Singapore has a thriving startup ecosystem. It stands 18th on the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking created by the world-leading innovation policy advisory and research firm Startup Genome. 

The Singapore startup scene has a valuation of USD 22.5 billion, whereas emerging businesses worldwide are worth USD 3.8 trillion. 

However, there are still gaps and challenges businesses face in the city-state and one of the most common challenges is the woes of corporate financing.

Challenges for incorporating a business in Singapore

Singapore-based college application platform Cialfo is among promising edtech players in the region. Cialfo is not only an award-winning, fast-growing edtech company but also a digital transformation leader that is making higher education accessible by delivering 360 support to students worldwide. 

On the other hand, Endowus is Singapore’s leading digital wealth advisor, and the first that allows people to invest across all sources of wealth including CPF in a single platform. To date, they have returned more than S$2 million in trailer fees back to their clients.

Yet another startup, Singapore-based Konsyg, is a global provider of end-to-end sales services. With a rich client portfolio in Singapore and beyond, they claim to provide 70% more effective revenue and lead generation than internal sales functions and are among the emerging companies in this sector.

Also read: Behind the scenes of oVice: a leading remote work solution

These emerging leaders in respective sectors have had one thing in common in their journey- the challenges and costs that they have faced when it came to corporate financing.

“As a rapidly growing startup expanding its operations across 4 countries, regulatory, tax and legal compliance became a significant challenge as we venture into uncharted territories. Scaling quickly also means that we often do not have a reserve of internal capabilities and resources to manage a recurrent surge in business activities,” shares Evalyn Tan, Finance Director at Cialfo.

We’ve faced our share of startup related challenges! So, we started from scratch in 2017 in one of our cofounder’s basements with the idea of solving retirement, and we were bootstrapped all the way through till 2021 when we first raised external money. Accounting, corporate secretarial, tax and payroll needs were the main area where we needed help,” says Dominic Ong, the Chief Financial Officer at Endowus.

“From the very beginning, we were well aware that we don’t have an understanding of back-office-related matters, including process, taxation, and overseas operational setups. Plus, in the sales world, mitigating expectations is the biggest “woe”. Companies tend to want overnight revenue, which makes setting expectations always a challenge. The misconception is that a lack of overnight results is a flaw in the sales process when in reality companies should be looking more into pipeline development in order to judge the quality of the sales function. So, we needed the team to focus solely on managing client expectations and helping them achieve their goals through our services. So, we badly needed a reliable partner for matters like bookkeeping, taxation and financial management,” shares William Gilchrist, Founder and CEO of Konsyg

These challenges are faced by many young and small businesses in the city-state. In fact, many businesses in Singapore fail due to poor bookkeeping and inefficient finance management. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of options out there- large corporate servicing firms focus on volume while small-scale firms have limited resources and generally do not have automated processes, which slows down things considerably.

In fact, Singapore has a relatively easier and quicker process of business registration, which attracts investors from worldwide. However, Singaporean businesses are registered only if they meet strict eligibility criteria, follow the established registration procedure, and are issued with a certificate of incorporation by the registrar of business. Deviating from these rules is not acceptable and authorities follow them strictly. 

Plus, Singapore authorities strictly follow businesses’ tax compliance and apply harsh sanctions to non-compliant businesses without exceptions. While the perk is that corporate income tax is only at 17 per cent but for small and young businesses, with little to no knowledge of the compliance guidelines, it can be tricky to focus on these things. 

 PikoHANA: Empowering small and young businesses in Singapore and beyond

This is where PikoHANA, a mid-level corporate servicing team that focuses on accuracy, automation, and systems, is stepping up and helping fill in the gaps. PikoHANA helps SMEs scale by digitising their back-office and operational reporting, giving them access to information and data that allows them to make key operational and strategic decisions on a more informed basis.

Dominic from Endowus shares, “They (PikoHANA) were the ones that helped us to incorporate in 2017! PikoHANA took care of our accounting, corporate secretarial, tax and payroll needs, enabling us to focus our attention on achieving product/market fit – and we are now the leading digital wealth platform in Singapore!”

Also read: 5G tech? All eyes on Taiwan

“In Q1 2022, we received our license in Hong Kong, our first overseas market, and we asked PikoHANA to manage our accounting and payroll needs for that as well. It simplifies our life to have one partner supporting us for both markets,” he adds.

Evalyn from Cialfo shares, “We have partnered with PikoHANA to manage various business processes as well as corporate reporting and compliance. PikoHANA spearheaded the establishment of our company’s accounting and finance best practices. With a team of dedicated professionals who had an in-depth understanding of our business, PikoHANA empowered us with the ability to respond quickly to new business demands. This enabled us to focus on executing strategies and scale with peace of mind.”

William from Konsyg shares, “PikoHANA has been with us since our founding. PikoHANA has allowed Konsyg to focus 100% on our core skill set. We have been able to exist in complete peace, being able to trust that PikoHANA “has our back”. 

William adds that PikoHANA has helped him and his team get a better understanding of how the company runs from a back-office perspective. “PikoHANA is leading the charge in ensuring our staffing matters in terms of payroll, filings, and structural matters are met in real-time. I couldn’t imagine running this company without PikoHANA there, it would be nearly impossible,” he says.

PikoHANA’s fractional finance model covers more than just taxes and corporate returns. Their model encompasses anything connected to finance from CFO advisory, bookkeeping, accounts keeping, payroll, invoicing, vendor payments, etc. — essentially anything an in-house finance team does without taking care of both managing and training. The company’s differentiator is that they do all the low-value work for a reasonable price and on the side, they give good guidance and advice to help businesses grow and scale.

Also read: Three leading B2B digital disruptors win 2021 Fast Forward with HPE

“One of our goals is to be the leading college and career guidance platform in Southeast Asia, India and China. With PikoHANA’s support, we were able to replicate and roll out best practices at scale in each of these regions, thereby giving a positive experience and leaving a striking impression on our clients and associates,” says Evalyn from Cialfo.

With a core focus on SMEs with less than 50 employees, PikoHANA puts together a dedicated team for each client where there’s an assigned account manager with a response time of under 30 minutes (email, phone or zoom) and as many experts as needed, enabling startups to scale and expand easily.

If you are looking for a concierge, hands-on fractional finance team to support your growth and help with incorporating your business in Singapore, visit PikoHANA to learn more. PikoHANA also offers incorporation services in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as fractional finance services for companies incorporated elsewhere.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by PikoHANA

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2022 has proved to be a testing year for China as the Shanghai Stock Market suffered a fall of more than 20 per cent between January and late April. Likewise, the yuan has suffered a sharp fall against the USD in recent days, signifying that further pullbacks may be on the way. 

Due to a cocktail of regulations, geopolitical tensions, and the COVID-19 pandemic, investors have remained fearful of Chinese stocks and firms from China with listings in the US. 

“Recently, the biggest drop in Chinese shares since the 2008 crisis was seen in US trading,” explained Maxim Manturov, head of investment advice at Freedom Finance Europe. “The main reason for the collapse was investor fears over the delisting of some companies and the threat of a Chinese military conflict with Taiwan. The Chinese regulator has instructed its tech giants (Alibaba, Baidu, JD, Pinduoduo, NetEase) to disclose detailed auditing information to avoid delisting in the US.”

“The country has a new record disease rate for coronavirus, so the authorities impose a lockdown regime in entire regions. What matters to investors is that China has no inflation problems like the rest of the world, which makes it possible to count on a relatively soft policy from the local central bank in 2022,” Manturov added. 

China’s COVID-19 cases have climbed to new highs that haven’t been seen since Our World in Data first began its records. Given China’s sprawling population, the threat of more infections is severe. However, it’s worth noting that data suggests around 88 per cent of the population are fully vaccinated against the virus. 

As a result, indexes in mainland China have been leading losses as wider Asia-Pacific markets have continued to fall.

The Shenzhen component fell by more than six per cent in late April to 10,379.28, whilst the Shanghai composite fell over five per cent to 2,928.51 as harsh lockdown measures were imposed in the city to stem the spread of the virus. 

Also Read: Winter for tech startups is here? Here’s how to deal with it

“It’s no surprise, and it makes all sorts of logical sense that the market should be concerned about the Covid situation because that impacts economic activity. It’s impacting earnings potential for many parts of the market,” noted Timothy Moe, chief Asia-Pacific equity strategist at Goldman Sachs.

The threat of US delisting

Compounding China’s struggling financial outlook is the threat facing stocks that have been listed in the US in the face of new regulatory rules. Alibaba, Baidu, Punduoduo, JD.com and Tencent have all struggled with fresh pressure from watchdogs. 

As we can see in the case of Alibaba, the company’s stock has declined 26.63 per cent since the beginning of 2022, and there’s potential for further losses should regulations continue to tighten, or the demand for added transparency conjures unexpected results. 

More recently, we saw Weibo, a Chinese social networking platform, become the latest major firm to find itself added to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s delisting watchlist for failing to comply with the rules laid out by the commission’s Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, with the rules requiring foreign firms listed in the US to allow their books to be audited. 

Likely, investor fears in the wake of the threats against Weibo’s status on Wall Street will continue to spread across more Chinese stocks in the US, with firms at risk of finding themselves added to the watchlist or even facing a full delisting. 

Despite investor fears negatively impacting US stocks in the short term in the wake of COVID-19 return to China, rebounds have since taken place as investors sought to buy into safer options.

Geopolitics threaten further downturns

Although Russia’s war in Ukraine has profoundly impacted global stocks, the boiling over of tensions between China and Taiwan may compound market downturns over the coming months. 

Also Read: Massive gains for global startups in China’s robust market

Writing for Forbes, John Markman suggested that China may use the Russian invasion as a form of justification to reclaim Taiwan. 

“When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the geopolitical calculus changed. Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity to grab a resource-rich country and further Russia’s status in the east. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, now sees an opportunity to reunify China with Taiwan, the semiconductor capital of the world,” Markman said.

These mounting threats to China’s publicly listed companies may mean that investors should exercise caution in purchasing stocks, even despite the discounted prices. 

Western markets should also view China’s problems as a cautionary tale as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts global economies. 

For investors, it’s essential now more than ever to continue to review all factors associated with the stocks that are available to buy and the geopolitical climate that surrounds them. With the threat of the pandemic and further conflict as strong as ever, it’s reasonable to expect further volatility in 2022. 

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Xendit, the payments infrastructure unicorn in Indonesia, has closed a US$300 million Series D investment round, co-led by Coatue and Insight Partners.

Accel Partners, Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, EV Growth, Amasia, Intudo Ventures, and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital participated.

Tessa Wijaya, Co-Founder and COO of Xendit, said: “Xendit will continue to expand into new markets — like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam — where we can identify a need that doesn’t exist, similar to what we did in the Philippines. We plan to diversify our products with value-added services, like lending programmes we’ve already started in Indonesia.”

Known as the “Stripe of Southeast Asia”, Xendit is a fintech company that provides payment solutions to simplify the payment process of businesses (SMEs, e-commerce startups and large enterprises) in Southeast Asia.

The firm enables businesses to accept payments, disburse payroll, and run marketplaces on an easy integration platform. Businesses can accept payments from direct debit, virtual accounts, credit and debit cards, eWallets, retail outlets, and online instalments.

Also Read: Xendit bags US$64.6M Series B led by Accel to scale its digital payments service across Southeast Asia

Xendit serves more than 3,000 customers, including Samsung Indonesia, GrabPay, Ninja Van Philippines, Qoala, Unicef Indonesia, Cashalo and Shopback.

Over the last year, Xendit claims to have tripled annualised transactions from 65 million to 200 million and increased total payments value from US$6.5 billion to US$15 billion.

Xendit recently invested in Bank Sahabat Sampoerna, a private bank in Indonesia that focuses on micro and SME businesses. Xendit also made a strategic investment in payment gateway Dragonpay to complement its expansion into the Philippines.

The Series D round follows Xendit’s Series C funding led by Tiger Global last year. The startup was also the first Indonesian tech startup to be accepted into YCombinator.

Southeast Asia is a compelling backdrop for investing, innovation and disruption, with 61 per cent of 670 million people under 35 years old. The next generation of young digital entrepreneurs is quickly moving online. The surge in growth is creating higher living standards and increasing consumer demand, especially in e-commerce, fintech, travel and transportation.

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Payment infra unicorn Xendit banks US$300M
Investors include Coatue, Insight Partners, Accel, Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, EV Growth, Amasia, and Intudo Ventures; The funding will be used for Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam expansion and to add new services like working capital loans.

Luna, UST investors in South Korea plan to sue Terraform founder
LKB & Partners, one of the country’s top law firms, will reportedly sue Do Kwon on behalf of investors; The law firm will also seek to seize Kwon’s property and may file a case against Terraform co-founder Daniel Shin.

Jungle Ventures closes US$600M Fund IV
Investors are Temasek, IFC, FMO, DEGto, Mizuho Bank and StepStoneGroup; It will invest in 15-18 firms across India and Southeast Asia; The fund has already backed Timo, Sleek, Atomberg, Medici, Desty, Eveworld, Mio, and inFeedo.

Carousell drops SPAC deal talks with L Catterton amid shaky stock market
The blank-cheque company failed to reach an agreement with the online marketplace; In January, the two companies in January were reportedly in talks for a SPAC merger deal that would value the joint entity at US$1.5B.

Sequoia delays close of US$2.8B India, SEA fund amid Zilingo probe
Sequoia’s limited partners agreed to invest in the fund in April; However, a recent development has supposedly surfaced that would require disclosure to investors; Sequoia’s largest fund for India and SEA will reportedly close by the end of the year.

Antler to invest US$100M in Southeast Asia’s early-stage startups by 2025
The funding is expected to fuel the expansion of more than 300 new companies in SEA over the next four years; Antler has invested in over 127 companies, including XanPool, Reebelo, Appboxo, Sampingan, Airalo, and Homebase.

Japan’s SBI to launch US$75M digital fund with NTU, Kyobo
The joint fund will back digital technology and digital platform companies in their pre-Series A and Series A stages; Fund recipients should ideally be working on digital transformation in Southeast Asia and South Asia.

Tokocrypto-BRI Ventures accelerator invests US$40M in participating startups
The Tokocrypto Sembrani Blockchain Accelerator investees include VC Gamers, nanobyte, and Avarik Saga; It is part of the multi-dimensional TokoVerse by Tokocrypto created to bolster blockchain technology adoption in Indonesia and beyond.

Coins.ph cashes in US$30M in Series C led by Ribbit Capital
It plans to use the funds to boost its Web3 ecosystem for its SEA expansion; The fundraise comes after the firm was sold by Gojek for around US$200M; Coins.ph said it has 16M users.

Singapore Web3 startup NodeReal bags US$16M from Sky9 Capital
NodeReal aims to help developers, Web3 firms, and large Web2 apps with blockchain infra using scalable and efficient solutions; It can maintain system stability in an environment of millions of daily transactions and increased user access.

Hong Kong VC Betatron’s new fund hits first close at US$15M
BVG IV is looking to raise a total of US$50M to back companies in industries like logistics, healthcare, commerce, and construction; It will make initial investments of US$500K-US$2M in seed to Series A rounds.

Pitik nets US$14M Series A to provide automation solutions to Indonesia’s poultry farmers
Investors are Alpha JWC Ventures, MDI Ventures and Wavemaker Partners; Pitik facilitates real-time farm monitoring and instant issue identification through its algorithm; It plans to expand in all of Java this year and expand to other islands in 2023.

Sequoia’s Surge leads US$7.4M round of Unravel Carbon
Alpha JWC, Amasia, XA Network, Rebel Fund, and GFC also co-invested; Unravel Carbon focuses on helping Asian companies track and reduce their carbon emissions, with a specialization in Scope 3 carbon emissions.

Ex-Traveloka execs’ job platform nets US$6.3M
Investors include Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst; Pintarnya helps blue-collar workers to find relevant job opportunities based on their skill sets and location; It also works with employers to select suitable applicants.

Singapore F&B startup Oddle raises US$5M pre-Series B led by Altara Ventures
Oddle helps F&B owners optimise their operations through its features; Its O2O offerings include QR ordering systems, reservation systems, as well as payment terminals and e-shop solutions.

NFT-backed crypto loan startup Pine raises US$1.5M in seed round
Lead investors are Sino Global Capital, Amber Group, and Spartan Group; Pine is a lending and borrowing protocol built on multiple blockchains to facilitate asset-backed financing.

East Ventures backs Indonesian career development firm’s seed round
MySkill provides several solutions to help users in developing their careers; Its offerings include an e-learning platform to enhance their skills, private mentoring with experts, and job discovery features. The firm currently has 700K+ registered users.

Singapore insurtech startup Anycover raises US$450K
Investors include Powerhouse Ventures, 1337 Ventures, Walter de Oude, and Khairil Abdullah; Anycover provides API solutions for small and medium-sized merchants to help them run their own extended warranty programmes.

SG high court issues landmark ruling to block sale of NFTs
The court sided with a local complainant to block any potential sale and ownership transfer of a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that he previously owned; This decision comes after a UK court reportedly recognised NFTs as private property in a theft case.

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Thailand-based agritech startup Freshket today announced a US$23.5 million Series B funding round led by PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company Limited (OR). The funding round also included the participation of Openspace, Betagro Holding, ORZON Ventures, and Volta Circle.

In a press statement, Freshket said that the funding round will bolster the company as it enhances its operating system through supply chain tech development, improves service efficiency, penetrates into new categories of products and extends its in-demand service to other provinces in Thailand.

It will also focus on the development of demand forecasting technology to ensure transparency for all parties, the reduction of food waste, and the effort to boost the quality of life for upstream entrepreneurs. Ultimately, these improvements will ensure even more customers can enjoy the freshest quality products at reasonable prices, with convenience of online ordering and confidence in Freshket’s service reliability.

Also Read: How Thai food supply chain startup Freshket weathered through the pandemic

Freshket Chief of Staff Komjak Rattakham said, “This funding round was part of a key strategy designed to catapult the brand to achieving rapid and progressive growth this year. Freshket will grow alongside its business networks, OR group’s distribution channels as well as other joint investors, while also developing and launching products and services shaped to meet the needs of more users.”

Founded in 2017, Freshket aims to provide the food business and its customers with access to fresh agricultural produce that was sourced from local farmers and suppliers.

In addition to household customers, its main customers are mostly restaurants and hoteliers, an industry that is worth THB200 billion (US$5.9 billion) in annual purchases. The company said that it represents a three-time volume growth on what was being achieved during the Series A funding round only 20 months ago.

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Singapore is one of the best markets for Web3 to take off. The possibilities of Web3 are endless and it boasts of an even more fundamental upheaval, one that will eventually cast everything else into the shade. From holding assets digitally without the need for a third-party watchdog to open, trustless, and permissionless networks, Web3 opens up massive and groundbreaking opportunities.

Kenrick Drijkoningen, General Partner of Singapore-based Play Ventures believes Web3 will impact almost every industry. He says, “People have been claiming bitcoin is a fad when it was valued at just US$1, but it is now among the top 20 global currencies. True, Web3 is still in the early development days, something like the internet in the mid-1990s. But it’s real.

“The hallmark of disruptive technology is that it’s dismissed by incumbents in the early days, something we are seeing again today. To understand Web3, you have to dive in, understand the technology and use it. This is daunting for many, so they prefer to dismiss it altogether.”

At e27, we are giving the limelight to the advocates of the Web3 ecosystem and throwing light on their journey and becoming. This time, we are back with a listicle that features 27 noteworthy Web3 startups in Singapore who are capturing massive interest and growing in popularity each day forward.

SEED

SEED is the easiest way for everyone, individuals and companies, to access high yielding investments powered by DeFi without high risk and volatility. Investing in cryptocurrencies does not need to be high risk, the startup provides a non-custodial wallet with built-in DeFi recipes which simplify multi-step DeFi strategies with a single click.

Their curated recipes offer high yields of up to 18 per cent+ APY with relatively low risk. Stable, simple, secure, encrypted, custodial, decentralized, and high-yielding, are the words SEED goes by.

Loominate

Loominate is a plug-and-play community platform built on a Web3 decentralised rewards system. This is where workplace communities trade battle stories, share passions, vote on initiatives and join bounties to drive positive culture and change in their organisations.

With a mission to bring transparency, humanity, rewards and a bit of fun into workplace community building, Loominate is built on the token economy of LOOMI token and is now able to decentralise the distribution of rewards to incentivise and sustain authentic bottom-up change, innovation and transformation in both small and big organisations.

Blockchain Worx

Blockchain Worx is a fintech venture focused on helping institutions harness the potential of blockchain technology for digital transformation in the metaverse era. Their solutions, including a digital banking framework, a tokenized securities platform and an anti-money laundering transaction monitoring system, are targeted at helping organisations leverage distributed ledger technology to develop next-generation business, finance and regulatory networks.

They remain blockchain protocol agnostic and continue to build applications atop various business blockchain technologies such as Quorum, Hyperledger Fabric, Ethereum, and other alternate private permissionable blockchain platforms, including Hyperledger Sawtooth and Multichain.

Avalanche

Avalanche (AVAX) is an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralised applications.

AVAX is the native token of the Avalanche blockchain, which like Ethereum, uses smart contracts to support a variety of blockchain projects. The Avalanche blockchain can provide near-instant transaction finality. AVAX is used to pay transaction processing fees and secure the Avalanche network and acts as a basic unit of account among blockchains in the Avalanche network.

Avalanche holds a strong claim of being blazingly fast, low cost, and eco-friendly. Any smart contract-enabled application can outperform its competition on Avalanche.

MetaLoka PTE LTD

MetaLoka is the first-in-the-world OPEN MMORPG metaverse that features time travel and infinite space. An ultimate Multiverse that transcends the barriers between the past and future worlds to bring people together, at the heart of MetaLoka, the Metaverse can teleport you through an overwhelmingly immersive experience of interacting with other Metazen’s in Ancient Egypt, Dark Ages, 2312 Cyberpunk and so much more.

The startup’s mission is to develop a trademark building engine that allows users to create their own metaverses within MetaLoka while bridging to other metaverses.

Quadrant Protocol

Quadrant is a blockchain-based protocol that enables the access, creation, and distribution of data products and services with authenticity and provenance at its core.

The data economy is similar to space; unmapped and chaotic. The startup provides the infrastructure that facilitates the transparent exchange of Data-as-a-Service and AI services between organisations, enabling data vendors to sell their data with the use of Data Smart Contracts.

Quadrant Protocol is built with Ethereum. It combines the powerful capabilities of blockchain with new innovations developed by the Quadrant team to stamp and map disparate data sets.

AngbaoShop

AngbaoShop is here to get you cryptocurrency at your doorstep or at your nearest convenience store.

Cryptocurrencies, despite their growing adoption, are simply too complicated for the common man. Most of the time, it is out of reach for people who are not tech-savvy or those who simply find the process of obtaining or interacting with any form of cryptocurrencies too daunting. In essence, it is not newbie-friendly.

The startup aims to make the process of obtaining and liquidating cryptocurrencies and their respective crypto assets by making it available via a simple top-up card concept. Current retail channels are online via our e-Commerce platform which accepts cash-on-delivery and at local convenience stores.

Also Read: Women of Web3: Top women contributors tell us all we need to know about Web3

Onchain Custodian Pte Ltd

Onchain Custodian offers a global, standardised, resilient, insured and compliant custody service for the safekeeping of institutional digital asset investments with incomparable user experience.

Its solution is built with the flexibility to meet the possible futures of crypto custody and is led by a highly experienced management team with expertise in blockchain, consulting, custody, crypto, investment banking and securities.

The startup walks with the mission to offer a custody solution which solves the digital asset trilemma of security, convenience & compliance; applies the successful approach to other cutting-edge financial services; ultimately empowers the digital transformation of our economy.

Blockee

Or a synonym for NFT Marketplace for Virtual Real Estate in the Metaverse. Blockee is an aggregator of NFT land from virtual worlds and Web3 games. They stand tall on their mission to make virtual land available to everybody, especially to traditional real estate investors who want to get exposure to virtual real estate with their portfolios.

AlphaWallet

AlphaWalllet is the ultimate wallet engine for the Web3 world. Built by Web3 engineers for the community, AlphaWallet is a self-custodial wallet, that’s 100 per cent open-source, and production-ready. It allows you to simply customise your tokens and launch your MVP in 1/5 of the time.

MetaPals

MetaPals is a browser extension that allows users to interact and grow NFT pets directly from their browser computer screen. With distinct personalities, a Metapal can speak via emojis, interact with elements of a webpage, and play page-specific minigames with the user. All of which add to the ‘care index’, an on-chain measure of the wellbeing of the pet, directly influencing the value of the NFT.

“We see it as the first step to bringing life to the Metaverse and are excited to explore new ways to expand the world of MetaPals. For it to become a true extension of the human experience, through our journey to create a world which we feel people want to join, we realised that we need to bring over the qualities that make us human: love, care, compassion,” says Daryl Lim, Co-Founder at MetaPals

KingSwap

KingSwap is a DeFi project that has introduced a liquidity pool platform with possible fiat off-ramp conversions. KingSwap’s high-yield liquidity platform offers extensive staking rewards, digital collectibles, etc. KingSwap’s native $KING tokens are regulated under Singaporean law. In addition to offering off-ramp fiat currency converting solutions to allow users great convenience between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds.

The startup has also added some new blockchain community-oriented features to Uniswap’s core design, which will help boom the technology and provide user-friendly real-time benefits in terms of price curves and contributor rewards.

Gorilla Networks Pte Ltd

World’s first telco in the Metaverse, Gorilla Networks Pte Ltd is a next-generation mobile-finance telco that provides seamless mobile connectivity and mobile finance solutions.

Gorilla’s revolutionary blockchain BSS for telecommunication and financial services provides unprecedented access to power-up mobile data via Smart Contracts. Users can use, spend, save and share mobile data as a digital asset with anyone straight from their mobile phone.

Gorilla Networks Pte Ltd is a pioneer in merging telecommunication and mobile financial services into a universal consumer-centric offering and application that is accessible through any device, any network, any location.

482.solutions

482.solutions specialises in innovative distributed solutions using Blockchain technology since 2013. The key competency of 482.solutions is engineering systems and platforms for Industry 4.0 domains such as transactive energy, FinTech, DeFi, digital identity, eGovernment, Supply chain management, digital twins, digital assets management, distributed storage, value chain management, digital economy, M2M systems.

Coalculus

Coalculus is reinventing finance for a digital world. It is a multi-chain fintech blockchain platform built for hybrid deployments and comes with user permissioning capabilities. Enterprise distributed applications enabled by Coalculus benefit from zero node operations, enterprise chain interoperability, scalability and low transaction costs.

“We empower organisations to introduce innovative financial services quickly and easily, in doing so, our clients benefit from the advantages offered by blockchain.”

Also Read: Meet the DeFi platforms that have made waves in Southeast Asia

Blockchain Zoo

Blockchain Zoo is here to bring clarity to the blockchain jungle!

Blockchain Zoo supports blockchain projects from ideation to implementation, through a bias-free technological approach. Their consultants and associates strive to deliver actionable insight and measurable added value, based on the technology that is best suited for the consumers

To put it another way, Blockchain Zoo is a one-stop shop offering solutions for any blockchain needs.

Enjin

Nine years ago, a small, barely funded company first saw the light of a new, digital day. The startup entered the merciless game industry battleground armed with nothing more than unrelenting creativity, fueled by a profound desire to push the boundaries of technology.

Almost a decade later, what used to be a single, lonely tree on a metaphorical, enchanted planet grew into a world-spanning, magical jungle. The biggest social gaming platform in the world, with over 19 million users spread out in more than a quarter of a million gaming communities and processing millions of USD per month in virtual goods sales.

Enjin is a web-based universal blockchain explorer, built with a focus on user experience, speed and ease of use.

Biconomy

A developer platform to enable a simplified transaction and onboarding experience for Web3 projects, Biconomy’s goal is to make Web3 frictionless and mainstream.

The plug-n-play solution allows Web3 interactions to be smooth and seamless between DApps and end-users by removing blockchain complexities. We do this by providing a multi-chain non-custodial, and gas efficient relayer infrastructure network that enables meta transactions at scale.

Nansen

Surfacing the signals in blockchain data, real-time crypto and NFT insights for the win! Nansen is a blockchain analytics platform that enriches on-chain data with millions of wallet labels. Crypto investors use Nansen to discover opportunities, perform due diligence and defend their portfolios with our real-time dashboards and alerts.

ClayStack

ClayStack is redefining skating by getting their users tradable liquid staking derivatives and instantly withdrawing their staked assets.

ClayStack is a decentralized liquid staking platform that enables its users to unlock the liquidity of staked assets across multiple chains. They can stake their assets and use the issued staking derivatives across the DeFi ecosystem. At ClayStack, security is an attribute. Their smart contracts have been audited by Chain Security.

Zilliqa

Low cost, highly scalable, and environmentally sustainable, Zilliqa is your magic portal to the blockchain world, enabling you to create user-friendly dApps more easily.

The startup brings the theory of sharding to practise with its novel protocol that increases transaction rates as its network expands. The platform is tailored towards enabling secure data-driven decentralised apps, designed to meet the scaling requirements of machine learning and financial algorithms.

Pundi X

Pundi X is the most versatile payment ecosystem of its kind. More and more businesses across the world are using Pundi X solution to harness the power of blockchain technology. They have been deploying their blockchain-based point-of-sale (POS) solution and solidifying partnerships with governments, payment companies, and retailers.

“We keep innovating the ways to harness the power of blockchain technology to facilitate financial inclusion. At Pundi X, we want to make digital currencies to be more accessible to more people across the borders and further increase the value of digital currencies for all.”

Also Read: Southeast Asia is one of the best markets for Web3 to take off, say experts

SolRazr

SolRazr is the first decentralized developer ecosystem for Solana, offering Launchpad, Accelerator, and Developer Tools.

The startup boasts of reimagining token sale whitelists and allocations by leveraging the power of NFTs on Solana, incubating projects and helping with a go-to-market strategy to launch quickly, turbocharging Solana dApp development with a suite of powerful developer tools, and allowing communities from other chains to invest directly into Solana projects.

Chintai

Chintai is transforming the capital markets of today into blockchain opportunities of tomorrow.

Founded by a team of career experts in finance, technology, physics, clinical psychology, business management and economics to revolutionise capital markets using blockchain for asset managers, banks and enterprise, Chintai keep the entire life cycle of digital assets on chain. The startup uses high-performance blockchain technology and a multi-chain architecture to deliver a flexible solution that gives our platform participants the most efficiency gains possible.

Cake DeFi

Cake DeFi generates cash flow out of crypto assets by bringing decentralised finance to the people. As simple as it can get, all the users need to do is sign up and get verified within minutes, add funds by depositing crypto or buying with their preferred payment method, allocate their coins and watch the rewards roll in.

PolyTrade

Polytrade is shaping the future of trade finance by bringing safe and insurance backed real-world assets to the crypto world. The startup provides real-world borrowers access to low interest and swift financing to free up critical working capital, tapped from crypto lenders. Polytrade bridges the gaps in traditional receivables financing by accessing untapped crypto liquidity.

Koinearth

KoineArth works at the intersection of blockchains, machine learning and mechanism design to enable economic networks.

KoineArth’s ngageN platform is a regulatory compliant NFT platform for brands and creator economy, driving loyalty by enabling brands & creators to offer exclusive experiences to their premium fans & customers.

KoineArth’s marketsN platform is an enterprise-grade solution for digital supply chains. By enabling secure data sharing in B2B ecosystems, marketsN enables ESG compliance, supply chain finance and operations efficiency.

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Every entrepreneur has to make many legal decisions, often without solid access to advice around what their best options are. That’s why I invited Cassady Toles, a licensed corporate lawyer based in California with national and global legal experience.

In this heavily focused episode on legal issues, we covered important topics like:

– What is the best strategy when starting a company?
– How to know where to incorporate it?
– How do you protect co-founder relationships?
– How to handle marital divorce?
– When should you prepare a Shareholder Agreement?
– What are Classes of Shares?
– What are NDAs and are they actually useful?
– What is the Employee Agreement + ESOP?

Also Read: Why SEA’s startup ecosystem is making a strong case for legaltech

If you don’t see the player above, click on the link below to listen directly!

Acast
Apple
Spotify
Stitcher

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This article about managing wealth for entrepreneurs was first published on We Live To Build.

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If we were to look into the future, I believe that it is one where blockchain technology wraps around most existing businesses. The potential is immense, leading to improved processes and capabilities and transparency of how transactions are lodged.

The quick definition of blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that can facilitate the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. Therefore, almost everything significant or has business value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network.

Lendor is a circular platform for tech devices. Whether consumers want to rent the latest technology or end-of-life devices, Lendor has something for everyone on any budget with a flexible schedule.

This meant that we were serving B2B and B2C customers, managing thousands of transactions yearly on short term rentals and long term leases and partnering with multiple merchant partners. It is currently still on Web2 hosted on cloud-based servers.

Sustainability concerns

Moving Lendor from Web2 to Web3 has always been on our minds since 2018 when we were awarded the second runner up in Dsion Blockchain startup challenge in 2018. 

As an impact-driven tech startup in the circular economy space, it was difficult to consider blockchain as a viable technology one or two years back. Our focus on solving SDG goals 11,12 sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production meant that tracking carbon savings and/or output is a key metric.

Also Read: 13 years on since the birth of Bitcoin, it’s now blockchain’s time to shine

Ethereum, the most popular platform for DApps, was great from a technology standpoint, but each transaction with Ethereum is equivalent to running a refrigerator for 35 days. We want to have all the good work we have done in circularity and carbon savings be completely negated by the technology we have chosen to use.

Blockchain technology is fundamentally bad for the environment due to the nature of cryptocurrency mining through Proof of Work (PoW), where miners have to compete against each other to solve complex problems through the utilisation of high-power computers.

It requires the use of significant energy resources. PoW rewards miners with the greatest computing power, which inevitably burns more greenhouse gasses to facilitate additional processes.

Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake

In the last two years or so, the idea of Proof of Stake (PoS) emerged within the community that allows miners to pledge a “staked” digital currency where they validate transactions.

The benefits of Proof of Stake (PoS) are that it requires less energy, is more secure and is scalable. The ecological footprint is also lower, making it more feasible for startups to adapt this into their systems and solutions in the near future. 

Ethereum, through this shift in consensus from PoW to PoS, allows energy consumption to be reduced by 99.5 per cent, which is scheduled to happen by the end of 2022. The PoS aims to fix many common issues with the PoW system. Other popular staking systems to build DApps include Cardano, Solana and EOS.

Moving from Web2 to Web3

For a startup or business to adopt blockchain technology, the various chains, protocols, and consensus, must be sustainable not just on a cost per basis but also have the potential to solve a major pain point for the industry.

Also Read:‘Blockchain could’ve eased the lives of many people fleeing the Russia-Ukraine war’

At Lendor, how we plan to leverage this technology would be for us to have this information being sharable and made transparent for our vendors and customers where they can be granted and allowed access to this information stored on the ledger.

The benefits of having a blockchain network could also be to track orders, payments, accounts, productions, logistics, and much more. The members that are all on our network are thus able to see all the details of transactions from end to end, leading to better processes, and transparency, and leading to lower attrition rate. 

Another example would be that business partners who are seeking out a short-term rental partnership are now able to look at the transaction movements through Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and would be able to identify to see if our merchant partners have the quantity and inventory models to support their rentals, and how best it could be to facilitate their requests and commercial needs.

These partners who are operating on a global level could also work together with Lendor to further facilitate higher ticket size and bulk quantity movements through the implementation and introduction of smart contracts where parameters and definitions such as duration of use, the annual contract value, renewal rates, attrition percentage could be pre-set.

We also seek to work closely together with our partners to incorporate this process to create further efficiencies with the verticals that support our circular platforms, such as insurtech, logistics, procurement, and accounting, to name a few.

We are excited at how the blockchain landscape will develop in Singapore and Southeast Asia for the next decade and think that there is tremendous potential for impact and climate tech companies to take the bold move to Web3.

I look forward to speaking with experts in this space to enlarge my circle of competence further and connect with industry leaders.

This post was co-written by Tay Han Jie.

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Before making a decision, you must first understand the common problems encountered in hiring overseas talent and starting overseas branches/subsidiaries.

First of all, in order to set up foreign entities, you will need legal support from a lawyer and accounting firm. Setting up a new entity overseas can also take you more than six months before you can start hiring local talents.

You are also mandated to invest in a certain amount of capital, generally, it’s quite a large sum of capital. If you fail to comply with local labor regulations, it will put your business at risk and in crisis.

Furthermore, you must manage all payroll employee accounts internally. When it comes to payroll transfers, it’s never just about paying the employees. Employers must strictly abide by local tax regulations to avoid severe penalties from the local authorities.

Finally, you must understand the local labour laws of each country. Where each country has different labour laws and risks that need to be paid attention to carefully avoid breaking any law otherwise you might put your business at risk if your company doesn’t comply with the local laws.

Also Read: 3 tips for tech startups to navigate their business expansion into Tokyo

All in all, the number of resources needed to operate the overseas hiring process can be very resourceful, not very cost-efficient, time-consuming, and complicated. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. If a business entity is considering starting an overseas subsidiary.

These are a few references for evaluation:

Business scale

If you are not sure about the market stability of the country but would like to test the water, it is recommended to use an Employer of Record (EOR). It allows employers to expand their cross-border team in a cost-efficient manner before investing a huge sum of resources to start a foreign entity.

If the company has gradually expanded to a certain size and when a foreign entity has been fully established, Slasify can assist in transferring employees from the Employer of Record (EOR) to the internal company payroll to ease the transition process.

Competitive market

When entering a foreign market, as a business entity or employer, you might find your competitors to be in the same market as you. Therefore, it is likely to become a war for talent.

When you need to get talents onboard with your company as quickly as possible, Employer of Record (EOR) is the perfect solution to help you get up and running quickly while continuing to plan for your future brick-and-mortar company.

This process can be implemented at the same time while your foreign entity is being set up. This strategy can help you acquire fast and ensure the retention of golden talents. Build a better workforce plan, and think outside the box when it comes to recruiting!

One-to-many market layout

If you have not yet decided on a certain target market (e.g. you are planning to enter the European market yet haven’t clearly decided on which countries yet), using an Employer of Record (EOR) is a good strategy because it will allow you to explore as many possibilities as possible in a more cost-efficient manner, while saving you the hassle of setting up branches in various countries.

Also Read: Is the Southeast Asian market ripe for foreign startups?

Business entities can also utilise this method to thoroughly plan and strategise on establishing multinational foreign entities as this will allow them to assess the market. With Employer of Record (EOR), business owners don’t need to waste internal resources on taking care of human resources management (HRM) matters.

Conclusion: From zero to hero

There is no absolute right or wrong in setting up a foreign entity or using the service of an employer of record (EOR). Either alternatives are suitable to fast-track your business growth. However, it is important to assess the suitability of each option depending on the company’s current operation, scale, and resources.

Employer of Record (EOR) applies to companies of all sizes (with a certain degree of acceptance for the company to be open for remote/hybrid employees).

If you are a start-up team that wants to make a first attempt or a multinational company that already has several foreign entities looking to expand into a more global market, it will take a lot of time for business development and operation management.

In the process of setting up an independent foreign entity, time, resources, and opportunity to start hiring could have gone wasted. It is recommended to choose reliable, experienced, and compliant EOR services to become your best business partner to expand your horizons!

If you want to accelerate your business expansion, Slasify provides employer of record (EOR) services, integrating large and small matters of multinational employment on a single platform, which will best assist your business and cross-border team expansion.

If you are considering expanding your team overseas in the long run, it is more beneficial to establish a foreign entity. With Slasify, our goal is to create a new pattern of barrier-free global labour relations. The expansion of multinational talents and teams is no longer the prerogative of multinational companies. We provide SMEs and start-ups to expand business overseas and the opportunity to enter foreign markets.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

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There are several reasons why Southeast Asia could potentially be the next hotbed for Decentralised Finance (DeFi). In an opinion piece published by Forkast, Michael Conn, CEO, Chairman & Co-Chief Investment Director at Zilliqa Capital, the region’s relatively high level of unbanked population, combined with its “burgeoning” rate of digital literacy, provides plenty of opportunities for DeFi platforms to seize.

“DeFi’s model of peer-to-peer engagement and inventiveness has created a significant opportunity for the making of real-world solutions to the challenges that exist of giving people a proverbial ‘seat at the table’,” he writes.

“The possibilities for financial inclusion alongside the accretive upside that these types of businesses generate mean that throughout the ASEAN and Indian region entrepreneurs, technologists, investors and innovators are working side-by-side to create open markets that can truly help everybody.”

In recent years, we have begun to see several DeFi platforms making waves in SEA through their innovation, funding announcement, and groundbreaking insight into the future of finance. In this listicle, we compiled a list of such platforms –but we believe that these companies would not be the last.

In fact, we expect to regularly update this list as we dig deeper into the Web3 space in the region. But let us start with these 13 companies:

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

Alpha Venture DAO

Formerly known as Alpha Finance Lab, Alpha Venture DAO’s mission is to become an innovation lab that pushes ground-breaking products that maximise returns for cryptocurrency holders.

In October 2020, it announced a partnership with SCB 10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank. The partnership is aimed at bridging the gap between traditional banking and emerging financial technology with a new suite of DeFi products under the umbrella of Alpha.

Ape Board

Earlier in May, Coindesk wrote about on-chain data platform Nansen acquiring decentralized finance (DeFi) portfolio tracker Ape Board for an “eight-figure” sum –putting it upward of US$10 million.

Ape Board lists over 375 protocols across 33 blockchains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Solana and Polygon.

Avalanche

According to a Daily Hodl report, crypto analyst Cred said that two Ethereum challengers –Solana and Avalanche– could move hard and fast during the next bounce in digital asset markets.

“These coins do well on bounces because participants are conditioned to buy names they know and like when they’re ‘cheap’ at a time when there’s no new altcoin narrative to ride …,” the analyst wrote in the Technical Roundup newsletter. “Even more colloquially, if you’re going to gamble on Bitcoin and Ethereum direction, might as well punt some Solana and Avalanche as they’ll likely rip harder if you’re right (and also nuke you harder if you’re wrong).”

BHO Network

Formerly known as Bholdus, the BHO Network is built on BHO Chain (BHC-20), a foundational and critical component of the BHO Network in enabling the development of a complete ecosystem based on blockchain technology.

In a statement, the Singapore-based company describes its mission as to enable innovations not only from new projects with breakthrough ideas in this space, but also to support any company that sees blockchain as a solution to achieve intensive margin from current operations.

It also aims to bring that support to all verticals including supply chain, media and entertainment, identity and credentials, healthcare, trade finance, financial services, government, digital assets, and retail.

Also Read: To infinity and beyond: Why 2022 will be the year of Web3

Cake DeFi

Cake DeFi described itself as a platform that aims to provide access to decentralised financial services and applications by enabling users to generate returns from their crypto and digital assets. It offers three options to generate cash flow and passive income: Lending, Staking and Liquidity Mining.

In March, the company announced the launch of Cake DeFi Ventures with US$100 million in earmarked capital.

Coin98

In January 2022, Binance Labs announced a strategic investment in Coin98 that will enable the platform to contribute to building DeFi infrastructure on Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

As a platform that builds a full suite of DeFi products, Coin98 introduces itself as Multi-Chain & NFT Super App. It allows users to swap, stake, borrow, lend, invest and earn crypto in one platform, and is constantly developing its DeFi ecosystem.

According to a blog post by Binance, Coin98 aims to build an NFT Marketplace, token launch platform, AMM on Binance Smart Chain, and make DeFi on BSC accessible to everyone.

DeZy

Launched in 2021, DeZy enables users to convert their cash into dollar-denominated stable coins, which are deposited across a range of DeFi protocols. It was started by four co-founders Eric Dadoun (CEO), Harald Lang (CTO ), Sharmini Ravindran (CMO ), and Simon Landsheer (strategic advisor). The company aims to empower people to “achieve meaningful savings, income growth and wealth accumulation” by simplifying decentralised finance.

In February, it attracted a US$2.2 million Pre-Series A funding round led by Leo Capital with participation from Iterative Capital.

MM.Finance

MM.Finance has the largest ecosystem on Cronos with its DEX, Yield Optimizer, NFT, Algo Stablecoin, and DTF.

Earlier in May, according to a CoinDesk report, the platform suffered a front-end exploit that allowed hackers to siphon out more than US$2 million in CRO tokens from users. To handle the situation, MM.Finance issued a statement that the losses will be compensated and reimbursed.

Sipher

In an interview with e27, Sipher explained how they are able to win high-profile VCs’ hearts even before its blockchain games hit the market.

“We were determined that our games should be what they are actually meant to be — fun. So, we came up with a business plan and presented it to several regional investors. We were lucky that they all shared the same opinion and even recommended us to big investors in the west. The rest is history,” recounts founder Tin Nguyen.

Also Read: You’re not really diversifying your investments by buying altcoins

Sky Mavis

Known as the company behind the popular game Axie Infinity, Vietnam-based Sky Mavis recently announced a US$150 million funding round led by Binance with participation from Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel Partners.

Things have not always been so smooth for Sky Mavis. In March, its Ronin validator nodes were compromised, resulting in 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC drained from the Ronin bridge. The funding round that they announced in April –combined with their own balance sheet funds– was meant to reimburse all the users affected by the hack.

Summoners Arena

Summoners Arena, which was founded in Vietnam in May 2021, is a role-playing game (RPG) that aims to redefine user experience in the blockchain gaming space. In an interview with e27, founder Hung Tran explains that it integrates traditional and blockchain gaming elements to provide a multi-layered experience for players to participate in immersive gameplay and experience true ownership over gaming assets while earning digital assets.

To date, Summoners Arena has raised US$4.25M from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Onechain Technology, and GuildFi, among others.

Treehouse

Treehouse aims to transform on-chain data into meaningful metrics to help decentralized finance (DeFi) investors make informed financial decisions. In March, the company secured a US$18 million seed funding round.

Led by an undisclosed large fintech investor, the funding round included the participation of notable names such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Binance, MassMutual Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Jump Capital, GSR, Wintermute, Do Kwon of Terraform Labs, and senior executives from SoftBank Vision Fund.

The company managed to secure this funding round just 11 months since its founding.

3moji

In a recent interview with e27, 3moji explained how its upgradable and composable NFT avatar system will transform how NFTs are used in games and across the metaverse.

“3moji is all about expression. This DApp (decentralised application) — a P2P app that operates autonomously on the blockchain — allows Web3 users to customise their avatars over time and purchase and combine different NFT accessories,” explains founder Shivek Khurana. “In a nutshell, we bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 cultures, and profile pictures are just the tip of the iceberg.”

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