Handshakes to launch new data sets in Vietnam and China

Singapore

CORPORATE data analysis platform Handshakes, which is owned and operated by startup DC Frontiers, said it hopes to establish a presence in the fast-growing economies of Vietnam and China amid surging demand for private market data by potential investors.

Chief executive and co-founder Daryl Neo told The Business Times that the platform - which uses regulatory filings to map out relationships between companies and people in the corporate ecosystem - will officially launch its Vietnam data set on Sept 1, to help provide clients with a clearer picture of local companies they have their eye on.

Artificial intelligence-based corporate news monitoring portal ScoutAsia, which is operated by its investor Nikkei Inc, will also include Handshakes' Vietnam data set starting September.

Later this quarter, Handshakes will also incorporate data from over 90 million registered Chinese companies onto its platform, allowing its clients access to this database when necessary.

As the Singapore-based company widens its reach up north, Mr Neo notes that the network effect the platform can provide through the pairing of cross-border data sets is a "very powerful tool".

There are many businessmen and companies who do business and have dealings across multiple countries in the region, he said. "On top of that, many industries are often also tied such that developers can have suppliers in other countries and vice versa."

With the Handshakes platform, users can leverage its full database - which spans across all registered businesses in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and China - to map connections between people or companies in these countries.

They would just have to pair countries where companies are highly likely to have cross-border business dealings together, in order to find the connections, said Mr Neo.

For example, adjacent countries like Singapore and Malaysia would be a natural pairing, as would Vietnam and China.

Demand for the detailed analyses of corporate data, however, does not stop short at the borders of these countries.

Clients also hail from countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and the United Kingdom, many who are eyeing potential investment opportunities in these emerging markets.

The Handshakes platform aims to bring greater transparency, accessibility and efficiency to the due diligence process, so clients will not need to comb through hundreds of disclosure documents just to find out how one person is related to another.

With the platform, its clients - the likes of multinational corporations, financial institutions, and government agencies - can obtain the data they need with just a few clicks, said Mr Neo.

The platform is able to automate this otherwise time-consuming and expensive process by splicing and analysing public information from listed companies' filings it purchases - some of which go back as far as 1997 - to show a web of inter-connections.

Mr Neo, who was previously a regulator at the Singapore Exchange (SGX), said he believes the provision of data is a commodity, where providing "flat reports alone is not future-proof".

He noted that Handshakes' position as an upstream data provider has given the platform a distinct competitive advantage and has helped in differentiating it from the competition.

"Investors are more likely to turn to us first as their primary source, as we are a licensed reseller of data from regulatory bodies such as the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) in Singapore"

Indeed, demand for the platform has increased despite strong headwinds from the global pandemic, said Mr Neo, adding that the Handshakes had managed a "strong double-digit" revenue growth in both the first and second quarter of the year.

The firm had quickly "readjusted its strategy" following lagging sales in Q1 to increase its presence online, which Mr Neo said had boosted revenue "significantly" for its Q2.

The CEO also added that the platform is now "self-sustainable", but declined to elaborate if this meant the firm would be cash-flow positive, Ebitda positive, or has turned a net profit.

Notably, for the full year ended March 31, 2019, DC Frontiers Pte Ltd widened its net loss after tax to S$2.8 million from S$2.1 million a year ago, despite an 81 per cent increase in revenue to S$1.9 million for the same period, according to its latest filings.

In October last year, the company secured a US$5 million strategic investment from Nikkei Inc, the owner of the Financial Times (FT) and publisher of Nikkei Asian Review.

The startup also counts Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes the BT, as an investor.

DC Frontiers was last valued at US$35.6 million after its latest funding, according to venture investment database VentureCap Insights.

Moving forward, Mr Neo expects demand for the Handshakes platform to continually increase in the near term. Despite frozen budgets and reduced spending across many businesses, he remains optimistic that companies will realise the need to pay for reliable information during a time of great risk.

He noted: "More companies might want to keep tabs and check on how their partners are doing during the downturn in order to know their risks, especially at a time when travel restrictions have put a dent on the due diligence process."

READ MORE: