Full Potential

Hailing from a famous family, Korawad Chearavanont has set out on his own with Eko.

- Suzy Nam

One of the more interesting deals in recent months in Southeast Asia involves prominent names in business across four countries. In November 2018, Korawad Chearavanont, the grandson of Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont, received $20 million in a series B round in November 2018 for his startup Eko Communications, which has co-headquarters in London and Bangkok.

The lead investor in Eko was Indonesia’s SMDV, owned by the second wealthiest family in Indonesia, the Widjaja. Two other investors were RedBeat Ventures, a unit of AirAsia, led by Malaysian tycoon Tony Fernandes, and Shanghai-based Gobi Partners, which boasts among its partners Shaw Soo Wei, a member of Singapore’s wealthy Shaw family.

Korawad plans to use the $20 million investment to expand into Europe. “There [aren’t] many players in the region capable of doing what they do,” says SMDV managing partner Roderick Purwana. “Korawad has the passion and capabilities to drive this company to its fullest potential.” Eko is in the market for collaborative platforms, a sector now at $17 billion and expected to grow to $32 billion by 2022, according to research firm IDC. Korawad likens Eko to a Slack or WhatsApp combined with office productivity tools. Not only can Eko users communicate with each other through a dedicated network similar to WhatsApp, they can do other tasks that WhatsApp can’t, such as track inventories, schedule days offor file expense reports. Eko is targeted at companies that have many employees outside of traditional offices, allowing them to turn their smartphones or other mobile devices into workstations.