S’pore crypto startup SolanaFM founded by 3 SMU students raises funding from Coinhako, Etherscan
Homegrown crypto startup SolanaFM announced today (December 24) that it has closed its seed funding round led by digital assets platform Coinhako, and block explorer for the Ethereum blockchain Etherscan.
The funding amount is undisclosed, and will it be used to accelerate SolanaFM’s product development, with the primary focus of providing equitable access to Solana’s data and growing its user base.
“We were presented with multiple offers from other VCs and big players, but we decided to run with Etherscan and Coinhako because of their strong presence in the crypto space, similar line of business and clientele to SolanaFM and their mastery in crypto and business expansion,” said Nicholas, co-founder and CEO of SolanaFM.
With both Coinhako and Etherscan now onboard, the two entities will contribute their industry experience and expertise by taking on an advisory role and mentoring them.
SolanaFM was founded by three Singapore Management University (SMU) undergraduates — Nicholas Chen, Chin Bing Huang and Fathurrahman.
During their university summer break, the trio searched for interesting crypto hackathons to work on and that’s when they stumbled upon the Solana Season hackathon in May.
“We looked into possible solutions for the Solana ecosystem to expand and improve on its functional uses. We realised that Solana’s ecosystem needed a fast, scalable, and composable access to blockchain data so that developers can focus on building solutions on top of Solana. From there, we figured out a solution similar to Etherscan — who is one of our investors — and that is how SolanaFM was established,” recounted Nicholas, who is also the CEO of SolanaFM.
SolanaFM: First indexer for the most scalable blockchain
SolanaFM is the first indexer for the Solana blockchain that allows you to gather and process data with maximum efficiency.
It provides easy access to data within the Solana network, which contains full Solana historical data to easily create fast and scalable applications, or to simply facilitate indexing and querying services.
Simply put, it is an indexing engine that allows you to find different sets of data through simple queries. The platform makes it easier to use Solana by keeping all relevant information a few keystrokes away.
“SolanaFM is the simplest gateway to Solana’s raw data. We help our users (who are primarily ecosystem developers) by handling the complex task of archiving data throughout the history of the blockchain which enable users to build data-driven products with much ease,” explained Nicholas.
For example, data analytics platforms can gather historical Solana data from SolanaFM from the start of the network until today for further analysis. Deeper analysis such as NFT and transaction tracking can also be done to further improve the health of Solana’s ecosystem to reduce malicious activities.
According to Nicholas, the startup was first started with the idea of building analytical tools and dashboards for Solana projects.
“However, we later discovered that different protocols have different variations, wants and needs. This was not scalable and took much of our time. Thanks to the feedback given by our angels, we pivoted towards tackling a bigger problem yet to be solved in the Solana blockchain and that is the issue of providing raw data and queries.”
“From then on, we shifted our focus towards perfecting our services by improving read speeds and greater data output amongst many other technicalities. Since then, our infrastructure is ready to scale to handle Solana’s transaction speed and accommodate to our clients’ needs.”
Strong growth at the back of strong crypto adoption
Commenting on the crypto landscape in Singapore, Nicholas said that he observed strong support from the government with the introduction of the Payment Services Act, which has helped to build a safe, conducive and efficient environment for crypto companies to operate in.
Over the coming months, he foresees that bridging solutions between Centralised Finance (CeFi) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) will surface, such as Coinhako’s Earn, enabling residents in Singapore to easily generate interest on top of their cryptocurrencies.
“From there, crypto solutions will generally become easier and more attractive to use, and we will eventually witness the true widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies in Singapore,” he added.
To date, SolanaFM has processed over 10,000 queries and a portfolio of over 50 trusted business customers, ranging from CeFi and DeFi companies and family offices.
Since August 2021, the startup has also been working closely with the Solana Foundation and other big players in the ecosystem such as Metaplex.
It is looking to explore more interesting partnerships and will be hosting a hackathon in the second quarter of 2022 in a bid to generate new creative ideas for its projects.
Sharing other future business plans, SolanaFM said that it will continually improve and perfect its services for users. As part of this effort, it will further develop its indexer to introduce more functions to provide better speed and security.
“Ultimately, SolanaFM’s goal is to become the data source to everything Solana. We want to make finance and NFT data in Solana readily accessible, and become the “golden spade” in the ecosystem,” summed up Nicholas.
Featured Image Credit: SolanaFM
Also Read: Coinhako CEO On Why He Bet Big On Bitcoins When Cryptocurrency Was Unfamiliar In S’pore
M’sian uni students made a “LinkedIn” for creatives that’s gotten 2K users in under a year
In recent years, more job portals and networking sites that cater specifically to the creative industry have cropped up.
For many, the main reason why these other solutions were launched despite Malaysia already having access to established jobseeking sites was because of unmet creative needs.
As an example, a traditional job portal like JobStreet does not offer creatives the ability to showcase their portfolios. When it comes to visual work, being able to showcase what you can do makes the hiring process much easier for both talents and employers.
To add, employers have to pay for a job ad on traditional portals despite not being guaranteed a talent match. It’s an unsustainable hiring model for smaller companies like SMEs or startups.
Thus, these companies tend to turn to sites like Facebook, utilising community groups to find talents. Though it’s a free strategy, it can still be inefficient since the employer and talent will need to put in time and effort to get connected and begin discussing employment.
Noticing all these issues, and more, then-university student Kelvin Tai and his team of peers began doing market research to get more insights from employers. Equipped with a better understanding of the creative industry’s needs, they launched Artmeet on March 1, 2021.
A new jobseeking option for creatives
For talents, other than creating a standard jobseeker profile, Artmeet also allows them to post their portfolios and showcase endorsements from previous employers.
Kelvin described the site to Vulcan Post as being LinkedIn-like, and though it bears no visual similarities, I can see how it’s functionally similar in terms of LinkedIn’s job-seeking features, with a few add-on ones for creatives.
But again, as mentioned earlier, there are more creative-catering sites in Malaysia now, with a strong contender being Rtist, which we previously covered here.
Comparing Artmeet and Rtist, they appear to offer very similar features, even in terms of previous employer endorsements (or reviews, as the latter terms it). Rtist also doesn’t charge a job listing fee, but offers employers a credit system they can use to bump up their ads, be featured, or have their requests marked as urgent.
In contrast, Artmeet offers employers unlimited job ad postings and an unlimited ability to unlock talent resumes currently. But come January 2022, a free account will be limited to 3 job ads per month and talent resume unlocking that’s on an invite-only basis.
Its planned pricing structure for the future is to charge RM58/month if you pay for a yearly subscription, or RM98/month if you pay monthly. This brings back the privilege of unlimited job ad postings, and the ability to unlock 10 talent resumes per month, among other things.
Rapid growth and promising numbers
So far, Kelvin shared that they have almost 1.2K designers and over 900 companies signed up to Artmeet. Over 800 job vacancies have also been posted on the site, with 59% being internships and 41% full-time jobs.
The current success rate of talents finding jobs within 3 working days is at 61%, according to Kelvin.
“We have introduced new features, candidate management, and virtual interviews to increase the successful hiring rate, allowing companies to actively invite designers for virtual interviews through our platform,” he added.
“Therefore, companies no longer need to passively wait for designers to apply for jobs. We believe that the success rate will increase in the first quarter of 2022.”
He also shared that they have a compounding monthly growth rate (CMGR) of about 31.29% for designers and 48.44% for companies.
All in all, these numbers point to the fact that Artmeet is tapping into the existing demands of creatives in the right way.
Not bad at all for a site built by university students at the time who weren’t able to fully commit to the project.
Getting their efforts acknowledged
Today, 3 of the 4 co-founders have since graduated, with their CTO Xavier opting to continue his Master’s studies.
In total, it took the team 3 months to develop and launch their minimum viable product (MVP), and they leveraged Facebook groups to validate their idea and generate traffic to their site.
As Kelvin put it, their biggest challenge in the early stages was the classic chicken and egg problem.
“We put a lot of effort into getting traffic manually via Facebook by commenting on different groups’ posts. It took around 4 months to solve the chicken and egg problem without spending a single cent of the marketing budget.”
And their efforts have been acknowledged, with Artmeet being shortlisted as a Top 10 finalist in the Alpha Startup Digital Accelerator (ASDA) by 1337 Ventures. Though they didn’t end up being a Top 2 startup, they later met their angel investor through ASDA.
The team has also been shortlisted as one of the Top 22 startups at the competition Youth Co-Lab Malaysia 2021, which is ongoing until March 2022.
Going beyond the jobseeking realm
Based on our interview, it would appear that Artmeet also has larger goals beyond connecting jobseekers and employers.
“We believe that creative talents not only need a job site, because landing a job is just the tip of the iceberg in their entire creative journey. We want to create an ecosystem that is able to create more value for [creatives],” Kelvin said.
He explained, “For example, we are going to launch a competition platform in January 2022 that allows third-party organisations to host online competitions for creative talents to participate and gain experience.”
At the same time, they plan to launch a LinkedIn-like professional network (social media features included) dedicated to creative talents.
This would bring Artmeet’s model even closer to that of LinkedIn’s, but it’s not a negative thing, considering how LinkedIn has become the preferred professional networking site no matter one’s industry.
“In 2023, we are aiming to duplicate and expand the successful model of Artmeet to Singapore and Indonesia’s market. Eventually, we aim to help at least 30,000 creative talents in the Southeast Asia region,” Kelvin concluded.
Also Read: 6 highlights from this insightful entrepreneur event, one of the first in M’sia post-COVID
Featured Image Credit: Artmeet
Tokenize Xchange founder on having an early start in crypto and becoming a millionaire by 31
A ‘crypto bull’ is not your usual animal. It arrives without warning and escapes from your clutches before you can finish saying the word ‘cryptocurrency’.
Crypto is often viewed as an unpredictable industry, as seen by how attention grabbing news have been circulating this spectrum in recent years.
We also often revere in reading stories of people who have made it with crypto, as it gives us a peek into a tangible lifestyle created by something that cannot be seen, felt, or heard.
Today, we got the opportunity to speak to 31-year-old Hong Qi Yu, CEO of Singapore crypto exchange Tokenize Xchange, who in many ways actually mirrors the normal man on the street.
NTU graduate, worked as engineer and coder
When Qi Yu was 18, he took up an electronic and communication engineering Diploma course at Singapore Polytechnic. He then went on to Nanyang Technological University to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in electrical and electronics engineering.
After graduating, Qi Yu worked various engineering and coder jobs at Atos, TransPerfect, and Bambu for almost three years.
His seemingly normal life was then changed in 2016, where he was exposed to the cryptocurrency Ethereum when he was a coder for a local FinTech firm. Since then, life has been a dramatic “rags to riches” whirlwind.
“I dove down the crypto rabbit hole…back then, the digital assets industry was in its infancy. There were not many platforms available for me to accept fiat, and fees were really high, thus I founded Tokenize Xchange to allow the mass market to access digital assets in a frictionless manner.”
“Together with a team of passionate crypto and blockchain enthusiasts, we found a need for a safe and secure platform with competitive fees and an SGD-based order book for digital assets,” he said.
Passionate team a key factor for biz’s success
Qi Yu counts his team of passionate crypto and blockchain enthusiasts the reason why his business is where it is today: Over 50 cryptocurrencies listed, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Polkadot (DOT). The exchange has grown to close to 200,000 users globally in just five years.
In a nutshell, Tokenize Xchange is a centralised exchange platform that utilises trusted custodial solutions. It offers both fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto pairings and has both SGD and United States dollar (USD) markets. It is currently operating under exemption by the Monetary Authority of Singapore under the Payment Services Act.
“In terms of volume and liquidity, I believe Tokenize Xchange is within the top two Singapore dollar (SGD) order book exchanges. I would consider ourselves to be a medium-sized crypto exchange. However, our goal is to become the go to fiat on/off-ramp for digital assets in Southeast Asia.”
Although the business is unable to share its total value of assets, Qi Yu said that its own crypto token TKX has recently hit a market cap of US$1 billion – the second token in Singapore to achieve this – suggesting that it’s a force to reckon with.
Early start an advantage
The founder admits that the business’ early start in crypto has helped it focus on building its products and infrastructure way before others joined, and that has allowed its user base to access more products with low fees, which proves to be a selling point to customers. “This has culminated in the doubling of our user base from 2020 to 2021,” said Qi Yu.
Like many companies, Tokenize Xchange also felt the brunt of Covid-19. “The inability to hold live events and workshops to educate and engage our users during the pandemic has definitely hampered our outreach efforts,” said Qi Yu.
“However, we mitigate this by hosting regular webinars and podcasts on topics such as outlook sessions on crypto and equities, streaming sessions with Axie Infinity, or introductory sessions to Tokenize Xchange, to cater to the wide range of interests of our users.”
Crypto millionaire bullish on Bitcoin
Giving his personal view, Qi Yu said he’s still “very bullish on Bitcoin for this year and the next”. “I hope we will be able to see a six digit Bitcoin by 2022.”
Although Qi Yu did not disclose his net worth, based on his physical assets, he’s most certainly a millionaire. He bought his current condominium as well as his Tesla car, with the money made from crypto. A condominium usually starts from S$1 million while a Tesla car including taxes, usually costs S$150,000.
When probed on the types of crypto he holds, Qi Yu said: “In my portfolio, I mostly hold ETH, DOT, and our exchange token TKX.”
Commenting on the evolving crypto landscape as someone who’s been participating in the industry for some time, he believes that playing the long game will be the way to go for investors.
“Crypto is here to stay, but we will gradually move towards a regulated crypto landscape as regulators start to get more involved. Investing in cryptocurrency is like investing in tech stocks such as Google and Amazon back when both firms were listed in the stock market. I personally feel we are still in an early phase for crypto trading and it can be a long-term opportunity,” he said.
As for his business, there are no plans in slowing down and it’s only getting started. “Having rode through the bear market in 2018 and 2019, we have definitely come a long way. We are currently looking at growing our team, and plan to expand to other markets in the region.”
Featured Image Credit: DigitalNewsAsia, Economic Times
Also Read: Buy crypto via GrabPay? Grab’s making moves towards crypto ahead of its digital bank launch
Local dronetech company Aerodyne takes flight to aid flood search and rescue
Over the past weekend, as the rain poured non-stop in torrents across Malaysia, floodwaters began rising dangerously. On Sunday afternoon, water had exceeded dangerous levels in 6 states.
By then, local dronetech company Aerodyne had already leapt into action. The very first thing the company did was deploy assistance to its own team members, of whom about 20 were affected by the flood. Aerodyne helped them escape and found lodgings for them.
Trivia: In its early days (circa 2014), what shot Aerodyne into the limelight was its quick deployment of its drones to capture information and footage of the worst monsoon floods Malaysia had seen in decades. This data was later shared with the public, government agencies, and mainstream media at no cost.
Next, it moved to volunteer by reaching out to the relevant authorities to see where the team’s support was needed.
For the past week, it’s since been aiding government agencies with search and rescue efforts in Selangor via the deployment of tactical drones.
Other than collecting critical information like the directional water flow, its drones have also identified, reached, and rescued stranded flood victims.
From there, the team utilised the collected data to develop effective evacuation plans and rescue routes, particularly in hard-hit areas.
These dronetech-powered relief efforts are happening round the clock, rain or shine, night or day. As of now, these efforts will continue for the foreseeable future, even past the rescue phase into the recovery and rebuilding phases.
Vulcan Post spoke to Aerodyne CEO Kamarul to learn more about how the team is navigating these rescue efforts, and what can be done with the help of dronetech to strengthen Malaysia’s disaster detection infrastructure.
Navigating a state-wide drone rollout
Though Malaysia’s regulations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are becoming more welcoming, there are still strict approval processes in place to ensure a safe airspace.
This is crucial since the airspace is shared by many other aerial vehicles like helicopters and planes, so careful coordination has to be done to avoid jeopardy.
Kamarul noted that the Selangor government was able to execute this well, allowing a coordinated drone rollout not just for Aerodyne, but for other dronetech players as well such as VStream, Alphaswift Industries, and Meraque Services, to name a few.
As Aerodyne was already working with Selangor on other projects prior to this, they had an existing data-sharing platform that could be utilised for flood data too.
All these factors enabled the dronetech players to play their parts well in the relief efforts, but there’s still work that needs to be done.
What we mean by that is not so much on cleaning up the aftermath, but instead on the prevention of such disasters even reoccurring in the future.
We could have done better, earlier
In a recent Facebook post, Kamarul stated that there were key weaknesses in Malaysia’s early warning and emergency response system.
Being well-travelled, he drew upon his experiences in other countries like Japan for some examples of efficient systems.
He explained, “Japan has a very good early detection or warning system from using sensors, meteorological data, and more.”
Of course, Malaysia has its own departments like MET Malaysia who use meteorological data to predict weather and natural disasters. Aerodyne itself has access to accurate meteorological data too, and has a predictive analytics model for rain and other phenomena.
But the difference lies in how well all this collected data is communicated to citizens. Though MET Malaysia is active in issuing warnings, these warnings aren’t further amplified by the government on a more personal level.
In contrast, Kamarul said, “In Japan, if there is any tsunami warning, all the citizens will get notified already, either by siren or even SMS.”
Such communication can be the deciding factor between life and death. The death of 37 flood victims (at the time of writing) could’ve been prevented had these systems been in place.
Beyond lives, homes and other assets could’ve been saved early on too, if the citizens were given time to evacuate with adequate warning.
Doing something with the data we have
At the end of the day, however, what’s done has been done, and the ball is in the court of responsible authorities who must now re-evaluate what went wrong, and take proper action to prevent a repeat.
Other than search and rescue, drones can also be used for damage assessment in natural disasters. Kamarul told Vulcan Post, “We can do a lot of assessment, you know, like why the water didn’t recede, where does it come from?”
Data from the drones can also be used to map high-risk areas and do flood simulations for better drainage planning, for example.
If not for building new and better systems to mitigate natural disasters, then at the very least, for the improvement and maintenance of existing infrastructure.
There’s no excuse for government agencies to not make use of these life-saving data after this tragedy as they’re already available, provided pro bono by companies like Aerodyne.
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As Kamarul also noted, it’s been heartening to see our Malaysian community rally and mobilise support so quickly for flood victims.
We’ve shown fierce love and care for our fellow rakyat, no matter the costs or the risks to ourselves. (Though if you are actively volunteering in flooded areas, please do practice good self-safety too such as wearing proper protective gear and getting the necessary jabs against diseases the floodwaters may carry.)
But the fact of the matter is that all this could have been prevented. It shouldn’t have had to reach this point where we now have to respond to the aftermath of a tragedy.
Lives have already been lost, assets have been damaged, people have been displaced, and some are still missing. There is a long way to go for Malaysia to heal from this, and the persistence of COVID-19 is not making our lives any easier too.
I’m sure many would agree with me that there should not have to be a “next time” before we do better in preventing such tragedies. Again, we already have the technology and the data thanks to dronetech and other industry players.
We just need to have the intention to improve things. On a smaller scale, those of us who have the means to help in various forms can refer to our flood relief fundraiser and volunteering list here.
Also Read: Adobe’s only platinum partner in Malaysia: 4 things they do differently for businesses
Featured Image Credit: Aerodyne
This M’sian site gives kids a reason to watch cartoons all day, parents can’t even be mad
[Written in partnership with Supernewsroom, but the editorial team had full control over the content.]
Not too long ago, we wrote about the founding story behind the kids’ educational cartoon, Didi & Friends. The show came about when its creator discovered the effectiveness of educational content when delivered through cartoons. If done well, the content can be engaging, fun, and beneficial, especially for young children.
Sharing a similar belief is GuruPanda, a Malaysian edutech site for kids between the ages of 4 to 15. Instead of having teachers host live or pre-recorded lessons, GuruPanda is choosing to teach the Malaysian syllabus through cartoon videos and quizzes.
Just shy of 11 months after its launch in January 2021, GuruPanda has concluded its first round of crowdfunding via pitchIN on November 15, 2021. There, the platform successfully attracted investments totalling RM500,000.
A gap in user-friendliness
Kingsley Ting is the founder of GuruPanda. Having graduated from a London institution with Masters in Sciences in Risk Management and Financial Engineering, he later worked in Shanghai for 7 years, even setting up a startup there.
In 2017, Kingsley returned to Malaysia to take over as CEO for his family business, Big Apple Taska & Tadika, expanding the company from 5 centres in 2017 to 30 branches today. And then he moved into the edutech space.
When GuruPanda launched, lots of other online learning platforms had already mushroomed, with more on the way. But Kingsley still saw a gap in the e-learning market, particularly in other platforms’ interfaces, which he felt weren’t user-friendly enough.
And we found it difficult to disagree with Kingsley. We’ve written about a handful of edutech sites the past year, and many times, we couldn’t help but comment on the disorganisation of their interfaces in our pieces.
On the other hand, GuruPanda’s website is fairly easy to navigate, where you’ll find the different syllabi it offers neatly categorised on its home page. This is important since the ones using the site would either be parents or their children who may not be as tech-savvy.
The platform’s learning programmes are currently divided into 2 categories:
- English and Malay content for children between the ages of 4 to 7;
- Mandarin content based on the SJKC syllabus for science, maths, history, and Mandarin for those in the 10 to 15-year-old group.
Staying focused on the core subjects
GuruPanda functions on a subscription basis, costing RM130 to RM220 annually, depending on the age and syllabus chosen for the child.
As previously mentioned, content is delivered via cartoon videos, which GuruPanda allows its subscribers to download, along with notes and quizzes.
“We provide a more holistic approach with 7 to 8 subjects including language courses and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and maths),” Kingsley told Vulcan Post. “[There’s also] arts and crafts, storytelling, and even songs with different themes like wizards, fairies, travelling around Malaysia, etc.”
Looking at the site, it can be said that GuruPanda is still pretty barebones for an edutech site when compared to others in the market. But this is taking into account that all videos and quizzes are animated and thus require a storyline too, which take time to imagine and execute.
Kingsley also believes that GuruPanda stands out as the team come from backgrounds involved in the frontlines of teaching, such as being in the preschool and tuition centre industries.
“Hence, we understand more on how to provide better content as frontliners. The content we make is more relatable to our current students,” he justified.
Gamified quizzes for effective learning
Now equipped with RM500,000 in funding, GuruPanda has plans to expand by building its own app. It will be launched with a new user interface and additional features to encourage more participation from its existing subscribers, while attracting a wider customer base.
One of its slated features will be to increase the gamification and animation elements of the programmes.
“Currently, students take tests and quizzes and play games in the learning process, collecting badges as rewards. The new interface will be more interactive and we plan for students to be able to exchange these badges for physical prizes such as laptops and mobile phones as well as in-programme avatars and cartoon characters,” Kingsley imagined.
This addition is intended to make education even more interactive and therefore engaging for the platform’s students.
The team also hopes to incorporate AI and Big Data onto the GuruPanda platform. The AI-learning algorithms it will utilise are meant to understand how users learn, uncover their strengths and weaknesses, and push suitable content and teaching styles to them.
“But this requires a bigger funding and team to make it work,” Kingsley added.
GuruPanda is only available in Malaysia at the moment, with a subscriber base of some 6,000 users. Once it’s launched its app, GuruPanda hopes to triple its subscribers, especially via tapping into the Malay market to widen students’ access to affordable and quality e-Learning options.
Before that, the company plans to break into the regional market with a Mandarin language programme, taught in Thai next year. Expansion plans into Indonesia and Vietnam are also in the pipeline.
“Our goal is to develop GuruPanda into a household name, both in Malaysia and SEA nations, that is synonymous with fun, accessible and effective learning,” Kingsley said.
To fulfil this, the company will then start a new round of investments in its next crowdfunding initiative, seeking partners and investors who share the same mindset of expanding e-learning facilities.
Also Read: Adobe’s only platinum partner in Malaysia: 4 things they do differently for businesses
Featured Image Credit: Kingsley Ting, founder of GuruPanda
Coconut shakes to self-shoot studios: 6 successful S’pore businesses that started out in 2021
As 2021 draws to a close, it’s time we take stock of the year and look forward to 2022. Like every year since the pandemic, it has been a ride with many highs and lows.
In 2021, we saw several businesses take it by the horns and going ahead to launch their businesses despite it being a pandemic-stricken year. It’s been less than a year, but these businesses have seen tremendous growth.
Here are six local businesses that started in 2021 amidst the pandemic and fluctuating government restrictions.
1. Pace
Pace is a Singapore-based fintech solution company that offers ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL), which has seen astronomical growth since its inception in 2021.
Pace took only a year to grow into a Pan-Asian BNPL provider and is on track to hit a Gross Merchandise Value run rate of US$1 billion in 2022. Most recently, it has announced that it has raised US$40 million in its Series A investment round.
According to the company, the new funding will go towards expanding technology, operations, and business development. It aims to grow its user base by 25 times over the next 12 months.
The company is now the fastest-growing multi-territory BNPL player from Singapore following this investment round.
Pace allows consumers to split their purchase bills into three equal interest-free payments over 60 days through an omni-channel experience that helps them spend sustainably.
It has successfully grown its overseas operations by working closely with regulators and adapting ultra-local approaches, such as integrating frequently used in-market payment methods to build resonance with merchants and shoppers.
To date, Pace has more than 3,000 points of sale across the region. This is driven by Pace’s ability to increase overall sales by up to 25 per cent by leveraging local customer insights while driving repeat purchases from Pace’s fast-growing base of users.
2. Champion Bolo Bun
Champion Bolo Bun had their soft opening in April of this year but has quickly earned cult status as the go-to place for bolo bun. The bakery sells 700 to 900 buns on weekdays and up to 1,200 buns on weekends — all this with no marketing efforts on her end.
The owner and head chef, Hoh Loyi, didn’t enter polytechnic or junior college like most 16-year-olds after completing their ‘O’ levels. Instead, Loyi cut her teeth in the baking world in Taiwan, where she pursued a bread-baking certificate for a year.
Later, on a holiday in Hong Kong, she found an apprenticeship at a famous bakery.
The kitchen was somewhat reluctant to accept her initially, seeing as she was so young and only a PR in Hong Kong. Still, Loyi was determined as ever and eventually found herself in their kitchen, learning all she could about Hong Kong pastries.
An education unlike any other, instead of the usual after-school escapades or cramming with friends for tests, Loyi found herself kneading dough and surrounded by friendly, avuncular older bakers who took her under their wing.
A couple of successful stints at events and Loyi found herself in a three-storey shophouse, along the streets of Tanjong Pagar and snaking queues.
3. Fotomat
Another trend that took hold in 2021 is the countless, black-and-white studio-like photos that have taken over everybody’s feed.
As ubiquitous as they are, it might surprise you that Fotomat only opened for business on 2 April 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kevin Chu is the man behind the self-photo studio. The Hwa Chong Institution graduate previously interned at GovTech, where he worked on Form.gov.sg. He then enlisted in the Air Force in 2018, where he worked at the SWiFT office, solving problems with coding.
Fotomat is his way of making portrait photography more fun. By removing the photographer from the equation, he hopes that it would encourage more bold, expressive and innovative poses, which come out more when given a private space.
With Fotomat, Kevin had the intention to make portraiture accessible and affordable to everyone, especially for students and young adults. Prices start at S$30 for a 15-minute shoot (unlimited shots for two persons) which comes with two prints.
Fotomat has since opened a second outlet along Keong Saik Street. If you need further indication of their success, you can just count the number of people in your social circle that have already paid Fotomat a visit.
4. CocoBoss
Another product that has got us wrapped around its finger are coconut shakes. While most of us are enamoured by another coconut shake brand, CocoBoss is where you should get your next coconut shake when the weather gets unbearable.
CocoBoss opened its first store early this year at Space @ Kovan and has since opened its sixth store at Peninsula Shopping Centre in a short span of seven months.
Despite having zero F&B experience, Leo Tan and Benjamin Liu decided to take a leap of faith and enter into the world of coconut shakes.
It was a steep learning curve for the duo, and Leo admitted that their lack of experience posed many challenges.
“Covid-19 has affected our normal operational procedures due to safety measures put in by the government, which we must adhere to. As these safety measures are constantly changing, we have to adapt and train our crew accordingly,” said Leo.
He added that the global pandemic had caused shipping delays wells, which resulted in a “logistical nightmare”.
Leo cited the idea of building a lifestyle brand around CocoBoss as one of the critical business challenges. In particular, they want to position themselves as the “Starbucks of Coconut Shakes”.
Commenting on the local F&B landscape, Leo acknowledged that there is an existing coconut shake craze, which has helped to propel sales. When asked if it will last as long as the bubble tea hype, Leo simply said that people are constantly looking for alternatives to bubble tea.
With an increasing number of coconut shake players in the scene, Leo admits that it is indeed getting saturated and competitive, but they remain unfazed by this.
5. Chin Mee Chin Confectionery
Technically, Chin Mee Chin Confectionery has been around since the ’90s, but its revival by Ebb & Flow allowed the iconic Chin Mee Chin brand to persist in the age of sushi and pizza.
Reviving a well-loved heritage brand is no easy feat, and while it took a couple of delays and a few U-turns, Chin Mee Chin Confectionery finally opened its doors on 15 September 2021. After almost a month of never-ending snaking queues and glorious slabs of butter melting on warm buns, it seems like there’s no slowing down.
“Our goal is not to modernise Chin Mee Chin into another brand, but to preserve the heritage and keep the spirit of the Hainanese bakery as far as possible,” shared Lim Kian Chun, CEO of Ebb & Flow. Like all things, seeking that happy medium is a lot harder than one would think.
Chun is also faced with the incredible pressure to get this right. After all, hell hath no fury as Singaporeans scorned about breakfast.
To keep the menu items as authentic as possible, Chun and his team tried sourcing for the same suppliers that Chin Mee Chin Confectionery has used for the past years.
If the consistent lines at Chin Mee Chin Confectionery prove anything, it is that Singaporeans still hold traditional food in high regard.
6. GetGo
Having launched on 25 February 2021, GetGo is the latest entry to the car-sharing scene already dominated by seven car-sharing players in Singapore.
At launch, it hailed itself as “Singapore’s simplest, most flexible, and most accessible car-sharing service.”
This is evident from GetGo’s charging policy. Other existing car-sharing companies require either a cash deposit or prepaid credit top-ups, and some charge membership fees.
Unlike the rest, GetGo decided to do away without these. It’s breaking new ground with no deposits, membership fees, and a fully Pay-As-You-Go policy.
GetGo cited two reasons for this move: they want to give users the peace of mind that the company does not unnecessarily hold their monies and make the service as flexible and accessible as possible.
“This enhancement further eliminates the need for pre-booking holds (which could add up for frequent users), and users will only be charged for the fees they have incurred,” said GetGo.
While newbies may be deterred by how saturated and competitive the market is, Toh Ting Feng, the managing director and co-founder of GetGo, feels that it is a timely launch instead.
“We had more than 14,000 registered users even before our official launch,” he added.
Beyond the long pre-registration list, GetGo has also built up a social media following of about 8,000 followers in the span of a few short months.
Featured Image Credit: CocoBoss/ Fotomat/ Champion Bolo Bun/ GetGo
Also Read: Year in review: Here are 10 headlines that shook S’pore’s tech and business scene in 2021
