2020

Techcrunch

Partipost, a Singapore-based marketing startup that lets anyone with a social media profile sign up for influencer campaigns, has raised $3.5 million in new funding. The round was led by SPH Ventures, the investment arm of publisher Singapore Press Holdings, with participation from Quest Ventures and other investors.

The funding will be used to grow Partipost’s current operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan, and expand into Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, other Southeast Asian markets with heavy social media usage. Since launching its mobile app in 2018, Partipost says it has added about 200,000 influencers to its platform, and that over the past 12 months, it has helped conduct 2,500 social media marketing campaigns for more than 850 brands, including Adidas, Arnott’s, Red Bull, Chope and Gojek.

According to benchmark report released in March by Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is expected to be worth about $9.7 billion in 2020, with companies spending increasing amounts on social media campaigns and working with more “micro-influencers.” To serve them, the report said that more than 380 new influencer marketing agencies and platforms were launched last year, joining a roster of companies that already include AspireIQ, Upfluence, BuzzSumo, SparkToro and Inzpsire.me, to name just a few examples.

While most of these companies focus on helping brands identify the influencers with the widest social media reach, Partipost lets anyone sign up to take part in a campaign.

“Partipost’s main difference is that we believe that everyone can be an influencer,” founder and chief executive officer Jonathan Eg told TechCrunch. “Even if you have 200 followers, you can be one. We want to create a new market that we believe will be the future. Everyone can post on social media, write a review or give some feedback and be paid for it.”

“We want to empower everyone to monetize off their own data and influence and not just allow the big tech companies to do so,” he added.

As part of the funding, SPH Ventures chief executive officer Chua Boon Ping will join Partipost’s board, while Quest Ventures partner Jeffrey Seah will become an observer.

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The Business Times

Venture capitalist Jeffrey Seah, a media and advertising veteran, said: “In marrying the Chatri brand with The Apprentice’s established franchise-machine, the collaboration can potentially unlock the commercial potential… and might bring in the quality cash revenue streams ONE Championship has been seeking the past few years.”

The challenge will lie in distinguishing the show from newer content formats. “Digital-economy content models might cast a shadow on the aged media model of The Apprentice,” Mr Seah added.”

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KrASIA

Influencer marketing platform Partipost announced July 22 that it has raised USD 3.5 million in an SPH Ventures-led Series A, with participation from investors including Quest Ventures and others.

“Our latest fundraising round will enable Partipost to develop even better technology and collect more data to help us achieve our goals of helping brands connect to the right crowd of influencers as well as empowering these influencers with ability to be rewarded,” said the company’s founder and CEO Jonathan Eg in a statement.

The influencer marketing industry is set to grow to USD 9.7 billion in 2020 according to a report by Influencer Marketing Hub, a website dedicated to influencer marketing. Partipost also aims to accelerate business expansion into Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia while strengthening the current operation in Singapore, Indonesia, and Taiwan.

In addition to the funding, SPH Ventures CEO Chua Boon Ping will join as a director in Partipost’s board of directors. Quest Ventures’ partner Jeffrey Seah will also board as the company’s observer.

Founded in 2016, Partipost acts as a matchmaker for brands and influencers ranging from a few hundred to millions in follower size. Utilizing data insights collected through its in-app polls and user behaviour, the company helps find influencers with the highest brand affinity.

Since the launch of the Partipost mobile app in 2018, the startup has seen an average of double to triple-digit percentage month-on-month growth to more than 200,000 influencers, and has facilitated 2,500 influencer marketing campaigns for over 850 brands around the world in the past 12 months.

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Singapore Business Review

Crowd influencer marketing and commerce platform Partipost has secured an investment of $4.81m (US$3.5m) led by SPH Ventures, according to an announcement. Quest Ventures and other investors also participated in the funding.

Partipost’s founder and CEO, Jonathan Eg, has assembled an investor base with deep domain knowledge in content, artiste management, data and advertising, as well as extensive industry networks which are critical for market expansion plans. Partipost counts singer and celebrity Will Pan as one of its earliest investors.

In connection with this investment, Chua Boon Ping, CEO of SPH Ventures will join Partipost’s board of directors as a director and Jeffrey Seah of Quest Ventures will join as an observer.

The funds raised are said to further develop Partipost’s tech platform and accelerate business expansion into Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia, as well as strengthen current operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Jonathan Eg adds that this latest fundraising round will enable Partipost to develop even better technology and collect more data to help brands connect to the right crowd of influencers as well as empowering influencers with ability to be rewarded.

Since the launch of the Partipost mobile app in 2018, the startup has seen an average of double to triple digit percentage growth MoM to more than 200,000 influencers. With the rapid traction, Partipost has been able to see through 2,500 influencer marketing campaigns for over 850 brands across geographical markets in the past 12 months.

Critically, the mobile app is said to allow Partipost to activate thousands of influencers for a single campaign within 24 hours. Partipost is set to hit over 1,000,000 influencers within the next 18 months.

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The Business Times

CROWD influencer marketing startup Partipost has raised US$3.5 million in a Series A funding round led by SPH Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Singapore Press Holdings, the startup announced in a Thursday press release.

The fundraise was joined by local venture firm Quest Ventures, among other investors. SPH Ventures chief executive Chua Boon Ping will join Partipost’s board, while Jeffrey Seah of Quest Ventures will join in as an observer.

Partipost said that its latest investors have “deep domain knowledge in content, artiste management, data and advertising, as well as extensive industry networks which are critical for market expansion plans”.

Jonathan Eg, Partipost’s founder and chief executive, said that his firm’s latest fundraising round will enable it to develop better technology and collect more data to help brands connect to right influencers, as well as to empower the influencers.

“Having strategic investors, such as SPH Ventures and Quest Ventures, will provide us with domain expertise and market networks to realise our growth vision faster,” Mr Eg added.

Julian Tan, chief of digital business at SPH (which publishes The Business Times), said the company is constantly looking to invest in digital businesses that can “add value and synergy” to its media segment.

“Partipost has built up a strong crowd influencer platform and we are working with them to see how best to offer their unique solution to further enhance our offerings to our users and clients,” he said.

Mr Chua of SPH Ventures added: “We are impressed by Partipost’s strong traction in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan as a young startup and look forward to partnering it to scale to new markets.”

Mr Seah of Quest Ventures believes that Partipost will be able to expand its base beyond the traditional influencer crowd, to include other public-facing figures, to “create vertical unlimited-volume content channels”.

“Partipost’s potential resides in its ease of onboarding quality content influencers with loyal follower bases. Besides millennial socialites, we believe Partipost will be able to onboard and scale the follower bases for established celebrities, news anchors, society spokespersons and literary writers,” he said.

“Partipost will drive a new era of commercial content monetisation partnerships. They are an excellent team of passionate technology entrepreneurs and have our full support,” Mr Seah added.

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Deal Street Asia

SPH Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), has led a $3.5 million funding round in influencer marketing startup Partipost, according to a statement.

The financing was joined by Quest Ventures and others undisclosed investors.

Partipost matches brands with influencers to drive word-of-mouth marketing. It uses data insights through its in-app polls and user behaviour to crowdsource influencers.

Partipost operates in the influencer marketing industry, which is forecast to hit $9.7 billion in 2020, according to a report by Influencer Marketing Hub. The industry has seen a spike in the last two years as brands and governments shift their marketing efforts online to target Millennials.

In Southeast Asia, the influencer marketing sector was believed to have reached $638 million last year and is expected to quadruple within five years to reach $2.6 billion by 2024, according to influencer marketing agency IMA.

Quest Ventures partner Jeffrey Seah said Partipost’s potential resides in its “ease of onboarding quality content influencers with loyal follower bases.”

Following the investment, … Seah will join Partipost’s board as an observer.

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联合早报

今年4月，INTELLLEX获本地风险投资者Quest Ventures所领导的几个基金联合注资210万美元，成为相信是本区域首家获得这等投资额的法律科技公司。公司创办人深知搜索资料的不易，立志于运用人工智能技术（AI）改善法律知识管理领域的运作。

新加坡法律采纳普通法系，特点是需要反复参考判決先例，但要如何从海量的普通法文献和判词中，找出一份包含信托、地皮公司、私生子和遗产继承几个元素的判例？

立杰律师事务所的前律师曾子谦（34岁）深知搜索资料的不易，立志于运用人工智能技术（AI）改善法律知识管理领域的运作。

2015年，他与四名好友李剑欣（32岁）、陈峙汎（34岁）、黄怡慧（32岁）和许展阁（35岁），联合创办AI法律科技公司INTELLLEX，成立专业知识管理系统，并设下目标，要成为“B2B（企业对企业）专业领域的谷歌”。

几经耕耘，这家也服务金融业、企业和税务领域的科技起步公司，团队已扩大到16人，并在英国伦敦设分公司。

公司逐渐赢得口碑，客户包括本地大型律师事务所、政府机构和国际律所。

今年4月，INTELLLEX甚至获本地风险投资者Quest Ventures所领导的几个基金联合注资210万美元（约292万新元），成为相信是本区域首家获得这等投资额的法律科技公司。

曾子谦说，公司准备用这笔资金扩大亚太和欧洲的服务，并研发新产品。

“资讯的爆炸及人工成本的提高，促使专业知识领域未来必须依靠人工智能的辅助。风险投资者的注资，证明了他们认可法律科技领域是方兴未艾的领域，日后仍有发展潜力及增长的空间。”

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The Edge Singapore

The glamour and big bucks of the law has long been a key pillar of the “Singapore Dream”, but the trials and tribulations of the legal profession have often been cause for second thoughts. A day in the life of a high-flying attorney involves poring through piles of legal documents written in arcane language under severe time pressure. Small wonder, then, that three out of four lawyers leave the profession within 10 years.

Memories of stressful all-nighters, dealing with difficult bosses and having meals at odd hours remain vivid in the mind of one young lawyer. “You will also become heavily reliant on coffee or energy drinks, and drink copious amounts of alcohol on nights off to combat the stress and calm the nerves. Your social life will suffer. And trust me, you are going to be cancelling a lot of lunch and dinner appointments,” says RV, a member of the Law Society’s Young Lawyer’s Committee in an op-ed for its Law Gazette publication.

Much of this stress stems from how law firms manage the reams of information that come their way. As Singapore’s common law legal system requires lawyers to cite legal precedent from past cases, attorneys need to deal with large amounts of information gleaned over several years.

Borrowing a line made famous by former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former lawyer Chang Zi Qian says that attorneys often “don’t know what they don’t know”. The process by which they obtain information from databases and colleagues is often uncoordinated and manual.

Intelllex has met with significant success so far, winning US$2.1 million ($2.9 million) in startup funding despite weak investor confidence following Covid-19. Led by Quest Ventures, investors include Thomson Reuters, Creative Technology founder Sim Wong Woo, and early Razer investors Chandra Mohan and Chong Chiet Ping. “We like that Intelllex’s ‘brains with AI brawn’ offering is well-positioned to resolve age-old productivity and delivery problems across multiple B2B industries,” says Quest Ventures partner Jeffery Seah, who will join Intelllex’s Board after the funding round.

The legal industry appears to agree, with Intelllex boasting a star-studded portfolio of clients. Besides government bodies and several of Singapore’s “Big Four” law firms — Allen and Gledhill, Drew and Napier, Rajah and Tann, and WongPartnership — Intelllex also works with one of Britain’s prestigious “Magic Circle” law firms in the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. Smaller law firms are also well-represented among the start-up’s clientele, with such outfits constituting the bulk of its earliest clients since its founding in 2015.

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The Business Times

More high-profile investments in regional startups are emerging in a space already familiar to Chinese tech firms

US tech giants have made some recent high-profile investments into South-east Asian startups, the latest being Google’s plans to join Indonesian e-commerce player Tokopedia’s funding round, which aims to raise US$500 million to US$1 billion. Whether these investments will turn into proxy wars – as it has with Chinese tech majors – is still a question up for debate.

The strategic moves by US tech majors such as Facebook and Visa are likely to be fuelled by the rise of South-east Asia’s Internet economy and favourable demographics for growth.

“The US tech giants are actively searching for friendly frontier pastures in comparison to what they are facing at home, with Trump conservatism, and in China, their previous frontier land that is now made unfriendly by inter-governmental tensions,” said Jeffrey Seah, a partner at early-stage tech investment firm Quest Ventures.

“South-east Asia and South Asia represent scale, infrastructure-poor but aspiration-rich marketplaces to conquer and bring development economic benefits that are welcome by host governments.”

For Chinese tech giants, the battle lines have mostly been drawn in the e-commerce and e-wallet landscapes. For instance, a report from DealStreetAsia found that Alibaba (or affiliate Ant Financial) and Tencent are backing at least 11 e-wallet players in South-east Asia, in addition to expanding their respective Alipay and WeChat Pay.

For US firms, the strategy for now looks to be gaining exposure to opportunities in emerging markets. Heritas’ Mr Chik noted how some US and Chinese tech firms are common shareholders in South-east Asian startups. Google is with Tencent and JD.com in Gojek, for instance.

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e27

There are three reasons why Vietnam is outshining its neighbouring countries when it comes to handling the aftermath of COVID-19

Vietnam is one of the first countries to ease social distancing measures and reopen its society as early as April 2020, where most countries are only starting to grapple with the severity and spread of COVID-19.

Also known as the land of the ‘Ascending Dragon’ (due to the geographical shape on the world map), it the first in Southeast Asia to emerge from the global pandemic, allowing for businesses and domestic travels to reopen. Vietnam is also identified as one of the first countries in Southeast Asia when Singapore reopened its borders for travellers.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Vietnam stands at 349 (as of 22 June), with zero deaths. This stands in stark comparison with more than 42,000 cases in Singapore, 30,682 in the Philippines, and 8,587 in Malaysia.

The international community is stunned by Vietnam’s breakthrough during this COVID-19 pandemic. An Asahi Shimbun reporter assigned to cover Vietnam was intrigued by the following statement by a Japanese national who works in the country: “Even though I talked about the very few patients infected with the new coronavirus and the Vietnamese government’s tough measures to combat COVID-19, no one in Tokyo believed me.”

Following the outbreak of the coronavirus, the IMF’s 2020 GDP growth forecast for ASEAN-5 countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – is cut to -1.3 per cent (and Singapore -4-7 per cent), but Vietnam is expected to still experience positive 2.7 per cent GDP growth, with a strong rebound of seven per cent projected in 2021. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc sent a positive 2020 economic growth target of over five per cent, in spite of IMF’s projection.

From this, we can see Vietnam is poised to emerge one of the strongest economies in Southeast Asia and these are the three reasons why:

Swift action and digital services

Vietnam’s ability to achieve such outstanding results due to the swift and decisive actions from the national government, followed by coordinated and dedicated efforts of the general population. Vietnam took action very early when there was minimal information about the virus.

Nationwide school shutdowns were implemented in January, travel restrictions and border closure followed quickly. Vietnam also implemented aggressive contact tracing and quarantine people who are exposed to suspected cases for two weeks.

The Ministry of Health developed an app, NCOVI, health authorities disseminated warnings and orders through Zalo, a homegrown messaging app with more than 50 million users, and the internet spread a coronavirus public awareness pop song that went viral.

The swift action and digital services enabled transparency and collective and informed decisions in Vietnam’s battle against COVID-19, enabling them to emerge fast from the pandemic.

Resilient economy and startup ecosystem

The Business Times reports “Mobility metrics show the fastest recovery of activity in Vietnam, with movements to retail and recreation venues having rebounded to just 15 per cent below the baseline, compared to more than 60 per cent below baseline before measures began to lift.”

People may remember Vietnam for their amicable people, natural wonders, and sometimes their fight for independence for over 30 years. Through this COVID-19 episode, the world now views them in a new light, as a resilient and stable country, and one of the hubs for innovation and entrepreneurship in Asia.

The innovation ecosystem in Vietnam is attractive to e-commerce, software outsourcing, AI, fintech, healthtech startups. With more than 3,000 startups in the ecosystem, total investment in Vietnam startups increased six-fold in the period of two years between 2017 and 2019.

Some of the tech startups have also contributed to the fight against COVID-19 in providing online medical consultations, medical deliveries, and on-demand access to healthcare services.

Strong cross-border collaboration

“Being ahead of the curve, the ASEAN chair is in good stead to lead and shape regional responses on the pandemic”, says Dr Huong Le Thu, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute told The Straits Times.

Vietnam works closely with the regional neighbours in COVID-19 response and also in terms of driving regional growth and innovation.

To drive regional startup ecosystem development and integration, Vietnam’s public and sector stakeholders have been actively partnering with international entities for two-way market access for startups expanding in the region.

Quest Ventures, in partnership with statutory boards under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore and Saigon Innovation Hub (SIHUB), supports Singapore startups entering Vietnam through Vietnam Global Innovation (VGI) acceleration.

Leading venture capital in Southeast Asia, Quest Ventures supports startups through Quest Ventures’ wide network of mentors and domain experts. Startups will also have access to high quality and comprehensive online training module topics, and (if global health situation allows) an in-market immersion in Vietnam to maximize exposure and establish long-term partnerships between startups and ecosystem players.

It is no surprise that Vietnam emerged fastest during this health crisis and this winning strategy of swift action, resilience and cross-border collaboration is also the same one that will allow the economy and startup ecosystem to rise strongly in the region.

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