Spark Systems, an online FX trading platform based in Singapore, has raised US$15 million in “Series BB” funding round from a host of new and existing investors, including Citi, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and Malaysia’s OSK Ventures.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

Vickers Ventures, Dymon Asia Ventures, Dymon Asia Capital, Jubilee Capital, and FengHe also returned to invest in the new round.

The company said that the funding would be used to enhance its current platform, develop analytics, advance its team training and build rapid modules that can onboard clients quickly.

Spark Systems also added that it intends to gradually expand into major financial centres of New York and London and develop a marketplace for G10/emerging economies currencies with a low latency trade matching data centre, which will be located in Singapore.

“This can catalyse and enhance price discovery, transparency and deepen market expertise. This is expected to reduce trading costs significantly,” the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2016, Spark Systems is a trading platform that aims to enhance usability and optimise user experience by providing a stable and ultra-low latency market place with an aggregator and algorithms for execution.

The firm has previously closed a funding round about four years ago. This brings its total funding raised to date to over US$22 million.

Trading has, in general, zoomed across the globe earlier this year as many individuals begin to panic-sell currencies, equities and commodities in the coronavirus-induced market.

Also Read: In conversation with Will Klippgen and Michael Blakey of Cocoon Capital

“This funding is occurring during a period of significant macro-economic upheaval further underscoring the strategic nature of the FX industry infrastructure requirement we are addressing,” said Wong Joo Seng, Founder of Spark Systems.

Spark Systems is a grant recipient of the Financial Sector Development Fund (FSDF) under the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) scheme from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

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Image Credit:  Avinash Kumar

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The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease has devastated businesses across the globe. The spread of the deadly virus pushed many into bankruptcy, as revenue sources dried up and working capital depleted. The travel & hospitality sector was worse-hit.

As the crisis unfolded, businesses were thrust into a situation where they had to either shut down or push hard to survive. Unable to withstand the impact, numerous companies winded up. Most managed to stay afloat but their survival still hinges on several factors. Certainly, it doesn’t look easy.

As a last resort, organisations began to cut workforce/furlough employees. However, this decision came with huge emotional and psychological costs; thousands of affected employees slipped into depression as they lost their only livelihood. Allegations of poor handling of layoff surfaced in several markets, which further added to their misery.

Unavailability of new opportunities has badly affected the mental health of the disgruntled workforce.

As the situation exacerbated, one thing became loud and clear: empathy and compassion were in short supply. Most organisations didn’t even bother to take into account the massive psychological impact the layoffs could make on people.

Experts have time and again emphasised the importance of compassion at the time of crisis like this. A compassionate approach to retrenchment could have made a difference to the lives of employees and even the organisations themselves but many ignored this part.

This is where Airbnb‘s simple, yet creative way is winning the hearts. The short-stay accommodation booking honcho, while announcing the layoffs, allowed employees to leave with grace.

The accommodation booking giant firm laid off about 1,900 employees workforce, or a quarter of its workforce last week. While taking this tough step, Airbnb did something unusual: it posted the talent directory (the names and profiles of the retrenched employees) with a carefully-drafted note on LinkedIn.

“To support teammates departing Airbnb, we’ve launched an Alumni Talent Directory. Please click here if you’re currently hiring or looking for incredible talent: https://lnkd.in/gn7n6AZ
We hope we can connect these individuals with new opportunities. It’s been an honor to work with such a talented team committed to our mission of belonging, and we’re confident any company would be lucky to have them”.

“What a great example of leadership and HR skills. Kudos for transparency, ownership and empathy when managing a large-scale involuntary employee exit ”, reads a comment to the post.

Another LinkedIn member said, “This speaks volumes! Great job for creating a new best practice! Love this talent directory!!!”

Setting an example

Airbnb, known for its appreciable work culture, is showing the world what it means to be sympathetic and compassionate.

According to well-known angel investor Arnaud Bonzom, Airbnb’s talent directory is a ‘best practice’ if former employees can opt-in and opt-out at any point of time, which it seems to be the case.

“When I accessed the directory for the first time on May 8th, only one profile was listed in Singapore,” he told me.

“As of today, on May 14th, it’s 43 talents. Also, you can read this mention on the bottom of their website: ‘To manage your talent directory profile, please email alumni-recruiting-support@airbnb.com.’”

“Such directory,” Bonzom continued, “will give the former employees more visibility and will increase their likelihood to secure a new position in a shorter period of time.”

Bonzom has already recommended the resources to several of his portfolio companies. He is even using it personally to look for a designer for a short-term assignment, he said.

Indeed, Airbnb was not the first to create and publish a talent directory. Down east, Singapore-based HOOQ published a similar directory to boost the chances of retrenched employees.

Another example came from a group of VC firms in Southeast Asia, which include Saison Capital, FutureLab, Jungle Ventures, and Alpha JWC Ventures.

Together they launched a ‘community-led’ initiative — known as SEAriously Awesome People List – Startup COVID-19 Layoffs — in March to help retrenched startup employees find new opportunities.

“I think it’s a great practice assuming there’s buy-in from employees, which I think is so most of the time,” Chia Jeng Yang, Principal at Singapore-based Saison Capital, told me.

Yang is part of the team spearheading this novel initiative in the region.

“It’s a great way for companies to reduce any friction in the job market and help employees quickly find their next role as fast as possible. It is also easier for HR to find talent since it is quite common to be on the lookout from talent from large tech companies in the same industry,” added Yang.

As of yesterday, the initiative has approximately 1,000 talent registrations and 400 job posts.

Also Read: Going big? Then Go e27 Pro.

When the COVID-19 pandemic is lashing industries and causing job losses around the world, empathy and compassion become all the more important. If more organisations come forward to emulate this great practice, should help create a more compassionate world.

And as they say, kindness is contagious, and let this ‘contagion’ spread around the world.

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Image Credit: 123rf.com

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LeadIQ, a SaaS platform that aims to simplify lead management and sales prospecting processes, has raised up to US$10 million in Series A funding round, led by Eight Roads Ventures.

Tim Draper of Draper Associates and angel investor Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH Fund also participated.

The fresh capital will be used by the company to invest in R&D, and for market expansion and hiring talent.

Founded in 2015 by Mei Siauw and Angelo Huang, LeadIQ is a workflow-centric lead data and sales prospecting SaaS platform focused on enterprise and mid-market clients.

With offices in both Singapore and the US, the firm aims to help users research and capture potential leads easily, enrich leads with further details, and integrates into various sales acceleration and customer management platforms, such as Salesloft, Outreach, Hubspot and Salesforce.

“We are building LeadIQ to simplify the workflow of sales teams, so they can focus on meaningful and relevant activities. Every second that a rep is wasting on repetitive tasks, chasing the wrong prospect, is not only hurting their company but our economy as well,” said Mei Siauw, CEO of LeadIQ.

Also Read: Compassionate layoff; Airbnb shows the way

“Organisations need a solid sales tech stack that is integrated, where data flows seamlessly across. This is where LeadIQ makes a difference. The platform allows reps to do more and quicker, cutting down unwanted manual processes,” commented Dave Ng, Head of Southeast Asia at Eight Roads Ventures.

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This article was co-written by Anisa Menur

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GoodWork, Philippines-based home services provider startup, has received US$1.6 million in seed funding round led by Chaac Ventures, with participation from Elysium Ventures, Kairos K50, and Facebook’s and Snapchat’s angel investors.

The company said it plans to use the funding to expand its business in Southeast Asia, as reported by TechCrunch.

Andrew Koger, co-founder, and CEO of GoodWork said that GoodWork plans to expand into Vietnam and Thailand by the end of this year or early 2021.

The company that was founded in 2018 has its operation based in the Metro Manila region. It offers services such as home cleaning, laundry pickup, air conditioner cleaning, and home repairs, as well as spa services such as manicures.

Using GoodWork, services providers are free to determine their pricing with around 70 per cent daily bookings from repeat customers.

GoodWork was founded in 2018 by Koger, who is a bachelor of arts graduate of Princeton University. Previously, he was a part of Lazada team, leading Fulfillment, the logistics branch of the company.

Also Read: Chinese home service robot startup ROOBO raises US$100M to grow speech tech

COVID-19 impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has left no stone unturned, and GoodWork is no exception. Due to the government policy of community quarantine and suspension of operations, the company deals with this situation by adding health services into its app that include online medical consultations.

Besides that, the services that are most needed during the community quarantine are laundry pickup and delivery services, since many people don’t have washing machines at home and rely on laundromats.

With the lockdown situation dials down, GoodWork has been prepared to add the relevant services such as disinfection cleaning services and implement new safety measures for services providers, such as the standard body temperature monitoring feature in its app, and safety training and protective equipment for cleaners.

Koger is optimistic that home service will see a good increase in demand in the months ahead.

“We’ll continue the work from home policies, which will increase air-conditioning usage, that in the past has led to an increased demand for servicing, and like a domino effect, it means an increased need for home cleaning for many people,” Koger said.

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Singapore’s Temasek joins Facebook’s global payments system Libra

Singaporean investment firm Temasek Holdings has joined Facebook-backed Libra Association as its third new member, according to KrAsia.

The association’s two other members are cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm and private equity group Slow Ventures.

“The addition of three new members to the Libra Association shows our commitment to building a diverse group of organisations that will contribute to the governance, technological roadmap, and launch readiness for the Libra payment system,” said Libra Association’s Vice Chairman Dante Disparte.

Facebook with other tech players had proposed starting a new currency named Libra early in 2019.

Also Read: Compassionate layoffs; Airbnb shows the way

However, in April this year, some partners like Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe, and Paypal decided to pull out of the project.

MRT Jakarta plans to launch accelerator for startups in all industries

Government-owned company MRT Jakarta has revealed that it plans to launch an accelerator for startups with no particular focus on any one industry, according to TechInAsia.

The accelerator will welcome all startups to take their products and services to the mainstream market.

The mentors of the six-month programme, which begins on June 8, includ Bukalapak, BeliMobilGue, BRI Ventures, MDI Ventures, East Ventures, and Vertex Ventures.

Startup Genome, T-Hub partner to promote innovation and improve startup support in India

T-Hub, India’s innovation ecosystem, and Startup Genome, a  research and policy advisory organisation in the US, announced today that they would together foster Hyderabad’s innovation ecosystem and showcase success stories of the city’s entrepreneurs.

“Hyderabad’s tech ecosystem has enormous potential to reshape the economy locally and nationally,” said JF Gauthier, Founder and CEO of Startup Genome, in a statement.

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Register for our next webinar: Fireside chat with Paul Meyers and Jussi Salovaara

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Gobi Partners, MDEC launch SuperSeed II Championship, to invest up to US$3.5M each in winners

Gobi Partners has partnered with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to launch a pitching competition, called SuperSeed II Championship, for startups affected by COVID-19.

The winning companies will get the opportunity to secure equity investment from from Malaysia SuperSeed Fund II, a fund jointly announced last year by Gobi, MAVCAP, and Sunway, as well as be a potential MDEC grant recipient.

Additional prizes include the chance to attend an entrepreneurship programme organised by Alibaba Business School and the iLabs Accelerator Program by Sunway Group.

Also Read: MDEC partners 9 Digital Transformation Lab for tech enabling support

The SuperSeed II Championship’s participants must be companies incorporated in Malaysia or have Malaysian founders or shareholders. They can be companies that have substantial operations in the country or have concrete plans to expand their business into the market.

The key verticals that will be considered are retail and enterprise (AI, B2B, B2C, Big Data, e-commerce, and logistics), fintech (crowdfunding, insurtech, mobile payments, P2P lending, and robo-advisors), smart cities and circular economy (construction solutions, e-hailing, environment solutions, IoT, mobility solutions, and public transport solutions), and Taqwatech (companies providing products and services to Muslim consumers and communities).

The deadline for entries is 12 am, June 16, 2020.

The preliminary round is scheduled to take place at the end of June, while the qualifying rounds and final round is set to be held in July and August.

Interested startups can register here.

Openspace Ventures, MDI Ventures, AC Ventures to #SupportStartups during SEA ground-up movement

Openspace Ventures, MDI Ventures, and AC Ventures have launched a national initiative harnessing consumer and business spending in an effort to uplift the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This initiative followed the initial success of Singapore’s #SupportStartups initiative that was launched by Openspace Ventures, 500 Startups, and Cocoon Capital.

The offers will be featured on a combined website (id.supportstartups.com), leveraging the strength of the ecosystem to drive traffic to startups.

The 30 businesses currently listed on the website include B2C and B2B outfits across multiple sectors including fashion, F&B, logistics, e-commerce, enterprise SaaS, co-working space, and digital wealth management.

To each eligible startup registered in the programme, Amazon Web Services is offering US$5,000 in promotional credits.

In Indonesia, the initiative is led by MDI Ventures with the launch of a number of initiatives such as weekly webinars and IndonesiaBergerak.com, with the purpose of spreading information on the outbreak and insight on how businesses can operate in current times.

Interested startups with businesses in Indonesia are encouraged to submit their promotions via the website here.

Malaysian data labelling startup Supahands launches The Supahands Opus Infrastructure

Supahands, a Machine Learning- and Artificial Intelligence-based data labelling startup, has announced the launch of its Opus Infrastructure (OI).

Also Read: Human-powered training data provider Supahands raises Series A funding

The OI offers a fully-managed customer experience for a wide variety of data labelling needs, such as image annotation, sentiment tagging, and data transcription.

Featuring Supahands’s proprietary technology, the OI enables organisations to boost operational agility and engage in end-to-end managed service that produces quality training data for Machine ML and AI at scale, with customisable technology and project-specific workflows.

CEO and Co-founder Mark Koh said that with the demand for AI solutions steadily on the rise, Supahands’s OI supports the technological automation landscape by providing an agile and flexible solution for data labelling workflows.

Singapore fintech Aleta Planet welcomes new hires, focussing on business growth

Singapore-based fintech Aleta Planet has made two senior hires to support business growth as clients ramp up digitalisation efforts.

Jesline Teo will join on June 1, 2020, as Managing Director, Group Finance, while Laurens Lim will come on board as Director, Group Finance, on May 18, 2020.

Teo spent more than 20 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services before joining Aleta Planet. She has led more than 200 merger and acquisition projects with a total value of over US$20 billion, including in- and out-bound as well as cross-border deals.

Lim was Vice President and Team Head of Retail Reconciliation and Investigation at United Overseas Bank prior to joining Aleta Planet. He has been with UOB for the last 17 years, leading investigations and liaising with authorities on matters related to retail and card payments.

Aleta Planet operates from its offices in Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Australia and Dubai, and plans to expand to five new markets within the next two years.
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More than 140 leading names in the regional startup ecosystem –from venture capital firms, accelerators or incubators, to other organisations– announced the launch of Mentor For Hope, a programme aiming to raise the equivalent of 50,000 meals for those in need while supporting startups in the time of crisis at the same time.

Vertex Ventures, Sequoia India, Big Idea Ventures, Saison Capital, Qualgro, e27, Golden Gate Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners, Openspace Ventures, Antler, BLOCK71 by NUS Enterprise, SGInnovate, StartupX, SheVC (a SoGal Foundation initiative), SoGal Ventures, NTUitive, STRIVE, Hustle Fund, Asia Institute for Mentoring, Wantedly and VentureCap Insights are among those supporting the initiative so far.

The programme includes a month-long fundraising campaign where mentors pledge nearly 1,400 hours to provide mentorship to founders affected by the COVID-19 crisis and raise funds for charity at the same time.

All donations raised during the campaign, from May 18 to 16 June, will be dedicated to two beneficiaries: Beyond Social Services and Willing Hearts Soup Kitchen.

Aspiring entrepreneurs, founders, and members of the public are encouraged to donate. Public donations will enable founders who face financial challenges to benefit from investors’ mentoring sessions or experts’ coaching classes during the campaign.

Also Read: Using design sprints to solve COVID-19 business problems

The programme was launched with the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had impacted the startup ecosystem. According to VentureBeat, 41 per cent of startups globally are struggling with a cash runway of three months or less.

In Singapore alone, there are at least 20,000 jobs attributed to 3,800 startups, according to the Singapore Department of Statistics’ data as of December 2018.

“What we have created in a short time is a mini accelerator programme for founders across all stages to receive one-on-one mentoring with industry leaders, group mentoring with senior investors and masterclasses organised by experts, with a purpose to give back as well,” says Elise Tan Yee Ling, who organises the programme.

Mentor for Hope evolved from the “Gratitude-COVID mentoring initiative” started by Tan in Singapore when her role at a venture firm was made redundant a month ago. Feeling inspired to keep on helping the startup ecosystem, she was later joined by Sharon Yeo Mei Ching and Gwen Sim, both final-year students at National University of Singapore (NUS).

In addition to them, the main organisers of the programme also include Janet Neo, Aparna Saxena, Jeng Yang Chia, Minh Vu Hong, Clinton Swan and Dr Dalal AlGhawas, all of whom met through the Gratitude-COVID mentoring initiative.

Over 120 introductions have been made between founders and mentors since April 1.

Also Read: Why SEA startups should not go back to office post-COVID-19

Application details

To participate in the programme, interested founders and aspiring entrepreneurs can sign up via the FutureLab e-mentorship platform and make a request for the mentors they wish to meet. They will then receive instructions on how to make or raise at least SG$50 (US$35) donation on give.asia.

Every participant will receive a Mentor For Hope care package, worth S$500 (US$350) in total, that comprises of:

– One hour mentoring session by a suitable mentor
– Free virtual coaching group classes led by professional experts
– Free two-month access to VentureCap Insights, an online venture investment database

Founders facing financial difficulties may also apply to reduce or waive the donation recommendation.

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Image Credit: Mentor For Hope

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FoodRazor raises US$900K led by Cocoon Capital, aims to create a smart ecosystem

FoodRazor​, the invoice management platform based in Singapore, announced that it has raised a US$900,000 seed financing round led by early-stage venture capital firm Cocoon Capital alongside Found.Ventures and angel investors.

Niles Toh, CEO, and Founder of FoodRazor, said that the company will use the fund to support FoodRazor’s expansion into new markets and to support other invoice-heavy industries such as accounting, manufacturing, and logistics.

FoodRazor offers an end-to-end online platform that seeks to address the pain point of F&B operators by saving time on menial data entry tasks and helping make smarter purchase decisions. It digitises the entire invoice management process as well as provides restaurants with actionable insights, price analytics, and streamlining of the accounting workflow by scanning and extracting information from paper receipts and imports each line item to leading accounting software packages.

Global companies, law firms launch an open industry platform for lawyers

A group of law firms and corporations have come together to support the development of Lupl, the open industry platform for legal matters. The venture is a result of more than 12 months of work with in-house and private practice lawyers and industry experts to “solve shared frustrations relating to the handling of legal matters”.

Lupl has been formed as an independent corporation to develop, own, and operate the open industry technology platform. It is currently incubated through its development by a trio of international law firms, CMS, Cooley, and Rajah & Tann Asia, working with input from an advisory board of 16 in-house lawyers from blue-chip multinationals to the world’s fastest-growing tech companies.

Also Read: Cocoon Capital announces US$22M second fund to invest in enterprise tech startups

The goal of Lupl is to synchronise everything that goes into a legal matter – including people, documents, information, communications, and technology applications – in a single secure space, empowering lawyers and legal departments to work together on complex, high-stakes legal matters in a better and more efficient way. An open approach means any legal department and the law firm will be able to use Lupl, and any technology provider will be able to integrate with it via open APIs.

Entrepreneur First launches the Amplifier Network talent affiliate programme, strengthening access to deep tech talent

Entrepreneur First (EF), the talent investor, has revealed its first line up of nine EF Amplifiers, as part of the Amplifier Network – its new and exclusive talent affiliate and advisor programme.

The Amplifier Network is designed to leverage synergies amongst key players in Singapore’s deep tech ecosystem by providing a structured platform for established industry professionals to refer talent to the EF programme. At the same time, it also aims to drive deeper connections and sparking collaboration within the global community.

The pioneer batch of EF Amplifiers consists of key individuals who have been significant to EF Singapore’s growth since its inception four years ago, which is a mix of business and public sector leaders, academics, investors, startup founders and advocates across the deep tech community, armed with global networks covering Asia, North America, and the UK.

Promising deep-tech entrepreneurs referred by EF’s Amplifiers will be granted priority access to interviews with the EF admissions team for consideration for the next cohort. EF Amplifiers will also be invited to participate in community programmes such as panel discussions, webinars, as well as regular community and cohort.

The EF Amplifiers will be participating in the Launch programme of EF Singapore’s seventh cohort, as well as in the preparation for the upcoming eight cohort in August.

Vietnam’s HR tech startup BravoHR secures seed funding from tech startup accelerator Zone Startups Vietnam

Zone Startups Vietnam, tech startup accelerator has invested seed funding in HR tech startup BravoHR, with the participation of former Google, Alibaba, and BCG executives-owned VC firm 1005 Ventures.

Also Read: E-commerce wars in Vietnam intensify. Here is all you need to know

According to DealStreetAsia, BravoHR was launched in August 2018 to provide digital solutions for staffing, employee benefits. and rewards.

Involved in the round is 1005 Ventures, the investment fund founded by former executives of Google, Alibaba, and BCG to support startups, especially in the fields of transportation, medical, and human resource management

Three Vietnamese tech startups receive funding from Viet Valley Ventures

Viet Valley Ventures, a Vietnam-based venture capital firm, has invested in three tech startups: mobile recruitment platform JobsGo, software solutions startup WindSoft, and marketing tech startup for e-commerce setup EcomEasy.

Viet Valley Ventures is a newly-established homegrown venture capital firm that was founded in 2019 by senior tech executives working in Silicon Valley. According to DealStreetAsia, it is seeking to invest US$200,000-US$500,000 in five startups each year in Vietnam.
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But first, let’s address the elephant in the room and get it out of the way. Not all corporate-startup relationships work. According to a report published by 500 startups, the vast majority of corporates see less than 25% of their initial pilots with startups scale into solutions that can be taken to the market.

So why are we still talking about corporate-startup collaboration? Oh yes, the other 75% narrative. Corporates today recognise this need to work with startups to enable innovations, propelling them to step up their startup collaboration initiatives. 

In fact, the number of corporate investments in startups has nearly tripled in volume from 980 in 2013 to 2,795 in 2018, increasing over 9 times in value from $19 billion to $180 billion based on a study by GVC Analytics, a company that tracks corporate venture deals.

To quote Jerry Maguire, ‘you complete me’

The value of such collaboration to both parties is clear. Corporates bring the networks and resources to enable the startup to reach scale at a reasonably early stage. On the other hand, startups provide corporates with ideas, technologies, or solutions that they can quickly test and bring to the market. They are also viewed as beacons of creativity and innovation.

Yet, only a handful of startups will thrive and ultimately disrupt the entire industry. This is why corporate-startup collaborations mesh beautifully with the sequence.

So if corporations learn the steps well — set clear objectives and identify their capabilities and process of working with startups — there’s a higher chance they’ll finish the business dance with an encore.

Corporates looking to advance their innovation agenda through collaboration with startups possess these common objectives:

First objective: to solve immediate problems and priorities faced by internal BU stakeholders

Innovation champions within large corporates realise that in order to build organisational support for their programmes, they must build organisational support which sets up the foundation for more ambitious innovation initiatives or moonshot projects down the road. This is why innovation teams are now looking into startups as an alternative to traditional solutions suppliers and various corporates.

Not only do startups have the agility to test ideas fast, but they may also bring a new perspective of attacking the problems that hurt the business unit stakeholders — whether in terms of increasing revenues, or of decreasing expenses, or even of both.

To produce tangible results and early wins, the corporate innovation team needs to carefully choose startups with a strong execution track record, and ensure the readiness of stakeholders to support initial pilots and integrate startups by understanding their stakeholder priorities. On top of this, they may need to rethink the lengthy onboarding or procurement process that works for larger or traditional ventures and streamline them to make them more apt for startups.

Second objective: to explore and develop use cases for proprietary assets and technologies

It is not only funding that startups look for when working with established corporates. Corporates, for example, are often sitting on tons of underutilised data which startups lack access to and through which they can quickly turn into insights, business models, or products. 

For instance, we’ve seen opportunities for corporates to leverage our corporate-innovation programme to find best-in-class startups that can use corporate’s newly developed technologies to produce success stories that will hopefully drive future adoption leading to new business lines and revenue streams for the company.

Third objective: to explore sustainable technology solutions and accelerate the adoption of ESG principles

Doing good is doing good business. Large corporations today are beginning to integrate sustainable and circular practices into their tactical operations. And with more and more everyday consumers requiring their brands to adhere to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures, big corporations are stepping up their efforts to find innovations that will lead to:

• greater corporate transparency through automation of monitoring and reporting of impact
• more efficient use of resources and reduction of wastes and carbon emission
• alternative materials to plastics for packaging
• improved access to knowledge and financial inclusion of smallholder producers

Fourth objective: to develop investment opportunities or deal flow

Large corporations are turning to startups for cutting-edge technologies with the potential to disrupt their current businesses and provide a competitive advantage in the next 5 to 10 years. For these types of innovations that require a longer-term horizon and are non-incremental in nature, corporates are looking at startups across different stages for potential deal flow or investments. 

The good news? We are looking for corporates to be part of the innovation dance

We’ve discovered startups whose tech innovations present potential tech solutions for your business.

Our great strength as a company is our large network of relevant startups in the region and we think this can be of immense value to regional corporations, wherever they are in their innovation roadmap. Also through our regional reach, we are able to find and connect corporations to the startups most relevant to their innovation objectives.

If you’re interested in this initiative and would like to fast-track your corporate innovation and business transformation through co-creation of solutions, let us know by filling out this form.

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Dustin Masancay, who handles e27’s corporate innovation & ecosystem building, co-wrote this article.

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