Kuala Lumpur-headquartered RPG Commerce, a company that builds, launches and scales multi-brand e-commerce businesses globally, has secured an undisclosed amount in Series A round of investment.

Lead investors are Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia, and Joseph Phua, co-founder and Chairman of 17 Live.

The funds will be utilised to accelerate the growth of more brands and further its expansion globally, RPG said in a statement. A part of the money also will go into regional expansion, talent acquisition, brand building, and R&D.

Also Read: Former Carousell, OVO execs launch e-commerce brand aggregator Rainforest with US$36M seed funding

Incorporated in Singapore, RPG Commerce is a multi-brand direct-to-consumer (DTC) company that launches and operates a suite of e-commerce brands via a ‘shared backend infrastructure’ approach.

Unlike the recent wave of startups that seek to roll up small e-commerce brands purely via brand acquisitions and selling on other e-commerce platforms, RPG primarily launches and incubates its own native brands in tandem with acquiring brands.

The firm says it is able to develop, test and launch a brand with a lot less capital and, at the same time, being able to scale each brand quickly.

While its products are present in over 40 countries, its current main markets are in the USA, Europe, Australia and Asia.

To date, it has launched over 10 brands globally in different categories such as men’s fashion, home and living, and fashion accessories.

Currently, it has over 100 employees in several locations globally.

Appoints Warren Tseng as new COO

In line with the funds raised, RPG Commerce also announced the appointment of Warren Tseng as its new COO. He will be tasked with leading the operation of the business and championing the strategic direction in alignment with the company’s development.

Tseng was previously General Manager of ride-hailing giant Uber (Singapore and Malaysia), and helmed the APAC market as Regional General Manager at CloudKitchens, a startup venture by Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of Uber.

RPG Commerce co-founder and CEO Melvin Chee said: “This new-normal created by societal reaction to the pandemic has accelerated the entire e-commerce industry and never been a more favourable period for DTC brands to rise. Having direct access to our customers gives us a strategic advantage over better understanding of their needs, armed with our agile operations that continuously enhance our products based on our customers’ feedback.”

Also Read: Ex-CEO of Rocket Internet Asia launches new e-commerce venture Una Brands with a US$40M seed round

We firmly believe that brands will build long lasting relationships with their customers through satisfying their needs and achieving their goals,” he added.

Chua Joo Hock, Managing Partner of Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia said: “We have seen the scaling problems of first generation D2C e-commerce models that generally focus on a single product or vertical. We are happy to partner with Melvin and his team, as the first outside investor in RPG Commerce, to build the next generation leader of a D2C company based on multi-brands.”

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Image Credit: RPG Commerce

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Finantier, a Singapore-based open finance startup, has raised 7-figure seed capital in a new funding round led by Global Founders Capital (GFC) and East Ventures (EV).

Existing investors AC Ventures, Y Combinator, Genesia Ventures, Two Culture Capital, besides new investors such as Future Shape, Partech Partners, Taurus Ventures, Saison Capital, and GMO VenturePartners, also participated.

The round was raised at more than 20x the valuation the company received for its pre-seed funding in November 2020, as per a company statement.

Finantier intends to use the money to scale and enhance its product offerings within Indonesia, expand to the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, and double its team size.

Founded in 2020, co-founders of Finantier initially wanted to build an Open Banking platform but later decided to switch the idea to build an Open Finance platform as Open Banking would exclude a large amount of the unbanked population in emerging markets.

Open banking’s use cases are limited to products offered by banks (loans, credit cards, etc.). Open finance, on the other hand, allows the exchange of data between a wide range of financial companies.

Also Read: Finantier secures funding from Y Combinator for its Open Finance platform

Lack of access to consumer financial data is a big problem in Indonesia as many financial institutions don’t have access to consumer financial data. This handicaps them in providing financial services such as payments, lending, and insurance.

Finantier solves this problem by aggregating data from alternative data sources such as gig economy platforms and telcos. After the consent of the user is obtained, these datasets are analysed to provide detailed insights on consumers for financial institutions, allowing them to provide financial services for the unbanked.

This, claims the firm, significantly reduces the number of people who lack access to basic financial services, accelerating financial inclusion within Indonesia, which the government has identified as a key priority.

“Our business model is a traditional SaaS, with a recurring charge per month according to the usage of our Aggregation API. We are also launching new products later this year that has a slightly different commercial model,” Diego Rojas, co-founder of Finantier told e27.

As of now, the company works with over 150 companies, giving clients access to a comprehensive range of datasets.

Additionally, Finantier has appointed Francesco Simoneschi, co-founder of Truelayer (a Temasek-backed open banking platform based in the UK) to its table of Advisors.

“In order to accelerate financial inclusion and to increase innovation in financial services across Indonesia, collaboration is key among regulators, associations, and the private sector. The Finantier team is doing a great job by proactively engaging all the parties while building a fintech platform and a sustainable ecosystem aligned with the vision of a more inclusive country,” Pandu Patria Sjahrir, Founding Partner at AC Ventures and Chairman of Indonesia FinTech Association said.

“Accelerating financial inclusion within Indonesia is crucial given the high unbanked rate. With access to better financial services, these underserved segments of the population can lead better lives and drive growth for the Indonesian economy,” added Willson Cuaca, co-founder at East Ventures.

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Image Credit: Finantier

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pitchIN, a leading equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform in Malaysia, announced today it has raised RM5.5 million (~US$1.3 million) through its own campaign.

The capital came from 322 investors participated, including Chan Kok San, co-founder of Aimflex; and Simpson Wong Kean Hin, Managing Director of Shellys Marketing.

pitchIN is currently in the final stages of raising an additional RM5 million (US$1.2 million) from institutional investors.

“We set out to raise RM10 million in total, of which RM5 million was allocated for institutional investors. The investors have been identified and we expect to close that amount fairly soon,” CEO Sam Shafie said in a statement.

With the new funding, pitchIN aims to expand its operations to serve more businesses and investors, as well as offer new services in the next few years.

The company has also shared that it plans to open a secondary market for its extended credit facility platform later this year. pitchIN has also applied for a license to operate an Initial Exchange Offering platform.

Also Read: Malaysia’s clinical communication app MedPlanner raises US$240K in equity crowdfunding

Founded in 2012, pitchIN is a platform for Malaysia-based companies to raise funds from the general public and investment community. It launched pitchIN equity in March 2016. To date, it claims to have funded 112 deals.

“In 2015, we launched pitchIN with our own funds because we believed in the importance of democratising the fundraising industry. We are grateful that we have been able to create a platform that has helped 112 SMEs and startups raise capital from over 5,500 investors. These new funds will enable us to offer our services to more SMEs and startups,” said pitchIN Chief Security Officer Kashminder Singh.

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Image Credit: pitchIn

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We hope our handy tips on thought leadership from last week has been helpful.

For the past two weeks, we have been discussing the importance of building thought leadership and how to go about it when you have little or no resources to do so.

While speaking engagements are great way to establish yourself as a thought leader, such opportunities are hard to come by. Writing your thoughts out is one way to attract speaking opportunities. Many early-stage startups and thought leaders use platform such as Medium, LinkedIn and e27 Contributor Programme to publish their views and share them with a larger audience these days.

We know ‘writing an article’ can sound scary if you have no professional qualification or writing experience.

This is why we put together this short writing exercise for you to get your creative juices flowing.

The first half of this video added below gives you more details about our Contributor Programme, followed by tips from our editor Anisa Menur Maulani. The final 20 minutes is a live writing exercise.

You will need:

• 45 mins off your schedule
• A pen/paper or any electronic writing device

Get, set, start writing!

Feel free to reach out to me at mili@e27.co if you want feedback on your writing exercise, article pitches or any help with your thought leadership journey.

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An imperative vision for tech startups is emerging as the industry embraces greater disruptions in the form of new competitors, innovation and increasing regulatory and compliance demands.

With the rise of new unrivalled technologies, the race is on to elevate digital transformation beyond a surface level facelift. As such, many organisations are looking to evolve and transform with a vision grounded in superior customer experience and enterprise leadership.

However, the future demands business agility to win. And the solution lies within a holistic cloud system, capable of scaling new heights for the business.

Therefore, as the Digital Enterprise Director leading the team in a global tech company, here are three key learnings why forward-thinking businesses must deploy cloud technology as a strategic tool and navigate challenges to unlock full business growth potential:

Driving change and innovation

The first step to building business resilience begins with embracing a digital-core mindset, recognising the need to take advantage of new technologies to stay competitive, improve customer retention and increase employee satisfaction.

According to NTT’s 2021 Hybrid Cloud Report, while 96.3 per cent of Singapore firms agreed that cloud technology is critical in ensuring minimal business disruption amid the pandemic, only 63.8 per cent of local firms have implemented it.

This highlights the mindset gap in implementing cloud infrastructure, security and network architecture capabilities which is imperative to support business growth and agility.

Through cloud-based solutions, organisations can drive digital innovation, effecting a fundamental shift in IT – from an operational function to a technology business partner. We have seen this in startups where by unifying silos and automating processes, teams and individuals now provide more value-adding strategic counsel.

This empowerment breeds collaboration and transforms teams to change the way the business operates, eventually becoming more productive and efficient.

Also Read: How Globe Telecom used Google’s cloud-based services to empower its employees

Future-proofing the workforce

IT resiliency is key to future-proofing your business. Alongside realities that shifted in 2020, many employees have also experienced tech-related business disruption. This has led to detrimental consequences such as revenue loss, unhealthy employee work-life balance, security breaches and more.

In the backdrop of the Hybrid Workforce Economy, a robust tech ecosystem will help leaders navigate the digital culture and create an agile environment to future proof the workforce by reducing risk from disruption.

As we have seen with some start-ups, it is also a great opportunity to upskill employees’ digital capabilities. This serves as a blueprint not only to building high performing teams but also provides seamless digital experiences for customers.

Beyond closing the knowledge-skills gap, business owners can leverage a holistic cloud system to deliver real-time insights and make informed decisions using accessible cloud data. The increased employee flexibility and access to data enables quicker oversight to customer’s evolving needs which is essential to business agility.

A growth launchpad

Often times, business leaders and especially start-ups are challenged with strategically driving engagement and productivity through effective employee management. As a result, business scalability and growth takes a back seat due to inefficiency creeping into workplace processes.

With a comprehensive cloud-based system, organisations can now expand their global footprint with digital tools. Startups no longer need to be confined to geographic boundaries. Instead, increasingly they have leveraged cloud capabilities to rapidly establish their presence by expanding existing operations in  any country without having to set up a physical office.

This marks a new milestone for organisations, regardless of size, to build a legacy that is at low cost and minimal risk. Most importantly, the process is compliant and transformative, aimed at strengthening the business proposition in the VUCA world.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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WaveScan Technologies, a Singapore-based smart sensors company, has raised seed capital in a round led by Silicon Solution Ventures (SSV), an investment fund managed by Silicon Solution Partners.

Joining the round were SEEDS Capital, Koji Ventures, she1K global, KK39 Ventures, Plug & Play Venture Group, Plug & Play Singapore, and Leave A Nest Singapore.

The company said in a statement that it will use the money to launch the first version of its modular scanner system. This system is designed to integrate with automated robotic platforms such as arms and crawlers.

A portion of the funds will also go into testing the drone version of the scanner for more focused applications and delivering on its committed full-scale projects slated for the year ahead, besides scaling the team.

WaveScan also disclosed its plans to collaborate with over 20 large infrastructure companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UK — in addition to currently conducting pilot trials in Europe and Japan.

Founded by Kush Agarwal, WaveScan focuses on a preventive, instead of a reactive approach, to infrastructure maintenance.

Also Read: Decacorn Capital backs Estonian startup Fyma that can turn your CCTV cameras into smart sensors

Its wireless scanners utilise electro magnetic (EM)-based microwave and millimetre waves that could penetrate a variety of structural materials, including wood and concrete. Capable of high-resolution four-dimensional sensing, the EM waves are sent and received back to indicate building and infrastructural defects.

“Today, inspection and maintenance is a slow, costly and inefficient process, inhibiting stakeholders from raising their proactivity. With our solution, we seek to bring unprecedented levels of automation in all aspects of the inspection and defect analysis processes of structural infrastructure elements,” explained Agarwal.

The startup claims to have received interest from over 50 multinational companies, including those in the transport (aerospace/railway) and oil & gas industries, besides infrastructure.

Additionally, WaveScan will also be embarking on projects that will impact the local domestic market by conducting water leakage inspections.

It will be engaging in full-scale deployment and test-bedding on various ages of buildings with a view towards larger island-wide adoption.

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Image Credit: WaveScan Technologies

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Aevice Health, a Singapore-based startup developing novel wearables for remote respiratory monitoring, announced today it has secured S$2.8 million (US$2.1 million) pre-Series A funding.

Investors are Toho Holdings (Japan), and Pureland Group Venture, Silicon Solutions Partners, AIP Ventures, and SEEDS Capital (all Singapore).

The medtech venture will utilise the capital to further develop its proprietary technology and expand its remote respiratory monitoring solution into Japan.

“With the support of our investors and partners, we will continue to accelerate our global footprint, advance our remote patient monitoring pipeline, and develop new ways of enhancing workflows of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, and health systems to re-envision the future of respiratory care,” CEO Adrian Ang said.

Also Read: Singapore startup StretchSkin develops wearable sensors for the healthcare and gaming industries

A spin-off from Nanyang Technological University, Aevice Health develops non-invasive wearable devices that enable early detection of cardiopulmonary abnormalities remotely and in real-time, so that patients can receive fast and targeted care from the ease of their homes.

Clinicians can also gain insights into their patients’ health and track their responses to treatment plans easily from the Aevice analytical platform.

The firm has developed a remote patient monitoring solution AeviceMD. It is a wearable smart stethoscope that complements tele-health services to facilitate self-management of chronic diseases.

Powered by Artificial Intelligence, it listens to the patient’s chest sounds remotely, continuously and in real time, and detects cardiopulmonary abnormalities (such as wheezing) that are typical of chronic respiratory diseases, so that patients can receive fast and targeted care on time from the comfort of their homes.

With its system packed into a miniaturised sensor, the device can be placed on the patient’s chest for hours of continuous monitoring.

Overtime, the AeviceMD can help healthcare providers to understand how treatments uniquely impact patient symptoms, enabling them to personalise treatment to optimise patient outcomes.

Partnership with Toho

As part of the deal, Aevice has entered into an agreement with its strategic investor Toho Holdings — a wholesaler of medicine, and medical tools and equipment with over 700 pharmacies across Japan — to develop and commercialise AeviceMD.

The collaboration will provide patients with chronic respiratory diseases in Japan with a tool to stay connected to their healthcare provider, anytime anywhere.

“The pandemic has accelerated the growth and adoption of telehealth, transforming the way patients interact with their healthcare providers. The AeviceMD is a cutting-edge solution that provides patients with a continuum of comprehensive and personalised care remotely,” said Ang.

Chronic respiratory diseases remain the top few leading causes of death in Japan. In 2019, lower respiratory tract infection, lung cancer, and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) rank fourth, fifth, and ninth in top causes of total number of deaths in the year.

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

Many of these patients, particularly the elderly with higher co-morbidities, require regular check-ups and constantly monitoring. With the disparity in the number of physicians between urban and rural parts of Japan widening, many patients living in rural parts of the country may face difficulties accessing regular care for their chronic conditions.

“Aevice Health is a homegrown company providing a novel and relevant solution in today’s post-pandemic climate. It has the potential to help health systems deliver quality care to their patients from the comfort of their homes, and we are excited to support them in their journey in improving patient outcomes,” said Tan Kaixin, General Manager, SEEDS Capital.

Singapore hosts several smart wearable startups in the healthcare space. One of them is StretchSkin, which 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.

AWAK Technologies is yet another local firm, which is focused on dialysis using regeneration technology for end-stage kidney diseases. In 2019, it raised US$40 million in an oversubscribed financing round.

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Image Credit: Aevice Health

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Investible, an Australian seed-stage investment firm with a focus on Southeast Asia, announced today it has surpassed the first close of its second fund at SGD35.9 million (US$27 million) in committed capital.

The first close comes less than three months after the VC firm announced plans to raise its second early-stage fund with a target of US$39 million.

“The speed and success of Investible’s second capital raise to date reflects the fact that more investors are seeking opportunities to diversify their portfolio and back high-potential tech companies early,” said Rod Bristow, CEO of Investible, which has offices in Australia and Singapore.

Also Read: Investible aims to raise US$38M fund targeting early-stage startups in SEA, Australia

Launched in 2014 by entrepreneurs-turned-angel investors Creel Price and Trevor Folsom, Investible invests in early-stage startups across Southeast Asia and Australia. The fund’s inaugural US$17.4-million fund, which was oversubscribed in late 2019, has to date made over 36 investments.

The first fund’s notable portfolio companies, representing 19 sectors across nine countries, include Filipino restaurant management company Mosaic Solutions and Indonesia-based agritech startup Eden Farm.

It has also created ‘Club Investible’, which provides investors with the opportunity to increase their exposure to startups they are especially confident in. Club members can then put greater resources behind and get more actively involved with particular startups at their discretion.

Investible claims that when combined with Club Investible, the firm has achieved an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of more than 55 per cent and 3.9 times cash return on deals prior to 2015. Its failure rate sits at 16 per cent.

Given SEA’s enormous growth potential and the maturity of its startup ecosystem, Investible is optimistic about the prospects in Southeast Asia and is positioned to support cross-border startups.

As a result, Investible has increased the percentage of funding available to international businesses (based outside of Australia) from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.

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Image Credit: Investible

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Coinomo, the company behind the latest cryptocurrency exchange OMO which is focused on Southeast Asia, has secured an undisclosed amount in a new round of financing led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India.

The round was also joined by zVentures, the corporate VC of Razer; Spartan Group, a blockchain advisory and digital asset management firm based in Singapore and Hong Kong; and Leo Cheng, an investor with MetaCartel Ventures, a community-driven investment decentralised autonomous organisation consisting of founders and builders.

Existing investor Turn Capital, the family office of 17LIVE’s co-founder and non-executive chairman Joseph Phua, also participated.

This development comes just a month after Singapore-based Coinomo acquired Taiwanese crypto wallet Dapp pocket and yield aggregator Cappuu.

OMO merges Dapp Pocket Wallet and Cappuu into a single platform and is aimed at being the gateway for Southeast Asia’s new and mainstream adopters to the world of crypto.

Also Read: Joseph Phua’s Turn Capital acquires Dapp Pocket to create SEA-focused retail crypto exchange

As per a press statement, OMO offers a high-quality user experience and eliminate unnecessary details and confusion.

Coinomo also offers OMO finance, a platform that serves as a higher order product, catering to more seasoned crypto investors, to join and enjoy the raging waves of crypto movement on the main street. Diligently crafted investment-grade products will be offered exclusively on this platform.

The company has also announced the launch of OMO’s beta version that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrency pairs and participate in yield products of various return profiles.

The crypto space has seen a strong resurgence in the last 12 months, and especially high levels of publicity and trading in the past months. New use cases for cryptocurrencies have breathed new life into the already booming industry, the division between main street and crypto is getting thinner and thinner.

“There is increasing interest and continued innovative applications in the crypto space. Coinomo is putting in place a platform to enable retail investors to easily participate in the ecosystem according to their return profiles. It provides significant value by abstracting away the complexity and perplexity for the general public retail users, while also mitigating risks away from many projects,” said Genping Liu, Partner at Vertex Venture SEAI.

“Vertex sees this as an infrastructure play to facilitate further development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” Liu added.

“We want to bring our expertise in consumer products into Coinomo and make this a fun and vibrant community. Investing with Coinomo is fun, our customers would love to open our app and to stay in the app. Easy-to-use and fun are the foundation for consumer products. We keep that in mind in every detail and product feature in our design,” said Evie Zhang, CEO of Coinomo.

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Image Credit: Coinomo

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