With Singapore and Jakarta occupying two of the top 10 spots for cities with the highest VC investments in 2019, it is safe to say Southeast Asian startups face no shortage of funding opportunities.

However, the pandemic has thrown a spanner in the works. According to reports, though median exit deal size in the region rose from US$5 million in 2019 to US$27 million in H1 2020, the average top investment amount fell from US$242 million in 2019 to US$77 million in the same period this year.

This decline could point to stalled deals as VCs struggle to carry out the necessary due diligence because of the movement restrictions imposed regionally.

Despite that, Jungle led a US$10 million Series B funding round in Betterplace, a Bangalore-based tech platform for blue-collar workforce management.

David Gowdey, Managing Partner of Jungle Ventures, shared in an interview with e27 that due diligence for the deal was conducted virtually, adding that it would represent a new normal for conducting future investments.

Below are the edited excerpts from the interview.

Which of the companies within your portfolio have the potential to become a unicorn in the next few years?

As we invest in India and Southeast Asia, we have Livspace and Moglix within our portfolio that are on track to be unicorns.

Founders usually don’t think about building a business just to get to a billion dollars or an arbitrary valuation number. It takes a long time to build a unicorn. Some companies would get there faster while others would be slower. It depends on the market that they’re in, but it usually requires several years to get there.

Also Read: Why David Gowdey of Jungle Ventures believes exits should be led by founders

We closed a US$100 million fund in 2016. Even the early investments out of that fund, it’s just been four years and these are mainly Series A and pre-Series A type of investments. So it takes time for these companies to grow into unicorns.

In Southeast Asia, there is definitely a cohort of businesses that you’ll start to see hit that billion-dollar valuation over the next one to two years. There’s the first cohort of companies which were founded between 2012 and 2014 which have become unicorns — the likes of Grab, gojek and Traveloka. The next batch should be joining them soon.

For companies turning into unicorns in the next one to two years, what do you think should be their preferred exit strategy?

As you get up to a billion dollars in size, the pool of buyers gets smaller. For example, if you’re a company that has a US$500-million valuation, there would be numerous companies that have a balance sheet that could afford that acquisition.

However, if you’re a US$15-billion company, the number of companies with the financial capabilities to make the acquisition is obviously fewer. Therefore, the larger you get, the more you would angle towards the public markets.

I do still think you’ll see a mix of both trade sales and IPOs. If you are a regional industry leader and there are similar businesses in the US and China that don’t have a presence in Southeast Asia, you will naturally be of M&A interest as they look to expand into the region and solidify their position as the market leader here.

A Peter-Thiel backed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) recently filed to go public and is seeking to buy a Southeast Asian company. Does this signal the arrival of SPACs into the region?

SPACs have obviously been around for a long time, and a SPAC itself is nothing new. I do think it’s interesting to think about more regional companies listing in the US.

Sea Group has performed incredibly well. They are up nearly 4x this year and it’s been a great business to trailblaze Southeast Asia into US public markets. You need to be of a certain level of scale before you can think about listing on the US and a SPAC is no different.

Also Read: What does Peter Thiel-backed Bridgetown’s IPO mean for SEA’s startup ecosystem?

In my opinion, a SPAC is still going to need to find a business that is going to be appealing to US-based investors. It probably needs to be over a billion dollars in value for it to be sizeable enough to attract sufficient interest to have the desired liquidity.

As primary hubs for VC funding remain in Singapore and Jakarta, do you think we will see other parts of the region growing their venture ecosystem?

Singapore and Jakarta indeed remain the top two regions for VC funding. There’s a very robust venture ecosystem in Jakarta with a lot of Indonesia-focused funds.

On the other hand, most founders in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines are coming to Singapore to meet VCs. Meanwhile, the Singapore-based funds are going to Jakarta to meet Indonesian companies.

With regards to future developments in the regional venture space, there are some government initiatives to grow the deals landscape in Malaysia and Thailand. I do hope that there will be VC ecosystems forming in these countries, together with Vietnam. Ultimately, it takes time.

Also Read: 37 VCs to invest US$800M+ in Vietnam’s startups over the next 3-5 years

What are some future trends we can expect within the venture space as we move into 2021?

You will see some more companies from Southeast Asia go public as this would represent a natural path for the likes of Grab, GoJek and Traveloka.

More than that, there is a group of unicorns in Southeast Asia which have reached the “tipping point” in terms of their size, scale and maturity of the business. Some of them should start to think about going public. I would expect that over the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll see at least one more IPO come out of this region.

What are your investment plans for the next one to two years and what are the sectors you have your eye on?

We just closed an investment with Betterplace and all of the due diligence for that investment was done virtually. We’ve had to adapt our investment process to accommodate for the pandemic and have proven to ourselves that we’re capable of doing that. Therefore, even if we can’t get on a plane and travel, we will continue to make the right investments.

At Jungle, we tend to focus on two large categories — software and consumer consumption. Software is one of the industries that hasn’t been impacted much by the pandemic. Therefore, we will continue to be one of the strongest investors in software going forward.

For consumer consumption, we are seeing more consumers going online and they will increasingly transact through digital channels. Therefore, it could path the way for both e-commerce and direct to consumer (D2C) brands to grow.

We have also observed that second derivative beneficiaries of the e-commerce boom — payments, consumer credit and logistics — have seen a natural tailwind arise from the pandemic.

In essence, I don’t think our investment focus will shift or change due to the pandemic. We’ll stay consistent around consumer consumption and software verticals.

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Image Credit: Jungle Ventures

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Malaysian used car e-commerce firm Carsome raises US$30M Series D; Investors are Asia Partners (lead), Burda Principal, Ondine Capital; The company will use the funds to strengthen its C2B and B2C offerings; It claims currently it is transacting an annualised 70K cars totalling US$600M in transacted value across Indonesia, Thailand, S’pore, Malaysia. More here

Sea Group to raise about US$2B in stock offering; It plans to offer 11M ADS, with the option to sell another 1.65M; Sea, a games company that has expanded into e-commerce, has surged to a market valuation of US$100B with its shares rising more than 400% this year alone. More here

Will a Grab-gojek merger benefit consumers? Experts are divided; One expert says the merger is unlikely to create a monopoly as these two companies are based in different countries; Another says consumers will be disappointed as the merger means there will be no significant competition left and the prices are likely to go up. More here

A tale of two IPOs: How DoorDash’s IPO makes Uber and Airbnb’s look better; Airbnb and DoorDash may seem similar at first glance; Both are hot consumer tech companies valued at around US$30B, competing against larger companies valued at around US$85B; However, there’s a big difference between the two; DoorDash’s tremendous growth and market share gains don’t seem defensible in the long run. More here

Remember the under US$1,000 wind turbine? It has now become sleeker, quieter, more efficient; Avatar claims to have the world’s lowest startup speed for a 1kW Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine with just 1.4 m/s wind speed required; This is less than half of what was needed earlier and still applicable to most other wind turbines in the market. More here

Vietnam to have 12 ecosystems with revenue of US$100B, says McKinsey; The 12 large ecosystems will be established across retail and institutional services by 2025; Ecosystem growth will be essentially driven by a significant decrease in the cost of customer acquisitions. More here

BNPL services company Rely secures US$75M credit facility from Polaris; Its goal is to scale operations and forge partnerships with major retailers in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea; Rely currently partners with Qoo10 to offer BNPL services on its e-commerce platform. More here

Access Ventures secures US$30M for Fund II, aims to hit final close by Q3 2021; LPs are Korea Venture Investment, Octava, Line Ventures, Mahanusa Capital; Fund II has made 10+ investments across SEA, including Indonesia’s Akseleran and Vietnam’s Godee. More here

Thai proptech startup FazWaz raises funding; Investors include CAV Investment, 500 Tuk Tuks, Aries Capital; The startup has over 500K customers per month; FazWaz provides brokerage services to make the process of buying, selling, renting a property easy; It also has ops in Cambodia. More here

Livestream-focused shopping app Shopavision launches in Singapore with a USD$374K seed fund; Before the launch, the app claims to have generated more than SGD$45K in sales and conducted more than 60 livestream shows on the its Facebook page and for their clients; The app currently has close to 30 live stream hosts and a variety of merchants onboard. More here

NextBillion.ai crowned as champion of the SLINGSHOT 2020 deep tech startup competition; It builds hyperlocal solutions for emerging markets where language and geospatial infra can be more complex and unique;
UK-based Gyro Gear and Keyless Technologies are named runners-up; SLINGSHOT2020 was organised by Enterprise SG. More here

Singapore invests US$9M into programme to grow local blockchain ecosystem; The initiative will engage close to 75 companies to conceptualise 17 blockchain-related projects within the next 3 years in sectors starting with trade and logistics, and supply chain; It will also support blockchain interoperability. More here

Singapore-based C-suite raises six-figure seed funding; It is an O2O learning platform for current and aspiring executives; C-suite positions itself as an exclusive community hub, a social network, a news and views forum and a recommendation engine; The platform claims to have attracted nearly 200 high-profile members so far. More here

eKYC platform WISE AI secures pre-Series A from Sun SEA Capital; The startup uses AI to e-verify customers when onboarding them for financial services and beyond; The money will be used to bankroll its expansion across the region; Its clients include FIs, fintech firms, credit rating agencies and governments. More here

Nokia study confirms 5G as 90% more energy efficient than 4G; The rollout of 5G networks is set to increase traffic dramatically making it critical that the energy consumed does not rise at the same rate; 5G networks, however, requires further action to enhance energy efficiency and minimise CO2 emissions that will come with exponentially increased data traffic. More here

Antler, EF and 500 Startups join ESG’s Startup SG Founder programme; The Startup SG Founder programme provides mentorship and early capital to first-time entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas; In Aug, the government announced the setting aside of an additional US$112M to enhance the programme, along with a new 3-month venture building programme. More here

COVID-19 has little impact on hiring in fintech sector, says report; The imminent launch of digital banks is largely perceived to be a boon for the talent pipeline; More Singaporean fintech firms are focussing on hiring local talent; The survey was conducted jointly by the Singapore FinTech Association and PwC. More here

Why SEA’s VCs should shift their attention to niche sectors and supporting industries; The advantages of this are companies in the main sectors might be interested to acquire these businesses; There are opportunities to build partnerships with main sector leaders and leverage their financial resources so we don’t need to spend substantial money on convincing/ winning consumers. More here

Why the future of work in Singapore is remote; Remote workers are reportedly 35% more productive than their onsite colleagues; This is one obvious benefit from the time saved during the commute to the office; But other factors that explain the productivity boost include fewer workplace distractions and a more comfortable work environment at home. More here

This Singapore startup made a ‘passport’ for COVID-19 test results so you can travel seamlessly; Digital Health Passport enables healthcare providers to easily issue digital test results in a secure and tamper-proof way, which are then automatically made available to individuals on the mobile app. More here

Don’t break the bank: Enabling financial inclusion and equity through tech; One of the greatest factors causing financial exclusion is the distance between rural areas and bank branches; The advent of smartphones and digital financial apps have been a game-changer, making the need for physical proximity less relevant. More here

WASTE 20/20 winner Magorium shares how it intends to save SEA with its plastic recycling solution; Magorium aims to solve the converts plastic into polymers, which are then used to produce high-quality bitumen used for road construction; Its tech can recycle a wider range of plastic types and incorporate a higher percentage of it into the roads. More here

I Squared Capital acquires, merges two Singapore-based cloud services firms; The combined businesses are poised to become a leading cloud migration and managed services provider in SEA and India, providing capability across all major public cloud operators. More here

Where’s XR at today and what does it mean for your company?; The future of the industry relies on its ability to live up to the promises that XR can save companies time and money, accelerate processes, measure engagement, bring people together in unique and memorable ways, and create new revenue streams that don’t only justify costs but proportionally outweigh them. More here

Mastercard, Pine Labs plan to expand BNPL solution in SEA; This will offer consumers the flexibility of zero-interest instalments on purchases, expand business for merchants and connect banks, fintechs, payment gateways and device makers to a rapidly growing financing alternative. More here

Singapore and Thailand to link national payments infrastructure; Cross-border remittances between the two countries will become cheaper and faster with the linkage of Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PayPrompt; The programme will start off with a small group of banks on both sides, and will scale up to include more banks and non-bank providers over time. More here

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Image Credit: Sea Group

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Shopavision has announced the launch of what it claims to be Singapore’s first live-streaming e-commerce platform, with a S$500,000 (US$374,000) in seed funding from an undisclosed angel investor.

As per a press note, the money will go towards growing its team, enhancing its platform, as well as to launch in Singapore.

The startup also announced that it is officially launching its mobile app to cater to the growing demand for live streaming amidst the holiday season.

Also Read: Is Southeast Asia ready to give birth to interactive e-commerce platforms like Pinduoduo?

Shopavision — started by Founder and CEO Rachel Pang, who was inspired by the widespread penetration of live streaming in China — aims to be the one-stop platform for live streaming shopping where both merchants and customers can enjoy the benefits of live stream commerce.

Users can choose to buy products instantly within the live stream or add to cart and make payment directly via payment modes — credit cards, PayNow or e-wallets GrabPay and RazerPay, without leaving the stream.

Its platform also offers interactive live streaming features, audience profiling and data analytics among others, helping merchants optimise and improve sales.

A professional suite of related services (such as live stream hosts, studios, production, campaign management, marketing and media for retailers to engage) are also available on the platform.

Also Read: Humanising customer experience is the best way to build loyalty in a post-COVID-19 world

Before the launch of the app, Shopavision claims to have generated more than S$60,000 (US$44,900) in sales and conducted more than 60 live stream shows on its Facebook page for its clients.

The firm has close to 30 live stream hosts and a variety of merchants on its platform. 

A recent study commissioned by Shopavision found that 90 per cent of people in China consume live streaming content as compared to 15 per cent in Singapore.

“Consumers are no longer just browsing through product descriptions, but they are now actively participating in the buying process. They can ask questions, get responses live and get entertained by live streamers, from the convenience of their homes. Live streaming is the future of online commerce,” said Pang.

“We want to build an ecosystem that supports the merchants and create opportunities for people to become live stream hosts, especially those whose income has been affected by the pandemic. This could become a second career for them,” she added.

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Image Credit: Shopavision

 

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SolarHome, a Singapore-based company that brings pay-as-you-go solar solutions into off-grid households in Southeast Asia, announced today that it has raised US$2 million in a Series A extension round, led by existing investors TRIREC and Insitor Impact Asia Fund.

New investors such as Anthem Asia Myanmar SME Venture Fund and DPI Energy Ventures (renewables-focused investment funds in APAC), besides FORUM, also participated.

The newly-raised capital will be used to scale SolarHome’s solution, as it pushes towards the next stages of growth of offering its product to a much larger customer base.

“The new capital has enabled us to bring operations closer to EBITDA breakeven since the beginning of this year despite a very challenging environment,” said Geert Jan Ten Hoonte, CEO of SolarHome.

Also Read: Solar energy startup SolarHome secures additional US$1M from Trirec

Founded by FORUM, a Singapore-based fintech venture builder, SolarHome offers off-grid households a solar lighting system at a low-cost 24-month subscription plan, with an initial US$10 down payment, followed by daily, weekly, or monthly repayments through scratch cards or mobile money.

The technology built into the system ensures that it won’t function if a payment is not made, giving lenders the confidence that they will be able to recover their investment.

The company estimates that it eliminates 140kg of carbon dioxide emissions per year and 1.45kg of black carbon, which are crucial in battling greenhouse effects that is crucial for global warming.

Since its founding in 2017, SolarHome has bagged several investment rounds from notable investors. These included a US$10 million in debt funding from a consortium of international investors, including Crowdcredit and Trine in 2018.

This was followed by a US$1 million for equity funding from TRIREC in 2019. Previously,  it has also raised three rounds of fundings.

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Image Credit: SolarHome

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Palexy, a Vietnamese startup that provides actionable data to help improve the performance of brick-and-mortar retailers, has bagged US$1 million in a funding round led by Access Ventures, with participation from Do Ventures.

The startup will use the money to grow its team, fine-tune products, and expand the business across the region.

“We will expand our business to Southeast Asia, Asia and the Middle East in 2021,” Founder and Chairman Thong Do told e27.

Palexy was started mid this year by Thong Do, Minh Truong (co-founder and CTO), and Duc Nguyen (co-founder and Chief Data Engineer).

Also Read: Access Ventures secures US$30M for Fund II, aims to hit final close by Q3 2021

The trio started the venture to bring two missions together: to put the technological potential of Southeast Asia to use, and shake up the retail market.

“When I talked to many frustrated business owners in the region, I got the feeling that they still wanted to grow and improve but they have simply exhausted all available options. I wanted to show them that with the help of technology, there is still a lot of room for progress,” he said as he described his startup journey.

If you look at e-commerce, the industry is thriving because it makes use of online user data to incessantly optimise its processes. “We, at Palexy, could help retailers achieve that level of success with real-time data generated from consumers. With our solutions in place, our clients could break ceilings they were not even aware of,” Do said.

In a nutshell, Palexy aims to empower retailers to optimise their customer in-store experience and operational efficiency using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision technologies.

“If you are the owner of an e-commerce company, you can log in to see all the data points such as the number of visitors (per day, week, month or year), the timing and duration of their visits, and the keywords used to lead them to your site, etc.,” he said.

“But if you run an offline store (for example, a clothes retail shop), all you will see at the end of the week is nothing but the point of sale (POS) data,” he elaborated.

Also Read: How your shopping habits are shaping the future of retail in Singapore

This is where Palexy comes in handy as it brings in e-commerce-like actionable data to help offline retailers perform better.

Digitalising everything

“Data analytics is where offline retail is substantially falling behind and losing the battle. What offline retailers need is a full package technology solution that allows them to see the big picture as well as their online competitors,” he said.

“We crack this problem with our AI-powered SaaS tools that digitalise everything: every customer touchpoint, every interaction and every in-store process. We take into account all available data sources (such as surveillance camera feeds, POS data, promotion calendar and even weather data) and convert them all into actionable analytics dashboards,” he elucidated.

Palexy mainly offers three SaaS products:

Store Optimiser, which analyses the in-store sales funnel to help retailers improve their operations;

Store Wizard, a virtual shopping assistant which automatically identifies return customers as soon as they walk into the store, their shopping history and preferences. This helps the sales assistants a lot with providing excellent services, especially in high-end stores;

Store Supervisor, which acts as a dedicated security guard, monitoring the store 24×7, detecting abnormal behaviours or frauds and then alerting the staff in real-time.

Palexy’s products are currently used by more than 30 retailer clients in Vietnam and Japan, including brands such as PNJ (jewellery retailer), Guardian (a leading company in beauty and personal care), Viet Thai International, and Aldo Shoes & Accessories Franchisee, Hakuhodo & Square.

Future plans

According to Do, digitising physical stores to optimise their operation is just the first step of Palexy’s product vision. Ultimately, he added, its AI tools would help connect the physical world with the online world, enabling true omnichannel retail.

“The thing is that while shoppers still prefer brick-and-mortar stores in general, the majority of them like brands that have both an online and offline presence. That allows them more options and flexibility,” he said.

“The shopper analysis tools we offer are especially useful for retailers that fit that description. Data taken from the online channel could benefit the offline stores’ operations and vice versa, empowering the retailers tremendously,” he further shared.

Also Read: Top 5 skills needed to carve a niche in big data

For example, when a brand runs a digital marketing campaign, Palexy’s technology can help measure the effectiveness of that campaign in the stores, both quantitatively and accurately.

In yet another use case, by using Palexy’s tools to analyse the demographics of in-store purchasers, the client can identify the demographics of the buyer group that has the highest conversion rate.

“Using these insights, the client can design a promotion campaign that is specifically tailored for that customer group, driving higher conversion for the e-commerce channel,” he said.

A serial entrepreneur, Do previously built Arimo, a Big Data company based in California, which offers Data Science as a Service for global enterprises. The venture managed to raise over US$13 million from VCs such as Andreessen Horowitz before being acquired by Panasonic in October 2017.

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Image Credit: Palexy

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With everything that has happened in 2020, it is easy to be discouraged by the future prospect of the MICE industries in the Southeast Asian (SEA) region and beyond.

In his opinion piece as published by Channel News Asia, Dr Prem Shamdasani, an Associate Professor of Marketing and Academic Director of the Executive MBA at NUS Business School, even noted that both the supply and demand side of this industry have “literally evaporated.”

Despite the outlook, Dr Shamdasani pointed out that some major global events have resisted the idea of converting into online platforms –a trend that has gained momentum during the pandemic. One of such events is the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference.

In December, as if his predictions have come true, we received two updates that had helped to improve the mood for the holiday season: That major global events are moving its venue to SEA countries next year.

The first one of such event was RISE which was dubbed by various media platforms as the largest tech gathering in Asia. For the past five years, the event has been held in Hong Kong. But Co-Founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave announced in a press statement that the organisation has agreed to a three-year partnership with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to host RISE in Kuala Lumpur, starting from March 2022.

“This is not a goodbye to Hong Kong. We hope to return to the city in future with a brand new event,” Cosgrave stresses.

Shortly after that, beyond the tech startup community, the World Economic Forum announced that it is moving its annual forum from Davos, Switzerland, to Singapore in May 2021. This move was strongly related to the ongoing pandemic as it would be “challenging to host the event safely in Europe.”

As detailed in this CNBC report, this is only the second time the event was held outside of its original venue and the first that it happens in Asia.

Also Read: The future of events with Mind The Product CEO James Mayes

So what does this mean for us?

If anything, this indicates that SEA remains a powerful and promising market.

Throughout the pandemic, there has been various discussion on the future travel industry –particularly when and how we are going to bring it back, if ever. Travel tech giant Booking.com stated that even if COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed widely, it will take years, instead of quarters for the travel industry to recover to pre-pandemic 2019 level, as quoted by South China Morning Post.

While it is impossible to deny the impact that the pandemic has on this region, that businesses across different industries are struggling to survive even now, there are also businesses that manage to do well in this challenging time. And this includes companies in the MICE industries.

Mummys Market, the organiser behind the leading baby products fairs in Southeast Asia, explains to e27 on how a pivot to digital platforms had managed to not only save their business but also helped it grow.

“To adapt to this [situation], we decided to accelerate our seven-year plan to be implemented within one year, quickly shifting to a digital model to continue meeting the needs of our customers. Although this was a big change, we chose to reskill our existing staff to fit them into their new roles instead of displacing them,” founder William Chin writes in an email.

“With the efforts of our rigorous and tenacious team, we successfully launched Singapore’s biggest online baby fair in May 2020. What we have achieved in terms of personal and professional growth from our learning experiences across this year is what we would have taken years to learn under normal circumstances,” he continues.

Chin also states that the company’s revenue has increased “dramatically” following the transformation. But it does not mean that Mummys Market will be a fully online platform in the future. In addition to launching its first-ever retail outlet in November at Suntec City, it also plans to bring back its customer events, once the situation permits.

“Naturally, these will be held according to the safe management measures from the authorities, and we will ensure that we have implemented density and incident management processes that are in compliance with the government guidelines,” Chin concludes.

Also Read: The future is hybrid: What will events look like post-COVID-19?

Beyond individual businesses, the fact a major global event is going to be held in Singapore as early as May next year indicates that perhaps things can recover a little sooner. That this event will become a trigger to bring back the travel and tourism industries. That we can have hopes and see it manifests.

Last but not least, perhaps this is a sign that the world as we know it has not completely disappeared. There were times when we thought going to conferences, speaking on stages and building connections had become a thing of the past. But perhaps, in the next one to two years, we will be able to meet old friends and acquaintances again at these events.

There will certainly be adjustments, but I believe it is safe to keep our hopes up.

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Image Credit: Stephen McCarthy/RISE

 

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C-suite, a Singapore-based O2O learning platform for current and aspiring executives, announced today it has secured a “six-figure USD” in a seed funding round led by angel investors, including its own co-founder and COO Don Tsai.

As per a press note, the fresh funds will be utilised to expand its team and roll out new marketing campaigns.

C-suite positions itself as an exclusive community hub, a social network, a news and views forum and a recommendation engine.

Users can access content through a paid-for app, virtual gatherings and real-world conferences among others. It plans to roll out additional features such as a jobs portal and concierge service, alongside a mobile app, in 2021.

The platform claims to have attracted nearly 200 high-profile members within the first two weeks of the start of its operations.

Also Read: Why a crisis is the best time to hone your leadership skills

According to C-suite CEO and Co-founder Dean Carroll, there are too many bad managers or so-called ‘leaders’ in the business world. And the reason for that is these leaders are just expected to know how to do it, without receiving the tools to make it happen.

“What brought it home to me was participating in leadership training recently and also finding myself a career mentor to guide me along the way. I could see the positive results these things brought in terms of making me a better professional,” he added.

“Even if you are lucky enough to receive in-house leadership training, complete an MBA or EMBA and participate in higher-level business education, it is clear the learning journey shouldn’t stop there. This is most definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Hopefully, the C-suite community can play its small part in helping to make members, their companies and their teams better. Get those elements right and the business success will surely follow,” he continued.

“According to the World Bank, there are two million higher income and upper-middle-income individuals in the world. We will be serving that community as well as the tens of millions of aspirants in the lower-middle-income brackets,” he shared.

Currently headquartered in Singapore, C-suite serves executives across Asia. Its current team of six is spread across Singapore, Indonesia and Hungary.

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Image Credit: C-suite

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Hong Kong-based early-stage VC firm, Access Ventures, has raised over US$30 million for its second fund, DealStreetAsia has reported.

Initially aimed at closing the fund by 2020 with a target amount of US$50 million, the firm is now looking to hit the final close by Q3 2021.

Also Read: 37 VCs to invest US$800M+ in Vietnam’s startups over next 3-5 years

The Limited Partners (LPs) who invested in Fund II include Korea Venture Investment Corp (KVIC), the VC arm of Korean conglomerate F&F, and a number of Singapore-based family offices such as Octava.

LPs from the VC firm’s first fund, such as Line Ventures and Mahanusa Capital, have also come on board to support the new fund.

So far, fund II has made over 10 new investments in countries across Southeast Asia. Its portfolio firms include Indonesian P2P lending platform Akseleran and Vietnamese shuttle bus booking app Godee.

Though Access Ventures seeks to focus on deals across the seed to Series A level, the firm remains open to late-stage investments, especially in the wake of the economic crisis where firms can evaluate their bottom line better.

Also Read: Why Vertex Ventures SEA & India likes to be the first VC to invest in a promising tech startup

For early-stage startups, Access issues cheques in the range of US$300,000 to US$1.5 million for five to 10 per cent stake equity in startups in verticals such as fintech, data analytics and e-sports, among others.

Access launched its debut US$15 million fund in 2017 and made 20 investments across companies, including Moca (acquired by Grab in 2018), Artificial Intelligence firm Kata.ai, and freight forwarder startup Andalin.

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Image Credit: Photo by Peter Nguyen on Unsplash

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WISE AI, an electronic know your customer (eKYC) startup based in Malaysia, announced today it has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding, led by Sun SEA Capital, the venture arm of Sunway Group.

The fresh funds will be used to bankroll its expansion across Southeast Asia.

“The need for digitalisation has been accelerated due to the pandemic, and we see the opportunities for WISE AI to become the market leader. Through our investment, WISE AI is able to explore collaboration opportunities across Sunway’s ecosystem to test, validate and implement new ideas and services as a launchpad for future growth,” said Raymond Hor, Director of Sun SEA Capital.

Also Read: Approaching AI-rmageddon: Will AI talkbots make our lives better or worse?

Incorporated in 2018, WISE AI uses artificial intelligence to e-verify customers when onboarding them for financial services and beyond.

Its clients range from financial institutions and fintech firms to credit rating agencies and governments.

According to Co-founder and CEO David Lim, the benefits of eKYC go beyond financial inclusion. For example, the time saved when authenticating patients’ medical records and helping citizens securely access government incentives and services.

“AI-based eKYC startups in the US and Europe have garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in large fundraising rounds, as industries acknowledge the increasing importance of electronic verification. As this technology sector ramps up, there has yet to be a dominant player in Southeast Asia,” Lim added.

Also Read: How blockchain is using decentralised ID verification for seamless user onboarding

The issuance of new digital bank licenses and eKYC policies have been encouraged by regulators. Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank of Malaysia, published a policy document on eKYC in June this year, encouraging financial institutions to adopt such technologies in order to facilitate greater digital offerings.

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Image Credit: WISE AI

 

The post WISE AI secures pre-Series A from Sun SEA Capital to bankroll the expansion of its eKYC platform in the region appeared first on e27.

Working for an NGO, Mayank Rajput would spend his weekends in care centres for the elderly in Singapore. This is when he realised that there was a lack of affordable healthcare facilities for the aged population in the island nation.

“This motivated me to begin my entrepreneurial journey,” he tells e27. “I met my co-founder Ariffin Kawaja while volunteering at one of the care centres. After sharing our thoughts with each other, we found a common ground and decided to start a business in affordable physical rehabilitation, bringing a fun element into it via active gaming using soft wearable sensors.”

After the initial discussions, the pair spent nearly four months for market validation with physiotherapists, sports rehab, fitness & wellness clinics and hospitals in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, India, China and Australia.

This provided them a better perception about the major problems facing the rehabilitation sector.

Also Read: Indonesian wearable startup Zulu confirms investment by gojek, aims to expand team and launch projects

“We started StretchSkin Technologies in October 2018 with a vision to improve the lives of people in Southeast Asia with affordable digital healthcare,” he adds.

Incorporated in Singapore, StretchSkin develops affordable wearables for different use cases in healthcare, gaming and smart clothing. Its products can be deformed into curvilinear shape to enable functionalities that are hard to achieve by traditional electronic devices.

The products are designed on a hybrid combination of soft functional materials, compliant membranes, sensors and integrated functional chip components.

StretchSkin’s first product is Virtual Exercise Therapy System (VETS), which comes with data-driven personalised recommendation. It is under pilot testing at several elderly care centres in Singapore.

Currently, the enterprise version of VETS is priced at S$2,000 (US$1,500) per unit, or S$400 (US$300) per month for a SaaS model. The B2C version is available for S$1000 (US$750) per unit, or S$100 (US$75) per month for a single user for the home version.

“We have also made affordable data gloves for gaming and active rehab which are under internal evaluation,” Rajput shares.

The rehab gloves and body joints measurement wearables will be available separately, which can be used with the Android app and can be further integrated with VETS for advanced data-driven recommendations.

Use cases

Gaming: StretchSkin’s gaming wearables mimic the standard gaming consoles which are currently available in the market, but with a new experience. Players can control games by moving their fingers or through hand gestures. The wearables are comfortable and facilitates active gaming where players move their limbs to play the games.

Rehab: The rehab patch wearables provide the tools for healthcare providers to keep track of patients’ progress — be it in a clinical setting or at home. The rehab patch is self-adhesive and does not require ionic conducting gel to increase its sensitivity.

Limb flexibility of joints and muscles, rehab duration is some of the data points which is captured through the stretchable electronic sensors.

Smart clothing: StretchSkin’s sensors form the basis of the smart clothing which is used in various applications. The smart clothing captures the users’ movements which can be translated into readable data, for instance, to assess sports-related performances.

Also Read: Fun, games, and health for seniors with Looxid Labs’ LUCY

It can be used by animators to capture an actor’s movement and translate it into a complete animation by combining with specific art work. The wearables are able to track individuals’ performance during physical activities such as walking, running, gym training, yoga among others.

Education: Its sensor technology can also be used by educators to illustrate science-related subjects, such as force, pressure, motion and temperature, in a creative way. Students could be immersed into specific subjects by using the sensors to experiment and understand real-time results.

The target markets

Initially, StretchSkin — which was incubated at IMDA-backed PIXEL — targets markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. In the long run, it wants to maintain a lead in the US, China, India, and the Middle East in the next five years with affordable and high-performance rehab, gaming, smart clothing, fitness & wellness products in the market.

“For the rehab software platform, rehab gloves and measurement sensors, the users are mainly from smart clothing manufacturers, sports therapy clinics, health coaches, rehab clinics, elderly care centres,” he says.

“For gaming gloves, its key users are gamers, Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality developers for the applications in healthcare and Industry 4.0,” he adds.

Over its two-plus years of existence, StretchSkin has raised US$37,000 from an angel investor, besides US$45,000 in grants from the government, incubator and other facilities, including from NTUitive Venture.

The startup is currently in talks for a bridge round of S$300,000 (US$225,000), which will help it in expanding team and the fabrication and certification of its products.

“After that, we will look for a pre-Series A round of US$2-2.5 million. We are currently talking with investors in the US and the Middle East for this round,” Rajput discloses.

In Rajput’s opinion, it is hard to start a venture in the hardware sector as one needs to take into account multiple stakeholders (customers, investors, etc.) at different levels to succeed.

“We need customers and capital to stabilise the business. So most of the times, it’s difficult to get what you desire. For a hardware startup, it’s always challenging to develop a minimal viable product while going through multiple iterations in it with the limited availability of resources,” he admits.

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Image Credit: StretchSkin Technologies

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