💳👶 Building The Digital Bank For Kids

Happy Monday folks.

This is micro digest, the newsletter that gives you the same feeling as when you’d hear the Mat Kool ice cream theme song coming into your neighbourhood.

Here’s what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - Little Wallet - The banking app for the little one

• ⛵ SEAppets - Malaysia and Singapore announce cross-border QR code payment linkage

• 💰 SEA Deals

• 🖼️ AI Images of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

The SEA 🌊

I wish this existed when I was growing up so my parents wouldn’t trick me into getting good grades and not getting me the PlayStation I wanted afterwards :’)

I’m talking about Little Wallet.

🤷‍♂️ Who is Little Wallet?

• Founded in 2021 by Rahul Sharma and later joined as a co-founder, Phoebe Tran, Little Wallet is a banking and financial app for children aged 6 to 18 years old to provide a safe way to get financially educated

• The idea came about when Rahul was travelling in the States with his son and wanted a way to provide some allowance to his son for the trip

• Rahul wanted to launch the app in 2020 but covid hit and he got selected for INSEAD Global Executive MBA program so he used the time to do market validation

• Little Wallet managed to enter the final at the INSEAD Venture Competition 2021

💳 How it works?

• Unlike conventional banking app, Little Wallet will introduce money fundamentals to kids: budget, save, spend, earn and give

• There are some really cool features that differentiate them from the rest like:

• Backers where kids can share pockets with adults so they can support them and send money to their pocket

• Financial literacy gamification where kids can learn about financial concepts

• Save now buy later where the app will calculate how much kids need to save at a particular time to get the stuff they want

💰 Funding

• The startup recently secured USD 1.6 million in a pre-seed funding round

• This funding will enable them to build a customer-centric product that will change the way families bank in Southeast Asia

SEAppets ⛵

1. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) have launched a cross-border QR code payment link between Singapore and Malaysia, allowing users to make retail payments in-person or online. The link is expected to expand to include fund transfers and remittances by the end of 2023, making cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more transparent. The initiative is a partnership between NETS, the Association of Banks in Singapore, and PayNet.

Malaysian Bachelors working in Singapore be like:

2. A new report from AC Ventures and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that Indonesia's fintech industry has grown significantly since 2011, with customer engagement in payments, lending, wealth and SaaS rising rapidly. Investment trends have also diversified, with investors increasingly interested in wealthtech, insurtech and fintech SaaS. There is a focus on growth and monetization, with more support for early-stage deals. New players are also emerging, indicating the industry's maturity.

3. Singapore-based wealthtech platform Endowus, which is backed by SoftBank has laid off less than 10% of its staff due to a slowdown in the financial markets and tech sector. Affected employees have received a severance package, and the company is working to optimize their cost structure to move towards profitability. Endowus has raised USD 67 million in funding, manages over USD 4 billion in assets and recently acquired a majority stake in Carret Private to expand to Hong Kong.

4. Shox Rumahan, an Indonesia-based social commerce startup is shutting down due to financial losses. The firm had around 100 employees and was founded in 2019 to provide home appliances at competitive prices with an arisan scheme. It has raised over USD 8 million in four funding rounds, with its latest round in April 2022.

The tech winter has claimed another victim.

SEA Deals 💰

1. Mobee, an Indonesian digital assets and securities exchange has raised fresh funding led by a Southeast Asian venture capital firm and strategic Indonesian family offices and individuals. The startup plans to use the capital to expand operations, launch new products and hire more talent. Mobee has obtained a licence from the Indonesian regulatory body BAPPEBTI to operate a digital asset exchange, becoming the first licensed digital exchange in the country. Crypto trading in Indonesia has grown significantly, with 15.1 million crypto investors and total crypto trading transactions of 212 trillion rupiah (USD 14.1 billion) in the first half of 2022.

2. Venti Technologies, a Singapore-based firm specializing in autonomous logistics for global supply chain and industrial hubs has secured USD 28.8 million in a Series A financing round led by LG Technology Ventures. The funding will be used to accelerate Venti Technologies' growth and meet increasing customer demand worldwide. Safar Partners, UOB Venture Management, Alpha JWC and LDV Partners also participated in the round. The company is working to revolutionize goods transportation and is supported by LG Technology Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Tencent and other partners.

3. Horizon Quantum Computing, a Singapore-based software startup raised USD 18.1 million to expand its engineering team and speed up product development. The company has created a programming language to make quantum computing easier and plans to open European offices in Ireland and create a translation layer for software developers. This round of funding was led by Sequoia Capital India, Tencent Holdings Ltd and SGInnovate and the company has raised a total of USD 21 million.

4. Oravel Stays, the company behind hotel chain Oyo has refiled their draft prospectus to raise between USD 400 million and USD 600 million in an IPO by November. The amount could potentially reach USD 900 million. In an employee town hall, Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal said that the company's cash flow has improved, and they are expecting a 19% revenue increase in 2023. In December 2022, Oyo laid off 600 employees and cut operations in China and the US to focus on India, Southeast Asia and Europe.

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AI Images of The Day 🖼️

Astronaut Brawl of 2044

Tweet of The Day 🐣

In other words, if you’re studying business, you need to quit now.

Happy Monday :)

That’s a wrap for today. See you all tomorrow! 👋

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