A Malaysian unicorn in the making

• Founder and CEO of 500-backed drone solutions provider Aerodyne Group, Kamarul Muhamed, was interviewed on Astro AWANI.

• Explaining that their services encompass the DT3 — drone tech, data tech, and digital transformation — he shared that the startup’s ultimate goal is to deploy a drone anywhere in the world within 24 hours. Aerodyne is currently present in 35 countries.
• “We deliver a solution that is faster, better, cheaper, and very often, safer as well,” he added. “We replace [the client’s] traditional methods of inspection using helicopters or using people on the ground…and we save typically around 20% of their cost, and we even accelerate the process by four times.”
• An industry they’re looking to grow in is agriculture. Kamarul said that Malaysia imports a lot of food (in 2018, the country imported ~US$13.4 billion worth of food), and the UN forecasted a global famine in 2021. Aerodyne wants to help increase local agriculture yield and output and reduce the country’s reliance on foreign labor. The startup is already working on thousands of hectares of land.
• What are the startup’s plans for the next few years? It is looking to raise more funds from Japan, the United States, or Europe, and it will increase its staff headcount to 2,000 by the end of 2021 from its currently 460-strong workforce.
• “We have grown 800 times since we started six years ago,” Kamarul shared. “We need to grow another four to five times to gain unicorn valuation.” Adding that the startup is gravitating towards listing in the US or Japan as these markets understand drone tech, he revealed that its deadline to go public is four years.
• Watch the full interview here.

The man behind the machine

• 500-backed fashion analytics and insights platform Omnilytics published an interview with the startup’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Mohammad Mahboubian.
• In the conversation, Dr. Mohammad discussed the relationship between retail and data, along with his vision for 2021 and the future.

• The Omnilytics dashboard is built based on three components: data collection, data processing, and data visualization. He shared that the dashboard’s insights are obtained from the millions of data points captured everyday, from over 100,000 brands and retailers around the world, including major names such as ASOS, Nordstrom, and Farfetch.
• “This year [2020] was an extremely challenging time for the retail world and our clients included, so we had to configure and upgrade our product to meet their needs for the current conditions”, said Dr. Mohammad. “Many retailers were facing uncharted territories for the first time as historical data no longer held its merit.”
• As a result, more companies started seeking data solutions to identify and validate consumer demand through real-time data.
• The main benefit of using these solutions is to help reduce cost and wastage by only producing products in demand and in the right quantities.
• “Our mission is to help brands and retailers to validate and empower their decision making by providing in-depth market information,” he added. “Hopefully with our data, our clients can increase the chances of a product selling out and get closer to the commercial goals of their companies.”
• What’s in store for the startup’s future? “We will be incorporating more markets, on top of the 40 countries we are currently observing, as well as developing new features for the Omnilytics dashboard,” he shared.
• Read the full interview here.

Online shopping for all

• 500-backed startup Carousell forecasts that the e-commerce boom will continue in 2021.
• In Hong Kong, Carousell saw the number of active users grow by 40% since November 2019 — more than one in seven locals use the app every month.
• According to the startup, this is due to the high penetration of smartphones in Hong Kong in addition to social distancing restrictions.

• The startup also recorded a 6x growth among shoppers aged 45 and above in 2020. The app’s largest demographic, 25 to 34-year-olds, also grew significantly at 4.5x over the previous year.
• The most popular category is health and beauty, which saw a 54% growth over 2019. Electronics, toys and games, home and furniture, women’s fashion, and luxury items saw an average of 30% growth across the board.
• William Ip, managing director of Carousell advised industries that have been providing offline services to take the opportunity to go digital. “We have seen more home services merchants on our platform this year to combat lower footfall, engage with a new and larger customer base at the virtual frontier and open up new revenue streams,” he shared.
• “Small businesses in resilient categories should go digital if they haven’t, as it can buffer potential loss from the physical outlets with diversified revenue streams from an always-open platform,” he added.
• He concluded that merchants must be tactical in managing their online business to stand out.

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500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, 500 Startups invests through the pioneering 500 Southeast Asia family of funds. The 500 Southeast Asia funds have backed over 240 companies across multiple sectors from internet to consumer to deep technology. It continues to connect founders with capital, expertise and powerful regional and global networks to help them succeed.

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