Southeast Asia Connect

In the last 5 years, we have witnessed the increasing relevance of startup initiatives globally. The likes of Station F in Europe, AIS The Startup, Sequoia Surge, and Antler, in Asia have thousands of startups combined that receive help in growing their companies. In China similarly, Chinaccelerator, operated by venture fund SOSV, has more than 140 startups in its portfolio.

The astonishing growth in the number of such initiatives worldwide from 200 in 2011, to well beyond 10,000 now (or 5 times now), proves that there is an increasing need for them in the making of a startup.

In this webinar, we speak with Keziah Quek from Capgemini Applied Innovation Exchange, and Janise Tan, who manages Google’s Accelerator program in Southeast Asia.

On the final episode of this year's series on Southeast Asia connect, we talk about:

Bridging startups and B2B enterprises, and how startups can win pilots with corporates
Working with local players in the ecosystem and enabling digital transformation
Ecosystem success stories



Soundbites





Janise Tan - "The earlier you are, the bigger village you need"




Keziah Quek - "It's like alchemy, you're looking for the right person, chemistry, KPI, matching of place and time"

Google talks about finding the next “billion” users – is it the case that a significant part of the next billion users will be served and acquired indirectly via the millions of MSME merchants embedded in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia? In this episode, we explore:

The shift to B2B Super Apps – BukuKas is an app for merchants digitising their bookkeeping and is a gateway to electronic financial services, BukuWarung is arguably in a similar space. Moka purchased by GoJek gave them an enlarged presence into merchants and Fave has a tie-up with Grab and a strategic investment from the largest Indian non-bank merchant network Pine Labs
Size of the “Merchant Enterprise segment” – MSMEs make up the bulk of the economy, not the major conglomerates
Economics around merchants – Are revenue models different, better even? What is the path to profitability?

Soundbites



Nigel Lee - "If it's a B2B model, I get to go and play golf with people."


Joel Neoh - "Financials: How big, how long, how fast and strategic do we compete or cooperate "

Over the past decade, Asia’s startup scene has been led by China, which created some of the world’s most valuable unlisted startups that are now household names like Alibaba and Tencent. Of course, we all know the hits keep on coming with TikTok operator ByteDance. After India, Southeast Asia has followed up with 13 unicorns. In fact, the rate of growth in valuation of startups has accelerated over the last 5 years and is a pace on par, if not greater, than the average for the rest of the world. In addition, the old “funding” valley of death series A, B, or even C is well gone, and we are in the age of “plugging the gap” between VC and PE stages, with a thick blur in between.

Topics discussed:

The unicorn DNA – What technology, talent, economic and legislative tailwinds have created the current unicorns
What factors will create the next wave and is there a shift in the nature of unicorns to come e.g. more B2B, more fintech, more logistics?
To what extent do the US, China, and India unicorns provide models for SEA unicorns, or do they not?
Do unicorns “suck up” all of the capital?
How will the unicorns exit

Soundbites



Shaun Chong - "People only see the success stories, they don’t know the hardships."






Watch the full episode here.

Fintech in Southeast Asia is the only sector set to nearly double funding in 2020 compared to 2019. Out of 109 Fintech startups in Southeast Asia, 35 startups are now valued at more than $100 million. Ant Financial is the most anticipated IPO of the year at a rumoured $250 billion, which would make it roughly the 5th largest “bank” in the world. Fintech is not only impossible to ignore but too important not to understand.
Topics discussed:

Whether the smaller players will be able to compete for market share with the larger Unicorns like Grab, GoJek, ZaloPay, OVO, etc.
The revenge of the banks
Digital banking, and what it means in 2020
Embedded finance
What is next in the Fintech space

Soundbites



Pinn Lawjindakul - "I want a relationship with you longer than your marriage."


Kelvin Teo - "My parents are Asian so I wasn't allowed to drop out."



Watch the full episode here.

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