Under The Radar

Ever wondered which are the companies who give startups their first investment cheque? Well, our guest for today Quest Ventures is one such company.  The Venture Capital firm, which was founded in 2011, is a leading venture capital firm in areas such as artificial intelligence, e-commerce and marketplaces, entertainment, finance and even food. It’s also invested in a number of well-known companies such as 99.co, Carousell, Shopback and Hepmil.  But what exactly does the company look out for when it comes to investing? How does it assess the business environment it lies in, and what are some of its recent investments?  On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with James Tan, Managing Partner, Quest Ventures for more. 

Buy Now Pay Later or BNPL is a term that has become increasingly popular in recent years. But ever wondered what the phenomenon means for credit data companies and credit bureaus?  Well that’s what we’re going to talk about in this segment with the world’s largest credit data company Experian, which was also appointed to operate Singapore’s buy now, pay later bureau by the Singapore FinTech Association and the BNPL Working Group last year.  Aside from Buy Now Pay Later, we’re also going to look at some of Experian’s future plans. The company, for one thing, is working with small businesses to help them tap credit data to reduce costs. But how worthwhile is it for data companies to work with SMEs?  On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with Kabir Khanna, General Manager, Credit Services, Experian Singapore for more.

If you recall, we spent quite some time talking about startups and unicorns over the past week. Today, we’re going to look at how a financial institution specialising in SPACs and deal advisory help blank cheque companies access a quality deal pipeline. Speaking of SPAC IPOs, the market for special purpose acquisition companies has slowed quite a bit over the past few months. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, there were 86 SPAC IPOs in 2022. That’s a sharp drop from the 610 deals seen in the year before, as increased regulatory scrutiny and rising interest rates weighed on activity.  But how will this change as economies recover from the troughs of the pandemic, and should interest rates level off towards the end of the year? What would this mean for advisory firms then? On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Crystal Zhang, Managing Partner at Arc Group.

We’re going to wrap up the week talking about the automotive marketplace landscape here in Southeast Asia and in particular, we want to talk about Southeast Asia’s largest online car retailer Carro.  The firm had achieved its unicorn status in June 2021 after a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and continued to see stellar growth thereafter. According to technode global, the firm achieved profitability in its 2022 financial year. It said last September that the company is tracking over S$1.3 billion in run-rate revenue in FY2022 , and is positioned to produce another two times growth in revenue in FY2023. But what is the status so far and is the company on track to meet its target? The company is also venturing into Japan, where it estimated the used car market is double the size of the whole of Southeast Asia. And as always, we want to find out how the experience has been for them thus far. On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with Aaron Tan, Co-Founder and CEO of Carro for more.

Have you ever tried picking up a foreign language? And if so, are you still using it? According to a report by TechRepublic, citing data from FlexJobs, there were over 1,700 bilingual remote jobs listed as at early 2021, which is a 30% increase from the figure in February 2020. And it seems like job demand for bilingual speakers is on the rise as the world becomes increasingly globalised.  Question is - how do we master a new language? And how do we get ourselves familiarised with some of the jargons used in professions such as law and finance?  Well, one startup in Singapore is aiming to address that. It crafted a business language app to provide professionals with contents and tools to operate proficiently in Business Mandarin.  On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with Daphne Tay, CEO and Co-Founder of Bluente to find out more about Bluente’s value proposition, funding situation and expansion plans.

Stamps, parcels and postage fees - that’s right - we are putting the spotlight on the postal and parcel industry today.  In particular, we’re going to be looking at Singapore Post, which has seen a number of developments of late. The company is raising postage rates for postage, package delivery and doorstep parcel delivery this year as a result of the Goods and Services Tax hike as well as other inflationary cost increases.  On the investment front, SingPost will dilute and potentially sell its stake in Chinese e-commerce provider, Shenzhen 4PX Information and Technology,  Yet at the same time, the firm also expects to eventually acquire the whole of Freight Management Holdings, a leading 4th party logistics service company in Australia, to tap the fast growing market there.  What are the reasons behind the rebalancing of its portfolio and the adjustment of prices, and really, what’s next for SingPost?  On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s Finance Presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Lee Eng Keat, Head, Strategy & Programs Office at SingPost.

Ever wondered who are the ones keeping our work desks clean and tidy when we return to work on a Monday morning? Well, today we’re going to look at how facility management companies position themselves in a market that is set to reach around US$121 billion globally by 2030.  This is also an exciting time for the industry, as it tries to convince clients on the need to automate and reduce reliance on manual labour amid an ongoing manpower shortage.  But how successful are players in gaining industry buy-in, and what are facility management companies doing to move workers to higher value roles with automation? On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian spoke with Gina Toh, CEO of ISS Facility Services, Singapore for more.

The online brokerage industry is at the heart of our discussion today.  The pandemic-induced retail trading frenzy has led to a boom in new online brokers in Singapore as more people put their dollars to work on digital platforms.  But with the country now back to Dorscon green, how would companies position themselves for the future? We’re going to speak with online trading platform moomoo to find out more about their future plans.  The company is apparently also serving financial institutions, and is the main placement agent for the IPO of the maker of the TraceTogether token. But why is it diversifying to serve institutional clients? How much money is in it for them to do so? On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Gavin Chia, Singapore Managing Director at moomoo.

On that note, did you know that Singapore was the first country to approve the sale of cell-based meat in 2020, with the product coming from Good Meat? In fact, the world’s first commercial cultured meat production facility also started here in Singapore in 2021 when a local contract development and manufacturing organisation, Esco Aster, was given approval to produce the novel food.  The company is also a strategic partner for Eat Just and cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat. But hey - ever wondered how a white label manufacturer for cell-based meat operates?  On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Xiang Liang Lin, Founder and CEO of Esco Aster.

Supply chain snarls and high inflation have weighed on economies around the world for much of the past year, especially with China sticking to its strict zero-COVID strategy.  But how have things changed as China reopens for business in 2023 and the country puts the Lunar New Year holiday behind it? What are the key trends within the logistics and supply chain industry and how are players grappling with high inflation? Today we speak with the world’s largest contract logistics provider, GXO Logistics to find out how they view the supply chain landscape, as well as their business strategy ahead.  The company also recently held its Investor Day conference not too long ago, where it expects to triple its adjusted EBITDA or earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, between 2021 and 2027. But what will the company need to do to achieve this? On Under the Radar, Drive Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sat down with Mark Manduca, Chief Investment Officer at GXO for more.