Medigo, a Vietnam-based medtech platform, today announced that it has raised US$1 million in seed funding from Vietnam-based early-stage VC Touchstone Partners.

Medigo will use the funding to strengthen its technology and operation, increase customer base and expand the pharmacy network with a high number of stock-keeping units (SKUs).

A portion of the capital injection will also be utilised to build Medigo’s telemedicine that provides customer teleconsultation with doctors. This is in line with the product roadmap of Medigo as a connecting platform.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Ha Le, an experienced engineer returning to Vietnam from Germany, Medigo aims to connect users with remote and high-quality healthcare services that provide on-demand medicine delivery 24/7. It helps people find the nearest licensed pharmacies and order medicine to be delivered within 20 minutes.

The company claims that it has formed partnerships with more than 200 pharmacies including large pharmacy chains and hospital pharmacies across three key cities of Vietnam. These partners are all required to be certified and licensed by Vietnam’s Ministry of Health with experienced and dedicated pharmacists.

Also Read: GlobalCare bags funding from VinaCapital to provide insurtech solutions to Vietnamese insurance firms, agents

Medigo CEO said that most Vietnamese go to pharmacies as the first touchpoint for their medical symptoms. However, their quality is hard to verify. 

“We want to use medicine delivery as a feature to educate users of online healthcare services and be familiar with remote pharmacists and doctors’ consultation, building a strong foundation for Medigo’s future telemedicine services,” stated Medigo CEO Ha Le. 

Le added that Medigo is also developing more service offerings such as advertising and ordering medicine in bulk for the pharmacies in the network.

According to the press statement, Medigo is gaining traction by helping people buy medicine remotely from the comfort of their homes, especially during lockdowns. The firm boasts that its gross merchandise value (GMV) has increased eight times with more than 200,000 users in the past six months. These pharmacies partners have also registered a 20-50 per cent increase in revenue.

“We believe this trend will stay as we enter a re-opening period while still managing the pandemic in Vietnam,” said Tu Ngo, general partner of Touchstone Partners. “The investment also aligns with our ESG-friendly investment principles, building a platform for affordable and accessible high-quality healthcare services to the mass in Vietnam.”

The deal is one of the first investments of Touchstone Partners’s US$50 million debut fund since launching in April this year. The firm’s sectors of interest include fintech, real estate, healthcare, edutech, and technology that enhances efficiency in major Vietnamese value chains such as manufacturing and agriculture.

Also Read: Ex-VinaCapital Ventures exec’s US$50M fund Touchstone Partners hits first close

In Vietnam, 70 per cent of the Vietnamese population is living in rural or remote areas, which is a boon for the telehealth market to help address the medical personnel shortage and reduce overall healthcare costs.

According to the Facts and Factors market research report, the global telehealth market’s revenue is slated to grow to US$475.50 billion by 2026 at an annual CAGR of 26.5 per cent during 2021-2026.

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Image credit: Medigo

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GlobalCare, a Vietnam-based B2B insurtech provider, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from VinaCapital Ventures.

It is not clear how GlobalCare is going to utilise the capital. We are contacting the startup for more details and will update this news story accordingly.

Launched in 2017 by Niem Thi Ngoc Dinh and Loi Minh Hang, GlobalCare allows insurance companies and agents to sell policies via a cloud-based and on-premises app. The solution enables end-to-end service management, including monitoring transaction history and processing claims.

The firm also provides insurtech solutions to ride-sharing companies, which offer insurance coverage to its drivers and users. In addition, it develops a technological solution for more than ten major insurance distribution channels and 200,000 agents.

GlobalCare said in a press statement that its network of more than 3,000 O2O stores provides consumers with various insurance products. 

“It offers a product that solves a pain point, an obvious and realistic business plan that has the potential to scale, and a committed and experienced founder and team,” said Trung Duc Hoang, Partner of VinaCapital Ventures.

Also read: Medici, a health-tech firm founded by ex-Grab exec, gets seed funding to foray into insurance in Vietnam

The Vietnamese insurance market is still nascent. As per a Statista report, the non-life insurance penetration rate was at a meagre 0.91 per cent in Vietnam in 2020.

“As Vietnamese learn more about the importance of having insurance to protect them, their families, and their businesses, we aim to provide a platform that removes the inconveniences that can occur when buying insurance products,” said Dinh.

GlobalCare’s latest funding round rides on the tailwind of the pandemic-induced surge in demand for insurance products. 

Last year, as incumbent insurers rapidly increased their technology requirements and capabilities, global investors took bets on insurtech firms to an all-time high of US$7.5 billion and are 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.

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Image credit: VinaCapital

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WE Rise, the flagship accelerator programme of early-stage impact enterprise incubator Villgro Philippines, announced the 20 women-owned companies that have participated in their programme, including four tech companies.

The tech companies are:

Rumarocket
Founder: Kathleen Yu

Rumarocket is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that helps users identify, optimise, and retain the right talent for the right positions. The company said that its AI can even predict if a team member is about to leave or is going to perform and recommend the right course of action for these employees.

CAWIL.AI
Founder: Cherry Murillon

CAWIL.AI utilises a flexible AI platform that applies itself to recognise objects for its machine learning capabilities. It also highlights customised computer vision tools for machine learning models. The company provides AI solutions to challenges in the environment, provides on-demand data analytics and helps humanity understand the benefits of AI. Currently, they are focused on the ASEA region through fostering partners and clients for environmental management and smart city applications.

Husay Co.
Founder: Leah Rasay

Husay Co. has developed an e-learning platform where artists can both learn and search for job opportunities. It envisions Filipino artists and creative workers thriving in their chosen field and industry. They have worked with over 780 artists and counting, some of which are visual artists, writers, digital artists, and performers to name a few.

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

For the artists, Husay Co. focuses on getting access to jobs and providing learning courses for those who are in need of upskilling in areas of business, marketing, and worker benefits in order to equip them with better management.

Global CreditPros
Founder: Ronica Jones

Global Credit Pros is a fintech company that aims to halt the cycle of debt for Filipinos as well as take them onto a path of trouble-free retirement. As of the moment, their main target market is the BPO space as this is one of the most resilient industries in the Philippines, growing at 10 per cent a year.

WE Rise takes in 20 female entrepreneurs from sectors such as agriculture, retail, technology, personal care, services, and affordable housing.

According to a press statement, the accelerator began in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 with a focus on access to financing to help close the gender finance gap. Over the course of the programme, the cohort had the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of Villgro’s customised mentorship program, focused learning sessions, and technical assistance.

In hosting WE Rise, Villgro Philippines partners with Value for Women and was supported by Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs’ (ANDE) Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund (AWEF).

It has hosted a showcase of the companies in late August.

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Image Credit: clin0000

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Since the beginning of the pandemic, misinformation has become prevalent in Asia as people recirculated information to their loved ones, oftentimes without verifying the authenticity and credibility of their sources.

While misinformation has always existed, the rise of new tools such as social media and messaging apps have made the spread of these falsehoods much easier. 

The effects of misinformation

In Singapore, a study by the National Centre of Infectious Diseases (NCID) found that six in 10 Singaporeans have received fake news about COVID-19 on social media.

Misinformation about the pandemic has since shifted from vaccine side-effects, fake cures and conspiracy theories to government policies adopted to combat COVID-19 in Singapore. As countries move in and out of lockdowns in Asia, such misinformation can cause greater damage as people succumb to behaviours such as panic buying and hoarding.

Now, Asia needs to eradicate fake news more than ever, and blockchain could offer a potential solution to combat the growing threat of digital misinformation. 

While the internet has brought much convenience to our lives, it also has deep-rooted issues with trust as trust was not part of the internet’s design. People suffer from fraud, manipulation, and theft on the internet as the solutions we have to solve them in society are non-existent.

Misinformation can impact decision-making, trust, and anxiety levels. Our recent State of Misinformation report has found that 67 per cent of respondents believe that misinformation has impacted elections across the regions.

While people may unknowingly spread misinformation, some, despite not trusting the news and information found online, may spread misinformation mainly because this misinformation confirms their beliefs.

As awareness of misinformation spreads amongst the population, more people turn to multiple sources to verify their information, with trust in traditional media and search engines higher than social media.

However, given that social media has already become the main source of news in Asia, Wordproof’s role is to help fix the internet, such that trust becomes part of the internet’s DNA. 

Also Read: Why Malaysia is quickly becoming a cybersecurity hub for the rest of the world

Creating a safer internet using blockchain

Blockchain was originally invented in 1991 to verify and protect content through a concept called timestamping.

Timestamping touches on a decentralised nature in which each publication obtains a unique hash that would be timestamped into the blockchain, thus avoiding centralised ownership.

Through timestamping, content creators can claim ownership and display transparency regarding alterations of their content.

Website visitors would then be able to conduct their own due diligence to determine the owner of the content, if the owner could be held accountable and whether the content has been tampered with. 

Timestamping can protect internet users from misinformation by allowing access to the history of changes made since the content’s publication. It would also increase transparency and accountability, making it easier for internet users to identify and avoid fake news, creating more trust and protecting them from tampered information. 

Internet safety beyond blockchain

The creation of a safer internet cannot only rely on blockchain. Increasing awareness of fake news across the age groups is crucial, particularly amongst the older generation who have a more challenging time verifying news online, likely due to their generally trusting nature.

Countries in Southeast Asia are also trying to combat fake news through new regulations, which hold people who share fake news accountable for their actions, and campaigns to improve media literacy among their citizens. 

The fight against fake news and misinformation has seen companies such as WhatsApp and Facebook stepping up their game through the roll-out of fact-checking features and services on their platforms.

By adopting the right technology, governments and companies can create more trust for the internet. New technologies are being developed, such as plugins that can support non-WordPress websites.

With the current GDPR data and privacy protection policies, timestamping into the blockchain is a logical follow-up. 

Integrating timestamps into search engines algorithm, social media platforms, and e-commerce would add an additional layer of trust over the internet.

Also Read: Fake news law is good, but it shouldn’t be used to stifle dissent: Singapore’s startup community speaks out

Tier levels are an undividable part of timestamps. They add to the reputation of the content’s originator, enabling highly trusted information to be at the forefront of what is presented to the public and influence the viral impact of information. 

We are optimistic that misinformation will drastically improve in the coming years, so long as we shift towards providing transparency and accountability for the internet and its users. Policymakers, however, would have a major role to play in increasing the speed of this development.

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Much has been said about how the pandemic has thrown a massive curveball to startups in the last two years. The recent global health crisis has undoubtedly made it difficult for many, even those that have raised hundreds of millions, to emerge unscathed.

Amidst all of this, our local startup ecosystem is brimming with tenacious founders who are agile enough to tackle whatever is thrown their way. This is why it’s particularly heartening to see these four startup founders from SMU Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE)’s Business Innovations Generator (BIG) incubation programme who not only turned the tide to close significant funding rounds over the last 12 months but also disrupted the way businesses are done.

Lin Fengru and Max Rye of TurtleTree Labs

Max and Fengru are well known locally for leading the way in cell-based technology for sustainable milk and for being the first in the world to produce cell-based human breast milk. What started out as a search for good quality clean milk became a startup now poised to disrupt the multibillion-dollar dairy industry and redefine dairy production.

TurtleTree Labs literally grew from an idea to laboratory and to market in just about three years. In December 2020, the duo announced that they had raised US$6.2 million in pre-series A funding. Subsequently, TurtleTree Scientific was launched in partnership with JSBiosciences to develop and produce food-grade growth factors earlier in January 2021. This will help expand TurtleTree Labs production capabilities to a scale that is commercially viable.

SMU School of Computing and Information Systems alumna Fengru enthused on her entrepreneurial journey with praises for the mentorship and support from the local food industry, government agencies, and the investors she met through the 4-month incubation programme at BIG.

Also read: Startup x Innovation Thailand Expo 2021: A virtual world of innovation

“The BIG team was a super connector. We are linked up regularly to potential investors, partners, and researchers. One of the most significant was an introduction made to A*STAR which assisted us in our R&D and helped pave our path to success,” Fengru complimented in an interview with Singapore’s Ministry of Trade & Industry in August 2020.

“The Startup SG Founder scheme and HSBC-SMU Sustainability Enterprise Initiative offered under the BIG programme have been instrumental in helping us not just from the monetary point of view but also in terms of access to support and resources that gave us the advantage over other competitors,” she added.

Chris Teo of Mednefits

The astronomical cost of healthcare in Singapore accompanied by the loss of his grandmother was the turning point for Chris Teo. Reluctant to be a victim and succumb to the ways of the world, Chris started Mednefits in 2014.

Mednefits simplifies corporate employee benefits by connecting companies and their employees to healthcare providers. What started out as an idea to reduce healthcare costs evolved to become an all-in-one employee medical benefits platform that makes it easier for companies to provide strong benefits programmes. Mednefits not only tracks and processes employees’ claims in real-time, it also allows companies to offer a better and wider range of healthcare benefits to their employees without having to manage these providers.

In November 2020, Mednefits closed a successful Series A round with S$8 million raised, bringing their total funding raised to S$12 million. Today, Mednefits has connected over 50,000 employees in Singapore and Malaysia to over 2,000 healthcare providers.

Teo explained, “Mednefits is not an overnight success. In fact, we spent a six-figure sum developing a product when we first started, only to find out that no one wanted to use it when we finally tested it. It was devastating. But we learnt from these precious lessons and adapted to make it work for people who are actually using it.”

To find out that your idea is not working can take a mental and emotional toll on many startup founders. Teo’s learnings as a founder became insights for market validation and lessons to rebound from failure at one of the many BIG Founders’ Sharing Sessions held regularly for those who have just set out on their entrepreneurship path.

Teo added, “The community at SMU was a strong sounding board for our new business model and offered us a space to share our ideas freely. As entrepreneurs themselves, they helped us define our customers’ pain points which still stand true to us today.”

Rahul Banerjee of BondEvalue

Established in 2016 by Dr Rahul Banerjee, BondEvalue is a FinTech start-up that changes the world of fixed income markets. BondEvalue creates transparency in the bond markets, provides market news and data, and makes bond investments more accessible to investors. BondEvalue was enrolled in the BIG incubation programme in that same year.

Unlike equities, the bonds market has been operating in a traditional environment and remained unchanged for decades. In Asia and Europe, bond trading functions almost exclusively for affluent individuals largely because of the high minimum denomination of US$200,000 in the secondary market. Even private banking clients are unable to access live prices easily, and trading is carried out over the counter or over the phone, making for an opaque process and pricing.

Also read: Harnessing sustainable technology to build a resilient future with IPI

Having identified the pain points in the industry, BondbloX Bond Exchange was added as part of BondEvalue’s offering in October 2020. BondbloX became the world’s first fractional bond exchange using proprietary technology and enterprise-grade blockchain that enables investors to buy and sell bonds in denominations of US$1,000 instead of the usual US$200,000.

BondbloX is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore with Citibank and Northern Trust as its designated custodians. The exchange combines the power of distributed ledger technology that allows for enhanced transparency and liquidity and faster settlement, while making institutional-grade investment opportunities available to new classes of investors.

As recently as June 2021, the company raised US$6M Series A bringing the total funding raised to US$10 million. The company was named under the “Forbes Asia 100 to Watch” list. They also announced a joint venture in Mexico to form a Peso bond exchange as part of its expansion plans.

Disrupting a traditional industry requires grit and a deep commitment to move things forward. Despite his busy schedule and the demanding nature of being the CEO and founder, Dr Banerjee believes in giving back and sharing his knowledge with the community. He is currently a mentor at SMU IIE’s Global Innovation Immersion internship programme, eager to provide guidance to young talents who are keen on a career in innovation. He is also a trainer on Bond Investing at SMU Academy.

“SMU BIG has been integral in BondEvalue’s growth. I was a traditional banker and learned a lot about startups during the time of incubation. All our initial teammates joined us there. We may have grown up, but we can never grow out of SMU”, said Dr Banerjee.

James Chan of ION Mobility

“Electric motorbikes can cut smog and reduce PM2.5 and greenhouse gas emissions in the air. Imagine that being adopted across all the cities in Southeast Asia like Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok!” said James Chan, Founder and CEO of ION Mobility.

Inspired by Tesla and its vision to be Southeast Asia’s top technology company leading our region’s transition towards a low-carbon economy with electric and electric mobility products for consumers and businesses, Chan founded ION Mobility in late 2019. Southeast Asia is the world’s third-largest market for motorbikes after India and China, yet little progress has been made to introduce cleaner alternatives for these little dirty machines.

Headquartered in Singapore and an all-Singaporean management leading a team of 10 nationalities across its three offices in Singapore, Shenzhen, and Jakarta, ION Mobility is committed to creating great products and seamless user experiences by combining human-centred design with advanced software and hardware. Their goal is to entice the 200+ million motorbike users in Southeast Asia to switch from petrol to electric for a more sustainable future.

In October 2020, ION Mobility raised US$3.3 million in seed funding and more recently secured over S$800,000 in grants from Enterprise Singapore in March 2021, proving that the bleak economic situation from the pandemic had not dampened its ambitions, execution, and growth.

“It was an interesting time to start a company in the typically capital-intensive automotive sector (that does not exist in Singapore), and an even more interesting period to try and raise capital (where risk capital is typically in lesser supply for early-stage hardware startups),” Chan shared through his blog.

Also read: MaGIC graduate PABLO AIR — Leveraging drone technology for social impact

He likens their strategy to countries’ responses in flattening the curve to avoid overloading their healthcare capacity. With great risk comes great opportunities.

“We scaled back on the magnitude and velocity of our forecasts on travel, hiring roadmaps, rental, and renovations in order to stretch our Plan C further into next year and give ourselves options ahead of our Series A raise,” stated James.

“We joined SMU BIG right from the start before we secured our own office. I’ll always be grateful to them for their support from our very beginning, which made our startup journey feel much less lonely and difficult.”

“It was an especially challenging environment to operate in. But what did not kill us can only make us stronger,” Chan quipped.

The company is revving up to unveil its first smart EV motorbike for Indonesia before the end of 2021 and is set to expand its operations in Singapore and Indonesia. ION Mobility stands poised to continue developing its in-house design, research and development capabilities, build up its supply chain, and add to its in-house production capabilities and partnerships.

SMU IIE’s Business Innovations Generator

Keen to find out how SMU Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) can help you to build your startup or business ideas further and faster? Learn more about SMU IIE’s Business Innovations Generator (BIG) equity-free and founders-centric incubation programme on its website, and its latest cohort of startups!

IIE is also one of the Accredited Mentor Partners (AMP) for the Startup SG Founder scheme that helps early-stage startups and entrepreneurs kick start their business ideas. Subscribe to its quarterly e-newsletter, The Greenhouse Effect, for more inspiring stories from the founders of today.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SMU IIE

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Dezy, a Singapore-based decentralised finance (DeFi) startup, has bagged an undisclosed amount of funding from a clutch of local investors, including DeFiance Capital, HH VC Investments, Impiro, and angels such as Tranglo founder HY Sia.

With the new investment, Dezy aims to bolster the user and deposit growth, update the educational content, and launch new features, including smoother onboarding options, optimised KYC and underlying insurance on user funds deposited. 

A portion of the capital will also be used to expand its marketing, technical development, and business development teams. 

DeZy was launched in 2021 by four co-founders Eric Dadoun (CEO), Harald Lang (CTO ), Sharmini Ravindran (CMO ), and Simon Landsheer (strategic advisor). It aims to empower people to “achieve meaningful savings, income growth and wealth accumulation” by simplifying decentralised finance. People can borrow, save, trade, or invest without intermediaries like banks or brokerages.  

It automatically converts users’ deposits into Singapore dollar-backed stable coins and disperses them into a range of decentralised protocols. With this, the platform help users generate up to 5.25 per cent annual percentage yield.

Also read: Gwendolyn Regina to lead investments at Binance’s new US$100M DeFi fund

“The opportunity that DeZy aims to solve is certainly one that exists beyond Singapore, but before we look at international expansion, we want to make a meaningful impact domestically first,” CEO Eric Dadoun said.

He added that the company also looks to join the B2B markets and develop longer-term features to give users access to a broader range of savings services. 

As stated on the company’s website, Dezy commits to secure users’ access to decentralised finance with inclusivity, transparency, and no deposit lock-in. 

As per the ‘Singapore fintech landscape 2020 and beyond’ report, Singapore raised US$346 million in fintech investment in 2020, accounting for 6.2 per cent of all funds invested in Asia. 

Last year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched a S$125 million (US$93 million) support package for the financial and fintech industries to help them deal with the immediate challenges caused by COVID-19 while also positioning themselves for future development and recovery.

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Image credit: Dezy

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Indonesia-based wealth tech startup Pluang today announced that it has raised an additional US$35 million, bringing its total funding raised this year to US$55 million.

Led by Square Peg, this funding round included the participation of SIG, UOB Venture Management and existing investors such as Go-Ventures and Openspace Ventures.

This update followed the US$20 million funding round the company announced earlier in March.

“We have been fortunate to double down on Pluang in every funding round making it one of our core portfolio holdings. We continue to be impressed by Pluang’s product innovation, best-in-class unit economics, and growth. We look forward to working with the team closely in the years to come,” said Aditya Kamath, partner of Go-Ventures.

In a press statement, Pluang said that the funding “will allow the company to accelerate proprietary products to market for its growing customer base and hire best-in-class talent to continue on its mission of helping everyone experience the thrill of investing wisely.”

Also Read: Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures leads Singapore wealthtech startup Syfe’s US$30M Series B round

The company said that of all the existing wealth tech startups in Indonesia, it offers the broadest suite of asset classes for retail investors, enabling them to invest in gold, equity indices, mutual funds and cryptocurrencies.

It allows users to make micro-savings and micro-investing contributions from as low as ~US$0.50 across asset classes within one app.

The diversification that it enables is aimed to help first-time users reduce risk. It also puts emphasis on financial education on investing and long-wealth creation; it is especially relevant for a market with relatively low financial literacy such as Indonesia.

According to a report by The Jakarta Post, lifestyle and lack of tech adoption play a role in this problem.

Pluang’s services are available as mini-apps within larger ecosystems such as Gojek, Dana, and Bukalapak. The company is planning to be available on more platforms in the future.

Founded in 2019 by Claudia Kolonas and Richard Chua, the company said that it has amassed almost three million registered users while remaining incredibly capital efficient, with less than US$3 million of marketing spend to date.

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Image Credit: Pluang

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Singapore-based Jungle Ventures said today it has hit the first close of its fourth fund at US$225 million.

The VC firm targets to raise US$350 million for this fund, which it claims is the largest early-stage fund to be launched in Southeast Asia this year.

As reported by Techcrunch, most of the existing limited partners, including Temasek, IFC, DEG, and some Asian and global family offices, invested. 

Upon the disbursement of Fund IV, Jungle Ventures plans to invest in 12 to 13 startups from seed to Series B. The ticket size will range from US$1million to US$15 million. 

Founding Partner Amit Anand told Techcrunch that Fund IV aligns with Jungle Ventures’s pace of raising a new fund every 2.5 to 3 years since its inception in 2012. He added that Jungle has shown a strong track record, with companies from its 2016 Fund II paying about 7x on the fund today.

Jungle counts FinAccel, B2B e-commerce unicorn Moglix, beauty e-commerce platform Sociolla, and Vietnam’s merchant platform for micro firms KiotViet, among its high-profile investees. 

Also read: KKR, Jungle Ventures join Vietnam’s merchant platform KiotViet’s US$45M Series B

Anand also emphasised his close interest in social commerce startups. This is demonstrated through Jungle’s follow-on investment in Indonesia-based social commerce startup Evermos‘s US$19.5 million Series B last month. 

Anand added that Jungle’s LPs have co-invested US$400 million co-investments in its portfolio companies so far. 

“We typically invest in a company when it has a little bit of a product-market fit in its home market, and then we can help regionalise the business,” Anan said. “We’re one of the oldest funds in the region and we haven’t seen as good a time as today to be in the tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia.”

Besides focusing primarily on Southeast Asia, the VC firm also invests in India. As stated by Anand, Southeast Asia and India have a strong cross-pollination of talent, ideas, learning, and capital.

In recent years, growing exit announcements from companies such as Indonesia’s Bukalapak and GoTo, Malaysia’s Carsome, Thailand’s Builk One Group, and Vietnam’s VNG and Loship, have set the tone for the hyper-interest of global investors in the region. 

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Image credit: Jungle Ventures

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Fundiin, a Vietnamese buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) startup, announced today it has closed an oversubscribed seed round at US$1.8 million.

The round saw participation from a slew of new and existing investors, including Japan’s Genesia Ventures and JAFCO Asia, Singapore-based Trihill Capital and 1982 Ventures, and Vietnam-based Zone Startups Ventures.

Some former executives of global BNPL giant Affirm (Xffirmers) also backed Fundiin’s latest funding.

According to a press statement, Fundiin will utilise the capital to expand its operations, strengthen the executive team and press ahead with its upcoming Series A round.

Founded in 2018 by CEO Cuong Anh Nguyen and CTO Nam Hoang Vo, Fundiin started as a digital payment solution provider, targeting Vietnam’s population of 97 million and rising middle-class consumers. Later in mid-2020, the company started to offer a BNPL option to consumers at the point of sale, free of charge. This method helps customers pay in instalments with or without interest while paying providers a total amount upfront.

“Lending products have earned a bad reputation as money-draining traps that leave consumers stuck in a cycle of debt,” Fundiin CEO and co-founder Cuong Anh Nguyen, stated. “Vietnamese consumers are in urgent need of products like Fundiin that work for them and protect their interest.”

Also read: Why BNPL will change the payment landscape in Vietnam?

Fundiin claims to have collaborated with over 100 merchants, including some of the country’s well-known retailers such as Lug, Vua Nem, Mat Viet, Giant International. It boasts of increasing retailers’ sales by 30 per cent without utilising a credit card or an application.

In July, Fundiin also teamed up with Vietnamese B2B e-commerce company Sapo to provide the BNPL payment option at checkout for Sapo’s 100,000 merchant client base.

BNPL is gaining ground among other payment options such as credit cards, instalment loans and mobile wallets’ lending products as it is “faster, easier and free for consumers.” This solution has long been going places in the world but has only picked up pace in Southeast Asia in recent years with some success cases from PayLater in Indonesia, and Atome and Hoolah across Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia.

Amid the pandemic, the method is ripe for an explosion as it is able to assist consumers in their shift to online shopping. According to JP Morgan, Vietnam’s e-commerce is forecast to increase 19 per cent per year to 2021, urging global players to take bets on the BNPL sector.

Last month, Singapore-based FinAccel, the parent company of Indonesia’s BNPL giant Kredivo, formed a joint venture with local investment firm Phoenix Holdings, signalling its intention to penetrate the Vietnamese market.

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Image credit: Fundiin

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Singapore sits at the helm of Southeast Asia’s vibrant tech ecosystem with an internet penetration rate of 88.9% in 2019, the highest in the region. With the recent global health crisis accelerating digitalisation across the globe, the country has undoubtedly grown into becoming a centre for fintech innovation, pushing the adoption of fintech by traditional financial institutions as they seek ways to innovate and transform.

Tapping on the growth of fintech in Singapore, the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), through its accelerator programme Landing Pad, has been active in bringing technology scaleups to ASEAN as a way to help meet the gaps in the fintech ecosystem in the region. An example of how they do this is through their strategic partnership with Firemark Accelerate, Insurance Australia Group’s (IAG) leading insurtech accelerator in APAC. Across two 12-week Seasons per annum, both Austrade and the Firemark Accelerate team support scaling Australian startups into the region. Scaleups are recruited based on their ability to bring cutting edge technology from four key focus technology themes: climate risk, disruptive technology, cyber risk, and computer vision.

Also read: Startup x Innovation Thailand Expo 2021: A virtual world of innovation

“Firemark Accelerate and Austrade are an excellent partnership to launch Australian technology scaleups into Singapore and the wider APAC market. This co-delivery partnership brings together Firemark’s expertise in technology and innovation, and Austrade’s knowledge on navigating overseas markets and connecting Australian businesses to the world. Following the success of the first season, we have now expanded our partnership to support the market expansion activities of another six scaleups across deep tech, cybersecurity and digital services,” said Austrade’s Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner, Stephen Skulley.

Australia’s insurance industry is currently at the ideal size and scale to help insurtechs test, learn, and grow. According to KPMG, between the financial years of 2018 to 2020, Australia has experienced a 53 per cent increase in the number of insurtech companies in the country. These developments, both in terms of industry growth and consumer behaviour, makes Australia a hotbed for innovation and diversity. As such, promising scaleups from the country are in the best position to broaden their reach and go global.

Why these Australian scaleups chose to land in Singapore

With both economies sharing similar growth paths in their vibrant tech ecosystems, these six Australian scaleups saw a great opportunity for growth.

“Singapore is well known for being the technology and innovation hub of Asia. ActivePipe is excited to be able to leverage this to mature its data capabilities and build a world-class data strategy with Firemark Accelerate,” said ActivePipe, one of the six Australian companies from the Firemark Accelerate Season 2. Founded in 2014 by co-founders Ash Farrugia and Gavan Stewart, ActivePipe builds, sells, and services lead nurturing and sales enablement software for Real Estate brokerages, agents, and mortgage brokers.

ProofTec, an automated AI damage detection solutions provider for vehicles echoed these sentiments. “Singapore is the logical stepping stone for our AI solution given the mature stakeholder ecosystem and the gateway for our business to springboard into other regions across ASEAN. According to Cisco’s annual Digital Readiness Index, Singapore is the world’s top nation in terms of digital adoption which makes it an ideal market entry point for high tech companies like ProofTec,” said the company’s Founder, Danny Cohen.

ProofTec’s vehicle damage detection platform has been designed specifically for the mobility sector and provides many tangible benefits to the car rental industry. Some of these material benefits include reduced risk, transparency, excess recovery, staff efficiencies, and asset management.

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Gruntify, a scaleup that helps digitise manual or disparate business processes, is also looking to scale globally, with its sights set first on Singapore. Founder Igor Stjepanovic, shared “Singapore’s strategic location in Asia paired with their business-friendly environment makes it, in our opinion, a perfect choice as a ‘springboard to broader Asian market’ which we are looking for!”

Gruntify helps clients save time and money as well as lower the risks involved in the implementation and operational aspects of digitalisation. Their technology helped aid the Queensland government’s response to the state’s largest natural disaster, cyclone Debbie, that occurred in 2017.

Other scaleups that saw value in a Singapore expansion are SHEQSY, Truuth, and ValAi. 

SHEQSY, a cloud-based lone worker safety solution, CEO and Founder, Hays Bailey, explained that they chose Singapore because of its “incredibly developed economy and strong regulatory frameworks. As the Asian headquarters for many international firms, Singapore is the perfect launchpad and the gateway to Asia.” he went on to share “SHEQSY aims to improve the safety of employees and contractors working alone in developed and developing regions in Asia.”

On the other hand, Truuth, whose mission is to mitigate the risk of identity fraud by delivering the world’s most secure, accurate, and user-friendly digital identity services shared that they are building Truuth as a global platform with Singapore and the broader APAC region being one of their primary target markets. CEO and Co-Founder Mike Simpson said, “We all know that Singapore embraces new technologies and business models, so we see this as a great fit for Truuth, as our technology is world-leading and our business model is disruptive. As we plan for our Series A funding round, Singapore is a key market for Truuth to have a presence in.”

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Lastly, ValAi, a scaleup that builds tools anchored on sustainability specifically targeting the finance and insurance sectors, said that “Singapore is well known for its ‘Humility to succeed’. One characteristic we admire is the humility to learn and openness to new ideas. Innovation, creativity, sustainability and resilience are all demonstrated in Singapore’s business culture.”

Greenhouse, their core product, is a knowledge platform and marketplace where bank and insurance customers can determine the sustainability rating of their homes and how they can improve their ratings, whilst providing data insights to the insurers and lenders so that they can green tag their portfolio and create incentives for their customers with lower premiums or interest rates.

Creating success in Singapore

Coming from Season 1 of Firemark Accelerate, Detexian has seen early successes ever since the programme, especially after partnering with three fintech SMEs in Singapore. Detexian is an Australian scaleup that offers an automated risk management solution for businesses powered by SaaS applications. Some of the deals they’ve landed include Lab Group Services Pty Ltd (Lab Group).

Tan Huynh, CEO of Detexian, shared “Staying on top of multiple SaaS apps without automation is an impossible endeavour. We help Singapore modern workplaces continuously track their SaaS use at ease, minimising risks and cost wastages.”

Connect with Austrade today

For more information, scaleups that are interested in expanding to Singapore can connect with Austrade Landing Pad via the official website. For more information on IAG Firemark Accelerate, you can check out their official page here.

Singapore Fintech Festival 2021

Keep a lookout for our Australian e-booth at the upcoming Singapore Fintech Festival 2021, where we will be showcasing Australia’s innovative fintech ecosystem. More details to come for your opportunity to connect directly with Australian fintech businesses and associations. #AustraliaSFF2021

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Photo by Patrick McLachlan from Pexels

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