e27 recently had the honour of speaking to Wilson Yanaprasetya to talk about the role of rural commerce in the age of sustainable growth.

Wilson Yanaprasetya is the President and a Co-founder of Dagangan, an e-commerce platform focusing on rural Indonesia. They provide same-day or next-day delivery services to both micro SMEs and resellers that typically live at least 10 kilometres away from the wet market where they usually get their products. Dagangan currently covers more than 17,000 villages, serving over 30,000 customers.

e27: Last year, the business ecosystem kept throwing around words like ‟growth, growth, growth.‟ This year, the word we kept hearing is ‟profit.‟ What is your perspective on how leaders should approach business growth?

Wilson Yanaprasetya: The definition of growth has shifted in the last few years from ‟growth at all costs‟ to ‟sustainable growth.‟ So much money was pouring in the last few years, and many venture-backed companies were pressured to focus on growth.

The thing is, for many VC,, putting more money in should provide a competitive advantage. This leads to blitzscaling. Let’s say, you have not really reached your product-market fit yet, which obviously leads to negative scaling; this means every time you expand or sell something, you’re actually losing money. This may force you to raise more money to extend your runway. This becomes a vicious cycle.

There’s nothing wrong with scaling in general. In fact, for some companies, Airbnb, Google, Facebook — they all build scale. And because they build scale, they managed to get to where they are today.

I think that is actually what a lot of companies and investors are starting to realise: that more money doesn’t mean that you’re actually winning. It’s important to focus on product market fit before you scale and make sure that you are creating positive cash flow.

Also read: Airwallex: making business transactions easier than ever with physical cards launch

e27: How are you adapting to the current market conditions?

Wilson Yanaprasetya: For Dagangan, we are focused on creating an operationally efficient business. When we started doing Dagangan, we tried to figure out, ‟Okay, in what ways would cost be an issue?‟ So we avoid burning through our runway and create negative blitzscaling.

The first thing that we had to do is experiment as much as possible to figure out how to reduce costs. We are dealing with rural communities, providing same-day delivery in areas 20 kilometres into the forest, jungle, and so on. So that’s basically what we focus on. We figured out that offline currently is the best way to acquire customers. And so we focus on offline customer acquisition which takes more time but is more stable.

We keep growing, achieving what we call hub and spoke, which is using warehouses that may be located deep inside the forest, inside the villages. We focus on the network effect, working with the head of villages in the area, the local key opinion leaders, and so on — to make sure that we get the trust.

After doing multiple experiments, we found that culture building is important when you’re actually building the company. Answering questions such as: what is our purpose? Our purpose is to empower the people in the rural communities in Indonesia.

Today, we have 50 different hubs and are growing. Our 50 locations span all across Java right now. That enables us to deliver at 95% cheaper than the nearest alternative. Our data analysts also see how deep we penetrate the communities as we onboard more suppliers.

Company building ideas often come from the people we work with. The feedback we receive from principals, suppliers, help us with cost efficiency. Today, we have a 10x deeper footprint than our nearest competitor and have achieved a positive contribution margin.

Now, we have a network of 500 local community leaders to help educate their communities and support us on onboarding more MSMEs to our platform. We also provide job opportunities to the local villages we work with. They are talented individuals that are likely to have limited exposure to the whole digital world, but they want to learn. Without them, we would not be able to achieve our coverage of over 17,000 villages today.

Also read: BuzzAR is building the next big thing in Metaverse Marketing

e27: What advice do you have to bring down the client acquisition costs (CAC) for B2B companies?

Wilson Yanaprasetya: 

Given the nature of our business and focus on rural communities, a great part of our customer acquisition strategy is actually done offline. We leverage the network of people in a village, and there are many different examples on how you can do that. We work quite closely with the heads of the villages and with the people in the field who are the farmers and who can help promote our brand. Through this process, we are able to reduce our CAC over time.

e27: For the benefit of those thinking about fundraising for a future round or being part of a team that’s looking at fundraising for the next two years, what do you think about bridge rounds, inside rounds, and raising growth rounds, etc?

Wilson Yanaprasetya: Fundraising in general can be supportive of company growth when you find a partner in the ecosystem that may be able to provide additional value to the company.

We actually raised a strategic round from a bank that had never invested in a startup before. After we met and had discussions, we found that there is a potential collaboration here where we can leverage their ecosystem without spending too much effort on increasing our CAC. In fact, they will even reduce our customer acquisition costs.

If you can find someone in the ecosystem within your supply chain who can strategically invest in you during this time as a strategy round, I think it will be beneficial. For the bank, we are able to help them deepen their footprint in tier-3 and tier-4 markets.

Also read: Customer retention in the new normal? Learn from The Big Leap roadshow

e27: What are the challenges that you are facing, and how did you overcome them?

Wilson Yanaprasetya: Our biggest challenge at the beginning was finding product market fit. And then after you find your product market fit, we still need to adapt. In Indonesia, when you go to one village and you go to another village, they may have completely different behaviours. So that’s basically why we always apply an experimental approach.

With the finite resources you have — we keep our experiments as focused as possible and see what actually works and what doesn’t, and then localise it. Nowadays, you cannot just look into China, India, and the US and think: ‟this will probably work in this market‟.

Another challenge is localisation. In Dagangan, we have been fortunate to have very strong team members who are culturally fit, and who really understand people in the rural markets, specifically, in their own market. They are able to bring in a localised approach on how they acquire, retain, or even get customers to spread the word about Dagangan even further.

For more information on Dagangan and their services, visit their website.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Dagangan

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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The demand for embedded finance is unlikely to be affected by the rise of digital-only/neo-banking, and they can beautifully co-exist, according to Rajat Deshpande, Co-Founder and CEO of Indian embedded finance startup FinBox.

“Neo-banking may transform banking in terms of convenience and experience. However, the fact remains that financial transactions are an intrinsic part of commerce. Therefore, the demand for embedded finance on commerce platforms is unlikely to be affected by the rise of digital-only banking,” he said.

The effect can indeed be the exact opposite; legacy banks may see embedded finance as a potent channel to grow their loan book and go to market quickly with personalised credit products. They may do it with a vengeance to catch up with challenger (digital-only) banks.

“Convenience and security are the future, whether embedded finance or neo-banking. Any player that can deliver secure services seamlessly has a world of opportunity awaiting them,” he explained.

Also Read: Why plug-and-play should be the new standard for embedded finance

FinBox was started in Bengaluru in 2017 by Deshpande, Anant Deshpande, Srijan Nagar, and Nikhil Bhawsinka. Its technology enables any digital platform (both fintech and non-fintech) to launch digital credit products, such as BNPL (buy now, pay later), personal loans, working capital loans, and invoice financing. It also provides credit risk intelligence to over 25 banks, NBFCs, fintech firms, and credit marketplaces.

Last year, the firm expanded into Southeast Asia following a US$15 million Series A round from 91 Partners, Aditya Birla Ventures and Flipkart Ventures in June 2022. It began with pilots with several renowned financial institutions in Vietnam and the Philippines. The plan is to take its entire bouquet of offerings, from credit infrastructure to risk intelligence, to these two countries and simultaneously develop its reach in other countries, such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.

“Southeast Asia’s digital lending landscape (barring Singapore) is far behind developed countries thanks to low banking penetration, and it is a significant challenge for digital lending players,” Deshpande pointed out. “But the good news is that smartphone penetration is growing much faster than banking. This makes room for strategic players like us who can help formal financial institutions with alternate data-based underwriting to give credit to customers with little-to-no credit history at scale.”

Embedded finance market: India vs SEA

The global embedded finance market was valued at US$54.3 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach US$248.4 billion by 2032. The major factor driving the growth is digital transformation across industries.

But unlike in the US, Europe and Japan, where a credit card is the simplest way to pay online, the Southeast Asian market operates quite differently. Only three in 100 people in this region own credit cards, which is why embedded finance revenues are forecast to reach US$140.8 billion by 2025.

This trend is very similar to India. “We have seen many takers for BNPL products in India, especially those deprived of credit card access. BNPL makes for good credit card substitutes and assures its growth in markets such as India and Southeast Asia,” Deshpande said.

Also Read: Why embedded finance is critical to Southeast Asia’s digital future

However, there exists a key difference between India’s and Southeast Asia’s embedded finance industry: the prevalence and dominance of super apps. The super app economy in India is still fledgling and has yet to take off. On the other hand, it is easier to embed financial services in SEA alongside a large basket of products and services in these super app ecosystems.

“SEA is perhaps more ready as there’s a burgeoning young and tech-savvy population, low financial penetration, a booming fintech industry, and considerable opportunity for growth,” he concluded.

He also dismissed the idea that the growth and emergence of fintech will sound the death knell for traditional banks. “The fact that banks will need to adapt for the future is beyond question. But to think that they will fall off the map is wishful thinking. Both banks and technology players have certain comparative advantages. There is enough opportunity for both to play to their strengths while collaborating. There is more merit in cooperation than competition,” Deshpande concluded.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

 

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Biogenes, a Malaysian molecular diagnostics and genomics startup, has secured US$5.7 million in a Series A investment round from local VC firm Pembangunan Ekuiti.

This capital will help Biogenes to expand its proprietary technology platforms across Southeast Asia.

Biogenes designs and supplies biosensors products and services for R&D and commercial use in healthcare, animal breeding, agriculture, aquaculture, and food safety & environmental testing.

Its platform technologies include printed nano-coated sensors, immobilisation of DNA probes and aptamers (synthetic antibodies), and in-silico design and validation of new aptamers.

Also Read: The role of biotech in taking India from developing to developed

The startup has signed two agreements, enabling its entry into the Philippines and Indonesia in 2023.

“Biogenes will invest in a medical-grade manufacturing facility, advancing our technology portfolio and expanding our sales outreach to the Southeast Asia region and other parts of the world. We target to have the capacity to produce 10 million test kits per year and, in parallel, to usher in the new age of aptamer-based diagnostic solutions. Aptamer diagnostics will disrupt the current antibody diagnostics by enabling lower-cost, stable and more accurate diagnostic solutions,” said Tang KM, Co-Founder and CEO of Biogenes.

Since its founding, the biotech firm has also received support from key government agencies, such as Platcom Ventures, Cradle, Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), MOSTI, and Bioeconomy Corporation.

In 2020, Biogenes received a seed investment from Antler, a global venture firm, making Biogenes their first investment in Malaysia.

The firm is progressing towards production upscaling with an approved National Technology and Innovation Sandbox project grant worth RM5.5 million (US$1.3 million). Of this, RM3.3 million will be provided by the MTDC.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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The pandemic caused a tremendous shift in global business with the acceleration of distributed work and competition emerging from international markets.  In this new situation, the question arises: What are the important factors for businesses to operate at scale globally?

We’re seeing a new trend of companies embracing the acceleration of distributed work and competition emerging from global markets. We define them as global-class companies. They have the following characteristics:

• They take advantage of access to a larger pool of diverse talent

• They have local knowledge of how to scale the business in each unique market where their employees reside

• They have the ability to expand internationally early in their growth journeys

• They are made up of team members with sought-after skills to support an international footprint

There is a shift in business

According to a recent Accenture Business Futures report, “71 per cent of executives have already decentralised or are planning to decentralise decision-making in parts of their business,” and 82 per cent said they see their business as operating more like a “broad federation of enterprises,” given the “increasingly fragmented” business environment.

This shows that the focus of business operations is shifting from a top-down, centralised HQ model to one based on distributed success and teams with localized missions and focus. Two examples are Meta and Rocket.Chat’s shift to more remote work.

Meta and Rocket.Chat scatters exec team

An example of a company embracing this new future of work is Meta. The Hustle reports that Meta’s execs are working all over the world. The company’s HQ is in Menlo Park, California, but its top team members are dialling in anywhere from Cape Cod to Israel.

Also Read: How Uber reached global scale by empowering localisation

Another example is Rocket.Chat, the world’s largest open-source communications platform. Rocket.Chat has HQs in US and Brazil but operates fully remotely with employees from 70+ cities globally.

Despite being remote, finding opportunities to connect in person are still important. In understanding this, Rocket.Chat’s Co-Founder and CEO Gabriel Engel shared how they set this up: The company’s HQ in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is located in a house with a swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen for weekly barbecues, and a large indoor kitchen.

Engel explains, “Everyone doesn’t have to go there all the time, but it’s an important representation of what the company cares about our headquarters is more about finding interaction and building relationships than being designed for people to just do their work.”

Companies like Meta and Rocket.Chat are realising the benefits of making decisions at the edges instead of clinging to the command-and-control mantra of the past. This goes hand in hand with decentralised innovation, where best practices from anywhere can be implemented globally instead of only being top-down from headquarters.

Introducing the global class mindset

If the way that companies have successfully built international businesses in the past is less effective in today’s global economy, then what should you do?

The answer is: Embrace the global class mindset.

This mindset is based on the notion that everyone must be a leader when expanding globally, not just those at HQ. It doesn’t matter whether the company is scaling in one country or 100; it’s about having the right approach to global growth.

The global class mindset means having the vision to think globally from day one, leveraging a decentralised talent strategy, positioning HQ to be an enabler and supporter of local markets, and implementing a strategy that finds the local way of running a business. This is in direct opposition to the legacy mindset.

Vision: Think global from day one

A “born global” company is a myth. A company must find validation and prove scale in an initial market before expanding to build the right foundation for international success. Instead, global class companies think globally from day one by building all aspects of their business — product, team, culture, operations — to localise for multiple markets.

Also Read: The global fintech market: Getting a piece of the pie

Talent and culture: Distributed strategy

The global class believes that talent is skills-driven, not location-driven. They hire where the talent is, understanding that sourcing talent only from their local area is limiting.

HQ role: Enabler and support

Within global class companies, HQ’s primary roles are to support and enable local teams, not command and control them. These companies practice two-way innovation, looking to gather insights from best practices implemented in every local market as much as sharing a best practice discovered at HQ.

Strategy: Local way

Global class companies strive to find a balance, doing things the local way. They localise the business to fit the local market while staying true to company principles.

In summary, companies born during and after the pandemic will look and operate differently than companies founded before. Like the examples of Meta and Rocket.Chat, these smart companies are taking advantage of access to a larger pool of talent as one way to acquire local knowledge in scaling the business in each unique market where its employees reside.

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Singapore-based global investment firm Lighthouse Canton has made the first close of its newly launched venture debt fund at US$20 million with global institutions and family offices.
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The firm’s regional venture debt strategy comprises a Singapore-based variable capital company (VCC) for investments in Southeast Asia and a Category II alternative investment fund (AIF) for investments in India.

Lighthouse Canton, which will provide debt capital to tech-enabled companies in the region, targets raising US$100 million for this new fund.

For companies with sound business models and viable unit economics, venture debt is an alternative source of growth funding, which is gaining traction amongst regional startup companies now.
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In recent years, Asia’s startup ecosystem has witnessed a boom, attracting 38 per cent of all venture capital deal flows globally (source: State of Venture 2022 Report, CBInsights) last year. At the end of 2022, there were 1,205 unicorns globally, with 27 per cent hailing from Asian countries such as China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Also Read: What is venture debt financing? How can startups use it to their advantage?

The Indian startup ecosystem is the third largest in the world, only behind the US and China, with nearly 10 per cent of all global unicorns based in India — and is posed to grow further.
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“As the pace of venture capital activity continues to grow, it is logical that we would see a rise in venture debt demand,” said Sanket Sinha, Lighthouse Canton’s Global Head of Asset Management. “In more mature venture ecosystems such as the US and Europe, venture debt has risen to 15-20 per cent of the total VC funding, whereas this proportion is less than 2 per cent in India and Southeast Asia. Given the growth of the venture ecosystem in India, we see tremendous opportunity for venture debt, and we expect the size of this market to grow 3-4x in the next five years.”

Headquartered in Singapore, Lighthouse Canton is a global investment institution with wealth and asset management capabilities. It oversees over US$3 billion worth of assets under management and advisory (as of September 30, 2022).

The new debt fund is the second launched within one year focused on the venture ecosystem. Earlier this year, it partnered with Nueva Capital to launch its maiden venture capital fund, LC Nueva, focused on pre-series A and series A companies in India.

Lighthouse Canton also runs Founders’ Ecosystem, which helps startups and founders enhance performance and plan for their personal and business legacies at various stages in their life cycles. The initiative provides added value through other venture investments, business solutions, and personal wealth management services.

These solutions range from funding solutions for companies across the capital structure to pre- and post-monetisation funding needs. It also works closely with the founders and senior management on business structuring and personal wealth solutions.

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2022 wasn’t the easiest of times for tech companies. Tesla Stocks plummeting, Facebook retrenchments, FTX crash — all this has culminated in a terrible time for tech companies, and this has further been exacerbated by record high I/r, further fueling a funding and tech winter. Whether you work in a Fortune 599, SME, or startup, we still have to run our businesses and close deals.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel around the globe to seal deals with a myriad of companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies and across locations in the US, Europe and even Greater China.

It’s fascinating how different everyone’s objectives are. Some looks at achieving higher MAU growth, and some looks at reducing the cost of acquisition, some looks at acquiring new markets and revenue streams.

As different as it is, it all boils down to certain key principles — can we support the company to solve a pain point and achieve its goals? And if our answer is yes, we can still do some good business. 

Here are some learnings along the bumpy road of sales that I would like to share.

Understanding your prospects

With the pressure of month/quarter-end targets coming in, more often than not, we are often overly zealous to sell to our prospects without considering whether they have an actual need for our product.

We are often too eager to sell on features with it being the best and fastest software without knowing whether the speed of a software is a pain point for them. Did we enquire more to understand whether there’s a legacy system they would need to change? Or have they just bought new software already, and we are too late?

Conversely, if we get to understand deeper, could we actually gather from them that there’s a management mandate for them to look for such a new system? Could we even understand a ballpark figure of their budget — such that we don’t price ourselves out of the bid? What is the more important requirement for the team?

Also Read: A tech worker’s 2023 recession game plan

And if we understand this deeply, we could translate how our product can truly solve their pain points and deliver measurable gains for them. An important thing to note, too, is that clients would feel that we care to know about their situation and when they reveal their side of the story between both parties,  there would be this “magical” bond that is created.

Once this happens, there would inadvertently lead to an interest to know more about your product, as you have heard their side of the story, and now it is fair that they would want to know more from you.

This is where you can do your amazing presentation on how your product can indeed be a value match for them. If all goes well — bam! You should have the deal in no time at all (bearing in mind the legal, procurement, and finance loops that you would need to overcome along the way).

Finding the right person to speak to

At times this can seem to be deceivingly straightforward. Certain schools of thought would be — let’s target the CEO, the Founder, and we would close this 100k deal! Does it often happen? Or we identify a job title like Marketing Manager/Sales Director/VP, and we close this 10k per month recurring SAAS deal? Is it as straightforward as it seems?

Sometimes if we are lucky, it happens, but more often than not, it doesn’t happen. 

No hard and fast rule on this, but my take is for us to truly understand what the roles and responsibilities of this individual are. Is a Marketing Manager fully in charge of all marketing spent, or would this be actually decided by the VP of the company? Would a CEO/Founder really decide on a new CRM/productivity tool, or would they delegate the decision to the VP of Sales?

In a nutshell, we need to understand their goals and whether they are the key decision-makers for this initiative. All we need to do is just spend five minutes understanding your prospect’s key responsibilities respectfully.

Recalling one experience where I spent hours and more than 10 calls speaking to one of my supposed targeted job titles and not spending time to understand their goals and whether they hold the budget. My thoughts were that this individual would talk to me so much because he/she would like to give this contract to me. In the end, it just turned out that the prospects enjoyed having a good conversation! Needless to say, I didn’t hit the target for the month. 

As we all know, time is money. How can we then avoid such a situation and hedge against it?

Engaging multiple individuals within a company

For most companies, unless it’s buying a cup of cappuccino for themselves, most deals involve multiple individuals making a purchase. Regardless of the size of the company and even in mundane situations, just to decide the type of corporate gifts, the colour of the banner or even the website tagline — there would be at least two individuals that would need to come to a consensus. Why not, then, start this process early on?

Also Read: How to use email sequences to win more B2B sales deals

More often than not, if we have just an individual sitting in a meeting, the chance of conversion reduces significantly —  as there’s a high chance the prospect may not be the decision maker, and he may be attending the meeting because he/she has a KPI for the number of meetings.

On the other hand, they may be genuinely keen on what you have to offer, but they are flooded with too many tasks, and your proposal is probably at the bottom two on their priority ladder.

Adding on, there’s basically no one internally to keep them accountable for what you have suggested! Before you know it, their boss, the real decision maker, has allocated the budget to another company! And down the drain goes all your hours of hard work in preparing the proposal, call and follow-up.

Now, here’s my proposition on why we should involve at least two representatives on a call. Firstly, just imagine what goes on behind the scenes when two people would like to meet you. Do they say there’s nothing better to do this afternoon, let’s meet up with a vendor? No.

Most of the time, it’s a case of, this product could potentially be beneficial for us, shall we sit in to listen together?

Secondly, if one of the job titles forgot to follow up with you, there would be another to remind him/her during a follow-up from yourself. There would be accountability internally from the team and to you and your organisation.

Thirdly, you just save yourself about two hours if you would have to travel to the place to pitch to the other job title, which you can then allocate to another new sales prospect. Woohoo, time was saved, and the pipeline doubled!

Does a “yes, I’m keen” translate to a signed contract?

Some of us often get excited when we hear that the prospect mentioned that he/she is keen to make a purchase with us. We forecast this as a deal at our month-end, indicate it as a part of our pipeline, send a contract and wait for the surreal and beautiful signature to return.

Also Read: How can businesses double their revenue in a post-COVID-19 world

One week went by, and the mailbox was still the same. Multiple follow-up emails are met with radio silence. One month went by, and still no contract. What went wrong here? I would like to imagine this situation as one with crows cawing at the back and us just waiting for a beautiful dove to deliver this signed contract across the globe.

We need to understand that, more often than not, people would love to give you the answer you would love to hear, and their way of conveying this would differ from geography to geography.

I used to pitch a product to a company, and they told me they were keen. I told them that the most basic model would start from a few thousand, and they said yes. I told them the best and most expensive would be close to six figures, and they also indicated a yes.

This makes me slightly doubtful about their actual intention. How is it possible that they would buy anything and everything?  This is a situation where we need to understand whether there is a true buying intention or if they are sugarcoating not to hurt our feelings.

Possible ways for us to understand their full intention and the thorough process would be to drop a follow-up email for them to indicate that you would send a contract to them and ask them when they could return the contract in terms of response timing and written interest. Then, attempt to schedule a follow-up call within the next couple of days to run through the deliverables. 

If this is met with interest and positive responses, you may actually be onto something. If this is somehow met by radio silence, we could probably just mark this deal as a loss and probably reconnect at a better time again. 

To sum up, I know some of these may seem pretty straightforward, but I hope for others, this would provide some fundamental sales tips early on for you to close more deals in 2023.

I understand that it’s going to be a challenging season for many, but if my articulating my two cents could help you close just another deal for 2023, it would indeed be very heartening.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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Total food delivery spending in Southeast Asia (SEA) grew a modest five per cent to reach US$16.3 billion in 2022 after two years of COVID-19-driven deliveries boom, according to a new report by Singapore-based Momentum Works.

In its third edition, the organisation offers in-depth insights into SEA’s six core food delivery markets –Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The report revealed that for the first time in three years, growth was driven primarily by the region’s smallest food delivery markets, including the Philippines (increased by US$0.8 billion), Malaysia (US$0.6 billion) and Vietnam (US$0.3 billion). Meanwhile, larger markets such as Singapore (decreased by US$0.4 billion), Thailand (US$0.4 billion) and Indonesia (US$0.1 billion), recorded a GMV decline as COVID-19 became endemic and economies reopened.

It also stressed the urgency for companies to focus on profitability.

“Major players pivoted away from cost-intensive business models such as dark stores for groceries and dark kitchens for food delivery. This trend is expected to continue into 2023, with Shopee planning to refocus on its core business in e-commerce, and DeliveryHero rumoured to be divesting its operations in a few Southeast Asia countries,” it wrote.

Also Read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond

The report stated that as of the end of 2022, Grab is estimated to account for 54 per cent or US$8.8 billion of the region’s food delivery GMV, a 16 per cent increase from the year before.

Foodpanda is estimated to contribute 19 per cent or US$3.1 billion of the region’s GMV, a nine per cent decline from 2021.

Gojek and Shopee are estimated to maintain their food delivery GMV at 2021 levels at US$2 billion and US$0.9 billion, respectively.

“The competitive landscape became a lot more muted in 2022 compared to 2021. New entrants such as Shopee and AirAsia have gone back to focus on their core sectors, while incumbent players adopt a much more conservative expansion strategy. With profitable growth being the biggest focus now, food delivery players are experimenting with a variety of strategies to improve delivery margins and strengthen consumer loyalty via advertising, subscription programmes, and more. We believe profitability is attainable with volume, density and operational efficiency,” said Jianggan Li, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Momentum Works.

In experimenting with new strategies, players with a large consumer reach and merchant base will have the edge over others.

Also Read: Are Singapore’s food delivery apps charging users more during a pandemic?

The report also stated more defined online and offline strategies are also expected as merchants differentiate their channel offerings: Food delivery continues to form a substantial part of a merchant’s overall sales, even after the dine-in resumption.

“As a result, merchants are creating more differentiated offerings and promotions for dine-in and food delivery to reduce cannibalisation and maximise sales for both channels. Similarly, delivery players are expanding into the offline space through features such as dine-in coupons, restaurant reviews, and more.”

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Mayani, an agri-fisheries startup providing sustainable market linkage to smallholder farmers and fisherfolk in the Philippines, has secured US$1.7 million in oversubscribed seed funding anchored by Silicon Valley agtech VC AgFunder through its GROW Impact Fund.

Atlas Ventures, Accelerating Asia Ventures, Ocean Impact Organization, TheVentures, and Plug and Play Ventures also joined.

Jimenez family (known for establishing broadcasting giant GMA), the families behind the Malaysian conglomerate OSK Group, and Philippine retailer Abenson Group also participated.

This deal marks AgFunder’s maiden investment in the Philippines.

Mayani’s technological stack was initially funded through grants from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Also Read: Can agritech solve the world’s growing food security problem?

Mayani began its supply chain operations in Southern Luzon by focusing on fresh lowland produce such as lettuce and eggplant. It has since expanded in various agri-categories, including poultry, processed commodities like Liberica coffee, and high-value fruits such as honeydew gold.

Currently, the startup directly sources harvests from a grassroots network of over 139,000 smallholder farmers across five regions in Philippines’s populous and largest island Luzon.

It then leverages demand-matched supply data to achieve efficiencies in a shorter route-to-market with fewer intermediaries as they deliver fresh produce and even sustainably caught seafood downstream to buyers. Those buyers comprise B2B players like international hotels and restaurants, food processors, and supermarket chains such as WalterMart, Robinsons Group, and MerryMart.

The resulting value chain creates cost savings on the part of buyers while making their supply chain more resilient and dependable.

On the other hand, the farmers’ farm-gate and post-catch incomes are boosted by at least 30 per cent while reducing food loss by 20 per cent.

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Mindtera, an employee assistance programme (EAP) startup in Indonesia, has closed its combined seed and seed extension round at US$850,000 funding.

East Ventures led the round with commitments from Seedstars International Ventures and other unnamed angels.

The company will use the money to expand the scope of its B2B operations and develop the products.

Founded in 2021 by Tita Ardiati and Bayu Puspito Bhaskoro, Mindtera is a platform that uses data-driven insights to build a productive and happy workplace. It manages employee development, engagement, and well-being, following employees from hiring to retirement.

It offers two platforms to address this problem.

Also Read: Mindtera bags funding led by East Ventures to grow its personal growth learning platform

Mindtera Pro is an analytics dashboard and app with an advanced suite of assessment tools designed to collect and analyse employee feedback to improve their company experience.

Mindtera Plus serves corporations by providing access to coaching and development consultants who can help tackle various challenges in employee management and culture.

The startup claims it has onboarded over 10,000 employees and fostered an increase of 94 per cent in employee well-being awareness. Providing HR optimisation for key industry players, Mindtera is leading the charge to optimise work culture across the country.

CEO Tita Ardiati said: “Investing in human capital is tricky. The benefits are not immediately visible, but the company will see a sustained impact if you build a balanced and healthy working environment. Human resources are a valuable asset for a company’s growth. Happy people inspire growth, so look after your people, and you will see productivity.”

During the Great Resignation back in 2021, a study from the global company McKinsey showed that if employees are not mentally well, it will affect the business’s bottom line in many ways.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also stated that in addition to impacting relationships and societies, mental health issues like depression and anxiety also cost the global economy US$1 trillion yearly, predominantly from reduced productivity.

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Let’s talk about food fraud, an ongoing issue that needs to be taken very seriously. Again and again, the media are feeding us new upsetting, often stomach-churning revelations about appalling lapses in the global food industry. Sometimes they threaten public health.

About 300,000 children fell sick in 2008 after Chinese dairy manufacturers adulterated infant formulas with the chemical melamine, causing, in many cases, serious kidney damage. Consumer confidence in beef products took a hit in 2013 when authorities in the UK and Ireland discovered several samples that contained different quantities of horse meat.

More recently, Malaysia was shaken by a large-scale, cartel-like criminal practice that, over decades, mislabelled imported pork, horse and kangaroo meat as halal-certified. Several government officials were bribed along the way.

While there’s not always a direct criminal intent, the problem often points to a lack of transparency and product information. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that every year, 600 million people worldwide fall ill after the consumption of unsafe food. It shows undeniably that trust in global and local food supply chains is of greatest interest.

Fighting food fraud

Fortunately, today, technology offers a solution. QR codes on product packaging, geolocation and blockchain technology are gaining momentum in the sector, as modern digital tools are no longer out of reach, even in developing countries.

Also Read: The opportunities and challenges Singapore’s agritech sector faces

They now allow to closely track foodstuffs “from farm to table,” enhancing credibility, safety, and food security. Furthermore, AI and Machine learning ensures the timely identification of possible intervention before any significant problem gets out of hand.

It should slowly end the different fraudulent practices we are still observing today: Adulteration when one or more components of the product are fake or tampering when a product and package are used fraudulently. There’s fraud by addition, where fake goods are added to the actual one to increase their quantity.

We have product imitations and copycats of the actual product sold to unsuspecting consumers, which can now be tracked down through machine learning and AI tools. Items might also be distributed or sold outside of permitted territories, a practice we call diversion. A large number of actors involved in the production and distribution of food pose a great risk to product safety, threatening supply chain integrity.

From farm to fork

The farm-to-table or farm-to-fork approach started with the idea of simplifying the food chain by establishing a direct line to the producer. Consumers should be able to buy straight from the farm, creating trust and a different type of relationship.

Fraud, nevertheless, can still happen along the way, and this is where technology comes into play. It allows customers to access the data on the product and producer, nutritional values and ingredients, its origin and journey to the point of purchase.

Producers share information, such as third-party-certified tests and lab reports, that support their claims and upload them to distributed ledgers, or blockchains, where they are publicly visible, scrutable, and where they can’t be altered. Geolocation tools track the shipment on its way to the checkout. Temperature sensors and time stamps verify the projected journey through ports and warehouses. Smart contracts will only release the goods to authorised parties.

Also Read: How the pandemic inspires Natural Trace to create a food supply chain traceability solution

At the point of sale, consumers can get the full picture by scanning the QR code that verifies from the time of harvesting to the arrival at the market. More accurate data allows buyers to confirm the exact condition of the product, which also helps to reduce wastage.

Can’t stop the tech

Technology is also progressing in the field of quality control. New techniques like DNA barcoding and fingerprinting are analysing food samples to detect the grade of its purity or to check if they have been mixed with lower-grade varieties.

Earlier this year, Yale-NUS researchers found through DNA barcoding that out of 89 seafood samples from restaurants and supermarkets, about one quarter was mislabeled or sold under a different name.

As consumers demand more sustainable and transparent food sourcing and distribution, they will further push to get exactly what they are promised on the package. For the food industry in Asia and the world, this means that they are in for a tech upgrade.

New tools, including blockchain, RFID tags, and sensors, offer the ability to track food in real time. Gone are the days of the paper document, which will forever be associated with inefficiency, bureaucracy and low-grade security. Let’s get serious in fighting food fraud!

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