Learning more about our neighboring countries in Asia Pacific does not need to be cumbersome, tedious, or expensive

With the exception of China, if you’re a founder in Asia Pacific, you need to prepare yourself for a tough reality: At some point, you’ll have to leave the relatively safe confines of your own market and test the waters in a foreign market. Overseas expansion in the region is tough. In preparation for this task, most entrepreneurs prepare themselves and their startups financially, operationally, and strategically, but they almost always overlook one factor: culture.

We tend to underestimate just how much culture will impact our carefully thought out business and operational plans. Localization, in short, is the key to regional success. Founders who operate in Asia Pacific must be students of the world, but we most often fall short of that ideal, often maintaining a very insular view of our own culture and neglecting to explore others.

Learning more about our neighboring countries in Asia Pacific does not need to be cumbersome, tedious, or expensive. Here are a few simple ways that regional founders can gain deeper insights into the markets they may very well one day need to expand into.

Go on an immersion trip

As much as it would be great to live in other Asian countries for months at a time, for most entrepreneurs this kind of immersion is unrealistic. A much more practical way to gain first-hand knowledge of other cultures is an immersion trip. Many organizations run such trips, gathering a group of entrepreneurs and business leaders for a multi-day tour of different cities in Asia.

What’s great about these immersion trips is that everything is already planned for you. The organizer will bring you to local business events, cultural exhibits, and everything in between, in order to help you learn through osmosis as much about the local business culture as possible. All you need to bring is a gung-ho attitude and some business cards.

Host a digital nomad

There are many people in Asia, particularly technical talent like web developers, who bounce around and work different jobs as they travel the region. While many companies tend to avoid such workers as they will only be with you for a short-time, some entrepreneurs are smartly targeting these digital nomads out.

Why would you want a digital nomad on your team? Hosting someone from a completely different culture can teach you as much about their own as they do yours. Though much of this education will occur organically in the course of getting to know them, you can even formalize some of this process: You can host a brown bag session where the digital nomad shares more about where he’s from and maybe even some of the places he’s traveled. Having sessions like these will also emphasize the importance of cultural education to your entire team.

Also read: 6 lessons on collaboration from Marvel’s Stan Lee

Build a global network

A common mistake that founders make is that entrepreneurs only ask for introductions to people they want to meet when they need them. This view is a very short-sighted one, and it’ll result in you having a very insular network. Most people will be where you’re from and resemble you.

The much more prudent choice is to ask people in your network for introductions to good people to know in other countries with no specific purpose in mind. Though this advice may seem counter-intuitive, it’ll be easier to get to know them as you’re not presenting or pitching anything, and you can even find ways to give value to them first.

Go off-the-beaten path

When you’re traveling to countries in the region, you should avoid touristy places. These will give you a glossed-over view of what it’s like to live in these markets, as this destinations are usually highly polished due to all the foreign tourists. Instead seek out destinations that are off-the-beaten path — these are the kind of spots that in some cases only locals may know.

Finding destinations off-the-beaten path may give you a more realistic view of how people live in that particular country, providing you with a deeper understanding of the country when you do choose to expand there.

These tips are of course only a starting point in every entrepreneur’s journey to become more global in their perspective. What’s important is that we acknowledge we must stand in the shoes of another in order to see how we can best serve them.

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Toppr is an after-school learning app that uses NLP to solve K12 students’ doubts instantly, whereas DataTrained offers certificate course in Data Science

Toppr closes US$35M from Eight Roads, Helion, Kaizen PE, SAIF

Toppr, an after-school learning app for K12, has raised US$35 million in Series C funding in a round led by Eight Roads Ventures, Helion Ventures, Kaizen PE and SAIF Partners.

A  Datalteria Capital and Times Group’s strategic investment arm Brand Capital also participated in the round, which brings the total investment raises by the firm to date to US$58 million.

The company is using the fresh funding to fuel its adaptive platform.

Toppr caters to the individual learning styles of candidates and provides a wide K12 syllabus coverage with 1.5 million course combinations. It currently has over six million students on its platform and helps them prepare for various school, board, and competitive exams. It uses Natural Language Processing to solve student doubts instantly. It also uses Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data to study student behaviour and create adaptive learning paths with infinite combinations. This ensures that every student has a personalised learning experience.

Toppr has a community of over 29,000 educators from across the country.

DataTrained raises US$1.7M to grow pan-India

Bangalore-based edtech startup DataTrained has raised INR12 crore (US$1.7 million) from a pool of three high net-worth individuals — Ashish Nadiadwala, Rupesh Sinha, and Mithlesh Thakur — in return for a stake of 20 per cent.

The company has earlier raised US$570,000 in 2016 from a New York-based Indian industrialist.

The company will use the fresh funding  for expanding to new geographies, strengthening its product and technology team. It is also looking to invest in a classroom-based Data Science PG course in the next year start in Noida.

Founded by Jatin Juneja in 2012, DataTrained Analytics Academy offers 50 courses conducted by 60 highly rated faculty members. DataTrained under offers 11 months certificate course in Data Science with an assurance of 100 per cent placement. The startup has tied up with more than 300 companies as hiring partners.

 

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Also, A JV partnership to result in Thailand’s first data centre, and India’s ride-hailing service Ola to invest in scooter sharing startup Vogo

Indonesian culinary supplier marketplace Stoqo raises Series A round from Monk’s Hill Partners and Accel Partners India [Deal Street Asia]

Stoqo, an Indonesia-based culinary supplier marketplace aimed at small restaurants and hotel owners reportedly just closed a Series A round co-led by Monk’s Hill Partners and Accel Partners India.

Deal Street Asia was the first to share the news upon the story shared by two people familiar with the investment.

Stoqo was founded by Aswin Andrison and Angky William just a shy one year ago under PT Stoqo Teknologi Indonesia. According to Andrison, Stoqo focuses on Business-to-Business (B2B) culinary supplier and seeks to become a pioneer in this sector.

“We gave an easy access to buyers, especially those in culinary business, in getting the basic, daily needs like rice, eggs, oil, flour, vegetable, fresh meat, and other produces. Stoqo aims to fulfill this need to be more accessible and efficient in the best price,” said Andrison in a statement shared by SWA.

Also Read: Indian edtech startups Toppr, DataTrained raise funding

Right now, Stoqo has more than 2,000 produces available on its platform and has gained over 5,000 downloads from Google Playstore. Next, Stoqo is looking to expand to other cities in Indonesia.

Singapore’s STT GDC partners with TICON to bring Thailand’s first data centre to the country [Press Release]

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC), Singapore-based data centre service provider announced that they are now in the final step of completing the joint venture partnership with TICON, the smart industrial platform provider in Thailand. The joint venture will allow their first data centre to be built on a 75,000 square metre (15-rai) site in Ramkhamhaeng district, situated in central Bangkok, that would be finished by 2020.

This first data centre is in line with the Thailand 4.0 initiative that seeks to develop the digital economy in the country, as well as the Thai government’s National Digital Economy Masterplan, in which the digital economy is expected to see robust growth and contribute up to 25% of Thailand’s GDP by 2027.

“We believe in the market potential of expanding our focus into developing Thailand’s digital economy and transforming urban living with Smart Cities. Developing digital infrastructure in the form of state-of-the-art data centres is one of the key investment areas we are embarking on in this new economy. This partnership will allow us to best serve the digital growth plans of our customers,” said Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi, Chairman of the Executive Committee of TICON Industrial Connection Pcl. (TICON),

Furthermore, TICON’s representative added that they are confident that the data centres’ operation will match the global standards in key markets such as Singapore, China, India and the UK, as well as maximising the local expertise of TICON in understanding the needs of the Thai market and navigating its regulatory environment.

Myanmar’s largest private bank KBZ Bank works with treasury management solution Finastra to eliminate manual operation [Press Release]

Kanbawza (KBZ) Bank, Myanmar’s largest privately owned bank has selected treasury management solution Finastra to automate the tedious operational work by enabling straight-through-processing (STP) using the company’s product called Fusion.

By moving away from manual treasury processing operation, the bank believes that it will result in a faster, more efficient services that can help the bank grow both transaction volumes and revenue and reduce operational risk. The bank also seeks to scale more effectively without sacrificing current levels of manpower across all its treasury business operations.

“Market dynamics are changing rapidly due to increased modernization and digitalization within Myanmar’s banking sector. Finastra’s capability is helping us to overcome high operational overheads associated with manual processes, reduce time-to-market for new products and bring our operations and systems in line with the standards of sophisticated developed markets both regionally and globally,” said Win Lwin, Managing Director of KBZ Bank.

Fusion Treasury by Finastra is a single, integrated, front-to-back solution, built to cover all aspects of a bank’s operations in treasury, capital markets, derivatives, and risk and compliance. The solution enables financial institutions to integrate and automate systems and streamline treasury operations.

Prior to this partnership, Finastra has supported other financial institutions in Myanmar like Yoma Bank, AYA Bank and First Private Bank.

Microsoft’s Azure manages to cover almost all Southeast Asia regions with its cloud capability [SG Channel Asia]

Microsoft Azure Availability Zones are now generally available across Southeast Asia, as the tech giant’s cloud system arm continues to expand cloud capabilities regionally.

The Azure Availability Zones are designed to be a solution for mission-critical applications.

“As a high-availability offering that protects your applications and data from data centre failures, Availability Zones are unique physical locations within an Azure region with each one of them made up of one or more data centres equipped with independent power, cooling, and networking. To ensure resiliency, there is a minimum of three separate zones in all enabled regions,” explained Patrik Bihammar, cloud and enterprise lead at Microsoft Singapore.

Furthermore, with the introduction of Availability Zones, the vendor can now offer a service-level agreement (SLA) of 99.99 per cent for uptime of virtual machines. The company believes that it will build upon their extensive cloud portfolio to enable customers to design resilient applications for comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy.

Through the addition of these regional zones, customers will now be able to synchronously replicate applications and data using Availability Zones within an Azure region for high-availability within Singapore, and asynchronously replicate across Azure regions for geographic disaster recovery protection.

India’s ride-hailing service Ola seeks to invest US$100 million in Indian scooter sharing startup Vogo [Channel News Asia]

Indian ride-hailing service Ola is reportedly to invest US$100 million in Vogo, a domestic scooter sharing startup. When the investment comes through, the two-wheelers fleet will be added to Ola app to broaden the range of vehicles it offers.

Vogo provides services in the southern Indian cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The company will use the money to expand its fleet by 100,000 scooters.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Thai fintech startup Masii.com acquires events ticketing platform One Place

Meanwhile, Ola’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal said, “Our investment in Vogo will help build a smart multi-modal network for first-last mile connectivity in the country.”

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Image Credit: STT GDC

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Not only will this bring more comfort and convenience into modern life, but it will bring new ways of being energy efficient and lower the costs of the city

We’re used to weird and wonderful things coming out of science and technology at breakneck speeds. But never before has technology been so advanced, and this time the future promises an almost movie-like reality. The focus of this article is one of these promises, the smart city.

The idea of a completely connected city has been born from the recent technological phenomenon known as the internet-of-things. Simply put, this is the process of endowing inanimate objects with sensors and connecting them via the internet, allowing them to gather, analyse and send data automatically. This has already begun to enter the home life with smart houses that can perform various tasks for you, such as running a bath to be ready when you get in from work.

Moving into the city will be a huge step forward for mankind. Not only will this bring more comfort and convenience into modern life, but it will bring new ways of being energy efficient and lower the costs of the city. To give you an idea as to the aesthetic and technological possibilities, this article will focus on three features of the future city: electricity, street lights, skyscrapers and automation.

Efficient use of resources

One of the benefits of smart initiatives is an improvement in efficiency. This could be in the form of logistics, workflows, and utilisation of resources. For instance, in New York City, which is considered to be a leader in smart city initiatives, IoT and blockchain startup MXC has partnered with mapping Citiesense to deploy smart sensors and collect data about walking routes, sewage flows, car usage, and other common activities across the city’s five boroughs. MXC is a blockchain startup that deploys smart sensors and LPWAN gateways across dense geographies to aid in data collection, analytics, and interpretation. With data on a large scale from different sources, cities can improve how resources are allocated and consumed.

Streetlights

Already, there are many areas where councils and authorities have opted to switch off or dim certain street lights between the hours of midnight and early morning, saving huge amounts of energy that would be otherwise wasted. Although there were concerns that this darkness might result in higher traffic accidents and crime, research has shown that this is not the case. The future city offers the best of both worlds. The streetlights of tomorrow will have sensors that can detect movement and will light up as and when they’re needed, saving massive amounts of energy and money.

Also read: Taipei is using a blockchain alternative to transform into a smart city

Buildings and Skyscrapers

The costs of running a huge skyscraper filled with businesses can be very daunting. If you consider the amount of electricity needed to keep the building working through the day — and even night — and then the fact that more and more people are migrating to urban areas, into high-rise accommodations, there needs to be some solution as to how we can keep these buildings powered for as little cost as possible. The utopian notion, and one that is key in the smart city index, is energy self-sufficiency. Skyscrapers of the future might very well have the answer. Windows have been developed that double as solar panels, for instance. These windows will cover the facades of these future buildings, meaning that they will be able to essentially power themselves without the need to deploy separate photovoltaic devices.

Automation

This relates more to transport than automation within the home or workplace, even though automation is set to take over up to 40% of jobs as we know them. Specifically, this involves the use of drones for deliveries and self-driving cars for taxis. In the not too distant future there could be a second lane of traffic overhead containing drones delivering goods, plus self-piloting helicopter taxis, similar to the ones being introduced in Dubai. Given that drones can work constantly if properly maintained, this will cut delivery times and costs as drivers would not be needed. Likewise, Singapore is currently utilising IoT and sensors to reduce road congestion, as well as other data-centric means of improving city services.

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500 Startups Vietnam shares its plan to bring 500 Startups’ Silicon Valley accelerator curriculum to the country

Updates: The editorial team has corrected some errors on the previous version of this article. We apologise for the inconvenience.

500 Startups has announced the launch of its accelerator programme in Vietnam for 2019 called The Saola Accelerator, brought to the country in partnership with Korean multimedia retailer GS Shop.

This announcement was made just one month after the accelerator had the oversubscribed final close of its fund.

The Saola Accelerator is named after rare species of Vietnamese deer, commonly known as the “Asian unicorn”.

It seeks to support three batches of Vietnam-connected startups with every single startup in the batches to receive US$100,000 investment and a Silicon Valley accelerator curriculum.

Also Read: MealPal is great, but it uses A LOT of plastic

Each participating company will also receive access to more than US$500,000 worth of free perks and discounts from twenty 500 Startups partners including Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft.

In addition to capital, the Saola Accelerator will offer enhanced programming including 500’s signature Growth Hell Week plus hands-on support for growth.

The programme will conclude with a Demo Day, where the companies will share about their products and progress to an invite-only audience of regional venture investors.

“We’ve learned a lot from working with 1,000 companies in more than 40 growth programme batches around the world. We’re excited to bring that experience to Vietnam,” said Marvin Liao, Partner at 500 Startups and head of its flagship accelerator programme in San Francisco.

There are three criteria to enter the accelerator:

• Tech or tech-enabled
• Vietnam-connected: serving the Vietnam market, having a Vietnamese co-founder, and/or having a meaningful portion of the team in Vietnam
• Have meaningful traction

The registration opens now and interested startups can apply to the programme here.

The Early Bird application deadline is January 2, 2019, and regular deadline is January 20, 2019.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Thai fintech startup Masii.com acquires events ticketing platform One Place

“Our programme is aimed at companies ready to break out and become Asian unicorns – saolas,” closed Eddie Thai, a lead partner of 500 Startups Vietnam.
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Image Credit: 500 Startups

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