Lots to catch up in today’s Daily Markup.

A strong talent pool to match strong growth

• 500-backed financial management platform BuKuKas has hired John Mathew as SVP of Product and Gurteshwar Singh as SVP of Engineering. Both are experts in their respective fields and have held successful tenures across a diverse range of multinational companies.
• Formerly a Lead Product Manager at social game developer Zynga (famous for titles like FarmVille and Zynga Poker), Mathew then became VP of Product at Hansel.io for three years before joining BuKuKas.
• “Adoption and retention dynamics in our digital-first Product very much mirror those observed in gaming. It’s a game of deep user understanding and hyper-granular quantitative experimentation. John is simply the perfect guy for the job,” says BuKuKas co-founder Krishnan Menon.

• For Gurteshwar, he derived his expertise in solving complex technical problems from his time at leading mobile communications provider Karix, where he served as the Director of New Product Development, and before that, as Engineering Lead at online supermarket Grofers.
• Gurteshwar is also one of the first few engineers to join “10x Engineer”, part of Sequoia Capital’s Surge scale-up program for startups in Southeast Asia and India.
• “Building a highly scalable Product and implementing emerging technologies ahead of the market are critical requirements for the long term success of BukuKas. Guru has these elements ingrained in his DNA and we can’t think of a better person to drive our engineering efforts.” says BuKuKas co-founder Lorenzo Peracchione.
• Since launching in December 2019, BuKuKas, which helps Indonesian MSMEs manage their bookkeeping via a user-friendly mobile app, has onboarded 500,000 merchants from 700 cities as of June 2020.

• It has also recorded 60x growth in monthly transactions within its first six months of operations alone whereas its merchant base has grown 41x over the same period of time.
• BuKuKas was also part of Sequoia Capital’s third Surge cohort. The startup is currently closing a Pre-Series A round.

All in a month’s work

• 500-backed MyCash Online received its Standard Payment Institutes (SPI) license in Singapore on 20th May, allowing the fintech startup to start offering remittance services to migrant workers in the island-nation.
• Once the license was awarded, the MyCash team got to work. They started visiting migrant workers living in isolated dormitories scattered across Singapore.

• Within a month and after visiting four dormitories, MyCash acquired 5,000 users and processed over S$1.2 million in remittance volume.
• Visitations to four more dormitories have been approved through which the startup hopes to secure 30,000 users and reach S$15 million in monthly remittance volume by the end of this year.

• In addition to those developments, the company is in talks with global credit players like Western Union and Visa for possible partnership opportunities.
• To date, MyCash Online has 125,000 customers spread across Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.
• The company is currently raising US$1 million in a Series A round to further grow their presence in Malaysia and Singapore.

Tech surge amidst Covid-19

• The era of Covid-19 is highlighting the importance of tech-based solutions and how they have transitioned from novelty to necessity in the span of a few months. On-demand food and grocery deliveries, telemedicine services, and e-wallets are now essential tools of living in the “new normal”.
• At 500 Durians, we’re always on the lookout for emerging technologies and have been investing in them before and even after the pandemic crisis happened. Since the end of February, five investments were made out of the 500 Durians II fund.
• Speaking to The Edge Malaysia, Husain Albar from our Capital Formation team believes the accelerated adoption of technologies is paving the way for more opportunities for startups.

• Husain observed that the pandemic has not affected all industries equally, with some experiencing slowdowns while others showing growth. To that, he said having a diverse portfolio helps mitigate these challenges.
• The pandemic has also spurred interest in online communications and entertainment as well as remote working solutions, Husain added.
• “For instance, we recently invested in Esports Players League, a global e-sports tournament and media network… There is also a surge in enterprise spending as corporations of all sizes start investing in more tech due to cost-cutting measures, mass-sampling from widespread work-from-home movements or top-down use of new technologies by CEOs.”
• Check out the full interview 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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