Grab and GoTo IPOs could spawn more SEA startups, says 500 Startups; According to 500’s Vishal Harnal, the public listings of Grab and GoTo would allow for more investment in smaller businesses; The comments counter speculation that the newly-capitalised tech giants may squash competition.

US-based Nityo makes US$100M strategic investment in banking-as-a-service platform MatchMove, becomes its largest shareholder; MatchMove empowers its corporate clients to offer own-brand, secure and compliant digital payments, remittance, loans, insurance, and investments to their own customers; Nityo is an IT services firm with a presence in 38 countries and serves over 3K enterprise clients.

Book-keeping app BukuWarung rakes in US$60M to build an OS for Indonesia’s 60M MSMEs; Investors include Valar Ventures (lead), Wise, N26, and Goodwater Capital; BukuWarung recently launched a Shopify-equivalent, called Tokoko; Over the last 6 months, BukuWarung claims to have recorded over US$15B worth of transactions and US$500M in payments.

Alodokter raises fresh capital, claims 30M MAUs and 43K doctors on its telemedicine platform; Investors are MDI Ventures and Samsung Ventures; Alodokter provides an end-to-end digital solution to patients including telemedicine, doctor booking, medical content, and health insurance services.

Filipino live-streaming app Kumu closes Series B; Investors include SIG, Openspace Ventures, PH Conglomerates, and Endeavor Catalyst; The firm claims ~11.2M registered users around the world watch live streams up to 60M times per month, with over 100K active streamers commanding about one hour of average daily usage.

Indonesia’s Qlue banks Series B financing to scale its smart city solutions to new markets in Asia; Investors are KDDI Open Innovation Fund, TMI, and ASLI RI; Qlue’s smart city platform enables one-stop centralised control of the detection, analysis, and solution of urban problems through AI and IoT.

Logistics firm SiCepat taps EV space in a JV with NFC Indonesia, buys EV maker Volta; The newly formed EV company ESB will focus on the distribution of EVs, batter exchange and supporting services; NFC is a subsidiary of listed digital firm M Cash Integrasi.

Singapore’s e-bond trading startup BondEvalue raises US$6M Series A, forms JV in Mexico; Investors include MassMutual Ventures SEA, Citigroup, Potato Productions, and Octava; The startup’s BondbloX allows investors to buy and sell bonds in denominations of US$1,000 instead of the usual US$200,000, and through a public exchange.

Malaysian digital healthcare startup Naluri secures US$5M Series A; Investors include Integra Partners (lead), Duopharma Biotech, M Venture Partners, and Sumitomo Corporation; Naluri offers human-led and AI-augmented digital health coaching that aims to transform the lives of people who are at risk of, or managing, chronic and mental health conditions.

Indonesia’s financial wellness platform wagely bags US$5.6M; Investors include Integra Partners (led), ADB Ventures, GFC, 1982 Ventures; wagely’s earned wage access platform reduces financial stress for millions of low- and middle-income workers, who struggle with unexpected financial expenses between pay cheques.

Thailand’s automobile workshops digitalisation startup Autopair raises funding; Summit Auto Body Industry led the round; Autopair will use the capital to digitalise 1,000 independent automotive workshops; It also plans to expand into markets like Indonesia and Malaysia.

MooVita raises ‘multi-million dollars’ Series A to bring driverless cars to Singapore’s public roads; Investors are Yinson Green Technologies and SMRT Ventures; MooVita is developing a solution that could transform various vehicle types into autonomous ones for multitudinous driving conditions and applications.

Philippines files criminal complaint against scam-hit payment firm Wirecard’ ex-COO; Wirecard collapsed last June, owing creditors almost US$4B, accused by its auditor of a sophisticated global fraud; Former COO Jan Marsalek is accused of violating banking, cybercrime and e-commerce laws.

Korean VC STIC Ventures invests in Vietnamese men’s wear e-commerce brand Coolmate; Hanoi-based Coolmate claims to have clocked revenues of US$1.7M in 2020, at a growth rate of 15-20% per month; It previously raised funding from 500 Startups.

Plant-based egg startup Float Foods raises US$1.7M seed funding; Lead investors are Insignia Ventures and DSG Consumer Partners; Float Foods aims to optimise its plant-based whole egg substitute OnlyEg with nutritional enhancements and longer shelf life track for commercialisation in Singapore by 2022.

Grab, BRI Ventures team up to launch accelerator for startups in Indonesia; The Grab Ventures Velocity Batch 4 x Sembrani Wira will identify and develop post-seed startups in the country, whose products and services focus on catering to merchants and micro-entrepreneurs.

What entrepreneurs can learn from Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open; Mental health problems have been on the rise and those who work in fast-paced, high-stress environments such as startups can be at risk; Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open may reveal some surprising lessons that startup entrepreneurs can learn.

How early-stage startups can build a thought leadership strategy; The major thrust of your thought leadership should always be market education, especially in Asia where most consumer and enterprise tech industries are still relatively new.

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Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash

 

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Osome, a Singapore-based startup that has developed an accounting and corporate compliance app for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has secured US$16 million in a Series A funding.

Investors are Target Global (Berlin), AltaIR Capital, Phystech Ventures, and S16VC, besides Peng T. Ong, Managing Partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures.

The fresh capital will be used for international expansion and to fuel product integrations.

Also Read: What any founder needs to know about the art of accounting

This round comes about eight months after the startup received US$3 million from XA Network and AltaIR Capital.

Osome leverages Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques, combined with the experience of human experts, to solve the problem of time-consuming administrative tasks, such as payroll and secretarial work. This way, it aims to disrupt the fragmented accounting and corporate services industry.

Osome’s core offering is online accounting services for SMEs, especially those involved in e-commerce. The team plans to dive deeper in the e-commerce industry, launching more specific products and apps in the near future.

The company also helps with business set up and provides corporate secretary services. It checks compliance, tracks deadlines, files documents, and answers questions in a chat at any time of the day or week.

Also Read: Fintech startup Osome snags US$3M funding led by Target Global, preparing Hong Kong’s, UK’s expansion

The platform categorises, tags, and stores any documents you send to them, and then creates management reports, tax returns and does all necessary filing on time.

The firm claims it saw more than 100 per cent YoY revenue growth and US$9.5 million ARR with over 6,000 happy customers in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK.

Currently Osome has five offices in Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong and other countries with over 200 employees.

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Image Credit: Osome

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US-based tech company Nityo Infotech has invested US$100 million in Singapore-based embedded finance company MatchMove Pay in return for a significant equity stake.

With this investment, Nityo will become the largest shareholder in MatchMove.

Together, the two companies aim to empower clients to embed own-brand digital financial services in their own platforms and apps.

As per a press note, these fintech-powered platforms will enable MNCs, SMEs, families, and individuals to “instantly” access intuitive digital banking products.

Also Read: How fintech startups can fast forward their growth

MatchMove founder and CEO Shailesh Naik said: “Nityo brings us everything we need to grow: executive experience in growing and expanding a global tech company, thought leadership, growth capital, large and deep talent pools around the world, and existing relationships with many leading organisations.”

“This will immediately give us presence in 38 countries, combined with a massive ability to execute and deliver on the rising global demand for digital payments and embedded finance,” he added.

Nityo founder and CEO Naveen Kumar stated: “We are valuing the company (MatchMove) at US$500 million pre-money and US$600 million post money. With this investment and Nityo’s global strength, we are certainly looking to build a decacorn in the future, as we believe MatchMove is the most qualified soonicorn in the fintech space in Southeast Asia.”

MatchMove is a banking-as-a-service platform. It empowers its corporate clients to offer own-brand, secure and compliant digital payments, remittance, loans, insurance, and investments to their own customers (SMEs, families, and individuals).

Besides in Singapore, MatchMove has presence in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

MatchMove plans to launch programmes in Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Thailand by the end of 2021.

Prior to Nityo’s investment, MatchMove has secured over US$83 million via multiple rounds from investors, including NTT Venture Capital and Iconic World, as per the data compiled by Crunchbase.

In September 2019, MatchMove acquired a strategic equity stake in Singapore’s P2P lender MoolahSense for an undisclosed amount.

Also Read: Singapura Finance is the latest to join digital license race, partnering digital payment startup MatchMove

Established in 2006, Nityo offers services including infrastructure management services, outsourcing, system integration, application software development, IT consulting, IT security consulting, cloud computing, data science, big data analytics, industry specific products implementation & support, and quality assurance & training.

Nityo has operations in 38 countries and serves over 3,000 enterprise clients today.

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Image Credit: MatchMove

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Home to unicorn companies such as Gojek, Tokopedia, and Bukalapak, Indonesia is a promising launchpad for startups. But what makes the country so appealing to entrepreneurs?

According to Herman Widjaja, CTO of Tokopedia, “Indonesia is the country with the highest transaction value in Southeast Asia. The digital economy in the region also continues to grow in double digits, with e-commerce and online media sectors as the largest contributors. This growing potential for the digital economy acts as a catalyst for the booming startup scene.”

This year, we introduced the e27 Luminaries initiative as a way to celebrate the unsung heroes of the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem. We reached out to selected companies to nominate individuals that they felt have made a significant contribution to their success throughout the pandemic.

Far from being a one-hit-wonder, Indonesia almost dominated the e27 Luminaries list with a total of 14 startups. This proves that the local startup ecosystem is filled with players that are resilient enough to face the challenges of a pandemic.

Here are the companies that have made it to the list:

Finantier

A fintech startup that uses Open Finance API platform to provide infrastructure and data products with financial institutions to create “seamless and personalised” experiences for consumers, who can benefit from their data. The startup is currently still in its beta phase and is also a part of  Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 startup batch.

One being asked how Oloan rode out the challenges, he said, “I emphasized to the team the importance of communicating, especially when working remotely. I also introduced online collaboration tools to better track and manage work processes. This helped increase efficiency while reducing miscommunication. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of adapting and the team did well to roll with the changes,”.

Luminary: Victor Oloan

Role: Senior Engineering Manager

His impact: Building the platform from scratch amid a pandemic

Also Read: Despite the pandemic, these e27 Luminaries successfully spread their wings into new markets

GajiGesa

A financial wellness platform that aims to improve the long-term financial health of employees and companies by providing them with financial education, and other financial management tools.

Saragih said that putting the mission first and doing honest communication to the team about the intentions, and showing vulnerability was a crucial part of passing through the storm because “it’s the fears and anxieties that we all share, which draw us closer”.

Luminary: Ade Yuanda Saragih

Role: Country Head for Indonesia

His impact: Leading the company’s operation in Indonesia throughout the challenges put forth by COVID-19.

Gojek

A super app that was initially started as a motorcycle ride-hailing company but has since expanded to different verticals, like digital payments, food delivery, logistics, and many other on-demand services. It has recently announced its merger with fellow Indonesian unicorn Tokopedia.

Luminary: Severan Rault

Role: CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

His impact: Enhancing the platform and maintaining strong leadership

GudangAda

A B2B e-commerce platform for FMCG wholesalers, manufacturers, and retail businesses. Through its platform, traders can connect to meet and transact online with wholesalers and mom-pop retailers of all sizes.

Luminary: Andre Widjaja

Role: Chief of Business Development

His impact: Building the company’s sales and BD team and preparing it for expansion.

Also Read: A horse of another colour: Meet the 4 unicorns from e27 Luminaries

Inavoice

A one-stop solution for people in the creative industry who want to create their own audiovisual products. In addition to building a platform for voice-over talents which the startup began with, it has also expanded to include background music.

Luminary: Punto Adhil Dewanto

Role: Admin Staff

His impact: Establishing and running the company.

Jala Tech

Jala Tech is transforming the shrimp industry by offering a vastly improved management system. The goal of the company is to get farmers to make decisions based on actual data.  To do that, its system provides water quality monitoring, planning, and reporting tools, complete with a decision support system so that farmers can initiate the right treatment at the right time, based on data that has been collected and analysed.

Luminary: Christine Kombong

Role: BD Executive

Her impact: Helping the company’s community of shrimp farmers.

Koinworks

Brings together SMEs and lenders online under a single platform so that the former who have historically been underbanked by traditional financial institutions can borrow easily from the latter.

“Stand in your customer’s shoes. In KoinWorks, we know that COVID strikes hard for SMEs especially during the first hit, we are trying to understand their financial dilemma and craft a solution to reduce their stress and let them think about how to bounce back. So as COVID is the norm now, businesses are growing bigger than they are before because it’s just another lesson learned for their entrepreneurial journey,” said Jonathan Bryan CMO of Koinworks, on successfully enduring the pandemic.

Luminary: Jonathan Bryan

Role: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

His impact: Managing to maintain brand position amidst a challenging time.

Also Read: Meet the Singapore-based tech professionals of e27 Luminaries

MYCL

A fashion tech startup that cultivates mycelia (a type of fungus) along with sawdust to make a substitute for animal-based leather. Its designed process consumes far less water than the traditional animal-based leather-making processes.

Luminary: Jean Rosy Tency

Role: Head of HR

Her impact: Keeping the company’s morale high throughout the pandemic period.

OVO

A mobile app payment system that ensures that financial transactions are simple, instant, and secure. The platform provides its users with access to payments, transfers, cash-in/out, rewards, asset management, and investments.

Luminary: Jason Thompson

Role: CEO

His impact: Leading and growing the entire company.

Sociolla

An e-commerce platform for beauty products and a subsidiary of Social Bella, an integrated beauty-tech company that focuses on developing “a scalable and sustainable” online and offline ecosystem for beauty and personal care. One of its major goals is to empower customers to use local brands. 

Luminary: Ngoc Phungbich

Role: Chief Business Officer

Her impact: Driving successful expansion to Vietnam.

TaniHub

An agritech startup that focuses on bridging farmers to a wider market. Its business lines include TaniHub (an e-commerce platform for food and agricultural products), TaniFund (a P2P lending platform for farmers), and TaniSupply (a unit that works on improving agricultural supply chain).

Luminary: Astri Purnamasari

Role: VP Corporate Services

Her impact: Establishing a strong and robust company culture.

Tokopedia

An e-commerce giant that aims to build a super ecosystem where anyone can start and discover anything. The company works with various marketplaces, logistics, payments, and financial technology businesses, while also providing more than 500,000 payment points across Indonesia.

Despite the uncertainties that lied ahead, Tokopedia under the leadership of Widjaja made significant improvements to their technology.

One such example is how the team built a system capable of detecting unusual-priced healthcare products during the early phase of the pandemic after they noticed the rise in price and demand of such products.

Luminary: Herman Widjaja

Role: SVP and CTO

His impact: For his work in building a culture of innovation and teamwork as #OneTokopedia

Also Read: How Tokopedia managed customer experience and engagement amidst the pandemic

Xendit

A digital payment infrastructure company that enables businesses to accept digital payments without the need to implement integrations with individual providers. It has since expanded its services to include services such as fraud detection, lending, and tax management.

Luminary: Sujinun Jutakorn

Role: VP of Sales

Her impact: Leading the sales team and securing winning sales during the pandemic

Zenius

Zenius is an edutech startup that targets all education levels, from elementary school to senior high with public university test prep. The cost to subscribe to its online course starts from US$12 to US$46 per month. Zenius is said to already have a library of 80,000 educational videos.

Luminary: Rohan Monga

Role: CEO

His impact: Leading the introduction of new products to the market.

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Reflecting on the past year and a bit, it’s easy to feel as though time stood still. Lockdowns, working from home and travel restrictions have all contributed to a sense of hibernation. But below the surface, things are buzzing in many aspects of work and life. The pandemic has been an accelerator for technology usage. And companies that are looking to get ahead are accelerating their digitisation agendas.

While this is true of most companies, in the world of insurance, it is particularly relevant. After all, it’s a sector already in the midst of seismic change. Rapid advances in technology, changing customer behaviour and an environment where customers are looking for more protection are fundamentally changing the industry. For insurers, there’s an existential need to keep up.

At Manulife, the pandemic hasn’t been a catalyst for change per se, because change was already underway, since we embarked on our digital transformation journey several years earlier—a strategy taken up with real zeal in Asia. But the pandemic has upped the ante to change faster. Manulife has responded by doing just that, fast-tracking digitisation efforts across the region.

More than C$700 million (US$579 million) has been invested in new digital capabilities globally since 2018. As a result, customers in almost all of Manulife’s Asia markets can now submit claims electronically, including on their smartphones, while agents can close deals virtually and through electronic point of sales systems with auto underwriting built-in.

To further accelerate that rapid pace of digitisation, we wanted to tap the very dynamic fintech, insurtech and healthtech community in Asia. So, in December 2020, Manulife linked up with Brinc, a global venture capital and accelerator firm, to launch Manulife BOOST, a programme that is essentially designed to identify established start-ups with which to collaborate and form meaningful partnerships.

The idea is to have the winning startups work with Manulife’s Asia business units and innovation teams on proofs of concept to validate solutions that ultimately improve and protect people’s health and financial wellbeing—and then potentially scale those solutions to millions of customers across the region.

Also Read: From our community: SME financing, insurtech in APAC, branding lessons, and more

Twelve finalists, three key themes

Manulife BOOST received almost 300 applications when it opened for entries at the beginning of the year, and 190 of these met the programme criteria.

That number was whittled down over several rounds of selection to just 12 finalists, all with creative business ideas that are based around three key themes central to Manulife’s ambition to be the most digital, customer-centric global company in the industry: cultivating a health services ecosystem; creating personalised and impactful customer journeys; and boosting agent performance and productivity.

The final round, where each of the 12 start-ups pitched to Manulife leaders in Asia, took place in May. The two to three winning cohorts are now being selected to develop their ideas with Manulife in Asia, and will be announced in the coming months.

The themes for the programme are also framed against the pandemic and its impact on our lives and our work. Helping to inform that was our Asia Care Survey. The most recent survey findings, released in January, spotlighted some emergent trends that echoed feedback from insurance customers on the ground.

Among those surveyed in Asia, 92 per cent said they had increased monitoring their health and well-being, while 95 per cent are taking actions to improve their overall health. The survey showed that 71 per cent planned to buy insurance, while over half (52 per cent) said they prefer to manage their policies through digital means like mobile apps, including for claims and payments.

While speaking to insurance agents remains important, it found the use of digital tools for a self-service approach to be very popular. The findings were useful in highlighting how people have put renewed emphasis on their health and mental well-being.

This includes more exercise and healthier diets. The survey results also revealed the familiarity and liking people have for using wearables and other fitness trackers.

Also Read: How insurtech is changing the game in Southeast Asia

Benefits startups and Manulife alike

The BOOST programme has obvious benefits for Manulife, which can work with startups and support the development of new cutting-edge technology for the insurance sector. More generally, working with start-ups drives greater innovation and an agile mindset, while increasing the access and adoption of technology.

The exchange of ideas between different teams also nurtures fresh perspectives that, for the case of Manulife, helps address Asia’s rising health, protection and retirement needs.

For startups, a partnership with Manulife offers an invaluable experience, with learning and growth opportunities. They can have access to tools, resources and expertise via Manulife’s innovation lab, where teams of business strategists, experienced designers and engineers work with them exploring innovative technologies. The startups also have the opportunity to tap into Brinc’s global network of mentors, investors and service providers.

The 12 finalists comprise three on the customer journey, three on agent enablement, and six with a focus on the health services ecosystem.

Customer journey

• CareVoice, an integrated digital ecosystem for customer health management
• Insurely, a digital insurance wallet and marketplace
• Planner Bee, a digital financial and insurance aggregator

Agent enablement

• BeeFintech, a SaaS and CRM tool for insurance brokers and agents
• Gnowbe, a rapid authoring and collaborative learning tool
• Rallyware, a performance enablement solution to engage a distributed workforce

Health services ecosystem

• DocDoc, an AI-driven healthcare solution for insurers and employers
• EloCare, a menopausal diagnosis and tracking wearable and platform
• Homage, a personal care solution to provide on-demand holistic home caregiving to seniors
• Mixcare Health, a quality and affordable healthcare solution for SMEs
• OME Health, a personalised nutrition and coaching platform
• Pulse Active Stations, an AI- and IoT-enabled health kiosk for lifestyle diseases

They originate from a diverse set of geographies, including mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Sweden, the UK and the US, and are all looking to deploy their solution in Asia. All the finalists have at least a functional prototype and demonstrated product-market fit with proven customer traction.

Also Read: Why Asia’s insurance industry is poised for collaborative disruption

An intriguing mix of ideas

The mix of startups in the final is intriguing. On the health side, their specialisations include fitness and wellness, telemedicine, health kiosks, and care homes for the elderly. These are all big subjects in areas we’ve all heard so much about over the past year.

The other finalists cover end-to-end digital health services, insurance policy and financial data aggregation, performance management and learning, and a customer relationship management (CRM) solution for brokers.

Again, all essential ingredients for the insurance industry—if done well, can make a huge difference to addressing Asia’s growing health, protection and retirement needs.

All of the proposals submitted are highly relevant to our business and if they can pass the proof of concept, it would be easy to see them going to market—a Manulife one—in the not-too-distant future.

Regardless of the outcome, all the finalists will have achieved high visibility and will go away with meaningful feedback and recommendations on how to advance their ideas. For the winners—there will be two or three—it will mark the start of a collaboration with Manulife to hopefully bring their products to the fastest-growing as well as the most dynamic region in the world.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Many of us have seen the recent headlines featuring Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open due to her mental health condition. Osaka’s decision led to an outpour of support worldwide and even triggered The International Tennis Federation to review how tennis players and media interact during tournaments.

Mental health problems have been on the rise and those who work in fast-paced, high-stress environments such as startups can be at risk. Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open may reveal some surprising lessons that startup entrepreneurs can learn.

The balance between mental health and startup momentum

Today, more business leaders are aware that mental health impacts workplace productivity. As a startup work culture can be fast-paced, always prioritising business growth and moving the sales numbers upwards can lead to adverse effects on mental wellbeing.

According to a research study, Singaporeans have one of the highest rates of the major depressive disorder compared to eight other high-income nations. Statistics from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) also reveal that mental disorders are on the rise in Singapore.

Lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in Singapore

Researchers from IMH claim that the increase in lifetime prevalence of people experiencing a mental disorder could be due to increased awareness of mental disorders and more sources of stress.

Reportedly, more than three-quarters of the people with such conditions do not seek any form of professional help. While there are a handful of simple remedies to prevent mental health problems, here are four lessons from Naomi Osaka that can be applied to any startup work culture.

Learn to stand your ground and say no

Remember the last time someone asked for a favour and you wanted to say no but also felt the pressure to succumb to external demands? Did you stand your ground or did you go along to avoid confrontation? In our society where saying no might lead to a string of missed opportunities and repercussions, not many of us are brave enough to speak our mind.

Also Read: How to deal with stress: 8 practical tips for entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, you might think that pushing yourself over the limit is the winning formula to grow your business. However, always saying yes may lead to increased physical and mental deterioration that can cost more money down the road.

If there is one lesson to learn from Osaka’s encounter, it is her bravery to make choices based on her personal limits despite having to say no to more money-making opportunities. Fundamentally, knowing your stress limits and learning to say no is the key to maintaining a work-life balance.

Set healthy boundaries

As American author Napoleon Hill once said, “You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”

It’s better to set and control your own boundaries than to leave them in the hands of others. Setting boundaries is an important part of establishing one’s identity but it is also crucial for maintaining your business philosophy so that you can manage client expectations without over stretching your resources.

Boundaries can be physical or emotional, and they should strike a balance between being overly rigid and too versatile. Healthy boundaries fall somewhere in between.

Stay humble and apologise

While saying no and setting boundaries are perfectly justifiable for self-protection, it should be done humbly and mindfully. Like Osaka, startup leaders should not be afraid to define their role. But you should also be mindful that your actions may cause inconvenience to others. If so, be willing to face the situation humbly and apologise for any negative outcome.

A quick review of Osaka’s tweet may present some valuable tips on how to do this graciously. Be truthful about your boundaries, be brave enough to own up to any shortcomings and limited abilities, sincerely apologise without reservation.

Focus on solutions at the right time

Osaka’s solution was recognising her limits and putting a stop to her work so that she can regain mental wellness, what’s yours? All too often, the first thing we do in the face of a problem is focused on the negative situation. This could mean overextending yourself to meet a client’s unreasonable demands or working past regular hours to meet deadlines.

Also Read: Overworking is not sustainable, and these 4 steps will help you become proactive in dealing with stress

When you choose to focus on the problems instead of implementing workable solutions and processes with long-term benefits, you’re allowing the same problems to repeat themselves. To turn failure into a gift and grow through stressful times instead of just casually going through them, you need to focus on resolving the underlying cause of those problems.

Whether this means finding business loans or better credit facilities for your startup, or leveraging technology to handle tedious tasks, focusing on solutions at the right time can be a game-changer for you and your business.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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BondEvalue, an electronic bond trading startup in Singapore, has raised US$6 million in Series A round of fund raising from a slew of investors, including MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia and Citigroup.

Existing shareholders Potato Productions, a company helmed by entrepreneur Lee Han Shih, and Octava, a Singapore-based family office, also joined the round.

This brings the total capital raised by BondEvalue to US$10 million.

BondEvalue will use the proceeds from the new round to increase its international members.

Also Read: What entrepreneurs can learn from Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open

The startup also announced a joint venture (JV) in Mexico to form a Peso bond exchange and represents the first local currency expansion by BondEvalue.

BondEvalue was established in 2016 to provide electronic bond trading and to make bond investments accessible to a wider group of individual investors.

The company’s proprietary technology and enterprise-grade blockchain enables BondbloX investors to buy and sell bonds in denominations of US$1,000 instead of the usual US$200,000, and through a public exchange where prices are highly transparent.

The platform operates on a B2B2C model and connects to the end investor via their bank or broker.

BondEvalue Information services brings innovation to bond price discovery, AI-based news, analytics, and delivers these services via mobile, web and APIs.

Last October, it received a Recognised Market Operator (RMO) approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to operate BondbloX Bond Exchange, the world’s first fractional bond exchange.

Co-founder and CEO Rahul Banerjee said: “We are focused on executing our mission of bringing bond investing to the so-called HENRYs (High earners, not rich yet), who hitherto were unable to buy bonds.”

Anvesh Ramineni, Managing Director at MassMutual Ventures, said: “Investing in corporate bonds has typically been out of reach for most retail investors in Asia. BondEvalue is changing that by bringing greater transparency and democratising access to the fixed income asset class.”

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Image Credit: BondEvalue

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BukuWarung, a fintech firm that helps Indonesia’s micro SMEs digitise their business, has raised US$60 million in Series A funding.

American VC firm Valar Ventures led the round, along with fintech unicorns Wise, N26, and Goodwater Capital.

Former GoPay CEO Aldi Haryopratomo and Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, as well as partners from SoftBank and Trihill Capital, also participated.

This brings the two-year-old company’s total funding raised so far to US$80 million.

The fresh capital will be used to enhance the company’s tech and product capabilities across its core accounting, digital payments, and commerce products. They include building a robust payments infrastructure to solve deeper use cases for Indonesian merchants such as QR payments and financial services.

Furthermore, it plans to double its team size to 300 and triple its engineering and product teams across Indonesia, Singapore, and India, as well as remote teams in other locations.

Chinmay Chauhan and Abhinay Peddisetty (former executives at Carousell and Grab) founded BukuWarung with the vision to digitalise Indonesia’s 60 million MSMEs.

Also Read: BukuWarung raises strategic financing from Rocketship to help Indonesian MSMEs improve bookkeeping process

They launched an app for micro-businesses that could help them improve the bookkeeping process by tracking daily transactions, including cash flow, credit, expense, and sales.

The company also recently launched a Shopify-equivalent, called Tokoko, which allows MSMEs to create online storefronts and sell their products.

Over the last six months, BukuWarung claims to have recorded over US$15 billion worth of transactions and US$500 million in payments. The team size grew 5x to around 150 people over this period.

“BukuWarung is already a market leader in MSME digital payments growing in a cost-effective and sustainable manner since its inception. This investment will further help us build an operating system for MSMEs, creating a positive socio-economic impact across Indonesia as the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Peddisetty.

“COVID-19 continues to expose the vulnerabilities of Indonesian MSMEs who remain a linchpin of the national economy. We have since seen the ecosystem rally between stakeholders — big and small – to accelerate the MSMEs’ digitalization by improving their operational resilience and market reach. From my experience, BukuWarung is not only building on such efforts but also emerged as one of the key actors accelerating this much-needed transformation,” added Aldi Haryopratomo, former CEO of
GoPay.

The company most recently secured an undisclosed amount of financing from Rocketship.

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Image Credit: BukuWarung

 

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Las week, we learned why building thought leadership was essential for your fundraising efforts. This week, we will focus on the ‘how’.

While every founder in Asia Pacific understands that they need to be a thought leader (check out the effort our contributors put in), more often than not, it is ad hoc.

Finding time to speak at (virtual) conferences, networking with journalists to be interviewed and build your your own fan base via LinkedIn and other writing platforms is a lot to juggle with the tasks of running a startup.

And it is this very juggling that makes most of them sound like a content marketing studio. They fail to realise that thought leadership is not just about your product and its features — it is a reflection of your thoughts put forth confidently.

This week, I would like to enlist some tips for you to keep in mind to build your own thought leadership strategy especially when you do not have personnel to take care of it.

What to do

• Thought leadership distinguishes you and your brand from others. Events, podcasts and blogs can help you build leads, future investors, and even increase consumer base. But bear in mind that it is a slow process and yields no instant returns. It is a consistent and long-term process.
• Its starts with you. As the founder you are the face of the company and should work on enhancing your PR and marketing skills. Freely share your views about the industry and what’s happening at your startup via your company blog, LinkedIn, Twitter or more. Once the startup grows, the founder can take a backseat, but don’t stop doing it.
• As your startup grows, it’s important to know who participates in where. Divide and plan all your thought leadership efforts. Slowly, a startup can involve its technologist, sales and market leaders, or even HR executives to share their company practices, product know-how, etc.
• Steer clear of product marketing. It should not be the thrust of your thought leadership. You never want to appear as just a salesman hawking his products. No one, after all, likes to be sold to. What people do appreciate, on the other hand, is having their problems solved.
• The major thrust of your thought leadership should always be market education, especially in Asia, where most consumer and enterprise tech industries are still relatively new (at least compared to Silicon Valley).

Where to start

• Start a company blog if you can. But let it not just talk about your products, but also about what’s happening at your company, how you make decisions, etc. This will help engage all your stakeholders.
• Join Telegram groups or communities and network your way with peers. The e27 Facebook community is a great place to start. You can not only share your views and tips but also learn from others and stay up to date with industry sentiment.
• Contributor posts at media such as e27, Inc42, Forbes, etc. Contributed posts are a good break from story pitch and press release and an easy way to earn bylines for key members of your company. LinkedIn is a great tool too and the best way for brands to put company updates out there.

Anyone can become a thought leader and benefit from the added visibility. All you need are passion, expertise, and honesty, says Muara Makarim, who has helped startups such as Shopee and Circles.Life at their PR and thought leadership game.

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Image credit: Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

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MooVita, an autonomous vehicle (AV) tech startups based in Singapore, has raised multi-million dollar amount in a Series A round of investment, led by Yinson Green Technologies Division, a subsidiary of Malaysian energy infrastructure company Yinson Holdings.

SMRT Ventures, the corporate venture arm of SMRT Corporation, also participated in the round.

This investment marks Yinson’s first foray into the mobility space.

MooVita will use the funds to accelerate the development, commercialisation and international expansion of its driverless solutions — beginning with the deployment of driverless solutions for public transportation and the urban environment.

As per a press note, these plans are aligned with Singapore’s “Sustainable Singapore Blueprint”, which sets out to achieve a cleaner and greener transport system by 2030.

Also Read: Vietnam launches first autonomous vehicle

“With this injection of capital, we will focus on advancing our driverless technologies, building a fleet of driverless shuttle buses and safe on-road operations, expediting the deployment of the MooVita’s driverless public transport solutions across Asian urbanscapes, starting from Singapore and Malaysia,” said co-founder Dilip Limbu.

Established in 2016, MooVita is specialised in designing and deploying roadworthy autonomous vehicles in urban cities worldwide. It is currently developing a component-based driverless software solution, which transforms various vehicle types into versatile autonomous vehicles for multitudinous driving conditions and applications, such as first/last-mile transportation, logistic transportation, agriculture, and utility solutions.

Headquartered in Singapore, Moovita also has offices in Malaysia and India.

MooVita’s early investors include Pioneer Smart Sensing Innovations Corporation (a consolidated subsidiary of Pioneer Corporation), SEEDS Capital and GreenMeadows Accelerator.

According to Digital News Asia, the company was also the first to receive approval to test its autonomous vehicle in Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

“Our plan is to replace existing infrastructure and develop innovative business solutions in order to make transportation sustainable through the adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies. The co-investment into MooVita presents a wonderful opportunity to contribute back to the sustainable transportation infrastructure in Singapore,” commented Yinson Group Vice President Eirik Barclay.

“We are adopting a targeted strategy where we tap into our existing strengths in logistics solutions, energy infrastructure, and renewables; and focus on the geo-markets where we’re currently active. We believe that this approach will help us to build profitable, disruptive businesses, that meet the needs created by the global climate action agenda,” added Yinson Group Chief Strategy Officer, Daniel Bong.

According to KPMG’s latest Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index, Singapore holds first place for autonomous vehicle (AV) policy and regulation and second for infrastructure — surpassed only by the Netherlands — and is widely recognised as a global leader in AV development.

Some of the other AV companies currently active in the region include nuTonomy, Red Dot Robotics, and OpenSourceSDC.

According to data compiled by Tracxn, there are 10 smart car startups in Singapore as of 2020.

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Image Credit: MooVita

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