Australian logistics tech platform Shippit today announced that it had acquired its Southeast Asian (SEA) counterpart Luwjistik, the company behind the unified API that allows freight forwarders, couriers and third-party logistics companies to connect into network partners globally.

The deal is worth AU$18 million (US$11.2 million) and will see Shippit Co-Founder and Co-CEO William On relocate to Singapore to head up the SEA operation and a team of 50.

This deal is Shippit’s second acquisition in 2022, after announcing the acquisition of leading Australian last mile technology firm Premonition in March.

In May, Shippit completed an AU$65 million (US$48 million) Series B2 capital to support its growth, particularly in the Southeast Asian Market.

Shippit has been operating in SEA since 2020. Through the acquisition, it plans to double down on growth in the region, including in its enterprise customers, by leveraging Luwjistik’s technology, local relationships and expertise.

Also Read: Get to know these movers and shakers in India’s logistics industry

Luwjistik has agreements with 100+ network partners across 18 countries with a deep focus on Southeast Asia.

“Today is an incredibly exciting day for Shippit and the realisation of a vision we have held since starting out in 2014. Adding Luwjistik to the Shippit group bolsters our team with Co-Founders who possess significant industry knowledge and relationships that will transform our go-to-market strategy in the region,” On said in a press statement.

“Ali, Yingming and the entire Luwjistik team share the same vision for e-commerce and bringing retailers, carriers and customers closer together. This strategic move will expand our growing and scaling business through product localisation and new market entry beyond Singapore. By offering multi-partner shipping from Luwjistik’s carrier partners, it’ll also enable us to diversify our offering, enabling small-to-medium-sized logistics providers to expand their reach by accessing Luwjistik network partners. It’ll also enable us to explore and execute key partnerships in the region,” he further explains.

Luwjistik counts carriers such as Ninja Van, J&T Express, and JNE Express as network partners on its platform and provides solutions for major logistics players in the region, including POS Malaysia, Lion Parcel and Gushcloud’s social commerce arm, Summer International.

Luwjistik has won several startup awards in the region, including Alibaba Cloud Demo Day 2022 (Malaysia), Startup Wheel International Track 2022 (Vietnam), Promising Startup Champion, LogiSYM (Singapore) as well as a finalist at the Cradle MYStartup Pre-Accelerator Program 2022 (Malaysia) and Mranti Global Accelerator Program 2022 (Malaysia).

Shippit said that over 3,500 retailers of all sizes use the Shippit platform to power their deliveries. In FY22 over 40 million deliveries were booked through the Shippit platform, with US$5.5 billion worth of e-commerce fulfilled through the platform since Shippit’s launch in 2014.

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Climate change is happening at a faster pace than predicted by early climate models. If the current trajectory continues, we will likely experience climate catastrophe, said Steve Melhuish, Partner of Wavemaker Impact.

“Climate change is not hypothetical; the effects are already being felt. Over the last three decades, registered severe weather events have tripled. In the previous two decades, the increase in sea levels has doubled, and the pace of ice loss has also tripled,” he said in an interview with e27.

Also Read: ‘There’s a lack of urgency among companies in achieving net zero targets’: Unravel Carbon’s Grace Sai

This year, record heatwaves swept across Europe, North America, and Australia and recorded rainfall in India, Pakistan, China and America, causing devastating floods. If the temperatures rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next ten years, we can expect increasingly intense summer heat, extreme drought, and devastating floods. He also warned that we will see reduced crop yields and food supplies, higher incidents of diseases, rapidly melting ice sheets and surging sea levels.

Melhuish, also the founder of the region’s proptech giant PropertyGuru, believes that many parts of the world will become less hospitable for human habitation, forcing hundreds of millions of people to migrate by 2050.

“We all have a role to play in raising awareness: governments, enterprises, consumers (investors, voters and employees) and, of course, investors. At Wavemaker Impact, we have a responsibility to help raise awareness and educate investors/corporates as well as build solutions to accelerate the transition, especially for SMEs that are, in many cases, ill-equipped to do so,” shared Melhuish, adding that eight of the ten governments in ASEAN have now committed to net zero, with over 85 per cent of the world’s GDP under a net zero commitment.

We continue to see growth in global population levels, urbanisation and middle classes, leading to accelerating emissions — especially in emerging markets like ASEAN. However, to stand any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 and come down about 45 per cent by 2030 relative to 2019 levels.

“Thankfully, we have all the technology we need to reduce emissions by 50 per cent in the next decade. We believe that successful climate tech companies need to solve real business problems that generate real RoI business benefits, leading to rapid adoption/scaling and reducing emissions,” he opined.

He also busted the popular myth that the amount of money being poured into climate tech is low. “Climatetech startups raised US$50 billion from VC/PE in 2021 and already US$30 billion in H1 22. Silicon Valley Bank also recently reported 104 climate exits valued at US$114 billion in 2021,” he said. “In Southeast Asia, US$545 million VC/PE investments were poured into this sector in 2021. There is still a long way to go, but this was a 3x increase over the year before, with 30+ active investors in the climate space. We would expect this trajectory to continue to grow exponentially.”

Also Read: There’s a mismatch of investment and entrepreneur focus in SEA’s climate tech: Steve Melhuish

Increased climate change impacts will also need more investments into adaptation technologies to help the least equipped deal with the effects, for example, microfinance for climate-threatened smallholder farmers. It will also lead to investments in extreme weather protection, e.g. improvements to cities and buildings to protect from more regular and excessive rainfall, floods and high winds.

“There is no bigger problem than tackling climate change and no bigger opportunity,” he said. The investments to decarbonise Southeast Asia will require over US$2 trillion. A recent report highlighted a US$20 billion opportunity in ASEAN in nature-based solutions, US$40 billion in the built environment and US$30 billion in farming. “We are now seeing the transformation in greentech we saw with digitisation over the last 20 years. The next generation of unicorns will be from greentech.”

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Melhuish will speak about climate change at Echelon Asia 2022, which aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. 

e27 has curated and invited key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

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For many startups, venture capital (VC) is a desirable funding source if they want to scale big quickly. VC firms set aside considerable amounts to finance startups intending to get high returns.

Why would any new business refuse such investments, which they don’t have to pay back like a loan? Venture capitalists dangle business and institutional knowledge and a vast network of employees and other investors in front of startups striving to get through the first few years in a field where limited funds could mean failure. The offer is just too hard to pass.

Too good to be true

While you don’t have to pay back what capital VCs give you, VC firms are still likely to expect a return on their investment, usually in the form of an acquisition or an IPO.

Also read: The evolution of early-stage investing and fundraising in SEA

VCs may want equity in your startup, which means you will have to give up part of the ownership. In some cases, venture capitalists eventually take up more shares than the founder, meaning they have greater control over the business they didn’t even start. VC is a potential fundraising option, but it’s not for everyone, particularly for founders who are not planning to exit their companies no matter what.

Funding options to choose from

The good news is that Singapore’s robust startup ecosystem provides founders with many fundraising options other than VCs. The rise of syndicates, venture debts, and marketplaces could free founders from the risks of leaving their businesses in the hands of venture capitalists.

Also read: Echelon: A founder’s approach to fundraising at different stages

Questions might snowball on you as we discuss other means than traditional VC funding; only experts can help you understand the answers.

Expert insights on alternative funding

At Echelon Asia Summit 2022, a panel discussion will be held about “Alternatives to fundraising from VCs – The growth of syndicates, venture debt, and marketplaces.” Moderated by Vanessa Ho, Co-Founder and Head Director of Relations at NUS Alumni Ventures, the session will feature Milan Reinartz (Ascend Angels), Martin Tang (Genesis Alternative Ventures), and Daanyal Shah (Fundnel). They will answer essential questions that founders should ponder to secure the best funding source.

• Why raising funds from VCs might not be the best option?
• How do syndicates and venture debt work?
• How should founders assess when to use alternative funding means?
• What are the available alternatives, and what are their advantages?
• How can alternative funding sources complement your VC round?
• How have other companies successfully raised funds from alternative sources?

The risk of failure for startups is high during the first few years, but understanding the answers to these vital questions will help you avoid the traps and retain control of your business.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2022 (October 27-28) returns after a three-year hiatus. It aims to gather the most influential decision-makers and industry leaders from the Southeast Asia tech and startup ecosystem.

Register for Echelon Asia Summit 2022 now!

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Global payments and banking platform Airwallex has closed its Series E extension round with US$100 million in funding.

The investors in this round are Square Peg, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, Lone Pine Capital, Hermitage Capital, 1835i Ventures and Tencent.

Australian industry superannuation fund HostPlus and an unnamed North American pension fund also participated.

This brings Airwallex’s total funding to more than US$900 million and its valuation to US$5.5 billion.

Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex provides integrated solutions for business and personal cross-border transactions. It facilitates international money transfers through payment collection, foreign exchange, remittance and security settlement.

Also Read: Airwallex and MongoDB partner with e27 to meet the up-and-coming companies in the region

The company accelerated its international expansion in 2021, extending its reach across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. It serves three of the largest e-commerce markets in the world: China, the US, and the UK.

Airwallex said its customer base more than doubled and revenue increased by 184 per cent YOY. Multiple new products and services are also being planned in its 2022-23 roadmap, including improvements to its expense management platform and a credit solution.

Jack Zhang, Co-Funder and CEO at Airwallex, said: “The market environment remains challenging in the foreseeable future, and while we remain well capitalised, this additional runway allows us to continue our growth plans, product expansion, and hire some of the best talents in the world. By strengthening the breadth of our global reach and product offering, we can better empower our customers to unlock new market opportunities.”

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Today’s consumers have evolved over the last few years; they have higher expectations, look for more meaningful conversations with brands, and seek instant gratification.

In fact, meeting customer demands on their preferred channels and at their preferred times is now considered the bare minimum by them. Instead, they look for the ‘X-factor’ in their interactions with brands; they are quick to appreciate them on social media but quicker to publicly express their disappointment with them.

A whopping 84 per cent of Southeast Asian consumers expect brands to respond to their queries within 24 hours, and 87 per cent expect them to solve their problems in less than three interactions without having to repeat themselves. Their mantra: “Say it quickly but say it well.”

This behavioural shift certainly keeps brands on their toes, with Customer Experience (CX) becoming the top C-Suite priority.

Brands are not oblivious to the challenges they face in their mission to deliver optimal CX to their customers, as they’re increasingly turning to technologies to navigate these challenges and improve their CX.

With the increased adoption of CX automation, voice has emerged as an important channel for engaging with customers. Even customers are gravitating towards the convenience, accessibility, and personalisation offered by voice AI.  In fact, we’ve also observed an astronomical jump of 300 per cent in the number of voice AI agents on our platform. 

Voice AI agents are seeing increased deployment in industries such as BFSI, healthcare, retail, and quick service restaurants (QSR) as brands aim to build a “hyper-personalised” relationship with prospective and existing customers. 

What is the primary factor behind this increased adoption? Voice is native to how humans interact.

As such, it appeals to the emotions, instincts, and intentions of the customer, thereby giving them the sense that the voice AI agents, powered by Conversational AI, understand their query, bringing in the “human” element of having a “voice” to interact with them. Also, in certain situations, customers feel more comfortable interacting with voice AI agents about their mental health challenges or other intimate matters.

Also Read: ‘Neobanks can create a better digital CX by leveraging AI, blockchain’: banco CEO

This is because while they deliver an experience akin to talking to a human, at the same time, they facilitate a judgement-free environment that helps eliminate customers’ inhibitions.

From zero-wait times to increased self-serve, voice AI agents enable it all

Currently, brands are adopting both an inbound and outbound voice-first strategy to effortlessly implement customer-centric activities, including ordering, payments, query resolutions, information gathering, feedback surveys, etc., to meet increasing demands efficiently.

With round-the-clock instant responses and accurate query resolution, brands can leverage voice AI to deliver a true, hands-free and convenient experience to their customers. Also, voice AI enables the next level of hyper-personalisation when it comes to engaging with customers in their preferred languages, from Mandarin to English to Malay.

In addition to benefits like having more calls answered, increased first call resolution, and room for more complex issues to be dealt with through brands’ customer service agents, self-service customer support via voice AI agents is also more scalable and customer-centric.

When implemented correctly through the deployment of automotive multimodal customer support systems, the self-service model drives significant value in terms of ROI and customer satisfaction for the business.

In fact, at Yellow.ai, we’ve seen up to 60 per cent call deflection with automated responses to repetitive queries, thereby freeing the customer service agents’ bandwidth to focus on more complex and high-value conversations.

Delivering highly targeted and hyper-personalised consumer campaigns

Voice technology enables brands to run highly-targeted multilingual, hyper-personalised campaigns that drive better leads and conversions. Through leveraging smart insights on customers’ persona profiles, voice AI agents are capable of speeding up the process of qualifying leads.

In addition, qualified leads can be obtained by setting up a specified set of questions as a gateway, utilising voice AI. For instance, a voice AI agent for an insurance brand can be leveraged to proactively reach out to a customer whose car insurance is about to expire: “Hello, I’m Tay calling from insurance company X. I’ve noticed that your car insurance will end in two weeks. Would you like to extend it?”

According to the response, the voice AI agent can tailor the response and choose the next course of action. Not only that, voice AI agents enable the full automation of communication for the entire sales cycle, from awareness to delight, as these agents are capable of assisting customers with prompts throughout their journey.

Marketers and sales representatives also benefit from this automation, as voice AI agents can streamline interactions by automatically scheduling meetings with qualified leads and instantly pushing them down the sales funnel. With these features, brands can gain an edge over their competitors by delighting customers with a zero-effort conversion process.

The utilisation of voice tech to transcribe text also enables brands to gather increasingly accurate data and analysis, which then provides insights that can be utilised to further optimise operations and CX, even to the point of anticipating customers’ needs and the best time to contact them.

Bringing scalability, reduced operational costs and increased productivity

Deploying voice AI agents can help brands save costs in multiple ways. Firstly, the number of queries resolved by a voice AI agent is much higher at a very low cost. Secondly, the passive effects of their deployment include higher customer satisfaction, which saves the cost of acquiring new customers.

Also Read: How AI and automation can shape the future of farms

Furthermore, they save customer service teams a lot of working hours that are usually devoted to doing mundane, repetitive tasks. Voice AI agents increase the team’s productivity by taking care of all repetitive queries and enabling them to focus on critical queries, saving a lot of time and money for the business.

In fact, with our customers, we have recorded up to a 70 per cent reduction in operational costs due to deploying voice AI agents as part of their CX automation strategies.

Next in voice tech for CX elevation

Today, advanced voice tech features such as interruption handling, configuring pre-post speech pause duration, recording pause-resume feature for customer-sensitive information, and custom models for decoding alphanumerics accurately enable voice AI agents to deliver more human-like experiences to customers.

In particular, the ability to create branded voice AI agents in a specific language or even dialects, accents, pitch, and tone is opening up new and unimagined avenues for hyper-personalisation. So much so that, going forward, customers would not need to select their preferred language. The voice AI agent will automatically identify and respond in the language that they are speaking.  

In order to remain competitive and relevant in an increasingly digital world, it is necessary for brands to stay abreast and open to the immense potential of voice technology.

Consumer expectations will only continue to rise and change dynamically, so brands will quickly need to acknowledge that relying solely on call centres and customer service agents will not be enough to provide the best experience for their customers.

Essentially, it’s not about human or voice AI technology but about the collaboration between human experts and voice AI agents to achieve the end goal of serving the customer better and supercharging their experience.

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At e27, we are kickstarting a new articles series to know startup professionals and their lives beyond working hours.

Vinod Raman is the Chief Product Officer at Endowus, a leading digital wealth platform in Asia. Raman brings priceless institutional finance and product management knowledge and experience to Endowus.

In his current role, Vinod is in charge of product management, data and design functions and is responsible for driving product strategy, roadmap and execution at Endowus.

Before Endowus, Raman spent more than two, years at Stash heading the Invest and Crypto product and business areas. He previously worked for eight years at Fidelity Investments, where he held various roles in the internal strategy and product management functions.

In this candid interview, Raman talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a 5-year-old?

Product management is like taking all of your Lego bricks, building something, and then sharing it with your friend to see if they can figure out how to use what you’ve built. That is probably the best way to explain it!

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

The opportunity to work at different types of organisations has been a great learning experience – large established firms like Fidelity and IBM and young and upcoming startups like Stash and Endowus. Unique challenges, very different geographies and great learning experiences.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I don’t like to plan my career. Learning new things, taking risks, and growing personally and professionally are all important ingredients in my work life.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Looker/Mode/any other analytics tool, Figma and Google Docs in the same order.

Also Read: What Pierluigi Cau loves most about working at GitHub

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I am an introvert, but my job requires me to be more extroverted! That’s an ongoing process!

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Definitely hybrid. In today’s world, flexibility is key. However, working from the office is critical to get together every so often to brainstorm/problem solve or to bond/build relationships.

What would you tell your younger self?

Failure is okay if it makes you wiser in your next attempt.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Optimist. Relentless. Explorer.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

Travelling and exploring new cultures.

What are you currently reading/listening to/watching?

Reading – Listening to a whole bunch of podcasts. I am mostly reading books to my kids!

Watching – Started watching ‘Breaking Bad’ one more time!

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Be a part of the e27 contributor community of thought leaders and share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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If there’s one thing that startups need the most in this post-pandemic era, it’s resilience. Of course, survival remains a priority, especially for early-stage startups left staggering as they find potential investors willing to take risks in the current landscape. On the bright side, however, many promising startups are driven enough to adapt to the new normal.

Ever-changing business landscape

COVID-19 changed consumer behaviour, limited workforce movement, and disrupted supply and demand, forcing emerging and aspiring startups to shake up their processes and operations to stay afloat. These days, digital communication and relationship-building skills, new marketing strategies, flexible business plans, and creative use of technology are integral in raising funds.

Also read: Echelon: A founder’s approach to fundraising at different stages

In addition, investors want to know how startups keep it going. Maintaining teams intact and effectively tapping talents’ potential are some ways to demonstrate a startup’s strength, and so does continuously interacting and nurturing its customers amidst the pandemic’s impact.

What’s great about Singapore’s startup ecosystem is its lasting vibrancy that allows the industry to heal by turning the crisis into an opportunity to expand beyond traditional capital raising. The post-pandemic era is a high time for innovation, redesigning worn-out strategies, and letting go of things that no longer work in the present. 

How startups should approach fundraising

Learn how to move forward from a panel discussion on “The evolution of early stage investing and fundraising in Southeast Asia” at Echelon Asia Summit 2022. The panel, moderated by ScaleUp Malaysia Co-Founder and General Manager Aaron Sarma, aims to answer critical questions about the challenges companies face in fundraising in a post-pandemic world and the platforms and tools they can use and maximise. The panel will include experts Hsu Ken Ooi (Iterative), Shiyan Koh (Hustle Fund), Shao-Ning Huang (Angelcentral), and Tiang Lim Foo (Forge Ventures).

Also read: Echelon 2022 to discuss the state of the SEA startup ecosystem

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Echelon Asia Summit 2022 (October 27-28) returns after a three-year hiatus. It aims to gather the most influential decision-makers and industry leaders from the Southeast Asia tech and startup ecosystem.

Register for Echelon Asia Summit 2022 now!

Photo by Mikhail Nilov via Pexels

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Singapore-based food delivery software startup klikit has announced the completion of US$2 million in pre-seed funding led by Global Founders Capital and Wavemaker Partners.

Gentree Fund, AfterWork Ventures, Reshape Ventures, Nordstar, Pentas Ventures, Uber alumni syndicate Moving Capital, and Gojek Co-Founder Kevin Aluwi also participated. 

Other angel investors involved include NasDaily’s Nuseir Yassin, YouTuber LazarBeam, Radish Fiction Founder Seung-yoon Lee, and unnamed executives from Gojek, YouTube, and Flash Coffee.

klikit will use the funds to help restaurants across Southeast Asia grow their business with the more efficient food delivery and extra revenue from virtual food brands.

Also Read: Cloud kitchen startup CloudEats raises US$7M to expand to more SEA markets, develop its brands

Established in 2021 by Christopher Withers, a former executive with Gojek and UberEats, klikit aims to help restaurants operate more efficiently through its SaaS platform, klikit Cloud, which aggregates and analyses all of a restaurant’s food delivery orders on a single mobile device.

To date, the startup claims to have facilitated over US$2.8 million in food delivery orders across 150 brands in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.

Klikit is also partnering with creators and consumer brands to develop limited-time offerings of virtual delivery-only food brands sold to fans. The initiative will kick off in the Philippines and Australia with two “creator drops” and digital collectibles later this year.

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Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon.

The 2022 Echelon edition will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post Singapore’s klikit raises US$2M to bridge restaurants and creator economy appeared first on e27.

The acceptance of digital wealth is growing exponentially in Asia, with retail investors, high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and even private banks starting to use robo-advisory tools for wealth management, according to Ned Phillips, Founder and CEO of Bambu, a robo-advisory platform for financial institutions.

“When we started Bambu in Singapore six years ago, many said people wouldn’t save digitally and that robo-advisors were only for first-time investors and wouldn’t catch on with mass affluent, high-net-worth individuals,” said Phillips. “But the high growth of companies like StashAway has proved them wrong. This means the resistance to wealth being digital has almost disappeared. Although digital wealth is still only a few per cent of the market, the speed at which it grows is exponential.”

He, however, added that Southeast Asia — particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand — is still an immature market compared to Europe and North America when it comes to using tech solutions for wealth management. Singapore is an exception, where many HNIs, mass affluent, mass retail investors, have access to products and advice they never had before.

Also Read: Are retail brokerages really democratising finance for individual investors?

“That being said, there is far greater adoption of digital advice by mass retail customers now, especially during and after COVID-19. We are seeing phenomenal growth, with more and more people wanting to save digitally,” he said.

Launched in 2016, Bambu provides digital wealth technology solutions for B2B businesses. It uses Machine Learning tools to enable companies to make saving and investing simple for their clients. The firm serves businesses of every size and industry, from finance to commercial or even new disruptors.

Bambu is present in 11 markets around the world, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, the UAE, and Germany, and is growing rapidly in the US and the MENA region. Its clients include Standard Chartered, Franklin Templeton, and CIMB (Malaysia).

The company recently partnered with True Global Ventures-backed German AI asset tech and portfolio management firm quantumrock to enhance its cloud-based robo-advisory solutions.

In Phillips’s view, the advent of digital-only banks bodes well for Bambu. They bring a lot of data. Digital banks, which start with savings accounts, lending and wealth trading, have great opportunities in wealth management as they grow.

“Over the years, many traditional banks have focused on what they traditionally do: holding people’s cash, opening savings accounts, and lending. Many started as product companies selling loans or funds, whereas digital banks are customer companies. For digital banks, the keyword is wealth automation. Robo-advisors can analyse customers’ data and tell how much their monthly leftover, credit card bills, etc. So digital banks need technology from companies like us. It is hard to build the wealth platform we’ve built.

Phillips also believes that the popularity of digital assets like crypto won’t make much impact on robo-advisory. “Crypto is just another asset class like a stock, ETF, and mutual fund. It makes no difference to robo-advisory, which is about helping people achieve their financial goals.”

In July 2021, Bambu acquired Singapore-based Tradesocio, a developer of wealth management software for advisors. Two years earlier, Bambu closed US$10 million in a Series B funding, co-led by Franklin Templeton and PEAK6 Strategic Capital.

“We are not raising more funds now as we are getting close to being profitable. That is our goal for now,” Phillips concluded.

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According to statistics, over US$612 billion in venture capital activity was invested globally in 2021, a 108 per cent increase in 2020 despite the pandemic challenges. Investments rose in every major region, with North America and Europe seeing investment activity more than double in 2021. Yet, for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets, the growth trend is even stronger, with investment value increasing by 165 per cent in 2021 as compared to 2020.

Although most PE and VC investments still originate from North America, the MENA is rapidly gaining traction. More startups and institutional investors, and PEs choose to reside in the region. We are also seeing increasing inbound investment and activities from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Meanwhile, the actions of governments and certain characteristics of the region have contributed to this rise.

The strong government supports

MENA-based startups attracted over US$1.2 billion in the first half of 2021, representing 64 per cent year-on-year growth, among which 71 per cent was invested in the UAE (mainly through the various financial centre free zones, such as the Dubai International Finance Centre and the ADGM), Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have implemented fiscal reforms and unleashed large-scale programmes to privatise assets, increase public-private partnerships, unlock value by monetising real assets and infrastructure, improve public benefits and services, develop social and human resources, and optimise government operations.

These initiatives, together with complementary legal and regulatory reforms and social changes, ultimately make these countries more attractive destinations for foreign capital with more diverse, efficient and sustainable economies.

The MENA markets recognise the importance of the venture capital sector to achieve higher economic aims. Government-led initiatives have therefore been a key driver of growth in the venture capital sector in the region, evidenced by the development of startup ecosystems.

The strong sector supports

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been supportive of the ecosystem mission. PIF’s support of fund managers has also formed a key aspect of its strategy. For the sole purpose of promoting the development of a venture capital ecosystem, two years ago, PIF established Jada, a fund of funds company. By funding venture capital funds and private equity focused on the Saudi market, Jada’s mandate is to create a self-sustaining growth platform for local SMEs.

Also Read: How eWTPA is bridging emergent new markets and Chinese expertise

On the other hand, PIF’s Sanabil Investments commits approximately US$2 billion in capital per annum in private investments that include venture, growth capital and small buyouts.

With this commitment, Sanabil aims to partner with originators of good business ideas: entrepreneurs who harness the innovations of mind and matter to fulfil societal needs in ways that are scalable and sustainable.

Taking the newly-established eWTP Arabia Capital (eWTPA) as an example, the company launched its first fund (Fund I) in 2019, backed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, Public Investment Fund (PIF) and eWTP Capital (Alibaba Group and Ant Finance Group).

Within a short period of time, this US$400-million-fund has already invested into 16 companies across digital infrastructure, core technology and platform, and consumer and enterprise services which span enterprise services, cloud services, cyber security, fintech, cross-border supply chain, retail and consumer, e-commerce, logistics and digital entertainment and others, which are to work together and build a unique digital ecosystem in the MENA region. Currently, 13 out of the 16 portfolio companies are already operating and growing the MENA markets.

The unique MENA offering

Housing 7.5 per cent of the world’s total population, the MENA region has a predominantly young population. Of the 600 million people in the region, more than 50 per cent are under 25 years old. This enables a customer base that welcomes disruptive business models and a growing culture of entrepreneurship.

Traditionally, MENA also benefits from its geographical location as a gateway to both Africa and Asia. Given that one-third of the world’s population lives within a four-hour flight of Dubai, the region’s proximity to Africa and Asia is an attractive attribute for startups looking to capitalise on these vast emerging markets.

In H1 2021, 31 per cent of MENA-based venture capital transactions involved investment from outside the region. Some of the larger acquisitions in the Middle East by foreign investors in recent years have shown the extent of opportunities that exist there. These include Uber’s acquisition of MENA ride-hailing business Careem in 2020 for US$3.1 billion and Amazon’s acquisition of MENA online retailer Souk.com in 2017 for US$650 million.

These high-profile deals indicate an increasing strength in the underlying M&A market in the Middle East, creating more exit opportunities for both founders and investors. The challenge for the region is for local equity markets to mature so that listings on local exchanges such as the ADX or DFM become a viable and commonplace exit strategy.

Final thoughts

With the right balance between investment returns and startup potential, PEs and VCs are more intrigued by regions like MENA, which offers an interesting mix of investment options. We are also seeing another wave of startups of Chinese origin expanding into the region for the same reasons. Likewise, Southeast Asian countries which offer a similar welcoming and flexible environments also are attractive to investors and entrepreneurs.

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