Beenext, others invest US$1.4M in India’s online climate school Terra.do

The story: Terra.do, an online school for climate change, has raised US$1.4 million, according to YourStory.

Investors: Beenext’s Emerging Asia Fund (EAF), Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs (lead), Zerodha-backed Rainmatter Capital, undisclosed angel investors

What is Terra.do?

A startup that selects individuals who care about climate change, and takes them through a 12-week boot camp to work on high-impact climate projects.

India’s Flipkart launches consumer tech-focused accelerator programme

The story: India’s e-commerce company Flipkart has announced the launch of its accelerator programme, Flipkart Leap, specifically focussed at idea-stage startups in the consumer internet technology sector, according to Economic Times.

More details: Shortlisted startups will receive an equity-free grant of US$25,000 along with a 16-week mentorship from Flipkart’s leadership from business, operations, product, and technology.

Entry requirements: Applicants should be based out of India and have a working prototype

Traveloka clears close to US$100M in travel booking refunds after pandemic hit

The story: Indonesia’s travel unicorn Traveloka has cleared up to US$100 million travel refund requests after the pandemic, according to TechInAsia.

The firm recently raised US$250 million in fresh funding from an undisclosed investor along with EV Growth.

In another interview with e27 Andhini Putri, Head of Marketing, Transport said that the company has already seen a demand for travel and staycation from countries that have ended their lockdown. Even though the industry is far from total recovery, revival is slowly crawling up.

Also Read: In brief: EDBI invests in Vesta; edutech startup ACKTEC raises funding

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Image Credit: Beenext

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SEA’s blockchain-based zero-commission ride-hailing firm TADA raises US$5M led by Korea’s Central; TADA plans to distribute and sell about 10K electric auto-rickshaws, E-TukTuk, in Cambodia by 2021; TADA says that over 81K drivers, 550K+ users have used its service in Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. e27

SEA to see 310M digital consumers by end-2020; This means ~70% of the population that are 15 years old and older will go digital by end-2020, and the average online spending per person will triple from 2019 to US$429 in 2025; SEA’s e-commerce GMV grew 23% per year between 2018 and 2020, faster than China, India and the US during the period. DealStreetAsia

Thai agro-industrial conglomerate CP Group to buy HK e-commerce startup Chilindo for US$18M; The acquisition by its digital arm, Ascend Commerce, will complement its online shopping WeMall platform and develop Thailand’s digital economy; WeMall competes with Lazada, Shopee and JD Central. Reuters

How COVID-19 will pave the way for deeper tech cooperation between LatAM, SEA; LatAM has much to gain from the technological know-how of SEA; The similar population sizes, economic realities, and rapid increase in internet penetration rates underscore the adaptability of digital solutions across both regions. e27

Is construction tech the next big thing in SEA?; Construction tech startups can improve productivity, diminish delays and secure safety; It is genuinely benefiting the construction sector in areas such as field productivity, collaborations and back-office management. Tech Collective

Singapore, Australia sign digital economy agreement; They have agreed to set new rules to prevent unnecessary restrictions on the transfer and location of data, improved protection for software source code, and ensure compatibility between e-invoicing and e-payment frameworks. Open Gov

After the pandemic, higher education can’t afford to go back to ‘normal’; Simply delivering curricular materials online doesn’t constitute real innovation; Unfortunately, the “sage on the stage’ from before the coronavirus has now become the “sage on the computer screen”. EdSurge

COVID-19 and the rise of live commerce in SEA; By using a combination of live-streamed mini TV shows, competitions and product demonstrations, companies such as Lazada, Shopee and Tokopedia can boost their sales and make the whole shopping experience more interactive. Tech Collective

Singapore’s proptech platform Ohmyhome to set up operations in Philippines; It provides a hybrid model of a DIY platform and full-fledged agency services; The platform has 175K+ active users, 15+ listings of real estate properties to date; Ohmyhome has raised US$2.9M from Golden Equator and K3 Ventures. Malaya Business Insight

How startups can benefit from early investment in tech; Early investment in tech with a strong vision for the future means you are more likely to make the right decisions for the long term; It will also help to avoid mistakes that limit growth and to eliminate wastage. e27

Cybersecurity threats on the rise as companies shift to the WFH model; Those working from home don’t have the bolstered security of an office environment, as most home networks usually have weaker protocols; Google reported that more than 18M phishing emails were sent through in April. e27

Why a pandemic is a good time to experiment and innovate on behalf of your customers; Most people don’t want to buy product A or service B, but rather solve a problem using product A or service B; The sale happens when the customer feels the perceived value of the solution is higher than the price he will have to pay for the product or service. e27

Kay Mok Ku of Gobi Partners thinks VCs will become like influencers in a post-pandemic world; In his view, a new concept or a big market are both important; A new concept for a small market will not attract VC funding; a big market with an existing concept has no defensive moat so VCs will be concerned. e27

Smart pitches ‘real’ 5G network for Filipino businesses; The mobile operator formally announced the activation of its commercial 5G service on July 30, with the initial phase of deployment in key business districts of Metro Manila; The firm claims it has the country’s most extensive fibre network footprint at over 307K kilometers. NewsBytes.ph

China’s WeWork rival Ucommune withdraws US$100M US IPO, eyes backdoor listing; Beijing-based Ucommune is under increased pressure to shore up investors’ confidence in its loss-making biz; There are also growing concerns ignited by WeWork’s IPO fiasco in 2019 and the more recent accounting scandal of Luckin Coffee. DealStreetAsia

How are the co-working spaces doing during the pandemic?; The industry is undergoing a fundamental shift with greater focus on ensuring safety and wellbeing of employees and guests; The WeWork spaces have been modified with staggered seating and buffer zones to help members maintain a healthy physical distance. KrAsia

Renewable energy and the new normal in Indonesia; One of the types of energy that can be cultivated and become the most prospective business fields in the future is solar photovoltaic and wind; The 2 businesses were able to restore the level of confidence in energy investment, which according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) fell 20% in 2020. OpenGov

Vietnam startup Computer Vision Vietnam (CVC) eKYC receives US$500K investment from NextTech Group, Next100.tech fund; CVS eKYC offers AI to recognise face and characters, detecting invalid papers and faces to provide a complete and fully automated eKYC solution. Vietnam News

3 Indonesian startups selected for Google Accelerator; Hacktiv8, Kata.ai, Riliv will undergo the 3-month online programme for high potential seed to series A tech startups; They will join 12 other startups that were chosen from 600 companies proposed from SEA. The Jakarta Post

OVO claims it’s now Indonesia’s largest fintech ecosystem; The Lippo-backed startup first joined the e-money boom in 2017 and later expanded to P2P lending, investment, insurance, multifinance; Lippo has 600,000 merchants, of which 550,000 are MSMEs. Jakarta Globe

How tech can transform your employee experience; In the future, the success of workplace analytics will be determined by its ability to impact the humans running the business and employee productivity, rather than real estate or its footprint. Human Resources Director

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Image Credit: 123rf.com

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Last month, we announced the launching of Perks, a feature of e27 Pro that gives members access to a highly curated basket of services and products across all sectors to help support their company growth. This collection of Perks is made available exclusively through e27 Pro, offered in partnership with different companies that cater to various business needs.

From software solutions to healthcare benefits, our curated basket of services and products are designed strategically to aid startups across the spectrum to achieve their respective business goals.

We recently talked about our initial list of Perks on e27, and trust and believe that we are only getting started! As part of our commitment to empowering the ecosystem as best as we can, the e27 team and its partners are gearing for bigger and more exciting things as the year continues to unfold.

Also read: 5 ways to build startup resilience and avoid failure

Since then, we have added a few more Perks to the list that our members could browse through. These additional Perks will ensure that e27 Pro members get to maximise their membership and optimise their businesses toward larger and further growth.

With these added benefits, we’ve been receiving glowing reviews from Pro members. Alex Tay, Founder of ZeusX Gaming, said “the perks from AWS and Hubspot are fantastic. More than made up the membership cost on their own.”

AWS Activate and Hubspot are only two of our partner companies offering Perks that collectively render over $10,000 worth of savings for member companies who use them. We push this ceiling further by adding more Perks and partner companies to the list.

As such, we’re happy to announce that you can now view the most up-to-date list of Perks on the e27 website. You can do this simply by going to the homepage and clicking the Perks button on the top page navigation bar. Or you can simply click here.

How does the official Perks page work?

All our Perks partners are featured in the Perks page where you can see a snapshot of the exclusive discounts and freebies they are offering to members. Simply click on the card of any Perk to expand its details and to claim it.

You will have to be logged in to your Pro account to claim these Perks. Note that each Perk would have their own terms, which are all indicated in each individual information card. This will ensure that Pro members are fully briefed before they can access the corresponding Perk they are interested in.

Also read: ZeusX to bring mobile gaming to the next level in 2020

Over the next few months, we plan to take e27 Perks beyond just software. Our team is currently hard at work to curate a variety of exciting new Perks categories for Pro members to choose from! With choices ranging from hardware solutions to even travel essentials, the Perks page is gearing up for exciting new things and is sure to spice things up for all e27 Pro members.

Check back soon to find out about other exciting developments!

Join e27 Pro

If you want to enjoy these exclusive Perks available only with Pro, be a part of the Pro community and sign up for an e27 Pro membership today! You may visit here for more details.

Stay tuned to find out what other Perks we have in store!

The post Navigate through our collection of Perks in this exciting e27 Pro update appeared first on e27.

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving unprecedented interest into ESG investing, for reasons including business risk preparedness, portfolio diversification, protecting local communities, and more. Companies that can play life-saving roles in natural disasters and directly strengthen the resilience of communities may stand to benefit.

We already see technology being used to track, trace and reduce COVID-19’s impact. In broader natural disasters, companies are coming up with innovative Disaster Tech or “D-Tech” solutions. These can vary from Google’s early flood warning system in India and the Red Cross’s disaster notification and first aid app, to startups such as One Concern, an AI platform for predicting earthquakes and floods, and Field Ready, a manufacturing company that specialises in 3D printing kits of essential medical devices deployed in refugee camps.

Venture capitalists see the opportunity for D-Tech

VCs acknowledge the need for D-Tech, especially in today’s environment.

Puja Bharwani, Director of Antler, commented that “D-Tech is an important vertical and it is one where corporations, governments, technologists and entrepreneurs have to work together to ensure the proposed solution has the desired impact given the scale at which it needs to be implemented.” Antler is a global early-stage venture capital firm with offices in twelve cities across six continents. Founded in Singapore in 2017, Antler aims to fundamentally improve the world by enabling and investing in the world’s most exceptional people.

With growing investor demand for ESG investments — assets have grown 14% annually from 2014 to reach US$31 trillion in 2018 – D-Tech offers opportunities to support profitable, high growth business, while providing sustainable social and environmental benefits.

Dominic Mellor, Senior Investment Specialist at ADB Ventures, added that “D-Tech has a role to play alongside technologies for planning and managing infrastructure, making local economies more diverse and resilient, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

Asia Pacific accounts for almost half of the world’s natural disasters. China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the top four natural disaster-prone countries in Asia, are expected to lose $380 billion each year between 2016 and 2030 as a result of natural disasters. D-Tech provides a way to reduce this impact.

Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures (KVI), a corporate venture capital firm with a focus on the Philippines and the greater Southeast Asian region, commented that “KVI has an active focus on emerging markets, which are prone to disasters. A number of invested companies have clear, immediate usefulness in disaster situations.”

Bit Santos, Portfolio Operations Director of KVI, added that developing markets like the Philippines and others in Southeast Asia offer “opportunities for startups to address fundamental problems” such as those posed by natural disasters. Examples include engageSpark, which supports messaging services in areas of poor data reception; and AIAH’s KIRA, a chatbot that shares information and automates health checks.

These are just a few of the many great initiatives spearheaded by startups that can help turn the tide for affected communities in times of disaster, and whom VCs can help support and supplement with necessary resources.

Solving industry problems

Like any venture, D-Tech companies need to pass VC’s business viability tests, while also facing challenges specific to the field of disaster resilience: slow cash flow, lack of patient capital, and the need for community sensitivity.

“D-Tech firms are particularly vulnerable to funding and cash flow problems as a result of their relatively long sales cycles”, Mellor explained. “By their nature, the positive impact of D-Tech firms cannot be immediately felt until after a catastrophe has happened. Clients may therefore feel they are not getting immediate results”. Navarrete added that “firms will also have to contend with the delicate nature of private companies selling services at a time of crisis, which could naturally create a negative impression of profiting from a disaster”.

To help D-Tech start-ups grow, VCs can play a significant role by acting as connective bridges with the government and established institutions. Furthermore, the backing of a reputable VC can provide much-needed credibility to early-stage start-ups.

“For Antler, we work with various stakeholders and entities in the tech ecosystem to ensure startups get all they need — a similar ecosystem approach needs to be taken for D-Tech as well,” said Bharwani.

ADB Ventures, KVI, and Antler noted that startups within their portfolios will gain access to important operational networks across governments, municipalities, large corporates, and even non-governmental organizations. Startups may also gain added advantages specific to their VC’s firms, such as ADB’s reputational advantage, access to Antler’s global alumni and advisory network, or introductions to large corporate networks that Kickstart Ventures is connected to (such as Globe Telecom and Ayala Corporation).

Also read: Disaster Tech innovation is key in mitigating the impact of natural disasters

Prudence Foundation supports D-Tech growth

As the community investment arm of Prudential in Asia and Africa, Prudence Foundation leverages Prudential plc’s long term commitment and geographical scale to make communities safer, more secure and more resilient, by addressing key issues in education, health and safety.

Over the years, Prudence Foundation has worked to improve disaster resilience, most recently through the Safe Steps D-Tech Awards which aims to find, fund and support innovative technology solutions which save lives before, during and after natural disasters.

Donald Kanak, Chairman of Prudence Foundation stated “We wanted to see more focus on applying technology to making disasters less disastrous”.

The D-Tech Awards has partners in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, including e27, Antler, National Geographic, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), among others.

“It is through partnerships between the private sector, governmental and non-governmental organizations that real impact and inroads can be made,” said Marc Fancy, Prudence Foundation’s Executive Director.

Through the competition, startups are invited to pitch their solutions to a panel of judges — including VCs — for the chance to win grants from a pool of US$150,000. Finalists will also benefit from expert coaching and networking opportunities. Both for-profits and not-for-profits are welcome to apply and will be judged separately. Applications for the next round will open in November 2020.

Prudence Foundation, in partnership with e27, will be hosting two private working sessions on D-Tech on 27th and 28th August and encourages VCs to offer their advice and insight into growing D-Tech startups. If you are interested to participate in the conversation, please kindly answer this survey.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Prudence Foundation.

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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“To provide a platform for the provision of banking services to the unbanked…” – this could be literally an abstract picked by the great majority of 2017 fintech pitch decks, promising to change once and forever the problem of the unbanked population, by adopting blockchain technology. 

Three years later, with the majority of blockchain infrastructure platforms being stable, scalable, secure, and proving their value proposition, the number of projects solving real-world problems in that domain are only very limited and geographically restricted.

Most startups have already wiped out, despite raising big venture rounds, either from institutional capital or retail investors.

It’s worth mentioning, that banking the unbanked by using the blockchain technology, has not been just a push from the blockchain startup community, but also inspired by international organisations such as the World Bank. 

Deloitte’s report Can blockchain accelerate financial inclusion globally? reports, organisations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have launched several initiatives to extend the access to financial services for the unbanked and underbanked, while the United Nations and its member states have indicated financial inclusion as a pivotal enabler for many of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Also Read: How Blockchain is disrupting the traditional finance industry

The unbanked population by its great majority resides in developing countries. Seven countries have almost half of the world’s unbanked population:

• China: 13 per cent
• India: 11 per cent
• Indonesia: 6 per cent
• Pakistan: 6 per cent
• Nigeria: 4 per cent
• Mexico:  per cent
• Bangladesh: per cent

Nevertheless, programmes and real-world change are far too slow, while blockchain has played only a limited role to ‘bank the unbanked’.

On the other side, we see some geographical areas, that blockchain companies are slowly becoming an integral part of the economy, by replacing the slow and expensive financial ecosystem. 

Startups that have failed to materialise

Humaniq, a blockchain startup, which has raised more than US$5 million from almost 12,000 retail investors with crowdfunding, aiming to offer financial services to eradicate poverty amongst millions of people living in the emerging economies, seems that is has failed to build any traction. The latest published reports date back to 2018, while both online communities and social media look barely active. 

BitSpark, which was founded in 2014 and raised more than US$700,000, has pioneered the first cross border cryptocurrency remittance. The Bitspark web and mobile app platform enabled individuals and businesses to join the Bitspark network as ‘Cash point’ agents facilitating the exchange of cryptocurrencies and cash on behalf of their customers. Bitspark closed its doors as of March 4, failing to prove it’s value to the market. 

PundiX, an Indonesian fintech company that was launched two years ago with a US$34 million ICO and an ambitious plan to equip thousands of retailers with crypto POS terminals, according to Decrypt’s has failed to materialise into real-world traction. It seems that the company has never managed to build the PoS devices. 

The list of failed startups is very long, though we have selected only a few to present, with different backgrounds and stories. 

Also Read: The battle between private and public blockchains

On the other side, there are a handful of projects, which are currently noticing increased adoption, even though this adoption might be geographically limited. Understanding a specific market, and dominating it, before expanding is necessary to grow a product. 

Latin America

Dash, one of the older digital currencies, which was forked from the Bitcoin protocol and is operated by a decentralised autonomous organisation run by a subset of its users, which are called “masternodes”, has slowly re-organised and currently dominating as a scalable digital payments infrastructure.

Their value proposition as outlined in the website is that you can move Dash in a second for less than a cent: any amount, any time, anywhere. 

Dash usage in Venezuela is on the rise, with notable partnerships such as with Burger King. Dash Text also allows people who don’t have smartphones to send and receive the cryptocurrency by SMS. Cell phone penetration is extremely high in Venezuela, with around 85 per cent of the population owning a mobile phone.

According to the Q1 report, commercial payments using Dash grew 104 per cent for Q1, helped by a number of partnerships in the Latin American region. This growth has been spurred by several partnerships in Latin American countries, notably in Venezuela and Brazil.

Southeast Asia

Created by an established payments processing company called Omise, OmiseGo seeks to use the OMG cryptocurrency to streamline how electronic wallets to issue and exchange assets. 

Also Read: XanPool launches platform to enable P2P transactions from local currency to cryptocurrency in SEA

The idea is that digital payments today mostly occur within single payment platforms like Venmo or Alipay, meaning money can’t move easily from one platform to the other. The vision, then, is that payment networks like Omise could leverage OmiseGo to trade assets on behalf of users, sourcing liquidity for trades and facilitating transfers on a blockchain that serves as a real-time market for assets in all participating networks.

Besides McDonald’s, Omise has attracted a host of big-name clients in Thailand, such as  King Power, the duty-free retail monopoly, and True Corp., the country’s second-largest mobile carrier.

India and Indonesia

After Binance US-dollar stable coin BUSD, Harmony has launched a fully audited and fiat-backed stable coin with Indonesia’s Rupiah Token. Rupiah tokens on Harmony will enable real-time settlement for cross-border payments.

Launching an Indonesian fiat-backed stable coin builds upon Harmony’s cross-border payments strategy, allowing local fintech and remittance companies to leverage these stable coins for global payments. These stable coins are fully-regulated and have fiat on/off-ramp support through digital asset exchanges and local partners.

The Rupiah Token stable coin, is part of Harmony’s MoneyHome project, enabling instant low-fee P2P remittances, with a geographical focus on exchange corridors of Indian and Indonesian remittance markets.

The Silicon-valley project has built notable partnerships in the region with Binance, CoinDCX, WazirX, and Tokocrypto to materialise it’s scope. 

Also Read: Roundup: Ryde launches cryptocurrency wallet; Techstars-EG partnership to drive more investment into APAC

Africa

Kamix is a commission-free money transfer application between Europe and Cameroon. The app is multi-purposed to better serve Africans and their diaspora as it features fully integrated mobile money, messaging and marketplace modules designed by Africans, for proud Africans.

With the ambition of its promoters, the Kamix application targets nearly 25 million users and 18% of the money transfer market in Cameroon by 2022.

Summarising what it has worked, and what didn’t, we can see that startups which have achieved small, but important milestones, had a great understanding of the local market, and the geography, while starting with baby steps.

Region-agnostic protocols, or generic products, have failed to structure a product that could be used. There are 100s more startups using crypto to offer banking services, though the market might fail to materialise due to expensive fiat gateways.

Crypto to fiat providers such as MoonPay, SimpleX, and Transak are charging expensive fees (more than 3 per cent) which is not viable for the emerging countries.

Crypto startups, need local partners, which will constitute fiat gateways, and ramp-on/ ramp-off solutions competitive to compete with legacy banking systems.

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Being stuck at home for most of the year so far has been challenging, and with a new surge coming we are likely to be self-isolating for a while longer.

Physical activity is crucial during this time if for nothing else than to give us something to do other than sit around and wait for a vaccine.

Work/life balance is crucial right now and any emerging technology that gives people safer options for social and physical interactions is going to become a booming industry.

Social media has been a lifeline for getting people connected to each other for virtual exercise classes, but what if technology could take working out at home to a new level?

Extended reality (XR) is one of the solutions that could get people back to playing real sports again but on a virtual scale. XR includes technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality, and when applied to play sports it also includes real sports equipment and sensors to simulate real gameplay.

When these technologies are used for sports, people can be safely socially distanced from each other while also experiencing the competition of realistic gameplay.

Networks are used to link players together from different locations, and competition can be achieved through virtual means, complete with leaderboards and tournaments.

Being able to play recreational games is crucial for work/life balance, which is out of balance for everyone right now. We need social interaction to be good at our jobs, and extended reality is one of the emerging technologies that can safely provide that.

Can extended reality help bring people together socially while satisfying their need for competitive sports interactions during the pandemic? This emerging technology is poised to become one of the business opportunities of the future spurred on by the pandemic.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Thailand’s fleet intelligence solutions startup DRVR close to raising US$450K funding

Learn more about the future of virtual sports from the infographic below.

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Register for our next webinar: Meet the VC: Gobi Partners

Register now: What is corporate venture building and why this is the right time to look at capturing venture opportunities across South-east Asia.

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: Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

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Mobile gaming is emerging as the prime pastime for a record number of consumers. With the onset of social distancing rules, more people than ever are using their downtime to discover new games, or binge on favorites. In a single week in March 2020, users globally downloaded a whopping 1.2 billion mobile games — amounting to the biggest week ever for app installs.

Leading this surge is gaming’s fastest growing category: hyper casual. These bitesize pieces of content have taken the industry by storm, allowing players who might not even identify as gamers to idle away a few minutes here and there. With simplistic yet satisfying mechanics, their accessibility and ease of understanding not only gives them broad appeal but allows developers to make them quickly, see what sticks and then scale the marketing once they’ve found a hit.

But a spike in the market in 1Q 2020 may not be indicative of an industry trend. Hyper casuals had dominated download charts long before COVID-19 (representing 78% of the most downloaded new games of 2019), and the category is poised to grow and evolve, with more titles adopting a ‘hybrid casual’ model.

The rise of hyper casual gaming is broken down in Adjust’s latest report, created in partnership with Unity. The report benchmarks hyper casual performance both pre- and post-install, while also giving marketers new to the genre a primer on what these apps are all about.

Also read: How this entrepreneur is stepping up the game for gaming tech e-commerce

How COVID-19 affected hyper casual gaming apps

The global pandemic has upended societies and economies everywhere, but what has been the impact on hyper casual gaming? Our first look suggests that the COVID-19 has significantly contributed to driving more users to the genre. Cumulative install and session data for six countries from Adjust reveals how stay-at-home orders have increased interest in hyper casuals throughout the pandemic.

For the period December 2019 to March 2020, installs more than doubled (103%) globally and as installs rose, sessions ballooned to match. Compared to December 2019, which had already exceeded one billion sessions, hyper casual sessions increased a further 72% in March. An examination of the ratio of paid vs. organic installs show the opposite dynamic as the number of apps installed from paid advertising declined 26% from 80% in October 2019 to 59% in March 2020. Ironically, organics come out the winner, showing that people stuck at home are more willing to browse and experiment.

The challenge going forward will be sustainability and growth prospects for the hyper casual genre after social distancing eases. Will new users continue to flock toward the genre? And will the broader trend of growing ad inventory be reversed as the overall economy picks up, allowing key metrics and methods to revert back to their pre-crisis mean? Will margins suffer from this drop? Nothing is for certain, but it does appear as though the business model of hyper casuals is here to stay. This will no doubt have implications for mobile marketers from other verticals, as the overall trend toward optimization and automation takes hold.

For more insights into the rise of hyper casual gaming and the effects of COVID-19 on the industry, download Adjust’s hyper casual gaming report 2020 here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Adjust.

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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It is 2020 but the fighting of the LGBTQ community continues the world over.  Take any industry, the community is still grossly underrepresented. Tech industry is no different either; their overall condition is yet to progress into a more inclusive nature.

As our recent oped pointed out, the startup ecosystem — even in places such as Silicon Valley — is yet to achieve LGBTQ inclusion. If this can happen in a country where its previous government had shown support for this community, just imagine the plight of the community in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, where religions and traditional beliefs are often mixed and sway one’s judgment.

The domino effect

e27 got a chance to talk to Jay Lin, a gay entrepreneur based in Taiwan whose company Portico Media is focussing on LGBTQ-inclusive contents. Lin was one of the headliners of Startup Impact Summit’s “LGBTI – Why it matters for Impact and Sustainability” session.

Lin grew up in Taiwan before moving to the US when he was 10 years old. He then pursued higher education in a law school in the Bay Area, where he realised that storytelling in a media platform is something that is very akin to his inner passion.

“I started Portico Media in 2004, so it’s been around for 15 to 16 years, with the initial core mission to provide more channels to virtual cable operators. To do so, we partnered with big media companies in the US such as NBC Comcast, Viacom and linear TV channels in Taiwan,” Lin recalled.

In 2009, Taiwan was making a transition from analogue to digital. “So starting around 2014, with the company being more financially stable, I decided that I needed to use the influence that I had at that time in the industry to produce and distribute the content that focussed on LGBT programmes. I think there was a big disconnect between what was available then and what was being produced out here in Southeast Asia or Asia. And also in the West,” he said.

And so being in Taiwan, Lin felt like this was something that he could give back to his community first.

“Given that I’m also a part of the LGBTQ community, I can do something about it — but not to an extent where I could jeopardise the financial security of my company. So I started by doing a film festival — a once-a-year event — by bringing in different movies from around the world that I thought were meaningful, impactful or entertaining,” Lin said.

The festivals took off and was distributed in many major cities in the country. Its success motivated Lin to start the first LGBT movie streaming service in Asia, called GagaOOLala, in 2017.

The challenge with Asia

According to Lin, Southeast Asia is one of the most complicated and diverse territories in the world with 12 countries and different languages, historical backgrounds, cultures, religions and different layers of nuances that the company needs to figure out for themselves.

“We also need to account for how all these countries are at different stages of economic development as well as internet stability. We definitely entered from the get-go into one of the most challenging markets in the world. But given that it was so challenging and complicated, the learning curve was definitely very steep. And sooner or later, we found out that there were certain priority markets that we had to focus on,” Lin shared.

Lin added it is now clearer that markets such as the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are the firm’s key territories. “We don’t need to focus on certain territories where too much advertising or too much buzz can create the opposite effect, attracting too much attention from people who are anti-gay.”

How to become an ally

With ‘Pride Month’, or LGBT History Month, coming to an end in July, we’ve seen many big companies struggling and succeeding in showing what an allyship to LGBTQ community should be like.

“I think we need to start with two layers — one layer is like internal openness to be accepting and embracing people from a different nationality, gender, sexual orientation and religion. I think those kinds of environments are the ones that a startup can thrive in. Because if you are able to create things that are catered to people from different backgrounds and those who have different experiences, they can share with you how to fine-tune or improve like the service or products,” he said.

Lin emphasises that inclusion should be a culture in a tech startup.

“I think in doing so, the employees of that organisation are going to feel vested in the growth of the company and to feel like they are truly a part of the company. And as employees, the sense of belonging will make them work that much harder for the company to succeed,” he said.

“Begin with an open mind and open hearts, because that’s when great ideas, management and leadership can come forth,” he added. “Bear in mind that gay people are or people as well, they’re underrepresented. We have preferences, whereby if you just switch and select the service or part just a little bit, I think you could have a huge impact as a startup.”

Opportunity, not exploitation

As it is still regarded as a highly sensitive matter for some countries in Asia, Southeast Asia in particular, tech startups mostly choose to remain mum on the matter. Next to none of them are participating in any LGBTQ rights campaign, nor are they showing a clear stance from the get-go.

This, to a certain extent, can be seen as a safer move made by most tech startups to avoid ruffling the feathers, especially in countries where there’s no real validation for LGBTQ community’s existence.

On this, Lin shared: “If you genuinely feel like this is something that is underrepresented and underserved and what you offer is ultimately a great service that can enhance the wellness of the LGBT community, I think a lot more products, services and technologies can succeed because right now a lot of people in different parts of the world who are a part of community are still closeted or unwilling to disclose their true identity. But they certainly do have those preferences and they do have those needs.”

Using GagaOOLala as an example, Lin said: “We have been getting subscribers and members from the most intolerant, the most horrific countries in terms of treatment of LGBTQ community. So, it proves that gays are everywhere and also have a need similar to everybody else, which in our case is to consume content that they can thoroughly identify and enjoy.”

A world where having two dads is acceptable

With the media products such as HahaTai, Drama Queen, GagaTai, LalaTai, GagaOOLala, and GOL STUDIOS, it seems like there’s nothing stopping Lin with his mission through Portico Media.

Lin admitted that his fight is not without reason because he is, in fact, is a dad of boys.

“I feel like a sense of responsibility as someone that got them into this world, into a great family, to do all that I can to make sure that I put them in a friendly and loving environment. I hope to embolden them with virtues and strength to fight off all the possible discrimination or the ignorance, as well as potential bullying that they’re going to face in the future. If their daddy can be the great barrier to pave the way for them, maybe with them and also a whole generation of younger LGBTQ, including themselves, can have a better life in the future,” he concluded.
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Today, you may try to ignore new technology in your personal life but that’s not an option in business. If you want your startup to succeed in today’s technology-driven business environment, being luddite isn’t going to help.

Investment in the right technology and its adaption can offer an edge over the other competitors in the industry. Let’s try to understand where to start with technology and how it can benefit startups.

Start with people

When a team works in silos, they may not understand the importance of using a new application that will help the company’s overall business.

However, if the team understands the big picture of the business and its vision for the future, they will easily comprehend and support the invested technological advances.

My advice is to get buy-in from every level. Once you see that the new technology has the potential to save time and drive innovation, next you need is to sell that vision to your team who will use the technology daily.

Lean workforce

Every business has operations that are repetitive and tedium. Adopting technology that can automate certain tasks - such as the influx of support tickets, workflow for escalation process to avoid bottlenecks, invoice processing and payment reminder to your customers; these are just a few examples that can allow your team to do higher-value work that brings more value to the business and also allow an individual to be more engaged in their jobs.

On a fundamental level, automation tools like BPA can equip your staff with the skills and mindset to spot inefficiencies and address them with technological solutions.

Also Read: Top 5 promising media tech startups to look out for in 2020

Your team will be able to process more complex problems quickly and communicate effectively which will allow your team to have the maximum impact on output by applying minimum energy on input.

Use data to drive results

Many of the startups fail because nobody needed the products those startups were offering. Smart startups first scrabble into an in-depth market analysis where they learn about their target audience and pain points.

They create metrics using data and perform extensive research to know if the solution can potentially meet customer needs, startups should create a Minimal Viable Product that captures their idea and bring it into the market as quickly as possible.

That’s how a startup can validate the potential of their project and gain feedback from users to make their products or services even better.

Don’t stop after a rollout. You should try to gain momentum with each implementation instead of letting another solution become stagnant before starting the process over again. Measure user impact metrics, ROI, and other meaningful interactions, and then use that information to make the business offering better with the help of technology.

If we take an example of a game startup company, right after the rollout of a new game. It is critical to know how a player is making progress to the next level which could mean a lot of things such as levelling up, completing quests, completing missions, or completing milestones.

Scaling up

Early investment in tech with a strong vision for the future means you are more likely to make the right decisions for the long term. It will also help to avoid mistakes that limit growth and to eliminate wastage.

Also Read: For COMEUP 2020, the post-pandemic future will be led by startups

Without the right technology to support your startup, you may end up in a situation called premature scaling. Problems start when the owners begin to focus on one area of their operation and advance it without proper synchronization with other parts of their operations.

This is normal because as an Owner you may not be able to keep track of everything unless you have a technology that allows you to see important details in a dashboard for better synchronization and decision making.

Technology can accomplish incredible things, if only it’s implemented in your business to tailor-fit your needs. The latest technology trends can make your job easier and give you an edge in the modern and evolving game in business.

Keep up with what’s hot in your industry and make the effort to integrate the technology that’s the best fit for your business. The tech industry has many exciting prospects to offer for startups with unique business propositions and solid products and services.

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COVID-19 has changed our daily lives, and we are in the process of creating a new normal. With governments around the world encouraging people to stay at home, there is a corresponding surge in online, cashless transactions.

For instance, Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Bank recently shared that the volume of cash deposits and withdrawals have plunged 11 per cent in the first three months of this year, as compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the volume of cashless transactions has nearly doubled during the same period. Some 100,000 customers have transacted online for the very first time, of which 30 per cent were above the age of 50 years.

Other Singapore banks such as UOB saw online grocery shopping growing 44 per cent in Q1 2020 as compared to 2019, and OCBC Bank saw customer spends rising by up to 50 per cent on food deliveries apps, online video as well as on music streaming services including Netflix and Spotify.

With more and more transactions moving online, it serves as an ideal breeding ground for money laundering and criminal activity, including around illicit activities such as human trafficking, arms trafficking, and illegal trade. Prior to COVID-19, the annual cost of financial crime to the economy in Asia Pacific was estimated to be at US$166 billion, according to the 2018 Thomson Reuters True Cost of Financial Crime report.

The damage could range even higher, per the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime 2018 estimates which pegged the amount of money laundered each year is equal to two to five per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), roughly between US$800 billion and US$2 trillion.

Also Read: Top posts from e27 contributors to help you prepare for the new normal

In order to adhere to the new normal, regulators and banks are working together to meet the increasing demand for virtual and mobile payment solutions, however, it is not without friction. Money laundering-related activities are becoming more far-reaching, complex, and sophisticated, with regulators seeing the need to improvise stricter compliance requirements.

But the need to keep up to speed with the ever-changing rules now seems a challenge to some banks and Financial Institutions (FIs), with some already suffering major setbacks to their compliance programmes.

In Australia, its second-biggest bank Westpac has 23 million alleged breaches of AML laws and has set aside AU$900 million (US$586 million) to cover various fines and penalties. Similarly, Swiss regulators hit Julius Baer with a number of sanctions as a fall out from its own money laundering incident.

The Industrial Bank of Korea was recently fined US$35 million to resolve criminal charges against its AML program, which made it possible to funnel large sums of money.

Since 2008, regulatory fines imposed on FIs around compliance lapses stood at over US$300 billion; and this is expected to surge due to the growing complexity of compliance regulations.

Different monetary authorities in Asia are taking action to help reduce the impact of financial crime. For example, The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) offered guidance to assist authorities with their Anti Money Laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing risk management practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also Read: 4 ways the banking sector can respond to the digital transformation

In Singapore, The Monetary Authority (MAS) reassured that it will adjust selected regulatory requirements and supervisory programmes to enable financial institutions to focus on dealing with issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside providing monetary support amidst the crisis.

The global standard-setter for combating money laundering, the Financial Task Action Force (FATF), is encouraging governments across the world to work with financial institutions and other businesses to use the flexibility built into the FATF’s risk-based approach to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 whilst remaining alert to new and emerging illicit finance risks.

Some banks today are still relying heavily on manual efforts for their AML compliance. Rules-based applications produce 95 per cent false alerts, creating huge backlogs and massive ageing of alerts. With legacy systems, the costs of managing the process to read, analyse, and implement the changes in operations will only increase over time.

To align with the changing regulations, banks and FIs are opening up new digital onboarding capabilities for any type of banking services. Some banks are working with regulatory technology companies (regtech) to tap on technologies such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to assist their internal teams and better manage compliance risk.

The algorithms created can be used to identify risky customers, accounts or transactions and file timely reports with regulators while minimising operational costs with significantly reduced false positives. By doing so, FIs can focus their efforts more on their core business and build a sustainable compliance framework within the company.

With COVID-19, one can expect thousands more online transactions a day, but banks cannot afford to miss monitoring any transaction, especially dirty money. That is the reason, automation with the help of regtechs, helps keep money launderers at bay capturing unsolicited activities that could be easily missed by humans.

Also Read: Rise of marketplace banking: Is anyone winning?

2020 is a year of ‘new normals’ and everyone has their part to play in helping the economy recover. Digital transformation is no longer new but more relevant than ever when change is happening faster than expected.

There is a need for banks and FIs to quickly pivot and consider the risks and challenges created by these rapid and radical environmental and regulatory changes to ensure uninterrupted operations even during difficult times like today.

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