Now is the time to start a SaaS business in Southeast Asia

Florian Cornu, co-founder SaaS Business Asia

The rapidly-growing segment of SaaS startups in Southeast Asia was a hot topic of discussion in the Kickstarter Hall at Tech in Asia Singapore 2015 earlier this week. In one session, Florian Cornu, co-founder at SaaS Business Asia, and Cameron Priest, CEO Tradegecko, spoke on stage about this phenomenon.

Cornu had a strong and forceful opinion about the future of SaaS-based companies. As more businesses shift to the cloud, he believes that in a few years everything will be based around SaaS as there will be no other way to deliver software solutions. Currently, there are approximately 140 SaaS startups in Southeast Asia, representing about 6 percent of all technology-based startups in the region. The majority of these SaaS startups are based out of Singapore.

Investors are also gearing up to identify disruption agents within the SaaS ecosystem, with firm interest in companies making software for the mobile industry. As the number of smartphones in use globally is expected to reach 6 billion by 2020, many people are switching to mobile as their primary device. This creates immense value for startups having a “mobile-first” outlook. “Southeast Asia has a large role to play in showing the world how to do mobile first for businesses,” adds Cornu.

Investors dive in

Cornu went on to reveal that over US$90 million has been invested into SaaS-based startups in the region, with 60 percent of startups having raised some form of funding. Furthermore, there are a total of 11 startups with US$2 million or more of funding, and investors are looking to pump in another US$60 million for seed and series A rounds in the near future. He exhorted the audience to look at SaaS very seriously as it is an attractive business model with great visibility, proof of value, and competitive edge.

Cameron Priest, CEO Tradegecko

Priest’s time on stage was mainly spent discussing the integral role of Singapore as a hub of startups and entrepreneurial activity as well as his journey in building Tradegecko. He believes that SaaS startups should refrain from operating within a regional focus, and think global instead, as their software products can be applied in a diverse range of markets. Priest pointed to the story of Tradegecko, which recently raised US$6.5 million in series A funding and has customers in over a hundred countries, as a model which other SaaS startups can learn from.

Localization, however, remains a key factor as well. Cultural and linguistic differences in global markets mean that SaaS startups do need to invest time in tweaking their solutions for specific clients, but this attention to detail pays dividends in the long haul. For him, establishing his startup in Singapore has been one of the best decisions he’s made as government support and the ease of doing business in the country is invaluable.

Both Cornu and Priest stressed the need to hire and retain top talent for a business to be truly successful. Priest candidly spoke about how Tradegecko employees are given training budgets of several thousand dollars per year, which they are free to utilize at their personal discretion. “If an employee wants to go to a networking conference in San Francisco, we make it happen,” he adds. “We want to hire the best, and make sure that they keep learning from similar professionals in their field.”

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Singapore 2015, which ran on May 6 and 7.