STARTUPS AND FOUNDERS
Get to know JGDEV's portfolio companies and the founders and key leaders behind them.
Locad is the logistics engine for e-commerce brands to automatically store, pack, ship, and track orders across Asia-Pacific. Its tech platform syncs inventory across online channels and organizes end-to-end order fulfillment through its network of warehouses and shipping partners across Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Australia, with more locations opening soon.
Hundreds of brands now have access to the Locad logistics engine, allowing faster shipping, reduced costs, and exponential growth. Equipped with the technology, infrastructure, and partners running on one integrated system, Locad is on a mission to propel every business forward.
CONSTANTIN ROBERTZ
Fueled by his passion and extensive experience in the e-commerce and logistics space, Constantin Robertz is leading Locad as Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder.
After having been the CEO and President of tech-driven logistics provider Entrego, and the Managing Director of Asia’s leading online fashion destination Zalora, Constantin co-founded the logistics engine Locad to answer the growing need of omnichannel, D2C brands for a scalable, distributed, and automated way to store, pack, ship, and track orders.
Equipped with a background in Business and Management from Universität St. Gallen, and his 10+ years of professional experience in strategy, logistics, and e-commerce, Constantin is excited to steer the Locad team towards propelling businesses forward.
JANNIS DARGEL
With the desire to deliver only the best logistics experience for our e-commerce brands, Jannis Dargel is driving Locad as Chief Operations Officer and Co-founder.
After his 5-year stint at Asia’s leading online fashion destination Zalora, where he explored multiple senior roles in fulfillment and operations and led as Director of Operations, Jannis co-founded the logistics engine Locad to establish and run a reliable and automated warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping network serving the needs of omnichannel, D2C brands.
Equipped with a background in International Business from Anglia Ruskin University, and the best practices he has honed over the years in the supply chain industry, Jannis is expertly running the day-to-day logistics operations at Locad.
SHREY JAIN
Armed with his experience in developing powerful tech products that solve real-world problems, Shrey Jain is building Locad as Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder.
After almost a decade in product development for successful tech start-ups such as Southeast Asia’s leading superapp Grab and real estate technology company 99.co, Shrey co-founded the logistics engine Locad to build innovative tech products for omnichannel, D2C brands to access a tech-enabled and truly-connected supply chain experience.
Equipped with a strong technical background in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the National University of Singapore, and years of professional experience, Shrey is pushing the limits of tech innovation at Locad.
SariSuki is a Philippine Community Group Buying startup for daily essentials and groceries. It aims to provide affordable high quality products via efficient sourcing whilst providing additional livelihood to its community leaders and online resellers.
BRIAN CU
Brian Cu is CEO and co-founder of SariSuki. He brings more than 10 years of rich experience, both in managing new ventures and working in globally recognized companies.
Brian is widely known within Asia’s entrepreneurial and tech circles as the accomplished co-founder of Grab Philippines where he served as Country Head and steered Grab to become one of Southeast Asia’s leading ride-hailing platforms.
Between 2010 and 2013, Brian founded and served as Managing Director of Zalora Philippines, and then went on to establish Gojek, a transportation app that became the first and only Southeast Asian start-up to be included under Forbes’s list of Companies That Changed the World.
Prior to the startup scene, Brian was a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group. He holds degrees in Management Engineering from Ateneo de Manila University and in Finance from the National University of Singapore. Beyond building up his own ventures, Brian is passionate about supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs through mentorship and investment funds.
ANGELO LEE
Angelo Lee is the youngest co-founder of SariSuki, and serves as the Head of Strategy and Fundraising. He brings a rich array of experience with his highly sought-after skillset in raising funds for new startups, enabling new ventures to develop, and refining effective business models, commercial frameworks and operational structures.
Prior to Sarisuki, Angelo worked as a Private Equity Investment Executive at Sierra Madre Private Equity.
Angelo is also a passionate angel investor, supporting go-getting entrepreneurs in the Philippine start-up community to realize their growth ambitions.
Angelo graduated in the top echelon of his class in Economics at Wharton School in the US and achieved a full scholarship to study a PhD in Mathematics at Northwestern University, where he would achieve a Master of Science, but later decided to leave the program in order to pursue his passion for private equity and co-founding his own startup.
PHILIPPE LORENZO
Philippe Lorenzo is the COO and co-founder of SariSuki, bringing a wealth of experience from 10 years spent managing some of the Philippines’ most disruptive e-commerce platforms and growing new ventures from scratch. Responsible for the day-to-day running of SariSuki’s fast-paced operations, Philippe thrives on embedding innovation and dynamism all throughout the startup’s systems and processes.
Prior to Sarisuki, Philippe was Managing Partner for Ropo Ventures, a flourishing end-to-end e-commerce platform that supports and enables emerging businesses to realize their growth ambitions and transforming into thriving online retailers.
He also previously worked at Galore Global Tech, Inc. where he honed his abilities in managing cross-functional teams and driving results through collaboration, Zalora Philippines where he acquired expertise in process optimization and innovation working on business intelligence, and MoneyMax, the Philippines’ leading platform for financial comparison services, where he drove efficiency and profitability through improving turnaround time in data analytics, standardizing cross-functional operations, establishing best practices and optimizing workflows.
Philippe holds a degree in Management from Ateneo de Manila University, in which time he undertook an international exchange program in Munich, Germany.
BAM MEJIA
Manuel “Bam” Mejia IV leads Sarisuki’s Commercial Operations. As CCO, Bam envisions Sarisuki's commercial strategies and brings them to life via executional excellence, leading to exponential growth.
Bam spent 17 years in Procter and Gamble, working in Manila and Singapore. He has built brands and businesses across the Middle East and Asia Pacific region.
He holds a Management Engineering degree from Ateneo de Manila University.
eTaily is a fast-growing e-commerce enabler based in the Philippines that offers a full suite of services from content production and channel creation to warehousing and fulfillment, among others. Founded in 2020, eTaily evolved to a mighty team of experts from ZALORA, Lazada, and other worldwide-known e-commerce players servicing various regional clients from categories such as fashion, beauty, consumer electronics, and home & living.
ALEXANDER FRIEDHOFF
Alexander Friedhoff is Co-Founder and CEO of eTaily.
Prior to co-founding eTaily, he has over 9 years of global experience in consumer goods and retail from companies such as Accenture Strategy in Munich, van Laack in Australia and Germany, Zalora in localized sites across Southeast Asia, and part of the Global Fashion Group, founded by Rocket Internet.
Alexander holds a Master in Management from the École Supérieur de Commerce de Paris (ESCP) as well as from the Carlos III University of Madrid and studied in France, Spain and Germany.
DARWINBOX
Darwinbox is a leading provider of cloud-based Human Resources Management Software (HRMS). With a new-age enterprise-focused HR Technology suite, Darwinbox engages and empowers employees across the entire lifecycle (hire-to-retire) with a smarter, simpler & mobile-first HR Tech experience powered by AI and Machine Learning Recognized as one of the most preferred HCM platforms in APAC by Gartner, more than 500+ global enterprises and unicorns have digitized their HR with Darwinbox.
JAYANT PALETI
Jayant Paleti is a Co-Founder of Darwinbox.
Prior to Darwinbox, Jayant was an investment banker at Ernst & Young. Jayant worked across functions like mergers and acquisitions and private equity. He is an IIT Madras and IIM Lucknow alumnus. He has advised several large corporates on big investment and strategic decisions.
Jayant heads sales and marketing at Darwinbox and strongly believes the HR function can be a source of great competitive advantage for an organization. And also, that this underlying potential can be optimally harnessed through technology.
ROHIT CHENNAMANENI
Rohit Chennamaneni is a co-founder of Darwinbox.
Rohit has worked for organisations like Mckinsey, Google and P&G prior to starting Darwinbox.
Passionate about building a world class product company from India, Rohit started his career as a product analyst at Google and worked with their India & Ireland office. As an Engagement Manager at McKinsey he has consulted organizations across the globe (US, Africa, and India) primarily on technology and digitalization.
With immense experience in blending business strategy & technology, he aspires to create disruptive products, business models and teams to drive growth and revenue. Rohit today handles Operations, Investment, Customer Success and Expansion Strategy at Darwinbox.
CHAITANYA PEDDI
Chaitanya Peddi, a true subject matter expert of both HR and Technology, heads product & engineering at Darwinbox. His years of experience as an HR consultant has empowered him to understand the specific needs of the HR Tech market and build a world-class product that can not only optimally automate and simplify HR processes for enterprises enables HR to be a game-changing strategic function.
An XLRI alumnus, prior to Darwinbox, Chaitanya worked as an HR consultant with Ernst & Young and consulted global firms on organization design and performance management. Having worked in product development at Verizon and combined with his consulting experience, Chaitanya commands a rare vantage point in the HR tech space.
IPRICE GROUP
iPrice is an online price comparison and coupons business headquartered in Malaysia and has operations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong. It has a catalogue of 5 billion offers on its platform sourced from working with e-commerce partners, and generates about 30 million pageviews monthly across the region. iPrice currently operates three business lines: price comparison for electronics and health & beauty; product discovery for fashion and home & living; and coupons across all verticals. Read more about iPrice at https://ipricegroup.com/.
DAVID CHMELAR
David Chmelar is a Co-Founder and serves as Executive Vice-Chairman at iPrice. His experience revolves around top management and strategy consulting with expertise in financial industry product development, treasury and managerial finance and sales channels development. Prior to founding iPrice, David was a Member of the Board and Chief Product and Treasury Officer at Wüstenrot Financial Group in Czech Republic; and a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group for a little over 5 years.
David earned his Bachelors of Business and Information and Technology from the University of Economics, Prague; and Masters of Management Science at The London School of Economics and Political Science.
HEINRICH WENDEL
Heinrich Wendel is a Co-Founder and serves as Chief Product & Technology Officer at iPrice. Prior to iPrice, he worked 4 years for Microsoft as a Program Manager and Enterprise Consultant in Seattle, USA, and Munich, Germany, respectively. He also worked for a little over 5 years in the German Aerospace Center as an Undergraduate Researcher.
Heinrich got his Master of Science in Computer Science from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and diploma majoring in Information Technology at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University.
PAUL BROWN-KENYON
Yale and Oxford graduate, Paul Brown-Kenyon, was recently appointed as Chief Executive Officer of iPrice Group. Prior to his role, Paul spent 13 years as Chief Executive Officer of Global Berhad (MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd.) and 6 years with McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm.
TYME
Tyme (originally an acronym for “Take Your Money Everywhere”) is a South Africa-based digital bank.
Tyme offers a transactional bank account with zero or low monthly fees and a savings product. Most of its customers are onboarded via physical kiosks, usually in Pick n Pay and Boxer stores around the country. Since launching in February 2019, TymeBank has grown rapidly and now has about 2.8 million customers.
COENRAAD "COEN" JONKER
Coen is the Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer at Tyme. He has over 23 years of experience in banking, law and professional services.
In June 2012, he co-founded Tyme which was eventually acquired by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in 2015. In 2017, he was appointed Group Executive at CBA, and at the end of 2018, led the buyout of the Tyme business.
Coen holds an MBA and two law degrees with honors.
TJAART VAN DER WALT
Tjaart is the Co-Founder and Executive Director at Tyme. He is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years’ experience in digital financial services, software, and artificial intelligence.
In June 2012, he co-founded Tyme which was eventually acquired by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2015. At the end of 2018, he was part of the buyout of the Tyme business.
Tjaart holds a BCom Accounting degree and obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
GrowSari is a Manila-based service platform catering to the Philippines’ over one million sari-sari stores, outfitting, aiming to double their revenues by equipping them with both the infrastructure and tools they need to transform themselves from simple FMCG outlets to comprehensive service hubs for the nation’s grassroots communities.
Starting off in 2016 as an ordering platform servicing roughly 2,000 sari-sari stores, GrowSari now powers the management, growth, and analytics infrastructure of over 23,000 stores. In addition to providing affordable, on-demand inventory (selling at list price and providing next-day delivery), as well as working capital loans, GrowSari’s platform also generates crucial insights into the operations of these stores for manufacturers and distributors to build their strategies and campaigns upon.
REYMUND ERWIN “ER” ROLLAN
ER leads Growsari as its Chief Executive Officer and oversees all facets of running the business.
After graduating from the University of the Philippines-Diliman with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, ER moved in 2006 to Singapore working for firms like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and the Boston Consulting Group.
SID KONGARA
Sid is a serial founder and IT specialist currently serving as GrowSari’s Chief Technologist and Chief Operations Officer.
He has well over two decades of experience in engineering, having graduated from Osmania University with a BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering, before pursuing a postgraduate program in management at the Indian Institute of Management.
ANDRZEJ OGONOWSKI
Andrzej leads Growsari’s platform group, overseeing the development of Growsari’s platforms (mobile, e-commerce marketplace, fintech, KYC) and guiding product managers, engineers and partners to launch new products.
Andrzej previously worked for Unilever across Africa and Southeast Asia and has a business science degree from the University of Cape Town.
ZUZU hospitality is an all-in-one operating system that provides a revenue management system and a distribution solution to independent hotel operators.
Launched in 2016 by Vikram Malhi and Dan Lynn, the two founders were colleagues working at Expedia Group prior to setting up ZUZU. Both founders have deep experience in travel e-commerce and scaling businesses, having built Expedia APAC from under S$50M in gross bookings to over S$2Bn. Find more about ZUZU at https://zuzuhospitality.com/.
VIKRAM MALHI
Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Vikram was Managing Director for Expedia Asia and was instrumental in growing Expedia brand across 11 countries spanning the continent. He spent a total of 8 years at Expedia, taking on multiple senior level roles including marketing, customer loyalty, operations and general management. He worked at IBM Consulting early in his career and received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
DAN LYNN
Dan Lynn spent much of his career in the hospitality industry. He worked with Expedia and helped build its Asia Pacific business as the CEO of the AirAsia-Expedia joint venture AAE before joining HomeAway.com as vice president APAC and emerging markets. Lynn also spent some time at Movenpick Hotels and Resorts in Switzerland as its non-executive director. Early in his career, he worked as McKinsey consultant in London and is a University of Oxford alumni.
Zyllem (previously RocketUncle) connects the fragmented logistics network by allowing enterprises to build and manage their entire distribution network—that includes partnerships and their own assets—in one platform.
Headquartered in Singapore and founded in 2013, Zyllem first built its technology to support its crowdsourcing last-mile and same-day operations, delivering thousands of parcels daily in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. In 2016, Zyllem pivot into a SaaS provider, making its platform available to enterprises, allowing them to manage and optimize their logistics networks.
Leveraging on its technology and years of front-line experience in logistics, Zyllem aims to lead enterprises towards a digitally-enabled logistics landscape. Today, Zyllem is used by several enterprises and logistics operators across Southeast Asia. Read more about Zyllem at https://www.zyllem.com/.
NOAM BERDA
Noam Berda is a Co-Founder of Zyllem and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Noam has over 18 years of experience in logistics and software development in companies like SAP and Smart Communities. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Netanya Academic College major in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2003.
LISA NGUYEN
Lisa Nguyen is a Co-Founder and serves as Chief Operating Officer at Zyllem. Lisa spent over 15 years in software implementation, helping enterprises across the United States digitally transform their business. Today, as Co-Founder and COO at Zyllem, she leads her team in transforming logistics operations for enterprises across APAC with her broad. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Management degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Snapcart is Asia's first real-time shopper engagement app that allows brands to connect with its consumers directly. Snapcart applies AI to build the richest offline database of users in emerging markets. The company enables brands and retailers to measure, target, and optimize advertising and price promotions, helping clients compete in an increasingly data-driven world.
Since its launch in September 2015 in Indonesia, the app has been downloaded for more than a 1,000,000 times with very minimum marketing push. In attracting its loyal users, Snapcart offers rewards for users to upload their shopping receipts and participate in various activities. Through its data factory with hundreds of machine learning models, the company is able to process and predict receipts information within seconds. For more information, visit https://snapcart.global/
REYNAZRAN ROYONO
Reynazran Royono (Rey) is the founder and CEO of Snapcart. Prior to Snapcart, he worked for 9 years at Procter & Gamble handling various regional leadership assignments; he was the Modern Retail Director before moving to Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Having worked in BCG for 3 years, as a Project Leader, Rey supported and led strategic projects in Retail & Consumers Goods, Technology – Media – Telecommunication, and Public Sector practice areas.
ARAYA HUTASUWAN
Araya Hutasuwan (Noon) is a co-founder and the CFO of Snapcart. In her role, she is responsible for finance, fundraising, business strategy, and backbone operations ensuring the group produces profitable revenue and driving growth of the business.
Prior to Snapcart, she has more than 7 years' experience in Investment Banking and Venture Capital. She started her career at Thailand's top investment bank, Phatra Securities, and was responsible for several notable M&A and public offering transactions in the property, healthcare and insurance sector. After that, she was a Vice President at Ardent Capital, a VC based in Bangkok with 16 portfolio companies across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Araya holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Thammasat University.
LAITH ABU RAKTY
Laith Abu Rakty is a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Snapcart. He leads technology and product development, the biggest team at Snapcart. He oversees all technical aspects and technological resources of the organization and establishes a technological vision to position Snapcart as the leading deep tech company in the region.
Prior to Snapcart, he was formerly a Vice President of Engineering at Ardent Labs overseeing the development of new technology and ideas for all different types of sectors. Prior to Ardent, Laith spent several years at Bobobobo.com and Multiply. Laith holds a Bachelor Degree from Arab International University.
