LK Weekly Precis - New e-Commerce Regulations, Acquisitions and Expansions

This week, new ecommerce regulations in India shook the tech business community and indicated that government meddling and protectionism policies may continue to hinder progress of emerging markets in sectors such as ride hailing, hospitality and many others aside from ecommerce.

Ecommerce regulations was also a topic discussed in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF), lead by Singapore. In addition, the event for the first time hosted talks among tech executives and leaders, including from BAT, to shape up AI framework that addresses both the seller and buyer nations.

Other than that, ST Telemedia acquisition of Cloud Comrade and Travelstop expansion to 7 Asian markets simultaneously, along with JD.com's first drone delivery outside of China are some notable developments in the startup sphere this week.

ST Telemedia Acquires Cloud Comrade

Last year we saw a number of consultancy firms such as Deloitte and the likes, hunting for acquisitions in the partner space of large tech companies namely Oracle, Sap, AWS, GCP and Microsoft.  This trend is now picked up by several data-centre service providers in the region.

ST Telemedia is certainly moving in the right direction by acquiring Cloud Comrade to enhance its datacenter service offering portfolio, especially in cloud services, IT management, cybersecurity and overall datacenter performance. 

Cloud Comrade helps customers in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore deploy cloud to accelerate new development and migrate existing business applications for operational excellence. The startup works in alliance with almost all major public cloud providers such as Ali, Azure, AWS, GCP and Digital Ocean. 

Last year, ST Telemedia acquired stakes worth $27 million, in cloud management company, Bespin Global that operates in Korea and China. The new acquisitions will help ST Telemedia complete service offerings in cloud, AI, Bigdata, digital experience and cybersecurity.

https://bit.ly/2Uj7FKe

JD's Drone Delivers Books and Bags in Rural Indonesia

JD.com has been delivering to some rural parts of China using drones for the last two years. This week JD ran its first drone delivery trial outside of China after securing a government license for regional level operation in Indonesia. According to media the drone travelled 250km to deliver boxes of books and bag packs to school children.

Tencent has a 15% stake in JD.com and together the companies co-invested in a number of Chinese companies. Last year Google announced significant amount of investments in JD and Tencent to make inroads in China. 

Soon, same day and next day delivery will be a common offering, sighting of drones in residential areas should be expected and e-commerce logistic players may have to reinvent their game.

https://globalcosmeticsnews.com/jd-com-paves-the-way-for-drone-deliveries-in-southeast-asia-with-first-government-approved-flight-in-indonesia/

Travelstop Expands to 7 More Markets

Travelstop is a year old startup from Singapore, that simplifies business travel and expense management to the SMB and startup segments. Since inception, the T&E Saas platform has been updated continuously with features and functions to sufficiently meet the needs of both travellers and employers in a segment where such services were inaccessible. 

We believe they are in the path to join the likes of 'certify', 'coupa' and 'apptricity' to challenge other established players such as SAP Concur in the travel and expense solution space for the enterprises.

Recently, the company announced service availability in Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.  The company also announced a mobile app for iPhone users to easily access services. 

https://www.eventsnewsasia.com/20190122052718000454-business-travel-startup-travelstop-strengthens-presence-asia-launches-seven-markets/

New e-commerce Rules/Restrictions in India

The new rule restricts online retailers or marketplaces from sourcing more than 25% of inventories from a single vendor, vendors where the online retailers may have a stake and exclusive deals that results in deeply discounted products. 

The new rules seems to be aimed at protecting millions of small traders, operating offline and suffering from huge losses due to deep discounting practices of both Amazon and Flipkart. According to analysts and mainstream media, the recent electoral losses is seen as one of the contributing factor to this unusually regressive move.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-issues-new-e-commerce-rules-to-check-amazon-and-flipkart/

AI Discourse at World Economic Forum, Davos 

Finally AI takes a critical spot in WEF this year with US (Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft) and China ( Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) seen as leaders of the space. Economic potential, social threat, globalisation 4.0., ethical practices, AI nationalism, global policies for both AI sellers and buyers were some of the issues beginning to shape the global AI agenda.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Asian-tech-execs-voice-hopes-and-fears-for-AI-in-Davos

Singaporean Ride-hailing Startup, 'Tada' in Vietnam

This year we might see more ride hailing players emerging in the region, including traditional players modernising their business and competing for their pie with larger competition namely Grab and Go Jek. 

New entries might come from taxi operators, affected driver groups and rental service providers. 

We might also see, new country level regulations, niche plays, convergence of industries/sectors, significant mergers and acquisitions in this space as we cool off in quarter four.

https://www.retailnews.asia/singaporean-ride-hailing-startup-tada-launches-in-vietnam/

HG Exchange

HG Exchange, a fintech industry backed initiative has recently submitted a regulatory application to Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This move will provide investors in the region with better access to high growth companies such as Grab, Go Jek, Didi, Deliveroo and others. 

The exchanged will be built by blockchain developer Zilliqa and Taiwanese digital asset platform MaiCoin.

https://www.techinasia.com/in-brief-hg-exchange-seeking-launch

It's seems to be a slow week in anticipation of CNY next week but we believe businesses will keep up momentum till quarter 3 as a slow down is expected in quarter 4. 

Happy Sunday!