According to iPrice Group and App Annie’s data for Android phone users, the total number of sessions on online shopping applications in Vietnam reached 12.7 billion in Q2, the highest ever and up 43 per cent compared to the Q1 2020.

This amazing growth rate is also higher than that of most other countries in the region.

Their data also shows that shopping activity in all of Southeast Asia (SEA) increased by 39 per cent quarter-over-quarter. In Singapore, it increased by 25 per cent while Indonesia is increased by 34 per cent.

In terms of specific numbers, Vietnam also ranks third in SEA in terms of the total sessions on shopping applications (Android phone), accounting for a whopping 19.5 per cent of the region’s market share. Vietnam ranks only behind Indonesia and Thailand, missing the second place by only 0.2 billion sessions.

This major development is not a big surprise for anyone who has been following Vietnamese e-commerce closely.

As with many of the e-commerce startups in SEA, online retailers in Vietnam have achieved phenomenal growth in recent years. According to the e-conomy Southeast Asia report 2019 by Google, Temasek, and Bain, the internet economy of Vietnam has reached a value of US$12 billion in 2019, with an annual growth rate of 38 per cent since 2015 and is expected to surge to US$43 billion by 2025.

Adsota’s 2019 report also put Vietnam among the top 15 countries in the world with the biggest number of smartphone users. With an adoption rate of 44.9 per cent, even higher than Indonesia’s 31.1 per cent, Vietnam is truly a mobile-first country and online shopping is not an exception.

Also Read: 3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

E-commerce spreading to mobile applications has been predicted for a long time. By the end of 2019, major e-commerce startups in the country have all started to apply their own new features aiming at mobile users: Tiki has TikiLive, Shopee has Shopee Feed, Sendo has SenLive, etcetera.

Majority of these features encourage users to interact more and stay longer with the shopping apps through entertaining activities such as video games, livestreaming, or flash sales, some of which might not even look like something you would expect from a shopping app.

Last year, for 11.11 campaign, Lazada Vietnam live streamed an entire concert on their app. This year, Sendo experimented with streaming online classes for students who had to stay at home for social distancing.

The sudden arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 became of definitive turning point for Vietnam’s e-commerce to accelerate the process. With more people staying at home, and with the increasing demand for online entertainment, Q2 became the ideal condition for e-commerce startups to apply the features they have been testing.

And as data now shows, these efforts have been bringing in great successes.

Notably, at the same time, the total number of visits to the top 50 e-commerce websites in Vietnam decreased slightly by one per cent compared to Q1, according to SimilarWeb’s data.

In that context, the competition, unfortunately, seems to be overwhelmed by foreign businesses. According to iPrice Group and App Annie, the top 10 most used online shopping apps in Vietnam in Q2 were Shopee, Lazada, Tiki and Sendo, followed by a series of foreign apps.

Thegioididong is the only domestic app apart from Tiki and Sendo in the top 10.

Also Read: How Vietnam’s e-commerce firm Tiki manages to keep employee churn rate healthy

There are then certainly big opportunities for local startups to move in and truly take advantage of this jump in mobile shopping usage.

One such player is VinShop by Vietnam’s conglomerate Vingroup who launched their mobile app right this October. Aiming at traditional mom-and-pop retail stores, VinShop wants to connect manufacturers and shops through their app with a B2B2C model.

Expect to see more exciting movements from the m-commerce scene in Vietnam in the near future.

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ION Mobility, a smart electric motorbike startup in Singapore, has received US$3.3 million in seed funding from investors, such as Monk’s Hill Ventures, TNB Aura and Village Global.

500 Durians, the Southeast Asian unit of 500 Startups, besides AngelCentral syndicate, kipleX and Seeds Capital, also joined the round.

The funds will be used to launch its electric motorbikes in Southeast Asia, expand market presence and develop its R&D, supply chain and manufacturing capabilities.

Also Read: Grab, Hyundai launches their first electric vehicle service in Indonesia

ION Mobility aims to create an affordable and sustainable mobility for everyone by combining advanced software and hardware technology with human-centred design.

It wants to provide clean alternatives for urban users, so as to alleviate urban air pollution and lead the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) across Southeast Asia, starting with motorbike.

The plan is to convert the 200-plus million motorcycle users in Southeast Asia from petrol to electric to drive a sustainable future.

“There is no proven EV motorbike brand in Southeast Asia with products that can compel motorbike riders to join the inevitable electric revolution,” ION Mobility Co-founder and CEO James Chan said: “We are committed to offering riders across Southeast Asia superior alternatives to their petrol-based motorbikes with our next- generation, smart and connected electric motorbikes that are clean, aspirational and affordable.”

The market opportunity for the motorbike industry in Southeast Asia is expected to hit US$8.53 billion by 2023. ION enters the market focusing on Indonesia, which has one of the biggest motorbike markets globally, with 2019 motorcycle sales at 6.38 million units a year.

Also Read: How electric scooters will revolutionise Southeast Asia’s congested cities

ION plans to launch its first EV motorbike in Indonesia in 2021.

In addition, the company is set to expand its team and operations across Singapore, Jakarta and Shenzhen, develop its in-house research and development capabilities, and build up its supply chain and manufacturing partnerships.

“Southeast Asia has one of the largest and fastest growing number of motorbike users in the world. With a rising middle class and newer generation of riders craving for affordable, cleaner and relatable motorbikes, ION Mobility is poised to combine technical performance, modern design, and mobile connectivity to the masses,” said Kuo-Yi Lim, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Monk’s Hill.

“We at TNB Aura believe that the emergence of a local OEM champion is both necessary and imminent, with Southeast Asia representing 8 per cent of the world population yet 25 per cent of global motorbike demand. We are excited to be supporting strong repeat entrepreneurs James and Joel in bringing a home-grown mainstream EV motorbike offering to the market, starting with Indonesia,” said Charles Wong, Co-founder and Managing Partner of TNB Aura.

ION co-fouders Chan and Joel Chang (COO) have a track record in building and scaling tech companies in Southeast Asia. Prior to ION, Chan was a venture capitalist and entrepreneur at Neoteny Labs, Silicon Straits and Wecash.

Also Read: Vietnam’s e-bike Saigon aims to replace cars for urban transportation

Chang, an automotive industry veteran, co-founded Scorpio Electric and has previously led a BMW dealer group’s establishment and expansion across Asia.

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Image Credit: ION Mobility

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In an effort to open up dialogue on new dimensions of innovation, the National Innovation Agency (NIA) of Thailand launched the Startup Thailand x Innovation Thailand Expo 2020. The project is a complete virtual event that does not only demonstrate Thailand’s strong innovation potential, but also creates a new phenomenon that combines all sectors to take part in the development of the national innovation ecosystem and make it stronger.

The event successfully concluded last September 18, which Dr. Pun-Arj Chairatana, Executive Director of NIA described as “an important synergy of leading Thai startups and innovators that have come together to show the innovation potential of the country in a virtual event.” The initiative also seeks to create changes in the country in order to address issues surrounding different crises occurring around the world.

Also read: TechCrunch founder’s VC firm leads US$3.7M in ex-Golden Gate employee’s blockchain startup Persistence

This year, there was cooperation from 133 partner organisations and 412 agencies to exhibit their innovative works geared towards coping with the crisis across 6 important themes. The event also featured 47 topics as discussed by more than 100 renowned speakers from 29 countries around the world.

Throughout the event, NIA received positive responses from government agencies, private sectors, startups, entrepreneurs, investors, students, and other interested stakeholders. A total of 15,462 people registered to the event, with approximately 19,000 visitors having accessed the website, which is now open for those who want to catch up on all the sessions.

Addressing the future through innovation

With the Startup Thailand x Innovation Thailand 2020, NIA is creating waves in the areas of innovation and technology not just as a means of mitigating the effects of different forms of global crises, but also as a means to holistically improve and empower broad spaces including economy, society, education, and culture.

The project has resulted in a number of successes, including the creation of a vast network of more than 3,000 stakeholders and investors and a total amount of 20,000 million baht from 120 investors ready to be invested across 48 corporations.

Also read: Hong Kong to drive business growth and collaboration under the “new normal” by leveraging innovation and technology

Moreover, over 200 startups are able to offer more than 46,000 products and services through an online market interface, opening up employment opportunities of more than 3,300 jobs across over 600 positions, which provide a vital driving force for the country’s economy. Such developments help address changing consumer behaviour in the new normal, creating a collaborative network between private and public sectors across various spaces including professional development and education.

The initiative also helped create new data assets from the use of Data Analytics to predict what will happen in the future, creating innovative business opportunities, and establishing data-driven innovation.

Moving forward with NIA

Dr. Pun-Arj emphasised NIA’s commitment to driving the country’s future through innovation, which is why Startup Thailand x Innovation Thailand 2020 is not just an online event but also a policy-based initiative to promote and support startups and innovative entrepreneurs. The initiative primarily serves as a tool to raise awareness on the concrete use of “Innovation in Times of Crisis”, one in which the “Virtual World” it has created won’t end after the pandemic, but will become a mechanism for continuous innovation and the further development of the innovation ecosystem.

Also read: Ecosystem Roundup: How challenger banks can succeed in SEA; Singapore SMEs digitalise at higher rates than global peers amid crisis

Pun-Arj concluded by highlighting the need for the ecosystem to adjust the innovation paradigm to cope with the different crises that are happening, including COVID-19, environmental degradation, and global economic setbacks — all of which are, in many ways, inextricable with one another. From the online forums in the event, NIA found that the global trends are now pointed at Deep Tech which will play an important role in addressing today’s challenges not only as a defensive strategy, but as a force that actually drives global transformation.

Moving forward, the next step for Startup Thailand x Innovation Thailand 2021 will see a specific focus on ‘DeepTech Rising’. This future instalment of the NIA initiative highlights the important next steps that the world should be taking as we inch closer to a post-pandemic future.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
the National Innovation Agency of Thailand.

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MyCloudFulfillment (MCF), an e-commerce fulfilment company based in Thailand, has announced that it has closed a US$2 million Series A round of financing from local PE firm ECG-Research, Gobi Partners, Bangkok-based NVest Venture, and SCB 10X, a holding company of Siam Commercial Bank.

The investment will help MCF broaden its product development, build data-centric organisation and leverage collected data to help fuel e-commerce growth in the home market.

Also Read: These 7 homegrown e-commerces are on track to put Thailand on global map

MCF provides storage, packing and shipping services with sales channel integration and data analytics for e-commerce firms. Its Order Management analytics helps customers manage orders from multiple channels (online to offline) and make the best decision on promotion campaigns and sales channel optimisation.

In addition, its Inventory Management analytics can help suggest customers what stock keeping units (SKUs) to stock more or stock less and at what level. This helps customers save a lot of opportunity cost from over-stocking or under-stocking their products.

MCF’s Fulfilment Management analytics helps customers keep up with fulfilment movement, which means they can see statistics throughout the process — from receiving order to shipping out the products. This also shows level of profitability of each order, which we can use to help improve customer’s bottom line.

MCF claims that it recently passed milestones of over 100,000 SKUs in storage, over 50,000 of maximum daily orders, and over THB 500 million (US$16 million) worth of transactions during H1, 2020.

Nithi Satchatippavarn, MD and Co-founder of MyCloudFulfillment, said: “Thailand e-commerce market is currently in a sweet spot. Thai people spend almost as much as Indonesians on e-commerce transactions but Thailand is much more under-penetrated. Therefore, there are big opportunities for Thailand e-commerce market to grow further relative to other countries with similar or higher purchasing power.”

The global e-commerce market has been growing significantly. According to Statista, the value of the e-commerce market worldwide is projected to reach THB 75 trillion (US$240 billion) by the end of 2020, reflecting 26 per cent increase from 2019, while the number of e-commerce users is projected to reach 3,468 million users, a 9.6 per cent increase from last year.

Asia is the largest market, accounting for 61.5 per cent of worldwide users with Southeast Asia as the key growth driver. Statista forecast also shows that Southeast Asia will see 44 per cent growth in e-commerce transaction value from 2019.

Looking at the purchasing power in Southeast Asia, the country with the highest potential is Indonesia with average revenue per user of US$219 per user per year, followed by Thailand with average revenue per user of US$215.67 per user per year.

However, Thailand still has significantly lower e-commerce penetration rate relative to Indonesia. Therefore, the local e-commerce market still has large room to grow.

The e-commerce industry has changed significantly due to gradual adoption of Big Data and the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the new future with ‘Data Commerce’.

Also Read: Why e-commerce startups will revolutionise the supply chain in Southeast Asia

Dr. Arak Sutivong, CEO of SCB 10X said: “We have seen strong growth rate in Thailand e-commerce and logistic industries, especially during COVID-19. MyCloudFulfillment offers e-commerce fulfilment services which has potential to become the key solution for sellers who focus on e-commerce market. The company also has potential to grow throughout Southeast Asia and help drive Thai economy further by becoming key leader in fulfilment industry regionally.”

“Besides providing financial support, we also have a plan to develop solutions for Social Commerce together with MyCloudFulfillment to provide best experiences for sellers and end consumers,” he added.

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Image Credit: MyCloudFulfillment

 

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UNICEF and ING Bank in the Philippines have announced a partnership to launch an initiative called ‘fintech for impact’ for early-stage startups developing digital solutions for teens, children and families.

The startups will receive equity-free investments and technical and business mentorship from UNICEF, ING and other undisclosed mentors for a year.

Also Read: How e27 Pro helps startups remain in view of APAC key investors

“We are continuously working on ways to support people in navigating financial challenges to have a positive impact on their financial well-being,” said Benoît Legrand, Chief Innovation Officer at ING.

This initiative is launched as COVID-19 has bolstered the need for more investments in the fintech sector.

“The investment supports open-source solutions that contribute to a growing body of digital public goods that can advance society,” Chris Fabian, Senior Adviser at UNICEF Innovation, said.

Also Read: Fintech company Achiko wants to help tackle COVID-19 with its new healthtech projects

ING Bank is a Dutch global financial institution with offices in over 40 countries while UNICEF provides humanitarian and developmental support to children worldwide.

The five startups:

Agrabah: A digital platform that connects farmers and fisherfolk directly to buyers and loans.

BeamAndGo: A remittance-based platform that helps migrant workers and their families to better manage their finances.

Educ4All: It connects students to educational loans.

Reach52: It provides affordable micro-insurance healthcare and health products to rural communities.

Saphron: It empowers grassroots micro-insurance agents to collect accurate, efficient data with a powerful new AI-enabled platform.

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Image Credit: Valencia Wong

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EVOS Esports, an e-sports platform owned and operated by Singapore-based Attention Holdings, has secured US$12 million in a Series B investment round, led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP).

Mirae Asset Ventures, Woowa Brothers, Indogen Capital, existing investor Insignia Ventures Partners, and several family offices across Southeast Asia and Japan, also participated.

The money will primarily be used for building out its tech capabilities, an EVOS spokesperson told e27.

This round comes less than a year after EVOS raised US$4.4 million in Series A funding from Insignia and several angel investors.

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

EVOS was founded in 2017 with the aim to facilitate competitive e-sports teams across six major games. It trains and supports 13 teams comprising 62 players across five countries.

E-sports influencers form the pillar of EVOS’s live-streaming and content platforms. According to its Chief Strategic Officer Ang Teng Jen, its top influencers earn around US$30,000 to US$60,000 a month. To date, it claims to have worked with 400 gaming influencers.

To manage its influencers, EVOS provides streaming contracts, brand endorsement deals, and offline event gigs to influencers, as well as managing their social media channels and creating content for them. EVOS’ influencers have a total of over two million followers on their social media platforms with more than 34 million subscribers to their channels.

As of today, EVOS claims to have worked with more than 150 brands, including Lazada, Gareno, and Lenovo. It also partners with e-commerce brands to create e-sports content on the brands’ platforms, such as e-sports game shows and online user tournaments with professional players.

The company claims its revenue from the live-streaming arm has doubled since the start of 2020 and continues to peak month after month, with the its overall revenue surpassing its 2019 numbers despite the pandemic.

EVOS has grown to be the sixth largest e-sports brand globally, it said.

Also Read: What are the key trends in mobile gaming ads in Southeast Asia?

Ivan Yeo, CEO of Attention, said: “Global e-sports revenue is projected to grow at 15 per cent CAGR, with our region showing the highest growth rate at 24 per cent CAGR. As the countries we are operating in are still largely untapped, we intend to maximise this opportunity and are well positioned to launch the region’s first ever e-sports platform.”

Sang-Ho Park, Executive Director of KIP, who will be joining Attention’s Board of Directors, said: “E-sports is currently one of the fastest growing industries and Attention has managed to establish themselves as the most advanced e-sports platform across Asia.”

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Image Credit:

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Carro, a Singapore-headquartered wholesale automotive marketplace, announced today it has secured SGD150 million (US$110 million) in debt financing and additional equity.

Investors joined this round include Mitsubishi Corporation and MS&AD Ventures, the venture arm of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings.

The development comes as Carro marks its fifth anniversary with a 500 per cent year-on-year revenue growth in September as COVID-19 drives consumers towards digitalised car purchase services.

Also Read: Automotive marketplace Carro adds US$30M to Series B round; acquires Indonesia’s Jualo.com

Additionally, Carro said it is on track to reach S$1 billion (US$740 million) revenue in two years.

“Our strategic partners will help turbo-charge our growth. The funds raised showcase the trust from our financial backers as we remained EBITDA positive throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, we have recently hit record high monthly revenues and EBITDA,” claimed Carro’s CFO Ernest Chew.

Founded in 2015, Carro is a subscription-based car service, which enables consumers to select a plan and drive off with a car of their choice without the hassle of traditional car ownership.

Carro rolled out this service to cater to today’s generation of drivers, who wish to enjoy the convenience of owning a car without needing to worry about annual depreciation and unexpected expenses such as repairs, roadside assistance and insurance premiums.

The subscription service is currently available in four plans: Daily, Roomy, Fancy and Luxury. With the service, subscribers can pay a flat monthly fee that includes all costs associated with car ownership — such as insurance, road tax, warranty, 24-hour assistance, and maintenance costs. At the end of the term, customers can return the car.

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

As of September 2020, Carro has raised over S$100 million (US$74 million) in equity from SoftBank Ventures Asia, EDBI, Insignia Ventures Partners and B Capital Group. This included a US$30 million raised in August last year and a US$60 million raise in May 2018.

“Carro’s growth journey has been about using technology to bring a highly differentiated car buying experience that is seamless and transparent. COVID-19 has pushed the envelope for innovation in the auto market; the current economic slowdown means customers are looking for value-for-money cars but are also concerned about their safety. We expect more customers in the region will seek digital purchasing solutions. Hence, we will continue to leverage technology to make car ownership safer, efficient and delightful.,” said Chew added.

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Image Credit: Carro

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Singapore’s Carro secures US$110M in debt financing, additional equity; Investors include Mitsubishi, MS&AD Ventures; The car marketplace claims it has achieved over 500% y-o-y revenue growth in Sept and is on track to reach US$736.7M in revenue in two years. TechInAsia

Frontier Digital Ventures (FDV) raises US$67M via share placement to fund its three acquisitions; The ASX-listed firm has signed an agreement to acquire Fincaraíz (Colombia), Avito (Morocco), Tayara (Tunisia) from Adevinta; FDV is focused marketplaces with a particular focus on property and automotive verticals and general marketplaces; Since its IPO in 2016, it saw its valuation rise from ~US$36M to over ~US$360M. e27

Singapore’s GIC invests in US-based self-storage player StorageMart; The company has around 225 properties across the three countries; StorageMart, with locations in the US, the UK and Canada, is majority owned by Stanley Kroenke and the Burnam Family. DealStreetAsia

Why are VCs launching SPACs? Amish Jani of FirstMark shares his firm’s rationale; The early businesses that are going out tend to be consumer based, but there’s as good an opportunity for enterprise software companies to use the SPAC to go public; There are tens of billions of dollars in value sitting in the private markets and at the same time an opportunity to go public and build trust with public shareholders and leverage the early tailwinds of growth. TechCrunch

Pakistani B2B marketplace Retailo raises US$2.3M from 500 Durians, Shorooq, 92-Ventures; The startup provides an app for retailers to buy items for their stores at wholesale prices from the comfort of their homes; Retailo’s co-founders have earlier held top positions at Careem, Rocket Internet, Daraz, foodpanda. e27

Malaysia’s on-demand workforce and jobs platform GoGet raises US$2M led by Monk’s Hill; The startup has over 20K GoGetters and claims to have helped over 5K businesses, including MNCs and SMEs, to connect to verified flexible workers; Its customers include Lazada, IKEA, foodpanda, which use GoGetters for regular tasks, including delivery, packing, and event support. e27

Myanmar’s ThitsaWorks gets funding from BOD Tech; The fintech firm provides solutions for banks, NBFCs, MFIs to collect, manage and analyse data needed to run effective operations and to manage risks; It claims its solutions are being used by 70 clients and its services benefit over 2.5M borrowers. e27

Singapore’s logistics-tech startup Tramés raises funding from Kamet Capital; Tramés is a supply chain orchestration tech company, which aims to create a streamlined and unified workflow for shippers and their logistics partners; It offers features such as a blockchain-enabled document repository to facilitate collaborative drafting and confirmation of shipping documentation. e27

How Rocketship VC uses data to make investment decisions; The VC, which has invested in 44 firms around the world, says spotting a company before it becomes popular is hard; It’s something that Rocketship sees its data giving an advantage over and over again. e27

How edutech startups can accelerate active learning; As millennials enter the workforce, blended learning has become more important as it reflects the workplace environment today; Blended learning is nimbler than traditional classroom learning with its combined online and offline approaches. e27

How understanding culture can drive digitalisation of payments in Myanmar; The younger generation, who are growing up with technology, may have no issues adopting digital payments right off the bat; But the older generation, who have emerged from a closed-off society for over half a century and suffered through the banking crisis in 2003, naturally have their reservations digital payments. e27

What this digital shift means for people with disabilities in SEA; Laws such as Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act provide for equal access to people with disabilities; While demand for digital accessibility is increasing elsewhere in the world, things appear to be progressing slower on the SEA front. e27

Why Trivago co-founder thinks having lots of money as a startup is a challenge; Rolf Schrömgens also says Trivago earlier followed the traditional leadership model where you have one leader in a team but that didn’t work for it; It recently changed it to have more or less three leaders per team. e27

ASEAN companies urged to leverage on intra-regional e-commerce trade; They should build their e-commerce platform at a faster pace and diversify their businesses towards innovation and automation, especially in the current volatile business environment; ASEAN has an opportunity in the booming e-commerce market to fill leadership and innovation, says FedEx Express’s Kawal Preet. Malay Mail

Accelerator ShelterTech asks applicants in SEA to disrupt the affordable housing space; ShelterTech (run by NGO Habitat for Humanity) gives participating startups and scaleups access to key industry players, from corporate executives and investors to academics, government officials and innovators; The participant will receive US$10,000 in catalytic funding. Digital News Asia

Singapore SMEs digitalised, leveraged data at higher rates than global peers amid pandemic, says study; In the island nation, businesses used data-driven insights to tackle the top two challenges during the pandemic: retaining existing customers (38%) and attracting and retaining new customers (36%); The study also found that consumers in Singapore are more price-sensitive than their global peers. SGSME

Digital transformation amid a pandemic; COVID-19 has driven the adoption of different business models and new ways of service delivery; The first step of a company’s digital transformation journey should involve putting together a corporate-wide strategy that has a vision, sets goals to reach it, and gives the team a purpose. SGSME

New green finance centre in Singapore to drive Asia-focused research, develop talent; To equip professionals with skills in climate finance and applied knowledge in Asian markets, the centre will offer courses across different levels: undergraduate, postgraduate, continuing and professional education. SGSME

Thailand rolls out 5G Ecosystem Innovation Center (EIC); The centre will serve as a sandbox for the development of digital innovations for 5G apps and services across various industries in the country; EIC is designed to accelerate the 5G ecosystem and incubate local digital SMEs and startups to embrace technologies such as Cloud, AI, and IoT in the digital transformation. Open Gov

Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD) adopts blockchain; By digitising shipping processes, the platform will provide RMCD with an automatic and immutable tracking tool; This will lead to a more highly secure, transparent, efficient and simpler workflow, with near real-time information sharing from a diverse network of ecosystem members. Open Gov

The path to success for challenger banks in SEA; The sweet spot for challenger banks is to target the unbanked and underserved customer segments like gig workers, MSMEs, rural households or millennials; The keys to building a sustainable challenger bank business in SEA are low costs, user-centric design, and winning the trust of these new customer segments. Tech Collective

Nearly half of Singapore bosses want to return to pre-COVID-19 working modes but many staff do not: survey; It also found that a higher-than-average proportion of Singaporean employees worry that companies won’t look out for their best interests, and would put profits and performance ahead of safety. Malay Mail

ING, Unicef unveil initiative to support fintech startups in Philippines; Five startups will receive equity-free investments, as well as technical and business mentorship from Unicef, ING, and other experts for one year; The 5 startups are Agrabah, BeamAndGo, Educ4All, Reach52, Saphron. NewsBytes

Pivoting on customer support strategies for the future of e-commerce; It’s recommended that retailers double down on chatbot investments for crisis communications, where speed and convenience are absolutely key to ensuring a positive customer sentiment; Retailers that plan to operate on significantly reduced human agent capacity for the foreseeable future, must consider a tight, omni-channel customer service solution. Internet Retailing

Why it’s time retailers finally pay attention to older customers; The stereotype of this demographic being frugal and penny pincher ranks high, but there is also a misconception that the older demographic is unwilling to embrace technology, despite the fact that over-55’s are one of the fastest growing demographics on social media. Inside Retail

What is the impact of prolonged uncertainty on HR technology?; Using products that don’t have transparent ethical decision-making processes puts your workforce at risk; The next five to 10 years of a career (in and out of HR) will be won by the people with the best video output; It’s the new “dress for success”. HRM Asia

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Indonesia-based Social Bella, which runs a string of internet properties in the beauty commerce space, including e-commerce marketplace Sociolla, has announced its first international entry into Vietnam.

The news comes shortly after company raised US$58 million in Series E funding round from Temasek, Pavilion Capital and Jungle Ventures in July.

Also Read: Indonesia’s beauty-tech startup Social Bella raises US$58M Series E from Temasek, Pavilion, Jungle Ventures

Social Bella said it will expand into the new market through its e-commerce unit Sociolla.

“Vietnam shares many similarities with Indonesia. We believe that it is the right market for our first international expansion plan,” Co-founder Christopher Madiam said.

Launched in 2015, Social Bella has evolved from being beauty e-commerce to a complete ecosystem that seeks to unlock Indonesia’s growing beauty and personal care market. The company claims that it has created several business units and is estimated to serve around 30 million users in 2020.

One of its major goals is to empower customers to use local brands. ESQA, a vegan cosmetics brand in Indonesia, is one of the local brands that joined Social Bella to expand their market to Vietnam.

“Many Indonesian beauty brands are innovative and they have excellent quality while maintaining affordable price points. The objective will not only be to open distribution access but it will also provide end-to-end supports to ensure proper launch there. To this end, we work closely with our partners to develop a holistic growth plan for Vietnam,” CEO of Social Bella, John Rasjid informed.

Also Read:  How Indonesian beauty e-commerce startup Social Bella finds a balance between commerce, content, community

According to a report by Cosmetics Design Asia, Vietnam’s beauty and personal care market remains resilient despite the pandemic. The beauty sector in Vietnam specifically saw approximately 80 per cent growth incremental beauty spend coming from online channels.

“Even during COVID-19 pandemic, we can maintain our commitment to serving our consumers in a relevant way while remaining competitive. This year, Social Bella steps out to serve customers in our neighbouring country, while supporting more beauty brands,” Rasjid said.

Last year, Social Bella completed its ecosystem as an integrated beauty-tech and end-to-end brand distributor in Indonesia by launching a flagship omnichannel store in Lippo Mall Puri.

At present, Social Bella owns six physical stores across Indonesia.

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Image Credit: Social Bella

 

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Persistence, a Singapore-based startup focussing on powering institutional Decentralised Finance and Open Finance (DeFi/OpFi) adoption, has secured US$3.7 million in an investment round, led by Arrington XRP Capital, a blockchain VC firm headed by TechCrunch and CrunchBase founder Michael Arrington.

The round was joined by LuneX Ventures, the crypto arm of Golden Gate Ventures, IOSG Ventures (China), Spark Digital Capital, Woodstock Fund (India), Incrypt (crypto arm of First Principles VC).

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Singapore- and Hong Kong-based Genesis Block HK, NGC Ventures, Alameda Research, South Korea-based Terraform Labs, as well as prominent blockchain industry personalities Richard Ma (Founder of Quantstamp) and Danish Chaudhry (Head of Bitcoin.com Exchange) also participated.

Started in 2019 by Tushar Aggarwal (CEO), an early member of the LuneX team, Persistence was established to expand the scope of DeFi/OpFi by providing the tools for institutional adoption. This is achieved by tokenising real-world assets (such as invoices) and putting them on the blockchain.

These assets can then be used by companies as collateral for acquiring loans and can be traded on decentralised marketplaces in their tokenised form.

“We’ve laid the technical groundwork for a new era of blockchain-powered real-world value creation and we have built a strong network of strategic partners. It is time to push ahead full-force on our mission to bring institutions and real-world assets to DeFi to help the industry to reach its full potential,” said Aggarwal.

The first use case of Persistence is Comdex, an end-to-end physical commodity trading and trade financing platform that has processed US$41 million in transaction volume.

Bills of lading and resulting invoices can be tokenised on the Comdex platform using Persistence technology. This provides multiple benefits in terms of creation of an audit trail for an industry that still uses paper-based documentation, faster cross-border settlements and easier access to trade finance opportunities for SME/ME commodity traders.

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Arrington said: “A core goal of Arrington XRP Capital is to assist blockchain innovators to create value in the real-world. The merging of blockchain and fintech is beginning to usher in a new era of open finance which is poised to transform global finance mechanisms. Persistence is shaping up to be a major building block in this financial revolution and we’re proud to be supporting their journey.”

According to Persistence, blockchain wields the ability to solve the inefficiencies in cross-border payments and business financing, which in turn opens the floodgates to allow a torrent of new capital into the crypto ecosystem, enabling DeFi to emerge from its crypto-focused cocoon and thrive.
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Photo by Pascal Bernardonon Unsplash

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