Metaverse is a multi-trillion dollar industry and homegrown startup, BuzzAR, is leading the charge and waving the Singaporean flag high on the global stage. Since its debut at London Tech Week, the company has landed five large-scale multi-year contracts with government agencies, connectivity partners, and venues globally to make the metaverse accessible to all.

How this founder found a unique niche in the trillion-dollar industry

After producing Meta Oculus’ top Cooking Game VR, The Cooking Game VR, the dynamic duo, Bell Beh and Ken Lim, are onto the next big thing. Since 2018, BuzzAR has been building metaverse solutions in real life (IRL) and has been uniquely positioned for luxury brands — with its clientele including the regional Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

Leveraging on its skills to produce top VR games on Oculus and more, the duo is set to dive into this trillion-dollar industry, especially with all the opportunities sprouting post COVID. While some of their peers are figuring out ways to cope with the pandemic, the duo’s business has had an 8x revenue in FY 2021, transforming top-notch hotel resorts and integrated resorts and brands, enabling brick and mortars to stand out using various metaverse experiences. 

Despite the experience of building the top-selling VR game on Meta, the duo sees unique opportunities in the B2B space.

Game veterans turn metaverse experience in real life (IRL) into its niche

In 2018, childhood friends turned co-founders, Ken Lim and Bell Beh, came together to launch BuzzAR. Based in Singapore, BuzzAR is a location-based AR solution for retail and commerce. As a serial entrepreneur, Ken led 2 other companies to great successes since his days at university where he eventually dropped out in Germany to start his first business. Since then, he helped various businesses generate 8 figure revenues. Now, the mind and soul behind BuzzAR, Ken is building BuzzAR with Bell, a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur to utilise its gaming expertise for different businesses. 

“Perception is reality. Any company that is serious about their brand will continue to shape their perception, regardless of whether there will be a recession in 2023 or not. I learned in my two earlier businesses, with the first one founded in my university’s dorm room, that the marketers who maintain or grow their budgets during recessions are more successful than those that cut budgets. That said, some budgets will shift to “Experiential Marketing” as it is more personalised, triggers consumer-permissioned data, and creates “WOW” moments. This is what BuzzAR is building: we elevate the businesses’ perception by building the Next Gen immersive advertising and marketing platform,” said Ken Lim, CTO and Co-Founder at BuzzAR.

To achieve the vision, BuzzAR has developed some of its enablers, such as augmented and virtual reality technologies, games, and avatar engines, leveraging on generative AI, enabling customers to get the full metaverse experience.

After the successful debut of its face-to-avatar “Pop-Up Metaverse” in real life (IRL) at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, the company emboldens the public to gain easy access to the metaverse by setting up various Pop-Up Metaverse locations in Singapore for enthusiasts to explore in person. Thousands of companies can easily hop on the platform to advertise to consumers who are ready to embark on their Metaverse journey.

With the success of its early projects, the company plans to make “Marketing in the Metaverse” accessible to all businesses, turning traffic into money for businesses.

Brand relationships are being redefined

The metaverse has the potential to reach mass adoption, but companies do not know how. 

The pair was thrilled to see how the Pop Up Metaverse — which augments faces and places — help businesses at scale to “enter the metaverse” using the 1-hour setup. To businesses, solving the friction to introduce a complicated product, significantly increase their overall productivity and enhance their guest experience. The experience was delightful and exultant as users could enter the augmented world seamlessly. 

Gaining fulfillment from serving customers, bringing innovative ideas into life, and building a happy and inclusive community, Bell Beh reinforced her resolve to walk out on a six-figure job and a stable career in corporate law to nurture more ambitious dreams with technologies. 

BuzzAR’s future plans to further expand its metaverse world

Following a series of lucrative fundraising rounds, raising $3.8m in seed funding from F50 Elevate to grow and scale its business, BuzzAR escalated to global prominence with its debut at London Tech Week where thousands turned up, including Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Heng Swee Keat, queuing up to play with their Pop Up Metaverse.

Most notably, adults and children laughed out loud from the pure joy of the surreal metaverse experience. 

Riding on this momentum, BuzzAR brought the product back to Asia to introduce it at the She Loves Tech event at Resort World Sentosa, Temasek’s Constellar The Tech Show, a Mediacorp private event, and more. With explosive demands from around the world, BuzzAR plans to further expand its business globally, especially in the Middle East region, where the Metaverse is the key strategy to transform the economy and diversify tourism products. 

“BuzzAR is disrupting and complementing the traditional out of home (OOH) media where, in the past 10 years, there was almost no big innovation. BuzzAR envisions a world where the OOH media is interactive, 3D, and immersive. Therefore, the company is inspired to roll out the Next Gen Immersive Advertising and Marketing, allowing any company to leverage the Pop Up Metaverse to advertise and run their marketing,” shared Bell Beh.

The company which had built Generative AI, and rolled out the StyleGAN application, HappyToon, is now onto incorporating ChatGPT, and Dalle-2 applications to its Pop Up Metaverse portal making immersive advertising not only immersive, but it is smart enough to handle all general enquiries while maximising the user experience.

After one visit, BuzzAR, is set to scale its businesses in Singapore and in the lucrative Saudi Arabia market, whose tourism industry is betting $1 Trillion. Being a graduate of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), Cohort 3, BuzzAR has set great augmented reality (AR) use cases highlighted by STB to the tourism stakeholders. Being data-driven and disruptive and winning the trust of even the government agencies in the Middle East region, BuzzAR is betting big on its Next Gen immersive experience!

To explore more about this Metaverse Marketing experience, BuzzAR has launched Bae, the ChatGPT powered Bae can answer all your questions on WhatsApp!

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This article is produced by the e27 team, in partnership with BuzzAR.

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Singapore-based AI-powered food fingerprint platform ProfilePrint and Swiss farm-to-roaster coffee company Sucafina have announced a co-investment in Brazilian image recognition company Csmart.

Founded by Francisco Massucci Silveira, Csmart designs AI-powered image recognition technologies for coffee grading that aim to improve the coffee industry for producers, professionals, and roasters alike. It claims its technology can rapidly scan a sample of green coffee beans and accurately identify defect counts within minutes.

Also Read: Wake up and smell the coffee: Check your coffee beans’ quality using ProfilePrint’s AI tool

This technology could help QC professionals by reducing repetitive tasks, improving and accelerating communication between QC teams, and reducing the carbon emissions from shipping countless green coffee samples to buyers and sellers worldwide.

Currently, Csmart’s software can identify the total defect counts and confirm the screen size of a sample of green coffee. The upcoming iteration will be able to quantify each defect by type and take image scans of each identified bean.

Csmart’s technology cuts down on the time and resource inefficiencies caused by sending green samples back and forth across the globe. With this, green coffee can be scanned by the seller, and an objective report is delivered to the buyer for their review. This can speed up the time it takes to approve a sample and reduce the carbon footprint of coffee sales.

This new image recognition green grading technology will be complementary to ProfilePrint, which incorporates data from multiple sources to enable users to ascertain the suitability of ingredients without traditional sensory evaluation rapidly.

Alan Lai, Founder and CEO of ProfilePrint, said: “Csmart’s image recognition technology provides additional key data points for our global ProfilePrint solution, bringing us closer to our goal of a device-agnostic data platform. It also increases the range and accuracy of our prediction capability, empowering buyers and sellers across the supply chain to increase productivity and significantly reduce carbon footprint.”

A food ingredient search engine, ProfilePrint predicts the quality and profile of a food sample “within seconds”. With 5g of the sample, the analyser acquires the unique fingerprint without destroying the samples. Sellers and buyers can objectively ascertain the agreed quality of a food ingredient in an online transaction.

Also Read: ProfilePrint adds food supplies giant Cargill to its cap table

ProfilePrint’s solution has been deployed in over 26 cities across five continents (North America, Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia).

In August last year, the Singaporean startup onboarded US-based global food supplier giant Cargill as a strategic investor. It earlier raised several rounds of investments, including a Series A round in February 2022 from Louis Dreyfus Company (Netherlands), Olam Food Ingredients (an operating group of Olam International Limited, Singapore), Sucafina (Switzerland), an unnamed agrifood conglomerate (Indonesia), Greenwillow Capital Management (Singapore), and Real Tech Global Fund (Japan). In 2021, it closed a pre-series A from Glocalink Singapore, Leave-a-Nest, and Seeds Capital.

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In today’s climate of uncertainty clouded with competition, compounded with the high cost of living, it is without a doubt that people are experiencing increasing levels of stress and anxiety.

According to Mercer’s latest 2022 Global Talent Trends Study, an overwhelming 85 per cent of Singapore-based employees admitted that they feel at risk of burnout this year, with one in five already reporting feeling de-energised at work.

Another worrying study by Employment Hero states that 62 per cent of Singaporean workers are already experiencing burnout. With these depressing statistics, is it really surprising that Singaporeans are the world’s unhappiest workers?

It goes without saying that employers and organisations have a crucial role in supporting employees’ needs. Yet, in another survey by Mercer, 56 per cent of employees in Singapore reported that they did not receive strong support from their employers, and Singapore fared below global benchmarks in lending support to employees.

To combat this workforce development, Mercer said that 36 per cent of Singapore HR leaders are planning to introduce strategies addressing burnout this year, such as mental health insurance coverage, offering virtual mental health counselling and providing training on how to identify and support those facing mental health challenges.

However, there is still a significant gap in the market, which urges direct action through innovative preventive care.

Having experienced the corporate world shrouded with stress and anxiety, I was determined to establish an employee network that could support their mental health, focusing on taking preventive action rather than recovery efforts.

This spurred me to set up Evexia Collective, Singapore’s first truly proactive and preventative analytical mental fitness app for employees. Backed by psychiatrist Dr Elisabetta Burchi and NHS’s Dr Caitie Imray, Evexia Collective promotes mental fitness through the proactive use of mental fitness tools and real-time aggregate analytics.

Also Read: How Noodle Factory addresses educator burnout with its AI-powered teaching assistants

It is reported that more than half the workers surveyed (56 per cent) lack access to mental health counselling services, and just 22 per cent of women had access to mental health counselling services through their employers, compared to 30 per cent of men. With our focus on preventive measures, we share an aggregate view of how employers can better support their employees.

According to research by LifeWorks, employees who are suffering from mental health or other well-being issues are unable to concentrate on their work for more than a third of the total scheduled work time, a symptom known as “presenteeism.” Evexia Collective plays a crucial role here by understanding and monitoring the user’s emotions while giving crucial insights regarding their well-being.

It is important that employees are able to manage stress while staying motivated and productive, both personally and professionally. To achieve that, companies should create an inclusive work environment that nurtures happy and healthy employees through the three core pillars: energy, calm and focus, which Evexia Collective advocates for.

Using a series of Standardised Mental Health Questionnaires used by medical practitioners all over the world, such as the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ9), Evexia Collective aims to assess, inform and improve mental fitness amongst Singaporean employees. In pilot tests, users of Evexia Collective improved their mood scores by 11 per cent, stress management scores by 50 per cent and energy levels by 14 per cent on average over two weeks.

A survey conducted in the Asia-Pacific region in 2021 discovered that high workloads and long hours were among the top workplace mental health strains. Companies must invest in their employees’ health and wellness now more than ever.

Through employee-first initiatives and corporate mindset shifts, employers that are able to find that balance and align their policies to the wants and needs of their employees will not only boost the motivation and engagement of their existing workers but also will attract and retain the best talent in increasingly competitive talent markets.

By using tools to support employee mental health, such as Evexia Collective’s application, companies can cultivate a positive work environment for their employees to thrive while enjoying increased productivity and decreased health care and disability costs.

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Malaysia’s state-owned Penjana Kapital has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Indonesian VC firms Indies Capital Partners and AC Ventures.

The memorandum establishes a framework for the three firms to explore co-investment opportunities in Malaysia-Indonesia growth companies through existing and soon-to-launch funds.

Also Read: ‘Indonesia will soon see a proper credit boom for businesses, consumers’: AC Ventures

The partnership will also facilitate cross-border investments and technology transfer in key sectors such as data centres, education, hospitality, mobility, and waste management involving Indonesian and Malaysian startups.

Additionally, the deal will help Penjana Kapital find new and impactful investment opportunities from emerging sectors in Indonesia’s fast-growing economy. Further, with the help of Penjana, Indies Capital and AC Ventures will help Indonesian and Malaysian companies pursue scalable business opportunities, exchange key knowledge, and share technology for industry development and trade networking.

Both countries have shown immense commitment to fostering sustainable economic development and promoting the growth of the green economy. According to data from the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, the total trade value between Malaysia and Indonesia rose 43.5 per cent to RM95.1 billion (~US$21.6 billion) in 2021 compared to 2020.

Total Malaysian exports to Indonesia were up 32.5 per cent to RM39.22 billion (~US$6.9 billion), while total imports saw a 52.3 per cent improvement to RM55.88 billion (~US$12.7 billion) in the same period.

Pandu Sjahrir, Founding Partner at AC Ventures and Managing Partner at Indies Capital, said, “Through cross-border cooperation and investment, our firms have the opportunity to tap into new markets, access new sources of capital and expertise, and drive innovation and growth in both markets. We can also deepen economic ties between Indonesia and Malaysia and promote a more interconnected and prosperous ASEAN region.”

Also Read: AC Ventures hits final close of Fund III at US$205M to back early-stage Indonesian startups

Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Minister of International Trade and Industry Senator Tengku Datuk Seri Utama Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz witnessed the signing ceremony during the Prime Minister’s two-day working visit to Jakarta.

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The agricultural industry sits in a particularly delicate position in the conversation on sustainability — being crucially important as it provides mankind with the means for survival while also being a core contributor to the climate issue. In a recent Earth System Science Data study, it was estimated that agriculture contributes to roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

With this revelation, organisations and nations active in agriculture are looking to innovate, using bleeding-edge technology as a key driver to achieve sustainability goals. At the forefront of this shift stands the Brazilian cotton industry. It provides an exciting showcase for the role that technology can play in finding innovative solutions in a sector where sustainability is crucial.

Cotton — Traditional industry, modern problems

As with many other agricultural goods, cotton faced a global supply chain crisis in 2022. According to McKinsey’s fashion industry report, businesses in Asia especially felt this sting, with many citing material shortages as a key disruptor.

Creating a sustainable cotton supply while facing ever-increasing demand proves a daunting challenge. This is especially true in the case of Brazil: the world’s second-largest exporter of cotton.

Brazil’s cotton industry has experienced explosive growth, increasing its exports by 15 times in the last two decades alone. Despite this heavy expansion, the Brazilian cotton industry has established itself with a firm focus on sustainability. It is now the world’s largest producer of sustainable cotton, with at least 84 per cent of total production certified by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an internationally recognised non-profit group.

Also Read: How companies can pursue tech-led sustainability in APAC

To achieve these accolades, Brazil has fostered transparency across all nodes in the cotton supply chain. This comes with a firm understanding that sustainability can only be ensured when there is accountability and proper backing by scientific data. By recognising this key pain point, Brazil is continuously innovating and deploying technological solutions to address this age-old issue.

Tech-powered transparency

As with all industries, transparency is driven by accurate and readily available information. In Brazil, this translates to the traceability of cotton bales from start to finish. The nation has employed the use of QR codes and barcode systems to track cotton bales and provide easy access to crucial information. This would include information like the bale’s field of origin, sustainability certifications and in-depth quality details just to name a few.

The use of technology for traceability was especially highlighted this year. In 2022, the Sou de Algodão (which means “I’m made of cotton”) movement launched the SouABR (ABR being the Brazilian acronym for Brazilian Responsible Cotton) programme.

This was the first large-scale tech-driven traceability initiative in Brazil’s textile chain and was designed to offer all members of the supply chain transparency and to encourage more sustainable choices from consumers.

The SouABR programme heavily utilises the latest in blockchain technology to record, track and store immutable data on cotton. This data can provide information on the fibre’s origin and the production processes of each item all the way down to the end consumer. Furthermore, this data will communicate that the cotton has ABR social and environmental certification, which acts as an endorsement that the product adheres to the highest standards of sustainable cotton.

Additionally, users on all levels of the supply chain will soon be able to access information like this through the Brazilian Cotton Growers Association (ABRAPA) smart app, set to launch in the near future. The app enables bale-by-bale tracking via bar code and QR code, offering full transparency of Brazilian cotton from farm to port to cotton growers, textile industries, traders, and retail brands worldwide.

A brighter future for all to see

We can only begin tackling the issues of agriculture’s damaging effects on the environment once we can track and assess all the processes which contribute to them. Using the Brazilian cotton industry as a role model, we can see that the implementation of tracing technology has provided invaluable and widely visible insight into sustainability.

The digitisation of information makes it easily accessible and auditable — which ensures efficiency, reliability, and sustainability at all stages of the supply chain. With the more widespread adoption of innovative tracing technology across agriculture, the sector can reinforce accountability and take responsibility for the sustainability of not only the human population but the planet.

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Startups disrupt traditional business landscapes, so when the landscape for startups itself faces disruption, you can expect consternation and caution to abound.

As reported by startup ecosystem market intelligence platform CB Insights, 2021 was a remarkable year for global venture capital investment, with deal values doubling over the previous year as investors poured money into some of the world’s most innovative startups.

But like all periods of rapid growth, this level of investment can’t be sustained indefinitely, so this year, we have seen a contraction in both deal volumes and values.

CB Insights data also shows as of Q3 of this year, global venture funding reached US$329.2 billion, with a projection to hit US$438.9 billion by the end of 2022. This means we could see an approximate 30 per cent decline in value compared to the US$630.3 billion invested globally in 2021.

These declining numbers have caused concern among startups across the Asia Pacific region. However, there are strong reasons to believe that this situation, widely referred to as venture capital or ‘tech winter’, is something that many startups will be able to weather.

Weathering the tech winter

While the overall numbers are down compared to a year ago, they show that significant volumes of venture capital are still being invested – numbers that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago.

For instance, total global funding in 2020 reached US$298.2 billion, and this year’s figures have already surpassed that amount. Furthermore, CB Insights also reports that 66 per cent of overall deals year-to-date have happened at early-stage, which should give new founders confidence that funding for fresh, innovative ideas is still available.

Running a startup in any economic climate isn’t easy, and at Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are committed to supporting startups to optimally run a business in the cloud.

Also Read: How blockchain companies are surviving the bear market

For startups at the earliest stages, our AWS Activate programme offers numerous benefits to help founders get up and running quickly and efficiently, such as by providing technical support and training, business mentorship, and the option to apply for cloud computing credits. Through this support, startups can use the credits to obtain one or more of the 200+ cloud services AWS offers while they are navigating the early critical steps of proving their concept and testing product-market fit.

Since launching Activate in 2013, we have seen hundreds of thousands of startups around the world benefit, including Carsome, The Lorry, and Zagana in Southeast Asia. In just the past two years, AWS has provided more than US$2 billion in AWS Activate credits to assist early-stage startups in launching their businesses and accelerating their growth.

Optimising spending

There’s no doubt that in times like these, investors are apt to focus on the fundamentals, with an emphasis on revenue rather than growth and an accompanying desire to see costs streamlined and more conservatively managed.

Some of the highest costs a startup takes on when starting out include people, marketing, and the cloud infrastructure the business is built on, so we encourage founders to assess if they are using cloud services in the most efficient way.

We take active steps to help startups building on AWS to save money on their cloud expenses. This includes regular reviews to ensure that our customers are using the most cost-effective pricing models and aren’t using more services than they actually need.

One of the services we offer is our Trusted Advisor online tool, which helps startup customers reduce costs, increase performance, and improve security by checking their use of AWS and making suggestions to help optimise performance. Initiatives such as these have helped our customers save up to 40 per cent on their cloud costs.

While it may seem counterintuitive, our team is actually tasked with reducing our customers’ cloud bills. An example is Indian AI-based data solutions startup iMerit Technology, whose revenue growth has nearly doubled every year for the past five years.

Also Read: Winter for tech startups is here? Here’s how to deal with it

To ensure they’re managing their tech costs as they scale, iMerit has taken advantage of AWS’s Cloud Financial Management support to dive deep into their cloud spend analysis, uncover opportunities to run more efficiently, and right-size their service usage. Through a variety of cost optimisation exercises, the startup has reduced its cloud spending by about 20 per cent per month.

Building capabilities and community for lifetime success

Heightened motivation to save on costs does not mean that startups should forgo their ambitions for growth and learning. Upskilling is as critical now as it’s ever been, which is why we work closely with our startup customers to help them equip their teams with the most in-demand digital skills.

AWS Skill Builder, for example, offers more than 500 free courses to enable learners to build their cloud skills and knowledge, which fosters a growth-oriented culture primed to operate at the pace of innovation that startups are known for.

We also work closely with startup customers to help ensure their people and processes are optimised for success. One way we do this is by sharing knowledge of Amazon’s own culture and processes – something we call our Culture of Innovation.

We often talk about “every day being day one” at Amazon, and this gives us a unique appreciation of the challenges and opportunities that startups face and has enabled us to consistently anticipate and deliver for their needs.

An example of how Amazon’s cultural guidance has supported one of our startup customers is Vietnam’s Bizzi, an AI-powered accounts payable automation company that secured its seed funding in late 2021 and has doubled its team size year on year for almost three years running.

A “people first” startup that’s mindful of setting strong cultural foundations from the start, Bizzi have adopted a version of Amazon’s “two pizza team” methodology, which limits the number of staffers on any given project, ensuring teams remain fast and agile and empowered to bring new and innovative products and features to the market.

Our dedication to understanding the needs of customers and working backwards to fulfil them has helped AWS uncover numerous opportunities to build new revenue-generating services. This approach has helped AWS become the innovative and multifaceted organisation we are today, and it is something we are happy to share with many of our startup customers.

Stay focused on ideas and opportunities

So, despite the concern and conservatism in the ecosystem right now, we are still confident that this is a great time to launch and grow a startup. While no one has a crystal ball to see what challenges lay ahead of us, there continues to be an opportunity for entrepreneurs with great ideas to obtain funding.

AWS remains committed to supporting our startup customers to continue to innovate and solve the world’s biggest problems, and we are excited to see what big ideas come out of these unique times.

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The workplace is constantly evolving, and so must companies to stay competitive and attract and retain their workforce. Now more than ever, businesses and organisations are evaluating how their employees want to work, with people working in more and more places outside the traditional office.

In APAC, 62 per cent of employees say they are less inclined to quit their jobs because they are free to practice hybrid work. They have improved work-life balance, are less stressed, and more likely to build better relationships with their colleagues.

The only problem is that three out of four employees believe that their companies are not equipped for the future of hybrid work in the long run due to the lack of support in terms of company culture and access to technology and collaborative platforms.

Successful companies will adapt the office to provide environments for tasks and activities that cannot be done at home, and very successful companies will be those that shape those workspaces to enhance company culture, improve team cohesiveness and offer the workplace experience lacking when working remotely.

The office reimagined

With hybrid working arrangements, the reasons why an employee comes into a physical office change and the role of the office will need to be optimised to accommodate new working patterns and maximise the use of space available.

Businesses have the opportunity to significantly reduce the number of individual workstations and instead assign “neighbourhoods” that are customised to the needs of each team, offering formal and informal areas to encourage creative discussions and dialogues. Adding different colour schemes and team-related pinboards can enhance an employee’s sense of belonging without the need for a permanent workstation.

Also Read: How to make remote work more seamless and less distributed

The home office

Creating a sustainable home workspace relies on understanding what types of work are best performed when working remotely and constructing an environment to best support those tasks.

Companies implementing a long-term work-from-home regime should assess the ergonomic risks of their employee’s home workspaces. This includes equipment such as an office chair, one of the most important tools an employee will use.

Choosing intuitive designs with easy-to-use features becomes paramount in ensuring employee safety and comfort at home or at the office. That is why at Flokk, we believe that everyone deserves to be healthy, happy and productive whilst at work, which is why we offer a wide range of stylish, sustainable and, above all, comfortable seating perfect for every working environment.

The hub

With the freedom of hybrid work still preferred, going to the office full-time is definitely not the first choice. But this is where collaborative work happens, and niche co-working spaces that meet the various needs of companies and employees are key to that.

The wide availability of co-working spaces that offer flexible leases with short-term or daily workstations allows organisations to reduce costs and be able to hire employees from all over the world. And at the same time, it can provide employees access to collaboration tools within their local vicinity.

The new workspace ecosystem currently taking shape is a big challenge for organisations when it comes to reimagining their workspace designs, but it should also be treated as a golden opportunity to reap the benefits presented by a more flexible way of working.

Focused on user-first and inclusive designs for the workplace and home, Flokk continues to serve as a total furniture solutions provider in Asia with 50 per cent annual growth from 2020 to 2022. The company offers a wide range of flexible and sustainable furniture solutions that are designed to improve the well-being and performance of its users based on comprehensive insight into the needs and work of real people.

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Profet AI, a Taiwanese artificial intelligence startup that boosts operational efficiency for electronics, textile, semiconductor, and chemical manufacturers, has closed its Series A round of US$5.6 million.

Darwin Ventures led the round, with participation from Hive Ventures, AUO, SVTI, Harbinger VC, and Jensen Capital Management.

The startup will use the funds to expand into Japan, Southeast Asia, and China, besides accelerating new product development.

Founded in 2018, Profet AI provides auto machine learning solutions for semiconductor, electronics, chemicals and textile manufacturers.

It offers two solutions:

• AutoML Virtual Data Scientist Platform: a no-code development programme powered by its AutoML engine that enables users to rapidly design and develop enterprise AI applications for their everyday processes
• Ready To Go Applications: a library of tried and tested, industry-specific “Plug & Play” AI applications ready to be deployed and hyper-scaled in any public cloud or on-premises environment.

“Profet AI is designed for rapid model development and deployment to deliver instant time to value for enterprises worldwide. We will be looking at establishing joint ventures with strong partners in overseas markets to ensure the right product-market fit for each location. We look forward to supporting more companies in leveraging the power of machine learning in the coming year,” said Jerry Huang, Co-Founder and CEO of Profet AI.

Since its establishment, Profet AI has accumulated more than 100 customers across 12 major industries. The clients include ASE Inc., Qisda Corporation, Everest Textile, WUS Printed Circuit, Symbio Inc., AUO, and Cheng Shin Rubber in achieving AI-empowered core manufacturing competitiveness.

Per a statement, Profet AI doubled its revenue in 2022, demonstrating strong growth with a capital efficiency ratio of over 1:1. 

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SG startup pioneer Sim Wong Hoo dies aged 67
He was the CEO and chairperson of Creative Technology, an audio and video equipment manufacturing major based in Singapore; Sim was one of the city-state’s most well-known tech and startup pioneers.

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to fraud, laundering
The FTX founder faced and pleaded not guilty to eight different criminal charges, including money laundering conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud.

Animoca targets US$1B fund for Web3, metaverse
It aims to raise the fund in Q1 2023; Last October, its co-founder Yat Siu told Nikkei Asia that Animoca was looking to launch a US$2B fund specifically for the metaverse industry.

Indonesia plans national crypto exchange this year
The country’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency has been overseeing crypto trading to date; There’re currently over 25 licensed crypto trading firms in Indonesia, and the agency has been tightening regulations on them.

Crypto firm Huobi eyes 100M users in 2023
On December 28, company advisor Justin Sun tweeted that Huobi has been experiencing “impressive growth,” attracting an average of 20,000 new users per day over the previous 60 days.

Amazon and Salesforce to cut 25,000 staff in total
Both companies admitted that past aggressive hiring strategies and the current economic downturn were among the main factors leading to the layoffs.

SG-based e-grocery platform UglyFood to shut down
UglyFood sells excess “ugly” fruits and vegetables, its own branded products, and sustainably sourced goods; According to Crunchbase, the company previously raised US$120K in a pre-seed round.

Ant Group gets OK from regulators for US$1.5B raise
The approval comes as analysts predict a return of Ant’s IPO plans, following an entity owned by the firm winning rights for a plot of land in Shanghai.

Japan’s GMO VenturePartners sees US$240M in capital gains from 3 bets
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The post Ecosystem Roundup: SG startup pioneer Sim Wong dies; Indonesia plans crypto exchange this year; UglyFood to shut down appeared first on e27.

Indonesia-based manufacturing hub platform Imajin has been reported to have raised a seed funding round from a number of investors, including Init-6. The venture capital firm, which was founded by Bukalapak co-founder Achmad Zaky, was a single investor in the startup’s pre-seed funding round.

According to the data reported to the regulator, this funding also included the participation of a number of investors, including East Ventures, 500 Southeast Asia (Fund III), Kao Kele Pte. Ltd., Jessica Hendrawidjaja (Shipper CMO), and Tsuda Yumi.

Imajin Co-Founder and CEO Chendy Jaya declined to comment on the funding when being contacted by DailySocial.

Founded by Chendy Jaya, Imajin is a platform that connected local manufacturers with potential customers. By July 2022, the startup has secured more than 400 local factory partners and 80 customers, including Japanese companies operating in Indonesia. Imajin also facilitated project financing for business owners with limited resources and provides a marketplace to supply raw materials.

In 2020, Imajin was appointed by the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) as the national manufacturing hub. A year later, it was selected as one of the participants of the Startup Studio Indonesia accelerator programme held by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics (Kemenkominfo).

Also Read: Growthwell Foods raises US$22M Series A to manufacture plant-based meat, seafood for F&B businesses

Expansion

Imajin has previously been reported to plan to expand its business to Java Overland and Batam. The company also considered expanding internationally to Japan to support local businesses, especially those in the automotive industry. It also aimed to accelerate the digitalisation of the manufacturing industry through new product development.

On the other hand, this market expansion was also meant to support the increase of local components included in products manufactured in Indonesia, which is regulated at a minimum of 35 per cent. It is projected to gradually increase to 80 per cent by 2026, especially for electric vehicles.

Apart from Imajin, other Indonesian startups that are working in the manufacturing industry are Manuva, which had recently rebranded from its original name of Tjetak. Manuva focuses on digitalising the manufacturing process in the Indonesian packaging, electrical, and garment industries.

The company believes that Indonesian MSMEs have the potentials to grow rapidly as the country is one of the biggest manufacturers in the world.

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The article was written by Corry Anestia in Bahasa Indonesia for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

It was updated on January 6 to include confirmation by the company on the final amount of the investment.

Image Credit: Imajin

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