Decisions, decisions. We know startup founders in Singapore have enough to consider while building their businesses, so we’ve laid out all the information to make it easier.

An Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) is a method of granting equity in a business to an employee over some time. As simple as it sounds, the employee receives options (or rights) to be granted real stocks in the business, as long as they comply with the rules of the ESOP (plan rules).

While there are multiple variations of employee stock plans around, ESOPs are the most common form of employee incentivisation for small and startup businesses.

In our experience, an ESOP often represents the best way to incentivise an employee’s performance whilst still allowing the company to maintain the control it desires and not tying it down with admin.

Generally, ESOPs are the most popular method of granting employee ownership for startup companies. So let’s get into why.

So what are the benefits of an ESOP?

• Incentivise: We have all been in that situation. Whereas an employee feels like you are working your hands to the bones, the usual discretionary ‘bonus structure’ just doesn’t cut it anymore. ESOPs allow employees the opportunity to become part of the company. This means they have intrinsic motivation to see the company become profitable. Rather than solely focusing on their own pay cheques week to week, they are in it for the company’s greater good.
• Retention: Most ESOPs contain’ time based vesting’ conditions, encouraging employees to stay at the company. This means that the options cannot be exercised (converted into ordinary stocks in the company) until they vest. And for an option to vest, the employee will have to remain employed or engaged by the company for certain periods of time. The most common terms we see involve 25 per cent of an employee’s options vesting after 12 months of employment and then the remaining 75 per cent vesting on a monthly basis over the three years commencing the after the first anniversary.
• Recruiting: As a startup, you may not be able to match the corporate salaries that highly talented and experienced candidates may receive in their corporate jobs. However, by offering equity in the business, you can compromise. Many startups can attract talent by offering them a combination of salary and equity to close the gap and get the best talent on board.
• Tax: Many jurisdictions worldwide have made changes allowing for ESOPs to be more tax effective for both the employer and the employee, with various concessions and methods of calculation available. An employee can be incentivised without attracting further tax liabilities with these concessions.
• Customisation: ESOPs can be drafted to suit your company’s needs. The vesting conditions can be different for each employee (for example, some employees may need to meet certain KPIs, while others may only need to meet the time-based vesting requirements). This way, you can structure the ESOP to provide the most value for your company while incentivising the employees to the greatest extent possible.

Common worries

So if ESOPs are so worthwhile, why doesn’t every company have one?

Also Read: The best new year resolutions for startup founders: Offering ESOPs that actually work

We have set out below the most common concerns we hear in relation to ESOPs, and in general, most are fueled by simple misunderstandings.

“What if an employee leaves? I don’t want ex-employees leaving with equity in my company.”

Most ESOPs contain general ‘buy-back’ provisions, which allow the company to repurchase options and stocks from employees in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when the employee leaves.

ESOPs will specify the price paid for those stocks, often based on whether the employee was a ‘good leaver’ or a ‘bad leaver’. These terms can be completely personalised for the company to cover any hypothetical scenario it may have in mind.

“How do I know the value of the options? I don’t want to give too much away?”

Cake can help you get valuations for your company to be used in your ESOP. It can also assist with providing a valuation to put a dollar value on each option. This will be helpful when using options as a substitute for a salary.

For example, rather than paying an employee a US$100k salary, you could offer a US$75k salary, in addition to US$25k worth of options, that will vest over three years of employment at the company—more cash left in your pocket, and more incentivisation for the employee.

“How could I ever keep track of when employees are meant to be granted stocks? And how would I find time to do it?”

We hear this a lot and have solved this issue for you. Once you’ve created your ESOP on Cake, it will automatically track time-based vesting rules.

Once an employee’s options have vested (and can therefore be exercised to be issued stocks in the company), both the employee and the company will get a notification. They simply click a few buttons, and the stock issue is complete.

Also Read: 12 legal considerations when drafting your ESOP

We have created the platform on a ‘set and forget’ basis, allowing you to focus on the growth.

Difference between ESOP and ESOW

Less admin

They require much less admin. Under an ESOW (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), the employees are issued stocks upfront, subject to vesting. If the employee does not satisfy the vesting requirements, the company can repurchase those stocks at a nominal value (US$1).

However, if, for example, a company offers stocks under an ESOW to 15 employees, and only five of those employees satisfy all of the vesting requirements, the company would be required to conduct stock buy-backs for each of the 10 employees where the vesting criteria were not met.

This can be a time-consuming process, as it will require members’ resolutions, buy-back a country’s, and updates to your country’s regulator (if any).

Comparatively, ESOPs are less ofdon’tadache. If option-holders don’t meet the vesting requirements, the options will simply lapse and can then be recycled into the option pool to be used for other offers. Simple.

No upfront payment

Under an ESOP, the option-holder is not required to pay anything up-front to accept the offer.

Under an ESOW, Fair Market Value must be paid for the stocks on acceptance of the offer. This can sometimes cause confusion and delays.

The option-holder only pays when it exercises the option with an ESOP, and it is often a nominal value. A company may be able to set the Exercise Price at US$0.01 per option, even where the company is doing very well if the relevant tax rules in your jurisdiction allow for it.

No two companies are the same, so it is important to consider your own staff specifically, and your editor’s in the next few years.

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duPhonics is the telenanny platform for life literacy that offers immersive childhood experiences through learning in the metaverse. This analysis presents a foresight into the future of childhood education in the post-pandemic world.

COVID-19 has changed the lifestyle of modern outlook on work, health, and living for global society; many employed parents, in particular, the pandemic has brought additional burden as many schools and child care facilities were closed during the lockdown.

Several childcare businesses remain closed because of the economic hardship, and many educational institutions have turned to a hybrid online and offline model as a temporary solution.

In the aftermath of the pandemic,  educators and children alike have faced new challenges of adapting to work-life balance exacerbated in the professional domain with remote work and learning. Video conferencing ushered both the work and education landscape and turned on its head in full swing during the pandemic lockdowns.

Even with ease in restrictions for offline gathering and returning to the workplace, the fundamentals of teacher-student interaction and keeping students engaged have evolved to the online market.

In the era of Zoom fatigue, winner like Outschool proves that online learning is not a fad that will recede into the background amid the inflation crisis and rampant shortages in manpower of educators around the world in this post covid scenario. Hybrid learning is the key to supplementing education for the future.

Zoom fatigue syndrome

The learning efficacy could be supplemented online, and many might doubt the learning outcome because of the return to offline schooling. Both impacts of the online and hybrid models will be an ongoing observational experiment in the post-pandemic environment.

Also Read: Retention in e-learning: Data analytics and crypto find their way into vogue

However, one buzzword remains with those who shared an extended hours on remote learning, Zoom fatigue. The tiredness, worry, and burnout associated with the overuse of virtual online communication, particularly video meetings, are evident.

The minds are together, but bodies are not; dislocated cognitive dissonance causes conflictual feelings, which are exhausting to virtually connected users.

Gianpiero Petriglieri, an associate professor with INSEAD, suggests Zoom fatigue originates from people’s need to focus more on non-verbal cues such as pitch and tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language.

The mental strain requires the brain to work much harder than it would offline. Participants have to use extra cognitive energy to recognise non-verbal cues, which are difficult to gauge because the environment is not shared. Children are no exception to the cognitive dissonance that impacts their learning experience through many hours of lectures or playtime with video conferencing.

Telenanny in the metaverse

duPhonics anticipates this issue of cognitive dissonance of extended usage of video calls, so the company has developed a virtual reality platform during Q4 of 2021 and launched the PlaySpace metaverse in January 2022 to explore the economic opportunities with the telenanny model in the digitised spatial environment for children.

Immersive learning provides an instant contextual learning experience that would enhance both academic understanding and cognitive engagement. The company found a new revenue model that was viable and engaging with students while parents entrusted safety and privacy in a new space unique from the traditional videoconferencing.

The combination of virtual and offline experience that merges in a third space does not necessarily belong to work or play but is both stated by sociologist Ray Oldenburg.

The metaverse experience will simplify learning of complex processes in science, engineering, and mathematics. For example, a tutor could show their students life on Mars.

The instructor could take the students to a virtual Mars habitat and display the principles of how to survive outside of Earth with models of solar panels, waste recycling machines, the habitats for the astronauts, and the surface of Mars.

The relevance of theories learned in school take on new meaning while also allowing educators the chance to bridge gaps in the theory-to-action steps that have been a tedious preparation of lectures, presentations, and model experiments in the classroom.

Students will benefit from real-time and accessible learning objects on demand. This will end the problem of outdated curriculums in textbooks and lectures. The distribution of hands-on knowledge where learners could interact with the educators in the metaverse would liberate the downloading of information to children at a pace that they haven’t seen before since the advent of the world wide web.

Also Read: How edutech is solving the global teacher’s crisis

Forbes offered a glimpse of the metaverse as a likely media to fully support augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the connectivity to link all worlds.

Anyone will have the opportunity to create a space and be part of a user-generated global community on an omnipresent multiplatform where they can share their games or goods with the world. The 5G internet speed proliferation should allow this to be a reality.

Future educational impact

The impact of services rendered and the outcome of learners will undoubtedly change education systems across the world because the metaverse will allow anything to become a learning opportunity.

Complex subjects such as history, science, and geography will not be just flat illustrations on screen hindering the learning experience. The metaverse will allow students to experience elements of these subjects in detail never before achieved.

With the new approach to education, the value of childhood education will undoubtedly exponentially increase in revenue with the digital transformation of education itself.

In summary, education in the metaverse content will be more democratised. The educators will become the content creators and vice versa. The academic curriculum will be more equitable and open.

The Alpha Generation of learners will create demand, take more ownership of their education as experience and actively seek ways to collect experiences as units of knowledge.

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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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His parents wanted him to be a professional cellist, but Benjamin Harris was more of a computer geek. Harris, who touched his first computer at the age of 7, built a small web hosting company at 12. Five years later, impressed by his hacking skills, Portcullis Computer Security (acquired by Cisco) offered him a job.

“I spent two and a half years at Portcullis. In all, I spent more than a decade at consulting firms in the UK, Europe, and Asia simulating sophisticated cyber attacks for organisations. Over the last decade, the time taken to exploit a new vulnerability has reduced from weeks to hours,” said Harris, a British national. “However, I felt there must still be a better way for organisations to look at their attack surface with the same speed, agility, and aggression as real-life adversaries. watchTowr was established with this objective in mind.”

Launched in August 2021, watchTowr is a cybersecurity startup that helps organisations understand and identify high-impact weaknesses in their cybersecurity defences.

In February this year, the company bagged a US$2.25 million seed funding from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital and Wavemaker Partners.

In this interview with e27, Founder and CEO Harris spoke about the company and shared insights into the overall cybersecurity market.

Excerpts:

Why is it important that today, chief information security offices (CISOs) understand their susceptibility to the emerging weaknesses in hours, not weeks?

Hackers were much faster at exploiting software bugs in 2021, with the average time taken to exploitation going down from 42 days in 2020 to just 12 days. watchTowr combines world-class technology with years of offensive security experience to continuously identify high-impact vulnerabilities in an organisation’s attack surface.

We analyse organisations and discover vulnerabilities in real-time, so what used to take weeks, now happens in hours.  watchTowr offers a data-driven approach that seamlessly makes the technology for attack surface testing extremely scalable and increases efficiency. It also offers real-time reporting and insights.

Also Read: Best cybersecurity practices for startups to stay ahead of the curve

For a CISO, identifying a vulnerability in their organisation provides real assurance so that it can be resolved before an attacker exploits it in this fast-paced environment.

What is watchTowr’s secret sauce?

watchTowr’s secret sauce is two-fold. Our offensive security expertise has been built by experience — not by reading about attackers and attacks but by breaking into the world’s largest and most protected organisations.

We combine this expertise with an ability to leverage technology to collect, analyse and understand data at scale continuously. This enables watchTowr to build and deploy our continuous attack surface testing solution, which mimics real adversaries’ persistence, ingenuity, and aggression. watchTowr continuously probes entire external attack surfaces for high-impact vulnerabilities.

This approach offers CISOs peace of mind that their organisations are constantly being reviewed for weaknesses to keep their information secure. We offer an always-on security system that highlights issues before they are exploited.

How does watchTowr differ from existing solutions in the market?

watchTowr tells organisations in real-time if they could get compromised. It automatically and continually analyses the organisation’s attack surface, generating reports and alerts as appropriate.

The old way was manual, driven by consultants, and gave organisations a static snapshot of their defences. Consultant-driven exercises are outdated and they rely on humans to work through an asset to identify vulnerabilities that might exist at any point in time. As these exercises are point in time and executed on a quarterly —  or annual basis — they do not keep up with the speed at which the cyber security threat landscape evolves.

On the other hand, watchTowr leverages a data-driven approach with incredibly agile, extremely scalable technology that discovers vulnerabilities in real-time by discovering and examining an organisation’s attack surface and security posture.

How can banks, insurance and e-commerce firms benefit from real-time assurance like watchTowr?

Once engaged, watchTowr’s rapid approach and technology typically provide enterprises and CISOs a 300-400 per cent increase in attack surface visibility. Armed with greater visibility, CISOs can continuously discover high-impact vulnerabilities across their attack surface — reducing their reliance on outsourced consultancy and other cyber security assurance initiatives.

The challenge for an organisation today is not only to understand where they are exposed to a cyber attack but where they are vulnerable to a breach or a compromise.

In today’s world, where cyber attacks are constant and new weaknesses and vulnerabilities are being discovered at an increased speed, checking for vulnerabilities twice a year no longer makes sense.

Also Read: How to tackle cybersecurity threats during the holidays

watchTowr combines a genuine ability to look at the organisations’ attack surface that mimics sophisticated attackers, such as the North Koreans. For CISOs at banks, insurance companies and e-commerce companies, this is a game-changing approach that offers real assurance while enabling agility.

With the proliferation of Web3, a new wave of security threats has emerged (the Axie Infinity hack is a case in point). How equipped is watchTowr to leverage this “growing opportunity”?

Axie Infinity is a fantastic example of the growing sophistication of attacks carried out. It has become more critical than ever that organisations test their defences with the same aggression, agility and persistence as the threat they face — groups like the North Koreans, who are well resourced and highly motivated.

If you were defending Fort Knox (a US Army installation in Kentucky), would you employ an average individual on the street to test your physical defences? Likely not; you’d find a capability that reflected your most credible threat and use that to test your physical defences.

Then imagine that your most credible threat is constantly upgrading its capabilities, you’d want to test your physical defences constantly in line with these upgrades.

This is where watchTowr differentiates by building technology injected with sophisticated offensive security capability, which provides organisations with testing aligned to their most credible threat continuously.

watchTowr is backed by prominent VCs such as Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital fund and Wavemaker? How did you manage to get them on board?

Vulcan and Wavemaker are both under no illusion that most of the technical innovations we will see over the next ten years — whether in banking, Web3, e-commerce, or any other space — will need to be underpinned by cyber security. watchTowr offers a rare mix: a team experienced in the real world coupled with a clear gap in the market that watchTowr has purpose-built their technology for, and the endorsement that comes with an impressive list of enterprise clients, acquired in less than a year of operations.

Why did you choose Singapore to launch the firm? What opportunities do you see in the island state?

Singapore is an incredible launchpad to engage with the established and growing enterprise market across the region. The Singapore government considers increasing fines up to SGD1 million for financial institutions that suffer security breaches due to oversight. This will push companies into employing cybersecurity expertise to avoid the security breach itself and the fine that may be associated with it.

In addition, the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCert) has advised companies to strengthen their cybersecurity, vigilance and online defences to protect themselves from cyber-attacks such as web defacement, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) and ransomware, especially now with the current Russian-Ukraine war.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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iPrice Group, which runs a slew of price comparison platforms in Southeast Asia, announced today it is laying off 20 per cent of its employees.

The layoffs are part of the group’s several measures to focus the business on its core mission, “to help people save money” shopping online.

The Kuala Lumpur-headquartered iPrice said in a statement that it would follow all contractual and legal requirements and is helping the retrenched staffers find new opportunities.

The decision comes three months after iPrice closed a US$5 million investment from Japanese Conglomerates Itochu Corporation and KDDI Corporation.

Also Read: Woowa Brothers injects US$1.5M into Malaysian shopping aggregator iPrice

“[The] iPrice team is a strong community, so it was a tough decision to reduce our staff in line with the refocus on our core business,” said group CEO Paul Brown-Kenyon. “With these changes, however, we are in a stronger position to deliver on our core mission to help people save money.”

iPrice Group operates under its own brand iPrice and through various partnerships with apps, such as SmartPay (Vietnam), GoRewards (Philippines), Home Credit (Indonesia) Visense (Singapore), Robinsons rewards (Philippines) and Boost (Malaysia). It also runs a site in Hong Kong.

Over the years, iPrice expanded the business to offer a full-suite white-label marketplace solution for super apps, including BNPL providers and recently started building its app to capitalize on the 100mn+ users who visit iPrice websites every year.

Globally, startups are going through a rough patch due to several reasons, including unfavourable market conditions. Recently, Tech In Asia reported that Indonesian edutech company Zenius let go of more than 200 employees, or over 20 per cent of its total 900+ workforce.

In India, several startups, such as Mfine (digital health), Vedantu (edutech), and Cars24 laid off hundreds of employees.

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Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal have been friends since their college days and are passionate about exploring emerging technologies. They both attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, where they had cryptography classes and immersed themselves in other new-age technologies.

As their passion grew further, they aspired to establish their own startup to tap into India’s untapped and underserved cryptocurrency market.

Their relentless pursuit led to the co-founding of CoinDCX.

Established in 2018 and headquartered in Mumbai, CoinDCX is a cryptocurrency exchange focused on making crypto accessible to the masses. It offers users innovative products and features backed by “industry-leading” security processes and insurance protection. The projects on the platform are listed only after appropriate due diligence through its’ 7M principles‘.

Currently, the platform has over 12.5 million users.

Also Read: ‘I have seen the future, and it works.’ But is it Web3?

In addition to the crypto exchange, CoinDCX also runs several education and awareness programmes for crypto enthusiasts. For instance, its DCXLearn provides a full-fledged crypto learning platform with courses on crypto and blockchain.

In April, CoinDCX announced the completion of its oversubscribed Series D investment round of over US$135 million. Pantera Capital and Steadview Capital co-led the round, with participation from Kingsway, DraperDragon, Republic, Kindred, B Capital Group, Coinbase, Polychain, and Cadenza.

CoinDCX aims to grow its existing business/platforms and focus on nurturing India’s crypto and Web3 industry with the latest funding.

An arduous journey

Gupta told e27 that their journey was challenging as they faced several hurdles right from the outset. “Around the time we started CoinDCX, India’s central bank, the RBI, directed banks to stop trading with crypto companies. This discouraged investors from investing in us and left us without the funds critical to our existence,” said Co-Founder and CEO Sumit Gupta. “However, we preserved and worked tirelessly to keep the company operational. After the reversal of the ban, our investors came back.

India has had a hot-and-cold relationship with digital currencies. While in 2018, it imposed a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies, in February 2022, the government decided to formally recognise crypto trading while also discouraging it by imposing a heavy levy on transactions. This often created confusion in the market.

“The governmental support is critical for digital assets to reach their full potential and impact its digital economy. The first step in any regulatory regime is to accept and acknowledge the emergence of a new asset class. In India, we saw that happen when the government classified crypto as virtual digital assets,” Gupta maintained.

“We believe this is a step in the right direction. Furthermore, digital assets were given greater legitimacy when included in the government’s overall taxation framework, a milestone in recognising crypto,” Gupta said.

Barring the government flip-flops on crypto trading, India offers several favourable factors to become a fast-growing crypto market. According to Gupta, the country has greatly surprised market watchers with the rapid adoption of digital assets in recent years.

“Despite the regulatory back-and-forths happening in the market, India still ranked second on the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index. This speaks about the strength of the market – its demographics, strength in technology and a general willingness by the Indian population to explore crypto,” he noted.

As the local crypto adoption grows, it will open tremendous opportunities for related industries such as Web3. According to Rajan Anandan, MD at Sequoia Capital, India represents excellent potential for web3 startups.

CoinCDX intends to tap into this opportunity and recently launched CoinDCX Ventures. The VC arm’s mandate is to nurture the crypto and Web3 industry in India and beyond, hoping to serve as the country’s gateway to the broader international crypto ecosystem that has already been established.

Also Read: Breaking the bro code: How women are taking over the Web3 world in Asia

The startup also sees big potential for the metaverse gaming domain but has no immediate plans to venture into it.

“We continuously see an influx of unique, creative and innovative collaborations between business, technology, fashion, sport and art, particularly as lines between physical and digital worlds become increasingly blurred,” Gupta said. “While we have no concrete plans to enter the gaming market, for now, it is something we might consider in the future. The crypto and blockchain industry is proliferating, with innovations disrupting the space every day. CoinDCX wants to be at its forefront, spearheading the charge towards a new digital future where finance is increasingly decentralised,” he signed off.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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Omnistream, a fast-growing data-empowered solutions company for the retail industry, has raised US$7 million in Series A funding.

SIG Venture Capital led the round, with participation from Delivery Hero Ventures, Spiral Ventures and Wavemaker Partners.

The new funding will allow Singapore-based Omnistream to scale the business globally and add more than 50 new roles to the team by the end of 2022.

Founded in 2018, Omnistream helps retailers optimise their physical footprint by generating store-level planograms that optimise assortments for hyperlocal demand resulting in material uplifts in sales.

Also Read: How do investors evaluate SaaS companies?

The SaaS firm provides solutions for large retailers across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, deploying in 8,500+ retail locations. Its retail customers include supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, and online grocery operators.

Wendy Chen, Founder and CEO of Omnistream, commented: “As shoppers become more discerning, Omnistream empowers retailers to provide a superior customer experience that includes a more tailored product assortment, fewer stock-outs, and less waste across the retail supply chain.”

Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner of Delivery Hero Ventures, said: “Delivery Hero operates one of the world’s largest networks of dark stores for grocery delivery. We immediately saw the potential for Delivery Hero to work with Omnistream to drive incremental sales and operational efficiencies for our online grocery business. The company’s mission-driven focus also resonated with our core value to create a more sustainable food and grocery industry.”

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The well-known adage “culture eats strategy for breakfast” doesn’t just refer to the culture created in an office. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that remote working, whether hybrid or company-wide, is here to stay.

But companies are still struggling to stem the tide of employee burnout that’s directly tied to remote working conditions.

Here are Cake’s top tips for keeping remote teams engaged long past the end of the pandemic, whenever that may be.

Offer work from home perks

The small things add up and make a workplace feel more like home. So how do you transition these perks when your employees are literally working from their own homes? They’ve already got their tea, coffee and meals sorted, so you might need to think outside the box.

Companies like Employment Hero offer (in their language) Hero Dollars which provide access to discounts and Employment Hero’s online marketplace with reduced prices on thousands of everyday items. Not bad, right?

Instead of a gym membership, consider organising Zoom yoga classes, learning and development opportunities or have some tasty treats delivered to your team members’ doors. From cookies to DIY cake mix, the culinary world is your oyster.

Make play a priority

This might sound like a fluffy suggestion but hear us out.

Working remotely can be super isolating. Team members miss out on day-to-day gags with their co-workers; impromptu moments of surprise and delight! There are no banana peels to slip on or ping pong games to dust off the cobwebs. And gifs over Slack are fun but might not always cut the mustard.

Believe it or not, these little moments of play and connection are often the difference between what makes us stay or leave an organisation, whether we realise it or not.

Also Read: How to successfully onboard your remote team in the virtual world

Creating social events online that have absolutely nothing to do with work and everything to do with creativity and play brings teams together. It generates innovation by providing much-needed breaks from one’s day-to-day responsibilities.

Try a Zoom drawing or painting class, dance session or talent contest. How incredible would it be to see Sally from accounts play the guitar? Or Gary, the developer, does the splits? Talk about a bonding session.

Remember to include remote workers

This is particularly important if you have a blended working environment. That is, some workers at home and some at the office. When most of the team is in-situ, it’s easy to forget the few participating in cyberspace.

If you treat employees as “out of sight out of mind”, the results they produce are likely to nosedive and, worse, you might see them look for an environment that considers how to manage their remote needs better.

Some easy ways to include your remote team are:

• Invite them to events in the office
• Organise team lunches to attend
• Offer them alternative perks (see above!)
• Ensure office technology is set up in a way that is remote-friendly (i.e. big screens for meetings and speakers to ensure everyone can hear)

Reward team members with equity

Set up an Employee Stock Option Plan. Potential ownership of a slice of the company means employees start thinking like business owners. It’s common to see a spike in collaboration, productivity, and innovation when teams are incentivised with equity.

The Cake platform tracks vesting and automatically updates team members each time they achieve a vesting milestone. Yahoo!

Transparency on the Cake platform makes equity feel more tangible and means you don’t need to keep track (and keep reminding) of your team when their equity vests.

You may not be physically present with your team members. Still, when they see their equity vesting over time, they’ll be reminded their hard work is paying off, keeping them connected and energised to achieve the company goals and mission.

Encourage career development opportunities

According to Employment Hero, 1:1 feedback sessions can play a vital part in developing your individual team members:

“89 per cent of HR leaders agree that ongoing peer feedback and check-ins are key for successful outcomes? So with this statistic front of mind, it’s never been more crucial to pencil in some time with your remote workers. When you have honest conversations with your direct reports, you increase trust. And when trust is built, employee engagement improves.”

A significant part of any employee lifecycle is discussing room for professional growth, development and opportunities. What better way to do this than during scheduled time, dedicated to individual employees weekly or monthly.

Also Read: Top 3 signs your business will need a remote tech team

Arguably, remote workers need this dedicated attention more than those workers feeding off the buzz in the office. So, hop to and start scheduling those Zoom meetings!

Begin the week with team check-ins

Many companies start the week with team huddles or meetings to set priorities for the week ahead. But how many teams take 10 minutes to ‘check in’ on a personal level before getting into the nitty-gritty of work?

So what is a “check-in”?

Each team member receives two-three uninterrupted minutes to let the rest of the team know:

• Their energy level out of 10: In a remote environment, energy levels wax and wane, and it’s important to know where your team is at. If someone’s at a 10, you’ll know it’s all systems go, and you can safely stretch them out of their comfort zone. If they’re at a 3, you know to be a little more gentle with them that week.
• Anything that’s distracting them: This could be anything from anxiety about a pending work project to waiting to hear about an offer they’ve made on a rental property, or maybe someone has proposed to their partner, and their mind is buzzing with romance and excitement! It’s a great way to connect with the team on important life events and understand where their focus, beyond work, might be pulling them. If you’re a team of less than 10, it’s possible to do a company-wide check-in. If you’re larger than 10, it may be wise to break the Monday check-ins into smaller groups or break out rooms.
• Their top 3 goals or priorities for the week should relate specifically to work. Getting each team member to articulate and record their goals in a small group setting, fresh-faced on a Monday, not only helps teams stay accountable to each other but can help the less organised list-makers among us get on top of their to-do list.

Remember to record these goals and check back in on them at the beginning of next week’s check-in.

Now, go forth and remotely prosper!

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Pintu, a mobile-first crypto wallet and trading platform in Indonesia, has closed a US$113 million Series B round of financing from Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed, Northstar Group, and Pantera Capital.

The startup will use the money to roll out new features, including additional tokens, supported blockchains, and new products. It will also invest heavily in the Pintu Academy programme to help traders understand the opportunities and risks of crypto investing and promote healthier and sustainable trading practices.

Pintu will continue to aggressively hire top talent across all functions to support these initiatives, having already doubled its team size to 200 members in 2021.

Launched in April 2020, Pintu provides millennials and retail users a platform to invest in crypto-assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. It “offers comprehensive trading tools, simple UI/UX, advanced security features”, and educational content to assist investors in trading, analysing, managing assets, and learning about cryptocurrencies.

Also Read: Crypto loans: Having your cake and eating it too?

It offers features such as Pintu Earn (which allows users to earn an annual percentage yield on selected crypto assets that is paid hourly with no lock-up) and Pintu Staking (which offers many exclusive benefits for users who stake their Pintu Token), and additional payment channel integrations to make depositing and withdrawing of funds easily.

Since its launch, Pintu claims over four million users have installed its app, up from 500,000 in May 2021. It also runs Pintu Academy, a programme designed to educate and teach novice crypto traders the ins and outs of trading, acclimate traders to crypto fundamentals, and understand how to invest and sustainably manage risk.

Last August, Pintu raised US$35 million in an extended Series A financing, led by Lightspeed, in August 2021. This followed a US$6 million Series A round, led by Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures and Coinbase Ventures, in May that year.

Over the past year, the number of crypto investors in Indonesia has doubled to more than 12 million traders, according to data from the Indonesian Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappepti), compared with 7 million domestic public equity investors.

Indonesia’s crypto market still has significant room for growth, as crypto asset ownership has only reached a 4 per cent penetration rate.

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As a burgeoning digital asset class, cryptocurrencies attract a colourful cast of investors. These include those who dabble for fear of missing out, traders looking to flip tokens for short-term gains, and “crypto whales” who buy as much as possible and sit on it long-term.

For investors who plan to hold (or rather, HODL) their Bitcoin holdings for the long haul, the key challenge is probably the lack of immediate benefit. After all, it could take years before you realise your investment gains.

Fortunately, with the rise of crypto loans, it’s now possible for buy-and-hold investors to generate cash flow from their crypto holdings.

This article will explain how such loans work, who might want to consider them, and their benefits and risks.

How does a Bitcoin loan work?

For simplicity, let’s talk only about Bitcoin loans. As the grandfather of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin enjoys the most institutional acceptance and offers the most options for crypto loans.

A Bitcoin-backed loan works a lot like a traditional secured loan such as a mortgage or car loan. You borrow a lump sum of cash and pay it back, with interest, over a stipulated period.

Also Read: What is crypto-economics, and why is it a crucial element in decentralised networks?

Meanwhile, the lender holds your assets as collateral to reduce the risk of you defaulting on the loan (not that you would!). You remain the rightful owner of your Bitcoin. However, as long as you still have the outstanding fiat loan, you can’t freely trade or sell the BTC that is held as collateral.

This arrangement results in liquid fiat money for you to use or invest without requiring you to sell your Bitcoin. Thus, you retain the potential long-term upside of your crypto assets.

Three reasons to take a Bitcoin loan

If you have a significant amount of Bitcoin in your name with no plans to use or sell it anytime soon, a crypto loan could be worth considering.

Generally, borrowers get Bitcoin-backed loans for the following reasons:

• For investment purposes: Many crypto natives and investors use the fiat from their Bitcoin loans for other investments such as crypto trading. Crypto trading, especially arbitrage trading, is lucrative but fiat-intensive since each trade must be fully settled in fiat. If the potential upside from trading outweighs the loan’s interest rate, taking a Bitcoin loan may make financial sense.

• To fund mining operations: While Bitcoin mining remains lucrative, its operational costs can be prohibitive, all the more so since electricity bills and computer hardware need to be settled in fiat. Miners pledge their Bitcoin holdings as collateral in loans assuming that their earnings would exceed the loan’s interest rate.

• For business or corporate use: BTC-holding corporations or other entities also take on crypto loans as working capital or for investment purposes. An example of this is MicroStrategy borrowing US$205 million from Silvergate Bank to “further execute against [its] business strategy.”

How much collateral do I need for a Bitcoin loan?

Bitcoin loans typically have a loan to value (“LTV”) ratio of 50 per cent, meaning you can borrow up to 50 per cent of the value of the BTC you offer as collateral.

To calculate the amount of collateral needed for a Bitcoin loan, simply double your desired loan in fiat. For example, if you need to borrow US$10 million in fiat, you would need to offer US$20 million in BTC as collateral.

Most loan providers commonly use a 50 per cent LTV ratio to manage the volatility risks around cryptocurrency. It ensures that the loan’s value is still covered even if the price of BTC falls suddenly.

What happens if the price of BTC falls?

Should the price of Bitcoin fall below a certain threshold while you still have an outstanding crypto loan, you may be obliged to top up the collateral such that the LTV ratio remains at 50 per cent. This requirement is known as a “margin call”.

Due to the volatility of the asset type, margin calls are a real possibility. Borrowers should be mentally and financially prepared for them. That means you should not pledge your entire BTC portfolio for a loan; you’ll need some BTC in reserve in the event of a margin call.

Also Read: Cryptocurrency, money laundering and KYC: Why are regulations important?

At Fintonia Group, our crypto loans have suitable margin call thresholds where you need not worry about every single price fluctuation. Margin calls are triggered only when LTV is at 70 per cent and 80 per cent. At the 85 per cent level, borrowers may face auto liquidation.

Note that borrowers who fail to comply with margin calls or default on their loans may forfeit their collateralised Bitcoin.

Will my collateral be safe?

Security is a huge issue in the crypto space. Any savvy investor ought to be wary about theft, hacking, and fraud, which are commonplace in the crypto ecosystem, and the same concerns extend to crypto loans.

Borrowers depositing a significant amount of crypto as collateral should run background checks on their providers and consider the security measures.

At Fintonia Group, all collateral is deposited with a fully-insured third-party custodian for safekeeping. Your BTC collateral is held securely in an offline cold wallet. Combined, these state-of-the-art security measures reduce the risk of theft or loss of your assets to a negligible level.

Why take a Bitcoin-backed loan with Fintonia Group?

As one of the only crypto liquidity providers regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Fintonia Group is a cut above the rest. Be assured that your Bitcoin holdings are managed by a financial services provider complying with stringent regulatory standards.

Borrowers can choose crypto loan amounts ranging from US$1 million to US$50 million, typically at an LTV ratio of 50 per cent. It is possible to obtain a larger loan, subject to individual assessment. Loan tenures range from one month to 12 months, depending on your needs.

With Fintonia Group, it’s possible to gain fiat liquidity while retaining the long-term upside of your crypto portfolio, so you can have your cake and eat it too.

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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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A sea of new Earned Wage Access (EWA) startups are cropping up across Southeast Asia, piquing investor interest and quickly becoming one of the most discussed fintech solutions of 2022, and for good reason.

A solution that at its core aims to alleviate the financial struggles of the low-income workforce by enabling access to earned wages before payday, EWA doesn’t just help employees manage cash flow issues between paychecks, but it also allows employers to play a bigger part in protecting their workforce from predatory money lending.

With 35 per cent of the Southeast Asian workforce falling into the minimum wage income bracket, that’s millions of people living paycheck to paycheck, who are only one unexpected bill away from financial disaster. Given this, the industry’s growth comes as no surprise, with new entrants and competitive solutions propelling the market forward.

The competition is welcome because it’s leading to greater innovation, more localisation and ease of use.  So with all EWA players now chasing the same goal and looking to offer the best possible solution to SEA’s low-income workforce and their employers, how do they all stack up?

We believe that there is a lot to learn from the super apps such as Grab, Fave, and Air Asia that provide a wide suite of services to their consumers, be it financial, retail, or even communications and transportation.

These apps excel by consistently developing new solutions and products that add value to users’  lives, even if the link to the initial service offered might not be immediately obvious. EWA solutions need to take a leaf from their playbook and consider leveraging solutions that open new doors for their users.

Fostering financial inclusion

Bain & Company reported that 55 per cent of Malaysian adults are unbanked or severely underbanked, and according to Bank Negara Malaysia the underbanked population consisted mainly of low-income workers. These are trends reflected across other parts of SEA,  too.

We believe that given EWA’s financial nature and access to employee payroll information, their solutions have the power to foster financial inclusion among the low-income workforce by building a pathway for them to become a part of the banking system.

Also Read: How this app is helping low-income workers to achieve financial stability

While the uptake of digitalisation in banking has doubtless made some aspects of banking more accessible to SEA’s tech-savvy population, many fundamental and necessary financial services such as access to credit cards, housing loans, and car loans still lie in the hands of traditional banks.

For EWAs, this is a golden opportunity to create a solution that doesn’t just help them bridge the cash flow gaps between paydays but also adds other financial benefits to a perennially underserved market. EWA companies can take the next step and put financial inclusion first by partnering with major banks to help people build a credit record, and in turn, add that extra value to the end-user.

The road ahead for EWA in SEA

When we look at the future of this increasingly saturated market, the road ahead is clear. In order to push the industry forward and stay competitive as an EWA player, these companies must look into how they can further add value to the users’ everyday life and stay relevant.

While bridging salary gaps between paychecks is a good start,  the next step is to diversify offerings in a way that further benefits the user.  In order to do this, it could be a good start to look into other areas of necessities that might not yet be fully available to the low-income workforce, such as insurance.

Given that an EWA solution’s end-user is the lower-income workforce, health insurance is a service that still seems to be out of reach for most workers. EWAs could look at establishing partnerships with insurers to offer unique and affordable insurance plans to keep the workforce safe.

The possibilities for EWAs are endless.  Eventually, telecommunications offerings, mental health support, and even child care services could all seamlessly integrate themselves into an EWA platform, as long as the company is brave enough to take the next step into diversification.

By putting users first and enabling access to services and solutions that are not yet available to them, an employer who is looking for an EWA solution and cares about their employees is most likely to choose the solution that adds the most value to their employee.

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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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