Benjamin Koellmann
Malaysia’s Carsome appoints Benjamin Koellmann as COO
His role: Koellmann will be responsible for driving operational efficiency of the car-trading platform across all the markets, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.
Before this, Koellmann was part of the early team in Lazada Indonesia and has also been involved in setting up Indonesian grocery delivery platform, HappyFresh.
Most recently he was the Director of E-commerce (Food) at Dairy Farm International in Singapore.
Also Read: Used-car trading startup Carsome appoints new CFO Juliet Zhu, looking to strengthen market position
“With his extensive management experience on e-commerce platforms and being a startup founder himself, we are confident that he will be a strong contributor as Carsome strives towards building trust and assurance throughout the entire supply chain of the used car industry,” Co-founder Eric Cheng said.
F10 Singapore expands into Spain
The story: The expansion will connect the Singapore accelerator programme and its partners — such as Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX), Bank Julius Baer and R3 — with fresh ways to collaborate with innovators across Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia.
What is F10 Singapore?: F10 Singapore is the Asia launchpad for F10 Global, Europe’s leading accelerator for fintech, regtech, insurtech and deeptech. The F10 network gives entrepreneurs and startups strategic opportunities to connect with corporate partners which include SIX and the Spanish Stock Exchange (BME).
F10 Singapore first launched in January 2020 to create new opportunities for its Asia-based partners to collaborate with European banks, insurers, and tech experts. The first round of F10 Singapore’s incubation programme received more than 200 applications and strong interest from startups with a focus on solutions for digital assets, enterprise data management, payments and more.
F10 Singapore helps to solve the top problem fintech entrepreneurs face: selling their solution to established banks and insurance companies. F10’s programme goes beyond corporate exposure and facilitates targeted collaboration platforms for its startups and corporate partners.
Each startup benefits from a dedicated F10 Coach to support them in their effort to build successful partnerships with incumbents.
Hasura raises US$25M to help developers build app easily
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners (lead), Vertex Ventures US, Nexus Venture Partners, Strive VC, SAP.iO Fund
What the funds will be used for: Hiring and commercial product development.
About the company: Hasura is helping to build the modern world of globally relevant, data-driven applications and APIs. Its range of data access solutions helps organisations accelerate product delivery by instantly connecting data and services to applications with GraphQL APIs.
Inflexor Ventures hits first close of its US$230M fund
Plans with the money: To back early-stage startups in the pre-Series A to Series A stage.
Details: The fund which will be capped at US$500 million is also said to be India’s largest domestic, technology-focused investor for 2020, according to The Economic Times.
Focus sectors: B2B/enterprise, AR/VR, Big Data, robotics, cybersecurity, blockchain, IoT, deep-tech, intellectual property and tech innovation.
“We are seeing an increased focus on digitisation and technology innovation globally and it’s going to accelerate further, particularly in India in the current environment,” said Jatin Desai, Managing Partner of Inflexor.
Also Read: Indian Angel Network launches US$55M VC fund; makes first close at US$27M
“We want to identify the right technology startups at an early stage and help them scale up in India and sell to global markets and in the process hopefully make some decent returns for our investors,” he added.
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Image Credit: Carsome
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