🏥🧑‍💻 This Indonesian Healthcare Startup Pivoted and Looks Like It's Working Out For Them

GM. Welcome back to micro digest, the daily newsletter that makes keeping up with Southeast Asian tech news easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - Klinik Pintar - This Indonesian healthcare startup pivoted and looks like it's working out for them

• ⛵ SEAppets - Shopee is seeing success in Brazil

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

Ok for those who don't know, we pivoted this year to become a daily newsletter covering Southeast Asian tech news and the response has been great so far!

Speaking of pivot, this Indonesian startup also made a pivot which seems to be working for them. I'm talking about Klinik Pintar.

🐣 Origin Story

• In 2018 by serial entrepreneur Harya Bimo noticed a problem where hospitals in Indonesia still do things the old fashion way (manually)

• Seeing the total spending in the country's healthcare sector hit USD $28 billion, Bimo saw a big market opportunity to capitalize on it

• So he founded Medigo, a healthcare startup that partners with hospital to help them digitalize the process

• But there's this tiny little problem. Despite making good returns, Medigo needed a year to complete just one hospital, handling everything from system implementation to user education

↪️ The Pivot

• Bimo realized it's just wouldn't be sustainable and scalable to build around hospitals

• So in March 2019, he pivoted to clinics and rebranded Medigo to Klinik Pintar, which means "smart clinics" in English

• Clinics are the go-to places for the majority of Indonesian seeking primary care so it would only make sense for them to redirect to clinics

• The healthcare company now helps its users to book teleconsultations, virtual health services, as well as in-clinic sessions

• It also partners with companies that want an easier way to provide health services to their employees.

The hardest thing to do sometimes is to admit things are working out and you need to make some changes. That's exactly what happened with this newsletter as well. Read all about it here.

SEAppets ⛵

1. Shopee's parent company Sea Group said it will generate over 2,000 jobs in Malaysia. Sea plans to open a global cloud computing centre and a new warehouse for Shopee in Bukit Raja, Klang. It also plans to set up cloud services as well as data hosting and processing in the country.

Kinda strange move since they were cutting cost and made some mass layoffs last year.

2. Grab has promoted Philipp Kandal to be its chief product officer. Kandal will be in charge of the product, design, and analytics departments. He will also spearhead Grab’s product vision and strategy initiatives.

3. Shopee has seen some success in Brazil. The e-commerce app is doing well in the country and seems to be here to stay. Over the past three years, it has been one of the two most popular shopping apps in Brazil. It also overtook MercadoLibre to emerge as the top shopping app by monthly active users last year. 

If Shopee plays its cards right, Brazil or Latin America could be a potential gold mine for them.

SEA Deals 💰

1. Thai insurtech startup, Eazy Digital has raised USD $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Wavemaker Partners. Eazy Digital is a platform that helps insurance companies manage their agents, operations, user referrals, and engagement.

2. EdenFarm, an Indonesian agritech startup has secured USD 13.5 million in a pre-series B round led by Telkomsel's investment arm TMI Ventures. EdenFarm is a B2B food service platform providing fresh produce from farmers to restaurants, caterers, street vendors, and startup partners. The company said it will use the proceeds to expand across the country, improve customer experience and scale technology.

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AI image of the day 🖼️

Space girl wearing Nike armour

Tweet of the day 🐣

Good point.

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