Singapore-based telehealth startup Ordinary Folk today announced a pre-Series A funding of US$5 million led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

The healthtech firm will use the capital to accelerate talent-hiring to build a differentiated customer experience in healthcare using tech, expand to new markets, including Hong Kong, and scale in Singapore.

Ordinary Folk plans to hire top engineering talents in Vietnam, product, growth and design across the Singapore and Hong Kong markets.

Established in 2020, Ordinary Folk integrates its two consumer platforms — Noah and Zoey — distributed compliant medical network, electronic medical record (EMR), digital prescriptions, cloud pharmacy, and last-mile fulfilment.

Noah is a men’s telehealth platform that integrates different care areas, including sexual health, mental wellness, hair care, and weight management, creating the right tools for a better, more seamless patient experience. On the other hand, Zoey allows women to access sexual wellness, fertility, mental health, and wellbeing medical solutions in a judgment-free space.

Also Read: Why Singapore is ASEAN’s sandbox for innovation in healthtech

Ordinary Folk will use a portion of the funds raised from this round to expand its B2B partnerships with companies to provide ‘Noah’ and ‘Zoey’ services to its employees.

The healthtech startup claims its revenue grew by over 130 per cent and attracted over a million unique visitors.

“Millions of people across Asia find it difficult to access proper treatment and care for health conditions with huge taboos attached. Our mission is to use technology to simplify the patient experience. Sixty per cent of total health expenditure in Southeast Asia is out-of-pocket, making treatments for many prevalent health conditions costly,” said Sean Low, Founder of Ordinary Folk.

“We realised the need for a frictionless experience, from discovery to delivery. This is why it was essential for our digital health platforms to create access to doctors and medical solutions for sexual health, hair care, fertility, mental health and overall wellbeing together,” added Low.

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This article is part of e27’s partnership with CEO Roundtable Podcast and Asian Investors Podcast and CEO TV hosted by David Kim wherein we publish the revised transcripts from the podcast’s interviews with inspiring entrepreneurs and experienced VCs. 

Jennifer Cheng Lo is the Co-Founder and Chair of NewChic Capital, her single Family Office. Jennifer is also the Founder of JennClub, a content and commerce platform empowering creators, investors, entrepreneurs, leaders, and changemakers. Jennifer is also a Founding Partner of Ace Investment Management, a women-led hedge fund.

She is also the Founder and Director, AKA CGG (Chief Glam Girl) of Glam-it, a beauty, fashion, and lifestyle technology brand; She is the Founding Advisor of Glam-it! PPE, a Social Enterprise founded by her three children. She is also the Chair of Women With Purpose (part of Society of Family Offices).

Born and raised in the US, Jennifer started a career as an actress and a model in New York City. Prior to University, Jennifer attended Boston University Academy and Brookline High School while achieving high honours in the New England Conservatory Pre-College program for Piano Performance. Jennifer holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and an MBA from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

How many hats are you wearing now?  Tell us about your journey to founding NewChic Capital Family Office.

I’m wearing a ton of hats.  I’m a creator, entrepreneur, investor, community builder and champion for underestimated founders and funders and impactful projects for humanity.

I started out actually as a creator because true to my Chinese name which literally means “literature” and “music”.  I was a child prodigy at the piano, learning from the renowned Jean Stackhouse and Julia Bernstein at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

I was winning different international competitions from the age of ten onwards and when I was a young teenager, I became the youngest student of the famed concert pianist the late Anthony di Bonaventura who was head of the music department at Boston University.

I was also a youth writer and won a national poetry competition then too.  I started acting and modelling while I was young, but also continued it on the side during high school, college and for a few years after I graduated.

During the pandemic, I recently resumed being an actress to do shooting and filming and promotions for some of my portfolio companies and projects.  I also restarted my career as a pianist and won an international competition, in order to motivate my three children and be a role model for them in their music and artistic pursuits.  It’s been nice to have this time to revisit various passions.

It was while performing and pursuing creative outlets since I was young, that I discovered I had the natural entrepreneurial ability and worked at and did startups with my brother and others while in college and also after graduating.

I was further able to develop as an entrepreneur and a builder in tech as I held management roles in technology companies and startups during and after business school which I did at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

After some startup exits, I decided to start my family office NewChic Capital for investing in female and diverse founders and to pursue and build other impactful passion projects that help move the needle.

Aside from NewChic Capital, I’ve started a community called JennClub.com and also alongside my partner Vivian Wang, am in the process of launching publicly a private fund, Ace Investment Management; at a later date will be unveiling a micro VC with her and our other partner, Lauren Nham with occasional opportunities showing up in my JennFund syndicate on Angellist.

Tell us about your family business and how did you come up with the idea to start NewChic Capital Family Office?

My parents’ focus when I was growing up was on technology companies and also on real estate, and I realised early on the importance of entrepreneurship, investing, as well as diversifying into both physical and virtual (digital) assets.

My father and my mother recorded so many hours of my piano and acting videos growing up as he said these would be my memories and future generations’ memories.  Little did I know that the first NFT I ever minted later would be of me playing the piano, which was an NFT I made for Jin Yu and his loved ones while he was in the ICU and then passed away from COVID-19.

After being involved with startups that exited, I realised the future going forward was investing in other entrepreneurs, funders, changemakers, and community builders.  That’s what I’ve done and what I continue to do.

NewChic is a play on the words “New Girl”. I’d always been the new girl at school when we moved to different cities in the US when I was growing up, and I was the new girl when I moved to Hong Kong for business school and stayed to become an entrepreneur, investor, creator, and community builder in my own right.  As mentioned my main partners are women as well, Vivian Wang and Lauren Nham.

Please tell us about the investment thesis, e.g. strategy, sectors, focus geographic market, ticket size and stage, social impact, etc.

In terms of the investment thesis, we invest and try to abide by the mantra that “we are building the world we want our children to inherit”, and NewChic has many impact-focused investments from health therapeutics like Cambrian Bio with cancer vaccines and other longevity-focused medicines, to Climate-X which is focused on climate with their proprietary algorithm Spectra that has positively impacted the way people work ranging from how we eat, live, work, play.  We’ve invested in Pre-seed through C, sometimes as follow ons on our early investments.

What do you look for in an early-stage investment?  What do you have on your checklist?

We look for an alignment of values and vision when it comes to early-stage founders and it all comes down to the team, their ability to execute, as well as their track record.  By track record, we don’t necessarily mean exits or multiple exits (although that is nice).  We look at the team and the founders’ track record as people, are they good people?  Do they have a track record of creating value for and helping others?

Which verticals or which businesses do you think will experience explosive growth in the next couple of years post-pandemic?

I continue to believe in Web3 and the power of decentralisation, DAO for governance and financial inclusion for all as we are empowered to utilise our own data and actions, alongside the growth of a creator economy and a more ecosystem.

Also Read: The Shark Tank of Web3: How this DAO is bridging the funding gap for women founders

Throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic (whenever that is) and this new normal, we are all forced to accept, I still believe that basic human needs will stand strong including impact tech (we are all stakeholders in our collective future and the world), climate tech, ESG tech, property tech, food tech, edutech (we need to continuously learn and grow as does our next generation), fintech, wealth tech.

Please tell us a bit about a couple of your current portfolio companies you are bullish about and why you made an investment in them and are advising them.

Runway is a company we are extremely excited about as it’s led by my friend Siqi Chen (formerly Zynga, Postmates (Uber), Sandbox AR) who is an entrepreneur and investor hybrid like me, not to mention back multiple times by the likes of Andreesen Horowitz, an amazing advisor/venture partner on our investment committee.

ClimateX is a Climate change company at the forefront of bringing actionable data to people, organisations, and communities everywhere as we are all collectively impacted by climate change and the repercussions of not taking action now and recently closed their oversubscribed Seed (We invested in the Pre-Seed and Seed rounds).

HelloAva.co is our beauty and wellness AI portfolio disrupting the way consumers interact with their beauty and wellness products.

PlayGround is a creator multiverse that is empowering the way creators and communities interact and change the world together.

Votee is a company empowering consumers to monetise their data into actionable insights by brands and organisations.

Petastic is a pet metaverse helping us take care of our pet children utilising blockchain, token, and NFT technology.

All of our companies are Web3 or bridging the gap from Web2 to Web3.

I saw you are very active in philanthropic activities. What else do you do besides investment activities? Anything you are passionate about?

I am passionate about any charity that empowers women and children.  Women hold so many roles and I watched firsthand how entrepreneurial and strong my grandmothers and mother were and are.  I’ve played charity concerts using my piano as my “superpower” and I’ve been giving virtual concerts to those stuck in quarantine or recovering, or to inspire them, as well via social media.

What is your big picture, the next 5 years for you and your vision for NewChic Capital Family Office and your other businesses?

Let me flesh this out further in the future, but NewChic is going to continue to collaborate with and invest in impactful technology, Web3 communities, Metaverse, underestimated founders and funders, and more.

In the meantime, we will be also launching our MicroVC Fund as well as our Hedge Fund, and building out content and community platforms to be interoperable in this open collective future which will come down to the content (substance), community, curation, collaboration, and much more.

NFTs are the tip of the iceberg.  They are the culmination of art, culture, humanity, and technology but also they will be proofs of stake and ownership in an increasingly decentralised world where the best metaverses are underscored by the best communities.

We will continue to build and partner with projects with love and empathy as that is the ethos that makes us human.  Web3 is a cultural renaissance as much as it is a reawakening;  it is everyone currently alive right now who is truly immortalised onto the blockchain.

What are three traits you most want your children to adopt?

Resilience (grit), empathy, compassion, and moral intelligence.

What is your favourite book and why? 

I have too many favourite books to count.  However, at this moment I am remembering a book I read at a very young age called “The Diary of Anne Frank” as it’s very poignant and tells the story of a girl on the cusp of womanhood, speaking with the voice and innocence of a girl and the wisdom of an age far beyond her years, tragically snuffed short by the acts of a despot during World War II.

Also Read: Three books I loved reading in 2021 and the lessons they provided

It’s not hard to see the parallels to the current world situation.  For a happier series from my childhood, I enjoyed reading the entire “Anne of Green Gables” series about a girl coming of age and reaching full womanhood in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

What are the things you want to change most in the startup ecosystem?

In the startup ecosystem, I wish to see more of the pay it forward mentality.  It’s tempting to be heads-down on your own startup, but it’s still important to reach out a hand and help others and also, when you have that exit, or even a slight bit of success, to pay it forward and help others.

I like to invest my time and resources in others who have their hand out first to help, not take.  It’s important to understand that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you also need to be an investor and vice versa, and to always think like an operator and be a doer, not a talker.

It’s also important for people to remember to put the relationship first above all else and to prioritise friendships and relationships and people over anything else.  I try to treat my personal friends in a very businesslike way, and I try to treat my business friends very personally.

What advice do you hear most commonly that is given to entrepreneurs you disagree with.  And why?

I hate hearing entrepreneurs being told that it’s all about the idea and the pitch.  It’s not about the idea; Anyone can have a good idea, and anyone can be coached to pitch well.  It is about the follow-through, the perseverance, and the overall vision and mission, as much as it is about the ability to pivot and iterate quickly, or at least evolve amidst ever-changing paradigms.

How do you evaluate your own relationship to money today? How has it changed over time?

I feel like money pales in comparison to the true assets which are family, health, and time.  I gave a TEDx talk on this almost a decade ago and I think it still holds true.  Time is the one currency that no one has enough of.  One can never spend enough time on family and loved ones, and health is something we all take for granted until it’s gone.  Same for your friends and family.  Do not take them for granted until they’re gone.

Who is the nicest person you have ever met? And why?

The nicest person I’ve ever met is my best friend Vivian.  She has always been there for me to the point of becoming family.  I met her in business school about ten years back and then I met my husband a week later.  She was my maid of honour at my wedding, and she’s now the godmother of my three children.

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The post How she made the switch from a pianist into starting her own business and impact VC appeared first on e27.

B2B business founders and venture capitalists shared their first-hand experiences on effective ways of doing business with large enterprises in the recently concluded webinar “Let’s Make a Deal: How to Do Business with Large Enterprises”, organised by SAP APAC and e27.

Watch the webinar here.

Moderated by Aaron Ang, SAP Head of Midmarket Southeast Asia, panellists included Jonathan Tan, Managing Director of Unabiz Singapore; Quah Zheng Wei, CEO of Accredify; Gitta Amelia, CEO of Atola and founder of Everhaus VC; and Badai Tanmizi, Investment Manager at Qualgro VC. 

Ang kicked off the conversation by sharing the importance of understanding enterprise customers and taking into consideration the relative complexity and strategy when working with 10-headcount businesses vs. 1000-headcount businesses, such as whether they have regional or global business-coverage, and even how one’s solution may contribute to the overall objectives of an organisation’s growth.

Given the pressing concerns of businesses both large and small such as sustainability and the ability to respond to force majeure situations like the pandemic, being creative in the positioning of one’s business combined with a deep understanding of the organisation being served are essential.

Understanding the stage a business is in

Tan further elaborates on these points through his experience in building internet-of-things company Unabiz, dealing with projects involving sensors and networks. 

With over 1.3 million sensors deployed to date around the world, and having a business footprint in Singapore, Australia, and Japan, he advised B2B facing businesses to understand the value of their product line to potential enterprise customers based on its development maturity, and to position how the business will work with the large enterprise based on whether they are in the early, middle or late stage of growth and their corresponding capability.

Tan also mentioned the importance of identifying the nature of engagement with the enterprise: it can be selling to them as an end-user, selling through them as a partner or main contractor, and/or selling by being a reseller of their solutions.

Also read: Mobile app trends 2022: A global benchmark of app performance

The sell-through model allows for a larger market size, but it is important to master system integration and leverage on opportunities of packaging your solution together with the product lines of corporates; when engaging via the sell-through model, it is important to educate and work closely with large enterprises in understanding your product properly and engaging for sustained sales push.

While indeed large enterprises present larger and more attractive deal sizes, the reality is that closing the deal will take more time. That is why it is important to focus resources on a set target of large enterprises you aim to work with rather than arbitrarily going around. 

This helps you avoid “death by proof of concept” — a usual struggle among early-stage B2B startups – by being selective in who you work with and understanding how each party is going to invest in the deal. Tan also mentioned a good practice of understanding that enterprises—with their massive size—have many agendas across different departments. As such, navigating stakeholders and decision-makers within the organisation, engaging them, and having the right buy-in from the right people is key. 

Tan argued that understanding the organisational DNA of the enterprise customer, being ready to reskill from the onset, and making sure you don’t oversimplify or overcomplicate are all key aspects of a partnership. 

Other considerations such as designing for interoperability and being ready to work with other departments within the enterprise organisation being served are important. Furthermore, growth can be enabled by strategising further on how to extract greater mileage from a successful deployment and broadening the benefit of the system with further digital transformation.

The biggest challenge of working with corporates

Zheng Wei Quah, CEO & co-founder of Accredify, a company in the business of digital trust with over 12 million independently verified credentials to date, shares that the biggest challenge of working with corporates is going through the sales cycle and maintaining a product sales role versus a service provider role.

This is especially crucial for smaller startups that are only starting out and are now suddenly confronted by situations where large enterprises seek powerfully developed solutions that you simply cannot provide yet. In the discovery, implementation, and development phases, more requirements will be asked and may creep into one’s product development strategy without you realising it.

Quah shared his first-hand experience of being able to close contracts even before their full product release. He emphasises that large enterprises are looking for problem-solvers rather than a certain product. Therefore, it is important to make the buyer remember that you are the person in the room that can solve their problem—that you are the product—especially in the early phases. This period is critical in finding out what features to prioritise in developing the product, which is a constantly iterative process.

Also read: Massive gains for global startups in China’s robust market

Gitta Amelia, Founder of Everhaus VC, an early-stage sector-agnostic VC fund, with half of its investment portfolio in the B2B enterprise space, advised startups to perform extensive research before the actual customer outreach. It is important to know who the decision-makers are, and what the key pain points are that the enterprise customer is meaning to solve.

When closing deals with large companies, she shared that winning the deal is less about pitching and more about understanding the problem and seeing how you can help. The VC fund works alongside its investee companies in securing their first portfolio of enterprise customers. 

Once this is established, it can be replicated and help bolster business credibility. As VCs look for companies that can scale, it is imperative for startups to have a proof of concept before an investor can come in and invest.

In the context of the post-pandemic situation, Amelia further shared that understanding the reality of moving targets is important, and gaining primary information and performing extensive research is even more crucial. This change can present opportunities, with more companies now prioritising their digital transformation strategies.

Amelia also discussed why the VC’s role in good capital injection, especially in the early stages, is key in establishing successful partnerships. 

VCs can help in financial planning, setting KPIs to hit, and preparing for the next stages. Introductions to other VCs for the next stages are also accessible. With the network and portfolio approach, she further recommended for startups to be ready before an introduction is made to make it fruitful and to be aware of compliance processes and other requirements needed to close a deal.

Focusing on product

Badai Tanmizi, investment manager at Qualgro VC, a sector-agnostic series A to B venture capital fund focused on B2B enterprise companies, shared the trend and opportunity of startups that leverage the strategy of shifting from sales-led to product-led processes. This entails that sales workflows do not require a human in the loop, especially in the lead generation and pitch phases.

It may eventually require human involvement for demo and sign-off stages, but product-led growth is an emerging practice among series A and B stage startups servicing enterprises. An example of this is having a ready product with a freemium model where potential customers can do a demo without heavy commitments, thereby expanding the target set of enterprise customers.

Also read: 6 fintech startups you should keep an eye out for

When asked about sharing advice to growth-stage founders for greater success, Tanmizi further shared the importance of preparing one’s business and the product for enterprises, meeting certifications to meet enterprise procurement standards, ISO, security audits and the like. It is also good to plan for complicated and multi-stakeholder processes and keep the business focused on delivering a product rather than a service, as this may compromise scale to achieve regional or global growth for a startup. 

The “Let’s Make a Deal: How to Do Business with Large Enterprises” webinar is only one of many initiatives sponsored by SAP to share insights on sales strategies for startups and to highlight the importance of acquiring large enterprise customers through partnerships with global technology providers like SAP. With all the tips, trends, and insights shared by our esteemed panel of experts, SAP and e27 hope to bolster and embolden growth among relevant stakeholders in the larger business ecosystem.

To view the recent webinar, you can visit the official video. For more information, you may contact e27’s Joel Pelo at joel@e27.co

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SAP

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.

The post B2B tips: Doing business with large enterprises appeared first on e27.

NOICE, a multi-vertical audio platform for Indonesian listeners, has secured US$22 million in its Series A funding round led by Northstar Group, with participation from existing investors Alpha JWC, Go-Ventures and Kinesys.

“We will use the funds to grow our audio content creators’ community, advance the tech platform, and double down our efforts in developing audio series. We aim to surface Indonesia’s best stories from the local writers/storyteller’s community and adapt them into an audio format. We’ve piloted this new format and found very promising engagement and retention results,” said NOICE CEO Rado Ardian.

This round comes weeks after it announced a strategic investment by RANS Entertainment, a leading content company founded by celebrity couple Raffi Ahmad and Nagita Slavina.

Launched in June 2018 as a radio streaming platform, NOICE streams local audio content, including radio, music, audiobooks and podcasts, to registered listeners across Indonesia. Mahaka Media Group, a company created by Erick Thohir, the country’s minister of state-owned enterprises, is a major investor in NOICE.

Also Read: Indonesian podcast network NOICE nets ‘7-figure USD’ funding co-led by Alpha JWC, Go-Ventures

NOICE differentiates itself from its global rival Spotify through the platform’s hyperlocal in-house content. It focuses on producing and curating local audio content across different audio verticals and hosts more than 40,000 pieces of content.

The firm works closely with the local writers’ community to launch original audio drama series.

NOICE currently serves over two million users and claims to have grown more than 4x over the past year, with its listeners spending ~80 minutes per day on the platform.

The audio platform also runs an end-to-end creator development programme to guide the creators throughout their creative journey. It also includes a proprietary audio creation SaaS platform that allows creators to build and publish content directly on NOICE.

“Users and creators are always our top priority. We want users to have NOICE as their daily companion app through various content lineups ranging from new aspiring creators and hyperlocal talents to mega influencers. While on the creators’ side, we want to invest in building Noicemaker Studio, our recently launched a creator-focused platform where creators can grow their show and unlock the potential creator-driven monetization,” Rado added.

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“I don’t have time for marketing” and “I’m doing enough marketing for my current needs” are two of the most common refrains heard from startup founders. It’s easy to fall into these comfort zones when you need to manage everything else (product management, tech, operations, HR, finance) day-to-day and put out the frequent fires in all of these above functions.

But amidst the maelstrom, it makes sense to set aside some time to figure out your marketing.

That’s because marketing isn’t just a function. It helps you refine your startup’s concept, its raison d’etre, its ikigai. In some cases, it doesn’t just refine it. It defines it.

I once worked with a startup that wanted a website. But what they needed was a brand narrative that defines and guides everything they do across mediums. A manifesto of what they are and are not, and the four pillars of their purpose, all articulated by an external agency (us) with a fresh pair of eyes. Once we gave them that, they took it way beyond the website task and embedded it into everything they did.

Having worked with startups and scale-ups in health tech, fintech and food tech, I’ve identified three stages in any startup’s marketing. Depending on the startup, its age, its funding, and the vision of its founders, different startups need to work in various stages of their marketing.

Also Read: How to use Twitter to market your product as a founder

Here’s my attempt to simplify and articulate these three stages. As we discuss this spectrum, feel free to ascertain where your startup is currently situated on it.

Brand fundamentals

The first stage is what I call brand fundamentals. This requires ascertaining the very essence of your brand and distilling it into a form that governs every communication ever done by your brand. Yes, your startup is a brand, however large or small.

This sometimes looks like a brand pyramid or brand house. There are many different variants of this, but they all have certain foundational concepts at the base, such as product attributes, functional benefits and emotional benefits.

As you move up the pyramid, the concepts take a loftier form, such as product personality and product positioning. At the very top would be the loftiest essence of a brand. This could be “real beauty and self-esteem” (if you’re a skincare brand) or “health and hygiene” (if you’re a hand sanitizer brand), or “helping people make connections over coffee” (if you’re a café or coffee brand)

It would be best if you weren’t plucking these from thin air to fill up an artefact such as a pyramid or a house. It would be best if you had strategists who spend a lot of time researching your company, its current users, prospective users, their pain points, competitors, and so on before sieving out your unique essence and encapsulating it succinct yet informative way.

Foundational creative outputs

The second stage is what I call foundational creative outputs. This is how your startup looks to the world.

A website that’s not just aesthetically pleasing but also high on its SEO creds. A delightful presence on the social media of your choice. Out-of-home ads or print materials if you deem fit. Or, in the light of our increasingly digital world, you might be better off investing in a podcast or an event platform.

Meanwhile, don’t neglect the bare necessities like your everyday business collaterals and how your office looks. All these things need to draw directly from the fundamentals you’ve formulated in the first stage. Your brand essence cannot just remain in your internal docs and decks.

The foundational creative outputs are how it sees the light of day and becomes visible to the wider world beyond those who work with you.

Also Read: Diversity and inclusion marketing campaigns: Everyone, everyday, forever

Advanced creative outputs

The third stage is what I call advanced creative outputs. You might want to announce your brand in a big way through a stunning video. You might attempt time-bound or market-specific social media campaigns. You might need an in-store presence, in which case your shopper marketing needs to be well thought out. You might even decide to go apeshit with an experiential AR/VR activation in a public place. This is arguably the most fun part of marketing.

Ideally, stage one (brand fundamentals) should be done once, and it should be solidly in place. Occasionally you might want to rethink it, for example, if you’re entering a new market. But if you find yourself revisiting your brand fundamentals repeatedly, chances are you’ve yet to crack it.

Stage two (foundational creative outputs) may need a regular rethink, given ever-evolving website design trends. But even that should ideally not change a whole lot. Think of your favourite brands, and chances are, they don’t drastically alter their social media voice or the aesthetics of their event pages on a whim.

Stage three (advanced creative outputs) can be in flux. In fact, to keep things fresh and exciting, I recommend that they should be in a state of flux. Have fun with unexpected and creative ways to bring your brand to life while consciously filtering against what your brand is and isn’t.

Some brands have the right to do humour. Some don’t. Some brands can talk with the authority of knowledge. Others with the familiarity of a friend. Ensure that every creative output stays true to who your brand is. Note that I said who your brand is, not what your brand is.

No startup wants to remain a startup forever. But that risk is there if you get caught up in the whirlwind of the here and now and fail to strengthen the fundamentals that’ll take you where you want to be.

The three-stage process I’ve outlined is meant to be a simple guide that can give you that bit of extra clarity you seek. I hope it helps!

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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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Image Credit: g-stockstudio via Canva Pro

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As the technology becomes more popular, we begin to see various companies and organisations using NFTs for various purposes. Earlier this week, e27 published an interview with Singapore-based Ryde to understand their ride-to-earn programme and how they aim to build an efficient and advantageous membership programme with it.

In recent months, we have also begun to see artists, activists, and institutions utilising NFTs to fundraise for their projects. Leading media companies such as Straits Times raised over S$21,000 in an NFT auction to fundraise for The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund; in fact, during the ongoing situation in Ukraine, its DAO’s sale of a simple NFT of the country’s flag managed to secure US$6.75 million in wartime funds.

But things are not always rosy. There are certainly examples of failed fundraising projects that can serve as a lesson for the rest of us.

If you are considering using NFTs as a means to fundraise for a cause or a project, what are the factors that you need to keep in mind? What can you do to ensure success? Most importantly, what can you learn from those who have failed?

e27 speaks to David Tng, Head of Growth, TZ APAC, the leading Asia-based ecosystem adoption arm for the Tezos blockchain, to understand more about fundraising through NFTs. Considered one of the most advanced and energy-efficient blockchains at the moment, the Tezos blockchain has been a go-to for many of the world’s most prominent NFT projects, including the largest fundraisers.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

Why NFTs are great for fundraising

Before we can understand how to run a fundraising project using NFTs successfully, first we need to understand what makes this so attractive. The first advantage to come to mind was cost-effectiveness, followed by transparency and security.

Apart from that, NFTs open up the opportunity for a project or a cause to connect with a passionate, global audience who are even more willing to spend generously. In our interview, Tng cites a report by The Giving Block, a crypto financial platform that works with organisations to help them set up crypto wallets. The report reveals that the average crypto donations can go as high as US$10,000 while the average traditional donations are only around US$130.

“The number of donors is also increasing rapidly, around 15 times in 2021,” he adds.

But that does not mean fundraising through NFTs is completely risk-free. Tng warns against the potential of a backlash by citing the case of a recent fundraising effort by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Earlier this year, the UK chapter of the organisation released Tokens of Nature, a series of NFTs depicting endangered species.

The controversy began when experts criticised the organisation’s decision to work with Polygon. Despite being perceived as the more environmentally friendly option, digital currency economist Alex de Vries noted that Polygon “is responsible for some of the pollution generated by the notoriously energy inefficient Ethereum” and questioned WWF’s decisions. This eventually led to WWF discontinuing the initiative.

“Brands have to assess whether their values align with the technology on blockchain that they use. That’s something that they definitely have to figure out,” Tng stresses.

The failure of WWF reminds us of the key principle of fundraising through NFTs: In order to be able to attract potential donors, first, you need to understand them well.

When it comes to understanding your audience or potential NFT buyers, according to Tng, there are several questions that you need to answer:

1. What is the purpose of NFTs in this initiative?
“Why does this initiative require the use of NFTs and not other means of fundraising?” he asks. Tng also highlights the importance to decide the role that the NFT plays here: are they meant to build awareness, or are they a form of reward mechanism?

2. What does the NFT represent for the buyer?
Tng gives the example of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an initiative where donors can show their contributions to the cause by displaying a pink ribbon on their online and offline presences. If you are fundraising by using NFTs, you also need to figure out a symbol that can represent buyers’ contributions. It can be in the form of an artwork, a symbol, or even access to a community such as a private group on Discord and Telegram, or an invitation to dine with the artist. “So there is a compelling reason [to contribute] that you can’t find elsewhere. This is actually the reason why they’re using NFTs; so it has to be very clear what the NFTs represent,” he stresses.

Tng says, when organisations are reaching out to TZ APAC for potential collaboration in a fundraising project, these are the questions that they will always ask. As with the case of WWF, where the organisations mistakenly associate themselves with a platform that is hurting their own brand, failure to understand the needs of the potential buyers may threaten the livelihood of the project.

Also Read: ‘NFTs provide new ways to handle IP management, empower content creators’: Inmagine CEO Warren Leow

“They have to be very clear because it is all going to be on social media. It is all going to be transparent. They need to have a strategy,” he stresses.

Another important point is to understand the fundamentals of the technology itself, as it can help organisations prevents mistakes, and be responsive in correcting the mistakes that they made. The Ukrainian NFT fundraising project is also a great example of the matter. According to Tng, the Ukrainian government earlier announced that they were going to do an airdrop of tokens to any person who had donated to the cause, but this ends up creating a backlash as they were not being clear about the purpose of these tokens.

“But something that they did well is that they realised the mistake quickly and cancel this plan. They are aware that they did not do enough research and were not really clear about the purpose.

There was also the matter of choosing the right blockchain to facilitate this effort.

“It really depends on the organisation which blockchain they are most aligned with. Whether it is Ethereum, Solana, or Tezos … There are some that are more energy-efficient, but there are also others that drive other values with them as well,” Tng says.

Getting the word out

As with any novel technology, education remains an important homework that stakeholders need to work on. In the case of a decentralised platform, it becomes even more crucial as users should be able to make informed decisions on their own.

Apart from that, there is also a need for organisations to continuously update the progress of this fundraising project through social media channels, particularly whenever the fundraising has reached a new milestone.

“I think organisations have to be aware of that and uphold themselves on a similar or even greater level than the traditional means of fundraising because now every single step of the way is visible to the public … There is an increasing need for communication,” Tng stresses.

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Singapore-based battery recycling solutions company Green Li-ion announced today it has closed its US$11.55 million Series A funding round, led by Energy Revolution Ventures.

Cleantech investors, including EDP Ventures (the VC arm of renewable energy producer EDP), TRIREC, SOSV, Entrepreneur First, MB Energy Partners, Ilshin Holdings, Envisioning Partners, and GS Holdings also joined the round.

The funds will allow Green Li-ion to demonstrate commercial operations, expand into Europe, and for R&D. The firm looks to develop and pilot the next generation of recycling products.

Also Read: Transitioning to new energy? Here’re 5 prominent solutions for your business

Green Li-ion has developed a range of plug and play modular battery recycling technologies targetting recycling and manufacturing plants. The technology generates material profits for the recycler or manufacturer (by producing battery-grade materials directly from black mass). It also creates cost savings for companies in the battery supply chain.

Another benefit is that it enhances the overall sustainability of the end product.

Global demand for battery metals is currently at a historic high. This is anticipated to continue for the foreseeable future, with global power demands increasing and economies looking to decarbonise.

Accordingly, recycling spent and waste batteries will be an important source of battery materials. Green Li-ion claims its technology enables customers to undertake cost-effective on-site recycling of batteries.

Also Read: Green Li-ion raises US$3.45M to make Li-ion battery recycling ‘faster, profitable’

Leon Farrant, Co-Founder and CEO of Green Li-ion, said: “This is a pivotal moment in the battery markets. The world is experiencing exponential growth in the demand for sustainably sourced and manufactured batteries. We believe that our technology will help ensure that batteries can be brought to the market with minimal waste and safely recycled in an environmentally sustainable manner. We are at an inflexion point with the sourcing and development of battery metals, and we believe that Green Li-ion and its associated technologies have the potential to play an important role in making the battery sector climate positive.”

In March 2021, Green Li-ion had raised US$3.45 million in seed funding.

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In this episode, we are excited to welcome Claudia Makadristo, Head of Africa Expansion for MetaMap, a fast-growing digital trust and reputation infrastructure layer that enables other service providers. Prior, Makadristo was Head of Partnerships and Regional Manager for Seedstars.

In our conversation, Makadristo talks about the importance of building relationships in emerging markets to understand local dynamics – especially with government regulators, introducing your company the right way, why you don’t want to underestimate local competitors who fully understand the local market well, the importance of having a solid local team to navigate local nuances in a market and why it’s crucial to understand the sensitivities and differences within a market, leading with empathy so you can effectively interpret your product or service for the new market.

Also Read: Yoco head of international expansion on building trust in a new market

This episode is sponsored by our partner, ZEDRA. Learn more about how the ZEDRA team can support you in expanding to new markets here.

Find our entire podcast episode library here and learn more about our forthcoming book on global business growth here.

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The content was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

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Millennial males continue to define the face of South and Southeast Asian consumers of fintech lending, the same as a few years ago. However, there has been a clear change, increasing uniform coverage of the population with online financial services.

How people got more involved with fintech

Seven to eight years ago, only a select few customers borrowed money online. Some were “innovators”, enticed by the emerging prospects of global digitalisation.

They were keen to experience all the benefits of digital financial services, speed, accessibility and convenience then and there, long before they would become an essential part of life (or not).

With no readily available options, others were indeed in a serious need of money, knocking on the doors of banks and other financial institutions.

Borrowers combining traits of both archetypes were the most common customers of the first online lenders. This group mainly consisted of tech-savvy male citizens who had pronounced spending tendencies. The data from our services show, for example, that over the past five years in Vietnam, 71 per cent of applicants were men; in India, 89 per cent.

The urban youth, among others, is the base driver of fintech development in the region. Various experts have claimed this, one of which was the Singapore-based banking corporation UOB and their 2017 analytics.

Indeed, the generation of 25-35-year-old urban millennials, as the most consumer-active and tech-savvy of all, became the segment’s defining audience for years to come. This is especially true for Asia, considering the overall youthfulness of its population: the average age in South Asia is roughly 28, in Southeast Asia, 30.

Still, online loans quickly grew in popularity, attracting new segments of the population. They benefited from the swift Internet penetration and other regional specificities. A significant contributing factor, especially in the Philippines and Indonesia, was geographic disunity,  which made Internet technologies the only viable way to access financing for the citizens of remote regions.

The predominantly low yet developing urbanisation also played its part. In the face of growing consumption, a common lack of employment, and consequently, no access to banking services, the rural population also turned to online lending.

The rising client mobility cannot be overlooked as one of the long-term trends defining the customer portrait of digital financial services. The smartphone is becoming an increasingly versatile tool of today, directly affecting the fintech sector.

Also Read: How this homegrown fintech is helping Singaporeans with alternate investing

For instance, across the Robocash Group footprint in South and Southeast Asia, at the beginning of 2018, every second loan application was received from a mobile device. According to more recent data, two out of three loans were received through smartphones.

The simplicity and speed of receiving funds anywhere with a smartphone have added to the popularity of online lending, making it accessible to everyone.

What comes next?

The global development of fintech certainly did not leave South and Southeast Asia behind. The penetration of banking services, in general, is on the rise (in the Philippines, for example).

More and more banks are shifting towards the digital. At the same time, regulation is being improved upon (evidenced by the recent emergence of special licences for digital banks in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines). 

Of course, COVID-19 has affected this process. Due to the proximity of the pandemic’s epicentre, Coronavirus had increased the rate of development of digital financial solutions in Asia.

For instance, India experienced a sharp improvement in financial inclusion with the emergence of entire “digital districts”. Due to the drop in consumption during the first and second waves of the pandemic, a surge in accumulated demand will likely increase the use of financial products, primarily lending.

Suitable options are becoming increasingly common to find online. The bottom line is that the Indian national financial technology sector promises to grow by an impressive US$100 billion to US$160 billion by 2025, showing an annual CAGR of 22.7 per cent (2020-2025). The impressive growth rates and bright development prospects also apply to fintech at the macro-regional level.

Thus, fintech services are becoming more and more widespread in South and Southeast Asia.

What changes may this bring to the customer portrait of online borrowers?

The ratio of males to females remains approximately the same (58 per cent/42 per cent in our holding for 2022). The millennial generation also remains the most active audience.

The younger generations have begun to show more engagement, and the average age of our applicants in the Robocash Group averages 32.4 years old. The new borrowers are actively adopting modern financial technologies.

However, the increasing involvement of the older population in digital lending will be the defining factor in the mid and long-term. On the one end, the natural ageing of returning borrowers will become more consolidated.

On the scale of Robocash Group, about 80 per cent of loans are now issued to repeat borrowers. On the other end, the older generations will generally become more involved in the internet space.

Also Read: 6 fintech startups you should keep an eye out for

By 2025, the age structure of internet users in India will change. The main share will consist of 35-54 year-olds, while the 55+ generation will also become significantly more active. Indeed, this trend is already emerging in Vietnam, where, according to our data, men aged 36-50 are more likely to borrow money than others.

Notably, the lending services themselves are changing, which entails a client transformation. The BNPL loans, which enable the purchase of goods in equal instalments, are gaining popularity.

Thus, according to UnaPay, the Robocash Group’s BNPL service in the Philippines, its average client today is still the same millennial (23-38 years old, 84 per cent), and two-thirds of the clients are women, who are more inclined to consume “here and now”.

Final thoughts

Shortly, we will see the evened-out distribution of fintech services among customers in terms of gender and across different age groups. This could be attributed to the inevitable global growth of digitalisation, which includes the financial sector.

In the developing countries of South and Southeast Asia, with their huge potential for growth in consumer activity and internet penetration, the trend promises to manifest itself especially clearly and rapidly.

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As passionate gamers, their vision was to create a high-quality and action-packed blockchain game. They wanted to think beyond the idle, farming, clicker, turn-based games available in the market that came with no proper graphics and animation or even music and sound.

“We were determined that our games should be what they are actually meant to be — fun. So, we came up with a business plan and presented it to several regional investors. We were lucky that they all shared the same opinion and even recommended us to big investors in the west. The rest is history,” recounts Tin Nguyen.

With the confidence gained from their meeting with the investors, Nguyen and the team went on to start Sipher.

A blockchain gaming studio based in Vietnam, Sipher aims to provide compelling gaming experiences. Here, players control avatars to interact with each other through PvE (player vs environment) co-operative dungeons and battle each other in PvP (player vs player) multiplayer battle arenas, engaging with the virtual world, battling for virtual lands, and earning items and rewards.

Sipher’s founders come from varied backgrounds. Nguyen is the CEO of Trung Thuy, a real-estate firm in Vietnam and on the Vietnam Forbes 30 Under 30 list of 2015. His partner Loi Luu is CEO and Co-Founder of Kyber Network. This on-chain liquidity protocol powers decentralised applications, including exchanges, funds, lending protocols, and payments wallets.

The third co-founder is Victor Tran, CTO and Co-Founder of Kyber Network. Tran has been involved in blockchain and cryptocurrency development since early 2016.

Also Read: Sipher closes US$6.8M seed round to develop metaverse game World of Sipheria

Unlike most blockchain games available in the market, the Sipher team not only aims to onboard the crypto- and NFT-savvy crowd but to introduce Sipher to the traditional gaming community to play a fun game worthy of e-sports.

“We are in the process of developing and onboarding experiences for the traditional gaming market to make it as smooth as possible. Think of it as mixing web2 practices with web3 technologies,” says Nguyen.

As Nguyen mentioned, Sipher’s games are yet to hit the market. Once they are launched, the company will introduce SIPHER as the governance tokens, which can be used for staking, cloning new characters, and crafting new rare equipment. Users will also have a share of the marketplace fees and voting rights on future decisions of the game development team.

ATHER will be the reward token, which will be burnt to level up characters, skills, equipment and other in-game items and features.

“We plan to target the global markets with our games titles. We don’t want to attack the markets such as Southeast Asia, which have taken the blockchain gaming industry mainstream. We aim for worldwide adoption,” Sipher CEO Nguyen tells e27.

Even though Sipher’s games are not launched yet, its community has grown with 108,000 followers on Twitter and 163,000 members on Discord.

Last October, Sipher closed a US$6.8 million seed financing round, co-led by Arrington Capital, Hashed and Konvoy Ventures. Defiance Capital, Signum Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMT Digital, BITKRAFT Ventures, Delphi Digital, Alameda Research, Fenbushi Capital, Sfermion, Hyperchain, GBV, Kyber Network, Coin98 Ventures, YGG and Merit Circle, also joined the round.

Angels, including Holly Liu (Kabam), Kun Gao (Crunchy Roll) and Alex Svanevik (Nansen.ai), also co-invested.

The capital is being used to develop its upcoming ‘World of Sipheria’ game.

The gaming startup is now looking for a follow-on round. The goal is to onboard strategic partners that could help Sipher grow further. “We will prioritise investors with a good reputation and partners, who help us conquer new emerging markets outside of SEA like Latin America, Africa and India,” he remarks.

According to Nguyen, Southeast Asia is leading the charge toward the future of blockchain gaming. Vietnam, in particular, is consistently developing very innovative and state of the art technology. The region will continue to be a leader in this space.

Also Read: Metaverse is around the corner and you should play a role in it

Although the blockchain/metaverse gaming industry is still in its early stages in the region, its vulnerabilities have started manifesting.

The recent Axie Infinity hacking incident is a case in point. The hackers stole about US$615 million in USDC and ethereum from the metaverse game’s Ronin Network. As per media reports, the FBI and the US Department Of the Treasury investigation have found out that Lazarus Group, a hacking organisation based in North Korea, was behind this attack.

Nguyen feels that the highest priority should be given to cyber security to prevent such possible events in the future. “To prevent hacks and exploits affecting the users should always be our priority. Thanks to our connections at Sipher, we are consulting experts with experience providing cyber security services for the US National Defense,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Sipher

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