Singapore

Catch her at the SBR Hottest Startups Panel Briefing 2017. Gillian Tee is the co-founder and CEO of Homage, a one-stop senior home care solution that combines trained and curated caregivers with smart on-demand technology, allowing seniors to age at home with grace, control and dignity. Homage is currently backed by top venture capital firms 500 Startups, Golden Gate Ventures and SeedPlus. Prior to Homage, she co-founded Rocketrip, a Y-Combinator and Bessemer Ventures-backed startup that's raised more than 18M USD and grew it till profitability. Based in New York City, Rocketrip is the first commercially available platform to save companies money on travel expenses by rewarding employee behavior used by fortune 500 companies around the world. Prior to Rocketrip, Tee helped manage tech startup investments at an investment firm in New York as well as held various business development, product management and technology leadership positions at Amazon and Accenture. Tee studied Computer Science in University of Melbourne and got a master’s degree from Columbia Business School.

FreightKart wants to disrupt the shipping services industry. Paper trails and rubber stamps, these are just some of the traditional requisites of shipments that FreightKart wants to do away with. As a startup at the core of shipping and logistics solutions, the group aims to change customers' perceptions about dealing with shipping services. "We live in an extremely fast-paced world, where everything is expected to be intuitive and real-time, otherwise you lose your audience," says Abbas Vakharia, CEO & Founder, FreightKart. "Currently, shipping services are perceived to be slow, unattractive and confusing. FreightKart wants to change all that and become the go-to shipping solutions provider - a few clicks and you have all the answers." FreightKart is the only company which has a real time, end-to-end portal which allows a customer to pose a query, compare price points and services, make a booking and do required payments online. "Essentially, we have the complete customer journey — awareness & discovery, interest, intent and then purchase all laid out on the portal as one seamless transaction," he says. "This is a huge disruption in an industry where paper trails and rubber stamps are used even today." The idea for FreightKart, shares Vakharia, took shape out of personal experience. "Over time, we had both experienced difficulties in our own dealings with shipping companies and their agents around the world," he says. Long waiting periods — for a mere response to a query or for negotiations — were turning out to be a major issue as business was being lost as a result. In the shipping industry, supply always outstrips demand, Vakharia notes, and if a service provider takes too long to respond, the client is just going to find someone else to meet his demands. "Moreover, even after the initial query is responded to, more often than not, the client requests more information or wishes to negotiate the rates," he says. "This too results in lost time. Thus, we felt that there was a pressing and unmet need for promptness in shipping processes." Freightkart intends to address three very important issues: Convenience, short response times and competitive prices, along with other features such as online documentation, cargo insurance and cargo tracking. All these services will be delivered to the customer via a feature rich dashboard which the customer can access on any mobile device, shares Vakharia. The development of the complete product had been bootstrapped initially. Six months ago, FreightKart was chosen as one of the eight teams to represent muru-D Singapore's second cohort. muru-D is the startup accelerator backed by telecommunications and media company Telstra. "That brought in much needed funding, giving us a decent runway and allowing us time to hit the market with an end-to-end, fully transaction-able product. Currently, we are looking for strategic investors with whom we can grow to the next level," shares Vakharia.  

It aims to reward corporates and employees.

She was appointed on 3 July 2017.

He was appointed on 1 July 2017.

More than 13 million shares were repurchased by 18 companies in June.

It's now the biggest serviced residence operator in the region.

Chinese competitors are eyeing US$3b in projects.

It is working to make Singapore a viable place for Asian firms to issue bonds.

The local bourse is off to a muted start today.

As she shares the successes of the Asian fitness startup. Emma Harris is a native New Yorker living in Singapore. She was the first hire at Asian fitness startup GuavaPass and is the vice president of product marketing & strategy. In just over two years, GuavaPass has grown from a grand idea to a thriving and reputable business operating in ten cities, making it the largest healthy living community in Asia & the Middle East. GuavaPass is a subscription based model, providing unlimited access to search, discover and book at the top boutique fitness studios. Prior to GuavaPass, Harris was the manager of strategic services at Livestream in New York, the top live streaming event company. When not working, Harris is an avid yoga practitioner and teacher. She loves to travel.

APAC hotel investment volumes were over US$2.9b.

It was undermined by a softer gain in net foreign position.

And here are the top eight IPOs to invest in Singapore this year.

Inflation gained 1.5% after stalling for three months.

As the state enforces vocational license framework.