Antler held its third Singapore Demo Day at La Salle College of the Arts and drew a large crowd of investors, VCs and people from the regional startup ecosystem who are interested in early-stage, high-performing tech startups. Antler has raised USD50 million from investors such as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for its global funds. The Southeast Asia fund 1 closed in November 2019.
Out of 3,000 applications, the program initially brought together 100 exceptional individuals from 30 nationalities. The founders in Antler Singapore's third cohort came with an average of 8 years of working experience and complementary skills of business, tech, product, domain expertise and marketing in order to make up ideal teams. The group of companies formed drive disruption in e.g., B2B SaaS, e-commerce, GreenTech, PropTech and HealthTech.
The growth in the Southeast Asia tech landscape is evident. There is a huge opportunity for founders who join our program in Singapore to build, work on and mould an idea from the very beginning for this region. As a VC and startup generator, we have the ability to accelerate the innovation created by entrepreneurs.
The Guest-of-Honour was Enterprise Singapore Chairman, Peter Ong. In his opening remarks, Mr Ong encouraged startups and entrepreneurs to leverage Singapore's global network of partners. With more than 35 overseas offices and a Global Innovation Alliance network spanning 13 cities, Enterprise Singapore will continue to work with valuable industry partners and innovation enablers such as Antler to support the growth of enterprises and help startups to kickstart their internationalisation journey.
The event also had two keynote speakers- tech startup founder and CEO Roshni Mahtani of The Asian Parent, who spoke about the lessons she has learned in building a company out of Singapore and expanding in Southeast Asia and beyond. Nas Daily, viral video content producer and founder of his namesake media production company spoke about the need for startups to focus on getting attention, in addition to capital.
The newly invested 14 companies are:
1. Appboxo Appboxo
Appboxo Appboxo has created an open-platform and SaaS solution to make native apps into super apps like Grab and Gojek. Using Appboxo's technology, any app can become a Super App and start offering third-party services to users in hours. Service providers can become a miniapp to be integrated into third-party apps as well.
Team: Kaniyet Rayev (CEO), Nursultan Keneshbekov (CTO)
2. Capture
Capture is an app enabling users to track, reduce and remove CO2 emissions from everyday life. The app will help users monitor and reduce carbon emissions from journeys, food, purchases, home energy usage and more, by providing choices in carbon offsetting projects and a ‘pay-as-you-go' offset subscription. The vision is to be the leading platform to enable people to live carbon-conscious lives.
Team: Josie Stoker (CEO), Abdul Aziz (CTO)
3. Evrcare
EverCare is the first platform in Asia that takes care of your parents after you have moved away. Unlike other companies looking at caring for senior citizens, their focus is on companionship and assistance. Their first product allows senior citizens to rent out a room in their home to verified, trustworthy individuals who live with them and help them with their household chores, in lieu of reduced rent.
Team: Sohail Khan (CEO), Gourav Goyal (CTO)
4. Goblin
Mobile apps are fantastic except when they don't work. The reason developers often take ages to fix mobile app issues is because apps are notoriously poor at providing developers visibility into exact causes of user issues. Most developer tools are good at providing technical reporting but bad at user-specific information. Goblin provides mobile developers visibility into app performance from a user-point-of-view, helping them understand, track and resolve user issues quickly. With enterprises rapidly going mobile and allocating significant budgets to developer productivity, the timing can't be better.
Team: Jim Nadackal (CEO), Phaneendra Chiruvella (CTO)
5. Homebase
Homebase uses technology and financing to provide customised co-investment plans to make home ownership a reality to all. They are tackling the millennial home-ownership crisis across Southeast Asia - a $400B market, starting with Vietnam.
Team: Phillip An (co-founder), JunYuan Tan (co-founder), Hung Doan (co-founder)
6. Kotoko
Kotoko aims to be a dominant Indonesia-focus omnichannel solutions provider for Southeast Asian independent brands. Kotoko gives online brands an affordable and flexible offline solution through their multi-brand store. It also provides consumers with merchant facing technology to facilitate a seamless omnichannel sales process.
Team: Cynthia Krisanti (CEO), Kanta Nandana (COO)
7. Nectico
Nectico provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in a B2B marketplace for cooperatives in Indonesia to ease their business processes and to add business value by enabling them to operate digitally, and connect them to the larger ecosystem.
Team: Amry Fitra Amanah (CEO), Rani Yanarastri (COO), Yanuar Affandy (CTO)
8. Playy.World
Playy.World is a trusted marketplace for trading card games as well as collectible toys where enthusiasts can gather, share knowledge, compete, buy or sell game cards and collectible toys with each other on a global platform.
Team: Mark Thong (CEO), Alvin Tjhie (CTO)
9. Reebelo
Reebelo.com is Singapore's leading marketplace for pre-owned electronics. Reebelo enables consumers in Singapore to buy or sell used smartphones, tablets and notebooks, which get refurbished by experts. With 6 months warranty, discounts of up to 60% and a 7 days return policy, Reebelo is Singapore's most trusted website to buy used electronics.
Team: Philip Franta (CEO), Fabien Rastouil (CPO)
10. Sova Health
Sova is a precision nutrition platform that guides users towards a healthier lifestyle with personalized nutrition advice based on blood biomarker analysis.
Team: Tanveer Singh (CEO), Max Kushnir (CSO), Rahul Tiwari (CTO)
11. StoryBrain
StoryBrain is an application programming interface (API) that transforms the way images are consumed by using optimised images generated using AI to improve UX.
Team: Jikku Jose (CEO), Jibin Mathew (CTO)
12. Tokobox
Tokobox uses technology to connect brands and e-commerce platforms with offline consumers, while providing income to casual workers.
Team: Matthew McDonnell (CEO), Jaco Ahmad (CTO)
13. Tradedi
Tradedi.com is a B2B digital marketplace that enables cross-border trading between Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the U.S. Their platform brings international traders, wholesalers, retailers and Vietnamese manufacturers on a single platform.
Team: Lance Ma (CEO), Hai Duc Nguyen (CMO), An Phan (CTO)
14. Zengage
Zengage is a consumer confidence tool for e-commerce. Their SaaS increases online revenue by displaying the information consumers need to feel confident to make theirdecision while buying products.
Team: Lisa Sorensen (CEO), Jim Dabell (CTO)
