Daily Finance Archives - Page 37 of 40

Baanx Acquires Stake in Major US Fintech Bank

Baanx, the fast-growing B2B2C “Better than a Banking Platform” specialising in fintech services & lending, becomes the third-largest shareholder in the United States regulated Maxwell State Bank in a multi-million-dollar deal to enhance cybersecurity and banking access to communities throughout America.

Maxwell State Bank is a fintech bank and VISA Principal Member established circa 1943 in Iowa. With total assets of $29,655,000 and deposits of $25,058,000 Maxwell has been FDIC certified since 1943 for insured deposits. Maxwell was acquired by serial fintech entrepreneur Ronald Ingram, founder of multi-billion dollar fintech programs and companies. He has ambitious plans to make this bank the most secure and future-proof bank in America by expanding their services. He plans to achieve this by working with fintech leaders in cybersecurity, cryptography, tokenization and private/public key infrastructure companies.

Baanx has rapidly become a market leader in secure transaction payment systems, secured lending and banking services with a focus on fast growing verticals. Offering VISA & Mastercard programs through their platform, combined with secured lending services from as little as 0% APR, they are expanding quickly through their B2B2C business model. Baanx partners with leading corporate communities, white-labelling as a leading brand, whilst completely managing the delivery and support of the service to each community they engage with.

Garth Howat, CEO of Baanx said, “We are very excited to have taken a stake in Maxwell and working with Ronald Ingram, who has a strong track record of delivering high performing secure fintech services, having been responsible for $100s of billions of fintech transactions in recent years.”

Ronald Ingram, Chairman of Maxwell said, “We are very pleased to welcome Baanx as an investor in Maxwell State Bank. Maxwell Bank has been profitable and well managed for decades, Maxwell, as of 2021, is the most connected bank in North America with direct fiber and low earth laser satellite connectivity. We expect Baanx will expand upon Maxwell’s commitment to futurize banking. Baanx is a money center fintech, in the historical banking center of the world, London, with specializations across cryptography, lending, cybersecurity and public/private key infrastructure. We look forward to strategic partnership opportunities such as state-of-the-art cyber security, access to digital safe-keeping of assets and general privacy that we expect to evolve out of this strategic investment.”

About Baanx

Baanx “Better than a Banking Platform”, offers banking services to fintechs, including secured lending against digital assets and payment authorisation integration into VISA, Mastercard & other transaction payment systems. Baanx headquarters are in London (UK) with subsidiaries in Delaware (United States), Portugal and Lithuania. Baanx manages digital assets using military grade cryptography for maximum privacy and security with digital asset insurance through their partners up to $100M. Baanx is managed by a seasoned team with over a hundred years of combined experience in banking, financial technology, cryptography, finance and digital marketing.

About Maxwell

Maxwell State Bank has been serving Americans for nearly 75 years. January 2021 it was acquired by Ronald Ingram, a serial entrepreneur in fintech, who created a roadmap to ensure the future of this well-established profitable bank for the next generations in the community, region and beyond.

CEKD Berhad Launches Prospectus to Raise RM24.28 Million from IPO

CEKD BERHAD (“CEKD” or the “Group”), a die-cutting solutions provider as well as manufacturer of die-cutting moulds and trader of related consumables, tools and accessories enroute to a listing on the ACE Market of Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad (Bursa Securities), is pleased to announce the launch of the Group’s prospectus for the initial public offering (IPO).

The Group aims to raise RM24.28 million from its upcoming listing. The IPO involves the public issue of 50.59 million new shares at the issue price of RM0.48 sen per share, to be made available for application in the following manner:

Public issue:
– 9.73 million new shares will be available for application to the Malaysian public;
– 9.73 million new shares will be allocated for application by eligible directors, employees and persons who have contributed to the success of the Group;
– 6.81 million new shares by way of private placement to selected investors; and
– 24.32 million shares by way of private placement to Bumiputera investors approved by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

The Utilisation of Proceeds table as below:
https://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_CEKD202109062.jpg

Managing Director of CEKD, Yap Kai Ning, said: “The forthcoming listing of CEKD Berhad marks a significant milestone in our history. This IPO will not only strengthen our presence in the industry as a leading die-cutting solutions provider and manufacturer but also raise our profile to help us in our expansion plans. We are committed to sustaining our reputation and creating value for our shareholders.”

“The proceeds from the IPO will go towards acquiring laser-cutting machines and automatic steel rule processors to support business expansion and increase our production efficiency. Our production capability will be enhanced with the upgrading of our computer software and servers and this will support business growth. Besides the purchase of machinery and equipment, we are also going to acquire a factory for Hotstar located in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur.”

As at 6 August 2021, the Group has a large and diverse customer base of 1,309 customers while the Group achieved an average gross profit margin of 48.3% from FYE 2018 to FYE 2020.

Managing Director of Corporate Finance, M&A Securities Sdn Bhd (M&A Securities), Datuk Bill Tan said: “As of today, we have received positive response from investors for CEKD’s IPO and we are pleased to play a significant role in its goal to become a public listed company. This milestone today is the result of the hard work and dedication of the CEKD team. They are experienced and committed with operational expertise and in-depth knowledge of the manufacturing of die-cutting moulds and trading of related consumables, tools and accessories. The IPO will strengthen CEKD’s foothold in the industry.”

CEKD’s Adviser, Sponsor, Sole Underwriter and Placement Agent in relation to the IPO is M&A Securities. Pursuant to the underwriting agreement, M&A Securities will be underwriting for shares available for application by the Malaysian public.

Please contact the below for more information:
Hakim Juraimi
Tel: +60 12-318 5410
Email: h.juraimi@swanconsultancy.biz

Why Newborn Town is the best performing Chinese Internet company this year

Newborn Town Inc. (9911.HK) released its 2021 Interim Financial Report on August 25, showing satisfactory business performance. In fact, Newborn Town has long been favored by the capital market, and experienced a large rise in share price of 15.8% on August 24.

Newborn Town, after shifting its focus to social business in 2020, has achieved strong results in its business operations and aggressive acquisition and expansion strategies, acquisition of MICO and layout of mid- and hard-core games, leading to Newborn Town’s impressive outperformance in its stock price in the past two years.

It is not hard to understand why Newborn Town’s stock price has increased sharply by 186% from HKD1.8 to HKD5.14 since the beginning of this year. It should be noted that Newborn Town has been leading the e-commerce and Internet sectors in the Hong Kong stock market, and therefore, is well-deserved as one of the best performing Hong Kong stocks this year.

Newborn Town grows in line with the law of the Internet industry

There is a law in the Internet industry which was proposed by Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of the Ethernet, and was named after him as Metcalfe’s Law. According to Metcalfe’s Law, the value of the network is proportional to the number of network users squared.

As shown in Newborn Town’s latest Interim Financial Report, the number of overseas users remained on a stable and high rise while cumulative downloads of social apps reached 254 million through June 30 2021, with 17.41 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) on average during 1H2021, increasing by about 38% from 2H2020.

In response to the rapid growth in the number of users, Newborn Town recorded revenue of RMB1.04 billion and a net profit of RMB0.14 billion in the first half of the year, showing a year-on-year increase of nearly 6 times and nearly 40 times respectively.

In fact, in spite of Newborn Town’s excellent financial performance, what investors in the Internet sector value most is not a company’s short-term revenue and profit, but the sustainability of its user growth. This is because expansion of user groups of social products and diversified monetization methods will surely bring about rapid growth in operating revenue.

The rapid growth in Newborn Town’s revenue not only benefits from the sharp increase in the number of users, but also from the constantly diversified social product portfolio and the improvement of its operational efficiency.

It is widely held that Newborn Town is an “upstart” standing out from Chinese Internet companies having established business operations in foreign markets. In fact, it is not. Newborn Town began to expand its business to foreign markets in 2013 and began to deploy its social business in 2015. Its audio and video social platforms such as MICO and YoHo having been downloaded more than 200 million times worldwide, with more than 18 million MAU on average in the second quarter of 2021.

The Gulf countries in the Middle East contribute a great deal to Newborn Town’s revenue. For example:
– In Saudi Arabia, MICO and YoHo ranked 10th and 8th respectively among the top-grossing social apps in Google Play, and ranked 7th and 6th respectively among the top-grossing social apps in App Store.
– In the UAE, YoHo and MICO ranked 5th and 11th among the top-grossing social apps in Google Play, and MICO ranked 4th among the top-grossing social apps in App Store.

From statistics released by Sensor Tower, we know:
– Newborn Town’s products rank among the top-grossing in social app rankings in many countries worldwide, which provides reliable evidence for the company’s satisfactory performance data.
– Newborn Town’s products are very popular in many countries worldwide, indicating that the product and operational strategies applied by the company work well.

If everything goes well, Newborn Town’s next important strategy is to focus on social traffic, further develop mid- and hard-core games, increase user stickiness and monetization rate, make its business layout in the game market by using the “independent research + release + investment” strategy, place emphasis on quality products, and increase the monetization efficiency.

Underestimated Newborn Town, Neglected High Growth

Based on the user and market data above, although Newborn Town’s stock price rose sharply by 15.58% on August 24, we believe that its closing price of RMB5.14 on August 25 is substantially undervalued by the capital market.

At market’s close on August 25, Newborn Town’s market capitalization reached HKD5.13 billion, equivalent to RMB4.26 billion. However, considering its expected annual revenue of about RMB2.1 billion, Newborn Town had a price-to-sales ratio of about 2.03x in the capital market.

Therefore, Newborn Town, a high-growth stock in the Internet sector, which has its revenue and net profit increasing by about 590% and 4000% year-on-year respectively and has the number of its half-year average MAU increasing by nearly 40%, has an extremely conservative valuation with a price-to-sales ratio of about 2x, as it may go for stocks in the banking and insurance sectors.

Look at Newborn Town’s cash flow statement. According to its annual report 2020, Newborn Town had net cash inflow from its operating activities in 2020 totaling RMB300 million, net cash outflow from its investment activities in 2020 totaling RMB97 million, and annual net cashes in 2020 of over RMB200 million. According to its interim report in 2021, in the first half of this year, Newborn Town had net cash inflow from its operating activities totaling RMB160 million, net cash inflow from its investment activities totaling RMB23 million, and net cashes of over RMB180 million.

It seems inconsistent that a company with rapid growth in user groups and with sound cash flows should receive such a low valuation.

What’s more, Newborn Town’s potential high-growth factors have not yet been included in the foregoing. For example, since the second quarter of this year, Newborn Town has focused on Japanese, South Korean and other developed markets, and began to expand MICO and other products into those markets. In another example this year, Newborn Town attached great importance to mid- and hard-core games and is releasing independently developed quality games, and is making initial investments in several game businesses which may exert influence on its current profit but will greatly drive Newborn Town’s future growth.

Value recognition may be late, but will never be absent. We believe the value of Newborn Town will be recognized at some point by the capital market, and so advise investors to take the long view.

Behind Newborn Town’s expansion to foreign markets: the victory of Internet industry players in China

According to data from Sensor Tower, in 2020, the total revenue of Chinese social apps launched in global markets increased by 127% from the previous year and the total revenue of Chinese entertainment apps launched in global markets increased by 250% from the previous year. As shown in the data from Analysys International, MICO ranked top five Chinese going-global entertainment and social apps contributing at least USD100 million to corporate revenue in 2020.

Since the beginning of 2021, Chinese apps have enjoyed worldwide popularity, especially social and game apps. Keeping up with this historical trend, Newborn Town has launched dozens of social, games and other apps widely used worldwide, and based on the average MAU of its social apps, it has become the largest Chinese company to have expanded its social networking business to foreign markets.

We believe that the value of Newborn Town Inc. (9911.HK) will be re-evaluated by the capital market. With its current valuation and potential for future growth, both of which are quite attractive, Newborn Town presents a great opportunity in the context of market recovery.

Contact:
Weijie Xie, Peanutmedia
E: xieweijie@czgmcn.com
URL: www.Peanutmedia.com

Live Online Masterclass on Project Finance & Project Financial Modelling

Infocus International Group has launched the Project Finance & Project Financial Modelling online masterclass and it will be commencing live on 27 September 2021.

Today’s project finance (PF) transactions require a higher level of expertise not only in programming more sophisticated and flexible financial models, but also in incorporating the latest risk mitigation and credit enhancement instruments. While higher standards of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) impact management are being demanded of all major capital projects worldwide, more options and models for ESG mitigation, insurance, guarantee products, and financing instruments are now available.

The objective of this course is to provide participants with an enhanced understanding of the practical & documentation requirements of all interested parties to today’s PF transaction. This programme provides participants with proven PF analytical strategies and transaction structuring techniques which will enable participants to quantitatively assess risks, resolve constraints, and reach project financial closure. This programme is also designed to enhance the check lists and benchmark metrics by which participants can reduce losses and which will be viewed favourably by both management and the regulatory community.

Course Sessions:

– Limited-recourse PF models & key requirements
– Managing PF transactions & stages of the deal
– PF documentation management, risk analysis models & ESG mitigation options
– Sources of PF funding, financing instruments & guarantee products; credit enhancements & bankability techniques
– PF financial model design requirements, presentation & formatting standards
– Programming financial statements, cash flows, profit & loss statements and managing international accounting standards
– Projecting PF balance sheets, SPV reserve accounts, PF refinancing, and conducting sensitivity analyses
– PF model stress-testing, overseeing Monte Carlo simulation analyses, and modelling for credit enhancements

Case studies of PF transactions will feature the real-world details of PF Info memos, feasibility studies, impact assessments, and PF agreements to provide first-hand understanding of the challenges of PF transactions. Discussions will place participants into the practical roles of key management decision-makers who not only need to analyze and understand PF investment proposals, but who have to make real-world decisions on transactions.

As a result of actively engaging in this program’s methodology, participants will be able to make practical decisions on PF strategies, projects, and transactions for your organizations following the workshop’s completion.

Want to learn more?

Simply email to emilia[at]infocusinternational.com or call +65 6325 0210 to obtain your FREE COPY of event brochure. For more information, please visit https://www.infocusinternational.com/projectfinance-online .

About Infocus International Group

Infocus International is a global business intelligence provider of strategic information and professional services for diverse business communities.

Infocus International recognises clients’ needs and responds with innovative and result oriented programmes. All products are founded on high value content in diverse subject areas, and the highest level of quality is ensured through intensive and in-depth market research from local and international insights.

Emilia Mok
Tel: +65 6325 0210
Email: emilia@infocusinternational.com
Website: www.infocusinternational.com

Comtel Rebrands to Quess Singapore with Focus on Local Job Creation in the City

Quess Corp, one of the world’s leading Business Service Providers, today announced that Comtel Solutions, the leading tech talent solutions Company in Singapore, and an affiliate of Quess Corp, has now become Quess Singapore and will operate as fully owned Singaore entity.

An affiliate of Quess Corp Limited, Comtel has been in business for over a decade and has expanded across the Asia Pacific and several industry verticals and sectors such as Banking, Hi-Tech Manufacturing, Telecommunication, Logistics, and Healthcare Industries. The company which partners with global market leaders, including Fortune 100 companies for services, solutions and focussed executive searches for technology staff, has been a part of Quess Group for five years and will continue to maintain its industry leading status in Staff augmentation in Singapore.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Quess Corp has been tirelessly working with a mission to help hire skilled and productive workers who are equipped to meet the dynamic market requirements of their clients across sectors. Quess has made significant investments in technology across the hire to retire cycle to provide manpower services that are already trusted by several customers globally. Its thrust on developing tools to improve productivity of frontline workers and boost employee engagement is helping create a grey collar/semi-skilled workforce that is more efficient and future-ready.

The workforce landscape is going through a massive change as talent and skills become the most important currency for organisations to drive growth and establish value differentiation. Through re-branding Comtel to Quess Singapore, the company aims to better communicate the breadth and scale of expertise that Quess truly represents.

Speaking on the company’s refreshed branding, Vikas Srivastava, Country Manager, Quess Singapore said, “COVID has completely made everyone re-think their talent strategy as companies now move to a more hybrid and asynchronous workforce that will help them make the most of the disruption to the labour economy to best meet their growth ambitions. Over the last few years, our technology-enabled solutions have been making search, selection, and management of contingent workforce easy in Singapore. With this new identity, we are confident of providing associates working for our clients with more career-enhancing opportunities through our ever-growing partnership with leading learning and development providers for their re-skilling and upskilling needs. This apart, we will help our clients manage and increase the productivity of their grey collar/semi-skilled workforce more effectively by introducing metric-driven, technology-led management through integrating our in-house mobile WorQ App into our standard offering.”

As one of the world’s leading Business Services Providers, Quess is known for its many milestones over the last 14 years; one of them being the fastest to become part of the coveted list of top 50 largest Global staffing suppliers ranked by Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA).

Commenting on the potential in local market, Quess Corp CEO APAC Mr. Sandeep Sharma said, “We are focussed on “Thinking Global Acting Local”. The focus of Quess Singapore – is to be No-1 workforce solutions partner for clients in Singapore and the most preferred employer for associates and candidates. We will be more agile, technology-enabled, and look forward to boosting local employment. We are at the forefront of providing innovative workforce solutions to our larger customer base in South East Asia and stand by our mission of “Winning Together – In our client’s win lies our win” and bring it to fruition. We aim to transition to our new brand identity with the reassurance of consistent and efficient service delivery with no disruptions while looking forward to continued support from our existing clients.”

About Quess Corp

Established in Bengaluru in 2007, Quess Corp Limited (BSE: 539978, NSE: QUESS) is India’s leading business services provider – leveraging its extensive domain knowledge and future-ready digital platforms to drive client productivity through outsourced solutions. Quess provides a host of technology enabled staffing and managed outsourcing services across processes such as sales & marketing, customer care, after sales service, back office operations, manufacturing, facilities and security management, HR & F&A operations, IT & mobility services etc. Quess has a team of ~369,000 employees, serving ~3,000 clients across India, North America, APAC and the Middle East as on 31st July 2021.

Media contacts:
Namrata Sharma – namrata.sharma@adfactorspr.com
Neha Chaturvedi – neha.chaturvedi@adfactorspr.com

SEEK Invests in JobKorea, Korea’s Largest Recruitment Platform, as part of a Strategic Path to be the Best Digital Career Platform in Asia

SEEK Limited (SEEK), the Australian listed tech company which owns two leading online employment marketplaces JobStreet and JobsDB in Southeast Asia, today announced a USD48M investment in JobKorea, Korea’s largest online employment platform. SEEK will own a 10% stake, and Peter Bithos, CEO of SEEK Asia, will join JobKorea’s Board.

Peter Bithos, CEO of SEEK Asia (left) and Yoon Byung-joon, CEO of JobKorea (right)

Commenting on the investment, Peter said: “This partnership is a big win not only for SEEK and JobKorea, but more importantly for all jobseekers and employers in Asia. With JobKorea, the leading job marketplace in Korea, we can now touch the lives of an additional 25 million jobseekers and 5 million employers in one of the largest economies in the world.”

“Through this investment, we look forward to helping JobKorea with our market-leading insights into big data, how to leverage AI, and our commercial and technical experience building the leading jobs and career marketplaces across APAC,” he added. “We also look forward to learning from JobKorea as it continues to build on its leadership in one of Asia’s most dynamic, sophisticated markets.”

This investment will provide an opportunity for SEEK to add value to JobKorea’s market leading position, while SEEK focuses on its operations, fast-tracking its ongoing transformation and growth of its existing Asia businesses. SEEK’s digital teams continue to make major inroads in building products and solutions driven by AI and market data, which combined with SEEK’s deep local insights and resources in each location, differentiate it from other international players.

For JobKorea, this partnership will provide an opportunity to leverage SEEK’s experienced management team and their significant expertise in operating global online employment and human capital management platforms.

Yoon Byung-joon, CEO of JobKorea, said “We are delighted to have a partnership with SEEK, a company with a wealth of experience in the global online employment market. We believe that this relationship will be an opportunity for JobKorea to make a quantum leap to the next level. With competition becoming ever fiercer to hire talented people such as good managers, developers or tech specialists, JobKorea will move toward a global HR platform that connects the Korean employment marketplace internationally.”

The remaining 90% of JobKorea is owned by Affinity Equity Partners (AEP), a leading global private equity player and the largest in Korea. AEP acquired 100% of JobKorea in May 2021.

About SEEK

SEEK is a diverse group of companies, comprised of a strong portfolio of online employment, educational, commercial and volunteer businesses. SEEK has a global presence (including Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, South-East Asia, Brazil and Mexico), with exposure to over 2.9 billion people and approximately 27 per cent of global GDP. SEEK makes a positive contribution to people’s lives on a global scale. SEEK is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, where it is a top 100 company and has been listed in the Top 20 Most Innovative Companies by Forbes.

SEEK operates leading online employment marketplaces across Asia through JobStreet (https://www.jobstreet.com.sg/) and JobsDB (https://sg.jobsdb.com/), with presence in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Shenzhen, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. The business has a strong brand and a significant presence in the South East Asia region, attracting 400 million visits a year. https://www.seek.com.au/about/

About JobKorea

JobKorea, established in 1996, is the largest online employment marketplace platform operator in Korea. The Company operates two online employment marketplaces, JobKorea (full-time) and Albamon (part-time), where employers place their job postings and candidates search through the platforms to find suitable positions. JobKorea is the only employment marketplace platform in Korea that services both full time and part time markets.

As the #1 player, JobKorea has 25 million jobseekers and 5 million employers with 11 million unique visitors and 110 million job postings in as of yearend 2020. https://www.jobkorea.co.kr/

KGiSL wins Common infrastructure for Brokers Back Office Project from Stock Exchange of Thailand

KGiSL, a global IT Products, Solutions, and Services provider, today announced the landmark contract that was won by KGiSL against significant competition from one of the largest stock exchanges in the ASEAN, The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). KGiSL will rollout Dolphin – a state of the art, cutting-edge technology back-office (BO) platform for brokers in Thailand. The platform will be hosted by SET and will be made available to brokers. The implementation is expected to be completed in the next 16 months.

KGiSL’s flagship product for Capital Markets – Dolphin, caters to 60% of the leading institutional brokers in India by supporting their back-office clearing and settlement operations. The new platform is set to become the one-stop-shop solution to the brokers of Thailand with its ability to handle multiple asset classes including Equities, Bonds, and Offshore Trading, for both retail and institutional brokers. The next generation technology platform has been tested for handling 5 million trades/ day and has the potential capability to scale vertically and horizontally, to support any increase in business volumes. Dolphin was chosen over the other leading global platforms, because it had a better fit to the requirements and also for the robustness, scalability, and automation capabilities, it offers.

Dr. Pakorn Peetathawatchai, President, The Stock Exchange of Thailand said, “This is one of our most ambitious and challenging projects to establish a common, streamlined infrastructure that will open up new possibilities for Thai brokers to revolutionize their back office business models. We strongly believe that continued support from participating brokers in providing valuable insights, along with KGiSL’s delivery capability are key ingredients to contribute the project’s success.”

On the association with SET, Prassadh Shanmugam, Director & Chief Executive Officer KGiSL said, “This is a huge win for KGiSL. Dolphin has been the undisputed market leader in India so far, but we have had limited successes in other markets. This order opens up the entire ASEAN & APAC market to create similar success stories like how we have done in India. KGiSL is poised to invest more in Dolphin’s capabilities by adding Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Pakorn Peetathawatchai, President of The Stock Exchange of Thailand and the rest of the management in placing their trust in KGiSL and Dolphin.”

About The Stock Exchange of Thailand: www.set.or.th

SET is the most liquid stock market in ASEAN with end-to-end services to empower seamless journey for all investors, securities brokerage companies and market participants. SET has transformed toward partnership platform by harnessing world-class technology and digital innovation to enable all parties to benefit from the Thai capital market in line with vision “To Make the Capital Market Work for Everyone”. A number of open architecture and interoperable platforms have been developed with aims at building ecosystem crucial for fundraising, wealth creation and the country’s development; widening business opportunities for operators in securities industry while offering investors convenient access to investment data, products and services.

About KGiSL: www.KGISL.com/gss

KGiSL is a global IT Products, Solutions, and Services provider in the BFSI space. KGiSL offers Software Products, Solutions and Services, Intelligent Automation, ERP (SAP), CRM, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Quality Engineering, IT Infrastructure Management and Custom Application Development. KGiSL has offices in India, US, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Thailand.

KGiSL is part of the $750 million business conglomerate KG Group with interest in Textiles, Engineering, Healthcare, Education, Real Estate, Entertainment, Software and Business Support Services. The Group employs over 25000 people and is known for its philanthropic services to the community for over 8 decades.
For further information, please contact:

KGiSL: Sampathkumar S | sampathkumar.s@KGISL.com | +91 9940069884

Gaming platform Zupee closes Series B at over $500 Million valuation

Zupee, a leading innovator in India’s online skill-based gaming industry, has announced that it has raised $30 million at a pre-money valuation of $500 million in Series B funding round. This round of funding has been co-led by Silicon Valley based WestCap Group and Tomales Bay Capital, with participation from Matrix Partners India & Orios Venture Partners.

This round comes within 6 months after its Series A round at a $100 million valuation, which is more than 5x increase in the company’s valuation. With total funds raised now at $49 million, Zupee is backed by some of the best in the industry – WestCap Group, Matrix Partners India, Smile Group and Orios Partners. The company has an existing user base of over 10 million users. This new round of funding will be used to enable scaling efforts through expanded product portfolio, deepening market reach and hiring global talent.

Founded in 2018 by graduates of India’s leading institution IIT Kanpur, Dilsher Singh and Siddhant Saurabh, and incubated with funding from Smile Group, Zupee innovates by reengineering time-tested games and enabling them to enhance skill, joy and hope. The company’s portfolio has innovative gaming formats of multiple popular board games. The flagship gaming app hosts live trivia quiz tournaments and has seen over 250 million gameplays.

Dilsher Singh, Founder and CEO, Zupee said, “Games inherently celebrate the journey and nurture self-expression. That’s what I am committed to building with Zupee – an organization which enables people anywhere in the world to enhance their intrinsic happiness through games. We innovate to ensure our games provide an intersection between skill and entertainment, enabling our users to earn while they play. We thank our investors for believing in our purpose and enabling us to progress on our journey to transforming it to reality. Our journey has just begun; 10 million happy users in India, billions more globally we want to touch through our innovative games.”

“WestCap remains a key strategic investor and operating advisor to Zupee and we are increasing our interest again as part of this most recent funding round,” commented Laurence A. Tosi, Founder and Managing Partner of WestCap and early investor in Zupee. “Dilsher and his world class team have innovated some of the most compelling and widely used mobile games of skill in India. The enduring appeal of the Zupee games brings engagement, enjoyment and empowerment to the widest audience of any gaming platform in the market. This funding will enable the Zupee team to invest further in innovation, expand its suite of games and aggressively pursue international expansion. Zupee has exponentially accelerated its growth over the last 12 months, making them one of the largest and fastest growing game companies globally.”

According to industry reports, the global online gaming industry is estimated to grow from $98 billion in 2020 to $272 billion in 2030. In 2020, the industry saw over 53 billion mobile gaming downloads worldwide, of which 17% came from India. By the end of this year itself, there will be 2.9 billion players worldwide.

About Zupee

Zupee is an online skill-based gaming platform startup based in India that is focused on innovating and creating games that engage, entertain and empower users.
More information about the company and its founder is available at https://www.zupee.global/

For further information, please contact:
Vikas Kumar – 9811054648; vikas.kumar@zupee.in
Himani Rautela – 9711306576; himani.rautela@zupee.in

Alphaus enters Singapore Cloud Financial Management market with Cloud Comrade win

Alphaus Inc. (https://alphaus.cloud/jp/), a prominent start up in the Cloud Financial Management space in Japan, has made a successful foray into the Singapore market in line with its strategic growth plans. The company will provide its suite of cloud financial management (CFM) solutions to the fast-growing Managed Services Provider (MSP) Cloud Comrade (https://cloudcomrade.com/). The overall value of Alphaus’ solutions and support, with the ability for bespoke integrations to the financial services system, were key considerations for Cloud Comrade to switch to Alphaus’ products as critical components for its business operations.

Signing Cloud Comrade- the first Singapore-headquartered AWS Premier Consulting Partner that is also a Google Premier Partner and Microsoft Gold Cloud Platform partner- as a client gives Alphaus great impetus in achieving its strategic goals for the Southeast region. Its growing Global Delivery Centre in Kuala Lumpur, established last year, is a testament to the company’s commitment to provide dedicated support for the unique needs of a diverse clientele across various countries and industries in this high-potential region.

Solving cloud financial management challenges

Cliched as it sounds, the ‘New Normal’ is upon us with increasing clarity that it is in the cloud. According to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2020, the Asia Pacific- including India and Australia- is leading this charge as the adoption of the public cloud in the region outpaces that in the US and Western Europe. From a modest 3 percent of their IT spend on the public cloud in 2016, businesses in APAC are projected to spend over 10% of the IT budget on the public cloud by 2023.

Despite the promising growth and outlook for migration to the cloud, the complexity and lack of adequate clarity into the costs of cloud infrastructure deployment present a serious challenge for businesses making or facilitating such a transition. This was highlighted in a survey of over 100 companies in Malaysia carried out last year. In the recent past, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has also highlighted this problem while recommending that companies take appropriate steps for CFM. ‘Cloud waste’ or sub-optimal utilization of cloud resources is another major pain point, preventing businesses from deriving maximum ROI on their cloud spend.

Alphaus precisely addresses these challenges, expanding its footprint in APAC as a pioneer in simplifying billing/spend management and tackling cloud waste for companies. Its suite of user-friendly and feature-rich Software-as-a-Service products – Wave* and Ripple** — is serving as a catalyst to faster, greater, and better adoption and use of the cloud.

Helping Cloud Comrade in its growth journey

Cloud Comrade is one of the many companies experiencing the value of Aphaus’ solutions. The company had been on the lookout for a more effective solution and a reliable partner who could help navigate the dynamic future of cloud management to jointly deliver even greater value and a better cloud experience for their customers.

“As a cloud Managed Services Provider, we enable several large organizations in the region with their digital transformation and migration to the cloud. It is a critical success factor for both our clients and us that we not only have complete clarity on all the costs associated with the cloud infrastructure but are also making optimum utilization of any cloud resources deployed. The SaaS solutions from Alphaus for billing management and cloud cost optimization provide us with the requisite tools, information, and intelligence to achieve these seamlessly. These tools are integral to our operations and in use 24/7. Alphaus’ Wave and Ripple go a long way in helping maximize ROI, one of the key value propositions for moving to the cloud,” said Andy Waroma, Co-Founder & Co-Managing Director of Cloud Comrade.

“We are thrilled to have a leader like Cloud Comrade as a client and help it deliver better customer service with bespoke integrations to its financial services system,” said Hajime Hirose, CEO of Alphaus Inc. “The APAC is a digital hub that is at the cusp of unprecedented use of cloud services. Our goal is to enable every business to fully realize the value of migrating their IT infrastructure to the cloud. All change does not have to be painful. This belief explains our relentless focus on simplifying billing/spend management, helping companies realize cost and time savings, optimizing resources and consequently, directly impacting their bottom line. We are committed to continually introduce features that fulfill these objectives for our partners and clients; our strong presence and expansion in the APAC market manifests this commitment.”

*Wave- Cloud Cost Optimization and Management
Manages multiple AWS cloud accounts in one place, analyzes organizations’ cost and optimizes budget easily. Wave helps organizations get a clear picture of the cost of cloud infrastructure, discover wasted resources and excessive costs.

**Ripple- Billing Management Solution for MSPs and resellers
Recalculates AWS invoices and reallocates Reserved Instances (RIs) only to linked accounts they belong to, helping the former to accurately charge their customers. Ripple helps service providers save significant time and hassle in complex accounting and billing. Service providers can also use Ripple to plan their RI procurement strategy for maximum ROI.

About Alphaus Inc.

Alphaus, a VC-backed tech start-up on a mission to simplify cloud computing for everyone specializes in Cloud Financial Management (CFM) solutions. The company is focused on enabling its cloud services partners and clients to understand, manage and optimize complicated cloud spend, billings and resource allocation for maximizing ROI on their investments in the cloud. An AWS Advanced Technology Partner, Alphaus provides a suite of Software-as-a-Service solutions for multi-cloud management supporting AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Founded in 2015, Alphaus Inc. is backed by reputed investors like DNX Ventures, NTT DoCoMo Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Archetype Ventures, Accord Ventures and 500 Startups. The company’s roster of clients includes NTT Data, Nomura Research Institute (NRI), and ISI-Dentsu. Headquartered in Japan, Alphaus has a rapidly growing Global Delivery Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia comprising 10 team members to support its rapid expansion in the Asia Pacific and Oceania regions.

Media Contact
Rishanty Navaratnam, People & Administration Lead
Tel: +60 12 952 2655
E-mail: rishanty@alphaus.cloud

Dynafront Successfully Lists on LEAP Market of Bursa Malaysia

Dynafront Holdings Berhad (DynaFront or the Company), an insurance technology specialist, made a successful debut on the LEAP Market of Bursa Securities Malaysia Berhad (Bursa Securities) today at 23 sen per share, which was 2 sen or 9.6% higher than its offer price of 21 sen per share.

L-R: DynaFront Non Independent Non Executive Director Mr. Chan Choong Wai; DynaFront Executive Director/Group Chief Operating Officer Ms. Gan Hui Ping; DynaFront Managing Director/Group Chief Executive Officer Mr. Chan Eng Lim

The Company and its subsidiaries (“Group”) specialises in developing and providing proprietary and customised enterprise information technology (“IT”) solutions for a broad range of life insurance companies, including conventional life insurers, Takaful operators, independent corporate life insurance agencies and group assurance operations. DynaFront’s solutions, offered either as proprietary software products or managed services, have been successfully deployed to markets in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The Group offers a comprehensive suite of software solutions extending from front-end sales automation systems to back-end individual and group life administration systems including PrecentiaCMS for front-end sales automation system, PrecentiaLife for back-end individual life administration system as well as PrecentiaGroup, a suite of back-end group life administration systems for employee benefits. DynaFront also offers PrecentiaTakaful supporting the Wakalah, Mudharabah and hybrid concepts and can be integrated into various Takaful models.

Mr. Chan Eng Lim, Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer of DynaFront said during the Listing Ceremony today, “We pride ourselves with the fact that many of our key management staff were formerly from the life insurance industry. Our extensive industry background and in-depth domain knowledge, coupled with our broad IT expertise, have been instrumental not only in the design and engineering of our software solutions, but also to our Group’s success over the years.”

“Moving forward, our Group will continue to expand and evolve our solution offerings by adopting microservices based architecture to deliver consistent, high-quality services with security, reliability and agility in all our solutions to our customers. With this adoption of microservices architecture, we expect our next generation of software solutions to be lightweight with modern technology stacks and AI driven, in our quest to create a smarter insurance ecosystem.

DynaFront is also moving into the virtual insurance space, with the Group’s research and development team focusing on the development and implementation of new mobile applications in wearable technologies, including web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems, such as processors, sensors and communication hardware, to collect, send and act on data acquired from their environments such as temperature screenings and, movement detections to smart watches and wearable health devices. Real-time syncing and processing of data between wearables and our platform microservices as well as real-time health monitoring will enable life insurance companies to structure insurance products which are more customised and suited for the policy holders.

Hong Leong Investment Bank Berhad is the Approved Adviser, Placement Agent and Continuing Adviser for the listing exercise.

For more information, please contact Hakim J. Munif at +60 12-318 5410 or h.juraimi@swanconsultancy.biz.