VE Capital Asia, a Singapore-based management consulting and deeptech company, has announced the acquisition of three local startups — Web Imp, Cashapon, and TechVenture Pursuit (TVP) — for a total of US$37 million.

With these acquisitions, VE Capital expects its revenue to increase by US$11 million.

Founded in 2014, Web Imp guides businesses in enabling digital transformation through intuitive UX/UI design, reliable web and mobile development, and cost-effective digital marketing campaigns. This acquisition was made in May this year.

Cashapon acquires and elevates leading brands in the retail e-commerce market using AI and ML technology.

TVP is an automation builder and service provider specialising in enterprise productivity, redesign, and automation solutions. The company expects to be able to venture deeper into the region to serve companies that require scalable IT solutions.

The Cashapon and TVP deals — closed in August — aim to strengthen VE Capital in AI, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, and automation.

Also Read: S’pore budget 2021: Increased support for deeptech, enhanced venture debt programme for startups

VE Capital Asia CEO June Yong said: “As enterprises rush to digitise and stay relevant in light of this pandemic, VE Capital Asia is on track to establish itself as a trusted one-stop tech integrated solutions provider through the recent acquisitions. We are currently undergoing negotiations to acquire several deeptech firms in the region to become a leader in this space, helping companies make a smooth and cost-efficient transition into the new normal.”

VE Capital Asia supports a wide selection of corporate and SME clients, both local and international. Notable partnerships include the development of a fully optimised deep technology software and IoT & hardware automation with Sheldon Group.

Another partnership includes the development of a group-buy grocery e-commerce platform for Prime Supermarket. The platform allows the company to introduce e-commerce and group buy features to shoppers and provide the group with seamless management of offline and online sales and vendor payouts.

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Image Credit: Web Imp

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EI Industrial, a Vietnamese industry-focused B2B e-commerce platform, has raised a US$670,000 seed financing led by Cocoon Capital, with participation from Beenext.

The e-commerce firm will channel the funding to build a “faster and more user-friendly” technology platform. Besides, EI Industrial intends to expand its sales, marketing, and technology teams to drive rapid growth.

“We founded EI Industrial with the target to help develop Vietnam’s core industry through technology,” said co-founder and CEO An Phi Ho. “Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world in recent years, and small and medium-sized private businesses are the backbone of the economy.”

Also read: Are B2B marketplaces finally entering their boom time in Asia?

Launched in 2020, EI Industrial provides a SaaS e-procurement and warehouse management system (WMS) to help manufacturers and construction businesses manage their purchasing processes. It currently focuses on the MRO (maintenance, repair and operation) and M&E (mechanical and electrical) supply sectors.

The tech company offers purchasing officers a variety of vendors and deals available on a free-to-use platform, allowing them to digitise and maximise customer outreach across Vietnam. 

The startup also guarantees an appropriate delivery and payment route for both parties.

“EI Industrial strives to help businesses and vendors improve their productivity and profit margins,” Ho added.

The platform counts Esquel Group, Heineken, Toshiba, Olam, Aqua, Oishi, Wahl, and Central Group among its 500 clients in Vietnam. To serve the mounting demand, it also partners with more than 300 retailers, including Schneider Electric, Bosch, Honeywell, and 3M.

As per a press statement, El Industrial is on the way to accept and open hundreds of online stores for new sellers in 20 existing categories, aiming to gain over US$1 million in stock-keeping units by the end of 2021.

According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, SMEs make up 98 per cent of all businesses, accounting for 45 per cent of the country’s GDP and 63 per cent of employment. 

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Image Credit: EI Industrial

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Surer, a Singapore-based startup providing a cloud-based platform for insurance firms and intermediaries, has raised US$1 million in seed funding.

Norwegian investor Kistefos, Markel Corporation’s insurtech investment arm Markel Digital Investments, and an unnamed angel invested.

Surer intends to use the fresh funding to bolster its core technology platform and strengthen the tech team to realise its product roadmap.

“We aim to solve the problem of a huge mismatch in demand and supply in a US$1.7 trillion general insurance industry,” said co-founder Gordon Tay.

Surer was founded in 2020 by Tay, Derren Teo, and Renfred Tay. They have earlier held different positions in PropertyGuru and Carousell. Previously, they also worked in major insurance companies, including AIG, MSIG and QBE.

Surer aims to create a fully connected digital ecosystem where insurance intermediaries and insurers can leverage its technology to streamline workflows, processes, recruitment and distribution of products.

Also read: Why now is the right time for disruption in the insurance industry?

Surer claims that it helps drive network orchestration, efficient communication and transmission of information to help intermediaries and insurers better serve the end policyholders. “That drives a ‘triple-win situation where policyholders can be served with greater quality because of a highly efficient intermediary sales force that can now scale their business without impediments,” added Tay.

Since its inception, Surer claims to have clocked 350 intermediary signups and demo requests. More than 1,000 insurance proposals have been sent, and over US$887,148 in gross written premiums are transacted on the platform.

The startup expects to achieve the GWP surpassing the US$1.5 million milestones by the end of 2021.

In 2020, global insurers suffered from a loss of around US$55 billion due to COVID-19 and looked for digitisation solutions to better serve their customers in a new context. Buoyed by this surging demand, global investors funded insurtech firms to an all-time high of US$7.5 billion last year and were expected to accelerate in the Southeast Asia market in 2021. 

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Image Credit: Surer

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Fika, an AI-powered social and dating platform in Vietnam, has secured US$1.6 million in seed funding led by Swedish firm VNV Global.

Global Founders Capital and Keith Richman’s angel fund 31 Atlantic are the co-investors in the round.

A handful of global angels also participated, including Bryan Pelz (founder of VNG), Brian Ma (from Iterative Capital and founder of new unicorn Divvy Homes), Sebastian Knutsson (founder of Swedish unicorn King), Jussi Salovaara (co-founder of Antler), Madeleine Magnerius (VP at EQT Ventures), and Therese Mannheimer (CEO at Grace Health).

With the new investment, Fika targets expanding its talent bench, developing the app’s AI capabilities, and enhancing its exposure in Vietnam. 

The startup also looks to grow into new Asian regions before expanding globally in the long run.

Also read: Is AI the future of dating in 2021?

Founded in 2020, Fika is a female-focused dating platform that prioritises safety and authenticity for users while forming and maintaining meaningful friendships. It focuses on creating an environment that is better suited to females instead of skewing towards men, who make up 75 per cent of the user base of traditional dating apps.

The startup uses AI technology to understand users’ interests, likes and the kinds of profiles they swipe for and against to create tailored matches, suggestions and recommendations to support long-lasting relationships. 

Besides, it also assists them from making friends to finding love and then deepening relationships through its Couple’s Version. This version serves as a private online area for the couple to plan dates, chat, and receive information about their relationships, such as birthdays and anniversaries.

Fika requires registers to pass a manual verification check to protect its users. About 40 per cent of Fika’s users were recorded to fail.

The platform currently focuses on Vietnam, a country with 100 million people and a median age of 32. 

The app has clocked over 600,000 downloads so far.

“Fika is dedicated to helping find meaningful connections. The only way such truly meaningful connections are made and maintained is by creating an environment that encourages more women, one that makes women feel safe and secure,” said CEO and co-founder Denise Sandquist.

According to a report by Statista, revenue from the online dating market in Vietnam in 2021 is expected to reach US$26 millio. It will rise at a CAGR of 10.13 per cent during the 2021-2025 period.

By 2025, the number of Vietnamese users in the online dating sector is slated to reach 4.8 million.

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Image credit: Fika

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Creative Galileo, a Singapore-based edutech startup focussing on children in the three to ten age bracket, has raised US$2.5 million in a round led by Indian VC firm Kalaari Capital.

Harish Bahl (Smile Group), Shashin Shah (Think Investments), Jinesh Patel (Integra Partners), Atul Nishar (Hexaware Technologies), Ashwin Puri (Facebook), and Giridhar Malpani, also co-invested.

The capital will be used for scaling, product development and enhancement, creating new engaging content, forging partnerships with leading animation houses, and hiring.

Also Read: Edutech is surging, but here are the 3 issues it is facing

Founded in July 2020 by Prerna Jhunjhunwala and Nikhil Naik, Creative Galileo aims to transform early learning globally. It focuses on the six learning domains — numeracy, language, arts and aesthetics, social and emotional learning, motor skills, and world discovery.

Its Kids Early Learning App is a character-based app that leverages technology to emphasise personalised needs, inquiry-based learning methods, and experiential activities via narrative videos, gamification, and personalised learning journeys.

According to the startup, this results in a fun, interactive curriculum for children and their parents. Parents can also keep track of their children’s performance via success rates and graphs to provide individualised and customised experiences.

Since its launch, the app claims to have clocked over four million downloads and over 500,000 monthly active users.

Apart from the Indian subcontinent, the app is also gaining traction in international markets, with 10 per cent downloads recorded from Nepal, Bangladesh, UAE, the US and other countries.

Creative Galileo’s immediate expansion plans will focus on scaling up in emerging markets within Southeast Asia. It will integrate local languages from the region, such as Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia, into the app.

Over the next 12-14 months, Creative Galileo aims to achieve ten million downloads across all markets.

The company has also partnered with leading industry players and studios for kids’ content such as Big Animation, Toonz Animation, Amar Chitra Katha, Shemaroo and Periwinkle to continue providing quality content, gamification, and interactive learning journeys.

Also Read: Edutech is opening up opportunities, but we need to get it right

Jhunjhunwala said: “Early childhood learning lies at the heart of kids’ future and greatly determines their long-term success. We envision providing millions of children in emerging markets in Southeast Asia with access to high-quality content for learning in their early years to provide a robust educational foundation while also keeping the process fun. Alongside enhancing our app by adding more kids’ characters and region-specific languages, the funding helps us onboard talent and enter new markets. This will propel our efforts to create more personalised, inclusive and relatable content that helps with the early development of children.”

Southeast Asia is home to 700 million people, of which 26 per cent fall within the school-attending age group. However, access to quality education is still often limited and unevenly spread across the region, a gap primarily attributed to the region’s large rural population, often inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of trained educators and funding.

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Image Credit: Creative Galileo

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Vietnam in 2020 overtook Singapore’s GDP and became the third-largest economy in ASEAN. Immediately after the new national ​leadership was elected at the Communist Party of VVietnam’s Congress in January 2021, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed a vital document entitled National Strategy on R&D and Application of Artificial Intelligence or the Strategy Document.

The 14-page document outlines plans and initiatives for Vietnam to “promote research, development and application of AI, making it an important technology of Vietnam in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Vietnam aims to become “the centre for innovation, development of AI solutions and applications in ASEAN and worldwide” by 2030.

The strategy document provides some directions to where Vietnam should go in the next decade with ambitious goals.

Vietnam follows China’s and other Asian countries’ footsteps in becoming a techno-developmental state which takes advantage of technological changes for economic developments.

It outlines what 16 ministries and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology need to do in the next 10 years. But the document does not show how other players such as startup founders, civil society, and the primary beneficiaries of AI –i.e. everyday users in Vietnam’s AI economy– should do.

It also has no mention of the role of AI ethics in this development.

Without any consideration to important ethical issues such as privacy and surveillance, bias and discrimination, and the role of human judgment, AI development in the country might only benefit a small group of people and possibly bring harm to others.

Also Read: Leveraging AI, big data and blockchain to build your dream home

Funding

AI developments need a large amount of funding from various sources such as international venture capital firms, local venture capitalists, government fundings, or companies’ profits.

Funding of AI development in Vietnam is lagging behind other Southeast Asian countries. In 2019, Vietnam’s AI investment per capita was under US$1, while the Southeast Asian leader Singapore has US$68 worth of AI investment per capita.

VC investment suffered in the first half of 2020 due to COVID-19. However, with the government’s assistance, there has been some sign of improvement regarding fundings shortly.

At the Vietnam Venture Summit 2020, both foreign and domestic investors pledged to invest US$800 million in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem.

According to Crunchbase, currently, there are 155 venture capital investors with investments in the country.  

Tech startups that received the most investments are in e-commerce, fintech and AI. The government also provided state funding at the national and city level to encourage entrepreneurship.

As a result, the startup ecosystem in cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi thrived in 2020, before the fourth wave of COVID-19 hit the country in April 2021. 

The strategy document outlines the role of the Ministry of Planning and Investment to “attract venture capital funds to innovative AI startups in Vietnam.” The question remains open as to what the plans to bring international capital for domestic technological development are; which specific areas of AI should be the main areas of investment; how would the money be distributed, and will there be any accountability mechanisms, and who are these accountability entities?

Businesses

The development of AI in Vietnam has been driven primarily by private businesses. The strategy document outlines a push towards digitisation and industry 4.0 to create incentives for companies to become more aware of the potential of data science and AI.

Vietnamese companies are still in the early stage of development.

Also Read: Why is Vietnam going to emerge the strongest post-COVID-19?

Only a few large corporations are prominent in the AI space, notably FPT, Vingroup, and Zalo, who have the resources to invest in AI research, development, and deployment.

From our conversations with professionals in the space, smaller companies run into a critical challenge: product-market fit. To what extent is the Vietnamese public willing to adopt new AI solutions as opposed to existing solutions?

As Nam Nguyen, the CTO of an e-commerce company in Ho Chi Minh City puts it: “fit takes a lot of money to invest in AI, but its economic benefits are not yet significant. Businesses in Vietnam will not jump on this AI bandwagon. Only big companies with extra capital can be in this AI playing field.” This problem is also prevalent in countries where AI is more mature. Many companies in the US, for example, are still struggling to scale AI solutions where AI was developed before finding customers who are willing to adopt it.

Vietnamese companies also have to compete against foreign or imported AI solutions and the lack of venture capital from domestic and foreign funds. Future strategy documents should address these particular issues in detail. 

Talent pool

There is no shortage of technical talent, but AI education is relatively new in Vietnam. Most of the tech workforce is still working in outsourcing.

The talent pool is young and specialised: young because the majority of the talent pool is IT graduates, working data scientists, or software engineers with few years of experience, and specialised because there is a strong affinity to acquire a technical skillset in niche machine-learning areas (e.g. deep learning, GANs, reinforcement learning)— as opposed to a more general product or project management skillset.

Skilled talents often look for professional opportunities abroad, where salaries would be drastically higher.

Furthermore, these opportunities would enable them to actively participate in the research, development, and deployment of state-of-the-art AI technologies in more AI-mature countries.

Given this landscape, there are challenging conditions to retain talents in Vietnam effectively:

• Salaries have to be competitive, compared to regional (i.e. Southeast Asia) and global markets.
• There have to be professional development opportunities for talent (e.g. courses, international conferences, etc.) to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and practices in AI development.

As Tuan Anh, a research scientist at VinAI, claims: “We need to attract Vietnamese scientists back to Vietnam. The key issue is still the salary. It’s difficult for a Vietnamese-based company to compete with Google, DeepMind, Microsoft when it comes to salary.” It is worth mentioning that there is also a language barrier to learning AI. As AI education material is predominantly in English, it is crucial to enable young talents with the necessary language learning support and more technical education in AI.

Also Read: Why BNPL will change the payment landscape in Vietnam?

“Students in special programmes have English curricula. However, it only accepts 50-60 students per year,” says Khoat Than, a professor at Hanoi University of Science & Technology.

Public perception of AI and the missing ethics conversation

In Vietnam, AI is viewed overwhelmingly positively. It is regarded as a catalytic force for economic and technological advancement. In the public mind, the concept of what AI is, how it is used, and who it affects are not as clear.

Due to the push towards digitization and industry 4.0, the Vietnamese may see AI only as a tool reserved for industries. Some implementation of natural language processing and computer vision is used to further business objectives.

However, these cases are only among many AI applications that the public has already been using in their everyday lives. It might not be immediately apparent that the routes that Grab drivers use to navigate the heterogeneous street network in Saigon are selected by an algorithm, or that the discounted products they see as they log onto e-commerce websites such as Shopee or Tiki may be recommended to them by an algorithm.

This acute awareness is essential because it expands the public’s perspective on the role AI plays in benefiting or harming their lives.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, “rice ATMs,” the automatic rice dispensing machines, were invented and deployed in many cities to provide rice both contactless and free-of-charge to low-income communities. What is often left out in the reports of this story is that facial recognition was also used to ensure compliance with the authorities.

This critical emphasis on AI involvement is the first step in shaping the conversation around AI and its impacts in Vietnam as a part of the much larger global discourse.

The public needs to start having the many conversations about AI around privacy, trust, bias, cybersecurity, and ethics, as well as the nuances, risks, and trade-offs of these aspects (e.g. privacy paradox).

AI ethics is an emergent field concerning the moral agency of machines and humans who design, develop, and deploy them. In practice, AI ethics is understood as a set of ethical principles, informs designers and developers about the harms of AI systems.

Specifically, the harms pertain to various areas: bias (e.g. gender bias in computer-aided health diagnosis), transparency, explainability, and sustainability (e.g. carbon emission of training large language models), among many others.

Also Read: Vietnam’s audiobook app Fonos raises US$1.1M seed round to become “super app”

The responsibilities of creating ethical AI systems and mitigating harms caused by these systems have fallen onto both corporate and societal organisations. Furthermore, ethical issues and impacts of AI are discussed widely among media, the public, policymakers, academia, and industry, thus establishing a dynamic and interdisciplinary environment where AI systems are created and criticised.

In Vietnam, not only is AI ethics absent from media and public policy discussions but it is also missing in engineering education.

Than, a professor at Hanoi University of Science & Technology notes: “I ethics at the college level lacks for engineering students. What students learn at universities are still ethics in computer science.” Colleges and universities should invest in not only learning from the learning and teaching of this curriculum,  adopting terminologies from the global discourse; they should also invest in doing research, particularly social science, that examines societal impacts of technology in Vietnam.”

At the governmental level, Vietnam can look to other Asian countries which have drafted national strategy documents that created a framework to make AI. One example is the Responsible AI for All Strategy Document, recently published by Niti Aayog, a premier think-tank by the Indian government.

It outlines potential ethical issues that AI would create and that many of those issues need new legal frameworks that different governmental bodies need to work together to address. 

Conclusion

Vietnam has entered the early phase of AI development; the strategy document is by no means the last that the government would produce.

We recommend the new leadership consider other aspects of AI development, including ethical considerations, legal frameworks, and creating partnerships with investors, civil society, and common users to create frameworks to address ethical problems native to Vietnamese community.

Vietnam should be conversing with global AI technologists and ethicists as AI development is truly a global phenomenon. 

This article is co-written by Khoa Lam, For Humanity.

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InnoVen Capital, a debt provider to venture-backed tech companies, today announced a new Southeast Asia-focussed fund: InnoVen SEA Fund.

The fund has completed its first close of US$50 million with InnoVen Capital and will be seeking additional investors to participate in the fund. It will be led by Partners Paul Ong and Ben Cheah. Its launch followed the recent launch of its US$100 million InnoVen Capital India Fund in September.

“The Southeast Asia venture ecosystem is maturing, with a record number of unicorns minted, notable exit activities and significant global investment capital inflows observed this year. We have laid the foundations for a franchise that is synonymous with venture debt in the region, and the new fund will help us deepen our engagement and collaborations, and strengthen our continuity in supporting the region’s technology companies and its talented founders,” said Ong.

Also Read: A horse of another: Here’s the full list of Southeast Asia’s 24 unicorns

InnoVen Capital is a joint venture between Seviora, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek, and United Overseas Bank. With presence in India, China, and Singapore, it has worked with leading names in the SEA startup ecosystem such as Carsome, Ruangguru, Tiki, Akulaku and eFishery, with cumulative loan disbursements of more than US$180 million.

A typically sector-agnostic fund, InnoVen Capital seeks to work with tech companies that have raised capital from VCs and other institutional investors.

Mainly focussing on Series A and beyond, the firm also looks at seed and Pre-Series A deals selectively. They also provide follow-up loans to existing portfolio companies as it continues to grow.

Cheah said, “Venture debt in Southeast Asia has come a long way from being relatively unknown five years ago to being an integral part of the entrepreneur’s fundraising toolkit. As the Southeast Asian ecosystem continues to mature, we expect the demand for venture debt to increase as more companies take advantage of less dilutive capital to grow even faster.”

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AUM Biosciences, a Singapore-based global clinical-stage biotech company, has completed its US$27 million Series A financing round.

The round was co-led by Singapore-based Everlife (an analytical, medical and lab devices market access and distribution platform) and health sciences VC firm SPRIM Global Investments.

Upon receiving the funding, AUM will expedite the clinical development and business growth of oncology therapies, particularly for cancers with a clear genetic marker.

According to a press statement, the proceeds from this round will be used to immediately initiate the startup’s phase II programmes for oncology drugs — MNK and TRK inhibitors.

Also read: Are biomedicine and healthcare coming of age? 

Founded in 2018 by industry veterans Vishal Doshi (CEO) and Harish Dave (CMO), AUM develops innovative and affordable oncology therapeutics for Asia. It focuses on drugging what might be considered the undruggable targets and addresses the need to delay and overcome resistance to targeted drugs in oncology.

AUM claims that it has clocked annual peak sales up to US$3 billion, contributing to the development of several currently marketed oncology treatments.

Leveraging its in-house research capabilities, the firm leads a multi-modality lineup of small molecule targeted therapies — one antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) and four biologics.

Earlier this year, AUM formed a strategic collaboration with two Korea-based pharmaceuticals manufacturers — Handok and CMG Pharmaceutical. It also seeks more strategic associations in the coming two quarters, with an upcoming partnership with Singapore’s healthcare company MSD and Handoc.

AUM Biosciences and Newsoara Biopharma also announced a 5-year transformational strategic partnership in 2020 to co-develop and co-discover next-generation cancer therapeutics.

The pandemic has been a boon for Singapore’s biotech startups, which attracted total funding of US$360 million only during the first half of 2021.

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Image credit: AUM

 

 

 

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When one brings up digitalisation, many retailers have the impression that it is merely about offline businesses going online, because that is just how things are currently.

Tap on a link, add to cart, check out, and wait for purchases to arrive at your doorstep — easy. E-commerce simply seems like the way to go, especially when even schools are actively promoting e-commerce skills to upskill students.

However, having a one-dimensional definition of retail digitalisation might not be as effective as everyone imagines it to be. For one, many have the misconception that e-commerce is meant to be a replacement of the brick-and-mortar retail channel, rather than as an additional channel for the business to generate sales and engagement.

Some businesses also have the impression that the process of digitalisation ends once they set up their e-commerce sites.

Many businesses who have set up their e-commerce presence have, however, learnt that getting web traffic and visitors is challenging, especially at the start. Brands have to invest heavily to drive traffic, and competition is often at the global level.

Even when building on a third-party platform or marketplace with established consumer traffic, competition against other brands on the same platform remains intense.

For SMEs and startups without a strong customer base, investing adequately to drive online impression and traffic is often an overlooked necessity and some default to accepting that their newly set up e-commerce site is just not working out.

According to Singstats, while e-commerce has grown to 15.4 per cent of Singapore’s total retail sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that offline retail retains the lion share at 85 per cent.

Also Read: How Warung Pintar builds tech solutions to help warung owners embrace the future

Evidently, both channels — online and offline— have a role to play, and retailers big and small can benefit from integrating both of these channels to create a frictionless sales experience.

If anything, one of the clearest lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is to avoid being overly dependent on a single sales channel amidst regulatory uncertainty. Globally, we already see major e-commerce players acknowledge the importance of going omnichannel to capture the full breadth of retail opportunities.

As COVID-19 restrictions begin to relax, consumers are starting to head back out for retail. We have since observed many businesses re-prioritising towards offline in-store sales or omnichannel sales. After all, statistics from Rakuten Insight revealed that 72 per cent of respondents preferred shopping in-store, so they can inspect products before purchase.

A recent forecast of 2025 Singapore retail sales even predicted that e-commerce will only account for 6.7 per cent despite the growth in online retail. This underscores how offline retail still forms the majority of the retail sector in Singapore, especially given our high population density and good transport infrastructure.

What really works for local retail businesses now

The short answer: going omnichannel instead of focusing on just the online channel. In recent years, many global and local pure-play e-commerce players have begun to take their business offline as they embrace the importance of an omnichannel world.

Some local SMEs that come to mind include local women’s fashion brands Fayth, Love, Bonito, and HerVelvetVase, who all began online but have now added physical stores to complete the omnichannel loop.

The Business Times had also previously reported that omnichannel presence would be the most crucial for businesses in the future. Still, challenges are ahead for many SMEs as they face the need to reconfigure retail operations and service delivery for personalized and curated omnichannel experiences.

From my perspective, one other key challenge might be a lack of understanding about what omnichannel really entails. Going multichannel and omnichannel is different. A key difference is the depth of integration and how unified the channels are. For example, is customer data unified?

Is there a consistent experience for all customers across the board? If the answers are yes, then chances are there is a successful omnichannel structure in place. Some examples of true omnichannel experiences we might be familiar with are: try in-store and buy online, buy online and pick-up in-store, buy in-store and deliver to home and geo-fenced promotions of personalized offers.

In essence, an omnichannel retail approach is far more immersive and cohesive, whereas multichannel retail often involves little or no integration between the online and offline experience. Sephora for example has made use of digital tools to create a personalized customer experience that encourages both online and offline sales.

Also Read: Multichannel vs DTC marketing: What works better for e-commerce players?

Each time a sale occurs offline, loyalty program participation allows for identifying purchases at the individual level and profiling of users for online promotion and advertising. At the same time, operational targets are focused on overall sales as opposed to siloed views on sales for individual channels.

Tackling the challenges of going omnichannel

Through my journey with GrowthDesk and Skale, I had the opportunity to speak with many SME brick-and-mortar retailers who were reliant on a single sales channel. When COVID-19 broke out, many did not have an e-commerce game plan to fall back on, and many didn’t have a customer database of who their existing offline shoppers were.

Those who had also found it difficult to translate offline data into something tangible. Today, few retailers have an established game plan for effectively driving integrated sales across channels.

With Skale, we want to help solve this recurring challenge for the many brick-and-mortar SMEs in Singapore. We are focused on offering a seamless, and easy-to-use all-in-one marketing tool that integrates online and offline sales.

This includes geofencing digital ads to reach and acquire shoppers nearby, since they are the most likely and actionable customers, capturing every prospective shopper’s details through gamified digital vouchers and being able to let our SME partners form a single view of their customers and use the data to effectively drive shoppers to return, be it online or offline channel.

With such data, retailers have a deeper understanding of their customers and are further equipped with a myriad of ways to re-engage them. Some of these strategies might include Whatsapp conversations with salespersons, in-store sales, and e-commerce sales.

Ultimately, this facilitates better resource allocation and promotional efforts for brand building or driving sales uplift.

Going omnichannel might sound complex, but it is the way forward for many retailers, not just in Singapore. The past 1.5 years have been challenging for many retailers, and for that, Skale is currently collaborating with hundreds of Singaporean SMEs ranging from restaurants, to local fashion brands to drive omnichannel sales in its ongoing nationwide Digital Voucher festival, named Voucher Fest 2021.

Also Read: Beyond e-commerce: How omnichannel experiences can shake up SEA retail

Since 2019, the tools we have offered via Skale have worked for many retail brands. Within 1.5 years, we’re also very happy to share that our user base has also grown to 6,500 SMEs not just in Singapore, but across Asia, including Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, and more – a testament that retailers across the board are also beginning to recognise the importance of omnichannel sales.

E-commerce adoption has grown over the past 30 years and is fast approaching maturity. The next wave of offline digitalisation and omnichannel is similarly not just a fairy tale, but a reality that many businesses will begin to face, and we aim to facilitate that journey.

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Airalo, a US-based e-SIM startup with hubs in Singapore, Toronto, and Istanbul, has secured US$5.4M in a Series A investment round led by Japanese corporate VC firm Rakuten Ventures.

Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Antler, Singtel Innov8, Wayra (Telefonica), LG Technology Ventures, GO Ventures, Ground Control, Plug and Play, and I2BF Global Ventures also participated.

With this new capital, Airalo will continue to expand by increasing its global eSIM coverage, in-app services and refining its user experience. The travel-tech firm will also scale its team and partner with new telcos and travel companies.

Airalo was established in early 2019 by Abraham Burak and Bahadir Ozdemir. Airalo — a combination of ‘Air’ and ‘Alo’ (which means ‘hello’ in many parts of the world) — aims to bring instant connectivity worldwide by allowing travellers to purchase virtual eSIM packages.

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The firm allows users to download an affordable plan directly to their phone without the hassle of needing to exchange a SIM card. It essentially means that if you are on a foreign trip, you no longer need to go through the hassles of buying local physical SIM cards at the airport and installing it or carry multiple cards — no matter where you are in the world.

How it works

Getting and installing an eSIM is simple:

• Go to the Airalo.com site.
• Download its mobile app (Android and iOS ).
• Choose your travel destination and purchase a local eSIM QR code for that country.

Then you scan that QR code using your eSIM-compatible device, and the eSIM gets directly installed on the device.

In October of 2019, Airalo secured US$1.9 million in seed funding from Antler and Surge. Since then, it has expanded its service to cover more than 190 countries and regions.

“We want to create the gateway to instant travel connectivity worldwide. eSIMs enable a smooth and seamless solution where people no longer need legacy roaming systems or physical SIM cards,” the founder-duo said in a press release.

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Image Credit: Airalo

The post Airalo secures US$5.4M Series A led by Rakuten to expand its global eSIM coverage appeared first on e27.