Advancing careers

• 500-backed career platform Glints has raised US$22.5 million in a Series C funding, bringing the startup’s total raised to US$33 million. Co-founder and chief executive officer Oswald Yeo said this is the largest funding round to date for a talent platform in Southeast Asia.
• The new capital will be used for its expansion in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Taiwan and hiring for its product and engineering teams.
• According to Glints, the platform has been used by more than 1.5 million professionals and 30,000 organizations. Most of its current users are from the tech and financial services sectors, but Oswald told TechCrunch that Glints has a “broad horizontal focus on young to mid-level professionals,” and its long-term goal is to be sector agnostic.
• One of the ways Glints differentiates itself from other job platforms is by building a “full-stack” of services for people who want to advance their careers. In addition to more than 7,000 active listings and 4 million visitors each month on its job marketplace, Glints also offers community features and skills education, like online classes.
• Read the full article on TechCrunch here.

Keeping it fresh

• The pandemic has caused serious logistical issues, with erratic and unpredictable shipping schedules, labor shortages as well as reduced capacity in farms, warehouses, and ports.
• How can shelf-life be monitored during transit and how can cargo owners respond if a journey unexpectedly takes longer than anticipated? To that end, Purfresh started working on a solution with 500-backed supply chain startup Escavox to create a true end-to-end farm to destination service.
• Escavox embeds a small data tracker with the fresh produce from harvest origin to retail destination, offering real-time tracking on land. By integrating with Purfresh’s technology, real-time data is available while the cargo is on the ocean too.
• As a result, customers have access to real-time data on the location of the produce, how the product has been managed through each transition point, and what the produce has experienced in terms of temperature, distance traveled, and dwell time. This information helps customers in making decisions as to where to sell their product, how fast to sell it, what price to sell it at, and so on.

A bigger piece of the pie

• Earlier this year, 500-backed e-commerce startup Carousell launched the Carousell Media Group, a marketing platform for Carousell’s brands. The newly formed group combines the first-party data contained in the different platforms to create a one-stop ad solution.
• According to Carousell, 70% of its visitors are millennials. Managing director JJ Eastwood said its in-house programmatic functions give them the ability to offer precision targeting. The advertising platform can create unique personas for clients such as the environmentally-conscious, motorheads, or even otakus.
• JJ said advertising makes up 25% to 30% of revenue for many shopping platforms around the world. However, he added, “With our consolidated regional approach, we have greater ambitions than 25% to 30% of the overall revenue.”
• Read the full story on KrAsia 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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