unified approach for the implementation of tokenisation yet, and clearly, this process will require compliance regulation.

It’s entirely possible to expect the achievement of consensus between blockchain projects in a few years. Their interaction with existing government institutions should also be improved.

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

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

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Sunday, a Bangkok-based fully-integrated sales and services insurtech startup, disclosed today it has secured US$45 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round. 

New and existing investors joined the round, including Tencent, SCB 10X, Vertex Growth, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, Quona Capital, Aflac Ventures, and Z Venture Capital.

As per the press statement, Sunday will use the money to strengthen its online platform architecture to offer a retail product suite comprising health insurance and electronics and motor insurance protection. 

Also read: Why now is the right time for disruption in the insurance industry?

The startup also intends to grow its portfolio to Indonesia and extend its product and platforms to insurance agents, SMEs and partners.

“Awareness for health insurance will continue to increase, and we believe more consumers would be open to shop for insurance online,” said Cindy Kua, CEO and co-founder of Sunday.

Founded in Bangkok in 2017, Sunday aims to solve the current inefficiencies of the whole insurance value chain, from the development of disruptive products, faster complex claim settlements to a preventative approach.

Its USP is the end-to-end insurance value chain, from underwriting to distribution of personalised insurance products and services. 

Capitalising on its handcrafted AI engine, Sunday can scale its underwriting process for complex risks of both individuals and businesses, automate pricing, and early screen and detect symptoms through AI chatbot. 

It also provides an HR administrative platform for corporate clients and a super-app for everyday members to access cashless primary care and manage their coverages. 

Besides, the company distributes subscription-based smartphone care and insurance through its partner network.

“With our strong analytics foundation, we are well equipped to scale our capabilities to swiftly respond to the risk and customer expectations that are changing rapidly,” said Suradej Panich, chief data scientist of Sunday.

Also Read: Sunday raises US$9M to grow its AI-powered insurance business in Thailand, Indonesia

The platform claims to have clocked a total of 1.6 million customers with over 90,000 current health members from its banking, manufacturing and retailers, and services sectors. Its revenue doubled in 2020. 

Last year, Sunday received US$9 million in a pre-Series B round led by Siam Commercial Bank’s venture arm SCB 10X. 

In recent years, insurance tech startups have drawn attention as the pandemic put much of people’s focus on healthcare. While insurers suffered from a loss of around US$55 billion due to COVID-19, global investors still funded insurtech firms to the tune of US$7.5 billion last year and were expected to accelerate in the Southeast Asia market in 2021.

Vietnam’s Medici, Indonesia’s Fuse and Lifepal, Thailand’s Fairdee and Singapore’s Bolttech are some prominent insurtech startups that have received funding in 2021.

In April, Malaysian early-stage VC firm 1337 Ventures and pan-Asian insurance firm FWD Insurance joined hands to launch a bi-annual pre-accelerator programme for Malaysian fintech and insurtech startups.

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Image credit: Sunday

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KiotViet, a Vietnam-based merchant platform for MSMEs, has secured US$45 million in a Series B funding round led by global investment firm KKR.

Singapore’s Jungle Ventures, Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank, and Vietnamese family investment holding company Cao Viet My, also co-invested. 

Tri Cao, deputy general director of Citigo, the parent company of KiotViet, told e27 that the company will use the new investment to enhance its products and services. 

Besides, KiotViet intends to recruit international talent to support new businesses, including fintech, B2B e-commerce, and expand to global markets.

“The addition of this new capital will only enable them to provide more services to small businesses, who as a segment are a major contributor to GDP throughout Southeast Asia,” stated David Gowdey, managing partner at Jungle Ventures.

Launched in 2014 as a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system, KiotViet aims to accelerate the digital transformation of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which accounts for around 40 per cent of the Vietnamese economy.

KiotViet is riding on the tailwind of the country’s digital transformation push to assist traditional retailers in adopting online platforms, especially during the pandemic. 

The firm claims it provides a full-suite software solution, including POS, inventory management, CRM, and employee management services for more than 110,000 MSME consumers. Last year, KiotViet had 1,000 employees across 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and claimed 50 per cent market share.

“Our main barrier is the status quo. Many family-owned small business owners have been running their businesses using traditional book-keeping processes for decades. This is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process,” added Cao.

KiotViet has also expanded its offerings to include a B2B procurement marketplace and integrated logistics services for its merchants. The platform is also set to offer financial services such as payments and lending.

Also read: Our main barrier to growth is status quo in retail sector: KiotViet’s Deputy GM Tri Cao

In 2019, the startup raised US$6 million in Series A round from Jungle Ventures and Traveloka.

As reported in “E-commerce market value in Vietnam from 2014 to 2020”, e-commerce revenue in 2020 was estimated to be over US$11.8 billion, accounting for around 5.5 per cent of total retail sales of products and services in Vietnam.

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Image credit: KiotViet

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Antler names Subir Lohani as Partner, country head for its operations in Indonesia

The person: Lohani will be leading Antler’s operation in Indonesia from Jakarta. Prior to this appointment, he was known as a founding member of Digiasia Bios and former CEO of Rocket Internet-backed Carmudi. Lohani began his career in Investment Banking focusing on debt capital markets across South and Southeast Asia.

The company: Global early-stage VC firm Antler plans to kick off the Jakarta programme in January 2022 and invest in companies through its Southeast Asia fund. In Indonesia, the target is approximately 10-15 startups in the first cohort with the goal of 100 startups in the next four to five years.

EventX raises US$10M, forms strategic alliance with HTC VIVE

The funding: Enterprise virtual event management company EventX closed a US$10 million series B funding co-led by HTC, a virtual reality (VR) leading company, and Gaocheng Capital, a China-based private equity fund focused on enterprise software and technology-enabled services sectors.

The plan: EventX is going to invest heavily in products and engineering for leading the recovery of the events industry during the current pandemic, which will not only stabilize and solidify existing virtual event services but carve out new spaces and opportunities for the marketing and event industry.

The company: Founded in Hong Kong in 2014, EventX provides digital event management solutions for enterprise businesses. It allows companies to multi-host virtual events of any kind with features such as interactive exhibition halls, online registration forms and webinars. It currently caters to 135+ countries and has organized 20,000+ events with more than five million attendees.

Also Read: Antler partners with e27 to assist startups with cross-border investment opportunities in a restricted travel environment

Ryde announces a rebrand as part of its growth plan

The story: Singapore-based mobility services company Ryde Sharing (Ryde) today announced a rebrand as part of its growth plan in the country. In a press statement, the company explained that its new logo adopts softer edges for a friendlier look and feel, to further signal its commitment to being a company that is accessible, approachable and in-tune with their riders’ and drivers’ needs. It also features a geopin to symbolise the business and mission of Ryde. The new logo ultimately takes on a younger and more modern look, to appeal to Ryde’s largest customer base –Millennials and Gen Zs.

The company: Ryde was initially launched as a carpooling app, and has since expanded its services to include ride-hailing and the delivery of goods. Terence Zou, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ryde, said that, “Driven by this overall growth in users across services, we are well on track towards achieving a market share value of more than 15 per cent of Singapore’s ride-hailing market.”

Airwallex secures money services business license in Malaysia

The story: Melbourne-based fintech platform Airwallex announced that it has secured a money services business (MSB) licence issued by Bank Negara Malaysia. The new license will allow the company to offer payment solutions for Malaysian businesses of all sizes. The movement is part of Airwallex’s move to expand to Southeast Asia.

The company: Founded in 2015, Airwallex recently announced an additional Series D capital raise of US$100 million which increased its valuation to US$2.6 billion. The company has over 900 staff across 12 global offices today. Airwallex currently has licences and is operational in Australia, Hong Kong, the UK & EU, and the US.

 

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Image Credit: Antler

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As India’s startup funding landscape strives to reach new heights every day, leading accelerator VC fund, 9Unicorns and its parent firm Venture Catalysts, have facilitated a $108 million fundraising for 32 portfolio startups in their first virtual demo day. By the end of the programme, 70% of the startups received interest and subscriptions from nearly 900 participating VCs from 18 countries in the two-day event.

A first cohort of 32 startups were mentored for the global demo day (D Day) of which about 45% of the startup founders were either serial entrepreneurs or have previously worked in a startup setting, have inferred that investor sentiment for entrepreneurs was twice as high.

The Demo Day, conducted on August 11-12, also witnessed massive participation from women founders. Women founders led about 30% of the D-Day startups. This is part of an attempt by 9Unicorns and VCats to reinforce support for female founders who often struggle to access capital even when there is massive liquidity in the startup ecosystem.

9Unicorns and its mission to champion startups

Co-founded by Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based $72 million sector-agnostic funds provide up to $100k per startup in the first round and up to $2 million in successive matches with its ecosystem of co-investors.

Also read: Gotrade: fractional investing powering access to US stock in 150 countries

“We are overwhelmed with the response from the global investor community on our first Demo Day. It speaks volumes about the positive sentiment in international VCs for Indian tech startups. A few of them individually raised over $20 million during the demo day. While a few of them have closed deals, a few others have received investment interests, and we hope to complete their respective rounds in the next few days and weeks. The idea is to conduct at least 3 demo days in a year,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President of 9Unicorns.

Demo Day startups

The firm is on a mission to help strengthen early-stage investing and help create potential Unicorns. Let us look at the startups that participated in the D-Day.

• ByteLearn: This edtech startup is an AI assistant to create adaptive learning tools for kids learning math.
• Pariksha: A vernacular Edtech startup to provide affordable education to students in rural India.
• ImaginXP: It is a social impact higher education platform that provides embedded degrees, online work-integrated degrees, and subjects to universities in a B2B model.
• Tamasha: An ideal platform for content creators and social media influencers to interact with their fans.
• Rooter: Allows gamers to join popular streamers, upload gaming videos or images, and create content.
• Power Gummies: Power Gummies has created chewable vitamin gummies for healthy hair and nails.
• PeeSafe: is a female toilet hygiene company making hygiene products like sanitary pads, menstrual cups, and even personal wash products for both men and women.
• TruNativ: It is an environmentally conscious food brand founded by Pranav and Mamta Malhotra in 2019. Its F&B aims to tackle urban malnourishment.
• Raskik: A natural fusion fruit juice brand for millennials at just Rs 30.
• Coutloot: The largest social commerce platform to buy and sell online in under 30 seconds on a bargain.
• EvenFlow: Evenflow is India’s Thrasio. It offers to manage inventory, performance marketing, on-platform merchandising, cataloguing, and new product development to third-party brands that raise revenue through e-commerce.
• ExtraaEdge: This SaS based edtech is empowering admission teams across the globe to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.
• Eunimart: AI-powered SaaS platform for businesses to grow online by leveraging intelligence, reducing cost, and improving efficiency.
• Prescinto: AI-powered SaaS platform to collect clean energy plant data and apply data science models to identify causes for underperformance.
• GeoIQ: It assists some of India’s leading brands with live data insights for some of the most crucial business decisions involving consumers on a day-to-day basis.
• Gully Network: Gully Network is building India’s largest asset-light modern retail network of tech-enabled mid-sized grocery stores in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
• Hesa: one-stop solution for corporates, banks, governments, and NGOs to explore and invest in rural India.
• BluSmart: India’s first and largest zero-emission ride service that operates a fleet of 400 cabs in the South Delhi-Gurugram region.
• Zypp Electric: EV-based last-mile delivery company with battery swapping infrastructure.
• Charge+ Zone: One-stop solution to locate charging points, booking slots for charging, and payment through QR code.
• Klub: A revenue-based finance firm that uses data analytics to provide capital to brands across sectors.
• Inai: It enables merchants to set up their payment stack with a single integration.
• Numadic: It revolutionizes India’s fleet management system using analytical data.
• Castler: It uses technology and innovation to digitize escrow accounts for safer transactions.
• Homeville: Is a fintech housing credit enablement network built on Open banking principles. It creates significant operating leverage with an in-house built technology stack.
• EnsuredIT: Empowers end customers and Insurance Intermediaries with AI-based product platform for transformational customer experience.
• OTO: OTO offers customers a convenient option to finance their vehicle by introducing two-wheeler leasing in India.
• Janani: Is an AI-based sexual dysfunction and infertility treatment provider.
• Alpha AI: Helps businesses design as well as redesign the AI system based on the prevalent business needs.
• Toch: An AI-driven platform can help broadcasters, OTT platforms, media platforms, and creators.
• Hoopr: Hoopr is India’s first AI-Powered Music Licensing Marketplace, built to soundtrack the world’s burgeoning video creator economy.
• Instoried: Helps large companies make their marketing and communications content more human with a data-driven, scalable, and repeatable approach using AI.
• ai: SaaS based employee service desk platform built for Microsoft Teams, designed to help address problems in terms of low self-service adoption, slow service, and long wait times.
• Rage: An innovative coffee brand targeted towards young millennials and small towns to create a cafe-like experience at home.

The future is bright 

With this diverse and competitive pool of startups sparking the interest of some of the world’s leading VCs, the future is bright for India’s tech startup ecosystem. As 9Unicorns continues to power through its mission of championing local startups, they expect to attract more promising young startups from the country’s vibrant ecosystem.

Also read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond

For more information on 9Unicorns future cohorts, you may visit their official website at 9unicorns.in.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 9unicorns.

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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Gwendolyn Regina has joined as an investment director at Binance to head its new US$100-million Binance Smart Chain (BMC) fund.

The BMC fund, announced last year by Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, aims to empower emerging projects and drive collaboration between centralised finance (CeFi) and decentralised finance (DeFi).

“Excited to announce that I’ve joined Binance to lead investments of the Binance Smart Chain US$100M fund (denominated in fiat but distributed in crypto),” Regina said in a LinkedIn post. 

Regina has 16 years of experience in the media and technology startup industry across Asia Pacific, Paris, and Silicon Valley. She was most recently an intrapreneur at Facebook, building up a new business unit of VC partnerships and startup growth. Before that, she was entrepreneur-in-residence at Entrepreneur First, based in Paris.

Previously, Regina built and sold tech media startup SGEntrepreneurs to Tech in Asia. She was also a founding team member of Thymos Capital, an early-stage technology investment firm in Singapore. She also spearheaded Mashable’s expansion into Asia.

Regina is an alumnus of the National University of Singapore.

Also Read: More troubles for Binance as the startup ordered to cease operations in Malaysia

“I was mind blown the first time I saw Bitcoin in 2010; I thought to myself, ‘this is how money should be moved and this is how the world should collaborate’. A few years ago, at the beginning of my sabbatical, I tried to do a startup in this space focusing on identity, but it didn’t work out. Now four years later, I’m finally full-time in the space,” she noted in the LinkedIn post.

As an early-stage VC firm, the BMC fund provides US$100,000 in funding. It will also provide liquidity support for DeFi projects that pass security audits and the due diligence process. 

Selected startups will also get support from Binance’s resources, including access to millions of customers, media information in the ecosystem, knowledge education, incubation financing, derivatives, financial management, and other comprehensive resources and financial support. High-quality projects have an opportunity to participate to be listed on Binance.

Aside from the US$100 million fund, BMC has also launched a Token Canal project, by which it is working with the Binance Smart Chain community to help developers connect the Binance Smart Chain with other public chains. Through the secure custody service of the Binance CeFi platform, tokens on other public chains can be connected to the Binance Smart Chain, including BTC, ETH, and other ERC20 tokens (LINK, USDT, DAI, and more), as well as XPR, BCH, LTC, ADA, DOT, XTZ, EOS, ONT, etc.

Also Read: How Binance acquired 35 per cent market share in a year with its new crypto derivatives line

“Some dismiss blockchain technologies as ‘just another tech’. I would argue you’re half right. We want it to be ‘just another tech’ someday. But it’s not now. It has opened up different possibilities for how we can do things and foreshadows how society will continue to be shaped. When you decrease the world’s collaboration costs, more amazing things can happen,” Regina added. “Thrilled to be leading the BSC Fund and ambitiously, to play a part in bringing more possibilities to our future.”

Binance has been under immense pressure from the market regulators of various countries across the globe. Last month, Malaysia’s Securities Commission took action against the cryptocurrency exchange for illegally operating in the country. This followed legal actions against the company by several countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the US, and the UK.

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True Global Ventures (TGV), a blockchain fund based out of Singapore, has just announced the closing of its fourth fund at over US$100 million. The new fund, True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV 4 Plus), focuses on blockchain companies, primarily in the Series B and Series C stages. Animoca Brands, a blockchain unicorn, is an investee of TGV.

In this interview, TGV founder Dusan Stojanovic talks about TGV, the blockchain industry, its future, NFTs and CBDCs.

Excerpts:

Blockchain has existed here for quite a few years, but its adoption is still moving at a snail’s pace, especially in Asia Pacific. What are the reasons for the slow adoption rate? What is hindering its growth?

We have been monitoring the four blockchain verticals (gaming, infrastructure, fintech, and AI) since our 2018 Blockchain competition. The absolute highest adoption vertical is within the NFTs space, and it’s massive.

From a fintech payments’ perspective, we see fastest in the in-game currency of the gaming metaverse. Thus, naturally, the first case adopted would be linked to these in-game payments as the most robust use case within blockchain payments.

5G is coming, and AI and ML are hot. How do you think a combination of different new-age technologies such as these can change the world we live in?

We see 5G as a booster for any gaming experience on the mobile, but also when combining gaming and VR/AR with a focus on the gaming metaverse. These new-age technologies will bring people even closer together and automate even more processes.

Why haven’t there been many unicorns in Blockchain (Asia in particular) despite being a hot sector?

We have seen one of the first NFT unicorns worldwide in Animoca Brands based out of Hong Kong. Its growth has been enormous, and it raised US$138 million in May-June 2021. It has also won exclusive rights to NFTs for the next Olympics in Beijing.

NFTs are taking the world by storm. What factors are contributing to this euphoria? Do you think Southeast Asia is ready for NFTs? What are its different applications?

We believe that NFTs are growing strongly and exponentially in Japan and South Korea, and Southeast Asia. What is driving NFTs is the more digitalised economy and the COVID-19 crisis, which has made people use even more digital collectibles.

They have driven the NFT burst in collectibles to start with and later metaverse gaming. Therefore, the essential applications of NFTs are collectibles, metaverse gaming, digital art, film, video, content, and music.

Many governments in Asia still look at cryptocurrency with an eye of suspicion? How can their perception be changed?

We are seeing more and more corporates investing in cryptocurrency. Pension funds have also started investing, and we believe that this will change the perception of cryptocurrency as an asset class.

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

However, we are mainly focussing on equity investments in NFT companies.

What are your thoughts on central bank digital currency (CBDC)? Do you think it can democratise access to finance across the world? Should Singapore and other fast-growing economies in SEA introduce CBDCs?

We do believe that CBDC is important. We see breakthroughs in significantly developed countries such as Sweden, which has been piloted already for several years. We believe the enormous potential probably lies in emerging countries rather than developed countries.

We believe that Singapore will follow countries such as Sweden that have completely digitalised payments. Singapore will embrace CBDC, given that it is growing quickly into a wholly digitalised economy and cashless society.

We believe that it is a perfect instrument, especially for countries that are highly digitalised.

Digital-only banks will soon become a reality in Singapore and Malaysia. How do you think players in this sector can adopt blockchain, DeFis etc., to promote financial inclusion in these markets?

Digital-only banks, if they tap into the gaming sector, will capture consumers in the below-40s age group. Going into the gaming community will give them an unfair competitive advantage since gamers spend a lot of their time on gaming. Being present at the very outset when gamers open up their first wallet in a game is how digital-only banks should think about capturing the youngest population and keep them until they become adults.

Last but not least, many of these gamers are young and are already making a lot of money and have considerable revenues. Examples of this would be Axie Infinity (by Sky Mavis) which has made enormous breakthroughs in emerging countries such as the Philippines (play-to-earn model)

What is next for blockchain?

It needs to have consumptions that use less energy, and it is coming. It needs to have renewable energy as the only source. The green aspect of blockchain would be one of the most critical aspects in the next 12 months.

Do you see any new unicorns in the making in the blockchain sector?

Yes, we believe that the prominent unicorns in the blockchain sector will be coming from the gaming blockchain area in the short term. Later on, companies linked to renewable energy will have a significant impact.

Also Read: How blockchain-powered fintech services can improve financial inclusion

Last but not least, we think that companies related to the identity infrastructure will be important in terms of the future unicorns in the sector.

Can you talk about TGV 4 Plus’s investment thesis? What is the average ticket size? How many companies do you plan to invest in, and how many this year? Any new investments in the pipeline?

We have quite a few investments in the pipeline that we will be announcing soon. Our objective is to invest in around another 10-20 companies, mainly in Series B and C, with a ticket size of between US$3-10 million.

TGV4 plus has 40 partners, which is rare in the VC industry. Was it a deliberate decision to keep the list long? Why so?

Yes, it was. We have four investment committees with roughly ten partners in each. We want to spot the very best companies in terms of who we want to invest in and support them in the best possible way.

We do not believe that the traditional VC structure with two to six general partners can optimally help 10-20 portfolio companies.

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Image Credit: True Global Ventures

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Carsome Group, a leading user car e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, has announced the completion of its US$170 million Series D2 round of financing.

It is complemented by new credit facilities of US$30 million, bringing the total funds raised in this round to US$200 million.

The largest equity investment in Carsome’s history, the round also saw participation from one of the leading sovereign wealth funds in the region. 

A pool of new international investors such as Catcha Group and MediaTek also co-invested. Existing shareholders, including Asia Partners, Gobi Partners, 500 Southeast Asia, Ondine Capital, MUFG Innovation Partners, Daiwa PI Partners, also joined. 

The new capital injection will be used to bolster Carsome’s organic growth in the retail and auto-financing business. The funding will also boost the unicorn’s capabilities in strategic investments and M&As (mergers and acquisitions) in the next six months, aiming to build the largest automotive ecosystem in Southeast Asia. 

With this deal, the Malaysia-headquartered tech unicorn’s valuation has touched US$1.3 billion. Carsome became a unicorn when it acquired iCar Asia in July this year. 

Also read: Digitalisation is driving the new normal for Southeast Asia’s automotive sector

“We are geared up to achieve even greater heights while rolling out Southeast Asia’s integrated car e-commerce platform, now further solidified by various strengths within the ecosystem,” said Carsome co-founder and group CEO Eric Cheng.

Founded in 2015, Carsome aims to digitise the region’s used car industry by reshaping the car buying and selling experience through end-to-end solutions — from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing. Since its inception, it has made inroads into Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. 

The company claims it transacts around 100,000 cars annually and has more than 1,700 employees across all its offices.

To champion the growth of its B2C business, Carsome has opened at least seven B2C retail centres, known as Carsome Experience Centers, across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. It will open several more shortly. 

The company has rolled out numerous auto-financing offerings for car buyers and used car dealers, especially for graduates who typically face challenges obtaining loan approvals from conventional banks.

According to the press statement, the car marketplace “is achieving operational profitability”. Reuters hinted that Carsome’s profitability on an operational level is set to be realised in 2022. The firm plans to triple its revenue to nearly US$1 billion this year from last year.

In July, Carsome acquired an all-equity stake in Universal Collection, a Jakarta-based car and motorcycle auction service.

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Image credit: Carsome

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