Daily Briefing: Kairous Capital, SPH Ventures join TechNode Global's $1.34m seed round; Startup allows creation of over 100 premium ice cream from a mini capsule

And over 110,000 locals hired under Jobs Growth Incentive scheme in two months.

From e27:

TechNode Global, a Singapore-based tech media startup with a focus on the Asian market, announced today that it has raised $1.43m (US$1m) in seed funding led by Kairous Capital, a cross-border VC firm focusing on China and Southeast Asia with offices in Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

Nutty Capital Venture (Hong Kong) and SPH Ventures, the early-stage VC arm of Singapore Press Holdings (parent of Straits Times and Business Times), also joined the round.

As per a press release, the fresh funds will go towards bankrolling the media platform’s expansion in Asia. The company also plans to cover more technology stories and build a “comprehensive cross-border business” across the region.

Launched in early 2019 by Gang Lu, TechNode Global is a spin-off from China-headquartered bilingual tech media platform TechNode.

Read more here.

From e27:

Inspired by the Nespresso coffee machine, Jeremy Tan, a former management associate of Singtel and a foodie at heart, decided to build something similar—but for desserts.

He launched Advantir Innovations in his home country Singapore after he noticed a major problem in the conventional ice cream machines. Based on his observations, the existing traditional models were bulky, inefficient, expensive, and most importantly, limited in flavour options.

He attributes this to the fact that the ice creams are created within the machine, which is why only a few businesses with high traffic could afford to buy it.

“One has to spend a five-sum-figure to buy a desert machine that is only able to create soft serves with limited flavours. That, to me, did not make sense,” he expresses.

Read more here. 

From ChannelNewsAsia:

More than 110,000 new local hires were made under the Jobs Growth Incentive Scheme in September and October last year, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said on 8 February.

About half of them were aged 40 and above, and based on estimates of the scheme's take-up as at October last year, about 26,000 employers had participated in the hiring, said MOM.

The Jobs Growth Incentive scheme was launched in August last year to encourage firms to hire locals in response to the COVID-19 economic fallout.

Under the $1b programme, the Government will copay between 25 and 50% of the first $5,000 of a local hire’s gross monthly wages for 12 months.

Of about 14,000 employers who qualified for payouts under the scheme in September last year, about 80% maintained or expanded their local hiring the following month.

Read more here.