The COVID-19 pandemic and the vulnerability in the market have had a profound effect on the co-working space industry in Asia. The role and definition of co-working space have now changed.

“The places where we used to sit behind a computer at our desks most of the time have become a modern agora where people gather to learn from and collaborate with one another,” says Jaelle Ang, Co-Founder and CEO of The Great Room, a Singapore-based hospitality-led coworking space.

How does the industry cope with the fast-changing environments? How has the industry grown post-pandemic?

In this interview, Ang answers these questions and discusses the trends and changes in the co-working space sector.

Edited excerpts:

How has the demand for co-working spaces changed since the start of the pandemic? Have you seen an increase or decrease in occupancy levels? Has the demand gone up after the dangers of COVID-19 are gone?

As a whole, the demand for flexible workspaces, and by extension co-working spaces, has increased. The geopolitical uncertainty that the world faces today had a ripple effect on the many considerations of businesses, such as geography, headcount, and growth. This state of flux requires the support of real estate partners in terms of flexibility to accommodate these changes.

Pre-pandemic, the flexible workspace was projected to grow from 5 per cent to 30 per cent by 2030, and we’ve seen this trend pick up more than ever. We’ve seen an immense growth of demand from the enterprise segment of customers; businesses that are sophisticated and drive high margins.

Also Read: Singapore gets an NFT-gated Web3 co-working space Metacamp

One such example is our newest location, The Great Room, South Bridge. Slated to open on April 20, it currently has a pre-opening occupancy rate of 80 per cent, the highest opening occupancy within our portfolio.

What changes have you made to your co-working space design to adapt to the new normal? Have you implemented any health and safety measures for your members?

We’ve designed a space where people can come together to collaborate and learn. The role of the office has changed. The places where we used to sit behind a computer at our desks most of the time have become a modern agora where people gather to learn from and collaborate with one another.

The ultimate role of the office is to help companies win the ‘war for talent’, and the edge for any company is the ability for their talent to learn quickly. Instead of isolating individuals to the confines of their desks, we’ve created a culture container, a learning place that enables and encourages meaningful interactions.

In terms of health and safety, The Great Room puts an emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene within its spaces, with strict cleaning protocols such as increased cleaning frequency at high touch points throughout our coworking spaces, as well as a variety of wellness and health programmes for members who have become more conscious as a result of the global pandemic.

How is the current economic climate affecting the industry?

We are cautiously optimistic. On one hand, the outlook for co-working spaces is positive as a result of business uncertainty. However, we are well aware of macro trends such as high rates of inflation and increasingly volatile markets.

Industries that used to be seen as very safe such as large banks and tech companies have found themselves in rather vulnerable situations. This has had profound effects on our industry. There may be new opportunities presented, but there could also be many shifts and changes that we will have to accommodate as well.

Have you noticed any specific trends in the co-working space, particularly in Singapore?

Singapore is a market that is familiar with co-working. If companies want flexible workspaces, they will have varying needs and price points, and we expect to see the market become increasingly segmented to the point of fragmentation. This is when we can also expect to see a consolidation of the existing players.

Since the pandemic restrictions were put in place in 2020, The Great Room has seen a significant shift in its audience segment over the last three years. Before the pandemic, occupancy rates were split between SMEs and MNCs & enterprises at 75 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively.

Currently, in the post-pandemic era, SMEs now make up 35 per cent of the members while MNCs & enterprises make up a majority of the members at 65 per cent post-COVID-19.

With many companies now adopting a hybrid work strategy, how do you see this impacting the co-working industry in the future?

The co-working industry needs to rethink its role. Beyond providing just seats in front of computers, they need to provide activity-based working and meeting spaces, as well as spaces for training, collaboration and learning. We need to help our clients win the war for talent, whether it is through initiatives such as wellness programmes, helping talents learn beyond their immediate fields, or building their social capital and simply connecting with people.

We’ve seen an accelerated adoption of flexible work arrangements, as well as a demand for versatile workspaces during the pandemic. With our sixth and newest location, we’ve doubled down on offering dynamic spaces, efficient services and community-building events to offer a variety of options that meet the varied and ever-changing needs of our members.

In what ways has your approach to marketing and promoting your co-working space changed since the pandemic started?

In our early days, our efforts were geared towards brand building and telling the story of The Great Room. Now that we’ve expanded to ten locations, we are focusing on telling the stories of our members, communities, and the location of our workspaces.

How is the current economic crisis impacting the co-working space in SEA?

Asia has been lucky coming out of the pandemic. Rates of consumption, services, and the return of the workforce to the office have been high. However, people’s belts will continue to tighten, and they will become wiser about spending.

Co-working spaces are ultimately a business expense, and people will have expectations for them to provide more bang for their buck, whether it is in the form of services, hospitality, or learning.

Also Read: From co-working to co-living, these 8 brands in Southeast Asia have got you covered

The current economic crisis has resulted in an increased demand for flexible workspaces with the adoption of remote work arrangements. The high degree of flexibility and cost-prohibitive nature of co-working spaces can benefit companies weathering times of economic crises as they pose less of a liability.

For The Great Room, our multi-faceted range of workspace solutions is our greatest asset to our customers, whether it is a company looking to downsize their office space, or a small business owner looking for an arrangement suited to their needs.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

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Singapore-based early-stage VC firm Monk’s Hill Ventures has made the final close of its third fund at US$200 million.

The firm was originally seeking to raise US$150 million for this fund, according to SEC filings.

The names of the Limited Partners haven’t been disclosed. As per a statement, they are predominantly institutional investors including foundations and endowments, sovereign funds and several prominent family offices.

Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek was an investor in its previous two funds.

“We are still focused on building tech-enabled regional champions in Southeast Asia by taking a first-principles approach to building a concentrated portfolio of Series A startups,” said Kuo-Yi Lim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Monk’s Hill Ventures.

Also Read: Be open about ways to grow and expand your skills: Cheryl Liew of Monk’s Hill Ventures

Fund III has already invested in several companies, including Rainforest and Upmesh (e-commerce); Hannah Life, Ordinary Folk, and Novi Health (digital health); Credibook, Starboard, and MinOS (business digitalisation); Tigerhall and Lumina (HR tech); Crowde (agritech).

The development comes at a time when startup investments are seeing a downward trend in the region. According to Tracxn, investments dropped 69 per cent to US$1.1 billion in Q1 2023 from US$3.5 billion in the same period last year. This is attributed to a steep decline in late-stage funding to US$415 million in Q1, which is 68 per cent and 73 per cent lower than the amounts raised in Q4 2022 and Q1 2022, respectively.

Seed-stage investments in Q1 also fell 27 per cent and 73 per cent when compared with Q4 of 2022 and Q1 of 2022, respectively. Early-stage funding also dropped 69 per cent; however, it saw a slight increase of 11 per cent over Q4 2022.

Founded in 2014 by Peng T. Ong and Kuo-Yi Lim, Monk’s Hill Ventures invests in early-stage tech companies, primarily pre-Series A and Series A, in Southeast Asia. The firm has invested in more than 35 startups spanning multiple business models and industry verticals. Its footprint spans Southeast Asia with on-the-ground teams in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

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In March, Vietnam was named as one of the three Southeast Asian countries that continued to dominate the region’s equity funding landscape in a report by DealStreetAsia and Enterprise SG.

The rest of us might wonder: How does the country manage to do this? What are the factors that keep Vietnam attractive in this challenging time? What lessons can we learn from it?

In an interview with e27, Hieu Vo Tran Dinh–Deputy Director at Dragon Capital, CFO at Vietnam Innovative Startups Accelerator (VIISA), and Founder of the Vietnam Fintech Club–gives us his insight into what makes Vietnam a favourable destination for investors.

According to him, there are two factors: Attractive valuation and speedy recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Valuation of Vietnamese startups is often a bargain in absolute terms and it has strong metrics in relative terms. For instance, we have successfully applied a very consistent discipline in terms of valuation for startups that joined our acceleration stage. Those companies had to set valuations in the range from US$300,000 to US$1 million, and this entry level has helped both startups and investors,” Hieu says.

“For startups, this has helped in maintaining a healthy shareholder structure and a realistic approach to planning their fundraising. For investors, it’s easier to negotiate with them as it’s usually only need to look at operating metrics that support their investment taxes rather than hustling around valuation multiple. The outcome of this is that we see Series A round valuation from US$5 million to US$10 million in Vietnam, which is a bargain relative to other markets.”

Also Read: Society Pass unit NusaTrip acquires Vietnamese travel marketplace VLeisure

Regarding its speedy recovery from the pandemic, it is reflected in Vietnam’s growth rate.

“Prior to the pandemic, Vietnam’s economy has maintained a consistent GDP growth from a range of five per cent to seven per cent for over a decade. The growth rate has quickly recovered to 2.9 per cent last year which was a stunning sight for any economic observer. Vietnam’s economy has shown impressive resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, evidenced by its positive GDP growth and rising export figures,” Hieu explains.

“This has created a favourable investment landscape, with a surge in entrepreneurial activity and increasing interest from investors.”

Hieu also adds that the government’s efforts to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the National Innovation Center and incentives for high-tech startups, make Vietnam an attractive destination for investment.

“As an investment manager, I see great potential in Vietnam’s growing ecosystem of startups and its position as a key player in the global innovation economy,” he says.

The lessons we learned

So, what are the lessons that other countries can learn from Vietnam in building its startup ecosystem? According to Hieu, there are three main lessons that other startup ecosystems can learn from Vietnam.

The first two lessons are the government’s active role in creating a favourable business environment and having a disciplined approach to valuations, which have already been discussed in the previous paragraphs. The third lesson is local companies’ strong focus on solving local problems and meeting the needs of the domestic market, which has allowed them to grow and scale quickly.

Also Read: Vietnamese music games publisher Amanotes invests in Swedish startup Reactional Music

“Finally, Vietnam’s startup ecosystem has a strong sense of community, with founders and investors often collaborating and sharing resources to support each other’s success. I would suggest the Swiss EP programme as a raw model example for this ecosystem connector. These lessons highlight the importance of government support, a focus on solving local problems, disciplined valuations, and a supportive community in building a successful startup ecosystem,” Hieu says.

According to him, in this challenging time, local startups have also learned to adapt by changing their approach to running a business.

Previously, companies can raise funds by relying on factors such as growth, new users, and transaction volumes. But today, startups in Vietnam have switched to “more practical metrics” such as revenue and cash flow.

“Everyone would ask the question, ‘If you raise this round and then you cannot raise the next round, what will happen?’ So, I think it’s getting really realistic … the financial model must make sense in terms of runway movements and in terms of cash flow, that support all the scenarios that may happen. The base scenario should be a positive cash flow and self sustained; the best case scenario with the high growth is a market share dominance.”

Fintech remains key to Vietnam

Dragon Capital is a fund management firm that has been active in the Vietnam startup ecosystem. A fund management firm, it caters for a wide range of activities from public fund management to wealth management for family office sovereign funds in Europe, Japan, and the US. Hieu describes the firm’s involvement in venture capital as opportunistic and a principal investment mandate.

In Vietnam, Dragon Capital sees the fintech sector and related services as one of the most promising verticals, followed by SaaS for SMEs.

“Vietnam has around 300,000 SMEs up and running. They are open to new ideas, willing to accept new sort of services and business, as long as it makes sense,” Hieu says.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 is bringing together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here.

Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups get the chance to pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

Image Credit: Tron Le on Unsplash

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Building a hyper-growth company is a challenging task that requires flexibility, constant questioning, and pivoting, as well as a large amount of confidence, capital, and energy. To assess the quality and health of such businesses quickly, the five-point health check for hyper-growth businesses is an efficient and proven tool.

It consists of five checks based on many decades of professional experience: a clear and understood vision and strategy; a focus on creating future value; a long-term asset focus; the establishment of a mega-culture; and an assessment of the true level of investor support.

Like regular health checks for athletes or mature people, business leaders and coaches can use the tests to check on a fast-growing business without slowing its growth down.

Check #1: A clear and understood vision and strategy

Tell me “who we are,”, “what we stand for,”, “how we differ from the competition,” and what makes us unique.” or how to assess the existence of a clear vision and company strategy.

A clear vision and strategy are essential for building a high-growth company. They provide direction, align everyone towards a common goal, prioritise activities, identify potential roadblocks, and create a focused and disciplined approach to business.

A well-defined and understood strategy aids in the effective allocation of resources and the development of contingency plans to overcome challenges, whereas a clear vision motivates employees and attracts investors. A clear vision and strategy, when combined, lay the groundwork for long-term success.

The Check

Ask a few random employees, managers, or the CEO to describe the company’s core values, the problem it addresses, its competitors or equivalent businesses, and why our business is superior. If the results are inconsistent, the design process needs to restart.

Check #2: Future value creation

How does the future look? “Or how do you assess a company’s ability to create value in the future?” High-growth companies must have a clear future focus in order to achieve long-term sustainability. Most businesses have a complex set of these data points, but they arrive too late and only reflect the past.

Forward-looking reports, such as total revenue for the period ahead signed up, upcoming customer signups or cancellations and the impact on financials and cash forecasts, are missing. The best analogy is being in a race car; the race car represents a fast-paced company.

Also Read: How to balance rapid growth and sustainability as a startup founder

A driver in such a race car requires a large windscreen (forward-looking information) to see what is ahead. If a driver only uses the rear mirror (financial reporting packages), obstacles are only discovered after the fact, which is too late. With vital, timely information, high-growth companies can build strong teams that can execute the company’s strategy and drive growth.

High-growth companies can continue to create value and drive growth in the long run by staying ahead of the curve and adapting to changing market conditions.

The Check

Examine and extend the daily, weekly, and monthly reporting packs and board reports for future-oriented financial and operational information.

Check #3: Long-term asset focus

“Do we have a long-term asset focus, or are we just chasing revenue or share price fluctuations?” or “Are we concentrating on assets and their protection and growth as a business?”

CEOs who only look at the share price and base all of their decisions on short-term share price movements are setting the business up for failure. The share price is determined by business results and the market’s belief in future success. Financial results are the result of a company’s investment in assets and moats, which ensure future financial success and drive share price growth.

A large and growing customer base, recurring revenues, a strong brand, a clear value proposition, a competitive technology platform, a world-class team, and other assets all contribute to future results.

The Check

Examine the daily, weekly, and monthly reporting packs, as well as board reports. Is the emphasis solely on delivering financial results against budgets or also on constructing assets and moats to protect the assets? Is the incentive structure geared towards asset creation or short-term financial results?

Check #4: Mega-culture

“Do we have a true mega-culture that fuels and protects our growth?” or “How do we fare in a BBQ or hotpot test?”

Creating a mega-culture is critical for building a successful and sustainable business. A mega-culture is a culture that is deeply embedded in a company’s values, beliefs, and behaviours and permeates all aspects of the organisation.

It necessitates a clear and understood company vision and direction that cascades down into individual focus and reward systems, the presence of a high-performance team (not a work group, but a team), leaders who serve rather than managers, clear company values, and company confidence. This type of culture inspires and motivates employees, fostering creativity and innovation and driving long-term success.

The Check

Pay attention to what employees and leaders say at company events, such as a company barbecue. Pay attention to how they describe their company, their peers, and their leadership in social settings outside of work, such as a barbecue dinner. Only in such circumstances are people truly candid about their feelings. If, after hearing the speech, you feel compelled to join, the company has passed the BBQ or hotpot test.

Employees who are excited to bring their loved ones to the event and discuss their work reflect the company’s strong and positive culture. If, on the other hand, employees are hesitant or dissatisfied with their jobs, it may be a sign that the company’s culture needs to be improved.

Check #5: Solid investor support

“Does the company have complete investor support?” or “What story does the share price or the investors tell?”

Also Read: Why Japan’s tech leaders are eyeing Thailand as a 2023 growth market

Investor support is critical for high-growth businesses. Investors can help you achieve your goals by providing capital, expertise, and industry connections. It is critical, however, to select investors who share your values and future vision. Investors who share your mission and values are more likely to support your long-term, sustainable growth.

A long-term, depressed share price indicates that there is an underlying issue. While managing the share price should not be the primary focus of a company’s leadership, strong asset creation and investor relations should result in an appreciation among investors or, where applicable, the capital market.

Investors dislike shifting sand and changing stories, so consistency is critical. Investor confidence requires evidence that the strategy works as well as clear progress reports with well-defined metrics.

The Check

Check the share price of publicly traded companies to see why it has reacted to certain news in the way that it has. Speak to key shareholders and try to understand how they see the business for all companies, listed or not. Have they grasped the direction and value creation? Is the investor relations messaging consistent, or are we changing direction, and message, on a regular basis?

Final thoughts

In summary, the five-point health check for hyper-growth businesses is an efficient and proven tool that can help business leaders and coaches assess the quality and health of a fast-growing company quickly. By using this tool, leaders can ensure that their business is on the right track towards long-term success.

Note: “Hypergrowth” means annual revenue growth of 40 per cent or more.

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In Southeast Asia, the first half of April saw several equity investors joining investment deals across sectors. As expected, most of the companies that raised funding in the period have been seed-stage and early-stage startups.

We have compiled a list of the 13 Connect investors (those who have been verified by e27 and agreed to receive connection requests from startups) that have invested in Southeast Asian tech startups from April 1 to 15, 2023.

AppWorks

Based in Taiwan, AppWorks is a startup community and VC firm built by founders for founders. As a VC, AppWorks manages three VC funds, typically investing in seed to Series C companies. It funds 20 deals a year.

Its portfolio firms include Lalamove, Dapper Labs/Flow, Animoca Brands, 91APP, Figment, Carousell, ShopBack, Tiki, 17LIVE, and KKday.

It invested in Indonesian property rental startup Travelio last week.

SC Ventures

SC Ventures is a business unit in Standard Chartered to enable innovation, invest in disruptive financial technology and explore alternative business models. It primarily invests in fintech companies that enable forward-thinking capabilities and manages Standard Chartered’s minority stakes in its fintech partners. Its other focus verticals are AI, blockchain, finance, insurtech, and mobile.

Also Read: The week that was: A snapshot of the top news stories published in April 2nd week

Last week, it invested in Singapore-based fintech startup BetterTradeOff.

Wavemaker Partners

Wavemaker takes a portfolio-building approach to early-stage (seed to Series A) investing. It usually starts with a US$100,000 to US$200,000 cheque and follows on until US$1 million. It has 15 member funds across four continents.

Wavemaker Group is a multi-faceted cross-border venture capital firm founded in 2003. The firm is dual headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore and has raised over US$580M across multiple funds. In Southeast Asia, Wavemaker focuses on enterprise and deep technology companies.

Its Singapore-based investments include Luxola (acquired by LVMH), ArtofClick (acquired by Xurpas), and Pie (acquired by Google).

The VC firm backed TablePointer, an energy-efficiency-as-a-service (EEaaS) startup in Singapore, last week.

Global Founders Capital

GFC is a stage-agnostic investor. It invests in seed and Series A, or participates in later rounds. Its focus verticals are agritech, AI, AR, VR, Big Data, consumer, e-commerce, education, finance, gaming, ICT, logistics/supply chain, mobile, productivity & CRM, real estate, SaaS, sports, and travel.

GFC co-invested in Indonesian tech-enabled fitness startup Fit Hub last week.

East Ventures

East Ventures is a seed to early-stage venture capital firm based in Singapore, Indonesia, and Tokyo. Founded in 2010 by the co-founder of Mixi.jp and other prominent investors/entrepreneurs in Asia, it has invested in over 150 companies, ranging from internet startups to commerce, social, game, and mobile services.

It invested in Legit Group and Fit Hub last week.

Trihill Capital

Trihill Capital is an innovation-focused fund investing in seed-to-growth industry disruptors in Southeast Asia and public equities globally. It targets solution-oriented companies and transformative founders across sectors and stages.  Its investment strategy combines bottom-up and top-down approaches, combining fundamental research with technical and macro overlays.

Trihill Capital is affiliated with one of the leading agriculture companies in the region and is based in Singapore with a satellite office in Jakarta.

It participated in Fit Hub’s raise last week.

AgFunder

Based in Silicon Valley, AgFunder is a new kind of VC firm built on proprietary technology and a global ecosystem of over 85,000 subscribers. It invests in exceptional and bold founders building the next generation of agrifood technology companies that will transform our food system.

It joined a funding round of TablePointer last week.

ENGIE New Ventures

ENGIE New Ventures was founded in 2014 as the corporate venture capital fund of global energy provider ENGIE. Its €180 (US$197) million fund is dedicated to making minority investments in technology startups that complement existing activities and resources to spur internal innovation within ENGIE.

MDI Ventures

MDI is a corporate venture capital initiative by Telkom Indonesia which is based in Jakarta with operations in Singapore and Silicon Valley. MDI combines a VC model with services in providing companies from Telkom Group with access to operational assistance and help in building startups’ growth engines after making a financial investment.

Also Read: The week that was: A sneak-peek into the top news stories published in April first week

The focus verticals are digital ads, payment solutions, and cloud computing, Big Data, media services, digital life, mobile apps, e-commerce, and IoT. It works closely with global accelerators and venture firms to bring proprietary technologies from other mature markets into various businesses of Telkom Indonesia.

It joined the round of TablePointer last week.

Winter Capital

Winter Capital is a global growth equity firm founded in 2015 by Goldman Sachs EM senior alumni. With US$1.4 billion under management across three funds, Winter Capital focuses on growth equity investments in consumer industries going through technology-enabled change. The funds invest globally in fast-growing tech companies in four select verticals: financial, healthcare, education, and consumer services.

It co-invested in a financing round of Legit Group last week.

ORZON Ventures

ORZON Ventures, powered by OR (#1 Oil and Retail company in Thailand) and 500 TukTuks, invests in promising Series A-B startups in Thailand and Southeast Asia under the theme of mobility, lifestyle, smart retail, health & wellness, and tourism. Startups in ORZON portfolio can accelerate their growth via OR ecosystem and at the same time, gain access to 500 Global’s network and expertise. In other words, the fund will invest in startups that meet the needs of future mobility solutions or those that respond to the new changing needs of the modern lifestyle, such as F&B startups, travel, health, wellness, and other digital lifestyle solutions.

It is an investor in Travelio’s latest round.

Leet Capital

Leet Capital is an equity crowdfunding platform that helps bridge high-potential companies to passionate investors. It also runs Leet Academy which focuses on providing startups access to knowledge of starting, running, and scaling a business in the digital age. It leverages both 1337 Ventures and Leet Academy to provide advisory and growth capital solutions to high-growth startups and SMEs via ECF and other relevant capital sources and channels through its MOOC programmes or monthly events.

It invested in Qmed’s round in the first week of April.

SBI Ven Capital

Founded in 2007 and based in Singapore, SBI Ven Capital is a private equity firm that invests in financial services and technology sectors across Asia. It works with financial services and technology companies that are looking to raise equity or equity-linked financing; have market-leading products, processes and/or technology; and backed by a strong team with whom SBI Ven Capital can partner.

As of December 31, 2021, SBI Ven Capital is managing US$549M.

It invested in Fresh Factor’s round in April’s first week.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

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BetterPlace, SaaS-based frontline workforce management platform in India, has announced the acquisition of Malaysia-based Troopers, a provider of on-demand, pre-screened, part-time frontline workers to enterprises.

The transaction details remain undisclosed.

The deal will allow BetterPlace to accelerate its presence and establish a stronger foothold in Southeast Asia. It will integrate Troopers’s automated gig matching and rostering features into BetterPlace’s SaaS platform.

Founded in 2017 by Joshua Tan and Kelvin Lee, Troopers is a digital HR tech platform for flexible work. It works with a range of brands across Malaysia to meet the needs in terms of on-ground activations, offline marketing, merchandising, in-store promotion, logistics, warehousing, concerts and shared services.

Also Read: Meet the e27 Connect investors that invested in SEA in April first half

Since its app launch in 2021, Troopers claims it has garnered over 180,000 verified users.

It claims to have helped over 50,000 gig workers in Malaysia find employment since its inception.

BetterPlace has developed an AI-powered platform that provides matchmaking capabilities for companies seeking skilled candidates for gig and full-time positions.

In addition to hiring and applicant-tracking software solutions, the company also offers remote onboarding, rostering, and digital upskilling capabilities for enterprises.

The latest deal follows BetterPlace’s recent expansion in the region by acquiring Indonesia’s blue-collar workforce fulfilment platform MyRobin.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post BetterPlace acquires Malaysian on-demand frontline workers firm Troopers appeared first on e27.

e27’s Regional MeetUp 2023 seeks to gather regional disruptors and innovators and bring the latest insights on the regional tech startup ecosystem straight into their respective homes — our next stop: Philippines.

We’ll see you at WeWork Menarco Tower, BGC Taguig City on Tuesday, 18 April. What to expect, you might ask?

The e27 MeetUp in the Philippines features a panel discussion with the topic “Southeast Growth Series: How can the Philippines’ tech ecosystem grow sustainably and where are future growth drivers”, with speakers Katrina Chan, Executive Director at IdeaSpace and QBO; Kristine Ongcangco, Founder and CEO of Parlon; Franco Varona, Managing Partner at Foxmont Capital Partners; and Mohan Belani, CEO and Co-Founder of e27; with moderator Christine Galolo, General Manager of e27.

Also read: Meet the e27 Connect investors that invested in SEA in April first half

This event is an excellent opportunity to connect with the local tech startup community at Manila, share insights with experts and your peers, and potentially get free tickets to the Echelon Asia Summit happening on June 14-15 in Singapore.

The e27 MeetUp is also a great opportunity to explore how you can work with the e27 community – and e27 – to help you achieve your goals.

This is an invite-only event. If you would like to be a part of it, leave us your details in this form.

This event is brought to you by e27, in partnership with WeWork and WebEngage.

The post Why you should battle the traffic and Meetup with us in Manila appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based healthtech startup Mito Health has secured S$1.7 million (US$1.3 million) in seed funding.

Forge Ventures led the round, with participation from angels, including the founders and executives of ShopBack, Carousell, PatSnap, Glints, SingLife, Rainforest, ErgoTune and OhMyHome.

Mito Health was co-founded by Tee-Ming Chew, Kenneth Lou, Joel Kek, and Dr Ryan Ware. Chew and Kenneth previously co-founded and exited Seedly, while Joel Kek earlier led engineering teams at TraceTogether at GovTech. Ware is a former surgeon.

Also Read: How big data in healthcare influences better patient outcomes

The startup augments medical expertise with AI to create personalised health plans for customers based on their diagnostic results and wearable data. It guides users through rigorous optimisation cycles throughout their member experience using digital coaching in the areas of diet, exercise, supplements, and sleep.

Mito aims to serve the health-conscious demographic and individuals looking for strategies to maintain their health beyond annual checkups and supplements. The initial focus is Singapore, with plans to expand regionally into other developed markets.

CTO Joel Kek said: “Imagine having an always-accessible medical team that understands you well, helping you to improve health and performance. This currently exists for athletes and the ultrawealthy. Mito Health makes this accessible by combining deep medical expertise with advanced AI models.”

Also Read: Meet the e27 Connect investors that invested in SEA in April first half

“Personalised, preventative strategies are key to extending lifespan while preserving the physical and cognitive quality of life, and AI will pave the way to the widespread accessibility of bespoke care,” added Chief Medical Officer Ryan.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post Forge Ventures leads US$1.3M pre-seed round of Mito Health appeared first on e27.

 

(An earlier version of this article wrongly mentioned the fund raised as US$3M. It has now been corrected.)

TablePointer, an energy-efficiency-as-a-service (EEaaS) startup in Singapore, has received over US$2.3 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Wavemaker Partners, AgFunder, and ENGIE.

The funding will be used to add new features and product modules and enter fast-growing markets in Southeast Asia.

TablePointer helps businesses become more energy efficient through its EEaaS model. It provides IoT and AI solutions for energy efficiency at no upfront costs and manages their implementation, monitoring, and maintenance. Its plug-and-play energy efficiency technology primarily targets the food and beverage industry.

Also Read: This eco-friendly and energy-efficient air-conditioner cools you, not your room

By helping its customers reduce their energy consumption, TablePointer is helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

Steve Melhuish, Chairman of TablePointer and Founding Partner, Wavemaker Impact, said: “The F&B industry has been slow to adopt sustainability solutions due to perceived lack of rapid ROI. TablePointer addresses this problem by offering a plug-and-play solution that provides immediate tangible savings and significant reduction in greenhouse emissions without any upfront costs. This has led to fast adoption by both small independent outlets and some of the largest most recognisable F&B chain brands.”

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like connecting with investors, visibility through the platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post TablePointer raises US$2.3M to enter new markets with its IoT, AI-based energy efficiency solutions appeared first on e27.

You don’t need millions in VC funding to build a sustainable company. In fact, companies like eBay, HP and Dell were originally bootstrapped. 

At CodeInterview, we built a profitable seven-figure ARR business with minimal outside capital (cash still unused) and an average engineering team size of one. 

Along the way, we learned valuable lessons about building a lean company that I’ll share with you today. These are difficult times, especially for tech, so I hope these lessons will help you de-risk your business and come out of this crisis stronger than before. 

Here are seven lessons from building a seven-figure SaaS business with just one engineer.

Before starting

Before starting CodeInterview, I was running a dev agency working with clients like Microsoft, Nokia and ESPN.

My focus was on hiring engineers and building teams so I needed a way to quickly and accurately evaluate developer skills. This was back in 2014 so I couldn’t find any out-of-the-box solutions to this problem, especially when hiring remotely. 

So we built a simple tool for coding assessments to use in-house. This evolved into CodeInterview, a full-featured platform with programming tests, interviews and take-home projects. 

When we started selling it to other companies, it was much easier to develop new features and find the right people to talk to. This was because we understood the problem and actively used it in our own recruiting. 

Also Read: What founders need to watch out for before joining a startup accelerator

So rather than building in the dark, the lesson here is to scratch your own itch. This makes it easier to hit product-market fit without wasting time and resources on building the wrong things. 

Early feedback stage

To get early feedback, I offered CodeInterview to existing clients and some of my friends who were in senior engineering positions. It turned out that some of the must-have features we came up with had to be killed. 

Ever since then, one of our key priorities has always been ease of use and this led to a great benefit when building a lean company — very few customer support requirements. We have been able to effectively serve 60,000+ users so far with just one customer success specialist. 

So the lesson here is don’t be afraid to kill features — you will end up with a more intuitive product that doesn’t expand your overhead with each new customer. 

Investors or mentors? 

As mentioned in the intro, we did raise seed funding when starting CodeInterview. This was mostly to get access to people like Tim Draper, Ravi Belani and Steven Tamm (ex-Salesforce CTO) who became our investors. 

The first introduced us to some of our key customers. The latter taught us about selling to engineering teams at large organisations like Google and Adobe.

Another one of our investors, The Alchemist Accelerator, gave us a structured B2B sales curriculum and paired us with Kevin Ramani, ex-Head of Sales at Close.io, as our sales coach. 

So early on, try to pair up with the right advisors and investors in order to gain access to more than just money — the skills and intros we got proved invaluable for us even to this day. 

Finding the right marketing channel

I have seen startups spending thousands of dollars per month in PR early on. It’s a mistake. You need to focus on finding early adopters who are looking for your product, ideally in a well-defined niche. 

As Paul Graham says: “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like”. 

Now, let’s look into our own experience in more detail. 

One of our biggest advantages has been simply having a relevant brand and domain name. As of writing this article, the term “code interview” has 1,600+ monthly searches and we always rank in the top 3 results, largely because of our domain name. 

Also Read: Navigating a recession: How founders can protect revenue as funding dries up

Of course, some of this search volume consists of people looking for our brand name but the majority are likely interested in the topic — either as a candidate or an employer. 

Our domain name is also giving us an advantage in many related terms like “code interview tool” or “online coding interview tool” which are super relevant keywords for us. 

So, if possible, try to purchase a descriptive domain name and aim for search traffic with high-value and low competition. You may find SEO works a lot faster and cheaper than expected, especially when compared to channels like PR. 

Subscriptions are the holy grail

Although we started getting a consistent stream of users, monetisation was still difficult. 

What really moved the needle was the introduction of a pay-as-you-go model. We found out that many of our users are senior engineers just exploring different solutions. Committing to a monthly or annual subscription usually involved getting their finance and procurement teams on board which was a big barrier. 

The pay-as-you-go model (paying US$5 per interview) allowed customers to expand usage, often using their personal credit card, before getting management buy-in. This means they had a chance to integrate the product into their hiring flow before committing to a subscription. 

When the main users turn into power users, it gets much easier to get buy-in from other stakeholders.

The key lesson is that while subscriptions remain a good way to boost the value of your business and make it more predictable, you should explore other pricing models that may be a better fit for your company.

On hiring people

As we grew, the temptation to hire additional full-time employees was high. There are endless projects you want to start or recurring tasks to complete which, at a surface level, seem like great reasons to expand your team. 

And this is exactly what many tech companies did – leading to mass layoffs in 2022 due to overhiring throughout the pandemic. In order to keep overhead low and increase your chances of surviving an economic downturn, you should carefully plan the roles you truly need. 

Here’s a bit more from our experience: 

Instead of expanding our in-house team of 4, we relied on short-term contractors and external advisors to help guide our internal team. We hired generalist employees and specialised contractors to mentor us or execute directly. 

For example, we have some very senior engineers from companies like Microsoft and Meta on our advisory board helping our product team with issues like scaling and software architecture. We also have external consultants to help us with growth and SEO. I’ve personally had a sales coach and stay connected with peers and mentors to help with strategy. 

Here’s the rationale: a young cash-deprived startup can not afford to hire expensive experts for everything. Instead, hire high-energy generalists who are hungry for learning and have an “I can do anything” attitude. But make sure you connect them with the right experienced coaches.

This approach has helped us remain profitable and in a stable position even now – as other companies are scrambling to raise cash and keep up with high labour costs.

Our key lesson is this: hire generalist employees and specialist consultants to guide them in order to stay lean and profitable. 

The right mindset

I started my career very early, running my dad’s small retail shop in Karachi, Pakistan. This was a transformative experience as you have to focus on profitability and cash flow every single day. 

Also Read: Insights from a Singaporean founder’s journey to Silicon Valley

I found this very helpful when building a lean SaaS company. If you don’t want to rely on investors’ money every six months (and want to make fundraising easier), you need to obsess over profitability. 

This is not just related to costs. You should also focus on sales from day 1. Not only do you get to monetisation faster, but you will also naturally prioritise features users are willing to pay for and avoid wasting time on activities that don’t generate revenue. 

So obsess over cash flow and profitability – this is a key reason why many successful companies (bootstrapped or funded) were able to build for the long term and overcome adverse economic climates. 

Conclusion

It still feels like we have a lot to do (and learn) at CodeInterview. 

However, we have come a long way since starting in 2015. Looking back, we can see the decisions that helped us the most. In many cases, these lessons confirm common startup knowledge. But so often common knowledge is not common practice. 

I hope this article will serve as a gentle reminder to stay lean even when you have the opportunity to expand — both product and team-wise. 

And if you’re still early on in your journey, you may find things to repeat and mistakes to avoid, especially when starting a B2B SaaS company with little or no external investment. 

Lastly, if there’s one thing to remember here, it’s this: avoid the temptation to overspend when things are going well in your company. External events that will slow you down are practically inevitable so you have to be prepared to face these adversities.

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The post 7 lessons from building a 7-figure SaaS business with just 1 engineer appeared first on e27.