Japan’s trading and investment company Mitsui & Co announced yesterday (April 4) that they have joined hands with Rohto Pharmaceutical Co to buy Eu Yan Sang International in a deal valuing the brand at S$800 million (US$594 million).

According to a press release, Mitsui & Co stated that a special purpose company jointly owned by Mitsui and Rohto would acquire around 86 per cent of Eu Yan Sang from investment firm Righteous Crane Holding.

The Japanese investment firm also added that a takeover bid for the remaining 14 per cent of the homegrown Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) brand will be made.

In a separate statement issued yesterday, Righteous Crane Holding is owned by a fund managed by Tower Capital Asia, a unit of Temasek Holdings and founding family members of Eu Yan Sang, who will also reinvest partially into the Misui-Rohto special purpose company following the deal.

In their statement, Mitsui & Co shared that the acquisition is expected to be completed by 30 June 2024. Deutsche Bank and UBS will also be acting as financial advisers to Eu Yan Sang, with WongPartnership as the legal counsel.

The acquisition aims to spur greater growth for Eu Yan Sang

Eu Yan Sang first opened as a medicinal hall in 1879. Since then, it has grown to be a mainstay TCM brand, operating over 170 retail outlets and 30 clinics in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

Prior to the announcement, Mitsui & Co. indirectly invested in Eu Yan Sang in November 2022, which helped to increase the brand’s value and spur overseas expansion.

Through these activities, Mitsui reconfirmed EYS’s strong business potential and how Mitsui could contribute to its business expansion, which led to Mitsui’s decision to re-invest in EYS with ROHTO and the founding family through the SPC.

Leveraging the competitiveness of EYS’ brand and products in Asia and ROHTO’s R&D and marketing capabilities, Mitsui will work to create an innovative new business.

Mitsui & Co in a press release dated 4 April 2024

Righteous Crane Holding took the company private after the brand was delisted from the Singapore Stock Exchange in 2016. The deal valued the brand at about US$196 million at the time.

In January, Reuters reported that Mitsui and Hillhouse had emerged as the final bidders for Eu Yan Sang for a deal valued at US$700 million, according to sources.

Featured Image Credit: Eu Yan Sang

Australian alternative protein company Vow launched its cultivated quail meat, Quailia, yesterday (April 3) in Singapore after receiving regulatory approval from the Singapore Food Agency (SFA).

Under the brand Forged, Quailia is described as an “entirely new cultivated meat” made from the cells of a Japanese quail.

According to an article by The Straits Times, co-founder and CEO George Peppou shared that the company wanted to create a product that was “distinctively different” from meat that consumers are already accustomed to, such as chicken, pork, or beef. 

“People have a general vibe of what quail tastes like, but they don’t have a very distinct impression of its taste as they would with other conventional types of meat,” explained Peppou.

He also shared that it took 15 months for the company to receive approval from the SFA for the sale of its cultivated quail as a food ingredient. The license will allow Vow to develop all kinds of quail-derived food products, including whole meat cuts, without further approval from the authorities.

The Forged Parfait will be available to the public for tasting at Mori restaurant from April 12 to 27, as part of a S$289 seven-course omakase menu with alcoholic drink pairings.

According to Forged’s website, the brand will be announcing its first restaurant collaboration in May this year and has plans to launch new flavours down the road.

Doesn’t want to compete in taste with “real meat”

Quailia is currently produced in Sydney, where scientists start by taking a small sample of cells from a Japanese quail species and isolating the cells that contribute to the parfait’s taste and texture.

These cells are then cultured in a bioreactor – a stainless steel tank similar to the ones found in a brewery. To bring out the “gaminess of quail”, ingredients including butter, seasoning and cognac are added to make the parfait.

Unlike many cultivated meat companies, Vow does not intend to replace agricultural-grown meats with their products. In a self-written article, Peppou pointed out the challenges that many of Vow’s predecessors experienced in changing consumer behaviours with their alternative proteins.

You’re not going to change consumer behaviour by offering them something which is a similar enough version of what they already consume.

Externalities like sustainability or animal ethics are not enough for us to change our behaviours for very long, despite what we’d like to believe. This is why plant-based alternatives have plateaued in sales in the past three years; the ethical or moral motivations aren’t reason enough to get meat-eaters to forgo a thing they love, and any alternative is fighting against a lifetime of experience on what chicken is and isn’t.

George Peppou, co-founder and CEO of Vow in a written article on Medium

Over the past few years, the cultivated meat industry has started out with much fanfare. However, many alternative protein companies have plateaued and been unable to achieve commercial success.

A notable case in Singapore would be Shiok Meats, who garnered media attention for their cell-based siew mai and cultivated crustacean products. The food-tech startup has shared that they were unable to scale their production process and experienced high turnover rates as a result.

In March this year, the company merged with another Singapore-based startup, Umani Bioworks (previously known as Umami Meats), to spur regulatory approvals and launch its products into the market.

Despite the industry’s scrutiny, Peppou shared that he has remained confident in the firm’s commercial viability through its “one-of-a-kind” products.

The firm previously raised US$49.2 million in Series A funding in 2022, where the funds will be used to build their second factory facility and bring their products to the market.

Vow was also the mastermind behind the “mammoth meatball,” which went viral last year because it was created using the DNA of the extinct mammoth. While the meatball was not made for consumption, the firm also boldly stated the “potential of cultured meat from many different perspectives.”

Whether it is blind optimism or a new breakthrough in the cultivated meats industry, only time can tell the success of Vow and Forged.

Featured Image Credit: Square Peg Capital, Vow

This article is sponsored and written by MOGUL.sg

AI has been the dominating theme in tech in 2023, few will dispute that. There has been a broad mainstream adoption of Generative AI tools, especially in the work space. At the same time we saw how researchers in dedicated fields like cybersecurity or drug discovery have made great strides. And there are many more examples.

Big tech is now pouring billions into the development of new chips and data centre capacities. Goldman Sachs forecasts AI investments to grow to $200 billion annually by 2025. AI unicorns, such as cloud software firm Databricks ($43 billion), autonomous driving startup Cruise ($30 billion) and OpenAI ($29 billion), have boosted their valuations over the past months, according to Crunchbase.

The hype should also benefit the local startup scene that has more room to grow. Singapore’s government has pledged more support and just announced that it aims to triple the number of AI professionals to 15,000. Finding the right talent had been a challenge for Gerald Sim, CEO and founder of Thanit Apipatana-backed real estate mapping startup MOGUL.sg.

Introducing a new way of working

Sim founded MOGUL.sg in 2018 out of Singapore Land Authority’s incubator Geoworks and his friend, venture investor Thanit Apipatana, became his first investor. Apipatana is also a close advisor since the early days.

The AI initiative is definitely going in the right direction. AI does not put people out of jobs; it creates new requirements for the labour force that needs to be equipped and ready for this.

Gerald Sim, CEO and founder of MOGUL.sg

AI is promising enormous productivity gains and is therefore causing some anxiety on whether certain job roles might become redundant. At the AI-native MOGUL.sg, teams use tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard to crunch large amounts of data and to generate scripts that before took many hours to produce. Creatives utilise natural language components that support copywriting, while the accounting department is able to generate cleaner looking spreadsheets.

MOGUL.sg is currently working on improving its platform and models with additional geospatial data. “The core of all generative AI is its ability to understand and respond to linguistic inputs,” Sim says. “We are now working to feed these models with all the data points we have, so that the Gen AI can give more in depth geospatial answers.”

The firm plans to roll out new features early next year that aims to change how real estate transactions are conducted. MOGUL.sg’s ambition is to provide all the answers around a deal on a 3D map that is displaying data on the property and its surroundings. Visitors can navigate the map on their devices and zoom into individual buildings to catch details. That should make the buying and selling more intuitive and streamlined.

As computer power becomes more affordable and the ability to store and mine vast amounts of data increasingly accessible for startups, we can expect more innovation across industries in the years to come. This will make us overall more productive, but it will at the same time also open up new job perspectives.

Featured Image Credit: MOGUL.sg

Grab will be discontinuing their GrabPay digital and physical cards from June 1, 2024 onwards.

In an announcement on its website, the mobility and tech giant stated that users will no longer be able to make online and offline transactions with their digital or physical GrabPay cards from June this year. The company will also not be accepting new card applications starting in April.

Grab stated that the decision came after evaluating its existing financial services, where they saw higher adoption of other Grab offerings, including PayLater by Grab and GrabPay e-wallets. They have also expressed their ambition to refine their fintech offerings to provide better user experiences.

We thank our customers for their support of GrabPay Card over the last few years, and remain committed to serving our customers and partners through other financial offerings on the platform.

Grab via their announcement on their website

As the discontinuation will only be effective from June this year, Grab has stated that users can continue to use their GrabPay Card to earn GrabRewards points on all eligible online and in-store transactions in Singapore and overseas until May 31. The number of points earned from transactions after the discontinuation will not change.

Card replacement requests can still be made until the end of April, and users who have yet to activate their physical cards may continue to do so until May 31.

Grab will also continue with ongoing transaction disputes until September 30.

The news of the GrabPay card discontinuation comes after the company’s largest round of layoffs in June last year and the winding-down of its investment arm, GrabInvest.

A look back to “Asia’s first numberless card”

GrabPay cards were launched in Singapore in 2019, with Grab touting it to be “Asia’s first numberless card”.

This came following their partnership with Mastercard, which allows users, including those without bank accounts, to pay at 53 million merchants that accept Mastercard cards.

GrabPay cards were an extension of the GrabPay e-wallets, which it was designed to “address major security concerns users associate with transacting both online and offline”.

Many Singaporean fintech players have since launched their own digital cards, notably Trust Bank with their Trust Supplementary card and GXS Bank with their line of debit cards.

It is worth noting that these two digital banks have been refining and expanding their digital finance products and services in recent months, which has increased the competition for Grab and their GrabPay cards.

Featured Image Credit: Grab

In 2023 alone, many international coffee chains made their debut in Singapore, notably Indonesia’s Kenangan Coffee, Canada’s Tim Hortons and China’s Luckin Coffee, spurring the coffee craze in the city-state further.

As the industry becomes increasingly competitive and saturated, smaller coffee startups and chains need to be innovative with their product offerings to ensure long-term business sustainability.

With that, here are five homegrown coffee brands that are making waves with their one-of-a-kind coffee products.

1. Prefer

If you thought coffee could only be made with coffee beans, Singapore foodtech startup Prefer will prove you wrong.

Founded in 2022 by Jake Berber and Ding Jie Tan, Prefer aims to disrupt the coffee market by offering a new substitute: its “bean-free” coffee, which is created by fermenting excess bread, soy pulp and spent grain.

Jake Berber, co-founder and CEO of Prefer, explained that the demand and price of coffee are expected to increase exponentially over the years. However, by 2050, about 50 per cent of the land used to grow coffee will be unable to.

By leveraging food fermentation, he believes that Prefer can provide an affordable alternative to coffee that does not exacerbate climate change and food waste issues.

“We believe Prefer is the next generation of the commodity we know as coffee today,” shared Jake.

Unlike harvesting fresh coffee beans from plantations, which can take months to grow depending on the season, Ding Jie Tan, co-founder and CTO of Prefer, shared that their coffee grounds can be created within 48 hours with their fermentation technology.

Ding Jie added that Prefer’s coffee grounds are compatible with standard coffee machines. The company has since partnered with various F&B establishments, including Foreword Coffee Roasters and SaladStop!, that want to diversify their offerings for their customers.

The startup raised US$2 million in seed funding last month and plans to use the funds to expand its production facility and market reach in Southeast Asia.

2. Crown Digital

Two major ongoing issues faced by the Singapore F&B industry, especially the cafe scene, are high employee turnover rates and operating costs.

Coupled with the change in dining behaviours caused by the advent of technology and delivery apps, many establishments—including Crown Digital — have turned to automation to address these issues, hoping to increase their profit margins.

Crown Digital is an Internet of Things (IoT) startup and the brainchild of Singapore’s first robot barista, Ella.

Keith Tan, the founder of Crown Digital, shared that Ella is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics to independently brew 200 cups of coffee per hour, which is about four times faster than a human barista.

In 2021, Ella made her first international appearance in Japan, serving coffee to busy commuters in Tokyo and Yokohama train stations until February 2022. The startup then launched another kiosk at Raffles Place station soon after.

Customers can order coffee through the one-stop mobile app and scan their unique QR code, which leads to a “pigeonhole” where they can collect their drinks. As of now, there are seven Ella machines in Singapore, notably at Changi Airport.

3. NO HARM DONE

We often get our kopi—the Malay word for coffee—fix at our local kopitiams or coffee shops. But Simon Lieberum, the German founder of NO HARM DONE, aims to revolutionise our kopi drinking experience with their local-flavoured coffee capsules.

Coffee capsules were first popular in Western countries and then expanded into the Asia-Pacific region, where they have become the fastest-growing market. However, most are packaged in unsustainable materials, leading to a potential extreme rise in global pod waste.

On a mission to provide Asian consumers with a sustainable Asian alternative to Western coffee for their capsule machines, NO HARM DONE was launched in 2018 with a bootstrapped capital of S$1,000.

Simon shared that all ingredients used are sourced from Asia, and their capsules are produced in Singapore. “There is no need for us to ship coffees around the globe when we have great Asian coffees with minimal environmental footprint,” he added.

NO HARM DONE’s coffee capsules are made with compostable pods and recycled boxes—an idea that was conceptualised after consulting with environmental consultants and industry experts.

The capsules are sold based on a subscription model in limited amounts to prevent wastage, with each pod costing as low as 54 cents. Their products are also sold in supermarkets and e-commerce sites, including Shoppee and Lazada.

4. Morning

Another startup with innovative coffee products is Morning, which created a coffee tech ecosystem for businesses and consumers.

Simply put, Morning provides a marketplace of the world’s best speciality coffee capsules and launched its coffee machine, Morning Machine, which has precision-brewing features.

Leon Foo, the co-founder of Morning, shared that the team borrowed product features from professional coffee equipment to widen the machine’s brewing parameters leveraging IoT, from temperature precision to pressure profiling.

The brand has announced that it will open its first brick-and-mortar store in May 2024 as one of the tenants in hospitality company Lo & Behold Group’s new lifestyle complex, New Bahru.

5. MAD coffee

As convenience has become a selling point, many coffee chains have introduced ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee products, creating another saturated market within the industry.

Singapore foodtech startup MAD Foods decided to create its take on the RTD cold brew trend by offering a 100 per cent plant-based and dairy-free canned coffee called MAD Coffee in 2019.

Unlike many RTD coffees that contain whole milk, MAD’s coffee is entirely made with oat milk sourced from Europe across all three variations: Decaf, Single Shot, and Double Shot. Their coffee cans are also made with BPA and plastic-free aluminium, keeping in line with their image as a sustainable brand.

The startup entered an exclusive partnership with 7-Eleven for its launch in Malaysia last year. Its products are currently sold in online and offline supermarkets, such as Cold Storage and GrabMart in Singapore.

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ANEXT Bank, a Singapore-based digital bank regulated by MAS, empowers startups with easy and accessible financing to fuel their business growth and expansion.

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Featured Image Credits: Prefer, MAD Coffee, Morning, Crown Digital

Alibaba’s Ant Group has made an additional S$200 million investment into ANEXT Bank, its wholly-owned subsidiary and SME digital bank, according to news reports made yesterday (March 25).

According to DealStreetAsia, the digital finance and tech giant previously pumped S$250 million into the digital bank, with the total investment amounting to approximately US$502.61 million.

This investment aims to spur Ant Group’s efforts in digital finances in Singapore and the Southeast Asian region following its receipt of a digital wholesale banking license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in late 2020.

ANEXT Bank has been making losses since its launch

However, the bank has reported an almost fivefold increase in financial losses, from about S$6,000 to S$33,000 in 2021 and 2022, respectively, despite earning S$3,195 in revenue in the latter year.

This investment is a critical move to ensure that the bank can continue empowering micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and championing financial inclusion. As of 2023, 78 per cent of ANEXT Bank’s Business Account customers are micro-businesses, and 51 per cent of ANEXT Bank’s business loan customers are MSMEs.

Ant Group launched its Singapore office in September 2023 as part of its global strategy. Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival that same year, Eric Jing, CEO of Ant Group, aims to capitalise on the increase in digital technology adoption in the ASEAN region.

Featured Image Credit: ANEXT Bank

Elfaine Tan and Kingsley Peh, founders of I’M IN, are no strangers to entrepreneurship.

When they were 20 years old, they started Singapore’s first online “tryvertising” platform – SampleStore.com. The platform, which allows customers to ‘try’ the offering before buying it, was subsequently acquired by Singapore Post (SingPost).

With this success, HerWorld Magazine named Elfaine one of the “Most Inspiring Women under 40”.

Starting an online lingerie brand

Despite their achievements, Elfaine and Kingsley’s entrepreneurship journeys did not stop there. One and a half years after leaving their directorship positions at SingPost, they founded I’M IN, a lingerie brand.

One question might float in your mind at this point: “Why lingerie?”

Elfaine shared that she was inspired to start I’M IN from her personal experience with wired bras and how the wires that poked out left her a scar in between her breasts.

I just thought “Nevermind, it’s okay, just putting [the wire] in will do,” but after that it actually caused scarring on my boobs. So now, in between my boobs, there is a very obvious black-greyish scar that is caused by the wire.

Elfaine Tan, co-founder of I’M IN

She added that there was also a market gap for wireless lingerie for Asian sizes and wanted to offer functional and affordable options made with quality. With that shared drive, both founders invested S$100,000 to launch I’M IN in 2015.

“I believe that all women deserve to have the comfiest intimates and not go through the same issue that I went through,” said Elfaine.

Unlike many lingerie brands that went through the brick-and-mortar route, I’M IN first launched as an e-commerce brand. Elfaine explained that going online was a “no-brainer” as it was the fastest way to test the market’s viability.

“Being online allowed us to reach a broader audience, establish a strong market presence, and connect with customers directly,” she added. Elfaine also pointed out that as the founders only invested S$100,000, she needed more capital to open a physical store then.

Creating their own fabrics and going through an aesthetic change

With every startup, there is bound to be a learning curve —a lesson that Elfaine understood from her past business ventures. Little did she know that starting a lingerie brand would come with new challenges and that her biggest hurdle would be establishing trust with her manufacturers.

The tricky, tricky part is actually working with manufacturers where I got cheated before, I’ve been in situations whereby the product isn’t what I ordered. So I felt that that learning curve was really, really challenging.

Elfaine Tan, co-founder of I’M IN

To facilitate better quality control and pursue faster production timelines, Elfaine partnered with exclusive factories where the team develops and produces its own fabrics and samples. Creating its own fabrics allows the brand to differentiate itself within the saturated lingerie market and provides its customers with “custom-made solution fabrics” that cater to their unique needs.

But unlike what many may expect, the brand’s first product was not a wireless bra but a pair of lounge shorts.

It starts at the drawing board, where the I’M IN team designs their cartoons and makes repeated patterns before they are sent to their factory for sampling. Elfaine shared that the sampling stage is marked by much trial and error before the approved samples are sent to their partner factories for mass production.

Elfaine remained on the lookout for new opportunities to diversify I’M IN’s product ranges, and she soon started receiving customer requests to launch a new line of wireless lingerie.

In 2017, two years after I’M IN was founded, the brand launched its first wireless bra.

In addition, the brand underwent an aesthetic change, as its lingerie has adopted simpler colour palettes and designs. Elfaine stated that the change was “part of growing up” for both the brand and its customers and that her tastes have changed since she started I’M IN in her mid-20s.

“It’s no longer just about looking cute, looking nice,” emphasised Elfaine.

Their first launch had a slow pickup rate

However, the launch of the wireless bra product line was not all flowers and rainbows for Elfaine as they received “challenging yet positive” reception from their customers.

She explained that the “challenging” aspect came from the fact that as I’M IN is an e-commerce brand, some customers find it tough to find the perfect fit and end up not purchasing.

“Bras are not like T-shirts. A little bit bigger, a little bit smaller, they just can’t fit,” added Elfaine.

With further product fine-tuning and the provision of a wider product range, the brand won the hearts of customers who were satisfied with the lingerie’s functionality and comfort.

Beyond product challenges, Elfaine also shed some light on its financial challenges.

With every new collection, there is also a risk of accumulating backstock, which can hurt the brand financially. Elfaine acknowledges the risks associated with their many product launches but points out that her team observes their customers’ buying behaviours to decide how much to produce.

She also pointed out that both founders have been conservative with their finances since the brand’s inception, to the extent that their office had to be downsized when they experienced financial constraints.

“In this line of business, you need to put a lot of money aside for the procurement, and sometimes the sales don’t come in as fast. So the [financial] planning will come in — how can we break down to smaller capsules so that we can stretch out our launches?,” added Elfaine.

She also added that as most of their operations are done in-house, it also helped to reduce business costs.

Now, they have 4 brick-and-mortar stores in Singapore

While I’M IN has continued to gain traction among customers as a digital native brand, many customers have voiced their desire for a physical store for them to try, touch, and feel I’M IN’s products before deciding to make a purchase.

The opportunity to open a physical store came when Singapore department store chain Isetan invited them to hold a pop-up event at Scotts Road.

I’M IN’s lingerie was well-received by new and loyal customers during the event, spurring the launch of their first store at Orchard Gateway.

The brand has since opened three more stores islandwide, though the transition to brick-and-mortar has brought a new set of challenges for Elfaine and her team.

She explained that more financial capital was needed for new expenses, such as lease costs and additional staffing requirements. She also pointed out the need to maintain higher inventory levels has increased as the brand grows.

“Sometimes things get missing, or the stock we take doesn’t tally with the amount we input into our system, and as the warehouse gets bigger, we can’t find certain things. And not only that, even in terms of procurement, sometimes we underproject and sell out too quickly, we do not have enough stocks for exchange, causing customers to be very angry and they don’t get their size,” lamented Elfaine.

However, these new challenges did not discourage the brand, as earlier in January, I’M IN expanded beyond Singapore to the Philippines.

While Elfaine expressed her ambition to expand further, the I’M IN team will focus on building brand awareness in their current markets.

The ultimate goal for I’M IN is to become a leading Asian-fit lingerie brand in Southeast Asia. In five years, we envision expanded market reach, increased product offerings, and a strong reputation for providing quality, affordable, and functional Asian-fit lingerie.

Elfaine Tan, co-founder of I’M IN

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Featured Image Credit: I’M IN

Singapore carpool startup Ryde has just announced its IPO listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today (March 6).

This follows their announcement in September last year, where they expressed their goal to raise US$17 million for their IPO. In a news report by BNN, this decision represents a strategic move for the ride-hailing company in expanding its innovative transportation and delivery services to a broader market.

Ryde was founded in 2014 by Terence Zou as a carpooling app, it has raised S$1 million from a venture capital company two years since their inception. They subsequently received an additional S$2.5 million to support their service expansion efforts in 2017.

The startup has also previously entered into a partnership with ComfortDelGro in 2017, and acquired Singapore logistics provider Meili Technologies last year.

Challenges ahead for Ryde despite the IPO

But the path ahead might be extremely challenging for the homegrown startup. According to disclosed financial statements, Ryde has incurred a net loss of S$4.96 million for the 2022 financial year despite raising approximately S$8.8 million in revenue.

In their preliminary prospectus, the company has also stated in they may not be able to continue raising sufficient capital or achieve profitability as it is dependent to reduce the amount of driver partner and consumer incentives paid relative to the commissions and fees they receive for their services.

The prospectus also stated that the startup is also facing doubt from auditors, who questioned the sustainability of the business.

Amidst stiff competition from other ride-hailing applications, notably Grab, Ryde has spent almost S$2 million on marketing efforts to differentiate itself. It has managed to increase the number of unique active users by 17,000 for the 2022 financial year.

Despite their best efforts, Ryde still has a long way to go to catch up with their competitors, as Grab reported 32.7 million unique monthly transacting users for that same year. According to an article by Tech In Asia, Ryde commands 2.5 per cent of the mobility industry, making them the fifth-largest player in the sector.

The startup has since expanded its range of services and is working towards becoming a “super mobility app.” With the proceeds from the IPO, Ryde has earmarked funds for marketing and growth beyond Singapore, as they hope to explore potential markets in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

However, in the light of many tech layoffs in recent months, the tech industry has been experiencing many uncertainties and pressure, hinting that Ryde’s IPO might not be as smooth-sailing as they thought.

Featured Image Credit: Ryde

Singapore mainstay fitness gym chain Ritual announced the closure of all Singapore outlets and that it is entering provisional liquidation yesterday (February 29), much to the dismay and shock of its members.

According to a report by The Straits Times, members received an email from the gym: “We share this message with you today with great sadness. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to continue operating, we have decided to close the business and have ceased operations at all locations in Singapore.”

Despite the closures, the email also claimed that the closures are temporary, stating that the team is “also exploring ways to get the Ritual experience back up and running as soon as possible.”

The gym chain has appointed Cameron Lindsay Duncan and David Dong-Won Kim of KordaMentha Pte Ltd as provisional liquidators to handle the proceedings.

Difficult for members to recover monies

According to the same report, gym members were left shocked as they could still attend training sessions the day, and membership promotions were ongoing before the announcement.

As of today, Ritual’s website and TikTok page are still running. However, the business has since shut down its Facebook account and privatised its Instagram page. Many members took to social media platform Reddit to express their grievances as they may not be able to get their money back.

On the other hand, some customers suspected that business was going downward, adding that the gym was often empty during peak hours, which spurred them to opt for shorter and cheaper memberships.

Ritual Gym was a fitness chain founded in 2013 by personal trainer Ian Tan and serial entrepreneur Brad Robinson. It became popular amongst Singaporeans and foreigners as they were the first to offer 30-minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts in the city-state.

Ritual is the latest fitness centre to be hit after the closure of at least three gyms in 2023 – Fenix Fitness in August, Haus Athletics, and UFC Gym in May.

In September 2023, the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) reported that consumers lost more than $20,000 in advance payments for gym and fitness club packages in the first six months of the year.

Its president, Melvin Yong, said then that consumers should consider shorter-term memberships or pay-per-use options, as recovering their monies for prepaid memberships in a sudden business closure is generally challenging.

Featured Image Credit: Ritual Gym, Reddit

Searching for the perfect beauty product is an ongoing problem all too familiar to most women. The same goes for Arissa Cheo, Yoyo Cao and Lin Ting, co-founders of ROMI Beauty.

ROMI Beauty marks the trio’s first foray into the beauty industry, which started from their skincare concerns. “I have very sensitive skin prone to rashes, and I constantly struggled to find products that wouldn’t irritate my skin,” explained Arissa.

For Yoyo, her skin is exposed to extreme weather changes from travelling around the world, and she shared that she needed makeup products not only for enhancement but also to provide ample hydration. Meanwhile, as a mother of two, Ting sought fuss-free products that would seamlessly fit into her busy schedule.

“All of us came together and noticed that, like us, many women were searching for makeup products that are multifunctional and had skincare benefits,” shared Arissa, adding that the founders conducted a survey to gauge consumer demand.

Harbouring a desire to offer versatile beauty products, all three founders decided to kickstart the formulation process, which took two years of trial-and-error and meticulous evaluations. Ting added that ROMI Beauty is “100 per cent self-funded by the three of us.”

In 2022, ROMI Beauty was launched, and their hero product — the ‘Dream Skin Tint’, a tinted moisturiser containing SPF and ingredients found in skincare, was released.

When asked to describe their brand to someone who has heard of it for the first time, Yoyo expresses its philosophy in three words: honest, versatile, and uncomplicated.

At ROMI, we are all about self-love. We are here to celebrate you and your skin. Our mission is clear- to create multitaskers that seamlessly fit into the lives of everyday individuals. Our formulations are created through conscious choices and carefully selected high-quality ingredients.

Yoyo Cao, co-founder of ROMI Beauty

Letting the products speak out for themselves

While Ting is not active on social media, Arissa and Yoyo are most well-known for their online presence and branding. It would be logical for both Arissa and Yoyo to leverage their online presence to bring more eyeballs to ROMI Beauty.

However, they have decided to focus on improving the formula of the products instead of using their status to promote the brand.

“There was no pressure [to perform], as we actively made the decision not to front the brand too much. We want to focus on the quality and effectiveness of our products and let them speak for themselves,” said Yoyo.

The founders were not the first to follow this strategy, as many Western celebrities have done the same for their brands. Notably, The Row is a high-end clothing brand owned by the Olsen Twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, which was established in 2006 and is now on par with luxury fashion heavyweights including Chanel and Louis Vuitton.

The fashion industry is often described as “cut-throat”, with both big and small name brands trying to differentiate themselves in the market; the same can be found in beauty.

While many mainstay makeup and skincare brands mass produce their products, ROMI Beauty adopts a “quality over quantity” philosophy and introduces a limited number of carefully thought-out products each year.

Yoyo also pointed out that while trends drive many beauty products, ROMI Beauty focuses on producing evergreen products that can be used as must-have beauty staples.

Pushing for more innovation did not come without challenges

However, research and development (R&D) has continued to be a challenge for ROMI Beauty.

Arissa explained that the founders and the team conducted countless brainstorming sessions to develop new product ideas based on customer feedback and market research.

She added that each founder has an active part in the sampling process, and all three must approve all products.

Usually, one of us will come up with an idea for a product, and the rest will come together to refine the concept further. We then go on to work on formulating the product’s base and active ingredients, ensuring that the ingredients are clean and always free of parabens, phthalates, SLS & SLES and synthetic fragrances.

Before final production, we undergo meticulous planning and consideration in every aspect, from formulation to packaging.

Arissa Cheo, co-founder of ROMI Beauty

Ting also shared that the business could not cope with the volume of orders during their first launch and experienced some logistical hiccups.

“However, we have learnt that as long as we communicate timely, take accountability and remain humble and transparent with our customers, they have proven to be very understanding, especially to growing businesses,” expressed Ting.

Founders hope to build a physical space for their products

Currently, the brand has garnered popularity among consumers in and out of Singapore, with 40 per cent comprising repeat customers.

Their loyal following allowed the brand to expand into a new product category — skincare. Their first skincare product, the ‘Glow Getter Treatment Mask’, was very well-received amongst their customers, and the product sold out within 24 hours.

Despite their accomplishments, the founders envision more growth for the brand. Currently, they are an e-commerce-only brand, and the founders have expressed their ambitions to venture into brick-and-mortar operations.

One of our main goals is to enter into a physical space and to be distributed in stores. We have been actively listening to our dedicated customer base and know that they express a desire for a brick-and-mortar experience to personally try our products.

And yes, we have several new products in the pipeline for this year, but no spoilers just yet. Watch this space for what’s coming next!

Lin Ting, co-founder of ROMI Beauty

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Featured Image Credit: ROMI Beauty