ScaleUp Malaysia, an accelerator programme that focusses on growth-stage companies in Malaysia, in partnership with Quest Ventures, Indelible Ventures, and Mranti, today announced the 11 companies from its third cohort that have raised investments from the investors.

Kicked off August 2021, ScaleUp Malaysia said that it drew over 200 applications from 26 countries including Malaysia, the US, Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan. Twenty companies were shortlisted to participate in Cohort 3 and placed into separate tracks, giving them exclusive access to Quest Ventures and Indelible Ventures respectively over the course of 16 weeks.

Each company will receive up to US$60,000 (~MYR250,000) in investment.

The following is a list of the companies and the tracks they were grouped in:

Quest Ventures track

GuruInovatif
A platform that provides complete online resources for teachers’ professional development.

MADCash
A digital platform that tracks the impact of funding an interest-free microloan given to unbanked women micro-entrepreneurs.

Also Read: 25 notable startups in Malaysia that have taken off in 2021

Open Academy
An education platform that provides real, non-theory based programmes, training, and content by industry practitioners.

SpareXHub
Provides an e-commerce marketplace for genuine auto spare parts. They believe Every Part Has A Car and this marketplace brings together automotive stockists, independent workshops and car owners in Malaysia’s first platform, where heavily discounted and guaranteed genuine car parts are sourced and sold in complete confidence.

VireServe
A Managed Service Provider that focuses on Cyber Security and IT Solutions. The platform can be used as a tool for freelancers and/or consultants to perform compliance consulting and act as lead generation to Service Providers (Technology Principals & System Integrators).

WA Sushi
An F&B e-commerce company, building “quality food made for delivery”. WA in Japanese means peace, harmony and the company’s mission is to “deliver happiness through great food”.

Indelible Ventures track

Howuku
An online platform that offers an all-in-one web optimisation and analytics solution. They provide a set of easy to use UX testing tools to help you visually understand your visitors so you can focus on improving conversion rates.

Kumo
A SaaS provider for the beauty and medical aesthetics industry.

Midwest Composites
A go-to Engineered Composites Partner. They design and manufacture Advanced Composites and Biobased Composites for customers that want to use futuristic materials in their products.

Also Read: How Malaysian workplaces need to manage the impact of “coronastress”

New investments by ScaleUp Malaysia

RECQA
A knowledge sharing platform for team members to share learnings and other relevant information and contribute to an organisation’s collective intelligence.

BizTech Asia
A cross-media and marketing B2B platform that enables business to business marketing for our clients via scheduled video & podcast content as well as networking & corporate gaming events.

BizTech Asia and RECQA are alumni from the programme’s second cohort. Quest Ventures and Indelible Ventures also announced that it is looking to announce one or two more companies at a later date.

ScaleUp Malaysia has also opened registration for startups to state their interest to participate in Cohort 4.

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ScaleUp Malaysia has partnered with e27 to provide their investees access to e27 Pro with complimentary 30 days access and a 40 per cent discount if they continue with their membership.

With over 400 verified active investors on the platform, e27 Pro members will have the ability to find, connect, and engage with the right investors for their companies.

Not a Pro member yet? Start here.

Image Credit: ScaleUp Malaysia

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While there are various Singapore government grants available to Singapore-incorporated companies, not every company will qualify for such grants or find them sufficient for its growth or working capital.

In such cases, funding from investors becomes necessary, whether it is from the infamous 3Fs (friends, family and fools) or venture capitalists.

This article examines the common forms of debt and equity financing adopted by private companies incorporated in Singapore to raise funds.

Prospectus requirements

It is important to note from the outset that the Securities and Futures Act (Cap. 289) of Singapore (“SFA”) requires a prospectus to be issued for all offers of securities (including shares and debentures) or securities-based derivatives contracts unless they are excluded or exempted from such requirement.

Exempted offers include:

• Small personal offers where the total amount raised from such bids within any 12 months does not exceed SG$5 million (US$3.72 million) or such other amount as may be prescribed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (section 272A of the SFA)
• Offers made to no more than 50 persons within any 12 months (section 272B of the SFA)
• Offers made to institutional investors (section 274 of the SFA)
• Offers made to accredited investors (section 275 of the SFA)

In each case, subject to any further conditions such as the offer not having been accompanied by an advertisement (other than an information memorandum prepared as a basis for the investment decision) and no promotional expenses incurred in connection with the offer.

Companies looking to raise funds without a prospectus should ensure that their offers fall within the relevant exemption or are otherwise not regulated under the SFA.

In the crowdfunding space, debt-based crowdfunding (commonly known as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending) and equity-based crowdfunding are subject to the above prospectus requirements as they are considered to be offers of securities, including crowdfunding involving the use of digital tokens or cryptocurrencies which fall within the definition of securities under the SFA.

In addition, operators of crowdfunding platforms that facilitate such offers or provide advice relating to such offers may be seen to be “dealing in securities” or “advising on corporate finance”, respectively, which are regulated activities requiring a capital markets services licence under the SFA.

Also Read: What tech startups need to know about the legal aspects of online marketing

Other types of crowdfunding which are not securities-based (such as rewards-based or donation-based crowdfunding) do not fall within the above purview of the SFA.

However, crowdfunding for charitable purposes will be subject to the Code of Practise for Online Charitable Fund-raising Appeals, which ensures the legitimacy, accountability and transparency of philanthropic appeals hosted on crowdfunding platforms in Singapore.

Debt vs equity

The two main types of financing available to companies are debt and equity.

Debt financing involves the borrowing of monies, while equity financing involves selling part of the equity in the company. Deciding between debt and equity financing will depend mainly on the stage a company stands, its financial status and business needs, amongst other things.

In determining the type of financing to adopt, a key consideration is whether the company is willing to relinquish any equity as this would result in a dilution of ownership and, potentially, management control and a sharing of any profits of the company, which may ultimately cost more than a loan.

The upside to this is that, unlike a loan, no repayment of monies is required, which can be advantageous to companies without significant cash-flows or profits yet and which need a longer trajectory to break even.

Companies may also potentially raise more funds through equity financing, where the capacity of the business to support debt is constrained, particularly where the business’s growth potential supports a high valuation of the potential earnings.

In terms of speed, debt financing in a simple loan from investors is generally faster to secure. This is mainly attributed to the additional time required for investors to conduct due diligence and negotiate investor rights before acquiring equity in a company. This is usually seen as a long-term investment.

However, there are instances where debt financing may also involve such due diligence or negotiations, particularly if the loan is sought from banks or other financial institutions (which is outside the scope of this article), or in hybrid cases combining both debt and equity financing such as venture debt and convertible debt as further discussed below.

As part of such due diligence or negotiations, the investor may require the company to rectify any issues and provide certain warranties (to be qualified by any disclosures) and indemnities to mitigate any risks discovered during the due diligence exercise.

Debt financing

Loans are typically obtained as short to medium-term solutions to provide immediate or recurring cash flow for working capital needs. However, longer-term finance may be required to finance capital expenditure.

Also Read: Why companies should prioritise compliance during a worldwide pandemic

They may be subject to interest with a fixed repayment plan and secured by collateral provided by the company and its founders in favour of the lender, such as personal and corporate guarantees and charges over assets.

In addition, the lender may require the company to give negative covenants to restrict or prohibit the company from carrying out certain acts which may adversely affect the loan, such as incurring further indebtedness and creating further encumbrances over assets.

The lender will be able to assert limited control over the business management in this manner, despite not having any voting rights in the company.

Some companies may find debt financing unsustainable due to the strain of repayment, high-interest rates or lack of significant assets to offer as collateral over time.

The severe implications of becoming insolvent and possibly even being wound up due to defaulting on loans is another reason for businesses not to overextend their debts. Any guarantors of the loans would also be affected, running the risk of bankruptcy in the case of personal guarantors, usually the founders.

Therefore, many startups prefer to treat debt financing as an interim arrangement (such as a bridge loan or subordinated debt that converts into the next equity round) until they can secure more permanent financing.

Hybrid financing

An alternative form of debt financing is venture debt which has recently emerged in Singapore and aims to support high growth enterprises between equity financing rounds.

Under a venture debt, the loan quantum is usually a percentage (e.g. 30 per cent) of the amount raised in the company’s last equity financing round, coupled with an option for the lender to acquire equity in the company at a percentage (e.g. 20 per cent) of the loan quantum in the future.

The Singapore government has introduced venture debt programmes to support this, such as the Enterprise Financing Scheme (EFS) Venture Debt Programme, which provides a loan quantum of up to SG$8 million (US$5.95 million) to eligible companies.

Venture debt is distinguished from convertible debt, where the lender usually has the right to convert the loan quantum to equity upon the occurrence of certain trigger events (such as a qualified equity financing round), subject to any anti-dilution rights further discussed below.

This would result in a higher dilution of ownership of the company compared to a venture-debt where equity to be acquired limited to a percentage of the loan quantum.

This distinction is intended given that venture debt is meant to complement and not replace equity financing, providing startups with a quick boost without drawing significantly on equity reserves.

Equity financing

Equity financing is generally carried out via a subscription of new shares in a company with one or more classes (and sub-classes) of shares.

Also Read: 7 common legal pitfalls startup founders should avoid

While it is also possible for investors to acquire existing shares in the company via a share transfer (e.g. from a founder or a leaving shareholder) and limit the effect of dilution only to the transferor, the funds for such share transfer would be payable to the transferor and not the company requiring such funds.

Such share transfer would also be subject to a stamp duty of 0.2 per cent of the purchase price or the net asset value of the shares, whichever is higher.

Typically, the founders of a company would hold ordinary shares with voting rights and, depending on the parties’ negotiations, incoming investors may then subscribe for preference shares with preferential rights.

Any subsequent equity financing round would then involve a subscription of a new class of preference shares, usually with preferential rights ranking higher than those offered in the last equity financing round.

Preference shares are characterised by the preferential rights attached to them with respect to priority of repayment of capital in a liquidation event (such as a trade sale), participation in surplus assets and profits, cumulative or non-cumulative dividends, voting and priority of payment of capital and dividend about other shares in the company.

Parties may further negotiate for preference shares to be redeemable by the company and convertible to ordinary shares in the future, including in a qualifying IPO.

Anti-dilution rights may accompany conversion rights attached to preference shares. The company subsequently issues new securities at a lower price than the existing preference shares (i.e. a down-round).

Anti-dilution rights are usually based on a full ratchet or a weighted average. A full ratchet adjusts the conversion price of the existing preference shares to the lower price in the down-round, while a weighted average adjusts such conversion price by taking into account:

• The number of ordinary shares outstanding before the down-round calculated on a fully diluted, as-converted basis (i.e. broad-based).
• The number of the ordinary shares outstanding before the down-round is calculated by considering only ordinary shares issuable upon conversion of the preference shares in question (i.e. narrow-based).

As anti-dilution rights favouring the investor will inevitably further dilute the founders’ shareholdings in the company, the founders should consider whether they are willing to offer such anti-dilution rights and, if so, which formula should be applied in the circumstances.

Under section 75 of the Companies Act (Cap. 50) of Singapore, the rights attached to preference shares must be set out in the company’s constitution before issuing such shares.

It would also be prudent to amend the company’s constitution for consistency with any investment agreement between the parties to avoid any conflicting provisions in the company’s constitution, given that the company’s constitution is a public contract separate from such investment agreement and binds the company and the registered shareholders and not just the parties to the shareholders’ agreement.

In addition to the rights attached to preference shares, investors may also request other investor rights such as board representation, inclusion in the quorum for board or shareholder meetings, pre-emption rights or rights of first refusal, tag or drag-along rights, information rights and reserved matters (depending on whether the investor will be a minority or majority shareholder or is a lead investor in the equity financing round).

Also Read: 9 fundraising mistakes entrepreneurs and founders must avoid

Parties will usually spend some time negotiating such investor rights as they will allow the investor to exert influence over the company’s management. However, this may be beneficial to the company to a certain extent if the investor is a business collaborator or has relevant expertise to contribute to the company.

Venture capital investment model agreements

To facilitate seed rounds and early-stage financing, the Singapore Academy of Law and the Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association have launched a set of model agreements known as Venture Capital Investment Model Agreements (“VIMA”), which comprise the following documents:

• Venture capital lexicon
• Non-disclosure agreement
• Convertible agreement regarding equity (CARE)
• Series A term sheet (short and long-form template)
• Subscription agreement
• Shareholders’ agreement.

However, VIMA should only be used for general reference and not as legal advice.

The relevant documents provided in VIMA may need to be customised and supplemented to meet the parties’ requirements, especially to incorporate any negotiated points in compliance with applicable laws and best practices.

Legal advice regarding each financing round should be sought for this purpose.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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Imagine entering a store, restaurant, or office without temperature control. Uncomfortable, right? Especially in the Asia Pacific’s tropical and subtropical regions, building cooling is a business-critical expectation, not an option.

It goes beyond comfort. Establishments like hospitals and some factories require temperature control to operate properly.

Demand for cooling is expected to proliferate as economies develop, people’s livelihoods improve, and poverty decreases. Approximately two-thirds of today’s buildings will still exist in the next 20 years. On top of that, the world will add 2.4 billion square metres of new building floor area by 2060.

Also read: CM.com enables growth for Southeast Asian businesses and beyond

The linkage between cooling demand and socio-economic development poses a sustainable development challenge, however. Temperature control, along with lighting and other building operations, already contributes 28 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions annually and is a major contributor to climate change.

The world’s decarbonisation efforts, therefore, hinge on finding ways to cool buildings, both new and existing, more efficiently.

How should we start?

“Overall, about 20% of the electricity used in buildings goes to cooling,” said Priyantha Wijayatunga, Chief of the Energy Sector at the Asian Development Bank. “By 2050, it is estimated that it could be as high as 30% under cooling demand, and in some countries, it can be even higher.”

An increase in cooling demand will mean an increase in electricity consumption, and this is where the importance of sustainable energy consumption comes in, especially for Asia Pacific countries.

“Our energy sector contributes to almost 50 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in the world,” Wijayatunga said. “Asia Pacific is a critical region when it comes to cutting down greenhouse gas emissions.”

Also read: Feeling the pressure to boost your startup? Let e27 PRO+ help you

Given the region’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, much of the discussion around solutions naturally gravitates towards increasing the supply of green energy. Yet, renewable energy sources cannot solve the problem on their own. Capital investment is high, and new infrastructure will be needed to support it.

That is why Arjun Gupta, founder of India-based Smart Joules, believes energy efficiency deserves more attention.

Energy savings is not only scalable but very profitable

“One of the biggest opportunities for Smart Joules and the way we look at energy management is to attack all the sources of energy waste that we find in every business and every factory,” said Gupta.

And what they found is that there are three things that contribute to energy waste: poor cooling system design, wrong cooling equipment, and operational inefficiency.

Smart Joules looks into these three things and works with their customers to improve their current structure and guarantee a reduction in energy consumption. While the solution may sound simple, it’s the technology-enabled execution that makes Smart Joules unique.

It starts with Smart Joules taking on all the risk by investing in all the cooling equipment at no upfront cost to the building owners. The building owners would then pay Smart Joules back over time by sharing their energy savings.

This business model innovation by Smart Joules may just be the key in addressing one of the highest barriers to improving energy efficiency in building cooling; with no large capital investment, more and more building owners can afford to easily shift toward energy-efficient cooling systems.

KIMS hospital is one of the companies that Smart Joules has worked with. “Electricity accounts for almost 50 to 60 per cent of the overall expenditure,” said Dr Abhinay Bollineni, CEO at KIMS hospital. “It’s very important to get the design right, it’s very important to get the cost structure right. And it’s very important that it can sustain for a long period of time.”

Also read: 36 unique startups to pitch before 1500 global investors

KIMS hospital ended up with savings of roughly US$50,000 yearly, which is shared with Smart Joules.

New solutions like these, while important, tend to scale slowly. How are we now supposed to make this accessible to more people?

“Partnerships are absolutely going to play a key role in making this happen,” said Gupta.

Existing companies already have the things needed to make a huge impact on a large scale. Gupta gave the example of an electric utility company with thousands of commercial customers. Working with the electric utility company instead of individual buildings or customers would give the solution instant scale.

Imagine an electric utility company with a geographical grid of about 50,000 commercial buildings and establishments. By partnering with Smart Joules and offering their solution at no upfront cost for building owners, energy-efficient cooling solutions can be instantly implemented in all of them.

For these electric companies, partnering with and sharing the upfront costs with Smart Joules to provide these solutions to their customers means implementing and investing in energy-efficient solutions at a large scale. This would result in them avoiding much more costly investments in new energy generation to meet increasing energy demand.

No upfront costs for customers, earnings from energy savings, profitable business opportunities, and reduced carbon emissions. This just might be the solution we were looking for.

The Climatic Series episode 3

In this episode of the Climatic Series, we take a look at how demand for cooling will lead to a surge in electric consumption and meet startups, investors, and other stakeholders who are working on meeting these energy needs in a more sustainable way.

Watch the talk show here

Watch the solutions showcase here

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Photo by Scott Webb from Pexels

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by ADB Ventures

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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Thai VC firm ORZON Ventures has invested in five local startups operating in mobility and lifestyle.

The startups are Pomelo, Carsome, Freshket, GoWabi, and Protomate.

ORZON Ventures is a US$50-million VC fund launched in October 2021 by SGHoldCo, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thai oil company OR and early-stage investor 500 TukTuks (now 500 Global). The fund invests in early-stage startups (Series A to B) in both OR-related businesses areas and in new businesses in the mobility and lifestyle sectors.

By investing in startups through ORZON Ventures, OR seeks to thrive beyond the oil business, realising startups’ strengths in the use of technology and their adaptability to the rapidly changing economic landscape. It is an opportunity for OR to develop synergistic projects with startups in Thailand and the region.

Also Read: Freshket nets US$3M to bring together farmers and food processors to supply fresh produce in Thailand

The startups have access to 500 Global and 500 TukTuks’ global VC network and business consultation from ORZON Ventures’s general partners, namely Krating Poonpol, Natavudh (Moo) Pungcharoenpong, and Pahrada (Mameaw) Sapprasert.

Below are the brief profiles of the five startups:

Pomelo: An online fashion brand and platform in Southeast Asia, Pomelo’s Tap Try Buy concept allows customers to order online and try in-store or at home before making the purchase. Pomelo also serves as an omnichannel enabler for brands. It now offers more than 500 brands locally and globally on its platform.

Carsome: It is an online platform for buying and selling used cars in the region. Carsome provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and used car dealers, from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing.

Also Read: Carsome completes acquisition of ASX-listed content automotive platform iCar Asia

Freshket: It is an online food supply chain platform for HoReCa businesses and consumers, offering a variety of more than 7,000 items of fresh and dried food from quality suppliers. Freshket now has over 10,000 HoReCa customers.

GoWabi: It is an online platform for discovering and booking health and wellness services online, matching OR’s direction of creating a lifestyle ecosystem for customers. Users can easily search for services, compare prices, find discounts, read reviews and ratings by other customers, and book and pay online. GoWabi also offers a SaaS tool for their thousands of providers to help manage and optimise their business.

Protomate: It is a hardware AI startup producing consumer electronics products and services in emerging technology areas. Its innovative solutions match OR’s mission to uplift the mobility experience for customers.

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With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, various industries are being forced to reconsider how to carry on working with the minimum amount of disruption. This is also apparent in the education industry.

With government-mandated school shutdowns and going digital, there is no shortage of institutional and educator support as education could carry on through online learning.

The pandemic has opened up an opportunity for new solutions to change how students learn in even better ways than pre-pandemic, not just to act as a stopgap for school restrictions.

This is why when presented with a choice to stick to the status quo or innovate the education technology industry; entrepreneurs are the ones that turn ideas into reality. Like most good ideas, it’s simply about solving a problem. 

On my part, I was just an ambitious educator with a limited understanding of technology but a massive passion for education which grew to the establishment of the leading edutech platform, Tutopiya.

Turning a passion into a meaningful purpose

During my stint as a tutor, most of my students spent more time travelling to attend my tutoring classes than learning in the classroom. There have also been requests to teach students already living in another country.

This created the potential since options for live online teaching were limited, resulting in an opportunity to maximise my time with my students.

Interestingly enough, accessibility in education was already apparent pre-COVID-19, long before edutech became the standard today. Despite some initial scepticism, Tutopiya had succeeded in its mission of providing personalised online lessons where each student learns at their own pace and convenience.

Also Read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

One could say that the idea of providing personalised lessons online was borne out of necessity, fueled in part by a passion for teaching. In hopes of providing the best for my students, Tutopiya’s learning options could be expanded, and students could be connected with the best resources of learning materials, technology, and educators.

The global edutech market was only worth US$76.4 billion before the pandemic. By 2025, the market is expected to have grown to a size of US$400 billion. This indicates that the education technology market was already growing at the time but reached a tipping point just as the pandemic began.

Challenges as a woman in tech across Southeast Asia

With the help of emerging technologies, education and other legacy industries are no longer confined to their previously conservative boundaries, especially in this increasingly digital and globalised world.

To be more specific, there is a common misconception that founders in technology must have extensive tech backgrounds to succeed; coding skills, knowledge, programming, and analysis. 

If you know how to code, you can create your prototype, iterate it to a strong beta, and begin acquiring users and gaining traction. From basic website development to in-depth app development, there are misconceptions that the more a founder knows about technology, the better their chances of success are.

However, I believe this is not the case. For example, Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, was a designer, to begin with. Despite having no technical knowledge, he could propel the digitally-based platform to the forefront of the online hospitality industry.

The skills might be critical but not mandatory as they are other skills that are far more important when it comes to being a successful tech founder.

Then, there’s being a modern-day mompreneur. Every day I am tasked with managing the home and the office and juggling between the two.

Having to transform from a mother to a boss instantly while also meeting the expectations of both families and customers is difficult for me and working mothers across the globe.

According to one study, over 252 million female entrepreneurs worldwide, with more than 90 per cent of them being mompreneurs who are still struggling to overcome the challenges they face daily.

My journey with Tutopiya is not without difficulties. This can be said in terms of obtaining assistance, whether it is due to a lack of relevant connections, given my lack of familiarity in the tech landscape or a need for financial or emotional support from peers and investors. I also needed mentors and sponsors to help me navigate my entrepreneurial path. 

Truthfully, it was challenging. According to a survey, 48 per cent of female entrepreneurs say a lack of mentors and advisors limits their professional development.

Having a well-connected mentor will undoubtedly assist in expanding business networks and will increase your chances of being presented with opportunities such as sitting on business or investor boards.

Also, a professional support system is frequently expensive, forcing some women to put off starting on their own business ventures. Of course, a support system is even more important, especially as a mompreneur.

Also Read: ‘Education is not a content business but a human one’: Nas Academy’s Nuseir Yassin

When it comes to new ventures and ideas, people generally doubt what they don’t know or can’t conceptualise. When Tutopiya first launched, my customers and friends frequently left sceptical comments such as “Sounds like Rocket Science!”, “I don’t believe in online learning,” and “How do you even learn online?!”

Getting ahead in tech as a woman

According to Crunchbase, 844 women founded or co-founded a startup in Southeast Asia in 2014. Some of them have been instrumental in transforming the region’s start-up scene.

According to a recent Mastercard study on female entrepreneurs, women own 16.7 per cent of businesses in Malaysia. According to the survey, Vietnam has 31.3 per cent of female entrepreneurs, followed by Singapore (27.5 per cent), Thailand (25.2 per cent), and the Philippines (23.9 per cent).

Climbing the tech career ladder, on the other hand, is no easy task as it is not necessarily the easiest environment for women to break into.

In my opinion, the path to the top for women technologists is much more difficult due to bias, different standards, a lack of a robust support system, and capital raising issues that marginalise them.

Enter the imposter syndrome. Women in tech can experience stress and anxiety if they believe they are not intelligent and creative enough or otherwise deserving of their success, even though there is ample evidence of their accomplishments.

Imposter syndrome affects 84 per cent of entrepreneurs and small business owners, which is defined as the feeling of being a fraud who is undeserving of success.

This is especially prevalent in the tech industry, with 58 per cent of tech entrepreneurs and employees reporting that they are currently dealing with some form of the imposter syndrome in their jobs, particularly software engineers, developers, and designers.

These tendencies are also more common in newcomers to the tech industry, particularly women, who must contend with a steep learning curve and prejudices and preconceived biases based on their gender.

Female entrepreneurs need a solid community to help them get through the difficult times in their business journey. After all, shattering the glass ceiling is hardly a one (wo)man job. When it comes to stepping outside gender norms, the entrepreneurial world can be brutal.

Also Read: The inevitable digitalisation of education and what educators really need

Problems that you would never think would ever arise and test everything about the business, especially in Southeast Asia, where it is now thriving with techs and startups. These strikes will eventually sap our motivation and determination to succeed, and that’s where a sense of community and support can help.

In today’s high-tech world, female entrepreneurship has enormous potential for fostering socio-economic growth. As new generations take charge and the world emerges, female entrepreneurs must be primed as there will be more great opportunities for women in the future.

A woman’s potential contributions to innovation, economic growth, and business investment can definitely be recognised with the right support system and determination.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image Credit: Tutopiya

The post How this founder went from being a tutor to a modern day mompreneur appeared first on e27.

We’re running out of time when it comes to climate change. Our conscience is not shaken yet, even as the dire changes caused by the catastrophe are already visible in the cities we live in.

As per the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, one-third of the planet we live in is vulnerable; if the situation doesn’t improve, we will likely face huge losses in the agriculture, dairy farming, meat industry by 2050 and 2100. And it could push about 183 million people into poverty.

But there is a glimmering of hope as the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have announced massive funds to support companies addressing climate change.

However, in Southeast Asia, things are still a bit slow. There are many reasons for that, but it is changing, says Derek Handley, Founding Partner of Aera VC, a new Singapore-based US$30 million climate tech fund.

e27 recently had a conversation with Handley, who sits in his office in Auckland, New Zealand.

Below are the edited excerpts of the interview:

What is broadly climate tech from your perspective?

From our perspective, climate tech is anything that is meaningfully working to resolve or reverse climate change contributions. As we know, climate change is quite a myriad complex net. But the simplest version is how you reduce, remove or avoid CO2.

There are different ways to do it; you can substitute a current human behaviour with a new behaviour that significantly reduces CO2. Alternatively, you can find ways to trap it, suck it, or remove it.

Other things that contribute to the broader biosphere ecosystem might be as simple as the health of the oceans is linked to climate change and related issues, the health of forests and forestation.

How is climate change affecting Southeast Asia and Asia?

Well, it’s a global issue. Although it affects every nation differently, it affects everyone the same as the world is heating up. Sea level is on the rise, and it causes many issues everywhere. In some Southeast Asian and Pacific nations that are lower-lying, it becomes more problematic in terms of their sea and sea level boundaries.

Also Read: Shiok Meats backer Aera VC hits US$30M first close for climate-tech investments

Things that contribute heavily to climate change, such as petrochemical or fossil fuel, also have a vast pollution effect. Coal-fired fuel power and hydrocarbon engines impact people’s health and livelihood. Forget about the actual climate change on the planet.

There are many other factors, including the ways we engage with the world, our country’s geography and nature, the long-term sustainability of different ecosystems of species and animals, who can no longer survive, and waterways and oceans that can’t thrive in a climate-warmed world.

There are also the geopolitical issues of the reliance on fossil fuels, which has their geopolitical challenges. If each country can rely on its climate-neutral or renewable grid, they have a lot more sovereignty.

Even in this Russian crisis, you can see that oil is a significant factor. And if the whole of Europe were renewable, there would be a very different dynamic between those two sides.

Yeah, the consequences of climate change are fatal. Despite this, few are investing in climate tech in this region. One study says only 0.8 per cent of the total funding invested across the globe came to SEA. Is there a reluctance among VCs to invest in climate tech?

Southeast Asia as a startup ecosystem is still some years behind America’s or Europe’s ecosystem. There’s a delay in the overall ecosystem development and maturity. When you are one, two or three decades behind, then it’s going to be delayed. Same as Australia and New Zealand.

And then, there are factors like how many founders have created unicorns, exited and are now seeding new founders. This number is less in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. We have a thinner layer of founders seeding new ventures and new funds. So the whole ecosystem is yet to mature.

The first wave of startups in Asia has been e-commerce, mobile commerce, and digitalisation. It makes sense because there’s a solid coding base, software ethos and culture of doing things with very little capital. So the first generation of entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia is based on that ethos.

As the problems become bigger and get more attention, we hope that there’ll be more founders looking to solve climate. As we know, if you have got a fund but no founders in the space, you have nothing to invest in.

Also Read: New climate-tech venture builder Wavemaker Impact targets to raise US$25M for Fund 1

There should be an emergence of dozens and hundreds of founders looking at climate change-related issues. This is why we focus on making a much bigger presence in Southeast Asia, even India.

Climate tech is also regarded as a capital-intensive business. Is it also the reason for the lack of interest in this region?

We need to differentiate here. The rest of the world already has a huge interest in climate change at the moment. Many investors have created giant climate funds — from BlackRock, Blackstone, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. So you have billions pouring into climate capital at the moment. Many of these investors are late-stage funds (Series C, D, or pre-IPO).

And there are more and more seed funds emerging, and I think there are a few dozen funds launched last year, a lot in Europe and the US, but not so much in Southeast Asia or Asia — barring a couple of funds in Singapore.

There was one or two launched last year in Australia. This side of the world doesn’t have many, but it is changing, and more funds are coming. And even the more general funds are looking to invest in climate.

To your question about capital intensity, people around the raise money for any business, so capital is not much of a problem. Our first investment was Solugen, which raised over US$350 million in September 2021 from Temasek, GIC, BlackRock and some others. This company is more capital-intensive because they’re building plants to create new types of chemicals.

But many of our companies don’t need that amount of capital. Their software systems don’t require that much. But I think the main thing is that they’ll raise a lot of capital if they can scale. However, you can get quite far with not too much capital.

Is there a lack of interest among big corporates and family offices to invest in climate-tech VCs?

There was a lack of interest in 2017-19 because climate tech was not popular. But in the last couple of years, it has become a hot topic.

There are quite a few climate-tech companies in Southeast Asia. But most of them are into the alternative food segment and only a few in other sub-sectors…

I am not sure if I have a perfect answer to the question. But our instinct and our feeling at the moment are it is about to change. And we have been looking at more and more companies coming out of Southeast Asia and even India.

I think that over the next year or two, we’ll be making several investments in the space. The ecosystem is developing to such a point that those founders are emerging. But you’re right; they’re mainly in the food space at the moment.

You have invested in just one company in Southeast Asia, Shiok Meats. Do you plan to support more companies, especially those in the other sub-sectors of climate change?

We have already done a lot of food deals in California, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand etc. We are invested in that segment because we think anything replacing the traditional way of trading meat, dairy, and seafood contributes significantly to a new way of being much more climate-neutral climate-negative.

Also Read: Blockchain technology for climate action? Here’s why it works

We have also invested in carbon capture/recycling/conversion and decarbonising of heavy materials or industry and material science. We hope to see more material science and heavy industry stuff coming out of Southeast Asia. This is where you can do lab-based science to create new types of materials for the built environment — be it construction, fabrics, cotton, or any materials that can be developed using synthetic biology and other methods. It is like the food space, but it’s more for the built space. So we hope those kinds of things will emerge.

Also, you still need a lot of SaaS tools for measuring, managing, monitoring and financing the climate transition. We also expect these tools to emerge in this region.

We have many deals coming up, but they’re not over the line. So we can’t talk about them. One of them will be in Asia.

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Singapore-headquartered Docsumo, an AI startup to help enterprises make automated decisions from customer documents, has announced a US$3.5 million seed investment.

New York-based fintech VC firm Common Ocean led the round, which also saw participation from Fifth Wall (US), Arbor Realty Trust (US), and Better Capital (India), which invested in its previous seed funding round.

Docsumo plans to utilise the fresh funds to expand its client base in the North American market and grow the team. It also plans to grow its products to cover additional use cases: customer onboarding, income verification, financial fraud detection, data for underwriting, and other critical, everyday tasks currently handled by analysts.

Founded in January 2019 by Rushabh Sheth (CEO) and Bikram Dahal (CTO), Docsumo helps enterprises capture, validate and analyse data from unstructured documents for automated decisions. Its core technology platform helps commercial lenders and insurers read financial statements, tax returns, insurance policies and other documents required for credit and insurance applications.

Also Read: Differences between AI and Machine Learning, and why it matters

Most document processing is outsourced to Asian countries such as India, where whole floors of people process applications for financial services. Docsumo applies machine learning technology to automate a core aspect of what humans do — reading text.

CEO Sheth said: “We enable companies to unlock 10x efficiency and act on incoming documents in real-time. What differentiates Docsumo is that the technology can accurately extract data from business documents with a high degree of structural variability and automate decisioning workflows end-to-end.”

Over the last 12 months, Docsumo has grown its team in Mumbai, India and Kathmandu (Nepal) and has experienced a 6x revenue increase. It currently services major enterprises in the US, EU, and Asia, including Arbor Realty Trust, National Debt Relief, Hitachi, and PayU.

Docsumo was part of the Techstars London accelerator in 2020 and raised a pre-seed round from Barclays, Sequoia, Jiten Gupta of Jupiter Money, and Amrish Rau of Pine Labs.

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Who to better market a product if not its founders?

One way for founders to get their products out there is by sharing their journey, learnings, and failures in public.

This is called building in public.

Why does founders marketing make sense?

To increase your product awareness, you need to build an audience surrounding your product. However, as Kevon Cheung said below:

You can’t build an audience surrounding your product without a personal brand. Therefore, as the founder, you need to grow your personal brand.

To grow your personal brand, you need to have a personal voice. Choose a few topics you talk about so your audience know what to expect by following you. No one likes to hear from a person who says this and that randomly.

For example:

• My journey building Product X (building Product X in public)
• My journey as an IndieHacker who left a 6-figure salary job

To have a personal voice, you have to know yourself. Who are you? What are you good at? What have you experienced in life?

Why build in public?

Idea validation and product feedback: Find a few people in the space and share your idea. Interview them:

• What’s missing from the current solution.
• What they did to hack the current solution to achieve what they want.
• If your tool exists, would they pay for it.

Build an MVP: Ask people to beta test your MVP and gather their feedback.

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Grab’s Q4 net loss surpasses US$1B as costs rise in ‘quarter of investments’
The net losses were 73% more than the US$635M in Q4 2020; The firm has been spending more on incentives to attract drivers onto its platform as countries reopen after the pandemic.

B Capital raises US$1.1B for third global growth fund
It has drawn commitments from 101 investors; B Capital typically invests between US$10M and US$60M in Series B,C, and D stage companies; The VC firm invests in B2B ad B2B2C companies in enterprise tech, fintech, healthtech, consumer enablement tech, transportation, and logistics.

Alt-protein startups funding hits high of US$312M in 2021 in APAC: report
As per the Good Food Institute report, startups in the plant-based category dominated the funding flow, securing nearly 70% of investment in APAC; Top deals included Next Gen Foods’s record-breaking US$30M seed funding and Australian V2food’s US$110M Series B.

Sinar Mas units set to invest US$225M into Indonesian e-wallet Dana
Around US$200M will be channelled through Sinar Mas subsidiary DSST Dana Gemilang, and the rest will come from its banking arm Bank Sinarmas; An Emtek Group unit, Dana is also backed by Ant Financial.

‘We hope to see more material science, heavy industry firms coming out of SEA to address climate change’
There should be an emergence of hundreds of founders looking to solve climate change, says Aera VC’s Derek Handley.

Singapore’s Zignaly banks US$50M from Luxembourg’s GEM Global Yield Fund
Zignaly will use the funds to expand into SEA, West Asia, Turkey, India, South America, and Europe; Zignaly’s platform lowers the barrier to entry for investors looking to add digital assets to their portfolios, entrusting decision-making to expert traders.

Volopay raises US$29M Series A to expand corporate cards biz to APAC, MENA
Investors include Justin Mateen’s JAM Fund, Winklevoss Capital, Rapyd Ventures, Accial Capital, Access Ventures, and Antler; Volopay will use the funds to expand into the APAC and the MENA regions.

Taronga Ventures raises investment from CDL, others for its RealTech Ventures Fund
Taronga is looking to invest in 20-30 companies in the real estate and built environment verticals; Taronga Ventures consists of the RealTech Ventures Fund, the RealTechX innovation programme, and Taronga Advisory.

Ex-Grab Philippines head raises US$10.7M for his social commerce startup SariSuki
Investors are Openspace Ventures, SIG, Global Founders Capital, Saison Capital, JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Foxmont Capital; SariSuki claims to have grown 36x since the launch, served about 60,000 consumers and grown to over 100 employees.

Tribecar owners acquire Singapore’s first car-sharing operator Car Club
Established in 1997 as NTUC Income’s car-sharing co-operative, Car Club was acquired by Mitsui & Co. in 2016, which later entered into a joint venture agreement with another Japanese company Willers.

B2B input marketplace AgriAku raises US$6M pre-Series A
Investors include Go-Ventures, MDI Arise, MDI Centauri, and Mercy Corps Social Venture Fund; AgriAku’s platform facilitates agribusiness activities for suppliers, retailers and farmers.

Cococart nets US$4.2M to help merchants set up storefront in ‘minutes’
Investors are Forerunner Ventures, Sequoia Capital, YC, Uncommon Capital, and Soma Capital; Since its launch, Cococart claims to have grown to support over 20K businesses in more than 90 countries, taking in over 500K orders.

Thailand’s ORZON Ventures invests in lifestyle and mobility startups
They are Pomelo, Carsome, Freshket, GoWabi, and Protomate; ORZON Ventures is a US$50M fund launched by Thai oil company OR’s subsidiary SGHoldCo and early-stage investor 500 TukTuks.

Document AI startup Docsumo raises US$3.5M seed funding
Investors are Common Ocean, Fifth Wall, Arbor Realty Trust, and Better Capital; It will utilise the funds to expand its client base in the North American market; Docsumo helps enterprises capture, validate and analyse data from unstructured documents for automated decisions.

SoBanHang raises US$2.5M more to transform into an OS for micro-businesses in Vietnam
Investors are FEBE Ventures, Class5, AlleyCorp, and Trihill Capital; SoBanHang helps small and micro enterprises build digital storefronts, sell to more customers, and manage multi-channel operations on smartphones.

Umami Meats secures US$2.4M seed funding to scale its cultivated seafood business in Singapore
Investors are Better Bite Ventures and Genedant; Umami will utilise the money to advance its low-cost production system for cultivating fish by establishing production-ready cell lines from multiple fish species.

Singapore E-commerce marketplace Kyberlife raises pre-Series A
Investors include PE Global, James Simkins (GETZ Healthcare), and Dr Michael Gorriz (Standard Chartered); Kyberlife facilitates transactions between principals in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries with their B2B consumers.

ScaleUp Malaysia invests in 11 startups from its third cohort
ScaleUp teams up with Quest Ventures, Indelible Ventures, and Mranti to run this accelerator programme for growth-stage startups; Kicked off August 2021, ScaleUp Malaysia said that it drew over 200 applications from 26 countries including Malaysia, the US, Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan.

Singapore neobank IN Financial Technology acquires 500 Global-backed MyCash
INFT is a one-stop employer-to-employee fintech platform; Its solutions include an online business account, virtual debit card, spend management tools, and business cash line; MyCash will expand into Malaysia and Indonesia.

Touchstone funds Vietnamese car platform Bave’s US$1M pre-seed round
Bave’s platform connects drivers with merchants selling car equipment and parts as well as with businesses providing car financing and vehicle servicing; It also runs Agara, an inventory manager for garages and body shops, and CarGo, a car service booking app.

Indonesian crypto startup Blocknom raises US$500K
Investors are Y Combinator, Magic Fund, and Number Capital; Blocknom enables users to invest in crypto-assets and gain the interest of up to 13% per year; The company said that its interest earnings are the highest in Indonesia.

The post Ecosystem Roundup: APAC’s alt-protein funding hits US$312M in 2021, Grab Q4 net loss exceeds US$1B appeared first on e27.

Despite collecting a wealth of personal data from customers over the years, insurance firms have struggled with harnessing it to enhance their customer experience (CX) efforts. Being data-rich and insight-poor can become a deterrent in the long run to attracting and retaining customers, impacting the bottom line as a result.

This has been a systemic issue for insurers. Information asymmetry, where customers offer their information for little in return, stems from the industry’s lack of speed in prioritising the right technology to power their CX engine.

As with most large-scale transformations, success can take a while to realise, but time is not a luxury in today’s fast-moving digital economy. While customer expectations from insurers have shifted and continue to do so, the insurance experience remains essentially unchanged.

As lifestyles change rapidly, customers seek coverage and protection that:

• It is easily customisable and caters to their needs as well as their loved ones
• It is meaningful to their daily lives
• It is available on devices they spend most of their time on
• Can evolve and grow or shrink as their needs change over time

With the right approach to the data they have accumulated over the years, insurers can deliver meaningful, compelling solutions. They need to understand how best to harness data.

Personalisation and great customer experiences drive greater customer retention and positively impact the bottom line.

Research from the Publicis Sapient Digital Life Index 2021 reveals that over a third of Singapore respondents want personalised offers based on their spending preferences, customisable alerts and notifications, as well as personalised content or advice from financial services.

Easier said than done, true. But the good news is that the chances of realising success grow exponentially if efforts to use data are rooted in answering customer needs by adopting modern technology to enable new product innovation.

There are four main areas that insurers should structure their data efforts around:

Product development

With the knowledge gained from previous interactions, both within an insurer and through partners, insurers can create policies tailored to the customer and improve the overall experience.

This helps an insurer differentiate itself from competitors by boosting engagement and building relationships based on relevance, convenience and ease of insuring oneself, instead of simply competing on price.

Also Read: 3 easy tips for SMEs to build overseas customer loyalty

For example, 170-year-old MassMutual’s in-house startup, Haven Life, created a new business processing platform driven by data science models to speed up life insurance underwriting.

It analyses health information from an application and multiple external data sources to approve or reject the coverage in a median time of 40 seconds. No medical exam is needed for these applicants, dramatically improving the customer experience of purchasing medically underwritten term life insurance.

Contextual offerings

Upselling or cross-selling may be among the most obvious improvements that data can enable. They are areas upon which an insurer needs to improve, notwithstanding handling sensitive customer information. Customers find data-driven optimisation to be more beneficial.

Contextual offerings take optimisation to the next level by not just targeting potential customers on sites and apps they frequent but by taking the extra step of ensuring the offering is relevant and optimised to their needs and the context of the app or site.

This can only be achieved by a deeper understanding of the customer and analysing a combination of attributes based on data collected. By better understanding the customer, insurers can improve and position themselves to be with a customer through their life journey, despite some insurance categories being typically low-touch offerings.

For example, Manulife retained existing plan members by offering an immersive experience through its outreach efforts. It helped them go beyond financial numbers and engage in a holistic conversation about life stages and related goals.

Using the right experience and content to help customers optimise what might be possible in retirement, Manulife’s teams could engage and retain customers better by working towards a future they looked forward to.

Product distribution

Insurers need to make use of data to understand customer preferences better and deliver products and services to improve satisfaction and efficiency at the same time.

In many countries, such as Thailand, agents account for a large part of sales. For example, 37 per cent of respondents in Publicis Sapient’s Voice of the Customer survey said they made payment for a policy on an insurer’s website, while 42 per cent did so through an agent.

What is the best way to distribute one’s product in each market, especially in a digital economy where people are comfortable buying things on e-commerce sites? Can a direct-to-customer (D2C) approach work?

There is certainly a space for this.

Insurers with an eye on the future have already started developing D2C models with products designed specifically for online fulfilment and support.

However, insurance is a relationship-driven industry. It would bear well for insurers to consider optimising data usage to improve omnichannel customer interactions and conversions through agents, bancassurance and retail channels.

In South Korea, the largest insurance company, Samsung Life Insurance, used an omnichannel approach to reduce IT costs by US$20.8 million over four years and triple its developer productivity. The company’s customer satisfaction innovations received an ever-increasing rating on the National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI), claiming a first-place among competitors for 11 consecutive years.

Also Read: Understanding pre-money, post-money valuations; option pools and dilution

Many insurers certainly think that partnerships and networks are a way forward to the future of distribution, and the numbers bear this out.

A Swiss Re study shows that more than 40 per cent of respondents in Indonesia would use OVO, a digital payment service, to buy insurance. In Malaysia, Touch n Go, Shopee and Boost, all digital channels, are popular for paying for insurance.

Insurers must be prepared to engage new digital players and other partners to meet customer requirements that may not be met currently. Using data to discover the gaps and fill them is critical.

Customer retention

Customers want insurance to be relevant, provide the right coverage when needed, and be rewarded when they use their coverage wisely. Though this sounds simple, fulfilling these requirements is a challenge for any insurer.

The key here is investing in the smart use of data to improve user experience and retain customers. After all, it’s always believed that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as to keep an existing one.

In the insurance sector, leaders that have invested in customer experience improvements have also seen an uplift in conversions and retention. At the French insurance cooperative, MMA Group, the Nuance virtual assistant helps website visitors interact with sales agents to develop tailored quotes for health or auto insurance proactively or reactively.

Nuance analytics enables the agents to identify likely prospects based on their online behaviour and visitors likely to abandon the session before asking for a quote. At the same time, online chat sessions have increased MMA’s conversion rate from between 6 and 7 per cent to approximately 35 per cent and increased customer satisfaction.

Also Read: How startups should pivot towards being customer-centric

Beyond customer experience, the scalability and size of your loyalty offerings also matter. Some insurers may consider mergers, acquisitions or partnerships to open new doors and create a more attractive ecosystem. With this, a new system of rewards or new services can be made available to customers.

Moving on despite challenges

Some of the challenges insurers face today are deep-rooted and require a deeper transformation effort. Some may have longstanding legacy systems that require an overhaul. For instance, outdated underwriting and claims systems can hold back product development and poor customer experience.

Others may suffer from disparate data sets held in silos or may already have tried to create large data lakes but ended up with a technically sound project that has failed to solve any business problem.

The list of related problems goes on, including the lack of talent, manual processes, and varying regulations surrounding data privacy, which require expertise in the IT field and insurance to help solve.

In an industry with such a long history, change must be incremental. Insurers can start with small steps and take stock of and evaluate their transformation efforts.

They can first try to understand where they are on the map in terms of digital maturity. Once they know where they are on a transformation journey, they can turn to the technologies that use data to make a real difference.

There is a long list of action items that can be drawn up for insurers to improve their use of data. However, it is essential that they first acknowledge that having data alone is not enough. It is time to truly harness it to deliver the critical insights and analysis that create a genuine impact on consumers’ lives and, in return, on the bottom line.

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