The investor’s gambit: Temasek launches its own startups

When India went into a lockdown in March, tens of thousands of migrant workers suddenly found themselves stuck in the country’s metropolitan cities.

Almost two months later, with no end in sight for the lockdown and no means of earning a living, these workers set out on journeys spanning thousands of kilometers – on foot – just to get home.

This is when Sonu Sood, an Indian actor and the antagonist in most of the films he’s appeared in, stepped forward. Sood chartered entire flights and buses to ensure that migrant workers could get back to their families in the heartlands of rural India.

His actions have grabbed the nation’s interest, but they’ve also caught the attention of one of Singapore’s state-owned investment firms: Temasek.

The actor had launched an employment platform called Pravasi Rojgar in July. Less than a fortnight ago, Temasek-backed digital job-matching platform GoodWorker, which is based out of Bengaluru, announced a joint venture with the employment firm with an initial investment of about US$34 million.

Pravasi Rojgar, Hindi for “employment for migrants,” uses decentralized technology built by Temasek’s blockchain startup Affinidi, which helps create verifiable and portable digital identities.

Affinidi not only powers GoodWorker but is also the tech behind trade platform Trustana, a Singapore-based company that uses Affinidi’s technology to help businesses buy quality produce. Trustana plans to expand into more goods in the future.

The trade platform is another freshly launched startup from the house of Temasek and comes under the Affinidi Group which features both GoodWorker and Affinidi.

Clearly, Temasek is no longer content with just investing in large corporations; it’s been moving upstream and betting on early-stage startups.

Now, it wants in on the action. It has dived headfirst into launching and running its own enterprises. Affinidi, GoodWorker, and Trustana are only the latest in a spree of new platforms it has created.

The stakes are much higher for Temasek now, but so is the potential impact the investor can make.

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