Also, Singapore-based blockchain startup Morpheus Labs launches blockchain academy with startup incubator Dreamplus, and Uber opens second APAC office in Singapore

Blockchain startup Morpheus Labs and Dreamplus join forces to launch a blockchain academy [Press Release]

Singapore-based Blockchain startup Morpheus Labs announced the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dreamplus, a global startup incubator supported by a South Korean business conglomerate. The MoU will have the two partners promoting blockchain education and the growth of its ecosystem.

The blockchain academy would be a seven-week intensive program that includes a mix of theoretical and practical components focused on the theory behind blockchain and practical coding of a sample decentralized applications (DApps) conducted with Morpheus Labs Blockchain Platform-as-a-Service (BPaaS).

The program is aimed at those who are interested in learning the basics of blockchain technology to budding technology engineers or programmers.

“Companies and governments are just beginning to understand the disruptive capability of blockchain technology. The already high demand for blockchain developers today is only expected to rise for the foreseeable future. Our platform is purposefully designed to create a friendly ecosystem convenient for students to learn the complex environment of blockchain in its current infancy, giving them a head start to blockchain development and propelling them into the talent-hungry blockchain development world,” said Dorel D. Burcea, Chief Information Officer of Morpheus Labs.

Uber launches new office in Singapore for further APAC expansion [TODAYOnline]

Uber announced yesterday that it will reenter Asia by renewing its commitment to business in Asia Pacific region in a new set up office at Frasers Towers in Singapore. The office would be APAC regional hub of the unicorn company, and currently has 165 employees who provide remote operational services to the region in sales, marketing, legal services, and other corporate functions.

Since 2015, Uber has resided in Singapore and has been its APAC headquarter. It was located at Guoco Towers in Tanjong Pagar before the merger with Grab, effectively putting Grab in charge of that location last year.

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Uber then moved to Mapletree Anson before relocating to its new 2,000 sqm office at Frasers Towers on Cecil Street. Uber operates in nine markets in the Asia Pacific: Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The firm’s representative said that its next move would be growing its team in Singapore and hiring hire specialist and entry-level roles.

Dave McClure reemerges in tech scene after 500 Startups’ #MeToo debacle [Bloomberg]

Two years ago, Dave McClure was reported for alleged sexual misconduct in the VC that he co-founded alongside Christine Tsai, 500 Startups. McClure then decided to step down after helping funding 1,800 early-stage companies in 60 countries as the chief executive officer of the company.

Now, McClure is back in the game by raising a new fund to invest in other venture firms worldwide that would be called Practical Venture Capital, according to two people familiar with the plans.

The new fund is said to be designed to purchase stakes in smaller funds, sometimes called micro-venture capital firms and also buy stakes from those funds’ investors when they’re seeking liquidity. The initial target for the fund would be US$100 million, although the final amount could be larger, according to the sources.

On the other hand, even before McClure’s departure, 500 Startups reportedly had struggled to raise its fourth fund in 2015. Recently, the firm even laid off what Christine Tsai said to be a “handful” of people.

Today, 500 Startups is raising fresh investment for its fifth global fund, expected to be the firm’s largest ever, according to a person familiar with the plans. Abu Dhabi Financial Group is confirmed to be the anchor investor, took a minority stake in 500 Startups and joined the board last year.

Welcoming Google India MD on board, Sequoia India will launch a US$200M startup accelerator [Deal Street Asia]

Sequoia India announced that it brings Google India MD Rajan Anandan on board for its upcoming startup accelerator program called Surge. Surge, that was launched in January, is said to be focussed on India and Southeast Asia-based startups with a potential US$150-200 million raised for the initiative.

“Sequoia has approached limited partners to pitch for a fund independently and onboarding someone like Anandan will make it easier to get in the capital. He is a very well-respected name in the technology and startup ecosystem,” said a source, reported by Deal Street Asia.

Anandan has made a record for himself as an angel investor, having backed more than 60 startups.

Surge will focus on sectors such as consumer internet, technology, enterprise software, healthcare, fintech, among others. Sequoia is expected to invest over US$100 million over the next four-five years under Surge, financing its separate team.

Surge will have five modules, which will be hosted across the globe in China, India, Silicon Valley, and in Singapore. It plans to recruit 10 to 20 early-stage startups in two cohorts in a year and invest Us$1.5 million in each of them at an early stage of the program.

Also Read: ezCater raises US$150M funding led by Singaporean wealth fund GIC

At the end of Surge, founders will have the opportunity to raise capital during an ‘UpSurge’ week from a curated list of angels, seed funds, and VC’s. So far, confirmed mentors are edtech unicorn BYJU’S founder Byju Raveendran, Carousell’s Siu Rui Quek, credit card bills payment app Cred’s Kunal Shah, SaaS unicorn Freshworks’ Girish Mathrubootham, GOJEK’s Nadiem Makarim, Google’s Rajan Ananadan, hospitality unicorn OYO’s Ritesh Agarwal, Uber’s Amit Jain, chat messaging service WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora, food delivery Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, and more.
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The Sydney Landing Pad programme aims to attract startups from around the world to explore Australia as a potential market for expansion

The Sydney Landing Pad, an initiative by the City of Sydney in partnership with Asia-focussed Australian startup hub Haymarket HQ, has announced the eight Asia Pacific startups that are set to participate in the first cohort of their programme.

The Sydney Landing Pad is a 90-day programme that aims to attract companies from around the world to explore Australia as a potential market for expansion, with the goal to draw “millions of dollars” in business investment to the city.

The programme is not limited to tech companies and does not take any equity from the participating companies.

“We’re proud to support Haymarket HQ in developing their international landing pad programme, which will provide support for entrepreneurs from Asia to understand and grow in Sydney,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in a press statement.

“This is a great opportunity for Sydney to welcome more entrepreneurs, introduce investors to our thriving local economy and promote international collaboration,” she added.

Also Read: This is how Australia is changing to become startup friendly

Haymarket HQ will provide the companies with support services, office space, and networking opportunities.

The companies have a combined value north of AU$130 million (US$92 million).

Of all the eight companies, three of them are coming from Southeast Asia:

Omnylitics (Malaysia)
A fashion and beauty data analytics company that helps retailers make informed business decisions, such as pricing and trend forecasting.

Clean Mobility (Singapore)
A developer of urban mobility solutions such as on-demand car-sharing services.

Cloth (Indonesia)
An ethical fashion brand with a focus on minimal and effortless aesthetics.

Other Asia Pacific companies in the list are:

Fox-Tech (Taiwan)
An IoT solution maker for agriculture, farming, cold chain, and manufacturing that allows business owners to monitor humidity and temperature wirelessly.

Ambit-Ai (New Zealand)
A conversation platform enabling enterprises to communicate with customers and staff en masse.

Eazitrip (Australia/China)
A travel app helping tourists to discover and explore local authentic experiences through the power of Augmented Reality.

Also Read: Australia-grown micro investment app Raiz Invest enters Indonesia

Insto (Taiwan)
The world’s first person-to-person payment platform that allows buyers and sellers to schedule payments over time.

AiSensum (India)
An artificial intelligence and big data analytics company that generates insights and solutions for enterprises and startups.

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Image Credit: Holger Link on Unsplash

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His startup Peoplewave solves the problems related to on-boarding of new hires, people development and performance management

He struggled with his studies and was a poor performer at school.

Although he narrowly cleared his final exams, the scores were not enough for Damien Cummings, who hailed from a lower middle-class family in Sydney, to enrol in any decent university in Australia. So, soon after finishing high school, he went straight into his first job — assuming he would be spending the rest of his life doing low-paid jobs.

“I was raised in a very simple, humble and lower middle-class environment that didn’t understand fancy business terms or even knew what entrepreneurship was. My family prized having a decent income and a steady job first. The idea of starting a business just seemed crazy and weird,” he tells e27.

Despite his poor academic performance and being bullied by the other boys at school, Cummings was a happy kid and enjoyed his life. He spent a lot of time reading books, creating things, writing and letting his imagination run wild.

“Later, I spent time learning and becoming proficient in martial arts and weapon training (I also went on to represent my country in international tournaments). Although none of these were business-oriented, looking back I can see that the social and soft skills that I acquired turned into an advantage later in my startup life,” he recalls.

Nepotism changed his life 

McKinsey & Company was his first ever employer. Despite his poor grades, education, lack of skills and experience, he got through the interview and landed the job at the management consulting giant. This was back in 1993.

“You won’t believe that I got into McKinsey through nepotism,” he laughs. “My grandfather was a security guard in the building where McKinsey was located. Thanks to his good relationship with the hiring manager, I was hired as an office services assistant and worked there for four years. I learnt a lot from this job and also realised I would never be able to grow further without better education or connections.”

Due to desperation and lack of career options, Cummings — in his early 20s then — took a leap of faith, and together with two of his friends, launched a digital business called Dark Horizon in 1997. The company rode the wave of the dot com boom and later the bust. This experience gave him the unusual taste of freedom, pride and stress of running a startup.

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“I was hooked from there. After the stress of failing the first company I became risk-averse, but I never lost the passion for running my own business,” he says.

To Singapore

After the failure of Dark Horizon, he went back to the corporate life and worked for several companies in his home country.

In January 2008, he received a job offer from advertising major Ogilvy in Singapore. He jumped on to the opportunity, which he thought would help him further his career. “I didn’t know much about Singapore then, as I had spent all my life in Australia. What was clear though was that the city-state offered greater opportunities for regional and global roles,” he says.

Two years later, he quit Ogilvy. He then changed his jobs several times.

And finally, in January 2017, he started Peoplewave, an employee relationship management (ERM) company in the city-state.

The trigger

Having spent almost 20 years of his professional career managing people, he had seen first-hand that managers didn’t have the right skills, training or tools to manage people well. This bothered him. He realised that people leave managers, not companies, and that around 80 per cent of employees are disengaged or unhappy because of their managers.

“Managing people well has always been a passion for me, but as a manager, I was frustrated that the only tools available were the “one-on-one meetings” and the horrible “annual goals/KPIs processes” to manage the team,” he shares.

This is when he lost his job at an international bank. “It was a great job to be lost,” he sighs. “But I couldn’t imagine going back to the corporate world seeking another job. So I took that opportunity to delve back into the world of startups once again. This is when I launched Peoplewave in January 2017, and we’ve been going strong since.”

What Peoplewave is about

Peoplewave is a B2B HR software company. The company calls itself “Salesforce of HR”. It solves the problems related to on-boarding of new hires, people development and performance management. The startup aims to reduce the turnover, improve employee retention and make people management fairer, more transparent and data-driven.

“Over 400 businesses have signed up for our ERM platform and software. We originally targeted SMEs but in 2018 we realised that the real value we could add is to work with mid-sized and large enterprise businesses that have challenges on-boarding new hires, or face high turnover or employee retention problems,” he continues.

Cummings and team faced a hell of a lot of challenges in the initial months. “In the early days, the main focus was building great software products. We’ve had to continually improve and pivot our products to get a strong product-market fit over time,” he says. “Other than this, creating awareness was also tough, and this is something we’re still working on.”

An SaaS startup, Peoplewave charges a monthly fee or annual license fee from its clients for the service.

The adversities

Despite running a successful business, Cummings still sees himself as a constant failure. He has failed badly in his relationships, as well as jobs — often striving too hard for what’s right or for the growth in environments that want status quo or conservatism.

“For me, 2018 was one of the most difficult years of my life. My brother died less than a year ago at a young age of 21. This devastated my family and left me emotionally battered. I’ve also put on too much weight through stress and emotional eating,” he says.

Also Read: How a lazy student who caught and sold spiders transformed himself into a successful founder

“Worse, we had an employee betraying our trust and allegedly embezzled our company assets and funds, and there were times we ran out of money,” he regrets. “But I’ve always managed to find the silver lining or the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s all about resilience and having a clear purpose. It helps you get through.”

The big degrees

During his career, Cummings also went on to secure a few certificates from high-profile universities, including Harvard.

“I am a very strong believer of continuous learning. It’s critical to stay curious, push yourself to learn new things and keep improving,” he shares. “Honestly, I wanted to do the Harvard certificate, along with similar ones from Wharton and Columbia Business School, just to appear to be impressive. Sometimes it’s things like this that make or break sales, partnership or VC deal. They are online courses and aren’t super expensive but give you an ivy league University certificate.”

“Beyond the vanity,” he continues, “I found the content very useful. Each course is a back-to-basics, which gives you a solid checklist to follow when setting up a new venture. I tend to be an ideas and people person and I’m weak at operations, so having these courses to help guide me into starting and growing a new company is practical and useful.”

Awards and accolades

Cummings also holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Management (honoris causa) from KEISIE University, South Korea.

He’s also been awarded “Global Top 50 Digital Marketing Leaders 2016”, “Financial Services Marketer of the Year 2016”, “Digital Marketer of the Year 2016”, “Most Influential CMO 2015”, “Marketing Professional of The Year 2012” and the “Brand Leadership Award 2011”.

Peoplewave is also the winner of Singapore’s season seven Startup-O programme.

In 2017, the startup raised US$1 million in seed round, and is currently in talks for US$5 million Series A round.

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The Japan-headquartered company’s now among the two tech unicorns with operation in Japan

Global cryptocurrency platform Liquid.com today announced its first close of an ongoing Series C funding that puts the company valuation at over US$1 billion.

This round is led by IDG Capital, with participation from the cryptocurrency mining rigs maker Bitmain Technologies. The investment is the latest foray into regulated digital asset trading by Bitmain Technologies after investing in ErisX.

The company said that it will use the funding for global expansion, product development of the core trading exchange business, and expansion into the security token market.

“Consumers are increasingly placing a higher value on digital assets and technologies they can trust and use with greater ease. Our vision is to make financial services accessible to all, which means bringing more people into the digital asset space so that anyone can be a part of it,” said Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori.

Liquid was founded in 2014. In 2017, Liquid raised more than US$100 million in a pre-discounted ICO raise, which was the first regulated ICO to be done in Japan.

Also Read: Philippines edtech startup Edukasyon acquires online directory

General Partner of IDG Capital Young Guo noted that the firm realised that Tokyo has emerged as a top destination for crypto innovation with proper regulations which factored into the investment.

IDG’s current portfolio of crypto investments include Coinbase, Ripple, Bitmain, and Kakao’s crypto unit.
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Assembling your own team of Avengers isn’t an easy feat

Unlike other small businesses, startups are unique as they rely solely on the hard work and dedication of a small team working across multiple areas, with the goal of launching something completely new to the market.

Many startup entrepreneurs learn as they go and must wear many different hats, especially in the initial stages — from development right down to marketing to ensure their business runs smoothly.

This can be a challenge even for the most seasoned entrepreneur, and there will come a point where you’ll need a team to help you. Taken from the expert entrepreneurs, here’s how to build a successful team that will support your startup from day one:

Identify your needs

Before you go on a hiring spree, it’s important to determine what your existing business needs are. Perhaps you need another developer or a marketing strategist to help you secure investors. Depending on what stage you are in, you’ll have very different requirements, budgets and expectations.

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Hiring too many people too early could turn into a disaster, so it’s worth thinking carefully about what your business needs right now. Perhaps you could get away with hiring contractors or freelancers on an ad hoc basis before you determine full-time positions. This way, you can also gauge what types of people or personalities best work together.

Clearly define roles and responsibilities

According to Glenn Llopis, “a team should operate as a mosaic whose unique strengths and differences convert into a powerful united force.” When everyone understands their role in the team and can work within the framework of the business, the business is much more likely to move unanimously towards the same goal.

Of course, roles can be flexible and ever-changing but the core responsibilities should be clear to avoid exceeding personal boundaries and burning out your employees.

Find people who can fill your knowledge gaps

Nicole Kersch the founder of 4Cabling says it’s a good idea to hire people who know more than you in certain areas and can use their skills to your advantage. “You definitely want to be challenged and be surrounded by people who can push back on ideas. Credentials are important, but balance and strength of character are more important.”

Obviously, rudeness and aggression should never be tolerated, but heated discussions can benefit your startup more than you might think. Set your ego aside and listen to what others have to say—you might be surprised at the direction your startup moves into when you hire passionate, knowledgeable people.

Hire people with the same values

Skills can be taught, but the right attitude and work ethic is what truly resonates in the startup world. Determine what your values are as a business, like innovation, honesty, ambition etc.

Also Read: Meet the Southeast Asian startups participating at the Sydney Landing Pad programme

All these things are far more important than having someone who just has an impressive technical background because if your vision aligns with theirs they’re more likely to stick around in the long term.

It’s like recruiting for a pro sports team

Alec Lynch CEO of DesignCrowd says “I subscribe to Netflix’s theory that building a great team in business is like building a champion or pro sports team. You need to hire a star in every position, you need to coach them well and if someone’s letting the team down then you need to cut them.”

This might seem like a harsh call, but when it comes down to it the most successful businesses have to prioritise value and productivity above all, or else they risk falling behind.

Even if you have the next big idea in your hands, if you don’t start with a strong team it could prevent your startup from growing to its full potential.

Remember, you’re in charge, so take the time to build a dedicated all-star team of passionate individuals who are just as committed to your success as you are.

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