2021

The Business Times

ARE Indonesian startups better off focusing domestically, or should they aim to go regional?

Indonesian startups and entrepreneurs are fortunate because the country is the single largest homogenous market in South-east Asia.

The challenge before these startups would be to “continuously communicate with the market about what their plans are, what they are doing and how they will go forward,” said Quest Ventures’ Mr Seah. “And I think they must have lots of experience after all these years pitching investors for that money, and then building the avenue to go IPO.”

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Tech in Asia

ScaleUp Malaysia, an accelerator focused on growth-stage firms, announced the launch of its third cohort today.

Applications for the cohort are now open, with venture capital firms Quest Ventures from Singapore and Indelible Ventures from the US joining to support shortlisted Malaysian scale-up companies.

Quest Ventures, which also supported the accelerator’s second cohort, will co-invest in up to seven companies, while Indelible Ventures will co-invest in up to five firms. The investment partnerships will bring around US$1 million in total investments for the third cohort’s expected 20 applicants. Each participant will receive at least 250,000 Malaysian ringgit (US$59,000) when the program starts in October.

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AsiaOne

ScaleUp Malaysia today launched Cohort 3 of their programme targeting high growth scaleups. In launching Cohort 3 ScaleUp Malaysia announced that they have entered into partnerships with two venture capital firms, Singapore-based Quest Ventures and US based Indelible Ventures to be part of their effort to further scale chosen scaleups at the launch today. Collectively these firms bring access to partners, investors and other networks in Southeast Asia and the United States of America, accelerating targeted growth in new times.

Quest Ventures, a regional venture capital firm based out of Singapore enters its second year of partnership with ScaleUp Malaysia having successfully worked hands-on with 20 scaleups and co-investing into 10 in the Cohort 2 programme. Indelible Ventures, a US based fund with a mandate to invest in Malaysian startups, targets tech-enabled scaleups with B2B products that have the potential to scale at an international level, making it a strategic partner moving forward.

In Cohort 3, Quest Ventures will look to co-invest in up to 7 companies whereas Indelible Ventures seeks to co-invest in up to 5 companies in this cohort. The investment partnerships will bring in a total investment of approximately US$ 1 million (RM4.23 million) to develop and grow Malaysian scaleups, targeting 20 companies to be shortlisted for the Cohort 3 applications.

Jeffrey Seah, Partner of Quest Ventures said, “Our experience in working with the ScaleUp Malaysia team in their second cohort served to affirm our belief in the potential of Malaysian founders. In Cohort 3 we aim to go further by helping founders expand their mindsets and refine their approaches in scaling their businesses, and in exposing them to our networks in the region and around the world.”

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Digital News Asia

ScaleUp Malaysia today launched Cohort 3 of their programme targeting high growth scaleups. In launching Cohort 3 ScaleUp Malaysia announced that they have entered into partnerships with two venture capital firms, Singapore-based Quest Ventures and US based Indelible Ventures to be part of their effort to further scale chosen scaleups. Collectively these firms bring access to partners, investors and other networks in Southeast Asia and the United States, accelerating targeted growth.

Quest Ventures, a regional venture capital firm based out of Singapore enters its second year of partnership with ScaleUp Malaysia having successfully worked hands-on with 20 scaleups and co-investing into 10 in Cohort 2.

Jeffrey Seah, Partner of Quest Ventures said, “Our experience working with the ScaleUp Malaysia team in their second cohort served to affirm our belief in the potential of Malaysian founders. In Cohort 3 we aim to go further by helping founders expand their mindsets and refine their approaches in scaling their businesses, and in exposing them to our networks in the region and around the world.”

The 20 companies shortlisted from the Cohort 3 applications will begin their accelerator journey in October 2021 before pitching in front of the Investment Committee at the end of the programme. As part of the partnership, ScaleUp Malaysia Cohort 3 powered by both Quest Ventures and Indelible Ventures will invest at least US$59,000 (RM250,000) in the companies selected by the Investment Committee.

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e27

Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures, reminded us that Singapore already had a high level of academic excellence – for example, other countries are often intimidated by Singapore’s Mathematical rankings, O and A level scores, or, when Singaporean students take classes in Western universities! Yet, this constant strive for academic excellence might just be Singaporean’s own stumbling block – do we dare to take risks, make mistakes and startup, or will we be held back by our own fear of failure?

Yiping added that, after all, going to school was not just about getting educated. It was also a lot about being in a tightly knitted community and network. In institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, INSEAD, Tsinghua, one gets more than just classes, but also an affiliation to its strong alumni network that often accords trust to its members.

These institutions also churn out many incredibly successful alumni that tended to give back to their schools too. She shared about the US-effect or China-effect, where a few extremely high-achieving entrepreneurs would not just do well themselves, but be effective in inspiring those within their own alma mater and country. To that end, she suggested the need to push Singaporeans to go overseas to broaden their networks, and for local universities to build a culture of a tight knitted alumni community that seeks to help each other and to give back.

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e27

Trends indicate that cloud kitchens are fast becoming a vital part of the food delivery market in Indonesia. According to a March 2021 report by Savills Research, the cloud kitchen market in the archipelago is on a growth trajectory. The tech pioneers in the space are Grabkitchen (Grab) and Dapur Bersama (Gojek).

As the industry grew, the list of companies entering the sector also increased. Savills estimates that seven operators in Jakarta alone operate 70 cloud kitchen branches comprising 500-plus kitchen pods. The names include Yummy Corp., Hangry, Everplate, Kita Kitchen, Telepot Co-Kitchen, and Eatsii.

“The cloud kitchens sector has been growing tremendously through the pandemic as F&B brands get disrupted in the traditional model of serving up food to consumers,” said Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures. “This trend will continue as the pandemic evolves into an endemic eventually. Indonesian F&B owners are tired of the numerous, extended lockdowns imposed and are forced to look for new models that are more endemic-resilient.”

She, however, believes that it is still early days in the cloud kitchen growth story. More innovation in the model, especially in the food delivery and experience, will continue to grow.

…, Mario Suntanu, CEO and co-founder of Yummy Corp., believes that regardless of COVID-19, consumer behaviour was moving towards significant consumption via food delivery due to a population that was getting busier and the traffic that was getting worse.

“Cloud Kitchen mainly addresses the merchant problem, and the merchant problem remains the same. It’s just that the urgency was higher during the pandemic, which accelerated the adoption,” he noted.

“We learned that products that sell well via delivery channels hadn’t been necessarily the same products that sell well in malls and shopping centres, especially when seen from the perspective of form and pricing. So it means that as malls open, there may be some readjustments of share of wallet, but overall the intersection of consumers would not be large enough,” Suntanu stated.

The amount of capital injected into the sector has been on the rise, evident from the number of players in the market compared to a few years ago. VCs and prominent tech companies, especially ride-hailing giants, have doubled down on their cloud kitchen facilities in Indonesia.

Recently, Yummy Corp. extended its Series B round with an investment from Sembrani Nusantara, a fund managed by BRI Ventures. This round came less than a year after it bagged US$12 million in Series B, led by Softbank Ventures Asia, in September 2020.

If the current consumption and investment trends are anything to go by, cloud kitchens are here to stay. But the success of this model depends on the quality of the food delivered in the quickest possible time. “Cloud kitchen would need to be carving out a distinctive experience to elevate the overall food delivery experience, such as speed, customer service, and packaging,” remarked Yummy Corp.’s Suntanu.

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The Straits Times

Tech start-ups in Singapore raised $5.3 billion in the first half of this year, up from $3.4 billion in the same period last year.

The Republic has also added three unicorns – software firm PatSnap, used car marketplace Carro and payments company Nium – to its ranks this year.

This demonstrates the resilience of the start-up ecosystem in Singapore despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, Enterprise Singapore (ESG) chairman Peter Ong said yesterday.

In a separate statement, Seeds Capital chairman and ESG deputy chief executive Ted Tan said: “Catalysing more VC investments in this current environment where investors tend to be more cautious is significant.

“Seeds Capital can now offer deep tech start-ups, which have innovative and scalable solutions, with the opportunity to be mentored by our new partners who bring with them extensive mar-ket connections and a wealth of sector-specific domain knowledge to increase their chances of success.”

Among the new co-investment partners are innovation platform Plug and Play, VC fund Quest Ventures and family office Schweizer World Group.

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The Straits Times

As part of efforts to sustain this growth momentum and support more quality start-ups, ESG’s investment arm Seeds Capital will be appointing 13 new venture capital (VC) firms as co-investment partners under the Startup SG Equity scheme.

In a separate statement, Seeds Capital chairman and ESG deputy chief executive Ted Tan said: “Catalysing more VC investments in this current environment where investors tend to be more cautious is significant.

“Seeds Capital can now offer deep tech start-ups, which have innovative and scalable solutions, with the opportunity to be mentored by our new partners who bring with them extensive market connections and a wealth of sector-specific domain knowledge to increase their chances of success.”

Among the new co-investment partners are innovation platform Plug and Play, VC fund Quest Ventures and family office Schweizer World Group.

Besides funding, these partners will also provide mentorship and help start-ups in their commercialisation efforts.

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e27

The Philippine food delivery market is growing exponentially (~48 per cent y-o-y growth), the fastest in Southeast Asia, and is projected to hit US$8 billion by 2025. This growth is attributed mainly to the pandemic. With many of the country’s major cities still under lockdown and the resumption of dine-in services is uncertain, customers prefer ordering food online and have it home-delivered.

This is where cloud kitchens fit in. Also called ‘ghost kitchens’, ‘shared kitchens’, or ‘virtual kitchens’, cloud kitchens are commercial facilities purpose-built to produce food specifically for delivery.

The cloud kitchen industry is still in its early stages in the Philippines when compared with fast-growing markets such as the US, the Middle East, and India, and even neighbouring Singapore and Indonesia. It is not surpising as the food delivery ecosystem itself is relatively young in the Philippines, where the first delivery firm to enter the market was foodpanda in 2014 — just seven years ago.

“Cloud kitchen also became a strong avenue for both F&B and delivery companies alike to experiment with new F&B concepts. The pandemic accelerated this natural evolution and brought forward that timeline as extended lockdowns created new consumption habits in consumers for delivery-based orders — be it for F&B brands that they are already familiar with or to try out new food concepts to beat the boredom during lockdowns. In fact, many popular F&B brands today in Southeast Asia are born out of cloud kitchens and never ever saw a retail outlet identity,” says Yiping Goh, Partner at Quest Ventures.

“We are already in talks with several players in the Philippines and Thailand and feel that they are only one or two years behind Indonesia and Singapore. The trajectory shows that they will also grow rapidly as demand from both F&B brands and consumers are surging in these regions as well,” says Goh of Quest Ventures.

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DealStreetAsia

Executives in Southeast Asia are giving up the comfort of plush corporate jobs to become fund managers as the startup ecosystem in the region is throwing up significant investment opportunities.

James Tan, the co-founder and managing partner of Quest Ventures, is one such investor. Tan earlier co-founded and served as the COO at NASDAQ-listed e-commerce company 55tuan in China.

Under his leadership, the company grew from a five-person operation to one that had a headcount of 5,000 employees across China with a presence in over 200 cities.

55tuan then went on to become the first and the only group-buying startup to make a debut on NASDAQ in 2015. Its investors then included Goldman Sachs, Zero2IPO Capital, Sky Blessing Investment and CDH Investments.

That experience was significant, Tan said. It helped him understand the impact that private capital and technology can have on any sector that eventually led him to launch his own VC.

“Unless you are deep in the trenches with the startup, you can never have an understanding of what they are going through. What an investor has is at best an expansive yet in-depth theoretical perspective of the startup at a point in time, usually monthly, mostly quarterly,” he said.

“We get new ideas from meeting new founders every day. You don’t get this opportunity as a founder,” said Quest Ventures’ Tan.

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