Vietnamese startup Luxstay completed a bridge round of funding, with two Korean investors pitching in

Luxstay, Vietnam-based startup that focusses on premium travel accommodations, has just completed their bridge round of funding with the participation of two new investors from Korea: GS Home Shopping (GS Shop) and Bon Angels. This brought the total of the deal to US$4.5 million, which the company claimed to be a substantial amount of early-stage investment for a Vietnamese tech startup.

Luxstay was founded in 2017 by Steven Nguyen, offering a home-sharing platform that targets the Southeast Asia market and operating in Vietnam.

According to statistics from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam served about 80 million domestic and 15.6 million foreign tourists in 2018 alone. Total spending on tourism in 2018 amounted to US$25 billion, of which the accommodation sector accounted for 28 per cent, or equivalent to about US$7 billion.

With the statistics showing growth, the Vietnamese government strongly encourages the tourism sector to become a key economic sector in the next 5 years with government support and promotion policies. Backed by the promising number of supply from the real estate market, apartments and villa projects have been launched in Vietnam.

While the market of home-sharing is still fairly new in Vietnam, the revenue from these short-term rental activities in 2018 amounts to over US$100 million, as shown in Statista reports.

Also Read: Ex-Tiket co-founder Natali Ardianto to open new healthtech startup

Luxstay’s focus on premium products and domestic tourists, the company claimed, is what sets it apart. In order to help business partners and homeowners save time and effort, Luxstay has dedicated team members to support them in operating and managing real estate assets.

GS Home Shopping, one of the new investors, is Korea’s multimedia retailer that dominates TV home shopping. It has a corporate Venture Capital arm that invests through fund as well as direct investments. The other investor is BonAngels, who’s known as venture capital fund that focusses on investing in early-stage companies startups in Korea such as Woowa Brothers, Daily Hotels, and My Real Trip.

In the past, Luxstay had records of names like CyberAgent Venture (Japan), Genesia Ventures (Japan), ESP Capital (Singapore), Founders Capital (Singapore), and Nextrans (Korea) among its investors.
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And how can it be used to make the world a better place?

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the most interesting discussion topic in the technology industry. It is simultaneously hailed as a savior to mankind or a destructive force that will leave everyone unemployed. As with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The next question is, what will this middle look like? What will the next few years look like? And how can it be used to improve the lives of regular people.

Scott Jones, the Managing Director of Six Kin, an artificial intelligence development company, spoke at Echelon Asia Summit 2019 and provided fantastic insights into the past, present and future of the industry.

Three waves

The most important thing to understand is that the history of AI can be broken down into three waves.

The first wave is already over, having ended in the mid-20oos. It has based on a highly logical “model-based approach” that laid the roadwork for the industry. Good examples of first wave artificial intelligence are computers that can play chess, Google Maps and software that can help complete legal paperwork.

Today we are in the second wave of artificial intelligence.

“The second wave of AI has been dominated by statistical machine learning techniques, made possible by advances in computing power and access to bigger data,” said Jones. 

Also Read: This on-demand cleaning startup adjusts with the needs of Singapore’s market

This is the ability for AI to learn over time. The most famous examples are when Google’s AlphaGo beat a world champion and the continuing push towards self-driving cars.

However, second wave AI is far from perfect and while it sometimes seems like we are on the verge of a Terminator-style take over, that is not really the case.

Jones brought up the metaphor of a golf cart vs. an automobile. Today, cutting edge technology can reasonably drive a car around a parking lot without any incident. However, if someone were to take the same technology and throw it into a golf cart, the AI would have no clue how to operate the vehicle.

This is the key difference between AI and a human, who could easily figure out a golf cart after a minute of looking around.

Another interesting example is that if someone showed an AI computer a picture of a cat, the computer should be able to use statistical analysis to pinpoint that the picture is a cat. However, it would not be able to explain, “what is a cat”.

Finally, even these impressive feats are based on an enormous quantity of data. It takes engineers thousands and thousands of data sets to teach an AI machine, “this is a cat” whereby it only takes two or three explanations to get across the same point to a toddler.

Jones expects the second wave will continue to improve, but humanity won’t break into the third wave until the 2030s.

The third wave

The big step needed from the third wave of AI technology is expertise in managing abstract intelligence and contextual awareness.

“Instead of being fed enormous sets of labeled training data, Third Wave AI systems will learn from descriptive contextual models,” said Jones.

Also Read: Travel accommodation Luxstay secures funding from GS Shop & Bon Angels

This means, when an AI robot sees a cat, it will not churn through thousands of mathematical formulas to statistically decipher that the animal is a feline. Rather, it will see ‘whiskers, claws, tail, desire-to-destroy-hooman’ and immediately recognise it as a cat.

Essentially, AI will be excellent at perceiving, learning and reasoning. Importantly, this will require an ability to generalise, aka being able to understand that a golf cart probably works like a car.

If this happens, robots should be able to learn and function with minimal supervision.

Introducing Pandai

With this context in mind, Jones introduced his education product called Pandai (‘Smart’ in Bahasa Indonesia).

The best way to think of Pandai is the ‘next generation of e-learning’.

As Jones said, students across the world think, “e-learning equals no learning”. It is generally static and technology limits most platforms to a one-size-fits-all approach towards education.

Pandai is trying to replicate the advantages of a human teacher — being able to react to students, understanding when someone is weak in a subject, access updated knowledge and being available.

Jones said the technology is not quite there, but as a former educator he and his wife are passionate about making it happen. He pointed to 265 million kids across the world who are not in school, and that 22 per cent of them are primary school age.

Solving these kinds of problems can make for a better world, and help turn artificial intelligence into a tool for good.

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Startups can often focus on the wrong metrics. This strategy will put you on the right path

Move fast and break things, that is the goal right? Startups need to create big, audacious, goals, take on a heroic task and constantly iterate to eventually become rich. This is the key to success for any young company.

Except it’s not.

Radhika Dutt, a Product Development Executive, outlined a new approach — one that focusses on impact and puts the long-term goal ahead of short-term victories. And while it sounds like an ethical approach to business, it is equally about improving the chances of finding success.

“For every company that has been able to become successful, there is a graveyard of companies that have failed using this approach,” Dutt said. 

Prior to diving into the radical product thinking, Dutt broke down the traps that many startups fall into. They are as follows:

Hero Syndrome: This is the problem of focussing on scale instead of making a real impact. It often involves trying to sell people products they neither want nor need. Or, it might mean expanding rapidly but offering a poor product.

Hypermetricimia: An issue that arises when Founders focus on popular metrics that don’t actually matter. This could mean focussing to much on MAUs without caring about if people actual spend time on the app.

Obsessive Sales Disorder: When companies start taking easy wins instead of learning to say no they can sabotage their ability to achieve long term goals. Think about it, if a Founder signs a bunch of deals that helps the bottom line, they may find themselves with a full year of deliverables that need to be executed and kills the bandwidth to move the startup forward.

Obviously there is a line that needs to be navigated. Startups have to survive, but they also can’t get chained down by deals that don’t move the business forward.

Pivotitis: This one is fairly self-explanatory. Companies can often struggle to define their direction and wind up constantly pivoting and going nowhere.

How to think about radical product development

The best part of Dutt’s talk was she provided concrete, tangible advice for business owners to implement. It starts with three core ideas which are :

1. Find the problem you are inspired to fix
2. Envision the world you are aiming for
3. Engineer your way to getting there

Find the problem you are inspired to fix

While the headline itself is used across the startup world, Dutt approached the brief from a different angle. She brought up the example of Margaret Hamilton, the engineer who was a key person in the first lunar moon landing.

Dutt was able to interview Hamilton, who told her that she felt personally responsible for the lives of the astronauts. With this mindset, Hamilton approached the project thinking, “Everything that could go wrong will try hard to do so.” This allowed her to envision problems and fix them before they happened on the mission.

For startups operating in a less life-or-death environment, they need to observe the people they want to impact, feel their pain and then envision the world where they fix their problems.

Envisioning the world you want to create

When Facebook was growing as a company, they envisioned ‘a more connected world’ and did a fantastic job of achieving that goal. However, they failed to envision how people would leverage this for political gains or raise concerns about personal privacy. Now we see a company that cannot consistently react to controversies and criticisms.

Also Read: Busting the myths around AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud at Echelon 2019

Dutt said the vision, “Has to be shared by you, the team and the people’s lives you want to impact. Nodding along and saying ‘yes, I do want that world’.”

If a Founder meets a lot of people and they say the product is a bad idea, then listen and rethink the approach.

How do you create such a world

Dutt shared a wonderful Mad Libs-type of approach to finding an strategy to solve problems. It is as follows:

Today when [IDENTIFIED GROUP] want to [DESIRABLE OUTCOME] want to [CURRENT ACTIVITY] this is unacceptable, because [SHORTCOMINGS]. We envision a world where [SHORTCOMINGS ARE RESOLVED]. We’re bring this world about through [BROAD APPROACH AND TECHNOLOGY].

Not only does this help guide decision making, it helps customers clearly understand the company.

Engineer the world

Rather than ramming your way into a customer base and break everything along the way, Dutt suggests systematically integrating the vision into day-to-day life.

Ride-hailing in Southeast Asia is a good example of that. It started as just a taxi service, so people became familiar with the product. Then they added food delivery, then ticket redemption, then retail deals, then financial planning. Suddenly, the apps have become a necessary part of the lives of millions of people.

If they had launched with all of their products on day one, it would have been overwhelming to users would have rejected it.

In conclusion, radical product development is way of approaching business that tries to make ‘impact’ the star. It aims to cut through the noise, avoid easy mistakes and help 

startups build a loyal and enthusiastic customer base.

More information (and a free toolkit) can be found here.

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GDP Venture invests in the Indonesian startup to support its plan on data labeling NLP-based apps

Datasaur, a data labeling platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) based in Indonesia, has received a seed round of funding from GDP Venture as reported by DailySocial.

Datasaur was founded by Ivan Lee, who’s a Computer Science graduate from Stanford University living in Silicon Valley. Behind AI trend that keeps evolving, there’s a human-labeled training machine that’s time-consuming and expensive, which inspired the establishment of Datasaur.

Datasaur developed an intelligent tool to support data labelers with efficient and automated ways of data labeling while simultaneously increasing data privacy and security.

The system, according to Lee, uses an AI-based and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-supported that proactively suggest labels. Any labeled data that’s not coherent with the previous tag labeling or contextually out-of-place will be subjected to verification.

Project manager then can manage how many times every data will be labeled to guarantee accuracy.

At this early stage, Datasaur’s service is still focussed on text-based data input. Datasaur said it plans to expand its services into audio-based data input as well.

Also Read: Indonesian “1000 Startups” initiative being renewed by the government

“We are still open for any additional participation from potential strategic partners in this seed round,” said Datasaur team.

Prior to Datasaur, founder Ivan Lee co-founded Loki Studio with three of his Stanford friends, before it was acquired by Yahoo in 2013. Yahoo then appointed Lee as its first Associate Product Manager, responsible for developing the company’s mobile search platform with AI.

Lee, whose stints then included VP of Product di GoButler and AI Product team in Apple, based Datasaur’s business in both California and Indonesia.
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The winner will receive S$50,000 in grants from Enterprise SG, in addition to a Unicorn chalice made by SIEGE

As the two day-long Echelon Asia Summit 2019 draws to a close, the 10 finalists selected from the Top 100 startups in Southeast Asia will pitch for the championship title before an expert panel of judges at 04:00 pm in Singapore today.

The top two winners will receive S$50,000 each in grants from Enterprise SG. The title winner —  TOP100 Champion –will also be awarded with a “Unicorn” chalice made by SIEGE.

Other TOP100 finalists will also receive mini chalices made by SIEGE.

Below is a brief of the 10 startups:

BeamAndGo (Philippines): BeamAndGo caters to needs and solves the remittance pain of overseas Filipino workers. A payment and digital marketplace, the startup empowers migrant workers by giving them control over how their remittances are spent by their families.

DRVR (Thailand): Headquartered in Bangkok, DRVR provides a fleet intelligence platform for the logistics industry. Its fleet intelligence platform helps businesses reduce the cost of operating vehicles. The firm uses telematics that allows devices to send and receive information across large distances to track vehicle performance, driver behaviour, unscheduled stops, etc.

Also Read: Busting the myths around AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud at Echelon 2019

Ecomobi (Singapore): It is a social selling platform, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Ecomobi seeks help e-commerce companies direct sales towards social networks. Its algorithm allows social influencers to monetise their traffic via access to e-commerce inventories and connect with brands instantaneously, optimising both cost-per-acquisition and revenue.

GLife Tech (Singapore): A farm-to-fork platform, GLife connects farmers with restaurants, ensuring that their produces move through the supply chain efficiently.

JupViec (Vietnam): The startup aims to change the traditional domestic workers industry in the country by connecting domestic workers with customers online. It aims to create social impacts by improving the life of Vietnamese women.

Lizuna (Japan): It serves to help e-commerce businesses detect and prevent fraudulent orders via its product Beacon, which combines elements of Big Data and SMS to deliver false information detection, curation of mobile data points and fine-tuning.

H3 Dynamics (Singapore): A digital platform that fully automates and simplifies the use of security and industrial asset inspection drone operations, enabled by cutting-edge AI, robotics and energy storage technologies.

Ravenry (Indonesia): An on-demand desk research platform, Ravenry generates actionable insights for your business within 48 hours by combining human, technology, and data. It works with companies by supporting them in commercial due diligence, market analysis, competitor and technology scanning, and leads generation.

Real Estate Doc (Singapore): It is a next-generation software that aims to revolutionise the managing of commercial real estate leasing businesses. Powered by blockchain, its platform claims to facilitate secure, immutable and legally binding transactions between parties using smart contracts.

Toku World (Singapore): It builds a communication platform that enables businesses to interact with their (potential) customers via audio, text and video messaging APIs across all the available channels, regardless of the technologies or systems that they use.

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Despite challenges, there are plenty of opportunities for insurtech startups in the region, according to Sunday Ins CEO Cindy Kua

Insurtech is one of the most promising branches of fintech, yet in the Southeast Asian region there is an impression that there are not that many companies operating in the sector. This case is especially true when compared to other segments such as e-commerce.

This is why, for those who work on the sector, there are plenty of opportunities to succeed at various level.

Responding to this hypothesis on the first day of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 at Singapore Expo on Thursday, May 23, Cindy Kua, CEO of Thailand-based insurtech startup Sunday Ins stressed that insurance is basically a “very complex” industry.

“The challenge with Southeast Asia is that it is still in very early stage for insurtech,” Kua told e27 Editor Kevin MsSpadden in a fireside chat.

“For founders and startups … the challenge is in how you play in this market. Because the entire value chain can be disrupted,” she continued.

Kua explained that when the co-founders decided to build Sunday, they had to figure out on which aspect of the insurance business they are going to focus on: From implementing artificial intelligence to solve a specific pain point to delving in insurance brokering.

Also Read: 8 tech and startup events happening next week, and even one on Sunday

The ability to differentiate is crucial as even companies such as Grab and Google at some time were looking to become an insurance aggregator.

“When we started in 2017, we decided that we want to be insurer ourselves. Our main differentiation factor is that we are risk experts. We adsorb and manage the risks, and we deploy that in a highly localised market like Southeast Asia,” Kua said.

She further explained that in the region, insurance marketing is still predominantly run by agents and intermediaries.

In the case of Thailand, Kua pointed out that motor insurance remains the most popular type of insurance as it is compulsory for vehicle owners to have one. Its popularity is followed by comprehensive car insurance, which is also required when vehicle owners are applying for financing.

As for competition, in the kingdom there are 16 life insurance companies operating, and Kua did not hesitate to admit that her company is competing with them.

“But there are a lot of rooms for startups and new companies. Because even the incumbents are looking for something new to stay ahead and they are struggling,” Kua said.

Also Read: This is how Indonesians read news online: On their smartphones on Sundays

As an end-to-end insurtech platform, Sunday Ins looks after the sales and after-sales services for various insurance products, from motor to healthcare.

Their products are customisable, and each customer is provided with an app that includes features such as panic button for emergencies. For example, if a car insurance policy holder experiences an accident, by using the panic button, the customer can have a surveyor being dispatched to his location immediately.

In the future, Sunday Ins is looking forward to introduce self-service feature.

In February, the company made headline with a US$10 million funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.

According to Kua, the factor that enabled Sunday to seal the deal was the licence play.

“When you bring a licence into the deal, it started to become more complex. It is the go-to-market strategy that, I believe, has bought them,” Kua stressed.

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In a bid to expand its presence in Southeast Asia, WeWork opens the first two locations in Bangkok, Thailand

WeWork, the co-working space network, has landed in Bangkok, Thailand. The first two locations are located at the Asia Centre Building and the T-One Building, as reported by The Bangkok Post.

The Asia Centre location also becomes the home of WeWork Labs, WeWork’s innovation platform, as a part of its Southeast Asia expansion, that also becomes a milestone for WeWork in its mission of supporting the startup ecosystem.

“WeWork is committed to being a partner to help the country achieve its Thailand 4.0 vision by acting as a launch pad. As our footprint grows in Thailand, we see huge potential for serving demand, from MSMEs [micro, small and medium) to Fortune 500 companies looking for an efficient solution for flexible spaces, along with accelerating their business in the local ecosystem empowered by a global network,” said Turochas Fuad, managing director of WeWork Southeast Asia.

Krithpaka Boonfueng, deputy executive director for innovation systems at the National Innovation Agency (NIA), also emphasised on how startups in Thailand need the global and Southeast Asian perspectives to attract investment. “NIA will work with WeWork Labs to stimulate the growth of local startups and is confident that closer partnerships with the private sector will pave the way for strengthening Thailand’s local ecosystem”, she said.

WeWork has 19 locations in Southeast Asia, including in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur.

Also Read: Indonesian “1000 Startups” initiative being renewed by the government

Adrian Tan, head of WeWork Labs Southeast Asia, said Bangkok’s WeWork Labs is the second location in Southeast Asia, demonstrating Thailand’s position as an innovation hub for local and global players. The WeWork Labs space provides early-stage startups with resources to help their business grow.
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The Singapore remittance startup strikes partnership with the Thai Banking Group Kasikornbank

Digital remittance company based in Singapore InstaRem has partnered with Thailand’s Kasikornbank, joined in on the initiative to strengthen the company’s influence in the institutional payments space.

The agreement would see the Singapore startup facilitates cross-border payments for the bank’s clients in select markets, as reported by FiNews Asia.

“With InstaRem, KBank clients will be able to have faster turnarounds, while providing certainty on delivery times and payout amounts,” said Prajit Nanu, co-founder, and CEO of InstaRem.

Kasikornbank is Thailand’s second-largest bank in the country in terms of total assets, which currently is at US$96.9 billion.

InstaRem announced the close of its US$41-million Series C funding round back in March. The company claimed that it has since been using the funding to support growth and expansion to new markets, including opening a regional headquarters in Latin America and expanding its teams in London and Seattle.

Also Read: WeWork lands in Bangkok, Thailand marking Southeast Asia expansion

InstaRem already has a presence in 40+ countries in Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe with its service that allows low-cost cross-border payments to 55+ countries.
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Asia is a promising market for major tech companies, but there are factors that they often forget to count in

In May, chat and messaging API and SDK developer SendBird announced that they have raised an additional US$50 million to their US$52 million Series B funding round –bringing the total number to US$102 million.

The number was mind-blowing as it was bigger than what giants such as Uber, Zoom, and Lyft raised in their respective Series B funding round.

However, the average joes and janes might not be familiar with the company’s identity. But once their leading clients such as Go-Jek and Carousell were mentioned, it would be easy to recognise the works that they have done.

“We want to empower our businesses and customers by not getting them distracted by chat building and maintenance … We take care of the entire back to front technology,” SendBird APAC Sales Manager Yeji Yoon explained to e27 Editor Kevin McSpadden on the second day of Echelon Asia Summit 2019 at Singapore Expo, Friday, May 24.

Messaging services itself tend to scale really fast, especially when it is included in a platform that handles millions of users on a regular basis. How does SendBird maintain consistency as it scales rapidly?

Also Read: 15 more companies will join us as exhibitors for Echelon Asia Summit 2019

“We invest in chat technology. We have invested hundreds of million in chat technology, and now we have another millions to invest in it. Today, for example, we process over a billion messages a month in 12,000 apps,” the manager explained.

“Scalability is actually what we specialise in,” she stressed.

SendBird has its root in both America and Asia. While their headquarter is located in San Mateo, California, their APAC headquarter is located in Seoul.

With a total of five offices in the continent, SendBird sees Asia as a promising market.

“Asia is part of our DNA and it is a huge market. Especially since we have empowered so many innovative unicorns out there,” Yeji Yoon said.

Also Read: 2019: A hell of a year for marketers with chat and voice bots

“If you look at GDP growth, population growth, and mobile penetration adoption, it is natural to say that all these huge apps are going to come out of Asia, and that it makes sense to have a SaaS company that targets the Asian market,” she continued.

However, entering Asia is not without its own challenges. Major tech companies such as Uber had tried to tackle the market before, yet somehow unable to navigate the cultural differences between the regions.

This is why SendBird puts a strong emphasis on diversity.

“One of our core values is global citizenship. We were born out of Asia and we are optimised in Asia as much as we optimised globally,” Yeji Yoon explained.

“We embrace diversity and we try to be as local as possible by providing local support. We also build up a culture and investing in it to continuously serve all of our customers,” she added.

Also Read: Inspired by the lack of reproductive health awareness in Myanmar, Myhealthcare allows patients to chat with doctors

In choosing a potential partner or client, SendBird considers how its services can add value for the company’s works itself.

“We do not want to be just another call centre,” she concluded.

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The Chinese venture capital firm claimed that they manage a total of US$ 1 billion in assets

Chinese venture capital firm ZWC Ventures announced that it has closed its first fund for Southeast Asia and China at US$ 150 million, as reported by KrAsia.

Jason Jiang, who’s among ZWC’s largest limited partners (LPs), is the founder and chairman of Focus Media, which is one of China’s largest private media and advertising companies. ZWC’s other LPs include corporates, fund of funds, family offices, and high net worth individuals in mainland China and Hong Kong.

ZWC Ventures plans to invest in early to late-stage startups in the e-commerce, social commerce, fintech, and AI sectors. The amount of investment to be made will have an average size of US$500,000 to US$10 million for early-stage investments and US$10 million to US$60 million for growth-stage investments.

It plans to add another US$300 million into the region in the next three years, which will be a part of the US$500 million second fund ZWC wants to start putting together in Q3 this year.

So far, ZWC Ventures said it has directed a total of US$100 million to five investments in the region so far, including Singapore-based online tuition startup Tenopy and Indonesian media company Target Media Indonesia. The firm also confirmed that it invested in an unnamed Indonesian e-commerce platform and is currently examining potential investments in an Indonesian logistics first-mile provider and Singapore-based AI startup.

Also Read: InstaRem joins Thai bank to launch multi-currency payment feature

In an official statement, co-founder and partner of ZWC Ventures Terrance Lok said that the firm is also interested in sub-sectors, including those that enable e-commerce, like first-mile fulfillment logistics and supply chain fintech.

The firm has a partnership with a venture builder arm, Zynergy, who allocates US$500,000 to US$1 million initial seed funding for each selected startup which will have access to Zynergy’s network of entrepreneurs and investors in China. The firm plans to work with at least five Southeast Asian startups through Zynergy program this year.
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