‘Ant Group’s IPO suspension demonstrates the depth of complexity of investing in China’; For Chinese fintech lending industry, this will mean a trickier path to scalability as 30% of loans they disburse has to be from their own balance sheet fund; This might mean more necessity for bigger funding rounds and leaner operation. e27
Deutsche Bank alumni are helping Masayoshi Son remake Japan’s SoftBank; Their influence is evident in its evolution into a sprawling financial giant; Son set up the US$100B Vision Fund to make VC investments, bought Fortress Investment Group in 2017 and established an asset-management arm; Now, he’s getting into the blank-check frenzy and has contemplated a management buyout of SoftBank. Bloomberg
KOL Speak
Should you start a business with exit in mind?; According to Michael Lints of Golden Gate, the timing and exit strategy are crucial to maximising the returns of the VC firms and founders; Founders and shareholders can explore several avenues, but what is more important is to make sure incentives align across all parties. e27
Where exactly is the funding going in Singapore’s tech and startup ecosystem?; In 2020 so far, over US$3B in funding – across 201 deals – was poured into various industries; The majority of this funding comes from within Singapore itself, but there is also a variety of international sources; The US leads the top three with 33 deals, followed by the UK and Japan. TechInAsia
The meteoric rise of Zoom: Is it sustainable?; In the last week of March, the app was downloaded 3.2M times, far outstripping the growth of Microsoft Teams and Google Meet; Zoom’s revenue grew by 355% between Aug 2019 and July 2020; Analysts predict a further 454 per cent growth in turnover between August 2020 and July 2021. e27
Singapore’s blank cheque firm Tiga Acquisition files for US$200M IPO in US; It may raise an additional US$50M at the closing of an acquisition; The filing comes two months after Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp. filed for US$225M IPO in the US. DealStreetAsia
SEA will adopt digital banking quickly, but here’s what needs to be addressed first; Most fintechs in SEA aren’t challenging the traditional banking industry; They’re focusing their services on consumers and businesses; This is because markets in SEA have a large unbanked and underbanked population, both on the consumer and SME fronts. Vulcan Post
How to make AI work for your business; While there’s an impression that AI is seeping into every aspect of life and business, for the moment, a lot of organisations are on the fence; Albeit interested, many business leaders are loath to invest in a technology that entails a lot of risk. The Next Web
IT firm Logicalis Asia acquires iZeno; Singapore-based iZeno specialises in digital transformation, application modernisation, DevOps, customer experience and hybrid cloud solutions; It also has ops in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand; iZeno has delivered over 500 enterprise solutions for 300 clients. HRAsia
How BAce Capital helps founders understand tech success models in China; According to its MD Benny Chen, although mobile phone tech, adoption has been largely prevailing in SEA, its depths and density still need a few more years to mature; There’s a huge opportunity to not just adopt but change customer behaviour. e27
How revenue-based financing will help unbanked and underbanked businesses flourish; It helps enterprises raise capital through investors who receive a percentage of revenue from ongoing activities; This means that the royalties that investors earn have a direct relationship with how well the business is doing. e27
Lightspeed launches Extreme Entrepreneurs 3.0 for high potential startups in SEA, India; With neither equity nor fees collected, the sole selection criteria is whether the founders will benefit from, and make the most of, the programme; The programme’s past mentors include Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal and Affirm), Alex Chung (co-founder of Giphy) and John Thompson (Chairman of Microsoft). e27
KK Fund joins hands with Japan’s IGPI to support creation of new businesses by MNCs in SEA; The two firms will co-launch an accelerator programme, SEA Point, for MNCs to collaborate with regional startups and conglomerates on creating businesses; SEA has 70M+ SMEs and 30% of the world’s top startup ecosystems. e27
Why mixed-use is the future of real estate in a socially distanced world; Over the past several years, industry leaders have been diversifying sources of revenue, pursuing digital strategies and focusing on tenant experience; COVID-19 has accelerated the need for those strategic changes, and highlighted that those that haven’t yet made such investments will probably need to catch up quickly. e27
Irrespective of the winner of the US presidential election, the true winner will be SEA’s startup ecosystem; The region’s tech startup ecosystem has been an investor favourite in the past years even amidst the COVID-19 crisis; Leading names such as Tim Draper and Peter Thiel are making great moves in SEA; But the excitement peaks with the rise of the US-China trade war. e27
Thailand’s Krungthai Bank launches R&D company ‘Infinitas’ for digital innovations in financial products; Infinitas will provide Krungthai, its customers and its business partners with digital solutions, open digital banking and data services; Infinitas was registered with a capital of US$10M.
Digital bank holds promising future in Malaysia, says Ministry of Finance; Digital banks will offer services such as savings and current accounts, withdrawals and transfers and is expected to revolutionise the financial landscape by offering financial services through digital and automated platforms; BNM is at the stage of finalising the updated Exposure Draft on Licensing Framework for Digital Banks issued on March 3, 2020. Bernama
With #BuyForImpact, MaGIC aids social enterprises in overcoming major challenges; The campaign aims to promote a socially-conscious buying behaviour among the general public in Malaysia; #BuyForImpact also connects social enterprises to impact investors, who are looking to scale businesses that can deliver solutions to tackle social or environmental problems. Digital News Asia
Unlocking digital potential through open-source in SEA; Generally, the maturity level of open source adoption throughout the region varies from country to country; In developing countries like Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, open source awareness and adoption levels are vastly and seemingly different. Tech Collective
E-commerce has huge potential in rural areas of Vietnam, say experts; 85% of the e-commerce serves the urban market mostly in Hanoi and HCM City, which accounts for 20% of the population, the rest of the 80M rural people are not yet included in the system; The scale of Vietnam’s digital economy ranks second in SEA after Indonesia. Vietnam News
Study: Digital payments fraud surges during pandemic; The transformation of payments, both in existing and new methods, requires financial institutions to understand all payment entry points; Protecting those entry points from digital fraud is considerably more complicated. Tech Coffee House
The future of online selling services in the Philippines is here; In the new normal, online buying and selling, as well as delivery services, are prerequisites for maintaining a thriving retail business or growing a budding one. Business Inquirer
Penjana e-commerce initiatives hit over US$290M sales; The Malaysian government had allocated US$34M to implement the Penjana micro, MSMEs e-commerce campaign and Penjana Shop Malaysia Online initiative via MDEC as the lead agency to implement the initiatives; The Penjana MSMEs e-commerce campaign has seen over 115K new and existing MSMEs boarded onto e-commerce. MiDec.my
—
Image Credit: Unsplash
The post Ecosystem Roundup: Tiga Acquisition files for US$200M IPO in US; Deutsche Bank alumni are helping Masayoshi Son remake SoftBank appeared first on e27.