Participated · Seed · Jan 2025

Bythen provides a platform for users to produce creative content, livestream, and transform personalized characters into AI-powered digital twins called “Bytes.” The product democratizes access for creators globally to become virtual influencers by leveraging AI-driven content generation and automated engagement. It operates on a revenue-sharing model that channels earnings back to its creator community, creating an ecosystem that shares growth with users. The company plans to use the new funding to expand operations and accelerate product development. Bythen was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. The platform targets continuous, 24/7 social media engagement through its AI automation tools.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2022

StoreHub is a cloud-based retail management solution and iPad point-of-sale system for SMEs, founded in 2013 by Wai Hong Fong and Congyu Li and headquartered in Malaysia. The platform automates ordering, payments, customer engagement, inventory tracking, supplier management, and sales analysis, and has expanded to include QR-based table ordering and loyalty features. StoreHub serves over 15,000 paying retail and restaurant outlets across Southeast Asia. In the last 12 months it processed over 128 million transactions worth more than $1.6 billion in gross transaction volume, a 40% increase year over year. The company says it will use new funding to continue meeting demand, maintain positive unit economics, and invest in technology innovation to deepen value for each customer. StoreHub is a Southeast Asian retail tech startup. The company raised $8.9 million in a Series A+ funding round, according to the article. The round was led by returning investor Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India. The article provides no product-level details, revenue, user metrics, or stated use of proceeds. No other investors or financial instruments were disclosed in the piece. Further operational or strategic information was not included in the statement cited by the article. StoreHub offers point-of-sale (POS) technology and accompanying digital services to help physical retailers digitize finances and inventory management. Founded in 2014, it charges around $39 per month for its POS service and also sells hardware. The company says it works with some 3,200 retail stores across Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. StoreHub plans to expand to additional Southeast Asian markets including Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia and to broaden its services into digital marketing and e-commerce. Founder and CEO Wai Hong Fong is based in Malaysia while CTO Congyu Li leads the tech team from Shanghai. The new funding will be used to grow the tech team and execute a hiring spree aimed at doubling its current headcount of 80 staff. StoreHub is a Malaysian point-of-sale (POS) startup. The company offers POS solutions for merchants. The article reports StoreHub raised $850,000 in seed funding. The round was led by undisclosed private investors from a China venture capital firm, with participation from 500 Startups and investors in Singapore and Malaysia. The article does not disclose other financial metrics, past rounds, or future plans.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2021

Milieu Insight Pte. Ltd. announced a $5 million fundraising round. The articles do not describe the company’s core product, business model, future plans, or operating metrics. The round was announced on November 11, 2021 and was led by MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia Pte. Ltd., a fund managed by MassMutual Ventures LLC. Other participants included OSK Ventures International Berhad, Genesis Alternative Ventures and several private investors. The articles do not disclose use of proceeds, instrument type, valuation, prior rounds, founding year, or location. Milieu Insight operates a mobile-first market research platform called Milieu Surveys and offers tools such as Milieu Portraits (consumer segmentation) and Milieu Studies (self-serve custom research). The company focuses exclusively on mobile data to capitalize on growing smartphone penetration across Southeast Asia. Its end-to-end platform connects a managed consumer panel with a SaaS interface to deliver profiling data on-demand and enable bespoke studies with results in hours. Milieu Insight has signed more than 45 clients and positions its pricing to be affordable, offering studies at price points as low as US$350. Competitors named in reporting include traditional research firms like Kantar and YouGov as well as Global Web Index. The startup says its product and automation allow it to serve smaller organisations that previously could not afford market research.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2017

Jirnexu operates financial comparison services that aggregate offerings and deals from banks and financial-services companies in Malaysia and Indonesia. Its platform functions as a user acquisition channel to help financial institutions reach new audiences and customers. The company is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. In May it closed an $11M Series B led by SBI, and it has since received an additional $10M investment led by Experian. The Experian-led investment is intended to bring improved demand generation, better eligibility matching through analytics, and more seamless consumer experiences. The new funding brings Jirnexu's total capital raised to $28 million to date. Jirnexu operates consumer-facing financial comparison platforms in Malaysia (RinggitPlus) and Indonesia (KreditGoGo) that aggregate product offers from banks and financial firms including Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered and UOB. The company functions as a user-acquisition channel for financial organizations and has expanded beyond basic banking products into insurance and e-policies. Jirnexu has introduced chatbots with five financial organizations to simplify sign-up and selection. Management is prioritizing consumer digital identification and eKYC to better tailor suggested packages. The startup is hiring senior executives and operational staff, including a CTO, to build out the business and push into new financial verticals. Leadership says recent funding provides multi-year runway to pursue longer-term projects before considering market expansion. Jirnexu offers customer acquisition and lifecycle management solutions for banks, insurance companies and service providers, encouraging mobile-first lead generation, fulfilment and customer retention. Its product suite includes XpressApply for secure digital application submissions, RinggitPlus, a Malaysian consumer financial aggregator, and KreditGoGo, a sister site servicing Indonesia. Led by CEO Yuen Tuck Siew, the company is based in Kuala Lumpur and has more than 100 employees. Jirnexu raised $1.5m in its latest funding round and has raised $6m in total to date. Backers in the latest round included DMP, Gobi Partners and OSK Ventures International Berhad. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and continue developing its online financial aggregators. Jirnexu, formerly Saving Plus, runs consumer comparison sites RinggitPlus (Malaysia) and KreditGoGo (Indonesia) and is building bank-facing products including XpressApply, a platform to handle online credit card, loan and other banking applications. The company says its comparison sites reach “tens of millions of visitors,” generate about 450,000 leads for banks and have produced “tens of thousands” of approved customers and accounts. XpressApply—including a white-label version slated to launch in the second half of the year—aims to shorten application processes to roughly 10 minutes, reduce paperwork, speed decisioning and improve engagement for lenders. Jirnexu claims that removing call centers can lift customer conversation rates by as much as 200% and that call-center complaint levels are seven times higher than initial complaint volumes from XpressApply. The startup was founded in 2012 by CEO Yuen Tuck Siew and remains committed to its consumer-facing sites while pushing deeper into digital-first bank products. Management says it plans a Series B later this year to expand its comparison sites across more Southeast Asian countries and to develop additional bank-focused offerings.