Companies around the world kept tapping the capital market with trillions of dollars. In 2021, some US$8.7 trillion has been raised through equity sales, bond offering, and loan deals, according to the data of Refinitive, also cited by Financial Times. This year, SPACs boom and the number of IPOs also broke the record in the past decade. All these stats show the capital market has never been so hot and full of investors from all over the world.
Almost six years after its establishment in Europe, Belgian company IOT Factory is paving the way for its future development in Asia, avid for serving the Equipment as a Service (EaaS) market with its strength in IoT applications. The company joined Garage+, an incubation project for startups initiated by the Epoch Foundation, to unlock the door to the Asian IoT market.
Gojek and Gogoro are testing out battery-swapping e-scooters soon in Jakarta, Indonesia, while Germany-based IC vendor Infineon is encouraging more innovations on mobility and sustainability in Asia.
Geniebook, the largest online education provider in Singapore, has raised US$16.6 million in round A fundraising led by well-known angel investors and a few private investors including senior executives from Grab, Shopee, and Go-Jek, according to VIR.
Flexciton, a UK-based software startup, deployed its production scheduling optimization software in Seagate's factory in Derry, Northern Ireland. The software is based on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), which is more advanced than other machine learning techniques. Not only does it find a "better" production scheduling solution, but it also finds the mathematically "best" solution. The problem with MILP in the past was that the calculation speed was too slow, which made it difficult to put into use on production lines where conditions are rapidly changing.
The automobile industry is going through some fundamental changes. More and more technology companies are eyeing the electric vehicle (EV) market, planning either to build their own cars or to contribute their solution to improve the experience of drivers and passengers while in a car.
EdTech startups become popular targets of investors as the COVID-19 pandemic induced school closures and forced students and teachers to take up remote learning around the world. In October alone, two Singapore-based startups, Doyobi and Geniebook successfully raised more than US$2 million in their Series A rounds.
The well-established automotive industry is evolving very fast to electrify vehicles for the goal of net-zero carbon emissions. The electric revolution also redefines the concept of car manufacturing and the related technologies and services in the ecosystems. Ron Di Carlantonio, founder & CEO of Inago, the creator of an in-car AI assistant, said, automobiles generally only get major updates every three to five years. But now Tesla can update the car overnight, which forces the traditional OEMs to embrace digitalization and more new inventions.
Electrum Charging Solutions is a Canadian startup that provides end-to-end electrical infrastructure solutions to corporations, governments, utilities, developers, and OEM manufacturers first as an infrastructure installer and now by being a system integrator. It is participating in the 2035 E-Mobility Taiwan exhibition in Taipei. The company's CEO Broderick (Brodie) Gunning talked to DIGITIMES about the company's vision as a total solution provider to the EV ecosystem in North America and Asia.
In 2006, the Nintendo Wii started a new era of home fitness. And more recently with the advent of cloud and AI technology, home fitness is once again raised to new heights as professional online fitness services are becoming mainstream. While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on across the globe, the world has seen virtual fitness programs become both a new reality for fitness enthusiasts and a new income source for fitness centers. Unsurprisingly, CES 2021 saw many businesses unveil their virtual fitness programs targeting this new market. Among them is Uniigym, a TTA-assisted startup with its own in-house developed AI cloud interactive fitness technology service. Uniigym boasts professionally designed fitness entertainment with a much lower barrier to entry and has attracted the interest of companies around the globe.
Southeast Asia, which has been experiencing rapid economic growth in recent years, has become a popular real estate investment target for foreign investors. With the high housing prices of today and changes to personal finance concepts, the number of renters in various countries is increasing every day. JGB Smart Property is focused on the high demand for long-term housing rentals in Southeast Asia and has developed a comprehensive rental SaaS management platform to provide automated management for real-estate rental companies.
As a co-inventor of the technology that powers hundreds of millions of units of Kindle and an inductee of the National Inventor Hall of Fame in America, Barrett Comiskey, founder and CEO of Migo, could have retired young and enjoyed a comfortable life after selling E-Ink, his first company. However, it did not take long for him to embark on another innovation journey to solve the same problem that Google Loon and low-earth orbit satellite companies are trying to solve.
Established in 2001, CCI Tech Inc is the only company focused on developing various sampling solutions. CCI Tech aims to simplify and miniaturize traditional weaving processes and equipment through innovative technologies, advertising that only one person, one yarn bobbin and one day is needed to create a sample cloth.
Live streaming has become a common practice in the current Internet era. However, no matter how diverse the topics are or how interesting the content is, most of the videos are still limited by shooting angles. Conventional type of shooting method cannot fully represent the richness of the image and capture the essence of any cultural events, sporting events, or scenic beauties. "This problem can be solved through 360-degree panoramic filming. Nowadays, this feature is included in most phones and cameras but because of the complex settings, not a lot of people use it," said dp smart technology CEO Kevin Chiang.
The technology development team of Chainsea Information Group independently established Ai3 in 2018. It combined AI, data analysis, CTI communication, CRM and other technologies to create the QbiAI Cloud, assisting various companies in implementing digital transformations for customer service and marketing.
