Affable.ai, a Singapore-based influencer marketing startup, announced today that it has raised US$2 million from Prime Venture Partners, Decacorn Capital, and SGInnovate.

The company plans to expand into international markets such as the US with the newly raised capital.

With influencer marketing processes being extremely manual, time-consuming, and based on guesswork, Nisarg Shah and Swayam Narain decided to launch a solution that would help brands streamline their micro-influencer marketing process.

They founded Affable.ai in 2017 during their time in Entrepreneur First with the aim to bring more transparency and clarity to influencer marketing.

Affable.ai not only uses advanced machine learning and big data analytics to help brands run high-impact influencer marketing campaigns but also detects fake followers, discovers follower interests, and classifies social media users based on brands, fan pages, etc.

Also Read: Ex-Grabbers; startup Evo raises seed funding to help influencers, live-streamers optimise back-office ops

The company said that it tracks more than three million influencers across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.

Some of its clients include top brands and agencies including Huawei, Wipro, Pomelo, Fresh, Omnicom, Dentsu, and We Communications.

“We see a huge opportunity in working with brands to enable the much needed, data-driven influencer marketing campaigns. The industry-leading brands and agencies we work with reinforce our belief in the need for analytics to streamline the micro-influencer marketing process,” Shah said.

“Data-driven analytics is the need of the hour in the influencer marketing ecosystem which is a new and upcoming marketing channel and has picked up steam in the last three to five years. We believe that influencer marketing will become a mainstream marketing channel for brands with a significant budget allocation. We are excited by the demand and the potential for this service and are delighted to back founders who are passionate and have deep expertise in this field,” Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner of Prime Venture Partners, added.

A global rise in digital consumption continues to propel influencer marketing campaigns among brands across all sectors.

Being a mobile-first region along with its youthful demography and growing popularity of social platforms, Southeast Asia has become an ideal ground for influencer marketing to flourish and the market is estimated to reach US$2.59 billion by 2024.

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BukuKas, a digital ledger app for MSMEs in Indonesia, announced today that it has raised US$50 million in Series B funding.

The round includes participation from angel investors Gokul Rajaram, an executive of DoorDash, and Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise (formerly known as TransferWise).

This news comes just four months after the company’s US$10 million Series A fundraise led by Sequoia Capital India.

According to the press statement, the new money will be used to strengthen BukuKas’ leadership team, engineering, and product
capabilities both in Jakarta and Bangalore. The company also intends to expand the range of services offered to merchants.

BukuKas was founded in 2019 by Krishnan M Menon who realised how MSMEs were excluded from the tech revolution during his trips to rural Indonesia.

He noticed that many small businesses still managed their finances using pen and paper. Furthermore, they struggled to get visibility on their finances.

To solve the problem he decided to launch BukuKas along with his long-time friend and former Lazada executive Lorenzo Peracchione.

BukuKas app provides a simple book-keeping solution that can record sales, expenses, accounts receivable, and debt. It can also send reminders to customers to pay back and analyse customer insights.

As of April 2021, the company claims to have onboarded 6.3 million small traders and shop owners across its platforms, with their users recording an annualised transaction value of nearly US$25.9 billion. By the end of 2022, the company aims to onboard 20 million MSMEs.

Also Read: BukuKas raises US$9M pre-Series A from Surge, Credit Saison, others

Bukukas has also recently launched a new payment feature called ‘BukuKasPay’, a feature which enables small business owners to pay their suppliers on time and collect money digitally from their customers through various digital payment methods such as Bank Virtual Accounts, QRIS, and popular electronic wallets such as OVO, DANA, GoPay, LinkAja, and Shopeepay.

BukuKas has also made several strategic moves. In September 2020 they acquired a digital ledger app ‘Catatan Keuangan Harian’ to expand market share.

Soon after, they launched a commerce enablement platform ‘Tokko’ to help merchants to sell more effectively on social commerce channels and set up online stores.

“Indonesia is home to more than 60 million MSMEs who generate over 60 per cent of the country’s GDP. Small merchants are increasingly looking for simple digital solutions to their daily problems, from being on top of their cash flows to generating and
handling more WhatsApp orders,” said Peracchione.

“BukuKas wants to become the preferred merchant ecosystem partner to help small business owners thrive and grow in our digital age. Following the launch of BukuKasPay, we will continue to build trust with our merchants and support them with full suite banking and commerce solutions in the near future,” he added.

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Launching a company in an emerging market can be extremely beneficial.

Many opportunities in these markets arise out of necessity, or the drive to solve a need or a social problem. Further accelerated by COVID-19, the adoption of digital technology has now become an imperative rather than simply a choice in markets where previously large populations had little access to tech.

Thus, these markets offer huge opportunities for disruptive technology. In fact, according to the World Bank. growth in South Asian countries between 2013 and 2016 increased from 6.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent while growth rates of other developing nations remained flat and sometimes even turned negative.

While the economic potential of South Asian countries continues to flourish, e27 celebrates the 19 startups and their nominees that are solving problems in emerging markets via its Luminaries list.

The information in this article has been acquired from the e27 Startup Database and other platforms including Tracxn, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn.

Here are the startups:

Ayannah (Philippines)

A fintech startup that aims to provide digital financial services to the middle-class in emerging markets. Its services are available for both local Filipino users and those living abroad.

Its two main platforms are Sendah and Sendah Direct. Sendah is a B2C platform that allows overseas Filipinos to send mobile top-ups, electronic vouchers as well as physical goods. While Sendah Direct is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that partners with brick-and-mortar retailers to offer services like mobile top-ups, online game credits, and, more recently, domestic remittance.

For e27 Luminaries, Ayannah nominated Marlon Ramirez and credited him for his role in growing the business throughout the pandemic.

Latest funding: US$3.1M

Investors: 500 Startups, Life.SREDA

Team size: 54

Didian (Malaysia)

A digital B2B property marketplace for agents and agencies to source and sell residential projects from Malaysia’s top developers. Through its app, “Didian Agent App”, agents can find their desired projects, can check the unit availability, book a unit, and track a sale’s progress all the way up to the commission stage.

The company nominated Lead Software Engineer Ching Yaw Hao, for developing a product that enables property agents to sell online during the pandemic.

Latest funding: Self-funded

Team size: 16

Expedock (the Philippines)

An AI-powered automation service that powers back-offices for businesses in cross-border container trade to revolutionise the workflow of businesses in the supply chain. It claims to help clients generate savings of up to 90 per cent by eliminating all data extraction and data entry work for airway bills, bills of ladings, invoices, whilst decreasing turnaround time by up to 10x.

The company named Chief Product Officer Jig Young as nominee for developing a product that has gained the attention of both investors and customers.

Latest funding: US$4M

Investors of latest round: Ali Partovi, eBay, Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Instagram

Team size: 20+

Finantier (Indonesia)

An Indonesia-based fintech startup that uses Open Finance API platform to provide infrastructure and data products with financial institutions to create “seamless and personalised” experiences for consumers, who can benefit from their data. The startup is currently still in its beta phase and is also a part of  Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 startup batch.

The company nominated Senior Engineering Manager Victor Oloan for building the Finantier platform from scratch in the midst of a pandemic.

Latest funding: Pre-seed undisclosed

Also Read: Meet the 4 Luminaries startups that made a pivot to tide over COVID-19 crisis

Investors of latest round: East Ventures, AC Ventures, Genesia Ventures, Two Culture Capital

Team size: 20+

GajiGesa (Indonesia)

A financial wellness platform that aims to improve the long-term financial health of employees and companies by providing them with financial education, and other financial management tools.

Through its app employees can track their earnings, access their earned wages, and pay bills, among other uses. For employers, the platform allows HR teams to measure the effectiveness of financial well-being strategies and get visibility over engagement, productivity, and employee financial health.

GajiGesa nominated their Country Head for Indonesia market, Ade Yuanda Saragih for e27 Luminaries. Saragih led the company’s operation in Indonesia throughout the challenges of COVID-19.

Latest funding: US$2.5M

Investors of latest round: Defy.vc, Quest Ventures, GK Plug, and Play, Next Billion Ventures, Alto Partners Multi-Family Office, Kanmo Group.

Team size: 20+

Gojek (Indonesia)

Gojek is Indonesia’s super app that was initially started as a motorcycle ride-hailing company but has since expanded to different verticals, like digital payments, food delivery, logistics, and many other on-demand services. It has recently announced its merger with fellow Indonesian unicorn Tokopedia.

Gojek nominated CTO Severan Rault for e27 Luminaries nomination.

Latest funding: US$300M

Investors of latest round: Telkomsel

Team size: 22,000+

GudangAda  (Indonesia)

A B2B e-commerce platform for FMCG wholesalers, manufacturers, and retail businesses. Through its platform, traders can connect to meet and transact online with wholesalers and mom-pop retailers of all sizes.

GudangAda named Andre Widjaja, Chief of Business Development, as its nominees for e27 Luminaries. Widjaja built the company’s sales and BD team and prepared it for expansion.

Latest funding: US$25.4M

Investors of latest round: Sequoia India, Alpha JWC Ventures

Team size: 250+

Inavoice (Indonesia)

A one-stop solution for people in the creative industry who want to create their own audiovisual products. In addition to building a platform for voice-over talents which the startup began with, it has also expanded to include background music.

For e27 Luminaries, Inavoice named its admin staff Punto Adhil Dewanto for his crucial role in the process of establishing and running the company.

Latest funding: Unfunded

Investors of latest round: N/A

Team size: 10+

Jala Tech (Indonesia)

Jala Tech is transforming the shrimp industry by offering a vastly improved management system. The goal of the company is to get farmers to make decisions based on actual data.  To do that, its system provides water quality monitoring, planning, and reporting tools, complete with a decision support system so that farmers can initiate the right treatment at the right time, based on data that has been collected and analysed.

Jala Tech nominated BD Executive Christine Kombong for her dedication to helping the company’s community of shrimp farmers.

Also Read: Your very first look at e27 Luminaries, the unsung heroes of the SEA startup ecosystem

Latest funding: Undisclosed seed round

Investors of latest round: 500 Startups, Conservation International Ventures, Hatch Accelerator Holding.

Team size: 30+

Koinworks (Indonesia)

Koinworks brings together SMEs and lenders online under a single platform so that the former who have historically been underbanked by traditional financial institutions can borrow easily from the latter. Leveraging machine learning, KoinWorks enables borrowers to access low-interest loans while funders receive better returns.

For e27 Luminaries, KoinWorks nominated its CMO Jonathan Bryan for his success in maintain brand position amidst a challenging time.

Latest funding: US$20M

Investors of latest round: Quona Capital, EV Growth, and Saison Capital.

Team size: 250+

Lozi (Vietnam)

A Vietnamese one-hour-delivery e-commerce startup that delivers food, FMCG, electronics, fashion, cosmetics, laundry, medicine, courier, flower, ride-hailing, and B2B ingredients. The app also has a feature where wherein customers can listen to multiple podcasts while waiting for their delivery.

The company nominated CTO Thinh Ngoc Nguyen for his achievement in leading the team throughout challenging times.

Latest funding: Undisclosed Series C round

Investors of latest round: MetaPlanet Holdings

Team size: 90+

Mosaic Solutions (the Philippines)

The company offers cloud-based management software for F&B and hospitality companies. Its product suite includes data analytics, inventory management, point of sale, and purchasing.

The company nominated Aziel Salve, Director of Client Onboarding, for ensuring continuous growth and clients’ trust during the pandemic.

Latest funding: US$1M

Investors of latest round: Gentree

Team size: 25

MYCL (Indonesia)

A fashion tech startup that cultivates mycelia (a type of fungus) along with sawdust to make a substitute for animal-based leather. Its designed process consumes far less water than the traditional animal-based leather-making processes. The fashion industry is one of the beneficiaries of this sustainable material.

The HR team plays a crucial role in keeping the company’s morale through the challenges of the pandemic. This is why MYCL nominated Jean Rosy Tency, Head of HR, for e27 Luminaries.

Latest funding: US$20,000

Investors of latest round: Kickstarter.

Team size: 25

OVO (Indonesia)

A mobile app payment system that ensures that financial transactions are simple, instant, and secure. The platform provides its users with access to payments, transfers, cash-in/out, rewards, asset management, and investments.

OVO named CEO Jason Thompson as its nominee for e27 Luminaries.

Latest funding: Undisclosed

Investors of latest round: Undisclosed

Team size: 1,400+

Sociolla (Indonesia)

An e-commerce platform for beauty products and a subsidiary of Social Bella, an integrated beauty-tech company that focuses on developing “a scalable and sustainable” online and offline ecosystem for beauty and personal care. One of its major goals is to empower customers to use local brands. 

The company has recently expanded to Vietnam, and has nominated Ngoc Phungbich, Chief Business Officer, for e27 Luminaries.

Latest funding: US$58M

Investors of latest round: Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures

Team size: 600+

TaniHub (Indonesia)

An agritech startup that focuses on bridging farmers to a wider market. Its business lines include TaniHub (an e-commerce platform for food and agricultural products), TaniFund (a P2P lending platform for farmers), and TaniSupply (a unit that works on improving agricultural supply chain).

TaniHub named Astri Purnamasari, VP Corporate Services, as its nominee for e27 Luminaries. As one of its earliest hires, she has helped establishing company culture.

Latest funding: US$17M

Investors of latest round: Openspace Ventures, Intudo Ventures, UOB Venture Management, Vertex Ventures, BRI Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Golden Gate Ventures.

Team size: 600+

Also Read:  The strength within: A closer look at the operations and administration leads of e27 Luminaries

Tokopedia (Indonesia)

An e-commerce giant that aims to build a super ecosystem where anyone can start and discover anything. The company works with various marketplaces, logistics, payments, and financial technology businesses, while also providing more than 500,000 payment points across Indonesia.

Tokopedia nominated Herman Widjaja, SVP & CTO, for e27 Luminaries for his work in building a culture of innovation and teamwork as #OneTokopedia.

Latest funding: US$350M

Investors of latest round: Google, Temasek Holdings

Team size: 5000+

Xendit (Indonesia)

A digital payment infrastructure company that enables businesses to accept digital payments without the need to implement integrations with individual providers. It has since expanded its services to include services such as fraud detection, lending, and tax management.

For leading the team in securing sales during the pandemic, Sujinun Jutakorn, VP of Sales, is named as the company’s e27 Luminaries nominee.

Latest funding: US$64.6M

Investors of latest round: Accel, Y-Combinator

Team size: 300+

Zenius (Indonesia)

Zenius is an edutech startup that targets all education levels, from elementary school to senior high with public university test prep. The cost to subscribe to its online course starts from US$12 to US$46 per month. Zenius is said to already have a library of 80,000 educational videos.

Zenius named its CEO Rohan Monga for e27 Luminaries. Despite being a newcomer in the edutech industry, he has managed to lead the introduction of new products to the market.

Latest funding: Undisclosed Series A

Investors of latest round: N/A

Team size: 400+

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Go here, to find out more about Luminaries.

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It is not easy to be an entrepreneur. The odds are very often stacked against you. Depending on which criteria we use, research consistently shows that anywhere between 40 per cent and a staggering 90 per cent of startups fail. A weak management team and running out of money rank among the top contributing factors.

But then getting funded is not easy either. Articles suggest that entrepreneurs secure investment from as little as 6 per cent of investors they approach for funding, a far lower success rate than many founders might anticipate.

Perhaps it is easier to tackle the question of a stronger team then? When we think of founding teams, diversity immediately comes to mind. Stanford school of thought emphasises the importance of having cofounders with different functional backgrounds as an essential factor of startup success. But what if this diversity came from within the entrepreneur?

Our recent study published in Journal of Small Business Management sheds light on the importance of developing diverse skills within yourself as a key to entrepreneurship. Here are some findings that show us how being the jack-of-all-trades pays off in starting new business and in getting you closer to your goals.

• Having diverse skills means you are more likely to be confident, open to new ideas, and willing to form teams. Broadly skilled individuals tend to put more effort into pursuing entrepreneurship. A more diverse range of skills gives you the ability to evaluate opportunities from multiple perspectives and to better approach the complexities you will be facing.
• Working in a team with internally diverse individuals whose skillsets overlap even if just so slightly, makes the communication easier. They understand each other better since they share knowledge and insights about the issue at hand but can still provide different perspectives to each other. By building a team of jack-of-all trades you do not need to compromise between choosing team members who are thinking alike and those who offer diverse perspectives.

Also read: Juggling roles is an integral part of startups: Pricebaba cofounder

• Jacks-of-all-trades attract other jacks-of-all-trades in forming new venture teams. You are more likely to be engaged with like-minded collaborators who are attracted to your capabilities and confidence – they have more faith in your ability to pursue a business opportunity. By being and working with jacks-of-all-trade, you are ensuring the most-wanted diversity between and within the cofounders.
• Passion is not a buzzword, it provides a boost with real benefits. Passion in entrepreneurs fosters a clearer and stronger identity that positively impacts the startup process. Passion serves founders well in handling the ups and downs of launching a startup. It makes them more likely to actively seek opportunities that accelerate the business as well as implement novel ways to solve problems. Furthermore, passion for development helps entrepreneurs nurture and grow founding teams by focusing on collaborations with the right partners.

A team of diverse and passionate individuals, and not solo entrepreneurs, is more likely to successfully attract investors, because they are more likely to succeed. In fact, team quality is one of the first criteria that early-stage investors consider.

After all, business opportunities come and go, you will pivot many times, but only the right team can make things happen. Diverse perspectives make you more likely to uncover new opportunities, while critical tasks such as business plan writing, networking for resources, or hitting those developmental milestones are best done with a team.

Also read: Juggling family and duty: My road to the TOP100

Time and time again we see that it does take a village when it comes to growing startups. There has been much debate over whether it is more important for entrepreneurs to have hard technical skills or soft interpersonal skills.

Now we see that honing a broad range of skill sets within you the most critical. While diversity is usually observed on the team level, entrepreneurs who first develop diversity internally on the individual level are better suited to the critical roles of forming teams and attracting investment.

This better equips jack-of-all-trades types to succeed where others fail.

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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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Entrepreneurs are always busy. They have little time for anyone. Or anything. And yet, the best of them always find time to learn.

Whether from a mentor, or a podcast, or an online resource, or a conference, we entrepreneurs are constantly looking for small, incremental ways to improve what we do. We often look up to industry pioneers and C-suite execs for inspiration.

However, as adults, we often tend to ignore the little people around us, and the inspiring, wacky lessons that we can potentially learn from them. And do you know what’s unique about this?

You can hire a motivational coach or pay to listen to a few speakers, but you can’t set an agenda for learning with kids. When the student is ready, the teacher (or should I say the kiddo?) appears.

Over the past year, my agency has been working with an early education startup called Kidpillar, who conduct workshops and teach young kids about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics).

While we helped them put in place a content strategy and establish thought leadership in their space, some aspects of their work with kids served as eye-openers for me personally as an entrepreneur as well as a mother of a seven-year-old.

To be more specific, I distilled some key habits and characteristics that startup and small business owners can develop in order to survive and thrive in a chaotic and competitive business world. Let’s examine this one by one …

Also Read: Why disruption is the best time to be an entrepreneur and how to embrace it

Asking tons of questions

We all are born curious– the urge to find out something new begins as a ubiquitous and extraordinarily powerful psychological characteristic. Talk to any kid and you’ll know curiosity is ever-present and obvious in them.

But as we grow older, environmental influences– be it teachers, parents, other children, or the physical environment we live in– begin to whittle our curiosity into something narrower and often more fragile.

In a session titled The Rise and Fall of Curiosity at the Aspen Institute, Dr Susan Engel named four key influences to children’s curiosity:

• Security
• Opportunity
• Encouragement
• Role Models

As a result of these influences, we grow up to adopt preconceived notions about what is possible and what isn’t, what we can do and what we can’t. These spill over into every facet of our lives.

Children don’t suffer from this syndrome. They are innately curious and they just ask about stuff that they want to explore and know nothing about. This quality is something every successful entrepreneur must have.

Just like curious kids, you must seek out information, grow new theories, convert theories into actionable ideas, and then execute them. Asking questions and taking a game-based approach to critical thinking will make sure you remain nimble and develop potential solutions for problems your customers are facing.

Also Read: I’m married and have two kids. Can I plunge into entrepreneurship now?

Making every penny count

Another crucial lesson that toddlers and preschoolers can teach to all aspiring entrepreneurs is to make full use of available resources.

Finances play a crucial role in the establishment and sustainability of a business. In a report by Guidant Financial, 33 per cent of surveyed entrepreneurs cite “lack of cash flow” to be their biggest challenge.

Can you remember how you, as a kid, were introduced to money? Getting a few pennies or cents was a huge deal. You used to make dollars out of cents, save them for months, and use every last penny to get the maximum quantity or the best models of the stuff that you wanted.

And the journey of saving up money for something, in itself, used to be exhilarating. This is how children go through the process:

• They know what toy they want and how much it costs.
• They keep a close eye on their finances – chances are they know exactly how much money there is in their piggy banks down to the last cent.
• They play nice and put in extra efforts to reach their finance goals quickly.

There are valuable lessons hidden in the above steps for every entrepreneur. Knowing what your business goals are and how much money you’d need to reach there is definitely a great starting point.

And how are you going to achieve this? By staying on top of cash flows, making accurate ROI calculations, budgeting and taking on the extra gig or side hustle whenever you can. In other words, count every penny and make every penny count.

Getting used to hearing and saying no

As adults, we don’t keep count of the number of times we say (or get) a “no” from kids. And yet, they relentlessly keep bugging us for things they want while denying outright the things they don’t want.

Also Read: Imagin8ors wants to inculcate the spirit of entrepreneurship in kids

Every successful entrepreneur should be accustomed to hearing and should be decisive enough to say “No” just like kids. And if you can’t convince them, confuse them. Brannon Poe, Founder of Poe Group Advisors, recounts how his young son used to say, “I can’t want to do that.”

Pick any successful journey and you’ll be amazed to see how frequently these entrepreneurs heard and said “No” – be it to their investors, employees, friends or family. More often than not, successful entrepreneurs don’t become so by compromising or backing down after being rejected several times, just like kids.

The recursive loop of falling, getting up and trying again

When asked the secret to his entrepreneurial success in a Q&A hosted by Business Insider, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Just don’t give up!”

And it’s not just Mark Zuckerberg. In a 2013 interview, Jeff Bezos revealed that he had to schedule 60 meetings to raise US$1 million during early days of Amazon.

Among the potions that make for any and every successful entrepreneurial journey, persistence always holds a special place. This is something that every adult, irrespective of the fact whether they are aspiring entrepreneurs or not, should learn from kids.

Kids don’t have preconceived notions about anything and, unlike adults, they don’t hold on to anger and frustration from the last time they failed. This is why they keep trying new things & failing, only to get up and try again!

Living outside the box

The concept of the “box” develops as we grow old. Toddlers don’t know about this box – with walls of virtual barriers of what and how things should be done. When they enter preschool, they’re slowly but surely put in this box. By the time they’re out of college, they’re firmly imprisoned.

Later in life, it stops them from testing out their ideas. Or even believing in them. Give a kid a car and he will try to float it in water.

By thinking outside the box, kids try anything and everything to feed the curiosity cat of their minds. Entrepreneurs should always carry this zeal to think and try things outside the box.

By doing things the same way everyone else is doing, you can never expect to get different results or differentiate your product or service in the market. And kids can definitely show wan-trepreneurs a thing or two about thinking outside the box and have fun while doing it.

Entrepreneurship requires consistency and patience. Inspiration is available in abundance around us; we should be open to learning and getting inspired when it comes our way!

Remember this golden nugget of advice from Mark Cuban: “It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed; you only have to be right once.”

Finally, a personal request: If you are a business owner and a parent, don’t forget to pass on the smarts and raise your kids to be entrepreneurs like yourself!

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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.

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

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Indonesian tech giants Gojek and Tokopedia today announced that they have combined their businesses to form GoTo Group.

First reported by Bloomberg earlier this year, the merger and the launch of the GoTo Group identity have been one of the most crucial developments in the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem.

Though the company did not mention the financial details of the merger, in a press statement, they said that the agreement “marks the largest ever business combination in Indonesia and the largest between two Asia-based internet media and services companies to date.”

Following the acquisition, Gojek’s Andre Soelistyo will lead the combined business as GoTo Group CEO, with Tokopedia’s Patrick Cao serving as GoTo Group President.

Kevin Aluwi will continue as CEO of Gojek and William Tanuwijaya will remain CEO of Tokopedia.

In addition to his group responsibility, Soelistyo will continue to lead payments and financial services under the new brand of GoTo Financial, which encompasses GoPay as well as the group’s merchant and financial services offerings.

GoTo Group will also continue to focus on markets where Gojek already operates. Beyond Indonesia, this includes Singapore and Vietnam.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: gojek, Tokopedia inch closer to a merger; Finder snaps up GoBear

“The creation of GoTo Group, with its broad and fast delivery services and its deep penetration, will mean same-day e-commerce delivery moves a step closer to becoming the norm in Indonesia. GoTo will also further develop its payments and financial services offerings to provide an enhanced financial experience to consumers, drivers and merchants while also expanding to reach more underserved segments in Indonesia, where 140 million people have little or no access to the country’s financial system,” the company said.

GoTo Group also claimed in 2020 it has achieved:

– Total Group Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of over US$22 billion
– Over 1.8 billion transactions
– Total registered driver fleet of over two million as of December 2020
– Over 11 million merchant partners as of December 2020
– Over 100 million monthly active users (MAU)
– An ecosystem that encompasses two per cent of Indonesia’s GDP

The company is backed by investors that include Alibaba Group, Astra International, BlackRock, Capital Group, DST, Facebook, Google, JD.com, KKR, Northstar, Pacific Century Group, PayPal, Provident, Sequoia Capital India, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, Telkomsel, Temasek, Tencent, Visa and Warburg Pincus.

Prior to reports about its merger with Tokopedia, Gojek has earlier been reported to consider a merger with rival Grab.

In an interview with e27 in January, Sergei Filippov, Managing Partner of Singapore-based Morphosis Capital Partners, said that the potential merger between Gojek and Tokopedia “holds way more business sense and provides better market value” as compared to a merger with Grab.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: gojek, Tokopedia inch closer to a merger; Finder snaps up GoBear

“Tokopedia’s ‘paltry’ US$2.8 billion looks way more nimble and leaves enough room for a higher valuation at IPO stage,” he commented.

More on this story as it develops.

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Image Credit: GoTo Group

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Pine Labs raises US$285M

The story: Pine Labs has raised US$285 million in fresh funding after just five months of its previous fundraise.

Investors: Baron Capital Group, Duro Capital, Marshall Wace, Moore Strategic Ventures, Ward Ferry Management, Temasek, Lone Pine Capital, and Sunley House Capital.

How the funding will be used: Expansion of its current offerings and to scale its online payments gateway.

About Pine Labs: Incorporated in Singapore, the India-based company serves large, mid-sized, and small merchants across Asia and the Middle East as a payments platform.

Its technology platform enables offline and online last-mile retail transactions, provides customer insights to merchants for targeted sales, and offers risk-managed financial solutions for merchants’ business growth.

Moglix raises US$120M Series E

The story: Singapore-headquartered Moglix has raised US$120 million in a Series E funding round. The company is now valued at US$1 billion.

Investors: Falcon Edge Capital, Harvard Management Company (HMC), Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, and Venture Highway.

Also Read: impress.ai raises US$3M to make hiring less tiring for recruiters

About Moglix: Moglix is a B2B commerce company that is inclined towards the procurement of industrial essentials like electrical and lighting, cleaning and laundry supplies, office supplies, tools, and many more.

More about the story: The company was founded in 2015, by IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Kanpur and ISB (Indian School of Business) alumnus Rahul Garg.

It provides solutions to more than 500,000 SMEs and 3,000 manufacturing plants across India, Singapore, the UK, and the UAE.

gojek to launch car-hailing, e-payments services in Vietnam

The story: Ride-hailing giant gojek will add car-hailing and e-payments to its operations in Vietnam, one of the key markets in the Indonesian startup’s battle with Singaporean rival Grab.

Also Read: Gojek, Tokopedia confirm merger with the launch of GoTo Group

More about the story: “Vietnamese customers can currently use Gojek to hail motorbike rides, order food, and ship parcels, but will be able to request car rides and pay digitally very, very soon,” Phung Tuan Duc, country manager of Gojek, said.

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Image Credit: Pine Labs

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The Prudence Foundation has revealed eight startups that have been selected to receive the D-Tech Awards. Out of the eight, four hail from Southeast Asia.

The D-Tech Awards is part of SAFE STEPS, a multi-platform mass awareness programme that raises awareness and provides easy-to-understand educational information on life-threatening issues with the hope of building more resilient communities.

Finalists of the event will receive US$200,000 to support the implementation and scaling of their technology. Non-financial support includes expert coaching, pitching, and networking opportunities with humanitarian experts, VC fund managers, fellow tech entrepreneurs, and social enterprise developers.

According to the press statement, the winner and runner-up in the for-profit (FP) and non-profit (NP) categories will be announced on June 29, 2021.

Global organisations such as the International Federation of Red Cross, Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and Technology Partner Lenovo are also supporting the event.

Also Read: Meet the 5 SEA startups attending GROW’s Impact Accelerator programme

Here are the four startups and organisation from Southeast Asia for the D-Tech Awards –

EcoWorth Tech (FP)

A Singaporean cleantech company that specialises in transforming waste materials into reusable products that deliver both social and environmental benefits.

Kacific Broadband Satellite (FP)

A broadband satellite operator based in Singapore that provides high-speed, low-cost, ultra-reliable broadband to rural and suburban areas of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Bike Scouts (NP)

A Filipino web and mobile app company that gives users the tools for documenting disaster impact in real-time and for activating and coordinating a community-driven, highly scalable, and localised network of support based on proximity to gather and deliver aid through social teamwork.

Yayasan Plan International (NP)

Founded in Indonesia, non-profit organisation Yayasan Plan International provides an early warning tool for flood made from local materials, such as small plastic pipes, small-sized loudspeakers, cables, and tennis balls.

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Image Credit: Connor Betts

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Vickers Venture ensnared by alleged fraud; It’s been caught up in the allegedly fraudulent nickel trading scheme of a Singaporean businessman and his Envy Global Trading; The alleged mastermind, Ng Yu Zhi, has been charged with a range of suspected crimes from faking the purchase and sale of nickel to falsifying transfers from Citibank and account statements that showed millions in funds.

VC funding in SEA sets to see record year in 2021; Startups in the region have raised US$6bn in Q1 alone; VC funding in the region has been growing steadily since 2014, hitting a peak of US$12.6bn in 2018, reveals a Genesis Alternative Ventures report.

GajiGesa, a fintech focused on Indonesian workers, raises strategic investment; The backers include OCBC NISP Ventura and the founders of Kopi Kenangan; GajiGesa also recently expanded beyond the enterprise space with a new employee management system for SMEs and micro-SMEs; The startup announced a US$2.5mn seed round led by Defy.vc and Quest Ventures in February.

Indonesian e-commerce firm Sirclo nets US$45mn in funding; Investors include SMDV (lead) and East Ventures; According to Sirclo CEO Brian Marshal, this investment was part of the acquisition deal of Orami last month; Sirclo acquired Orami, an online parenting platform that’s also part of East Ventures’ and SMDV’s portfolio.

Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s firm to focus on funding SEA’s tech startups; Horizon Ventures will focus primarily on the Indonesian market; It has partnered with Alpha JWC Ventures to identify startups; In the past year, the two VC firms invested in Kopi Kenangan, Ajaib and Bobobox.

Singapore’s ProSpark secures seed funding for its corporate e-learning and training solution; Investors include AC Ventures (lead), 500 Startups and Azure Ventures; ProSpark has already expanded into the Philippines and attracted many prominent client base, including Gojek and Kopi Kenangan.

Malaysian B2B e-wholesaler Lapasar lands US$1.8M funding; Round was led by NEXEA and shopper360; The startup targets to serve 10K grocery stores, restaurants and hawker stalls over the next 24 months with its new mobile app Lapasar-Borong.

What does the future of CBDCs actually look like and why does it matter?; A centrally-backed digital currency provides better security, while reducing fraud and lowering costs; It allows for better monitoring of financial activity making crimes such as tax evasion much more difficult and offers a higher level of control and traceability in comparison to private cryptocurrencies and cash.

Chinese unicorn to launch its robot waiters in Singapore, other markets; Keenon Robotics has already launched operations in Japan in March and is looking to also expand to South Korea, Europe, North America, and the Middle East; Keenon Robotics says its robots account for about 85% of all food-serving robots ever sold in the Chinese market.

Facebook chats power a new US$48bn market in social commerce; In Thailand almost half of all ecommerce takes place through social media or chat rooms on Facebook, WhatsApp or Line’s app; The rapid adoption of commerce via social media across the region could offer valuable lessons to internet giants like ByteDance and Instagram, which are experimenting with the format as they try to disrupt the traditional styles of platform commerce.

Livestream e-commerce goes mainstream; The tech and its business model deliver an interactive experience for brands, influencers, or celebrities to promote and sell products; and for consumers to participate by asking questions and shopping during the event.

Digital remittance providers eye APAC markets; Asia’s digital remittance providers are competing with a foreign fintech companies who are entering the region at an accelerated pace; Names such as Wise and Revolut have all entered the region in the past two years.

BlackRock, Temasek to establish new funds to invest in late-stage environmental startups; Decarbonisation Partners is going to establish several funds with the initial injection of US$600mn; Eventually, they aim to hit the anticipated US$5bn+ in AuM in the coming years.

Getting risk culture right in the age of hybrid working; Having a workforce that understands the new risk elements in their work environment will go a long way to support a robust risk culture; Training programmes should be put in place to ensure that employees and customers are educated on security awareness to minimise security risks and to remind employees of the importance of upholding the company’s risk culture.

MAS launches global fintech Hackcelerator for a greener financial sector; FinTech firms and solution providers around the world are invited to submit innovative solutions to address over 50 problem statements that have been collected from financial institutions and green finance industry players.

What it takes to keep SEA’s digital economy booming; A total of 40mn new users were added in SEA in 2020, which brings the total to 400mn users; 70% of SEA is now online; Majority of new consumers are from non-metro areas; They spent on average an hour more a day on the Internet during lockdowns, with the highest spike in the Philippines.

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Image Credit: Vickers Venture Partners

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All of May, we are taking a closer look at the workplace and all concerns of all kinds of workers. Afterall, Labour Day is the flavour of the month. Catch up what all the hype about a 4-day work week is all about and if its even worth it and learn how to manage you tech talent in lieu of the pandemic.

Also marching on is our Earth Day theme with some spotlight on slow fashion and impact investing. Hope you feel enlightened.

Labour Day specials

Voice of Employees: How the pandemic accelerated focus on employee welfare by Leong Chee Tung, CEO at EngageRocket

“Over the next few months, as organisations looked down the barrel of a potential economic downswing and damage to business continuity, HR departments provided the support and infrastructure that employees needed to stay productive and bring their best selves to work – even if that work happened in a virtual space.

For these reasons, 95 per cent of CHROs agree that HR played a leading role in their organisation’s response to COVID-19. As an ally during the period of challenge and change, HR’s role spread across facilitating business continuity in the early months, gauging employee sentiment and therefore the ideal organisational response, and intervening with the right technology at the right moments.

Like Voice of the Customer in the sales and marketing world, listening to employees in the workplace seeks to capture genuine employee sentiment and intent in order to plan more effective and targeted organisational strategies.”

How to retain local talent as global demand for remote tech workers surges by Jamille Tran, a reporter from Tsinghua University

“Technology staff in India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have long been known as the top IT outsourcing solution providers for global companies, according to A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI).

“Even before the pandemic, companies based in high labour-cost locations, like Australia and the US, have already utilised remote workers for non-core tasks, or even set up hub offices in lower-cost locations,” said Christopher Lee, senior manager of People & Organisation Management Consulting at PwC Consulting Vietnam. “COVID-19 has only accelerated this trend.”

With the acceleration caused by the pandemic, technology jobs like data engineer, senior software engineer, solution architect have entered the fastest growing remote jobs by application volume globally from March to June on Linkedin, the world’s largest professional networking platform.”

Is a four-day workweek better for employers or employees? by Duckju Kang, CEO of ValueChampion

“A number of companies including Microsoft Japan, American-based fast food company Shake Shack, New Zealand-based financial services company Perpetual Guardian have experimented with the four-day workweek in different ways.

Some companies have kept the same working hours and gave employees a day off for a total of 32 working hours per week, while others kept the 40 hour work week but condensed it into four days.

The companies that tested out the shorter work week conducted the experiment for a couple of months before deciding whether to implement the changes permanently.

The experiments yielded a few surprising results. Despite the shorter week, companies saw improvements in employee engagement and productivity. Employers also saw more cost savings and less turnover. However, there were also some negatives.”

As Glints CTO, this is what I want you to know about building an engineering team in Southeast Asia by Seah Ying Cong, CTO, Glints

“I had some abstract ideals about the perfect team I wanted to build. But at the end of the day, I am at a company with a budget, hiring against a tight timeline in a constrained talent market with a thin history.

There are realities to contend with, many of which are unique to the fragmented and multi-cultural context that is Southeast Asia. If I could hop on a Zoom call with that eager hiring manager from five years ago, here’s where I would focus his precious and soon-to-be-frayed attention.”

Caring for the planet

How to become a millionaire investor while scaling sustainability impact in the world by by Jamille Tran, a reporter from Tsinghua University

“BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset management firms, noted in its recent report that sustainable investing would be no longer a niche area but turning mainstream without compromising financial goals.

International investors are expecting that this millionaire opportunity would prevalently occur within developing countries.

“People in developing countries are very committed to improving their standard of living,” said Ippel, while underlining that these countries account for three-quarters of the world’s population. “They are more committed to growth than entrepreneurs in North America or Europe.”

Slow fashion is back: How environmental sustainability becomes the hottest trend this season by Sarah Garner, founder and CEO, Retykle

“Popular high street brands can now produce weekly collections which are vast when compared to the four seasonal collections of traditional fashion houses.

The amount manufactured at an incredibly fast pace is only possible with some fairly aggressive factors at play which include unethical methods and techniques for producing materials, utilising workers far beyond the standard and ultimately safety, quality and efficiency of the garment.

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition estimates that designers control upwards of 80 per cent of a product’s environmental impact, and that it lies in the first steps of development. It is tough to work backwards when you are working towards a more sustainable product.”

And more….

What does the future of CBDCs actually look like and why does it matter? by Kanv Pandit, Payments and Banking at FIS

“The uncertainty created by the ongoing pandemic has led to cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin becoming mainstream. Both Apple Pay and PayPal recently started supporting bitcoin payments in the US. In Asia, Singapore’s DBS bank launched a digital currency exchange last December – this is the world’s first cryptocurrency exchange backed by a traditional bank.

As consumer demand for digital currency payment options rises, merchants in Asia are now beginning to accept such payment options across various channels. For example, in Japan bitcoin is accepted by over 260,000 stores and Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten had just launched a crypto wallet this month that allows users to shop both online and in-store using crypto.”

How cloud technology makes trading a hassle-free experience by Jeremy Choi, COO, ABCC Exchange

“From social media and banking to healthcare and government services, there is a need for efficient and reliable data infrastructure, cloud technology can greatly enhance the user experience.

For high-frequency trading environments, which depends on split-second decisions and execution, the use of cloud technology can help streamline the transaction process.

Why exactly is choosing a trading marketplace utilising cloud technology so important in improving the experience of buying and selling digital assets?”

Advertising with privacy: How SoMin employs AI to build brands and preserve anonymity online by Deon Tan, Block71 Singapore

“Consumers will also benefit from the increased privacy and absence of in-your-face advertisements that clog up news feeds. All in all, sophisticated adtech tools create a win-win situation for both businesses and consumers alike.

However, building sophisticated performance tools requires skill and a wealth of industry knowledge. Fortunately, a team of experts at BLOCK71 Singapore have been working to build the future of ad optimisation since 2017.

This month, I sat down with Hendrik Schwartz and Aleks Farseev, good friends and co-founders of adtech startup SoMin, to dissect the intricate workings behind their AI-driven marketing performance system.

Read on to discover the game-changing powers of ad optimisation for both businesses and consumers.”

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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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