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Today’s top tech news, June 27: Singapore to invest US$30M in 5G tests ahead of 2020 rollout

Singapore will pick a telco to be the first to mass-market 5G networks by the end of the first quarter of next year, the first step in a broader rollout

Singapore to invest US$30M in 5G tests ahead of 2020 rollout [Reuters]

Singapore on Thursday launched a S$40 million (US$29.5 million) initiative to test applications for 5G networks, the next generation of mobile communications, ahead of a planned rollout next year.

The project, unveiled by Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran, will test the network in areas such as port management, manufacturing and consumer applications as the city-state looks to be “a global front-runner in impactful 5G use cases”.

Also Read: The 5G bandwagon: legal and regulatory implications

Singapore will pick a telecoms company to be the first to mass-market 5G networks by the end of the first quarter of next year, the first step in a broader rollout, Iswaran told journalists after the announcement.

Fave strengthens appoints Jason Tan as CFO, Jake Abdullah as MD (Malaysia) [press release]

Fave, an online loyalty and payments platform, has appointed Jason Tan has as its new Chief Financial Officer and Jake Abdullah as new Managing Director for Malaysia.

The appointments of both Tan and Abdullah come during a period of accelerated growth for Fave in the areas of growth, merchant acquisition, and new services expansion. In 2018, the loyalty and payments platform raised US$20 million in Series B funding led by investors Sequoia Capital, Venturra Capital and SIG. This was then followed by the acquiring and acqui-hiring of F&B startups, WAAVE, CutQ and FoodTime in Singapore and Malaysia in May 2019.

Fintech startup Recko raises US$1M from Prime Venture Partners [press release]

Recko, a fintech startup that enables AI-powered reconciliation of digital transactions, has raised US$1 million in seed funding from Prime Venture Partners.

The fintech startup has built a SaaS-based reconciliation product that keeps track of the complete transaction lifecycle and commercial contracts for organisations. Emerging out of stealth, Recko also announced that it is at a run rate of reconciling a quarter billion transactions annually.

In the first 12 months since launch, Recko has reconciled transactions worth US$2B and is looking to scale this by 10x in the next year.

Indonesia’s Alami comes in second in the Taqwatech Pitch Pit [DigitalNewsAsia]

Alami Fintek Sharia (Alami) came in as the runner-up position in the TaqwaTech Pitch Pit organised by Gobi Partners Venture Capital.

The competition, which began in May 2019, targeted startups from various Muslim-based industries.

Three companies from Indonesia qualified for the top ten, namely Alami, as well as two marketplace startups for pilgrimage services PergiUmroh.com and Umroh.com.

TaqwaTech is a startup competition that offers products and services for Muslim consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B), or communities around the world. As part of Malaysia Tech Week, this competition presented funding opportunities of up to US$1 million (RM4.14 million) to winning startups.

eziPOD announces partnership with Shoe Mo [press release]

eziPOD, the 24/7 smart locker laundry service, has announced a partnership with shoe and sneaker care Shoe Mo to expand its service to shoe cleaning under one app to offer convenience to Malaysians.

Also Read: eziPOD’s smart laundry locker doubles as your courier delivery point and personal storage

With eziPOD’s recent partnership with Shoe Mo, users can drop their dirty shoes off at the eziPOD smart lockers, where the company would pick them up and deliver them to ShoeMo for processing. eziPOD will then pick the cleaned shoes up and deliver them back to the smart lockers, ready to be picked up by the user.

On top of that, eziPOD is aiming to launch a parcel feature where users can collect their parcels from the eziPOD locker, after courier services drop them off.

 

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