The verdict marks the end of an 18-month-long trial, in which Vinasun accused Grab of unfair business practices

Vietnamese taxi firm Vinasun’s Christmas present may have come a little late, but it has been vindicated nonetheless, as today, it has emerged victor in a lawsuit against ride-hailing giant Grab.

The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City found Grab guility of operating as a taxi company and has therefore violated regulations in the country; Grab currently operates in Vietnam as a technology provider.

Grab has been ordered to pay a VND 4.8 billion (US$208,000) fine to Vinasun to compensate for the losses that the latter has suffered as a result of what it described as “unfair business practices” by Grab.

This sum, though, is a lot less than Vinasun’s original demands, which was VND 42.2 billion (US$1.8 million).

The verdict marks the end of an 18-month-long trial — dragged on by a series of hearing postponements and suspensions — between the Southeast Asian behemoth and one of Vietnam’s key taxi companies.

Vinasun had accused Grab of being disingenuous about the true nature of its operations in Vietnam; it claimed that Grab used its hefty war chest to poach large numbers of drivers and attract riders to its platform. Because of this, it said Grab upended the taxi market and dealt a significant blow to the Vinasun’s bottom line.

Grab said it intends the appeal the court’s ruling, and added that it is preparing to launch a defamation lawsuit against Vinasun and other companies who had colluded with the taxi firm if they do not retract the allegations.

“Today is an extremely unfortunate day for technology and foreign investment in Vietnam where clearly, innovation is no longer seen as a virtue,” said Jerry Lim, Country Head of Grab Vietnam, in an official statement.

“It contradicts the Vietnamese government’s pursuit of its Industry 4.0 and digital economy ambitions. Vinasun’s anti-competitive tactics have succeeded only in stifling innovation,” he added.

“E-hailing has come so far to become an indispensable part of people’s lives and the industry shouldn’t be forced to take a giant step backwards to now conduct itself and provide its services similar to that of traditional taxis,” said Lim.

The basis of Vinasun’s lawsuit

In an official statement published last month, Vinasun laid out its grievances with the ride-hailing giant and asserted why the company should claim damages.

Vinasun claimed that Grab’s status in the country as a provider of connection management services for “contract-based transportation” (in other words, a private ride-hailing platform) is a mere guise; in reality, the company is operating as a “complete taxi business”, it said.

Because of this, Vinasun claimed that Grab had breached its original agreement with the Vietnamese government, which had placed Grab under a private ride-hailing service innovation pilot project called Decision 24.

By running a full-fledged taxi business, Vinasun said, Grab has to be subjected to regulations under the taxi operating license, which go beyond the company’s current obligations as solely a software provider for private transportation. Because of this, Vinasun believes that Grab is exploiting loopholes in the legal system to avoid coming under taxi laws.

“Vinasun fully agreed with the representative of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuratorate at the hearing on October 24, 2018, confirming the convincing evidence that clearly demonstrates that Grab operates as a complete taxi business with tariff, charge, promotion, discount, reward and fine … with clear evidence,” read Vinasun’s statement.

“Grab, as a taxi business, managed to escape 13 taxi business conditions, thereby hiring a huge number of drivers, has resulted in Grab violating Decision 24 … in addition, there are other issues such as customer data management, customer confidential information, penalties, insurance for drivers, etc,” it said.

Vinsaun added that Grab employed a “loss-making strategy”, offering monetary rewards to entice drivers to come onboard its platform. This would effectively enable Grab to get rid of any competition and dominate the market.

It also said that Grab failed to inform authorities of its promotional deals and discounts, and overextended the length of these promotions — a violation of the country’s trade law — with approval.

For Grab’s alleged violations, Vinasun is demanding the company compensate for losses as a result of reduced income to the sum of VND 42.2 billion (US$1.8 million). The company appointed Cuu Long, an Inspection Valuation company, to act as an independent assessor for the damages incurred.

“The lawsuit will not only bring about fair competition for businesses as well as promote and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Vietnamese business community,” Vinasun declared, “but also contribute to the completion of related policies and laws related to the enterprise and the business environment so as to ensure the long-term sustainable development of the country and the real benefits for consumers.”

Grab’s position

Grab has maintained that its operations and business activities do not fit the legal definition of a transport business; that it merely provides a software to help transport companies conduct business.

The company said that the Ministry of Transport has even reaffirmed its status as a software provider.

In a legal argument document prepared by Grab’s lawyers, it said “the Department of Transport of Khanh Hoa stated that ‘GrabTaxi Limited is a software provider, not a transport business, however, the functions and goals of the transport business are still performed by GrabTaxi.’”

It added that the ministry said that would be “no change in the draft [of the Pilot Project]” denoting Grab as a software provider, and that any transportation-related activities it conducts are ‘only meant to support the transportation units on the basis of business cooperation contracts.’”

This portion of Grab’s argument is pretty telling:

“In fact, Defendant (Grab) could not assign a driver to a particular trip in the way that taxi companies dispatch their cars.  Defendant’s app works in the following manner: when a car is requested, the app will alert the drivers who are closest to the passenger.

At that moment, the driver has full autonomy to consider accepting the trip with the suggested fare calculated by the app and the first driver to accept the passenger’s request will provide the ride. Therefore, Defendant does not interfere in any way with this process and does not in any way manage or dispatch cars; rather. Defendant only facilitates rides between drivers and passengers through the use of technology.”

Grab also disputed that Vinasun’s claim that its loss of income was due to uncompetitive business tactics employed by Grab; rather, it said that Vinasun had every opportunity to innovate new solutions — based on Scheme 24 — and compete on the same level.

“All the reasons cited leading to so-called ‘damages’, and the so-called ‘effects’ on the business of Vinasun flow from technological progress and reform spearheaded by the Government, in turn led by the Prime Minister through the authorization of the Pilot Project rather than any violations, such as cars without ‘taxi signs’ on top,” said Grab, in an official statement.

In a press statement, Jerry Lim, Grab’s Country Head of Vietnam, said that “Vinasun has been and continues to be given an equal opportunity under Decision 24 to compete on fair grounds with 8 other players who have been granted an e-hailing pilot licence by the government to operate e-hailing services in 5 cities and provinces.”

Lim said that Vinasun itself has already developed an app as part of the pilot programme for its taxi and car-hailing service.

Grab also expressed doubts on Cuu Long’s credibility and ability to accurately measure the damages. It also remarked that even Vinasun’s management had acknowledged that the company’s reduced income could have been attributed to a slew of factors unrelated to Grab.

“At the General Meeting of Shareholders of 2017, the management of Plaintiff [Vinasun] acknowledged that ‘The company faced a lot of challenges, such as gasoline price changed 22 times, falling demand, increasing costs such as insurance cost and increase salary of nearly 13 per cent,” it said.

Other macro trends affecting the company’s stock prices and market capitalisation such as economic policy, politics or micro factors like market trends and investor behaviours should also be taken into account, Grab argued. It described Cuu Long’s claim that Grab’s entry into the Vietnamese market was the sole cause of Vinasun’s reduced market cap as “baseless”.

“[This] is is completely baseless and simply non-scientific from an economic
perspective; this is a reflection of Cuu Long’s fundamental lack of expertise regarding the stock market, particularly market capitalization …It is unacceptable to pick the difference between market value and book value at a particular point in time to calculate damages” said Grab.

Grab’s woes are not over. The Vietnamese regulator has recently ruled that the company breached anti-competitive laws when it acquired Uber’s assets in the region.

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Every failure has a lesson to teach

Sometimes all you need to become a success is to fail first. There are numerous examples around us. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman first started a social networking platform called SocialNet that failed. However, he attributes the success of LinkedIn, which raked in $1 billion in revenue in 2017, to his failure with his earlier startup.

If you are thinking about creating your own startup, you first need to look around. The failure rate for startups is too high. That should not discourage you but give you more opportunities to learn before stepping on the ground. You will probably still make mistakes but studying other people’s experiences will save you from repeating their mistakes.

Here are nine notable startup and product failures you should know about:

1. Beepi

Beepi.com looked like a promising venture on paper. The used car selling and buying marketplace was released at a time when such online marketplaces had a lot of potentials. They even managed to get $60 million Series B funding round.

It finally shut down in 2017 after being in business for over four years. The used car dealer DGDG tried to buy the startup but pulled out eventually.

What went wrong?

Beepi was a classic example of bad leadership and management. Some would say they went too big too soon. The founders were able to quickly raise a lot of money but did not spend it carefully. Apparently, the company was burning through $7 million monthly at one point just paying salaries which included very high salaries for top executives.

What lesson should you learn?

Money runs out eventually if you do not spend it carefully. Time and again, startups have failed because of running out money. For many it is simply bad luck, however, in the case of Beepi, it was bad management.

2. Google Glass

Google is one of the biggest companies in the world but it has its fair share of failures as well. Google Glass was a futuristic smart device by Google that brought a new twist to wearable technology. Even after much hype, it failed immediately.

What went wrong?

Perhaps it was a bit ahead of the time or it raised privacy concerns. Most importantly, it was super expensive for the masses. It just failed to connect with the consumers who did not see a much value in it.

What lesson should you learn?

Innovation is great as long as it benefits the consumers. Also, you have to do anything and everything including cutting costs to bring the price down if you want to sell your product. You need to set up a smart marketing strategy where you can offer discounts in a way that it benefits you as well as your customers.

Also read: 5 lessons I learned from a startup failure

3. Jawbone

When talking about failed startups, nothing could be of a bigger scale than the consumer electronics company Jawbone. It produced products like headsets, Bluetooth speakers, and fitness trackers. It raised over $930 million as a venture-backed startup. VC companies like Sequoia, Khosla Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz invested millions in the company but it failed in 2017 and announced liquidation of its assets.

What went wrong?

Experts say that overfunding killed this startup. They artificially increased its valuation and the company was almost force-fed with funding. Their wearable technology failed to compete with the industry leaders Fitbit and Samsung. The company became only the second biggest VC backed startup failure according to CB Insights.

What lesson should you learn?

Too much money is not good either, especially if the future of the product is uncertain.

4. Yik Yak

When Yik Yak, an anonymous chatting app, was first released it became an immediate success. This was back in 2013 when the smartphone boom was happening and innovative apps were coming out. It became very popular among college students. However, it starting losing following after Snapchat came out.

There were many controversies as well involving cyberbullying and harassment. It peaked at $400 million. Then in 2017, it closed its doors when no one even knew about it anymore.

What went wrong?

Yik Yak picked up on a trend and could not live up to changing expectations and dynamics. Somehow, it lost its appeal and sound among myriads of other chatting and dating apps (Tinder, Grindr, and Snapchat).

What lesson should you learn?

Your startup idea needs to be pivoted towards a long-term solution and not just current trends. Also, adapting and changing is survival in the cut-throat world of digital startups.

5. Canadadrugs.com

CanadaDrugs.com started as a viable solution to providing simple mail order medications to millions of patients across the country. Before it could even test the time for success, they were shut down by authorities and left with a long legal battle.

What went wrong?

This company made a grave mistake of misleading the customers about FDA approvals. It was selling drugs saying they were being manufactured in FDA approved facilities. However, the truth was that they did not know where it was being made. The US federal prosecutors accused the people behind the company of illegally importing and selling misbranded and unapproved drugs.

What lesson should you learn?

Never ever cheat your customers and risk their lives. Not only is it unethical but can send you to prison.

Also read: Unfazed by 3 failures, this 20-year-old is building a new startup, with some big names backing it

6. Doppler Labs

Doppler Labs flagship product was the Here One, wireless earphone and microphone. It stayed in business for four years and raised a whopping $51.1 million. When the product came out, Doppler Labs anticipated sales of 100,000 Here One but only a dismal quarter of that actually sold.

What went wrong?

Doppler Lab ended because of faults in their product and their delayed release. First of all, few manufacturing problems delayed release which made them miss out on crucial holiday season sales. Secondly, when customers used the product, they found out that it only lasted about two hours on full charge.

What lesson should you learn?

Do not create a product you cannot sell. Also, there is too much competition and high-standards to face when it comes to producing hardware.

7. Wonga

The UK-based company Wonga has a somewhat typical story of the rise and fall of a company. It was a unique idea backed by private equity investors. It was a payday lender giving short-term credit at high interest. It was going well until it was not. Turns out people were struggling to pay back the money. The situation got so bad that it got a £10 million injection.

What went wrong?

The company started making good money but it soon became clear at what cost. When stories emerged about people struggling to pay back the credit, authorities started regulating the company. They also admitted that they were lending money to borrowers who could not pay back. Then there were too many complaints whose compensation was costing Wonga on average £550.

What lesson should you learn?

Profitability is important but do not get greedy.

8. Juicero

Juicero’s failure can only be described in one word: epic. The company started crowdfunding in 2013 but the product did not come out until 2016. And when it did it was an immediate bust thanks in part to a lot of negative press. The founder promised a high-end luxury juice machine that was much more than a juicer. The company raised a whopping $118.5 million.

Also read: Why failing your startup does not mean you are a failure

What went wrong?

When the machine was actually released, it used proprietary juice packs to squeeze the juice. The machine basically just squeezed juice out of the packets. Obviously, $699 was too much for such a thing.

What lesson should you learn?

Entrepreneurship is about solving problems not reinventing the wheel or in the case of Juicero, breaking the wheel.

9. MyBizHomePage

Founded by a serial entrepreneur, Peter Justen, the site worked with QuickBooks software to help companies keep a track of their finances. It was started in 2006 and became a quick success. At one point, the company was valued at $100 million. However, the company drowned when its site’s security was compromised.

What went wrong?

Founder Peter Justen did not want to sell the business and had issues with the company’s Chief Technology Officer. After the CTO was fired, the website suffered multiple attacks and crashed. The backup data was compromised and the site had to be shutdown.

What lesson should you learn?

Web security is extremely important. And so is working with people you can trust.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that every failure has a lesson to teach. And it is better to learn from other people’s mistakes than your own. Startups face an incredible amount of challenges and there is no magic formula for success. However, you can improve your chances by avoiding the obvious pitfalls.

It is quite clear from the examples above that even if you find investors and get all the funding you need, you might still fail. It is an ever changing world and you need to stay at the top of your game no matter what.

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The complicated relationships and partnerships among all the key players involved means the AI battle is more about alliances between platforms

There has been much discussion and dispute around who will be the winner in the battle for global dominance of artificial intelligence – the US or China. I discussed it in some depth recently.

However, viewing the AI war as being between just nations – most commonly the US and China – is drastically oversimplifying things. In reality, the complicated relationships and partnerships among all the key players involved means the AI battle is more about alliances between platforms than nations.

These days, most products and services are a combination of arts and breakthroughs from all around world. “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China,” sums up the globalised reality.

What’s more, the very entrepreneurs building AI technology often have complicated identities themselves. The majority don’t work with a nationalist vision of their companies. But they often do identify with brands and platforms.

Look at the established tech giants who are also leaders in AI: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Tencent, Samsung, and IBM. Most of these companies are building alliances with each other in one way or another – usually through APIs which allow competitors and collaborators connect with their services – so long as they also stand to benefit from it themselves.

According to Kai-Fu Lee, author of AI Superpowers, the big AI giants (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu) are mostly focusing on creating “AI grids”. They then “act as the utility companies, managing the grid and collecting the fees,” he said.

It’s the platform, stupid

Last year, I read Platform Revolution by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary, a profound book that changed the way I thought about the tech race. I have since applied that thinking to AI.

As the authors noted, “In recent years, more and more businesses are shifting from the pipeline structure to the platform structure.” Examples include cloud computing and computer services platform Salesforce, which generates 50 per cent of its revenues through APIs, and Expedia, for which the figure is as high as 90 per cent.

Indeed, every tech giant is racing towards a specific goal in the area of AI. It is now about becoming the platform for AI, the new lifeblood technology that is being layered across almost every product and service rather than being offered as a separate module or capability.

The Watson AI assistant, a platform being built by IBM, is being used by companies like The Royal Bank of Scotland, among others, to better engage their customers.

Also read: How artificial intelligence is disrupting education

The reality, of course, is that we cannot easily predict who will win the AI race in the long term. The situation is further complicated by the growing number of impressive AI startups, some of which sprout from nowhere to become frontrunners in their respective industries in just a few years.

According to Lee, startups now have have opportunity to build “highly specific ‘battery-powered’ AI products for each use case,” instead of waiting for the overall AI platforms, or “grids” to take shae.

Don’t miss the AI moon

The point that I want to drive home, though, is that while countries like the US and China – and even the UK, for that matter – hold incredible potential for research and development in tomorrow’s AI technologies, we still ought to think in terms of platforms, not nations, if we really want to understand where the real war for AI dominance is being wrought.

Otherwise, we risk committing a technological faux pas equivalent of that great Zen saying, so well captured by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon: “It is like a finger pointing out to the Moon, don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

While countries, in this analogy, are the fingers pointing, platforms are unmistakably the moon. Just make sure you are not paying attention to the wrong thing!

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How Nuren Group, Fave, and DahMakan are shaking up the Malaysian digital marketplace ecosystem

As with all traditional forms of trade, when it comes to eCommerce it is important to gauge consumer behaviour. This ranges from what consumers want to what consumers need, and bridging those interest points with capturing a market that’s actually willing to make a purchase.

This is the beauty of eCommerce: it revitalises conventional markets by introducing new and innovative ways to deliver products and services anchored on wants and needs. More importantly, eCommerce puts these products and services in a digital platform, making it accessible and convenient to use.

In the attempt to harness the power of digital as a means of powering Malaysia’s growing economy, three startups are coming up with ways to innovate the marketplace through smart solutions and to revolutionise customer experience.

Digital platforms enable businesses to cut costs and offer goods affordably

One problem that’s being solved by a startup is the need for healthy meals amid a fast-paced and busy lifestyle. Because of society’s growing demands, people have less and less time to prepare food for their daily meals. DahMakan, a startup from Malaysia, seeks to solve this problem by providing hassle-free, high quality everyday meals to make people’s lives easier.

They achieve this by delivering affordable and ready-to-eat meals at the push of a button through their purely digital platform, cutting out traditional F&B business costs. This allows them to regulate their prices and make sure their products stay affordable.

“Starting in Malaysia was the best choice we made. There is so much support from the ecosystem and people are generally curious and super supportive of new ideas and concepts. Malaysia is truly outstanding compared to the many other countries I’ve visited,” said Jonathan Weins, CEO and co-founder of DahMakan.

Weins credits much of his success to the collaborative help he has received from various entities. He enthusiastically adds, “the ecosystem and government linked organisations such as Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) are doing an outstanding job, and we are excited about the many upcoming initiatives!”

Also read: How Malaysia helps bolster the less glamourous side of tech

DahMakan has expanded to Thailand with their Thai office growing twice as fast as the one in Malaysia. Weins said, “The best way to deal with cultural differences and customer types has been to approach a new country with a completely open mind and without any assumptions.”

The food delivery startup was part of Y Combinator’s summer 2017 programme – the first-ever Malaysian company to participate in Y Combinator. It has since raised $1.3 million seed round in 2017, and a $2.6 million pre-series A in February this year.

He added, “we are about to close another funding round which will give us additional capital to continue attracting incredible talent, and to make high quality food accessible for everyone.”

Important for startups to have a strong sense of identity

Another thriving Malaysian startup is the Nuren Group, the largest female engagement platform in Southeast Asia.

Guiding women through their journeys of wedding and motherhood, Nuren Group operates content-driven marketplaces, which enable thousands of small, medium, and large global brands to sell their products and services. On top of that, they also run digital content and activation campaigns with their community of female influencers and celebrities.

The idea behind the company was simple: three years ago, they started as a wedding platform. But as their customers aged and shifted to different interest points (from wedding to motherhood), they knew there was an untapped market waiting to be addressed.

Their platform allows the company to retain existing clientele through a simple paradigm shift. What had to be consistent was making sure that their products and services always empowered women and catered intrinsically to their best interests.

“There are many opportunities and challenges ahead for eCommerce. Domestic players are facing competition from marketplaces that heavily subsidised and offer cross border cheaper OEM products. Merchants and platforms like us will have to master the combination of showrooming and webrooming, events, product demos, in-store experiences – focusing on after sale customer service,” said Petrina Goh, CEO and co-founder of the Nuren Group.

“We also foresee ecommerce companies that use data to predict consumer spending and trend setting to perform above the peers,” she added.

Nuren Group currently maintains a solid community of over 1,000,000 moms, 5,000 wedding businesses and 1,000 baby’s and children’s brands. With their regional presence in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, they are assessing borderless transactions that enable their sellers to sell and fulfill across the countries.

Supporting the “old” by harnessing the new

The third startup we spoke to doesn’t appear to fit the eCommerce model that we know, but they are also certainly revolutionising the market in their own unique way.

Fave is a startup that focuses on helping offline businesses to succeed, by bringing them to new customers (Fave Deals), retain their existing customers (FavePay, Fave stamp cards), and reengage customers who haven’t come back to their stores, as well as leverage on their customers’ behaviour, trend and demographics. In addition, Fave provides comprehensive merchant solutions (FaveBiz) to enhance their understanding their businesses, and drive further growth.

Essentially, Fave digitally optimises brick and mortar retail stores that do not have the understanding and the capacity to digitalise their business practices. Doing this helps offline businesses to take advantage of data and tech in gathering new customers and retain old ones.

“It’s been great experience so far. We have built up a team of 200 people in Malaysia where all our products, technology, innovation, data, and so forth are performed from Malaysia for the region,” said Chen Chow Yeoh, co-founder of Fave, which has expanded its brand to Singapore, Indonesia, and built some presence in the Philippines, and Hong Kong.

“MDEC has been instrumental in helping us through this journey, especially in facilitating the process to enable us to bring in quality knowledge workers to join the team here, and make Malaysia our hub,” he added.

As of today, Fave is doing over 100 million USD worth of sales per year within its first two years of starting up. They are currently gunning to find breakthroughs that will score them their first billion-dollar sale.

Next steps for Malaysia’s eCommerce

All three startups agree that some work still needs to be done. Goh said Malaysia could provide more support through projects, endorsements, and recognition. “There should also be more collaborations or partnerships between conglomerates and startups to support innovation and growth,” she added.

This sentiment is echoed by Weins who believes that better terms should be made between investors and startups. He said the current investment frameworks tended to be unfair, which reflects poorly on how money is being funnelled into businesses – and the kind of businesses that are willing to accept those investments.

Also read: Navigating through Southeast Asia’s startup industry the Malaysian way

“Investment terms should be standardised, similar to other global ecosystems. I have heard from other entrepreneurs in Malaysia about very ‘erroneous’ terms from investors. We have to change this mindset here regarding this,” said Weins.

Yeoh on the other hand thinks there should be more industry-relevant academic training for tech-based professionals at a university level. He believes this would help the pool of talent in Malaysia become more ‘startup aware.’

Ultimately, all three startups are happy with many things that they have experienced in the Malaysian framework. Much of their success derives from support received from other startups in the ecosystem, as well as government-sponsored initiatives under MDEC’s helm.

This paints to a hopeful future for Malaysia’s startup ecosystem, and consequently enhances the positive view of the nation’s vibrant digital economy bolstered by its eCommerce sector.

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The startup will deploy the funds to expand to newer markets and geographies besides increasing its logistics network and supply chain across India

India-based B2B commerce company Moglix has secured US$23 million in Series C round of funding, led by existing investors Accel Partners, Jungle Ventures and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.

Venture Highway, Shailesh Rao (former VP at Twitter and Google), and InnoVen Capital also participated in the round.

The company plans to deploy the raised fund to expand to newer markets and geographies besides increasing its logistics network and supply chain across India. It also continues to beef up its integrated digital supply chain technology solutions with data science and machine-learning capabilities.

“The funds will play a critical role in fuelling our expansion efforts by optimising efficiencies in our focus areas such as technology innovation, analytics and building a wide logistics infrastructure network. We foresee that there is immense strength and scope of innovation in the B2B commerce space and the sectors we operate in. We are now focussed on our next phase of growth across diverse markets and going forward, we will continue to bring in new talent and strengthen our talent base,” said Rahul Garg, Founder and CEO of Moglix.

Also Read: The extraordinary tale of a Filipino geek who swam against the odds in life

Founded in August 2015, Moglix is a platform for industrial products catering to suppliers and buyers across the globe. With a team comprising 450-plus people, Moglix currently operates across 10 centres in India and caters to both institutional customers (B2B) and individual customers (B2C). It works with over 400 large manufacturing clients and over 250,000 SMEs. The team has built a network of over 5,000 SME and big suppliers across 25 states in India and brought them on a digital supply chain platform.

Anurag Srivastava, Founding Managing Partner at Jungle Ventures, said: “With businesses becoming globally competitive and decisions taken with the speed of thought, automation is the new keyword for any industry. Moglix has been performing commendably for the manufacturing sector and we are delighted to be a part of their success story.”

Moglix has previously raised pre-Series A and Series A funding of approximately US$6 million from Accel Partners, Jungle Ventures, SeedPlus and Venture Highway.

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Patients can check clinic crowd and queue online, and receive queue notifications via text messages, in the comforts of their home

On a fine day, when his baby fell ill, Online Travel Agency (OTA) veteran Frederick Wong took him to a clinic to consult the doctor. Upon reaching the clinic after travelling more than 30 minutes, he found himself squeezed in the huge crowd. Wong had to wait for more than two hours before his turn came.

“There was no way for me to be informed on the queue status beforehand,” Wong tells me. “It was particularly baffling to me as to why this problem exists even today. So, I set out and committed to solving this problem once and for all.”

Wong started ClickClinic in Singapore in late 2017. ClickClinic is a web-based real-time online queue and notification platform for clinics. Patients can check clinic crowd and queue online and receive queue notifications via text messages. It tells you how many patients are waiting for the doctor, so you can make better planning.

Also Read: 10 social impact startups in Southeast Asia that caught our attention in 2018

“You can get a queue online for yourself and your loved ones without having to be at the clinic. We will send you real-time queue status notifications so you can stroll nearby the clinic vicinity at ease,” adds Wong, who previously worked at companies like OctopusTravel, Travelocity, and Expedia.

ClickClinic launched its first pilot in October this year. Wong claims currently it has a total of five clinics on board and has over 2,000 registered users.

“We recently on-boarded Island Family Clinic, which operates five clinics in Singapore. Thousands of their patients can now check their clinic crowd, get an online queue in the comfort of their home, and receive queue notifications nearer to their turn,” explains Wong, who until recently led the APAC business of OTA company TrustYou.

According to Wong, there are quite a few online doctor booking platforms in Singapore to help patients bypass long queues in clinics, but the majority of them are appointment and app-based.

“ClickClinic, on the other hand, is solving the problems of clinics. For our small market, there are over 20 million queue based visits per year. This does not include the queue-based specialists such as paediatricians, traditional Chinese medicines, vets and other queue-based alternative care providers,” he says. “Also, we find that is is not necessary to build an app for our use case, as it creates more friction than a web-based solution.”

ClickClinic considers itself a QaaS (Queue-As-A-Service), and charges an annual subscription fee from its clinic partners. The web app is free for the end customers.

“We are currently focused on growing in Singapore. Having said that, we already have enquiries coming from clinics in our neighbouring country,” he claims.

Talking about the challenges in the industry, Wong says that onboarding customers and training them is an arduous task. “B2B services require onboarding and training that I have very limited capacity. We can only grow as fast as I can onboard and train.”

Also Read: Doctor scheduling and healthcare news portal GetDoc raises US$1.6M to expand to Thailand

Bootstrapped so far, the venture is now seeking funding to grow quickly and aggressively. “Our product is now proven and scaling is now the priority for us. Hopefully, we will be able to get a good investor partner soon,” he signs off.

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According to Chao Cheng-Shorland, Co-founder and CEO of ShelterZoom, Government will allocate resources and funding to accelerate blockchain projects and solve real problems

The concept of blockchain and cryptocurrency gained a lot of attention in 2018. Hundreds of companies new cropped up in these two segment, while some integrated blockchain with their products and tweaked the business model to disrupt the industry they are operating in. Cryptocurrencies also got a lot of eyeballs .

According to Chao Cheng-Shorland, Co-founder and CEO of ShelterZoom, a blockchain-based, real estate purchase and rental platform, 2019 will most certainly see a continuation of this trend and disruption.

In this article, she makes five predictions for 2019:

1- More people will build their business models on blockchain

The slow pace blockchain spending in previous years will change in 2019. Due to the growing consensus of blockchain’s potential impact in major areas of business – and proof of development – more corporate leaders and entrepreneurs will venture into building their business models on blockchain. As reported by PwC, on an individual basis, most firms have spent less than US$500,000 on blockchain. However, a solid 11 per cent of the survey’s respondents have spent more than US$10 million.

Also Read: The extraordinary tale of a Filipino geek who swam against the odds in life

Blockchain is offering not just the technology to build on, but also a reduction and streamlining of operations that incorporates speed and accuracy. Because of this, more companies will allocate additional funds to blockchain in the next few years. International Data Corporation expects annual blockchain spending to reach almost US$12 billion by 2022. More projects will build their business models on blockchain and a “snowball effect” will ensue.

2- Government will allocate resources and funding to accelerate blockchain projects and solve real problems

Governments will continue to take notice of the advantages that blockchain is offering. Although many governments are skeptical of the applications of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, several countries, such as Estonia, are now incorporating cryptocurrency and blockchain applications into their official operations.

Estonia has been a leader in the embrace of blockchain. Almost all of their public services have access to X-Road, a decentralised digital ledger that contains information about all residents and citizens. The platform uses an advanced encryption technology and includes two-factor authentication, enabling people to control their own data and ensure its security.

3- Cryptocurrency will be much more widely used

In their research paper “Cryptocurrencies: Overcoming Barriers to Trust and Adoption,” Dr. Zeynep Gurguc and Professor William Knottenbelt highlight the fact that digital currencies already fullfill one of the three criteria for fiat currency: a store of value. A major change in the medium of currency exchange – from coins, notes and payment cards to digital currency – is possible in the near future. Although the replacement of money as we think of it today by technology still causes significant apprehension for most people, the ability to transfer value from one person to another is a proven cryptocurrency use case.

A great example of this trend is Japan, where Bitcoin and several cryptocurrencies can be used as legally accepted means of payment. This is actually not surprising given that blockchain has been welcomed by the government. In fact, Japan accounts for a large share of the global bitcoin trade. Japan’s Financial Service Agency (FSA) mandates strict anti-money laundering protocol on the exchanges, and if an exchange plays by the rules, the government encourages it.

4- Companies will come up with new solutions for legal digital contracts beyond existing smart contracts

Beyond cryptocurrencies, a powerful blockchain use is the “smart contract“. A smart contract automatically executes whenever the terms and conditions agreed to by the parties involved are met. In 2019, the smart contract function is expected to explode in popularity by not only administering the execution of agreements between parties, but also implementing other aspects of legal contracts, such as resolving contractual dispute settlements by forming a legal digital contract that is fully binding between the parties.

5- More useful utility tokens will be delivered by blockchain

“Token economics” is the rapidly expanding study of new economic models brought on by the proliferation of digital tokens. The plethora of blockchain use cases has only added to the complexity and importance of these new token-based economic models.

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Plus, Clifford Chance launches innovation lab and South Korea explores maritime blockchain programme

Hundreds line up outside Ofo to demand return on deposits — [South China Morning Post]

Concerned about the future of Ofo, hundreds of Chinese residents travelled to the corporate headquarters in Beijing on Monday to demand a refund of their deposits, according to the South China Morning Post.

The so-called bank run was prompted by media reports that people could receive their deposit more quickly if they visited the office in-person. Typically, it takes 15 days to receive a refund on the deposit but users have been complaining that it has not been returned.

Ofo is struggling with finances, which the SCMP highlighted by pointing to various lawsuits from manufacturers who are not getting their bills paid on time.

Law firm Clifford Chance launches innovation lab — [Press Release]

Clifford Chance, a milti-national law firm, announced today the launch of its new innovation lab in Singapore called Create+65. The goal of is to incubate, test and hopefully integrate new legal tech tools that Clifford Chance hopes it can pass on to clients.

The programme is supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Future Law Innovation Porgramme (which is under Singapore Academy of Law).

“In line with Singapore’s aspiration to be at the forefront of technology and innovation in the legal sector, Create+65 builds on our ongoing commitment to contribute to an ecosystem of collaboration and innovation as we anticipate the increasing pace of change,” said Singapore Managing Partner Kai Schneider in a statement.

Startups can register their interest here.

Aeon is partnering Go-Jek to help proliferate its O2O strategy in Indonesia — [e27]

Aeon, a Japanese homegrown retail group announced that it will partner with Indonesia’s ride-hailing unicorn Go-Jek to go all-in on digital payments and home delivery. The service as part of its overseas expansion, as reported by Nikkei Asia Review.

The two companies will begin the collaboration sometime in the middle of this month.

Aeon will accept payments using Go-Pay by Go-Jek, starting in its two malls in Jakarta, Indonesia. That will be followed by a home deliveries option using Go-Jek drivers.

Moglix nabs US$23 million Series C — [e27}

India-based B2B commerce company Moglix has secured US$23 million in Series C round of funding, led by existing investors Accel Partners, Jungle Ventures and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group.

Venture Highway, Shailesh Rao (former VP at Twitter and Google), and InnoVen Capital also participated in the round.

The company plans to deploy the raised fund to expand to newer markets and geographies besides increasing its logistics network and supply chain across India. It also continues to beef up its integrated digital supply chain technology solutions with data science and machine-learning capabilities.

South Korea exploring blockchain for marine logistics — [CoinDesk]

The South Korean government, keen to make the shipping industry more efficient, is exploring blockchain as a means to achieve its goal.

The trial will begin this month in Busan with the goal of piloting projects that provide real-time information sharing between businesses. It will go for the next year.

Assuming the trial goes well in Busan, the government will expand the programme across South Korea.

—

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The strength of the European tech startup industry lies in its availability of talents and its ability to attract these talents

The year 2018 is a “record-breaking” year for investment in the European tech sector, and the sector is “powering growth” in the continent’s stagnant economy, according to the State of European Tech report by London-based venture capital (VC) firm Atomico.

Published in partnership with startup conference SLUSH and legal firm Orrick, the report detailed that a total of US$23 billion had been invested into the sector in 2018, up from just US$5 billion in 2013.

Europe also contributed three of the top 10 largest tech IPOs globally in 2018.

Apart from the impressive number of startup investment and IPOs, the strength of the European tech startup industry lies in its availability of talents and its ability to attract these talents.

There are 5.7 million professional developers available in Europe in 2018, compared to 4.4 million in the US.

Europe is home to at least 30 different hubs with 50,000 or more professional developers in each hub. Its three largest hubs for developers –London, Paris, and Amsterdam– are home to about 15 per cent of the region’s total developers.

Also Read: Malaysian fintech startup MyCash in talks to raise US$2M for expansion into Australia, Europe

There are many factors that contributed to Europe’s strength in attracting and developing talents, but two stood out in the report: Talent migration and competitiveness building.

In Europe, 28 per cent of founders and employees of private European tech startups are working outside of their home countries.

Migration of talents happen not only within the continent itself, with Germany and the UK being the top destinations for intra-Europe talent migration. But the continent is also a destination for local talents returning from work or study in the US as well as for foreign, non-European talents.

For foreign and non-European talents, India and the US made up more than 50 per cent of their origins, followed by Brazil, Tunisia, and Australia.

In fact, Europe is dubbed as a “destination of choice” for US software engineers who are looking for opportunities overseas.

Of all the existing tech hubs in the continent, London and Berlin are two of the most dependent on migrant talents. In these two tech hubs, 44 per cent of tech talents are immigrants.

With the great influx of talents, startups found themselves competing with global tech companies for these talents, with 54 per cent of founders experiencing an “increase or significant increase” in competition.

“The effect of increased competition for talent plays out in different ways, including salary inflation, greater employee churn, and more difficulty in filling roles. On the last point, for example, the number of job postings for ‘software engineer’ roles that prove hard to fill has increased in every European country for which data is available, except Denmark,” the report stated.

The report also added 56 per cent of founders claimed an increasing awareness among employees of stock options as a form of compensation.

Also Read: TWBIO, Valpas win the Taiwan x Finland Demo Day

Lessons for Asia

Published on the first day of SLUSH Helsinki 2018, the report provided several lessons that can be taken by the Asian startup ecosystem, particularly Southeast Asia.

Lack of talents have often been dubbed as the main challenge that startups are facing in expanding and growing their business in the region; the numbers and trends presented in the State of European Tech report may serve as an inspiration on what the region needs to focus on.

For example, the report mentioned Germany as “the most distributed country for professional developer talent.” It explained that only 19 per cent of the country’s professional developers are based in its largest developer hub Cologne; the rest are concentrated in other countries such as Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland.

It might be a wise move for startup industry players to expand beyond tier-one cities and seek for talents in emerging tech hubs, instead of the more established ones.

Bandung and Jogjakarta in Indonesia are examples of such tech hubs. Instead of looking for talents in Jakarta, where living costs tend to be higher, many high profile local startups are setting up offices in one of these two cities. Bukalapak has recently opened an R&D centre in Bandung, while Sale Stock also has a presence in Jogjakarta. Even French gaming company Gameloft set up its base in Jogjakarta when expanding to the market.

Migration of talent is also big theme in the report. In Asia, this is one of the sectors where governments can contribute in order to support its tech industry: By making talent and knowledge exchange more feasible through ease of visa and work permit application.

The report also mentioned about returning talents from other global tech hub such as Silicon Valley –a phenomenon that is known in China as “sea turtle.”

Sea turtles are startup founders or tech professionals who had been spending years studying and working abroad, but chose to return to their home countries to build or join a startup there. VC firms such as Intudo Ventures included networking with sea turtles as part of their investment strategy; cities in China have also taken active steps in luring the sea turtles home by hosting job fairs in countries such as the US.

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These 10 startups are making a positive impact on the deprived and marginalised people amongst us

The key objective of any startup is to turn profitable and make it to the “Unicorn club”, and possibly launch an IPO. Their contribution to the global economy is significant, and they create millions of jobs, thus becoming part of a social change.

But there are a few startups whose ultimate objective is NOT to make profit or get a “billion dollar” exit. Instead, they want to make a positive impact on the society. Such startups are rare but are there in almost every sector, and they change the lives of millions of the marginalised and deprived in the society.

In this article, we have picked a few ventures who are making a positive impact on the society in Southeast Asia.

TreeDots

Food waste is one of the most pressing problems the world is facing. As per a study, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted. Food losses and waste amounts to roughly US$680 billion in industrialised countries and US$310 billion in developing countries.

Singapore-based startup TreeDots has developed a solution to this problem. Started by Nicholas Lim, Tylor Jong, and Jiacai Lou, TreeDots’s mission is to minimise the amount of food waste through a self-sustaining ecosystem via its aggregation of F&B businesses on different points of the value chain within the startup. It recently collaborated with National Environment Agency (NEA) in their food wastage reduction (FWR) outreach programme.

ThreeDots is also the winner of Echelon 2018.

EcoZen

Farmers across the world are a deprived lot. They often lack adequate support to keep their produce safe even after a good harvest. The problem is serve in developing and under-developed countries of Asia and Africa.

Probably, this agritech startup could bring in a change. Ecozen — based in Kerala, India but targeting the markets in Southeast Asia and Africa — has aims to improve farm-to-fork movement of perishable goods by providing solar-based cold rooms at the farm level. The startup has already implemented its solutions in Southeast Asian region, including in Indonesia and Vietnam with the help of high-tech polymer manufacturer Covestro. It is looking forward to expand its business further into Southeast Asia and Africa.

EcoZen is the winner of the inaugural Rabobank Food Loss Challenge Asia.

SolarHome

Most households in the developing countries in Southeast Asia are still living in the dark, as electricity is still a dream for most of them. Green energy solutions have been out of their reach. But not any more. Singapore-based SolarHome is finding a way out for them.

Founded by FORUM, a Singapore-based fintech venture builder, SolarHome brings pay-as-you-go solar solutions into off-grid households in Southeast Asia. It offers off-grid households a solar lighting system at a low-cost 24-month subscription plan, with an initial US$10 down payment, followed by daily, weekly, or monthly repayments through scratch cards or mobile money.

The company plans to bring “reliable, affordable and clean energy to more than 40,000 homes in rural Myanmar by the end of 2018″. The firm also intends to increase distribution throughout Myanmar, advance its mobile money platform, as well as expand its product range to more premium products, including systems with bundled television sets. Technology built into the system ensures that it won’t function if a payment is not made, giving lenders the confidence that they will be able to recover their investment.

The firm recently secured US$10M in debt financing from a consortium of international investors,

MyCash Online

Being migrants themselves, the duo knows the major challenges faced by the massive 40 million migrant population in Malaysia — one being the inability to access various financial services, as most of them are unbanked. The duo’s urge to solve this problem drove them to start MyCash Online, an online financial marketplace for the underbanked migrant population in Southeast Asia.

Incorporated in 2015 and headquartered in Singapore, MyCash provides a tailor-made platform for the unbanked migrant population, where they can purchase products and services online without using any bank account, credit cards, or prepaid cards. Users can reload phone credit, pay bills, and buy bus tickets through MyCash.

Also Read: Malaysian fintech startup MyCash in talks to raise US$2M for expansion into Australia, Europe

It offers many services, including local and international mobile recharge, utility bill payments, cross- border money transfer, wallet transfer, bus and air ticket, e-commerce voucher, dry foods and other products, PA insurance and many more. Migrant worker can fulfil all most all their needs through our platform.

Ark

The number of cancer patients is growing at an alarming rate across the globe. Cancer is a genetic disease—that is, it is caused by changes to genes that control the way our cells function, especially how they grow and divide. Doctors and experts in the healthcare industry claim that early detection can prevent the disease to be aggravated.

Ark, a Singapore-based company, is harnessing advanced data science and proprietary microRNA detection technology to develop non-invasive and cost-effective blood tests to detect early stage cancers before clinical symptoms appear.

Established as a result of a merger between MiRXES (a microRNA diagnostic test developer) and Venturecraft, Ark has kicked off by launching a blood test for early detection of stomach cancer in Asia. The firm plans to develop and launch new blood tests for early detection of other high prevalence cancers such as lung, breast and colon cancer.

Ark has research collaborations with top medical research institutions globally. Having recently completed a 5,000-patient gastric cancer trial in Singapore, Ark is planning to launch Asia’s largest clinical studies targeting at least 50,000 participants through partnerships with local governments and medical institutions.

Ruma

Low-income communities in Indonesia often have limited access to products and services that could improve their lives. The goods available are at a higher price than similar products sold in department stores.

Ruma provides financial and information services in the country through a trained agent network. The company aims to increase access to such services in a country with only 3,600 bank branches that serve a population of 245 million across a sprawling island archipelago.

Ruma recruits agents from Indonesia’s two million independently owned ‘mom and pop’ stores and provides them with technology, training, and support. These shops can then provide local consumers with a range of services, such as pre-paid airtime top up, utility and loan payments, mobile money services, and insurance.

Based in Jakarta, Ruma has served millions of customers through thousands of agents across Indonesia.

Enablecode

People with disability are often looked at with derision. There are quite a few NGOs and organisations working for the upliftment of dibbled people, the attitude of the society towards these people hasn’t changed much.

This is where Vietnamese software company Enablecode makes a difference. With a goal to transform the Vietnamese perception of people with disabilities, Enablecode employs computing experts who are not as physically able as the majority of society. Established in 2014, this startup blossomed from a team of freelancers who have been working together on a variety of web projects in Ho Chi Minh City since 2010. Their goal is to use technology to deliver services and run a strong business as a means to raise awareness of those living in a disabled condition.

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, the company specialises in complex custom web application development, and offers all aspects of innovative, creative, complex web design, including graphic layout, custom coding, advanced functionality and SEO.

Happi

Market research should benefit the clients who pay for it, the people who participate in it, and the groups, causes and communities those participants care about. Singapore startup Happi was started with this intention.

The Happi mobile app rewards users for responding to 5-question surveys with chances to win prizes they select, donations to the charity group or cause they select, and, possibly, connections to career opportunities — all free. Clients pay Happi for the responses and a portion of this money goes to pay for the prizes people win and a portion goes to the donations to the partner groups.

Clients get fast, easy, and cost-effective insights from and engagement with consumers. Everyone wins.

Impact Terra

Farmers account for more than 40 per cent of Myanmar’s GDP and 60 per cent of the workforce. But they often don’t get adequate attention from the government or the tech community, despite the growth and penetration of smartphones and internet.

Erwin Sikma saw an opportunity here. He saw a huge potential to improve the livelihoods of rural smallholder farmers through the use of digital solutions such as smartphone apps by providing them with real-time agricultural information, access to markets, and proper access to financing options. This leads to the birth of Impact Terra.

The company has come up with a platform, Golden Paddy, for farmers which offers real-time, personalised information about local crop prices, weather-based advice like flood or drought warnings, and pest risks.

The platform also collects data on farmers, such as their location and details about crops, which helps financial service providers deliver financial products that meet their needs and correspond to their specific risks. This enables these farmers to get the capital they need to improve or expand their farms at accessible rates.

billionBricks

There are one billion people in the world without a home. The lack of adequate housing continues to be a problem to which we cannot find a solution. Housing is a human right and the first step of empowerment towards emerging out of poverty.

Also Read: How these two school girls are helping Rohingyan refugees find a good shelter in Bangladesh

billionBricks was founded by a team of architects, designers, engineers and urban planners committed to solving the global housing problem. A non-profit, billionBricks used design and technology as its tools to innovate shelter and infrastructure solutions for the homeless and vulnerable. Its approach empowers communities to replicate its solutions on their own.

Last year, billionBricks created WeatherHYDE (a reversible, light-weight, all-season tents) to help the Rohingyan refugees find a good shelter in Bangladesh.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

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