Joshua Agusta shares how MDI Ventures made its calculated moves as an Indonesian VC firm long before it was cool to do so

Indonesian corporate venture capital (CVC) firm MDI Ventures has been reported to be in fundraising mode for its third vehicle. This time, the firm –which also has operations in Silicon Valley– aims to tap external investors.

In 2016, MDI Ventures launched a US$100-million single-LP fund from Indonesian state-owned Telkom Group, followed by a US$40-million fund in partnership with Telkomsel, the telco giant’s subsidiary.

In this interview with e27, Joshua Agusta, who is Vice President (Investment) at MDI Ventures, talks about the fund’s local operations which had witnessed three back-to-back exits within just a single month.

The early days

In the venture capital space, the term ‘exit’ is used to describe a point at which an investor sells its stake in a firm to realise gains or losses. For MDI Ventures, the three back-to-back exits it witnessed in a span of one month represent healthy capital gains.

According to him, it is not common for Indonesian VC firms to get exits as fast as MDI Ventures did, let alone in an overseas company. Agusta says that MDI Ventures managed to achieve this feat thanks to a carefully mapped-out move, crafted since its establishment in 2016.

“Basically, our strategy in the early days was to have a quick win. We will shadow the more established and seasoned VCs to learn from them as well as participating in their portfolios’ funding,” he explains.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

He speaks of the firm’s decision to invest in Whispir, an Australian cloud-based email, text messaging, and web chatting platform, which he dubs as a learning process.

In investing in Whispir, MDI Ventures followed the footsteps of Telstra. The local telco giant is already a seasoned investor through its VC arm Telstra Venture; by participating in the same round, MDI Ventures was able to establish a good rapport from early on.

Given that MDI Ventures’s LP at that time was Telkom, the decision to back a company that was already backed by an established telco entity made a lot of sense, says Agusta.

“We, of course, have a responsibility to show our LP that we can have a quick return, hence the venturing out overseas,” he stresses.

These are the three back-to-back exits from the VC:

Whispir

Whispir has commenced trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on June 19, following an oversubscribed IPO that raised AU$47 million (US$32 million) via the issue of 29.4 million shares at AU$1.60 (US$1.10) each.

The IPO comprised of a primary raise of AU$27 million (US$19 million) and a secondary sell-down by existing shareholders of AU$20 million (US$14 million).

At the IPO listing price, Whispir had a market capitalisation of AU$163 million (US$113 million).

According to Agusta, MDI Ventures was confident in backing Whispir because it has recorded a more than 100 per cent net negative monthly recurring revenue churn since 2013.

“For any SaaS company, this is a very impressive stats to have,” he says.

As for quality aspect, Agusta vouches that Whispir’s founding team members were solid and persistent, shown by the company’s ability to land multiple sales contracts from Fortune 500 companies and partner with world-class names in enterprise communications.

Red Dot Payment (RDP)

Singapore-based RDP is a fintech firm best-known its product RDP Connect, which focusses primarily on the hospitality industry. With RDP’s tools, clients such as hotel chains can introduce their own booking sites without the need for other booking engines or aggregators.

Naspers’ fintech company PayU announced that it had acquired a majority stake in RDP on July 5, as part of its expansion into Southeast Asia. While the details remain undisclosed, PayU has confirmed that it values RDP at US$65 million.

Also Read: Naspers unit PayU forays into Southeast Asia by acquiring Singapore startup Red Dot Payment

“For RDP, since 2016, the company has been growing its revenue at a double-digit rate month-on-month, with a healthy gross margin compared to other payments companies,” says Agusta regarding the VC’s investment in the company.

In terms of quality, RDP consisted of ex-banking industry veterans who mostly worked for Visa. For MDI Ventures, this showed a deep level of domain expertise, which is important for a highly-regulated industry such as payments.

Wavecell

On July 22, 2019, MDI Ventures announced that another exit was made from the acquisition of Singaporean cloud-based communication platform Wavecell by US-based 8×8 (NYSE: EGHT) as a part of its market entry strategy across Asia. The deal was worth approximately US$125 million.

Established in 2010, Wavecell helps businesses enhance customer experiences by offering SMS, chat apps, video interaction, and voice solutions for any platform.

The startup operates in key Southeast Asian markets such as Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong.

The deal brings MDI Ventures to a total of three successful portfolio company exits in 2019, all of which have taken place simultaneously during the month of July.

The firm can now claim that it has cultivated a total of five success stories since the fund’s first investment in 2016.

“Wavecell is a great example of our firm backing a company based on a founding team with deep industry know-how, who are aiming to solve a real problem, in a relatively untapped space, at just the right time,” stresses Agusta.

MDI Ventures’ playbook

Agusta highlights that MDI Ventures is an independent entity with its own funding processes. It “combines a VC model with services in providing companies from Telkom Group with access to operational assistance and help in building startups’ growth engine after making a financial investment.”

When considering to invest in the company, MDI Ventures always approach the assessment from both the qualitative and quantitative side.

“On the quantitative side, strong traction and growth in their key operational metrics were important to us,” he explains.

In Whispir’s case, for example, some things that MDI Ventures considered were whether the business actually upsells and by how many per cent.

“They have a spread out footprint and their clients returned to use their offers,” Agusta says.

The first investment MDI Ventures made was in Japanese company Geniee. It is a platform to enable users to deliver ads to earn maximum revenue from pure advertisements, demand side platform (DSPs), real-time bidding through ad exchange, multiple ad networks, and affiliate ads.

True to its “quick win” strategy, Geniee exited in 2017 and is now listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange Market.

In the future, MDI Ventures plans to diversify its portfolio, particularly by backing up-and-coming unicorns in Indonesia, such as fintech startups Finaccel and Kredivo.

“We started off with capturing a quick win opportunity overseas, and now we have shifted focus to go after startups in Indonesia. It’s all a part of our portfolio mix. From a total of 32 companies we’ve backed so far, there are those that we’ve invested in to have a return, and there are companies that we believe will exit. It’s all pure strategy,” Agusta elaborates.

Also Read: Indonesian digital payment startup Kredivo secures financing from Telkomsel’s VC arm, MDI Ventures

Recent data shows that 2018 saw a surge in Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) activity worldwide. For the whole year, there were 2,740 deals on record, while roughly US$53 billion was disclosed in CVC funding for tech startups.

Asia attracted 38 per cent of all CVC deals in 2018, up from 31 per cent in 2017.

“What matters is that our investment thesis is working, and that Indonesian corporate funds can succeed not just on their home turf, but also throughout the region,” Agusta emphasises.

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Image Credit: MDI Ventures

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Everything you need to know after 5G

It’s time to discuss the next iteration of the mobile internet. I’m talking WiFi 6. 

WiFi 6 and 5G are popular topics these days, for good reason.

If you’ve stayed ahead of tech news for the last decade, you’ll remember that with each new version of mobile internet always comes a diverse whirlwind of internet-based industries. Notice I said industries, not just products.

Uber, Airbnb, and IoT aren’t simply services that got their start thanks to 4G and WiFi 5. They represent entire new industries that were impossible — and hardly imaginable — under prior iterations. 

This begs the question: now that WiFi 6 and 5G are imminent, what new industries and products can we expect in the near future? 

Also Read: The proliferation of 5G will transform businesses and societies: Here’s how

How will VR and AR be effected? 

Will social media foundationally change? 

How will everyday communication keep up?

The truth is, we can dream all day. But we won’t know the true possibilities until they begin to unfold before our eyes. But here are the features we know you can look forward to with WiFi 6:

Characteristics of WiFi 6

Faster overall WiFi speeds (obviously)

Let’s start with the obvious. Speed is by no means the most talked-about benefit of WiFi 6. But it’s still important and almost goes without saying. Some reports expect WiFi speeds to improve about 30 per cent

 
Better performance in crowded areas 

Tired of slow internet in crowded spaces? WiFi 6 improves internet performance for crowded areas like offices, sports stadiums, or hotels. It achieves this by increasing network capacity (thanks to higher throughput and transmit beamforming), as well by improving simultaneous communication between access points and multiple end-points. 

Also Read: These 7 startups will be early 5G adopters under the guidance of APTG Accelerator Programme

Here’s some of the technology that makes that possible: 

• OFDMA (Orthoganal Frequency Divisional Multiple Access): OFDMA gives access points the ability to divide channels into many sub-channels. This means access points can simultaneously communicate with multiple devices at a lower data rate.
• MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple-Input-and-Multiple-Output) capabilities – WiFi 5 was already using MU-MIMO for downlinks. WiFi 6 utilizes it for uplinks too, enabling access points to receive communication from multiple clients at the same time. 

The combination of OFDMA and MU-MIMO creates more efficient networks while reducing overall network latency. 

Make connected homes even more connected 

Internet of Things (IoT) is another incredible industry made possible through WiFi 5. WiFi 6 is expected to take IoT possibilities to a whole new level, enabling homeowners to connect and control many more devices.

It will also make it simpler to save energy. WiFi 6 supports a feature called “Target Wake Time.” This lets the access point put a device’s WiFi functionality to sleep for a defined period of time before it “wakes up” again to connect. The feature could significantly reduce the power usage of individual devices.

When will WiFi 6 become mainstream? 

Admittedly, WiFi 6 has had a tumultuous start.

Standards committees turned it down twice. This put access point vendors into an unusual predicament: in a bid to be first-to-market, they were forced to manufacture and commercialize their devices without knowing the approved standards. 

WiFi 6 access points are already commercialized. But the reason most of us haven’t used WiFi 6 yet is because of devices. Most devices on the market don’t support WiFi 6 yet. 

Here are a few exceptions: 

• The new Samsung Galaxy S10, released in March 2019, is the first WiFi 6 phone 
• Intel’s new 9th generation chips have (expensive) WiFi 6 capability
• Intel’s WiFi 6 adapters, released in April 2019, is already comprehensive, with major players like NetGear and Cisco already offering devices

Also Read: This IoT device can turn your regular speakers into WiFi-enabled ones

WiFi Alliance announced that a WiFi 6 certification program will begin in Q3 of 2019.

While that’s not too far off, the date suggests we shouldn’t expect a flood of WiFi 6 devices in the near future.

And as we all know, the early versions will likely be expensive and possibly buggy.

If you do decide to start implementing WiFi 6 routers and access points now, you won’t see a return on investment for quite a while. Even though we’re starting to see some compatible now, we probably shouldn’t expect widespread WiFi 6 devices until late 2020. 

Contact him directly at alexander.lewis@paessler.com

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HOMI allows customers to customise their homes with devices that will include light switches, smart locks, and cameras through an app

HOMI team

HOMI SmartHome, a smart home managed services startup headquarters in Singapore, has raised a US$1.3M seed round, led by Singapore-based investors SeedPlus, AngelCentral, and Xoogler Angels.

The company, which also has an office in Hong Kong, will use the funds to scale up the smart home services side of the business with new installers and architects in Asia.

HOMI was created in 2016 by CEO Amar Dhillon, who felt that current smart home companies didn’t really address pain points for smart home customers that revolved around set up and support.

After receiving initial funding, Dhillon and team set out to create a set of devices that could be installed by a certified electrician in an Asian home in three hours or less. This would mean consumers would be able to dim their lights, turn on their air-conditioning before they get home, and have keyless access without lifting a finger on affordable payment plans, making a smart home more possible for any interested homeowners or renters.

Penetration rates for smart homes in Asia have always been low in comparison to North America and the company believes that it is due to the lack of smart home services and an unbuilt ecosystem of smart home devices for the region. HOMI plans to change this by offering customers an entire set of smart home products for the region with consultation, installation, and support for US$2 a day.

“A lot of the devices in North America don’t translate into products in Southeast Asia, that’s why we built a suite of devices for the Asian home,” said Dhillon. “The culture of Do-It-Yourself doesn’t really exist. Therefore, we decided to focus on providing smart home services to help bridge the gap for consumers interested in getting a smart home. We believe that smart home services are key to the entire experience.”

HOMI is planning to launch smart home products through affordable payment plans in the next quarter. This will allow customers to customise their homes with devices that will include light switches, smart locks, cameras, modules to control various appliances, and will all be controlled through a single integrated app.

Xoogler Angels is a business angel network gathering current Google and former Google executives based in Southeast Asia. SeedPlus is an early-stage Singaporean fund with a hands-on approach to working with portfolio companies.

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Aspire provides SMEs with a 60-day, interest free credit line of up to S$100,000 to solve their working capital needs

Singapore-headquartered Aspire, a neobank for small and medium businesses (SMEs) in Southeast Asia, announced today it has secured US$32.5 million in Series A round of financing.

The round was led by Singapore-based Mass-Mutual Ventures (MMV) Southeast Asia, with participation from Silicon Valley’s Arc Labs and existing investors Y Combinator, Hummingbird Ventures, and Picus Capital.

The fintech startup will use the capital to boost its financial product offering and strengthen local presence.

This round comes exactly a year after Aspire raised a seed round of US$9 million from investors, including Insignia Ventures Partners, Mark 2 Capital, and Hummingbird.

Founded in January 2018 Andrea Baronchelli (former EVP and CMO at Lazada), Aspire aims to “reinvent SME banking in Southeast Asia”. The startup is serving a new generation of internet businesses with a mobile-first digital account across Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam.

The startup’s flagship product AspireAccount, targeted at digital merchants across the region, can be opened online in just few clicks. It is free and comes with an instant credit limit for daily business expenses, a virtual B2B payment acceptance and other tools to help SMEs manage their cash flow.

Aspire claims it provides SMEs with a 60-day, interest free credit line of up to S$100,000 to solve their working capital needs. Its goal is to provide business owners with fast and simple access to the funding they need to grow.

A business credit card is next in line and it will be available and linked to each business account as early as this year.

Aspire graduated from Y Combinator Winter 2018 batch.

“We are extremely excited about the problem we are solving for this fast growing generation of digital entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia,” said Andrea Baronchelli, Founder and CEO. “We have seen 30 per cnet month on month growth since we founded the company in January 2018 and expect to open more than 100,000 business accounts by next year.”

MMV invests in seed to growth stage companies in North America, Europe, Israel and Southeast Asia. Its key areas of investment focus include fintech, insurtech, cybersecurity, data analytics, digital health and enterprise software.  Today, MMV manages US$250 million across two funds based in Boston and Singapore.

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QueQ, currently operational in Thailand and Malaysia, will soon expand the footprint to cover Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong

He was fed up with the experiences of waiting in serpentine queues at local banks in his home country Thailand. A Computer Engineer with experience building a software startup, Rungsun Joh Pomprasith thought to himself that there must be a better way for people to manage queue than to stand or wait in a line for long time.

“As I was contemplating the idea, I was tasked by a restaurant in Bangkok to develop a queuing solution. You probably know that Bangkok is a crowded city and sometimes can be more hectic than Kuala Lumpur. This is how QueQ happened,” he told e27.

Launched in September 2015, QueQ is a mobile app (available on iOS and Android) that enables customers to queue for their spot in a dining or retail outlet with the touch of a button, from the comfort of their own home. Each outlet has the option to customise its distance access to their queuing tickets, from as near as 100 metres up to tens of kilometres ahead. The queue length will be updated via the app in real time and once coming close to the user’s queue, an alert is automatically sent, informing the user to return to the outlet on time.

“QueQ helps you to line up virtually at your favourite restaurant or beverage outlet. It is also a lifestyle platform that addresses the pain points of wasted time when people have to stand around aimlessly waiting for their order, even after joining a long queue to order and pay,” Pomprasith (CEO) explained.

Also Read: This online marketplace aims to quash the stigma that art is an underpaid job

“With QueQ, you can pre-order through your smartphone, make payment, and then spend your time doing other things that matter till your boba tea is ready to be collected from your favourite outlet. QueQ is the perfect solution for bubble/boba tea fans,” he added.

QueQ Founder and CEO Rungsun Joh Pomprasith

At the moment, QueQ targets F&B, hospitals and clinics, banks, insurance service centres, utilities and public service points, and events.

The startup recently secured US$2.8 million in Series A round of  funding from local startup investor True Incube and South Korea’s Bon Angels Venture Partner. Along with this, QueQ also announced its exposition to Malaysia, where it has just launched its key partner programme, with restaurants such as K Fry Urban Korean chain, Bar-B-Q Plaza, Kurin, Ho Kow Hainam Kopitiam, Yut Kee Restaurant, Dotty’s Pastries and Coffee.

“Malaysia was chosen as it shares many similarities with Thailand — both Thais and Malaysians love food and in-trend beverages, retail shopping and simply spending time in malls partly because they want to seek refuge from the extremely hot, humid weather and unpredictable rain. The pain point of queuing for banking services and hospitals as well as clinics are pretty much a dreaded way of life for Malaysians,” he said.

In Thailand alone, there are over 600 restaurant partners, CIMB bank, 22 hospitals and large carnivals and sales events, where crowd is in excess of 10,000.

Also Read: What is Impact Investing?

“We see massive opportunity in driving Thailand’s and Malaysia’s urban community forward, and bridging the time-gap (by being able to do other more useful things rather than standing/waiting in a line) between wanting a product/ service and getting it. We started out helping our urban communities in their trips to restaurants, and have now included trips to the hospital, bank and more. We are helping to change lifestyles,” he added.

The company now plans to expand footprints to cover three more markets in APAC — Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong.

Commenting on the business model, Prompasith said the app is free for customers to download but merchant partners pay a small monthly fee. “In turn, merchants are able to cut operational costs by partly automating their operations. We also provide a higher level of customer experience and point of differentiation for their brand.”

QueQ is back in the market with plans to raise fresh funding round to fuel growth. “Managing costs and adequate financing are key. We are geared towards a strong growth trajectory over the next three years,” he concluded.

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Raising a seed stage funding round is an exciting milestone for every startup

July has come to an end. At e27, we have witnessed several exciting seed funding rounds invested into companies with mindblowing ideas, solid team, and a promise of great success this month.

Raising a seed stage funding round is an exciting milestone for every startup. Beyond helping startups realise an idea into a business, it enables them to further develop their products and bring in more manpower into their team. It also signifies the trust that investors have given to their product or service.

The following are some of the most notable seed stage funding rounds that we have covered in the month of July:

UrbanAgents
Amount: US$1.5 million
Investors: FarSight Capital, APAC Realty and angel investors.

Singapore-based property agent referral platform UrbanAgents said that the investment will be directed to maximise the use of AI to set commission guide for home sellers connecting to top agents in Singapore, making it fair for the home sellers to have a choice for performance-based commissions.

Memori
Amount: Undisclosed
Investors: An undisclosed Asian royal family member

A legacy planning service, Memori said that the investment will be used to grow the business in Brunei, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Also Read: No, Singapore seed stage is not dead

Lapasar
Amount: US$500,000
Investors: SeedPlus, NEXEA

B2B procurement platform Lapasar will use the capital to support product development to further automate ordering and request for quotation (RFQ) processes as well as to support business development activities.

Luxiee
Amount: “six-figure”
Investors: Kewee Kho (Vice Chairman of Roadbull Logistics and independent Director of Courts Asia)

Online marketplace for diamonds Luxiee said that the funds will be channelled towards marketing, branding, public relations and media placement, as well as to build the business’s talent pool.

Syfe
Amount: US$3.8 million
Investors: Unbound, David Rogers (MD, State Street Global Advisors), Paul Redbourn (MD and Head of Equities, UBS Japan), and Philip Freise (Partner at KKR)

With the funding round, wealth management platform Syfe also received the approval of Capital Markets Services Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Leben Care Technologies
Amount: Undisclosed
Investors: IP Ventures

AI-powered retinal diagnostics and screening solutions provider Leben Care Technologies plans to use the funds to strengthen its product, sales and marketing teams.

Also Read: Techstars raises US$42M to expand its seed-stage accelerator in Southeast Asia

Halosis
Amount: US$1.2 million
Investors: Undisclosed

NLP-based chatbot service provider Halosis expects to raise its Series A round in late 2019 or early 2020.

Edusuite
Amount: US$235K+
Investors: Manila Angel Investors Network (MAIN), Batangas Eastern Colleges (BEC), and Sumulong College of Arts and Sciences

An AI-powered school management platform, Edusuite wants to use the funding for marketing, product development, and also to increase capacity.

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Image Credit: Max Goncharov on Unsplash

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The risk and rewards of investing in the next trending coin

Bitcoin has been underperforming in the market over the past few weeks.

On watching the cryptocurrency markets closely, a new paradigm is spotted to be emerging. Bitcoin is losing steam.

At the same time, other crypto tokens are bottoming out.

One coin that has grabbed everyone’s attention is Cardano.

Also Read: 6 private crypto alternatives to bitcoin

Cardano is one of the most fundamentally sound cryptocurrencies.

However, it doesn’t make sense that the cryptocurrency (ADA/BTC) dropped to as low as 0.00000524 on July 16.

At that point, the crypto token lost over 94 per cent from the all-time high of 0.00008788.

Yet, the cryptocurrency dubbed by some as the “Ethereum Killer” appears to be carving a bottom.

It is actually trading at a level where it can create a new base and massively pump.

A quick look at the weekly chart shows that Cardano is trading close to historic lows of 0.0000057.

Even though bears were able to take out this level on July 16, bulls quickly responded and pushed the price above the support on July 17.

The brief breach of the support can now be interpreted as a bear trap.

In addition to that, the volume on June 24 was significantly elevated. This can be seen as the capitulation volume.

In other words, many dumped their Cardano positions in favour of bitcoin because they’ve lost hope in the market.

If you look at the chart of the psychology of a market cycle, you will see how Cardano has entered a period of depression.

Also Read: What does cryptocurrency mean for your small business?

Sure, it can still go lower but if this is the bottom, then those who buy now will be able to maximize their profits.

Keeping that in mind, this would be the best time to invest in Cardona.

Investors who agree with our analysis might want to buy as close to 0.0000057 as possible.

If bulls hold the support, the immediate target is 0.00001255. Cardano may still look bearish so consider placing a tight stop below fresh lows of 0.00000524.

This way, you stand to gain over 120 per cent and risk about 8 per cent which is a very good risk-to-reward ratio.

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It’s a hard adventure, but it’s also a rewarding and fun one, as well

I spent a large part of my youth playing video games. RPGs, like the Final Fantasy series, and tactical RPGs, like the Fire Emblem series, were my favorites. There was something riveting about a group of characters banding together and taking on challenges and dungeons, one after another, and eventually saving the world at the end.

As I spent more time in the entrepreneurial world, I noticed increasing number of parallels to RPGs. It was a fun realization because it frames how we can approach entrepreneurship for younger aspiring startup founders. As I mentor other startup founders, I find myself using these comparisons more often (provided my mentees play RPGs as well).

In this article, I will introduce some of the more obvious parallels! This comparison is not meant to reduce entrepreneurship into a game (it’s serious business). Instead, I’d like to propose an alternative and hopefully refreshing way to think about entrepreneurship, especially for the younger audience.

#1 You and Your Co-founders = Main Characters

Shout-out to fellow founders out there: you guys are the main characters of your own journey.

Think of the co-founding as a group of adventurers — the CEO as a warrior, and the CTO as a wizard or vice-versa. Each character comes with their own skills, strengths, and weaknesses. These adventurers also come with equipment, and how much starting gold they have.

There are rare founders who are multi-class characters that can equip many different hats, but those are few and far between and it makes more sense to engage in division of labor.

Eventually, you’d have enough gold to hire your own minions (employees) to do your bidding. That’s when your team expands and you start taking on more strategic decision making for your underlings to execute.

Balance is important — you wouldn’t want a team filled with nothing but warriors, do you? You’d be wiped out if you encounter monsters that are immune to physical attacks.

In addition, having a team is advantageous because it’s important to have the right mix of skills and equipment. Those things determine how well you fight monsters. Monsters? Speaking of monsters …

#2 Problems to solve = Monsters

Adapted from http://nes-sprite.resampled.ru/ff/. Credits to Polar Koala and Dixet.

There are many monsters (problems) to slay (solve) in this world, each with their unique properties and levels of difficulty. Adventurers band together to fight these monsters. When you slay those monsters, they drop loot and money. Slay enough, your team levels up and get to buy sweet equipment.

Adventurers that slay low-leveled monsters will level up slowly and they’ll take forever to buy new equipment. You can grind all day, but it’ll never match up to those adventurers who tackle increasingly stronger monsters over time. At this stage, adventurers can either continue slaying monsters as usual, i.e. become long self-sustaining companies, or save the world/join a bigger group of adventurers, i.e. go for an exit via IPO/M&A respectively.

What if adventurers want to slay larger, bigger, monsters? Introducing … merchants.

Also read: Failures teach us way more than the successes, and other lessons I learned as an entrepreneur

P.S. The thing is, sometimes you have a team that suits up and heads out…only to find that there is no monsters to kill. So make sure you identify the right monsters to kill, else at the end of the day you might just disband after running out of time and resources.

#3 VC = Nobles

For a price, you will gain power and equipment. Source: YouTube.

You’re doing well, slaying smaller monsters and you think you’re ready to slay larger ones. However, the equipment and party size required to tackle these huge monsters are just too much. These monsters can span continents and/or multiple areas. It’s a humongous monster, but it offers great rewards as well. Furthermore, other groups of adventurers are trying to kill it at the same time.

To compete with other adventurers and to overcome the huge monster, adventurers will now have to make an appeal to nobles. These nobles provide excellent equipment, money, and advice for you to slay humongous monsters. In return, when you save the world, they get a piece of the reward as well.

P.S. Admittedly, it was hard drawing deciding whether to consider VCs nobles or kings. Why aren’t VCs kings? They serve the funds they raise from. VCs do have bosses too, just so you know. That’s a topic for another day.

Conclusion

Using RPGs as a lens was an amusing exercise, but one that makes sense as well. As I continue on my startup journey in fundMyLife, it does really feel like I’m in an RPG with my co-founder. It’s a hard adventure, but it’s also a rewarding and fun one as well.

Have any more comparisons that you’d like to share? Please comment below and let me know! Looking forward to gathering enough material for Part II.

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This article originally appeared on Medium, and was first published on e27 on September 3, 2018.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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The funding will accelerate its growth to help more entrepreneurs succeed through its accelerator programmes, startup ecosystem activations, and corporate innovation

Techstars​, a global seed-stage startup accelerator, announced today it has secured US$42 million in an investment round led by ​SVB Financial Group​, the holding company of Silicon Valley Bank.

Existing investors including US-based VC firm Foundry Group also participated.

As per a press note, this funding will accelerate Techstars’s growth to help more entrepreneurs succeed through seed-stage accelerators, global startup ecosystem activations, corporate innovation, and entrepreneur-focused events.

Techstars runs two accelerators in Singapore annually — one with Rakuten and the other with Eastern Pacific Shipping. It is now planning to expand its presence in the region. “We certainly plan to expand further in Southeast Asia in the future. This is a primary reason why we raised this capital — to speed our further global expansion and to help connect the Techstars network even more deeply into Southeast Asia. We recognise the tremendous opportunities in the region to extend our investment activity there, as well as to potentially help build strong ecosystems,” Techstars Co-founder and co-CEO David Cohen told e27.

Founded in 2006 by Cohen and David Brown (co-CEO), Brad Feld and Jared Polis, Techstars is a worldwide network that enables founders to connect with entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporations to grow their companies.

Techstars consists of both an investment management business with US$500 million in assets under management, as well as an operating business that is approaching US$100 million in annual revenue. Its investment activity now includes 49 accelerator programmes in 35 cities across 16 countries, deploying US$80 million into nearly 500 startups on an annual basis.

Also Read: Techstars is helping to grow Southeast Asia’s startup scene; Here’s how they did it

The firm claims its portfolio of 1,900 companies currently attracts an annual US$2 billion in downstream investment from the venture capital industry. It also invests in global emerging startup communities by operating approximately 1,000 annual ​Techstars Startup Weekend​ events in 600 cities across 120 countries to help surface and support future high growth companies.

Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, Techstars employs more than 280 people across 20 countries.

“Being the largest and most active global seed investor requires a mindset and approach that is completely distinct from traditional venture capital,” said Cohen. “Techstars has created and is scaling an entirely new type of early-stage private equity asset.”

Through its operating activities, Techstars’ partners with ​nearly 100 corporations​ to provide corporate innovation solutions.

SVB Capital President John China, who has joined Techstars’s Board of Directors, said: “The Techstars team is well-positioned to keep developing its platform and enable and support founders, investors and startup ecosystems around the globe,” said China. “SVB has a long history working with Techstars and its portfolio companies and we’re enthusiastic about the opportunity to further our relationship and make a bigger positive impact on the innovation economy.”

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These five ventures have the potential to bring hundreds of millions of people into the mainstream

The kind of social impact that startups around the world have created is massive. They not only make people’s lives easier and better, but also generate millions of employments in their respective markets and contribute to the economic growth. Some build companies with the single goal of profit, while some others have twin objectives of profit making and impact making.

Of all the industries, fintech is probably a vertical that has brought in massive changes to the lives of millions of people around the globe. The industry has played a vital role in democratising the banking industry and level the playing field. Fintech has forced banks to be innovative and competitive.

Since the beginning of the fintech revolution, hundred of products and solutions have been developed and deployed by different startups, targeting the underbanked, or those living on the bottom of the income pyramid.

Here we introduce to you five such startups, which are striving to create an impact through their innovative products in their respective markets in Southeast Asia.

Kredivo (Indonesia)

Getting a loan from a bank is no mean task. If you approach a bank for a loan of any kind, the bank will ask you a lot of questions, check your creditworthiness and ask you to pledge a collateral. Getting a loan sanctioned by the bank may take weeks and even months.

Kredivo, a product of Indonesian startup FinAccel, aims to address this with its a digital payment solution. It provides different options of payment methods and terms to help customers break large payments into monthly, affordable, and safer payments. The startup gives users the convenience to buy now and pay later in 30 days with no interest or with 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month installments. Users need to put in basic details and their social networking account details to avail the loans provided by Kredivo.

The company uses data science in credit-scoring algorithms, combined with more traditional measures such as credit history and income, to determine creditworthiness, unlocking access to credit to a whole new set of consumers.

To date, Kredivo has raised more than US$30 million in funding, from investors including Telkomsel Mitra Inovasi (TMI), MDI Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Openspace Ventures, GMO Venture Partners, Alpha JWC Ventures, and 500 Startups.

MyCash Online (Singapore, Malaysia)

Being migrants themselves, Mehedi Hasan Sumon and Nurol Haq know the major challenges faced by the massive 40 million migrant population in Malaysia — one being the inability to access various financial services, as most of them are unbanked. The duo’s urge to solve this problem drove them to start MyCash Online, an online financial marketplace for the underbanked migrant population in Southeast Asia.

In 2014, the two met while working for a Value Added Service (VAS) company in Kuala Lumpur. Whenever they met, they would talk about the problems of migrant population in Malaysia, particularly those coming from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. They wanted to develop a simple and cheaper financial alternative for them. This led them to start MyCash Online.

Incorporated in 2015 and headquartered in Singapore, MyCash provides a tailor-made platform for the unbanked migrant population, where they can purchase products and services online without using any bank account, credit cards, or prepaid cards. Users can reload phone credit, pay bills, and buy bus tickets through MyCash.

In June last year, MyCash raised RM500,000 (US$120,000) through equity crowd-funding platform pitchIN. A significant part of this investment came from Hong Kong-based JC Management.

HelloGold (Malaysia)

Traditionally, gold savings has been classified as a financial product for the upper class, but here is an app to give everyone access to gold savings and to serve as a secondary platform for savings.

HelloGold is a mobile app that allows you to buy and sell gold on a single platform for as little as RM1. You can manage your account and enjoy competitive buying and selling prices in the market. Your physical gold is fully insured and stored in a secure vault.

Founded in 2015 by Malaysian co-founders Robin Lee and Ridwan Abdullah, it claims be the world’s first Shariah- compliant gold mobile application that “changes the way you buy, sell, send and redeem physical gold”. The company also runs a digital token called GOLDX, a ERC-20 token the startup has pegged to gold. What this does is allow people to make transactions outside of the platform. Without the crypto tokens, the app is a self-contained wallet.

Last year, the startup raised an undisclosed sum in Series A funding from 500 Startups.

Julo (Indonesia)

Julo is a P2P lending startup that has developed a digital data-driven credit underwriting and risk assessment platform to process consumer loan applications and determine their creditworthiness through its mobile app. The app uses Machine Learning technology to provide tailor-made, low-interest instalment credit products to the unbanked population, most of whom are tech-savvy young people and micro-entrepreneurs currently locked out of the formal financial system.

With low overhead costs thanks to a purely digital architecture, Julo offers competitive interest rates to no-file or thin-file borrowers at 4 per cent per month.

Last year, Julo raised US$5 million in a Series A funding round, led by Skystar Capital and East Ventures. Gobi Partners, Convergence Ventures, Provident Capital, Central Capital Ventura, Heyokha Brothers, and other investors also participated in the round.

soCash (Singapore)

Headquartered in Singapore, soCash is a classic example of out-of-the-box thinking.

In developing countries in Asia, millions of people still deal with cash, in spite the massive growth of digital banking services. These people often rely on money-dispensing machines a.k.a ATMs to withdraw cash for their daily needs. In some countries in this part of the world, people often have to walk or drive kilometres in search of the nearest ATMs, which add inconvenience to their lives.

Now, from the banks’ point of view, setting up and maintaining ATMs is a money-draining affair. This often runs into  millions of dollars and also affects their bottom-line. Three entrepreneurs have decided to address this challenge and came up with an innovative concept called soCash. Headquartered in Singapore, soCash is a fintech startup that allows bank customers to perform banking services like cash withdrawal and loan applications at retails shops via a mobile app.

A few days ago, it has raised US$6 million in its Series B round of funding led by Japan’s cash automation tech company Glory Ltd.

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Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash

The post These 5 fintech startups cater to the bottom of the income pyramid in Southeast Asia appeared first on e27.