New investors who participated in the funding round for Spark include Citi Group, HSBC, OSK Ventures International Berhad.

Existing investors that also participated in the funding round include Goldman Sachs, Vickers Venture Partners, Dymon Asia Ventures, Dymon Asia Capital, Jubilee Capital, and FengHe Group.

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the central Bank of Singapore, also backs Spark through grants from the Financial Sector Development Fund.

Spark offers high-speed trading platforms that promise low latency, resiliency, and cost-efficiency.

Reportedly, the startup is also planning to expand in New York as well as in London.

Spark Systems founder and chief executive officer, Wong Joo Seng told the media, “We are grateful for the confidence placed in Spark Systems and the resources; in both deep insight and funding accorded to us to develop a premier deep tech trading platform by some of the most respected and influential financial institutions in the world. That this is occurring during a period of significant macro-economic upheaval further underscores the strategic nature of the FX industry infrastructure requirement we are addressing.”

Recently, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), AMTD Group and AMTD Foundation (collectively, AMTD) jointly announced the launch of a S$6 million fund to support fintech startup in Singapore to weather the COVID19 pandemic.

While AMTD has provided an initial S$2 million for the fund, MAS will provide an additional S$4 million from the Financial Sector Development Fund, taking the total grant amount to S$6 million.

Applications for the Grant will open on 18 May 2020 and will be available until 31 December 2021.

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The funding round for Validus was led by Vertex Growth Fund and Kuok Group’s Orion Fund, which is managed by K3 Venture Partners.

Other investors that participated in the funding round include Dutch bank FMO, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India, Openspace Ventures, Vietnam’s VinaCapital Ventures, and AddVentures, the VC arm of Thai conglomerate Siam Cement Group.

According to reports in the media, Validus will use the funds to invest in technology and build a stronghold in the three markets it currently operates in. The funds will also be used to launch its upcoming venture in Thailand.

Co-founder and COO Nikhilesh Goel said that the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in increasing demand for short-term financing, with a 50 percent year-over-year increase for credit-approved unsecured loans over the past few months.

He told the media, “Through working closely with corporate partners and investors on the platform, we also aim to support SMEs who are pivoting their businesses to adapt to services and products that are required at this time. In the last month, we have disbursed multiple such loans averaging $250,000 to $500,000, to support SMEs’ efforts in meeting the demand for face masks and other protective gear in short supply.”

Established in 2015, so far Validus has as facilitated over $319 million in loans. According to the company, over 300,000 Singaporeans have benefited from using its platform, with SMEs seeing a 17 percent increase in annual revenue in 2018 and a 12 percent growth in employment.

The post Singapore-based SME lending firm Validus secures $14 mn funding appeared first on International Finance.

Investors who took part in the funding round for Kargo include Tenaya Capital,  Sequoia India, Mirae Asset Management and Intudo Ventures.

Reportedly, Kargo will also use the funds to scale up its business, besides using it to fight the coronavirus crisis.

The company has launched a $1 million relief fund to help truckers in the region. Reportedly, Kargo employees have contributed from their salaries to the coronavirus relief fund.

Kargo is undertaking intensive precautionary measures such as ensuring that all pit stops on its routes are well-stocked and properly disinfected. Kargo has also implemented an electronic proof of delivery mechanism on its platform to limit physical contact between users.

Co-founder Tiger Fang told the media, “Kargo pledges to be the most reliable logistics partner to ensure no disruptions to the supply chain of essential items in Indonesia. Our entire company is donating a portion of our salaries to this cause and we invite local businesses and organizations to get in touch so we can work this problem together.”

Tiger Fang, who is known for his significant work with Uber Asia, also announced that he will not receive his salary during the next year.

The Jakarta-headquartered company has successfully taken the concept of Uber and applied it to logistics.

Kargo, which was established in 2018, has raised around $38.6 million in funding so far. The startup has more than 6 thousand active transporters and more than 50 thousand trucks nationwide.

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How is healthtech making healthcare affordable?

With regard to how healthtech is making healthcare more affordable and accessible, Julien De Salaberry, CEO at Galen Growth Asia, told International Finance, “A general rule of thumb, will be that digital health is lowering the cost of entry into healthcare for innovators and, therefore, facilitating the democratisation of healthcare as consumers or patients seek solutions online.” Citing the noteworthy deals as examples, he said that while, Halodoc was allowing for easier and cheaper access to medicines, Biofourmis was helping reduce the cost of drug clinical trials and CXA was providing seamless access to health insurance and its consumption.

Felicia Kawilarang, Halodoc’s VP marketing communications further told International Finance, that the Indonesian healthtech company, which connects patients with doctors, insurers, labs, and pharmacies through its mobile application, was making healthcare affordable by ensuring patients paid for just the doctors service fee in a way that they do not have to bear the operating costs of running a hospital or clinic. “A consultation with a doctor in the hospital will on an average cost about IDR250,000 but at Halodoc our doctors on average cost about IDR40,000 for a 30 minute consultation,” she explained.

Another example is Malaysia’s Naluri, which offers professional and confidential health coaching. Speaking more about the company, Azran Osman-Rani, Naluri’s CEO told International Finance, that it works with partner insurers, corporate employers, and healthcare providers to identify at-risk populations, meaning those who have elevated levels of blood sugar and blood pressure among others and offer them a fully-digital health coaching service.

In terms of how it was making healthcare affordable, Osman-Rani said while typically structured intervention programmes like a Diabetes Prevention Programme where patients receive counselling from a team of dieticians, nurses, and doctors, could cost between $1,000 and $2,000 per patient, for a four month programme, at Naluri, a similar programme which included, a before and after health screening, a mental health test and the provision of a bluetooth-connected weighing scale, would cost under $100, since all interactions were done online.

Osman-Rani further added that their solutions in traditional mental support were also more cost-effective when it came to group healthcare that is usually subscribed by corporate employers. While traditionally, in this area, support is in the form of an ‘employee assistance programme’ which comprises a telephone counselling hotline and face-to-face sessions, with Naluri, employers were assisted to identify the 20 to 30 percent of employees who are most at risk to enrol them in its digital coaching programme, where its monthly subscription rates came with unlimited chats with its psychologists and other healthcare professionals. This, he said, costs much lesser than a traditional single face-to-face hourly counselling session.

A Singapore example of a disruptive healthtech solution is mClinica. Operating across Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia from its headquarters in Singapore, this startup is making healthcare affordable by connecting pharmacies across South East Asia to people, using mobile technology. Its CEO Farouk Meralli told International Finance that its mobile platform helps address several challenges at the pharmacy level including patient affordability and adherence.

He further explained that its platform helps pharmaceutical companies address the affordability of medications through targeted discounts while promoting long term adherence through customised health education and refill reminders. “Patients simply visit participating pharmacies and are registered in the programme by providing their mobile phone number. Through our platforms we have reduced the price of medicine by up to 37 percent and increased adherence by more than 30 percent making a tangible impact inpatient health,” he added.

Another Singapore example is of MyDoc. Dr. Snehal Patel, CEO and co-founder at this digital healthcare provider said healthtech enabled faster and more accurate collection and analysis of important real-time health and behavioural data, thereby reducing the need for costly treatment. In addition, he said, also enabled identifying and addressing inefficiencies and wastage in healthcare to further save on unnecessary costs.

Specifically, with regard to his company, which covers seven countries in Asia, Dr Patel said, they had a clear objective and business model to help the patient stay healthy and make healthcare more affordable by making them avoid expensive hospital treatment. And in cases where they do need to engage with healthcare professionals, MyDoc, he added, ensured they are seen quickly, by the right professionals, with costs tightly controlled and monitored.

Value addition: Healthtech simplifies data

Dr. Patel added that apart from saving costs, the company was also helping its customers in reducing confusions and duplications of key information related to their health which further saves time. “From the patient’s perspective the legacy model of healthcare is very often confusing, fragmented, disjointed, and opaque. They are passed from one place to another with little to no coordination, connectivity or cohesion.

Key information and data sit in disconnected silos and filing cabinets and do not follow the patient on their life-long journey in healthcare. This results in a great deal of duplication, unnecessary appointments, wasted time and gaps in healthcare data and can or do lead to undiagnosed health issues or, worse, misdiagnosis and very costly hospital treatment,” he said.

MyDoc, however, helped avoid the same by guiding the patient through their care journey, ensuring they are referred to the right provider and at the right time apart from ensuring the patient had their health record with them for life, which would help them ask questions, consult a doctor or pharmacist any time they need to , irrespective of where they go.

Naluri’s Osman-Rani, also said there were other healthtech benefits. One such benefit he said was making healthtech accessible to a larger population considering there is a shortage of medical specialists in the region. Citing Malaysia as an example, he said, considering there are about 13 million adults in his country who had mood disorders or chronic disease risks and that there were only about 200 practising psychologists and about 600 practising clinical dieticians, conventional sessions such as face-to-face therapy or counselling sessions would only help one million Malaysians and ignore the remaining 12 million who need help.

Apart from this, he added that healthtech solutions such as those being provided by Naluri were making it more convenient and less time-consuming for patients as they, unlike traditional healthcare programmes, do not require patients to make inconvenient transport arrangements to actually go and visit a doctor at a clinic or hospital.

With regards to Halodoc, Kawilarang said that her company’s other benefits too included making people’s lives more convenient and also helping them save time. “On average in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city, a patient’s journey to go to hospital and back home takes a total of 4 hours 30 minutes due to traffic and waiting conditions in hospitals, while with Halodoc it merely takes seconds to get connected to a doctor and get your medicine delivered to your home,” she explained.

Technology is at the core of healthtech

With regard to the technologies being used by healthtech companies, mClinica’s Meralli told that most of them were developing solutions using artificial intelligence and big data technologies. At mClinica in particular, Meralli said they employed an array of technologies including social networking technologies to connect pharmacies, machine learning to manage patient refills, and image recognition to digitise prescriptions at the pharmacy level.

Halodoc’s Kawilarang too said they use AI and machine learning based solutions. These, she said were rapidly productised and taken to production, to allow for efficiencies, cost savings and a distinct competitive edge.

Jaffry Mohammed, head of healthcare practice and senior VP, IT at UST Global, an American digital services company which has invested in MyDoc, told International Finance that there were a few patterns of technology adoption that they were seeing healthtech companies focus on. First, he said was the leveraging of data science and deep AI for propensity of disease, triage of medical conditions, prediction of diagnosis and personalisation of treatment. Second, he said was the integration of IoT into clinical practice.

In this regard, he explained that devices at home, work, and hospitals were all feeding continuous data streams that were being collected, interpreted, and converted to inputs for clinical interventions and personalisation of care plans. Third, he said was the use of augmented reality and continuous imaging in a clinical or surgical setting. And finally, he said was the use of AI and ML for non-invasive detection of disease such as skin scans, retina scans, and even voice samples. All these were new diagnosis methods that were being enabled using such latest technologies. “This is by no means a comprehensive list. The intersection of technology and medicine continues to inform many new disruptions in healthtech,” he said.

Constant evolution key to overcoming challenges

Like any industry, healthtech too faces a few challenges to grow. According to Dr. Patel the primary challenge was to get all the various stakeholders across the healthcare spectrum comfortable with using and relying on new technologies and new ways of doing things. Another challenge he said was to prove that healthtech is not only safe, secure and reliable but also more convenient, simpler, more cost-effective and, most importantly, results in improved healthcare outcomes. The final challenge, he said was convincing payers. This, he said, was very different to convincing patients as they are motivated by very different things and have very different pain points.

Meanwhile Naluri’s Osman-Rani said the challenge they were witnessing was healthcare providers being reserved in launching its programmes. This he said was understandable and was primarily because they wanted to see more clinical evidence before prescribing digital health coaching solutions to their patients. Halodoc’s Kawilarang opined that the biggest challenge that they faced was the lack of awareness for healthtech, apart from the low trust in using digital solutions for healthcare needs.

Halodoc’s Kawilarang however said these challenges would naturally subside with time and with more exposure. MyDoc’s Dr. Patel too said the challenges could be overcome but it could be a slow, iterative process that requires a lot of patience and understanding of the differing priorities and concerns of each key stakeholder. “It could not be further removed from the now infamous ‘move fast and break things’ motto of Silicon Valley. Healthcare is, arguably, the most guarded and sacrosanct industry of all.”

He further added that it was not a one-way street as well. Healthtech companies, he explained cannot force a seemingly robust technology solution upon stakeholders and had to instead also listen to learn from the many counterparties and stakeholders within the eco-system, and constantly evolve their models and offerings to adapt to the ever-shifting landscape that they are helping to shape and develop.

Southeast Asia healthtech industry moving form niche to mainstream

So considering healthtech faces a few challenges even as it uses the latest technologies to make healthcare more affordable to the common man, an important question is, what does the future hold for this space?

According to Dr. Patel there are many factors that indicate that the macro tailwinds for healthtech could not be more favourable. These factors, he said included large funding and investments in this sector coupled with a rapidly aging population, increased wealth, a burgeoning middle-class, heavy public and government support for technological innovation, high mobile internet penetration capable of reaching even the most remote areas and now even carrying out commercial drone deliveries.

He added that the industry was also in a transition phase, moving from niche to mainstream. This was because of governments, payers, which include organisations that take care of financial and operational aspects of providing healthcare to citizens, providers and patients rapidly adopting healthtech solutions due to their ability to solve various issues of accessibility, quality, and cost that the traditional healthcare models were ill-equipped to address. Going forward, the arrival of 5G would further boost this sector as the increased internet speeds will help overcome major barriers that are currently present in providing high-quality and affordable healthcare, Dr. Patel said.

The healthtech industry is currently highly fragmented, with many highly innovative companies, each focusing on addressing and improving different parts of the complex healthcare ecosystem. However, the next few years could make it inevitable for them to all come together and once this happens, they would be in a position, Dr. Patel said, to challenge and displace many of the large, deep-pocketed incumbent legacy players.

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The Vertex Growth Fund will invest roughly $10 million to $15 million per in third and fourth round of funding per startup, according to CEO Chua Kee Lock. Southeast Asia offers significant investment opportunities in growth capital. 

Previously, Vertex Venture and India Fund invested in Grab at its early startup stages. Chua told the media that they had to stall investments at a point when companies reached a stage of speeding up their growth.

Vertex Growth is the sixth and latest member of Vertex’s global fund network across China, Southeast Asia and India, the US and Israel. It has invested 10 percent of its capital in companies in the US, the UK and Southeast Asia. 

Vertex Growth is headquartered in Singapore. It is mainly focused on investment in companies at growth stage, especially the ones present in early-stage portfolio across the Vertex network. 

Currently, Vertex Ventures has $3 billion in assets under management across its funds network. It has invested in more than 200 companies.  Vertex Ventures’ funds are specially designed to target investments in their regions and run independently. 

Prajit Nanu, chief executive officer of cross-border digital payments startup InstaReM, told the media, “It is important for us to work with a VC partnership that can support us through our business-building journey, from our early formative stages when Vertex Ventures South-east Asia and India invested in us, and now as we scale with Vertex Growth.”

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The total funding the StashAway has raised to date has reached $20.4 million. The funding round for StashAway was also joined by Asia Capital and Advisors, the investment firm founded by Francis Rozario, former CEO of Fullerton Financial. It is an existing investor in StashAway having previously invested in the startup’s pre Series A and Series A round.

The Singapore fintech startup has decided to use the funds for product development and market expansions in the Asia Pacific region. The Singapore headquartered StashAway, has around 40  employees and was founded in 2016 by former Zalora Group CEO Michele Ferrario, former MD and Global Head of Derivatives Strategy at Nomura, Freddy Lim, and serial tech entrepreneur, Nino Ulsamer.

According to Michael Ferrario, the CEO of StashAway, “The financial backing from Eight Road Ventures, one of the earliest investors in Alibaba, alongside the continued support of Asia Capital and Advisors, will accelerate investment product development for our clients in Singapore and Malaysia , while also supporting market expansion throughout the APAC region.”

As part of the deal, Raj Dugar will join the company’s board of directors. He said. “The disjointed Southeast Asian wealth management landscape offers great potential to low cost digital investment managers. StashAway’s transparent pricing, robust investment methodology and ease of use make for a compelling customer proposition.”

The company had launched operations in Malaysia in 2018. It has currently started its own financial education programming, StashAway Academy. The firm acts as a robo- advisor to retail and accredited investors and delivers automated personalised portfolio management to its clients.

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