This article is run in collaboration with Makan For Hope, a non-profit initiative by Asia Startup Network. The Makan For Hope Festival brings notable mentors and aspiring entrepreneurs in 30 meaningful virtual conversations over food from Social Enterprises to raise S$125,000 for Fei-Yue to support the children and seniors from low-income families. 

At this Makan For Hope session hosted by exited entrepreneur and investor Qing Ru Lim, she led the discussion with 10 seasoned startup founders, angel investors, and venture capitalists.

The roundtable took a deep dive into the headwinds women faced and discussed the steps we can take today to empower female founders and encourage more to thrive in the Southeast Asia startup scene.

Setting the context

Globally, venture funding allocation to female-founded companies is an astonishingly low percentage –two per cent in 2020, according to Crunchbase News. 

The number is nine per cent in female co-founded companies. In Southeast Asia, the numbers are higher, though still on the low side: companies with female founders or co-founders raised 16.4 per cent of total funding.

Yet, according to a BCG study, women-led startups provide better financial returns for investors — for every dollar of funding, they generated a return of 78 cents. In contrast, male-founded startups generated less than half that. 

On the investment side, only 2.4 per cent of all VC partners globally are women. Yet, having more women in funds provided higher fund returns and more profitable exits, according to a research report by Harvard Kennedy School –VC firms that increased the number of female partners by 10 per cent experienced a 1.5 per cent increase in fund returns each year, plus 9.7 per cent more profitable exits.

Also Read: Levelling the playing field: How to build a home for women in tech

Data from both sides of the table suggest that females could outperform their male counterparts. 

Now more than ever, we need to support more females in startups

Besides the strong hypothesis that women make great entrepreneurs, the other reason for this urgency is the COVID-19 pandemic.

More women than ever are leaving the workforce, as shared in McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace study. Without deliberate intervention, as the report suggests, it will be “unwinding years of painstaking progress toward gender diversity.”

It would also hold our economy back. Furthermore, there has been increasing investment into ESG funds to support the empowerment of women and minorities. 

The timing is favourable, and there is no matter time to act than right now. But how can we increase the number from 16.4 per cent to 50 per cent?

What needs to be done, what needs to be changed? At the roundtable conversation, most believe that change needs to happen at all levels, and women also need to lead the change themselves.

More can be done to sustain the growing trend of females in tech:

At the Government level

One of the initiatives led by the Ministry of Social and Family Development is the “Conversations on Singapore Women’s Development” which aims to shift societal mindsets for a more inclusive society for men and women. While progress in recent years has been encouraging, we can do much more. 

• Qing Ru Lim: suggested increasing access to funding by creating a Perpetual fund to back women-led startups (similar to SheEO, which pools money to loan to female founders at zero per cent interest) and a tax incentive scheme for female-led VC funds, which is already implemented overseas.
• Shao-Ning Huang: seconded the tax incentive scheme because tax is only relevant for profitable companies, which aligns with investors’ interests.
• Yiping Goh: shared that back in 2017, the government raised the paternity leave to two weeks from one week for working fathers. She opined that supporting men in the ecosystem is also important and believes they can create more incentives for husbands to support their wives in caregiving tasks.

At the Investor level

Investors could pave the way to empower more female founders. Women in startups often face headwinds of blinds spots and cognitive bias, making fundraising even harder than it already is.

A recent study conducted by TechCrunch found that women are asked more risk questions than men, which ultimately results in far less money being raised.

Even more surprising is that female investors typically exhibit the same gender bias demonstrated by their male counterparts towards female founders. And for most of them, they may not even be aware of it.

Also Read: How women in tech can navigate the 2021 business landscape

Here are three possible measures to lead change:

• Shao-Ning Huang: VC firms must look at ways to hire more women decision-makers, at all levels, especially at the top. This is important as female investors would have a better capacity to empathise, understand and communicate more effectively with female founders.
• Carmen Yuen: Investors or stakeholders could consider having a team of organisational development specialists offering guidance to their portfolios to overcome gender bias and implement female-friendly policies.
• Qing Ru Lim: Limited partners could promote gender diversity by requesting it to be a mandatory ESG component in Annual Reports of the funds they invest in. The same goes for investors — it will be game-changing for them to seek their portfolio companies to include how they have embraced gender diversity in their investor reporting.

At the personal level

To see sustained change, females also need to start with changing their own mindset and behaviour.

Also Read: How the tech industry can become friendlier for women

The group’s ideas boiled down to five priority areas for action: 

• Senior Minister of State Sim Ann: Women need to revisit their own experiences and highlight the obstacles they have faced or what held them back. She encourages females to champion the change they wish to see.
• Doris Yee, Executive Director of Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association: Education will be instrumental, such as leadership training for women leaders to change the tendency of holding themselves back.
• Edwina Yeo, co-founder, and CEO of Supermomos: She testified to the reality of gender-related subconscious bias, but also the reality that women may voluntarily decide to take a back seat after they have kids. She believes it is about paving the way to ensure these women could still score in their career while juggling other priorities, possible through more flexible work arrangements.
• Yen-Lu Chow, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, WholeTree Foundation and Over-The-Rainbow: He saw how many women, through his experience, have made a significant difference to the lives of people when allowed to lead. He urges more women to say yes to leadership opportunities — stand up, speak up, and be counted.
• Shao-Ning Huang: There is a need for female founders to be self-aware of the hero’s mindset and victim’s mindset that they tend to adopt. Both mindsets are unproductive and obstacles to building good startups. Women also need to be open to enlist help from others, use them and unitedly create a vicious cycle of female empowerment. A single chopstick may be easy to break, but a bunch of them creates a robust and unbreakable infrastructure.

Banding Together is how we can realise the vision of seeing female founders as the new normal.  Here’s how you can play a part— support these ground-up initiatives listed here.

This article is co-written by Jessica Bong.

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Djarum Group-backed Indonesian e-commerce firm Blibli eyes 2022 IPO
It has picked advisers for a potential initial public offering in Jakarta as early as next year; Deliberations are still at an early stage, and the size of the IPO could depend on which Blibli businesses are included.

Omnilytics to acquire Malaysia’s Supahands for US$20M to enhance its retail tech stack capabilities
This deal is part of the Singaporean firm’s ongoing strategic acquisition drive to expand its product offerings and enhance its retail tech stack capabilities; Supahands is backed by Patamar Capital, Cradle Seed Ventures, Axiata and 500 Startups.

Singapore crypto startup Alethea AI raises US$16M to bring NFTs to life
Investors include Mark Cuban, Alameda Research, Multicoin, Galaxy Interactive, Dapper Labs, and LD Capital; Alethea is part of a select group that’s helping test Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, a language model that can produce human-like text; Through Alethea’s platform, users can create interactive NFTs so they can come “alive.”

Ant Group invests US$15M in Chope
The fundraise comes on the back of a strategic partnership between Chope and Ant Group’s Alipay; Alipay will provide Chope with its mini-programme SaaS and know-how, while Chope becomes Alipay’s platform partner with the capability to integrate a wide variety of mini-programmes.

Dekoruma nets US$15M Series C to expand its experience centres beyond Jakarta
Investors include Nexter Ventures, KTB Network, GDN, OCBC NISP Ventura and Foundamental; Dekoruma offers an ecosystem connecting home furnishing merchants, interior designers, contractors and property developers; Dekoruma also wants to see itself in around eight cities in the archipelago by the end-2022.

Centauri Fund raises US$8.5M from K-Growth to boost investment corridor between Korea and ASEAN
Launched in December 2019 with a target of raising US$150 million, Centauri is run by KB Investment and MDI Ventures: It invests between US$1M and US$5M in machine learning and fintech startups focusing on the Indonesia market.

HIJUP launches US$7M fund to back modest fashion brands in Indonesia
Called HIJUP Growth Fund, it aims to invest around US$138K each in local modest fashion brands and has already backed Buttonscarves and Puru Kambera; Hijup does not intend to fully acquire the companies/brands it backs.

Akulaku CEO William Li: ‘Asia’s BNPL sector has great potential compared to Europe’
The BNPL sector market size and penetration in Asia will be US$134B in 2023, which is only 4% of e-commerce sales, he says; Akulaku has raised US$218M from Ant Group, Sequoia India, and Qiming Venture, among others. It is now in talks to raise US$100M.

Startup Villages helps entrepreneurs move to Italian villages and make the most of their ‘EUR1 house’ schemes
Startup Villages target startups in food, dairy, agri, automotive & EVs, future tech, drones, AI, and food in Italian and Japanese villages in the initial phases.

Medici, a health-tech firm founded by ex-Grab exec, gets seed funding led by Insignia Ventures
With the new investment, the startup aims to foray into the insurance industry; Medici has partnered with companies such as FWD, Bao Viet Insurance, PTI, PVI, VBI, and Bao Minh Insurance to co-launch insurance products; Its healthcare services ecosystem includes telemedicine, health screenings, and a marketplace for drugs and supplements.

Tessaract.io raises US$3.3M to expand workflow automation solutions in new markets
Investors include Wavemaker Partners (lead), CMIA Capital Partners, and M Venture Partners; Tessaract aims to assist professional services firms across the region to automate repetitive operations and deliver a better experience to their customers.

Insignia, Y Combinator back US$2.2M round of Intellect to provide mental health services across Asia
Intellect aims to make mental healthcare and wellbeing support accessible for everyone through its end-to-end, 24×7 mental healthcare system in a single app; It claims to have clocked over 2.5 million users and 20 enterprise clients globally, covering 12 countries and 11 languages.

Ethis Global closes US$1.7M pre-Series A to accelerate global expansion effort
Investors include Malaysia Airline chairman Wan Zulkiflee, Daud Vicary Abdullah (Trustee at RFI Foundation), and Khurram Hilal (Islamic banking lead at Standard Chartered); Ethis operates sharia-based crowdfunding platforms in Indonesia and Malaysia and social finance platform GlobalSadaqah.

Ex-TPG exec’s startup Marathon Education raises US$1.5M to change the after-school tutoring market in Vietnam
Investors are Forge Ventures (lead), Marcel van Miert and Singapore Life founder Walter de Oude; Marathon leverages a live large-class hybrid model to ensure students get access to top-quality education from “top one per cent teachers”.

Vietnam’s bookkeeping startup SoBanHang attracts US$1.5M to venture out into working capital loans
Investors include FEBE Ventures, Class 5, and Business Insider founder Kevin P. Ryan; The startup helps small retailers create e-stores and manage orders to tap into a market of 16+ million nano- and micro-businesses in Vietnam.

VUIHOC gets funding from Do Ventures to provide primary school education through animation, gamification
The edutech helps students cultivate their self-study from an early age; It covers all three core subjects for primary school students: math, Vietnamese, and English; VUIHOC currently offers more than 150 courses, nearly 9K video lectures, and a repository of 240K quiz questions.

Mindtera bags funding led by East Ventures to grow its personal growth learning platform
Hustle Fund and Henry Hendrawan of Traveloka also participated; Mindtera provides curated personal growth learning curriculums across key areas of life — family, love and work, assisting people in a structured manner to better navigate through life.

Indonesian healthtech startup Zi.Care wins Telkomsel backing in US$500K seed round
Investors are Iterative VC, Choco-Up, and Tinc; Zi.Care digitises patients’ medical and health records then stores them on its cloud-based platform; The solution can increase accuracy in medical records while reducing waiting times and administrative processes in Indonesian healthcare facilities.

Talenox co-founder reveals the grind behind the glamour of entrepreneurship
However, if you are thinking of spending time on building a really good product and only raising funds when you experience hyper-growth, then you should focus on getting more revenue on board in a sustainable way and raise buffer funds to help you bridge your cash flow.

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The ongoing lockdown orders and temporary restaurant closures have left Vietnam’s F&B industry in a rather grim state. From restrictions on dine-in, delivery and takeouts with only basic essentials and grocery items given the pass, many restaurants have had to shut their doors (temporarily).

However, here are six F&B businesses that have successfully pivoted during these uncertain times.

Using technology to empower charity and enable mobile donations

While not a restaurant, Sayvu is an F&B-tech mobile app that pre-pandemic allowed users to redeem F&B vouchers from their favourite restaurants and cafes in Saigon.

Like any tech app, user downloads is one of the key KPIs as well as one of the largest cost factors. When restaurants could only do delivery and takeaway, Sayvu launched its contactless payment feature which allowed users to use the Sayvu app to make contactless cashless payments at their favourite restaurants.

While this seemed like a promising feature, it proved to be short-lived following stricter restrictions on movement (people are not allowed to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary) as well as an emergence of positive cases in food delivery riders. With this, the prospect of walking to your local neighbourhood restaurant slowly became an impossibility.

A month later, when the government stopped all food delivery and takeaway in an effort to flatten the curve in Vietnam, Jerome Ly felt defeated but inspired to give back to the community after seeing many suffering on the streets.

This was when he launched Vietnam Oi, Co Len, a not-for-profit charitable organisation that partners with restaurants including Baba’s Thao Dien and Lion City Heart Group to cook and deliver meals to residents in quarantine areas and the less fortunate.

Through Vietnam Oi, Co Len, which has delivered up to 70,000 meals to vulnerable at-risk communities, Sayvu has made a name for itself gathering the attention of media giants Nhan Dan TV and HTV9 as well as organisations such as the French Chamber of Commerce.

More than anything, it has touched the hearts of F&B operators (previously not partners of Sayvu) and of course, increased app downloads since Sayvu sells donation meals.

Also Read: Revolutionising the food industry with Malaysia’s StixFresh

An offline-to-online pivot driven by comforting F&B products catered for an anxiety-stricken market

When beer was declared a ‘non-essential’ (I beg to differ) F&B product by the government in July 2021, this necessitated household craft beer brand Heart of Darkness to halt its operations and founder John Pemberton to say “enough is enough”.

At this time, much of Saigon was still in lockdown amid record-high cases and e-grocers were overwhelmed with orders resulting in an average 10-to-14 day waiting period. John Pemberton and his team recognised the bottleneck in the grocery supply system and decided to offer an alternative for Saigon residents.

Within a week, the HOD team partnered up with a fresh fruit and grocery supplier and leveraged its technology, warehouse logistics, manpower and resources to turn this household craft beer brewer into well, an e-grocer business. Best part? Yes, you can get your favourite ready-to-drink Heart of Darkness beers too.

Today, Heart of Darkness has even partnered up with other local F&B brands including Tartine and D’Art Chocolate to sell sourdough bread and made-in-Vietnam artisan chocolate on its e-grocer platform. Cheeky? Perhaps. Genius? Definitely.

This might seem like an obvious inclusion for those thinking DIY meal kits is simply a dish broken down into its parts. To be fair, that’s not far from the truth. Nonetheless, for a restaurant to pivot overnight from offering in-person dining and hot food meant for delivery and takeaway to frozen DIY meal kits is no easy feat considering only certain types of foods can achieve this efficiently and effectively.

Furthermore, the equipment and logistics tied to being a DIY frozen meal kit business are not the same as a conventional restaurant and not many restaurants (especially premium to fine dining brands) would not opt for these options.

While pivoting to meal kits out of desperation to keep the restaurant alive might have been the original catalyst, this strategy is currently accounting for 100 per cent of revenue for several restaurants including Kebaby, Once Upon a Pasta, Rustic Kitchen and Jeffrey’s Kitchen Taiwanese Beef Noodles amongst many others who have been making waves online amongst hungry Saigon residents.

Launching a Specialty Deli by Kashew Cheese

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Singapore-based restaurant reservation company Chope has announced a partnership with Alipay, a digital payment platform operated by Ant Group.

A DealStreetAsia report said, citing regulatory filings that the Chinese tech giant invested US$15 million in Chope on the back of this deal.

Through this collaboration, Alipay will provide the foodtech startup with its mini-programme SaaS and know-how. At the same time, the Singapore firm becomes Alipay’s platform partner with the capability to integrate a variety of mini-programmes to enhance the functionality and scalability of Chope’s platform.

The partnership means businesses of all sizes can integrate into the Chope app through its customisable mini-programmes. It allows F&B operators to reach the Singapoe company’s millions of users, leverage Alipay’s innovative technology, and easily digitalise operations.

Meanwhile, diners can look forward to a broader variety of F&B types and dining services on the Chope app.

Also Read: Restaurant booking app Chope reveals the secret sauce to its profitability in home market Singapore

Arrif Ziaudeen, CEO of The Chope Group, said, “The pandemic has fueled the adoption of digital solutions and services among F&B operators. However, for some, the extreme restrictions have forced them to finally adapt to digital lifestyles not only to remain competitive but to survive. Our partnership with Alipay comes at an opportune time to help lead this evolutionary step-change. Working closely with Alipay and our F&B partners, our ambition is to do with Asia’s giant foodservice industry what e-commerce has done with shopping”.

Founded in 2011, Chope works with the region’s leading F&B operators to offers restaurant reservations, table management, marketing, deals, and delivery. With Chope, diners can discover restaurants, make instant bookings, and save with dining deals. Chope’s demand generating diner platform is incorporated with a suite of integrated solutions encompassing reservation, call, queue, and table management.

The firm claims it has served 83 million diners to date. It has partnered with 5,000 restaurants, including The Lo & Behold Group, JUMBO Group, Soho Hospitality, Lost Heaven, Dining Concepts, Hospitality Management Asia, Ismaya Group and The Union Group.

Chope is operational in seven cities, namely Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Phuket, Shanghai, Bali, and Jakarta.

To date, it has secured US$35.3 million in funding over six rounds from investors, including Square Peg Capital, Openspace Ventures, Singapore Press Holdings, and Innosight Ventures.

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Image Credit: Chope

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Press releases are passe. While there can only be so much news to share at any given time, startup founder stories and insights abound.

If you are a PR or communications professional seeking to get additional exposure for your clients in the tech startup ecosystem, here’s how you can leverage the e27 Contributor Programme.

It is an excellent opportunity for founders, corporate honchos, executives, government officials, and experts to establish their brand within the tech startup ecosystem in APAC. The e27 Contributor Programme is designed to nurture thought leadership in the industry. It is completely free of cost; all it takes is a simple profile set up and an original voice.

As you can see in this list of contributions we have published recently, we cover the whole range from founder stories, webinar videos with key takeaways, podcasts and infographics, funding experiences, employee management guides, entrepreneurial advice, productivity tips, sector-specific analysis, to regional trends.

All the community articles are written by ecosystem players. We simply facilitate its exposure through our widely visited platform with over two million reader base. 

What will your client’s gain?

• Your clients’ articles will be viewed by thousands of readers of our website
• Promoted at least 3x a day across e27 social media channels
• They will also be featured in the masthead on our site as well as our daily newsletters going out to 50,000 subscribers
• Boost their personal brand and position as a respected thought leader in the industry
• Expand their writing portfolio, and attract speaking opportunities, etc.

How can PRs facilitate it

Step 1: Email us the story angle your client wants to share, their bio and company profile
Step 2: Once we discuss it via email and you get a green flag, ask the client to create a profile on e27 and submit their article.
(Note: You cannot submit it on their behalf)
Step 3: We will publish the article. Get the client to share it within their networks.
(You can track the views on the article by visiting the author profile)

Video resource

If you have more questions, check out the FAQ here. We have also tried to address over 25 such queries specifically from PR professionals in an exclusive webinar with Telum. Check it out below:

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

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

Image credit: zinkevych

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Bangkok-headquartered construction-tech company Builk One Group has secured an undisclosed amount in a Series B extension round from investors including SCG, Krungsri Group’s corporate VC arm Krungsri Finnovate, and BCH Ventures, a subsidiary under Thai telecommunication giant Benchachinda Group. 

This new investment arrives five months after it received the first tranche of the Series B round from Beacon VC, the venture arm of Kasikorn Bank, and three other unnamed strategic investors.

Builk One Group plans to use capital to strengthen its SaaS offerings in the construction and real estate industry. The fund will also be used to expand its solutions on a secured cloud infrastructure that will meet future work requirements.

As per Krungsri Bank’s statement, Builk One Group is aiming for an IPO next year.

Founded in 2005, Builk One Group has leveraged its over 16 years of experience in building construction management software to create new business model innovations in the construction industry. The firm helps companies in Thailand and ASEAN to digitalise their construction projects through a range of SaaS offerings, including business management services and online construction material trading platforms.

The company has also developed a technology for construction sites to enhance operational efficiency and reduce errors.

In March, Builk shared its plan to double down on its technology and financial services to enhance local companies’ construction material management process and propel the industry towards the digital era.

Also read: Beacon VC joins construction-tech firm Builk’s Series B round to help it with ASEAN expansion

Builk claims to have a user base of more than 40,000 businesses in ASEAN and is said it witnesses a growth rate even though the industry has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the new synergy, SCG and Builk will jointly develop a platform to increase work efficiency for the construction industry and enable ecosystem players to work together seamlessly, fostering the sustainable growth of the sector.

“We foresee that digital technology will be the thing that will drive the construction industry by leaps and bounds,” said Bunn Kasemsap, managing director of SCG Distribution Company Limited, SCG’s Cement Building Materials Business. “This collaboration will enable all sectors in the construction industry ecosystem to effectively connect and access construction products and services.”

Sam Tanskul, managing director at Krungsri Finnovate, stated that its participation in Builk’s Series B+ round will foster Krungsri’s expansion in the region and will support the development of strategic cooperation in banking services in the future. 

As for BCH Ventures, it realised that Builk One Group can synergy with Benchachinda Group in the future and expects to see returns in the medium term within 3 years.

Prior to Series B, Builk raised capital from Thai corporate venture capital funds Moonshot Venture Capital and AddVentures by SCG.

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Image credit: Kungsri

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If you are about to start or are already running a technology company, I suggest you consider focusing on the real estate industry. Real estate is one of the world’s largest economic sectors, both in asset size and transaction volume.

Yet, it remains fragmented and ripe for innovation.

Consider the amount of money involved. Around the world, real assets have a total value greater than US$217 trillion. That is nearly three times the US$82 trillion total global GDP. 

If you are reading this, you are probably in Asia, which is good news because this region alone accounts for about half of the global total property value.

Now, let’s put the asset values aside for a moment and look at transaction volume. If you estimate that each property turns over every 20 years on average, real estate worth about US$11 trillion is bought and sold on an annual basis.

If you make a very conservative two per cent estimate of advertising and commission costs on those transactions, you arrive at US$200 to US$400 billion a year. 

Is the barrier to entry in the real estate industry too high?

We have established that the real estate market is large enough. Still, perhaps you worry that other innovative companies are already in place and represent an insurmountable obstacle to new startups. 

In a perfect world, ruled entirely by logic and reason, this would be true. In our world today, it is not.

When ranked by assets or volume of transactions, many leading industry players have found they can do perfectly well in the current environment without investing much in technology or innovation. 

Look at real estate agents. A good agent can make decent money with the most basic of tools. In the past two decades of disruption, other industries with larger margins were targeted first, with real estate largely overlooked. But this state of affairs will not last forever. 

Also Read: Ex-Zalo executives’ proptech startup Rever snags US$10.2M from Mekong Capital

Innovation and disruption are coming to the real estate industry. Why shouldn’t you be the one to bring them?

Worldwide, there are only 1,724 proptech companies, according to the PropTech Global Trends 2021 Barometer. Fewer than 10 per cent of these are in Asia, and most Asian proptechs are in China and India. They are not distributed evenly across the region. 

The relatively small number of proptech companies and their concentration in the US, which accounts for 59 per cent, leaves the field wide open for innovators in Asia.

How to decide where to focus

The real estate industry is multifaceted and immense, meaning there is a surplus of opportunity for the clever entrepreneur. To help you decide where to focus your attention, it can help to divide the world of proptech into these four conceptual categories: 

• investing
• building
• managing
• living

An “investing” startup might provide tools to enable real estate investors to evaluate opportunities more effectively. 

In the “building” category, you might offer technologies to facilitate construction management. 

In the “managing” space, your startup might focus on providing tools to real estate agents, property search for buyers and renters, or the management of investment properties.

And companies in the “living” category might focus on facility management or home IoT solutions such as security or energy management.

There are uncountable other opportunities besides those mentioned above. Yes, there are some excellent proptech businesses already operating in each of these categories, but much territory remains open to your claiming a stake. 

In fact, real estate search (“managing”), according to the Barometer, accounts for 56 per cent of all global proptech investment since 2000. 

With so much investment concentrated in a single sub-sector of proptech, there is a tremendous need for investment and innovation across nearly every other area.

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

Choose where to focus based on your capabilities, technology and knowledge. In general, seek to enable market participants to increase their scale efficiently or to make better decisions, two use cases that rely on data and technology to implement.

But remember, one of the most common reasons that Asian startups fail is that they do not solve a real problem for their target users or customers.

Don’t put technology first. Don’t put a buzzword first. And don’t put what you wish were true ahead of the real problem that industry participants may be willing to pay you to solve. In this way, founding a company is the ultimate act of humility. You must put aside your own desires and instead provide what your users and customers want.

Hey there, big spender

Let’s look at real estate developers as an example. 

Most money spent on property marketing and advertising in Asia has come straight out of the pockets of developers. They run a highly capital intensive business, and their decisions can bind their company’s resources for years at a time. Sales is a volume game for them, and their advertising and sales budgets can run as high as 15 per cent of total development value. 

For all of these reasons, developers are among the most forward-looking adopters of innovations and technologies and excellent potential customers for any proptech that can improve their decision making or development and sales process.

Before agents were making wide use of virtual reality, 3-D walk-throughs and international marketing platforms, developers were employing these techniques in their sales centres.

Juwai IQI is not alone in focusing on the segment. Our super-app Atlas has given our agents a 41 per cent productivity gain. With time, we will further facilitate the transaction by integrating finance and title transfer.

That is just our path. The opportunities in proptech are practically endless. I encourage you to find your own.

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

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

Image Credit: sdecoret

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Lazada rebrands its logistics units to Lazada Logistics

The story: Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Lazada announced that it has rebranded its logistics units Lazada eLogistics (LEL) and Lazada Express (LEX) to Lazada Logistics. According to the company, the new blue colour palette of Lazada Logistics reflects efficiency and reliability.

Lazada Logistics also introduced multi-channel logistics (MCL) services, which provide a single stock fulfilment solution to help e-commerce enablers and brands fulfil across all e-commerce channels seamlessly. This will apply to customers ordering on the Lazada platform and other e-commerce channels.

About the business units: LEL managed the fulfilment and logistics with third-party logistics (3PL) providers, whereas LEX handled the parcel delivery to customers.

About the company: Founded in 2012, Lazada Group operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It aims to serve 300 million shoppers by 2030. Since 2016, Lazada is the Southeast Asia flagship platform of the Alibaba Group.

Digital wealth management platform Syfe announces key hires in Singapore

The people:

Samantha Horton has been appointed as the Vice President, Head of Business Development. Horton started her career in Morgan Stanley doing equity research, covering the ASEAN financial sector. She joined Syfe after 11 years at a multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth backed hedge fund, Broad Peak Investment Advisers, where she was Managing Director and co-head of data analytics.

Jack Prickett joined Syfe as Head of New Business. Prickett was previously regional head of securities operations at UBS in Asia. During his 15 years at the bank working in London, Hong Kong and Singapore, Jack built a 150 people team from ground-up.

Brice Derouet was appointed as Head of Finance. Derouet oversees all financial operations, including planning, reporting and compliance. Before joining Syfe, he led the finance team at the co-living operator Hmlet.

Laurens Koppelaar has taken up the role of Head of Partnerships at Syfe. Koppelaar is also responsible for the strategic development of the “Syfe for Work” offering, which comprises holistic financial well-being solutions for corporates. Before joining Syfe earlier this year, he led the international growth across Southeast Asia as CEO of the insurtech company Symbo.

Also Read: RaRa Delivery rakes in US$3.25M to provide instant delivery for e-commerce in Indonesia

Prosperna raises US$555,000 in seed funding round

Investors: Led by Foxmont Capital Partners, other key investors in the funding round included Johnsen Global Business Ventures.

Plans: Part of the US$555,000 funding will be invested in expanding their range of features and growing and supporting their customer base.

About the company: Prosperna is a Philippine-based online store builder with a mission to empower 100,000 MSMEs with simple and affordable e-commerce software.

Tooliqa Innovations raises US$1.5 million in pre-seed funding

Investors: Aditya Raj (co-founder of MarketCube), Dipak Singh (co-founder of MarketCube), and Deepak Bansal. It also included angel investors such as Dilip Singh, Raj Gupta, Sooraj Malik, and Anant Jain.

Plans: The Gurgaon-based company will use the funds to expand research & development, create systems for product development, and build infrastructure for manufacturing.

About the company: Founded in 2021, Tooli.qa focusses on deep learning, computer vision, and 3D. It aims to make 3D and computer vision accessible to all industries and as many domains as possible.

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Image Credit: Lazada

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Medici, a Vietnamese health-tech company, has secured an undisclosed amount in seed funding led by early-stage investor Insignia Ventures.

With the new investment, the startup aims to foray into the insurance industry. It allows the startup to act as a middleman between insurance firms and the general public, which will receive suggestions and guidance from the broker to make the right financial decisions. 

In July, Medici received a 50-year insurance broker license from the government. Under this license, it intends to distribute a broad range of health and life insurance products. 

Besides, it also supports customers with claims management and co-develops insurance products, leveraging the data and insights collected through existing services.

Medici has partnered with companies such as FWD, Bao Viet Insurance, PTI, PVI, VBI, and Bao Minh Insurance to co-launch insurance products.

“The introduction of insurance products and services brings us a step closer to becoming a full-stack platform that serves the healthcare needs of Vietnamese people through their families, neighbourhood communities, and even companies,” said Duc Anh Ngo, CEO and founder of Medici.

Also read: Bolstering healthtech: Thailand’s bid to become Asia’s medical hub

Medici was founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneur Ngo, a Fulbright MBA alumnus and former Grab executive, as a telemedicine service for mobile consultation with doctors in their network. 

In the current form, it acts as an online marketplace that enables access and promotes transparency around drug and supplement purchases. Medici’s healthcare services ecosystem includes telemedicine, health screenings, and a marketplace for drugs and supplements. Its network also includes in-house doctor influencers in Vietnam. 

Medici has also partnered with over 50 hospitals and clinics across the country, enabling it to provide health screenings for its users. The company has also expanded operations to 30+ provinces and cities in Vietnam, with 100,000 e-health profiles on its platform. 

This medical network will be critical in the rollout of the startup’s insurance products and services as doctors, clinics, and hospitals can then assist customers in policy consulting and claims management.

It has also rolled out its services through more than 100 corporate partners, such as Shopee, Garena, and delivery company Giaohangtietkiem.

“Healthtech in an emerging market like Vietnam is a tough challenge,” said Yinglan Tan, founding managing partner of Insignia Ventures. “We believe Medici is in the right position to become the go-to digital platform for insurance and healthcare services in Vietnam.”

The firm claims to have 100 per cent quarter-on-quarter topline growth and 20 per cent monthly user growth.

According to World Bank, the Vietnam insurance market has low insurance penetration rates (premiums/GDP) at 2.4 per cent in 2018. Meanwhile, the insurance penetration rate in the Asia Pacific region is 5.9 per cent, as per a report from Ernst & Young.

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Image credit: Medici

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Omnilytics, Singapore-based fashion analytics and insights provider, has agreed to acquire Malaysian data labelling platform Supahands for US$20 million. 

This deal is part of the Singaporean firm’s ongoing strategic acquisition drive to expand its product offerings and enhance its retail tech stack capabilities.

Under this agreement, Supahands CEO will join Omnilytics’s board as chief strategy officer to accelerate Omnilytics’s growth plan for 2022.

“The Supahands deal will help us fill a critical gap in our existing tech capabilities as we take one step closer to becoming retail’s most important data stack,” said Kendrick Wong, CEO and co-founder of Omnilytics.

Founded in 2014, Omnilytics’s proprietary solution, Product Match, enables brands and retailers to compare the same or similar stock-keeping units (SKUs) across multiple platforms and competitors. It improves fashion retailers’ agility through real-time data and competitor analysis by assortment, price, discount, category, colour, size, options, and strategy.

Omnilytics’s clientele includes Zalora, Australia’s fashion and sportswear online retailer The ICONIC, Uniqlo parent company Fast Retailing, and Adidas. 

Also read: Slow fashion is back: How environmental sustainability becomes the hottest trend this season

Supahands was started in 2014 to label images, text, speech, and video accurately, enabling clients to launch and scale high-performing Artificial Intelligence applications for their business. 

“Accelerating the adoption of AI is at the heart of our business at Supahands. We have witnessed the tangible benefits that AI and Machine Learning can bring to our clients as they strengthen the different pillars of their business from analytics to deployment,” said Mark Koh, CEO and co-founder of Supahands.

Supahands counts online consumer marketplace Carousell, SaaS customer experience management platform Sprinklr, and retail solutions provider Badger Technologies among its global clients. 

The startup is backed by Patamar Capital, Cradle Seed Ventures, Axiata Digital Innovation Fund, and 500 Startups. It received an undisclosed sum of the Series A funding in 2019. 

AI adoption has become a global trend in the fashion market. Brands such as Alibaba, Nike, Dior and Tommy Hilfiger have developed different AI-powered services to leverage their customer experience. 

According to a study by Juniper Research, the global spending on AI technologies by the fashion and retail industry is expected to reach US$7.3 billion each year by 2022. The Southeast Asia fashion market has also jumped the bandwagon, with well-known brands such as Pomelo employing AI to offer this June’s demand forecasting service. 

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Image credit: Omnilytics

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