As Southeast Asia sees an influx of economic and technological growth, the need for human capital development is becoming increasingly critical. Schools across the region are racing to address this training gap— attempting to innovate their curricula, to expand their classroom capacity, and to scale their reach.

But enabling education for everyone is difficult. Schools need help. Adding instructional capacity and improving facilities require significant investment. Enrolling new students is even more daunting, as many families do not have savings sufficient to pay for years of school.

The problem is a mismatch of cash flow timing. Schools need the money now to reinvest and expand. Students and their families only receive income after graduation. The solution requires affordable credit.

Financing has always been the key barrier for enrolment and retention and is a top-of-mind issue for schools. Otherwise, students, who need education the most are left without options, and the seats in the physical (and virtual) classrooms are left empty. 

Fintech platforms are the ideal partners to help schools address this issue. Through collaboration, fintech platforms can help schools drive their three main goals: expansion, efficiency, and equity. 

Expansion and scale to reach more students

As schools scale their operations, the biggest limiting factor is their ability to redeploy their cash flows. Capacity planning is challenging when enrolment numbers are unpredictable, due to a significant portion of students deferring payments or dropping out.

Schools are in a predicament. Operating costs cannot be deferred, and investing in teachers, classrooms, and campuses is costly. Fintech can address this timing mismatch. 

By providing affordable lending solutions to students, fintech provide schools with the predictability needed to expand. They no longer worry about students dropping out due to affordability issues because the balances for the semester have already been paid.

Also Read: HarukaEdu offers affordable, accessible and social online education

As more students remain enrolled, schools become better positioned to invest for long-term growth and for improvement of instructional capacity. 

Efficiency and focus on core educational services

The early version of education financing in Southeast Asia was run in-house by schools. These schools provided deferred instalment plans, and was a shared function across the schools’ finance, student recruitment, and scholarship functions. 

Given the increasing financial challenges of many students, however, schools have seen these internal financing plans take up a large portion of their balance sheets. The complexity magnifies as the number of students adds up: collections, financial risk management, and asset-liability management are all cumbersome for a school to run in-house. 

Fintech platforms are the perfect partners to address this issue. Schools, no matter their size, are better off focusing on core education services rather than operating as financial institution. By offering the expertise of tech-enabled underwriting, loan management, and collections, fintech can run this process more effectively and efficiently.

Schools can go one level deeper to address these affordability barriers. Through tighter fintech partnerships, they can commit part of their balance sheet (whether in the form of interest-free or subsidised loans), while letting their fintech partner manage the operational aspects of lending.  This arrangement allows schools to provide affordable, quality education to more students.

Equity and access to those who need education the most

Students in the lowest income households are those who can benefit from education the most. This segment is where willingness to enrol is the highest, but the capacity to pay is low. They often do not have access to traditional credit, and savings are limited. Especially not enough for four years of schooling.

This phenomenon is why only a third of youths in Southeast Asia manage to enrol in higher education, and less than half of them graduate on time (if at all). Schools do want to help because providing access to these students bolsters enrollment count, drives up tuition revenues and supports their mission of educating future generations. But they have no capacity or expertise to finance the two-thirds of un-enrolled youths in Southeast Asia, at least not alone.

Here’s how fintech platforms can help. The payoff of education is back-ended, but has tremendous lifelong value. Fintech platforms can provide that bridge to get students through their multi-year journey. Affordable lending can correct the timing mismatch of the tuition cost and eventual employment. By bridging the timing gap, these partnerships can improve equity and access in the education system.

Also Read: Brick bags seed funding from Antler, 1982 Ventures to expand its fintech API platform

Fintech will make ‘education for everyone’ a reality

The future of education in Southeast Asia will be powered by fintech. Developing human capital to support the region’s evolving economy requires educating everyone. We need to find ways to broaden educational access for over 60 million new students—those who traditionally cannot afford to go to school. 

The case for affordable education financing is clear: schools can expand and reach more students, and every student can receive access to quality education.

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Leap Finance, an Indian edutech platform focused on overseas education, has raised US$17 million in Series B funding, led by Jungle Ventures.

Sequoia Capital India and Owl Ventures also participated in the round.

As per a press note, the fresh funds will go towards expanding its product offerings and strengthen technology and business teams to aid geographical expansion.

Leap Finance will also look to establish global offices in undisclosed locations for partnerships with overseas educational institutions.

Initially launched in 2019 as an education loan platform for students pursuing further education in the US, Leap Finance has since expanded to provide assistance on the complex admission processes for overseas education and now covers Canada, the UK and Australia.

Essentially, it creates modern financial products and services that help Indian students pursue a global career by helping Indian students in choosing the right university and the best financing option as well as lining up job interviews and introductions.

“We are a one-stop solution for all the needs of prospective international students. India has the largest group of English-language graduates and STEM education, and millions of graduates from that group want degrees from international campuses as well as global careers,” said Arnav Kumar, Co-founder of Leap Finance.

Also Read: Pintek closes US$21M from debt investor Accial to accelerate educational financing in Indonesia

He further explained these admission processes require accurate information and guidance from experts. “Our online community helps students evaluate career options, network with seniors and select the best courses. We then use this data to offer personalised exam preparation, professional counselling services, visa guides and financial products.”

Leap Finance claims it has over 500,000 members and alumni with 200,000 monthly active users exchanging 9 million chat messages last month.

“Leap Finance marks our first investment in edutech. India is the second-largest market globally for overseas education. In the past decade, the number of applicants for higher education studies abroad from India has increased annually by more than 300 per cent,” noted Amit Anand, Founding Partner of Jungle Ventures.

“2020 was the most difficult year for international education due to travel restrictions related to COVID-19. We are impressed by the resilience of the Leap team over the past year, as they have not only served hundreds of students with their financing solutions but have also innovated with the Leap Scholar service which provides counselling to thousands of Indian students who wish to study abroad,” opined Ashish Agrawal, Principal of Sequoia India.

The company has previously raised US$5.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.

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Image Credit: Leap

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An investor looking to conduct due diligence on a company in the Indonesian mining industry?

Unless you possess an existing rolodex of contacts, it’s difficult for one to get directly connected to an individual with adequate knowledge of it.

That is where expert networks come in. Reportedly experiencing double-digit growth annually, expert networks primarily support investment managers and strategy consultants with their due diligence and research process by linking them up with experts for insights.

They provide what is perhaps the most valuable commodity in business — connections.

While global giants such as Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) and AlphaSights pride themselves on having a multinational presence, Singapore-based Sealed Network is focused on the world’s fastest-growing region — Southeast Asia.

Launched by Benjamin Lee and Leo Wen Ge, a former investment professional at Temasek-backed VC firm Wavemaker Partners, Sealed is on a mission to connect the region’s top minds with organisations from across the world.

However, in a region as diverse as Southeast Asia, connecting people to it is easier said than done. “When we started, we realised that many experts in Southeast Asia are either not on English language platforms or have a minimal online presence,” Lee shared with e27 in an interview.

In true entrepreneurial spirit, Lee — who previously worked at unicorns Grab and Sequoia China-backed Huobi — managed to turn the hurdle into a competitive advantage for Sealed. “This has quickly turned into a source of strength for us as we have been able to gain traction amongst local experts in almost every country in the region.”

Increasing awareness

Another challenge Lee noted was the difficulty in hiring due to the nascent knowledge of expert networks in the region. Many job seekers struggled to adequately comprehend the services offered by Sealed and the value proposition it offered.

“We eventually managed to find the right hires from meeting with many people and getting a pool of credible investors and advisors to support us,” Lee said.

Despite the lack of awareness of the expert network industry among the general public, its value was well understood by those who needed it. Besides investors and consultants utilising it to gain in-depth insights into a particular industry, expert networks are also utilised by professional services firms and startups for a variety of purposes, ranging from scoping market entry needs to strategic advice.

Also Read: Crossing the finish line: Industry experts give key advice on nailing the due diligence process

Stressing that Sealed services are sector-agnostic in nature, Lee also noticed requests have picked up for experts based in Indonesia and Vietnam, which he believes is part of increased economic interest within the region.

“We are also seeing strong demand for expert engagements in sectors, including fintech, e-commerce and last-mile logistics,” he added.

How it works

Sharing on the typical process of an expert request, Lee noted clients usually send in a project brief to explain how they wish to engage experts. With screening questions and target companies among the required fields, the project brief serves to enable Sealed to identify relevant experts within short notice, which Lee stresses is paramount for the time-sensitive needs of clients.

After scanning through its internal database of over 20,000 experts, the company shortlists on average 10 to answer the screening questions. Thereafter, their profiles and answers are shared with clients, who will make the final pick.

Once selected, engagements occur through a call ranging from 30 minutes to an hour, with Sealed taking a cut of the paid fee.

“We get our customers entirely through warm referrals and word of mouth. Our investors and advisors either previously or currently occupy senior roles at strategy consulting firms and investment funds. They have helped us tremendously in acquiring our customers,” Lee shared when probed on how Sealed acquires its clients.

Also Read: The business of helping other businesses: Visenze reveals their approach to B2B customer acquisition

Sealed has notable names such as Far East Ventures (the VC arm of Far East Organization) on its cap table. To date, it has raised US$1 million. It also counts among its backers prominent angel investors such as Koh Boon Hwee (GIC Investment Board Director, former Chairman of DBS and Singtel) and Steve Melhuish (Co-founder of PropertyGuru).

Future plans

With over 40 corporate clients on its books and its experts boasting a net promoter score (NPS) of 8.7, Lee shared Sealed has its sights set on regional expansion.

“With the goal of becoming Southeast Asia’s leading expert domain, we aim to have a local office in every Southeast Asian capital. We also intend to onboard more strategic and well-connected investors across the region,” he added.

The CEO also shared the company is looking to expand its product offerings past its current consultation calls to include opinion polls for executives and short to mid-term consulting engagements.

Lee believes that enabling different ways for clients to engage experts will allow them to tap into adjacent industries such as strategy consulting, B2B information services, and market research, collectively estimated to be worth over US$330 billion globally.

He also plans to grow the engineering team to enhance the expert-client matching process using a recommendation algorithm. To achieve that, Lee is looking to raise north of US$2 million either by the end of the year or early 2022.

With Southeast Asia shaping to become the next economic darling of the world, it would be tough to bet against his vision.

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Image Credit: Sealed Network

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Starting in 2020, e27 noticed that more and more investors in the Southeast Asia tech startup ecosystem were investing in the regional maritime tech scene. The latest of such investment was a US$800,000 funding for maritime-focussed cybersecurity startup OceanShield; there was also the launch of a maritime tech fund by Rainmaking. These developments indicated a fresh opportunity for industry players to seize.

Signal Ventures is one example of such players that are actively seizing investment opportunities in maritime tech.

In February, the firm announced that it is seeking startups in the sector to join its portfolio. As an investment arm of Signal Group, it is founded by Greek entrepreneur Ioannis Martinos, a prominent figure in the Greek shipping community and CEO of the group.

Outside of the maritime tech sector, Signal Ventures has invested in autonomous vehicle startup Nutonomy and SaaS platform Omnition.

“The maritime tech space has grown significantly over the past three years, but 2021 will see more opportunities than ever before,” says Martinos in a press statement.

With a focus on B2B SaaS, advanced analytics, optimisation and artificial intelligence technologies for the maritime and trade sectors, Signal Ventures offers startups access to unique data processing capabilities, vessel port calls, emissions, port and weather information, venture capital, mentoring and hands-on team-building support.

It also drives incorporation, accounting, legal and HR activities, enabling founders to focus on product development.

Also Read: Maritime tech startups to get US$36M investment from SEEDS Capital

The firm has named Nikolas Pyrgiotis, formerly of McKinsey, as its VP of Technology Ventures. In an email interview, Pyrgiotis explains to e27 their investment philosophy and strategy.

Setting the sail

Pyrgiotis begins by explaining that the firm does not have a “strict mandate” on how it is going to deploy its funds. It favours investments where it can add value and have the flexibility to accelerate or decelerate the deployment.

“High-level, we are targeting at least four deals annually with other startups and initiate one or two more incubation projects over the next 18 months along with the two ongoing ones. Maritime technology startups are spread in shipping, logistics and financial hubs around the world, so following that trend we are investing globally,” he says.

So far, the firm has incubated companies such as UK oil analytics company OilX; invested in and collaborated with Bunker Metric, a bunker procurement optimisation startup; and Swedish weather data provider Storm Glass. They also have two entrepreneurs-in-residence working in a venture studio to develop and take new products to market.

“We’re looking for people and teams whose ideas can be accelerated by our resources, network and investment. The startups we’ve invested in so far have been able to leverage off each other and benefited from access to our unique data processing capabilities, data including vessel port calls, emissions, port and weather information,” Pyrgiotis elaborates.

“But most importantly, we focus on driven and resilient founders, experts in their field, with a long term vision of how their ideas can enhance the maritime markets,” he continues.

When asked about their investment philosophy, Pyrgiotis describes it as “simple”: They invest in what they understand and where they can add value.

Also Read: These are the top three startups chosen by PIER71, offering latest maritime tech solution

“We understand the international maritime, commodity and logistics markets; we understand the synergies in data and technology: we’ve built our own AI platform, the Signal Ocean Platform, which fuses multiple complex data sources and is used in the ship chartering market. We understand how to get the best from entrepreneurs and programmers: we have a growing ecosystem of maritime-related businesses which collaborate together to build new products,” he explains.

Considering its status as a tech and maritime hub, Southeast Asia is certainly a lucrative target for Signal Ventures.

“We see lots of interesting opportunities in Southeast Asia, with companies such as PortCast, GreyWing and Quantship, as well as several serious efforts to promote the maritime tech ecosystem there: Pier71, Innoport, the Techstars/EPS accelerator, Rainmaking, Captain’s Table and Betatron just to name a few,” Pyrgiotis details.

“We see ourselves as a springboard for entrepreneurs in the region to reach the global shipping market and expect several of our portfolio companies in the near future to come from there,” he stresses.

Next destination

According to data by Inmarsat, in 2019, the overall maritime tech sector was estimated to be worth US$106 billion and it is expected to rise to US$278 billion by 2030.

This highlights the potential that investors such as Signal Ventures can pursue, and the firm believes that the potential will continue to grow.

“We see 2021 as a year in which digitisation in the shipping industry continues to accelerate. We want to grow our ecosystem of businesses and focus on our venture studio to successfully bring new, transformative solutions to the market,” Pyrgiotis closes.

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New Protein Fund to invest US$200K each in attendees

The story: Big Idea Ventures’s (BIV) New Protein Fund, dedicated to seed- and early-stage investments in plant-based and cell-based food, ingredient and technology companies, is accepting applications from startups for its fourth accelerator cohort.

BIV has accelerator offices in New York, Singapore and soon in Paris.

How it will help: In addition to providing US$200,000 investment (US$125,000 in cash and US$75,000 through in-kind benefits), Big Idea Ventures’s (BIV) programme may also choose to invest up to US$3.5 million in top companies.

Duration: Five months.

More about the story: This is part of the fund’s mission to invest in and accelerate up to 100 plant- and cell-based companies worldwide.

Companies that will join the accelerator will also have an opportunity to engage with BIV’s partners, which include AAK, a global provider of plant-based oils headquartered in Sweden; Bel Group, the French cheesemaker; and Bühler Group, the Swiss food equipment manufacturer.

These limited partners and others will help participating companies in partnership, scaling production, co-developing intellectual property, and product improvements.

The New Protein Fund is targeted to raise US$50 million since its launch in 2019.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Singapore gets a new unicorn; Is Sea game for the next phase of growth?

FWD Insurance launches startup studio

The story: FWD Insurance has launched FWD Start-Up Studio to support insurtech and takafultech startups in Malaysia, with seed funding of RM1.2 million (US$391,000) over two years.

Who can apply: Malaysian startups operating in the isurtech or Islamic finance sectors.

More about the story: The studio has partnered with 1337 Ventures, a Malaysia-based business accelerator, to launch a four-week pre-accelerator programme. It will be open to 25 startups initially, which will then go on to build a minimum viable product (MVP) and commercially partner with FWD.

Compass India acquires majority stake in SmartQ

The story: Compass Group India, a provider of contract food and support services, has acquired a majority stake in SmartQ, a B2B foodtech
and aggregator platform.

The objective: To integrate and deploy Smart Q’s automated cafeteria management services for its clients.

About SmartQ: Launched in 2014, SmartQ provides services such as automated billing kiosks, centralised billing system, NFC prepaid cards, Point-of-Sale software to companies.

More about the story: Compass India will utilise SmartQ’s technology solutions such as a mobile app for food ordering at the workplace, self-ordering kiosks, cashier-less cafeteria, and PoS solutions, to transform the way people interact with on-site restaurants.

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Image Credit: Big Idea Ventures

 

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IP intelligence company PatSnap lands US$300mn Series E, becomes unicorn; Lead investors are SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Tencent Investment; Founder and CEO Jeffrey Tiong said in an interview he wants to expand into Japan, where spending on research and development lags only the US and China. More here

Deep-dive
Talent attraction strategy focused only on incentives isn’t enough to drive candidates’ interest: Ninja Van; Imran Bustamam, Regional Head (HR) says flexible work hours, external training courses for staff development and pantry benefits are not enough; Employees today have much higher expectations when it comes to what a “good” employer should offer in terms of the employee. More here

‘Want VC funding? Your startup needs to be valued at least US$700mn in 10 years’: Jeffrey Paine; The founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures says about 40-50% of the 52 B2C firms in SEA with US$200mn+ valuation are overvalued, which will cause them some trouble in the next two-three years. More here

Commentary
Sea should stick to its core businesses, especially gaming; To grow its business and profitability, it might be a better idea for Sea to focus on developing another in-house game along the lines of its highly-successful Free Fire, along with continuing to steer its e-commerce and digital finance business to profitability. More here

Golden Gate-backed ALAMI acquires Sharia-compliant rural bank: Report; The deal will provide BPRS Cempaka Al-Amin with the fresh capital to comply with new rules set out by the Indonesian Financial Services Authority; In Jan, ALAMI raised US$20mn+ co-led by AC Ventures and Golden Gate. More here

Investible aims to raise US$38mn fund targeting early-stage startups in SEA, Australia; It has also appointed Rod Bristow, previously CEO of publicly-listed Clime Investment Management, as its new CEO; The fund’s inaugural fund has made over 32 investments, including Mosaic Solutions in the Philippines and Eden Farm in Indonesia. More here

Indonesia’s cross-border shipping solutions firm Andalin raises Series A from Sembrani Nusantara Fund; This is SNF’s third deal after its investments into Indonesian drink brand Haus! and local D2C shoe startup Brodo; Andalin claims it saw demand for its services spike in 2020, with shipment volume increasing by 5x and average revenue per client rising by 450% y-o-y. More here

ESB, Indonesia’s answer to Toast, bags US$3M in Beenext-led Series A round; ESB offers a cloud-based mobile ordering system that syncs up automatically with restaurants’ POS system, kitchen management system and ERP; Within six months of launching, ESB claims to have generated over 20 million annual orders for its customers. More here

‘Zombeast’ parent Storms to take its hyper-casual games to Indonesia, Africa with Series A financing; Investors are EDB New Ventures, Singtel’s founding investors — AIS (Thailand) and SK Telecom (S Korea); Storms is a joint venture between Singtel, SK Telecom and AIS that operates as a publisher for gamers and people who want to create games. More here

Bali, Batam climb up digital competitiveness index (DCI) in Indonesia as up-and-coming tech hubs: Report; In its latest Digital Competitiveness Index, East Ventures stated the country’s DCI increased from 27.9 in 2020 to 32 in 2021; This indicated a more even distribution of opportunities in provinces across the country, particular between top- and middle-tier provinces. More here

ShuttleOne launches Tezos-based lending, remittance platform for SMEs; The Singaporean fintech company uses blockchain to help informal workers remit money at a lower transfer fee and in a more transparent manner; It also helps SMEs connect with licensed money service providers and provides real-time settlement of cross-border money transfer services. More here

A look at Shopee’s key milestones as it rose to become SEA’s top e-commerce player; Besides purely shopping, Shopee also has various in-app entertainment options, such as live-streaming function ‘Shopee Live’, and interactive game show ‘Shopee Quiz’. According to Statista, Shopee saw approximately 14.1mn online visitors in Q4 2020; In 2017, Sea’s e-commerce registered a revenue of US$18mn; By 2019, it had ballooned nearly 50-fold to US$840mn. More here

Indonesian fintech API provider Brick bags seed funding; Investors include Better Tomorrow Ventures, PT Prasetia Dwidharma, 1982 Ventures, and Antler; The company will use the funds to launch new APIs for telcos, mobile wallets, e-commerce platforms and payment initiation products. More here

Singapore first to roll out AI programme for non-techies; A collaboration between Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and a multinational corporation and technology company launched AI programmes intended for the youth and the non-techies to further educate them on AI technology. More here

Baidu-backed iQIYI enters JV with G.H.Y Culture to boost SEA presence; iQIYI is a Chinese video-streaming giant whereas G.H.Y Culture & Media is an entertainment and content provider; iQIYI will tap on G.H.Y’s expertise in the production and promotion of dramas, films and concerts in APAC. More here

ADB Ventures debuts with investments in India’s Euler Motors, Smart Joules; Euler is an EV manufacturer and fleet operator focused on last-mile commercial logistics in India and SEA; Smart Joules provides energy efficiency-as-a-service for large hospitals and commercial buildings. More here

ComfortDelGro to invest US$37mn in clean energy tech over next 5 years; It also inked an MoU with the NUS to invest about US$7.4mn in a mobility-focused laboratory called the CDG-NUS Smart & Sustainable Mobility Living Lab; In addition, the company will also seek to set aside another US$29.7mn to replace its fleet of diesel buses with electric buses. More here

Amazon partners with Singapore’s Sunseap to export clean energy; The project is expected to generate 80K megawatt hours of clean energy annually, which is enough to power over 10K homes in the city-state; The project is set to be completed in 2022 and will supply renewable energy for the US giant’s offices, fulfilment centres, and AWS data centres. More here

Temasek leads US$50mn round of Chinese logistics startup Duckbill; It provides container trucking transportation services, international freight forwarding, and warehousing services by using big data and AI; The company claims to have served up to 6K firms to date and transported 700K containers by 2020. More here

Zilliqa’s ecosystem growth arm injects US$5mn to support 15 promising startups; This investment will be funnelled through two new initiatives in the ZILHive ecosystem — ZILHive Incubator and ZILHive Ventures; These two initiatives serve to supplement the US$5mn already previously committed to grants, accelerator, and education initiatives in 2018. More here

Branding lessons from a first-time startup employee caught up in a pandemic; With the global pandemic forcing almost every economy into lockdown, operational resiliency and brand communications became paramount; This was true both internally (for employees and inventors) and externally (for partners, customers and the wider market). More here

How no-code platforms are providing a boost to the real estate industry; No-code offers development platforms and tools to create new applications without the need for a single line of code; These platforms use a combination of drag and drop graphical interfaces and templates to enable non-IT professionals to create and optimise an application. More here

Story of my life: What I learned while building my SME financing startup; Across ASEAN, the SME bank loan-to-GDP ratio varies between four to 20%; Therefore, this has resulted in a multi-billion dollar funding gap for SMEs, which presents a huge lending opportunity in the region. More here

How the gig economy is empowering women in Vietnam; Undoubtedly, food delivery is one of the most popular gig jobs; As more people are forced to stay indoors, on-demand food delivery has become a lifeline for people to purchase necessities from their homes’ comfort; A spokesperson at Loship shares that the number of new female drivers signing up for its platform even more than double in the past year, particularly when COVID-19 took a heavy toll on Vietnamese women’s income. More here

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Image Credit: Sea

 

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Brick, an Indonesia-based fintech API provider, has secured seed funding from a slew of investors, including US-based Better Tomorrow Ventures and PT Prasetia Dwidharma.

1982 Ventures, Antler and San Francisco-headquartered Rally Cap Ventures, besides notable angels such as executives of Aspire, Carousell and Modalku, also participated.

Brick will use the funds to scale its platform, increase coverage and expand to markets within Southeast Asia. The company also plans to launch new APIs for telcos, mobile wallets, e-commerce platforms and payment initiation products.

Launched in 2020 by Gavin Tan (CEO) and Deepak Malhotra (CTO), Brick’s fintech APIs allow users of client companies to connect their financial accounts and access different financial services. The company claims it is compatible with more than 90 per cent of “adult bank accounts” in Indonesia and is currently working with more than 250 developers hailing from 35 tech companies.

“We experienced first-hand the lack of modern infrastructure needed to deliver fintech experiences that customers are demanding. That is why we started Brick to power the next generation of fintech companies with easy to implement, cost-effective, and inclusive fintech infrastructure,” said Tan.

Also Read: Why banks will benefit from open API

“We are still in the early stages of fintech innovation in Southeast Asia and it cannot exist without good data infrastructure. Tech companies in Southeast Asia still do not have easy access to financial APIs. We’ve seen first-hand the fintech innovations that are enabled by creating financial APIs and are excited to back Brick, our first SEA investment,” shared Sheel Mohnot, General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures.

“For fintech companies, time-to-market is a very important aspect of their product launches. Brick will allow Indonesian fintech companies to launch their core products faster. We believe that Brick will lower the barrier of entry into fintech, and thus it will contribute to the growth of fintech companies in Indonesia,” said Arya Setiadharma, CEO of PT Prasetia Dwidharma.

Brick noted the high demand, coupled with strong regulatory support from Indonesia’s regulators, makes Indonesia an ideal market for its services. Central bank, Bank Indonesia, released a set of open banking API standards in 2020, paving the way for the adoption of embedded finance.

The company is also part of BRI Ventures’s Sembrani Wira accelerator programme, where it will work with the bank to co-create “innovative and inclusive” fintech infrastructure.

“With digital banking on the rise, we see open banking and API partnership as keys to succeed in the digital world. We believe this is just the beginning, and we look forward to future collaborations with Brick,” commented Markus Rahardja, Head of Sembrani and VP of Investment & BD at BRI Ventures.

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Image Credit: Brick

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ADB Ventures, the impact venture arm of the Manila-headquartered Asian Development Bank, has announced its maiden investments in two Indian startups.

The investments in the startups — Euler Motors and Smart Joules — are part of ADB Ventures’s gameplan to back early-stage tech companies that solve development challenges in emerging Asia and the Pacific, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2018, Euler Motors is an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer and fleet operator focused on last-mile commercial logistics, which aims to accelerate India’s and Southeast Asia’s transition to sustainable mobility. It has raised US$9.4 million in Series A round, which also saw participation from Blume Ventures, Inventus Venture Partners and other investors.

Euler Motors will use the funding to launch its new three-wheeler cargo vehicle this year and plans to expand across India.

Smart Joules, founded in 2014, is an energy efficiency-as-a-service company that claims to deliver savings of up to 40 per cent on energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions for hospitals and commercial buildings.

It has raised US$4.1 million in a Series A round led by Sangam (VC firm) and ADB Ventures. Other backers include Max I. Limited (conglomerate of Max Group) and unnamed angel investors.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Grab weighs US IPO through SPAC merger; After Grab, gojek invests in LinkAja; Ryde plans for SGX IPO

Smart Joules intends to use the funding to strengthen its management team, enhance its digital technology platform, expand its presence across hospitals and scale its cooling-as-a-service offering for commercial buildings and industries.

“ADB Ventures will spur high-impact cleantech, agritech, fintech, and healthtech innovations in developing Asia with its ecosystem building. Our vision is to crowd-in US$1 billion of commercial investment towards the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” ADB Vice President Ashok Lavasa said.

Additionally, ADB Ventures Equity Fund has announced it has received US$60 million in funding commitments from Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Government of the Republic of Korea, Climate Investment Fund’s Clean Technology Fund, and the Nordic Development Fund.

The fund will largely focus on climate and gender impact in South and Southeast Asia.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

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Malaysia-based Jocom International Holdings, which runs a grocery mobile app, announced today that it has raises approximately SGD5.6 million (US$4.1 million via listing part of its share capital on Singapore’s first regulated private securities exchange, 1exchange (1X).

The company will use the financing to enhance its technology and expand its presence into markets like West Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Jocom has already started making inroads in China, channeling sales of Malaysian products to Chinese consumers.

The 1X’s second cross-border listing, as well as the third private securities exchange listing of its kind in Singapore.

1X is part of CapBridge Financial, and is backed by Singapore Exchange, SGInnovate, South Korea’s Hanwha Investment and Securities Co, Hong Kong’s Cyberport Macro Fund and AMTD Digital.

Founded in 2015, Jocom is an online grocery app that operates via its subsidiaries Jocom MShopping and Jocom Ethirty seven.

What makes Jocom different from other online grocery store apps is that it has full control over the entire order journey of its customers, from purchase and fulfilment to the delivery fleet and storage facilities.

Since its inception, the company claims to have built a sizeable base of three million users, 500 vendors and 15,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs).

Also Read: Dropezy bags funding from Taurus Ventures, Kopi Kenangan to scale its next-day grocery delivery service in Indonesia

Additionally, Jocom has expressed in a press statement that it has generated approximately US$40 million in sales revenue between 2015 and 2020.

According to the firm, the COVID-19 pandemic was a boon as it claims to have increased its sales by 30 per cent year-on-year.

“Our outperformance during Malaysia’s Movement Control Order at the height of the pandemic has proven our resilience and relevance as an essential, mobile-enabled business and we believe this is an opportune time to launch an overhaul of our own platform. Funding aside, our new status as a listee on a private securities exchange backed by the SGX will also expose Jocom to a new pool of investors and enhance its positioning for more business opportunities in the future,” Jocom founder Joshua Sew said.

According to Datareportal, since 2015, Malaysia’s e-commerce market has tripled in size to over US$3 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US$11 billion in 2025.

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Image Credit: Jocom

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The story: Malaysia-based car e-commerce platform Carsome has appointed Mei Han as the CEO of its B2C arm Carsome Certified.

The new role: As the CEO, Mei will focus on integrating and elevating consumer experience both online and offline by riding on Carsome’s product, tech and data capabilities.

Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng commented that Mei’s appointment is crucial in Carsome’s bigger vision of expanding Carsome Certified in Southeast Asia. This arises from the company’s focus on vertical expansion from the consumer-to-business (C2B) to a B2C model in 2021, as part of Carsome’s “natural growth progression”.

His background: Prior to his current appointment, Mei was the Director of Platform Strategy in Carsome, responsible for product development and business intelligence.

What is Carsome: Launched in August last year, Carsome provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and used car dealers, from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing. The company currently transacts an annualised 70,000 cars totalling US$600 million in transacted value and has more than 1,000 employees.

Also Read: Carsome snags US$30M Series D to strengthen its C2B and B2C offerings

Lendlease announces two key hires

The story: Lendlease, an Australian property and investment group with a presence in Southeast Asia, has appointed Richard Kuppusamy as Head of Lendlease Digital (Asia).

Preetham Nadig has been appointed as VP Engineering of the digital unit and Head of Lendlease’s Singapore Product Development Centre.

The roles: Kuppusamy will oversee the leadership, management and performance of the digital business unit for the region, whereas Nadig will be responsible for driving Lendlease Podium’s product technology roadmap and the development of digital solutions for the built environment.

India’s solar analytics startup Prescinto raises US$3.5M seed

Investors: Venture Catalysts (lead), Mumbai Angels, Lets Venture and Inflection Point Ventures.

What is Prescinto: It is an IIOT and AI-powered clean energy SaaS platform that claims to increase solar power plant generation by 5 per cent.

Its AI identifies the root causes of the plant’s underperformance in real-time and helps in reducing costs of operation and maintenance. With an aim to increase clean energy without additional investment, the startup identifies and reduces the losses in the plant. This resulted in a return of 20X-50X for solar asset owners and operators in the first year itself.

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Image Credit: Carsome

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