The funding round was led by SBI Investment.

When Thailand’s largest card issuer, Krungsri Bank, decided to graduate from being a client of fintech startup Silot to actively invest in its operations through its venture capital arm, it was a testament to the startup’s capabilities to create value for its banking clients through its AI-powered platform.

Founded in March 2017, Silot’s intelligent banking engine streamlines banking operations and enhances decision-making processes through AI and knowledge graphs that target primary bottlenecks such as poor connectivity as well as siloed data and systems, allowing even the most dated banking systems to formulate AI-assisted decisions.

The startup has applied for Knowledge Construction and Knowledge Interference and Generation patents for its proprietary solutions. Their Silot Intelligent Platform helps to connect the processes of payments, marketing, loan underwriting, Know Your Customer (KYC), and compliance, turning data into knowledge which can then be derived into intelligent decisions using AI.

In March, Silot has raised $10.8m in a series A funding round led by SBI Investment, followed by Sumitomo Corporation, Krungsri Finnovate and existing investor, Arbor Ventures. The proceeds collected from the funding will be used to focus on R&D of knowledge graph technology and fuel its expansion plans.

“Our R&D focuses in knowledge graph technology to recreate human knowledge from data facts to produce quick and accurate decisions for the bank use cases,” Andy Li, founder and CEO of Silot told Singapore Business Review. “Customers can expect a one time implementation of our knowledge graph and later on they can unlock additional solutions such as loan underwriting and transactional anti-fraud and AML solutions.”

Following launches in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, Li said that Silot plans to expand to Japan and the Middle East in the future. 

The expansion plans come after Rely closed a seven-digit funding round.

Rely, a Singapore-based fintech company that offers a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ service, has raised a seven-figure pre-Series A funding led by Goldbell Financial Services. Joining the growing list of startups raising funds from family offices in Singapore, a significant amount of funding was also secured from Octava foundation, a family office based in Singapore, and strategic investors from the financial and technology sector.

Founded in 2017, Rely uses its proprietary decision engine, which uses artificial intelligence and machine mlearning, to help determine shoppers repayment capabilities for each transaction. With Rely, shoppers can use the ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ service upon checkout and enjoy their products without having to pay the full sum upfront. Goldbell Financial Services (GBFS) is the financial services arm of Goldbell Group, a financial institution in Singapore.

When founders of the fintech startup Rely started their first funding round,they realised that it was essential to have investors who understood the fintech industry and what they were doing in relation to the current industry.

This is why its CEO and co-founder Hizam Ismail thought that they were fortunate enough to be introduced to various investment networks, such as AngelCentral. “Fundraising is always a challenge for any startup as it can be a long and difficult process. Through our experience during this funding round, we found that a good way to get started would be to learn from industry veterans who have done this before,” he said.

The logtech startup will be making its way to Australia.

Moving from one country to another can be really stressful because the process involves transporting a lot of goods - from luggage to furniture. One Singaporean startup wants to help make that process less of a headache. Moovaz is an online international relocation platform that aids in either home or office relocations by offering transport, accommodations and telecommunication services and even assist clients with cleaning, plumbing, and repair services of the new space.

“The challenge would be that you know the nature is changing. The sort of people that are moving now are younger. So the nature of moves are changing, but the industry itself is growing. So that’s an opportunity for us,” Junxian Lee, chief executive officer at Moovaz told Singapore Business Review.

The platform allows users to input the origin of move, the destination and how much stuff is being relocated. The company then aggregates services which the person can use from their database. It also involves a survey where users can specify items like cabinets, appliances, furniture and other custom items. After the delivery details are finalised, a Moovaz employee will contact the person and guide them through the relocation process.

In February, Moovaz secured an undisclosed amount of investment from Hustle Fund, a venture fund investing in early-stage startups in the US, Canada and Southeast Asia, according to a company statement. The new funding comes six months after Moovaz’s seed round, where the firm raised US$1m from a group of investors, including key personnel from Ong Beng Seng’s family office fund, Mojo Partners as well as senior operating executives from undisclosed American and Chinese unicorns.

The latest funding round will be used as a lift-off for their international expansion, starting with Australia, as Lee believes that the country’s market size complements how relatively young the company is. “We have to be very careful with the resources we have. So operationally, we might not be best equipped to handle like a very, very large number of moves. We can potentially handle a smaller number of larger margin moves so as a strategic decision, Australia can make sense,” Lee said. 

The proceeds will be used for its expansion plans.

Singapore-based AI hiring marketplace Snaphunt raised $1.36m in seed funding led by international data tech-focused VC firm BEENEXT to fuel its expansion plans. 

The startup essentially acts like a recruitment agency but without a human recruiter, as it uses artificial intelligence solutions that match the jobs available to job seeker’s profile.

Employers can interview candidates easily and conveniently using pre-recorded interviews on the platform and save at least 30% of time spent on hiring, reduce hiring effort by more than 50% and lower hiring costs by as much as 99%, as compared to using recruitment agencies.

“We will be spending this investment on making some key hires and aggressively expanding our footprint in Singapore before extending it to other Southeast Asian countries later this year,” Tulika Tripathi, founder, Snaphunt told Singapore Business Review. Tripathi said that they spent almost two years in bootstrapping the business to build a product, as well as another year and a half for research and development Another six months was spent in running a beta test before taking it commercially live.

Snaphunt focused on white-collar hiring because there have been new specialist roles popping up in the last 3-4 years, according to Tripathi, adding that finding such roles for employers would be difficult as there were no set footprints on how to search for such talent. “So it really comes down to understanding competencies, understanding underlying skills to be able to find people for this role,” she said.

The proceeds will be used to fuel its expansion plans.

Singapore-based influencer marketing platform Affable has raised $1m (US$747,000) in a seed funding round involving the participation of Decacorn Capital and SGInnovate.

Founded in October 2017 as a SaaS platform for influencer marketing, Affable connects brands and marketing agencies with micro-influencers that can add further value to their campaign. It provides tools for brands and agencies for influencer discovery, campaign management, content vetting and ROI measurement using state-of-the-art machine learning technologies. 

"Affable is building a self-service platform where a marketer will be able to find, engage and measure any influencer they work with globally. We provide this as a subscription platform to customers who find influencers on our platform using search parameters relevant to the audience they want to reach," Nisarg Shah, CEO and co-founder of Affable told Singapore Business Review. 

Affable enables customrs to view detailed demographics and psychographic insights about the influencer's followers and information about competing brands that the influencer might have worked with in the past. The platform can also analyse the performance of the influencer posts and if they are property reaching the target audience.

"We launched early in order to avoid developing feature that customers do not want. This resulted in the customers always demanding more features which was a good problem to have," added Shah.

The startup was incubated by Entrepreneur First who in turn pitched in for the startup's latest funding round along with BANSEA and a host of other angel investors including senior executives from Microsoft and Google. Affable's funding round also marked the first participation of SGInnovate in funding promising firms through its StartupSG Equity Scheme. 

Affable plans to use the proceeds from the funding to support product development by hiring engineers to scale their technology and fuel their expansion plans into key markets across Southeast Asia over the next 18 months.

"Today, there exists Google AdWords for search ads and Facebook Ad Network for sponsored ads. Five years from now, Affable wants to be the one-stop platform for word-of-mouth marketing through influencers, for any company size, anywhere in the world." 

Its app offers video consultations with healthcare providers.

Digital healthcare platform Doctor Anywhere has raised $5.6m in its series A financing round anchored by Kamet Capital Partners as it bids to make quality healthcare more accessible to the tech-savvy population. 

Founded in 2015 and launched late 2017, Doctor Anywhere offers its users access to a wide range of healthcare providers through video consultations on its mobile app which currently has three features - general practitioner, lactation and medical aesthetic. 

"[The name] ‘Doctor Anywhere’ conveys our offerings well - with our app, you can video call a doctor (or healthcare provider) on demand, anywhere you are," Lim Wai Mun, founder of Doctor Anywhere told Singapore Business Review who developed the app after experiencing the healthcare gaps at the city's lower income estates. 

Patients who receive the virtual consultation need only wait for documents including medical certificates, referral, prescription orders and receipts to be delivered via email. Doctor Anywhere charges $20 in ccnsultation fees for GP and medical aesthetics and $15 for those seeking breastfeeding advice but charges separately for medications.

Since consultation histories are stored centrally and easily accessible within the platform, the next healthcare provider will be armed with more information to assess the patient's conditions which gives rise to better treatment and improves the quality of care, explained Mun.

However, Mun cautions that their platform does not cater to serious conditions which require urgent medical attention as trained providers will review the case and recommend physical consultation if deemed unsuitable for the platform. 

Although the local telehealth consumer market is still in its nascent stages, Doctor Anywhere believes that their technology offers users a strong alternative to connect for quick advice and treatment of simple healthcare issues while acting as an effective complement to the existing healthcare system. 

"There are few telehealth solutions out there but what really sets us apart from other industry players is our integrated platform approach. Through this technology, we can offer care-seekers end-to-end services that accompany them throughout their health journeys," added Mun. 

The firm will use the proceeds from their recently closed funding round to continue developing its products and services. It will also be used to grow the team base, explore new business verticals and develop more healthcare solutions. "We aspire to be a key player in personalised healthcare by boosting secure, customised and convenient access to healthcare professionals for everyone in Singapore and the region." 

The firm will use the proceeds for R&D.

Aquatech startup Umitron has successfully raised $11.2m (US$8.25m) in an equity financing round, which it claims is the largest early-stage investment in aquatech. Umitron's first product called UmiGarden is an IoT-powered feeding management system that could optimise feeding cost through data.

A proprietary algorithm developed by the team is said to have the ability to detect when fish are hungry, allowing farmers to feed their fish at the right time. Data-driven analysis of feeding can significantly benefit the aquaculture industry especially as feeding represents roughly 50% of total production costs whilst also avoiding eutrophication and red tide.

Umitron's technology optimises the aquaculture feeding process by reducing cost and environmental risk. In May, Umitron entered into a research agreement with Ainan municipality, Ehime prefecture in Japan to demonstrate the capabilities of their technology as they bid for the development of sustainable aquaculuture.

"Umitron is here to install Sustainable Aquaculture on Earth and improve safety, eco-friendly, stable supply of aquatic resources and work environment in aquaculture by technology," the company said in a statement.

The latest funding round was a co-investment involving the participation of Innvation Network Corporation of Japan, Design for Ventures (D4V) by IDEO and angel investors. The funding will be used to strengthen Umitron's existing services and R&D activities. 

Photo from Umitron

The funding will be used to strengthen its presence in emerging markets.

Singapore-based full stack automotive marketplace Carro has closed its Series B capital infusion worth $60 million on May 14 led by Softbank Ventures Korea, Insignia Ventures Partners, and B Capital Group. 

Carro, with its mission to become the platform of choice for the entire automotive ownership life cycle, aims to help car owners sell and buy quickly at a fair price by providing a market for used cars and auto finance. Overall, Carro has raised over $75m in funding since it was established in 2015. With its new financing fuel, Carro will double down on its online marketplace and expand its presence in emerging markets like Japan. 

“We greatly appreciate the continued support from a growing investor base,” said Aaron Tan, Carro Chief Executive Officer. “We will double down on our online marketplaces and financing in emerging markets this year." 

Softbank Ventures Korea’s Sean Lee, Insignia Ventures Partners’ Tan Yinglan and B Capital Group’s Eduardo Saverin also joined Carro's board. “The expertise they bring to the table will allow us to continue scaling up our online marketplace as well as Genie Financial Services, Carro’s own financial services company, which is already profitable. With credit approvals in just a few minutes, the purchase of any car can be done in 30 minutes or less,” says the Carro CEO.

Within two and a half years, Carro has commanded a large share of the wholesale auction market, expanding into auto financing, insurance brokerage, road side assistance and more. At least $250m worth of vehicles were transacted across Carro’s platforms in Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore in 2017. In the same year, Carro’s Genie Financial Services, which provides lending and insurance services, has originated over $100m in loans, whilst a loan book of close to $40m was amassed in the automative marketplace's first year of operation.

More recently, Carro Express, a new service that aims to complete each used vehicle transaction within 60 minutes, has also struck a chord with consumers and dealers. Launched in over 30 locations across Southeast Asia in the past nine months, Carro Express witnessed the highest growth rate amongst all its marketplaces.

"Ultimately, we want to improve the experience of selling and buying a car, as well as provide access to capital to the next billion people, which will improve the quality of lives,” adds Tan.

Members who don't make claims can enjoy up to 15% cashback on annual premiums.

Singaporean startup Vouch Insurtech's "No-Claim Rebate (NCR)" feature lets drivers receive up to 15% cashback on their annual premiums if they do not make a claim at the end of their policies. Vouch founder and chief operating officer Chean Yujun said the company partnered with major insurers, NTUC Income, Sompo and Tokio Marine Insurance Singapore to basically pay safe drivers for not making a claim. 

Vouch's new cashback feature is on top of the insurtech's No-Claim Discount (NCD). The NCR system works by grouping drivers with similar driving profiles together. Vouch, then, sets aside 15% of each driver's policy for the NCR.

"During the policy period, if any member makes an own-damage claim, part of this claim is deducted from the rebate pool, and the remainder of the pool is split amongst the members at the end of their respective policy period," explained Yujun. "If the pool runs out, there is no negative impact to the customers, as everyone is still covered by their respective insurance company. If the group stays accident-free, everyone receives 15% cashback on their premium."

Vouch also allows drivers to form private communities with friends and family or other safe drivers to maximise their cashbacks. "This breakthrough is possible because our insurers have committed to return part of their profits in the event that claims by drivers are low. As such, the NCR cashback feature not only promotes a safe driving culture, but it is also a fairer insurance experience," he added.

Safe driving culture
Vouch aims to disrupt the insurance industry by giving safe drivers a choice on how they influence their premiums. Aside from being entirely digital, the insurtech firm rewards drivers who contribute to a safe driving culture in Singapore.

Yujun lamented that new car owners are "penalised" into paying high premiums even when they demonstrate safe driving skills."Whilst car insurance is mandatory, only 15% of drivers make claims annually. That meant that many safe drivers were paying higher premiums in order to cover the risks of less-safe drivers. This came across as unfair and inefficient," he explained.

The Vouch CEO said he was surprised insurers were quick to latch on to their NCR idea. "We had positive response from them across all levels. I think that's because people in the industry are consumers as well, and they have seen how things have changed so quickly in various sectors."  

Its smart API platform is complemented by a machine learning engine.

Using its smart API platform, Anapi allows any business to easily add relevant insurance to their digital services. Anapi founder and chief executive officer George Kesselman said insurance needs to be designed differently for the digital world. "We partnered with leading insurers and deliver tailored protection via our smart API platform," he said. 

Launched last November 2017, Kesselman said Anapi solves a fundamental problem in the insurance industry in which insurance firms have drifted into a more grey territory of helping themselves make profits first before helping their customers.

He explained that digital startups usually find themselves with no protection because insurance companies do not understand their businesses.

"The common painful theme kept coming up. There's no relevant option to protect ourselves and our customers in digital," said Kesselman. "Many of the startups had spoken to insurers and felt that insurers either didn't understand or weren't interested to help them."

At the heart of Anapi's services is technology that drastically simplifies insurance, making it a frictionless experience for both startups and their users. "Whilst API is the heart, Sanya is our Reinforcement Learning AI Engine. Sanya is quickly learning about all kinds of things people and businesses are worried about and the best ways to protect them," explained Kesselman.

In the past four months, Kesselman said 10 digital startups have already expressed interest in being part of Anapi's insurance pilot. He added that they remain optimistic about Anapi's initial round of funding which will fuel the firm for the next 18 months. 

The startup optimises websites across devices to achieve up to 40% faster loading time.

Singapore-based SaaS startup scored S$1m in a seed funding round led by Cocoon Capital and Walden International in its bid to slash the loading time of websites by as much as 40%.

Incubated within the halls of the National University of Singapore, Dexecure’s unique algorithm enables it to optimise websites across devices, browsers and varying bandwidth conditions so that companies can better focus on their marketing content and generate engagement without worrying about sluggish websites. 

Dexecure also reduces the bandwidth needed per page so that both websites and visitors are able to save up on costs.

“With browsers coming up with new features every single month, it is almost impossible for website developers to keep track and change their code to optimize for performance,” said Dexecure CEO Inian Parameshwaran. “At Dexecure, we have a team of developers that monitor these changes and accelerate websites so that users anywhere can enjoy a fast browsing experience.”

In the last four months, Dexecure has optimised and served 568 million requests, saving 6.8 terabytes of data for its customers. Dexecure is also a part of the AWS Partner Network (APN) and offers their customers an accelerating software layer on top of the CloudFront service.

“Dexecure shows how global innovation is shifting towards Asia. We found that the company enables speed increases for high-traffic websites at a 6x to 10x lower price point compared to existing solutions in the market,” said Will Klippgen, Managing Partner at Cocoon Capital.

It provides data insights enabling hoteliers to better reach sustainability goals.

Singapore-based startup SensorFlow has received $750,000 in seed funding from early-stage venture capital firm Cocoon Capital to launch its smart energy management solution for the hotel industry.

The company’s smart automation technology measures energy consumption by tracking data in real time to provide hoteliers with insights unto energy management and help them better achieve sustainability goals. This is particularly timely as buildings consume almost half (40%) of energy resources and account for a third of global emissions. 

"With hotels and commercial buildings spending US$160 billion a year on energy bills, we are re-inventing energy management from end to end to help businesses of all sizes implement smart technology, automate energy savings, and reach their sustainability goals,” said CEO Saikrishnan Ranganathan.

The system also includes an operational dashboard for real-time insights into energy management, and preventative maintenance, and occupancy and door sensors that adjust the thermostat fan and air conditioning.

SensorFlow’s full stack IoT system are installed per room using existing wiring. The smart sensors actively regulate the air-conditioning in response to occupancy and guest behavior which enables hotels to adjust temperatures upon check-in to provide a better guest experience – this solves a common maintenance problem as condensation occurs when guests leave doors and windows open.

“Our network stack is built on a long-range radio, which allows us to use a single gateway for an entire building. This is a big improvement over wired systems, which require opening up walls and traditional wireless systems using multiple gateways every ten meters,” added Ranganathan.

Three of ALILA Hotels & Resorts properties in Bali, Indonesia and 5footway.inn by The Uncharted Co in Singapore plan to deploy SensorFlow’s energy solutions across their properties.

“Whether you’re a major hotel with over 2,000 rooms or a small service apartment with 20 rooms, energy consumption is a major concern," Ranganathan added. 

Users can now pay for recurring cash expenses like taxes and rent via credit card.

When CardUp—a card payments platform for cash management—secured US$1.7m in seed funding led by Sequoia India and early-stage venture capital fund Seedplus in March, the fintech startup’s vision to revolutionise the digital payments landscape looks set to spread far and wide.

The idea is simple: users can pay for nearly everything, including staff payroll, rent, taxes, and insurance premiums—items usually paid for through cash, bank transfers, or checks—through their credit cards, all while retaining the corresponding card benefits and rewards over to the cardholders.

At the core of the business is empowering individuals and businesses by improving their cash flow and liquidity, whilst also widening their access to finance. The startup’s inaugural seed funding, for instance, were aimed to grow its payments and cash flow management offering to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) segment.

"CardUp makes the payment of big recurring expenses such as rent, taxes, supplier payments, or even payroll, a more rewarding experience. Individuals and businesses can improve their cash flow by tapping into pre-approved credit lines on their card, whilst banks and payment networks are able to increase overall credit card spend by capturing a new market segment," said Nicki Ramsay, CardUp founder and chief executive officer in a statement.

This flexibility and wider accessibility allows consumers to maximise card benefits included extended credit terms as well as the earning of reward points, whilst businesses can improve their capital management by shifting expenses to their corporate credit cards via CardUp for interest-free credit up to 55 days. Apart from improving cash flow, the startup’s offering also eases SMEs and other businesses’ transition towards a digitalisation of operations.

Since its launch in 2016 in Singapore, CardUp has been able to make a noticeable dent in the growth of card spending in the Southeast Asian economic powerhouse. According to the startup's statement, over S$55m in payments has been created on the platform in the last 12 months, which represents more than 1% of overall credit card spend growth in Singapore from 2016 to 2017. The company has established partnerships with major banks and credit card providers including UOB, Citibank, Bank of China, and Mastercard, which promote CardUp and its offerings, and, in turn, capture incremental spend on their cards.

CardUp's innovative business model has been making waves in the region's digital payments and banking sector, with the company being recognized by industry leaders and regulators for its innovation, including as a finalist in The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global Hackcelerator 2016. In a nutshell, CardUp provides and polishes the infrastructure for card companies and payment networks to process payments in segments where cards are not accepted and entertained. A key feature of CardUp's offering is that it doesn't require participation of recipient, which means that any payment that is currently made by bank transfer today can be shifted onto a credit card.

Shoppers no longer have to wander to find a product they want to buy.

WhereisWhere seeks to disrupt how brick-and-mortar businesses market their products and target customers by easily making promotions, deals, and discounts appear on nearby consumers’ mobile devices by connecting consumers to such information - all based on their proximity to each other.

This means that businesses do not need to hand out leaflets or spend heavily on advertising that are often ignored by passers-by. "Our system allows merchants to launch and plan promotions on a daily, weekly and hourly basis – all for a fixed monthly fee. Merchants that are not running promotions can also list their companies for free on WhereIsWhere," said founder and CEO Terence Mak.

The platform's simple and intuitive interface enables users to instantly get what they need based on when they are in a particular place.

"As the information is updated by merchants on a daily or weekly basis, consumers can be assured of getting only the latest information on deals and finds nearby," said Mak, adding that they are turning advertising, a formerly expensive activity, into an affordable fixed pricing model that better targets consumers. 

After securing $1m in its initial funding round, WhereisWhere is eyeing a regional launch in the second quarter of the year as market response has been positive so far with merchants and retailers of all sizes onboarding the platform.

"We are looking into harnessing the full potential of location-based marketing to transform the entire retail industry," said Mak. "We anticipate more partnerships underway as we have been receiving a number of enquiries from potential partners." 

It enables businesses in deploying crypto-backed token economies.

After securing a listing at the Singapore-headquartered blockchain asset financial services provider Huobi Pro, US-based Simple Token may be one step closer to its goal of popularising cryptocurrencies across the world's automotive, medical and energy industries.

Launched in 2017, Simple Token came out of Pepo, a consumer app company founded in early 2016 by entrepreneur Jason Goldberg and Sunil Khedar to enable businesses to monetise user contributions and content, power peer-to-peer transaction, provide meaningful incentives and rewards, develop transparent loyalty programs, and unleash thousands of new monetisation and supply & demand possibilities.

The startup was founded with the aim of bringing blockchain technology to mainstream businesses and enabling these businesses to deploy their own branded crypto-backed token economies minus the legal, regulatory, and technology headaches.

“In August 2017, after months of exploring Blockchain tokenisation for Pepo, our team became convinced that Simple Token was the more important long term challenge to solve rather than just working on Pepo. The only problem was that the company would need $1m of additional money to pursue Simple Token and an ICO,” Goldberg said. Goldberg and his longtime business partner Nishish Shah each loaned the company $500,000 to make the pivot possible, without any guarantees of it working out.

Powering cryptocurrencies
At present, Goldberg and his team are working with seven companies and talking to 50+ companies worldwide about using Simple Token to power cryptocurrencies for their digital communities rather than follow the challenging, costly and risky path of their own ICO to create a token with market value. Simple Token also recently held its public token sale to create a value for Simple Tokens and to fund the next phase of the project. Goldberg said that they achieved more than 90% of their target for the ICO in the first seven days of the sale, which ended on 1 December 2017. 

“Our mission is to help mainstream companies benefit from blockchain technologies. We believe in the promise of Blockchain and decentralization and we are building solutions to help all types of businesses and all facets of society benefit from blockchain. For us, success would be when we have helped thousands of companies and millions of their customers embrace and benefit from blockchain,” Goldberg said.

It provides dashboarding services enabling companies to easily review relevant compliance data.

Zave is a one-stop shop platform that offers convenient and cost-effective tax and accounting services for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It was designed to address two pain points. The first is moving all communications of unstructured emails to structured workflow software, and second is dashboarding for the company so they can see at a glance all of their important compliance dates, deadlines, registrations and exemptions. 

The platform also ensures that its SME clients are more fully supported through the startup’s partnerships with public accounting firms for higher- value services such as audit, M&A advisory, and asset and company valuation services, amongst others. The platform’s professional services lineup is slated to expand to include company incorporation and company secretary services by April, as well as cross-border support in other jurisdictions around the region starting later this year.

“Given the core expertise of an SME and startup is usually not corporate services, it makes no sense to in-house these services,” said Alan Schmoll, founder of Zave who, previously was a director for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong.

Zave clients only need to enter their UEN (ACRA business registration number) and they will go through an entirely automated onboarding process. The platform’s bots can assess the size and type of company being onboarded and will create a tailored experience. Once the account is connected with their own version of Xero, either a new or existing one, the client can start to interact with the Zave team on various tasks from compliance tasks, to staff expenses and bills.

Zave is currently running on financing fuel from an undisclosed seed amount from East Ventures, an early stage venture capital started by serial technology entrepreneur Batara Eto, also a co-founder of the corporate services startup alongside Schmoll.

Zave is offering clients a no commitment free trial.
 

It helps consumers make the right purchasing decisions.

Superble boasts of the first platform of its kind where consumers can connect with fellow consumers, share their product recommendations, and make money from discussions. Nicolo Robba, co-founder, Superble, said that their company is about helping people make the right purchasing decisions. The company was born when he and his friends consistently found it difficult to find the right information for products they wanted to buy.

According to him, Superble incentivises the exchange of product recommendations and Superble incentivises the exchange of product reviews experiences to make product discovery easier, more genuine, and well informed.

“Furthermore, trusting vendors and sponsors (who are paid thousands of dollars by the brands) wasn’t something that we were really keen on. In South East Asia, it is extremely difficult to find genuine recommendations from other users, especially in lifestyle categories such as beauty, fitness, pets, moms, cooking, and others,” Robba added.

With just a team of four, Superble manages to work with e-commerce giants Lazada and Amazon to direct quality traffic convertible at very high rates. Robba said that the decision to buy becomes much easier when people find the products on Superble, where the information consumers need is complete and where they are also ready to buy.

To grow Superble’s visibility, Robba and his team ran unconventional initiatives on social media, allowing them to reach more than 20,000 followers in less than three months. Superble also ran various seminars with Singapore student clubs, generating more than 1,000 new members and 400 new products recommendations in less than a month.

“We are planning to expand into new markets in order to connect Singaporeans with people all around the world. Our traffic is already increasing week on week in countries such as USA, India, Philippines and Malaysia. We are also launching a community and ambassador program for our most active users, influencers and bloggers who want to participate even more in the community and have a bigger impact on their followers,”