SolarHome, a Singapore-based company that brings pay-as-you-go solar solutions into off-grid households in Southeast Asia, announced today that it has raised US$2 million in a Series A extension round, led by existing investors TRIREC and Insitor Impact Asia Fund.

New investors such as Anthem Asia Myanmar SME Venture Fund and DPI Energy Ventures (renewables-focused investment funds in APAC), besides FORUM, also participated.

The newly-raised capital will be used to scale SolarHome’s solution, as it pushes towards the next stages of growth of offering its product to a much larger customer base.

“The new capital has enabled us to bring operations closer to EBITDA breakeven since the beginning of this year despite a very challenging environment,” said Geert Jan Ten Hoonte, CEO of SolarHome.

Also Read: Solar energy startup SolarHome secures additional US$1M from Trirec

Founded by FORUM, a Singapore-based fintech venture builder, SolarHome offers off-grid households a solar lighting system at a low-cost 24-month subscription plan, with an initial US$10 down payment, followed by daily, weekly, or monthly repayments through scratch cards or mobile money.

The technology built into the system ensures that it won’t function if a payment is not made, giving lenders the confidence that they will be able to recover their investment.

The company estimates that it eliminates 140kg of carbon dioxide emissions per year and 1.45kg of black carbon, which are crucial in battling greenhouse effects that is crucial for global warming.

Since its founding in 2017, SolarHome has bagged several investment rounds from notable investors. These included a US$10 million in debt funding from a consortium of international investors, including Crowdcredit and Trine in 2018.

This was followed by a US$1 million for equity funding from TRIREC in 2019. Previously,  it has also raised three rounds of fundings.

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Image Credit: SolarHome

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Palexy, a Vietnamese startup that provides actionable data to help improve the performance of brick-and-mortar retailers, has bagged US$1 million in a funding round led by Access Ventures, with participation from Do Ventures.

The startup will use the money to grow its team, fine-tune products, and expand the business across the region.

“We will expand our business to Southeast Asia, Asia and the Middle East in 2021,” Founder and Chairman Thong Do told e27.

Palexy was started mid this year by Thong Do, Minh Truong (co-founder and CTO), and Duc Nguyen (co-founder and Chief Data Engineer).

Also Read: Access Ventures secures US$30M for Fund II, aims to hit final close by Q3 2021

The trio started the venture to bring two missions together: to put the technological potential of Southeast Asia to use, and shake up the retail market.

“When I talked to many frustrated business owners in the region, I got the feeling that they still wanted to grow and improve but they have simply exhausted all available options. I wanted to show them that with the help of technology, there is still a lot of room for progress,” he said as he described his startup journey.

If you look at e-commerce, the industry is thriving because it makes use of online user data to incessantly optimise its processes. “We, at Palexy, could help retailers achieve that level of success with real-time data generated from consumers. With our solutions in place, our clients could break ceilings they were not even aware of,” Do said.

In a nutshell, Palexy aims to empower retailers to optimise their customer in-store experience and operational efficiency using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision technologies.

“If you are the owner of an e-commerce company, you can log in to see all the data points such as the number of visitors (per day, week, month or year), the timing and duration of their visits, and the keywords used to lead them to your site, etc.,” he said.

“But if you run an offline store (for example, a clothes retail shop), all you will see at the end of the week is nothing but the point of sale (POS) data,” he elaborated.

Also Read: How your shopping habits are shaping the future of retail in Singapore

This is where Palexy comes in handy as it brings in e-commerce-like actionable data to help offline retailers perform better.

Digitalising everything

“Data analytics is where offline retail is substantially falling behind and losing the battle. What offline retailers need is a full package technology solution that allows them to see the big picture as well as their online competitors,” he said.

“We crack this problem with our AI-powered SaaS tools that digitalise everything: every customer touchpoint, every interaction and every in-store process. We take into account all available data sources (such as surveillance camera feeds, POS data, promotion calendar and even weather data) and convert them all into actionable analytics dashboards,” he elucidated.

Palexy mainly offers three SaaS products:

Store Optimiser, which analyses the in-store sales funnel to help retailers improve their operations;

Store Wizard, a virtual shopping assistant which automatically identifies return customers as soon as they walk into the store, their shopping history and preferences. This helps the sales assistants a lot with providing excellent services, especially in high-end stores;

Store Supervisor, which acts as a dedicated security guard, monitoring the store 24×7, detecting abnormal behaviours or frauds and then alerting the staff in real-time.

Palexy’s products are currently used by more than 30 retailer clients in Vietnam and Japan, including brands such as PNJ (jewellery retailer), Guardian (a leading company in beauty and personal care), Viet Thai International, and Aldo Shoes & Accessories Franchisee, Hakuhodo & Square.

Future plans

According to Do, digitising physical stores to optimise their operation is just the first step of Palexy’s product vision. Ultimately, he added, its AI tools would help connect the physical world with the online world, enabling true omnichannel retail.

“The thing is that while shoppers still prefer brick-and-mortar stores in general, the majority of them like brands that have both an online and offline presence. That allows them more options and flexibility,” he said.

“The shopper analysis tools we offer are especially useful for retailers that fit that description. Data taken from the online channel could benefit the offline stores’ operations and vice versa, empowering the retailers tremendously,” he further shared.

Also Read: Top 5 skills needed to carve a niche in big data

For example, when a brand runs a digital marketing campaign, Palexy’s technology can help measure the effectiveness of that campaign in the stores, both quantitatively and accurately.

In yet another use case, by using Palexy’s tools to analyse the demographics of in-store purchasers, the client can identify the demographics of the buyer group that has the highest conversion rate.

“Using these insights, the client can design a promotion campaign that is specifically tailored for that customer group, driving higher conversion for the e-commerce channel,” he said.

A serial entrepreneur, Do previously built Arimo, a Big Data company based in California, which offers Data Science as a Service for global enterprises. The venture managed to raise over US$13 million from VCs such as Andreessen Horowitz before being acquired by Panasonic in October 2017.

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Image Credit: Palexy

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With everything that has happened in 2020, it is easy to be discouraged by the future prospect of the MICE industries in the Southeast Asian (SEA) region and beyond.

In his opinion piece as published by Channel News Asia, Dr Prem Shamdasani, an Associate Professor of Marketing and Academic Director of the Executive MBA at NUS Business School, even noted that both the supply and demand side of this industry have “literally evaporated.”

Despite the outlook, Dr Shamdasani pointed out that some major global events have resisted the idea of converting into online platforms –a trend that has gained momentum during the pandemic. One of such events is the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference.

In December, as if his predictions have come true, we received two updates that had helped to improve the mood for the holiday season: That major global events are moving its venue to SEA countries next year.

The first one of such event was RISE which was dubbed by various media platforms as the largest tech gathering in Asia. For the past five years, the event has been held in Hong Kong. But Co-Founder and CEO Paddy Cosgrave announced in a press statement that the organisation has agreed to a three-year partnership with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to host RISE in Kuala Lumpur, starting from March 2022.

“This is not a goodbye to Hong Kong. We hope to return to the city in future with a brand new event,” Cosgrave stresses.

Shortly after that, beyond the tech startup community, the World Economic Forum announced that it is moving its annual forum from Davos, Switzerland, to Singapore in May 2021. This move was strongly related to the ongoing pandemic as it would be “challenging to host the event safely in Europe.”

As detailed in this CNBC report, this is only the second time the event was held outside of its original venue and the first that it happens in Asia.

Also Read: The future of events with Mind The Product CEO James Mayes

So what does this mean for us?

If anything, this indicates that SEA remains a powerful and promising market.

Throughout the pandemic, there has been various discussion on the future travel industry –particularly when and how we are going to bring it back, if ever. Travel tech giant Booking.com stated that even if COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed widely, it will take years, instead of quarters for the travel industry to recover to pre-pandemic 2019 level, as quoted by South China Morning Post.

While it is impossible to deny the impact that the pandemic has on this region, that businesses across different industries are struggling to survive even now, there are also businesses that manage to do well in this challenging time. And this includes companies in the MICE industries.

Mummys Market, the organiser behind the leading baby products fairs in Southeast Asia, explains to e27 on how a pivot to digital platforms had managed to not only save their business but also helped it grow.

“To adapt to this [situation], we decided to accelerate our seven-year plan to be implemented within one year, quickly shifting to a digital model to continue meeting the needs of our customers. Although this was a big change, we chose to reskill our existing staff to fit them into their new roles instead of displacing them,” founder William Chin writes in an email.

“With the efforts of our rigorous and tenacious team, we successfully launched Singapore’s biggest online baby fair in May 2020. What we have achieved in terms of personal and professional growth from our learning experiences across this year is what we would have taken years to learn under normal circumstances,” he continues.

Chin also states that the company’s revenue has increased “dramatically” following the transformation. But it does not mean that Mummys Market will be a fully online platform in the future. In addition to launching its first-ever retail outlet in November at Suntec City, it also plans to bring back its customer events, once the situation permits.

“Naturally, these will be held according to the safe management measures from the authorities, and we will ensure that we have implemented density and incident management processes that are in compliance with the government guidelines,” Chin concludes.

Also Read: The future is hybrid: What will events look like post-COVID-19?

Beyond individual businesses, the fact a major global event is going to be held in Singapore as early as May next year indicates that perhaps things can recover a little sooner. That this event will become a trigger to bring back the travel and tourism industries. That we can have hopes and see it manifests.

Last but not least, perhaps this is a sign that the world as we know it has not completely disappeared. There were times when we thought going to conferences, speaking on stages and building connections had become a thing of the past. But perhaps, in the next one to two years, we will be able to meet old friends and acquaintances again at these events.

There will certainly be adjustments, but I believe it is safe to keep our hopes up.

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Image Credit: Stephen McCarthy/RISE

 

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C-suite, a Singapore-based O2O learning platform for current and aspiring executives, announced today it has secured a “six-figure USD” in a seed funding round led by angel investors, including its own co-founder and COO Don Tsai.

As per a press note, the fresh funds will be utilised to expand its team and roll out new marketing campaigns.

C-suite positions itself as an exclusive community hub, a social network, a news and views forum and a recommendation engine.

Users can access content through a paid-for app, virtual gatherings and real-world conferences among others. It plans to roll out additional features such as a jobs portal and concierge service, alongside a mobile app, in 2021.

The platform claims to have attracted nearly 200 high-profile members within the first two weeks of the start of its operations.

Also Read: Why a crisis is the best time to hone your leadership skills

According to C-suite CEO and Co-founder Dean Carroll, there are too many bad managers or so-called ‘leaders’ in the business world. And the reason for that is these leaders are just expected to know how to do it, without receiving the tools to make it happen.

“What brought it home to me was participating in leadership training recently and also finding myself a career mentor to guide me along the way. I could see the positive results these things brought in terms of making me a better professional,” he added.

“Even if you are lucky enough to receive in-house leadership training, complete an MBA or EMBA and participate in higher-level business education, it is clear the learning journey shouldn’t stop there. This is most definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Hopefully, the C-suite community can play its small part in helping to make members, their companies and their teams better. Get those elements right and the business success will surely follow,” he continued.

“According to the World Bank, there are two million higher income and upper-middle-income individuals in the world. We will be serving that community as well as the tens of millions of aspirants in the lower-middle-income brackets,” he shared.

Currently headquartered in Singapore, C-suite serves executives across Asia. Its current team of six is spread across Singapore, Indonesia and Hungary.

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Image Credit: C-suite

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Hong Kong-based early-stage VC firm, Access Ventures, has raised over US$30 million for its second fund, DealStreetAsia has reported.

Initially aimed at closing the fund by 2020 with a target amount of US$50 million, the firm is now looking to hit the final close by Q3 2021.

Also Read: 37 VCs to invest US$800M+ in Vietnam’s startups over next 3-5 years

The Limited Partners (LPs) who invested in Fund II include Korea Venture Investment Corp (KVIC), the VC arm of Korean conglomerate F&F, and a number of Singapore-based family offices such as Octava.

LPs from the VC firm’s first fund, such as Line Ventures and Mahanusa Capital, have also come on board to support the new fund.

So far, fund II has made over 10 new investments in countries across Southeast Asia. Its portfolio firms include Indonesian P2P lending platform Akseleran and Vietnamese shuttle bus booking app Godee.

Though Access Ventures seeks to focus on deals across the seed to Series A level, the firm remains open to late-stage investments, especially in the wake of the economic crisis where firms can evaluate their bottom line better.

Also Read: Why Vertex Ventures SEA & India likes to be the first VC to invest in a promising tech startup

For early-stage startups, Access issues cheques in the range of US$300,000 to US$1.5 million for five to 10 per cent stake equity in startups in verticals such as fintech, data analytics and e-sports, among others.

Access launched its debut US$15 million fund in 2017 and made 20 investments across companies, including Moca (acquired by Grab in 2018), Artificial Intelligence firm Kata.ai, and freight forwarder startup Andalin.

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Image Credit: Photo by Peter Nguyen on Unsplash

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WISE AI, an electronic know your customer (eKYC) startup based in Malaysia, announced today it has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding, led by Sun SEA Capital, the venture arm of Sunway Group.

The fresh funds will be used to bankroll its expansion across Southeast Asia.

“The need for digitalisation has been accelerated due to the pandemic, and we see the opportunities for WISE AI to become the market leader. Through our investment, WISE AI is able to explore collaboration opportunities across Sunway’s ecosystem to test, validate and implement new ideas and services as a launchpad for future growth,” said Raymond Hor, Director of Sun SEA Capital.

Also Read: Approaching AI-rmageddon: Will AI talkbots make our lives better or worse?

Incorporated in 2018, WISE AI uses artificial intelligence to e-verify customers when onboarding them for financial services and beyond.

Its clients range from financial institutions and fintech firms to credit rating agencies and governments.

According to Co-founder and CEO David Lim, the benefits of eKYC go beyond financial inclusion. For example, the time saved when authenticating patients’ medical records and helping citizens securely access government incentives and services.

“AI-based eKYC startups in the US and Europe have garnered hundreds of millions of dollars in large fundraising rounds, as industries acknowledge the increasing importance of electronic verification. As this technology sector ramps up, there has yet to be a dominant player in Southeast Asia,” Lim added.

Also Read: How blockchain is using decentralised ID verification for seamless user onboarding

The issuance of new digital bank licenses and eKYC policies have been encouraged by regulators. Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank of Malaysia, published a policy document on eKYC in June this year, encouraging financial institutions to adopt such technologies in order to facilitate greater digital offerings.

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Image Credit: WISE AI

 

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Working for an NGO, Mayank Rajput would spend his weekends in care centres for the elderly in Singapore. This is when he realised that there was a lack of affordable healthcare facilities for the aged population in the island nation.

“This motivated me to begin my entrepreneurial journey,” he tells e27. “I met my co-founder Ariffin Kawaja while volunteering at one of the care centres. After sharing our thoughts with each other, we found a common ground and decided to start a business in affordable physical rehabilitation, bringing a fun element into it via active gaming using soft wearable sensors.”

After the initial discussions, the pair spent nearly four months for market validation with physiotherapists, sports rehab, fitness & wellness clinics and hospitals in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, India, China and Australia.

This provided them a better perception about the major problems facing the rehabilitation sector.

Also Read: Indonesian wearable startup Zulu confirms investment by gojek, aims to expand team and launch projects

“We started StretchSkin Technologies in October 2018 with a vision to improve the lives of people in Southeast Asia with affordable digital healthcare,” he adds.

Incorporated in Singapore, StretchSkin develops affordable wearables for different use cases in healthcare, gaming and smart clothing. Its products can be deformed into curvilinear shape to enable functionalities that are hard to achieve by traditional electronic devices.

The products are designed on a hybrid combination of soft functional materials, compliant membranes, sensors and integrated functional chip components.

StretchSkin’s first product is Virtual Exercise Therapy System (VETS), which comes with data-driven personalised recommendation. It is under pilot testing at several elderly care centres in Singapore.

Currently, the enterprise version of VETS is priced at S$2,000 (US$1,500) per unit, or S$400 (US$300) per month for a SaaS model. The B2C version is available for S$1000 (US$750) per unit, or S$100 (US$75) per month for a single user for the home version.

“We have also made affordable data gloves for gaming and active rehab which are under internal evaluation,” Rajput shares.

The rehab gloves and body joints measurement wearables will be available separately, which can be used with the Android app and can be further integrated with VETS for advanced data-driven recommendations.

Use cases

Gaming: StretchSkin’s gaming wearables mimic the standard gaming consoles which are currently available in the market, but with a new experience. Players can control games by moving their fingers or through hand gestures. The wearables are comfortable and facilitates active gaming where players move their limbs to play the games.

Rehab: The rehab patch wearables provide the tools for healthcare providers to keep track of patients’ progress — be it in a clinical setting or at home. The rehab patch is self-adhesive and does not require ionic conducting gel to increase its sensitivity.

Limb flexibility of joints and muscles, rehab duration is some of the data points which is captured through the stretchable electronic sensors.

Smart clothing: StretchSkin’s sensors form the basis of the smart clothing which is used in various applications. The smart clothing captures the users’ movements which can be translated into readable data, for instance, to assess sports-related performances.

Also Read: Fun, games, and health for seniors with Looxid Labs’ LUCY

It can be used by animators to capture an actor’s movement and translate it into a complete animation by combining with specific art work. The wearables are able to track individuals’ performance during physical activities such as walking, running, gym training, yoga among others.

Education: Its sensor technology can also be used by educators to illustrate science-related subjects, such as force, pressure, motion and temperature, in a creative way. Students could be immersed into specific subjects by using the sensors to experiment and understand real-time results.

The target markets

Initially, StretchSkin — which was incubated at IMDA-backed PIXEL — targets markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. In the long run, it wants to maintain a lead in the US, China, India, and the Middle East in the next five years with affordable and high-performance rehab, gaming, smart clothing, fitness & wellness products in the market.

“For the rehab software platform, rehab gloves and measurement sensors, the users are mainly from smart clothing manufacturers, sports therapy clinics, health coaches, rehab clinics, elderly care centres,” he says.

“For gaming gloves, its key users are gamers, Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality developers for the applications in healthcare and Industry 4.0,” he adds.

Over its two-plus years of existence, StretchSkin has raised US$37,000 from an angel investor, besides US$45,000 in grants from the government, incubator and other facilities, including from NTUitive Venture.

The startup is currently in talks for a bridge round of S$300,000 (US$225,000), which will help it in expanding team and the fabrication and certification of its products.

“After that, we will look for a pre-Series A round of US$2-2.5 million. We are currently talking with investors in the US and the Middle East for this round,” Rajput discloses.

In Rajput’s opinion, it is hard to start a venture in the hardware sector as one needs to take into account multiple stakeholders (customers, investors, etc.) at different levels to succeed.

“We need customers and capital to stabilise the business. So most of the times, it’s difficult to get what you desire. For a hardware startup, it’s always challenging to develop a minimal viable product while going through multiple iterations in it with the limited availability of resources,” he admits.

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Image Credit: StretchSkin Technologies

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SLINGSHOT2020, the deep tech startup competition organised by Enterprise SG, today named NextBillion.ai as a champion of the competition at a virtual grand final round.

The event also named two UK-based startups –Gyro Gear and Keyless Technologies– as runner-up and second runner-up, respectively.

NextBillion.ai, which has recently secured its Series A funding round, is a Singapore-based startup founded by former developers at Southeast Asian tech giant Grab.

Using the skills and knowledge acquired during their time at the company –where they were in charge of developing Grab Maps– the co-founders of NextBillion.ai builds hyperlocal solutions for emerging markets where language and geospatial infrastructure can be more complex and unique.

GyroGear aims to help restore independence and quality for life for people with hand tremors, be it because of Parkinson’s disease or other conditions. Founded by Dr Faii Ong in 2016, the startup builds a wearable device to enable patients to perform daily tasks without caregiver support.

Keyless Technologies is a cybersecurity startup that builds privacy-preserving biometric authentication and personal identity management platform, which it claims to be the world’s first. It is meant to eliminate the need to store and manage sensitive information, enabling businesses to adopt passwordless authentication.

Also Read: Shooting for sustainability with SLINGSHOT 2019

Hosted as part of the Singapore Week of Innovation & Technology (SWiTCH), SLINGSHOT2020 awarded a S$200,000 (US$150,000) Startup SG grant and S$50,000 (US$37,000) cash prize to the champion. The runner-up of the event is set to receive S$25,000 (US$18,000) in cash prize while the second runner-up gets S$10,000 (US$7,400).

Held virtually for the first time this year, the competition also named winners for other categories such as its new COVID-19 track: a Netherlands-based startup called Surfly. Providing a co-browsing and video chat technology, the startup won S$60,000 (US$44,000) worth of prizes from Enterprise Singapore and corporate partner L’Oréal.

e27 observes that amongst the grand finalists, agritech and health tech continued to be a popular theme this year.

Agritech startups in the finalist roster included Israel-based eggXYT, a startup that aims to prevent the practice of male culling in chicken farms through the use of CRISPR gene-editing technology, and Australia-based ProAgni, a startup that aims to cut down the use of antibiotics amongst farm animals.

In addition to Gyro Gear, there was also US-based Elidah which builds a wearable device that aims to help treat incontinence for women.

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If Bloomberg can be believed, a Grab-gojek merger is in the final stages.

As per its recent report, the two Southeast Asian tech giants, more popular for their ride-hailing services, have narrowed their differences of opinion and made substantial progress in working out a deal to combine their businesses.

Is the marriage inevitable?

Most industry experts are of a view that the marriage between Grab and gojek is necessary for many reasons. 

Both these have been around for almost a decade and are still competing with each other, bleeding millions of dollars — even as some of their global peers, who started the ride-sharing revolution, have already graduated to the public market and moved on to the next stage.

“There are certainly benefits in potentially coming together,” said Dave Ng, General Partner of Altara Ventures. “For starters, it takes out the day-to-day distraction of competition on several fronts and allows them to focus on improving products and services.

Also Read: Why David Gowdey of Jungle Ventures believes exits should be led by founders

It will also enable the reallocation of more capital to real innovation. After all, a dollar spent less in marketing means a dollar more for R&D or new offerings launch.

Both companies are fiercely competing with each other in Indonesia. And neither is profitable. Aside from this, both have already dipped into the fintech space to diversify their revenue streams and enter new markets. 

“The merger is necessary from investors’ point of view,” opined Sergei Filippov, Managing Partner of Morphosis Capital Partners. 

Just in 2020, he shared, Grab raised over US$1 billion to grow its payments and financial services arms to diversify the business and raise both profitability and valuation. Grab, considered to be well past-Series H with an outstanding US$10.1 billion raised already, has a valuation of around US$15 billion, and there’s no room for a new round of investment.

“IPO is probably the only option left, which was considered a possibility by its CEO Anthony Tan in November 2019 (if and when entire Grab will become profitable),” Filippov added. 

“gojek is in a similar position though it is enjoying a better valuation multiplier— US$6.2 billion invested so far with a US$12 billion valuation. But to make a potential IPO a success, the market proposition claims should be well-supported and the profitability margin increased. That’s why such a merger is a real way to get the IPO valuation even beyond the US$20 billion,” Filippov explained.

Additionally, Grab’s major shareholder SoftBank is keen for a merger. In March 2020, the Japanese investor said in an announcement that it intended to sell off US$41 billion worth of its assets to buy back and retire its shares, thus executing the strategy of reducing the debt and strengthening its balance sheet.

“Such a strategy seems well-thought after the WeWork scandal last year and the shaky future of the co-working behemoth. No wonder it is SoftBank that is pushing hard for a potential merger,” shared Filippov.

Clearly, a merger is a win-win for all the stakeholders.

But the key question is:

Will the merger lead to a monopoly?

“I don’t think it will result in a monopoly,” argued Ng. “Grab and gojek have both evolved to platforms that provide multi-offerings, beyond just ride-sharing.”

Also Read: Startup exits: Stakeholders often prioritise glitzy exits, not the long-term longevity of the firm

But of course, they are still most well-known for rides. Within this vertical, there are many other options for customers. Before they came into existence, consumers had multiple choices to get from point A to B and this remains the same today.

“There have always been and will always be alternative options for customers to get around, beyond just relying on Grab and gojek,” Ng said.

In the ride-sharing vertical, in recent times, most of the rides were priced closely to other alternate options such as the traditional taxi service. 

And for the other verticals, they are even more diverse in terms of available market options, as both players are relatively early in such newer verticals.

“So in my view, a merger won’t have a significant impact on customers,” Ng reasoned.

He further shared that the days of both firms giving out substantial discounts are a thing of the past because it is now about convenience and availability at similar prices. “It is not about branding and marketing anymore as both companies are now household names. Both firms have consciously focused on pegging the pricing close to market rather than subsidising,” Ng elaborated.

Agreed Fong Jek Gan, Founding Managing Partner at early-stage VC firm Jubilee Capital Management. Gan believes that creating a monopoly is unlikely as these two companies are headquartered in different countries and are regulated by multiple governments. Having said that, this coming together may pose a huge challenge for traditional companies.

But Morphosis Capital’s Filippov begs to differ. In his view, the merger is going to be a dampener from a consumer point of view. 

“Consumers, most probably, will be disappointed as the merger of the two main competitors means there will be no significant competition left. The prices will eventually go up, not to mention the service troubles,” he asserted.

“We have precedent in the past to relate. In 2018, the same thing happened in Singapore during the infamous Uber exodus from Southeast Asia. If such a merger was to be discussed in the US, the deal would most probably be blocked by the antitrust law,” Filippov pointed out.

Concurring with Filippov, 1982 Ventures’s Managing Partner Herston Powers said that consumers were not too happy after the last ride-hailing merger in Southeast Asia (Grab and Uber) and should probably get used to higher prices.

Also Read: Busting the 5 popular myths surrounding startup exits

Echoing a similar sentiment, Access Ventures General and Founding Partner Charles Rim, said the merger is going to be negative from a customers standpoint as Grab will not have as much pressure to compete as it has today. 

“Additionally, it is also a negative for the driver workforce fewer less options,” Rim added.

Who will have the last laugh?

“Broadly speaking, the tech ecosystem,” replied Ng when asked who is going to be the ultimate winner of this deal if realised — differing with Filippov, who believes that investors (who are hungry for consolidation of assets, reduction of costs, valuation growth and potential exit through an IPO) are going to be the real winners.

According to Ng, we have seen companies such as Razer and Sea Group being the beacons of Southeast Asian tech in this current wave of innovation. They both traced their roots to gaming before branching out to several other businesses.

“People will often ask what is next for Southeast Asia as a tech ecosystem. I think the ability to show ecosystem strength in terms of having more long-lasting tech platforms being built out of this region is a great sign. And going forward, over the next decade, we will see more category leaders emerging across other sectors such as fintech, education, healthcare, enterprise software, as tech founders go beyond consumer, gaming and e-commerce,” Ng maintained.

But for Elton Powers, it is Grab and gojek, who are gonna be the real winners. The merger is also a sign of a maturing tech ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

“The merger is obvious and you can see how existing shareholders will be pleased that the ‘war’ is over. However, the hard part is to put together two cultures and taking care of employees,” Elton Powers commented. 

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Image Credit: Grab  

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Rely, a Singapore-based​ buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services provider, announced today it has secured a S$100 million (US$74.8 million) credit facility from Polaris, the strategic partnerships arm of Singapore-based Goldbell Financial Services.

The new credit facility is an extension of Rely’s goal to scale operations and forge partnerships with major retailers in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.

The fintech startup raised an undisclosed 7 figure sum in pre-Series A from Goldbell and the Octava Foundation last year.

The company said in a press statement that the fund will provide the commercial merchants onboarding on its platform “the confidence in its ability to facilitate high-volume, high-demand sales flow”.

Also Read: Lessons from the buy-now-pay-later boom

“By coupling Rely’s data acquisition capabilities with Polaris’s innovative and scalable funding structure, Rely can sustainably support larger digital transactions,” said Alex Chua, CEO of Goldbell.

“This partnership creates an opportunity for brands to reinvigorate the shopping experience for consumers through an innovative alternative payment channel, stimulating spending after a very tough year for the retail scene,” he added.

Founded in 2017, Rely provides BNPL service where shoppers pay for their purchases over three to four equal payments, interest-free. Rely partners with online and offline retailers across key categories such as fashion, beauty, lifestyle, fitness among others.

Rely currently partners with Singapore-based Qoo10 to offer BNPL services on its e-commerce platform.​

The fintech startup said that more enterprise retailers will be onboarded in 2021, in an attempt to capture the millennial and Gen Z demographic.

Additionally, Rely announced a partnership to launch a new service within real estate and investment firm Lendlease’s app to provide BNPL services for consumers shopping at 313@somerset.

Also Read: Buy now, pay later: The changing face of finance for a mobile generation

Customers who have downloaded the Lendlease Plus app pay only a quarter of their total retail cost upfront. The payment is followed by three automated repayments every fortnight, without interest or additional fees.

Spending limits are determined for each shopper and safeguards are put in place to encourage responsible spending.

Maximum transaction amounts vary within a S$1,000 (US$ 748) cap on debit card purchases, and a S$4,000 (US$2990) limit on credit card transactions.

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Image Credit: Rely

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