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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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read our case studies
Fintech startups are the next big thing in the Southeast Asian tech scene. Kindrik Partners client C88 (formerly Compare88) is racing ahead of the pack after securing the backing of high-profile VC investors including Telstra Ventures.
C88 provides online financial services price comparison tools, helping consumers to compare the offers of major brands for products such as credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, vehicle loans, savings accounts and insurance. The company also offers a brokerage service, enabling consumers to purchase products directly on the C88 platform – for which C88 has secured relevant financial services licences through Southeast Asia.
Founder and CEO, J.P. Ellis, talked to us about the company’s background, its most recent series B financing round, and how they have found working with Kindrik Partners.
the c88 story
Prior to C88, founders Karl Knoflach and J.P. worked in private equity, finance, operations and leadership. The C88 senior team also consists of Gary Empl, a professional software developer with over two decades of experience leading teams in the creation of cutting-edge software in the financial services industry. Karl and Gary were part of the original founding team of einsurance.de in Munich in 1999 – a revolutionary company in the German insurance space which later became Check24.de, the German market-leader.
C88’s commercial teams in Indonesia, the Philippines and other markets are made up of senior bankers, insurance executives and sales operators with many years of experience in financial products sales and distribution. This experience, and the networks that senior team members bring, is crucial to C88 maintaining its market leader position.
J.P. notes that the Southeast Asian economy’s migration to digital begin with communities moving online for social needs. This was followed by online purchasing of physical goods, usually electronics and clothes, then travel bookings, followed more recently by financial services. This migration began in earnest in 2009, and by 2011 there were already major e-commerce providers. Online channel emerged in the insurance vertical in 2013, and C88 followed quickly releasing its platform in 2014.
J.P. observes that high traffic digital marketplaces, such as C88’s CekAja.com brand in Indonesia and eCompareMo.com brand in the Philippines, benefit consumers as well as underwriters. C88 can use its volume to create pricing efficiency for their customers. That volume also reduces the overall cost of acquisition for underwriters. Prior to the emergence of financial services e-commerce, banks and insurers basically only had two options for sales in the large markets of Southeast Asia: branches or physical agents. Digital sales through C88’s platform provides a highly cost-effective alternative.
challenges
Southeast Asia remains highly fragmented. Operating a multi-jurisdictional structure that is attractive to both consumers and providers, while keeping national regulators on-side, is challenging.
The company also faces the challenge of creating a common culture across national teams. Incentivising teams in different verticals and across countries to work together to solve problems creatively is an ever-evolving process of creative leadership and problem solving.
J.P adds that fortunately, C88’s team are multi-lingual and truly love what they do. It is not at all uncommon for them to log long hours during the week and weekends, because they genuinely enjoy what they do in building systems and solving problems for consumers in the region.
working with Kindrik Partners
As well as advising C88 on its venture capital financing rounds, Kindrik Partners’s Lee Bagshaw and Chris Wilson have helped C88 implement a variety of business critical structures including inter-company, cross-border licensing agreements and intellectual property documentation.
J.P says that Kindrik Partners provided high-quality and competitively-priced legal services in the critical areas of C88’s business. J.P. particularly appreciated the level of support he received when negotiating and completing the company’s recent Series B round led by Telstra Ventures – he says that the Kindrik Partners team know venture capital deals inside out, and made the negotiation of the financing documentation a breeze.
Kindrik Partners looks forward to helping C88 to continue its journey to become a leading fintech player in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Explore C88.
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
about Singapore Tourism Accelerator
The Singapore Tourism Accelerator is an equity-free 6-month programme for promising technology companies that power the travel and tourism industry. The Accelerator is organised by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and is managed by its appointed Corporate Innovation partner, Found8.
The cohort companies undergo a three-month accelerator program where they participate in capacity- building workshops providing insights to the Singapore ecosystem and market as well as the tourism and hospitality industry. The program is tailored to support the startups in identifying and securing a pilot partner and project to testbed their solution with. This is followed by three months of pilot implementation and execution with one of the close to 30 industry partners participating in the programme – including Singapore Airlines, Changi Airport, Marina Bay Sands, and other prominent tourism brands.
The Accelerator provides founders with an opportunity to learn critical market entry skills, pilot design and implementation skills, and fundraising strategies. The programme also offers 1:1 mentoring, expert feedback, and access to industry events. The accelerator culminates in a Demo Day attended by investors and members of the tourism industry.
The Accelerator is currently running its second cohort of 10 companies and Kindrik Partners has worked with the program as an advisor for both. Particularly in the case of startups who have come from outside the region, that can include incorporation in Singapore with a view to getting investment.
pivoting to remote-first with COVID-19
With the second cohort set to begin just as the COVID-19 situation was escalating in Singapore, the decision was made to pivot from an onsite programme to a digital-first programme.
“The global health crisis put a lot of different challenges on top of everyone’s normal workload. Now that we’re split across seven different time-zones, it’s a big ask in terms of flexibility and adaptability for the people who run the workshops. We are all now masters of Zoom,” says Katrin Miller, program manager.
kindrik partners support
presentations and office hours
In line with the move to remote-first, Sarah Yen, senior solicitor at Kindrik Partners, presented to the second cohort via webinar, covering basic corporate and commercial topics such as seed rounds and other common legal issues for growth stage companies.
The startups were also able to book one-on-one Zoom legal consultations to address any queries not covered in the presentations.
“It was beneficial to the startups to know they had access to a lawyer to address more specific questions once they were further through the process”, says Katrin.
“Throughout the programme, Sarah has been stellar to deal with. She has always made herself available to our startups and the advice she gives to help the founders is always well structured and clear.”
online templates
Founder in each cohort also have access to over 30 free legal templates and guides for startups that have been tailored to building tech companies in Southeast Asia.
“Anytime one of the startups needed a template, I always consulted the Kindrik Partners database first to see if there was something they could start working from,” says Katrin.
The templates cover common corporate and commercial agreements and resolutions used by growth startups. These include founder agreements, NDAs, and sample term sheets.
support tailored for the programme
Given the industry connections that the Accelerator offers to industry heavyweights like Singapore Airlines, Changi Airport, and Marina Bay Sands, Kindrik Partners also provides targeted assistance on pilot agreements.
“Running a pilot programme is a great way to fine-tune a solution and to approach enterprise customers”, says Sarah. “However, since there’s no real uniformity to pilot agreements, founders need to be aware of some key provisions that will shape their experience with the organisation they’re dealing with.”
Katrin agrees, adding “Some corporate partners have existing documentation around pilot programmes – but for many, it’s up to the startup to set up a legal document that seals the partnership. Kindrik Partners provided real value in educating the startups and help them understand the legalese – whether it be a letter of intent, an MOU, or formal partnership agreement.”
after demo day
fixed fees on seed funding rounds
Following demo day, Kindrik Partners is available to the cohort companies to assist them with their first institutional funding rounds. To bring more transparency to the market around legal costs, Kindrik Partners offers fixed fees for institutional seed funding rounds and some associated projects, such as ESOPs.
“We want to help founders understand the terms on which they are raising their first formal funding, to help them close the deal as efficiently as possible, and of course to ensure they are getting market terms. Providing fixed fees removes one of the biggest obstacles to start-ups engaging counsel during the funding process, i.e. concerns around creeping costs and their lawyers running the clock on each call or email query”, partner Chris Wilson says.
final words
The mentorship and guidance given to the startups has been highly valued by founders in the accelerator programme.
“It’s been a hard time to run a tourism accelerator during the coronavirus pandemic – it’s no surprise that we are the hardest hit. But we’ve noticed that many of our industry partners have stepped up and focused on innovation to give them a competitive edge when the industry recovers.”
“Having Kindrik Partners on hand to assist has been truly valuable throughout the course of the programme as our founders navigate the new normal.”
Bambu is a Singapore-based robo-advisory startup. We talked to the company about working with Kindrik Partners through their successful Series A and B rounds.
bambu
Bambu is a B2B robo-advisor platform provider to banks and other financial institutions. Their digital platform allows these financial institutions to offer automated and technology-augmented investment services to their customers. The company started up in August 2016, and now has 70 staff with clients in America, Europe, the Middle East, and across Asia.
Bambu raised US$10m in their series B round which closed in June 2019. We spoke to their CEO and co-founder Ned Phillips about the fundraising process.
getting introduced to Kindrik Partners
Ned first heard about Kindrik Partners through an early investor and advisor to Bambu. When it came time to do their Series A round, Bambu had secured its first strategic investor, Franklin Templeton Investments, as well as its first venture capital investor, Wavemaker Partners. Since it was their first equity round, Ned knew it was time to bring in professional legal advisors.
As part of their search, Ned said that he met with a few of the bigger law firms, but none of them quite fit.
“You meet the partner”, he said, “but you know you’re not going to get the partner – the actual work always gets handed off to someone else in the firm.”
Kindrik Partners was transparent and honest when presenting their team. “What I liked about Kindrik Partners was that when I met Chris [Wilson] and Sarah [Yen], they said ‘this is us, you’re going to be working with us’, which was nice.“
“That made a big difference.”, says Ned. “It was important for us to know who we were dealing with, and it was very clear that it was them – that this was my team.”
raising the series a, then the series b
The series A round was very different from the seed round for Bambu. “The series A was the first time we were introduced to equity documents”, recalls Ned. “In our seed round we had used a SAFE convertible note, so there were no equity investors at that point.”
It was a big learning curve, particularly as a first-time founder. “My clearest memory about the Series A was the amount I learned about things I never knew about”, says Ned.
“There were a lot of things about equity documents that I wasn’t familiar with – tag-alongs, drag-alongs, founder vesting, liquidity preferences, warranties.”
(Unfamiliar with these terms? Click through to our startup glossary to learn more.)
When it came time for the series B round, Ned thinks that they were fortunate with how things went, and that it felt easier, attributing it to understanding more of the process and jargon.
“We had Franklin as a returning investor who was also willing to lead the round for us. We ended up with two investors filling the round – but it turned out that as soon as our round was full, everyone else wanted to come in, which was a nice problem to have.”
For other startups looking to raise money, Ned advises perseverance. “It’s not that it’s a numbers game, but it does take persistence. We reached out to so many investors. Many people give up at 10, or 20, 30, 40 people telling them no. But don’t be deterred – be polite, say thank you, and move on.”
working with Kindrik Partners
Ned describes the team as super helpful. “When we were first introduced, the fundraising process was new to me – the combination of Chris and Sarah on board to help was invaluable.”
Ned highlights Chris as an incredibly founder-friendly lawyer. “As a founder, you want to keep good investor relations, since it’s going to be a long-term relationship.”
“Chris could be the bad cop when he felt it was in the company’s best interests. He was also great at explaining what was important and what we could let go. He was strong, but fair.”
Ned also emphasises the complexity in negotiating a series A round. “Raising money isn’t just a negotiation on value (that part is done fairly quickly). There are all of these other things to decide in terms of what to hold onto and what to let go of.”
Ned recommends the law firm to other startup founders doing who are looking to raise funds for their company. “The team at Kindrik Partners really focuses on raising funds, and it’s so valuable to be talking directly with the people who are holding the pen on the documents, rather than just being a part of the sausage mill.”
“Put it this way – when it came time to do our series B, we didn’t spend one second thinking about using someone else. It was like, OK, we’re doing our round. Let’s get in touch with Kindrik Partners and get started.”
what’s next for bambu
It’s an exciting time for Bambu. The startup has lots of plans from the proceeds of their series B, including new products set for release and building their London presence. But Singapore remains home for the time being.
“Singapore is really helping fintech”, says Ned. “Honestly, it’s amazing – the Fintech Festival alone had 40,000 people attending last year. We’re selling to the world, but there’s no better place to do that from than Singapore.”
explore bambu
[Note: The firm’s name was changed to Kindrik Partners in July 2020 and references to the firm’s previous name have been updated.]
