Astro Awani
Jeffrey Seah, Partner, Asia Fund of Quest Ventures speaks to Ibrahim Sani on the VC’s Ventures Day Malaysia event, set to take place this 14th of July in Kuala Lumpur.
2022
Filipino Forbes 30-Under-30 Honorees Get Together
Esquire
Filipino members of the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 club—recipients of the business media platform’s annual citation for young people—came together for a night of networking and camaraderie in Makati City on Tuesday (June 28).
Hosted by entrepreneur Victor Lim and his Kraver’s Canteen startup, the get-together was also attended by prominent members of the local startup community, including founders and representatives of venture capital firms and funds.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees spotted at the event included Lim himself, Rexy Dorado of Kumu, Henry Motte Muñoz of Edukasyon.ph, Billie Dumaliang of Masungi Georeserve, Georgianna Carlos of Fetch Naturals, photojournalist Gab Mejia, drone pioneer and Earnie startup founder Matt Cua, Shawntel Nicole Nieto of One Cainta Food Program, Ariane Lim of AcadArena, Carmina Bayombong of InvestEd, Ryan Gersava of Virtualahan, and Shahab Shabibi of Machine Ventures.
There was no program, save for a short speech by Lim, who thanked everyone for making time to see each other in real life on a rainy Tuesday night. He also thanked the sponsors who made the event possible, including Quest Ventures, Kaya Founders, Foxmont Capital, and Oak Drive Ventures.
Consumer insights platform Populix bags US$7.7m in funds
Marketing Interactive
Indonesia-based consumer insights platform Populix has raised US$7.7 million in a Series A funding led by Intudo Ventures and Acrew Capital, with participation from Altos Ventures and Quest Ventures. Co-founder and CEO Timothy Astandu told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that 15% of the funding will go to marketing.
Populix will also use the funds to reinforce its efforts to digitise the entire data collection process while continuing to optimise existing products and release new services to enable anyone to make more informed decisions about their businesses. It also aims to recruit product and tech engineering experts to enhance data collection efforts and better meet the needs of more clients, as well as bring on marketing and regional expansion roles.
Populix raised US$1.2 million in pre-series A funding last May, led by Intudo Ventures with participation from new investors Quest Ventures and a number of strategic investors. According to Populix then, the proceeds were used to enhance marketing efforts, roll out new products, and bring on new hires.
Populix Raises US$7.7M in Series A Funding
FINSMES
Populix, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based consumer insights platform provider, closed a US$7.7m Series A round of financing.
The round was led by Intudo Ventures and Acrew Capital, with participation from Altos Ventures and Quest Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to reinforce its efforts to digitize the entire data collection process, to optimize existing products and release new services to enable anyone to make more informed decisions about their businesses, to recruit product and tech engineering experts to enhance data collection efforts, to initiate regional expansion by 2023 to neighboring Southeast Asian countries, building off its dominant position in Indonesia, with a focus on the Poplite product line.
Founded in January 2018 by Timothy Astandu, CEO, Populix is a technology-driven consumer insights platform, providing comprehensive research and data collection for businesses, institutions, and individuals to make more informed business decisions through quantitative and qualitative studies.
Southeast Asia’s start-ups have fired hundreds of workers, and this may be just the beginning
CNBC
Hundreds of workers from start-ups in Southeast Asia have been fired in the last few months, proving that the fast-growing industry is not immune to the global economic slowdown.
As borrowing costs rise and the economy faces uncertainty, “it would be odd not to see companies laying off,” said James Tan, managing partner of venture capital firm Quest Ventures. “Any start-up that does not do so will face a board that [questions] their underlying assumptions and ability to manage through a crisis.”
Startups will need to prolong the cash runway by 18 to 36 months compared to the usual 12 to 18 months before they try to raise funds again, Tan said.
As valuations have fallen from last year’s high, companies will want to avoid raising money with the possibility of being valued lower than their last fundraising round. They would rather try to cut costs, and ride out this downturn before fundraising again, he added.
Climate tech in Southeast Asia: changing the business ecosystem
Tech Collective
As climate change issues become increasingly evident, bringing about threatening natural disasters and economic devastation, there has been an uptick in companies focusing on sustainable business models and carbon footprint reduction. Climate tech in Southeast Asia is gaining greater attention than it has in other countries, especially as the region is most likely to bear the brunt of an ecological disaster.
With the United Nations pushing its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the climate tech startups Southeast Asia adopting these ideals as well. Investment in the climate tech sector is also on the rise, as venture capitalists, angel investors, and government-backed environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) programmes evaluate sustainability and eco-credentials when considering funding.
While more businesses realise the importance of environmental awareness and the future of the human race, Quest Ventures is already ahead of the game. This venture capital fund, which was founded in 2009, has focused on startups that take an ESG approach to business since 2018.
The company has always recognised the importance of investing in digital innovations, and has refined its criteria to include ESG principles. Quest Ventures, located in Singapore, has made 93 investments and contributed to three funds in APAC, including recent investments in Filipino company Kraver’s Canteen, Malaysia-based Howuku and Indonesian startup GuruInovatif.
The PH tech revolution starts with a bite
Manila Bulletin
Filipinos spend almost 30 per cent of their income on food alone. This gives any food-related business massive potential for growth. It’s quite appropriate that the Philippines impending tech revolution could be kickstarted by its food industry.
The food and beverage (F&B) business used to be a daunting one, particularly for those new to it. A budding restaurant wouldn’t just need a great chef, but lots of capital, some business acumen, and a great location as well.
As far as cloud kitchens go, Kraver’s Canteen is one of leading in the country. Founded by food industry veteran, Eric Thomas Dee, e-commerce authority, Victor Lim, and finance specialist, Victor Mapua, Kraver’s currently has 11 kitchens that cater to online customers across Metro Manila.
Besides simply offering a kitchen, Kraver’s is hoping to go beyond and serve as a partner for growth and making it easy to scale up a food business.
In the 2022 Series A, in addition to welcoming a heavy-weight regional investor in Quest Ventures, Kraver’s strengthened its Philippines stronghold by securing local partners Oak Drive Ventures, Martin Cu, Francis Wee, Anthony Oundjian and Rohit Gulati.
Social forestry project wins the Liveability Challenge 2022
Eco-Business
A social forestry project has won the 2022 edition of the Liveability Challenge, a yearly search for ways to tackle the most difficult sustainability challenges faced in Southeast Asia.
Fairventures Social Forestry, a team from Germany, emerged ahead of five other finalists to clinch the grand prize of S$1 million (US$728,000) in funding from Temasek Foundation, the sponsor of the Liveability Challenge and philanthropic arm of Temasek, Singapore’s state-investment company.
The Fairventures project aims to sustainably manage forests and improve livelihoods in Jambi, Indonesia, using a scalable social forestry model that incorporates blended finance.
The winner was chosen from a field of finalists that included an initiative to curb the energy consumption of data centre through artificial intelligence and digital twin technology by a team from Singapore called Red Dot Analytics, and a large-scale carbon sequestration project by British team CQUESTR8.
Also among the finalists were GAIT, a team from Singapore and New Zealand that measures carbon, and Wasna, a team from Belgium and Singapore that makes low-cost cultivated meat using a universal serum.
The sixth finalist was ImpacFat, a Japan-Singapore team that produces alternative meat products using cell-based fish fat.
Additional prizes of S$50,000 from Quest Ventures went to Fairventures and ImpacFat, S$100,000 from Purpose Venture Capital was awarded to Red Dot Analytics, and S$100,000 from Amasia went to GAIT.
JTC bolsters Southeast Asian innovation through LaunchPad
e27
It is crucial for startups, enablers, and venture capitalists to be plugged into a community that allows them to thrive in the long run. This was why JTC, a government agency in charge of Singapore’s industrial development, started LaunchPad.
Located at one-north and Jurong Innovation District, LaunchPad offers a total of 60,000sqm of modular units of varying sizes to suit the requirements of startups. This includes those from industries like advanced manufacturing and engineering, agri-food technology, biomedical sciences, infocomm technology and media, and urban solutions.
Besides reliable infrastructure, LaunchPad seeks to foster an atmosphere of vibrancy and community. There are multiple opportunities for partnerships, programming support through learning and networking events both offline and online, and various shared facilities.
Prolific names such as Carousell, a leading second-hand goods marketplace, and ShopBack, a shopping and rewards platform, are some of the startups that got their start at LaunchPad.
But there’s space for more. “LaunchPad has the potential to house a wider variety of industries and ecosystem stakeholders going forward. Bigger VCs and startups may want to land in LaunchPad. This will promote more deal flows and better ideas with stronger collaborations between the relevant parties,” said James Tan, Chairman of the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), a trade association advocating startups’ interests and bridging communications between startups and the Singapore government.
VC execs shed light on investment trends and how S’pore startups can brace themselves for it
VulcanPost
At the Asia Tech x Singapore 2022 event held yesterday (June 1), one particular keynote discussed the regional investment trends and what that means for startups in this landscape.
Michael Lints, a partner at Golden Gate Ventures, observed that investors are being more cautious, and that the narratives and mindsets for venture capital firms have changed from one of “growth at all costs” to one of finding the “path to profitability”.
Michelle Ng, head of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) at Quest Ventures, concurred with Michael, suggesting that during this stage, startups cannot expect valuations to be as generous as they were before.
She also advised founders to be prudent with spending, and to cut down on operational costs as much as possible.
Several panelists urged startups to better consider the ESG aspects of their businesses, and hinted that it might provide greater incentives for investors to fund these startups.
On this point, an audience member queried about the trade-offs between profits and ESG goals, and how much venture capital firms like Quest Ventures might consider the importance of ESG.
The reply was that profitability and sustainability are not actually mutually exclusive, and that any business that wants to be successful also needs to be sustainable.