Southeast Asia is a melting pot of various ethnicities — Chinese, Indian, indigenous and western bubbling over four decades.  

However, the outside world doesn’t fully understand the region. People outside the region see SEA simply as a westerner (foreigner) or a local. Worse, most Southeast Asians only know their own country very well but very little about other countries.

The region needs to have a rich view of what’s happening inside to effectively influence policy to communicate outside Southeast Asia. 

A group of venture capitalists and former policymakers felt the need to have a foundational understanding and a shared understanding of the region’s prospects that go well beyond the investing community. 

With this goal in mind, they joined hands to launch a new non-profit.

Called the Angsana Council, the non-profit is committed to increasing the growth and prosperity of the societies and economies in the region. 

Built on strong personal and professional ties, the Angsana Council members have worked extensively in various government, business, education and community service spheres. Its founding members are Charles Ormiston (Founding Partner, Southeast Asia, Bain & Company), Peng T. Ong (Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures), Gita Wirjawan (ex-Minister of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia, educator and entrepreneur), and George Yeo (ex-Singapore cabinet minister and visiting scholar at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the National University of Singapore). 

Also Read: A stroll through Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai

“The council is the coming together of a group of people that are excited about the growth prospects for Southeast Asia but don’t necessarily feel the world understands,” according to Ormiston, who stepped out of the equity world to be part of the council.

This group of changemakers advocate that technology-enabled disruption will be a vital contributor to the future of the thriving region. Each shares the same passion for the region and resonates strongly with the mission of getting the world to understand Southeast Asia.

 “We at Monk’s Hill thought it is a worthwhile mission to sponsor,” said Ong.

The council does not aim to be a prominent think tank but instead a cosy focus group that has open and transparent conversations about the policy about technology to foster growth in the SEA economy. 

“We expect to reach six or seven more people over the next year to join the council. We will look for people in Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand with similar backgrounds, such that they have been involved in problem-solving but are also intellectually accepted,” said Ormiston.

Understanding the region

Since the 1998-99 financial crisis, the world’s attention shifted to India and China. SEA as a region was sidelined, even though it houses 25 per cent of Asia’s population. Only recently have people started paying attention to the region thanks to tech innovation.

As the council members dug deep to gather data and information for their first report, they realised that not many spoke exclusively about the region. There were specific reports for certain sectors, but none looked at the region and explored its investment potential. 

So the Angsana Council’s first major work is a report. The report — Southeast Asia’s Pursuit of the Emerging Markets Growth Crown: How four factors could step up Southeast Asian growth — highlights the growth potential in SEA despite global economic headwinds.

According to Ormiston, the report attempts to share a data-driven understanding of the region to contribute to its growth.

With this report, the council decodes the question: Why Southeast Asia? Will it talk about different types of technology and how it impacts various parts of the region?

Also Read: The thesis for cross-border e-commerce in Southeast Asia

It is a concrete analysis to showcase why Southeast Asia has been one of the world’s most stable places to invest in the last 25 years. Backed with data and meticulously fact-checked, the report gives fund managers, investors, and VCs worldwide a solid understanding of the region. 

As the council also has former policymakers as members, the report hopes to bag the attention of the government that could enable tech to move faster in Southeast Asia. The report and the council’s work are a starting point for a dialogue between technology-enabled disruptors, tech startups and governments to see how they can collaboratively increase the region’s productivity.

The report forecasts the SEA economy to grow by four to five per cent annually over the next ten years, with Vietnam leading the charge at a projected growth of five to seven per cent. The report’s optimism is centred around two critical sources of additional growth: 

• The growing impact of tech-enabled entrepreneurs (TEDs) on investment, productivity and economic inclusion
• That SEA’s largest trading relationships are with China, and SEA grows as China grows

The report provides deeper insights into factors such as pro-growth policies, stable macroeconomics, vibrant demographics of SEA, the impact of TEDs driving growth and the benefits of remaining neutral amidst geopolitical headwinds.

The council aims to tackle one topic every quarter and dig deep into discussions with experts and research to map out the potential of SEA. Innovation stories of Air Asia and what it did to the aviation sectors of ASEAN countries and local players like Shopee superseding Amazon and Grab are testimony that the region can employ deep tech and novel business models based on a thorough understanding of the people.

“And those are the stories we want to understand and help the world understand better. So that they look at Southeast Asia differently and see the opportunities to invest in this in what we call Tetra Tech-enabled disruptors,” said Ormiston.

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We live in a world of overlayed realities and times. Being pursued by the past, we are striving for the future. The physical world is not the only world where our mind exists and evolves. And what I mean has nothing to do with esoterism or meditation. 

Modern minds simultaneously exist in virtual reality and live a second life there. While parents try to limit their kids’ time on laptops and mobiles, the inevitable reality is that humankind is being “digitized” more with each generation. 

The birth of the metaverse is the natural continuation of the modern world and the technology that addresses the emerging demands of our society. It’s a virtual environment where travel to different epochs and destinations is not a big issue. It’s a world of mixed realities and times, bypassing many limitations of the existing communication tech, online interactions, and business. 

But seriously, what does the metaverse mean? Are we entering the times described in The Matrix movie? It seems that Bill Gates has been heading there for many years.

A buzzword with many definitions

In the broadest terms, the metaverse is an integrated network of 3D virtual worlds that are always on and co-exist in one environment. It’s a virtual space where people can meet, work, shop, club, and do other things they would do in a physical world but with much broader opportunities.

It has three common elements – avatars, a VR interface, and digital ownership, but none of them is essential to the main idea.

Also Read: Will your next dentist appointment be in the metaverse?

There is another definition that explains the significance of the metaverse. Instead of the future, it looks into the past and everyday technologies like mobile phones and the Internet.

The venture capitalist Matthew Ball describes the metaverse as “a sort of successor state to the mobile internet,” assuming that the metaverse will replace smartphones and other means of communication, as we will be able to socialise in a much more exciting reality.

Just like smartphones dozens of years ago, the metaverse is poised to revolutionise our social interactions, economy, and even lifestyles.

The metaverse is not as new as you may think

Is the metaverse new? Briefly, no. Most say that the concept has fallen out of the pages of the cyberpunk novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson where he used the term to describe the imagined future world far back in 1992. 

As the unnamed theory of the future, the metaverse has existed in the corporate visions of many companies. In the ’90s, U.K. grocery chain Sainsbury’s created a VR shopping demo that is very similar to a video released by Walmart in 2017. Besides marketing pieces, several metaverse-like projects were created quite some time ago. 

The first and closest to the metaverse project is an online multimedia platform, “Second Life”, launched in 2003. It’s a virtual world with its own in-game economy and currency that can be traded for real money.

Users are presented by their avatars there. It’s the virtual space where people enjoy immersive real-world experiences, produce their own content, create and trade services, and more. Many call Second Life a “textbook to the metaverse” since this game reflects all the main ideas of the metaverse.

Who does rule the metaverse?

Even though metaverses are mostly built as anarchic, community-driven environments that operate on the principle of civility, there is a place for the law aimed to eliminate risks coming from malefactors. Just like in any other world, there is the good, the bad, and the law that regulates it.  

At the given moment, the creator of every single metaverse controls it and states its own laws in terms of service you must read and accept before entering the space. Besides standard law applied to the entire metaverse, there can be specific rules developed for each virtual district, and it’s the user’s responsibility to explore them and follow them.

Since the industry is very new, there is no unified law for all metaverses. However, it’s definitely on the way. The metaverse lawyer will become one of the most prestigious professions soon. The more people will buy a virtual property and integrate their businesses into a new virtual world, the greater will be the demand for legal regulations.

The expansion of life

Real estate

Hanging out with avatars and playing in virtual spaces is not the only reason this development is so interesting.

The digital hills of the metaverse have gold ‘bonanza’ veins.

Also Read: Fostering emotional companionship in the metaverse

Right now, we’re amid a virtual land grab. Thousands of people are buying and building virtual parcels. Some of them are just holding them to trade them to the highest bidder later. This is what speculators will be banking on. 

Business

More entrepreneurs are becoming interested in expanding their businesses to the metaverse, as it opens endless opportunities for reaching broader audiences, immersive marketing/shopping experiences, and eliminating geolocation restrictions. 

Furthermore, the metaverse is a versatile space offering extra monetisation opportunities for many businesses and industries.

In January 2022, Samsung launched its first metaverse store in Decentraland. Coca-Cola launched a collection of branded NFTs that can be used across the universe for avatars, and that was won at the bidding amount of over US$575,000. We will see many more examples soon. 

Personalisation

Another speculative market is personalisation which refers to everything related to users’ avatars and their neighbourhoods, starting from clothes, interior design, and animations to digital art and more.

Users will spend on it as much as they care about what others think of them in the metaverse. And the significance of self-expression in the metaverse will surely grow, starting from wealthier and tech-savvier social classes and expanding further, becoming more accessible for everyone over time. 

Socialisation

The way we socialise has changed a lot after the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. Skype birthdays and FaceTime drinks have become the norm. Kids are being brought up on apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Virtual socialisation has become very common, and it’s another aspect the metaverse is revolutionising too. In this new techno-utopian world, you can feel like an individual and an organic part of an impressive environment simultaneously. There is no judgement for your self-expression and free speech, as you can remain anonymous. 

Whether you are attending virtual concerts with favourite celebrities, NFT exhibitions of famous artists, escape rooms, or even group meditations – the metaverse empowers us to socialise and acquire new experiences that have been previously impossible. 

Music, entertainment, finance, fashion, travel, e-commerce, and other industries are moving toward the metaverse to collaboratively build a more inclusive and democratic environment that will allow average users to interact, shop, and learn at a whole new level. They are building a second Life.

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Last Friday (October 28), I had the privilege to share the stage at Echelon Asia 2022 with distinguished peers – Rishi Randhawa, Head of Web3 Innovation, Enjinstarter; Xander van der Heijden CEO, UNL; and Shaun Heng, Head of Spartan Labs. The panel was moderated by Rachael De Foe, Managing Director and Founder of Redefy. 

Over a 45-minute conversation, we explored the implications, challenges and opportunities for Web2 companies to take this leap to Web3. As the latter values openness, transparency, composability, and participation, how could companies establish plans in the face of crypto market volatility?

The following were four takeaways from the discussion:

Web2 and Web3 will co-exist with each other

When e-commerce first emerged (Amazon and eBay in the US and Lazada in Southeast Asia), the narrative was centred around how “physical retail was dead”, and e-commerce would reign supreme.

Yet statistics prove otherwise, almost two decades into the e-commerce boom – online retail sales in Southeast Asia account for no more than 20 per cent of total volume at best, and mature markets like the USA fare only slightly better at 30 per cent. 

In a similar vein, the emergence of Web3 has led to attention-grabbing headlines of how “Web3 will disrupt and replace Web2”, yet history is likely to repeat itself. Just as physical retail and e-commerce co-exist today, Web2 and Web3 are likely to co-exist.

Also Read: Echelon 2022: Moving into Web3, why now is the right time?

As shared by Heng, “It’s not about moving from Web2 to Web3 entirely. It’s about combining the best of Web2 and Web3 to build better business models, expanding your playbook to complement each other.”

2025 might be the golden year for Web3

The journey for Web3 to co-exist alongside Web2 has only begun, and when asked when we can expect Web3 to hit mass market adoption, the consensus among the panel was two-three years from today, thus indicating 2025 as the golden year for Web3. 

Randhawa shares, “Two to three years is a realistic timeline to shift to Web3 as governments continue to figure out their roles in Web3. There’s going to be a shift as more people naturally get a wallet.”

This sentiment is echoed by Heijden, who said that “Eventually, we won’t even know we’re using blockchain. We’ve made a lot of progress since two years ago, and that will only accelerate moving forward.”

Web3 is everywhere; get immersed today to learn about tomorrow

As an increasing number of Web2 companies seek to dip their toes into Web3, De Foe asked the panellists what the most effective ways to learn about Web3 might be. The answer was unanimous – learn by doing (or more raucously, trial by fire). 

Heijden shares, “There are so many resources online. On YouTube, there are channels like SuperDAO. There are also collectives like Safary Club. It’s all out there you’ve just got to find it”.

Heng also advised what companies and organisations can do, “Start small with a group of people who are passionate and interested in the space. There’s no need to abandon your business in pursuit of Web3.”

This resonates strongly with Saison Capital, as we kickstarted the 2to3 Product Managers community to encourage Web2 product managers to immerse themselves in Web3 conversations.

With a thriving community of 300+ product managers, we learnt that the most effective way to grasp web3 concepts is through immersion – creating a wallet, receiving proof of attendance protocol (POAP) NFT, and even purchasing cryptocurrency for the first time. 

No Web3 experts exist…yet

At the closing of the Echelon 2022 panel, De Foe then prompted the panellists to share how Web2 companies can prepare themselves for the Web3 paradigm shift on the people and talent front.

Heijden shared that finding talent in Web2 is already challenging, especially in technical roles, and the war for talent in Web3 would even be more intense. Yet founders should avoid falling into the trap of searching for the “Web3 expert”, given the nascency of the space.

Also Read: Should Southeast Asian startups look to transition from Web2 to Web3?

Instead, the focus should be on soft skills. “We tend to hire entrepreneurs who are really good at what they do in Web2, but have a strong desire to learn more about Web3”, says Heng.

Randhawa affirms this lookout for curiosity by sharing, “First and foremost is attitude. You need to be proactive in this space”. 

Rounding up the conversation, I then also shared my observations from Web2 (building Glints, Southeast Asia’s largest talent platform) and Web3 (investing in early-stage Web3 founders in Southeast Asia), “Find someone relentlessly resourceful who can figure things out and learn on their own persistently. These are two qualities that will never go out of style”. 

This piece was co-authored by Joash Lee, an Intern at Saison Capital.

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PasarMIKRO, an Indonesia-based agri commodity trade platform, has secured US$2.5 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Trihill Capital and Resolution Ventures.

Genting Ventures, 1982 Ventures and other unnamed investors also joined

The fresh funds will help PasarMIKRO grow its user base, expand product offerings, and enter new markets.

The new round comes nine months after PasarMIKRO’s pre-seed round led by 1982 Ventures.

Started in early 2022, PasarMIKRO is a mobile-based commodity trading and trade finance desk service for agri players, revolving around farmers, suppliers and traders.

Also Read: 1982 Ventures closes debut US$20M seed-stage fintech fund

It connects farmers and traders for daily activities, such as bookkeeping, working capital, and marketplace transactions to sell their products. The company is going after Indonesia’s US$130 billion agriculture, forestry and fishing market (over 13 per cent of GDP according to the World Bank ) by empowering smallholder farmers, traders and the entire value chain.

PasarMIKRO launched a pilot in the Blitar province focused on eggs and has quickly expanded to all major provinces with over ten commodities on its platform. The firm is projected to hit over US$300 million annualised gross transaction value and 10,000 users by the end of 2023.

Dien Wong, CEO and Co-Founder of PasarMIKRO, said: “PasarMIKRO gives farmers and traders a real-time trading platform that provides reliability, transparency and frictionless transactions. Connecting the agriculture value chain has a direct, immediate and positive impact on the income of Indonesian farmers and traders.”

Co-Founder Hugo Verwayen added, “PasarMIKRO is solving a huge bottleneck in the agri value chain by enabling the existing traders, aggregators and farmers with digitisation and access to working capital. We have scaled into new commodity segments and provinces while keeping costs low and managing our burn.”

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As part of its Project AsiaForward initiative, Alibaba Cloud has teamed up with tech ecosystem partners to celebrate the diverse achievements of tech-driven entities in Southeast Asia.

Known as AsiaStar 10×10, the initiative gives recognition to 100 companies, communities, and projects in ten categories across the region. Ten awardees were chosen for each category. The categories are:

1. Trailblazers are Series B to pre-IPO companies that have played an essential role in driving technological innovation in the region.
2. Gamechangers made moves that set precedents or broke records in Southeast Asia.
3. Growth includes early-stage startups that are developing unique and innovative products and solutions, and have raised funds up to Series B.
4. Enablers are SaaS companies that provide crucial support to enterprises of every stripe.
5. Explorers are Chinese startups that have successfully ventured into the region and established a strong presence.
6. Open Source highlights projects that have accelerated the region’s digitalisation by giving other entities the tools they need to build new applications.
7. Frontiers includes startups that are developing deeply technical products, such as quantum computing, biotech and medical advancements, space tech, and more.
8. Impact comprises startups that have brought about significant grassroots-level advancements where they operate.
9. Investors are the equity firms that provide the fuel startups need to grow, and are evaluated for the impact they showcase.
10. Launchpads are educational institutions, incubators, and accelerators that have provided safe environments to nurture great startups.

The awardees were selected from the list of final nominees curated by representatives of Alibaba Cloud, government agencies, investors, industry experts, and media outlets. They considered a variety of factors, such as revenue, funding, impact, uniqueness, potential, and more. The full list can be viewed here: https://asiastar10x10.kr-asia.com/awardees-2022/.

These are the final awardees for each category:

• Trailblazers

Series B to pre-IPO companies that have played an essential role in driving technological innovation in the region

1. Aerodyne — A DT3 (Drone tech, data tech, and digital transformation) solutions provider, Aerodyne has operations in 35 countries and manages the infrastructure assets of over 300,000 clients, making it the world’s second-largest drone service company.
2. Kumu —  Not only the first Filipino app to be the top-grossing social app in the Philippines according to App Annie, Kumu is also one of the highest-grossing social apps in the world, ranking among the top ten in multiple markets including Canada, Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Hong Kong, and Singapore app stores. This social media platform gives users the chance to win cash in various game shows and campaign engagements, as well as helps content creators convert engagement into income via e-commerce, virtual gifting, and advertising.
3. NinjaVan — NinjaVan’s well-established end-to-end logistics network spans Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, connecting over 1.5 million active shippers with close to 100 million recipients. It is the only last-mile courier with almost 100% service coverage in Southeast Asia, from tier-1 cities to almost all remote villages.
4. ShopBack — ShopBack provides shoppers with cashback services from online stores, serving over 30 million shoppers in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, and South Korea. The company matches brands with customers wanting to receive cashback rewards and other types of discounts.
5. Sunday — Sunday adopts AI and machine learning technology to underwrite its motor insurance and employee health benefits product, including dynamic data models to automate pricing and scale its underwriting process for complex risks. Originally based in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday has now expanded into Indonesia.
6. GrowSari — GrowSari is digitising small physical retail stores, called sarisari, with features like pricing tools, inventory management, and working capital loans. In addition to providing affordable, on-demand inventory as well as working capital loans, GrowSari’s platform also generates crucial data and insights into the operations of these stores for manufacturers and distributors to build their strategies and campaigns upon.
7. eFishery — eFishery offers an integrated end-to-end platform providing fish and shrimp farmers access to technology, feed, financing, and markets. The company started out by offering fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia a digitally-controlled ‘smart feeder’ which offers automatic feeding coinciding with a mobile app where farmers can input variables such as fish and shrimp type, feed quantity and pellet size, feeding frequency, and feeding schedule.
8. MoMo — MoMo focuses on open banking and application programming interface development. The company’s primary product includes a mobile app that allows customers to conduct transactions directly from their mobile devices for payments at schools, hospitals, gas stations, and other vendors.
9. Kopi Kenangan — An Indonesian coffee chain, Kopi Kenangan serves affordable brews made with local ingredients and recipes. The company, which employs a ‘Grab & Go’ model, delivers most orders through its app, making it a convenient alternative to traditional coffee houses.
10. Jirnexu — Jirnexu develops digital acquisition and lifecycle management solutions for banks, insurance companies, and service providers. Solutions developed by Jirnexu are known to offer expansive reach, lower acquisition costs, and added convenience for customers.

Also read: Reimagining customer experience with Sendbird

• Gamechangers

Company moves that set precedents or broke records in Southeast Asia

1. Grab’s IPO — Grab went public on NASDAQ in a USD 40 billion SPAC deal in December 2021, allowing the ride-hailing company to raise USD 4.5 billion in cash proceeds. Grab’s listing is the largest U.S. listing so far by a Southeast Asian company. As the first SPAC merger of an SEA unicorn, this marks an inspirational and mind-blowing event in the region.
2. Bukalapak’s IPO — At the time of its listing, Bukalapak claimed the largest IPO in IDX’s history. It is Indonesia’s first tech unicorn that got listed on the stock exchange, raising USD 1.5 billion in August 2021. Bukalapak’s stock price rose almost 25% only minutes after the market was opened on its debut day. The rise boosted the company’s valuation to around USD 7.5 billion.
3. Merger deal between Gojek and Tokopedia — Grab’s biggest competitor in ID merged with ecommerce provider Tokopedia in May 2021 to allow for a move to become a super app in the biggest merger deal in Indonesia. The company debuted on IDX in Apr 2022, raising USD 1.1 billion. As an entity, GoTo contributes 2% to the country’s GDP, more than USD 1.8 billion in transactions, and has over 100 million monthly active users.
4. GCash’s explosive growth — With COVID-19 accelerating the demand for online payment options, Mynt’s payment app GCash has grown rapidly. In November 2021, GCash raised USD 300 million at a valuation of USD 2 billion. This effectively made Mynt a double unicorn based in the Philippines. As of May 2022, the e-wallet company managed to have 55 million registered users and 4.5 million partner merchants on its network.
5. Avant Meats’s Series A funding round — Avant Meats is China’s first meat cultivation biotechnology firm. It is the only company in Asia to develop cultivated meat for food, skin care, and cosmetics using its proprietary technology that produces zero-residue protein directly from fish cells, according to DealStreetAsia. In June 2022, the cell-based seafood firm raised USD 10.8 million in a series A funding round.
6. TiNDLE’s global expansion — Launched in October 2020, Singapore-headquartered food tech startup Next Gen has been making waves in the plant-based business environment. Next Gen’s plant-based chicken consumer brand TiNDLE has enjoyed success in a number of international markets including the United States, UK, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, and Dubai. TiNDLE is now available in over 500 restaurants on four continents.
7. 2C2P acquired by Ant Financial — 2C2P is a full-suite payment platform helping the world’s leading enterprises securely accept and make payments through one point of integration. Through the strategic partnership announced in April 2022, 2C2P’s extensive pool of merchants—inclusive of global and regional brands—will be connected with Alipay+, extending its current 250 payment options to include even more e-wallets and local payment methods.
8. VinFast EVs’s expansion into North America — In July 2021, VinFast began operations in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands in preparation for its launch in those markets, moving closer towards its goal of becoming a global smart electric car company.
9. Society Pass’s listing on NASDAQ — Society Pass (Nasdaq: SOPA) is a loyalty and data marketing ecosystem in Vietnam that operates multiple e-commerce and lifestyle platforms across its key markets, including Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia. It raised USD 26 million in its IPO.
10. PropertyGuru’s listing on NYSE — On March 18, 2022, PropertyGuru was listed via the completion of a business combination with the SPAC Bridgetown 2 backed by billionaires Peter Thiel and Richard Li. The company opens the door to increased opportunities across Southeast Asia’s fast-growing property market and will also enable global investors to access this high-growth market.

• Growth

Early-stage startups that are developing unique and innovative products and solutions, and have raised funds up to Series B

1. ProfilePrint — ProfilePrint is a food ingredient search engine platform powered by a patented AI fingerprint technology. It can predict the quality and profile of a food sample within seconds by enabling sellers and buyers to ascertain the agreed quality of a food ingredient in an online transaction without the need for physical samples.
2. SariSuki — SariSuki acts as a consolidator of grocery items for their “KaSari” (community leaders) who in turn own virtual “sari-sari stores” that sell the goods to consumers. SariSuki commits to an under-15-minute grocery delivery service within its covered areas. It has served more than 60,000 consumers through its growing number of community leaders, with operations extending across Greater Metro Manila Area, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and some parts of both Rizal and Pampanga in the Philippines.
3. AiTreat — AiTreat developed a robot called EMMA, which stands for “expert manipulative massage automation.” It provides soft tissue therapeutic treatment to patients. EMMA is equipped with sensors to measure muscle stiffness and uses 3D vision technology to analyse the patient’s body.
4. Rovula — Rovula is a subsea robotics developer building new machines for subsea inspection, repair, and maintenance. While conventional methods of subsea inspection and maintenance are costly in terms of money and time, Rovula’s products, including unmanned vessels and a data platform, can cut those costs by 50%.
5. Duckie Land — Duckie Land is a multiplatform GameFi project built for a VR experience with multiplayer mode. Duckie Land gives gamers ownership of in-game assets and allows them to increase their value by actively playing the game. By participating in the in-game economy, players will receive rewards and create more value for other users and the ecosystem.
6. Eatcosys — Eatcosys is an F&B and retail technology solution provider to help businesses transform and reinvent their business models. It offers over ten services and solutions including catering and event venue booking, food delivery, loyalty and retail management solutions, food search insights, venture capital, and money lending to local businesses. Examples of their solutions include FoodAdvisor, MyCookingStory, and FeedMyGuest.
7. GlobalTrack Smart Logistics — GlobalTrack Smart Logistics is a platform that aims to help SMEs to track and manage their fleet operations safely and effectively through remote GPS monitoring. Its delivery management and fleet telematics systems are able to help fleet owners to monitor their logistic operations, fleet vehicles, and drivers in real-time, minimising vehicle downtime and ensuring timely maintenance for the avoidance of potential malfunctions.
8. PolicyStreet — PolicyStreet offers a digital platform that allows consumers and businesses to purchase insurance products and services in a more affordable and accessible manner. It currently has 40 insurance partners, served more than 250,000 people, and empowered them with more than 50,000 insurance policies.
9. Speedwork Autocare — Speedwork Autocare is a platform that serves as a one-stop center for auto parts and vehicle maintenance services while connecting online consumers with workshop operators. The company aims to bridge the gap between online purchasing and offline repairing work, with an emphasis on customer relationship management.
10. KAMEREO — With its digital platform, KAMEREO connects farmers and B2B merchants directly. As a result, they help increase income for farmers, offer better prices for B2B merchants, and lower food wastage that occurs in the supply chain. The company currently has around 200 members and has seen its business scaled up ten times YoY.

• Enablers

SaaS companies that provide crucial support to enterprises of every stripe

1. aCommerce — aCommerce is an end-to-end enabler that helps to scale online businesses. The platform has 100+ APIs from world-class technology partners and 170+ e-commerce clients, and is trusted by 13 of the top 100 global brands. Since commencing operations, aCommerce has connected e-commerce clients with over 11.6 million end-consumers.
2. AI — ADVANCE.AI is an AI company helping to solve digital transformation, fraud prevention, and process automation for enterprise clients. The company has over 1,000 enterprise clients across banking, financial services, fintech, payment, retail, and e-commerce sectors. Key clients include Standard Chartered, Bank BTPN, KEB Hana Bank, Bank Jago, Shopee, and Indonesia’s GoTo group.
3. Dropee — Dropee hosts over 80,000 SME businesses procured wholesale inventories in its marketplace, annually totaling more than USD 100 million in transaction value. In the five years since its launch, Dropee has established itself as one of the fastest-growing B2B wholesale SaaS-enabled marketplaces in Southeast Asia with a market presence in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
4. Mekari — An Indonesia-based SaaS startup, the company has more than 35,000 clients and 800,000 active users. Mekari is the parent brand of Talenta, Jurnal, Qontak, Klikpajak, and Flex. The company has recorded 11x growth between 2018 and 2022.
5. NexMind — NexMind provides cloud-based and algorithmic solutions based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning. The company has served over 350 clients, including notable companies such as Panasonic, Sogo, Volkswagen, OCBC Bank, UOB, Zurich Insurance, and more.
6. PatSnap — PatSnap is used by more than 10,000 customers in over 40 countries around the world to access market, technology, competitive intelligence, as well as patent insights needed to take products from ideation to commercialisation. Its clients include Tesla, Dyson, Spotify, Oxford University Innovation, and The Dow Chemical Company.
7. Peddlr — Peddlr helps small businesses manage their sales, inventory, accounting, and reports through their mobile devices. The company’s app has seen more than 350,000 downloads across the Apple, Google, and Huawei app stores via just word-of-mouth.
8. Sprout Solutions — Sprout Solutions is a software company that automates payroll, HR, and recruitment processes for businesses in the Philippines. The company has more than 1,000 clients across various industries, including Dole, TOA Global, Canva, IQVIA, MiraMed, KMC, Incenter Technology, and Intellicare.
9. ai— Wiz.ai, a humanised voice AI technology provider, currently has 200 clients across banking, insurance, fintech, telecommunications, e-commerce, healthcare, and the public sector. The company has offices in Singapore, Nanjing, and Jakarta. Wiz.ai is set to grow its revenue and customers 10x in 2022, with plans for global expansion to Australia, America, and Mexico as the next step.
10. Xendit — Xendit is a payment infrastructure platform that supports businesses of all sizes in Southeast Asia, from individual sellers all the way to growth-stage startups and large enterprises. It currently has more than 3,000 customers, including Traveloka, Transferwise, and Grab. Xendit has been growing fast, with its revenue having grown at an annual rate of 700% over the past five years.

Also read: We need to accelerate progress at the frontier of innovation

• Explorers

Chinese startups that have successfully ventured into the region and established a strong presence

1. PingCAP — Backed by the open-source community and public cloud facility, PingCAP creates a business ecosystem that knows no boundaries. Since 2019, the company has landed its service in the United States, Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia, counting top-notch enterprises in every market as its clientele. PingCAP is on its way to establishing itself as an open-source infrastructure provider that boosts digital transformation for global businesses.
2. Cyclone — Founded in 2015, Cyclone integrates AI, NLP, and other technologies to launch its RPA robotics solution that includes a software automation platform, a cloud-native platform, and digital transformation services. In the past three years, Cyclone has expanded its footprint not only to the Greater China region but also to Japan and Southeast Asia.
3. Dianxiaomi — Dianxiaomi has built a SaaS product matrix that integrates functions such as enterprise resource planning, third-party warehousing, customer service, and logistics tracking, providing a variety of tools for cross-border e-commerce sellers on various platforms. Dianxiaomi collaborates with more than 50 e-commerce platforms, connecting over 1,600 logistics providers, and 80 overseas warehouses.
4. Agora — Founded in 2014, Agora is the leading pioneer of the global Real-Time Interactive RTE-PaaS Cloud. Its global audio and video communication services span more than 20 sectors, enabling enterprises from social live streaming, online education, games, VR/AR/IoT, insurance, telehealth, and team collaboration to use their business solutions in over 200 application scenarios.
5. J&T Express — J&T Express started in the Southeast Asia market in 2015, before it evolved into a comprehensive logistics service operator in just seven years. Not only does J&T Express lead the pack in the fast-growing Southeast Asian market and in the massive Chinese market, its express delivery network now has a global presence in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
6. SUNMI — Based on the quality products and advanced business model developed in its domestic market, SUNMI, the smart IoT devices and digital solutions provider, leverages its capability to digitise local economies overseas. As of 2022, SUNMI has set up branches in 15 countries, with over 3 million monthly active devices in more than 200 countries and regions.
7. Hago — Hago is a multiplayer social interactive product that enhances the metaverse and 3D avatar interactive socialisation applications. The company pioneers a variety of social gameplay such as livestreaming, interactive games, and multiplayer voice chat. In April 2018, Hago was launched in 33 countries and quickly became popular among the younger local generation.
8. Mobvista — Since its establishment in 2013, Mobvista has been providing advertising and marketing technology services for customers from gaming, e-commerce, social networking, and local lifestyle services. Its ecosystem of SaaS tools helps clients create, promote, and monetise their businesses and manage data generated through consumer traffic.
9. 37GAMES — 37GAMES is a publicly listed game company that has published a variety of games for players in more than 200 countries and regions including Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. The company has been moving up in the rankings of overseas revenue earned by Chinese game enterprises, securing the #3 spot in 2021.
10. TapTap — TapTap helps gamers around the world discover new games. The company allows gamers to identify and select interesting new games, which are then shared with the rest of the gaming community. As of June 2022, TapTap has an average of 9 million monthly active users from over 170 countries and regions.

• Open Source

Projects that have accelerated the region’s digitalisation by giving other entities the tools they need to build new applications

1. ABYRES — ABYRES Group has developed strategic alliances with partners in hardware and software information technology solutions to provide customers with a comprehensive product and services portfolio. These relationships benefit customers through the ability to serve specific needs from a broad base of targeted products and/or service capabilities.
2. Bluzelle — Bluzelle is a blockchain for the gamification of finance (GameFi). It helps to produce high-quality games, protect players’ NFTs, and leverage DeFi yields with its 10,000 TPS cosmos-based blockchain. It has launched the world’s first Data Delivery Network, taking on global market leaders to meet the increasing demand for data delivery.
3. LottieFiles — LottieFiles simplifies the workflow for creating animation in software like Adobe After Effects by allowing app designers to preview how their animation looks in the app and then ship it without hours of coding. LottieFiles has been used by animation and motion designers at 150,000 companies, including Google, TikTok, Disney, Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix.
4. MAPID — MAPID is a geographic information system platform that connects various kinds of location data from trusted sources, and connects all users through real-time mapping collaboration. The company’s products have been used by more than 20 different industries, including transit-oriented development, logistics, citizen journalism, healthcare distribution, and public policy.
5. NukeViet — NukeViet is the first open source Content Management System (CMS) in Vietnam. The latest version, NukeViet 3.0, provides ground-up coding support for the latest web technologies, including xHTML, CSS 3, XTemplate, jQuery, and Ajax. It enables users to build websites and online applications rapidly, as well as provides packing features that allow users to share modules with the web community.
6. Somleng — Somleng is a collection of open-source tools that provide a full-stack cloud communications platform. Carriers can use Somleng to offer programmable voice and SMS services to their customers. It is being used in an early warning system in Cambodia.
7. SpaceChain — Based in Singapore, SpaceChain is building an open and neutral infrastructure for the New Space Economy by integrating space and blockchain technologies. It established the first satellite platform to provide secure custody, transact digital assets, deploy smart contracts, and facilitate Decentralised Finance Infrastructure (DFI) on space nodes.
8. Supabase — Supabase bills itself as an open-source alternative to services like Google’s Firebase. Its service offers many of the core features that developers need to get started, including a database, storage, and authentication services. The company saw rapid growth in 2021 with a community that has now grown to more than 80,000 developers and the creation of over 100,000 databases on the service.
9. Unicorn — Unicorn is a lightweight multi-platform, multi-architecture CPU emulator framework. It has been used by 125 products, such as Qiling (a cross-platform, multi-architecture lightweight sandbox), UniDOS (a Microsoft DOS emulator), and Pwndbg (a Python plugin of GDB to assist exploit development).
10. UniKey — UniKey is the most popular keyboard program for the Vietnamese language, and can be found on almost every Windows PC used by Vietnamese people. The core engine UniKey Vietnamese Input Method is open source and was first released as a part of the x-unikey Vietnamese keyboard for Linux in 2001. Since then, the engine has been integrated with input methods for different software frameworks, including all iOS devices that have Vietnamese input functions.

• Frontiers

Startups that are developing deeply technical products, such as quantum computing, biotech and medical advancements, space tech, and more

1. Baiya Phytopharm — Baiya Phytopharm is a plant-based pharmaceutical company utilising BaiyaPharming protein expression platform to produce recombinant molecular proteins from tobacco leaves. The platform has the flexibility to produce biopharmaceutical products within weeks rather than months or years, which results in faster results and fewer costs in R&D. These biological products of interest can be active ingredients in cosmetics, diagnostic test kits, drugs, or even vaccines.
2. Cortical Labs — Cortical Labs grows biological computer chips by incorporating human neurons in processors. Named Dishbrain, this “brain on a chip” is meant to eventually take over tasks that can be automated. Dishbrain may also have applications in the robotics field, with its ability to process the vast amounts of input data that a robot may encounter in real-life scenarios.
3. EyRIS — EyRIS uses an AI deep learning system to detect eye diseases. Its first DLS solution, SELENA+, performs automated image analysis for eye diseases such as diabetes retinopathy, with add-ons for glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. The company can also provide tele-ophthalmology services.
4. Gero — Gero uses AI to develop new drugs that can slow down aging and cure diseases. Its AI technology can identify rare mutations sufficiently affecting health from real-world big clinical, genetic, and molecular data. It then suggests druggable targets and uses drugs to reduce or minimise the effect of the mutation to treat the disease.
5. MiRXES — MiRXES pioneered a highly sensitive, specific, and robust detection technology for microRNA (miRNA) in the early 2000s. The company brought its technology from laboratory to clinic. In 2019, MiRXES launched GASTROClear, the world’s first microRNA blood test for the early detection of gastric cancer. The technology platform invented by MiRXES covers the entire workflow, from product design to manufacturing and clinical.
6. Nusantics — Nusantics analyses microbiomes to create biomedical solutions that fulfill consumer needs. It is the only genome tech startup in Indonesia. The startup first introduced its technology to the beauty industry. Its Nusantics Hub performs a facial swab test for consumers to assess and score the skin’s microbiome diversity.
7. SpeQtral — SpeQtral is developing space-based quantum systems for the global delivery of secure encryption keys. The SpeQtral team is known for being the first and only team in the world that has demonstrated a miniaturised source of entangled photons in space.
8. Transcelestial — Transcelestial is a laser communications startup that provides a point-to-point wireless communication network. Its infrastructure, requiring zero spectrum costs or right-of-way, combines 10 Gbps speed with the security of fiber optic cables. With a space laser network, it can potentially replace wireless networks and deliver high-speed internet anywhere on earth, potentially benefiting four billion people globally who do not have internet access.
9. WIR Group — WIR Group aims to enhance the metaverse for everyone through developing Web 3.0 software solutions using digital reality technology (AR, VR, AI). It provides creative advertising services using AR technology to interact with consumers and provides a virtual retail store network to facilitate offline retail outlets.
10. Yobite — Yobite uses Freeze Dried Technology to produce dried yogurt, and is the first company in Vietnam to successfully do so. It utilises a few technologies such as fermenting technology, food technology, and freeze-dried technology. The company participated in Startup Wheel 2022 and emerged in the top ten.

Also read: Gen Z is redefining global consumption. Can companies keep up?

• Impact

Startups that have brought about significant grassroots-level advancements where they operate

1. Agrabah Ventures — Agrabah Ventures creates better opportunities for Filipino farmers and fishermen by providing a stable market channel that connects them directly with consumers and ensures that their produce is purchased at a fair price. It arranges the delivery of agricultural produce from farming communities to enterprises through a seamless digital experience of automated logistics bookings.
2. Amaan — Amaan aims to empower women microentrepreneurs across Indonesia by providing them with an integrated sharia digital platform. The platform offers aid via both financial and non-financial solutions, such as access to loans and savings accounts, learning content, health consultations, bookkeeping tools, and everything needed to manage both a business and a household.
3. Bidanku — Bidanku, which translates to “My Midwife” in Bahasa Indonesia, empowers and supports midwives and mothers in rural Indonesia through AI. Midwives are key providers of maternal and child health services in Indonesia’s small towns and rural communities, providing care and support for women during pregnancy and labor.
4. Magorium — Magorium is a deep-tech startup with a solution to the world’s plastic waste problem. Through advanced processes and equipment, their technology converts plastic waste into an innovative synthetic material, NEWBitumen. So far, Magorium has recycled 4,500 kg of plastic waste into NEWBitumen to build roads, and has reduced more than 1,000 kg of natural resources consumed for road construction.
5. Mio — Mio is a group buying platform that focuses on selling fresh produce and groceries in Tier 2 and 3 cities in Vietnam. Its mission is to bring financial independence to women in lower-tier cities and rural areas by enabling them to become micro-entrepreneurs by acting as sales partners in community trade.
6. Saora Industries — Saora Industries utilises affordable and green technology without compromising the environment, and making a positive impact on underprivileged and marginalised communities. According to Saora, it has purified 11,388,00 liters of water and helped 5200 beneficiaries across 42 initiatives and 24 project sites.
7. Sati App — Sati App is an on-demand peer support mental health app with the mission to create an army of empathetic listeners who are available around the clock for their users. The application links users to a trained volunteer listener as soon as one is needed. With a limited number of mental health professionals available, Sati App is tackling the lack of accessibility and affordability for mental health care in a low-resource setting.
8. Super — Super works with local communities to address challenges in conventional retail and supply chain management in lower-tiered cities and rural areas, especially in East Java. Low purchasing power and a small transaction volume per household, combined with deficient infrastructure, cause prices to be higher in rural areas.
9. Umitron — Umitron is a Singapore and Japan-based deep tech company aiming to solve worldwide food and environmental problems by empowering aquaculture with technology to achieve a more sustainable footprint. Over the past few years, they have developed products exclusively for the aquaculture industry using a combination of IoT, satellite remote sensing, and AI technology.
10. Zennya — Zennya is a digital health and wellness platform that delivers on-demand or scheduled clinical-grade healthcare and wellness services, including corporate health management. It makes use of a mobile app booking system to provide users with easy access to its extensive list of digital health services from its own providers.

• Launchpads

Educational institutions, incubators, and accelerators that have provided safe environments to nurture great startups

1. BLOCK71 (NUS) — An initiative by NUS Enterprise in partnership with government and corporate organisations, BLOCK71 is a community-based incubation program that provides mentorship and growth opportunities in local and global markets. Each startup is provided a unique experience, optimised based on the research capabilities and technologies of the university, and the investment and business acumen of its partners.
2. CU Innovation Hub — Chulalongkorn University’s Innovation Hub organises competitions and events to encourage and develop the creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurial skills of its students and staff. These include the Chula Innovation Club, which was opened in August 2022, and the Chimnovate Hackathon, which connects startups with industry experts and resources in the context of real-world challenges.
3. Draper Startup House — Draper Startup House positions itself as a digital innovation studio and a members’ club for startups, offering funding opportunities for startups of all stages. It is host to a diverse pool of global angel investors, syndicates, VCs, and other startup investors.
4. IMDA Innovation Team — The IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) Innovation Team comprises both IMDA Pixel and IMDA Open Innovation Platform. PIXEL is an innovation space for corporates and start-ups to learn about the latest technology, and ideate, experiment, and build user-centric digital products.
5. Indigo — Created and run by Telkom Indonesia, Indigo is a startup incubator and accelerator that offers startups co-working spaces, funding of up to IDR 2 billion, and mentoring support from a pool of over 50 notable local and global mentors. Its Indigo Game Startup Incubation program is the first game industry incubator in Indonesia, offering game startups mentorship and support from the pre-production to pre-alpha testing stage.
6. QBO Innovation Hub — QBO offers Philippine startups the opportunities to explore synergies with corporates, government, the academe, and other ecosystem stakeholders in awareness and education initiatives, as well as customised innovation programs. Via its incubation program INQBATION, startups gain access to capital, resources, mentorship, and opportunities to connect with investors.
7. ScaleUp Malaysia — Scaleup Malaysia is an accelerator for companies looking to scale and grow, offering an MYR 200,000 (USD 42,185) investment for startups selected to take part in ScaleUp’s acceleration programs. ScaleUp educates founders and entrepreneurs that are building businesses with high revenue growth and helps them identify a path to profitability.
8. SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (SMU IIE) — SMU IIE provides incubatees with access to state-backed equity-free grants, mentorship support, and access to masterclasses and office hours organised by SMU IIE. SMU IIE also runs the Business Innovations Generator (BIG), a four-month coaching program designed to help early-stage founders validate their products and get ready for seed-stage investment.
9. UEH Institute of Innovation (UEH UII) — UEH UII organises training courses and programs for entrepreneurship and innovation, suited for startup projects, small and medium enterprises, and organisations in general. The company also runs an innovation lab for research and tech transfer projects. UEH UII organises incubation programs that last six months each, where incubatees are connected with a network of mentors and experts and provided with one-on-one training.
10. UPSCALE Innovation Hub — UPSCALE is both an incubator and an accelerator. It runs three programs: UP Enterprise for pre-revenue startups, Ignite Innovation Lab for market-driven industry collaborations and product developments, and entreLEAD, a program to help venture-backed startups with traction to scale up. UPSCALE’s programs are co-run with the support of partners, including USAID and Deloitte.

• Investors 

Equity firms that provide the fuel startups need to grow, and are evaluated for the impact they showcase

1. Alpha JWC — Alpha JWC Ventures is an Indonesia-based venture capital firm that invests in early-to-growth stage startups in Southeast Asia. It is one of the region’s largest and best-performing early-stage funds, with its AUM estimated to be worth USD 650 million. The firm invests in early-stage—or pre-seed, seed, and pre-Series A—and is often the first institutional investor on a startup’s cap table.
2. East Ventures — East Ventures provides multi-stage investment for over 200 companies in Southeast Asia, recording more than USD 86 billion of annualised gross merchandise value in aggregate by its portfolio. East Ventures has had 48 exits according to Crunchbase, the most notable being Mercari, RedMart, and Kite.
3. Gobi Partners — Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai, Gobi Partners has USD 1.5 billion in AUM to date, supporting entrepreneurs from the early to growth stages. It has raised 15 funds to date and has invested in over 320 startups. Gobi has also nurtured nine unicorns, namely Animoca, Amber, Prenetics, Carsome, AutoX, WeLab, GoGoX, Airwallex, and Esign.
4. iGlobe Partners — Founded in Silicon Valley in 1999, iGlobe Partners now has its headquarters in Singapore. Since its founding, the firm has managed funds exceeding USD 500 million for its investors. iGlobe’s panel of partners and advisors collectively bring decades of technology investment experience through multiple economic cycles.
5. Kickstart — Kickstart is a wholly-owned corporate venture capital firm of Globe Telecom, the Philippines’ leading mobile operator. Today, Kickstart advises the Ayala Corporation Technology Innovation Venture (ACTIVE) Fund, the largest venture capital fund coming out of the Philippines at USD180 million.
6. Quest Ventures — Quest Ventures is headquartered in Singapore, with locations in China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and the USA. It has invested in over 100 startups that operate in more than 150 cities across Asia, including 2 unicorns Carousell and Carro. Quest Ventures provides accelerator solutions, communities, mentoring, and talent recruitment to its portfolio companies.
7. ThinkZone Ventures — ThinkZone Ventures focuses on Seed to Series A tech startups from diverse verticals, with investment sizes of up to USD 3 million. The company also invests in accelerator-stage startups with investment sizes ranging from USD 50,000 to USD 100,000. ThinkZone provides startups with support via ThinkZone Accelerator, which has the largest scale of support value in Vietnam.
8. Venturra Capital — Venturra Capital focuses on Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and invests in early growth stage consumer technology-enabled companies, covering eCommerce, financial services, healthcare, and education sectors. It has raised a total of USD 150 million in a single venture fund, Venturra Capital Venture Fund, which was launched in 2015.
9. Vertex Ventures SEAI — Vertex Ventures SEAI has over USD 7 million in assets under management, with which it invests in startups at seed and series A or B rounds. It has made 81 investments and 12 exits so far, the most notable exits being Grab, Yatra, and GlowRoad. Vertex Ventures SEAI has also invested in five unicorns, namely Grab, Patsnap, FirstCry, Xpressbees, and Nium.
10. Vietnam Silicon Valley (VSV) Capital — The first Vietnamese accelerator and early-stage VC firm, VSV Capital has USD 7 million AUM. Since its inception, VSV Capital has made over 80 investment deals from pre-seed to Series B and had five exits including Base and CyHome. The company takes a hands-on approach and works with startups in all aspects of their businesses, including product development, financial modeling and customer development, talent recruitment, corporate governance, and fundraising.

The awardees will receive their accolades at the Apsara Conference, to be held on November 4, in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

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This article was produced by Alibaba Cloud Project AsiaForward and distributed by e27

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Entrepreneur First to discontinue Singapore programme
Entrepreneur First will now focus on a smaller number of hubs where the size of the local talent pool positions it to scale to running multiple vertical programmes concurrently.

Crypto.com passes 70M users, hits over US$1B in revenue this year
Crypto.com offers an exchange platform, e-wallet, and other services; In March last year, it launched a US$200M fund called Crypto.com Capital to invest in early-stage crypto startups.

MAS commits US$106M to develop Singapore financial sector
The government has provided two rounds of funding to the Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme; The first was US$70M, granted to 500 projects while the second is a US$141M to support 1,000+ projects.

Ex-Binance Labs exec’s Web3 VC fund nets US$20M
Lingfeng Innovation Fund, led by ex-Binance Labs Executive Director Nicole Zhang, plans to raise a total of US$30M; The money will be invested in crypto startups worldwide.

SG gene therapy startup Nuevocor raised US$11.6M funding
The investors include EDBI, Zora Innovations, SEEDS Capital, and BIVF; The startup focuses on developing Adeno-Associate Virus gene therapy for the treatment of genetically defined cardiac diseases.

Indonesian agritech firm PasarMikro rakes in US$2.5M
The investors are Trihill Capital, Resolution Ventures, Genting Ventures, and 1982 Ventures; PasarMikro, which provides a platform for traders and farmers to carry out transactions, will use the fresh capital to roll out new products.

Singapore completes first foreign exchange with tokenised currency
DBS Bank, JP Morgan, and SBI Digital Asset conducted foreign exchange using tokenised yen, SGD, Japanese government bonds, and SG government security bonds as liquidity pools to leverage the cross-currency transaction.

Web2 founders, get ready for Web3 before 2025 – Insights from Echelon
The best way to move forward is by combining the best of Web2 and Web3 to build better business models and expanding playbooks to complement each other.

Binance mulls buying a bank, says CEO
Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao is looking into potentially buying banks as a way of bridging the gap between the worlds of traditional finance and crypto.

Mastercard announces new batch of Web3 engagement programme
Start Path Crypto is Web3 engagement programme that helps blockchain, crypto, and digital asset startups scale; 7 startups from around the world will get access to Mastercard’s channels and customers, mentorship, and tech collaboration.

“See you in the metaverse” – Yours, life
The new and flourishing metaverse industry will expand life opportunities – socialisation, entertainment, business, finance, and science.

‘Early-stage VCs should take advantage of adverse market conditions’
Gobi’s Thomas Tsao says as a global recession looms, investors are sitting on billions of dollars worth of unallocated capital; Fundraising for startups in India and SEA hit a 7-quarter low in Q3 2022.

‘Internet penetration won’t be enough to bring everyone online’
Rohit Jha of Transcelestial said At the heart of the internet distribution problem is the need to provide affordable, high-speed internet to everyone; Transcelestial removes the need to lay expensive fibre to bring internet.

The Angsana Council is here to explain SEA to global investors
Angasana Council has come up with an analysis to showcase why SEA has been one of the world’s most stable places to invest in the last 25 years.

We can no longer adopt a cookie-cutter approach to marketing: Gunalan Ram of CINNOX
CINNOX’s Strategy Marketeer Gunalan Ram talks about the art of executing tasks through teamwork and guided decision-making.

Why most online stores fall flat and how you can improve it?
Today’s customers have high expectations; customer service is the single most important aspect of running an online store.

How this startup is facilitating change within the rental market in SEA
Cove is putting renters at the centre of home rental experience, making it easier, faster, and more flexible to rent homes at honest prices.

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The MoneySmart Group, which operates financial content and comparison platforms in Singapore and Hong Kong, plans to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) via a reverse takeover deal with hotel operator Asia Pacific Strategic Investments (APS).

According to a press release, the deal is worth US$161.7 million.

The purchase consideration will be satisfied by the issuance of new ordinary shares in Asia-Pacific Strategic Investments, which will collectively represent 80 per cent of the company’s enlarged share capital upon the expected completion of the acquisition and a listing within H1 2023.

Also Read: How did MoneySmart grow its revenue by 25 per cent amidst a pandemic?

Hotel operator APS has been in talks for a reverse takeover of the MoneySmart personal finance portal.

The listing on the SGX will help 13-year-old MoneySmart to raise capital for its strategic plans in Singapore and the region.

With the capital, MoneySmart anticipates rapid growth through investments in its membership and rewards programmes. In addition, it will also power other strategic partnerships through potential M&As.

The MoneySmart Group will also invest significantly in its new insurance brand Bubblegum. Launched earlier this year with car and travel insurance, Bubblegum aims to redefine the insurance experience for all customers.

Founded in 2009, MoneySmart Group operates financial content and comparison platforms in Singapore and Hong Kong. It provides aggregation, comparison, and financial advisory services for mortgage and insurance products to help customers make the best decisions with their money (loans, insurance or credit cards). MoneySmart also provides readers tips, tricks, news, reviews and commentary on money.

Also Read: Don’t know which credit card to use for a bill? MoneySmart’s new app has the answer

In 2017, MoneySmart raised S$14 million (then US$10 million) in a Series B round led by Kakaku.com, a Japanese online service provider. Existing investors SPH Media Fund and Golden Gate Ventures also participated.

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Gen Zers not only know what they want; they are more likely to seek out opportunities to get it. 

Innovative companies are recognising this impact and developing tactics to address Gen Zs, which is why as a business owner, it is time to shift your mindset to embrace this new generation of workers. 

According to a 2022 study conducted by Deloitte, “By 2025, Gen Z will make up 27 per cent of the workforce in OECD countries and one-third of the Earth’s population.” If this statistic doesn’t inform you how important it is to understand and cater to this new generation, I don’t know what will. 

Well-being is of utmost priority for Gen Zs. They want plenty of opportunities to develop, and that is how they choose their workplace. According to Forbes, 

• 32 per cent of Gen Z’s choose their workplace based on a good work/life balance 
• 29 per cent based on learning and development opportunities
• Lastly, 24 per cent based on a good salary 

Most Gen Z’s are not looking at jobs that can offer them the best salary. That is not top of their mind. Instead, well-being is.

They are individuals that are highly aware of social and environmental issues and do not shy away from taking action to live the life that they desire. They are individuals that are aspirational but are not willing to give up their work-life balance to enter the rat race. 

Is your workplace ready for this group of young professionals? If not, here are 10 ways to build initiatives at your workplace to support the future of work.

Also Read: NaaS is here to create resilient networks, are you game?

10 ways to start supporting Gen Zs at work and set up young talent for success

• Foster a positive environment so that they have a purpose-driven employee experience.
• Provide them with a safe space to learn. Always work towards formulating a good work/life balance, allowing them to learn and develop. This can be done through online learning, in-house training, or mentorship.
• Facilitate better communication with them. This is crucial, especially if your team is working remotely. The usage of project management tools like Monday.com, Trello, Asana and screen recording apps like Loom helps to build effective communication across teams too.  
• Give them the flexibility to work remotely because benefits like that will enable them to become more productive and out-put driven.
• Set up incentives. Schedule (and pay for!) team lunches or coffee breaks periodically to show them your appreciation. 
• Create challenges and embrace gamification, which can also be done remotely through features on communication channels like Slack and Gather.
• Organise monthly team bonding events – social events and outings, to adapt to a new remote work lifestyle. Even if you are physically apart, you can also organise virtual team-building initiatives. Some examples include Virtual Escape Rooms and Virtual Amazing Race. 
• Foster job satisfaction, look into their personal development and offer training. Companies like General Assembly offers corporate training packages to serve this purpose. 
• Be open and strategic toward sharing future company plans. Gen Zs want to know how a company is performing regularly, and they want to play a part in how they can contribute to the company’s north star metric, so it is important to keep them in the loop at all times.
• Ask them for insights and feedback on how to improve your business processes. You can do so using tools like Free Suggestion Box, Incognea, Peachymondays and Tinypulse.  When you are entrenched in projects, your team will often develop insights you may not see as a business owner.

Start building or refining these initiatives because being able to constantly innovate and adapt will give your company a tremendous competitive advantage down the road!

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The race towards winning the customer experience has considerably accelerated with rising competition among players around the globe and growing customer expectations. Nowadays, customers have become much more impatient than ever before as they have many other brand choices lined up, craving for their attention and eagerly promoting themselves as the best brand in town. As a result, even if a company goes to great lengths to perfect its customer journey, one bad encounter can ruin its reputation and prompt customers to try something new.

According to a survey, 86% of customers expressed their willingness to pay a premium price for a high-quality customer experience, and over 70% of them selected customer experience as a deciding factor when choosing brands. Moreover, modern customers comprised mainly of Millennials and Generation Z, also have very different expectations and consumption behaviours. Therefore, it is critical to revisit the drive of customer experience and factors affecting their engagement and loyalty. 

The evolution of the customer experience landscape

Without a doubt, digital technologies have become entrenched in customer experience, assisting their engagement with a business from the first phase of information search to the final phase of purchasing and consumption. Furthermore, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital transformation process has picked up at an unprecedented speed, evolving constantly with the introduction and refinement of more advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning. Additionally, customers have demanded a more personalised experience, yearning for a service that best suits their needs and makes them feel special.

Also read: We need to accelerate progress at the frontier of innovation

Nonetheless, despite the quick development of digital infrastructure that considerably facilitates access to digital applications, digital transformation is by no means inexpensive. In fact, the total global spending on the digitalisation process has been estimated to reach $1.78 trillion in 2021, and it will be almost $7 trillion over the period of 2020 – 2023. Additionally, with high demands for customisation for increasingly personalised services and continuous changes in the external environment, it is no longer optimal for businesses to opt for a one-size-fits-all digital solution. Therefore, many small and medium enterprises have difficulties when embarking on their digital transformation journey.

How Sendbird empowers businesses to build unique and branded customer experience

When Sendbird first started, it also encountered the same mentioned issues as it shopped for an effective customer engagement solution. “When we first began, we just built a solution that we wanted to use for our own mobile consumer application. We couldn’t find one that was modern, easy to use, and mobile-focused in the market back then, so we had to invent one for ourselves. Our goal was to enable user-to-user conversations within social apps and games. As we onboarded more customers, we started to see that simply enabling a chat experience was not the ultimate goal for customers. They wanted to create communities, facilitate transactions, connect doctors to patients, complete food deliveries, send money, and help people date and start families. We are now seeing businesses go beyond user-to-user conversations, into marketing and support conversations as well. Hence, customers pulled us into the customer engagement space over time,” shared Sendbird regarding how the company found its mission.

To address the challenges, Sendbird introduced the two ground-breaking selling points for its application. First, by offering customers APIs and software-as-a-service, Sendbird enables customers to minimise the complexity of building and maintaining the software services on their own and connect them with needed services and information.

Additionally, APIs free businesses from having to use a pre-packaged product like a SaaS tool that lock them into their in-the-box user interface and user experience. On the other hand, companies can use APIs to tailor the software services to create their desired customer experience, but they don’t have to start from scratch which significantly reduces the costs of their digitalisation process. Through this, Sendbird brings back the power of human conversations which lie at the heart of building every meaningful human relationship and getting things done.

Also read: Gen Z is redefining global consumption. Can companies keep up?

“Whether ordering food at your favourite restaurant, buying a product at a marketplace from a seller, getting help from your doctor, or meeting the love of your life, we all rely on conversations. But in mobile experiences, some of these relationships are lost, and what’s worse, in the areas of marketing and support, the existing experiences today are transactional or unidirectional, so there’s no real relationship between brands and customers,” emphasised Sendbird. “We can evolve this into a bidirectional experience in marketing, as well as improving a ticket-based, transactional support experience into asynchronous and persistent conversations with the brand, giving customers and brands the chance to form lasting and loyal relationships,” they added.

Sendbird was determined to power businesses with the ability to send marketing messages as well as connect customers with support agents, delivering differentiated customer experiences. The company recognised that while messaging apps provided businesses with a floor to connect with a ready base of customers, they have a ceiling on the quality of experiences businesses could deliver to customers. For example, the latest case of spamming on WhatsApp in India where customers have become frustrated with being spammed with marketing promotions in what once used to be a private channel for connecting with friends and family. Consequently, Sendbird anticipated that more and more messaging would start to move inside the businesses’ own mobile app, allowing businesses to also reimagine workflows with messaging and reinvent the entire customer journey.

Sendbird’s continuous journey to lead market innovations

To become the pioneering market leader it is today, Sendbird has constantly evolved to adapt to the market, the customers, and its employees. For instance, Sendbird always tries to keep a beat in the market about the shift to app-based messaging as a way for businesses to communicate and engage with customers through thought leadership content, presence in industry forums, partnerships with other customer engagement companies, and various channels to create awareness. The company also provides programmes for both companies that are just starting out on their just customer engagement journey as well as those that are shifting their customer engagement strategy to using messaging inside their mobile apps. 

“When we first started, it was merely a dream to be able to partner even with just a few. Today, we are helping more than a quarter of a billion people every month to have conversations, and we have a real chance of powering over a billion people every day. This may seem obvious today, but it certainly was a surprise when we went from just a million users a month to 10M, then now well over 250M monthly users. We were able to partner with some of the largest brands in the world”, expressed Sendbird about the company’s proudest achievements.

Also read: Going the extra mile in digital innovation for Singapore’s commuter experience

With the core value of “Endless tenacity for customers”, Sendbird engaged with customers as though they are an extension of their team — helping them imagine and build customer experiences that serve their unique business needs. Sendbird holds at its heart the belief that with heightened globalisation, innovation is flowing across the boundaries of nations, and what used to be just a Silicon Valley thing is now a phenomenon happening across the globe. 

Sendbird expects an exciting future in which more ideas come from different parts of the world and get cross-pollinated. There will be an evolution of mobile marketing and support in the coming years. The user experience will become much more modern, mobile-native, and interactive with the rise of a secular trend of a new generation of customer engagement. Sendbird will continue doing what it has been doing best, powering more brands to build conversations with their customers across marketing and support, and introducing a novel and powerful set of tools and experiences for businesses and their customers.

About Sendbird

Sendbird believes conversations are at the heart of building relationships and getting things done. As such, it built the world’s most proven conversations platform for mobile apps across chat, voice, and video. Industry leaders like Reddit, DoorDash, and Hinge use Sendbird to drive increased transactions and loyalty for hundreds of millions of users every month.

Sendbird has over 250M MAUs from over 50 countries operating in industries ranging from marketplaces, ride-sharing, online communities, gaming, live video streaming, and healthcare. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, CA with additional offices in New York, London, Seoul, Singapore, and Bengaluru. Sendbird has raised over $220M from leading investors, including ICONIQ Capital, STEADFAST Capital Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Shasta Ventures, Softbank Vision Fund 2, and Y Combinator.

For more information, visit Sendbird’s official website here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Sendbird.

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FishLog, an ecosystem enabler for the fisheries cold chain industry in Indonesia, has closed its US$3.5 million pre-Series A round from BRI Ventures, Accel, Insignia Ventures Partners, Patamar Capital, Indogen Capital, and Triputra Agri Group.

FishLog was established in 2020 by Bayu Anggara, Reza Fahlepi, and Abdul Halim to solve the fragmentation in cold chain fisheries in Indonesia.

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The agritech startup improves cold storage, processor, and distribution in Indonesia’s fisheries to enable the industry to meet global supply and demand better. It activates fisheries coastal areas by establishing FishLog Quality Centers, an O2O hybrid platform that works with local cold storage partners. These centres provide local stakeholders, including fishermen, aggregators and traders, greater access to buyers by listing their inventory in the FishLog marketplace and digitising their operation.

FishLog also enables fisheries businesses to maximise upstream-to-downstream operations through its four products: inventory handling, financing, B2B marketplace, and cold storage digitisation.

The fresh funding will allow FishLog to improve this ecosystem of services further by providing existing players greater access to tools, operating models, and liquidity, and enhancing the industry’s ability to process products and SKUs.

Bayu Anggara, CEO and Co-Founders of FishLog, said, “While there is massive global business potential for the Indonesian fisheries sector, it has long been plagued by inefficiencies and fragmentation. Our mission at FishLog is to unlock the selling potential and maximise the storage utility of Indonesia’s fragmented fishing industry, building the best and most affordable way to ensure product and labour sustainability in the industry.”

Also Read: eFishery secures US$32M loan from DBS Indonesia to support expansion move

“Through this funding, we will continue to build the cold chain ecosystem enabler and operating system for the fisheries in Indonesia. Our vision is for all stakeholders in the sector to be able to participate productively in this industry, transacting safely, trusted by and seamlessly integrated,” he added.

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