Temasek launches US$3.3B investment platform for firms eyeing global expansion
65 Equity Partners will target deals between US$100M and US$200M; It will invest in established companies that have market values between US$1B and US$5B; It will focus on consumer, industrial and business services, logistics, healthcare, and technology.

Ex-Sorabel CEO led brand aggregator Open Labs launches US$100M fund to buy D2C brands
Jeffrey Yuwono-owned Open Labs will provide operational support to brands it invests in and help them grow online and scale operations; It sees regional competition from Jungle Ventures-backed Hypefast and 500 Startups-backed Una Brands.

Omnichannel womenswear brand Love, Bonito raises US$50M Series C
Investors are Primavera Capital (lead), Adastria, and Ondine Capital; Love, Bonito plans to expand into markets, including HK, Japan, the Philippines and the US and explore categories outside of fashion.

Kumu nets Series C to become the ‘Disneyland of social media’; total funding exceeds US$100M
Investors are General Atlantic, Openspace Ventures and SIG; Filipino social entertainment platform Kumu claims it has so far amassed a base of 10M+ registered users across over 55 countries.

How a Muslim female founder is making waves in Indonesia’s male-dominated logistics-tech sector
Anggia Meisesari is building TransTRACK.ID, a next-generation fleet management startup, which already has thousands of paid subscribers; The firm recently raised ~ US$550K seed financing round led by Cocoon Capital.

Kenanga Investors launches frontier fund to connect retail investors with hard-to-reach early-stage startups
The “Kenanga Sustainability Series: Frontier Fund” will invest primarily in equity securities of global cutting-edge, innovative companies with long-term sustainable growth potential, are on the cusp of IPO, and develops products and services linked to technologically-driven innovations.

New climate-tech venture builder Wavemaker Impact targets to raise US$25M for Fund 1
Wavemaker Impact sees high-growth opportunities in land use and carbon sinks, agriculture and food, industrial processes, and energy; It will team up with tech and sustainability entrepreneurs in the region to realise the mission of reducing global carbon emissions by 10% by 2035.

A women-centric dating app developed by an ex-diplomat seeks to end Tinder’s dominance in Vietnam
Fika’s concept reminds people of Bumble, the third most popular dating app globally that only allows women to initiate the first message.

Open banking startup Brankas raises US$16M
Investors include Insignia Ventures, Beenext, and Integra Partners; Brankas is an open banking company that provides financial institutions and e-commerce platforms with tools they can use to run online services such as bank transfers.

Investree attracts US$10M to fund Indonesian MSMEs making social, economic impact
Investor is Swiss asset manager responsAbility Investments; Investree is a B2B lending platform aiming to use technology and data to make loans more affordable and accessible for MSMEs.

Sipher closes US$6.8M seed round to develop metaverse game World of Sipheria
Investors include Arrington Capital, Hashed, Konvoy Ventures, Defiance Capital, Signum Capital, Dragonfly Capital; Sipher aims to create an ecosystem where people can play for fun while earning rewards; it also provides the community with ownership of in-game assets.

Nas Academy apologises to Philippine instructor
Representatives of Nas Academy met with Whang-Od and other members of the Kalinga indigenous community on Oct 24 to make a formal apology after the online learning platform’s much-publicised conflict with the acclaimed tattoo artist over an online course; Nas Academy had halted its operations in the Philippines.

Recommend Group to expand on-demand home, local services across SEA with US$4M Series A
Investors are Morning Crest Capital (lead) and Brain-Too-Free Ventures; Recommend Group, which runs Sejasa.com in Indonesia and Recommend.my in Malaysia, has 40K+ small companies and service professionals in its network.

SME financing platform Validus buys KlearCard’s platform
KlearCard is a business payment and expense management tech platform; It allows businesses to issue corporate cards with spending control features instantly; The deal is part of Validus’s plan to build a credit-led neobank focused on SMEs.

Sentient.io raises Series B funding round by Real Tech Fund to scale into APAC market
Sentient.io has a particular focus on fulfilling demands for digital transformation from Japanese corporations with this funding round; Sentient.io builds an AI and data platform of over 60 functions that software developers can ‘assemble like Lego blocks’.

Asia-focused VC firm Rocket Capital joins UK startup Admix’s US$25M Series B round
Admix uses non-intrusive product ads placements embedded into video games, creating a better experience for players, brands, artists, and marketers; This funding will enable Admix to expand to the APAC, the fastest-growing e-sports and gaming market.

Thailand’s startup ecosystem has a Seattle Problem. And that’s not such a bad thing
An overarching issue that Thailand’s entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, government officials, academics and other stakeholders have struggled with over much of the past decade is how to boost Thailand startup formation, activity, growth, and exit.

Wavemaker Partners invests US$1.5M in data-as-a-service startup QoreNext
The startup will utilise the money to advance the production of its main modules and launch the initial products; QoreNext serves as a virtual data factory, where customers can leverage its interconnected data products with integrations.

Crowdfunding firm Crowdera buys 25% stake in AI startup Monkwish for US$300K
Monkwish has developed AI products for employee skill gap identification, virtual events, and student engagement and career assistance; Crowdera is an AI-assisted writing tool that helps users write contextually relevant and emotionally appealing pitches.

Monde Nissin CEO, Big Idea Ventures inject US$1.2M into Filipino alt-protein startup WTH Foods
WTH Foods intends to use the capital to hone its plant-based products and expand to Singapore, other parts of Southeast Asia and beyond; To date, the startup claims to have developed 60 dishes made by 60 types of plants.

Aquaculture tech company DELOS raises seed funding
Investors are Arise, MDI Ventures, Number Capital, iSeed Asia, Irvan Kolonas of JAPFA, and Hendra Kwik of PayFazz; DELOS plans to use the new funding to scale its shrimp production software which forecasts and recommends actions to improve farm profitability and productivity.

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This is the third article of a four-part series on helping SMEs chart the course of digital transformation. We will now look at digital transformation opportunities across the enterprise and understand the role of data analytics in helping SMEs make better decisions.

Where does Data Analytics fit in the enterprise (irrespective of the size of the business)?

Everywhere, is the short answer.

Data analytics fits in every department of an enterprise as different kinds of data are collected in each of them. Below is a quick view of departments and some use cases:

Departments	Areas or Use Cases	Brief
Finance	General Ledger (GL) Reconciliation	Monthly General Ledger reconciliation could be automated to eliminate human errors and free up man-hours for better tasks
	Fraud detection	Vendor, employees, balance sheet, etc
	Data aggregation	Reading and aggregating data from various sources like pdf, Excel, databases.
	Risk analysis	Analysis of risks like business capital, investments, loans, customer segmentation, etc.
	Velocity and Quality of decision	Improved velocity and Quality of data-generated and decision took basis factual analysis by automating and eliminating human errors
	Stock market insight	Analysis of stock prices by more holistically modelling taking into consideration more variables
Procurement	Invoice and Purchase Order (PO) automation	Eliminate errors and free man-hours. Pre-built reports and data queries run from inside the ERP System
	Fraud detection	Detect the fraud as it happens and take corrective measures rather than finding out at a later time
	Vendor management	Differentiating tail spends, saving costs
	Bid and Spend management	Spend and bid, cost benchmarking, Invoice compliance, Payment term analytics and Supplier risk and performance
	Inventory Management	Optimize costs, space and run production smoothly
Product Planning	Profitability management	A simple delta drill chart could explain, by removing which parts from the production line could the profitability have been boosted further
Shop Floor	Lower cost of production	Reducing or eliminating costly unscheduled downtimes using Predictive Analytics
	Quality improvements and scrap reduction	Fault pattern identification and elimination
	Productivity enhancements	Resource Availability and Productivity enhancements
	Near real-time feedback	Take corrective measures without delay, as you get notified of actual scenarios near real-time
Human Resources	Employee experience	Measuring employee engagement, time to hire, retention rate, better planning and overall workforce management decision
	Payroll reconciliation	Automating the Payroll reconciliation process to avoid human errors and free up man-hours
Marketing	Customer behaviour	Survey insights, trends
	Promotion	Promotion insights and optimization
	Customer experience	Combination of data and ML. Targeted messaging.
	Dealer Management	Drop laggards, cut costs on retaining dealers
Warranty	Lower Warranty costs	Lower or eliminate warranty costs by doing root cause analysis, identifying design and manufacturing flaws, eliminating fraudulent claims and claim processes
CEO’s office	Management Dashboards	The overall health of the company at fingertips: production quantity, quality, inventory, risk, profitability, costs, etc.

These common pain points businesses face can be transformed into growth opportunities through data analytics as part of the larger digital transformation journey.

Also Read: Digital transformation for SMEs, Part 2: Understanding its maturity cycle

While it may be overwhelming to cover all areas, starting with one or two key areas by prioritizing will contribute towards more efficient use of resources, risk management and better return on investment.

Stay tuned for our fourth and final article in this series. With the charting and planning in place, we tackle the implementation of digital transformation into the organization’s structure and processes.

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Citics, a Vietnamese online real estate platform, announces that it has raised US$1.3 million in a bridge round before a planned Series A next year.

The round is led by Vietnam Investment Group, a US$50 million investment fund focusing on high-growth businesses, with participation by local real estate firm BHS Group and existing investor Vulpes Investment Management.

The fresh funding will be channelled to develop Citics’s current business with new offerings. Another portion will be utilised to advance Citics’s platforms and technologies to better serve its bank partners.

In December 2021, the startup plans to release the mobile app Citics Valuer and a new version of its real estate valuation platform Citics Valuation, which allows bankers to collect details and preliminary values of properties within a few clicks.

Citics claims that the new version will help banks examine the mortgage risks of properties and reduce the execution time to less than three hours, one-fourth of the usual time.

Also Read: The world of proptech and its fate in a post-pandemic world

Founded in 2018 by former CEO of real estate broker Cen Group’s southern Vietnam region Tran Minh Long, Citics develops a data platform to support real estate transactions, including real estate valuation, sales-purchase, lease, and mortgage.

Its board of directors also has Nguyen Hai Ninh, founder and former CEO of Vietnamese coffee house chain The Coffee House, and Pham Anh Duc, founder of ViCare, a startup that provides information on hospitals, clinics, doctors, drugs and symptoms of diseases.

Citics is said to apply big data and algorithms, combined with actual property surveys, into its appraisal service, covering real estate, movable property, and investment projects.

As stated on the company’s website, to date, Citics’s database consists of over 12 million real estate data, more than two thousand projects, and 1,4 million transaction records.

The startup boasts of having successfully expanded into 25 provinces and cities in Vietnam and formed eight partnerships with new banks over the past year. It counts local banks such as VIB, HDB, Sacombank, and Shinhanbank, among its current 17 cooperative banks.

The proptech sector has gained momentum in Vietnam as the tech-savvy population turned online for their property transactions during the pandemic. With the proven value in improving the transparency of the local real estate market, startups in the sector are mushrooming to the tune of more than 100 startups, according to PropTech Vietnam Network’s data. Propzy,Homebase, and Rever are some Vietnamese proptechs snagging bid deals in the last two years.

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As an Indian investing in startups for the last 10 years, I have yearned to see Indian companies and brands expand to and dominate global markets. Beyond a few select companies, that trend is yet to take off.

Through this article, I will share my assessment of the challenges that have limited this expansion and shed light on developments in today’s investing environment that promise a new era of growth and expansion. With these developments making headway, I firmly believe that a US$100B equity value Indian tech behemoth that dominates global markets will be a reality before 2025.

Key challenges that have plagued the global growth of Indian startups

For B2C businesses, an excessive focus on the untapped potential of the Indian market has slowed down global expansion. Apart from a few unicorns that have gone global in the ride-hailing, restaurant booking and hospitality sectors, founders of B2C businesses and their investors have prioritized tapping into the vast potential of the Indian market as a faster way to scale promising a better return on capital deployed.

Focusing on winning within the Indian market has remained a priority with a better understanding of the consumer and deeper networks.

On the flip side, B2B businesses, especially tech startups, have always viewed global markets as the fastest way to achieve scale. Despite this understanding, most B2B tech startups in India seemed to have flatlined near US$10M ARR. Boasting of some of the world’s best products, they’ve failed to scale primarily for two reasons:

Lack of access to the Enterprise Consumer

Most B2B startups that have achieved global sales have generated business through either inside sales or digital advertising, focusing on small and medium businesses through these channels.

Also read: Scalability lessons from Indian tech startups for enterprises in SEA

However, listing large enterprises as clients has always remained a tough nut to crack. Given that enterprise companies represent over 75 per cent of the global target market for SaaS companies, this segment is critical for B2B businesses to achieve scale and growth. 

Lack of international market insight

It has also been an impediment. Historically, neither founders nor their advisors (including the investors) had a deep understanding of the international markets that they were expanding into.

In my own investing experience, I have seen several cases of startups hiring senior sales team members at exorbitant compensation packages to focus on the United States (priority market to achieve scale) and subsequently firing the entire team within six months due to lack of strategy, precise market positioning, and failed execution.

Changing environment with the emergence of new trends

Venture risk (capital) as an asset class is relatively new in India, where the first significant round of tech VC funds began around the last decade – the early 2010s. They have, by now, completed one complete cycle and, in many cases, have returned the money to their LPs, with decent returns (estimated at high teens).

Therefore, this has established venture risk as a credible investment alternative in India. With this credibility, LP profiles of VC funds now being raised are very different from those presented a decade ago. 10 years ago, funds mainly were raised through family offices and UHNIs, who committed a small portion of their capital to VC funds.

However, a new emerging class of investors has appeared. Large Indian enterprises, who previously scoffed at IPO valuations of tech startups, are now seen writing sizable cheques into VC funds, looking to actively get in the game and get a piece of the pie.

These business services companies have deep connections in the enterprise domain, and the four-decade-old US$200B IT/ITES industry is the right partner that most Indian tech startups need to scale globally. This emerging investor will allow emerging tech startups to quadruple their addressable market by enabling them to tap into the global enterprise segment.

With the most marquee names in the business services space now becoming LPs, the lack of access to the enterprise segment has been solved. Additionally, one cycle of advising startups to expand globally has tremendously benefited GPs by increasing their network and general know-how.

These GPs are now in a much better position to aid and advise their portfolio on how best to go global. Another key aspect that reflects the increasing maturity of Indian startups is that these startups are not shying away from opening Global Delivery Centers to acquire tech talent, which may not be readily available in India.

These developments have primed the Indian tech startup space to scale and dominate global markets in the years to come. And as we’ve seen historically, this is just the beginning as tech companies will lead the way, and consumer companies will follow soon after.

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Open Labs, an Indonesia-based brand aggregator, announces to have launched a US$100 million (IDR 1.4 trillion) fund to finance local direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.

The e-commerce roll-up firm claims its fund to be “the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia”, with an unnamed “e-commerce unicorn” as a backer, reported TechinAsia.

Led by serial entrepreneur Jeffrey Yuwono and a team with extensive expertise in the online merchant business, the firm employs a fast decision process where founders can receive an offer within one week from the meeting. It aims to help consumer companies grow their business online and scale operations.

“This has created various businesses with a potential to become nationally known brands that needed qualified operational management to grow,” Yuwono noted in a statement.

Also read: Looking abroad: Capturing the e-commerce opportunity in SEA

Prior to leading the brand aggregator, Yuwono co-founded Sorabel (a fashion e-commerce startup), TCCG (an incubation lab that focuses on creative technologies in mobile, games and advertising), and Playtiva (story-based social games). Once one of the most promising e-commerce startups in Indonesia, Sorabel closed down at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020.

Counting Una Brands and Hyperfast as its archrivals in the region, Open Labs still see opportunities in a large number of local micro, small and medium enterprises targeting the e-commerce space, accounting for one-fourth of the total 64 million MSMEs in the archipelago.

Open Labs stated that it has 60 experts with diverse expertises ranging from branding, customer service, logistics, to tax and law. It plans to expand the network to 150 experts in the coming period to supercharge its growth.

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While no industry is immune to the impact of COVID-19, the traditional retail sector is arguably one of the hardest hit, with most brick-and-mortar shops reeling (and a number even shutting down for good) following the pandemic.

Given a slew of crowd management and safe distancing protocols, traditional retailers find themselves at the precipice of a new retail revolution and shifting from offline to online is the only option to transcend a physical retail landscape typified by limits.

Amidst the pandemic, Singapore’s digital economy grossed US$500 million annually. Additionally, digital payments are projected to make up 67 per cent of the total transaction values in 2025.

The numbers only mean one thing: Retail survival now mainly involves driving online footfall and successfully converting online leads into actual customers.

However, the whole process necessitates revamping the entire value chain and the underlying infrastructure to accommodate digital payment schemes and supply chain paradigms in the new retail ecosystem. While the focus shifts towards leveraging online platforms, this doesn’t mean the total demise of physical retail stores.

It only means that brick-and-mortar shops have to learn how to navigate a new retail world, where consumers value convenience, experience and instant gratification above all.

Also Read: Are retail malls dead? Time for big tech to disrupt landlords at their own game

Consumers today want more flexibility, freedom and personalisation in their retail experience– whether this involves interactions in-store or digitally – and brick-and-mortar stores have to keep up, should they wish to stay afloat.

New paradigms

One bottleneck traditional retailers need to bridge knowledge gaps as success in the new age of retail necessitates employing a more data-oriented approach.

But equally important is identifying the right technology that can serve as the backbone for brick-and-mortar stores’ sustainable expansion in the new normal and beyond.

Digital e-commerce platforms today allow retailers to monitor and generate data around consumer behaviour and preferences, which can complement their marketing and sales efforts.

Metrics such as sales conversion rates, percentage of returning consumers and shopping cart abandonment allow retailers to glean insights around critical trends and behaviour shifts, which are crucial in optimising the customer journey.

Local retailers are also growing increasingly cognisant of the benefits that e-commerce platforms can offer. Since the start of the pandemic last year, Ezbuy has shifted our focus to empowering local merchants, providing them access to real-time data-driven automation for consumer behaviour analytics and a new agile operating model to harness and put these insights into action. Within a year, the number of local merchants on our platform has already increased by over threefold.

However, silos across the value chain need to be eliminated first for the data-driven model to be effective: The retail model is no longer linear, as it had been for the last two centuries. Today, we are moving towards a holistic retail value chain, and the winning retailers have learned to integrate physical and digital touchpoints to deliver seamless customer experiences.

Also Read: Rewriting the retail blueprint: How data is shaping the future of fashion

Having more transparency, agility, and improved coordination across the retail business – from the supply chain to channels and marketing – starts with good change management and a more long-term view of the overall retail business.

Future-proofing retail businesses: The way forward

Increasing sales volumes and maximising profit margins entail coming up with competitive pricing strategies. E-commerce platforms like Ezbuy have artificial intelligence capabilities that provide insights around in-demand product offerings, so retailers can position themselves correctly and reach the ultimate goal of conversion.

We can effectively align our merchants’ products with relevant promotions while increasing offerings of more in-demand products. This allows retailers to optimise profitability – balancing product supply and demand while leveraging pricing polarity as a competitive advantage.

For example, local alcohol retailer The Liquor Shop witnessed an above-average increase in sales volume from partnering with Ezbuy during the pandemic.

Before that, alcohol sales remained stagnant until the platform connected the merchant with a new pool of customers, especially when physical interactions were not possible.

E-commerce platforms also allow retailers to incorporate better time-sensitive promotions, including hourly, based promotion codes and flash deals which can help convert leads to customers. When leveraged correctly, discounts can effectively translate to improved bottom lines.

Elevating the customer experience

In an increasingly experience-driven economy, retailers need to focus on satisfying customers. But developing a great customer experience is only possible if retailers know their customers inside out.

Also read: How your shopping habits are shaping the future of retail in Singapore

As customers’ needs evolve, a greater emphasis must be placed on onboarding merchants effectively to drive faster transactions and reduce waiting times.

As customers go mobile, retailers must adopt a mobile-first strategy to improve customer access to their services. Tapping on the capabilities of e-commerce platforms such as Ezbuy is a simple yet cost-effective way for retailers to expand their market reach in line with keeping up with the shift from desktops to mobile devices.

Consumers will continue to crave the human touch. Driving long-term sustainability in the omnichannel retail value chain means humanising and personalising the shopping experience while ensuring consistency and convenience throughout the customer journey.

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Kenanga Investors Berhad (KIB), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysia’s Kenanga Investment Bank Berhad, has launched a frontier fund.

The “Kenanga Sustainability Series: Frontier Fund” will invest primarily in equity securities of global cutting-edge, innovative companies with long-term sustainable growth potential or are on the cusp of IPO. It will also back companies that have developed/will develop products and services linked to technologically-driven innovations.

Also Read: Kenanga Investors announces the return of unicorn fund, collaborates with Ericsenz Capital

Kenanga focuses on the next-gen or forward-looking innovations currently shaping the future industries, such as the space economy, the metaverse, healthcare, fintech and cybersecurity.

The frontier fund will allow investors to capture the sustainable value generation of these companies, which were previously exclusively available to institutional investors.

According to Kenanga Investors CEO Ismitz Matthew De Alwis, the aim is to reshape Malaysia’s existing private equity space by addressing the lack of available gateways for investors to access investment opportunities in prominent, hard-to-reach early-stage startups.

“Since 2016, emerging digital companies have won over the “old economy” by being among the top five most valuable corporations. Given the constant development of new technologies, it is unsurprising that new technology companies are sprouting. We began bridging the gap between prominent players of the new ‘Big Tech’ and our investors back in 2019,” he said.

“The resulting outcome has been fulfilling for our investors in many ways; from portfolio diversification to the exploration of a new investment universe beyond the traditional investing realm, and so, demand for similar offerings has risen. We are glad to introduce the Fund to the market where investors who were not able to participate previously will have an opportunity to do so this time”, he said.

In his view, frontier tech represents many opportunities in boosting the development curve of the future. The opportunities include utilising technologies to reduce carbon emissions, new medical discoveries to propel patient empowerment, and the democratisation of financial services.

Also Read: Malaysia’s Kenanga Investors launches fund for investing in unicorns

The fund feeds into the Ericsenz Frontier Fund (a VC and PE firm) and is suitable for sophisticated investors with a medium to long-term investment horizons. The initial offer period is from October 27 through December 3, 2021. It is available in both MYR and USD classes so that investors can invest in their preferred currency.

In June 2019, Kenanga Investors launched Kenanga Global Unicorn 1 (KGU1), which aims for medium-term returns by investing in unicorn companies.

Early this week, Bursa Malaysia Securities publicly reprimanded JAKS Resources and its principal adviser Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd, for contravening the exchange’s Main Market Listing Requirements, a Malay Mail report said.

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Indonesia-based aquaculture tech company DELOS today announced that it has raised an undisclosed seed funding led by Arise, a collaborative fund from MDI Ventures and Finch Capital.

The funding round also included the participation of MDI Ventures; Number Capital; iSeed Asia; Irvan Kolonas of JAPFA, one of the largest shrimp feed and seed producers in the country; and Hendra Kwik of fintech firm PayFazz.

DELOS planned to use the new funding to reinforce and scale its shrimp production software which forecasts and recommends actions to improve farm profitability and productivity. It will also be used to develop value chain integrations and onboard new DELOS farm partners.

The company was founded by Guntur Mallarangeng, Bobby Indra Gunawan, and Alexander Farthing in 2021. It was founded with the background of the potential growth of Indonesia’s shrimp industry which was hampered by challenges such as low adoption of technology, sub-par management practices, and poor access to financing.

“These factors have created a bottleneck within the midstream of the value chain, and are throttling the output of downstream processors to an average of 40 to 60 per cent capacity,” the company wrote in a statement. “This productivity gap is what is keeping a US$2 billion industry from fulfilling its latent potential and becoming a US$4 billion industry. The value chain is ready for farm productivity to increase.”

Also Read: How South Korean startup Aqua Development is mimicking aquaculture for sustainability

DELOS aims to tackle these challenges with its full-stack farm management system, built to help increase the productive capacity and output of existing Indonesian shrimp farms by 50 to 150 per cent – creating value for farmers, increasing national export volumes, and growing Indonesia’s reputation as a world-leading aquaculture nation.

The startup has teamed up with Dewi Laut Aquaculture, a local aquaculture company, and Alune Aqua, a leading aquaculture fintech firm, to accelerate the development of in-house technologies.

“Classic challenges in the multi-layer value chain, low productivity, and lack of financing hinder the archipelago’s untapped shrimp industry that makes up 77 per cent out of the overall fishery output values. DELOS tech-enabled solution has managed to immerse the tech and the ops into local farmers’ culture and infrastructure while bridging them with the incumbent stakeholders. It leads to higher FCR (Feed Conversion Ratio), SR (Survival Rate), and Harvest, making it such a killer flywheel,” commented Aldi Adrian Hartanto, Partner of Arise.

DELOS is the latest Indonesian aquaculture startup that has raised external funding, apart from eFishery, Jala, and Aruna.

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Investree, a digital lending platform for MSMEs in Indonesia, has received US$10 million in funding from the Swiss asset manager responsAbility Investments.

Accial Capital, a tech-focused investor in fintech lending portfolios, also partnered with responsAbility in the round as an institutional Lender on Investree’s platform. 

Jakarta-based Investree will use the funds to finance its borrowers’ (MSMEs) projects that have significant economic, social and environmental impacts on life, especially during the recovery period due to the pandemic.

Also read: Border-crossing and financial inclusion: The story of fintech in ASEAN

Founded in 2016, Investree aims to use technology and data to make loans more affordable and accessible for MSMEs. 

A Financial Services Authority of Indonesia (OJK)-licenced company, Investree specialises in supply chain finance, with a focus on client acquisition through an ecosystem of large and reputable payors.

One of the best cases of Investree is to distribute business loans for unbankable women in the Gramindo ecosystem. Gramindo is a savings and loan cooperative that focuses on super-micro financing in Indonesia.

Investree also has a presence in the Philippines.

According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), SMEs lack easy and fast access to financial services to support business growth. IFC estimates that that 65 million firms, or 40 per cent of formal MSMEs in developing countries, have an unmet financing need of US$5.2 trillion every year, which is equivalent to 1.4 times the current level of the global MSME lending.

The pandemic also adds to the mix, generating greater hurdles in eliminating poverty and creating jobs to absorb the growing workforce.

“The credit provided by the investment partnership is also timely because we, through our digital solutions, continue to support SMEs in the country to survive, recover, and grow stronger in going through the difficult times caused by the pandemic,” said Investree co-founder and CEO Adrian Gunadi.

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Fintech, IT, startups, and venture capital hardly come to mind when one mentions Central Asia (CA). Comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the region is more often associated with its history – traders of the Silk Road, the defunct Soviet Union, and the peoples’ previously nomadic way of life.

If the association goes further, then modern-day tourism is usually where the conversation ends.

Why Central Asian businesses deserve to be on the radar

Beneath the quiet, though, insiders watch the region’s startups intently. Despite the low internet penetration rate overall, it is heartening to note that according to World Bank data, those of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan average at around 80 per cent, which is higher than some European countries.

This has enabled the rise of young, ambitious businesses in the region. They are helmed by aggressively driven founders who lead highly competent teams comprising, but not limited to, IT architects and developers.

Because these startups lack adequate access to global venture capital compared to developed markets and developing Southeast Asian (SEA) economies, they are not valued nearly as high either.

Alas, there is a silver lining. Their high-quality tech-proficient human capital and lower valuation present a brilliant opportunity for investors seeking new horizons.

Increasingly, thanks to KASPI, Kazakhstani payment systems and e-commerce leader that was the first to have attained unicorn status in CA and serves eight million users as of mid-2020, CA venture capital and its resulting success stories are gaining interest and traction.

Also Read: Kazakhstan’s Clockster raises seed funding round, will expand to Southeast Asia

Synergies between Central Asian and Southeast Asian markets to capitalise on

CA startups are just as eager to scale abroad, and SEA has been a popular destination well able to help incubate business ideas and models due to structural and cultural similarities and familiarities.

Affluent economies and expanding enterprises in SEA also need new destinations for investment and exportation, and CA being a relatively under-explored frontier for either purpose means a new and exciting array of opportunities.

A sizeable number of digital trade services, e-commerce, and fintech startups growing in the region might be of great interest to SEA investors. Further, CA’s young and emerging middle class promises abundant commercial potential in but five years.

Because of these gaps and how each one bridges them for the other, the synergies between CA and SEA could mean favourable outcomes should businesses and investors choose to join hands. Already in pursuit of such profitable output is Singapore’s Quest Ventures.

In tandem with Kazakhstan’s state-owned QazTech Ventures, the two funds established an early-stage accelerator programme to foster a new generation of startup founders, propel them to succeed in their respective CA markets, and eventually scale to SEA.

Launched in 2020, the Kazakhstan Digital Accelerator (KDA) has already produced multiple batches of brilliant young companies. Among them are finalists already receiving investments.

Beyond KDA, Quest Ventures, and QazTech Ventures also witnessed a successful case that is Clockster, a Singapore-incorporated Kazakhstani startup that raised US$750,000 in a round led by Quest Ventures in 2020.

I lead-invested in their previous seed round. It has since successfully entered Indonesia and, in 2021, raised a game from 500 Global.

The partnership between Quest Ventures and QazTech Ventures is proving to be instrumental to advancing and growing the budding venture capital market in Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan.

Also Read: These Kazakh startups are gearing up to dive into corporate innovation waters and beyond

A stellar example of a startup benefitting from synergies

As the techies in Kazakhstan celebrated KASPI’s IPO success in the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in late 2020, another Kazakhstani entity, a B2B inventory and logistics management and payment platform called Smart Satu, was striking a deal with British fund Sturgeon Capital.

It would become the first Kazakhstani project that Sturgeon Capital funds after the former had obtained US$6.8 million in private investment.

Aided by the fresh injection from an institutional fund, Smart Satu has continued to dedicate most of it to further R&D and expansion into countries dense with mom-and-pop businesses that would greatly benefit from improved infrastructure, cloud inventory, and integrated payment gateway, to name a few key features of Smart Satu.

To date, Smart Satu has seen a total of over 1,800,000 orders in Kazakhstan and Russia alone, and a turnover of over US$44.5 million since January 1, 2019. Smart Satu has served nearly 12,000 merchants in Kazakhstan and Russia in the same time frame and opened a company in Turkey.

It is in the process of setting up a shop in neighbouring Ukraine. In partnership with VISA, Smart Satu also became the world’s first B2B e-commerce payment gateway.

Closer to Asia, Smart Satu piqued the interest of VISA in Singapore, Dubai, Ukraine, and Turkey, and the two corporations are deep in discussion about partnerships with local banks, with the hope of providing 60-day interest-free corporate credit cards to small to medium merchants who decide to come on board.

For Europe, Smart Satu has an integrated system built-in in Kazakhstan that is ready for plug and play abroad. This system has been endorsed by METRO, a leading international player in wholesale trade.

METRO is now on board the system in Kazakhstan, enabling METRO to reach and transact with small mom-and-pop businesses with greater convenience, sans additional costs. METRO will efficiently employ this system wherever they have a presence, mainly Bulgaria, Germany, India, and Turkey. Beyond, Smart Satu is in the talks with potential partners in the US and UK to establish a presence there via pilot projects.

To investors and venture capital fund managers, I urge you to look to CA for some of the world’s most rapidly emerging tech startups armed with compelling solutions for the world. Propelled by state-funded nationwide digitalisation schemes such as the Digital Kazakhstan and Digital Uzbekistan 2030 strategy, they could be the bright, new horizons you seek.

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