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everything you need to do your next capital raise
We know that raising capital for your technology company is a tough gig. But even once you have investors that you like on the hook, there is still a lot of hard work to come before the money hits your bank account.
Explore our venture capital resources to understand the mechanics of raising a funding round in southeast Asia.
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Auckland based startup 90 Seconds is the world’s leading cloud video production platform, allowing brands to purchase, plan, shoot, edit and review video anywhere in the world, online and on mobile.
Tim Norton, Founder and CEO, and Richard Chew, CFO, recently talked to us about 90 Second’s Series A capital raise and how they have found working with Kindrik Partners.
the 90 seconds story
Tim has been building tech companies for the last 14 years from SaaS to video platforms. It was after founding a media company that profiled the startup community through print and video, that Tim realised how hard it was to create videos. He says that the process was varied, it was difficult to shoot between countries and despite the fact that online video content was growing in popularity, professional videos were not easy to make.
This led to Tim’s idea to connect people around the world in order to create professional videos. 90 Seconds was launched in 2010, with Tim and one other developer creating online video production tools, off the back of seed and angel investment.
The concept and tools grew, and Tim managed to solve his previous issues through the creation of a cloud-based platform, which lets users handle almost every part of the video production process in one place. Brands can purchase, plan, shoot, edit and review video from the platform anywhere in the world, online and on mobile.
It was always part of Tim’s vision to build a truly global company, so two years in Tim began to establish a presence in Japan, Singapore, Australia, on top of NZ and the UK. The company became profitable in 2014 and Richard also joined as CFO. In 2015, Tim decided to hire a Head of Talent and they grew from 20 to 78 people in under a year. They then secured NZD$11m through their Series A capital raise led by Sequoia in 2016.
90 Seconds have now worked with more than 1000 brands including Google, Barclays, PayPal, Visa and Sony to produce over 10,000 high quality, fast, easy and affordable videos, in 70 countries.
The company has a global team working across Singapore, London, Tokyo, Manila, Sydney and Auckland, and they hope to open new offices in San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin going forward.
Tim thinks that 90 Seconds has just scratched the surface of the global opportunity for cloud-based video production. They will continue to focus on their global growth and make video production even faster, as fast as Uber, publishing professional videos within anywhere between 24 hours to two to 3 weeks, no matter in the world the video creators are. They also plan to continue to develop the mobile version of their software so clients can manage every part of the production process on their tablets or smartphones.
challenges
Tim and Richard both agree that talent acquisition and management is the key to ensuring the success of 90 Seconds, as well as scaling growth at the right time. Tim says that we always need to hire as the business continues to grow, finding the right people to do the job within budget, is definitely an art.
There is definitely competition in the industry which comes in two types. The first being companies who have been around for the same time or longer than 90 whose established business practice. The second is startups, who have the speed and agility to move quickly and innovate. However, Tim says 90 Seconds has a unique position given their stage of growth. They not only understand the industry and are experienced enough to compete with established business but they are also nimble enough to compete with new ones, having the capacity to completely revamp their current product.
working with kindrik partners
Tim and Richard have both worked with lawyers throughout their careers and had varied experiences, prior to their first capital raise, 90 Seconds brought lawyers in get the job done and keep legal costs at a minimum.
They were recommended Kindrik Partners by Sequoia, the key investor leading the capital raising process, who have invested in a number of the world’s leading tech companies including Apple, Google, YouTube and Airbnb. Lee Bagshaw’s was the lead partner for the deal given his background in fund raising for global startups and extensive experience negotiating deals with Sequoia.
The 90 Seconds team worked closely with Lee and Chris Wilson on the intricate transaction which involved a re-domicile, re-structure and Series A all rolled into one, as well as a broad range of investors, from publicly listed companies, venture capital firms and private investors such as SKY TV New Zealand, Airtree Ventures, Beenext and Oleg Tscheltzoff founder of Fotolia.
Tim describes the process as being much longer than he expected, taking 6 months. He says it was like a giant Jenga of risk, investors and issues to manage and at times he was keen to concede on points to move the deal on. However, he says Lee kept them focused on the key issues and eventually they nailed it, and got a deal far better than I expected with Tim feeling more powerful as a founder and entrepreneur through Lee’s advice. Richard also notes that Lee’s knowledge and experience with Sequoia was completely invaluable.
Tim and Richard both agree that this process showed how important it is to partner with lawyers who have hands on experience in dealing with the legal and commercial complexity of capital raising for a global company. Tim notes that when you work with a range of investors on a global deal, you need a legal partner to get the deal done and Kindrik Partners provided the best advice which got them a big outcome.
summing up
90 Seconds are an inspiring example of a company with humble NZ beginnings, demonstrating a fast-growing and rapidly scaling business model, as well as attracting major technology investment players.
Sequoia’s backing shows that big US VCs now view New Zealand startups as global opportunities. Kindrik Partners will be closely watching 90 Seconds continue its rapid growth to become a significant global player.
Explore 90 Seconds.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
mClinica is a Singapore-headquartered health-tech company which provides data, analytics, and patient engagement tools for healthcare organisations in Southeast Asia. In 2017, mClinica closed a USD$6.3million series A financing round, with Kindrik Partners advising the company.
Founder and CEO Farouk Meralli talked to us about mClinica’s journey to date and working with Kindrik Partners.
the mClinica story
Whilst working for multinational pharmaceutical companies, Farouk identified issues in the healthcare sector in emerging markets. Pharmaceutical companies and public sector entities (NGOs and governments) lack access to consolidated data that similar companies in developed markets have. This is particularly so in Southeast Asia where pharmacies are mainly independent owner-operated businesses rather than the large branded chains that you see in established markets.
This led Farouk to start mClinica to connect pharmacies on a common mobile platform. The company launched in the Philippines in 2013, and has since expanded to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. By the end of 2017, mClinica had connected over 60,000 pharmacy professionals and 12,000 pharmacies on a single digital platform. This platform now addresses several challenges in healthcare including education and engagement of pharmacy professionals, pharmacy-driven patient programs, and last-mile data.
Farouk recently received the Public Health Innovator Award from Harvard University for his work with mClinica, and was the youngest ever recipient of the award.
challenges
Due to the fragmented nature of the healthcare industry in Southeast Asia, developing mClinica’s products was no easy feat. Farouk had to recruit healthcare professionals who also had expertise in mobile technology, engage with lots of government agencies and regulators, and develop products that were flexible enough to work in different health contexts. However, Farouk’s patience and vision has paid off, with its pharmacy network now reaching approximately 80 million patients per month.
The business has also been through some financing rounds and other corporate transactions along the way, which Farouk admits can be a big distraction from the day job of growing the business – like all entrepreneurs, he just wants to focus on solving real problems for end users.
raising a series A round
mClinica’s series A round was led by Silicon Valley fund, Patamar Capital (formerly Unitus Impact), and joined by UK based Global Innovation Fund, MDI Ventures, and Endeavor Catalyst. Existing investors also took part in the investment round.
The cap raise was to help mClinica grow faster and enter more markets across Southeast Asia. By 2017, mClinica had a good profile in the regional tech and healthcare scene, and was known to investors. The company therefore had the luxury of picking investors that had knowledge of the healthcare space and would offer the best long-term strategic value.
In the end, mClinica was able to secure investment from well-known international investors, all of whom believed in the vision of transforming healthcare in Asia. A term sheet followed, and once a lead investor was committed, was agreed fairly quickly.
Farouk described an important aspect of the transaction was discussing the term sheet openly with all interested parties from the outset. This included existing seed investors who required careful management to avoid roadblocks later in the deal process.
working with Kindrik Partners
mClinica has worked with Lee Bagshaw since the incorporation of the business, including advising on seed funding deals with Kickstart Ventures, Spiral Ventures (formerly IMJ Investment Partners) and 500 Startups. Kindrik Partners has helped the company with other corporate and commercial matters, aside from the series A deal.
Farouk says: I believe mClinica was one of Lee’s first clients in Southeast Asia. Therefore to some extent we’ve been on the journey together in what is an exciting but challenging digital market. We feel like we’re in safe hands with Kindrik Partners. The team is very easy to work with and their VC transaction experience is second to none.
what’s next?
Since completing its series A financing, mClinica has continued to expand its pharmaceutical network, work on product development and grow its team. Right now, the focus is still on Southeast Asia, but mClinica’s products are also suited to many other developing countries worldwide.
As a transformative health-tech company operating in emerging economies, we’re proud to have been a part of Farouk’s journey to date. The digital economy in Southeast Asia will play a great role in improving healthcare delivery over the next decade and mClinica is leading the way.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
Singapore based and venture backed food technology startup Grain has fed thousands of happy customers delicious and wholesome meals, delivered in a few simple clicks.
Yi Sung Yong, Co-founder and Head of Product, recently talked to Kindrik Partners about his company and how he has found working with Kindrik Partners on their first capital raise.
the grain story
With backgrounds in management consulting and previous experience in IT startups, the 4 founders of Grain (Sung, Rifeng Gao, Isaac Tam and Ernest Sim, all recently named in the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 list) wanted to start a new and ambitious business in 2014, so they settled on changing the future of food delivery.
Since its recent beginnings, Grain is now described as a restaurant in the cloud and Uber for food in Singapore. It provides a convenient web and app delivery service for affordable and tasty food that is also good for you, offering 4 different meals each day which rotate weekly. Customers in the busy Singapore areas don’t pay for delivery and have no minimum spend.
After securing significant Series A funding, they now have major plans to offer more meals, improve operational efficiency by adding mobile distribution hub vans, increase headcount namely on the developer side and eventually to expand the business into China, including Hong Kong, and also Indonesia.
challenges
Sung says that given the diversity of food and size of the global industry, competition in the food market is building but there is still plenty of opportunity in the market. Whilst food delivery giant Food Panda largely dominates the South East Asian food delivery scene, acting as a middleman between restaurants and hungry consumers, Grain differentiates itself by offering a complete full stack food service. The entire supply chain is produced and controlled by them from one Singapore site, from the website and app business to cooking and delivery.
He also notes that whilst establishing a business and raising funds can be stressful, post-funding, hiring, onboarding and ongoing people management is their biggest challenge as they continue to grow.
working with kindrik partners
Sung’s previous experience of lawyers was that they were slow moving and traditional type lawyers that did not understand the pace of startup life.
For their first capital raise, Grain were referred to Kindrik Partners partner Lee Bagshaw through 500 Startups managing partner Khailee Ng, along with another Singaporean law firm. The referral happened on a Thursday, Lee got in touch immediately via WhatsApp and the term sheet was ready to go on the Friday. Grain did not receive a response from the other firm until the following Monday at which point the deal was well and truly on its way.
Sung says that it was Kindrik Partners’s speed and execution, WhatsApp versus long emails, moving like a startup that impressed him the most.
Kindrik Partners went on to assist Grain implement several convertible notes to secure short term bridge financing and raise of SG$2,500,000 for their Series A funding round, including investment from NSI Ventures, 500 Startups, Digital Media Partners and Ivan Lee (who founded and sold Thai Express in Singapore).
In addition to maintaining the startup pace and charging extremely reasonable legal fees, Sung really appreciated that Kindrik Partners drafted the documents from a founder’s versus lawyer’s perspective, ensuring the documents reflected Grain’s commercial motives without overkill on the legal jargon; Lee just got everything we thought we required and also pointed out the things we didn’t know we needed.
summing up
Given Grain have already delivered over 100,000 meals to ravenous Singapore residents alone, it’s looking likely that this startup will continue to eat up the market. Kindrik Partners will certainly be ready to move at speed for what seems like an inevitable growth and success.
Explore Grain.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
