Travel was the worst-hit sector by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unable to survive, many travel-related startups, including online travel agencies (OTA), bring the curtain down on their businesses.

KKday, an e-commerce platform for tours, experiences and activities, was among the travel startups that came successfully out of the crisis. At the pandemic’s peak, KKday raised US$75 million (in September 2020), which provided it with the war chest to tide over the uncertain period. The Taiwanese firm has just secured an undisclosed sum led by TGVest Capital to bring its total Series C round to US$95 million. The firm posted good performance amid the crisis prompting investors to inject capital.

In this interview, Founder and CEO Ming Chen shares how the company survived the pandemic to post good results.

Edited excerpts:

Travel was one of the worst-affected sectors globally due to the pandemic. How did KKday survive the onslaught when many of your peers and travel companies either shut down or scaled down their operations? What was the secret sauce?

At the pandemic’s start, we actively controlled costs and suspended most marketing campaigns. We reduced our marketing spend while acquiring new customers by developing new products, significantly lowering acquisition costs and more efficient customer engagement.

We also successfully focused on domestic travel — staycations, outdoor, and watersport activities. Our product offerings more than doubled during 2020 as we expanded into staycation opportunities and souvenirs. The revenue growth from both these areas grew more than 10x.

Also Read: Travel experiences, activities platform KKday extends Series C round to US$95M for domestic expansion

For example, in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, where many countries were on stricter lockdowns then, we promoted souvenirs, online experiences, and food delivery vouchers to encourage consumption.

Today domestic travel has resumed, and we’re firing on all cylinders with customers purchasing through KKday ticketing products, activities-related products, especially with the summer seasonality, water sports activities, and outdoor activities products. We are seeing growth in many different product categories.

Lastly, we accelerated our development of rezio, KKday’s SaaS solution that works with local merchants to manage bookings and inventory on multiple channels). We wanted to move swiftly to support our local merchants and help them digitise while expanding their customer base, in addition to managing overall inventory at a time when there were several changes to border restrictions. We also offered rezio complimentary to merchants during this period.

Did you go austere during the pandemic and cut the headcounts?

We planned for the worst, so we remained highly disciplined in managing our cash flow and balance sheet. The largest cut was in lowering our marketing spending, where the team has worked hard to acquire users through different channels and unique products.

We reduced some of our headcounts during the pandemic. However, the headcount is now at the pre-COVID-19 levels, and we’re planning to increase this by more than 40 per cent. We were fortunate to raise additional capital during this uncertain period, and as a result, we could largely maintain our headcount across the region.

You said in a statement that you have plans to deepen your footprints in Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. Did all these markets recover from the clutches of the pandemic? How do you compare each of these markets pre- and post-COVID-19?

Pre-COVID-19, most of the revenues from our markets were derived mainly from international travellers. At the start of the pandemic, we quickly pivoted to domestic business. With the borders reopening, we expect domestic and international travellers to accelerate. Both domestic and international businesses (our dual engines) will drive our growth.

COVID-19, in some ways, was a blessing in disguise; it forced us to pivot to domestic travel as borders shut down. As a result, we acquired many users at significantly lower costs for domestic travel. They exhibited much higher engagement levels and more bookings than international travellers.

Now that borders are opening up and international travel is resuming, we’re leveraging our domestic travel base to cross-sell global travel products.

Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and Singapore exceeded pre-COVID-19 levels primarily driven by the domestic business during the crisis.

Do you see any drastic changes in how people view travelling post-COVID-19? Are there any behavioural changes and changes to the consumption pattern?

As travel restrictions are lifted, we will see (and are seeing) a surge in overall travel domestically and internationally. We see a couple of trends: 1) an increase of digital travellers: they are becoming savvier and using tools like KKday to plan their trip itineraries and save costs, and 2) travellers are also looking for more curated experiences when they travel (and travelling for longer). With this in mind, we plan to relaunch our signature tours to give travellers memorable experiences.

Over the last 12 months, more markets have opened up, and domestic travel has been a strong driver of our growth. While staycations remained popular, there was also a surging appetite for local domestic tours, activities, and attractions. We added 200,000 more experiences and activities across Asia Pacific during COVID-19.

In Japan alone, we added 35,000 new activities (some of the activities are part of our Activity Japan acquisition which focuses on outdoor activities).

We also expect domestic travel to be an important growth driver for us. Our domestic business has acquired many more users at significantly lower costs. They also show higher engagement levels, booking more on our platform than international travellers.

This is partly due to domestic travellers travelling at least 2-3x more than international travellers. As borders open up, we plan to cross-sell experiences and activities for domestic and international travellers. We see this as complementary.

You also mentioned in a press release that “hyper localisation and digitisation will be our north star for scaling and building our user and merchant base”. Can you elaborate on this quote? What exactly do you mean by hyper-localisation?

KKday has always been focused on going deep into local Asia markets to provide travellers with the best, most authentic, curated experiences. Today’s travellers, whether local or visiting from overseas, are more digitally savvy and are very interested in finding activities and experiences beyond the usual go-to spots for tourists, “off the beaten track” experiences.

It’s pivotal for us to curate these experiences via our local merchants and our KKday signature tours that we are relaunching. It is also vital for us to support the overall Asia ecosystem of local merchants in its digital transformation to empower them to be more operational and cost-efficient and expand their customer base.

Can you share more details about rezio? How does it work?

rezio is our SaaS all-in-one platform that provides a suite of services, including a simple setup for a powerful online store, real-time inventory management across different booking channels, customised vouchers for various booking scenarios, and integration with local payment gateways.

All features can also be accessed on any mobile device, allowing travel and experience providers to manage bookings on the go. rezio also provides real-time inventory across a merchant’s multiple channels. The platform reduces operational costs and increases efficiencies for merchants.

We have over 1,600 merchants, reaching 2.7 million travellers globally.

With an influx of domestic and international travellers expecting to return, many local activity providers have adopted rezio to help digitise and scale their businesses and get access to manage their bookings on multiple OTAs.

With the new funding, we plan to scale and build new rezio features to automate and streamline solutions for merchants. For example, KKday has partnered with Nami Island, a popular attraction in South Korea with millions of annual visitors, to integrate its software rezio with the attraction’s hardware (e.g. e-gate, kiosk, POS system).

Also Read: 3 learnings from KKday CEO and Founder on how his travel startup overcame the pandemic

Similarly, Asahiyama Zoo, one of the major zoo attractions in Japan, has just signed a multi-year contract with us to implement rezio’s solutions. These theme parks have millions of visitors, and we’re partners with these theme parks to help them sell and manage these visitors online.

rezio also has partnered with major OTAs, such as Viator, to deepen our global merchants’ channels and footprint. The partnership with Viator allows rezio to integrate its API to enable merchants to manage their products on Viator and Tripadvisor on top of its existing sales channels. We see overall increased appetite from larger OTAs.

KKday also plans to relaunch its in-demand owned and operated signature tours that provide travellers with curated quality local experiences as borders reopen.

Another crisis is on our doorstep as late-stage funding has drained globally due to several macroeconomic factors. How do you look at this crisis? Will it affect the travel industry in general and KKday in particular?

It has been difficult, and valuation comps (comparable company analysis) are significantly lower than four months ago. However, we do see that the travel industry is on an uptrend. We remain optimistic that travel is bucking the macro trends and is on an upswing, especially with borders opening up and international travel resuming. So there will be a lot of growth opportunities from my perspective. We’re exceeding comparable periods of pre-COVID-19 levels while international travel is just at the cusp of resuming in Asia.

In the last two and a half years since COVID-19 struck, we’ve also managed our business more disciplined way. As mentioned earlier, we’ve significantly lowered user acquisition cost by more than half of what it was versus pre-pandemic levels. We see increased engagement levels and more experiences and activities being booked by users.

Companies that demonstrate good growth, sustainable growth and a path to profitability can stand out more in these uncertain macroeconomic times.

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The third revolution of the internet is heralded to create a more intelligent and connected world. And with its acceleration in the banking and finance sector, Web3 is becoming a buzzword among financial services providers.

While it is too early to predict the shape Web3 will eventually take. If the past iterations of the web were any indicator, it takes time to bring about a paradigm shift, although when it does, everything will move forward at an exponential pace. Can financial services providers afford to wait for that eventuality?

What is Web3?

The first generation of the world wide web came online in the mid-1990s. It was essentially a static content delivery network that allowed people to share information, almost like an online shop front or brochure.

As the technology evolved and broadband speeds increased,  Web2 arrived a decade later, providing a much more interactive, social internet where businesses and individuals were able to generate and share their own content.

The tech behind Web1 and Web2 relied on centralised databases to deliver and enable functionality.

Conversely, Web3 makes use of a decentralised blockchain where there is no arbitrary central authority, but instead a form of distributed consensus. Conceptually, Web3 will be a unified universe where communication and data sharing occurs in a decentralised space. Depending on what technology it integrates with, Web3 can evolve how the web can be used for that technology.

With Web3, the focus is now on the backend, specifically to manage and understand data. Using AI, machine learning and the semantic web will deliver more relevant information, faster. Anyone and any machine in this Internet of Things (IoT) age can contribute and gain access to this global data, but no one will own the database. 

Web3’s integration with blockchain technology, for example, can create a database that is impossible to hack. This is a smart contract that transmits information under the mutual consensus of involved parties. And it is one of the premises behind decentralised finance (DeFi), which aims to cut transaction times and gain access to more financial services. 

According to Investopedia, DeFi is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers like those used by cryptocurrencies. Consumers and businesses can lend, trade, and borrow by using technology rather than intermediaries to record and verify financial actions in distributed financial databases.

Also Read: Why the Web3-enabled gaming world still has hope

However, just like Web3, DeFi’s evolution is still in its infancy, so regulators and traditional payment players are still trying to figure out how DeFi would eventually shape up.

The need for regulation

With DeFi and cryptocurrencies being Web3’s early use cases, there are concerns that the new web could lead to a financial Wild West. Rationally though, the situation is not likely to get that out of hand.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum are presently not used for much more than being an asset to invest in, which makes them very volatile and inappropriate for use as payment. South America, Mexico and other regions are trying to get Bitcoin recognised as legal tender. This move, however, is unsupported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) due to its volatility.

That is why institutional intermediaries like banks must navigate the host of digital identity issues and overcome contractual and regulatory obstacles, including agreements for cross-border money movement. 

Some regulatory bodies are independently preparing for an acceptable DeFi future.  Project Dunbar is a technical experiment by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and central bank partners. The objective is to study how international settlements can be made using multiple Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) over a common platform, considering the catalytic effect of the emergent Web3. 

The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s new guidelines on tokenisation and Dubai’s recent regulation are cases in point. In addition, Australia is exploring a Digital Services Act (DSA) legislative package that seeks reforms in crypto market licencing, custody, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), debanking and taxes.

Web3 opportunities in the finance industry

As the capabilities of Web3 become more understood and ubiquitous, sentiments about its use will undoubtedly change and evolve. 

Some early moving banks are already leveraging the early capabilities of Web 3.0 in legitimate use cases. An S&P Global Market Intelligence report revealed that HSBC Holdings in Hong Kong had enabled hyper-personalised insights into its wealth management, courtesy of Web3. The bank estimated this could lead to 10 times more conversations between their relationship managers and clients. 

Such positive business models of Web3 will continue to emerge to disrupt markets in positive ways, keeping market interest buoyant and allowing stakeholders time to iron out teething problems with progressively feasible and accessible solutions. 

Undoubtedly, the vision of Web3 in the future of finance is still hazy. There is still much to be done to secure and build the properties of Web3 for financial services. But as early adopters and techies foray to bridge these two worlds, new asset classes and technologies will be created.

So, no matter how the integration eventually shapes up, witnessing the possibilities thrown up in the process is exciting indeed.

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With the global recession expected to impact Malaysia sooner than anticipated, we already see many of the region’s leading businesses make organisational changes to brace for the storm ahead.

Southeast Asia’s technology sector has been hit particularly hard with a series of tech giants announcing mass layoffs as they aim to build leaner teams. These economic developments were a 180 from the beginning of the year when the ball was firmly in the talent’s court, and businesses were doing whatever they could to retain people. Now, the Great Resignation could become the Great Retrenchment.  

However, one thing remains true: the ever-present need for the region’s brightest talent, in tech or otherwise. The global workforce’s heightened desire for greater work-life balance and autonomy is here to stay, ultimately pushing talent to search for new and best ways to work. And this is where freelancing comes in.

While freelancing can traditionally be associated with short-term, one-off gig work, at Workana, we have seen an increasing number of long-term engagements, with freelancers now having the opportunity to create a sustainable cash flow comparable to any full-time salaried remote worker. This is great news for workers who enjoy a little more autonomy and more frequent opportunities to review their engagements while still having access to financial security. 

Currently, a whopping 31.4 per cent of the global workforce freelances, and while the pandemic did not kickstart this, it has accelerated this trend. The number of talent looking to join the freelance pool is expected to grow dramatically in 2022, and with good reason.

From a worker’s perspective, freelancing is an appealing option as it represents the best of both worlds, leveraging one’s fine-tuned skills and professional talents while simultaneously having more freedom and control over jobs and personal time.

On the other hand, the employer gains access to the world’s top-tier talent pool and is no longer limited to talents within the vicinity of the office.

The opportunity for freelancing in Malaysia

Taking the plunge into the freelancing world is understandably nerve-wracking, and branching out on your own as a remote worker can be daunting. There are fears of not securing your next job, enough work, or finding it hard to stand out in a competitive landscape.

Also Read: What are employees looking for in a hybrid work world?

That being said, an impending recession could be just the motivation many Malaysians need to take their career path into their own hands and lead a flexible and financially secure life. 

Straight talk: the time to freelance in Malaysia is now. The freelancing community has hugely expanded across the country; at Workana, we have seen our pool of remote talents grow, while the rollout of Government initiatives that support freelancers and community leaders who spearhead discussions for freelancer welfare are ongoing.

Of course, the increased adoption of hybrid working models has also opened the eyes of many businesses and talent similar to managing a more flexible workforce or lifestyle. 

Hybrid models, in which people only go into the office for select days of the week, can be highly conducive to a freelancing schedule. Businesses are also likely to open the doors to fully remote talent, thus greatly expanding their hiring possibilities in Malaysia or across borders.

Ultimately, the available talent pool becomes wider than ever, which is great news when skilled tech talent remains in short supply.  

When it comes to digital gig work, there has always been a lot of potential in the Malaysian market; it’s one of the main reasons we chose to set up our APAC headquarters here in 2019. The talent pool is rich in digital talent, with high English language proficiency and cultural alignment with neighbouring markets such as Singapore and Australia, making the job opportunities ripe.

It’s also heartening to see the Government get on board with this way of working; the 12th Malaysia Plan 2021-2025 (12MP) has assured Malaysians that it will create an ecosystem to support the development of the digital gig economy.

This means talent can prioritise flexibility and self-employment and take full advantage of the opportunities available to grow their skills, portfolios and work experience, even when times are tough(er).

Grow your network for a steady stream of work

In Malaysia’s freelance industry, there is generally enough talent around to satisfy the demand, but connecting with the right clients or finding the right talent to take on a project can be tricky. 

Also Read: Why Malaysian employees are giving up on the traditional office structure

For freelancers to get a leg up as this way of working continues to grow, it’s about having the right portfolio and network. Reputation, success stories, and endorsements are often the key deciding factors for new clients to seal the deal.

New freelancers must start establishing themselves and build a solid body of work to put them in front of their minds as businesses grapple with finding the right people quickly. Partnering with a freelancing platform is a reliable way to ensure regular, quality work, thanks to review systems, client testimonial options, and live job requests to kick-start the process.

For talent, more will follow once the first few jobs are completed and documented well. 

Even if projected growth is slower over the next couple of years, companies constantly need skilled tech talent to jump quickly into projects and keep the ball rolling. So while the hesitations around leaving a steady job to embark on a career as a freelancer are valid, the opportunity to branch out and become an independent talent has never been better.

With the right support system, Malaysians will find freelancing a viable and secure career option. 

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Singapore-based F&B tech company Chope has made a US$720,000 strategic investment into F&B digital payments provider Getz Group.

Per a statement, this partnership will enable diners to order and pay at restaurants across Singapore with their Chope app.

Singapore-based Getz is an ordering solution for F&B merchants that powers online food delivery, in-store table ordering solutions, and POS systems. Together, they can provide end-to-end modules covering all aspects of an F&B merchant’s needs.

Getz claims its systems process tens of millions of dollars in mobile payments.

Also Read: Chope secures US$15M as part of a strategic partnership with Ant Group

Both companies are actively working with restaurant partners to cater to new customer behaviours by consolidating touchpoints across the diner journey, such as discovery, restaurant marketing, ordering for on-premise, pick-up and delivery, among others.

Since the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, Chope’s markets have reported sales increases that exceed pre-pandemic times. Singapore takes the lead in this demand surge with double the diners seated in June 2022 than last year.

The Getz deal comes after local hawker SaaS and delivery vendor WhyQ raised US$360,000 from Chope as part of its Series A2 in November last year.

Steve Wah, Founder and CEO of Getz Group, said, “Chope and Getz bring together the best of both worlds for the F&B business to connect diners to restaurants and vice versa. The result of this partnership will empower F&B businesses to take control of its digital transformation while leveraging incremental traffic driven by Chope.”

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The economic downturn is here, and it’s not going away anytime soon. You can’t ignore it and assume that things will get back to normal eventually; you have to start acting now.

In this article, we’ll show you how to survive the economic downturn by using a few basic business principles that have been around for years but are just as relevant today as they were then:

Prioritise your topline

• Focus on what’s most important.
• Prioritise your top line.
• Remember that everyone can’t be number one in everything.
• Focus on what you can control, not the external factors that are beyond your control (and don’t matter).

Innovate and create new things

Innovation is the key to survival. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business or an individual, innovation is something that will help you get through these tough economic times. Innovation does not only mean technology; it can also be in the form of new products and services or even business models.

Innovation is a continuous process that starts from within yourself and then moves to your team members and then finally outside into the marketplace. It’s not just about creating something new; it’s also about making your existing business processes more efficient so they run faster while still meeting customer needs at an affordable price point (if possible).

Put your people first

Your people are the most important asset of your company. They are your brand, culture, customers, investors and even your future. In this economy, you can’t afford to be without them.

Because everyone is looking for new job opportunities or leaving their current ones behind in search of greener pastures (or just because they don’t have a choice), it’s more important than ever that you keep your best employees around and make sure they’re happy with their jobs so they stay put and convince other people to join too!

It’s also crucial that you focus on building an amazing team that will do great things together as one unit rather than trying to accomplish everything yourself by yourself all day every day with no help from anyone else at all except maybe some interns who showed up last minute because they saw the job posting online late at night while drunk browsing sites like Monster or Zillow after having spent hours playing video games instead of studying for finals like normal college students should’ve done but didn’t because life sucks sometimes so why bother doing anything productive when there’s Netflix available 24/7 waiting for us?

Use technology to your advantage

• Use technology to your advantage.
• Improve efficiency, communication and security in your business.
• Create an improved customer experience.

Optimise your spending, but not at the cost of innovation

The most obvious way to survive the recession is to optimise your spending. In this case, “optimise” means that you focus on spending money on the things that matter the most and give up spending any on those that don’t.

Also Read: Winter for tech startups is here? Here’s how to deal with it

For example, if you’re a restaurant owner and you notice that your profit margins are declining, then it would make sense for you to cut back on advertising or marketing efforts until business improves again.

However, there’s another side of this equation as well, in order to optimise your spending and keep costs in check while still being able to grow during these difficult times, you need innovation.

The key here is understanding where exactly your company stands right now and what exactly it needs at this point in time. You should look at all expenditures as investments; much like with investing funds into stocks or bonds (or whatever), it’s important not only when but how much money gets invested into something before determining whether or not those investments were worthwhile ones!

So think carefully about how valuable each dollar spent actually was! If a particular expenditure didn’t deliver results out of proportion with its cost then maybe we shouldn’t have spent so much money there after all.

Focus on cash flow and balance sheet management

• Focus on cash flow and balance sheet management
• Manage cash flow and inventory
• Use technology to improve cash flow
• Use technology to improve inventory management
• Use technology to improve your financial reporting
• Use technology to improve your credit management

Do what you can do the best to survive the economic downturn

• Focus on your strengths
• Have a strong team
• Keep your costs down
• Be flexible in the face of change and uncertainty; if you don’t know what to do, just keep doing what you’re doing for now (or go back to school)
• Have a plan for when things get better again

Final thoughts

To sum up, the only way to survive an economic downturn is to focus on your strengths and do what you do best.

If you’re an expert at something, make sure that your company does it well. If you have good people working for you, keep them happy and productive. Remember that just because times are hard doesn’t mean they always will be, so don’t give up on your dreams!

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Singapore-based impact investor Circulate Capital has announced the third close of Circulate Capital Ocean Fund I-B (CCOF I-B), bringing its total commitments to US$53 million.

International Finance Corporation invested US$10 million in CCOF I-B , while Proparco, a subsidiary of Agence Française de Développement (AFD) devoted to private-sector financing, injected US$5.6 million. IFC’s investment includes an equity commitment of US$5 million from the Finland-IFC Blended Finance for Climate Change Program.

The latest close brings Circulate Capital’s total assets under management to US$165 million. This comes more than seven months after it announced a US$25 million second close of CCOF I-B. The fund was launched in June 2021.

Also Read: Lack of visibility, track record deter VCs from investing in firms combating plastic pollution: Rob Kaplan of Circulate Capital

CCOF I-B invests in companies across the plastic recycling and waste-management value chains. It also supports early-stage firms working on new delivery models, advanced recycling technologies, and new alternatives to single-use plastic.

“The race to unlock the investment potential of the circular economy is heating up,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO and Founder of Circulate Capital. “With institutional investors like IFC and Proparco jumping in alongside global corporations, foundations, and family offices, and several of our portfolio companies achieving significant milestones, it’s clear that the time to invest in the circular economy is now.”

CCOF I-B is also backed by a number of international investors, including Align Impact, Builders Vision, Benjamin Duncan Group, DF Impact Capital, Eden Impact, Huang Chen Foundation, Jebsen & Jessen, Minderoo Foundation, Rumah Group, North-East Family Office, SK2 Fund, Twynam Investments, the Woodcock Foundation, and Neil Yeoh of OnePointFive.

In April 2022, Circulate Capital announced an expected commitment to be made later this year by the European Investment Bank (EIB), which will invest up to US$20 million in CCOF I-B.

Also Read: Climate tech is in a chicken-and-egg situation in Southeast Asia

William Sonneborn, IFC’s Senior Director of Disruptive Technologies and Funds, said: “The fund will help address plastic pollution and climate change through critical investments in recycling, waste management, and innovations in alternate materials and advanced recycling technologies. It will also increase access to much-needed capital for the small and medium-sized enterprises delivering these important solutions.”

Circulate Capital aims to deploy catalytic capital in partnership with leading corporations and investors to scale solutions that advance the circular economy and prevent the flow of plastic waste into the ocean in South and Southeast Asia. Launched in October 2018, the impact VC firm formed Circulate Capital Ocean Fund (CCOF) with US$106 million raised from several large corporate partners and Limited Partners, including PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Danone, Dow, P&G, and Unilever, and backed by USAID.

Circulate Capital has invested more than US$50 million in over a dozen companies, including Tridi Oasis, ACE Green Recycling, and Reciki.

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With supply chain disruption set to continue, harnessing technology is crucial in ensuring results-oriented risk management. In the Asia Pacific, at least 66 per cent of CEOs are concerned about their supply chains and rank it as their top threat to business growth.

For the region’s businesses, these hurdles can be overcome with effective investments and holistic management in technologies that improve traceability, develop collaboration and ensure faster, more cost-effective product delivery.

Overcoming risks via transparency

Blockchain is a secure decentralised database that has become a vital tool to ensure critical and sensitive data is protected. This unique network enhances accountability and trust among partners as data stored on the blockchain is immutable, which means it cannot be controlled or managed by a single source.

A shining example of its real-world use case would be its deployment in Thailand’s food and agriculture sectors. With digitalisation high on its agenda, the Thai government adopted blockchain technology to support, TraceThai.

The national traceability system was developed to ensure that organic foods were traded sustainably and transparently. Encrypted by blockchain to maintain data privacy and falsification, consumer confidence in the nation’s organic food sectors.

Enhanced visibility for decision making

Decision-makers need to access real-time information to assess their approach to service levels and demand.  The need to know about the current state of a business supply chain is critical especially when disruptions are happening in the market. Having the right data at their disposal allows for accurate and effective decisions that help manoeuvre unexpected situations.

Also Read: Asia-led global supply chain needs to reinvent itself to address climate change

For instance, the supply chain that is set to be revamped by blockchain is the food supply chain, especially the distribution of fresh produce. One of the costliest parts of food distribution is the recalls and it has been a major burden for the industry.

However, with the use of blockchain, businesses can use to increase the visibility and traceability of their products. For instance, animal feed supply chains can be tracked with blockchain from farm to store in real-time. Besides that, its function can also be used to monitor and control the spread of diseases in the animal feed which will reduce the financial impact of recalls.

Customer-centric supply chain

For businesses today, success hinges on effective supply chain management. The customer-facing downstream supply chain demand is now edging upwards, which forces upstream players like distributors, manufacturers and shippers to play catch up with the demand downstream.

Today, logistics has evolved into an important element of the overall brand experience and making it a more efficient and transparent process is imperative. Consumer demands for faster delivery and high availability have resulted in a greater focus on consumer-facing experiences in supply chain management.

A joint report by Facebook and Bain & Co. revealed that this was a key factor in customer retention for 32 per cent of the region’s consumers. These trends point to the fact that businesses cannot afford to neglect their customers and should build a customer-first supply chain.

How, then, should businesses, especially upstream supply chain players, adapt accordingly?

The answer lies in digitisation, specifically, harnessing blockchain to do away with unnecessary manual processes that impede traceability and transactions more generally.

With solutions that automatically collect data from multiple tiers of the supplier network, blockchain streamlines communication and validation between supply chain parties. This enables customer needs to be met in a timely fashion and ensures businesses are lean and cost-efficient by ensuring real-time assessment throughout the supply chain.

With the authentication of multi-party transactions crucial in the age of complex supply chains and disruption, dynamism and agility are business’ best bet for the future.

As the Asia Pacific continues down the path of digitalisation, it is high time that the region’s ports and shippers, too, embrace these efforts. Simply put, traditional supply chain management does not cut it, due to its limitations on simultaneous transportation of information with goods.

On the other hand, digitising trade via disruptive technology like blockchain will simplify procurement by streamlining data to save costs, reduce the working capital cycle and manage risk more effectively and efficiently.

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Singapore-based fintech startup SuperAtom has raised US$22 million in Series C financing led by Malaysia-based digital investment fund Nue 3 Capital.

The startup will use the funding to expand its global digital banking and credit products, starting with Mexico and the greater Latin America region.

Scarlett Xiao, Founder and CEO of SuperAtom, said: “In the coming months, we will begin establishing a local presence in these countries by hiring local talent, applying for local financial licenses, and focusing on new product development.”

Also Read: ‘Asia’s BNPL sector has great potential’, says Akulaku CEO William Li

Founded in 2018 by Cheetah Mobile Co-Founder Scarlett Xiao, SuperAtom has developed UangMe, a credit platform providing access to low-cost financing in Indonesia. UangMe claims to have attracted millions of users and disbursed hundreds of millions of dollars in loans since launching in 2018.

In addition to this, SuperAtom also offers a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) feature.

SuperAtom sees comprehensive financial services for emerging market users as an essential move to win market share. It said that its lending and BNPL businesses have paved the way to serve consumers better and build trust with commercial partners, while other add-on features would gain significant consumer adoption.

In the future, the firm plans to introduce wealthtech products.

In September 2019, SuperAtom raised US$24 million from Gobi Partners and a consortium of investors.

According to research by Bain & Company, over six in ten Southeast Asians remain underbanked or unbanked today with limited access to credit, and an even larger portion of the population is unfamiliar with wealth management.

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DART, a Manila-based quick commerce startup, has announced a pre-seed funding round of US$1.3 million led by Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. and existing investor Kaya Founders.

The startup, which currently serves Makati and Mandaluyong, will use the funds to expand to new cities shortly.

DART was founded in early 2022 by Harm-Julian Schumacher (CEO) and Tommy Campos (COO).

Schumacher was formerly deputy GM (Germany) European Q-commerce major Gorillas and previously worked with Bain & Company and Rocket Internet. Campos has built up his operational expertise at delivery behemoths Uber and Postmates.

DART promises grocery delivery within 15 minutes of placing an order. It provides various goods, including popular snacks, drinks, fresh produce, dry and frozen goods, and local partnership brands.

Also Read: The future of social and quick commerce for developing countries

The firm plans to tap the underserved online grocery market to grow its presence in the Philippines. With its 110 million people and an annual grocery spend of above US$50 billion, the country represents one of the most attractive markets in Southeast Asia for quick delivery service companies, it said.

The Q-commerce firm has also entered into an operational and supply partnership with Robinsons Supermarket. “This partnership provides an extreme value to our business, from the access to a large assortment, advantageous prices as well as leveraging Robinsons existing supply chain infrastructure,” Schumacher said.

Campos added, “We have tested many orders in the last months to understand our customers and operations better and fine-tune our offering. We have seen that 99 per cent of our orders are getting delivered within 15 minutes and are now confident to scale our business to more customers.

According to the e-Conomy study by Google, Bain & Company and Temasek, the penetration level is only 2 per cent compared to 25 per cent in the non-grocery space.

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Malaysia-based TNG Digital, the owner and operator of Touch’ n Go eWallet, has secured RM 750 (US$168.3) million in its latest equity financing round.

Lazada Group led this round and is joined by TNG Digital’s parent company Touch’ n Go Sdn. Bhd.

This round of funding brings the total amount raised by TNG Digital over the last 18 months to over RM 1 billion (US$224 million).

In addition to Touch’ n Go and Lazada, other shareholders of TNG Digital include Ant Group, insurers AIA Group and US-based venture fund BowWave Capital.

Also Read: The future of fintech: The latest trends in the industry

“We feel this collaboration will bring next-level value propositions to users and merchant bases across the Lazada and Touch’ n Go ecosystem. I look forward to seeing the teams roll out these exciting collaboration opportunities to our users,” said Effendy Shahul Hamid, Group CEO of Touch’ n Go Group. “We will continue expanding in all digital financial services areas.”

Alan Chan, CEO of Lazada Malaysia, added: “We see digital payment services as a critical bolt-on to bring the best customer experience on Lazada. Lazada is fully committed to providing a seamless customer journey and being a catalyst to stimulate capacity building among our sellers, primarily local SMEs and MSMEs.”

Started in 1997, Touch’ n Go is one of the early companies that led the digital transformation within Malaysia’s mobility ecosystem.

In 2021, TNG Digital expanded its cross-border payments capability to Singapore, led by the e-wallet’s acceptance at ComfortDelGro taxis.

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