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Photo credit: oneinchpunch / 123RF.

Everyman securities trading platform AlgoMerchant has officially launched today after raising more than US$2 million in funding from East Ventures and a “network of prominent individuals in the fund management and broking industry.”

The Singapore-based startup offers a range of robo-traders that allow investors of all shades – from part-time retail investors to professionals and high-net-worth individuals – to automate securities trading through their personal trading accounts.

The robo-traders use data analytics and machine learning tech to automate trading, while also avoiding delays and human error. The basic service is free, while a range of premium packages can be paid for.

AlgoMerchant said it collaborates with freelance quantitative traders  – in other words, those that specialize in automated trading – and data scientists from around the world to discover profitable investment algorithms. More than 1,000 traders tested out the service during its nine-month beta phase.

Forty percent returns

The startup claims that its bots can give everyday retail investors “an edge similar to resource-rich top quantitative hedge funds,” securing projected annual returns of over 40 percent.

It also offers a form of social network and holds occasional seminars, giving investment novices the chance to exchange ideas and advice.

That said, AlgoMerchant also markets itself to professional investors. Renowned Singaporean investor Robin Ho has given his endorsement, committing an undisclosed amount of money for trading through the platform. The startup has also begun to offer customized solutions for institutional investors, such as funds that want to automate more of their trading activity.

Algomerchant was founded in 2014 by former bankers Justin Tjoa and Aditya Santoso. The startup went through NTUitive – the incubator program affiliated with Nanyang Technological University – before securing around US$910,000 in seed funding from East Ventures in January 2016.

It faces competition from a number of apps aimed at making securities trading more accessible to the general public. Hong Kong startup 8 Securities launched its TradeFlix platform last month, while US player Robinhood hit unicorn status after its most recent round of funding with a US$1.3 billion valuation.

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Photo credit: Pixabay.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a big part of Singapore’s plan to upgrade its IT, media, and communications industry.

The country’s Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced today its own version of the “Industry Transformation Map.” This is an initiative highlighted during this year’s budget discussion, when plans were announced for the reinvention of 23 sectors that cover about 80 percent of Singapore’s economy.

The AI apprenticeship program hopes to train 200 AI professionals in the next three years.

In a speech, Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim said that the information, communications, and media industry is expected to employ more than 210,000 workers by 2020, with more than 13,000 new jobs by 2020 for so-called PMETs [professionals, managers, executives, and technicians]. The new strategies are expected to grow the IT and media sector by 6 percent annually, the minister added.

The aim is to invest in four state-of-the-art tech sectors – AI and data science; cyber security; immersive media; and the internet of things – help develop them, and train people in them with the relevant skills.

Today’s announcements mostly involved the AI part of the equation, while the rest will be tackled in the coming months.

In May, the government announced AI Singapore (AI.SG), an initiative to invest US$107 million into AI research, development, and human resources over the next five years. IMDA said today it will work with AI.SG to further that goal.

This is how it plans to do it:

AI apprenticeship program

The program hopes to train 200 AI professionals in the next three years through Singapore’s TechSkills Accelerator, a training initiative announced in 2016 to build up the city-state’s technical capabilities. IMDA will also engage local AI pros to do workshops for companies who want to understand more about the technology.

Engaging with international tech companies

IMDA announced the Strategic Partners Program in order to collaborate more with large multinationals. The program already has IBM, Microsoft, and Samsung on board.

Boosting accreditation program

Accreditation@IMDA, a vetting and support scheme by the agency to evaluate promising local startups, will be expanded and renamed Accreditation@SG Digital. The program will be expanded to feature more mature companies as well as its current remit of younger businesses. It will also work more to engage international deep tech companies.

Local businesses that have gone through the accreditation process include Hong Kong-listed energy management company Anacle and cyber security startup CashShield.

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This year’s Bootstrap Alley at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017 saw a total of 308 unique exhibiting startups. From ecommerce, to fintech and SaaS, we had startups from 39 verticals showcasing their products to more than 5,000 attendees over two days on November 1 & 2.

There were definitely plenty to check out, and here’s seven of our favourites.

UShift (Day 1)

An on-demand staffing platform for workers looking for short-term contract jobs, UShift matches businesses with workers seeking temporary jobs. Once candidates sign up and answer questions pertaining to their experience, education and availability, their profiles are put in ‘pending’ mode. These prospective employees are added to the roster only after UShift’s team verifies them.

One of the issues UShift aims to solve for short-term hires is workforce quality, as many do not turn up for work despite agreeing to a particular task beforehand. If happened with a registered UShift worker, they will be blacklisted from the site permanently. Whether you’re a business looking for short-term hires, or someone looking for flexible work opportunities, UShift may just be for you.

Airable (Day 2)

On average, face masks have to be thrown away every two to three days. In addition to creating waste, the costs added up is high as well. With Airable, the way we use masks may soon change. A piece of paper acts as the filter, and instead of replacing the entire mask, one simply needs to change the filter paper.

Masks are linked to the Airable app, which keeps users informed of details such as the current air quality index and the amount of hours to go before they’d have to change the filter. You’d even know the amount of days the mask has added to your lifespan!

Me-lody (Day 2)

If you love singing in the shower, and always had a dream of being a rockstar, Me-lody may just make your dream come true. As a talent search platform, Me-lody aims to connect music labels to talents such as vocalists and guitarists.

Record live from your phone, and with a click of the button, upload those videos onto Me-lody. The community of users on the app are able to react to the videos, and music labels can also reach out to talents on the platform.

Sticar (Day 2)

Sticar is a technology startup which aims to disrupt the offline advertising industry. With their on-demand offline advertising platform, vehicles are transformed into mobile billboards. If businesses wish to target a specific location where its target audience exists, Sticar is able to deploy advertisements to cars located at those regions.

Through its online dashboard, advertisers are able to track the ads real-time, and are kept informed of the estimated number of people who have viewed them.

Triplogic (Day 2)

Have unused baggage space while traveling? Triplogic lets you earn money by sharing your baggage space with others. With this mobile app, sending packages across cities in Indonesia are sped up, with same-day delivery possible.

The process is simple. Feeders pick up parcels from senders at their homes, and deliver them to the airport. Travellers use their baggage space to deliver the packages, marked with Triplogic’s logos. Upon reaching the destination, feeders transfer those packages from the airport to its intended recipients. This process eliminates the need to send parcels to drop points and distribution centres, reducing delivery time.

Hyku (Day 1 & Day 2)

Ever watched a video and wished that you could immediately purchase what you saw? With Hyku, that is now a reality. The startup’s unique feature – its ability to accurately sync additional content to live streams and broadcasts – aims to revolutionize the way users interact with video-on-demand.

Users are able to actively participate in television shows and live streams from the Hyku app, including direct downloads, voting, social media interactions, and many other features. The tool box on the app is endless, and opens up many more opportunities on what content creators can do to engage with their audience.

TuneMap (Day 1 & Day 2)

Technology is now so much a part of our lives, and the same applies for the visually impaired. TuneMap aims to enable the visually impaired community by having pedestrians be digital advocates. With their mobile app, users are able to let the community know about certain unsafe conditions of city pavements and what to avoid.

With that information, reports are translated using standardized audio instructions to navigate the visually impaired. When someone keys in their destination, the app is able to alert them of what to watch out for.

And with that, our Jakarta conference this year has come to an end! If you missed out on the conference, check out #tiajkt2017 to catch up on some of the highlights and what our participants had to say.

Meanwhile, mark your calendars for Tech in Asia Singapore, happening on 15 & 16 May 2018!

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Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Andalin, a logistics startup that helps businesses ship cross-border, clinched the big win at this year’s Tech in Asia Jakarta Arena. The company beat six other candidates on its way to the top.

GY Networks was the runner-up, while SpotDraft took third place.

These were the brave combatants that took part in this year’s competition, in alphabetical order:

Andalin

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Andalin is a logistics startup that helps small businesses with import and export procedures. It helps customers compare quotes and manage their cross-border shipping through its online system.

The Indonesia-based business was part of long-running accelerator Ideabox’s fourth batch of startups.

Datum

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Datum allows users to back up data they generate through social networks, wearables, smart homes, and other internet-of-things devices and then monetize it by selling such info through its marketplace. The company uses blockchain technology to power its database.

Disitu

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Indonesia-based Disitu is a credit marketplace. The service extends loans to people who are unable to secure them from financial institutions.

GY Networks

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

South Korea’s GY Networks works on computer vision projects. The company uses machine learning to improve image recognition and video analysis capabilities in CCTV systems.

Hyku

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Chinese startup Hyku helps content creators to make interactive videos. Users can purchase products they see on the videos or interact with creators and brands in real time.

SpotDraft

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

India-based SpotDraft generates documents like contracts and invoices. It also tracks payments using artificial intelligence. Users can also upload existing documents on the website, where the software analyzes them and helps manage them online.

Tune Map

Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Tune Map makes online maps for the visually impaired. Users can feed the maps with data such as areas with potholes, lack of guiding lines, and so on. The app converts the information into helpful audio instructions.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017, our conference taking place November 1 and 2.

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(From L to R:) Redmart CEO Roger Egan, Lazada Singapore CEO Alexis Lanternier, and Uber Singapore general manager Warren Tseng. Photo credit: Lazada.

While Lazada has kept mum about details related to the next launch of its Amazon Prime-style loyalty program, its CEO today revealed that it’s definitely in the cards for Indonesia.

“Absolutely [rolling it out in Indonesia], but I can’t tell you when,” Max Bittner said during a fireside chat at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017.

Teaming up with US companies Uber and Netflix, Lazada first launched the rewards program “LiveUp” in Singapore earlier this year. Benefits include rebates on purchases from Lazada and unit Redmart, free and faster Lazada delivery, discounts on Uber, and six months off a Netflix subscription.

LiveUp is the Alibaba-backed ecommerce firm’s answer to Amazon’s Prime service, which offers benefits like same-day delivery and video streaming. The US ecommerce juggernaut forayed into Singapore this year, possibly a prelude to its big push into Southeast Asia.

Alibaba and its majority-owned Lazada are betting on the growth of online retail in the region, especially Indonesia.

A 2016 report by Google and Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek pegged Southeast Asia’s ecommerce spend at US$88 billion by 2025 – versus only US$5.5 billion in 2015. Indonesia will account for 52 percent share of that market.

LiveUp forms part of Lazada’s strategy of defending its slice of the ecommerce market.

Max Bittner talks about the updates on Lazada at the Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

In Singapore, Bittner claimed they’ve seen paying LiveUp customers grow more than three times their target, although he didn’t divulge concrete figures. He also said that “the effect of really bringing customers in both Redmart and Lazada and increasing frequency of customers has worked much nicer than I would have anticipated.”

He is bullish about seeing the same growth in the “hot” Indonesian market.

“I feel in the last 12 months, the attention has shifted from India to Indonesia. This is really the one big opportunity and it’s amazing to see how many people are looking at it, how many investors there are,” he stated. “It’s incredibly competitive.”

In terms of trends in Indonesia’s 250 million-strong economy, Bittner said the key thing they’ve observed is how sophisticated merchants have become. “Merchants have gotten so much better in adopting and using data, they’re getting more and more hungry for data.”

He said efforts to build out their infrastructure capabilities in Indonesia are underway. Lazada will open two more warehouses in the country this year, bringing its total to five. Across Southeast Asia, the company has 15, he said.

He also mentioned the possibility of opening a physical mall in Indonesia, citing the “blurring” lines between online and offline retail. This is already happening in China, where Alibaba is putting up more Hema stores. The stores allow customers to shop, dine, and order groceries for delivery from their mobile phones and use Alipay to make payments.

“Offline retail is either to showcase your products to gain trust, for people to get a feel of what you’re selling or can be as a supply chain or a warehouse. If you look at the work that Alibaba does in China with the Hema stores, where you have fully integrated offline and online stores […] that really represents everything that ecommerce and retail can be,” Bittner explained.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017, our conference taking place November 1 and 2.

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Darius Cheung of 99.co. Photo credit: 99.co.

Darius Cheung, founder and CEO of Singapore-headquartered property finder 99.co, mused on his company’s edge against competition during a fireside chat at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017.

Cheung said his startup’s advantage is that it’s still nimble enough to be able to take risks. 99.co landed in Indonesia less than two years ago, while its big rival and current market leader PropertyGuru had been there far longer, securing partnerships and acquiring local startups.

“We were starting afresh in Indonesia a year and a half ago,” Cheung said. “We had nothing to lose, we didn’t have existing traffic or users.” That gave the company leeway to try different business models to find out what worked in Indonesia’s major cities.

According to Cheung, the startup’s local office employs around 100 people – one of them being the CEO himself these days – and transacts 2,000 properties per quarter, amounting to around US$100 million worth of property every year. It works a little differently than its Singaporean branch, where the website is mostly consumer-facing.

In Indonesia, 99.co works more directly with new property developers and agents, using a much more business-oriented model. “Indonesians are very entrepreneurial and willing to try new things,” Cheung said, pointing out the market’s appeal – besides the obvious population and market size factors.

He recalled something an investor told him: “In Indonesia, companies that sell stuff to people are going to be less successful than companies that help people make money.”

Legal troubles

99.co recently found itself in legal hot water with its biggest rival. PropertyGuru sued 99.co in Singapore in 2016 over property photographs that agents uploaded to both websites. PropertyGuru claimed 99.co breached copyright by publishing those photos, breached a settlement agreement between the two companies, and induced agents to violate PropertyGuru’s terms of use.

99.co responded by saying that the agents were the ones uploading the material in question and copyright should belong to the agents.

The case is currently awaiting verdict from the Supreme Court of Singapore, a process that could take months. “It’s one of those things you intellectually know [is] possible but never expect to actually happen to you,” Cheung said.

Still, Cheung and the team decided 99.co should be happy about the whole affair. “The only reason someone would want to spend money to get lawyers to sue you is because probably they’re scared,” he quipped.

He feels 99.co’s motivation in the case is standing up for information rights. “Truth is, we’ve had friends whose businesses were shut down because of similar legal issues, and we didn’t think it was right. We were in a good enough position to put up a fight and thought we should – and once and for all, hopefully – establish a good precedent,” he explained.

Reached for comment, PropertyGuru stated: “This is a sub judice matter. We follow the good corporate practice of not commenting on matters that are pending before the court.”

Darius Cheung on stage at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Courting investors

99.co has so far raised US$9.5 million, according to the Tech in Asia database. Its investors include Sequoia, East Ventures, 500 Startups, and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

(Disclosure: East Ventures and Eduardo Saverin are also investors in Tech in Asia. Please see our ethics page for details.)

When choosing investors, Cheung recommends founders check their reputation and do reference checks with other entrepreneurs. “Selecting investors is not a one-night stand. It’s a marriage, so you want to pick the right person, not just whatever looks good,” he said.

Founders need investors who stick with the company long-term, so he suggested a test he has in mind: “Give them a choice – do you want to solve for the upside or the downside? You want investors who solve for the upside.

“For example, in your term sheet, you have liquidation preference or pro-rata rights. Pro-rata rights is good for upside; liquidation preference is protection for downside. You want the investors who go for pro-rata rights. If they give up liquidation preference in favor of pro-rata rights, that’s the kind of investor I would go for.”

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017, our conference taking place November 1 and 2.

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A quick Google search on which countries are best to launch a startup reveals Singapore as one of the top choices. It’s not hard to see why. Singapore prides itself as the easiest place to do business, with incorporating a business taking typically just one or two days.

The government has also been known to be actively involved in the startup scene, offering grants and schemes which are beneficial during the early stages of a business. One such example is SPRING’s Startup Enterprise Development Scheme (SEEDS), which invests the same amount as by a third party investor, with a limit capped at US$1.47m. More than 250 startups have also been supported by IDM Jump-start and Mentor (i.JAM). The government grant, close to US$37,000, has allowed hundreds of startups to carry out concept testing and market validation before seeking investment.

Unsurprisingly, the country has been a hotbed for investors and startups.

Making the move from India to Singapore

In recent years, we have seen several Indian startups relocating to Singapore. In 2011, India’s largest e-commerce startup Flipkart set up its holding company in the little red dot, while Grofers shifted its headquarters in 2015.

Push factors to move to Singapore included high tax and regulations for companies back in India. In contrast to India’s corporate tax of more than 30 percent, the city-state caps corporate tax at just 17 percent. Other reasons cited which encouraged companies to relocate included the tech-friendly market and ease of hiring expat talent in Singapore.

Is Singapore on your expansion road map?

With an expansion into an unfamiliar territory, there are bound to be obstacles along the way. Here’s when corporate consultancy firm, In.Corp Group, comes into the picture. With over 20 years of experience and know-how, In.Corp Group (including their key subsidiaries Rikvin and APB) has offered corporate solutions to thousands of companies and has been established as the Corporate Services Partner of Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) and the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). Their services include business registrations, accounting, taxation, immigration, insurance policies, and keeping companies updated on regulatory changes and their potential impact.

On 14 November, In.Corp will be conducting an information session to share the why and how-tos of incorporating a startup in Singapore. Look forward to keynotes and panel discussions by industry experts from In.Corp, Singapore Economic Development Board, and BlackPepper Technologies, as they share insights on fields such as incorporating a company and recruiting.

If you’re thinking of joining the vibrant startup landscape here in Singapore, this is an event not to be missed.

The session is free to attend. Click on the button below to register your interest. As this is an invite-only event, successful applicants will be notified via email by 10 November 2017. We look forward to meeting you there!

Expansion Strategies: The Singapore Advantage – Bangalore edition

Speakers

Eric Chin – Group Head of Business Development, In.Corp Global
Rachel Chia – Regional Director, India & Israel, Economic Development Board
Basavaraj Nagaraju – Executive Vice President, Strategy & Marketing, Blackpepper Technologies
Sumit Chakraberty – Senior Editor, Tech in Asia

Event Details

Date: 14 November 2017, Tuesday
Time: 7pm – 10pm (Registration starts at 6.30pm)
Venue: JW Marriott Hotel Bengaluru

Converted from Singapore dollars. Rate: US$1 = SGD 1.36.

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(L-R) Moderator Sudhir Syal, BookMyShow; Adrian Li, Convergence Ventures, Ian Goh, 01VC; Joseph Chan, App Works, and Tony Qu, ATM Capital, onstage at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Some of China’s biggest internet firms left no doubt about their intention to be part of Southeast Asia’s slowly awakening digital economy. In the past months, companies like Didi Chuxing, Alibaba, Tencent, and JD have poured billions of dollars into funding and acquiring businesses in the region, especially in Indonesia.

Apart from these strategic investors, Chinese VC firms’ appetite for the Indonesian tech sector is also growing.

“Indonesia is lucky to have such a large market,” says Adrian Li, managing partner of Convergence Ventures, an Indonesia-based venture capital firm. One of the fund’s partners is China’s search engine Baidu.

Indonesia’s expanding population of 260 million people is seen as a safe bet by some Chinese investors because of the increased purchasing power that comes with it. And many feel like they can apply what they’ve learned at home to bring businesses to success here.

“I feel here like I felt 20 years ago in China – there are so many opportunities,” said Tony Qu, managing partner at ATM Capital while onstage at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017. “If we have enough patience, the future will be great. The only way to lose is if you have no patience.”

A veteran Chinese investor, he said he’s relocating to Indonesia by the end of the year to focus his fund’s investments in the archipelago.

VC firms aren’t just backing local startups financially, but they also want to fix one of Indonesia’s key problems: the lack of engineering talent.

Part of Convergence Venture’s deal with Baidu involves bringing technical resources and know-how from China to its portfolio companies, which in turn will boost their chances of success.

ATM Capital’s Tony Qu also pointed out that bringing talent from China will help the industry grow.

No such thing as too much capital

Li countered concerns that too much capital from overseas might squeeze out local startups with less access to funding.

“In the early stage of a startup ecosystem, the problem is access to capital. In China, Silicon Valley has led all the early investments. China is to Indonesia what Silicon Valley was to China over a decade ago,” he said.

Ian Goh of 01VC, another VC firm that bridges Chinese capital and Indonesian startup opportunities, said that now is the phase in which Indonesia needs to build its “pipes” – the fundamental infrastructure like cashless payments, credit scoring systems, and logistics. “In 2008, a lot of that was still missing in China. When the pipes are done, many more startups will be riding on this,” he said.

It’s unfair, however, to say that massive companies are coming into the country and “eating everyone’s lunch,” Goh added.

“In Indonesia, there’s room for the local players to become dominant. Look at Traveloka. In the end, there will be local giants and local heroes.”

For local companies to be competitive, Qu suggested that they use their home field advantage by understanding the user better.

“Don’t just copy what’s hot in China. You have to know what the users really need. In some cases, the infrastructure is not ready. Do those things for which the infrastructure is ready. Maybe what’s ‘old’ in China is going to work here.”

Li added that local players can succeed by building loyalty with their customers and offering highly localized solutions and local logistics.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017, our conference taking place November 1 and 2.

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Indonesia’s Go-Jek started out with motorbikes, then added cars later. Photo credit: Go-Jek.

Anyone following Indonesia’s tech scene is probably familiar with “GTT” – Go-Jek, Tokopedia, and Traveloka, the country’s three billion-dollar startups. This year alone, Tokopedia and Traveloka got a significant boost following investments from backers like China’s Alibaba and US firm Expedia, respectively. Will we see a new Indonesian startup join the unicorn club next year?

Willson Cuaca, managing partner at East Ventures – a prolific early-stage investor in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia – doesn’t think so. “There’s a huge gap between those big companies and the mid-tier ones,” he said during Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017. (Disclosure: East Ventures is an investor in Tech in Asia. See our ethics statement for more info).

Sharing the stage with Cuaca, Pieter Kemps of Sequoia Capital – an investor in both Go-Jek and Tokopedia – agreed that other startups would need time to catch up.

While it may not happen soon, it doesn’t mean Indonesia’s tech scene is “drying up,” Kemps assured the audience.

“You have this first wave of startups in horizontal marketplaces, logistics, travel that have emerged and they’re very dominant right now.” More interesting things are coming up – there’s going to be a “second cycle,” he said.

It’s a trend seen in China, where Toutiao, Meituan, and Didi Chuxing – also known as “TMD” – are following in the footsteps of “BAT” (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent). Kemps said TMD might be less known in the region, but each boasts a valuation ranging from US$20 billion to US$50 billion.

In Indonesia, opportunities abound for startups to get a grip on the highly “inefficient” market. “There’s so many things broken in this country, lots of problems to solve,” Cuaca said.

That’s true even for ecommerce – despite the dominance of Tokopedia and another Alibaba-backed firm, Lazada – because the sector accounts for only 2 percent of total trade happening in the country.

Skills shortage

But before Indonesian startups can jump to the next level, they must surpass what could be their biggest hurdle – a talent shortage that has been a drag on the country’s tech sector.

Indonesia is one of Asia’s most populous nations, with millions of internet users coming online every month, but tech talent is limited. Specifically, there’s a lack of engineers, the investors said.

“If you look at the quality of engineering in China, I’d say it’s on par with the US, which wasn’t the case in the past. The sheer volume of companies, the scale companies in China are operating at, the complexities of the problems that need to be solved means you have to innovate a lot. Here it’s still a challenge,” explained Kemps.

“We’re very bullish about Indonesia but we’d love to see more engineering capabilities and a faster learning curve at that,” he added.

“We talked to some startups – small and big ones. Many of them said ‘we’ve seen every single good engineer in Indonesia and now we’re done. We can’t find them anymore,’” stated Cuaca.

To fill the gap, the companies have resorted to offshoring tech work or scouting for talent overseas to bring to Indonesia. Go-Jek, for example, set up an engineering hub in Bangalore and a data center in Singapore.

Investors have also taken an active role in helping their portfolio companies in Indonesia find talent.

“With Go-Jek, we helped them a lot on working with certain developers and capabilities, and ultimately they ended up acquiring several companies and forming an engineering hub in Bangalore. With Tokopedia, it’s similar. We were very much involved in the early days, helping them hire their VP of engineering,” commented Kemps.

Another workaround is a fly-in, fly-out approach where Indonesian founders go on trips to China, for example, to get advice and learn from local startups.

Grace Xia of Jungle Ventures cited China’s favorite messaging app WeChat as a “business model proven in China which works here as well.”

She said Go-Jek has certainly taken stock of how WeChat evolved from a simple chat app to an ecommerce, gaming and video sharing platform. Today, WeChat is also used by the Chinese for almost everything, from booking a cab to paying their bills.

Similarly, Go-Jek started out with motorcycle-hailing then cars, and later expanded into other on-demand services like parcel couriers, food and medicine deliveries, cleaners, and massages.

Xia expects the entry of Chinese investors like Alibaba in Indonesia to bring not just capital but also technology and knowledge sharing.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017, our conference taking place on November 1 and 2.

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Photo credit: Brian Turner.

The saga of blockchain startup Otonomos continues as the firm has submitted a writ of summons and statement of claim against its former CEO, Han Verstraete, in the High Court of Singapore.

The public document, seen by Tech in Asia, contains allegations against Verstraete that had not surfaced before, including mishandling of company funds and hijacking company email accounts after his termination.

In the meantime, the original Otonomos.com domain now shows an Ethereum crowdfunding campaign by Verstraete to raise legal funds.

Verstraete, who was CEO and founder of Otonomos, first alleged he was being forced out of the company in late September through a post on Medium. He then made specific allegations against the startup’s board of directors in a follow-up post that involved board members Dymon Asia Ventures’ Christiaan Kaptein, Fenbushi Capital’s Remington Ong, and Otonomos CTO and current interim CEO Manogaran Thanabalan.

The board currently consists of Kaptein, Ong, Thanabalan, and Verstraete.

The writ we saw includes, among other things:

• Allegations that Verstraete repeatedly mishandled company funds for his personal use, including traveling abroad, making personal expenses, transferring company funds to his personal bank accounts, and withholding cryptocurrency funds from the company. Otonomos alleges losses to the tune of at least US$410,000.
• Allegations that Verstraete entered into an advertising deal for the company’s logo to appear on a yacht during a boat race in Hong Kong. Otonomos claims the US$120,000 deal was “extravagant and unreasonable” for the startup and that Verstraete decided to go ahead with it regardless.
• Allegations that Verstraete paid himself additional salary on top of his regular one for a number of months during 2016 and 2017. The writ alleges that Verstraete admitted this during a board meeting.
• Allegations that Verstraete diverted company resources to another company he founded while running Otonomos, called Peerfinds. Peerfinds is a mobile app that lets users recommend restaurants, shops, and places to stay.
• Allegations that Verstraete, after being fired as CEO by the board, hijacked the Otonomos.com domain and impersonated Thanabalan in email correspondence to Otonomos clients.

In the writ, Otonomos further alleges that the board repeatedly notified Verstraete about these issues and called him to board meetings, to which it says Verstraete only offered partial explanation. According to the document, Verstraete was terminated from his CEO position because of this.

Otonomos has not commented further on the situation, as it seems legal proceedings are underway.

In a statement to Tech in Asia, Verstraete denied these allegations. “Their claim is saturated with falsehoods. The allegations will be eliminated one by one in the court procedure and we should allow this process to run its course,” he said.

Verstraete further confirms that the Otonomos.com domain is registered in his name. Otonomos has since switched to Otonomos.io and is currently operational.

Dymon Asia Ventures sent the following statement to Tech in Asia: “We strongly refute any allegation of impropriety, wrongdoing, or unethical behavior by Dymon Asia Ventures or any Dymon employee.”

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