Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

The EY organisation has announced the winning startup participants accepted into EY Foundry Cohort 5. Since 2018, EY Foundry has been helping early-stage tech startups accelerate business growth through piloting and scaling activities with EY, in particular its Tax, Law and People Advisory Services teams.

EY Foundry helps startups to connect and network, with a focus on generating internal traction for the startups. Over the past four years, the EY Foundry program has incubated 4 cohorts, a total of 22 startups, facilitated product demonstrations to EY and enterprise teams and technology pilots within the global EY network.

The EY Foundry program will be run virtually and will include startups across Asia-Pacific, including Australia, Cambodia, Guam, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

“The EY Foundry is going from strength to strength, growing to 11 countries across Asia-Pacific and attracting the highest number of applicants we’ve seen since the program’s inception,” said Ian McNeill, EY Asia-Pacific Deputy Tax Leader. “It is, therefore, only natural that we now have our largest cohort to date. We’re looking forward to welcoming the start-ups into the program and working with them to collaborate and tackle EY clients’ most complex problems.”

The EY Foundry received a record number of applicants for the program, going from strength to strength in supporting startups across Asia-Pacific and the global EY network. It has been focused on increasing support for women-led enterprises, and this year, 8 of the 16 startups were founded by women entrepreneurs, increasing the average across EY’s 5 cohorts to 46%—more than double the global average.

The 16 startups in this year’s program were chosen based on their ability to provide disruptive technologies and solutions across the following areas of innovation:

Services of Tomorrow. Optimising processes and enhancing client experience:

• Bizzi (Vietnam). Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered software that uses cloud robotic process automation and Machine Learning techniques to automate invoice processing.
• Olivia App (Philippines). An expense management solution that allows the user to scan invoices and dictate expenses, eliminating the need for manual encoding.
• Ever AI Technologies (Malaysia). No-code AI platform that democratises access to AI for those without programming experience.
• Finnli (Australia). Enabling businesses to invest in research and development by making it easier to finance their innovation risk.

New Enterprise. Reimagining traditional tax, law and people advisory services using disruptive technologies to create new markets and business models:

• Pajak (Indonesia). A highly scalable and customisable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool that can be integrated into existing systems to automate tax processes.
• Stemly (Singapore). A SaaS solution that automates forecasting and optimisation of a company’s supply chain and finance processes.

Sustainability. Technology that delivers environmental, social and governance (ESG) and supply chain transformation resulting in net-zero or negative carbon emissions:

• 4Zero (Australia). Sustainability metrics technology that allows organisations to track and manage key processes in real time.
• EPC Blockchain (Malaysia). Blockchain technology that records energy investments to crowdfund energy projects and empowers the masses to mitigate climate change.
• ESGnie (Singapore). No-code business intelligence platform powered by scientific research that turns unstructured data into scientific analysis.
• Evalue8 Sustainability (Australia). Automates carbon foot-printing process, tracking of ESG projects (scope 1 to 3 emissions) and benchmarking to similar businesses to assess potential savings.
• givvable (Australia). Supplier sustainability intelligence platform that provides information relating to sustainability targets, and helps businesses uncover the sustainability profile of suppliers at scale.

People and Wellness. Embracing the future of work through continual learning and developments and employee wellness:

• Betterteem (Philippines). An AI-powered workplace solution that predicts employee churn, delivers well-being support and strengthens team engagement.
• Flow of Work (Australia). Connecting the skills and aspirations of employees to internal development opportunities to boost employee retention and engagement.
• Leanmote (Australia). Helping companies and their employees manage their performance and wellness through people data analytics.
• Matae (Australia). Enabling rapid, scalable and repeatable change in large organisations by systemising collaboration between teams and leaders across all organisational levels.
• Team Talks (Australia). An employee experience tool that combines team building and learning of social skills to help leaders increase their team’s connection and collaboration.

Beginning in July 2022 and for a period of six months, the startups in Cohort 5 will participate in a range of activities that will give participants the tools to accelerate growth and expand their customer base. Participants will also receive Microsoft Azure credits worth USD $150,000 to help develop their technology stack.

In addition, they will gain exposure to a wealth of industry knowledge and experience, including access to EY industry insights, subject matter professionals and technology collaborators. The EY Foundry program takes no equity stake, with participating startups maintaining full ownership and control of the business.

“As one of the EY Foundry Innovation Area sponsors, I’m delighted to welcome all the startups to this year’s program. I’m particularly excited to begin collaborating with those in the Sustainability category and help them achieve their sustainability goals and create a positive lasting impact on the environment, said Jesper Solgaard, EY Asia-Pacific Sustainability Tax Leader.

For more information, visit www.ey.com/eyfoundry.

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