🛎️👨‍💻 The OYO of SEA is taking over the region

GM, this is micro digest, the daily newsletter that's like a surprise chicken nugget in your order of fries.

You know it’s about to be a great day when that happens.

Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - The OYO of SEA is taking over the region

• ⛵ SEAppets - Indonesian co-working space, CoHive has declared bankcrupt

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

The pandemic has finally come to an end (ok not quite yet) and we can start to see the travel industry making a comeback. 

One of the companies that managed to break even last year was RedDoorz.

That's right, today we're talking about the OYO of Southeast Asia - RedDoorz.

🤷‍♂️ Who is RedDoorz? 

• Founded in 2015 by Amit Saberwal and Asheed Saxena, RedDoorz was a platform designed to assist budget hotels with expanding their online presence

🛎️ How it works

• The concept is simple. RedDoorz works with budget hotels and guest room, provides staff training and access to digital service and rebrands the hotes as RedDoorz

• The idea is to take the hassle out of finding accommodation by offering "RedDoorz approved" experience - including WiFi, statellite TV, quality linen and more

• RedDoorz is now present in four markets in Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam

💰 How it's doing

• RedDoorz increased its property count in Indonesia and the Philippines by nearly 12% and 43%

• The company reduced its properties in Vietnam by 37% due to tight pandemic restrictions

• Ancillary products now contribute to 30% of overall business - early check-ins or late check-outs, paid loyalty programs, insurance, flexible cancellation policies etc.

RedDoorz is looking to add over 1,500 hotel properties across its four markets this year. The company is also setting its sight on Malaysia and planning to expand into Thailand and Bali in Indonesia.

SEAppets ⛵

1. Indonesia's co-working startup, CoHive has officially declared bankrupt as of 18th January by the Central Jakarta district court. CoHive was founded in 2015 as EV Hive by VC firm East Ventures and had raised more than USD $ 37 million in funding over four rounds. The demand for co-working spaces seemed to be on the rise in Indonesia in the mid-2010s but Covid-19 hit and CoHive started closing down its locations.

Add that to the list of Indonesian tech companies that are in trouble. The tech winter has claimed another victim.

2. Speaking of closing down, Indian food tech unicorn Zomato has ceased operations in the Philippines, nearly after 10 years entering the Southeast Asian market. Without mentioning any reasons, Zomato signed off on February 2 through a short notice on the company's Philippine website. Zomato is an online restaurant guide and food ordering platform.

3. Grab Indonesia has teamed up with Indonesian conglomerate Sompoerna Strategic Group to digitalize small grocery stores or warung on its network. Besides Sompoerna Group, Grab has also teamed up with Indonesian tech unicorns Bukalapak and conglomerate Emtek Group to onboard warungs in Indonesia. With this small grocery stores will be able to offer delivery services using GRABExpress.

4. Petronas, Malaysia's national oil and gas company is set to acquire Wirsol's Australian renewable business. It runs solar farms across seven sites with a capacity of 746 MW, has a development pipeline of about 700 MW and is an asset manager for 349 MW in Australia's eastern states. Petronas is looking to build a renewables business which aims to have 30-40 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030.

5. Vietnam's EV maker, VinFast said it will delay deliveries to its first customer in the United States until the second half of February after updating the vehicles with the latest software updates. So far it has secured 55,000 orders globally as of December last year, of which 12,000 are from the US market.

Cool Tools ⚒️

• Asknow AI - Ask famous personalities anything and get an AI summarised answer with references

• Layer AI - Create pixel-perfect game assets in seconds

• Present AI - Create amazing presentations 10X faster with AI

• Vacay AI chatbot - Design a custom trip, give you inspiration on where to go and even generate local recommendations for hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

• Untools - A free collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems

• The Real Favicon Generator - Super simple to use. Pop in an image and they'll give you a favicon!

AI image of the day 🖼️

If Darth Vader was homeless in NYC

Tweet of the day 🐣

Couldn't agree more.

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