by S BIRRUNTHA / pic credit: endeavormalaysia.org

TWO high-impact tech scaleups, namely HealthMetrics and Lapasar, have successfully passed Endeavor Malaysia’s first local selection panel for 2021 recently.

Endeavor Malaysia MD Adlin Yusman said both HealthMetrics and Lapasar are at their inflection point, aiming for exponential growth over the next three to five years.

He added that Endeavor will now support both of them by providing access to strategic advice, talent, capital and markets to scale their businesses to the next level.

“The selection process at Endeavor is key to select, mentor and support high-impact entrepreneurs to ultimately grow faster and benefit our economy through job creation and by mentoring and investing in other entrepreneurs.

“This is what we call the multiplier effect — key for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Malaysia.

“As part of our efforts to service scaleups, Endeavor Malaysia will start working with HealthMetrics and Lapasar on their business challenges, extending its network of mentors and resources to grow the company moving forward,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Adlin emphasised that scaling a business is harder than starting one, adding that as they scale their companies to the next level, some of the main challenges they face are improving the business model and expanding their business across the nation.

He said as the companies scale their businesses, it comes with a higher risk of failure as founders face challenges around access to smart capital and high-quality talent.

Commenting on the achievement, HealthMetrics CEO and co-founder Alvin Yuan said this was his second time going through the selection process.

“We have met over 10 Endeavor mentors and multiple workshops through the ScaleUp Endeavor Programmes.

“Every advice that we have received has played a crucial part in the decisions we make in our scaling journey,” he added.

Healthmetrics is an end-to-end platform to simplify employee benefits administration and healthcare management, with 4,000 healthcare providers on their platform.

Additionally, the recent success of securing US$5 million (RM20.5 million) Series A funding in fourth quarter of 2020 (4Q20) is expected to enable the platform to scale their operations and execute expansion plans regionally to two or three countries in South-East Asia

Meanwhile, Lapasar is an online e-commerce platform built to remove barriers for corporates and retailers.

With tremendous growth over the past few months, the platform focuses on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) wholesale.

It aims to build the largest tech-enabled distribution company in the country with the largest capabilities to move goods all across Malaysia.

During the local selection panel with Endeavor mentors, HealthMetrics and Lapasar managed to regain clarity of current bottlenecks constraining their ability to scale their businesses and also possible business opportunities.

The local selection panel was an inaugural event of 2021 where companies presented their businesses to a panel of Endeavor mentors, composed of high-calibre industry experts.

For this session, Endeavor Malaysia chairman and Creador founder and CEO Brahmal Vasudevan, PizzaHut Malaysia head Loi Liang Tok, Media Prima Omnia Sdn Bhd ED and CEO Datuk Michael Chan, as well as Endeavor Malaysia board member and FashionValet Sdn Bhd CEO Datuk Fadzaruddin Shah Anuar were the panellists.

Endeavor is a global entrepreneurship movement to drive economic growth and job creation by selecting, mentoring and accelerating the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world.

Since launching its operations in Malaysia, Endeavor actively supports 45 companies, collectively generating RM1.4 billion in revenues and over 20,000 job opportunities.