Global VC firm Big Idea Ventures (BIV) has unveiled the eight Singaporean startups selected for its New Protein accelerator programme.

This cohort comprises 15 early-stage ventures, of which seven are from New York.

The programme runs for five months and invests up to US$200,000 each in startups.

As per its website, a follow-on investment of US$3.5 million will also be made in the top 20 per cent companies that successfully complete the programme.

Non-financial support includes mentorship and connections with industry experts that can help scale the startup’s products.

“This group of startups has been incredible to work with in the New Protein Fund,” said Andrew D. Ive, founder of Big Idea Ventures. “All of these companies are addressing real-world challenges and represent some of the most promising innovations in the food and agriculture sectors.”

BIV’s New Protein Fund, a US$50-million fund, is dedicated to seed and early-stage investments in plant-based and cell-based food, ingredient and technology companies.

Also Read: Bühler invests in Big Idea Ventures’s New Protein Fund; to invest in up to 100 plant- and cell-based firms

Here is snapshot of the eight Singaporean startups:

Angie’s Tempeh: Tempeh fermentation technology to create protein-rich foods.

Animal Alternative Technologies: Cell-based meat services including bioreactors and software.

[Stealth Mode]: B2B ingredients company developing sustainable alternatives to tropical oils and animal fats.

GreenGourmet Foods: Plant-based dairy.

Haofood: Alternative chicken protein from peanut focused on the Asian market.

MAD Foods: Plant-based beverage.

Hybrid Accelerator (participants in both Singapore and New York)

Wellme: Plant-based yogurt.

Meat. The End: Production technique to replicate meat-like mouthfeel and taste.

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The ongoing transition to digital channels creates an opportunity for banks to serve more customers, expand market share, and increase revenue at lower cost.

Crucially, banks that pursue this opportunity also can access the bigger, richer data sets required to fuel advanced-analytics (AA) and ML decision engines.

Deployed at scale, these decision-making capabilities powered by AI can give the bank a decisive competitive edge by generating significant incremental value for customers, partners, and the bank.

Banks that aim to compete in global and regional markets increasingly influenced by digital ecosystems will need a well-rounded AI-and-analytics capability stack comprising four main layers: reimagined engagement, AI-powered decision making, core technology and data infrastructure, and a leading-edge operating model.

The layers of the AI-bank capability stack are interdependent and must work in unison to deliver value, as discussed in the first article in our series on the AI bank of the future. In our second article, we examined how AI-first banks are reimagining customer engagement to provide superior experiences across diverse bank platforms and partner ecosystems.

Also Read: gojek’s Bank Jago unveils financial services app that centres around users’ daily life

In the current article, we focus on the primary AA/ML decision-making capabilities required to understand and respond to customers’ fast-evolving needs with precision, speed, and efficiency.

Banks that leverage machine-learning models to determine in (near) real-time the best way to engage with each customer have the potential to increase value in four ways:

• Stronger customer acquisition. Banks gain an edge by creating superior customer experiences with end-to-end automation and using advanced analytics to craft highly personalised messages at each step of the customer acquisition journey.
• Higher customer lifetime value. Banks can increase the lifetime value of customers by engaging with them continuously and intelligently to strengthen each relationship across diverse products and services.
• Lower operating costs. Banks can lower costs by automating as fully as possible document processing, review, and decision making, particularly in acquisition and servicing.
• Lower credit risk. To lower credit risks, banks can adopt a more sophisticated screening of prospective customers and early detection of behaviours that signal a higher risk of default and fraud.

As banks think about how to design and build a highly flexible and fully automated decision-making layer of the AI-bank capability stack, they can benefit from organising their efforts around four interdependent elements:

• Leveraging AA/ML models for automated, personalised decisions across the customer life cycle
• Building and deploying AA/ML models at scale
• Augmenting AA/ML models with what we call “edge” capabilities to reduce costs, streamline customer journeys, and enhance the overall experience
• Building an enterprise-wide digital-marketing engine to translate insights generated in the decision-making layer into a set of coordinated messages delivered through the bank’s engagement layer

In the full report, AI powered decision making for the bank of the future, we examine each of these interdependent elements and their applications in detail.

The rapid improvement of AI-powered technologies spurs competition on speed, cost, experience, and intelligent propositions. To remain competitive, banks must engage customers with highly personalised and timely content to build loyalty.

Also Read: How startups can aid Southeast Asia’s Open Banking landscape

Personalised offers with tailored communication delivered at the right time through the customer’s preferred channel can help banks maximise the lifetime value of each customer relationship and reinforce the organisation’s market leadership.

To achieve these benefits, banks must build AI-powered decision-making capabilities fuelled by a rich mixture of internal and external data and augmented by edge technologies.

The core technology and data infrastructure required to collect and curate increasingly diverse and voluminous data sets is the topic of the next article in our series on the AI-bank capability stack.

Special thanks to Akshat Agarwal, Bangalore-based McKinsey associate partner, and Charu Singhal Mumbai-based McKinsey consultant, for co-authoring this report, as well as Milan Mitra and Yihong Wu for their contributions to this article.

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The first few years were challenging as the crypto market faced very low interest from the general public. We had to rely on tight financing and management of resources to tide us through. The 2017 bull run, on the other hand, ushered in huge changes in crypto trading and proved to be a big break for us.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news, January 9: Coinhako to offer 100 fiat-crypto pairings, SoftBank will no longer take controlling stake in WeWork

As Bitcoin touched US$20,000 in 2017, Coinhako’s trading volume increased year-over-year (YOY) by 1,000 per cent. The boom was on!

Growing from strength to strength

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Funtap, a Vietnamese mobile gaming company, has invested in local digital payments platform 9PAY, DealStreetAsia has reported.

The seven-digital US-dollar investment is part of Funtap’s plan to expand its technology offerings, the report said quoting CEO Minh Bui.

We have reached out to 9Pay for more details on the deal. We will update this article as and when hear from them.

Founded in 2015, Funtap provides mobile game publishing and development. Its games are also available in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Last year, the company secured a seven-digit investment in a Series A round of financing, led by Makers Fund.

Meanwhile, 9PAY was established in 2018. Licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam, the fintech platform offers a suite of services including a payment gateway, a digital wallet, and cash services for individual and corporates.

Also Read: 2021: Predicting another bumper (un)predictable year for payments

According to Bain, digital payments in Southeast Asia is forecast to hit US$1 trillion in gross transaction value (GTV) by 2025. Riding on the positive outlook on the payments sector, Funtap’s foray into it follows the playbook of other gaming companies.

Local internet unicorn VNG Corporation and Garena, the gaming unit of US-listed Sea Group both have embedded digital payments services onto their platforms.

VNG owns local e-wallet provider ZaloPay, while Sea’s digital payments arm SeaMoney operates AirPay in Vietnam.

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Grosvenor Asia Pacific, the Asian arm of London-based international property company Grosvenor Group, has invested in Taronga Ventures’s RealTech Fund.

US-based PGIM Real Estate, CBRE, and others also joined the round.

“There is no doubt that our industry is being significantly impacted by technology. Partnering with Taronga, which has established itself as leaders in the space, gives us the opportunity to stay at the cusp of innovation and gain investment exposure to dynamic and growing companies carefully selected and supported by the Taronga team,” said Benjamin Cha, CEO of Grosvenor Asia Pacific.

Grosvenor Asia Pacific was launched in 1994 and is focused on both investment and development in residential, office and retail sectors in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai.

Taronga Ventures is a technology and innovation investor focused on the real estate sector and the wider built environment. The group consists of the RealTech Ventures Fund, the RealTechX Growth Program and Taronga Advisory and has offices in Singapore and Australia.

Also Read: Taronga Ventures expands its RealTechX programme to support Singapore’s proptech startups

The Fund invests in scalable technology and innovation that enhances or challenges the traditional real estate and infrastructure sectors. It is also focused on investing in strategic opportunities and providing its institutional partners with a first-mover advantage, whilst maintaining a focus on creating a better built environment, through sustainable and responsible investment practices.

“We have been working with Grosvenor Asia Pacific and their colleagues in the wider Grosvenor Group for many years and see a tremendous opportunity for emerging technology companies to scale within the Grosvenor portfolio globally,” opined Jonathan Hannam, Managing Partner of Taronga Ventures.

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Indonesia-based edutech startup Ruangguru has received US$55 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from GGV Capital.

With the new financing, Ruangguru plans to further accelerate its business expansion across Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.

The latest round comes just a year after the Jakarta-headquartered firm closed a US$150-million Series C round led by Global Atlantic and GGV Capital.

Co-founder Iman Usman said: “Ruangguru now has strong investors with education industry expertise. We plan to leverage their expertise and network to further improve our products and our team. This will help us to provide a world-class offering of education products leveraging technology to our students and workforce in the region to make them globally competitive. We will continue to fulfil our mission to enable better access to quality education to millions of learners in Southeast Asia.”

Also Read: Indonesian edutech startup Ruangguru raises Series B round led by UOB Venture Management

Launched in 2014 as an online marketplace for private tutors, the company has since branched out into providing a learning management system (LMS). Its online platform allows teachers to create content and assign school works for students to work on. It also offers an exam practice feature on its website, as well as a mobile app that Devara dubbed as the ‘Uber for tutoring service’.

In 2020, Ruangguru expanded to Thailand by launching StartDee in 2020, after rolling out KienGuru in Vietnam in 2019. It claims to have over 22 million users.

The company has also said that this is also the first financial year where it has achieved profitability. Not surprising as COVID-19 accelerated online learning globally.

“As Southeast Asia’s leading provider of quality online education, Ruangguru is poised to further transform and improve the landscape for K-12 and adult learning,” said Evan Feinberg, Partner at Tiger Global Management.

“Since the previous Series C round, we have witnessed first hand Ruangguru’s unwavering commitment to education, especially during the trying times of the COVID-19. We will continue to support companies that are bringing a lasting impact to our future through education technology,” added  Jixun Foo, Managing Partner at GGV Capital.

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Image Credit: Ruangguru

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Grab confirms US listing plan with Altimeter partnership at US$39.6bn valuation; It will provide the SEA tech giant with approximately US$4.5bn in cash proceeds; The combined entity expects its securities will be traded on NASDAQ under the symbol GRAB in the coming months. More here

SEA’s startups beat pandemic blues to raise record US$6bn in Q1; As per DeaslStreetAsia’s report, companies in the region inked at least 211 deals in Q1 to raise close to 70% of the total capital secured in 2020; In terms of deal count, the Jan-Mar period saw a 48% increase relative to the previous quarter and 43% increase y-o-y. More here

Bukalapak bags US$234mn; Lead investors are Microsoft, GIC, and Emtek; Should the local listing materialise, Bukalapak will then look to merge with a SPAC in the US; Bukalapak is planning to list in Indonesia and has engaged Bank Mandiri’s securities arm to assist in the process; Bukalapak, which was last valued at US$2.5bn in 2019, claims it has 100mn+ users on its platform. More here

Genesis Alternative Ventures makes final close of US$80mn venture debt fund; Genesis claims it has to date deployed over US$30mn to a portfolio of 12 venture-backed companies across SEA; Genesis positions itself as a private lender to venture and growth-stage companies funded by tier-one VCs. More here

Shipper raises US$63mn Series B from DST Global, Sequoia India; The capital will enable Shipper to further invest in its tech and significantly expand its logistics network; Shipper provides fulfilment and delivery services through its digitally managed network of fulfilment centres, delivery partners, and retail points.

Fave acquired by Pine Labs for US$45mn, to expand its consumer payments app to India; Fave, which also offers a loyalty cashback platform to restaurants and retailers, operates in 35 cities across SEA; Fave has raised US$32mn to date from investors including Sequoia India, SIG Asia Investment and Venturra Capital. More here

Draper Startup House acquires HATCH! to expand its entrepreneurship network to Vietnam; The cash-cum-equity deal will result in a new Vietnamese entity, with investors including Pham Vinh, a UK-based property developer; It aims to attract the digitally nomadic fans of Draper Startup House such as remote workers and other travellers to Vietnam for its culture, geography and talent. More here

How KK Fund evaluates a early-stage startup for investment; ‘The management team is the most important factor because we cannot change the management team once we invest in a company’, he says. More here

Ex-VinaCapital Ventures exec’s US$50mn fund Touchstone Partners hits first close; Touchstone seeks to invest in Vietnamese startups in fintech, real estate, healthcare, edutech and technology that enhances efficiency in major value chains such as manufacturing and agriculture; Touchstone’s notable backers include Pavilion Capital and Vulcan Capital. More here

Tribe raises funding to expand its accelerator programme globally; Investors include Korea Investment Partners, Mandiri Investment, Greg Kidd (early investor in Twitter, Coinbase and Square); Tribe will use the funds to grow its accelerator and academy programmes into newer markets, including the US, Korea, Indonesia and HK. More here

Docosan raises US$1mn to provide online healthcare services in Vietnam; Investors are AppWorks, Huat Ventures and David Ma; The Docosan app enables patients to compare healthcare providers, book appointments, chat with primary care assistants, and manage health data for free; It claims to have helped 50K patients in Vietnam book appointments with physicians across 35 specialties so far. More here

Tembusu Partners’s e-sports fund invests US$1mn into Singapore’s RSG; FrontSight Capital Fund seeks to leverage the exponential growth potential of e-sports in the region, where online entertainment and play is driven by digital adoption and transformation; It plans to launch a second fund in the future to capitalise on the growing e-sports industry in SEA. More here

Dat Bike bags US$2.6mn pre-Series A to bring more e-motorbikes to Vietnam; Investors are Jungle Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, Hustle Fund, iSeed Ventures; The company claims its flagship Weaver model (which retails at US$1,700) can rival gas bikes in power and range and is powered with a 5,000W motor that helps the bike accelerate from 0 to 50kmph within three seconds. More here

Former MDEC CEO Yasmin Mahmood joins global AI firm Skymind as Chairperson; With a presence in 17 countries, Skymind develops innovative AI technologies that it claims are deployed in Fortune 500 companies including Nvidia, IBM, Huawei and NASA; Last year, its venture arm launched a US$800mn fund to support promising new AI companies and academic research globally. More here

Otsaw Digital launches home delivery robots in Singapore; Named Camello, the robots are currently undergoing a one-year trial with their services offered to 700 households; Users can book delivery slots for groceries including milk and eggs, and they will be notified through an app when the robot is near a pick-up point, such as the lobby of an apartment building. More here

How Xendit rose quickly in SEA’s crowded fintech space; Xendit, which began as P2P provider in 2015, was the first Indonesian company to be accepted into seed-stage accelerator YC; Midway into the 12-week programme, the startup pivoted into a payment gateway firm — a bet that has paid off. More here

Fund raising 101 for early-stage startups; Be doubly sure that you are raising for the right reasons; As an example, if your product market fit (PMF) is visible and sales are shooting up, then hiring for customer services is a good example of right fund usage; But if you are yet to hit the PMF, seeing poor retention and then you want to raise funds, hire more sales people to push revenue, that is bad usage and will probably not find investors. More here

Difference between seed funding and early-stage funding; Seed money is funding collected from investors and used to start a business; Early-stage financing comes in two parts — Series A generates more funding than seed funding, but the risks are higher; VCs are most likely to invest in your business at this stage, and the method of raising funds involves allotting preferred stock to investors. More here

How the work-from-home shift impacts SaaS security; In the remote-work world, SaaS apps have become an enticing vector-of-choice for bad actors; Just think of the typical employee, working off-site, untrained in security measures, and how their access or privileges increase the risk of sensitive data being stolen, exposed, or compromised. More here

3 AI-driven digital marketing strategies your startup needs right now; When it comes to online ads, AI is the superpower all SMEs should have up their sleeves for three key reasons: to optimise ad spend, create compelling content and drive innovative campaigns. More here

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Tembusu Partners, a Singapore-based boutique private equity investment firm, announced today its FrontSight Capital Fund has invested US$1 million in local e-sports organisation RSG.

The e-sports fund’s maiden investment will be used to support RSG’s strategy to strengthen capabilities, expand the regional talent pool, and extend its market reach to better engage the gaming community and improve fan experiences.

Tembusu Partners said in a press note RSG is the first in its ten planned investments of US$1 to US$2 million each in Southeast Asia’s e-sports teams and companies that are at the “frontier of growth and innovation in the region.”

The PE firm plans to launch a second fund in the future to capitalise on the growing e-sports industry in Southeast Asia.

Launched in 2020, the FrontSight Capital Fund invests seeks to leverage the exponential growth potential of e-sports in the region, where online entertainment and play is driven by digital adoption and transformation. The fund is jointly managed by Managing Partners William Cao and Dennis Liu, and managed by Tembusu Partners.

“We launched the fund as we recognised the immense potential in Southeast Asia’s e-sports sector, which is uniquely positioned for exponential growth. This fund, which is in line with our thesis-driven approach to invest in disruptive technology and trends that drive innovation in key focus sectors including consumer services, serves as a strategic platform for international investors to tap on the growth of e-sports in the region,” noted Andy Lim, Founder and Chairman of Tembusu Partners.

Also Read: Who’s driving e-sports and gaming in Southeast Asia: Gamers or fans?

“Tembusu will continue to explore similar strategic investments in the region’s e-sports sector through this fund, thereby paving the way for more to participate in this fast-growing industry,” he added.

Founded in 2017, RSG is a professional e-sports organisation operating across Southeast Asia to engage the gaming audience through e-sports teams and content creators. Its e-sports teams specialise in notable games such as Mobile Legends, PUBG, Call of Duty and Warcraft, and have participated in over 200 tournaments collectively.

Building on its presence in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, RSG is in the midst of a regional expansion into emerging markets. The organisation also plans to compete in more games and reach 150 million gaming audience in Southeast Asia by 2021.

“While the US and China currently lead the global gaming industry, the growth journey for Southeast Asia’s e-sports sector has only just begun. Across Southeast Asia, we see many young and untapped e-sports organisations that are well-positioned to expand regionally and globally,” opined Cao.

Also Read: EVOS raises US$12M in Series B to accelerate the growth of its e-sports platform

“As we scale up and diversify our offerings to other aspects of the gaming market, RSG will take a sustainable growth approach to invest in new technologies, expand our operations regionally, and groom the talent pool,” said Jayf Soh, Founder and CEO of RSG.

Southeast Asia holds the largest revenue in the global gaming market, and almost two-thirds of the gaming population in Greater Southeast Asia are engaged in e-sports. According to market research firm Newzoo, revenue from e-sports in Southeast Asia is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24 per cent from 2018 to 2023, one of the highest globally.

In addition, the region’s gaming market size is also expected to register a CAGR of 8.5 per cent over the forecast period of 2021 to 2026.

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Customer experience can give you a headache but it’s also a great inspiration for business. With Reddit influencers, Elon Musk’s tweets, and today’s ‘cancel culture’, customer experience is something companies can’t ignore but need to find new ways to optimise and enhance it.

For this reason, SMBs and enterprises seek to adopt customer experience technologies that can help them get a holistic view of customers and optimise the entire customer journey.

One of the major tasks of CX technologies is to help the company move from the situation where each department operates independently, creating technological silos and slowing down the adoption of a customer-centric mindset. A key part of this endeavour is to create an integrated ecosystem and nurture a collaborative environment by connecting separate technological systems:

• Systems of engagement: all channels and touchpoints where customers can communicate with the company, like phone, chats, email, social media, messengers, etc.
• Systems of record: customer data accumulated by different departments, like personal details, transaction and browsing history, preferences, service tickets, etc.
• Systems of things: data accumulated from sensors, beacons, POS systems, wearables, and other connected devices.
• Systems of intelligence: systems that process and analyse accumulated data and provide all kinds of insights.

Systems of intelligence serve as the brain of the entire technological structure, analysing data across all the systems. Now let’s look closer at their components.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence underpins all the systems of intelligence and serves as the key component of smart automation and customer experience personalisation. It provides such capabilities as natural language processing, speech recognition, customer journey orchestration, dynamic recommendations, virtual assistance, and more.

Also Read: Transformation tenet: The digital customer experience is key to “stickiness”

As customer data grows exponentially, AI is continuously learning to provide more and more accurate insights and forecasts into customer behaviour over time. As a result, customer-facing departments are able to connect with customers on a hyper-personal level, offer them highly relevant content, boost upselling, and provide self-service—all of which nurtures customer loyalty and trust.

Emotional intelligence

As more and more customers shift to the online realm, instead of face-to-face conversations they communicate with chatbots, write emails, and leave feedback via forms. Sometimes remote communication can be misinterpreted, which can cause customer frustration.

To overcome such problems, businesses should implement cognitive systems able to read emotions in real-time via text, voice or video channels. When customer-facing systems are empowered with this instrument, they can foster satisfaction and turn negative emotions into positive ones.

It’s true, machines can’t interpret emotions the same way people do, but they are able to analyse big amounts of data and tell between different tone and voice inflections or micro-expressions in images and associate them with particular emotions.

By learning from each interaction, emotional intelligence systems can understand not only what people say but what they feel, interpret their intent, understand jokes, and more.

The prominent use cases of emotional intelligence systems are:

• Brand sentiment analysis of social media and online content
• Human-like conversations via chatbots
• Emotion interpretation during phone and video calls
• Mental health monitoring based on the patient’s voice, additionally coupled with body temperature and heartbeat measured by wearables

Customer analytics

In 2020, Google acquired Looker, a data analytics company, and Salesforce purchased Evergage, a customer data platform. Why so? Customers’ growing need for tailored experiences and real-time omni channel interactions make companies view customer data and analytics as an important part of their operational and marketing strategies.

Customer data is actually everywhere—browsing history, transactions, saved items, support tickets, loyalty memberships and subscriptions, location sharing, and more. But it’s useless to run AI algorithms on plain data you accumulate—you can’t get energy from a river unless it’s dammed. For this reason, companies need to understand what customer data they need for their specific goals and segment data flows.

Also Read: Why a customer-centric digital marketing strategy is the way to go?

Once there’s a pool of meaningful data composed of relevant data sources, it’s necessary to create a data hub to gain 360-degree visibility into customers and let every customer-serving team have access to it.

This way, by visualising data, building predictive models, and using AI for insights and forecasts, companies can meet their customers where they are and provide personalised experiences.

In connection with this, we should expect two trends:

• In pursuit of agility and innovation, companies will try to minimise their reliance on third-party analytical agencies and maintaining data scientist teams and build in-house customer data solutions based on low-code platforms and tools. It will allow them to boost data literacy and let more employees, particularly those less tech-savvy, use data to make informed decisions.
• Active data mining will trigger more security and privacy concerns and, as a result, more privacy laws and regulations will see the light.

Workforce optimisation

Companies have started to look into their workforce optimisation (in terms of timekeeping, scheduling, training, workload, KPIs, hiring, etc.) to drive business growth, as happy employees mean happy customers. Against the common perception that AI is going to replace human workers, it’s actually used to augment human workforce and facilitate their daily tasks:

• Workload forecasting: AI helps to foresee changes in the workload and suggests staffing schemes for certain periods of time based on available resources. It allows companies to serve each customer during the busiest times, like seasonal sales, while minimising overtimes for employees. This capability also helps to deal with unanticipated events and long-term uncertainty when habitual prediction models and schemes seize to work. It allows probing for even the weakest activity impulses, embracing this opportunity, and measuring the results.
• Smart staffing: AI can forecast the number of customers, users, callers, or shoppers overall or during specific periods and determine the corresponding number of employees of certain skills needed to meet this demand.
• Process automation: AI streamlines workflows and automates time-consuming tasks, letting employees focus on more meaningful work.
• Smart scheduling: In case of distributed teams and remote work, cookie-cutter schedules become an outdated concept. To work out a personalised schedule for a large multi-skilled team across multiple work streams, AI can analyze all the variables, like preferable time, task priority, types of work, take into account all the dependencies, and offer schedules tailored to each worker.
• Intelligent performance assessment: AI helps monitor overall and individual performance, provide unbiased assessment, calculate KPIs, and more. It can forecast drops in productivity, diagnose them, and prevent them from becoming chronic, for instance, by suggesting additional training.

Customer-centricity makes companies turn to artificial intelligence and incorporate various systems of intelligence into their customer-facing processes. As customer data is the fuel that powers these systems, companies need to develop a data strategy that embraces data accumulation, processing and analysing, along with promoting a data-driven culture.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Travelling across India as a child with my father to visit his textile factories, I spent a considerable amount of time with my peers in rural villages. What was clear to me, even then, was how talented these children were. Yet how few decent educational options were available to them.

The same can be said for Southeast Asia, which I now call home. The region has a population of 700 million, of which 26 per cent are of a school-attending age. However, literacy rates are as low as 58 per cent in Laos, 74 per cent in Cambodia and 76 per cent in Myanmar.

Southeast Asia’s large rural population can be partly attributed to this educational gap, while the lack of appropriate infrastructure, adequately trained teachers and funding also plays a role.

Despite Southeast Asia’s relatively low literacy levels, the region boasts a high internet penetration rate with 400 million people accessing the internet and an increasingly tech-savvy population, particularly amongst the younger generation.

The combination of a need for more accessible, quality education and recent digitisation create fertile ground for the edutech sector to flourish. There is a significant untapped opportunity for e-learning products and services to deliver quality learning programmes to traditionally underserved communities. This potential is gradually being realised with US$480 million in venture capital funding allocated to Southeast Asian edutech startups in the last five years– consisting of 200 individual investments.

With a keen interest in making education as accessible as possible, especially in the foundational years, I launched Creative Galileo in July 2020, amidst COVID-19 pandemic. Creative Galileo is an e-learning app that melds education and entertainment to provide personalised learning experiences for children from three to eight years of age.

Our aim is to leverage technology to place an emphasis on personalised needs, inquiry-based learning methods and experiential activities, resulting in a fun, interactive curriculum.

Also Read: Jungle Ventures leads US$17M Series B in Leap Finance, an Indian edutech firm focused on overseas education

Technology is key to democratising access to education

For me, technology is the key factor in democratising access to education – an urgent priority in the developing world and beyond. As Asia’s digital economy continues to accelerate, driving digital inclusion, particularly in the region’s underserved communities, must be at the forefront of social development strategies.

To this end, edutech solutions can narrow literacy divides and pave the way for more inclusive educational systems by providing better access to higher-quality teachers for all kinds of students, improving efficiency and flexibility in the deployment of learning programmes and lowering the costs of traditional in-person teaching.

In terms of accessibility, edutech has a huge role to play in ensuring no one is left behind in the shift to digital. For a start, many e-learning apps are available completely free of charge, sometimes with in-app optional purchases for those who can afford them.

Secondly, as the edutech sector grows we are seeing an increasing number of languages, both those widely spoken as well as more local dialects, being made available, further democratising educational opportunities. Lastly, for students with data use and internet connectivity limitations, players in the edutech sector must make it a priority to keep their app size below a certain threshold to ensure education remains accessible for all students.

Technology is also enabling the personalisation and gamification of learning, providing a more immersive, impactful experience for children. For example, digital tools have made it possible for parents to receive real-time updates on their child’s progress, while children can be prompted to take revision modules in areas where improvement is needed.

At Creative Galileo, we deliver our interactive online lessons through storylines of Little Singham and his friends, much loved animated characters in the Indian subcontinent. While ‘edutainment’ shows such as Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street is well established internationally, there is a ripe opportunity to replicate this in developing markets, particularly within the Asian region.

Edtech: A trend here to stay

Nearly 1.6 billion students across 200 countries were affected by school closures at the peak of COVID-19, resulting in a sharp increase in the adoption of edutech solutions.

Installations of the five top edutech apps in Southeast Asia grew more than three-fold from six million in 2019 to 20 million in 2020. I believe this trend is very much here to stay, even beyond the pandemic we should expect a blend of offline and online learning to be the norm.

Also Read: Edutech in SEA is still “far behind compared to North America” – but there is some hope

Further demonstrating the longevity of edutech solutions is their marked success in large countries such as India, where there is a shortage of teachers, and Indonesia. With the world’s fourth-largest education system, but also one of the lowest-performing, Indonesia has an increasingly thriving edutech ecosystem.

E-learning solutions are helping to overcome the archipelago’s geographical challenges –which have hindered inclusive access to physical learning spaces– and tapping directly into the digitally engaged younger generation.

While digitalisation has already transformed many key industries, including retail, finance and insurance, we have yet to see the full potential of edutech. Digital tools will play a crucial role in delivering personalised, meaningful education for the next generation while helping to address urgent developmental needs, particularly in developing countries.

I am excited to see what the future holds for edutech in Southeast Asia and look forward to continuing to create a more inclusive education system through e-learning solutions.

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