The recipe for a unicorn

• Vishal Harnal, Managing Partner, 500 Startups (Southeast Asia) appeared on CNBC to discuss how more unicorn startups can emerge in Southeast Asia.
• According to Vishal, tech giants in Southeast Asia have the opportunity to invest or acquire smaller start-ups, and many unicorn companies can be created through such buyouts.
• He explained that large tech startups such as 500-backed Grab can invest in other companies from the wealth that has been generated. As a result, founders and staff who have liquidity can in turn invest in the ecosystem.
• He added that many startup employees go on to build their own companies.
• “The more money that these companies spend in educating the ecosystem, ensuring technology adoption, and investing and expanding the internet economy, the more in-roads it creates for newer and younger startups,” he concluded.
• Watch the full interview on CNBC here.

Greater access to healthcare

• 500-backed digital health startup Alodokter has raised funding from MDI Ventures and Samsung Ventures Investment Corporation.
• CEO and co-founder Nathanael Faibis said the funds will be used for technology innovation, increasing its talent pool, and adding new features and functionalities on the platform.
• He added, “By integrating our ecosystem with additional state-owned enterprises, we expect to provide tech-enabled healthcare access to more Indonesian patients.”
• According to the startup’s press release, the Alodokter platform is currently connected to more than 43,000 doctors and 1,500 hospitals & clinics with millions of patients in Indonesia.
• Read the full article on Yahoo! Finance here.

Making voices heard

• Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder of 500-backed microblogging platform Koo, shared his entrepreneurial journey in an interview with Forbes India.
• It started with cab aggregator startup TaxiForSure, which was eventually sold to rival Ola. After that, he spent some time on a series of experimental projects and landed on knowledge-sharing platform Vokal and later, Koo. He also became an angel investor, putting money in startups like Daily Ninja and Unacademy.
• According to Aprameya, Koo has over 6 million downloads, while Vokal has over 25 million monthly active users. On monetizing the platforms, he stressed, “The business first has to be user-base driven…The monetisation journey of all companies has different paths.”
• “I am not building Vokal and Koo to sell,” he said. “These are companies that should exist forever.”
• Read the full interview on Forbes India here.

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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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