In this issue of Daily Markup, we shine a spotlight on 500-backed founders. Read on for our roundup of interviews with Doni Priliandi of Happy5, Hiro Kiga of Wallex, and Alvin Ea of Haulio.

Happiness at work

• Founder and CEO of 500-backed employee management platform Happy5 Doni Priliandi was featured in a WeTalk podcast about the startup’s journey so far from its inception in 2014.
• Happy5 was named after the startup’s goal of creating a happy 5-day work week for employees. It does this via two mobile apps — Happy5 Culture, a social media-inspired communication platform, and Happy5 Performance, a performance management platform.
• According to Doni, without spending anything on sales or marketing, the startup saw a growth of 4x in 2020 because of the pandemic. He believes more companies are acknowledging that employee happiness is not a once-a-year or one-off initiative.
• Listen to the full episode on WeTalk here.

A simple way to success

• Hiro Kiga, co-founder and COO of 500-backed fintech startup Wallex shared his growth hacks that have led to over US$1.7 billion in transactions from more than 19,000 customers.
• Wallex currently operates in four Asian countries. Its priority before entering a new market? Securing all required regulatory licences. “There needs to be a certain level of trust when we want to handle people’s money,” Hiro explained.
• He also relied on his tech venture capital network as a way to get introduced to new clients. “After seeing new investment rounds, I would reach out to the investors and congratulate them. Then, I would ask if they could introduce me to the startup because I have a way to help them save costs on foreign exchange.”
• Read the full interview on ContentGrip here.

An industry overhaul

• Alvin Ea, co-founder & CEO of 500-backed logistics startup Haulio appeared on Money FM 89.3, a business radio station in Singapore.
• Haulio’s mission is to uplift the lives of millions of drivers in logistics. Technology can help businesses know where their trucks are, deploy their fleet efficiently, and so on.
• Alvin shared that while the industry at large is having conversations around “Trucking 4.0”, many industry players in Singapore are still operating in an archaic manner and Haulio’s goal is to bring them to Trucking 2.0 in the first place, by eliminating pen and paper and introducing companies to tools that can bring them online.
• Listen to the full interview on Money FM 89.3 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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