The story behind a startup’s instrumental pivot in 2018

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Have you ever done something everyone told you not to do, and it turned out to be a success? Singapore-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Validus kinda did that. The company made a pivot in 2018 and its investors weren’t too supportive of its decision. But this pivot helped it thrive last year despite the pandemic.

Today we look at:

• The story behind Validus’s instrumental pivot in 2018
• A startup that’s disrupting the dental industry
• Other newsy highlights such as Carousell going public and SoftBank Group slashing jobs at its global robotics business

PREMIUM SUMMARY

How a pivot in 2018 saw this P2P lender flourish during the pandemic

An industry that didn’t receive a Covid-19 buffer is P2P lending. While industries like ecommerce and edtech have thrived during the pandemic, lending spiraled down as investors rushed to withdraw their funds from these platforms. Singapore-based Validus, however, managed to achieve the opposite thanks to an instrumental pivot in 2018 that finally bore fruit last year.

• Are you a knight?: Founded in 2015, Validus uses a credit-scoring algorithm to connect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are seeking loans to accredited high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors.
• Not easy money: The company struggled in its early years as SME lending had a set of problems that Validus couldn’t solve even after experimenting with multiple strategies. Things changed in 2018 when Validus adopted a partnership-driven model, which worked.
• The pivot that didn’t sit well with investors: While the partnership strategy managed to triple the company’s revenue that year, building partnerships is a long process and investors weren’t comfortable with its slower growth and returns. But the pandemic validated the model as it allowed Validus to flourish last year.

Read more: 2020 was brutal for P2P lending. Here’s how Validus recovered

STARTUP SPOTLIGHT

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Haters of braces, this one’s for you: Klar, an Indonesia-based dental startup, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from AC Ventures and the Kenangan Fund, the investment fund from the founders of Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan.