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.]

Southeast Asia’s online-to-offline (O2O) space is hot. Platforms linking online customers with offline services are now part and parcel of daily life, from the likes of well-backed Go-Jek and Grab, to Fave – one of the region’s most exciting new O2O companies.

Fave started out in 2015 as a fitness sharing platform called KFit before stepping into multi-category local commerce with the launch of Fave. The company is connecting millions of customers with thousands of local service businesses including restaurants, cafes, salons, spas, hotels, gyms and more.

Founder and CEO, Joel Neoh, talked to us about their journey and how they have found working with Kindrik Partners.

the Fave story

Fave’s founders Joel Neoh and Yeoh Chen Chow are no strangers to O2O local commerce. Joel started Groupsmore, a daily deals site that was acquired by Groupon in 2011. Joel went on to head up Groupon’s business in APAC, alongside Chen Chow, who led Groupon’s regional operations.

Spotting an opportunity to disrupt the fitness business in APAC, Joel left Groupon to start KFit, the region’s first-ever fitness sharing platform, touted as an Uber style platform for gyms and fitness studios.

After a year of tremendous growth and raising a US$12m series A financing, the company set its sights beyond the fitness space and launched its multi-category platform. It went on to acquire Groupon’s businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

According to Joel, the pivot to a broader O2O platform was a natural progression for the company, as multi-category local commerce presented a much larger business opportunity. Joel observed that apps with high-frequency use cases tend to succeed in a competitive landscape. Fave was launched with a focus on the food and drink category – a major part of life in Southeast Asia.

Whilst deals businesses have been around for a while, Fave is focused on merchant-first innovation via deeper product development and data science. All with a view to enhancing the customer experience with daily deals and rewards. Joel notes that the traditional deals model only brings in new customers to offline businesses and stops there. To truly add value to local businesses, Fave wants to create an ecosystem where businesses can acquire, retain and re-target customers in the online world.

working with kindrik partners

Lee Bagshaw started working with Joel from the set-up of what was the KFit business in 2015. As well as advising Fave on its VC financing rounds, Lee and Chris Wilson have helped Fave on the three M&A deals relating to the acquisitions of Groupon’s Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean businesses.

Joel says that Kindrik Partners provided insightful and comprehensive legal advice that played a key role in helping Fave reach some major milestones. He specifically notes Kindrik Partners team’s considerable expertise in VC and tech M&A, which helped the company efficiently navigate the documentation negotiating during its funding rounds and the Groupon transactions.

The future of O2O commerce in Asia looks bright in Southeast Asia as new generation of digitally savvy consumers come online. Kindrik Partners looks forward to helping Fave continue its rapid journey to become a leading O2O player in the region.

Explore Fave.

[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 company CardUp is an online platform that lets individuals and SMEs pay for expenses like taxes, rent, or even payroll, using their credit card – even if the recipient doesn’t accept cards.

Cardup raised a seed round lead by top tier venture firm Sequoia Capital in late 2017. We spoke to founder Nicki Ramsay about Cardup’s journey so far.

story

Nicki got the idea for CardUp while working at a major credit card provider in Singapore. She saw that a lot of big ticket items (like tax and rent) could not be paid for with a credit card, because the recipients were not willing to go through the hassle and fees associated with the setup process. This meant that card holders were not getting benefits from these big payments such as being able to access their credit facility or earn loyalty reward points. In addition, banks were losing out on the fees that would be linked to an increase in credit card spending.

CardUp solves this by flipping the existing card processing model, acting as the middleman between cardholders that want to use their card in more ways and recipients who don’t accept card payments. CardUp users benefit from using the credit line on their card to extend the payables period for these expenses, as well as earning credit card loyalty points and rewards. In addition, the recipient does not need to have a CardUp account to receive credit card payments.

Finding the initial capital and relevant expertise needed to get a company off the ground is a challenge for a lot of the founders that we work with. This is particularly common for solo founders like Nicki, as they are not able to draw on the financial resources and connections of their co-founders. In Nicki’s case, she decided to join The Finlab (United Overseas Bank’s Singapore fintech accelerator), which was a great way to access mentorship and exposure to a wide investor community.

While at The Finlab, Nicki spent a lot of time talking to financial institutions, to get them on board with cardholders using the platform. CardUp has since secured partnerships with many of Singapore’s major banks to promote CardUp’s services. The company also promoted the platform to individuals and SMEs through its online marketing content. The focus of this material was to educate users on the platform’s benefits and how the platform works.

the financing deal

As CardUp gained more users, the company needed to raise some money to further develop its platform.

Nicki pitched to a wide range of VCs in Southeast Asia. Sequoia was a natural fit as they are deep in the payments space, and CardUp is disrupting traditional payment processing models.

Other investors included SeedPlus, who were originally introduced to Cardup by The Finlab.

The company completed its ~US$1.7m seed round in late 2017. The investment has allowed the company to triple the size of its team in just a few months.

working with us

Nicki told us that Kindrik Partners’ depth of knowledge on VC deals in Southeast Asia was a massive help throughout the capital raising process:

Kindrik Partners added a lot of value for us during the negotiation with Sequoia as they have vast experience with startup and VC deals in the region and are very familiar with the different permutations of VC term sheets. Also, because they have acted for a lot of startups taking investment from Sequoia, they saved us time and cost by telling us which points Sequoia would likely be open to negotiating.

Overall, Nicki said that the Kindrik Partners team were extremely knowledgeable, and professional to deal with.

Having worked with Nicki, we are now certain that it won’t be long before everyone will be using their credit card for important payments, like their legal fees!

Explore CardUp.

[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]