announcement2

AnnouncementsEmplifiEmplifi, a leading unified customer experience platform, announced the acquisition of Go Instore, a London-based startup with 60+ employees.

Go Instore enables video-powered retail by connecting online customers with in-store product experts using immersive HD live video. Their leading-edge video technology provides brands with a new channel via which they can engage with and serve their customers, strengthening Emplifi’s omnichannel approach – meeting customers, wherever they are.

With the addition of live commerce technology, Emplifi continues its fast-paced go-to-market strategy. Coming off the recent rebranding and fusion of Astute Solutions and Socialbakers companies, Emplifi’s acquisition of Go Instore helps strengthen its position as a CX leader and provides brands with an end-to-end platform for social marketing, social commerce, and omnichannel service and care.

AppointmentsBlisBlis announced the appointment of Emma-Jayne Owens as Managing Director of Asia-Pacific.
The privacy-first, location-powered programmatic advertising partner has been operating in the region since 2014 and growing rapidly since then, with employees based across all key countries.

Blis uses real-world and online data, as well as behaviour and lifestyle indicators, to profile and understand audiences better than anyone else. Using a huge opted-in global planning and measurement panel and taking an aggregated and anonymous approach to audience targeting, Blis reaches precise audiences at scale without reliance on personal data.

Emma-Jayne has already been operating as Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand at Blis since November 2019. The expansion of her scope of work now includes Singapore, the Philippines and India, all of which are poised for growth.

In addition to Emma-Jayne's expanded remit, Blis also announces three other promotions: Alicia Placer to Head of Partnerships & Programmatic APAC, Henry Susanto to Head of Operations APAC and Jack Dellecoste takes a new role as Head of Client Services ANZ. This also coincides with several other important hires in the region, with headcount growing to 30 new hires so far in 2021.

Established in the UK in 2004, Blis now operates in more than 40 offices across five continents, reaching over a billion mobile devices a year.

AppointmentsScriptAsiaSCRIPTS Asia Inc announced the appointment of Junichi Hongo as Representative Director of the Company's Japan subsidiary, SCRIPTS Asia K.K.

SCRIPTS Asia provides superior coverage of investor events in Asia through direct relationships with listed companies in the region and through superior local language sourcing abilities. The company's services include event audio, transcripts, translations, event metadata, and Q&A sessions, made available through both feed and desktop platforms.

Junichi Hongo had previously served as the Global Head of Corporate Partners at SCRIPTS Asia. In his new role, Hongo will focus on meeting the global demand for SCRIPTS Asia services, while continuing to manage relationships with corporates in Asia Pacific. This appointment comes on the heels of exponential growth for the company over the past year.

He brings 20 years of experience in Corporate Access and IR Advisory in New York and Tokyo, with his latest role being the Head of Corporate Access at UBS Securities Japan.

Mr. Hongo is based in Tokyo and graduated from Hosei University with a Bachelor of Economics and American University in Washington D.C. with a Master of Financial Economics.

AnnouncementsEveriseEverise, a US-based digital customer experience outsourcing company that serves global Fortune 500 and high-growth technology firms, announces plans to open a Digital CX Innovation Center in Singapore. Along with focused investments in Malaysia and Japan, Everise plans to add a total of 700 jobs by the end of the year.

Everise has experienced strong revenue CAGR growth of 33% over the last 3 years and will employ 15,000 people globally in 7 countries by the end of 2021. Previously operating in Malaysia and Japan through a joint-venture, Everise chose to exit the partnership on August 26, 2021, to drive the business itself.

Everise has already recruited 300 native Asian language speakers in Kuala Lumpur and Japan to support its multinational technology clients, and this will grow to 600 by the end of the year. In Japan, Everise is pioneering the work-at-home as a service model.

In Singapore, Everise will establish a Digital CX Innovation Center, for high-growth companies in the Southeast Asian region, as well as to service its US-based clients that wish to economically scale omnichannel customer experiences in Asia. For example, using Everise’s proprietary exage™ technology ecosystem, Everise pairs its integrated Automation and Artificial Intelligence solutions with customer support services. This provides an agile solution that optimizes people and technology to deliver best in class customer experiences.

Singapore is a greenfield project, and the company plans to employ 100 Singaporeans by the end of the year and 400 by the end of 2022.

AppointmentsAqilliz Aqilliz announced the appointment of media industry leader Rajeev Dhal as Chief Business Officer, effective 1 September 2021. With over 20 years of senior management experience across the consumer internet and media industries across Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa (APMEA), Rajeev has a proven track record in spearheading scalable and strategic growth initiatives.

In his capacity as Chief Business Officer, Rajeev will be responsible for Aqilliz’s go-to-market initiatives ranging from product refinement, pricing strategies, sales optimisation, as well as customer satisfaction globally. Rajeev will also be working with the team to maximise the performance of Aqilliz’s revenue-generating business lines by creating brand awareness and adoption to drive long-term business growth.

Prior to joining Aqilliz, Rajeev served as the Chief Revenue Officer at ZEE5, India’s largest entertainment over-the-top (OTT) media platform, where he was responsible for developing the company’s AdTech and data practice. During this time, Rajeev scaled ZEE5’s revenue by two times in the last year generating the highest revenue per viewer across the OTT category.

From 2018 to 2020, Rajeev also held the role of Chief Revenue Officer at SHAREit, the world’s largest content sharing app. Under his management, the SHAREit team built direct-to-business sales channels across India, Indonesia, Singapore, UAE, Egypt, South Africa, and Bangladesh. Throughout this time, Rajeev scaled the company’s ARR from US$2 million to US$32 million across six quarters. Rajeev began his career across advertising and media under the WPP group of companies for over a decade, including Ogilvy, JWT, and Wavemaker.

Led by ex-WPP veteran Gowthaman ‘G’man’ Ragothaman, Aqilliz envisions a future that embraces safe, secure, and compliant data sharing between businesses and consumers. Founded by professionals from the world of brands, advertising, and cutting-edge technology, Aqilliz comprises a team of industry experts who share a common vision of bringing greater value to the marketing ecosystem. To date, Aqilliz has partnered and worked with leading industry names and brands across the fast-moving consumer goods and mobile food delivery sectors.

AnnouncementADVANCEAIADVANCE.AI, a Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) and big data company in Asia, has teamed up with Dow Jones, a global provider of news and business information, to strengthen its core suite of B2B risk and compliance products across South and Southeast Asian markets.

Under the partnership, ADVANCE.AI will integrate Dow Jones' best-in-class anti-money laundering (AML), risk and compliance data into its core suite of services comprising digital identity verification, risk and credit scoring, as well as digital lending. The collaboration will enhance the robustness and efficiency of ADVANCE.AI's product suite, which serves enterprises in the banking, financial services, fintech, payments, retail, and e-commerce sectors.

Founded in 2016, ADVANCE.AI currently serves over 1,000 enterprise clients across South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and mainland China and was recently named a member of the global Fintech Power 50 list.

AnnouncementsYahooApolloApollo Global Management, Inc. announced that funds managed by its affiliates have completed the acquisition of Yahoo – formerly Verizon Media – one of the world’s premier global technology and media companies. With the close of the transaction, Yahoo will now operate as a standalone company under Apollo Funds. Verizon has retained a 10% stake in Yahoo.

For nearly 30 years, Yahoo has been the world’s premier global technology and media company, with nearly 900 million monthly active users worldwide, making it the third-largest property on the internet. Comprised of iconic consumer news brands and products, plus leading advertising and media platform businesses, Apollo’s investment will enable new growth for Yahoo, benefiting consumers, advertisers, publishing partners, and employees.

AppointmentsBambuser

Interactive live video shopping provider Bambuser announced that prominent human resource experts Anne-Marie Andric, VP of People & Organization at Husqvarna Group, and Katarina Berg, CHRO of Spotify, are joining the company's advisory board. The addition of the new members demonstrates the company's ongoing commitment to fostering a healthy company culture, which will enable it to continue attracting top talent as its phenomenal growth continues.


Since launching Live Video Shopping in late 2019, Bambuser has expanded its international and diverse team from just 25 employees to over 200 who are physically present in locations across key markets. Approximately two-thirds of those employees are in product development—roles that require in-demand skills and for which recruitment is highly competitive. To date, Bambuser has successfully attracted talent from some of the most esteemed technology companies in the world including Google, Spotify, Klarna, and H&M. With the addition of Berg and Andric, the company will continue to build its internal culture, which will enable it to remain a top choice for the best and brightest employees.


Both Andric and Berg are well-known and respected HR professionals, with a combined total of nearly 50 years of experience: prior to Husqvarna Group, Andric worked with large corporations in various sectors including pharmaceuticals at Sanofi, biotech at GE Healthcare, medtech at BD, information technology at Microsoft and financial technology at iZettle/PayPal; Berg, with Spotify for nearly a decade, previously served in senior HR positions with multinational corporations including Preem, Swedbank, Kanal 5 (SBS Broadcasting) and 3 (Hi3G Access).

AnnouncementsBDxBig Data Exchange (BDx), a Pan-Asian data center cluster, has entered into an agreement with Red Dot Analytics (RDA) to digitally transform BDx's facilities, empowering them to be more efficient and sustainable.


The first phase of the three-year project with RDA, a Singapore-based pioneer in the industrial artificial intelligence (AI) space, will focus on cooling and PUE optimization at BDx's facilities in mainland China, China Hong Kong and Singapore. This agreement enables BDx to identify inefficiencies throughout its facilities by leveraging RDA's Data Center Solution that integrates AI-driven applications and automation. As a result, BDx will gain deep insight into its data center life cycle management, delivering lower energy costs, less human error, and increased capacity utilization. Ultimately, BDx will reduce its carbon emissions and footprint, which is critical as the demand for digital continues to increase the need for data centers.


Technological advances are especially in demand in Singapore, which is home to one of BDx's data centers. Singapore supplies approximately 60% of data center needs across the Asia Pacific region; however, a data center moratorium has been implemented while government officials address concerns over data center sustainability. Data centers comprise 7% of the nation's total electricity consumption, due in large part to the cost of cooling data centers to protect equipment from the hot, humid environment.


Through its digital twin technology model, RDA creates critical infrastructure in the physical world and optimizes it with the use of AI-based applications. The company's advancements in sustainability and predictive maintenance allow mission-critical data center operators, like BDx, to keep providing needed connectivity in a more efficient environment.

AnnouncementsAicadium

Aicadium, a global technology company founded by Temasek and dedicated to creating and scaling AI solutions, announced the acquisition of BasisAI, a Singapore-based provider of scalable and responsible artificial intelligence (AI) software. The two organisations will be jointly known as Aicadium and will expand operations to serve a global enterprise customer base.


BasisAI was co-founded by Liu Feng-Yuan, Linus Lee, and Silvanus Lee in 2018 to draw on their world-class experience in building scalable AI from Silicon Valley companies and seize the vast opportunity to build an AI powerhouse in the APAC region.  In 2019, BasisAI raised S$8.2 million (US$6 million) in seed funding from Temasek, a Singapore-headquartered global investment firm, and Sequoia India. One year later, the startup launched its proprietary end-to-end machine learning platform, Bedrock, which enables organisations to rapidly deploy responsible AI solutions. Since then, BasisAI has gone on to deploy solutions for organisations such as DBS, UOB, OCBC, ComfortDelGro, the Singapore government, and Singapore Airlines, and has also partnered with global companies including Accenture, PwC, and AWS.


Aicadium was launched in August 2021 as Temasek's global centre of excellence in Artificial Intelligence. It aims to partner with Temasek portfolio companies and other enterprises seeking to develop and scale end-to-end AI solutions to improve business outcomes. The firm leverages its global team of data scientists and engineers, a repeatable and scalable process, and a platform of AI algorithms, models, and tools to help clients achieve operational AI within their organisations. The newly merged organisation brings together the best of combined capabilities, including deep AI/ML and product development expertise spanning decades. The combined team's proven experience delivering end-to-end AI solutions for enterprises will enable Aicadium's global expansion plans.

AnnouncementsTenMax

The marketing technology (Martech) firm, TenMax.io, announced its partnership with Gojek, Southeast Asia's leading on-demand platform, to support GoGAN, Gojek Advertisement Network, in delivering best-in-class ad services to consumer brands, merchants, and ad agencies of all sizes in Indonesia.

Leveraging TenMax's artificial intelligence and Gojek's insights-driven platform, the partnership will enable brands, agencies, and merchants to access a one-stop advertising solution to plan, measure, and optimize their digital marketing efforts across social media and content sites.

GoGAN's proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) or deep learning technology can assist marketers in key aspects of programmatic media buying through:

  • One-stop shopping cross-channel media buy: buy Facebook/Instagram and local website ad space in a few clicks. The real time bidding (RTB) capability makes sure advertisers get superior costs per click and impressions to reach their target audiences.

  • Real time analytics and performance report generating dashboard, which provides brands and agencies insights and allows them to recalibrate marketing strategy.


Both TenMax and Gojek hope that the collaboration brings benefit to the entire ecosystem. Globally, ad-services on e-commerce giants are now contributing billions of revenues per quarter and growing at 60%+ YoY, which further increases overall transaction volume. Through long-standing commercial and technical partnerships with leading ad platforms such as Facebook and Google, TenMax and its sister company cacafly.com, has provided digital marketing services to over 10,000 clients in Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Announcements1NetEasyStack1-Net Singapore Pte Ltd and EasyStack Technologies Pte Ltd got involved in a go-to-market strategic collaboration, based on mutual trust and respect for each other's ability to create a compelling business proposition for the regional market.

EasyStack is a global market leader in providing open cloud platform technology that enables medium to large enterprises and corporations, seeking to transform its business through digital innovation such as artificial intelligence, machine and deep learning, data analytics modelling, and user behavior, to personalize products and services relevant to their target customer base. 1-Net is the trusted brand by Singapore organisations and enterprises, including multi-national companies from overseas markets and regions; hence, both are embarking on engagements in the following areas:

  • 1-Net will offer cloud consulting, design, and implementation capabilities to Singapore-based organisations and businesses leveraging EasyStack New Generation Enterprise Cloud Platform product and services. With an evolutionary multi-cloud architecture supporting OTA for continuous feature upgrades and enhancements, but without any disruption to business workloads. EasyStack product helps businesses future proof their investment producing greater social and economic value to compete in their respective industry segment.

  • 1-Net and EasyStack will jointly provide dedicated exclusive private cloud solution hosted in the data center facility owned and operated by 1-Net. Besides coverage on security certification and credential offered by 1-Net, customers may also choose to perform additional industry certification on this environment as part of their business compliance and regulatory requirement.