Where does the future of payments lie for SEA?; COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst for digitalisation, helping accelerate adoption of digital payments across the region; Central bank digital currency is an exciting development; Security and fraud risks arising from emerging payments methods are some concerns. More here
Transcelestial raises US$9.6M Series A to ‘deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally’; EDBI, Wavemaker led the round; Airbus Ventures also invested marking its entry into SEA and it is opening an office in S’pore; In 2018, Transcelestial raised US$1.8 million in seed funding. More here
Jon Sheppard steps down as CTO of gojek’s financial arm; He has joined Pakistani fintech firm SadaPay in the same position; Under his leadership, Go-Finance launched PayLater; Recently, gojek group CTO Ajey Gore quit. More here
Sunway partners with Gobi Partners to launch Super Accelerator in Malaysia; It will provide selected startups up to US$23K seed funding and assist them in getting follow-up funding; The 4-month programme is for early-stage startups working in Smart Cities, edutech, digital health, food and agritech and e-commerce. More here
Taihecap Managing Partner on what SEA startups can learn from China and how to tide through COVID-19; Startups should invest more in technology than in user acquisition, says Wallace Guo; They should stop trying new strategies that will burn a lot of money; As per a Taihecap survey, the slowing down in the investment space is mainly caused by the restriction on travel as well inability to do onsite due diligence. More here
Grab, partner face US$3M fine in Indonesia for unfair driver treatment; The ride-hailing giant gave a favourable allotment of priority orders to drivers of its affiliate car-rental firm TPI; In late 2019, the company also landed in hot water in Malaysia for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the country. More here
Closing Asia’s digital divide should be a post-COVID priority; More than 2B people in Asia still are not online at all, including 207M women in S Asia alone who do not own mobiles; Investment in telecom infrastructure and cheaper phones and data will help bring more people online — but those steps alone are not enough. More here
Behind the creative minds of “Circles.Life’s” cheeky content; Find out how the digital telco generates fresh content that is loved by the digital savvy masses; The firm also recently launched an Entrepreneur-In-Residence programme where employees get an opportunity to become co-founders of their respective departments. More here
Singapore’s Robocash is raising US$5M to launch Philippines digibank; This move is in preparation for an IPO on ASX in Dec 2020; This is despite that the Philippines Securities Commission revoked its license for operating several branches of its lending business without the requisite clearance. More here
Cisco launches a 0% financing programme for Singapore SMEs; Hardware, software solutions as well as services can be purchased under this scheme; SMEs employ 65% of the city-state’s workforce and contribute nearly 50% of its economic output. More here
NTU Singpore students set up divestment group, pressure university to quit fossil fuels; NTU Divest asks the university to disclose their dirty energy investments and to reinvest these funds in sustainable technologies; It follows similar campaign moves from students at the NUS and Yale-NUS in the previous years. More here
Vietnam police summon Leflair CEO Loic Gautier; The e-commerce firm owe suppliers some US$280K for goods; Leflair shut down its Vietnamese and Philippine offices in February and started bankruptcy proceedings in May. More here
Cross-border trade digitisation platform dltledgers in advanced talks to raise US$9M Series A; The blockchain firm is close to raising US$5M already and plans to close the round by September; Last July, it raised US$2.5M in pre-A from Walden; It claims to have executed US$3B-worth of physical trade transactions so far. More here
Beyond COVID-19: A new era for deeptech startups; For startups that are pivoting to areas that are experiencing a growth surge, biz diversification through entering new sectors can yield high returns; For some startups, the pandemic has created a renewed urgency to look for new pastures abroad, despite added complexities due to international travel restrictions. More here
Pandemic forces Singaporeans to embrace digital services and financial planning; A survey finds 70% in Singapore have used online banking frequently since the outbreak; 87% of respondents agree the pandemic has reoriented them to adopt a lower consumption and higher savings habit. More here
What tech founders need to know before entering the public sector; They may know a thing or two about how to navigate the ups and downs of the tech market, but it’s clear that politics require a lot of different strategies. More here
Amar Bank launches digital-only bank using Google Cloud; The collaboration is supported by FIS Cloud and Infofabrica; This will enable the bank to utilise data analytics intelligence and ML so as to provide a more efficient personalised customer experience. More here
Singapore’s data aggregation fintech startup Canopy closes funding round; Investors are Dymon Asia, Credit Suisse, SEEDS; Canopy operates an anonymous account aggregation and analytics platform for financial institutions, wealth management professionals, HNWIs. More here
MDEC announces #SMART Automation Grant (SAG) to support SMEs making the digital leap;It’s an outcome-based grant whereby projects must achieve specific digitalisation benefits, such as increased revenue, savings in business costs, and reductions in the process life cycle and man-hours. More here
Thailand accelerator SPACE-F is looking for emerging foodtech startups in SEA; Each will receive a US$4.8K-12.6K grant and can apply for its CVC fund; Applications will be open until 12 July. More here
Philippines launches Digital Cities 2025 initiative; It’s expected to determine the industry-readiness of new centres by creating and developing ICT hubs in identified locations; 25 cities have been identified; The hubs will serve as biz and innovation centres to draw in investments. More here
Global digital health investments stayed the course in Q2 2020; The quarter saw 89 deals totalling US$2.44B, a slight increase in volume but decline in value when compared to both Q2 2019 (81 deals, US$2.45B) and Q1 2020 (82 deals, US$2.9B). More here
Examining FMCG marketplace GudangAda’s unprecedented numbers; It claims to have processed US$1B in transactions in the past 12 months; It has potential annual revenue of US$20M; The firm has so far acquired 80K big retailers, nearly 20K FMCG wholesalers in Indonesia; It recently raised US$25.4M Series A. More here
Ride-hailing and delivery service Get to be rebranded as gojek Thailand; Get has 50K+ drivers and serves some 30K merchants, more than 80% of which are MSMEs; Get saw 2.2M downloads as of Feb 2020 and achieved 20M bookings as of June. More here
Why Indonesia is the hottest payments apps battleground in SEA; With 17K islands, the country’s payment landscape is notoriously fragmented; Its 273.5M population offers huge potential for growth with the rapid adoption of digital payments set to continue;The recent Ovo-Dana merger could help merchants streamline the payment methods they offer to customers. More here
How tech and healthcare can work together in a post-pandemic world; COVID-19 won’t be the world’s last pandemic, so this conceivable not-so distant-future situation could only be the beginning; There’s a wide assortment of advanced innovations turning out far and wide to help check the spread of the novel coronavirus. More here
5G creates opportunities for Vietnam’s economic sectors; It is one of the first countries to commercialise 5G; Due to low latency, 5G will provide new services that 4G cannot yet implement, such as smart health, self-driving cars, smart cities. More here
How tech is shaping the future of public sector audits; Modern tech has turned complex analytics previously accessible only to data specialists into tools that are available to all auditors; Data analytics can provide auditors with a helicopter view of the process, allowing them to find patterns in data and identify high risk areas for audits. More here
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The post Ecosystem Roundup: Transcelestial raises US$9.6M; dltledgers in talks for US$9M Series A; MDEC’s new grants programme to support SMEs making the digital leap appeared first on e27.