Agritech’s time has come; Sea’s solo bid

Dear readers,

Technological investments in traditional sectors such as agriculture are finally gaining traction. Though our latest list of the 50 top-funded startups and tech companies in Southeast Asia shows that none of them are focused on agritech, one company is leading the push in Indonesia.

TaniGroup has already raised US$10 million in a series A round led by Singapore’s Openspace Ventures, as my colleague Putra Mustika reports.

Photo credit: Sasin Tipchai.

Seeking to address inefficiencies in the agriculture sector, TaniGroup is providing farmers with much-needed financing and has already disbursed over US$6 million loans through its TaniFund platform.

TaniHub, the startup’s online marketplace, gives famers access to vital information such as pricing and crop supply trends. With this kind of data, farmers will no longer be at the mercy of unscrupulous traders and middlemen.

Accurate and timely information is certainly golden: it could help doctors save lives, especially for patients suffering from stroke.

See-mode, a startup based in Singapore and Melbourne, hopes to help doctors predict the probability of their patients suffering a stroke by automating the analysis of blood vessel ultrasounds. By speeding up this process, doctors can intervene early and take remedial measures to save lives.

Speaking of speed, we’ve seen a blitz of interest from some of the region’s biggest ecommerce and gaming entities in securing the five digital banking licenses in Singapore. Beyond the competition for deposits, it’s the potential of digital lending that’s whetting the appetites of license contenders, fintech reporter Melissa Goh writes.

That’s certainly a key attraction for internet company Sea, which aims to offer its millions of Shopee online consumers and Garena gamers expanded digital financial services. Many were surprised when Sea announced that it’s gunning after the license on its own since the other industry bigwigs are bidding as a group.

Becoming digibanks is certainly a way for ecommerce companies to evolve. In fact, constant innovation – being nimble and flexible in the face of changing consumer behavior – will determine the survival of the region’s tech giants in the decades to come. That’s why in his first weekly commentary for 2020, our founder and CEO Willis Wee advocates that more startups should aim to become phoenixes.

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Cheers,

Terence