The PAYG Solar business model offers off-grid customers “rent-to-own” plans of energy service subscription, priced at a radically affordable level of $3 to $15 per month. This dramatically lowers the barriers to adoption of solar home systems for the bottom-of-pyramid clients.

“This is the third Forum Capital-built venture to close an oversubscribed funding round in the last few months. SolarHome’s investment proposition lies at the intersection of a few highly exciting trends, such as financial inclusion, renewable energy, digitally-enabled lending, and Southeast Asian economic growth,” said Greg Krasnov, Chairman, SolarHome and Managing Director of Forum Capital.

“We are excited to partner with the lead investor Uberis Capital, who have vast experience supporting impact ventures around Southeast Asia. We look forward to working with them on the Board to grow the company to the next level,” Krasnov added.

The company claims that the market opportunity for solar home systems is substantial in the region, with over 150 million people and close to 27 million households living off-grid in Southeast Asia. While bringing PAYG solar home systems with self-sufficient power generating systems for households, such as solar-powered panels, batteries and electronics, SolarHome systems also offer low upfront cost and low lifecycle cost.

“The PAYG model has emerged as a clear leader in off-grid electrification in Africa, India, and Latin America, having reached millions of homes and attracted over USD500million of investment over the last few years. We see the same tailwinds in Southeast Asia – massive off-grid population, rise of alternative credit scoring and mobile money, and a growing acknowledgement by governments and DFI’s that distributed generation is the answer,” said Nicolas de Boisgrollier, Managing Partner, Uberis Capital.

“Unlike many other renewables businesses, PAYG is very scalable and operates profitably without subsidies, which makes this business model very attractive. We were very impressed by the team’s expertise and achievements to date, and are excited to support SolarHome’s future development into a regional market leader,” de Boisgrollier added.

Under its PAYG scheme, SolarHome’s off-grid customers are able to purchase solar home systems with a small down payment. To activate the power sources, customers will need to purchase energy tokens for daily, weekly or monthly top-up credits, either through scratch cards or mobile money. The ownership of these systems will be automatically “unlocked” and transferred to the customer after two years.

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The investment was led by provider of All Programmable semiconductor products, Xilinx, and Hong Kong X Technology Fund (HKX), an investment fund supported by Sequoia Capital China and focusing on fast-growing technology companies. In addition, Samsung Ventures Investment Corporation, Samsung Electronics’ investment arm, also joined the funding round, as well as Hong Kong Inno Capital and Brizan Investments.

The investment will accelerate the market deployment of the company’s Quantum programmable technology with a focus on deep learning and compute acceleration.

“High-volume applications and markets are prime targets for our Quantum-accelerated products,” said Sammy Cheung, co-founder, CEO, and president of Efinix. “Combining our Quantum programmable technology and Efinity Integrated Design Environment, we will be launching a number of joint development projects and a new line of silicon product platforms in the coming months thanks to the funding announced today.”

Efinix’s Quantum programmable technology delivers a 4X Power-Performance-Area advantage over traditional programmable technologies. This disruptive advantage enables products accelerated by the Quantum technology to compete in high-growth markets such as custom logic, deep learning and compute acceleration.

“Efinix’s solution can address a wide variety of applications that are typically not served by today’s FPGAs,” said Salil Raje, senior vice president of Software and IP Products Group at Xilinx. “We are excited to be an investor and look forward to working with them.”

“We are thrilled to support Efinix’s growth as it accumulates design wins and grows its customer base,” said Prof. Guanhua Chen, co-founder of HKX. “The truly disruptive Quantum programmable technology addresses needs in many markets especially mobile devices and artificial intelligence.”

“Efinix’s Quantum programmable technology brings opportunity for diverse range of applications,” said representative from Samsung Ventures. “We envision many applications that feature Quantum technology embedded inside ASICs, ASSPs, or FPGAs.”

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The startup provides companies with a digital health platform that integrates key aspects of healthcare – connecting patients, healthcare professionals, corporates, pharmacies, health data and insurers. Current clients include AIA, AXA and Aetna and other partners including the Health Promotion Board (HPB), Guardian Pharmacy, as well as individual general practitioner clinics and laboratories.

“We see increasing corporate and insurer demand for enterprise digital health solutions like MyDoc. This funding is a strong boost for us to meet this demand by expanding our services throughout Asia and enter new markets. Our Series A funding round reflects the confidence our investors have in MyDoc’s business model and services, as well as the potential of the industry,” said Snehal Patel, CEO and Co-Founder, MyDoc.

Redefining Corporate Healthcare Management

This Series A round will fund the development of MyDoc@Work, a digital healthcare platform which provides corporate employees a wide range of health services – video consultation with doctors, online prescriptions, online medical certificates (MyMC), on-site health screenings and a private care network. The private care network provides access to dental, physiotherapy, eye health, and fitness and other services.

Through this platform, corporations can benefit from significant cost and operational efficiencies, through reduced administrative processes to manage medical certificates, insurance claims, decreased employee absenteeism (due to ill health) and minimized upfront employee healthcare costs.

“With MyDoc@Work, we’re building a simple, validated, but powerful corporate health tool that not only promotes, but creates action towards building a healthier company. MyDoc@Work allows corporate employees to enjoy the convenience of consulting a doctor remotely – saving time on traveling to the clinic as well as queuing to see the doctor and collecting medication – and overall better health as they are more likely to follow up with necessary treatments,” added Patel.

Focus on Insurtech Solutions

A second investment priority is the continued development of health-focused insurtech solutions based on MyDoc’s proprietary technology. The startup is now shifting its focus towards improving and expanding services to benefit both policyholders and payers.

Part of the Series A funds will be used to continue development of insurance-focused solutions that enable further automation of the health insurance process. This work will include tools that allow comprehensive data analysis to enhance the delivery of personalized care.

The partnership with UST Global would allow MyDoc to tap into the company’s technological capabilities and expertise, as well as grow the business through UST Global’s distribution channels and government partnerships.

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In addition to the investment round, Ted Schlein, General Partner, Kleiner Perkins will join Incorta’s board of directors.

“We invested in Incorta because its advanced platform delivers true ‘information freedom’ to business users, at a low total cost of ownership to the business at-large. Some of today’s fastest-growing companies, driven by Incorta’s no-data-warehouse approach to analytics, have fundamentally changed how business information travels and how work gets done,” said Schlein.

Rather than the traditional model of performing slow and expensive extract, transform, load (ETL) projects to combine data from different data sources, Incorta’s Direct Data Mapping engine combines large, complex business data in real time. Since data maps directly to source data regardless of its form or structure, Incorta aims to develop highly secured, real-time analytic applications in only days, and reduces query times from hours to seconds—even at massive scale. With Direct Data Mapping, business users gain easy, secure, sub-second access to meaningful business insight.

“We’re very pleased to welcome to the Incorta family Kleiner Perkins, one of the top VCs in Silicon Valley, and Ted himself—a highly respected, experienced technologist,” said Osama Elkady, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Incorta. “The response to our Direct Data Mapping technology launched in March far exceeds our initial expectations. We’re signing new customers at a record rate, while existing Fortune 500 customers are expanding their implementations and re-signing seven-figure contracts with us.”

“The market opportunity for Incorta is now. This funding will help us boost our investments in product development, sales, and marketing to bring Direct Data Mapping to more businesses around the world at a faster rate,” Elkady added.

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Investors in the round include PSP Growth, the venture and growth equity arm of PSP Capital, a private investment firm founded by entrepreneur and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, as well as Alpha Edison and other existing investors.

HouseCanary will use the funds from this investment to further innovate on predictive analytics, technology, and go-to-market. With more than 100 employees headquartered in San Francisco, the company will continue to grow its list of 250 enterprise customers, spanning established industry leaders like Invitation Homes, a US mortgage bank, and fintech innovators like LendingHome and Roofstock. Google Cloud, RE/MAX, and First American are among the company’s notable distribution partners.

According to the company, its platform leverages machine learning models drawing on 40 years of US home sales and millions of trending insights to value properties and forecast prices for 4 million residential blocks and 20,000 city markets with never-before-seen accuracy.

“HouseCanary’s unique technology represents an industry revolution, bringing access to transparent and actionable data to all segments of the largest asset class in the world,” said Jeremy Sicklick, CEO of HouseCanary. “Our vision continues to be validated by both the technology and real estate industries, and is further underscored by the support from PSP Growth and Penny Pritzker, one of America’s most prominent entrepreneurs and business builders.”

“The US real estate industry is poised for incredible innovation-driven transformation, as technology and data reach new segments of the market, opening up new opportunities for residential and commercial real estate alike,” said Penny Pritzker, founder and Chairman of PSP Capital. “As a business builder, I recognized the tremendous potential of HouseCanary’s technology, as well as the expertise and vision of their strong management team. We are excited at the opportunity to work with the HouseCanary team as this dynamic company grows.”

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Mike Oleshansky, Managing Director and head of PSP Growth, added, “HouseCanary is quickly modernizing one of the biggest industries in the United States. Its robust technology enables users, from mortgage lenders to private investors to bond traders to realtors, to make truly data-driven decisions. We look forward to supporting the HouseCanary team as the business continues to grow.”

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In addition to the fund, connected car technology company, Harman, which was acquired by Samsung earlier this year for $8 billion, has established a new Autonomous/ADAS Strategic Business Unit. The new Harman SBU, which will report to its Connected Car division, will work with the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center Smart Machines team to develop key technologies for safer, smarter, connected vehicles. The SSIC Smart Machines team is an advanced automotive engineering group dedicated to enabling next-generation mobility solutions.

The company has also announced a strategic partnership with networking and safety controls company TTTech and will invest $89 million as the first investment from its Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund. TTTech plans to use Samsung’s investment to accelerate the growth of its safety technology for autonomous driving and operations. TTTech claims that its collaborative and flexible technology like its new open safety platform, MotionWise that enables OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers to accelerate the development, integration, and validation of new capabilities in their vehicles.

Samsung’s goal in the automotive market is to prevent road accidents by bringing to market technologies, from sensors to data-processing solutions that will help make cars safer while creating a more comfortable and convenient mobility experience.

“During this period of extraordinary transformation in the automotive industry, we are excited to play a leadership role in supporting and shaping the future of smarter, more connected vehicles,” said Young Sohn, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board, Harman.

“The Autonomous/ADAS Strategic Business Unit and automotive fund reflect the company’s commitment to the values of open innovation and collaboration. In partnership with OEMs and startups, we will make the driver and passenger experience safer, more convenient, and more enjoyable.”

To address the increasing demand for integrated solutions, particularly those for automated driving, Samsung and Harman will focus on engineering, high-performance computing, sensor technologies, algorithms, artificial intelligence, as well as connectivity and cloud solutions that enable Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and automated driving.

Both Samsung and HARMAN are fostering the development of cutting-edge automotive safety technologies like those from TTTech, which will enhance automotive safety controls and ADAS throughout the industry. Harman, which is a Tier 1 supplier, will now make TTTech’s open safety solutions available to the leading global automotive OEMs.

“There is already a high demand for ADAS solutions, and that demand is rapidly growing with the advancements in connected cars and autonomous driving,” said Dinesh Paliwal, President and CEO, Harman.

“This strategic business unit demonstrates Samsung’s and HARMAN’s commitment to answer that call – to be the definitive partner for seamless and integrated technologies. It also reflects the incredible power that Samsung and HARMAN, as a collective force, will bring to our OEM customers as we combine Samsung’s scale and resources with HARMAN’s deep automotive experience and networks. Together, we are driving the future of automotive.”

John Absmeier, who is the Vice President of Smart Machines for SSIC, has been appointed Senior Vice President of the new HARMAN SBU and will ensure collaboration to bring Autonomous and ADAS solutions to the market.

To date, Samsung has secured licenses for on-road testing of autonomous driving software and hardware under development in Korea and California. Samsung will not enter the car-manufacturing business, remaining focused on working with automakers and mobility enablers to develop the next generation of automotive innovation.

Earlier investments by Samsung’s existing investment funds have included stakes in automotive startups, including AImotive and Renovo for automated driving; Quanergy, TetraVue, and Oculii for sensors; Autotalks and Valens for connectivity; and Graphcore for high-performance computing.

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Arun Mathew, Partner, Accel as well as Dave Welsh, Head of TMT Growth Equity, KKR, will join the company’s board. The new funds will be used to fuel the ForgeRock’s ongoing global expansion and product innovation, specifically to broaden the company’s research and development efforts in further enhancing its Identity Platform.

“This investment speaks to significant market validation and our ambition to build a durable, category-defining company that shapes the future of identity, privacy and access management,” said Mike Ellis, CEO, ForgeRock.

“The next 12 months will be exciting, as global regulatory frameworks for data and privacy are evolving rapidly, at the same time the IoT is reaching critical mass. ForgeRock empowers businesses to respond to and comply with these regulations and enable great digital customer experiences,” Ellis added.

With the latest round, ForgeRock has now raised more than $140 million in growth capital since its founding in 2010, with Accel having led the company’s Series A in 2012. The company aims to maintain a balanced global footprint, with approximately half of sales and headcount seated in US, and half in the EMEA and APAC markets.

“As the world becomes more automated and digitized with infinite ways to interact with customers, an entirely new industry has emerged – digital identity. ForgeRock is the pioneer in digital identity and is clearly leading the pack. We’re impressed with the ForgeRock team and believe the company is the most well positioned to capitalize on the tremendous growth opportunities in digital identity and privacy management,” said Arun Mathew, Partner, Accel.

With the new backing from Accel and KKR, ForgeRock looks to dramatically increase market awareness and sales coverage worldwide.

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The Silicon Valley-based startup develops software solutions for enterprise customers who want to leverage the public cloud to increase application performance in a cost effective and least disruptive way. It also enables virtualized applications, or enterprise apps running on the cloud to function under VMware environments.

According to the company, this new investment will be used to accelerate product development. The company plans to help customers that are facing data center capacity, cost, and performance issues, enabling them to benefit from the public cloud solutions while retaining control and security of their data.

ET reports that PrimaryIO’s  beta version of the product is currently in customer trials and would be launched within a month. It is initially focusing on customers in healthcare, pharma, insurance and the government space.

In 2015, CacheBox was renamed as PrimaryIO, claiming to better reflect its dedication to delivering software-defined innovations for accelerating the most essential primary data within critical business applications. Additionally, the company’s flagship product, CacheAdvance, was called PrimaryIO APA for Windows and Linux. PrimaryIO APA offers application-centric I/O acceleration that delivers over 2x the performance of traditional solutions.

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In January 2016, Alice had received $9.5 million in Series A funding led by Expedia. The latest round makes Expedia a majority shareholder in Alice and deepens the commercial cooperation between the two companies that was originally established with an equity investment in 2015.

“Our mission is to give hoteliers the ability to provide the best guest service and experience they can around the clock, and this latest round is a testament to the hard work of everyone involved. With this additional capital, we’ll be better equipped to help hoteliers reach their goals of improved guest service,” said Justin Effron, Chief Executive Officer, Alice.

Alice focuses on enhancing digital consumer experiences by refining the guest experience head-on, and by studying not only how the internal business of a hotel runs, but also how services are delivered today in other analogous industries. This funding allows the startup to build out its development, product, sales, and customer success teams to help the company to reach its goal of being one of the hotel industry’s leading operating platforms.

“It is time for the internet to expand beyond revolutionizing how our hotel partners market and distribute their products into how they service and interact with their guests,” says Cyril Ranque, President, Lodging Partner Services, Expedia.

“Alice is developing smart mobile and cloud technology to fundamentally improve the hotelier and guest experience at scale. That’s a revolution worth investing in,” Ranque added.

Earlier this year, ALICE launched products including the Guest Profile, which gives hoteliers a view into the guest experience across every aspect of their hotel stay, including check-in, requests for amenities and services, and any interaction with the concierge. This includes Guest Text Messaging, which facilitates text messaging between hotels and guests without requiring an app download, as well as Logbooks, which can be used by hoteliers to track any physical item belonging to or loaned to a guest, including packages and lost & found.

Additionally, the company launched a Preventative Maintenance tool and an open-API, and is looking forward to releasing new features for use by hoteliers such as Checklists, a tool to improve task management, SMS automation, which automates responses via text to common guest questions, and more.

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In March this year Grab entered the country with a beta launch in the Capital Yangon. Just months after Grab started operating in Myanmar, Uber entered the market in May with the licensed taxi service and was backed by the national government. Though it used the same model as Grab, the US based ride-hailing service was only going to extend its service with licensed taxi drivers. According to media reports, the government welcomed this move as it posed as an opportunity to accelerate digitization and not challenge the existing taxi service.

The Singapore based ride-sharing service claims that since its launch, it has become the leading ride-hailing provider and one of the city’s most popular transport options with 25,000 unique bookings on the platform every single day, the largest licensed taxi network in the industry, and has over 6,000 screened and licensed drivers across the city.

Anthony Tan, Co-founder and CEO, Grab, said, “Grab in Yangon has taken off at an incredible pace. This demonstrates the massive and immediate potential of this fast-growing market.”

“Our commitment to address transport challenges with locally-suited and innovative solutions that create more social and economic opportunity works well for both Grab and our local communities. This is already one of our fastest-growing markets, and we are very excited to deepen our commitment into Myanmar.”

Not too long ago the ride-hailing platform had announced an investment plan for Indonesia, where it had committed to invest a minimum of $100 million in startups and Indonesian entrepreneurial companies to develop an ecosystem of firms that align with its business.

In the coming months, Grab plans to strengthen its presence in Yangon and work with local governments to launch ride-hailing services in other cities in Myanmar. Grab will also expand its 24/7 call center capabilities to ensure that drivers and riders in Myanmar can rely on timely and effective support throughout their Grab experience.

The company will also be exploring opportunities in the corporate travel segment. In response to keen interest from corporates since launching in Yangon, Grab has recently started offering its corporate solution, Grab for Work. It states that more than 8,000 corporations in the region are already using Grab for Work to manage employees’ local and regional transport expenses.

There is no doubt that the Singapore based company has initiated these investment plans in the wake of its recent $2 billion funding raised from Didi Chuxing and SoftBank. Though it claims to hold a 95% market share of third party cab haling services and 71% in private vehicle hailing in the region, it seems that the company wants to get a competitive edge over its Western rival, Uber.

The company is also planning to make GrabPay, its in-app cashless payment feature, available to local passengers in the months ahead. It states that it wants to move more people in the country into the digital economy and drive the adoption of mobile payment across the country. The cab-hailing platform claims that its driver-partners have already started accepting cashless payment via GrabPay from international travelers.

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