Singapore-registered Hi-So Co., which runs a food delivery and online shopping platform for restaurant foods, groceries and daily necessities in Myanmar, has bagged a new round of equity investment from a clutch of investors based in Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.

As many as seven investors participated in the round, including Kotaro Tamura, an Asia Fellow at the Milken Institute and a former Senator of Japan.

The fresh investment, which was closed in October 2020, takes place almost 10 months after Hi-So announced a “six-digit funding” from several unnamed individual investors in January.

Also Read: Setting new rules for the food delivery industry in a post-pandemic world

“Unfortunately, the details of the amount raised in this round cannot be disclosed. We just want to mention that this is our second funding this year and we look to continue our growth,” Kenta Takada, Founder and CEO of
Hi-So, told e27.

“We will utilise the funds to carry out various marketing activities and app renovations to further increase the number of users and partner stores,” he added.

Launched in October 2019 by Takada, originally from Japan, Hi-So allows users to order any items from its Hi-So Mall app (available on iOS and Android). Users can also place orders through its website, over the phone, or Facebook.

Hi- So was originally conceived in December 2018 as an on-demand delivery service using bicycles. It added a product purchasing function to its service in October 2019.

Since the launch of the food delivery and online shopping service, the firm claims the number of its monthly deliveries has grown by two-digit on a average. Currently, there are more than 1,200 partner stores on the Hi-So app.

Takada added that since its launch, it has steadily expanded the number of users and partner stores.

Hi-So’s service is currently available only in Yangon, and it plans to expand into other regions in the future.

The company is primarily competing with Yangon Door 2 Door and Food2U in the food delivery sector in Myanmar.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

According to Takada, COVID-19 made a huge impact on Myanmar society, and many people are still forced to stay home. “In this situation, as an essential service provider of food, dietary and household products delivery, we have supported the livelihoods of many people affected by the pandemic,” noted Takada.

“Although there is no sign of the end of the COVID-19 crisis, we will continue to provide services that will enrich the lives of people in Myanmar and contribute to the development of Myanmar through the expansion of our business,” he shared.

Hi-So Co. is a spin-off of Hi-So Mall, an e-commerce platform owned by Myanmar’s Htun Khaing International, which was also founded by Takada.

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Image Credit: Hi-So

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The art of salesmanship is the absence of salesmanship I have heard time and again. The truth is that if you really believe you can help your customer, you are poised to become a superb sales or business person by establishing yourself as a problem-solver, rather than just a person trying to sell something. Now is perhaps the time to test this.

If there is one function that has been fairly challenged due to the pandemic, it is sales. A recent global Saleshacker report of sales workforce reveals that a majority of respondents are closing approximately 30 per cent lower deals due to the pandemic.

The fuelling pump behind any business, the sales teams, have typically relied heavily on the face to face meetings, industry conferences, and customer site visits for engaging clients and prospects. But due to the trend of remote work, business managers are rethinking the way they are doing new business and adopting virtual platforms instead.

Broadly, COVID-19 has pushed the world to adopt remote working protocols especially the traditional industries. Even though video conferencing and instant messaging are allowing for business continuity, mental fatigue has crept in and several challenges have emerged.

Developing trust and a working relationship has always been an important part of kicking off any new business engagement. Mostly the executives have depended on physical interactions or face to face meetings to develop a camaraderie.

Considering social distancing will be here to stay for a long time and the fact that there is no playbook to do new business in the current times, business managers are now trying to figure out how to attract business interest in the remote age.

Also Read: Nektar.ai raises US$2.15M to build a sales collaboration platform for B2B firms

There needs to be a way to foster a stronger bond at the very beginning of the conversations. Physical meetings coupled with digital outreach shall create a hybrid sales model that will set the course for the future.

Closer to home just like the rest of the world, the sales bell hasn’t been ringing enough and continues to lack momentum. The country’s open and trade-dependent economy has been hit hard following lockdown measures around the world aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Recently, Singapore’s government allocated another S$8 billion (US$5.8 billion) to support the economy that has come under pressure from the coronavirus pandemic.

Singapore retail sales fell 8.5 per cent in July as COVID-19 continues to pummel certain sectors. While the retail, travel, and hospitality sectors have suffered heavily owing to coronavirus induced restrictions, the technology companies are able to sell virtually. Despite this, it has been a challenging time, especially for the B2B sector.

They are having to devise outreach programmes that replace their traditional methods to keep their sales pipeline running. What intensifies the problem is the fact that the prospects have been postponing decision-making and adopting a wait-and-watch approach.

Thereby, a key question facing decision-makers in Singapore and beyond is how to sell successfully during the current crisis and as we head towards the road to recovery?

There have been cheerleaders for a remote selling model. According to Deloitte, the shift towards virtual sales will not only safeguard short term revenues and profit but also move companies beyond flattening the curve and enable long-term profitable growth.

Also Read: Sell a vision and not a product

Here are some easily digestible and applicable tips:

You need a clear plan of action

If you do not have a vision of where you want to go and how chances of getting there are minute. You need concrete points for planning and realistic targets to be able to overcome the tide. Expect a decrease in conversions and longer sales cycles. It is a tough game so ensure you drive your team’s motivation and commitment.

Looking inwards will help

Generally, there are two main ways of increasing the pipeline – generating new leads from external sources, and secondly, scouting for them internally within your existing company connections. When external opportunities dwindle as would likely be the case during these times, one key direction is looking inwards and executing a lead/opportunity revival campaign. To do this you need to digitise, centralise and visualise your past connections, be it business cards or referrals, analyse this data to chart categories, work closely with marketing teams for targeted nurture campaigns, and drive thought leadership and education through tools like webinars.

Virtual events and tools will set you up for the future

Virtual exhibitions with augmented reality have been grabbing a lot of eyeballs lately. In the circumstance that people cannot touch, feel, or experience the product or service physically, virtual reality experiences are helping companies keep their audience engaged through an alternate channel of interactivity. Creating such experiences for your customers can add a wow factor to your brand. As business professionals continue to adapt to video conferences, virtual exhibitions, and other digital ways of interacting, they are also adopting new-age networking tools like virtual business cards. QR code scanning is not only being used for safe entry check-ins in Singapore but also as a means of exchanging contact details during webinars. In this virtual age, foresee backup plans and shift to a phone call in case there are unanticipated connectivity problems, have pre-recorded demos, and extra communication lines.

Have the right mindset to sell remotely

Your existing customers expect you to reach out and be there for them during these tough times. Likewise, for new sales prospects, there might be requirements that you are able to satisfy remotely, thereby this needs to become the new reality. The trick is to get comfortable selling virtually. If your sales teams are awkward in their sales pitches and do not showcase confidence, your potential customers would be awkward and less trusting too. You need to keep your team and yourself at the forefront of your prospects/leads’ minds.

Raise the online profiles of sales and customer success teams

With everyone going online in these times, how do you further stand out in the digital crowd? You need a stronger digital profile. The key is to strengthen your voice when you sell. Salespeople should be visible in relevant platforms and online communities where your target market would likely be looking. To get validation of how a salesperson is doing, he or she can run the LinkedIn Social Selling Index tool to learn about their score which is measured out of 100. Beyond LinkedIn, make sure you are visible on other web platforms.

Be close to the salesforce and intensify the drumbeat

Are you organising monthly sales meetings? Make them weekly. Are you having weekly 1-on-1s with your sales reps? Turn them into short daily check-ins. Everybody will be outside of their comfort zone, so as a sales or business manager, you will have to act as a coach now more than ever.

Also Read: iSeller secures Series A from Mandiri, Openspace to expand its omni-channel sales SaaS platform

As we move forward, face-to-face interactions will be a mainstay of many industries in which there is often a costly and lengthy selling process. Even the Zoom CEO has been recently quoted as saying that the future of work is a hybrid model, not a completely remote one since that would be unsustainable.

The business executives must strive to liberate themselves from the pandemic’s trap, the key for which lies within cloud adoption and digital engagement. It is important to remember that the investors will be watching out for companies that are retooling their sales efforts to meet the COVID-19 challenges.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash

The post The only guide to being a remote-friendly salesman every startup needs appeared first on e27.

Maarten Hemmes describes himself as an entrepreneur, investor, lawyer, and startup advisor. Hemmers brought over 10 years of experience in building businesses from the ground up in Europe, the US, and Asia, and now settles in Singapore focussing on running HH investments VC, an HH family office’s VC arm.

Upon his arrival in Singapore in 2014, Hemmes founded a logistics SaaS company CarPal. “Looking back, I was actively running CarPal where we raised S$4.5 million (US$3.3 million) from local investors and along the way started to invest myself with HH in early stage ventures. Now, HH is my main focus. We have invested in Southeast Asian companies such as Oddle, Drive lah, and WhyQ,” Hemmers explains.

With HH Investments, Hemmes adds that the VC is currently working on setting up a Growth Fund in Singapore. “The goal is to provide follow-on funding for the startups that we first funded in the Seed or Pre-Series A-stages. So we have been tracking these companies for several years and want to make sure that we can give them the (financial) backing that they need,” he says.

Infusing history into opinions

With his vast experience in the region’s tech and startup scene, writing and contributing his thoughts about the region becomes a natural extension of his journey.

One of the mediums where he writes to reach out to readers of the region is with e27’s contributor platform. “I typically write opinion pieces with a slight historical angle. For e27, I have been writing mainly about the lessons learned in the startup ecosystem from the perspective of an investor,” says Hemmes.

The lesson learned is where Hemmes like to focus in his writings, which is also shown in his writing titled: “The architect, the sunbird or the integrator: What kind of entrepreneur are you?”. Here, Hemmes also emphasises the historical background of protectionism and open society, and the kind of leadership needed to answer the challenges of the time.

Also Read: The architect, the sunbird or the integrator: What kind of entrepreneur are you?

A way to broaden exposure

Through his contributions to e27, Hemmes admits that he added a lot of new relations to his network as people found him and HH through the platform.

“I think contributing to e27 is a great way for me to broaden my exposure. And it’s a good exposure for HH Investments as well,” he elaborates.

As the Contributor Programme believes that each thought shared are a form of thought leadership exercise, Hemmes also weighs in on that.

“I think writing helps me in becoming a thought leader by refining it, which then leads to the next topic or better or faster execution. I’m not afraid to throw my opinion out there, even though I know I might need to refine my conclusions,” he points out.

All about the journey

Furthermore, on what makes a thought leader, Hemmes highlights the ability to cover the thinking and execution.

“To me, it’s the process of shaping a thesis and execution strategy within a certain field while sharing it (the process) with others. The end goal is important (as it brings focus) but it shouldn’t be about ‘look it did this, or I did that’,” he says

“For me, I want people to understand the journey and not so much the end result. By the time I personally get close to the goal I probably start to lose interest and have to challenge myself with a new goal. This is what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years or so,” he continues.

His thinking is translated into how HH Investments draw and advance towards its goal. “Our goal is to support 100 companies in the next 10 years as I always start by setting practical but challenging goals in my (professional) life. From there I work backward and try to solve all the problems I meet along the way,” Hemmes says.

Also Read: Podcast: Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint

“What I usually do is I read about problems and solutions in unrelated fields, find inspiration, and then try to apply them in the field or problem that I’m currently working in,” Hemmes stresses.

Hemmes then continues that it’s crucial to have focus once we set our mind to do something to be able to crack it.“Distraction is the enemy of any thought leader as you will never be able to get to the bottom of a problem and simply end up with a lot of unrefined thoughts and little execution.”

Last but not least, Hemmes encourages having a curious mind, which also applies to aspiring contributors.

“Make sure you write about topics that have a direct relationship with something you are working on in your (personal) life and dare to draw conclusions. Writing about that process is the key to a great article,” he concludes.

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Image Credit: Maarten Hemmes

The post HH Investments VC Founder Maarten Hemmes on why the entrepreneurial journey is more important than the end result appeared first on e27.

Tel Aviv, Seattle … Seoul?

South Korea’s capital — perhaps better known for corporate behemoths such as Samsung and Hyundai– is increasingly brought up in conversations about the world’s most promising startup hubs.

And perhaps it should. Quietly but surely, the bustling East Asian metropolis of 11 million people has built one of the world’s most dynamic startup ecosystems. According to Startup Genome’s authoritative 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, the city placed 20th overall with an ecosystem valued at US$39 billion, nearly quadrupling the global average and early stage funding of US$1 billion.

Startupblink ranked the city 21st overall in 2020, up a staggering nine spots from the previous year.

And Seoul might only be getting started as the city aims to become one of the world’s top five startup hubs, and it’s backing that ambition with over US$ 1.7 billion through 2022.

Seoul has clearly become venture capital pay dirt. But why?

Seoul: where unicorns are born

If there’s a sign that your startup ecosystem has arrived, it’s unicorn production.

As of November 2020, South Korea had no fewer than 12 active unicorns, good enough for sixth worldwide and nearly double that of widely acknowledged tech giant Israel.

The latest company to join the list was ride-sharing company Socar, which achieved unicorn status in October on the back of US$ 52.2 million from local private equity funds SG Private Equity and Songhyun Investment.

Also Read: How South Korean startup Aqua Development is mimicking aquaculture for sustainability

Socar is the first South Korean mobility startup to go unicorn. Previous South Korean companies to achieve unicorn status include e-commerce giant Coupang, the so-called Amazon of South Korea that is valued at US$9 billion; fintech pioneer Viva Republic, the developer of popular P2P mobile payment service Toss; and biotech firm Aprogen, developer of bio-similar products.

Indeed, when you take into consideration former unicorns that have since exited through IPOs or M&A, South Korea has produced an impressive 20 unicorns, a number that compares favourably with any country not named the US or China.

The best-known ex-unicorn is Woowa Brothers, the operators of South Korea’s largest food delivery service Baemin, which was acquired by Berlin-based company Delivery Hero in a blockbuster US$4 billion deal last year.

The Baemin acquisition was a wakeup call to investors, entrepreneurs and journalists worldwide that one ignored Seoul at their own peril. At TechCrunch, Danny Crichton wrote at the time:

“While the country remains dominated by its chaebol tech conglomerates — none more important than Samsung — it’s the country’s startup and culture industries that are driving dynamism in this economy. And with money flooding out of the country’s pension funds into the startup world (both locally and internationally), even more opportunities await entrepreneurs willing to slough off traditional big corporate career paths and take the startup route.”

The second venture boom: letting the money roam free

Driving the rise in unicorn startups – and the growing dynamism of Seoul’s startup scene, more generally – is a much improved financial scene that no longer punishes risk-takers. Describing the bad old days, Andy Salmon writes at the Asia Times:

“Banks customarily lent to giant businesses with plentiful collateral; entrepreneurs who lacked such major assets were forced to take on perilous liabilities, and early-generation Korean venture capital firms were not much better.”

Also Read: South Korea’s thriving startup ecosystem: How “aggressive” VC investment, gender diversity play a role in it

But no longer. Startups now have access to money, both from local VCs and international investors – the latter playing an especially key role in unicorn creation. Even South Korea’s traditional corporate giants such as Samsung have gotten into the act, creating internal incubators to nurture and support promising startups.

Last year, new venture investment in South Korea hit record numbers, posting US$2.3 billion in the first three quarters alone. And those numbers may soon spike even higher on the back of recent regulatory changes that allow major corporations to establish venture capital funds, freeing them to invest in startups directly.

The government takes an active role

In addition to regulatory changes, the government is aggressively cultivating Seoul’s startup scene as well. Startup Genome CEO Jean-Francois Gauthier told TNW earlier this year:

“The national government has multiplied policies to help it grow. Everyone knows that’s important but no one acts as boldly as the national government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government to grow startups right now. The mayor recently announced a massive investment to become top five in the world — a very ambitious goal.”

For starters, Seoul Metropolitan Government has launched a KRW1.9 trillion (about US$1.6 billion) initiative to become one of the world’s top five startup cities. The city is actively helping local startups not only overcome the COVID-19 pandemic but to use it as an opportunity to prosper.

Also Read: How South Korea’s smart city startups curbed the spread of COVID-19

For example, the city is providing US$54 million in support this year to promising startups, including support for labour costs of “10,000 technological professionals” of promising startups.

At the national level, the country has earmarked US$62 billion for a “Digital New Deal” that will revolutionise the information landscape, while programmes such as the Tech Incubator Program for Start-ups (TIPS) make South Korea a rising startup hub according to the World Economic Forum:

“South Korea’s economy is primarily driven by large conglomerates like Samsung and LG, called chaebols, which have acknowledged the importance of startups as a driver of their continued economic success. TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Start-ups), a state-led incubation programme, discovers and nurtures promising start-ups by selectively matching them with government funding. As the government takes no equity and provides these funds without any strings attached, start-ups can aim high without having to worry about potential failure – and this has been a game-changer, especially when considering the risk averseness of South Korean society.”

Meanwhile, South Korea’s highly successful high-tech response to the COVID-19 pandemic is winning global praise. South Korea’s government is pledging to nurture the startup sector as a leader of the country’s post-coronavirus society, and US startups are now looking to South Korea as the country wins its war on COVID.

To be sure, South Korea’s big conglomerates will continue to play an outsized role in the country’s economy. But in Seoul, they no longer will be the only game in town.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: Pixabay

The post Why Seoul is emerging as Asia’s hottest startup hub appeared first on e27.

We, humans, are social creatures. We crave interactions. 

The mirror neurons within our brain allow us to connect unconsciously. For the majority of us, we are most comfortable when we connect and share our emotions. 

Human psychology plays a pivotal role in shaping retail experiences. We have realised that retail experiences do not centre around purchasing goods.

Addressing the need for people to connect when retailing, shopping malls were created in the late 1950s to bring people together.

Amenities such as indoor waterfalls and gardens serve to increase the engagement of shoppers. By enticing them to remain within the mall longer, they are more likely to increase their spending. 

While we have cracked the code for creating an engaging offline shopping experience, its online counterpart is proving a tougher nut to crack within the region.

Popularity of interactive e-commerce in China

However, one does not have to look far for successful examples of the rise in interactive e-commerce.

Also Read: Is China the new global e-commerce leader?

Led by Pinduoduo’s rapid rise since 2015, Chinese e-commerce players have started to embrace the model due to its lower user acquisition costs and high networking effects to grow their customer base.

Pinduoduo claims it has over 731 million active users on its platform. Leveraging on the universal usage of WeChat within the Mainland, the e-commerce giant has been able to incorporate it within its platform to increase engagements between customers.

By introducing gamification elements such as Candy Crush, Pinduoduo further promotes user engagement and interactions to offer customers a different online shopping experience.

“Our interactive features were welcomed by our users. Previously, the e-commerce shopping experience was solitary where the user simply typed in what they wanted into the search bar,” Frank Di, Director of International Corporate Affairs for Pinduoduo, shared in an interview with e27.

Di shared that the company has adopted a push-based model rather than a search-based one where users browse through items rather than search for a specific product.

Why creating an interactive experience is key

Pinduoduo had recognised that games play a pivotal role in improving user experience when one visits its platform. The interactive nature of games increases engagement and entices users to remain on the platform for longer periods.

Also Read: 5 reasons to work interactive video into your marketing strategy

A popular game asks the user to choose a specific tree to water regularly. To supply it with water, users need to buy from the app, share offers or invite their friends to join. When the virtual tree matures, the user wins a box of real fruits from their tree.

Through this, user-app interaction increased and new users are acquired organically through existing customers.

Importance of infrastructure

However, the rise of Pinduoduo and the rapid growth of the e-commerce industry should be attributed to pioneers within the field too, Di remarked.

Spearheaded by Alibaba in 2003, the first wave of e-commerce companies within China led to the development of the appropriate infrastructure to support online commerce.

From logistics networks being set up across the country to online payment solutions, these services form an important cog within the e-commerce industry.

He also shared that rising smartphone penetration within the nation is further fuelling this growth.

According to a Deloitte report in 2018, China ranks first globally in smartphone ownership, with a staggering 96 per cent of the population owning one.

This has led to a shift in the daily behaviours of the population. Gone were the days where computers represented the sole access to the internet.

Today, we have the internet and its capabilities at our fingertips.

The convenience of accessing a smartphone has led to what Di terms, “more fragmented time to browse our phones.”

Citing the example of one browsing through their phone while waiting for the subway, he remarked this was the key behind Pinduoduo’s decision to adopt a push-based model.

User demographics

Much has been discussed about Pinduoduo’s customer demographics and how the majority of their users reside in lower-tier cities in China. However, Di was quick to debunk the myth that Pinduoduo deliberately targets these rural cities.

“Our user distributions merely mirrors the population distribution in China. We want Pinduoduo to benefit all users. Therefore, we serve all kinds of users across China and the majority of them reside in the lower-tier cities,” Di shared.

However, he remarked that there were factors that have led to the favourable growth of interactive e-commerce within these cities.

Firstly, those residing in these lower-tier cities lead a more sedentary lifestyle compared to their Tier 1 counterparts in Beijing or Shanghai. This results in more disposable time for them to browse through e-commerce platforms such as Pinduoduo.

Secondly, the offline options in these rural cities are less desirable than Tier 1 cities. This results in a shift to online commerce as the primary option for purchasing quality goods. 

Influence of live streaming

While numerous e-commerce platforms in the region have introduced live streaming features onto their platforms, Pinduoduo embraces it on a different scale.

For its recent Singles Day shopping event, the e-commerce company partnered with a prominent local television company to host a gala night featuring performances from various Chinese superstars on their platform.

“Our users could watch the gala on the app and at the same time, purchase products on our platform,” Di shared.

 Also Read: 3 considerations to ensure viewer satisfaction with live streaming events

Given the importance of establishing trust within a customer’s retail journey, Di opined that live-streaming will represent the new normal in e-commerce.

“Mainly because of the nature of live-streaming, it’s easier for users to better understand a product. From a merchant perspective, it’s going to help the merchants to build trust with the users,” he said.

Will Southeast Asia be ready?

While the concept of social commerce has been widely adopted by e-commerce firms in Southeast Asia, interactive e-commerce remains nascent within the region.

This can be attributed to the lack of a widely-used social media platform where these interactions can occur. Unlike in China, where over 90 per cent of the population is on WeChat, users within the region have not gravitated towards a dominant social media platform.

This has resulted in e-commerce players facing difficulties integrating platforms within the app to capture the benefits of interactive e-commerce.

Although one can certainly argue that China, with its homogenous demographic and lack of competitors for WeChat, represents an unfair ecosystem for a diverse region like Southeast Asia to emulate, there have been inroads made.

Twitter has emerged as a possible platform to unite the region given its ease of posting short-form content.

Tokopedia utilised the social media platform for its #TokopediaWIB show, which had BTS fans across Indonesia interacting with the boyband through exclusive content and interviews.

According to Twitter’s recently released Global mCommerce 3.0 study, Shopee Live received 120 million views in Indonesia for its live streaming event in April, marking a new record for the brand.

Remarking that the future of e-commerce would centre around interactivity, Di suggested firms should focus on creating an engaging user experience to capture and retain users.

“Most importantly, one needs to focus on the user experience. Users always want to have deals with some element of interactive experience to it. Therefore, gamification features should be released to better serve the needs of the users,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Pinduoduo

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Pickupp, a Hong Kong-based logistics startup, has secured an undisclosed sum in Series A investment from a clutch of investors.

The names include Vision+ Capital, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Cyberport Macro Fund, Swire Properties New Ventures and SparkLabs Taipei.

Pickupp will utilise the funds to accelerate its expansion in Southeast Asia, with an aim to serve 10 major markets within the next five years.

As per a press note, the startup will also seek to diversify its product portfolio and offerings, focusing on the retail and e-commerce industries.

Also Read: In October, logistics tech startups continued to gain investors’ attention as the world struggled through a pandemic

Founded in December 2016, Pickupp began providing customised last-mile delivery services for bulk and ad-hoc deliveries in mid-2017. It has since expanded rapidly and is now operating in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.

Pickupp claims it currently serves more than 50,000 users and businesses across Asia, including companies such as Charles & Keith.

“Pickupp is redefining logistics with a data-driven approach. Our technology, agility, transparency and innovation enable our customers to effectively scale and thrive,” said Crystal Pang, CEO of Pickupp.

The startup further claimed that its flexible delivery services will help retailers optimise their business strategies and enable them to understand the needs of their customer better.

The logistics startup also runs an e-commerce platform and offers free islandwide delivery for businesses listed on it.

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Image Credit: Pickupp

The post Pickupp snags Series A funding to expand last-mile logistics platform in Southeast Asia appeared first on e27.

Singapore- and Malaysia-based fintech company MyCash Online has launched a campaign on equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform pitchIN to raise RM5 million (US$1.2 million).

The money is being raised to increase the company’s paid-up capital to RM5 million, which is mandatory to obtain an eMoney license in Malaysia.

The eMoney license will allow MyCash to operate a wallet for the migrant community. It is planning to offer a Visa prepaid card for them.

Also Read: Is Southeast Asia ready to give birth to interactive e-commerce platforms like Pinduoduo?

“As Malaysia has a significant numbers of unbanked migrant workers, we believe that there will be a huge demand for our wallet and prepaid card. We will also add remittance services to our wallet. For this, we are signing a partnership with a local remittance giant. We are in the midst of getting necessary approval from the central bank of Malaysia,” Co-founder Mehedi Hasan Sumon told e27. 

Asked why MyCash is taking the ECF route to raise the money for paid-up capital, Sumon said the company’s successful track record of raising money through ECF previously and the positive feedback it received from the crowd prompted it to consider it.

“We want to give our previous backers an opportunity to support us to build MyCash together. We are also in talks with a few VCs,” he shared.

Since its raising of a funding round from 500 Startups last year, it lunched its remittance services in Singapore. Sumon said that the firm has already bagged more than 10,000 customers in the city-state.

“During the COVID-19 lockdown, we worked with the Ministry of Manpower and visited foreign workers’ dormitories to help them to send money home,” he added.

In January, MyCash is also opening a physical customer support centre in the Little India in Singapore.

Also Read: (Exclusive) All female-led MadEats ropes in Tinder co-founder as investor to scale its internet food brands in Philippines

He also shared that over the past year, MyCash has grown from being just a mobile marketplace for migrants to a licensed financial institution. It is now fully licensed in Singapore and Australia.

The company now intends to apply for SandBox in Qatar with the help of Qatar Development Bank (QDB).

“We are also now in the middle of registering our entity in Qatar with the help of the Qatar Financial Centre and QDB. We are also part of QDB’s FinTech Accelerator. We hope to start our operations in Kingdom in early 2021 with the Sandbox approval from the Qatar Central Bank,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: MyCash

 

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Today’s guest – James Mayes

Today’s guest is James Mayes, the CEO and co-founder of a company called Mind The Product, and the world’s largest and brightest community of product managers. After 15 years of building high-performance technical teams for banks and startups alike, Mayes decided to found his own startup TweetJobs.

After exiting TweetJobs, he worked with a few great companies to learn more about the world of products. During this time, he found that there were meetups and conferences for CEOs, HR managers, and many other career paths, but nothing existed for product managers. So he embarked on creating a small meetup in the city and people from other companies would gather for a beer and chat about their craft and share stories about their work experience over time. Some of the people from that group decided to band together more seriously and create what is now Mind The Product.

Mind The Product now has five annual conferences, including MTPcon, meetups in over 200 cities and a highly engaged community of over 200,000 product professionals. He is also a jovial British man with such a clean accent that it makes you want to listen carefully to every word he says. So I hope you enjoy hearing from him as much as I do.

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

Let’s give a warm welcome to James Mayes.

Twitter: @James_Mayes
LinkedIn: James Mayes
Website: Mind The Product
Podcast: The Product Experience

You’ll learn

• What it takes to run offline and online events
• How the pandemic is affecting events and how you should adapt
• What does the future of events (and work) look like

Resources

And remember, Entrepreneurship is a Marathon, not a Sprint, so take care of yourself every day, so that you can live and love, and have the energy and the passion to run your business, and to invest in your team, and to find a way to appreciate those moments of happiness.

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

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The fallout from COVID-19 has challenged preconceptions about which industries would be the most resilient during arguably one of the worst health crisis that we have faced in a generation.

According to the joint report by Cisco and Jungle Ventures, healthcare and tech sectors rank as being the winners of the shift caused by the pandemic along with media/entertainment, education, and supply chain/logistics.

Meanwhile, sectors such as travel/hospitality and consumer (retail) have struggled with business losses. Companies in the consumer sectors are also adapting to business models because of the need to adapt as a necessity for survival.

“It will be a very long time before we understand COVID-19’s full repercussions to the global economy and public health. Amidst this uncertainty, however, the way we respond to the pandemic will serve as a litmus test for the resiliency and adaptability of governments, citizens, and enterprises in the long run,” the report stated.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ASEAN went from a projected GDP growth rate of 5.3 per cent in 2020 pre-COVID-19 to a contraction of -0.2 per cent after the pandemic hit. However, by constantly keeping an eye on the current market response to COVID-19, opportunities can be created.

The report also highlights three drivers of mid to long-term momentum which can be significant for businesses to adapt with shifts and capture optimum value.

Also Read: How data can help the global fight against COVID-19

Here are the main takeaways:

Data is the new gold

“If a company has no real-time way of capturing data from users then the company will be left behind,” Naveen Menon, President, Cisco ASEAN said during the media roundtable.

In a world run by the internet, businesses are now seeing the importance of having real-time data to drive their overall strategy and outcomes. As companies adopt off-the-shelf solutions that offer data transparency and visibility, large organisations that have IT budgets are leveraging on the momentum.

From centralised to flexible environments

The boundaries between how people live, work and learn are all blurring creating complexities as well as opportunities for many companies. Therefore, a different way to deploy and use technology is now being required because of the changing working norms.

“Organisations will need to address the operational complexity of managing remote and physical teams at the same time, achieve similar levels of productivity and collaboration, and ensure security in complex and dispersed environments,” the report said.

Increased use of technology

Customers who were previously hesitant or sceptical about online services are now finding themselves to be propelled towards making use of tech.

Service providers can leverage this to grow from their early and niche adopter base to enjoying mass-market penetration.

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Image Credit: Tyler Franta on Unsplash

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AQWIRE, a Philippine proptech startup, announced it has raised US$2.1 million in a Series A financing round, led by Spiral Ventures.

Other notable investors in this round include Singapore-based Gentree, PropertyGuru’s original investor Vulpes, Hong Kong’s Betatron Venture, and Steve Melhuish, Co-founder of PropertyGuru.

The company is also expecting US$2 million in venture loans to be used for float and security deposits.

The fresh funds will go towards expanding their products and enter new markets within the region.

According to the firm, the round was oversubscribed by US$4 million, which the founders declined due to concerns on further dilution.

“We decided to raise less equity as the company has been profitable since 2019, generating US$1.7 million in revenue,” said Ray Refundo, CEO and Founder of AQWIRE.

Also Read: How proptech is set to empower the Southeast Asian property market

Refundo said that AQWIRE is on track to close out the year with a 50 per cent increase in annual revenue and expects it to triple in 2021.

The company claims it is projected to break US$1 billion in yearly gross volume by 2023.

Founded in 2018, AQWIRE enables local developers and brokers to access foreign property investors, including 12 million Filipinos overseas.

The platform partners with overseas listing sites to provide cross-border property listing and management, mortgage loans and payments processing.

“Unlike most proptech which focuses on listing, we are also focusing on mortgage loans and cross-border property management,” Refundo shared.

Some of AQWIRE’s clients include notable developers in Philippines such as Ayala Land, Megaworld and Vista Land.

 

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Image Credit: AQWIRE

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