2021

The Business Times

THESE tech deals made headlines in the past week:

ION Mobility
Date announced: Oct 14
What it does: Smart electric motorbikes
Headquarters: Singapore
Amount raised: US$3.5 million, bringing total seed round to US$6.8 million
Round: Seed
Lead investors: Quest Ventures, TNB Aura
Other investors: GDP Venture, Monk’s Hill Ventures, SEEDS Capital, 500 South-east Asia, Alice Hung, ION’s chief executive James Chan, ION’s chief technology officer Calvin Cheng

More details:

• ION is preparing to unveil its smart electric motorbike later this year.
• It is commissioning 1,175 sq m of EV motorbike and battery pack assembly operations at LaunchPad@one-north in Singapore by end-2021.
• It plans to expand its EV motorbike assembly operations into Jakartain 2022
• Quest Ventures managing partner James Tan and TNB Aura managing partner Charles Wong will join the board of ION

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The Straits Times

Far-flung Kenya, Uganda and South Africa do not usually come to mind as test beds for a Singaporean start-up.

But local edtech start-up Edsy Bitsy saw opportunity in Africa, where poor Internet connectivity makes remote learning amid the Covid-19 pandemic unviable.

“As the entrepreneurs of a lean start-up, we want to validate our product where problems we address hurt the most,” said co-founder Edwin Ho, 29.

Mr Ho and co-founder Deevak Premdas, 26, approached teachers and principals in those three countries to offer a mobile app that lets teachers design interactive yet resource-efficient digital lessons, attracting around 350 users, mostly in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.

The Impact Start-up Challenge Grand Finale brings together the top teams from previous impact start-up competitions organised by SUSS.

The other judges were Quest Ventures partner Jeffrey Seah; Mr Kevin Moon, head of private investments at Lonsdale Capital; and Investigate VC co-founder Mikael Krogh.

Said Mr Seah: “Impact businesses do good in solving a problem and do well financially.”

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Digital News Asia

Fefifo, a Singapore founded Agtech startup with operations in Malaysia, has closed a total of more than US$3.1 million (RM12.9 million) in early-stage funding to empower smallholder farmers and agriculture graduates to kickstart their own modern commercial farming businesses easily, starting in Malaysia. The most recent venture capital backers are Malaysia’s RHL Ventures and Korea’s KB Investment, the appointed co-investment partners for Malaysia’s Dana Penjana Nasional by Penjana Kapital under the economic recovery plan. Both parties are lead investors.

“Agriculture is the major employer in most Southeast Asian countries, that is currently experiencing a sharp decline in both farm productivity and rural incomes, further pressuring the region’s food security challenges compounded by the pandemic,” says Jeffrey Seah, Partner at Quest Ventures. “Fefifo is a much needed solution that supports smallholders to easily start farms in a profitable and sustainable way, directly addressing food security in a few ways – significantly improving the efficacy of smallholder farming, attracting the youth to farming and uplifting the livelihoods of traditional smallholder farmers.”

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DealStreetAsia

After Beijing’s tightened regulatory control over its tech sector wiped out billions of dollars in value from internet giants, investors and entrepreneurs are increasingly shifting sights to overseas opportunities to diversify risks, with Southeast Asia among their top options.

China’s regulatory crackdown on its tech sector, which has by far erased about $1.5 trillion of value from the country’s tech stocks, started in November 2020 when the regulators pulled the plug on the initial public offering (IPO) of Jack Ma’s fintech juggernaut Ant Group. The suspension of Ant’s $34.5-billion IPO was followed by a slew of new legislations over the past months, ranging from anti-monopoly rules to user data security and protection laws, that have put high-profile tech companies under investigation and big-ticket fines.

“There is a diversion of capital that would have otherwise gone into China now interested in going elsewhere… with Singapore and SE Asia at the top of their minds,” said James Tan during the panel discussion. “… I think many of these Chinese individuals who are coming over [to SE Asia] will become a natural bridge to raising Chinese capital.

Tan, who co-founded VC firm Quest Ventures to invest in the digital economy in Asia, cited Sea Limited, Southeast Asia’s most valuable firm with Tencent among its top backers, as an example. The rise of Sea Group has turned its China-born co-founder and CEO Forrest Li into Singapore’s richest person with an estimated net worth of $19.8 billion as of August, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The fundraising model can also be seen in regional champions such as logistics startup Flash Group, which was co-founded by ex-Alibaba executive Di Weijie. Flash became Thailand’s first unicorn in June with a valuation of over $1 billion after raising $150 million from investors including China’s Buer Capital, and Alibaba’s eWTP Capital.

“There are still plenty of opportunities in China. It’s just that… there are opportunities elsewhere [that] really present themselves better,” said Tan, who expects Beijing’s heightened scrutiny over its tech sector to last for another one to two years.

“If you don’t want to deal with the regulatory pressure in China, you can come to SE Asia,” he said. “There are regulations [across the region], but at least they are not interfering in the [tech] space.”

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Tech in Asia

Makmur, an Indonesia-based investment app, raised a seven-digit US dollar amount in a seed funding round led by Beenext.

Kinesys Group and Trihill Capital also participated in the round, along with several angel investors such as Quest Ventures partner Yiping Goh, Kopi Kenangan CEO Edward Tirtanata, GagiGesa CEO Vidit Agrawal, and former Gojek executive Andrew Lee.

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Yahoo! Finance

Indonesia-based investment app, MAKMUR, has secured a seven-digit seed funding round, led by BEENEXT, with participation from Kinesys Group, Trihill Capital, and notable angel investors including Yiping Goh (Quest Ventures’ partner), Edward Tirtanata (Kopi Kenangan’s CEO), Vidit Agrawal (GajiGesa’s CEO), and Andrew Lee (former unicorn executive). MAKMUR will use the capital to expand its features and product portfolio, as well as to hire new talented individuals and people development.

The app also provides a Robo Advisory feature that adapts to users’ risk tolerance, as well as investment horizon, and prevailing economic conditions. This proprietary dynamic asset allocation technology helps users invest optimally regardless of whether the market is bullish or bearish.

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Kapital.kz

«В 2020 году QTV уже провел две сделки по софинансированию в международные венчурные фонды 500 Global (ранее «500 Startups») и в сингапурский фонд «Quest Ventures Asia Fund II» по 10 млн долларов. За счет этой опции стартаперы со всего Казахстана имеют возможность привлечь средства на свое развитие и могут выйти на международные рынки. Де-факто холдинг «Байтерек» с помощью QTV не только стимулирует развитие бизнеса в стране, но и приток новых инвестиций, технологий, налогов», – рассказал Управляющий директор холдинга «Байтерек» Улан Оразтаев корреспонденту Kapital.kz.

Летом 2021 года проект Лауры Вайгоровой вошел в топ-10 IT-стартапов страны и вышел в финал международной программы «Kazakhstan Digital Accelerator» (KDA), которая была запущена холдингом «Байтерек» и сингапурским фондом «Quest Ventures». Стартап получил 50 тыс. долларов и стал частью портфеля Quest Ventures.

По ее словам, акселерационные программы, запущенные холдингом «Байтерек», очень важны для стартаперов. С помощью них, говорит Лаура, стартаперы обмениваются опытом с известными бизнесменами не только из Казахстана, но и из других стран.

«Средства от венчурных фондов дают шанс в дальнейшем привлекать второй раунд инвестиций на прозрачных условиях. Это формирует доверие среди будущих инвесторов. Также личное знакомство со спикерами программы акселерации помогает в развитии. За счет нетворкинга мы наладили продажи курсов в Казань. После программы KDA Quest Ventures нас до сих пор приглашают на свои мастер-классы. Это очень помогает в работе», – отмечает Лаура.

«Первые инвестиции в 2017 году в размере 100 тыс. долларов получили от моего знакомого. В 2018 году привлекли еще 240 тыс. долларов от ABC-i2bf Seed Fund и Олжаса Жиенкулова. В 2020 году «подняли» 750 тыс. долларов в новом Seed раунде, где лид-инвестором стал сингапурский фонд Quest Ventures, якорными инвесторами которого являются «QazTech Ventures» и Pavilion Capital – «дочка» Temasek Holdings. Раунд также поддержали российский HR & ED-Tech Accelerator и ангел-инвестор Талгат Исмаил. Средства направили на масштабирование в страны Юго-Восточной Азии, СНГ, привлечение новых сотрудников, маркетинг», – отмечает Ержан Рыскалиев.

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5Q Media

Проект представлен в 7 городах Казахстана и России, и выходит на новые зарубежные рынки

Цифровой сервис помогает заселять арендаторов дистанционно и безопасно с помощью цифровых технологий. Основатель ApartX Канат Кельдибеков рассказал, как решил проблему владельцев инвестиционной недвижимости и где искать деньги на запуск стартапа в Казахстане.

Инвестиции мы привлекли у международного фонда Quest Ventures по его совместной акселерационной программе с QazTech Ventures, где финалисты получили по $50 тыс. венчурных инвестиций.

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DealStreetAsia

In a bid to survive the ongoing onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce startups in Vietnam are increasingly gearing up to sell essential items – especially food – to woo consumers who are reluctant to venture out.

Jeffrey Seah, partner for Asia Fund at VC firm Quest Ventures attributed this burgeoning trend to the throes of the pandemic that has thrown normal life off gear.

“Fresh produce and food purchase will become second nature as people get comfortable with the online medium,” Seah told DealStreetAsia over an interaction. “As lockdown continues to be implemented across the world, e-commerce is evolving. From being a temporary replacement, certain things will take a permanent place in our lifestyle now,” said Seah.

Vietnam’s e-commerce sector grew by 46% YoY to reach $7 billion in 2020 – it is expected to touch $29 billion by 2025, per a SE Asia e-Conomy report jointly published by Google, Temasek and Bain&Co.

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The Business Times

INDONESIA’S digital economy is thriving with opportunities, and traditional players should build windmills – not walls – to embrace the winds of change.

This was one sentiment that surfaced at “Investing in the Indonesian Digital Economy”, an hour-long webinar hosted by Garage, the startups portal of The Business Times, on Aug 31. The event attracted over 1,000 sign-ups.

Mr Seah: I am an accidental venture capitalist. I spent 25 years in the corporate world, the original disruption place: the advertising and marketing world with big data. I remember partnering Alibaba, Tencent, Google, Facebook, when they were like five-person strong in South-east Asia.

In working those markets, many of my clients wanted to sit in Indonesia, because Indonesia is the biggest market and represented the coming of South-east Asia… I think this market continuously attracted the attention of big corporates all over the world, and I think digital (tech) has now driven economic growth.

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