Recruitment teams around the world are always figuring out ways to meet aggressive hiring goals with short timelines as well as uncertain budgets. 

Never before has this been more true than in the last 18 months – one of the most turbulent periods in the history of the global labour market. Employers around the world were forced to lay off or furlough workers in large numbers in reaction to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – most of them downsized their recruitment efforts.

Now, jobs have opened up at record levels and we’re seeing a severe shortage in the supply of candidates in the market. These shifts and challenges are unprecedented. 

Traditionally, recruitment teams manually advertised their jobs on sites such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Jobstreet, Beam, Naukri, Monster and many more, to source their candidates. Ongoing decisions on where to post the ads, how much to spend on each source, and how to optimise the performance of the ads were based on intuition.

Such an approach is resource-intensive, time-consuming, inefficient, error-prone, and lacks the data-driven rigour required to consistently attract high-quality candidates quickly and cost-effectively.

In addition, many of the most popular online talent sources in Asia are pay-per-post job sites, which means talent acquisition teams need to pay for their job ads to be displayed for a certain period of time only to hope that they would deliver relevant candidates. In a market as volatile as today’s, committing to invest in “post and pray” ad inventory that may yield little return is not prudent.

The only way they can be effective is by using technology that leverages data and automation to optimise the performance of their campaigns in alignment with the market dynamics. 

Programmatic job advertising technology does just that. 

Also Read: Owning your data is a basic human right, says blockchain-based startup Credify’s Rasmus Kütt

What is programmatic job advertising?

It is a data-driven way of buying and optimising job ads automatically across the most optimal talent sources, the ones most likely to deliver hires.

A programmatic approach enables recruitment teams to attract the most relevant candidates at the right time and cost.

The technology does it all on simply clicking a button. If you’re a recruitment marketer, all you need to do is select your jobs, input your goals (hires or applies), and let the machine drive your talent sourcing.

Using automation and machine learning, the technology drives continuous optimisations in the performance and cost of job ads. These optimisations are enabled by tracking the performance of recruitment advertising campaigns across all online sources, along the candidate journey– right from when job seekers click on an ad to when they get hired.

This data is then utilised to ensure that the ads are automatically placed on job sites or talent sources where they would have the most success within the available budget. 

The best part? As the market forces evolve, the ad campaigns will automatically be optimised in response to the latest dynamics.

Adoption levels vary across the globe– is Asia ready?

The adoption of programmatic job advertising technology has been rising consistently in North America, where the job site ecosystem is relatively fragmented and pay-for-performance models in recruitment advertising are quite prevalent.

This uniquely positions programmatic job advertising solutions to deliver significant value and ROI, as the technology can automate the placement of job ads across the best performing talent sources while saving recruiters valuable time to focus on other essential activities like candidate engagement. 

In contrast, employers in Asia (along with those in other regions like Europe and the Middle East) are still in the nascent stages of adopting this technology. In these markets, recruitment teams are still attuned to working with job sites on a pay-per-post model and the transition to pay-for-performance has been sluggish.

However, this is quickly changing. A number of employers are moving to an outcome-driven, pay-for-performance approach using technology. For example, Indian IT giants like TCS, HCL Technologies, Wipro, and Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) have adopted programmatic job advertising technology to power their global talent sourcing efforts at scale. 

Employers from other industries that recruit in high volumes, such as BPO and Gig businesses, also have a huge opportunity to leverage this technology to boost the quality and speed of their recruitment efforts.

Ultimately, recruitment teams care about three things: meeting their hiring goals, increasing the speed-to-hire consistently, and achieving a predictable cost-per-hire (or cost per applicant, as the case may be). 

Programmatic job advertising uses data, automation, and machine learning to deliver all of these and more – such as, end-to-end visibility across the candidate journey and predictability of outcomes.

Also Read: Scaling is hard: Here are 7 things Human Resources can do to manage it

The unique demands placed on businesses during the last 18 tumultuous months have accelerated their adoption of technology by several years. This is true for data-driven recruitment technology as well.

So it’s only a matter of time before recruitment teams across Asia go “all in” on programmatic!

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“When I started MetaLab in 2006, the idea of handing anything off seemed insane,” says Andrew Wilkinson, the Founder and CEO of the Canada-based digital product agency on his Medium blog. Today, MetaLab’s clients include Uber, Slack, Amazon, Apple, Google, Mozilla, TripAdvisor, Tumblr, and Walt Disney. But the success did not come easy for them.

In 2009, when it was still a small but profitable agency, Wilkinson recognised that his “biggest problem at the time was managing people. I was up to about 10 employees and I was having trouble keeping track of what everyone was working on.”

They started developing the project management service Flow and launched the beta version nine months later. It was to scratch an itch. “We were frustrated with having to use three different apps to manage our daily workflow, so we decided to build a solution ourselves,” says Wilkinson.

“We broke all the rules. We didn’t raise money, worked short days, and even did client work on the side. And yet just three weeks after launching, Flow was turning a profit. One year later, we’re bringing in over US$500,000 in recurring revenue and growing like crazy,” says Wilkinson.

He borrowed an idea from Basecamp, building software for themselves and then selling monthly access to it.

From day one, it was a huge hit. A lot of people had the same problem and there was nothing else like it. Wilkinson was “in love” with this business model.

When Flow added subscriptions, the service reached US$20,000 in revenue in its first month, growing 10 per cent on a monthly basis. Flow offered a 14-day free trial followed by a subscription for US$10 per month or US$99 per year.

“There was just one problem: I was consistently spending two to three times our monthly revenue and losing money. And not venture capital. Out of my personal bank account,” Wilkinson writes. He constantly reassured the CFO and considered him shortsighted; Wilkinson believed that the service would bring “Millions! Maybe billions!” so more investment was needed in it.

First appearance of Asana on the market

TechCrunch wrote in 2011 about Flow. “If you’re looking for an alternative to GTD lists, Outlook, or Basecamp, it’s certainly worth checking out.” But they also recognised that the service will also be competing with Asana, the site founded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz who has been Mark Zuckerberg’s college roommate.

Founders of Asana Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein (who left Google in 2007) met while leading Engineering teams at Facebook. They left the company in 2008, to start a company whose product would allow teams to work together more successfully, eliminating much of the “work about work”.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news: Asana plans for direct listing, Fleetx raises US$2.8M in Series A

Wilkinson notes that the name Asana “started popping up quietly at first, then a lot”. However, when the service launched, Wilkinson breathed a sigh of relief: “It was ugly! It was designed by engineers. Complicated and hard to use. Not a threat in the slightest.”

Around the same time, Moskowitz invited Wilkinson for coffee in San Francisco.

“He walked me through who was backing them, how much cash they had, how they had hired top executives from huge companies, and that it was only a matter of time until they beat us on product and outspend us on marketing,” Wilkinson says. “He implied — in the nicest possible terms — that they were going to crush us. I laughed! ‘Nice try!’ and told him ‘let the games begin’,” writes Wilkinson.

A fart in the wind

Wilkinson believed that they had built what he felt was a superior product: the service continued to grow rapidly, users demanded a version for all platforms — iPhone, Android, iPad, Mac.

Asana quickly released clients for all platforms — it had five times as many developers as Flow, Wilkinson writes. “Suddenly it was a key feature when people compared Asana and Flow side-by-side. Mobile was table stakes,” he adds.

The entrepreneur continued to invest until they ran out: the company began to delay missing payroll and rent. Wilkinson writes that one day his business partner Chris Sparling even had to inject cash from his personal account so they wouldn’t miss payroll. By that time, he had already spent “millions of dollars.”

Asana then raised US$28 million in investment and started investing in marketing, while Flow viewed paid marketing as “douchey and aggressive” and focused on organic growth.

In an attempt to regain the market share, Flow started spending on advertising but mostly continued to focus on “making the product better than theirs”. This was the only remaining benefit of the service, but the product also began to suffer: the company did not have the money to hire more developers.

With a team that is a quarter of the size and a fraction of the money, service growth began to slow down as the company received an “endless stream of bug reports.” Meanwhile, Asana continued to hire a “huge team of incredible designers”. Flow’s team felt frustrated and under-resourced and they churned through staff.

Also Read: This project management tool from Cambodia wants to give Trello, Asana a run for their money

“One day I woke up to see that Asana had fully relaunched. Their marketing site looked … great. Better than ours … Their new app, while not perfect, had all the features we wished we had time to make, worked on more platforms, and most importantly, was fast and not buggy.”

“Even our own keywords on Google were crammed with “Asana vs. Flow” paid links. By this point, they were burning over US$150,000 per month,” says Wilkinson. “It was like Fiji waging war on the US with a collection of AK-47s and speed boats vs. artillery and aircraft carriers.”

The writing is on the wall

Then Flow decided that they didn’t need to “own that market”. They could just have a small slice of pie. They focused on base hits. For a while, that looked like an OK strategy. The revenue growth slowed, but still kept on growing.

Until one day it didn’t.

“Churn caught up with us, customer acquisition cost became unprofitable, bugs continued to dominate our time, and Asana and others kept making their product better,” Wilkinson says. “Twelve years and over US$10 million lit on fire, we are done burning money in a losing battle. We give up.
The writing is on the wall. Dustin was right.”

The company downsized and relocated the team to India to break even and support the remaining customers. At the peak of its business, Flow received about US$3 million in annual revenue, and now the average is US$900,000 per year.

Flow “lost” due to inexperience, grocery “myopia” and lack of capital, concludes Wilkinson.

Also Read: wagely bags US$5.6M to give Indonesia’s low-paid workers access to their earned wages

Wilkinson highlighted the key lessons

• If you are in a competitive VC-funded space, it’s foolish to compete without raising money. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
• The best product doesn’t always win, and the product is not a long-term competitive advantage.
• If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, it didn’t fall.
• Every developer in the world wakes up thinking “I should build a to-do list app” and people love jumping between productivity apps and workflows. There is no moat in productivity — avoid it if you can.
• Running a SaaS business without deeply understanding churn, LTV, CAC, etc, is like flying a plane without instrumentation — really stupid and dangerous.

• Failure sneaks up on you slowly, then all at once.
• R&D is expensive. Especially when competing with venture.
• If you’re competing on features, it never stops and is an ever-increasing line item.
• Good product with great marketing beats amazing product with no marketing.
• Bootstrapping works best in uncompetitive spaces/niches, or if you have an unfair advantage (a personal brand, unique customer acquisition channel, etc).

Dustin Moskowitz responded to Wilkinson’s thread: in his version of the story, he “did consider @awilkinson and team’s product to be a very high quality player in the space and respected the hell out of them”.

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Ransomware attacks are on the rise worldwide, with the Asia-Pacific region alone experiencing a 168 per cent increase in 2021 compared to the previous year, according to Check Point Research.

Not only are ransomware attacks becoming more common, but they are targeting organisations across all sectors and sizes, especially Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and startups.

With the average ransom demand now reaching up to US$180,000, hackers are always on the lookout for digital “open doors” into company systems. As such, it is crucial for organisations of all sizes to be aware of the cyber risks they face and build resilience.

The anatomy of a ransomware attack

Much like criminals in the physical world, cybercriminals are most effective when three key elements merge together: Motivation, resources, and opportunity.

The motivation behind ransomware attacks is primarily economic, as companies are often willing to pay millions of dollars to the attackers in order to have their files unlocked, systems restored, and business operations resumed smoothly.

As cybercriminals continuously upgrade their malware and their strategies become increasingly sophisticated, attackers are developing resources to conduct cyber-attacks of enormous magnitude and impact.

The WFH policy introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic has also exposed organisational cyber vulnerabilities, given that employees often use personal devices connected to home or shared networks which are far less secure than organisational ones.

Combined with bad cyber hygiene and a lack of general awareness of cyber best practices, organisations are at risk of a cyber breach now more than ever.

A matter of seconds

Last year, the number of ransomware reports Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency (CSA) received almost doubled. The increase can be linked to the emergence of ‘Ransomware-as-a-Service’ (RaaS), a business model which leases ransomware variants to their clients in exchange for a percentage of the ransom paid by the victim.

This way, people with little to no technical knowledge are able to launch sophisticated ransomware attacks on organisations.

Once it has penetrated a system, ransomware acts rapidly and can encrypt important files on every single device on the network. This can happen within hours, minutes, or even seconds, depending on the number of targets in the attack and whether the attacker has spent time silently monitoring and exfiltrating data prior to encryption.

Most importantly, time is of the essence. A few seconds can make the difference between securing valuable information or bearing the risk of losing data while having to pay out a much bigger ransom.

The length of time a cyber attacker has free reign in an environment from the time they get in until they are eradicated– is known as its dwell time.

Also read: The WannaCry ransomware attack is wreaking havoc across the world, here are 14 steps to protect your company

The longer attackers have access to a network, the more opportunities they have to collect vital data and cause disruptions across the company’s digital systems.

On a global level, the average cyber dwell time in 2020 was 56 days. However, Asian companies are performing much worse than their US and EU counterparts when dealing with cyber-attacks.

In Hong Kong and Singapore attackers are often able to operate undetected for much longer, with most cyber-attacks dwelling in systems between 90 and 180 days respectively, while others have lasted years.

Reducing dwell time through compromise assessments

With some of the highest dwell times worldwide, Asian companies can and should take steps to improve their proactive defence and address cyber threats on the front foot.

Organisations can start by keeping systems and patches up to date to ensure the attacker has fewer opportunities to leverage vulnerabilities in your computing environment. To augment this, deploying Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) products and employing a professional incident response and digital response firm to conduct frequent and recurring Compromise Assessments ensures early detection of a cyber-attack and increases the chances of disruption.

A Compromise Assessment, or “CA”, answers the fundamental question: “have I already been breached?”, and can provide a measure of comfort for companies in knowing that they have a high degree of certainty of their safe status. SMEs should minimally conduct a CA once a quarter.

The CA provides a two-fold benefit. On the one hand, it  can detect the early stages of an attack by hackers who enter a network through a phishing link, circumventing the cyber defences in place since an employee was tricked into letting them in. These hackers are using the combined power of human intuition and qualitative thinking alongside the quantitative horsepower of computing.

As a result, deploying a digital solution alone is woefully inadequate against the combination of this human-computer one-two punch as it is logically only half of what the adversary is leveraging. In light of this, CAs deploy high-level cybersecurity specialists with various technological solutions and approaches to eliminate the unfair advantage enjoyed by hackers.

On the other hand, a CA can also catch active intrusions that various anti-virus and EDR solutions are unable to detect. If that is the case, the specialists transition immediately to quarantining, killing, and remediating the situation, logically resulting in less financial damage than discovering the attack once it is fully executed by the criminals.

Thus, one can easily see the importance of a recurring CA to disrupt attackers in this situation as it is akin to having security guards patrol the building on the hour versus purely relying on CCTV to detect everything on its own.

Finally, having a clear incident response plan, including a good cyber insurance policy which offers expert digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) services and management support in the event of a cyber-attack, enables teams to react in a controlled and proven manner, saving precious time and resources following an attack.

Ransomware: Everyone is at risk

The biggest misconception that exposes SMEs to cyber-attacks is the sense of “security through obscurity”.  Startups and SMEs tend to believe that they will never be targeted by cyber-attacks because they are not important enough.

This concept is no longer valid, as hackers are now looking to target the most vulnerable companies rather than the biggest ones.

Paired with the advent of RaaS numerous low-skilled “hackers” are now probing and attempting to deploy downloaded ransomware scripts to any company with an open port that they scan, which are often SMEs who have little to no investment in their cybersecurity.

This means that today 43 per cent of all cyber-attacks are against SMEs which lack structural preparedness and organisational cyber security awareness, but also the financial resilience needed to survive an attack.

Therefore, preparation is key to survival via proactive defensive measures CAs, as well as securing the human element via the education of employees on cyber best practices while ensuring that all systems are appropriately patched and protected.

Additionally, having a well-rehearsed incident response plan and playbook allows for immediate response in the event of a breach, which is most cost-efficiently handled via a comprehensive cyber insurance policy.

In the ever-changing world of ransomware attacks and cyber threats, startups and SMEs should not brush off investing in their cyber defenses simply because they are smaller or less visible in the same way that they would never leave their office unlocked, unsecured, and unchecked.

Proactively defend vital systems, diligently patch company software tools, and have a plan in place in the virtually inevitable event of a breach.

These methods will help organisations put their best foot forward when addressing cyber threats.

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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

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It is common knowledge that investment is part of the startup building process. There are many avenues for startups to raise funds, such as old-school methods (angels, VC, and corporate VC rounds), crowdfunding, and initial exchange offerings (IEOs). But convincing investors and raising money is a tedious process. Worse, maintaining and balancing relations with different investors is even more challenging.

Like many of its peers, Sky Mavis, a Vietnam- and Singapore-headquartered startup, also went through different financing rounds to raise US$9 million. These developments hit the headlines for Sky Mavis’s association with some globally renowned VCs, individuals and corporates. They included Libertus Capital, 500 Startups, CoinGecko Ventures, Animoca Brands, and billionaire Mark Cuban.

Sky Mavis, which develops a blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, drew more attention when its crypto token AXS reached a market cap of US$2.4 billion in late July. And the company has since been making headlines.

Also read: Vietnam’s Sky Mavis receives US$7.5M Series A to grow its blockchain game Axie Infinity

Correlation between the company and its token

At US$69.91 per token at the time of writing this article, AXS is ranked 34th among the 6,073 coins listed on CoinMarketCap and has a market cap of US$4.2 billion. Remember, the price was just around US$3-4 a month ago.

AXS price mooned in the past month. Image credit: CoinMarketCap

Launched on the Ethereum blockchain, the AXS (short for Axie Infinity Shards) is the native play-to-earn governance crypto of the Axie Infinity ecosystem. It means that AXS holders will have a say in forming Axie’s decentralised organisation and can help define its development trajectory.

For the uninitiated, Axie Infinity is like a combination of Pokemon, Cryptokitties, and Decentraland (where you can buy virtual land). Players battle, collect and breed Axies (the name of the cute little in-game pets). Each Axie is a non-fungible token (NFT) that is traded throughout the ever-expanding Axie ecosystem.

Sky Mavis announced on August 17 that it reached 800,000 daily active users in July, and it soon hit the one million mark. The rise of AXS can be attributed to its unique economical design and game design, besides the crypto market’s FOMO (fear of missing out) nature.

AXS token holders can participate in key governance votes and decide how the Axie Community Treasury funds are allocated. They could also soon stake their tokens to receive rewards from the treasury, but only by voting and playing.

“This is a good way to align ecosystem’s long-term development goals and ecosystem players’ motivations,” Trung Nguyen, CEO and co-founder of Sky Mavis, told e27. “The more people utilise the token, the more utility the token has.”

These exciting models and good-looking numbers captivate the best VCs in the world to take a look at Sky Mavis.

Now that people are talking about AXS’s fully diluted valuation of around US$11 billion, but can it be considered the company’s valuation?

“It probably affects our valuation when dealing with other equity investors as AXS tokens are a part of the company’s asset,” said Nguyen. “However, it should not be comparable with Sky Mavis’s valuation because a large part of the token supply is still locked.”

Based on the current release schedule, AXS tokens will only be circulating fully by early 2026.

The upside is, Nguyen pointed out, there is a long and bright future ahead of Sky Mavis, which may catapult it even more within the VCs community. 

However, as the crypto market is driven by price fluctuations, much more volatile than the traditional capital market, a sudden plunge in price would worsen the company’s fundraising plan.

“But the risk is a nature of the investment, isn’t it?” he asked.

Nguyen added that while Sky Mavis is a company that might develop several projects, AXS is the governance token of only one project Axie Infinity. Thus, it indicates the discrepancy between the two groups of investors — one that invests in the company and the other in token sales.

When the mixed investor relations come into play

Let’s dive into the origin of the AXS token. After its launching in 2018, Axie Infinity conducted the sale of AXS tokens on Binance in 2020 and raised a total of US$2.97 million. This fundraising method is called IEO.

In IEO, cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance Launchpad will raise funds for project owners or token issuers. They oversee the token sales of blockchain projects, which go through a comprehensive due diligence process that may take as long as six months. ‍In return, the exchanges receive a listing fee and sometimes a percentage of the token sale.

In IEOs, information such as the company’s white paper, founders’ background, token design, and crowdfunding motivations are thoroughly examined before commencing a public sale.

“At Binance Launchpad, one of our core differentiators as a platform is the rigour and depth of our diligence process,” said Lynn Hoang, country director of Binance in Vietnam. “We may do multiple projects in a month, or we may wait a month if we determine we have not found the right project fit.”

The goal of the exchange is to support the ecosystem by offering access to users and assist promising blockchain-based project teams in driving adoption and awareness. Until now, 48 projects have been launched on Binance Launchpad with a total of funds raised of more than US$90 million from over 8 million unique participants.

Also Read: Initial Exchange Offerings are a thing. Here is your catch-up

“Crypto exchanges will have to do their best to safeguard their reputation. A successful listing means that the project is well developed and the exchange gains credibility in the community,” Nguyen explained.” In addition, this fundraising route has gained ground among retail investors as it reduces the risk of scams compared to ICOs [Initial Coin Offerings].”

Given Sky Mavis already had several investors in 2019 and later in 2021, how is it dealing with the stream of retail investors of AXS token?

“When you have new investors, there are new obligations, communications and relationships that you have to manage,” said Youngro Lee, COO at Republic. “That’s part of the journey. They learned very quickly that there’s never free money.” 

Republic is a US-based platform that offers both crowdfunding and token pre-sale instruments for early-stage startups. 

The complexity in the case of Sky Mavis and AXS can be stated as below. Suppose many people invest in the token, but the company’s focus is serving its VC backers’ intention rather than committing to the NFT project. In that case, this will immensely hurt the token investor community. The reverse could also happen.

“How to ensure the benefits for both groups of investors?” Nguyen said. “Our straightforward solution is not to reward our team members upfront.”

Sky Mavis still rewards a small part to members, but most of the amount set aside for the team (21 per cent of the total token supply) belongs to the company. “We have to earn board’s approval before making any fund allocations,” Nguyen said. “And it is subject to a certain lockup period even when the approval has been made.”

The company’s members see the lockup as a motivation to develop the project’s ecosystem, affecting the locked-up token value. Meanwhile, equity investors will be assured that founders will need to grow since the company still holds the token asset. 

This way, investors of both the company and the project will immediately align their incentives.

A similar story in crowdfunding 

This way of dealing with a large number of individual investors resonates with the story of US-based Gumroad. The firm took the crowdfunding route after raising a total of US$8.1 million+ through a group of VCs and angels. However, Gumroad, founded in 2011 in San Francisco with a service for creators to sell their work, failed to secure its Series B in 2015 as there was no interest from VC.

“We failed to raise and had to lay off almost everyone,” Sahil Lavingia, Gumroad’s founder and CEO told Crunchbase.

But after becoming profitable through the revitalisation period, till April 7, 2021, Gumroad used platforms such as WeFunder, StartEngine, SeedInvest, and Republic, to successfully close the remaining US$5 million equity crowdfunding from 7,331 ordinary people, who wanted to invest between US$100 and US$1,000 at the same US$100-million valuation. In addition, part-time Gumroad creators, Lavingia’s Twitter followers, YouTubers, Figma founder Dylan Field, and VC firm partners also co-invested.

This follows a new US regulation, announced on March 15, which enables companies to raise more money via equity crowdfunding, up to US$5 million via Reg CF and US$75 million via Reg A+ in 12 months. “I think it’s more accurate to say that this is our limited version of an ‘IPO,’” Lavingia noted in a blog post.

In the context of crowdfunding or equity crowdfunding, companies are often dealing with a large number of investors, which is very similar to a publicly-traded company. Lavingia even moved it further when he claimed to have already published the company’s financials.

“From that perspective, companies need an online presence and digital communication, whether it’s emails or social media,” Youngro Lee told e27. “Successful companies that are good at investor relations are those that are also very comfortable doing and utilising these kinds of online-based digital distribution channels.”

Gumroad is also open about its decision-making through a “2021 Open Board Meeting” published on the CEO’s Youtube channel. But the CEO realised that having thousands of investors can put external pressure on decision-makers in issues like moderation, de-platforming, and price.

“These are all very different considerations that companies should consider because this is a public process. You can’t have it both ways,” said Lee. “If you’re interested in leveraging the internet, raising capital from a large group of people theoretically could make it a little easier for you to raise capital.”

But if a startup is driven by “super-secretive ideas, trade secrets or intellectual properties,” crowdfunding might not be the right solution.

How do Gumroad and Sky Mavis manage their public presence and relations with both retail investors and VCs? It lies in the fact that their innate business models leverage the “community” concept, in which transparency is vital.

“It depends on the circumstances of the actual company, and what they’re trying to achieve and what kind of investors are looking for,” Lee added. “This will dictate the strategy that they use in terms of what, what specific crowdfunding or other fundraising mechanisms.”

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Image Credit: Gumroad, Sky Mavis, e27

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Indonesia’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance marketplace Lifepal announced today that it has secured an oversubscribed US$9 million Series A funding round.

ProBatus Capital led the round, which also saw participation from Cathay Innovation, Insignia Ventures Partners, ATM Capital and Hustle Fund.

This round takes Lifepal’s total fundraising since inception in 2019 to US$12 million.

Lifepal, which claims to have over four million visitors per month, said in a press note that it will use the fresh funding to improve its product and customer experience.

The company was started by former Lazada executives Giacomo Ficari, Nicolo Robba, and tech professionals Benny Fajarai and Reza Muhammad, with the vision of making financial protection accessible to everyone.

Serving the growing demands of Indonesia’s 270 million population in transparency, convenience, and access to a large selection of products, Lifepal acts as a one-stop platform offering over 300 policies across health, life, automotive, property, and travel.

The firm incorporates both educational content and an online marketplace that enables customers to select the right solutions from the comfort of their homes. Plus, its contact centre model provides live agents to address consumers’ potential questions and aid in payments and claims processing.

“We believe this three-pronged approach, tailored specifically to the needs of the Indonesian market, is driving the impressive growth that Lifepal has demonstrated since its launch last year,” said Ramneek Gupta, founder and managing partner of ProBatus Capital.

Also read: Insurance industry is poised for its “PayPal” in Asia

On top of these building blocks, Lifepal employs data from its financial content and community platform to offer accurate recommendations to consumers by matching them with the right product and customer support representative. This supports Lifepal’s relationship with its customers across the long customer-lifetime-value typical of the insurance industry with claim support, renewals, and cross-selling.

The insurtech firm has formed partnerships with more than 50 insurance agents which include some of the region’s largest players. It also claims to achieve 12x y-o-y expansion and growing 20 per cent m-o-m.

“During the pandemic, we experienced a strong increase in demand due to heightened awareness of health risks combined with the availability of our online platform during a time when in-person visits were avoided by most people,” said CEO Ficari. “We have entered the market at an exciting time: consumer behaviours are shifting online and we have the rare opportunity to continue to scale our traffic & branding to become the dominant online destination for consumers for the years to come.”

The growing middle-class and the rapid adoption of digital services has further Indonesia as one of the fastest-growing insurance markets globally. The market value is expected to reach US$58 billion by 2025, according to Munich Re Economic Research.

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Image credit: Lifepal

 

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Pandemic-driven lockdowns have increased global reliance on and demand for digital financial services such as digital payments and remittance– especially within Southeast Asia.

Boosted by accelerated digital adoption and rising consumer dissatisfaction with traditional bank offerings, not only is the growing digital banking industry expected to generate up to US$60 billion by 2025, but the influence of traditional banks is waning as a result and 18 per cent are projected to shut by 2030.

Many digital banks in the region were created to cater for the sizeable unbanked and underbanked population in Southeast Asia, which is one of the world’s largest.

Their success, as well as the latent opportunity of a previously untapped market, has led to wider acceptance among regional financial regulators and could herald a major democratisation of financial services – as well as driving financial inclusion in SEA.

Staying in the game

Digital banks must survive to be disruptors and drive change. As the incumbent, traditional banks have the advantage of brand trust and recognition, making it hard for digital banks to compete as a newer player.

Some digital banks in other regions have been unsuccessful due to poor funding strategies, focusing on the wrong demographic or failing to inspire customer trust and loyalty, so Southeast Asian digital banks, specifically in the emerging markets like Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines, must avoid repeating these mistakes.

As digital natives, digital banks can leverage technology to lower the cost of funding and provide a better customer experience. For instance, using AI for customer service reduces labour dependency, turnaround times and customer waiting times, resulting in better efficiency and higher customer satisfaction.

Digital banks who have successfully leveraged technology have reported saving 20 to 30 per cent more on their per-account operation costs compared to traditional banks.

Digital banks also need to capture and grow overlooked market segments– such as the underbanked. By adopting a customer-centric vision, they can understand the specialised needs of this demographic and provide a unique value proposition that meets those needs.

This will go a long way towards increasing customer trust and stickiness, thereby helping digital banks build their customer base, scale across the region and further drive financial inclusion in SEA.

Diversifying and personalising lending and financial products

Despite significant inefficiencies in traditional lending systems, resulting in millions of creditworthy individuals being underserved or overpaying for loans, digital banks in other regions have not adequately filled the gap with innovative lending products.

Considering the digital lending industry is projected to be worth US$110 billion by 2025, this is a missed opportunity that Southeast Asian digital banks would do well to capitalise on.

The ‘old wine in new casks’ approach will not be sufficient here: digital banks must innovate to offer novel lending products and experiences to really differentiate themselves from traditional banks.

Also read: 3 ways fintech innovations are enhancing financial inclusion

With data and technology, they can help the unbanked open accounts with no minimum deposits, offer alternative credit scoring assessments for the underserved to qualify for loans, grant loans in five seconds or waive processing or early settlement fees for a higher borrowing limit – all uncommon features among less agile traditional banks.

Digital banks also need not limit themselves to traditional financial products. Southeast Asia’s heterogenous makeup and sizeable population also mean that there are markets for a diverse range of lending products, many of which remain underserved.

Some digital banks in the region have achieved success by innovating new lending products to capitalise on these gaps, such as creating specialised Islamic products and women-focused banking solutions. If digital banks continue to differentiate themselves with more financial innovation, this ensures that more financial needs are being met over a wider demographic distribution by default.

Expanding reach via consortia-driven ecosystems

Digital banks in other geographical regions often operate in vertical structures, which limit their ability to scale and has sometimes led to their downfall.

In contrast, many digital banks in Asia are consortium-driven, which is where partnerships are formed with established companies and associations to provide a myriad of services to customers across super apps or similar platforms. This allows digital banks to reach a far wider pool of customers and makes it easier to onboard them.

Being part of a consortium gives digital banks greater access to more business and consumer data ecosystems. With data-driven technology and analytics, they can be more responsive to changing consumer needs and wants by creating better customer-centric experiences and products that leverage on the strengths of all ecosystem members.

Some consortiums embed digital banking as part of a wider portfolio of everyday services on a single platform, which simplifies and improves financial accessibility – a boon for the underbanked and underserved.

Leading the way for financial inclusion in SEA

The first step to addressing the economic divide within the population is to ensure that everyone has the same access to and understanding of important financial services.

Digital banks play an important role in narrowing the gap by lowering the barriers for the underbanked and the underserved to participate in the financial ecosystem – as long as they can stay abreast of the unique needs of this market and innovate accordingly.

Ultimately, digital banks pave the way for a much-needed shakeup of the financial system and the time is right for them to capitalise on the supportive regulatory climate to improve financial service access.

In this modern age, no one should be deprived of financial services and healthy competition through innovation can only be a net positive for Southeast Asia’s overall socioeconomic growth – not to mention improving lives all around.

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Malaysian on-demand adtech company Rodeo raises US$270K in funding

How: The money was raised from 85 investors, including Fidelity Funding, VJ Anand (ex-SVP Gojek), Nitesh Malani (chairman Yayasan Usahawan Malaysia), Simpson Wong (MD – XES), Akash Gupta (CEO – Zypp India), Shoant Tan (CEO – TanTanNews and Dipankar Mitra (CEO of Simbiotik Tech).

The money was raised via the equity crowdfunding platform pitchIN.

Also Read: Ex-Lazada execs’ Indonesia-focused D2C insurance startup in Lifepal receives US$9M Series A

Plans: “With the funds, we are able to put efforts towards building and extending more revenue streams rather than sticking to just profit from the usual few media that we use. One of our key strategies that have been put in place will be reaching out to more customers via our Rodeo Home Elevators,” said CEO Valens Subramaniam.

More on Rodeo: An adtech company specialised in transit media and digitalization. It provides an advertising platform using various vehicles such as car, trucks, motorcycles and even bicycles. It connects advertisers to target clients with relevant, interactive, engaging and contextual advertisements. It also provides data and analytics for every campaign that allows advertisers to monitor their campaign’s performance.

Australia’s SEEK invests in JobKorea

The story: SEEK Limited, the Australian listed tech company that owns two leading online employment marketplaces JobStreet and JobsDB in Southeast Asia, today announced a US$48M investment in JobKorea, Korea’s largest online employment platform.

SEEK will own a 10 per cent stake, and Peter Bithos, CEO of SEEK Asia, will join JobKorea’s Board.

Plans: This investment will provide an opportunity for SEEK to add value to JobKorea’s market-leading position, while SEEK focuses on its operations, fast-tracking its ongoing transformation and growth of its existing Asia businesses. SEEK’s digital teams continue to make major inroads in building products and solutions driven by AI and market data, which combined with SEEK’s deep local insights and resources in each location, differentiate it from other international players.

For JobKorea, this partnership will provide an opportunity to leverage SEEK’s experienced management team and their significant expertise in operating global online employment and human capital management platforms.

ZILHive Accelerator unveils new cohort of 8 startups

The story: Zilliqa, a Singapore-based blockchain platform, has announced its 2021-2022 cohort of ZILHive Accelerator projects. Six of the eight startups accepted into the Accelerator this year were advanced from an earlier Incubator programme which began in March. The inaugural 14-week ZILHive Incubator matched technical and non-technical participants into teams that could design and build innovative solutions on the Zilliqa blockchain protocol.

Also Read: VCs, IEOs, and crowdfunding: How the likes of Sky Mavis manage good relationship with each investor

What is ZILHive Accelerator: A six-month programme focused on launching blockchain-enabled projects from concept to commercialisation. The programme is part of ZILHive’s end-to-end ecosystem designed to foster innovative blockchain applications throughout various stages of maturity. Startups in the accelerator will be able to apply for additional funding under ZILHive Grants, aimed at supporting specific pre-launch needs such as regulatory compliance or technical integration with third-party apps.

The eight startups are

Access: Looks to combat ticketing fraud and prevent ticket scalping by issuing tickets as non-fungible tokens

Cerchia: Building blockchain-based tools to help catastrophe bond issuers, re-insurers, and investors better predict and price the risks of natural hazards through crowdsourcing

Green Beanz: A project that aims to incentivise consumer-facing companies and NGOs to improve the transparency and accuracy of their corporate social responsibility and sustainable development goals reporting

HeyAlfie: A smart dashboard for users to manage, invest and borrow digital assets through a single interface, by connecting multiple types of wallets (custodial, non-custodial, and even exchange accounts)

Invopay: An invoice financing platform designed to help small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) better manage their cash flow with low-interest loans secured on the blockchain

MustPool: A gamified no-loss prize protocol, where the deposited principle remains safe and the prizes come from the interest earnings, leveraging different staking and lending dApps on Zilliqa

Tyron SSI Protocol: A self-sovereign identity protocol that enables users to manage access to their data securely, while allowing them to provide verified credentials selectively without relying on middlemen or centralized databases

Ultimate Franchise Fantasy Sports: A fantasy sports platform offering digital asset ownership to sports fans through the use of NFTs to represent athletes in the various sports leagues.

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Image Credit: Rodeo

 

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With a global health crisis that has forced major economies to carry out state-sanctioned lockdowns, businesses have had to come up with creative means to sell their products and services remotely. But what the pandemic has merely caused is accelerating the already increasing prominence of marketplaces.

Many of us might have learned about marketplaces for the first time through social media services such as Facebook, Instagram, Line, and even e-commerce sites like Shopee and Lazada. A marketplace is a space for people to buy and sell products and services. With an easy-to-use, convenient, and fast system, consumers and entrepreneurs can buy and sell products and services by themselves on a convenient platform. The more these products or services are searched for by consumers, the more likely they will be sold.

Also read: Angel Investors: leading the charge for startup growth in Thailand

For Thai startups, there are certainly a variety of factors to consider in making this shift: logistics, consumer demand, product relevance, marketability, the list goes on. In establishing a successful roadmap for innovative ideas to sell on a marketplace instead of general consumer products, is there any place where they can be conveniently sold to consumers, individuals, and corporates alike?

Bridging Thai startups to new markets

Realising the problems about access and limitations caused by COVID-19 that prohibits trade fairs organised for startups, the National Innovation Agency (NIA) of Thailand under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, in its capacity as the main agency responsible for the promotion and development of the Thai startup ecosystem, has launched a project called “Startup Thailand Marketplace” to educate Thai startups on how to create new markets and reach customers more easily. 

Startup Thailand Marketplace is the space fostered by the NIA to help promote Thai startups, enabling the public to know about them and increasing access to their products or services for B2B and B2C customers. They help raise awareness of these innovative products and services via the Startup Thailand social media channels and other channels in Thailand as well as other countries. Startup

Thailand Marketplace was launched in 2020 to promote Thai startups through three fundamental means:

1. Startup Marketplace is Live Now: A live interview broadcast on the channels of three tech and innovation influencers — Ceemeagain, iT24Hrs, and LDA (Ladies in Digital Age).
   
2. Video clips introducing each startup to help promote them on the social media pages of Startup Thailand (Facebook and Youtube).
3. Articles published via online media to raise awareness and promote each startup to a wider audience.

The concrete success of Startup Thailand Marketplace is the number of Thai startups participating in the platform. Currently, as many as 100 Thai startups are joining Startup Thailand Marketplace.

Access to investors and corporates

A number of investors and corporates interested in the products of Thai startups after they watched Startup Marketplace is Live Now have contacted the platform to ask for important networking details such as the name and contact of the startup that captured their interest. As a result, the startups’ sales have increased by as high as 10-20%.

2021 is the second year that NIA has successfully carried out the Startup Thailand Marketplace in a bid to keep over 100 startups afloat during these trying times caused by COVID-19 and the economic slowdown that came with it.

Also read: How Thailand’s Ricult uses deep tech to improve the lives of smallholder farmers

The project’s strategy this year focuses on the promotion of Thai startups among B2C and B2B customers via two social media channels including:

1. Startup Marketplace is Live Now – Live interviews with 50 startups on the platforms of three influencers including Ceemeagain, iT24Hrs, and Noom Mueang Chan.
2. Interview video clips and articles that highlight the visions and perspectives of over 50 Thai startup founders. The video clips and articles will be posted on the social media pages of Startup Thailand, the NIA, and other pages developed by various sectors.

This is the determination and commitment of the NIA to help promote Thai startups to a wider audience and make their voice louder so that they can overcome the COVID-19 crisis with strength and rigour.

The NIA builds a bridge to bring Thai startups closer to international consumers, investors, companies, and other business entities looking for solutions to their problems. It solidifying their commitment, Thai startups are well on their way to exploring new markets in the region and beyond.

For more information, visit their official page at https://startupthailand.org.

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

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PropertyGuru raises US$150M from REA Asia
REA is currently the third biggest shareholder in the firm with 18% stake behind Epsilon Asia and TPG; The latest investment follows PropertyGuru’s plan to go public through a merger with a SPAC backed by Richart Li and Peter Thiel.

Shopee’s surge pushes Sea Group’s revenue to US$2.3B in Q2
Shopee posted a 160.7% y-o-y growth in its GAAP revenue to stand at US$1.2B; Its Malaysian unit also turned profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis before allocation of the headquarter’s common expenses; This is the second Shopee market after Taiwan to hit this milestone.

500 Southeast Asia makes US$17.9M initial close of third venture fund
The capital came from 18 investors; As per DealStreetAsia, 500 is looking to raise US$75M for the third vehicle; To date, 500 SEA has invested in ~250 firms; Its first generation of investments include Grab, Bukapalak, Carsome, FinAccel, and Carousell.

Philippine cryptocurrency exchange startup PDAX gets US$12.5M funding
Investors include an undisclosed UK-based VC firm (lead), HK-based BC Group, and UnionBank’s VC arm UBX, and Beenext Ventures; The Philippines has seen the third-highest rate of cryptocurrency usage in the world behind Nigeria and Vietnam, according to the World Economic Forum.

Vietnamese real estate brokerage service firm Rever bags US$10.2M from Mekong Capital
Rever follows an O2O model, allowing customers to access property listings via its platform, visit the company’s local transaction centre, or meet property agents in person; VinaCapital, Golden Equator Ventures, and Korea Investment Partners are also investors in the firm.

SGX said to consider lowering minimum SPAC value in final listing framework
It is eyeing a minimum value of around US$110M, down from US$220M; SGX is also understood to be looking into creating flexibility for SPAC sponsors to disclose their target companies upon listing the SPAC.

AirAsia’s Teleport acquires Malaysia’s Gobi Partners-backed Delivereat for US$9.8M
The synergy will support Teleport in expanding to Malaysia while spurring the growth of both Delivereat (food delivery firm) and AirAsia’s logistics venture in ASEAN; The deal values Teleport at US$300M; Apart from Malaysia, Teleport has made inroads into Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Singapore and China.

Thai startup Wisesight nets US$7M Series B to expand its social media analytics solutions in ASEAN
Investors include Krungsri Finnovate and TechMatrix; With its ability to process the data via social media for 20M+ messages a day in Thai, English, Burmese and Malay, Wisesight claims to have served 300+ brands and agencies.

Y Combinator’s latest cohort has 3x the startups from SEA
About 18 companies from the latest batch are SEA firms, up from 6 in the previous batch; The selected Asian startups are headquartered in Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India; As part of the programme, YC will invest US$125K for a 7% stake in each.

GuavaPass co-founders’ new alternative lending startup Jenfi lands US$6.3M
Investors include Monk’s Hill (lead), Korea Investment Partners, and Golden Equator Capital; The startup will use the money for product development, customer acquisition, and SEA expansion; A YC graduate, Jenfi earlier bagged US$25M in a debt round led by US-based Arc Labs.

RaRa Delivery rakes in US$3.25M to provide instant delivery for e-commerce in Indonesia
Lead investors are Sequoia Surge and East Ventures; While other companies with express logistics infrastructure focus on one-to-one deliveries, RaRa Delivery has developed real-time batching technology to do ‘many-to-many’ deliveries within a few hours.

The 27 Indonesian startups that have taken the ecosystem to next level this year
These Indonesian startups have made the nation proud in this Independence Day. It has proven to be a challenging –yet historical– year.

Philippine e-commerce enabler Etaily US$1.6M seed funding
Investors include Ayala Ventures, Foxmont Capital, Magsaysay Shipping & Logistics, and Boston Consulting Group; Etaily claims it has generated more than one million transactions and made more than 50K unique products available in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Dairy-substitutes brand Mohjo bags seed funding
Invetsors include East Ventures, iSeed SEA, K3 Ventures, and angels; The D2C brand recently launched its first line of products — almond milk and almond milk-based beverages in Singapore.

MindFi raises US$750K, makes it into Y Combinator
Investors include iGlobe Partners, M Venture Partners, Koh Boon Hwee, Patsnap CEO Jeffrey Tiong, Zopim co-founder Lim Qing Ru; MindFi will use the funds to accelerate product development and localisation for key markets in Asia and further build a team of mental health experts, innovators and researchers.

Plant-based foodtech startup Shandi raises US$700K seed funding
Investors are Tolaram (lead), SparkLabs Cultiv8, and Simmarpal Singh, ex-CEO (India) at Louis Dreyfus; The funding will be used to set up a manufacturing facility in Singapore to commercialise and scale Shandi’s proprietary plant-based chicken products.

4 lessons for first-time founders embarking on their entrepreneurial journey
After partnering with several founders through our work at Picus Capital, we want to share lessons about starting and building ventures (e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast or infographic).

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Image Credit: PropertyGuru

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Rever, a Vietnamese tech-enabled real estate brokerage platform, has announced that it has secured a US$10.2 million funding round from Mekong Enterprise Fund IV (MEF IV), bringing its total funding to US$16.5 million.

As per a statement, Rever will use the fresh investment to grow its management team, strengthen corporate culture, and accelerate the development of technology features. Besides, the new capital also gives Rever a chance to get essential resources in achieving its vision to become the leading proptech company in Vietnam. 

Founded in 2016 by Manh Phan (CEO) and Loi Vo (CTO), former executives of Zalo, a messaging platform of Vietnam’s original unicorn VNG, Rever offers real-estate brokerage service that follows an online-to-offline model. The company claims to provide a transparent estate transaction process by applying technology to authenticate real estate listings. At the same time, it ensures the verified online information for customers.

The company has grown its headcount from 80 to 300 staff. It aims to optimise its business to 20 provinces and cities, along with 200 transaction centres, and 20,000 brokers in Vietnam by 2025.

Rever boasts of clocking 50,000 verified listings and reaching 2,000 transactions in 2020, which has increased 10 times since 2017. 

In June 2019, the startup bagged a US$4 million funding from VinaCaptial, a US$100-million Vietnam-focused fund. Three months later, GEC-KIP Technology and Innovation Fund and Korea Investment Partners together put in US$2.3 million in Rever.

Launched in 2021, MEF IV expects to make a total of approximately 12 investments during its 10-year life. Until now, it has secured five published deals, including Rever. 

Proptech is gaining traction in Vietnam’s startup investment landscape in recent years.

In 2020, prominent Vietnamese proptech startup Propzy raised US$25 million in a Series A round led by Gaw Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia, the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. In the same year, Y Combinator-backed Homebase also announced “seven-figure” funding in pre-Series A from VinaCapital Ventures, Class 5 Global, Pegasus Tech Ventures, 1982 Ventures, and  Antler, among others.

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Image credit: Rever

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