Rising Giants Newsletter - October Recap (Part 1)
Max & Dom chatting with the boldest and most inspiring entrepreneurs and investors in Cambodia 🇰🇭. Cambodia’s #1 business & entrepreneurship podcast! Turn on 💡, Tune in 📻, Keep up 🚀
Welcome to the Rising Giant's Podcast Newsletter by Max Thornton and Dominic Kalousek.
If you enjoy our content, please subscribe to our post-interview newsletter as we share our most recent podcast episode, Southeast Asia startup and venture capital news, venture deals, entrepreneur resources, and job opportunities in the region!
▶️ Rising Giants Recap
If you missed our recent guests who were on the podcast, click their Spotify box below to tune into their episode. Each of these episodes provide really great insight across the buy-now-pay-later, e-commerce, and entertainment space within Cambodia so we hope that you tune in and enjoy!
N.31 Joey Ra, Transformation Coach & Founder of Cambodia Coaching Institute
Joey Ra is Cambodia's only Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and the Founder of Cambodia's Coaching Institute, the country's first professional coaching training program. Born in Korea and raised in the UK, he now works to nurture and grow coaching in Cambodia and beyond, serving as teacher and mentor to coaches in the region. In pursuit of this mission, he has trained over 100 leaders in Cambodia to be professional coaches or leader-as-coach. He has a particular interest in the impact of trauma on the long-term behaviors of individuals and communities. Joey has also partnered with over 80 leaders around the globe, aiming for deep inner transformation that leads to lasting improvements in happiness and performance.
N.32 Celia Boyd, Co-Founder, SHE Investments
Celia Boyd has long had a passion for impact-driven entrepreneurship having arrived in Cambodia in 2013, building SHE Investments from inception to the leading organization it is today; SHE works with female entrepreneurs through Cambodia's first gender and culturally tailored business incubator and accelerator programs to support them to scale their enterprises to create social and economic impact, bridge the gender gap in entrepreneurship, and facilitate market-based solutions to poverty.
📝 Venture Capital Deal Flow Highlights in Southeast Asia
Azaylla, a Cambodian startup specializing in the grocery and fresh food distribution business has announced an investment from angel investor Uberis Impact Network (with financial details not mentioned). The investment will help boost Cambodian farmers livelihood by replacing foreign imported fruits and vegetables, with high quality Cambodian products.
Bangladesh’s Chaldal, now the country’s second-largest grocery player and the largest grocery e-commerce platform, recently closed a $10 million Series C round. Founded in 2013, the company (a Y Combinator alum), has 27 warehouses located in four cities (Dhaka, Naryanganj, Chattogram and Jashore) and plans to expand to 15 new cities and open 50 warehouses by the end of this year. Chaldal claims that it has generated $40 million in revenue and performed 2.5 million orders over the past 12 months, growing about 120% year over year. It currently sells about 8,500 kinds of products and wants to expand that to 30,000 SKUs by December.
Philippines-based logistics startup 1Export has raised $800,000 in a seed funding round led by Foxmont Capital Partners. Founded in 2016, 1Export provides a platform that helps micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in the Philippines export their products to other countries. The company aims to use the new investment to develop and improve its order-handling capabilities, marketing services, financing, and other third-party integrations within its platform. The startup also plans to enter Indonesia as it targets to expand to 60 countries by the end of 2022.
Philippine-based Komunidad, an environmental intelligence service provider, has raised $1 million in seed funding for its Asian expansion. Founded in 2019 by Felix Ayque and Allister Ayque, Komunidad was originally an email service for tropical cyclone information. It now provides data for businesses to help them plan for safety, operational efficiency, and business continuity during natural disasters. The fresh funds will be used to expand the company’s “weather and environmental intelligence datasets,” as it aims to customize its Philippine system to other markets in the region.
Indonesian ID and data verification startup Verihubs recently raised $2.8 million in seed funding for its goal of becoming “the one-stop for verification in Southeast Asia.” Based in Jakarta, Verihubs was founded in 2019 and recently finished taking part in Y Combinator’s summer 2021 batch, the startup has also becoming the first YC-backed AI startup from Indonesia. The company currently has 46 customers, including major banks and fintechs, and the founders say it is on track to hit 100 customers soon.
Vietnamese e-pharmacy startup Medigo raised $1 million from venture capital firm Touchstone Partners and plans to expand its offerings to telemedicine and other healthcare services amid growing healthcare spending in Vietnam. Medigo, launched in July 2019, has partnered with over 200 medical institutions in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang. In the past six months, it saw gross merchandise value increase eight times and the company currently has over 200,000 users on its platform.
📰 Frontier Market Start-Up and Venture Capital News in Southeast Asia
🇰🇭 Cambodia’s worst-case economic scenarios avoided in 2021: UNDP (Cambodia Investment Review).
🇮🇩 Jeff Bezos makes first-ever investment in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce scene by participating in a $87 million Series B funding for Indonesian startup Ula.
🇻🇳 Here are the top 10 articles to understand Vietnam’s tech and startup scene.
🇧🇩 Incredibly useful article to understand the current status and future outlook of the startup ecosystem in Bangladesh.
🇳🇵 World Bank’s roundtable on Nepal’s transition to green, resilient, and inclusive development (GRID) for sustainable recovery, growth, and jobs.
🇵🇭 Philippines startup up ecosystem is ready to deliver and likely to produce a unicorn soon - DealStreetAsia.
📚 Knowledge Base: Entrepreneur and Investor Learning Resources
In this week’s resource, we want to share with you a first of its kind local news outlet dedicated to Cambodian investment news in the English language called Cambodia Investment Review. CIR is focused on encouraging more quality investment in Cambodia by publishing the latest business and investment news to both local and international audiences. They create a ton of quality content and articles daily about Cambodia’s investment landscape so check them out to stay up to date!
Additional Resources To Check Out:
💯 11 gold answers to changing you perspective.
🔎 Rising tides for micro private equity.
💡 20 career lessons from some of the smartest people in business.
🤝 How not to ruin relationships in business & life.
🔥 The Ultimate Network Effect of Community Equity.
👨🏼💻 Frontier Market Job Opportunities
Platform Impact is hiring an Impact Venture Builder in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
UNICEF is hiring for a Consultant – Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PME) Consultant for T4D in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The Sound Initiative is hiring for a Finance Officer to help serve their clients in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Ramp Up Global is hiring for a Community Manager in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
ABT Associates is hiring for Grants Manager in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
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🧐 What is Rising Giants?
Rising Giants was created in 2021 by Max Thornton and Dominic Kalousek after realizing there were limited outlets for gaining insight into the startup and investment ecosystem in the
Rising Giants serves as an upbeat medium for entrepreneurs and investors to share their experience working and living in some of the most dynamic and positively evolving countries in Southeast Asia.
Our mission is to talk to entrepreneurs and investors to help understand what it takes to have bold ideas and build the business disruptors of tomorrow, in the most challenging, but highest potential markets of the region.
Through our personal exploration of these landscapes, we dive deep in our interviews with inspirational individuals learning about their career journeys, ideas, and insights into the markets of developing startup ecosystems, and expanding on why they see their business and the region as a "Rising Giant”.