With the New Protein Fund, Big Idea Ventures aims to tap into opportunities provided by growing interests in plant-based diet

New York- and Singapore-based venture capital (VC) firm Big Idea Ventures has made the first close of its US$50 million plus fund that is aimed for companies working on the development of new protein alternatives –or meat replacement.

US meat supplier giant Tyson Food has backed the fund, which also included anchor investor Temasek.

The fund has already made its first close in March and aims to close with the targeted number within the next 12 months.

In an interview with e27, Big Idea Ventures Managing GP Andrew Ive explained that in the first stage of investment, the firm plans to invest US$250,000 in about 100 global companies.

Twenty-five to 50 of those companies will be based in Asia while the rest will be based in North America.

“Within the next two to three years, we will start looking into China and Europe,” he said.

Also Read: Zone Startups announces winners of second annual Next Big Idea contest

There are three categories that the New Protein Fund is focussing on: Plant-based food products, Plant-based food ingredients and technology, and cell-based meats.

The New Protein Fund has made its first investment into Shiok Meat, a Singapore-based startup that is developing lab-grown seafood and meat.

Co-founded by Sandhya Sriram, PhD and Ka Yi Ling, PhD, Shiok Meat harvested crustacean “meat” from cells instead of animals.

Meatless market

According to a report by Zion Market Research, the global plant-based meat market will reach US$21 billion by 2025.

This might just be the reason why Tyson Food, being one of the major players in the meat industry, is making moves to expand to the plant-based market.

In early March, Bloomberg reported that the company is set to “accelerate and develop” a new protein business line, and has even appointed a chief sustainability officer.

The New Protein Fund itself is the first venture capital fund Tyson Food has ever invested in.

When we talk about the reasons why Big Idea Ventures decided to focus on plant-based meat, Ive pointed out that people are becoming more open to a “flexible” eating habit.

“More and more people are moving towards flexitarian, plant-based lifestyle … Beyond Meat

are moving from the vegetarian section to the meat section in the store; meat-eating people are more prepared to give the products a try,” he said.

Ive said that in the next five to 10 years, there will be more companies that respond to consumers’ needs for a variety of great-tasting plant-based food, especially as consumers become more aware of the environmental and health impact of consuming meat.

This is the opportunity that Big Idea Ventures is trying to tap into as a VC firm.

In principal, as a VC firm, there are several criteria that Big Idea Ventures is looking for in a potential investment.

Also Read: What will be the next big thing in tech? Find out at the FUTURE stage at Echelon Asia Summit 2019

In addition to impactful ideas and market opportunities, they are also a believer in the importance of investing in human resource first.

“I have invested in companies where the product needs a lot of work but they have such a good team. I knew they would be prepared to improve or change the product,” he said.

 

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Traditional accelerators in Thailand are not suited for edtech, as they focus more on the ‘typical tech startups’ with emphasis on synergising with the corporates’ main businesses

While its neighbours in Southeast Asia made good progress in edtech in the last few years, Thailand didn’t make much of a progress due to several reasons. A few months ago, 500 TukTuks‘s Managing Partner Krating Poonpol decided to change this, and in early 2019 he launched accelerator StormBreaker Venture to help edtech startups address various challenges.

StormBreaker’s mission is to inspire and impact the Thai education system and has support from various organisations, including Disrupt Technology Venture and KBank’s Beacon Venture Capital, to leverage edtech transform the education system in the country.

In this interview, Pat Naranpat Thitipattakul, Investment Manager at 500 TukTuks and Accelerator Manager at StormBreaker, talks about the project, its objectives, and Thailand’s edtech market.

Edited excerpts:

There is a handful accelerators targeting different kind of tech startups in Thailand, including edtech. Why an exclusive edtech accelerator is vital now?

There have been accelerators in Thailand, but not a single one focused on edtech. Many accelerator houses are the spin-off of corporates — telcos (AIS, dtac, True), banks (Digital Ventures, Krungsri RISE, etc) or conglomerates (SCG Sprint, PTT, etc). These programmes are not suited for edtech companies, as they focus more on the ‘typical tech startups’ with emphasis on synergising with the corporates’ main businesses.

From our hackathon earlier in 2018, we saw first-hand the problems and struggles faced by edtech companies. We believe that creating an exclusive edtech accelerator is vital in order to help these companies overcome challenges. The reason for this is that edtech companies require certain distinct support/help that is different from usual startups.

For example, customer acquisition. It is difficult for a lot of edtech startups to go direct to consumers because their consumers are students. They have to work with partners and go through schools/corporates, instead.

Can you share more details about StormBreaker? How is this this accelerator different from traditional edtech programmes?

Stormbreaker is different because we combine the best of both worlds — the education world and the startup world. From the education side of things, we are grateful to be able to onboard great partners such as Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), Thailand Education Partnership (TEP), and TCP’s Jai Krating Foundation, which is very well respected and well-connected in the education scene.

Whilst from the startup world, we leverage Disrupt and 500 Startups’s strong network to be able to onboard mentors of the highest quality to support these entrepreneurs.

What are the key objectives of the programme?

The following are the key objectives of the programme:

1. To equip founders with all the necessary soft and hard skills to become a great founder.
2. Provide the right network and connections to key players in both the education industry and the startup ecosystem.
3. Open up access to customers both directly and indirectly (through corporate partners).
4. Provide credibility, awareness and PR for the startups.
5. Assist and ensure these startups secure funding for future growth.

What are the different criteria for startup to apply for your programme? How is the selection process?

We’re looking for edtech startups that have the potential to solve Thai educational issues, impact as many people as possible, and have at least a functioning prototype. It could be a solution for either the education sector or HR talent development. The team must be passionate about education.

The areas we are interested in are English for All, STEM and Coding, Cloud-powered School, Teacher of the Future, reskilling professional or any other area that would solve real education pain points.

Why did 500 Tuktuk choose to partner with Disrupt Technology Venture and Beacon Venture for this project? What is the role of each company here? Can you share more details about this partnership?

Disrupt Technology Venture, founded by Krating Poonpol in 2012, aims to build the startup ecosystem in Thailand through entrepreneurship education programme and corporate innovation service, bringing Silicon Valley know-how to Thailand. Disrupt Technology Venture has over 2,000 entrepreneurs in their network.

From 500 Startups’s view, working with Disrupt Technology Venture gives them the best deal flow on tech startup deals in the country. Since Disrupt has been educating entrepreneurs since 2012, 500 Startups believes that they would be the best partner to run an EdTech accelerator.

Also Read: Thai startup ecosystem is 3 years behind Indonesia: Krafting Ponpool

Beacon Venture is a corporate venture capital under Kasikorn Bank, one of the leading banks in Thailand. Kasikorn Bank actively supports several education projects and they also foresee the needs for talent reskilling, especially in the digital disruption era. We both believe that edtech startups can make a lot of impact in this area. 500 TukTuks and Beacon Venture considered the potential of EdTech to transform countries and this is going to be a very interesting market in the future.

Are educational institutions in Thailand ready for tech adoption? Are there any initiatives from the government side, which aims to transform the sector through technology?

It depends. The top international schools have long adopted and integrated technology into their system. Public schools and universities are slowly following suit, as key players and incumbents are starting to realise the importance of technology in education. This is very positive for edtech companies.

We learned that many educational institutions would like to try new technologies, but due to the strict regulations, they hesitated as they do not want to take any risk. Their key performance indicators (KPIs) focus mostly on improving students test score, and does not directly promote technology adoption.

The government has launched some initiatives to promote access to education such as free online courses and infrastructure funding. There are some efforts from government side to partner with private sectors to, at the first stage, set up tech infrastructure like computers and Wifi. We hope to see more initiatives to promote EdTech adoption once the infrastructure is ready.

Affordability of and access to edtech solutions are going to be major impediment in rural Thailand. How can edtech address this challenge?

We want edtech to focus on developing the best learning solutions that provide learners with the most effective learning experience. Our partners can help them with the distribution in multiple ways.

As for affordability, if a solution is proven, our partner would consider sponsoring the edtech startup as part of their CSR initiatives. This way the startup would be able to give out some accounts for free or reduce the price for underprivileged kids.

Many edtech companies also offer freemium model.

In terms of access to edtech solutions, many CSR projects give funding to schools to allow them to build necessary infrastructure such as PC, internet and tablet. Through edtech collaboration with these CSR programs, edtech firms will be able to launch their solutions in rural areas. With the increasing trends of tech adoption and internet penetration in Thailand, we want to make education accessible for everyone.

You mentioned that your goal is to help transform the learning experience of one million people by 2020. Can you elaborate this. How are you planning to achieve this ambitious goal?

By supporting the edtech and helping them with distribution, we help them to reach as many users as possible. In 2018, we were able to reach 150,000 learners. We saw that if the solution could actually solve user pain and deliver good experience, the number of users would increase quickly through word of mouth. We will also continue to work closely with our partners in order to onboard schools.

As for the corporate sector, we help connect edtech startups to HR professionals from companies in our network. Each company has thousands of employees and we do believe that edtech is the most efficient way for companies to manage employee learning path and development.

What are some of the key characteristics of Thailand’s education sector? What are the unique challenges it faces?

1.  Lack of qualified teachers: The system in Thailand does not fund and incentivise the best and the brightest to become teachers.
2. Large difference between students: There is a very large dispersion in the education of children in Thailand. The quality of education between the rich and the poor is vastly different.
3. There is a big focus on rote learning (memorising) and heavy emphasis on exams.

StormBreaker kicked off with five startups in September last year. How is the programme progressing?

Four of the five startups from StormBreaker’s first batch have graduated, having gone through an intense action-packed accelerator programme, and are now ready to scale up their impact (the fifth startup ‘Quest’ decided to drop out of StormBreaker, as they got an offer from another programme). Key activities in the programme include intensive bootcamp sessions & workshops, exclusive mentoring sessions, B2B meetings, and demo-day pitching.

The four startups are:

Vonder: Vondor is an educational chatbot pioneer which has already transformed the way 70,000 students learn, in addition to 30,000 more working professionals. They grew their user base of 10,000 students to 70,000 students within six months. Vonder started with a team of five in the beginning of the programme, having only one business model (B2C). Through the programme, they have discovered unmet needs in HR learning solutions, so they’re able to come up with a new business model (B2B) which generated a new income stream. They have already acquired more than 3 clients that are big corporations.

Voxy: Voxy is an English learning platform, which utilises AI for personalised learning. When Voxy joined our programme they were still new in the Thai market and had no clients back then. The founders shared with us that our programme has helped them learn how to move fast like a startup and given them access to more B2B clients. Within four months, Voxy has been able to secure B2B deals valued eight million THB and launched pilot projects with over 10 organisations in Thailand.

InsKru: insKru is uniting forces across the nation to enhance the way Thai teachers teach by disseminating ideas to over 38,000 teachers. The team started with three co-founders, who are passionate about education and they all had experiences volunteering in the education sector, which have given them deep knowledge of teacher, school and student pain points. The StormBreaker team has supported their operations, given PR visibility, and helped connect them with CSR departments of many corporations. InsKru has expanded from just the platform to an online-to-offline teacher community by arranging teacher skill development workshops in many provinces of Thailand. They successfully built an active community of teachers, who want to create an impact on Thai education. Today, their social media has over 16,000 organic shares, reaching thousands of teachers.

OpenDurian: OpenDurianis an education platform boasting revenues of over 49 million THB, this startup aims to breed more than 500,000 skilled talent to prepare and respond to the impending digital disruption. The team consists of academic professionals. The company has been in the market for more than five years. Our mentors have helped them come up with plans to launch new product in the area of professional re-skilling, leveraging their presence in the online tutoring market with over three million users, who are university students. In addition to that, joining StormBreaker has opened up the door for them to new partnerships as well as fundraising opportunities.

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Risk management is an art

As technology advances and young talent become more enterprising, startups are becoming the face of the future.

Starting a business isn’t easy and sustaining it is even harder. There are many risk factors associated with startup ventures and key guidelines that need to be followed in order to enjoy a profitable and successful business.

If you analyse and understand the risks involved and the mistakes which are likely to be commonly done, it would be rather easy for you to drive a secure and successful business.

Major reasons why startups tend to fail

Lack of demand in the market
While an innovative idea may seem interesting or fruitful to a business owner, it isn’t the case from the business perspective. The demand for that business may not be that high in the market, meaning that the startup would most likely experience a lacklustre performance.

There are chances of the business existing in abundance already or not needed at all. In either of this case, there will be no market for that business and causes the startup to fare poorly.

Misuse of funds
In a bid to prove that their startup idea is worth it, business owners tend to mismanage their funds, not looking at the after effects.

Every business owner has finances but what they need is a smart and cautious management of their finances. This is one area which becomes a root cause for failed startups. Only having money isn’t enough, putting it to its best use is important.

Managing a diverse team structure
Startups will need a multi-faceted team structure, possessing skills in diverse technologies and project management areas.

Generally, it is noted that startup business owners do not have that in-depth vision of building a collaborative team right from the beginning that is self-sufficient in terms of skills, technological knowledge and project management methods.

Even fundamental technical expertise is needed for owners to better judge the entire business scenario in the best possible way.

Offering equity to too many team members
When the startup is new, business owners tend to involve many equity shareholders in order to make the venture cash rich.

Although it might sound right at that time, it tends to get unmanageable and becomes one of the prime reasons for startup failure. Even having too many team members could lead to haphazard business functioning.

Also Read: Big Idea Ventures gets first close of US$50M+ New Protein Fund, invests in Shiok Meat

Feeble marketing strategies
After all, marketing is the key to reach out to widespread audiences. Startups need to have their marketing policies in place well in advance else they are bound to bear the brunt of it.

In this fiercely competitive world, without enough and well-planned marketing plans, there are fewer chances of business expanding far and wide.

Risk areas startup entrepreneurs faces

1. No startup offers a stable income right from the start. Entrepreneurs must be well prepared for an uneven way of income for the first few months. What is important is to sustain your business amidst throat cut competition rather than wanting a steady income.

2. Startup ventures need to be careful about competition and disruption both. Though both are inevitable and play a significant risk role in the success of any startup business, what entrepreneurs must do is keep aware of these from the beginning, to avoid its negative impact.

3. Undefined variations in the global currency could lead to a huge risk. With globalisation as the latest jargon today, entrepreneurs need to be careful while engaging in any kind of financial exchange either as a supplier or as a receiver.

4. Leaking your confidential information is yet another risk area that could create hassles. Cybersecurity is a prime area of concern for startup business owners. There is so much private information (company and self) involved that its security plays a very important role. Compromising on security could lead to disastrous results in terms of productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction.

5. Shelling out your own private finance for your startup to start off, is yet another big risk area. At the start, entrepreneurs may need to do that but what is required is enough thought to the point that if that finance is used up in business, there is nothing to fall back, on our personal front.

Key approaches for a successful startup

Have a complete focus on designing and developing the product
While indulging in any startup venture, the prime factor is the startup product itself. There should be a complete undivided focus on that, by the business owners and their teams. Thinking about other important areas like marketing, sales, finance, etc. should be done later so that there is no compromise of quality in the product build. This ensures utmost quality and standardisation, offering more chances to a successful venture.

Start off with a small base and large vision
What startups usually do is have a large end focus and planning right from the beginning. They tend to forget that they are in the startup phase. What should be done is that business owners should take small and steady steps in the start towards building a small stable and secure startup. Once that is established, there are ample of opportunities for building it big with fewer risks and more fundamental stability involved.

Perform in-depth analysis from information available
Be it risk assessment, predictive analytics, trend forecasting, etc., there are many areas that can be scrutinized in detail for better futuristic moves. There are many advanced tools available to help extract the best of information from the huge chunks of data, in your desired format. Make the most of BI and Big Data for the same.

Be a wise trend follower and grab foreseeable opportunities
As opportunities knock the door, it is very important for startup authorities to keep a close eye on them and grab them as soon as they are encountered. Of course, with a full proof thought to its repercussions, these opportunities could change the face of the business for the better. To grab these chances, startups should devote a sector of time and energy in observing and following trends in the market and understand the prevailing market scenario. They should also study the predictive future analytics to perceive what could come next.

Keep replicating success factors as the startup flourishes and grows
When a startup venture succeeds, there are certainly promising and basic success factors attached to it, that lead to its success. Once the startup is grounded and in place, business owners should purposefully try to replicate these success factors for a business to come and thereby stay grounded to the fundamental vision of the business. This set of success criteria should always be remembered and deployed in upcoming actions to be taken.

Embrace automation wherever you can
The year has seen many advancements in automation and the coming year will show many more. To stay abreast with today’s business norms, automation, wherever possible is a must. Startups need to evaluate, analyze and adapt to automation processes in whichever areas it can. This will not only increase efficiency, profitability but also ensure a cutting-edge business involvement.

Spend more time, money and energy into skilled expertise
After all, the crux of success for any startup venture is the quality that it delivers. This is possible only if there is a skilled and proficient team available to deliver the same. Good quality resources will garner successful business and will keep continuing to give good fruits as compared to efforts put.

Calculated risks are a must
As such, risk management is an art. No business can kick off without taking any risks, startups are no exception. But, yes, risks taken must be ascertained, calculated and analyzed before plunging into them. Risks would help individuals come up with innovative ideas, enhance creativity, increase productivity and thereby augment RoI for the startup venture.

Understand your client portfolio in advance
While building your startup venture, it is important to understand the client’s needs, perception, and aspiration. This forms a pillar of success for the business.

Until the customer requirements are understood in depth, it is not possible to build a solution that works as per their needs.

Create the right balance between time, money and effort
Among the three major parameters that are important for any business, it is critical to strike a balance between time, money and efforts, in order to come up with the best of results. Any of them, going haywire in proportion, will lead to an imbalance in the charted project plan.

Also Read: Singapore startup scene should view next decade with cautious optimism

A parting note

Here you go, with the startup industry’s key risk areas, best practices and reasons for failure. Owning your own business is always an exciting, challenging and tough task. With multiple types of startups cropping up every year, the parameters to be ascertained also change year by year.

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e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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By securing spotlight sessions for Taiwan startup partners, AsiaIOA can support them to better expand to Southeast Asian markets and gain brand awareness

Echelon is all about making meaningful connections across the Southeast Asia startup ecosystem and beyond. We are thus proud to share that e27 has partnered with AsiaIOA, with a highlight on the TOP100 Fight Club, part of Echelon Asia Summit 2019, happening on May 23-24 in Singapore.

Formally launched in 2018, AsiaIOA is a Taiwan-based service-provider for institutions of higher learning, corporate accelerators, and government innovation agencies, focused on connecting startup ecosystems between East Asia and Southeast Asia. This is done through offline events management, programme curation, and startup mentoring.

“Though newly founded in 2018, the team has had at least 10 years experience in the East Asia startup ecosystem with a deep dive in Taiwan,” says Kevin Ho, Co-Founder and CEO of AsiaIOA. “We would like to take this opportunity to expand into the local Southeast Asia startup ecosystem while working with e27 and Echelon to showcase our capabilities and startups to the regional attendees.”

Kevin adds that shared values have contributed greatly to furthering this partnership. “We’ve been working with e27 for almost two years, and since then we’ve known the values that e27, as a Southeast Asia-based online and offline startup platform, can provide.”

The official partnership begins in 2019 with a Memorandum of Understanding between e27 and AsiaIOA to further the collaboration at events, including Echelon Roadshow, TOP100, and Echelon Asia Summit. “It will be a good initiative to kickoff this partnership by providing our startup partners from Taiwan with the pitching and showcasing opportunities,” Kevin adds.

Also read: 5G Technology: how Taiwan’s APTG Accelerator Programme is approaching the future of tech

According to Kevin, Taiwanese startups are good at product and technology development. “However, little do they know how to market and promote themselves on an international stage.”

“We hope that via securing these spotlight sessions for our Taiwan startup partners, we can support them to better expand to Southeast Asian markets and gain media eyeballs to raise brand awareness,” Kevin concludes.

Set for May 23 to 24 at Singapore EXPO, Echelon Asia summit is at full force, bringing together the region’s startup ecosystem in two days of rich discussions, mentoring, networking, and deal-making. Register now for your tickets.

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Mumbai-based Habitro Labs is planning to manufacture own IoT-based home automation products and is in talks for funding to set up a plant

A year ago, when Mrinal Kashyap, a Leasing Manager at Indian ride-hailing company Ola, wanted to automate his three bedroom home in Mumbai, he could not find any reliable products in the market. There were some local products, but were sub-standard and not worth investing his hard-earned money in.

“I could not risk trusting domestic products, which I knew were of low quality and mostly white-labeled Chinese products,” he told e27. “International products are much better but costly. They cannot be trusted with after-sales services as they don’t have a presence in India. This forces customers like me to rely on small retailers for such products as well as for after-sales service. This often ends up in extreme disappointment. We want to change this.”

With this mission in mind, Kashyap started working on the concept of an affordable home automation solution after quitting Ola in September 2018. Two months later, he set up Habitro Labs out of Mumbai.

Also Read: Aime is not just a home automation solution, but can help you book a cab, track fitness and save energy too

Kashyap, a serial entrepreneur, launched the startup, with his former colleague (who is still an employee) at Ola. Kashyap has built a couple of startups in the past. His last venture MyShipMate got acquired by Parcelled.in back in 2015. Later, he moved to head the Mumbai operations of Meru Cabs, before joining Ola.

In its current form, Habitro Labs runs a marketplace, which also doubles up as a network of small dealers and shops, spread across tier-1 cities in India. Habitro’s marketplace (not a typical online marketplace) allows you to connect with the best home automation companies.

“Habitro enables customers to raise queries on our marketplace, and we will do the initial discussions with the customer to understand his/her requirement. Once the deal is closed, the installation part will be taken care of by our dealers,” he explained. “We strive to maintain quality and customer satisfaction. So we will blacklist and remove dealers who sell low-quality or counterfeit products, or who are unprofessional. Also, the after-sales is insured by Habitro through our big network of dealers.”

The venture targets both B2C and B2B segments. “As for B2C, home automation products are mostly sold when someone buys a home or does a renovation of his existing one. Most of these leads come through offline channels. For this, Habitro has partnered with architects, builders, interior designers, and realtors,” he stated.

At the most basic level, home automation systems are made up of three elements: a smart device, a hub, and a connected application. Be it voice-activated rooms, digital room keys and interactive entertainment unit for hotels; or smart visitor management, voice-controlled home, app-controlled home, smart door bell, and smart door lock, Habitro finds you the best products from the best global brands as per your requirements.

Basic plans start at INR 40,000 (US$571) and it stretches to a few lakhs (1 lakh = US$1,429) depending on the requirements.

“Deep at heart, we are an Internet of Things (IoT) company that designs, tests, and deploys automation in homes, hotels, offices, and residential societies using our patent pending proprietary technology. The panoramic idea revolves around creating a smart community with endless possibilities of connecting and controlling your appliances on the go. We give you an intelligent ecosystem and smarter living by creating software, fabricating hardware, and connecting those two through Artificial Intelligence,” he said.

“We started off with a marketplace model as we didn’t have the financial resources to manufacture our own products,” added Kashyap. “We are now looking to set up our own manufacture products and create own brand, something similar to Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by the global e-commerce giant. This way, we will be able to keep cost low and increase our product line. Our aim is to create products for the masses, not just for the elite.”

Generally, products imported from European Union and the US are the best in the market. In Kashyap’s view, it is not just the quality but it is also their features that make western products more appealing. He also argues that domestic products are WiFi-based and poor signal strength could affect their performance, whereas foreign products come equipped with Z-Wave (a wireless communication protocol) and Zigbee (a wireless technology) and KNX (communication protocol), which effectively addresses such issues.

“More over, power consumption is higher in domestic products. Plus, they are vulnerable to a wide range of security exploitations and attacks. On the other hand, every Z-Wave network and its products have unique IDs for communicating with your hub, in addition to the AES-128 encryption. And there are over 700 companies under Z-Wave alliance and all are compatible with each other since those are using the same protocol. So, even if company A shuts down, you could always use the product of company B, C or D,” Kashyap said.

Kashyap is also believes that domestic products produce higher radiation than the maximum permissible limit. “Our responsibility is to give the best in terms of product quality, after-sales service, safety and security, in terms of how the data is generated and where it is getting stored.”

Habitro is currently in discussion with a few investors and well-known entrepreneurs to raise investments, which will help it expand its product line, increase use cases, and reduce costs, besides setting up its own manufacturing plant. “Here, I would like to quote Jeff Bezoz on something that describes our mission: ‘there are two kinds of companies; those who work to try to charge more and those who work to charge less’. We want to be the latter.”

Also Read: Excited for IoT and home automation? Here are the benefits of a smart, connected home

Kashyap feels that while home automation is not new in India, the industry is not receiving enough attention because of the lack of awareness and use cases, as well as the higher pricing. The entry of Amazon Echo and Google Home, however, has helped.

Now, even the middle class households in tier-1 cities have started automating their homes, which was — until recently — an exclusive domain of the upper-class segment. The dip in product pricing has also helped.

“We now have a favourable atmosphere, but sadly no local companies have emerged to become the face of home automation in India. We are trying to become one,” he concluded.

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mfine, which uses AI to enable users to link with doctors through live chat or video under a minute, has just bagged US$17.2M from Japanese and SEA investors

India-based mfine, an app that lets users link with doctors through live chat or video under a minute, has just bagged US$17.2 million in fresh investment, led by SBI Investment, the VC arm of Japan’s SBI Group, with participation from new and existing investors, including Singapore’s SBI Ven Capital and Beenext.

The healthtech startup, founded in 2017 by Myntra Co-founder Ashutosh Lawania and former CBO Prasad Kompalli, follows the model of partnering with hospitals instead of aggregating individual doctors on its platform. mfine, which delivers an AI-driven, on-demand healthcare service, will use the money to expand its hospital network across India.

e27 talked to Kompalli to know more about the company, its investments, local market and future plans.

How does mfine aim to transform the healthcare delivery model in India using technology?

mfine provides an Artificial Intelligence-driven, mobile-first platform which is used by patients to find doctors from our large network of hospitals. Consumers find it more convenient to consult with doctors through our chat and video interface. Our AI engine is capable of diagnosing and triaging over 1,200 common diseases, reading hundreds of health parameters in the diagnostic reports thus saving significant time for the doctors.

Why is the current round important and what do these investors bring to the table?

In the last year and a half, we have built a strong network through our partner hospitals. We have managed to reach towns and villages even we had never heard of. This round of funding comes at a great time, when we need to push our own limits and try to reach more patients and onboard more doctors. Our investors have come onboard as strategic partners, and with their help we can build India’s largest healthcare network.

Health-tech in India as an industry has witnessed a massive growth over the past few years. However, it has not really taken off in smaller cities and towns. Why is it so? Also companies like mfine are mostly catering to the educated population…

Technology is the right way to cut across economic segments and geographical boundaries in delivery better healthcare. As the technology penetration like smartphones and cheaper bandwidth is rapidly increasing, there is a bigger and better opportunity now than before to take services like mfine across the length and breadth of the country.

Also Read: Fully integrating AI and healthcare is closer than you think

At mfine, over the next three to four years, we will be developing solutions that are intuitive for the the user and also support all interaction paradigms (audio, video and text ) and multi-language support to ensure quality healthcare is accessible for all segments.

AI has the potential to drastically change the healthcare industry in India. But it has not really happened yet. Do you expect this to change in the near future? 

So far, tech companies largely focussed on peripheral topics in healthcare like appointment booking, practice management, e-pharmacy etc. However, AI is increasingly becoming a viable way to bridge the gap in doctor-patient ratio and help the doctor become 4x to 5x more efficient.

With streamlined data collection and analysis, we can make very powerful domain specific, AI-driven diagnosis tools that will help the doctors and patients. We see that this will be the dominant approach for tech companies in the next five to ten years.

Most of your investors are from Japan and Southeast Asia. Why did you decide to go to investors from Japan and SEA rather than India? Also, why do you think startups from India are increasingly getting funded by Japanese and SEA funds?

As a startup we keep engaging with different investors all the time. We found in SBI and  Beenext the match of long-term vision and deep tech focus to solve hard problems like healthcare delivery. We hope to benefit from their global perspective and long term support.

Japan and other SEA countries are seeing the huge potential in India. Adoption of technology by consumers makes India a great learning ground. There is no other market where mobile technology and internet-based businesses has taken off so well. Investors who have realised this trend are diverting funds towards Indian startups.

How a partnership with SBI Holdings benefit you in the long term? What synergies do you have with them? What about Beenext etc?

SBI Goup has several AI and blockchain-related investments globally and we hope to benefit from that global perspective in shaping mfine. Beenext has been a prolific investor in India and brings in several important collaborations that are possible within and outside India that can help accelerate various aspects of our business.

Does India face a shortage of AI talent?

Actually, India is having a huge pool of ML and Data science engineers and as a startup, we are able to find the talent that’s required for us.

What are your plans for the next 12 months?

Over 100,000 customers have consulted on mfine in the last 15 months and customer base is growing 30 per cent month over month. More than 500 MD/MS doctors, including some of India’s top doctors from over 100 reputed hospitals practice across 20 specialties on mfine. Our customers belong to over 800 towns in India.

Also Read: Artificial Intelligence can democratise healthcare access in India, says Manish Singhal of Pi Ventures

In the next 12 months, we are hoping to onboard over 2,500 doctors from 250 hospitals and reach 150,000 monthly consultations.

Both founders were part of Myntra’s core team. But now you two are into a separate industry altogether. What learnings did you carry with you to mfine?

We come from the experience of building tech-driven consumer internet platforms. All the learnings of building from scratch and scaling such platforms, building the right organisation and culture are important and applicable again at mfine.

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Image Credit: mfine

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TokoTalk is a chat-based e-commerce platform built specifically for online sellers on social media such as Instagram

Updates: Included new details of the company’s plan following the funding round.

Indonesian social commerce platform TokoTalk today announced a US$3.2 million in funding from Silicon Valley-based Altos Ventures.

Owned by South Korean tech startup Codebrick, TokoTalk is a chat-based e-commerce platform built specifically for online sellers on social media such as Instagram and messenger platforms such as WhatsApp.

According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, 64 per cent of all e-commerce transactions occurred through social media. The TokoTalk platform aims to make this process more simple through integration of its service with various social media platforms.

With TokoTalk, customers can view catalogues, pay for orders, as well receive order and shipping confirmation.

For the sellers, TokoTalk offers a platform that enables simpler order and inventory management through the use of a chatbot.

Also Read: Today’s tech news, January 16: Glassdoor lands in Singapore, Golden Gate Ventures backs Indonesia’s Sampingan

In a press statement, the startup said that it plans to “strengthen” its features, particularly payment processes and marketing tools.

“Those improvements are hoped to lead to an increase in the number of transactions, up to US$20 million per month in orders and being a significant player in the social commerce platform market in Indonesia,” it wrote.

In an email to e27, TokoTalk spokeperson explained that in addition to developing automated payments confirmation system, the startup also plans to build partnership with more courier services and integrate its service with marketplaces following the funding round.

“We are also planning to build an education centre in several areas that can be accessed easily by the sellers, e.g in a wholesale market such as Tanah Abang. To help and support the sellers to increase their sales is our main mission,” she wrote.

Launched in March 2018, TokoTalk claimed to have more than 100,000 online sellers on board.

Also Read: Altos Ventures invests US$2M in video messenger startup Hyperconnect

It has recorded US$2 million in monthly sales in March 2019 which resulted in a US$10 million order transaction for one year after its launch.

In Indonesia, the TokoTalk operations is led by Director of Operations Nesya Vanessa.

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Image Credit: TokoTalk

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The new co-investors are Elev8.VC, Golden Gate Ventures, GREE Ventures, ST Engineering Ventures, and Verge Capital Management

SGInnovate has named five new co-investors that will join the company to “further strengthen the ability to assess and invest in exciting deep tech startups at the earliest stage”.

The five names are Elev8.VC, Golden Gate Ventures with its blockchain dedicated fund LuneX Ventures, GREE Ventures, ST Engineering Ventures, and Verge Capital Management. All are said to have been selected through a stringent process based on their investment track record, financial strength, management team capabilities, as well as the adequacy of facilities and resources.

“Coming from the private sector, these new co-investors add breadth and depth to our capabilities in areas such as MedTech, and help us better pursue our mission to work with scientist-entrepreneurs to build and scale high potential, early-stage deep tech startups founded in Singapore,” said Steve Leonard, Founding CEO, SGInnovate.

Aside from selecting new co-investors, SGInnovate also took part in the seed investment round to Merkle Science, led by LuneX Ventures. This would make it the first deal to be completed with
a newly-appointed co-investor.

Combining off-chain and on-chain data for better analysis, Merkle Science works with law enforcement agencies and blockchain companies to provide a risk-monitoring solution to detect and prevent the illegal use of digital currencies.

Also Read: Leisure marketplace SelenaGO raises seed funding from UMG Idealab

This funding round was also joined by Kenetic, Digital Currency Group, and Entrepreneur First.

“With digital assets moving more into the mainstream, KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) compliance are becoming increasingly important. Merkle Science will make it easier for all players in the ecosystem to be regulatory compliant and prevent any fraudulent activity from happening,” said Kenrick Drijkoningen, Managing Partner, LuneX
Ventures.

The five new partners join 17 other SGInnovate co-investors that were first announced in December 2017. Apart from the injection of capital, SGInnovate and its partners also provide strategic and management guidance to help early-stage deep tech startups grow their business and expand into new markets.

Since its inception in November 2016, SGInnovate has invested in more than 50 deep
tech startups, through a mix of direct investments and co-investments under Startup SG Equity.
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The company group plans to build the regional ecosystem with the investment

Golden Equator group, the Singapore-based group of businesses covering financial services, consultancy, and technology, announced that it has raised US$18 million (S$24.6 million) investment from Asia Pacific and Middle East angel investors.

This is the first investment the group has ever received, led by renowned entrepreneur-investor Taizo Son, who’s also a founder of Mistletoe. A host of other angel investors came from Japan, Korea, UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, Brunei, Taiwan, and Singapore who are a mix of members of the royal families, Chairmen of large MNCs, C-level executives from sovereign wealth funds, and academics

The company said that the investment will be directed toward building the regional innovation ecosystem. It will also enable the ecosystem builder’s business evolution, including overseas expansions, to continue using Singapore as a base to connect the broader Asia Pacific and Middle East.

“These angels’ strategic investment demonstrates that they understand the importance of and support our ecosystem-building efforts. By connecting the different communities in the region, we want to harness the synergy that will enable us to bring about changes that are relevant for the future together,” said Shirley Crystal Chua, Founder and Group CEO of Golden Equator.

The group is founded by Chua in 2012. The companies include traditional financial services businesses, but claim to continue upgrading by adapting and innovating new technologies, as well as technology-based businesses, which it continues to invest in.

Also Read: Indonesian social commerce platform TokoTalk raises US$3.2M

Golden Equator currently serves clients in 12 countries with covering 10 markets. Its fully-owned subsidiaries are a fund management company Golden Equator Capital, a multi-family office Golden Equator Wealth, a fintech for personal finance management platform Asia Finance, a digital and tech-focused business consultancy Golden Equator Consulting, and workspace SPECTRUM.

The investment follows Golden Equator’s announcement of Taizo Son as its Group Special Advisor in January 2018. The intention of the appointment is to bring together individuals, businesses, and government-level agencies to build a dynamic business ecosystem centred on technology and innovation, that create a social impact.

The Group also officially launched SPECTRUM in January 2018, which is now home to Taizo Son and his venture Mistletoe’s global headquarter.

On May 6, Golden Equator’s multi-family office (Golden Equator Wealth) will also be launching its NextGen Programme and its Family Office publication. The program aims to mould next-generation members of business families into future leaders through a customised curriculum across finance, wealth management, entrepreneurship, and leadership development.
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Image Credit: Golden Equator Group

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Do you consider yourself a diehard Marvel fan? It might be worth a ticket to Echelon!

Avengers: Endgame is out and we are here to spoil everything! Jokes, your humble author won’t be able to see it for a few weeks.

But we did think we would have some fun in the moment and provide an opportunity to nab some tickets to Echelon.

Here is how it works. We will provide three clues to a ‘name the character’ trivia question. The answer to the question is a promo code for free Echelon tickets.

Important: You must enter it in the format of E27-XXXXX . Make sure it is spelt with capital letters. If you have questions, comment in the section below this article and we will answer your queries.

Guess this Marvel character

Clue #1: He is not the most savoury of men, his job is immoral, but he is a happy man. You can tell because he whistles while he works.

Clue #2: He raised the man who would go on to save the universe on multiple occasions. If you ask him, he would say it was because, “he was small and could fit into places a grown man can’t go”.

Clue #3: If roses are red, this man is a violet.

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