SoopahGenius announces the completion of its pre-seed round with Taiwan’s AppWorks Fund. SoopahGenius joined AppWorks Accelerator #20 in March 2020, and is thrilled to continue their partnership in the next stage of company development. This round of funding will help grow their engineering team and accelerate development of Catapult, their AI-powered platform that smartly navigates video content. 

Catapult’s innovation lies in its ability to chew through giant video files. It helps livestreamers and their community to find key moments 10X faster in a stream through an intelligent combination of high speed scrubbing, audio and text analysis, computer vision, and for select games, all game events. Every stream is stored in the cloud, which eliminates the need to upload and download files and opens the opportunity to collaboratively edit a stream or multiple streams. 

“We knew from our own experience that one of the things storytellers get very little help with is dealing with the vast amounts of footage and material they create as the story is taking shape. What we found with livestreamers was that this problem is so bad for them, it often proves itself to be insurmountable, and is really the key reason why they don’t create as much as they want.” said Mike Calcagno, CEO of SoopahGenius. “Bringing the power of AI, and, quite simply, just more computing firepower to the problem, we think that’s a great start towards making visual storytelling easier for everyone.”

With shared interests in AI/ML supported visual storytelling, SoopahGenius was founded by Cortana architect Mike Calcagno, Dropbox technical lead Constance Duong and video artist, and second- time founder Susie Lee. “AppWorks invests in founders, full-stop,” said Joseph Chan, Partner of AppWorks. “We know from experience that an interesting business idea is never enough; a great team is always necessary to overcome the enormous challenges to build something visionary. As we watched the SoopahGenius team work strategically with maturity and steadiness, we were confident they could tackle this very interesting and difficult problem.” 

Catapult is currently in beta with flexible and powerful product features in development for V1,  where they will expand their customer base. For now, interested streamers can request to be part of the beta or sign up via their waiting list.

【If you are a founder working on a startup in SEA, or working with AI, Blockchain, and NFT, apply to AppWorks Accelerator to join the largest founder community in Greater Southeast Asia.】

Docosan, a Ho Chi Minh City health tech startup which is getting Vietnam’s digitally savvy masses to skip crowded waiting rooms by booking doctors on its mobile app, has raised over $1 million in one of Vietnam’s largest health tech seed rounds ever.

The oversubscribed round was led by top Taiwanese tech venture capital firm AppWorks, one of the most active early-stage investors in the region and whose prior investments include Lalamove, Carousell, ShopBack, and KKday. The round was joined by biotech entrepreneur David Ma and Singapore-based investors Huat Ventures. 

“Docosan is bringing the digital revolution to healthcare in Vietnam thanks to its determined team and innovative platform,” said AppWorks partner Andy Tsai. “We noticed Docosan’s potential early on because of its participation in the AppWorks Accelerator. Docosan Founders demonstrated strong experience and dedication to the healthcare issues in the region. We are proud to be supporting Docosan’s vision of better healthcare access for all.“

In less than a year of operations, Docosan has helped over 50,000 patients discover and book appointments with hundreds of vetted doctors across 35 specialties. Docosan’s CEO and co-founder Beth Ann Lopez chalked up the rapid growth to vast untapped demand for a convenient and intuitive way to find the top healthcare options.

“It’s so easy to use your smartphone to order a banh mi or a motorbike taxi but finding the right doctor is still a frustrating experience for many. Many rely on word of mouth recommendations from family members and sit for hours in crowded waiting rooms hoping for an appointment instead of booking in advance,” Lopez said. “Docosan’s mobile platform, which includes transparent pricing information, verified customer reviews, and 24/7 booking, makes finding the right doctor as easy an opening our app.” 

Docosan’s platform works by allowing patients to book and filter doctors based on price, location, specialty, reviews, and more. Key to the platform’s success has been quick adoption by the many healthcare providers who struggle to expand their customer base and manage appointments.

“Many clinics are frustrated after spending large amounts on social media marketing because these networks’ vast, opaque user bases are difficult to harness to reach new patients. Docosan gives providers a far better, more tailored user base to expand,” Lopez said. “Meanwhile, Docosan’s proprietary booking software provides doctors an easier way to manage bookings compared to the crowded waiting rooms, which people are increasingly wary of amid the pandemic.”

Docosan has already integrated e-payments and insurance into its platform, with future plans to add telehealth and pharmacy services. The startup’s ambitious vision has been featured in the British Medical Journal and NASDAQ.com.

“Southeast Asia has been transformed by mass smartphone adoption and the rise of tech platforms, but in many places healthcare has yet to catch up with this trend. We’re very excited to make this happen thanks to our investors,” Lopez said.

【If you are a founder working on a startup in SEA, or working with AI / IoT, Blockchain / NFT, apply to AppWorks Accelerator to join the largest founder community in Greater Southeast Asia.】