Constant upheaval is never good for a harmonious environment

Keeping a hold on staff is one of the biggest problems businesses in Singapore face. Research across Asia last year revealed that 46 per cent of the country’s employees expected to leave their jobs within 12 months, the highest predicted turnover across the continent.

As demand for talent grows, the balance of power has changed from the employer to job-seekers in recent years. This means that investing in your workforce can give you a real advantage in developing and maintaining a successful business operation.

Constant upheaval is never good for a harmonious environment, which is why there is such a big global drive to improve employee engagement. Happy staff are more productive, and constant recruitment costs money. It’s a win-win for any organisation.

A recently released study of technology professionals revealed that 38 per cent of employees expected to leave their current job in the coming year, which is a costly and often unnecessary expense, especially for those businesses still in their infancy. Of those who were bracing themselves for a move, 43 per cent admitted they were dissatisfied with their career progression, and 42 per cent revealed they were unhappy with the training and development opportunities on offer to them.

Developing a strategy

When almost half of the employees leaving a job blame the progression options available to them, creating clear development pathways should become a critical part of your company’s strategy going forward.
Even if you have highly qualified members of staff, do you need further investment in their development?

The answer is yes.

Talented individuals will almost always be looking to improve themselves, and a company that encourages and facilitates this will be highly valued as an employer.

In an age where your company will have a greater digital footprint for potential candidates, the importance of a reputation for fostering personal development cannot be underestimated.

It’s important that this plan is focused. Make sure that your training is relevant to the job role, rather than a scattergun approach with day courses that offer little value to the employee. If you are in doubt, speak with departments specifically before committing funds towards training.

If it’s irrelevant to them and done for the sake of ticking a box, it could actually be counter-productive and you may end up with low morale due to the backlog of work created by being away from the office.

Getting better hires

With better personal development available, you can sell your training package to candidates during the hiring process. Make sure you present it as a benefit, as that’s what the best employees see it as. They want to better themselves, and supporting and funding their development will make you stand out.

Employers in Singapore are facing a struggle to attract high potential candidates to the country, as well as keeping that talent, so being able to demonstrate a clear commitment to staff training will help you buck this trend, rather than contributing towards it.

Ultimately, there are many factors that will affect your staff’s morale. Remuneration will always figure prominently, but as a start-up, your resources will be finite. You can’t necessarily compete with larger companies in terms of pay, so it’s important to think about how you can outmanoeuvre them.

Looking at employee reviews of companies online provides a fascinating insight into how a workforce value their own development path. Criticism is often levelled at larger companies about how poor their training is, and how little room there is for progression, so start-ups have a great opportunity to raise that bar and mark themselves out against bigger businesses in the war for the best talent.

Also Read: South Korean media company invests in streaming service iflix

Focusing on your employees’ training and allowing them to develop won’t just make them happier, but it’ll make them more productive, which makes them more valuable to you. Most importantly, though, when they know that you are willing to support them while they improve themselves, they’re also more likely to stay with you in the long term.

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In its most basic sense, an IEO is a crowdfunding campaign whereby the onus is on the exchange to run most of the sale

In the current market climate, with BTC going up to $5500~ in April, it’s worth taking stock of some real numbers and how exchanges are leveraging on them for that coveted billion or unicorn status.

This is obviously not meant to be investment advice, I give better in person investment advice to accredited investors, that I can assure you.

Initial exchange offerings, otherwise known as IEOs, are the latest talk of town. In its most basic sense, an IEO is a crowdfunding campaign whereby the onus is on the exchange to run most of the sale.

While the model is not new, projects such as Top Network on Huobi Prime has attracted even a food delivery staff to open up his laptop at work to grab a coveted allocation.

With IEOs on Binance selling out in minutes and each user only getting a small allocation, is this really worth it?

Peeling back the covers, different stakeholders perceive the value of IEOs differently.

For projects

It is a great mechanism for fund raising up to US$10 million. The awareness and combined push with exchanges help projects get noticed by a larger user base, often existing exchange users.

After the conclusion of the IEO, project tokens will be open for trading nearly immediately on the exchange. This grants more predictability to the process and projects need not negotiate with each exchange after their own token offering.

The time that projects save can perhaps be put forth to other work such as development and partnerships.

For users

Should they manage to get an allocation in the sale, speculators should have high hopes of doing well on the token. Because the projects are curated and fast-tracked to listing, they can also expect faster liquidity and more attention from other parties.

Terms are also spelt out more transparently and they need not worry too much about others getting a better price than them — except the private sale or seed round investors of course. Some users employ automation to help them get their hands on some allocation.

For exchanges

IEO provides an increase in projects that want to get out there for a raise. This provides a great additional revenue stream for listing fees and value added services.

Should users know that they are offering a great IEO, there is incentive for them to be more active users and thus increasing their site engagement. Trading volumes for their exchange and whichever token they require to be used for purchase will increase as well. As many exchange have their own exchange tokens, this will be beneficial to exchange token holders.

There were many IEOs that were completed this year. Starting with BitTorrent token on Binance, many exchanges have started jumping onboard the IEO train.

Most of the main Asian-affiliated exchanges like OKEx, Huobi, Coineal, Bibox have jumped into the fray in response to the three projects conducted on Binance Launchpad.

Of the conducted IEOs, while the majority of them have hit their funding targets, there are many that have not. This tends to be projects with much less awareness on exchanges with relatively lower user traction.

They also could be projects that have not raised sufficient private sale investment prior to the IEO.

While some of the projects have raised previous rounds, there is also a readjustment to pre-sale investor lock ups that comes as terms with certain IEO listings.

Some of the upcoming projects are Matic Network on Binance Launchpad, DREP on Gate.io, Duo Network on Bitmax and Ocean Protocol on Bittrex.

The accepted contribution are usually a mix of USDT or exchange platform tokens. the models of contribution have also evolved from first-come, first-served to a ballot model.

Since it is an exchange promotional activity, the exchanges have the right to set the rules of engagement and users have to evaluate for themselves if it’s worth the effort.

Despite many of the tokens receiving huge interest and multiplying in dollar value by up to 10 times from the IEO price, we can see that trading volumes and prices decline after the initial listing.

Overall prices and attention trail down for most of these projects over the following span of 30–60 days after their IEO. The snapshot is taken of the first few well known projects conducted on Binance Launchpad, Huobi Prime, OKEx Jumpstart and Bittrex.

In the past 90 days, while Bitcoin prices have gone up by close to 30 per cent, the exchange tokens of the top exchanges with IEO platform offerings have received a huge boost.

Many of them are trading at a 90-day all-time-high with BNB even hitting its historical all-time-high. The increase in price of exchange tokens appear to be correlated with the announcement of various events such as IEOs on the platforms.

The combined market capitalization of these exchange tokens are over US$3 billion.

After the rise and fall of ICOs, alternative forms of fundraising have emerged in the blockchains space — and now you are up to date on Initial Exchange Offering strategy.

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Also, Singtel and Go-Jek partners to offer more perks, and Curlec partners with HelloGold to launch new gold investment option

Luckin Coffee files for U.S. IPO, continues its ambition taking on Starbucks [Bloomberg]

Chinese coffee chain startup Luckin Coffee Inc. has filed for U.S. initial public offering and seeks to list on the Nasdaq under the code name LK.

The Beijing-based startup has revealed its plan to raise around US$300 million in the IPO since February. Just last week, the ‘more affordable coffee’ secured US$150 million from BlackRock and other investors at a valuation of US$2.9 billion.

Luckin Coffee first came in scene in June 2017 and has expanded into 2,370 stores in 28 Chinese cities, with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte and China International Capital Corp as its backers.

Singtel and Go-Jek join forces, offer more privileges to its users [Press Release]

Go-Jek and Singtel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a strategic partnership that seeks to offer a variety of benefits to their respective customers and driver- partners. From May 2019, both companies will cross-market their offerings, which comprise mobile, ride-hailing, and lifestyle.

Go-Jek driver-partners who subscribe to a Singtel Combo plan will enjoy data-free usage when using their Go-Jek app, allowing them to save up to 2GB of mobile data a month. As for Singtel’s customers, they can enjoy Singtel’s latest all-digital mobile plan, GOMO (Get Out More Often), will each receive Go-Jek ride-hailing credits worth US$3.68, which can be activated using a unique code.

Also Read: Japanese, Malaysian HRtech company Grooves raises US$3M in funding

The partnership is a part of Go-Jek’s mission to lower the operating costs for its driver-partners and provide them with better earnings stability. It also marks the newest benefit under GoalBetter, Go-Jek’s dedicated benefits programme for driver-partners in Singapore, which currently features insurance, medical teleconsultation, and fuel rebates.

Curlec partners HelloGold to make direct debit payment accessible [Press Release]

Curlec, the recurring payment platform with Direct Debit solutions based in Malaysia, has announced a partnership with HelloGold, fellow Malaysian mobile gold savings platform. Both companies join forces to launch a new SmartSaver Programme.

Through the said program, HelloGold integrated Curlec’s Direct Debit solution to automate their customers’ monthly investments to increase investment efficiency and let customers set their desired savings goal to generate longer-term returns.

Both startups are part of the Supercharger Accelerator Program that drives the development of fintechs in Asia and around the world.

“The partnership with HelloGold is an affirmation of our ongoing commitment to revolutionise the way businesses and consumers approach financial services. The importance of having sufficient savings within a tough economic environment is a key driver as to why HelloGold with Curlec’s Direct Debit payment solution will help Malaysians to easily save gold via a secure and disciplined manner,” said Zac Liew, Co-founder and CEO of Curlec.

AI sales assistant Saleswhale secures US$5.3M funding [e27]

Saleswhale, AI-based sales assistant platform, announced today that it has secured a US$5.3 million Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures., joined by Monk’s Hill Ventures are GREE Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, and Y Combinator.

The company said that it will use the funding to scale and expand its teams in engineering, customer service, sales, and marketing.

The Singapore-based company targets mid-market and large enterprises. Using its proprietary AI technology, Saleswhale describes its service as supporting sales and marketing teams by automating the lead engagement and qualification processes.

Also Read: South Korean media company invests in streaming service iflix

“We believe that AI assistants will become ubiquitous in the near future for global enterprises, as C-suites recognise that automation is essential to scaling. Chief Marketing Officers and Directors today need a scalable and cost-efficient solution that delivers a return on investment, bridges the sales-marketing gap, and supports sales teams in qualifying genuine buyers,” said Saleswhale CEO and Co-Founder Gabriel Lim.
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The company’s funding round was led by Vickers Venture Partners

Chooch.AI, training platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for visual recognition, announced that it has raised a US$2.8 million seed round led by Singapore-based venture capital firm focussed on early-stage investments in Asia and beyond Vickers Venture Partners. The round also includes funding from angel investors.

The company said that it plans to use the fund for market reach expansion and hiring additional engineers to grow the team.

Chooch targets enterprise market with its technology for a visual recognition training platform.

“Chooch’s technology, with its focus on AI training and flexible integrations, means that it can be positioned to be an end-to-end, deep learning visual AI solution, and an alternative visual solution to Google Vision or Amazon Rekognition,” said Vickers Venture Partners Chairman Dr. Finian Tan.

Chooch claimed that it can be a visual expert in any field, from aircraft engine parts to types of human faces, to counting cancer cells as well as in media, e-commerce, security, and medical industries.

Also Read: Lifetrack Medical Systems raises US$5.2M in Series A to bring radiology to remote areas

When a user presents Chooch with images or videos that contain perceptions learned by its neural networks, Chooch works by returning the metadata such as a person’s identity or model of a helicopter through object recognition and facial recognition.

By matching data in its neural network perception library acquired with machine learning, Chooch can be trained to identify features in any media, such as web-based video or images on mobile phones, live drone feeds, and medical imagery. Its API is compatible with a photo or video content from any source such as live streams, apps, web, robots, or drones.

Chooch said that it provides a full suite of computer vision services, from data to predictions. The ROI is immediate because of the increased speed of tagging images for media, e-commerce, and security companies

“We seek to make machine learning for computer vision easy to use and implement at scale to provide competitive advantages to companies who need to implement Visual AI into their processes,” said Emrah Gultekin, CEO of Chooch AI.

Some examples of what Chooch can do include facial recognition training in real time that its clients claimed as helping them to “increase revenue by five times for video advertising and reduce costs by 80 times for tagging of visual data like photojournalism”.
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Lifetrack Medical Systems runs a platform that enable rapid transmission, aggregation, and access of medical images from multiple sites

Singapore-headquartered healthtech startup Lifetrack Medical Systems today announced that it has raised a US$5.2 million Series A funding round led by UOB Venture Management (UOBVM) through its Asia Impact Investment Fund (AIIF).

Global tech giant Philips and existing investor Kickstart Ventures also participated in the funding round.

The startup plans to use the funding to support its international growth and build on its LifeSys medical imaging platform, which enables rapid transmission, aggregation, and access of medical images from multiple sites, including remote rural areas.

It aims to solve the problem of access to medical facility in remote rural areas, particularly radiology, by using off-the-shelf consumer hardware and consumer DSL or 4G.

Traditional radiology software (RIS/PACS) requires expensive server hardware, workstations, and high-speed bandwidth, constraining access to diagnostic imaging in less developed countries.

Also Read: Philippine medtech startup secures Kickstart Ventures funding

Lifestrack Medical Systems CEO and Founder Eric Schulze, MD, PhD, is a practicing radiologist and member of the American Board of Radiology.

In 2003, he co-founded one of the first teleradiology companies in the US, 24/7 Radiology. The company has exited in 2011 to Alliance Imaging.

Schulze then founded Lifetrack Medical Systems shortly after to “completely rethink how radiology software could be architected from the ground up.”

“We started this journey with medical imaging in emerging markets such as the Philippines where needs are greatest, resources are scarcest, and demand for high-quality affordable healthcare is growing because of the rapidly expanding middle class. Our new investors embrace that vision and mission, and we’re excited to move into this next phase with them as our partners,” he explained in a press statement.

Their platform is currently being used in over 10 countries in Asia, North America, Europe, and Africa.

Also Read: ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards 2017 unveils 89 regional finalists

For lead investor UOBVM, the investment into Lifestrack Medical Systems was made through its Asia Impact Investment Fund (AIIF).

With Credit Suisse as its impact advisory partner, the fund aims to support growth companies in Southeast Asia and China that address key social challenges and improve lives in low income communities.

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The Indonesia-based fitness app raises an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Gobi Agung

Fitness studio and classes booking startup DOOgether announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed funding round led by Gobi Agung, as told by DealStreetAsia. Joining in the round are Everhaus, Prasetia Dwidharma, and Cana Asia.

DOOgether said that it plans to use the fresh capital to expand DOOgether’s merchant partnership, work further on its mobile app, and add more professional talents into its growing team.

“We plan to extend our merchant partner to at least 500 sports facilities and accommodate other healthy lifestyle choices into our platform to serve the healthy lifestyle community in Indonesia,” said DOOgether CEO Fauzan Gani.

DOOgether was founded in 2016, and it claims to have partnered with over 200 fitness centre and/or sports facilities with its ‘Exercise Without Limit’ mission across Greater Jakarta, Bandung, and Bali per March 2019. DOOgether allows its consumer to book fitness centre or any other sports facilities within 30 seconds via apps.

Back in its early operation, the company received angel investments by MAHAKA Group Chairman Erick Thohir. Last year, Digiasia Bios founder Alexander Rusli also invested in the company.

Also Read: Grab introduces 4 new services to its core app in Singapore

Its newest lead investor, Gobi Agung, is an Indonesia-focussed fund launched by Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners in 2018. It brought in US$10-million fund to target early-stage startups in Indonesia.

Gobi Agung said it plans to invest up to US$1 million per deal.

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Image Credit: DOOgether

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The Vietnamese blockchain-based startup receives the funding from the MoU signed by SBI Holdings and fellow Vietnamese tech firm FPT Corporation

Blockchain-based startup Utop has received backing from Vietnamese tech firm FPT Corporation and Japanese financial services company SBI Holdings, as reported by TokenPost. Just last week, both companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to invest US$3 million into Utop.

Not only an investor, FPT also provided its enterprise blockchain platform akaChain to be implemented in Utop’s platform.

Utop aims to bridge the loyalty point program among merchants by making it easy for users to collect and redeem loyalty points at retailers within the same network.

Utop believes this approach will help small businesses to grow faster because they are enabled to link their reward programs with each other to reduce costs and ensure data security, as well as enhances customer experiences

“This platform has been tested in FPT’s minimum viable ecosystem as well as sectors such as retail, insurance, and finance since last December,” explained Pham Nguyen Vu, co-founder, and director of Utop.

Also Read: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to approve incentives for startups

FPT claims that its akaChain has been implemented in many countries and across various sectors from finance, insurance, retail, to supply chain.
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The tumultuous bike-sharing startup reportedly had lost its operating licence in Singapore

Due to failure in providing justification on why its licence shouldn’t be revoked, Chinese bike-sharing service ofo has been confirmed to lose its licence to operate in Singapore.

According to The Strait Times, the company’s licence had been terminated for review since February with failures such as failing to implement a QR code-based parking system that would allow its bicycles to be parked only within specific areas.

Since ofo responded to LTA that it was in the “advanced stages of negotiation” to partner another party to resume operations and fulfill the conditions, LTA extended the time for the company until March 28 to meet these requirements.

It received a notice of intention to cancel its licence from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) on April 3.

In the notice, ofo was given up to 14 days to make written representations regarding the decision.
But despite the deadline extension, ofo still failed to comply with regulations.

Also Read: DOOgether secures seed funding to expand fitness merchant partnership

The authority released an official statement on Monday, saying: “As ofo has not provided LTA with sufficient justifications on why its licence should not be canceled, LTA canceled ofo’s bicycle-sharing operating licence on 22 April.

“ofo will not be able to offer dockless bicycle-sharing services in public places in Singapore without this licence.”

Operators without licence can be subjected to jail term of up to six months and/or a fine of up to US$10,000 with a further fine of US$500 for each day violated after conviction.

ofo first came to Singapore in early 2017 and grew to have more than 90,000 fleet. In March 2018, Alibaba invested US$866 million (S$1.17 billion) in the company.

However, towards the end of last year, ofo reportedly experienced cashflow problems to the point that it considered disbanding.

Also Read: Vietnam blockchain startup Utop raises US$3M from two large corporates

Mobike, Anywheel, SG Bike, and industry newcomer Moov Technology are now the remaining bike-sharing operators in Singapore, with Meituan Dianping-owned Mobike soon to pull out of Singapore market to “rationalise” operations in Southeast Asia.
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At Echelon, earn how to build a UX that will significantly help your company’s success

Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! Enter promo code ECHELONFUTURE for free tickets!

Shopback, the Singaporean cashback company, has found enough success over the past couple of years that it is now one of the darling startups in the city-state.

The company incentivises people to shop at certain businesses by providing them with a percentage of cashback on their purchases. For example, when people are travelling, they can usually get a few bucks in cash by using Expedia.

Samantha Soh is a Co-founder of the company and is the woman behind the startup’s UX. She has a long history working in design, having previously worked at Orient Design and Zalora as a graphic designer.

At Echelon Asia Summit 2019, Soh will participate in a fireside chat and break down why UX has been core to the company’s success and how other startups can learn from the experience.

Also Read: This Echelon Asia Summit 2019 ticket giveaway might bring you closer to your next funding round

In an article for e27, Soh provided some excellent advice for designers. Here are some of the basics:

Start in low-fidelity: This helps the team focus on usability and customer experience. Designers love, well, design, so sometimes teams can get hung up in the aesthetics of a project without realising it is confusing to use. Eliminate the design portion first, make sure the user experience is awesome, then add the glam.

Build a pattern library: This will save the team a lot of pain. It is inevitable that certain assets will be used over and over again. Put these designs in a database that can be drag/dropped when needed.

McDonald’s testing: Wildly effective, this requires a bit of bravery. Essentially, it just means heading to the local McDonald’s and getting random people to test the product. The best thing about a place like McDonald’s is that it attracts basically everyone. Companies can test their product on tech-savvy teenagers and then two minutes later give it to an auntie who only uses her phone to make calls.

Usability interview: Call you user (or, if you are lucky, have a face-to-face chat) and really get into the pros and cons of a product. This usually results in qualitative feedback that can lead to direct action from the team.

Building the actual product is like step 25: It is impossible to overstate the amount of preparation that goes into the final product. Whether it is wireframes, user journey flows and engineer specs, the building part is often the last (and easiest) step. Don’t just jump into building, it’s a guaranteed disaster.

Already excited for Echelon? Buy your tickets here! Enter promo code ECHELONFUTURE for free tickets!

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Also, Tesla made robotaxis and Google’s sexual harassment scandals grow ever more scandalous by the day

AT&T’s 5G marketing madness is confusing the hell out of customers — [The Verge]

Fresh out of the courtroom with Sprint over a false advertising lawsuit, AT&T’s current marketing strategy is proving to be a huge disaster despite attaining real 5G faster than its US competitors. And the worse part is, the company refuses to ditch its meaningless, confusing, 5G logo.

According to The Verge, although AT&T has stated plainly that 5G Evolution isn’t actually 5G, many of its customers are still misled into believing they’re accessing a next-generation network through pure obfuscation.

However, all the ‘hype’ really amounts to is an underachieving rebranded of its LTE network technology.

Tesla claims a plan to launch a fleet of robotaxis next year — [TechCrunch]

In 2020, Tesla, adopting a similar business model to Uber or Airbnb, plans to launch its first robotaxi as part of a broader vision for an autonomous ride-sharing network.

This new move is specially engineered for places where there aren’t enough people to share their cars. All new Tesla vehicles are now produced with custom self-driving computer chips that Elon Musk claims to be the “best in the world”.

Techcrunch foresees recharging the Tesla robotaxis to be one of the few challenges that the company will face as it prepares to deploy.

Riots and retrenchment: Google’s sexual harassment protesters claim that their positions were threatened — [Cnet]

Sources from Cnet revealed today that the two Google employees who were in charge of starting a worldwide walkout from the company last November now claim that the search giant company has changed their positions ‘dramatically’.

Wired reports that Meredith Whittaker, the head of Google’s Open Research, and Claire Stapleton, a marketing manager at YouTube, were told that their roles would change several months after the walkout. More than 20,000 full-time workers and contractors have been affected while participating in the walkout.

Grab introduces 4 new services to its core app in Singapore — [e27]

Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab today announced the introduction of four new services to its core app in Singapore.

The services include:

1. Hotels for bookings — where users to book hotels and other accommodation from Agoda directly on Grab’s app.
2. Videos for on-demand video streaming — users to access online video content through its app, as the result of its partnership with HOOQ.
3. Tickets for ticket purchases, starting with movie tickets — Grab’s partnership with BookmyShow will offer movie tickets search, book, and comparison tools.
4. Trip Planner for integrated public transport service — for users to plan their transit journey with real-time public transportation information and end-to-end directions.

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