2022

Money FM 89.3

Money FM 89.3 interviews James Tan in his capacity as Chairman of the Action Community for Entrepreneurship.

Budget 2022 – Recommendations for a vibrant and sustainable startup ecosystem in Singapore

Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) has recently published a position paper that identifies current hurdles, pinpoints new opportunities, and proposes actionable strategies to help further Singapore’s startup ecosystem. The position paper has also been officially presented to the Singapore government before our Budget 2022 statement on February 18. James Tan, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) shares how SG punched way above its weight in the global arena as a hub for startup hopefuls and what the three key areas that ACE believe can be the catalyst for positive and widespread economic change entails.

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DealStreetAsia

Southeast Asian startups raise close to $26 billion in equity and debt funding in 2021, nearly three times the sum they secured in 2020 and 2019, according to DealStreetAsia’s calculations. The region also recorded 1,000 transactions in 2021, a 50% jump over the previous year.

Quest Ventures managing partner James Tan said some companies in Indonesia command the same valuation as their counterparts in China. He calls this “unrealistic” as the Southeast Asian country is comparatively much smaller and less developed.

One may assume the impending US rate hike could make for more conservative investors. But, Quest Ventures’ Tan says, the relationship between interest rates and valuations of private startups are tenuous. Valuations will only be “pressured lower when VCs stop following the pack and investing in a FOMO manner.”

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The Business Times

KARL Mak is well known as co-founder and chief executive of Hepmil Media Group, the company behind meme site SGAG. But the 34-year-old’s entry into the startup world in fact began with failure.

Mak’s first venture, a software startup, had started out full of promise. It won a high-profile hackathon, secured pilots with large enterprises and seed funding from a venture firm.

Called Televate, the startup came up with a digital solution that would eliminate the customer hotline waiting times for banks and telcos.

The duo joined a hackathon by StarHub in late 2013 and clinched the top prize. It was a dream come true for any aspiring founder – a few banks came on board to try the software. Early-stage investor Quest Ventures put in S$50,000 in seed money.

What Mak did not expect was how much support he would receive upon failing.

“Not that Quest Ventures paid me to say this, but literally, the moment I failed, the managing partner James (Tan) came to me and offered multiple job opportunities within the portfolio companies,” Mak recounted.

There were also valuable lessons from the experience. Mak learned how to build connections from scratch, as well as how to work with a co-founder, which he muses “is kind of like getting married”.

Quest Ventures also came full circle, becoming an investor in Hepmil. Asked about the decision, managing partner Tan said: “Karl learned something from Televate, which is that B2B is very tough and the market (timing) must be right.”

In Tan’s view, it would be too simplistic to say that failure should be celebrated. Rather, any failure should be viewed in the context of whether a founder has grown from the experience.

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TechNode Global

In this quick TechNode Global Q&A with James Tan, Managing Partner at Quest Ventures, we gain some insights on trends driving innovation in the region, as well as a few example companies making an impact on sustainability, social commerce, and finance.

A winner of the Movers & Shakers – People’s Choice VC award at the ORIGIN Innovation Awards, Quest Ventures is a top venture capital fund in Asia. Its portfolio of 90+ venture-backed companies operates in more than 150 cities across Asia, creating employment and advancement opportunities for more than 4,400 employees, while its Enterprise and ESG efforts directly impact thousands more.

Question: What are the trends driving innovation in the Asia Pacific region today?

Answer: Sustainability, mechanization, digital economy

Question: What are three key challenges that both startups and VCs need to navigate in this post-pandemic environment?

Answer: Mutable environment and conditions. New consumer behavior. Endemic environment, rather than post-pandemic.

Question: Can you share some interesting data or case studies from your portfolio that are a good example of how technology can bring about impactful change amid today’s business environment?

Answer:

• Ion Mobility is developing electric two-wheelers for Southeast Asia, providing a more sustainable alternative for the $8.53 billion motorbike industry.
• Partipost democratizes marketing by empowering creators to execute campaigns for brands and engage in social commerce.
• GajiGesa provides short-term liquidity access to the lower-income population of Indonesia, preventing debt traps as a result of borrowing from high-interest alternatives.

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Taarifa Rwanda

Kazakhstan’s AI-powered software [Cerebra] for early stroke detection and faster and more accurate treatment, has been included in the list of the world’s ten most innovative projects in the field of medical artificial intelligence, according to Medtronic APAC Innovation Challenge.

“There are only a few large companies in the world that do stroke diagnostics.

Despite the clear advantages of competitors from Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States in terms of finance, human power, and the amount of medical data to train AI, our team is very motivated by what we can do for people.

In developed countries, mortality from stroke has been minimized, and in our country, stroke remains one of the first causes of death.

To scale the project abroad, we need to show good results in Kazakhstan, and for this, we need the support of the state,” said project founder Doszhan Zhusaupov.

At the early stage, the startup attracted investments from Quest Ventures Singapore Venture Fund and also won a $50,000 grant for the first place in Build Your Own Business competition from the Saby Foundation in 2020.

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The Astana Times

Cerebra, Kazakhstan’s AI-powered software for early stroke detection and faster and more accurate treatment, has been included in the list of the world’s ten most innovative projects in the field of medical artificial intelligence, according to Medtronic APAC Innovation Challenge.

Cerebra is artificial intelligence software that is designed for fast stroke diagnosis and minimization of human factors while providing an internal ecosystem for data exchange and any-time remote platform access.

While stroke remains one the leading causes of death in Kazakhstan with nearly 80 percent of patients suffering severe complications, Cerebra helps detect cytotoxic edema on a CT scan, often hidden from the human eye.

The project, which is a participant of Astana Hub international technopark of IT startups, currently works in test mode in 17 stroke centers across Kazakhstan.

“There are only a few large companies in the world that do stroke diagnostics. Despite the clear advantages of competitors from Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States in terms of finance, human power, and the amount of medical data to train AI, our team is very motivated by what we can do for people. In developed countries, mortality from stroke has been minimized, and in our country, stroke remains one of the first causes of death. To scale the project abroad, we need to show good results in Kazakhstan, and for this, we need the support of the state,” said project founder Doszhan Zhusaupov.

At the early stage, the startup attracted investments from Quest Ventures Singapore Venture Fund and also won a $50,000 grant for the first place in Build Your Own Business competition from the Saby Foundation in 2020.

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ConnectOne

Unabated global digitalisation. Tech talent shortage. A burgeoning start-up ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

As we enter the third year of COVID-19 and look towards slowly easing out of the pandemic, what will the talent landscape look like for startups?

Read on for our 10 SEA startup talent trends forecast.

The talent crunch is set to be a major development bottleneck for start-ups, with the greatest shortfall being in tech.

In Southeast Asia, there are two big overlaying trends – the great amount of public and private investment flowing into the region, and the global marketplace converging here. This has created great opportunities for disruption, says Jeffrey Seah, partner of one of Asia’s top venture capitalist firms Quest Ventures. ”Almost every digital economy idea on paper is able to attract funding. With funding, the clock starts ticking to execute the idea and talent acquisition becomes the first salvo,” he adds.

“Money can be made to move fast, but you can’t train people as fast,” he notes. The confluence of tighter borders, ready capital and limited talent has resulted in a poaching spree, pushing salaries up. Chinese tech companies such as ByteDance and Ant Group are known to offer 50 percent pay increases for junior and mid-level roles, and 20 to 30 percent more for senior roles.

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VulcanPost

Singaporean Yiping Goh and her Spanish husband Carlos Bañón would travel to Spain twice a year to visit their family and friends during pre-pandemic times.

With Covid-19 restricting travel however, they couldn’t travel to Spain for the past two years. Besides family and friends, local delicacies like Spanish wines and food like freshly sliced jamon iberico (Spanish ham), olives and cheeses, was something they truly miss.

This spurred the couple to directly import their favourite Spanish delicatessen and wines, building a business out of it. They set up an online marketplace called CasaJulia that specialises in Spanish food and wines in October 2021.

She may be new to the F&B world, but she is actually a serial tech founder.

She is the former co-founder of AllDealsAsia and MatahariMall (Indonesia) by Lippo Group — the same group that produced unicorn OVO. Now, she is a venture capital investor and a partner at Quest Ventures, which has backed household names the likes of Carousell, ShopBack, Carro, 99.co, Style Theory, SGAG and Ion Mobility.

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The Business Times

In a position paper on Tuesday (Jan 25), the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) identified 3 key challenges that Singapore startups currently face: a talent crunch, constraints in overseas expansion and difficulties in raising capital.

The paper, published in collaboration with PwC Singapore, taps the views of over 120 startups, founders, venture capitalists and government stakeholders. It will be presented to the government before the Budget on Feb 18.

While only accounting for 0.57 per cent of the employed population, tech startups have contributed to 2.4 per cent of Singapore’s GDP, the paper said.

The government has thus far played a pivotal role in the success of Singapore’s startup ecosystem, ACE’s chairman James Tan noted in the paper.

“While the direction is clear, there is indeed much work ahead of us. As the nation’s startup trade association, ACE is determined to do its utmost to uplift our startup community and work with you to support this essential economic ecosystem,” Tan said.

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The Manila Times

Back for its fifth year, the Liveability Challenge launched a global call for innovative solutions to accelerate decarbonization, meet increasing demand for food, and conserve the planet’s natural ecosystems.

The Challenge is Asia’s largest sustainability solutions platform with a global reach and a reputation for helping founders and companies whose innovations are disrupting industries to create a significant positive impact for both society and planet.

The three themes unveiled this year are Decarbonization, Food & Agritechnology, and Nature-based Solutions. Decarbonization refers to innovations that could capture or utilize carbon to create scalable products or revolutionize the hydrogen industry. Novel solutions in Food & Agritech should be able to address the global food demand, while maintaining a low carbon footprint. Nature-based solutions pertain to pioneering business models that conserve and restore the natural ecosystems or those that address gaps in the carbon credit market.

Winners will vie for the grand prize of up to S$1 million from Temasek Foundation, and other opportunities such as a minimum of $100,000 in funding each from Amasia, Quest Ventures, and Silverstrand Capital.

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