<article>Digital innovation startup WhyQ has bagged fresh funds to help digitise micro and small business in Singapore and Malaysia, while Apple is strengthening its presence in Malaysia by hiring for several roles.</article>

Digital innovation startup WhyQ has bagged fresh funds to help digitise micro and small business in Singapore and Malaysia, while Apple is strengthening its presence in Malaysia by hiring for several roles.
<h3>WhyQ bags additional $1m in extension of Series A2 round</h3>
WhyQ, a hawker food delivery startup based in Singapore and Malaysia, has raised an additional S$1.4 million ($1 million) in an extension of its Series A2 funding round led by Kairos FoodTech Fund of Kairos Capital Group. The initial Series A2 round of S$3.6 million had closed in 2021 with participation from Delivery Hero, Chope, Angel Central, and RB Investments.
The startup said in a statement on Thursday that it will use the fresh funds to continue improving existing products, as well as develop new services to help small businesses digitise and compete in the digital economy.
WhyQ currently powers more than 20,000 small businesses in Singapore and Malaysia by providing them with tech tools such as an e-store app called WhyQ EBiz and a digital bookkeeping app called WhyQ Kira Kira. 
This year, the company plans to add more features to WhyQ Ebiz such as customisable templates for online storefronts and integrations with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada, as well as partnering with more logistics providers and payment gateways. For the digital bookkeeping app, WhyQ will add features like automatic sales &amp; expense categorisations, inventory management, and bill payments. 
<h3 class="p1">Apple is hiring in Malaysia</h3>
iPhone maker Apple is hiring in Malaysia and has published job listings on its country website for several roles such as store managers, technical specialists, support staff, salespeople, and operations experts, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. 
The job listings don’t indicate the exact locations in Malaysia, but it is likely that the vacancies are for Apple&#8217;s own retail store instead of third-party resellers, the report says.  The company currently has more than 500 stores globally, mostly located in the US.
The move to open a new store in Malaysia is expected to further fortify Apple’s presence in SE Asia where it already has stores in Thailand and Singapore.
Apple’s products are popular among Asia&#8217;s tech-savvy population. However, Android is the dominant mobile operating system by market share in Asia. The Google OS had an <a href="https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/asia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">82.95% market share</a> between December 2021 to December 2022, followed by iOS with 16.39%, according to StatCounter.

Pramod Mathew

Kairos FoodTech Fund of Kairos Capital Group led the investment in WhyQ.

SEA Digest: WhyQ raises funds; Apple looks to hire in Malaysia

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SEA Digest: WhyQ raises funds; Apple looks to hire in Malaysia

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