Is failure really the mother of success?

Is failure a good or a bad thing in business? Most people may answer that it is a “bad thing” because obviously, no one plans to fail, but sometimes, it takes failure to succeed. In this post, we look at 8 reasons why failure in business isn’t too bad after all.

Helps us appreciate the reality

Without failure, we are likely to become arrogant and think we have full knowledge of the world of business. It may even lead us to lose sight of the value of our customers, suppliers, government authorities, and many other business stakeholders. We can easily feel invincible to the extent that we fail to see the need for advertising, prudence in resource management, and even proper human resource management.

Also Read: How the world’s most successful founders approach failure

When we fail in business, we are able to sit back and reflect on what went wrong and what we can do to improve going forward. It is a strong rallying call back to reality; back to respecting every employee, customer, investor, and any other person or thing that is significant to your business.

It is the best chance of learning from our mistakes

Sometimes failure is the best teacher in the world of business. As much as we look for case studies and learn from other people’s success or failure stories, we still need to make our own mistakes in order to qualify as established entrepreneurs.

And don’t get me wrong: No one should go out looking for failure, but if it comes, then the best thing to do is take it in our stride and move on, better and wiser. Think of a case where your failure came as a result of not acquiring the right legal documents or the right insurance covers for your business. There is a high chance that you will never repeat that mistake ever again.

Prepares us for future downtime

Why did you fail in the first place? Sometimes we fail not because we did something wrong but because of strong external forces that are beyond our control. For example, changes in your niche may happen so fast and throw you off balance, maybe because you don’t have the right tools needed to withstand the changes.

Or maybe the government introduced new business tariffs that significantly hindered your business. Or maybe some politically-motivated decisions were made by those in power and they affected your business negatively. The good thing is that you now know that these things can happen in business and you will, therefore, be better prepared for a rainy day when they hit you next time.

It’s a new dawn

This might sound like a big, fat joke to many but it is true: Failure marks the beginning of a new dawn. It is the perfect time to rebuild and do things right. When you fail, hit the restart button, dust yourself, and move on. What’s more, if you succeed in getting back on your feet after a failure, you will have developed a thick skin, a higher level of courage, and an inner strength that you didn’t have before. You will have tons of doubters to prove wrong and that will make you perform even better this time. This is one chance that only comes once in an entrepreneur’s life.

Teaches us to self-motivate

Being able to motivate yourself when everyone around you is losing patience with you is vital in succeeding in business. After failure, people who hang around you just to get a share of your success will leave and only the ones who truly believe in your ability will remain. And when everyone abandons you, you motivate yourself back and work towards success. In the future, that helps you to work your socks off without caring whether or not someone is watching.

Also Read: Learning from early failures: An inside look at Singaporean startup Outside

Challenges make entrepreneurs strong

With the right entrepreneurial spirit, you definitely see every setback as a challenge, not a failure per se. You probably even have plans B, C, and D in case plan A fails. In that case, failure makes you want to try other plans and approaches. It even helps you discover strengths that you never imagined you had.

It eliminates fear

Sometimes we fail because of our fear of failure. New technology is injected into your niche but your fear of uncertainty prevents you from leveraging it. You get new ideas, but you put them on hold for the fear that they aren’t good enough. Then, out of nowhere, failure strikes! That is the point where you learn that being careful and slow adaptor isn’t always a guarantee that everything will run smoothly. When rebuilding, therefore, you implement ideas without the fear of failure.

Conclusion

After tasting both failure and success, this would be a great time to become a life coach and be helping upcoming entrepreneurs to make the right business decisions. What’s more; you will make another revenue-generating opportunity out of it.

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Before you evaluate and assess startups for your potential portfolio, keep these in mind

Through my personal experience in AngelCentral over the past couple of months, I observed that the amount of interest in angel investing has been increasing steadily. With the rise of equity crowdfunding platforms and activity among angel networks in this region, many more individuals are keen to explore the possibility of investing in startups as an alternative class. While angel investing should not be seen as an activity purely for making financial gains, I have found the five most fundamental things that new angel investors have to master if they wish to be successful.

1. Generate quality deal flow

No matter how good you might be at evaluating startups or sizing the market, it will be of little use if you do not find quality startups to meet with in the first place. Unless you are blessed to know many people who can bring you potential startup opportunities, it is difficult for you to meet and gain access to quality startups when starting out.

Compared to the stock market where investment opportunities are easily accessible, finding quality startups to invest takes time and effort. You will need to know how to network, position yourself as a value-adding angel investor, get exclusive invites to demo and pitch days, etc. This is why when starting out, many beginners will join angel investment networks to gain access to startups that would have already been curated for them. Overseas platforms like AngelList or OurCrowd are great options for those looking to start their angel investing journey.

2. Pick the right founders

The world of startups and entrepreneurship is complex and chaotic. People can have the best ideas, but executing them well is a whole story. Through your journey as an angel investor, you need to learn how to pick founders who are the most suitable to grow their business in a sustainable and meaningful manner.

Sam Altman, Partner of YCombinator, also believes in finding founders who are not only intelligent to recognise trends and patterns not easily seen by others, but also creative enough to constantly generate ideas for potential solutions to overcome various issues and challenges. Other traits to look at will be a founder’s ability to communicate, execution speed, and their motivation to do what they do.

Also read: Why e27 Academy will turn 2019 into the best year for your startup

3. Invest in only what you understand

Warren Buffet, the legendary value investor who is currently the 3^rd richest person in the world, believes that everyone should invest within their “Circle of Competence”. Earlier this month, AngelCentral organised a panel on deep tech investing, and one of the biggest takeaways for investors were that they should always look to understand what they are investing in. It might take some effort, but it is important work for you to do if you wish to be an effective angel investor.

While following more experienced angels through syndicates can be a worthwhile strategy for those who just started out, it is still important to have a good understanding of the market, technology and solution behind the startup that you are investing in. Stories in Silicon Valley such as Theranos and Juicero are stark reminders that even the most “sophisticated” investors can make serious and even silly mistakes at times.

4. Portfolio sizing

One of the key messages we emphasize to participants at AngelCentral’s workshops is that that angel investing is an illiquid and binary activity that is highly risky. This is why we believe that portfolio sizing is something very important that all angel investors should do.

Another general rule of thumb is to invest in about 15-25 companies. However, this presents a huge challenge for many angels, as the minimum cheque size for each startup tends to be about $50K at best. As a rough illustration, following what former founder and angel investor Huang Shao Ning noted in her blog, the cash you need for angel investing should be about 15-20% of your investment portfolio. If you invest in $50K for each of the 20 startups and leave another $50K for 10 follow rounds, your investment portfolio should have about $7.5million for this to make sense, which could seem rather intimidating for the average angel.

This is why one of the key values I see that startup investment syndicates can bring to angel investors, as it helps to effectively bring down the minimum cheque sizes that angels have to invest for each deal.

5. Evaluating and assessing the right companies

My belief is that only when you understand the 4 points above, should you look to start assessing and evaluating startups.

Generally, based on what I have read, most of the assessment frameworks tend to focus on the following: 1) People (as shared above) and execution capability, 2) Potential market opportunity, 3) Strength of solution, and 4) Deal terms.

Conclusion

It is my hope that the angel investing scene in Southeast Asia continues to develop and we see a lot more investors coming into the space. If any of you are keen to find out more and learn about angel investing, check us out at our website here!

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This article was first published on e27 on October 29, 2018.

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Don’t waste your time and resources fighting lawsuits when you could be focussing on build your startup

A business is a legal entity, and because of that, it will be subject to the laws of the land. It takes a lot to register a business the right way, but it’s imperative to do so. For a savvy con-artist, a legal loophole is the most natural thing in the world to exploit.

It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of doing something because it’s more comfortable, but that only marginally obeys the law. While it might save money in the short term, the long-term impact could be devastating.

Building a business is more than just having a dream and following it. You need to protect the business against anything that could occur, and that means being aware of what legal issues might arise. Bulletproofing a company legally requires that you follow the major pillars of the law.

Ensuring that you’re covered helps to give you peace of mind and makes sure that you can spend more time building the business and less time worrying about potential legal problems.

Incorporation as a tool

Incorporation, as defined by The Business Dictionary, is a method by which an intangible, artificial legal entity called a corporation is produced. The process of incorporation provides a level of abstraction between what belongs to the company and what belongs to the individual, i.e., you.

Also Read: Screwing up IP law is an easy way to doom your startup

You don’t want the company’s actions to affect your private assets and vice versa. Additionally, any transactions regarding the business won’t have any hold on your assets. This separation is essential to protect your property by separating it from what the corporation owns.

Intellectual property considerations

Some businesses deal in the production of new ideas. In many of those businesses, employees are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement as well as an acknowledgment that whatever they produce for the company becomes owned by the corporation. Drafting these agreements is a crucial step to protect the business against competition from its own former employees as well as leveraging its new creations on the open market.

Remaining on the right side of the law

A vast majority of corporations are limited liability companies, meaning that there’s an invisible line between what the company owns and what its shareholders own individually. In most states, corporations must conform to a series of steps to remain “in good standing” with the state. If they don’t fit those steps, that invisible line dissolves, and the owner and shareholders may all face fines on their private assets.

Get the right insurance

Business insurance coverage is one of the most important steps a business owner can take against liabilities. For some businesses, getting the lowest auto insurance is also a concern that registers significantly.

Chron mentions that a single mishap could potentially wipe out all the assets of a particular business, and having insurance guarantees against that mishap. In the case of a natural disaster, insurance may be able to cover the cost of replacing inventory or infrastructure. Insurance can also help a business’ reputation with their clients.

Employee rights and wages

Employee contracts need to be well-crafted to both protect the business and ensure that the employee knows exactly where he or she stands. Forbes advises that contracts allow the company to set boundaries and limitations on expectations.

This is especially important when it comes to dealing with employees since knowing their rights empowers them and allows them to make decisions that can aid their productivity as well as their well-being. Additionally, airtight contracts with employees give the business a solid foundation for future negotiations.

Write down everything

It might seem like overkill, but ensuring that everything is recorded can be essential in proving what a company has done. Having a paper trail can prevent or curtail lawsuits. It is imperative that a company documents every step it takes, regardless of how insignificant that step might seem.

Also Read: The importance of failure: 7 reasons why it makes us better entrepreneurs

Furthermore, having written agreements set out what the company expects and what is likely to happen if the employee or business partner doesn’t live up to the expectations of the contract. It puts all the signatories on the same level, considering what is at stake should the agreement fall through.

Bulletproofing using the law

While there is no guaranteed way to stop people from bringing suits against a company, setting a legal framework in place helps prepare the business for any lawsuits that may come their way. The law exists as both a warning and protection.

Having an experienced legal firm drawing up company documents and contracts is vital to the long-term success of the company. Legal battles should not impact the growth of a business because the company failed to protect itself adequately. The onus is on the business owner to ensure that his or her business can withstand any legal bullets that are fired in their direction.

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Held at Hong Kong’s RISE, PITCH is said to be the world’s largest pitching competition

Singapore-based logistics startup Haulio announced that it has come up as champion of PITCH at this year’s RISE tech conference in Hong Kong, held from July 8-11.

Often dubbed as the world’s biggest pitching competition, PITCH saw over sixty startups competing over three days.

“As the first Singaporean startup to win PITCH, RISE has been a tremendous opportunity to set Singapore and Haulio on the world stage. It has already opened valuable doors for us to form strategic partnerships in the region,” Haulio CEO and Co-Founder Alvin Ea commented in a press statement.

“Haulio’s win this year further cements that the haulage problem we’re solving is global and real. We’re excited to partner with stakeholders to transform this global problem and bring this space into the digital future,” he continued.

Also Read: In an increasingly complex industry, HAULIO takes on a massive challenge

The company said that since its launch on May 2017, it has been working with industry partners and stakeholders to overcome various industry challenges, with the aim to build a digital and interconnected
haulage industry with greater productivity and operational efficiency.

It has helped to digitalise the movements of over 150,000 TEUs containing 2.5 million tonnes of cargo.

In May 2018, Haulio raised S$1 million (US$736,000) in a seed round investment. The funding round was led by PSA unboXed and included the participation of 500 Startups, NUS Enterprise, and several logistics industry angel investors.

The funding followed an S$75,000 (US$55,000) pre-seed funding from PSA unboXed and 500 Startups.

Haulio is also one of the transportation services that Singapore-based taxi company ComfortDelGro has invested in recently.

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Image Credit: Haulio

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Before you even embark on building out your idea, think about whether this journey is for you

For many business leaders, a life of entrepreneurship is often more of a calling or vocation than it is a job. If you’ve been considering becoming an entrepreneur, the reasons for doing so may be many, but honing in on the right motivations for pursuing a path towards entrepreneurship can and should be a difficult proposition requiring much soul-searching.

The good news is that when entrepreneurship is pursued for the right reasons, it can be one of the most rewarding paths that a person can take in life.

Here are just a few questions to ask yourself to know if entrepreneurship is the right path for you, and why realistically planning for the future is one of the best things that an aspiring entrepreneur can do.

Are you passionate about your product or service?

While the rewards of starting a business are many, the truth is that entrepreneurs work very long hours for very little money in the initial stages of developing a company. Even when a company succeeds, founders need to work hard to ensure that their company will reach its full potential.

Also Read: There’s no such thing as motivation

Fortunately, a passion for one’s work can get entrepreneurs through any road bump that may arise through this process, but without passion or genuine interest in their field, individuals can burn out long before their company gets off the ground. If you’re truly passionate about your business idea, you’ll already be miles ahead of the competition.

Does your product or service have a good likelihood of succeeding?

As any successful business founder will tell you, one of the greatest assets an entrepreneur can have is a realistic plan for success. A realistic business plan will help entrepreneurs acquire funding for their business, it is true, but such a plan will also let individuals know whether their efforts will be worth the time and expense of creating a start-up and entering the marketplace.

To test the waters on an idea, try looking at the current market to see how similar businesses are faring in everything from acquiring clients to creating an IPO.

When you can develop a realistic expectation for how your company will succeed, you’ll be all the stronger when you make a case for funding to your investors, and you’ll feel confident in your ability to meet new challenges head-on.

What truly motivates you to create a company?

Years ago, psychologists developed the notion of “intrinsic” vs. “extrinsic” motivation. In study after study, psychologists found that people who developed a personal sense of satisfaction in their work ended up being far more resilient and successful than peers who derived their self-image from the opinions of others.

To wit, intrinsic motivation is based on a deep sense of personal satisfaction with one’s self and one’s work; extrinsic motivation derives itself from exterior factors such as social pressure or a deep (and often unhealthy) need for accumulating wealth or social status.

Also Read: Why mentorship is critical for startup founders to succeed

When our sense of motivation is based on what we want for ourselves, in other words, we’ll be far more likely to achieve our goals. When we’re pursuing a career path simply because we feel pressure from parents, friends, or society to do so, on the other hand, we’ll experience deep resentment and burnout in the long-term.

For these reasons, a decision to pursue a path of entrepreneurship is a major life step that should not be taken lightly. If you’re passionate and self-directed in your goals and planning, however, pursuing entrepreneurship as a calling may just be the best decision that you can make in life.

Indeed, if you love meeting challenges as they arise and derive a personal sense of satisfaction from developing your ideas and seeing them through, you may just find that life as an entrepreneur suits you perfectly. And that is entrepreneurship done right!

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Image Credit : Marina Gloria Gallud Carbonell

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Be ready for a long and arduous journey

When I got to Singapore in 2011 and was starting Perx, the ecosystem looked a lot different than it does today. I am committed to the region for the long-term, so I really want to see the ecosystem expand and mature here. As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time working with incubators, speaking at tech events, and mentoring startups to help grow the ecosystem.

As I mentored companies, built my own or helped build others, I noticed that I was hearing the same issues and was offering the same advice, so I started to create a playbook to building a startup. I’m hoping that learning from my mistakes will help save you from making some of them yourselves and get you to your next milestone faster.

I’ve never been a one for writing, so I’m going to try a different format for this post… ie. Lots of bullets!

Identify your purpose

As a founder, there are two important things you need to do:

1. Be ready for the long journey

2. Hire great people to delegate as quickly as possible

You’ve heard this many times, start-ups are hard. There will be high-highs and low-lows. Having a purpose for yourself that you truly believe in will help you get through the many times you’ll want to give up.

Also Read: Traits in a startup founder that VCs look out for

But that’s not enough, where I think a lot of new founders make the mistake is not spending enough time to clearly articulate to their team what the company’s purpose is. This may or may not be the same purpose you have as an entrepreneur. Once you have identified this purpose:

• Make sure everyone in the company knows what this is and all interpret it the same way.
• Make sure you only hire people who believe in and are legitimately excited about this purpose.
• Your progress will accelerate dramatically as soon as you start to hire people that you can delegate to and get a load off of your plate. If people are aligned towards the goal, you can be confident that they can make decisions autonomously and will focus on the right things.

What problem are you solving?

Ok, so now you have a purpose, but what problem are you solving and is it really big enough? I’ve heard hundreds of company pitches and probably 99% of them were either too small or weren’t solving a painful enough problem. Or even worse, they were a solution in search of a problem.

My rule of thumb when trying to identify a problem is to ask these questions:

• How painful is this problem?
• If you were to shut down would your users be knocking down the door to get you to reopen?
• How big is the market the problem is solving? This doesn’t mean I want you to go solve the problem for everyone that has the problem immediately, more on that later, but you should see a path to large scale.

Who are your customers?

• • Figure out at least 3-4 personas of potential customers you think would benefit from your product

• • Start to test these personas, whether through product features, user studies, research or sales. At Perx, we tested new merchant personas almost every week to figure out who really needed our product.

Also Read: What makes a successful corporate-startup engagement? Here are 4 questions to ask yourself

• • Start to eliminate personas as they fail your tests. This may mean they don’t convert at high enough rates, they don’t find the problem that compelling, they have poor retention rates, or they are not ready. You don’t have time to waste on difficult personas, they can come later.

• • Once you find your “easy-money” personas, it’s time to double down. Focus your entire team on this customer. Plaster it everywhere in your office so everyone remembers. When everyone is aligned, you suddenly see that your product team knows what features to prioritize, your sales team knows what customers to sell to, your management will all be able to make decisions much faster.

Don’t worry about having a narrow focus. If you create a great product for this customer and scale them, you’ll find that a good portion of what you built will apply to the next persona you target and the next and the next.
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The article was originally posted on Monk’s Hill Ventures’ blog and was first republished on e27 on August 6, 2018.

Jon Sugihara is an Operating Advisor at Monk’s Hill Ventures. and has founded a number of companies in the US and Asia. Currently, he is the head of strategic partnership for the Next Billion Users group at Google. Previously, Jon held positions as Chief Product Officer at KODAKIT and RedMart. He first entered the Asian market as the founder of Perx in Singapore.

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Southeast Asia provides exciting opportunities for agritech startups. Investors are definitely not ignoring this

In Southeast Asia, the agricultural industry has contributed greatly to tackling some of the greatest challenges the region has faced.

According to the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026, “The development of the agricultural and fisheries sectors1 has contributed to the improvements in food security, and both sectors remain a key part of food security policy for regional policymakers. In this way, agricultural and fisheries policy settings are interlinked with food security objectives.”

The region provides plenty of opportunities to explore and challenges to tackle for tech companies. Singapore is definitely not an exception in this matter; with its focus on innovation, we have seen several startups offering groundbreaking tech. These companies aim to make a change in various ways, from helping farmers improve yield to connecting F&B businesses to suppliers through an online platform.

Within the e27 startup database, we recorded at least 20 active agritech startups operating in Singapore.

While we aim to list down some of the most well-funded agritech startups in the country, it is also important to note that many of these companies are keeping their funding rounds undisclosed.

Also Read: Meet the 10 agritech, foodtech startups pitching for Future Food Asia’s US$100K grand prize

The following is a list of the most well-funded agritech startups in Singapore, based on their disclosed funding rounds as recorded in the e27 database.

We will start with the two companies that have raised millions of US Dollars:

Chemopower Technology Pte Ltd

Funding raised: US$10 million in Series A funding round from undisclosed investors (2016)

Chemopower Technology is a tech company which provides efficient and cost-effective solutions to identify chemical compositions via novel approaches.

The services that it offers include Data Analysis Service, Herb Data Inquire Service, and Universal Chemical Analyses Platform.

“To this end, ChemoPower developed a software that can reconstruct pure components’ spectra and its concentration without prior information using solely experimental data, without any simulation or peak matching,” the company explains in the e27 startup database.

“Our solution is built on the foundation of chemometrics: mathematical techniques based on statistics and optimisation method to find local/global optima of a system and is crystallised from the knowledge of more than 200 International Journals on chemometrics-related algorithms,” it continues.

The founding team was awarded the Gold Award for the High Performance Computing (HPC) Quest 2003 in Singapore, hosted by IBM.

Overdrive IoT

Funding raised: US$2.9 million in Series A funding round from Tin Men Capital (2019)

Overdrive describes itself as a true Internet of Things (IoT) platform that manages the information flow from a multitude of sensors, ranging from complex machines such as an automobile to a simple mobile device.

It also manages information flow from cloud platform that allows companies and developers to easily access the information to build smart applications.

In the automobile, transportation and logistics industry, Overdrive has a widely tested range of sensors that reads the engine diagnostics, driving behaviour and location of any vehicles.

For the B2B sector, Overdrive is enabling fleet operators and fleet managers to better manage their vehicle assets.

Also Read: Agritech is giving a globally vital industry a facelift, startups take center stage

In addition to Chemopower Technology and Overdrive, the following companies have also disclosed their funding rounds:

Brightree

Funding raised: US$350,000 in seed funding round by undisclosed investor(s) (2013)

Brightree provides an industrial IoT platform that is described as easily customisable for most industrial IoT applications such as marine, plantation, and factory automation.

Gaining experience from a remote oil well monitoring project for Schlumberger, the founders developed the unified platform for remote monitoring and ubiquitous control of industrial types of machinery. They formed the corporation with the assistance of the Singapore government’s Spring TECS grant.

The company provides innovative and quality satellite solutions with applications in remote engine monitoring and diagnostics, remote fuel management, agriculture plantation yield monitoring as well as asset tracking.

Zeemart

Funding raised: US$200,000 in pre-seed funding round from Neeraj Sundarajoo (2016)

Zeemart is a B2B sourcing platform for the F&B industry, with a mission to enable businesses make smarter purchasing decisions via its e-procurement platform.

Buyers will be able to view catalogs online and place order for suppliers to take. Suppliers are also given an app to manage deliveries. All the process is automatically recorded, enabling buyers to manage their time more effectively.

MapGage

Funding raised: US$50,000 in pre-seed funding round from an undisclosed investor (2016)

MapGage is a cloud-based solution that enables clients to integrate drone maps, blueprints, sensors, and field observations. It aims to increase the practical and operational value of drone-acquired data.

In addition to agriculture, its services are also used in industrial inspections, construction, infrastructure maintenance, and golf clubs.

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Image Credit: Skull Kat on Unsplash

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igloohome’s portable locking device Smart Padlock can be used to secure trucks, gates and assets

Singapore-headquartered smart access solutions provider igloohome has announced a new US$15 million fund-raise, co-led by Insignia Ventures Partners, Wavemaker Partners and SEEDS Capital.

New investors such as Kickstart Ventures, TH Capital, Pine Venture Partners, On Asset Management, and InnoVen Capital, in addition to existing backers Singtel Innov8 and Great Noble International, also co-invested.

With this round, igloohome has also announced the official launch of iglooworks, a suite of smart access solutions for enterprise customers, primarily in the real estate and infrastructure sectors. iglooworks’s solutions are managed via a dashboard, designed to manage and monitor large numbers of access points for different levels of users, with features to sort, filter and export data.

The fresh investment will be used for research and development of new products and software for both igloohome and iglooworks, and to support new and existing distribution partners globally, especially in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific.

Also Read: As compared to a few years ago, we don’t have to answer ‘why SEA?’ as much: Wavemaker’s Paul Santos

The company has also inducted PropertyGuru’s Co-founder and former CEO Steve Melhuish to its Board.

igloohome creates smart access solutions that help users manage their properties and assets. With igloohome’s smart locks, users can grant access to their property remotely via a mobile app. Its products work offline, with no internet connection required. igloohome is a partner of Airbnb, HomeAway and Booking.com.

As part of the iglooworks suite, it offers Smart Padlock, a portable locking device that can be used to secure trucks, gates, and assets. iglooworks can be used across a myriad of industries across logistics, facilities management and asset tracking. With igloohome’s AlgoPIN technology, one-time or duration PIN codes can be sent to contractors, truckers, or operators, and access logs tracked by the padlock provides visibility of access.

iglooworks incorporates new communication protocols such as NB-IoT, Cat-M, LTE, and Z-wave. These protocols allow for added online features of access solutions, including multi-factor authentication and real-time access information, while ensuring that battery consumption of the devices remain low.

The startup claims it currently has over 100 distribution partners, more than 100 integration partners and is working with leading property developers such as Sansiri (Thailand), Mitsubishi (Japan) and Capitaland (Vietnam).

Anthony Chow, CEO of igloohome, said: “In the past three years, we have developed a range of smart locks that are creating great value for vacation rental hosts and home owners around the world. With iglooworks, we have developed a solution that not only can save businesses and governments up to millions of dollars per year, but also improve security and surveillance. Our vision is to create smart access ecosystems for smart cities, increasing efficiency and reducing costs.”

In April 2018, igloohome raised a US$4 million Series A funding round led by Insignia Ventures Partners.

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Go-Jek will integrate SCB’s various offerings such as payments, digital lending and insurance in the coming months

Indonesian ride-hailing app Go-Jek, which has just received an investment from Thailand-based Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), is set to expand its financial services and food delivery businesses, a Reuters report said, citing a top executive.

In the coming months, Go-Jek will integrate SCB’s various services such as payments, digital lending and insurance, the Indonesian company’s Head of International Andrew Lee told the news agency.

“We have more than 20 services, in Indonesia…we will pick and choose the best playbook for Thailand and carefully curate that,” Lee said.

Go-Jek was officially launched in Thailand in February under the brand ‘Get’. On Thursday, the startup announced that it received an investment from SCB as part of its ongoing Series F round. The partnership enables ‘Get’ drivers to open an SCB bank account at the Get Driver Training Center as well as provide them with access to essential financial services such as loans and insurance.

Also Read: The importance of failure: 7 reasons why it makes us better entrepreneurs

SCB and Get will work together to improve financial literacy among drivers, supporting them with savings plans and knowledge of basic financial products. The partnership will also see the development of solutions for both Get merchants and SCB merchant customers to help them grow their businesses online.

Get users will benefit from the partnership through convenient top ups of their Get Pay credits, the company’s e-wallet service that has been launched in Thailand in beta, via SCB’s digital banking app.

“SCB shares our ethos of using technology to improve the lives of consumers, drivers, and merchants and we are excited to have them on board as an investor,” Lee said in a press statement.

Apiphan Charoenanusorn, President of SCB, said: “Apart from the investment in Go-Jek, SCB is forming a partnership with Get to create a ‘digital lifestyle ecosystem’ in Thailand to benefit Get’s drivers, users and merchants. The partnership will promote financial inclusion for drivers with financial solutions tailored to suit their needs, such as digital lending or personal and individual loans, life- accident-health insurance as well as financial literacy programs. Additionally, SCB will link Get with our customers and alliances such as retailers, businesses and universities to achieve the ‘digital lifestyle’ goal.”

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Cashaa also facilitates micro-lending services on its platform, wherein a user will be able to provide/receive loans to/from other users on the platform

(Editor’s note: Here is an article from our archives which we think are still relevant)

The entrepreneurship bug bit Kumar Gaurav while working as an Engineer for luxury car brand Ferrari in Italy. Having sensed an opportunity in the insurance industry in the country, he started DarWinsurance, Italy’s first P2P insurance platform, which was funded by AIG and ERV, and later acquired by Esedra.

While in Italy, Gaurav faced a lot of problems when dealing with banks; his bank would charge him exorbitant fees for remittance service, and at times, it would harass him just for using his own money.

“It was unacceptable for me and I wanted to do something about it. This was when blockchain was taking shape globally. I wanted to leverage this technology to help reduce people’s heavy dependency on banks for their various day-t0-day services,” Gaurav narrates his story to e27.

Upon doing some research in blockchain, he in 2014 launched a startup, now known as Auxesis Group, which provides private blockchain solutions such as cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet, in addition to blockchain infrastructure services to enterprises.

As blockchain grew further and gained currency, he decided to leverage it for the benefits of the unbanked and underbanked population around the world — by providing micro-loans and making international money transfer easy.

Thus, Cashaa was born in 2016.

Also Read: Blockchain investment 2018: A who’s who of blockchain investors and startups in China

“Cashaa is a forex platform that offers innovative exchange and transfer services between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. Cashaa has an in-built money exchange, where traders can trade cryptocurrencies across the globe without going through the hassles of traditional money transfer processes, for a nominal fee,” says Gaurav. “We have already beta-tested this exchange and had traders from 141 countries in 97 different currencies registered.”

Traditionally, international money transfer services are a complicated process; they are cumbersome and costly. Intermediaries charge higher exchange rates and there is weak counter-party risk checking. To top it all, they are highly regulated and require extensive paperwork.

“Imagine you want to transfer US$2,000 from Singapore to someone in Delhi. You need to pay up to 20 per cent in commission to the service provider to send your money. Casha seeks to make it easy for the people to transfer money internationally and in real time. On Cashaa, the sender and the receiver can complete transactions in the local currency, with minimal awareness of cryptocurrencies or blockchain. The trader receives local fiat currency in exchange for selling and buying cryptocurrency,” he explains.

In addition to the forex services, Cashaa also facilitate micro-lending services on its platform. A P2P service, a user will be able to provide/receive loans to/from other users on Cashaa. “Nearly 3.5 billion people are unbanked or underbanked with limited or no opportunities to participate in the global economy, while the other half has its problems with existing financial services. We are here to change this,” he adds.

The firm is currently woking on Cashaa Card, using which individuals will be able to pay at shopping malls and purchase things online.

Cashaa, which is registered in Estonia with offices in London and Mumbai, also offers CAS tokens, which enables users to access premium services like higher forex transfer limits, ATM withdrawals, unlimited money transfer and exchange. It can also be used as an alternative credit score for individuals and small businesses, who are unable to obtain a credit score in the traditional way.

“Micro-financing and credit scores will be based on our CAS token. Token holders will be able to access instant loans at low-interest rates compared to non-token holders, and will also be able to give loans. Through earning or buying CAS tokens, users improve their creditworthiness. They can also sell or donate their CAS tokens to other users directly, thereby improving the receiver’s credit score and losing their own. The more CAS the borrower owns, the better the loan conditions,” he shares.

Besides blockchain, Cashaa also leverages Artificial Intelligence to make its services more efficient. It has partnered with Agrello Foundation, which will enable Cashaa to include legally-binding self-aware contracts based on blockchain. Together with Agrello’s identity and digital signature, Cashaa enables fast and secure contract conclusion. This will lead to efficiency gains in decentralised trading and micro-financing, where the cost of engaging in a business relationship and writing agreements is high compared to the transaction value.

“Our vision is to develop the payments and banking infrastructure for the future on a robust AI-driven blockchain infrastructure, which can make the legacy system obsolete, thus creating value for the world,” he says.

Also Read: 3 startups are using blockchain tech to improve the lives of millions

The blockchain startup, with an employee strength of 32 people, is working on a commercial launch of its services in the UK, India, Nigeria, and Indonesia after the success of its beta test. The multi-currency crypto exchange will be launched in India in this quarter, and the Cashaa Cards will be rolled out in the third quarter. The firm will also establish local payout points in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria to serve cash-based societies and reach secluded areas.

Last year, Cashaa raised US$33 million via token sale. However, it rejected nearly US$14 million of this money due to its strict internal anti-money laundering and know-your-customer policies. Gaurav says that the amount it has accepted will be enough to launch its next generation banking wallet and card and expand it worldwide.

For Gaurav, blockchain is just a tool and he believes people should not get excited about the technology. “What matters instead is the fact that it is solving real problems. People should, therefore, focus on the problems they want to solve, whether it needs a blockchain or not, instead of thinking the other way round and trying to find something where they can use a blockchain,” he concludes.

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