Temasek Holdings, others confirm salary freeze amidst COVID-19

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings is among the companies that have confirmed a company-wide wage freeze and voluntary pay reductions for senior management for up to a year amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to Vulcan Post.

This will come into action in April when the company will halt all raises and salary increases linked to promotions. With the amount saved, Temasek will donate to staff volunteer initiatives and support the community through unspecified measures.

The entity has a portfolio of a broad spectrum of startups which include Indian ride-sharing company Ola, coworking space giant WeWork, and Virtu Financial, Inc. amongst many others.

Singaporean deep tech startup Dathena names new CTO

Data security and privacy startup Dathena named veteran software engineer Lylian Kieffer as its new CTO, according to a press statement.

Kieffer was Executive VP for Engineering and Operations at App Annie; he brings in over 15 years of experience in building and operating large scale SaaS and data platforms.

“Leading large global engineering teams and managing large-scale analytics platforms, I’ve seen first-hand how challenging it can be to keep data safe while satisfying all the relevant regulatory constraints. Dathena is using cutting-edge technologies to deliver one-of-a-kind tools and functionalities that global businesses urgently need,” Kieffer said.

“I’m looking forward to leveraging my expertise in managing SaaS platforms in fast-growing environments to help Dathena bring its platform to brand new markets.”

Also Read:  Singaporean deep tech company Dathena eyes North America growth with new HQ launch

Kieffer will focus on developing the architecture required to support deployment and distribution of the platform via SaaS and other models.

Hong Kong-based Snapask raises US$35M for its on-demand tutoring app 

Hong Kong based on-demand tutoring app Snapask has raised US$35 million in Series B funding, according to a press statement. The round was led by Asia Partners and Intervest.

Aiming to open its headquarters in Singapore, the company will use the newly added funds to create educational videos as well as expand into Vietnam and other markets in Southeast Asia. The company claimed to have served over three million students across eight markets.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Uncharted, Visinema raise Series A investments

“We will continue to invest in both products and content to meet students’ learning needs, focusing on the promotion of self-directed learning and creating environments in which students can compete and cooperate with peers,” said Snapask Founder and CEO Timothy Yu.

Singaporean fintech startup Jungle secures lending licence in the Philippines

Jungle, a fintech lending platform that allows customers to pay their purchases at a later period, has obtained a licence from Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to DealStreet Asia.

The licence arrived five months after Jungle raised a US$125,000 pre-seed funding round, led by investors and serial entrepreneurs Roger Crook and Enrique Dubois.

The company said that it will continue to pursue partnerships with the country’s top brands and retailers in verticals such as consumer electronics, home appliances and furniture, dental and medical, travel, education, sporting goods, and apparel.

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In its latest report, White Star Capital (a transatlantic fund investing in Series A and B) found that Southeast Asia is exhibiting very favourable demographic and economic trends. VC funding in the region has reached record levels over the past two years. Funding rounds pipeline of high-quality seed and Series A-stage startups have been driven by a large number of less than US$100 million funds.

However, with the absence of larger funds to finance later stage Series B+ rounds, there remains a clear opportunity for international funds to build a presence in the region, finds the study.

In this interview, Sanjay Zimmermann, Senior Associate at White Star Capital (who is based in Singapore), talks to e27 about the Series B investment crunch, VC investment ecosystem in Southeast Asia and the challenges it faces.

Edited excerpts:

Your survey finds that only less than 15 per cent of the companies that raised Series A funding go on to raise Series B and beyond. Does this suggest there is a lack of Series B funds in the region or is it that there lack quality startups?

The lack of conversion from Series A to Series B and beyond is mainly driven by a lack of Series B-plus funding that is available in the region and as a result of the relatively young nature of the industry, which leads to more risk aversion amongst founders and micro-exits.

The upshot is that the funding gap has been well observed for the last one to two years now and several funds have come up or are in the process of being raised to address it, such as EV Growth, Asia Partners, and Vickers Venture Partners.

Also, as the ecosystem matures and we start seeing an increasing proportion of second-time founders, risk-taking and experience amongst founders will increase as they turn down initial offers to get acquired and aim for billion-dollar outcomes.

Also Read: A comprehensive guide to Indonesia’s agritech ecosystem

For example, think of Elon Musk who sold his first business Zip2 shortly after founding it for US$300 million but then refused multiple offers to sell Paypal, his other business, and only sold after getting a US$1.5 billion offer from eBay.

I assume the Series B funding crunch is a global problem. What do different stakeholders do to plug this gap?

It is indeed a global phenomenon that we have also observed in both our Canadian VC Landscape report and our UK VC Landscape report. It appears to be a growing pain of any thriving ecosystem and fortunately, a situation that the market tends to resolve over time.

Young demographics in Southeast Asia offers massive growth opportunities for consumer startups. But this often comes at the expense of B2B companies, which are also crucial to the growth of any economy. Do you see an upward spiral in the B2B sector as well?

I would argue that the rapid scaling of consumer startups across Southeast Asia is leading to increasing demand for B2B startups to support their scaling when it comes to logistics, payments and several other tangential sectors. This, in turn, supports the overarching theme of the rising middle-class and young millennials beginning to consume online.

On top of this, as certain markets are starting to get oversaturated with B2C startups, there is increasing investor appetite appearing in B2B startups, which are tackling what is referred to as the digitisation of SMEs by offering B2C-like solutions.

Funds such as Wavemaker Partners and Cocoon Capital in Singapore have been driving investments in B2B successfully for a while now, and at White Star Capital, we will be on the lookout for both B2C and B2B opportunities in the region, especially looking out for companies that tie the two together.

Most domestic funds and foreign funds are obsessed only with major countries like Singapore and Indonesia. Several reports show that there is massive potential in markets like Vietnam and Myanmar, but they are not getting as much attention as Jakarta or Singapore do. Is it changing? Do you think Vietnam and Myanmar, etc. will also witness significant growth in the recent future? And what role foreign VCs play to change this scenario?

While it is true that Singapore and Indonesia have received a lot of attention in recent years, we realised in doing our research for the report that there are a number of factors that will make places like Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand quite interesting markets over the next decade. This is part of the reason why we chose to go for a broader country deep-dive and evaluate the state of each of these countries in our report.

Myanmar is a market that I find very exciting as well — I had the chance to visit through the eyes of a local, with one of the collaborators who worked on the report’s impact investing section, Grace Su Lei Naing.

I think that it is still very early days to tell how the VC ecosystem will evolve in the country, but one thing I can say is that there are some active players on the ground such as Anthem Asia, Delta Capital and TPG.

On the later stage investment end, we also noted a landmark deal towards the end of last year with the Ayala Group entering the region and strengthening pan-regional bonds.

It is good to see the emergence of Unicorns in the region. In 2017, three companies became unicorns, and in 2019, the number was four. But in 2018, only one startup entered the coveted list. Does it mean 2018 was a bad year for the region?

Not necessarily, I would focus more on looking at the overarching trend of the growing number of unicorns in the region.

Do you see any new unicorns emerging in the region in the foreseeable future? Any candidates?

Our survey seemed to indicate that the majority of investors who responded expect to see between two and five unicorns over the next decade. I would lean towards the tail end of this forecast and would not be surprised if the number would be higher than five.

In terms of candidates, we will soon be announcing our first investment in the region, and we certainly believe that this may become a candidate in the years to come.

Is the ‘super app’ mania among startups good or bad for the ecosystem? Isn’t killing competition and creating a monopoly?

We think the focus on building ‘super-apps’ has been critical in helping build regional champions in circumstances where otherwise there would have been a risk of the US or Chinese players coming in and taking over the ecosystem. By expanding beyond a core product vertical, they have been able to build greater moats and justify higher levels of funding to compete with these global players.

There is a down-side though. Not every startup can be a ‘super app’, and even Grab/gojek are less well-positioned versus Alibaba or Tencent, as social/messaging/payments apps are simply more sticky and have higher daily interaction levels than ride-hailing or food delivery. Other verticals such as e-commerce have even lower user interaction levels which means that there can be a finite number of super apps.

It is unclear if super-apps necessarily kill competition — in China, the dominance of the original Chinese super apps (‘BAT’ – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) didn’t stop the next generation (‘TMD’ – Toutiau, Meituan, Didi) from emerging, nor will they be the last. It does make it more difficult — requiring greater innovation and tenacity, but that’s the nature of all business, particularly in tech.

Despite the strong growth in the region, business exits are still rare, and exits via IPO is the most limited. What do you think are the reasons for this? Will we see more exits as the industry matures?

There will need to be more mature capital markets in the region to make IPOs locally more viable, until then, we expect to see more and more acquisition activity from northern Asia.

Some experts say there’s no founder ecosystem yet like there is in Silicon Valley, and former successful founders don’t re-invest in startups yet, mostly because there aren’t that many successful founders that exited yet. If this is true, what is discouraging former successful founders from investing in startups in Southeast Asia?

We believe that this is simply a function of there not having been a critical mass that is large enough of founders that had large exits to be re-investing in the system. The good news is, however, that amongst those who have been successful, we are seeing angel investments trickle in as well new funds being created to invest back into the ecosystem.

Related to this point, looking at raw funding round data from the various data platforms, one may also conclude that the angel network here is not as vibrant as in other parts of the world.

Also Read: Swingvy co founder and CEO: I only hire people who are smarter than me

The reality, when talking to investors and angels in the region, is that a large number of angel investments intentionally or unintentionally do not get reported to these data platforms, which makes it a lot harder to comment on the funding activity from angels.

Some entrepreneurs feel there are no active female players either as investors or founders in the region. Is gender discrimination playing a role here? Does there exist gender discrimination in the startup ecosystem?

This is an important question that we also tried to assert in our survey. The good news is that over 75 per cent of the funds and organisations that answered the survey have some form of strategy in place to help promote more diversity and inclusion within their firms and portfolio companies.

The lack of female players as investors and founders is, unfortunately, a global issue that is prevalent across ecosystems, and that is fortunately increasingly being recognised and acted on.

In Southeast Asia, we would argue that addressing it can have even more significant positive multiplier effects by creating female-led startups to increase gender inclusiveness across sectors and industries in the region.

A recent report by the Asia Women Impact fund outlined that while 56 per cent of women in SEA work, over 70 per cent f these work in the informal economy which precludes women from accessing the social protection gains of formal employment. Tech startups can go a long way here to lead the way to a more gender-inclusive Southeast Asia.

Until last year it was all about user acquisition and generating revenues. Is profitability now becoming a goal for startups? Is there pressure from VCs on startups to become profitable?

We indeed see a move towards profitability over growth, especially at the later stage investment level. This sentiment stemming from a few missed IPOs is to be seen, in some sense, as a healthy correction in the market.

Nonetheless, at the Series A and Series B stages, the story remains around growth but has shifted from “growth at any cost” to “growth with reasonable unit economics and a path to profitability”, not necessarily immediate profitability.

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Indonesian ride-hailing giant gojek has denied circulating report about merger talks between the company and its rival Grab.

The Information reported earlier that a possible merger is being discussed by the two giants after Grab President Ming Maa and Gojek CEO Andre Soelistyo met earlier this month

The report further explained that the management of the two companies has been meeting occasionally in the past two years, and developing more in the last two months.

The potential deal-breaker in these talks is the question of who will control the combined organisation. Grab has been reportedly asking for a larger share of the pie whereas gojek wants a 50-50 deal.

Other potential hurdles in the deal include regulatory clearance for a merger.

Also Read: Grab acquires Bento to assist SEA users with retail wealth solutions

According to a senior executive in one of the companies, “As the first step, Grab and gojek may look at getting off the price war in both ride-hailing and food delivery to stem losses. In a similar case, even though Ola and Uber, did not acknowledge the same, they had got into a similar arrangement in India, where they had scaled back driver incentives and also raised prices during the last two years.”

On the other hand, investors seem to welcome the idea of a merger. Leading investors in the past from both companies, during off the record conversations with media, have speculated a potential merger according to Dealstreet Asia.

Grab has raised total funding of US$9.8 billion and is currently in the midst of raising another round, with targets of US$2 billion added capital. Comparatively, gojek has raised US$3.3 billion in total and is in talks of another raising Series F funding round, targetting US$2.5 billion.

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Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab, which has been making a foray into the fintech scene, today announced an over US$850 million investment from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and TIS.

MUFG will invest up to US$706 million in the company while TIS will invest US$150 million (JPY16.5 Billion).

The investments were meant to support Grab’s effort to further expand into the financial sector.

In two separate statements, Grab detailed its upcoming plans with the two companies.

With MUFG, it plans to “co-develop innovative financial products and services based on … combined customer insights to better cater to the financial needs of Grab’s users, driver-partners and merchant-partners.”

Also Read: Indonesian ride-hailing giant gojek denies report on merger talks with rival Grab

Grab aims to use the funding to create products and solutions in the lending, insurance, and wealth management verticals for Southeast Asian consumers and SMEs. The services will be delivered through digital channels; most likely the Grab app, a realisation of its super-app ambition.

With TIS, Grab will collaborate on enhancing the digital payment infrastructure in the region and in Japan to enable greater adoption of cashless payment options, such as GrabPay. Both companies will also collaborate on developing emerging payment technologies.

Starting off as a ride-hailing service for taxis in Malaysia, Grab has been expanding into the fintech segment lately, with the particular goal of promoting financial inclusion.

Launching Grab Financial Group in 2018, it has announced partnerships with the likes of Mastercard, Credit Saison, Chubb, and ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co. Ltd.

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Image Credit: Afif Kusuma

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Technology has disrupted every industry and advertising is still adapting each day to the digital transitions. From Adwords to demographic targetting on social media, adtech is growing in 2020. Here are five predictions on where the industry is headed.

Number of players in adtech will be at its highest level ever

This can be a good thing for the industry.

In recent years, programmatic advertising has reached an unprecedented level of adoption as the industry responds to changing marketplace dynamics.

This has resulted in the formation of multiple third-party platforms and tools that enable advertisers to expand the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising campaigns. These platforms and tools have also continued to evolve as the programmatic value chain becomes more complex – resulting in the birth of even more features that provide advertisers with the ability to keep up with the ever-changing landscape.

The increasing number of vendors in the industry means an increase in the level of competition between the different players. Brands can therefore afford to be pickier when choosing partners to work with.

Also Read: Is AI the key to adtech’s data-driven future?

To succeed, players in the adtech industry need to ensure that their capabilities are driven by a customer-centric approach that is grounded in brand experience, privacy, and powerful analytics. The high level of competition will correspondingly ensure higher levels of quality in the services offered by most players in the market, in turn bolstering the growth of the ad tech landscape for the coming year.

Out with the CMO, and in with the CGO (Chief Growth Officer)

Today, producing content is a must for every brand. But that also means that brands are not only going against other brands but other content creators; which essentially means other social media content users – comprising of both individual consumers and other brands alike.

As brands now have to fight harder to vie for consumers’ attention, they also have to be smarter about where budgets are allocated. Return on Investment (ROI) is becoming more important, and brands are naturally becoming more cautious about their ad spend.

To make things more complicated, the current vast availability of data means that the metrics used to quantify and qualify success are becoming more complicated, and will need the expertise of someone who understands not only marketing, but also the other aspects of the company’s offerings that drive growth – such as sales, product, tech, and consumer advocates.

Enter the Chief Growth Officer (CGO) – an individual whose role is fundamentally cross-functional, overseeing multiple divisions. Because of their visibility of various other functions, and the centrality of their role in the company’s performance, CGOs find themselves having influence and accountability across various departments when it comes to board meetings. In the coming year, we foresee the emergence of CGOs becoming more prevalent.

Short videos will reign supreme

The surge of digital growth has necessitated the need for brands to deliver high-quality digital customer experiences (CX). CX is now a fundamental component of digital strategies, and advertisers are constantly having to explore new ways to capture customers’ attention.

Also Read: How AI can boost adtech

2020 will see a greater shift towards more creative-focused solutions that enhance consumer engagement. Video has been the king of content for many years now; however, TikTok’s 15-second video format has revolutionised the way in which stories can be told, the limited time necessitating users to think creatively in sharing their story.

Couple this with today’s mobile-first consumer – bombarded with content competing for their attention – brands and advertisers will need to reinvent the way they engage with their target market. As a result, we expect to see more brands and social platforms embracing short video formats in the year to come.

Rise of influencer partnerships in SE Asia, as platforms become increasingly automated

Influencer marketing has really erupted in the last five years. While there currently exist conflicting views on whether influencer marketing is a fad or the future, there is no doubt that influencers have since disrupted traditional marketing strategies.

As networks such as Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok continue to rise in popularity, especially among younger audiences, it is not surprising to project that influencer marketing will be here to stay – at least in the near future.

Like any marketing strategies, conceptualising an influencer programme requires careful planning and deliberate targeting. Influencer marketing is also very different across different networks, so an understanding of each network, as well as the user behaviours of each network, is imperative.

Additionally, given that influencer marketing is relatively nascent in the region, collaborating with influencers on campaigns can be very time-consuming.

With many different categories of influencers, brands have to approach these influencers and negotiate on terms and rates individually – a potentially frustrating process that can take up a much longer time than it needs to be.

Also Read: The reality of influencer marketing in the age of digital content

Taking a leaf out of our Western counterparts’ book, it will only be a matter of time before the establishment of an automated platform for influencer management. This will not only help to simplify the process of managing influencers for campaigns, but also allow for a more standardised method of reporting and analysing results – enabling a more accurate snapshot of the performance of the collaboration.

These automated platforms may take a while to be established, but I believe that we will see a movement towards that eventuality in the coming year – perhaps starting with the rise of consolidated platforms that will help ease the process of influencer marketing.

Southeast Asia will be the global leader of online gaming and e-commerce

Ecommerce has played an important role in driving the internet economy in 2019. In 2020, e-commerce will play an even more central role in driving the internet economy.

The surge in e-commerce in the region is actually part of a broader transformation – beyond enabling consumers to transact online, e-commerce has also helped to increase the efficiency of cross-border logistics network, enabled offline retailers to reach new consumers, and create a secure medium for digital payments. These have all contributed to building trust in the region’s internet economy.

As it continues to build in momentum, we expect e-commerce to be the main driving force of this growth – creating more opportunities for even more exciting innovations in the upcoming year.

The global spotlight is also on another industry that has grown significantly as a direct result of the growing digital economy: online gaming. Recent research has predicted that the number of PC and mobile gamers in Southeast Asia will rise to a staggering 400 million, accumulating a combined revenue of US$4.4 billion USD by 2021.

A group of nations known as the ‘Big Six’ – namely Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam – are taking the lead as the biggest growth markets. Given the mobile-first nature of the Big Six nations, we expect to see the growth of mobile-centric gaming and startups in 2020.

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Limitless Labs teams up with US embassy, Pasig City to innovate public service design

Limitless Lab, a design and innovation company in the Philippines, is partnering with City Government of Pasig and the US Embassy in the Philippines to develop innovation in public service design and local government units (LGUs). According to a press statement, the partnership will result in a pilot programme called Bayanivation.

Taking place on March 1 at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Pasig, the event will include innovation boot camp, pitching and mentoring session, and keynote speeches.

Joie Cruz, founder and CEO of Limitless Lab, said that the government cannot be left behind as emerging technologies continues to develop in the world.

The statement has confirmed that more than 500 participants composed of policymakers, industry partners, startup founders, youth, and Pasig City citizens will attend the event.

SOCAR launches person to person car-sharing platform TREVO in Malaysia

SOCAR announced today that it has launched a people-to-people car-sharing platform called TREVO in Malaysia. Through this platform, users can rent a luxury car for an affordable rate.

“For guests, we provide more mobility choices to help them fulfill their travel dreams, while for hosts, we offer the opportunity to earn extra income to offset the cost of car ownership. Thus, improving the lifestyle quality and experiences for both,” said Susan Teoh, General Manager of TREVO.

Also Read: Grab announces US$850M+ investment from MUFG, TIS to boost fintech expansion

The ownership of cars in Malaysia is pretty common with most households owning at least one car and according to the company statement TREVO targets to “ offer the opportunity to earn extra income to offset the cost of car ownership.”

Grab announces US$850M+ investment from MUFG, TIS to boost fintech expansion

Ride-hailing giant grab has raised US$706 million from Japanese investor Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and US$150 million from TIS Inc, according to a press statement today.

The organisations will also be partnering to co-develop financial solutions to better cater to the financial needs of Grab’s users and partners.

Also Read:Morning News Roundup: SOSV’s mobile-only accelerator MOX reveals 10 startups from 8th cohort

“MUFG has been developing business in Southeast Asia by building a platform centred on our partner banks. We are excited to be able to provide customers with next-generation financial services by combining Grab’s technologies and data management expertise with our financial knowledge and know-how. We believe that this alliance will also generate additional momentum for our ongoing digital transformation of MUFG,” said Hironori Kamezawa, President of MUFG.

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Experience is often said to be the best teacher, but leadership expert John C. Maxwell said that this only applies to the experiences that have been evaluated.

Living off this principle, Swingvy co-founder and CEO Jin Choeh takes the lessons from his previous venture and implements it in his current one.

As if testifying to the quality of these lessons, Swingvy has successfully raised US$7 million from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, making it the first of the South Korean tech giant’s investment in Southeast Asia.

The all-in-one HR, payroll and benefits platform was founded in 2016, and has services with 5,000 companies and reportedly achieved a revenue increase of 390 per cent last year.

In an interview with e27, Jin Choeh shares the lessons on the work culture that he incorporated at Swingvy –after experiencing burnout while managing people.

Also Read: Swingvy, an online HR platform for SMEs in Southeast Asia, raises funding from Aviva

Giving employees authority

As a founder a burnout can be a common phenomenon; it ranges from purely physical exhaustion or even a more emotional one. Jin Choeh begins by explaining how the burnout happened in his previous company.

“In my previous startup, I believed in myself too much. I worked the hardest, and realised that it turned out to be the biggest inefficiency in the team,” he says.

In order to cope with it, and to prevent himself from making the same mistakes in the new company, Choeh resorts to hiring individuals who are more qualified than him.

He believes that it has helped him manage the team better.

“I hate the word ‘management’ and would only hire qualified people who are better than me. My role is not to say we do this or we are going to go there; it is more about setting goals and letting the team navigate in their way through,” he noted.

Also Read: A look at workweek hours and differences in work cultures around the world

Clear communication

As Choeh speaks about hiring experienced people, he also stresses communication as a major focus of the startup, which is why the company encourages good and transparent communication practices.

To support this process, the startup implements the Agile Scaling structure as used in streaming giant Spotify.

As explained in this article, Spotify arranges its engineering team into seven different roles, with squads being the smallest unit and a chief architect as the leader of all engineers in the team. This arrangement puts emphasis on autonomy and trust in each unit.

“In Swingvy, we follow the squad structure inspired by Spotify, where one product manager manages all team members. This way, there is alignment across teams, and often allows us to set the kind of aggressive goals that we want,” Choeh says.

“Our team is dispersed in four different countries and we have decided that having a squad structure would be the way to properly share information in the clearest way possible,” he continues.

In his opinion, Choeh explains that because the squad structure tends to be smaller, it is able to enhance communication between the team members. This has something to do with the Chinese Whisper Theory, which says that having too many members in a team might distort the communication process.

These factors about employee experience have enabled Swingvy to rise as a startup and enabled its highly remote team to deliver results in the best way possible.

The team is also preparing a fresh product line, offering new value by the end of the second half of this year, according to the founder.

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Image Credit: Swingvy

 

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SOSV’s mobile-only accelerator MOX reveals 10 startups from 8th cohort

MOX, a mobile-only accelerator operated by US-based venture capital firm SOSV, announces its eighth cohort of 10 startups.

The 10 startups are:

• Arkademi (Indonesia), a vocational training platform to upskill and increase monthly earnings
• Civilcops (India), a personalised communications platform bridging governments and citizens to make smart cities possible.
• Eat Mubarak (Pakistan), a platform that connects 3,500 restaurants with their one million users.
• Giladiskon (Indonesia), a social buying club where Indonesian members get exclusive discounts at restaurants and lifestyle retailers.
• Kravve (Malaysia), a social commerce platform powering small businesses in culinary sector.
• Moodah (Indonesia), a sales digitisation of mom-and-pop shops, inventory, and cash management.
• Pencil (India), a platform that turns books and other publishing into living content using data, analytics, and dynamic editing.
• Supplynote (India), a procurement management platform that cuts out the middlemen and automates purchasing for restaurants.
• Verismart (India), an identity and personal data management platform leveraging blockchain to drive KYC, risk profiling, and fraud management.
• Yuna&Co. (Indonesia), an AI-based fashion personalised matching platform for young professionals.

MOX helps startups cross-promote each other to lower customer acquisition costs and achieve profitability instead of selling equity to buy Facebook and Google ads. Startups in the programme focus on positive unit economics first before raising additional money.

The demo day events will take place on February 25 in Taipei and February 28 in Singapore to an invite-only audience of regional investors and the media. SOSV itself just closed its oversubscribed fourth fund at US$277 million.

Singapore’s Haulio partners Antwerp-based Avantida to drive a more efficient container usage

Haulio, Singapore-based tech-enabled container haulage platform announces partnership with Belgian company Avantida to introduce the container street turn on their platforms for more efficient usage. Avantida is an online platform that facilitates services offered by ocean lines to transport and logistics companies for digitally optimised container transport planning.

Also Read: Haulio wins PITCH, becoming the first Singapore startup to achieve champion title

With the partnership, Haulio is to bring its extensive relationship with the trucking community through its container movements and job pooling digital platform while Avantida to complement with its elaborate relationship with ocean lines and multi-faceted platform into the synergies.

Avantida first launched street turn services in Singapore with CMA CGM, and will now work with Haulio to bring their services together, offering a more integrated experience for both local trucking companies and shipping lines.

Through Haulio’s platform, truckers can digitally request for containers to match their import or export trips, after which the Avantida platform provides an automated connection to the ocean line’s booking system where the request will be processed instantly.

Thailand-headquartered Pomelo launches in-app livestream to unveil latest collection

Pomelo, Southeast Asia-operated omnichannel fashion brand, debuts its in-app livestream tech with the launch of its Spring-Summer 2020 Collection. According to a statement by the startup, the move marks the first time a fashion brand in Southeast Asia is unveiling such in-app capability.

Also Read: Thailand’s Pomelo gets US$52M Series C funding to expand omnichannel experience

The launch of the Spring Summer 2020 collection will be fully live-streamed via the Pomelo app to give fans an exclusive sneak peek at the collection ahead of its official launch in real-time, beginning with the launch showcase happening on February 27.

Pomelo collaborates with interactive streaming and marketing platform Geddit to develop the in-app livestream functionality that will be fully shoppable from March onwards.

“As the retail landscape continues to evolve, Pomelo stands out by bringing dynamic experiences to fans that combine shopping with engaging, real-time content. We’re confident that the launch of the new in-app livestream feature, amongst other new developments still to come, will enable us to be at the forefront of driving innovation in this industry,” said Jean Thomas, CMO of Pomelo.

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Image Credit: MOX

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Vietnamese startup Waves raises US$1.2M seed funding for its podcast service 

Waves, an audio and podcast startup, announced today that it has raised US$1.2 million seed funding in a round led by Singapore’s Insignia Ventures Partners, with participation from Hustle Fund and Skystar Capital, according to KrAsia.

Waves founders Kevin Gao and Ben Minh Le have said that the startup “aims to become one of the leading platforms in Southeast Asia for podcast and audio content”. Currently, the platform has more than 30 original programmes, 50 programmes created with partners, and has hosted 500,000 other programmes which users can stream for free.

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The company will be launching a mobile app on the Apple Store and Google Play this month and will focus on producing more original content with Vietnamese content creators.

VC firm Beenext ropes in Hero Choudhary as new partner

Singapore-based VC firm Beenext has roped in Hero Choudhary as a new Partner.

Together with other leaderships and team members, he will focus on supporting the founders of portfolio companies to scale their business toward the growth stage of the startup journey, including potential IPOs in the future.

Beenext is an early-stage VC firm with a focus tech startups primarily in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan.

Teruhide Sato, Founder and Managing Partner of Beenext, said: “Hero has a great depth of
knowledge in technology companies. With his extensive network among growth-stage to public market investors globally, we believe Hero can strengthen Beenext’s core ability in supporting our portfolio companies’ founders and enhance the Partnership for the Founders which we facilitate across the region.”

Fintech company XPay.Life launches in India

XPay.Life, a product of XIPHIAS providing a one-stop solution to pay multi-utility bills using a single window, has launched its operations in India.

Powered by a blockchain-based transaction framework, the company offers a wide spectrum of digital bill payment services, including touch-screen kiosk, web, mobile app, POS device and mobile ATP van.

XPay.Life caters to both B2B and B2C segments.

Founded by Rohit Kumar (CEO) and Bohitesh Misra (COO & CTO), XPay.Life accepts both cash and credit/debit cards as a digital method of payment. It is based on the AMBIC model, which stands for Artificial Intelligence, Mobility, Blockchain, IoT and Cloud, to provide transparency during transactions.

e27 launches Indonesia’s agritech report 

As Indonesia continues to develop as a hub for startups, the agritech industry has seen millions of dollars of investment coming in from private investors.

e27 has launched an in-depth report of the growing agritech ecosystem in Indonesia. This research report attempts to include all the major developments in the ecosystem including expert comments and insights from industry leaders.

Also Read:  A comprehensive guide to Indonesias agritech ecosystem

The 43-page basic version of the report has been uploaded, however the full report is for paid subscribers only.To read the full version please email engage@e27.co

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Image Credit:  Fernando Lavin

The post Afternoon News Roundup: Vietnamese startup Waves raises US$1.2M seed funding for its podcast service appeared first on e27.

Agritech has come a long way from its infancy to become a fast-growing industry and has attracted millions of dollars of investment from private investors. Much like the private sector, the government is also expected to make more investments into the sector in terms of sops and startup programmes in order to boost the growth of tech in agriculture, which provides the livelihood to millions of people in Indonesia.

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As the industry is now drawing attention from investors and corporates alike, we at e27 decided to prepare a comprehensive guide to the country’s agritech ecosystem. This guide/research report has attempted to include all the major details and developments in the ecosystem and has included expert comments and insights from industry leaders.

Here is a basic version of the report. The full version is available only for our paid members. For any enquiry related to the paid membership, email us to engage@e27.co.

Photo by eggy gouztam on Unsplash

The post A comprehensive guide to Indonesia’s agritech ecosystem appeared first on e27.