Open For Business

As Malaysia’s land for waste disposal is limited and the existing landfills are rapidly reaching their capacity, it is imperative that every individual do their part to reduce, reuse and recycle. To facilitate and make it easier for consumers to transition to a more eco-friendly lifestyle, Oh Sok Peng founded Refiller Mobile in June 2022. This mobile zero-waste refillery travels around the Klang Valley offering eco-friendly household products, dried food and alternatives. With a goal to address plastic waste and environmental preservation in Malaysia, Refiller Mobile seeks to contribute to a sustainable planet for future generations.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

RecruitFirst is a HRTech company that aims to play corporate Tinder by matching companies with jobseekers to fulfil a company’s talent needs. Backed by Singapore Exchange listed recruitment and consulting company HRnetGroup Limited, RecruitFirst now has operations in 15 cities across the Asia Pacific. Mok Jing Ru, Co-Owner & Senior Consulting Manager, joins us for a conversation about Recruitfirst’s role in the HR landscape and the path ahead.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SpaceIn wants to spearhead the space exploration activity in Malaysia. Previously, a company owned by a group of Postgraduate Students in the USM Space System Lab (USSL), SpaceIn started with a satellite educational product, CanSat Kit for Education and is also Malaysia’s only company that provides near-space platform services through High Altitude Balloon. We speak to Dr Norilmi Amilia Ismail, CEO of SpaceIn, about the trajectory of space exploration in Malaysia and the firm.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buying or renting property can be a tedious process, from finding something within your budget and physically locating the property, to finding the right agent or platform to work with and wading through the paperwork. It’s no wonder why websites like iProperty and PropertyGuru have become so popular, but is the future of proptech to move away from broad searchability and build out a property superapp for all your property needs?To find out,we speak with Teow Wei Kwang, Co-Founder of Nextsix. Nextsix is a one-stop property platform that is pioneering a GPS and data-driven search engine that links property seekers to properties available within a particular vicinity through real estate agents, but by the looks of it, has bigger aspirations as well.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

DOC2HOME is a Malaysian digital health platform offering personalized home-based healthcare, reviving the tradition of 'house calls'. As a subsidiary of DOC2US, it leverages advanced technology to provide both telehealth services and direct doctor home visits. This initiative, which began in April through a partnership with SP Setia's STAY Campaign, is championed by Dr. Raymond Choy, CEO of DOC2US and a key figure in Malaysia's digital health transformation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the last few years we’ve seen Bitcoin go to the moon, and then come back down to Earth. That said, it is still up over 340% over the last 5 years and has climbed around 60-70% year to date, so it’s not all doom and gloom.When you think about the Malaysian crypto market, or at least the regulated side of it, it’s hard to miss one key name - Luno - a regulated digital asset exchange that allows users to trade digital assets, like bitcoin. July marked Luno’s 10th year in business.10 years ago, Luno was known as BitX and started its journey in South Africa. 4 years later, in 2017, the Luno brand was born, 2 years later you entered Europe, and in April 2022 hit a milestone of 10 million customers globally. In 2023 the number is now over 12 million. In the midst of all that, Luno was acquired by Digital Currency Group in 2020, while a key moment for the company, DCG hasn’t had the smoothest of paths since. Today we explore Luno’s 10 year journey and what lies ahead with James Lanigan, CEO of Luno. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chin Jia Zhuang, De Lettuce B.E.A.R.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Between hybrid work arrangements, talent acquisition and employee turnover, managing talent in business is getting increasingly more challenging and complicated. In a bid to expand access to talent and simplify human resources operations, MIT alumni Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang started Deel back in 2018.Deel may have started with a focus on payroll, but today it’s a full-stack HR solution that simplifies aspects of managing an international workforce, from culture and onboarding, to local payroll and compliance. This has become even more important post-pandemic as workforces become more distributed across the world. Today on Open for Business, we speak with Alex Bouaziz, Co-founder & CEO of Deel, about the role they play in HR and talent management, how they support companies to expand internationally via employer of record services, and how all this supports Deel's own growth. We also speak to Alex about Deel’s appetite for acquisitions to grow and the milestones that will help determine when they will IPO.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The proliferation of payment options has been great for consumer choice, but has made accepting payments more complex for SMEs. Qashier is a Fintech startup that is trying to address this by consolidating the different payment options into an integrated point-of-sale (POS) and payment solution for SMEs. They also have ambitions to go beyond just sales and payments solutions and provide other software solutions to SMEs, whether it is helping them with HR, operations, or other business areas.With over 6,000 merchants in industries like F&B, beauty, retail and service. across Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, we speak to CEO and co-founder Christopher Choo about Qashier’s origin story, what lies ahead for this startup, and how they will compete with other key players like StoreHub, PineLabs, and GHL Systems.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Digital Banking is something that’s being keenly watched in the Southeast Asia region. We’ve seen 4 digibanks start up in Singapore, and here in Malaysia we’re expecting a few to open their doors to customers this year. While a lot of attention has been paid to players such as Grab, Sea Limited, and Ant Financial, another key player to watch in this region is WeLab.WeLab was founded in 2013 and over the decade has raised around $900 million to fund ambitions to improve accessibility to financial services. They are involved in digital lending, digital banking, and SaaS enterprise solutions.The 10-year old Hong Kong based fintech player made its entry into the Southeast Asian digital bank fray last year when it acquired Bank Jasa Jakarta. What does signal about its expansion strategy for Southeast Asia?To find out, on this episode of Open for Business, we speak with Simon Loong, Founder & Group CEO of WeLab Group. Aside from their plans for Southeast Asia, we’ll also dive into WeLab’s 10 year journey, the growth across Hong Kong and Mainland China, what lies ahead for this Hong Kong unicorn, and ofcourse the pathway to IPO.Photo Credits: ShutterstockSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.