With encouragement from peers and professors, Tan started Flying Cape.

The traditional education marketplace still faced many challenges up to this day and that’s what an edtech startup, Flying Cape, aims to address.

Founded in 2016 by its CEO, Jamie Tan, Flying Cape was born when Tan read a report back in 2014 that many learners, particularly children, do not learn effectively and efficiently and develop a disregard towards lifelong learning as adults. 

The article resonated with Tan as she also faced similar challenges in her younger years. She believed that what she learned when she addressed those challenges could essentially be helpful to others so she began her research in which she found out two pain points in the education system: One is that learners are not finding the "right" education options that can fit their personalised needs, and educators not finding the "right" students as they are plagued with labour intensive and manual processes whilst running their business.

Tan translated her research and submitted it as her EMBA thesis, later winning her cohort's Outstanding Thesis Award. Under the encouragement and support of her peers and professors in the dual degree EMBA course, she decided to start Flying Cape to transform the brainchild of the combined effort of academics and like-minded people into reality.

“Our first challenges were in bringing like-minded education partners to come on board, to join us in building an ecosystem for education. Many of them were accustomed to tried and tested manual processes and unfamiliar with digital tools. We guided them in embracing technology, helped them move them away from manual processes and put up their offerings online through easy-to-use features,” Tan explained in an exclusive interview with Singapore Business Review.

Flying Cape offers a marketplace aggregation platform for education products and services. On the platform, learners are offered diagnostic tools, backed by validated research, that help learners gain insights into their unique profiles and interests. It then helps learners match and find the “right fit” amongst the widest range of education options. Flying Cape’s engine tracks the efficacy of its recommendations which adapts and changes according to the learner's feedback. Using the same technology, it powers 10 marketplaces serving learners of different groups.

Flying Cape’s own platform, Flying Cape for Children, is a tuition and enrichment advisory platform where the startup takes a commission on transactions. In 2019, it introduced a B2B model, building on the technology used to develop its first platform to expand into other SMART marketplaces catering to different needs whose revenue model is based on an annual licensing fee and lower transaction fees.

In August, Flying Cape raised US$1.5m ($2.03m) from key investors Eduspaze and Start-up O and a few angel investors. They currently have combined funding of US$2.1m ($2.84m)

Currently, Flying Cape aims to expand its physical presence in China and has further plans to enter other South and East Asia markets.

“With the transition to online learning, Singapore Education providers are seeing the opportunity to expand virtually overseas and Flying Cape is well-positioned to facilitate this expansion. At the same time, we have also onboarded many new online enrichment entrants from overseas in the past year, thus enhancing education options for learners. With more innovative solutions coupled with the rise in technology, geographical boundaries are no longer a constraint to accessing the best education options, fuelling our ambition to build a global ecosystem for education,” Tan said.

And how one telco startup is determined to change it.

Singapore’s telco market is highly competitive, with market players offering more data at cheaper rates. 

With the internet as a regular part of everyone’s lives, more mobile data for consumers sounds like the right move for industry players; however, Singapore-based telco startup, Gorilla Mobile, seems to think differently.

Founded in 2019, Gorilla Mobile was initially a travel SIM card company that wanted to address the issue of unused travel roaming data for business travellers. Unused roaming data can be converted to Gorilla GO, a blockchain-powered digital token that users can use to purchase mobile services in a different city or country—perfect for business travellers who may have their trips cut short or those on multi-city business trips. 

The telco startup launched earlier this year, but their original plan was to launch across ASEAN last May 2020. Because of the pandemic, however, countries and borders closed, forcing Gorilla Mobile to postpone its plans.

“We had to put our launch plans on hold despite having invested a considerable amount of resources. We also closed our Malaysian sales office because of extended lockdown periods in the country and to save overhead costs. We are targeting to expand to Malaysia and Thailand within the next 18 months once travel restrictions are lifted,” Gorilla Mobile Founder and CEO Xanne Leo said.

Gorilla Mobile offers a full suite of digital smart solutions tailored for today’s professionals, managers, executives and technicians, as well as local and global businesses. Singapore offers the perfect target audience for the launch, with many businesses serving the region and the world.

Customers can sign up for Gorilla Mobile’s Switch25 Mobile plan through the Gorilla Mobile website. In the coming months, we will unveil new services including a Global Roaming Travel Data SIM Card, Digital International Direct Dialing, and Global Office Telephony solutions.

Too much data

Gorilla Mobile runs on what it calls a Service-on-Demand model, a first in the country. 

According to Xanne, this model provides access to a full suite of services, anytime, without a contract, subscription fees, or activation charges. 

This allows users to pay only for what they use, when they use it, ensuring a fair and modular way of using and paying for mobile services.

“Complementing Gorilla’s model of fairness and user-centricity is its proprietary SwitchBack technology, powered by blockchain. Gorilla’s SwitchBack enables users to fully ‘switch back’ unused mobile data to offset their bills, purchase or exchange for other in-app services, or simply share it with their co-workers and team members. Unlike other telcos, there is no expiry for unused data. This sets Gorilla Mobile apart from its peers and further demonstrates its commitment to fair mobile solutions, designed with users in mind,” Xanne explained.

The way Xanne sees it, even though the telco industry in Singapore is highly competitive, with 12 others competing in the market, there has been little real innovation.

Xanne observed that telcos just continue to dump more data for consumers and compete over how cheap they can get their data packages.

“There is an underserved market segment of low-moderate data users including small business segments, remote working professionals, and the frequent travellers segment. Differentiated offerings that fulfil their requirements should be made available for these target segments. We believe our Service-on Demand offering will revolutionise the industry and offer a truly innovative experience,” Xanne added.

Currently, Gorilla Mobile is planning to launch its services across Asia starting with Malaysia and Thailand which would eventually expand across the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

To help boost these expansion plans, the telco startup is in talks with several venture capitalists firms to raise US$5m in a Series A funding round. This is on top of the company’s initial US$3m seed capital raised from private investors.

“We foresee a future where technology transforms a huge percentage of applications to be built on top of a transparent and secure framework, such as permissionless blockchains and other peer-to-peer protocols. Gorilla Mobile is well-positioned for the future, enabling consumers and businesses to access seamless worldwide mobile connectivity,” Xanne said.

Logistics, SaaS, health tech, and e-commerce industries to see significant growth in this ‘golden age of technology'.

An influx of environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-focused funds may become the newest trend in early-stage investments as more investors and start-ups take a pause to consider the impact of their work.

In an exclusive with Singapore Business Review, early-stage venture capital fund Accelerating Asia’s Co-Founder and General Partner Amra Naidoo said that more and more start-ups and investors take into consideration the impact of their work.

“We’ve already seen an influx of impact investors and ESG-focused funds enter the region. With the rate that things are changing in this region, there are a lot of big problems that need to be solved. Often entrepreneurs are at the forefront of solving these problems without truly realising the potential for societal or environmental impact that their businesses could have,” Naidoo said.

Despite this, she added, it was exciting to see that these entrepreneurs are creating solutions that have the potential to uplift so many people in so many different ways. 

“It’s not just about creating a positive impact, there seems to be a much more general consciousness about how their work might impact their stakeholders in general differently, with entrepreneurs and start-ups thinking more consciously about how they can proactively contribute to an overall better, healthier, kinder world,” Naidoo stressed.

She said entrepreneurs being conscious about the greater impacts in the world is greatly reflected in Accelerating Asia’s portfolio. Naidoo said 80% of the companies in their portfolio are addressing one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals whilst also having solid business models and market traction.

Hot market

Naidoo said tech start-ups, especially in the logistics and smart cities, fintech, and health tech industries, continue to be vertical trends and hot industries and will continue to be so in South and Southeast Asia as the regions continue to grow and develop. 

“There are definitely opportunities for localisation and local adoption of technologies that we are already familiar with — because Southeast Asia and South Asia are such unique markets with a specific set of challenges and dynamics that, I think, we will see more hyper localisation,” Naidoo said.

In Singapore, the start-up ecosystem continues to grow stronger, with investors having a keen interest in early-stage companies.

Recently, Accelerating Asia has increased its investment amount with start-ups now eligible to US$250,000, from only $150,000 previously.

According to Naidoo, the growth and traction their portfolio of start-ups recently gained have been part of the reason that pushed the company’s move.

The venture capital (VC) fund firm recently reported that its 36 start-ups collectively raised US$27 million ($36.2 million) to date, 65% of which has been raised since joining Accelerating Asia.

“Second, we’re seeing the portfolio have interest from investors at the angel and later stages which is an early indication of the strength of the start-ups that come into our portfolio and a signal that our VC accelerator is working. So, we’ve decided the time is right to increase our investment amount and take bigger bets on the start-ups coming through our program,” Naidoo said.

Naidoo said that currently, we are still in the golden age of technology, especially in Asia. She expects that the start-up ecosystem will see significant growth in industries such as logistics, SaaS, health tech, and e-commerce.

Working on the future

As every VC fund focuses on different stages, verticals and regions, it comes down to the individual VC’s investment thesis and strategy.

“From our perspective, we invest in Pre-Series A start-ups from Southeast Asia and South Asia and work to lower the overall investment risk through the VC accelerator model. We work alongside our portfolio of start-ups for an extended period through our model, gather intel and support their growth and fundraising to ensure startups are poised for future growth," Naidoo said, adding: "From a fund perspective, our model enables us to be better positioned to make follow-on investment decisions into top performers.”

Currently, they will set their sights on Southeast and South Asia as they continue to see opportunities for international early-stage VCs in emerging markets like Bangladesh. They also plan to expand their footprints in Indonesia and Vietnam whilst continuing to build on Accelerating Asia’s presence in Singapore. 

“From our point of view, we also think as an early-stage VC, we take a close look at business model viability and early indications of traction — at the end of the day, we want to invest in start-ups that have long-term potential for growth and a sound business model while also delivering real-world solutions to the problems people in the region face,” Naidoo said.

How Hugo’s holistic approach to Wealthcare leads to financial freedom.

Financial freedom may not only mean having healthy financial habits but having the will to go for the gold and, in this case, quite literally.

In an exclusive interview with Singapore Business Review, the Singapore fintech startup, Hugo’s co-founders, David Fergusson, Ben Davies, and Braham Djidjelli explained why a holistic approach in Wealthcare and investments in gold is the right path to financial freedom.

Hugo is a digital wealth and savings app that helps users track their spending, savings, and investment, starting with gold. Its unique features include the Roundups, where customers can automatically turn their loose change into long-term savings, whenever they use their Hugo Platinum Visa debit card and Money Pots that helps users track and save money to achieve goals, such as going on a cruise or purchasing a new car or phone.

Hugo was started by Fergusson, Davies, and Djidjelli who worked together in a gold-based fintech firm in the UK. "Hu" stands for the Mandarin word "mutual" combined with the English word "Go," which signifies progress.

“We realised that we had a similar passion point that is to help everyone alleviate their money fears and build healthy spending and saving habits. That’s when we decided to combine our collective experience and our strong belief that financial security is the key to happy, thriving communities to start working on Hugo,” Fergusson said, who aside from being its co-founder, is the CEO.

Hugo highlights a holistic approach in what they coined as Wealthcare®.

“Money is the biggest cause of stress the world over and the COVID -19 pandemic has only reaffirmed how financially unprepared many of us are. Achieving financial well-being will help reduce that stress and prepare us all for a more stable and happier future,” Hugo’s Chief Product Officer Djidjelli said.

Braham added that as “open banking” becomes available in Singapore, Hugo can go a step further and encapsulate its customer’s entire financial universe. He believes that if consumers understand their financial behaviour, it will lead to financial habits that are both healthy and well-aligned across spending, saving, and investing.

A gold investment

A standout feature that Hugo has is that the app lets users invest in gold. Hugo’s Gold Vault allows everyone to include gold in their investment plans starting at $0.01.

“There are three good reasons to own gold: One, it’s insurance; two, it’s undervalued and under-owned, and three, it’s in demand from strong hands,” Hugo’s Chief Operating Officer Davies said.

Unlike diamonds, which Davies called "the best marketing con ever manufactured," gold’s innate and inert properties have made it invaluable as a store of value since time immemorial whilst having a deep liquid trading market. It is a proven portfolio diversifier for risk assets like bonds and stocks that underperform in highly deflationary and inflationary environments.

Hugo’s research revealed that in Southeast Asia there is a cultural affinity for gold. Davies said the new generation is losing the last generation’s understanding of why they should own gold. 

Davies said that many Singaporeans are unsure of the safest and best ways to invest in gold. That’s where they come in.

“We want to bring gold back to the future. Our technology combines with the age-old wisdom of gold as a stable asset to make actual physical gold digitally available to everyone. We dispel the myths around gold, like, ‘I need to be rich to invest in gold, it’s illiquid and not easy to sell, and it’s hard to store’. With Hugo Gold Vault, users can buy or sell gold for as low as $0.01 anytime at the best market prices and the mere touch of a button. We then automatically hold it in highly secure LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) accredited vaults for users. The gold bought is legally owned by the buyer and guaranteed against loss by Lloyds of London,” Davies explained.

Hugo's future

Currently, Hugo is available for Singaporeans but according to Djidjelli, they are now working on expanding to other regions as well as enhancing the product offering to improve the outcome and optimise the experience.

“A big development area of note is that we will be expanding our available investment options beyond gold as a logical next step. Other features and improvements to the Spend, Save, Invest product pillars are also in the wings,” Djidjelli said.

Hugo’s ambition is to provide a seamless financial journey to help its consumers understand and visualise their entire financial universe in one application through smarter spending without noticeable financial sacrifice so they can invest in a growing list of Hugo’s innovative wealth products ensuring their financial well-being and independence.

And how media-focussed fintech Few¢ents saw this as a great business opportunity.

Surfing the web, you sometimes come across articles that pique your interest. Naturally, you click on it to start reading, but after reading a few words you are blocked by a paywall.

To read that one article, you are asked to pay X amount of money to subscribe for a month. You then wonder, why can’t I just pay for this one article? Why do I have to shell out for a whole month’s subscription?

In the early days of fintech-for-media startup Few¢ents, this was the very question chief executive officer and one of the founders Abhishek Dadoo, asked himself.

“The biggest pain point I identified was subscription fatigue during the Covid-19 circuit breaker phase in early 2020. I wanted to read and consume quality content across different digital publishing outlets, but subscribing everywhere was not feasible. I realised soon enough that a solution that can unbundle quality content at a global scale was much-needed and inevitable,” Dadoo said in an exclusive interview with Singapore Business Review.

In the early years, quality journalism had gone down, replaced by clickbait content for publishers to get revenue. But as advertising yields declined, digital publishers and creators are now looking to direct reader revenue based business models.

Dadoo explained that on average, publishers expect only 1%-5% of their users to subscribe. The rest of the non-subscribers are typically casual visitors referred by social media, international visitors, or local visitors who have already subscribed elsewhere. 

However, he, along with his co-founder Dushyant Khare, saw an opportunity to provide an incremental revenue model which allows publishers to monetise casual visitors while beating subscription fatigue and making pay-per-content seamless for global users. Meanwhile, Dadoo said they saw this as a solution for consumers to democratise access to quality content, as opposed to buying dozens of subscription plans.

Few¢ents, a Singapore based FinTech-for-Media startup provides solutions for digital publishers and creators to incrementally monetize their never-subscribers. Through the company’s solution, digital publishers unbundle and monetize premium content, including articles, video and podcasts, via a pay-per-content service covering 50+ currencies, that sits on the publishers’ sites.

But why focus their attention on the media industry?

“With the proliferation of the creator economy and creator tools, we see that quality content is no longer limited to large media houses. As a result of this fragmentation across all content formats, we see a large and growing need for unbundling and pay-per-content. We felt it was quite ironic that for the longest time digital media made revenue by disengaging their audiences from content but instead via ad-clicks. The content industry has been searching for complimentary engagement-led direct revenue models that can be scaled globally. And that’s where FinTech comes into play,” Dadoo said.

Today, every publisher and creator has global audiences and payments are personal for every user. Dadoo observed that users prefer local payment methods beyond just credit cards and want to do so seamlessly and efficiently. 

“For micropayments to work globally, a FinTech layer sits on top of our Media solutions layer allowing seamless micropayments in 50+ currencies from global audiences back to the publisher in their local currency,” he added.

Few¢ents helps publishers identify quality content better, and monetize content better. Dadoo said they are focusing efforts on identifying quality content which audiences will be willing to pay for and building analytics and algorithms to help identify these content. 

Recently, the startup raised US$1.6m ($2.13m) in a seed funding round with key investments from venture capital funds M Venture Partners and Hustle Fund as well as from angel investors such Koh Boon Hwee, former chairman of DBS Bank, Kenneth Bishop, former managing director of Southeast Asia at Facebook, amongst others.

Dadoo said they aim to have creators and digital publishers, with the help of Few¢ents, focus on giving quality content without having to worry about reader revenues at a global scale.

Why this young ESG-focused fintech startup is determined to reshape the finance industry.

In 2019, a young startup saw the need to change a fragmented capital market. It saw how institutions operate on different systems and ledgers, and go through a linearly-dependent process where settlements take between 2-14 days, depending on the asset class.

These were the problems that ESG-focused fintech startup STACS wanted to change ever since it started.

Talking with Singapore Business Review, Benjamin Soh, co-founder and managing director of STACS said that this problem had persisted for more than 50 years starting in the 70’s.

Soh said that with the capital markets fragmented as it is, it leads to $1.068t (US$800b) of capital being locked up every single day in the clearing system.

“With multiple layers of processing, nearly US$300b is being spent on transaction costs and this model isn’t even effective. In the EU alone, approximately 6% of trades fail to settle, resulting in €35b in penalties annually,” he said.

Soh called this a waste - a waste of time, money and carbon footprints that STACS have vowed to address.

“Innovating our way out of these problems is vital if we are to deliver a green and sustainable future for financial services,” Soh stressed.

Early years

A little known fact was STACS stood for “Securities Trading Asset Clearing and Settlement”, Soh told SBR.

“The first challenge when we initially started would be navigating this relatively younger fintech space back then in 2019, and also to be taken seriously by the big players in the industry. Interestingly and fortunately for us, we managed to secure quite a few meetings with such big institutions even while we were brand new, before we even figured out our company incorporation,” he said.

In the simplest terms, STACS is a Singapore-based fintech development company with a vision to provide transformative technology for the financial industry.

The startup provides interoperability between existing infrastructure and its SaaS platform with STACS blockchain core.

STACS works by offering multiple options of connectivity for financial institutions: via its front-end applications built specifically for finance use cases such as trade lifecycle management of bonds, structured products and derivatives, API integration between existing platforms (i.e. Aladdin, Murex, Omgeo), and the STACS infrastructure as well as node-to-node integration.

“As of today, STACS has successfully integrated blockchain with SWIFT through APIs in the ISO20022 format, such that payments can be triggered on SWIFT via smart contracts, with the SWIFT instructions stored in an immutable blockchain ledger,” Soh said.

The startup has collaborated with several leading institutions like the Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Eastspring Investments, Bursa Malaysia, EFG Bank, and Bluecell Intelligence.

“Together with our partners, one of which is Deutsche Bank, collaborative efforts were made on building connectivity with other payment options such as Diem, and furthering on existing connectivity to the Ubin Payment network,” Soh explained.

In its last funding round, the company raised $4.8m (US$3.6m) in pre-Series A funding round, bringing the company’s fundraising total to $8m.

The funding round was led by venture capital firms such as Wavemaker Partners, Tribe Accelerator, and Stellar Partners.

STACS was an alumni of Tribe Accelerator batch three in 2020.

The company’s business model seems to be on the right track as in a few short years it has garnered several accolades such as Award Winner of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Global FinTech Innovation Challenge Awards 2020 and the Asset Triple A Digital Awards 2021 FinTech Startup of the Year.

Right now the company is focused on enabling environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks and transparent reporting in financial markets through their GreenSTACS platform.

Soh said they see a huge trend towards green fintech as a partnership between tech companies and financial institutions.

“There is more focus on ESG right now, and banks are realising they have a responsibility, fairly or unfairly, to be able to help in tracking the greenness of a given project. There is a lot more that technology can enable, including greater democratisation of finance and improving access. But the greatest impact is only possible through us as a tech platform partnering with the existing financial institutions, which already have millions of users,” Soh said.

After the pre-series A funding round, Soh said they are now poised for growth in the upcoming Series A funding round which they believe will help them stay well ahead of the competition.

“While we may be growing rapidly, expanding our team, bringing in new investors, developing new products and opening new markets, ultimately our vision over the next five years is the same as it was on day one: to simplify global markets with our transformative technology,” Soh said
 

How these former Grab senior management created an all-in-one mapping solution.

Have you ever been lost and had to rely on a navigation app to get where you wanted? Have you experienced that same app giving you directions to a completely different destination? Or food delivery arriving late because the driver was lost.

All these problems are caused by the underlying mapping technology used.

This was what NextBillion.ai, a SaaS mapping platform established in the early 2020s wanted to solve.

NextBillion.ai was founded by Gaurav Bubna, Shaolin Zheng, and Ajay Bulusu who were part of the senior management team at Grab.

Talking with Singapore Business Review, founder Ajay Bulusu said that the idea behind starting Nextbillion.ai came when they realised that one map doesn’t fit all and the future of location is decentralization.

“We all have experienced our food delivered late or cold, ride-hailing giving us the wrong ETA or parcel getting delivered to the wrong address. These problems arise from underlying mapping technology. For instance, can a mapping or language processing solution for Jakarta hold good in the Netherlands or Mumbai? Can an on-demand delivery mapping solution work for the freight industry? The answer is no and enterprises struggle with solving these issues as mapping technology is complex,” Ajay said.

According to him, NextBillion.ai is the first mapping solution to truly solve this. NextbillionAI provides Enterprise-grade, fully managed map data and APIs. Their product addresses the hyper-local nuances and provides tailor-made solutions for specific business needs, based on their data and geography. NextbillionAI solution helps to find the best ETAs, find precise pick and drop locations and the best route for the vehicle type enterprises are using.

Nextbillion.ai have two key offerings: its Map Data management as a Service and maps APIs.

“Both of these, we are usually able to offer upto 50% better accuracy, 3x lower latency, 10x higher throughput than state of the art alternatives, at a fraction of the cost. These products are already out in the market, and we will continue to make investments on these. The goal is to make this as seamless as possible for our customers,” Ajay added.

In their last funding round, NextBillion.ai raised $9.29m (US$7m) from Lightspeed India Partners and Falcon Edge Capital, as well as top angel investors including past and present executives from companies like Facebook, Twilio, Freshworks, as well as founders of top open source projects like Apache Cassandra, Apache Hive.

Ajay said that they are building the first true enterprise mapping platform for enterprise and they hope to enable the first enterprise grade, fully managed mapping platform for enterprises. Right now they are making a lot of deep tech investments across AI, machine learning and computer vision and they expect to drive a lot of new technology innovation in the mapping industry as well as file lots of patents for these technologies.

“We believe the mapping industry has a need for something like Linux for Maps, and we hope to enable that. We are building the first true enterprise grade, fully managed mapping platform, and with maps and location becoming increasingly important for every application, we think we are sitting on the cusp of a massive change in the industry.,” Ajay said.
 

How this F&B management platform startup is helping businesses to save time, and sell more.

Fed up with the complexity of management solutions available at that time, OrdezEZ founders Andrew Creswick and Jeffrey Meese took it upon themselves to find an easier way to deal with the arduous tasks of manual processes, finance tracking and inventory management within the food and beverage industry.

Talking with Singapore Business Review, the two said they saw a lack of transparency and real-time insights in the industry. Businesses have to purchase several different software packages to manage different sales and order processes. The founders knew these problems all too-well with their combined 20 years experience in the restaurants business .

“We faced many of these pain points first-hand. But when searching for digital solutions, we found that most were either too complex, too expensive, or didn’t holistically address the F&B sector’s needs,” Creswick said.

“Together, we decided to create our own platform and were almost instantly recognised for how efficient, yet simple and scalable our technology infrastructure was. That’s when we knew we had something valuable that could solve long-standing issues in the industry without breaking the bank, leading us to found OrderEZ,” added Meese.

OrderEZ is an end-to-end business management platform for F&B suppliers and venues that uses real-time data and seamless platform integrations to help those businesses digitise supply chain processes, centralise business management, and generate more revenue.

At first they had a hard time to convince key stakeholders that their solution was worth the effort. According to Creswick, the F&B sector is notoriously hesitant to adopt technology-driven tools, let alone whole systems.

“While it was difficult at first to convince key stakeholders our solution was worth the effort, this changed when we introduced our sales enablement tools. With our solution effectively moving from one that saved time to one that helped them sell more, it wasn’t long before we had the attention of major players in the industry,” Creswick said.

Using OrderEZ, companies need only to pay a monthly subscription fee, starting at $199 for suppliers and $99 for venues.

Companies subscribed to OrderEZ's platform will be able to help their businesses from sales management to order fulfillment and accounting, all on one centralised platform. OrderEZ also lets businesses open accounts, record sales activities and track deal pipelines with real-time and cumulative insights that salespersons can use to pitch with authority and improve relationships with both clients and brand owners.

The startup currently has a combined funding of $500k, and is working to develop its enterprise and expanding its sales enablement tools and offer them as an integration to traditional ERP software. This would allowbusinesses to opt in and subscribe to different functionalities, based on their individual needs and spending budget.

Meese said F&B businesses compete over thin margins and are often limited by lean teams, time, and budget to invest in complex products.

“As the F&B industry warms up to incorporating digital tools into business management processes, we believe demand for platforms like ours that are centralised, simple and affordable, will continue to rise,” he said. “Unlike many competitors, our platform is built for the F&B industry by F&B experts and we plan to continue enhancing our platform’s capabilities, particularly in the area of sales enablement, to cater to the ever changing needs of the industry.”

They hoped to one day make OrdezEZ be a trusted partner in the industry in the next five years through their growth phases and providing the solutions F&B companies need at every step.
 

How the innovative startup is turning plant-based foods into delicious meat alternatives.

Thinking of jackfruits as an alternative for meat may sound odd, but turning what was considered an "underdog" of fruits (due to limited export quality) into a delicious meat alternative is the key strategy that food startup Karana applied after extensive research and development.

Before starting the company, founders Dan Riegler (pictured) and Blair Crichton saw a gap in the market for a new generation of plant-based meats that were both minimally processed and had a shorter ingredient list of additives.

According to Reigler, humans currently consume 30 of 150 edible plant species, but only 12 crops make up 75% of what people eat.

“Blair grew up in Hong Kong and I spent the majority of my career in Southeast Asia. We saw market entrants from the West coming in with largely beef-based products in Western formats. These products are great and there is plenty of room for them, but we thought if we really wanted to move the needle in addressing the issues of animal agriculture we needed to do something that was more focused on the meats that are most commonly consumed in Asia. That is why we’ve started with a pork alternative, as it is the number one consumed meat (in Asia),” Reigler explained.

At the start, they faced a lot of challenges. Number one being that ‘vegan’ was sometimes considered a dirty word and a lot of eyebrows were raised at their product. Many industry players grew even more skeptical when they heard that their plant-based alternative centers on the little known jackfruit.

However, Reigler says this is the perfect meat alternative - and is currently being wasted because of its lack of appeal as a fruit.

“Only about 10% of the crop is currently commercialized, and there is limited value added to the end products. We have a huge opportunity to tap into it in a way that value is created across the entire chain, from the farmers, to us, and our end customers in the form of restaurants and retailers,” he explained.

From there, the partners aim was to create "deliciously indulgent" comfort food from whole-plant ingredients-turned meat alternatives.

Food industry experts are also giving Karana's business model their support. The company recently raised more than $2.24m (US$1.7m) in a seed funding round led by Henry Soesanto, CEO of Monde Nissin Corp, Big Idea Ventures, Japanese and Singaporean fund Germi8, as well as Asia-based FMCG distributor Real Tech.

“The plant based space is very hot right now so we are seeing a lot of interest, especially since we are based in Asia Pacific, where there is a huge opportunity, and we are doing something that is quite differentiated from many of the other products in the market,” Reigler said.

Right now, Karana isfocusing on innovation, and seeking more ingredients that are currently under-commercialised or wasted, and turning them into delicious products.

“Karana represents our goal to empower and encourage everyone to take action, however small, to bring more balance back to our food systems. It also represents our commitment to blending innovation and tradition, using technology to improve what we already have available and celebrate food in its natural form,” Reigler said. 

The company’s founders have bridged the market gap in big data.

Data is everywhere and every company has identified its value in gaining insights on the markets. But for data startup BRDA, more revolutionary actions are needed to leverage data, so its founders have decided that one of their key focuses is delivering real, measurable and impactful business growth using big data.

“Data is everywhere, every company has it. But the problem is whether you can identify the value in your data and how to achieve monetisation of data. It requires heavy investments and is extremely difficult,” CEO and co-founder Andy Low told Singapore Business Review.

He recalled having worked in China for a decade and getting acquainted with fellow founders Ding Xiao Qiang and Dr. Li Ce. Low said they got to talking about big data and realised that they had the skills to overcome problems of data.

“We were pretty comfortable in our jobs, but we decided to take the leap to set up BRDA because of the huge market gap when it comes to big data and we see the huge opportunities present,” he said.

BRDA monetises data primarily through developing revenue-generating products so being a new company they needed data partners who would provide data sets in which to create data products.

Low explained that they do not charge their partners if their data set is suitable for them to work. Instead, they share revenue with them once the products are developed. They initially had a tough time convincing companies that BRDA is unique because common practice for data companies is to charge clients for data analytics.

"Fortunately we landed our first data set, which is the China Expressway Toll data, which is a huge data set with billions of past transactions and near 30 million daily transactions with multiple revenue-generating products developed. Once we have shown our ability to do what we preach, the doors are starting to open for us,” Low said.

According to Low, BRDA collaborates with data owners to help them properly monetise their data by developing innovative data products to gain access to new markets or simply creating new revenue streams that can be done through a revenue sharing model, making it a win-win situation for both parties.

The company currently has more than $1.8m (US$1.5m) in seed funding since their establishment in 2020. Low said that because the company has presence in China’s market, they are able to properly test their technology and build on their technology.

“We are combining the advancements of technologies in China with our Singapore’s tech. In fact, two of our founders were the founding members of the financial subsidiary of one of China’s biggest e-commerce players, and one of their notable achievements was the creation of their Buy Now Pay Later schemes with comprehensive credit assessment,” Low added.

BRDA is currently in the last stages of testing products with several banks and financial institutions in China and will be doing a soft launch soon. The startup is also working on developing anti-fraud and credit assessment products focusing on the Singapore market.

In the next five years, Low said the company aims to bridge the information gap in Asia by building a valuable data product platform from the company's growing library of data products and resources so businesses looking to expand regionally, or even internationally, can make use of the firm's data products to gain market access.

“Data holds the key to the doors to new markets, new customer types, but some companies have yet to understand its true value, especially in industries that are more traditional,” Low said.
 

The platform handles both the lending process for borrowers and lenders.

Introducing a new model to an industry that is traditionally very conservative was the biggest challenge that consumer-centric lending platform Lendela had to face when the company started in 2018.

“This required some education to quell the scepticism from both banks and lenders in the beginning,” Lendela founder and CEO Nima Karimi said in an interview with Singapore Business Review.

According to Karimi, there is a lack of transparency and simplicity in personal finance in general, and lending in particular. Application processes are extremely tedious and time consuming, with borrowers having to apply multiple times to get multiple offers and still end up without a loan.

Lendela is about empowering borrowers by simplifying the application process, providing transparency and improving the user experience.

“From the lender’s perspective, customer acquisition is both highly competitive and expensive, resulting in lenders spending a lot of money on marketing whilst at the same time having to reject a significant share of the customers acquired. Lendela serves as a risk-free customer acquisition channel for our partnering lenders,” Karimi said.

The platform serves as a matchmaker of sorts. It connects with multitude of partner lenders and gives borrowers access to the best rates in the market. Borrowers only need to fill out an online application and then they can already compare a range of personalised offers to find the loan that is best for them.

“Our profit is commission-based. Once an applicant accepts an offer, we get paid a fee from the chosen lender upon disbursal,” Karimi explained.

Lendela is fully integrated with its partner lenders, avoiding the nuisance of having to visit multiple sites to apply for a loan and only to receive multiple offers based on their situation. In this way, the platform remains to be a customer-centric interface.

Right now, Lendela has a combined funding of $5.29m (US$4m) after its last pre-series A funding round led by Promise Future International and 2be.lu Investments.

Karimi said Lendela is banking on the simplicity of its model and the fact that it facilitates the lending process for both borrowers and lenders to attract more investors.

“We are a lean but highly experienced team, with an extensive background in building this type of business and developing the same type of service in multiple markets prior to entering Southeast Asia. At the end of the day, it will come down to showing continuous growth and improving on our key metrics,” he added.

In the next five years, Lendela plans to be the market leader in loan comparisons within Asia Pacific, with a greater aim of increasing transparency and offering greater financial inclusion for the masses.

The fintech startup offers a seamless, completely digital method of financial control.

Managing internal spending could be a nightmare for finance teams, especially for businesses that traditionally adopted labour-intensive and manual processes around the control of company expenses.

Easing this process is what made fintech startup Volopay well-loved by clients, CEO and founder Rajith Shaji said in an interview with Singapore Business Review.

When Shaji and co-founder Rajesh Raikwar started Volopay, they had three challenges they needed to tackle. One was the huge range of software used by businesses to run operations. Volopay needed to find a way to sync with them or replace a sizable chunk of it.

The second challenge was smaller businesses were yet to grasp how efficient and cost-effective a digital platform was. The third was Volopay had to make clients see the value in the unique product ot was offering.

“Volopay provides startups and companies with a financial control centre which allows them to easily and seamlessly manage business spending, employee reimbursements, money remittances, online subscriptions whilst also providing access to credit and accounting integrations,” Shaji said.

Volopay offers physical and virtual cards that can manage marketing SaaS spending. Companies may also use the platform for money transfer for both local and international. Its automated accounting can track every transaction, helping many clients manage ongoing cash flow requirements and continue scaling their businesses.

The company earns revenue from monthly subscription fees, transactional fees on international payments, and fees associated with the provision of the credit line.

According to Shaji, Volopay holds around $2.92m (US$2.2m) in funding.

“We have experienced very strong growth since launching our product in Singapore in June 2019. Since that time we have grown on average at 70% month on month,” the CEO added. “We are currently working on an initiative to build sizable partnerships with accounting firms, tax specialists, and other corporate secretariat service providers in Singapore."

The company is aiming to become the financial control centre for businesses and provide clients a hub through which they can manage and operate all the financial operations of their business.

CEO John Yuan said the industry is currently worth at least $357b.

Singapore-based e-commerce photonics technology startup Simtrum has only one goal in mind: making photonics technologies more accessible and affordable.

Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, which are particles of light. The photonics industry is the manufacturing and selling of light-based technology.

“Currently, the B2B side of the photonics industry is plagued by technical and business concerns,” said John Yuan, CEO and co-founder of Simtrum.

He pointed out two concerns. First, a customer must be familiar with the components he is purchasing. “Due to knowledge gaps or being unaware of solutions on the market, processes might become expensive or not perform optimally,” Yuan explained.

The second is that the market for products in the photonics industry is so big, middlemen are needed to understand the resources available and the production chain of system solutions to make the best use of their budget. “This is especially so with new technologies or startups delivering cutting-edge technology directly from other universities. More often than not, these companies do not get any exposure where their product can be useful,” Yuan said.

This is where Simtrum steps in.

Through its website and simulation software platform, Simtrum creates a seamless communication medium between customers and suppliers, and provides a knowledge resource of the tools available.

The team takes the massive wealth of information and breaks them down into smaller chunks for businesses and customers.

“One of the biggest driving factors we have going for us is that Simtrum has a core team with a strong knowledge base, from disciplines of spectroscopy to ultrafast lasers. We currently have three PhDs and four bachelors in Engineering and Physics on our team of 10 plus people,” Yuan said.

Using its online platform, Simtrum cuts down the four to 12 weeks of B2B purchasing process into a one-week process. Its software compares suppliers, specifications, quantity cost and lead time, and handles order and demonstration of the product.

Several market studies predicted that by 2025 the photonics industry will be worth around $1.6t (US$800b), a promising investment for research and innovation in the industry. And where else but Singapore is the perfect hub for it.

“Singapore is a hub for driving research and innovation with constant collaboration between the government, universities, research groups, and industry players. Solutions produced here have an impact on processes across the world, giving us the leverage we need to reach our customers and giving us access to a portion of the wider market,” he added.

Without giving any figures, Yuan said that Simtrum is currently in the seed round of funding with the initial reports being promising.

“In the next five years our software would have reached maturity and be ready for other applications and modifications. The main goal at this point would be to drive take up rate and design for more specific use cases,” the CEO said.
 

And makes renting as easy as booking a ride.

Much like its name suggests, co-living company Cove provides a safe place where people could "dock" and be safe, much like a home away from home.

In 2018, Cove was founded by three young professionals: Sophie Jokelson, Luca Bregoli, and Guillaume Castagne. They wanted to improve urban rentals and put tenants at the heart of the experience.

“Cove is a co-living company, making it easier, faster and more flexible to rent comfortable homes at honest prices,” said Jokelson, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Cove.

Jokelson added that compared with traditional rentals, Cove’s solution is seamless and hassle free.

“Moving house is often cited as one of the most stressful things you can do and in the traditional rental market this is certainly the case due to a very slow, long and manual process as well as a lack of trust and transparency between landlords and tenants. Ultimately Cove exists to provide a more tenant centric and digitised rental experience and we therefore reduce the timeline of searching, booking and moving from several weeks, to just a few days,” she added.

Cove markets predominantly towards young professionals and students. They provide ready-to-move-in fully furnished rooms and studios to rent on a monthly basis. They use an online platform for where future tenants can look through where they can take advantage of VR property tours and instant chatting.

But Cove does not just rent out rooms, the startup creates communities by connecting tenants, or whom they call "Coveys", across cities by hosting regular networking and events.

Cove manages the properties it is renting for landlords. It gets profits by taking a proportion of the rental income.

According to Jokelson, they see a huge potential for co-living in Southeast Asia.

“With rising house prices and changes in lifestyles, residential property ownership is becoming less viable and less desirable in urban centres and so the way is paved for significant growth in the rental market,” she added.

Plans are already underway to leverage on this because recently, the company received $6.102m (US$4.6m) in a Series A funding round. Cove plans to use the fund to double down in its existing markets in Singapore and Jakarta and expand further across Southeast Asia as well as invest in more tech for better tenant experience.

Cove's goals for now is to further cement its position as a leading co-living space provider in Southeast Asia.

“Cove's expertise in technology, design and building consumer companies means we can bring a superior rental experience and make booking a place to live almost as easy as booking a ride through Grab or Gojek,” Jokelson said.
 

Growing mobile app market demands more from companies.

Many companies are ramping up their mobile presence through their app, especially in Asia which is one of the fastest-growing markets in the region.

However, the consumer retention is fickle and demands more unique service from the app. This is what Appboxo’s "apps in a box" is for.

“Appboxo is a Singapore-based technology company that provides integration software which allows users to launch miniapps within other native super apps - platforms which offer various services under one umbrella,” said Kaniyet Rayev, chief executive officer and co-founder of Appboxo.

Appboxo was founded when Kaniyet identified the importance and growing reliance on mobile apps in emerging markets which presented a significant opportunity.

He explained that Appboxo wanted to address the problems that rises from strategic partnerships between companies concerning integration of miniapps into apps.

“Only a few large players in the mobile app market have lots of users but are in need of additional ways to properly engage and monetize them. In contrast, many smaller apps have the opposite problem,” Kaniyet explained.

What Appboxo did was develop a suite of developer tools that when integrated into apps, can offer seamless or native-like experience of miniapps. When a company installs its lightweight SDK, that only takes three days of technical work, developers can now deploy their software. Super apps can then go to the showroom, Appboxo’s app store for miniapps, choose the miniapp, and integrate it. Super apps are platforms that offer a variety of services through the use of miniapps.

"The installation of our SDK and the relevant technical work is free. When the super app redirects any of its users to the miniapp and that user successfully completes a transaction on the miniapp platform, both the super app and Appboxo take a commission split from the miniapp,” Kaniyet explained.

In alternative and on a case-by-case basis, Appboxo charges a SaaS fee to power integrations between partners who have existing relationships and commercial terms to provide a superior option to pop-up browsers or API integration.

Right now, they currently have about $1.45m (US$1.1m) in seed funding that was led by FF APAC Scout, 500 Durians fund, Plug and Play Ventures, and Antler. According to Kaniyet, Appboxo is working with some fintech and telecom companies and as a case study, they are working with a consumer app in Singapore.

“In five years, we hope to eventually become the super app platform of choice for the most popular apps across Southeast Asia. But the best thing about our business is that we can easily scale our company across the world and eventually become the global operating system for mobile commerce. We are already discussing partnerships in India, Middle East, Latin America and beyond,” Kaniyet said.
 

The startup creates algorithms, software tools, methods and models for quantum computers.

As world events prompt everyone to enter the big data scene, classic computers may not be enough to handle this bulk, but quantum computers can. In comparison to the typical machines, quantum computers are made to solve problems in big data whereas the traditional computers can only store information. Given that quantum computing is still a nascent industry, tech startup Entropica Labs aims to be one of the firms to pioneer in bringing that tech to Singapore.

“In the last [few] years, huge corporations and startups alike have created cloud infrastructures for users to connect and utilise small-scale quantum processors. A fast-growing hardware ecosystem calls for the parallel and complementary growth of a software and applications landscape, a process highly reminiscent of what happened in classical computing after the 50s. This is the part of the story where Entropica enters the scene,” said Tommaso Demarie, co-founder and CEO at Entropica Labs.

The Singapore-based startup builds algorithms, software tools, methods and models to make quantum computers useful.

Demarie shares that they are following three avenues on this area: first is applied research, where they investigate and develop algorithms and techniques on the quantum hardware we can access today; second, is around problem-solving, supporting enterprise partners to become quantum-aware and help clients map problems to diverse quantum computing frameworks; lastly is on preparing to create novel software tools and methods for quantum computers that can be utilised commercially.

“We came to appreciate the fundamental importance of 1) Understanding how to code and use different quantum computing platforms, 2) benchmark these machines and 3) have application-agnostic software tools and architectures,” he added.

Apart from tech development, the startup is working with the BMW Group Innovation and Strategy Office in Singapore to explore use cases of quantum optimisation in the logistics and transportation space.

In May, Entropica Labs raised $2.6m in a seed funding round led by Elev8 and joined by SGInnovate, VC Wavemaker Partners, the Lim Teck Lee Group, V1 Capital, Entrepreneur First and the Japanese software enterprise TIS Inc. Demarie stated that their strategy was having a combination of smaller and larger VCs, government support and strategic corporate investment as each investor brings to the table a different perspective.

“Looking ahead, we intend to play a substantial role in further growing the quantum ecosystem in Singapore, together with public and private institutions. We also work a lot with students, offering internships and apprenticeship opportunities,” Demarie said. 

The mapping tech startup gives places a unique universal address to make them digitally fit.

Current addressing standards remain limited and are even deemed unfit for the digital economy. What’s more, it turns out that a staggering 75% of the world is poorly addressed, which leaves 4 billion people globally without a physical address. As it remains this way, individuals and locations without a reliable address remain underserved and excluded from economic traffic as they get restricted from accessing essential services, such as emergency help, postal services or even identity.

Solving this, mapping-technology startup UNL has created a smart platform for navigation and location-based services that can give anyone and anywhere a unique, universal address.

“To every location, we add a smart layer to make places programmable—building the Internet of Places—powering hyperlocal applications from last-mile delivery to smart city applications. It’s about economic impact and unlocking places to become the gravity points for location-based services,” Mihaela Georgieva, CCO of UNL, told Singapore Business Review

The platform is identified as an infrastructural technology that can divide parts of the world into a 3D grid of ‘micro-cells’. To every ‘cell’, UNL then assigns a unique universal location ID, which Georgieva describes as similar to domain names. From there, users and businesses can claim and customise locations, give a custom name, attach and manage metadata, optimise first- and last-mile navigation.

“To this, we add a smart layer to make locations programmable and transactional, turning any location into a point of sale, point of delivery, point of payment and point of experience,” Georgieva added.

Currently, they are working on their delivery platform which includes features such as last-mile optimisation and customisation, smart route planning and fleet management, indoor navigation, and access management.

Apart from this, UNL also made the Human Care app, designated to curb the spread of the coronavirus through location and data. Georgieva said that it is a “tech4good” solution under the Human Unlimited Foundation and is powered by UNL and Netherlands-based mapping solutions provider HERE Technologies.

UNL secured $2.78m (US$2m) in a seed funding last March, led by Singapore-based deeptech VC fund elev8.vc. It was also participated by HERE Technologies, SGInnovate, US-based SOSV, Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX) and Venturerock. The funds will be for developing the Internet of Places core infrastructure.

“Location Based Services (LBS)—the provision of goods and services based on geographic location—are growing rapidly. Nowhere is this better evidenced than the stunning growth of urban food delivery apps. However, LBS is still a nascent industry. Its potential extends far beyond—from hyper-personalised services to smart-nation programmes,” said Aditya Mathur, managing director of elev8.vc. “UNL’s platform will enhance existing offerings and will support hyper-localised applications we haven’t considered yet.”
 

Caption: Xander van der Heijden, the founder of UNL.