🧑‍🌾🚛 How This Startup is Revolutionizing Vietnam's Agriculture?

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Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - The future of farming: How Koina is revolutionizing Vietnam's agriculture with data-driven solutions

• ⛵ SEAppets - Foodpanda lays off a large portion of its staff in Southeast Asia

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

One thing I like about SEA founders is that they build products that make people's lives better. Vietnamese farmers were facing a real conundrum - the farming products they were buying were of questionable quality and the cost of production and distribution was through the roof!

But luckily this startup is trying to help farmers. Today we will be talking about Koina.

🤷‍♂️ Who is Koina?

• Founded in 2021 by Khoa Luu and a group of former executives at Grab, VinID and GisaoHangNhanh, Koina is a data-driven farm-to-business agritech platform

• Their mission is to cultivate an awesome agri-ecosystem, helping local farmers flourish by linking them with financial institutions, input suppliers, and commercial retailers

📈 Vietnam's Agriculture Market

• Vietnam is home to 17 million farmers, cultivating a staggering 11.8 million hectares of land for agriculture

• The revenue from agricultural products accounts for over 10% of GDP

• USD $24-25 billion annually for the domestic market and USD $15-16 billion for exporting

• But it's a fragmanted market which presents a huge opportunity for Koina

🧑‍🌾 How it works?

• It helps farmers get rid of their crops in a jiffy! It takes post-harvest products from each farm and creates a system to get fresh products to retailers

• The platform also connects farmers with suppliers of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and agriculture engineers to give them the best advice and recipes

• Plus, Koina buys in bulk and passes on the savings to farmers

• Koina also connects farmers with scientific institutes to provide new farming techniques and technologies to maximize yields, minimize costs and enhance product quality

💰 Funding

• The company recently raised USD $1 million as part of its seed extension round from VinaCapital

• The new funding will be used to expand Koina's sales channels so that the startup can soak up more volume from farmers, and also invest in some cutting-edge technologies

I'm always a big fan of founders who don't chase the next big sexist thing to do even though they know that's where the money is.

SEAppets ⛵

1. Shopee has launched a financial product called SLoan which allows select users in Malaysia to access loans with competitive interest rates and flexible repayment options. The loan amount is credited to the user's ShopeePay wallet and can be used for shopping, sending money, and withdrawals via bank transfer. The company will charge 18% interest per annum on the loan amount.

18% and you call that competitive? Yikes.

2. Siemens Energy has opened the region's first managed detection response and operational technology cybersecurity operations centre (CSOC) in Malaysia. The purpose of the centre is to monitor, detect, and mitigate cyber threats on critical infrastructure such as energy and utilities. According to CyberSecurity Malaysia, this is a step in making Malaysia a regional cybersecurity powerhouse. The centre will leverage AI, as well as capital and human investments.

3. Solarvest Holdings Berhad has launched Solarvest Innovation Lab 2023 (SIL 2023), a start-up programme to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in Malaysia, with a focus on greentech, fintech, and renewable energy. SIL 2023 has various corporate partners who provide mentorship, financial support, and networking opportunities. Additionally, the programme offers two rounds of funding with a maximum of RM100,000 and Solarvest may integrate viable business ideas into their clean energy solutions. Solarvest is a Malaysia-based company that started as a solar photovoltaic system provider and now provides various clean energy solutions.

4. Foodpanda, owned by Delivery Hero, has laid off a significant portion of its staff across Southeast Asia. About 400 employees in Malaysia and 50% of its employees in Thailand were let go. The layoffs are part of Delivery Hero's cost-cutting measures to become profitable. Foodpanda runs operations in 11 Asian markets, including Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

SEA Deals 💰

1. Cube Asia, an online retail insights company in Singapore, has raised USD $1.5 million in seed funding to expand its technology, product, and data teams. Cube Asia's proprietary technology aggregates data from public and proprietary sources to offer granular market size and market share insights, helping brands make strategic investment decisions. Cube Asia's MeterCube for TikTok Shop provides up-to-date rankings, pricing and discount trends and category-specific market sizing. Cube Asia will also expand coverage to other e-commerce and social commerce channels in 2023.

2. Venwiz, an India-based SaaS marketplace that digitalizes capex and industrial services procurement, has raised USD $8.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Sorin Investments. The company provides services to large enterprise firms with manufacturing plants and has onboarded over 10,000 vendors. The funding will be used to enhance Venwiz's products and expand its team. India's manufacturing sector has the potential to reach USD $1 trillion by 2025.

AI image of the day 🖼️

Yoda robbing a store 😂😂

Tweet of the day 🐣

Love this! ❤️

Let me elaborate more: value is not only what customers get, value is also what it's worth to them.

A great example is courses.

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

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