F&B veteran Michel Lu turns his hand to distilling boutique Asian flavours under The Orientalist Spirits brand, and also aims to champion other independent distilleries in the region. Turning 50 this year has offered veteran F&B entrepreneur Michel Lu time for introspection. “A brand done properly can last a lifetime, and even outlive you,” he muses, as he shares his…
StaffAny, a Singapore-based startup which offers a workforce management solution for companies with hourly workers, said it has raised S$1 million (about US$722,000) in a seed round led by Japanese marketing tech company FreakOut Holdings and angel investors. The startup’s angel investors include HR tech entrepreneur Kenji Niwa, as well as the founders of live-chat software firm Zopim; Lim Qing…
And Singapore is expected to ban domestic elephant ivory trade in 2021. From Reuters: Singapore’s central bank is raising its guard against money launderers increasingly using onshore shell companies to mask their transactions, a senior official said. Valerie Tay, who heads the anti-money laundering department at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said banks had closed accounts of several onshore…
Consuming food is a daily affair for every person. But with increasing global population growth, there is a huge pressing need to provide more solutions in food production. But what is Singapore working on in the area of technologies on food? To understand the state of food tech in Singapore, I speak to three Singapore food tech startup players for…
Aakash Educational Services, which had sought to list on the exchanges via an ‘offer for sale’ (OFS) in July 2018, could see an investment by Singapore VII Topco I. The fund has sought the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) nod to acquire a 37.5% stake in the company that runs the Aakash Institute coaching centres, according to a CCI notification…
It also held its second Singapore demo day, which saw more than 500 investors, VCs, and people from the regional startup ecosystem in attendance. The new startups, which focus on enterprise, telecommunications, fintech, and consumer technology, among others, include: Sama, a startup that operates a platform that matches workers with jobs overseas, starting with the construction industryEskwelabs, an online education…
Last year, Accenture reported that large organizations spend an average of $11.7 million on cybersecurity and that data breaches increased by 27.4% in 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, the costs of information loss alone rose from 35% to 43% of expenses. Although companies are increasingly aware of security risks and are directing funds to improving their systems, their security budgets…
Southeast Asia’s online budget hotel booking chain RedDoorz has raised pre-Series B funding of $11 million. The fundraise comes in as an additional investment from earlier investors Asia Investment Fund of Susquehanna International Group, International Finance Corporation (private investment arm of World Bank Group), InnoVen Capital, Jungle Ventures, as well as new investors DeepSky Capital, FengHe Group and Hendale Capital,…