Under The Radar

Helping people eat, sleep, exercise and hopefully, feel better. That’s the aim of our guest Mito Health.  Started by Seedly co-founders Kenneth Lou and Chew Tee-Ming this year, Mito Health is a startup focusing on personalised health plans for executives keen on looking beyond annual health check-ups and supplements to maintain their health.  It aims to guide users in improving their diet, exercise and sleep with diagnostics results and wearable data.  Question is – how different is Mito Health from other Executive Health Screening providers and what additional value do they bring on board?  Meanwhile, the company recently raised over S$1.7 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Forge Ventures.  The firm is also backed by a number of angel investors including ShopBack founder Henry Chan, Carousell founder Quek Siu Rui, Glints founder Oswald Yeo, Rainforest founder JJ Chai and Singlife’s innovation head Varun Mittal.  But what strategic value does this group of angel investors bring to the table?  On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Kenneth Lou, Co-Founder and CEO, Mito Health, and Ryan Ware, Chief Medical Officer, Mito Health.

It may be common for university or pre-university students to give tuition services to their younger peers to earn their first paychecks.  But can you imagine building a multi-million dollar business out of it? In fact that is exactly what our guest for today did.  In fact, 25-year-old Evan Heng started Zenith in 2019 to help Junior College students thrive in the Singapore education system.  The entrepreneur opened his first tuition centre with S$100,000 of his savings and now has over four centres, 90 staff and a revenue of – get this – a whopping S$6.7 million in 2022.  The firm says it is now serving over 10% of all junior college students in Singapore every year. It has also opened the firm to institutional investors, having raised US$1.4 million in a seed funding round in July this year.  The firm had said then that it wanted to expand from physical tuition centres to education technology, but why is this the case? What does this suggest about the limit to growth in the physical private tuition centre business, and what is next for Zenith Education? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Evan Heng, CEO, Zenith Learning Group.

FUJIFILM may be best known for its photo imaging and digital products such as film and cameras. But did you know that FUJIFILM also makes skincare and cosmetic products? In fact, observers said FUJIFILM’s cosmetics business could have been why the firm survived the digital revolution. One of the brands that you may have seen in shopping malls is Astalift, which was launched in 2006.  While making cosmetics may seem like a stretch for a photo imaging company, there are synergies between FUJIFILM’s cosmetics and its core camera and photo imaging business. For one thing, Astalift was mooted when researchers at FUJIFILM realised that the technology to prevent ultraviolet rays from oxidising printed photographs, can also be used for anti-aging products in skincare. That said, the process to expand into skincare and cosmetics is not one without challenges. But what should we know about FUJIFILM’s diversification into the industry?   Also – how important is FUJIFILM’s skincare and cosmetics unit to the organisation as a whole right now and what are some expansion plans for the business unit? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Jason Wong, Head of Business Unit and Brand Manager, Consumer Healthcare, FUJIFILM Asia Pacific.

You might know of Shell as an energy company or a petrol kiosk operator. But today we are going to bring you another part of the energy giant’s business that you might not know about.  Our guest is from Shell Business mobility. This is a B2B arm which seeks to collaborate with businesses that have a fleet of commercial passenger cars, or even light and medium duty vehicles. Some of the solutions provided to fleet owners include quality fuel that keeps the engines clean, digital payment and solutions which allows owners to track fuel usage and mobility expenses, and even fleet management services which provides owners visibility of vehicle utilisation. But how broad ranging is Shell’s B2B business really? Meanwhile, with electrification being a key trend in the mobility sector, Shell is also looking at providing EV charging solutions and carbon compensation schemes for businesses.  Question is, how much investments are poured into infrastructure to help fleets electrify, and how far will investing in the green move position Shell Business Mobility for its next bound of growth? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Jeane Toh, Head of Business Mobility, Shell Singapore.

Today we’re going to talk about a company that makes projectors, virtual meeting tools, as well as the equipment for doctors to be able to view X-ray films.  The name of this company is Flemish technology company Barco which was founded all the way back in 1934.  Speaking of Barco, did you know that the firm started out as a business that assembles radios from parts imported from the US? In fact, that is also why the company is named the Belgium American Radio Corporation, or "Barco." No surprises as to why the company started out in the radio market, which was expanding rapidly in the 1930s. But as technology evolves, so did the business.  It went into TV manufacturing in the 1940s and 50s, and is now working on solutions relating to projection and immersive experiences for sectors such as healthcare, enterprise and entertainment. But which is the most important business vertical for Barco right now, and how will a rise in demand for immersive experiences shape how the company positions itself in future?  On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Gan Ta Loong, Global Executive Vice President, Immersive Experience, Barco.

Helping energy firms extract oil in remote areas and in deeper waters in a more pocket friendly manner. That’s exactly what our guest for today does.  Founded in 1990, SGX mainboard-listed Dyna-Mac is a global multi-disciplinary contractor who undertakes the detailed engineering, procurement, and construction of modules and facilities in vessels widely used in the oil and gas industry.  One of them is the FPSO (floating production storage and offloading vessel). This is a ship that could be used to store treated crude oil produced in remote areas and offload them to tankers that transport them to refineries.  Such vessels eliminate the need to transport crude oil through fixed pipes, thereby making it economically viable for energy companies to extract oil in less accessible areas and deeper waters. Meanwhile, Dyna-Mac recently secured several contracts worth a total provisional sum of S$88 million from repeat customers, bringing its net order book to S$630.7 million. But how does the firm assess its financial performance?  On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Lim Ah Cheng, Executive Chairman and CEO, Dyna-Mac.

If you have not been to the movies of late, this conversation is probably a hint for you to do so.  But if you’ve been to the cinemas of late, chances are you might have watched the Barbie Movie, Oppenheimer or the latest instalment of the Mission:Impossible franchise, the Dead Reckoning Part 1.  Speaking of which, beyond the cast and directors, have you ever wondered what made the movies come to life? What about the visual system that makes the iconic pink colour pop in the Barbie Movie. Or the immersive sound system that makes you feel the blast in Oppenheimer or that car chase in Mission Impossible?  Our guest for today is Dolby Laboratories. The firm works with artists, storytellers and businesses to revolutionise entertainment and communications with its visual and audio systems such as the Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision and Dolby Cinema.  But how does this work exactly, and are these players considered at Dolby Laboratories, customers or partners? Also, what are some of the products in its pipeline for this year and the next? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Ashim Mathur, Vice President, APAC, Dolby Laboratories.

If you don’t know something, just Google it!  While Google started out as the name of a search engine company, the word has become almost synonymous with the act of looking something up online. Beyond that, the tech firm has made itself into all parts of our lives. Some of us use Gmail for emails, Google docs for crafting documents, and Google Drive for cloud storage.  Not to mention the Android operating system that some of our phones use, and the YouTube app that we stream our videos from.  In fact, Google has 15 products that each serve over half a billion people and businesses, and six that serve more than 2 billion users too. But it wasn't that long ago when such conveniences were not available. In fact Google was founded just 25 years ago, and is way younger than a number of industrial firms that we spoke with on the show. So what was Google’s journey like throughout the past quarter century? What went ‘Under the Radar’ over the past 25 years?  And how does Google intend to take itself forward in the next 25 years, with the advent of Generative AI? How does it assess its peers’ investments into AI startups? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Ben King, Managing Director, Google Singapore.

Taking an elevator or escalator has probably become an integral part of our lives, but the companies behind them often go unnoticed. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. Founded in 1910, KONE is a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry. It provides elevators, escalators and automatic building doors as well as solutions which can add value to the life cycle of any building.  The firm has been present in Singapore since 1978 and is now one of the fastest growing elevator and escalator companies in the country, with its solutions present in major malls and infrastructure such as the Marina Bay Sands, the Circle Line and Jem.  It is also diversifying beyond escalators and elevators to integrate robots in buildings. For one thing, the firm collaborated with Changi General Hospital and CapitaLand Investment to advance the integration of robotics in buildings.  Question is – why is Kone diversifying beyond its traditional lines of business amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution?  In the meantime, the firm had in July reported lower than expected second-quarter order numbers due to weather demand in its key Chinese market as low construction activity continues to weigh on demand for new elevators and escalators. But what is the situation like in Singapore? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Sylvia Koh-Gratton, Managing Director, KONE Singapore.

The VC investment landscape is back with focus as we speak to the venture arm of one of Japan’s largest consumer credit companies, Credit Saison.  Called Saison Capital, the corporate venture arm invests in Pre-Seed to Series B companies with a focus on Southeast Asia and India.  While the firm is sector agnostic, it likes to work with founders that are building platforms or ecosystems that have the potential to distribute financial services to the underbanked.  Question is, what expertise does Saison Capital want to provide to startups and how does that influence the companies it invests in? Meanwhile, data from Pitch Book showed venture capital funding globally almost halved in the first six months of 2023, despite the earlier artificial intelligence frenzy. Are VCs running out of dry powder or are they just merely not investing? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Qin En Looi, Partner, Saison Capital.