🙋‍♂️🪙 Bye Bye HelloGold

GM, welcome back to micro digest, the daily newsletter you won't get sick of.

Do you know what I'm sick of right now? Chinese new food. But hey, the good thing about living in Malaysia is, we got variety. 😏

Sorry I was missing for a couple of days. I got stuck in a traffic jam for 8 hours driving back to KL and was exhausted.

Anyway, I'm back now so let's get it with today's issue!

Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - Byebye to HelloGold - Malaysia's gold-trading firm is shutting down

• ⛵ SEAppets - Apple to open its first store in Malaysia

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

HelloGold, Malaysia's first shariah-compliant gold-saving platform is closing down in Malaysia and Thailand.

The company stated that the business is no longer commercially feasible in the current market conditions and that it will entirely pivot to a business-to-business (B2B) model.

In an email sent out to depositors yesterday (26th January 2023), CEO and co-founder Robin Lee said the platform will cease operations on the 2nd of Feb.

🐣 Origin Story

• Founded in 2015 by Robin and Ridwan Abdullah, who's also the company's strategy lead

• It was created to provide low-to-medium-income customers with access to gold investments

• Robin used to be the CFO at the World Gold Council, a consortium of some of the world’s leading gold mining firms. He noticed how high-net-worth individuals used gold to hedge risks

• So he set out to create a product to help mass market consumers to save in gold as well. Customers could save and buy gold for as little as RM1

🪙How it works

• HelloGold is a hybrid online marketplace where people can buy and sell gold

• You can also have the real gold sent to your address, but you have to order at least one gram. In this case, there will be costs for the delivery, insurance, and any premiums that go along with it

• They make money by charging a 2% commission for every transaction and also a 2% annual maintenance fee

🚶‍♂️ Moving Forward

• Robin said that the platform had more than 60,000 active users in Malaysia and Thailand with investments ammounting to over RM25 million between the two countries

• But sadly, 60,000 users is not sustainable (peanuts 🥜)

• So they've decided to pivot over to a B2B model and white-label its product

• Currently, there are some interests from the Middle East and Africa

Netizens are sad about HelloGold's shutdown. To be frank, so was I. I used to convert my Grab points into gold.

It was good while it lasted 🥲 If only I could convert my points to digital gold aka Bitcoin.

SEAppets ⛵

1. YC-backed Philippine fintech startup PayMongo has appointed Jojo Malolos as President and CEO. Since news of the company's many scandals came out a few months ago, PayMongo has been under a lot of scrutiny. These scandals include a fight between the company's top leaders, the firing of two co-founders, claims that the co-founders spent money in questionable ways and employee harassment.

2. Apple seems to be getting ready to open its first store in Malaysia. Its website has job postings for a few locations there. As of now, Apple's only presence in Malaysia is through third-party resellers. This is the third country in Southeast Asia where Apple has opened a store. Singapore was the first, opening its first doors in 2017. Apple opened another store the next year in Bangkok, Thailand.

I don't know about you but I can literally count on one hand (including myself) who's not using an iPhone.

3. Sea Group, the parent company of Shopee is reportedly selling indie games developer Phoenix Labs. The sale is part of Sea's efforts to cut costs and focus on its core business. Sea has already tried to reduce its expenses in a number of ways. The company's online store, Shopee, has stopped operating in Europe, India, and four Latin American nations. Additionally, the platform made a number of layoffs last year while also announcing forgoing the salaries of top management.

SEA Deals 💰

1. WhyQ, a hawker food delivery service raised USD $1.1 million in a Series A2 funding round. The round was led by Kairos Capital Group. Based in Singapore, the startup plans to increase the size of its digitalization platform and help small businesses in Singapore and Malaysia grow.

2. Headquartered in the Philippines, Locad has secured USD $11 million in a Series A round led by Reefknot Investments. The e-commerce fulfilment startup will use the capital to build an extensive supply chain network across the Asia Pacific through its technology platform.

3. Indonesian SaaS startup, iSeller raised USD $12 million in Series B led by Intudo Ventures. The omnichannel sales SaaS startup plans to concentrate on enhancing the user experience through speedier performance and reliability by releasing a new version of its POS system for offline retailers

In Collaboration with The MoneyFitt Morning 

A quick and easy daily on what's important in investing & business, with a topical 60-second Explainer. Catered for those wishing to understand the world around them. We love curious people.

Subscribe here!

AI images of the day 🖼️

Thomas the Tank Engine in a cyberpunk city

Tweet of the day 🐣

I'm a strong believer in this. Working hard in my 20s so that hopefully I can have more freedom in my 30s.

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