Launched with the ambitious goal of restoring the climate balance, the Indonesian startup CarbonEthics is devoted to enhancing blue carbon ecosystems—key areas where coastal and marine environments like mangroves and seagrasses absorb carbon dioxide, thereby mitigating the effects of global crisis.

underdogs is a South Korean startup that has grown its entrepreneurship education as a major service since 2015. By nurturing coaches who have experience starting businesses, underdogs have been planning and operating educational programs, events to provide practical entrepreneurship education. Let's break down the journey of how this education startup started and expanded its business into 10 stages.

A sales battle card can be an answer for you. The tool used by significant startups including Relate and Hubspot, is a customizable template that concisely displays your competitiveness. The card mainly shows core features, key values, pricing, and comparative advantage. With exceptional conciseness and consistency, the sales battle card will boost your B2B sales and your team’s efficiency.

The traditional distribution structure, once centered around physical stores, is being reshaped through online and mobile platforms. This restructuring is spearheading attempts to redefine 'the future of shopping' across the entire retail sector.

NOVI Health is a healthcare startup established in Singapore in 2019, providing personalized health management services with medical and nutrition specialists and health coaches. This tech startup in Singapore aims not only to provide medical services such as drug prescriptions but also to enhance accessibility to holistic approaches to chronic disease treatment.

The landscape of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) startups in Asia is experiencing a dynamic evolution, marked by significant strides in integrating sustainability into the core of business practices and innovations. Let’s take a glimpse at the 10 rising ESG startups in Asia.

'Signature Label', a K-beauty startup, is challenging the competitive global market by facilitating easier international expansion for Korean cosmetics brands. It positions itself as a K-beauty incubator, assisting brands from distribution to branding. The company has even launched its own K-beauty brand, 'ZIGTAG', to demonstrate the overseas potential of K-beauty products.

Yuto Otake started a project to bring back the summer Koshien (well-known for nationwide high school baseball tournament) of 2020, which was lost due to the effects of the coronavirus. He says he learned a lot from Venture Café Tokyo regarding starting a business, starting a project, and managing it. 

According to a UN report, the global population's average age is progressively rising. As a result, aging is bringing two impacts to the venture business ecosystem: the trend of 'active seniors' who venture into entrepreneurship after their 50s, and the emergence of startups targeting the senior market.

Jumbotail is an India-based B2B commerce startup founded in 2015. The company serves over 50,000 clients and has achieved a total investment of $160.4 million. So, how did Jumbotail discover rocket growth opportunities in daily mom-and-pop stores? How did the startup define market problems and design solutions?

Inflow has developed an on-demand platform that tracks the textile manufacturing process in real time. Inflow anticipates that technology and products can simplify and streamline Vietnam's clothing production process. By digitizing the production process, the platform makes it easier for global brands to find and decide on manufacturing partners, and for manufacturers to optimize their production processes and try self-production.

Partnership does not simply mean utilizing an agency. Creating new businesses based on relationships with companies that have a solid footing in Japan and finding a direction that can generate synergies between both parties become the most important.

There are those who say the rules of the game are changing. Ryusuke Komura, a director at Venture Cafe Tokyo, is one of the prominent figures who says, "Japan needs entrepreneurship". Venture Cafe Tokyo, which hosts 'Thursday Gatherings' where entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives, and university officials all come together, was established in Japan in 2018 with the aim of fostering innovation within Japan through connections.

Asia has a significant number of AI startups, totaling 2,686, indicating a robust and expanding ecosystem. The region's startups are part of a global trend where AI technologies are increasingly influencing various sectors, including healthcare, finance, and retail, showcasing Asia's critical role in the global AI landscape​ ‍

Iris Liu, VP at Taiwan Mobile (TWM), has been instrumental in guiding the company towards being a leader in sustainability within Taiwan's telecom sector since joining in 2014. Her efforts focus on sustainability, brand management, and public relations. Under her leadership, TWM emphasizes inclusive Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) planning and annual strategy updates.

In Korea, a national policy has been initiated to connect private investment and loans with support programs not only for startups and venture businesses but also for small business owners and local brands. Recognized for its expertise in investing in over 30 social ventures, local brands, and early startups, NEWKIDS Investment has been selected as a partner in a large-scale project that matches private investment funds and loans with investee companies.

Named Krutrim, this startup was founded in April 2023 and received over 50 million dollars in investment within a year. In December 2023, it garnered attention by unveiling "Ola Krutrim". Bhavish Aggarwal, one of the co-founders of Krutrim, is also the co-founder and CEO of Ola Cabs, a leading mobility app in India. Currently, Bhavish Aggarwal's primary focus is actually on Ola Electric, a new venture that manufactures and sells electric two-wheelers.

Praba Santhanakrishnan, Co-founder and CEO of Cookr, states that three factors(speed, price, quality of healthy diet) can be achieved in balance. You might be able to get a healthy home-cooked meal with an online payment and a motorcycle delivery within a day or so. How are they planning to become a game changer for India’s food problem? Asia Tomorrow met Praba and listened to his journey from Silicon Valley to India’s promising D2C platform.

In the future, how many more cross-border startups will be established and grow in the Japanese market? What should startups from overseas, including Korea, consider when entering Japan? Asia Tomorrow caught up with Ryeoil Kim to learn more about venture investment in Korea and Japan, his focus on helping startups enter the market, and his insights on the characteristics of the Japanese market and new businesses overseas.

I think the change in Japan compared to 2023 was that there were more recruitment, investment market, global expansion, research sector, and startups (including re-startups) as the Japanese startup industry became more active. This made me recognize that there will be further changes in 2024, and I should take advantage of this trend.

Revealed on Wednesday, March 20, the Philippine Venture Capital Report 2024, a collaborative endeavor between Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Foxmont Capital Partners, underscores this remarkable trend. As the Philippines cements its position as a dynamic player in the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem, this analysis reveals key trends and opportunities shaping its venture capital landscape.

As a cross-border expert, Kotaro Adachi, founder and CEO of TechShake, has emphasized that there are opportunities to expand the business in the SEA market including the Philippines for both international entrepreneurs and startup founders in the Philippines.

The number of "foreign-affiliated" companies in Japan is increasing. There is also a trend of employees moving to foreign-affiliated companies, which offer higher salaries compared to Japanese companies. Global companies need to conduct business with people from various nationalities. Naturally, English is required to communicate with team members from different countries.

Do you now have a better understanding of the steps involved in establishing a Japanese corporation? There are actually some "pitfalls" here and there. In this article, we will summarize the points you should pay attention to.

Of course, the reason I'm writing about this today isn't to share pessimistic opinions or spread fear, like "don't go there" or "you're doomed if you go there". I think Asian startups should go global, and they should definitely keep the Southeast Asian market in mind. But there are many reasons why overseas founders or foreign founders fail in Southeast Asia. I'm going to cover just three of them.

Derived from the phrase "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps", bootstrapping has the advantage of minimizing the risks of dependency, control, and other disputes that can arise when raising money from outside investors, while allowing the founder to run the business independently and in line with his or her original vision. Take KeaBabies, for example, which has generated $20 million in sales in four years with just $23,000 in personal investment.

As well as the needs in Japan, many global startups may consider establishing a Japanese corporation in order to make a full-fledged entry into the Japanese market. In this article, we will explain the "practicalities" and "points to note" of setting up a corporation in Japan.

In this series of articles, we will summarize the current state of the Japanese market, practicalities of establishing a local subsidiary in Japan. For Korean startups considering expanding into the Japanese market, we will also cover matters that will be necessary after the startup has entered the Japanese market.

After an 18-hour flight, a Korean startup founder met his Bangladeshi employees for the first time. It was a challenge for the founder, who had been doing everything from hiring, team building to running the business remotely. What did he see and learn during his three-day trip from South Korea to Bangladesh?

Carbon credit trading is an emerging market, aligned with the climate crisis and ESG trends. However, it is not very accessible for individuals to participate in carbon trading. Phantom Yun, the founder of Sovereign Wallet and CO2 Network, set out to solve this problem. The startup is building a platform that allows individuals to trade carbon credits on a small scale using a blockchain that provides identity verification.

Handprint, a Singaporean Tech startup which is focusing on ESG SaaS subscription service, won the 1st prize in Tech in Asia conference. Who is Handprint, and what point lead it to the winning startup?

How is Relaxy solving the mental health problem in Bangladesh through its mobile app? What inspired her to start a business with such a service, and how is she expanding the business globally? Asia Tomorrow caught up with Jahnnobi Rahman to learn more about Relaxy's founding story and plans for the future.

Home to 123.3 million people, Japan stands as one of the most advanced economies in the world and the first industrialized country in Asia. With its robust digital infrastructure, the country supports a thriving internet economy. Explore the dynamic world of social media in Japan, and uncover unique trends, preferences, and habits of Japanese social media users.

What is paper furniture? What does selling paper furniture look like? How to expand this business to a global market is uncharted territory. That's why the challenge PaperPop founder Daehee Park is taking on is so unique and meaningful.

Established in 2007, nonprofit Educate Girls is focused on addressing this gap and mobilizing communities for girls’ education in India’s rural areas. The organization’s Founder and Board Member, Safeena Husain shared what motivated her to start Educate Girls, her journey to piloting the first Development Impact Bond (DIB) in education, and the far-reaching impact of innovative models like hers.

When overseas startups enter Japan, "networking with locals" is a common concern for both major corporations and startups alike. I visited Venture Cafe Tokyo, an organization run by CIC Tokyo, which aims to be the first home for startups expanding. While talking with Ryusuke Komura, Director of Venture Cafe Tokyo, he explained how the organization helps global startups network and share knowledge when setting up business in Japan.

LinkedIn is a professional social networking service for business that was acquired by Microsoft in June 2016 at a valuation of over $30 trillion. Right now, three people are hired every minute around the world on LinkedIn. How did it become the world's most popular social networking platform for business professionals? Let's dive in and start analyzing LinkedIn!

IPO. What an exciting word to hear. It's the ultimate way to exit, and a clear demonstration of a company's success. Today, with the help of Ayaka S., IPO/IB Specialist at MUFG in Japan & Younsun Ko and Tomomichi Takao(髙尾知達), CLO at Funds, let's unravel the IPO structure.

Starting his career as a musician in high school, Ryosuke has since traveled the world solving social problems. In order to understand business and capitalism, he joined some of the biggest companies in the world, including McKinsey Hong Kong. He later founded very50 to focus on tackling social issues through entrepreneurship. Here's how he built a sustainable business and social impact.

Unlike South Korea, where entrepreneurship is already recognized as a career, Japanese people are still quite unfamiliar with the idea of starting a business. And the Tokyo Metropolitan Government aims to make entrepreneurship more accessible to Tokyo citizens through "early education" at the elementary and junior high school level.

The venture capital market is frozen. High interest rates, wars, and economic downturns have all contributed to a decline in startup investment, especially in Asia. The question is, could Asia's venture capital market continue to slump in 2024? In this article, we'll discuss the current state of the Asian venture capital market and startup scene, as well as the signals to watch for going forward.

Arthur Huang is the Founder and CEO of Miniwiz, a circular upcycling technology company dedicated to transforming consumer and industrial waste into high-performance materials. His expertise in structural engineering and architecture has played a crucial role in Miniwiz’s groundbreaking initiatives in ESG engineering and upcycling since the company’s establishment in 2005.

A financial hub and home to more than 80 of the world's top 100 technology companies, Singapore has a history of attracting startups, having surpassed Silicon Valley as the number one center for startups in a survey conducted by the US Startup Genome Project, with more than 300 startup partners.

The data floating around the internet is rarely the actual data for your business. You can't count on the results of surveys, either. Customers say "I'll buy it if you have it," but they don't follow through. 'Saying' is enough to be taken with a grain of salt. So how do you collect real data?

Currently, the Japanese market is undergoing a period of growth and transition in the IT sector. You can see DT/DX advertisements everywhere in Tokyo. IT recruitment platforms like Green Japan are in high demand. Even in PRTimes, there is always news from IT companies.

Have you heard of ADVASA, the Japanese unicorn startup? Founded in 2017, ADVASA today is a startup with an estimated valuation of 230 billion yen ($1.5 billion). It's pioneering a unique trend called Earned Wage Access (EWA) in the Japanese market.

You've found your customer, and you've got your item. Now you need to create a "staircase of consumption" so that your customer responds well to each step. The first step is the entrepreneur's character. In marketing, it is also called branding, image management.

Seema Aziz is the co-founder and managing director of textile company Sefam. In 1988 she founded CARE Foundation to build schools and provide quality education to underprivileged children in Pakistan. From the first school built in 1991, CARE now oversees the education of 300,000 children in 888 schools across Pakistan thanks to its innovative Adopt a School program.

Over the past two years, the venture ecosystem has been undergoing a dramatic transformation. After record-breaking investment activity in 2021, the market slowed down in late 2022 and into 2023. This slump was not seen in all sectors. Here's a quick look at some of the most notable ones.

D·camp, known for incubating startups in South Korea, is building its global footprint. It has created a global team and opened a center in Singapore in the first half of 2023. Official events such as D-Day are also hosted overseas in Japan and Singapore. In 2022, more than 40% of all employees traveled abroad to build local networks.

We have found our customer's problem and we know where they are, now we have to turn our idea into something concrete. There are actually an infinite number of things you can offer to customers you meet online, but they can be categorized into 3 main categories.

Once you've found a customer or gotten them to come to you, you need to get them to buy something or do something - that's what makes it a business. Our goal is to eventually get a customer to buy something from us, but even if you find them the hard way, would they pay for something from someone they don't even know? Most will run away, so you need to pique their interest with a fresh idea before they go away.

A growing business always starts with a unique idea, not an item. It's important to come up with a specific product or service, but first you need to find an innovative idea and create a business model based on it. The most important role of a founder is to recognize the value of an idea and develop it.

When you hear the word "7-Eleven," what country do you immediately associate with it? You probably think of Japan, but 7-Eleven was actually headquartered in the United States. Today, we're going to explore the amazing in-house venture that took over the original.

'Mobilehero' is a global contest for startups in the information and communication technology(ICT) sector. It is organized by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs. In the 2023 competition, Korean startup Banf won the grand prize in recognition of its technology. Today, let's take a closer look at the startup ecosystem in Taiwan, the host country of the competition.

Kang is now a community builder and entrepreneur who has been traveling the world, not only in Seoul, but also in Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, Silicon Valley, New York, Paris, Lisbon, and the UK. Here's how she started her own community business, and how she's expanded it across the globe.

Here's why Vietnam is taking an active role in creating a foundation for domestic and international startups to enter the country.

Hong Kong cryptocurrency company HashKey has entered the 'unicorn club' with a $100 million investment, valuing the company at $1.2 billion! OKX Ventures was the lead investor.HashKey provides digital asset trading, custody, and blockchain solutions in Asia-Pacific, and plans to use the investment to strengthen its platform and expand its regulatory offerings. Let's take a look at the startup ecosystem in Hong Kong that has spawned such a unicorn!

KryptoSeoul is about to be rebranded as KryptoPlanet. Kang is now a community builder and entrepreneur who has been traveling the world, not only in Seoul, but also in Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, Silicon Valley, New York, Paris, Lisbon, and the UK. Here's how she started her own community business, and how she's expanded it across the globe.

Angus Cheng, a Hong Kong-based developer with 14 years of experience, founded a successful SaaS business called Bank Statement Converter, which converts PDF-formatted bank statements into Excel files. Starting as a one-man operation after leaving a job in cryptocurrency, Angus grew the business to achieve a monthly recurring revenue of $12,000 by September 2023, primarily through content marketing and continuous service improvement, with the only significant costs being server and service fees.

Underdogs, a company specializing in entrepreneurship education, answers yes to these questions. Underdogs claims that entrepreneurial education can create entrepreneurs and generate a revenue structure. They're even expanding into the corporate training market. This company is about to go public.

One of the fastest rising startups is Freshket, which was founded in 2017. Its potential was recognized in 2022 with a Series B investment of US$23.5 million. Five years later, Freshket has evolved into an online distribution platform that allows diners to select fresh ingredients online, and then orders are placed through its own supply chain to the farmers and suppliers who meet those needs.

The significance of understanding the human aspect beyond salary and benefits in running a successful business.

Learning from failure: Why MVTs are a better fit for early-stage startups than MVPs

According to the Five-Year Plan for Startup Development announced by the Kishida administration in 2022, the amount of startups investment in Japan was expected to increase to about 750 billion dollars over the five-year period from 2022 to 2027.

Today, we're going to meet Ms. Ritu Narayan, an Indian entrepreneur who has revolutionized this "transportation to and from school." She's a rising female CEO in Silicon Valley and the founder of Zūm, a sustainable environmental business with electric school buses. She's currently expanding her business across the U.S. in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and beyond. We caught up with her to learn more about her life, product development, and future plans.

The idea of multiple entities with competing interests in a single company reminds me of the game theory popularly known as the Prisoner's Dilemma. Considering the game we're playing might give us some clues to resolving the recent crisis in the public markets, so let's talk about it in more detail.

This is the story of Angus Cheng, a Hong Kong-based developer who grew a one-man business with a "PDF file conversion service".

The story of Tony Dinh, an indie hacker from Vietnam who generates $45,000 in monthly revenue from four products, shows that a diversified revenue portfolio is important, even for solo entrepreneurs.

Jon Yongfook, who has achieved $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) with his SaaS business, says a 50% product development (coding), 50% marketing framework is the best strategy for solo tech entrepreneurs.

In 2023, eFishery raised $200 million in Series D funding from the 42X Fund. Other investors in the round included Malaysia's largest public pension fund (Kumpulan Wang Persaraan), Swiss-based asset manager KWAP, and venture capitalists such as 500 Global. The investment brings eFishery's valuation to more than $1 billion. 

Myanmar Market demand in these categories are high and competition level is low. If investors can do production in Myanmar, there will be job opportunities for local people. Then we can create some spending portions from them. Our Market weak point is low infrastructure but we have a substitution idea. ‍