startups
Valoot wants to get rid of hidden mark ups in foreign purchases
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hen former banker Ovi Olea travelled abroad, he went on a shopping spree and swiped his credit card, but he gave up figuring out the exact foreign exchange (FX) rates that would be applied to his purchase – an experience that deeply frustrated him since it made him feel helpless. “There is no visibility and control,” says Olea. “The foreign exchange rates used for the conversion seem to be at best random, and sometimes can be really unfavourable.” With this pain point in mind, Olea founded the
Hong Kong-based financial technology startup Valoot Technologies and developed a solution that lets people lock in competitive FX rates for their purchases abroad. Consumers can choose their own payment currency before using their credit cards and also know the FX rate in advance straight from the market, enabling them to sidestep hidden markups and commissions to eventually pay 3 percentage points less. Valoot earns by charging a “very small” fee for the service. A few months after establishing the company, he brought on board Bei Zhou as COO and Nik Tang as CTO, two other key co-founders. But deep cross-functional expertise between the founders has helped propel Valoot forward, securing pre-series A funding earlier this year with First Eastern Investment Group. The deal not only provides investment, but also access and network that the startup would need to grow exponentially. The amount of investment was undisclosed, but it was sufficient enough move the company to pursue its core activities.
Oddup secures US$6m in new funding
Two-year old Hong Kong startup Oddup, a rating and research platform, recently secured US$6m in Series A funding to help it expand into India. The Times Group, India’s largest media conglomerate, led the funding along with the existing 500Startups, Click Ventures, and the new investors, Silicon Valley-based Moneta Ventures and White Capital. Following the funding, Oddup launched in the major startup hubs of Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi in July this year. Oddup is a data-driven research platform founded in 2015 which provides investment statistics using data and analysis. Widely known as “The
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Startup Rating System,” Oddup gives trends as well as current and expected future valuations of startups. Oddup rates startups with a rating score from 1-100. It is based on the combination of analyst viewpoints and the computed algorithm, the Oddup Score. The startup rating scores are then offered as views: Buy, Hold, Sell with expectation metrics and valuations. “India has one of largest startup ecosystems in the world. Our core aim is to help investors find the right startup to invest in and, at the same time, startups in India now have the chance to be seen by international investors who are using Oddup to assist them in their due diligence,” said Jackie Lam, co-founder of Oddup. Lam shared that they are very proud to have The Times Group as a key strategic partner of Oddup. She added that the Indian media giant’s distribution networks and coverage will be instrumental to Oddup’s growth.
Find out why Kami offers better customer service than chatbots
When banking and financial firms look to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in customer service, often in pursuit of lower costs and faster responses, there is often an uncomfortable pause when this question is raised: “Can robots really do this job as well as, if not better, than humans?” Kami.ai CEO Alex Cheung says that the problem with existing chatbot platforms is that they rarely solve the problems of companies since their AI has not been designed to adapt to individual preferences amongst users either through nonexistent or poorly prioritised data tracking. This is where Kami.ai has stepped in. Through its patented AI technologies, the startup has created a conversational platform that puts emphasis on machine reasoning. Firms that use the platform can then automate customer service with highly engaging messages and form better-informed decisions through insights generated from ongoing customer interactions.“Kami aims to transform chats into intelligent conversations and into critical insights,” says Cheung. Kami is leapfrogging other chatbot platforms by presenting what the company calls as a conversational platform, which is powered by a dynamic memory network architecture that basically digests conversations and learns from them faster. Through this conversational platform, users of Kami then reap three key competitive advantages: Banking and financial firms can remember customers better, know customers better, and obtain visualised intelligence that lets them act with more accurate customer information. From chatbot to conversational platform “Most of the existing chatbot platforms fail in tracking the context or remembering the important information from user conversation which makes them fail in giving highly relevant suggestions to the customers,” says Cheung. “And when it comes to service-oriented businesses, relevancy is the key to success.” “We believe pure algorithms and data won’t bring AI anywhere. The success of an AI company largely relies on how easy the technology can be applied,” says Cheung about Kami’s future. This June, Kami won the “Best Startup” award in the ARM Demo Day in Shanghai and was also one of 15 finalists in the Bosch Venture Forum in Germany participated by 130 startups worldwide. Kami has also attracted the interest of notable investors, which now include the chief marketing officer of Hanson Robotics, an ex-marketing director from Apple, and a venture capital firm with 50 listed companies.