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Chew Tee Ming (Singapore Entrepreneur)

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Chew Tee Ming (born 1990) is the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of personal finance platform Seedly, a community aimed at helping young adults manage their personal finances.[1][2][3] In

Chew Tee Ming
Chew Tee Ming (2).jpg
Born1990
EducationBachelor of Computing in Computer Science
Alma materNational University of Singapore

2020, Chew Tee Ming was featured on Tatler Asia’s ‘Generation T’ list, a compilation of entrepreneurs who have made breakthroughs or are helping their industry take shape.[4]

Background

Family

Chew Tee Ming was born in 1990.[5]

Education

From 2007 to 2010, Chew Tee Ming studied at Temasek Polytechnic (TP) where he graduated with a diploma in information technology from the School of Informatics and IT.[6][7] From 2012 to 2016, Tee Ming studied at the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he graduated with a Bachelor of Computing in Computer Science.[6][8] In his third year of university, Chew Tee Ming was part of the NUS Overseas College program, studying management science and entrepreneurship at Stanford University.[6]

Earlier career

During his second year of university in 2014, Chew Tee Ming worked at e-commerce startup ShopBack where he was hired as their first intern.[9] As a software engineering intern at ShopBack, Tee Ming helped to build their cashback business model.[6][9] Tee Ming also worked as a teaching assistant at NUS from 2014 to 2015, being an advisor for a Computer Science module.[6][10] While on exchange at Stanford University in 2015, he interned for content marketing platform Pixlee for a year.[6][11]

Tee Ming credited the time spent at Stanford and the internship at Pixlee for changing his mindset on entrepreneurship, saying:

“I spent a year working in Silicon Valley while doing part-time entrepreneurship study at Stanford University. The internship in Silicon Valley gave me a very different perspective on how things are done in America versus Asia. The part-time courses at Stanford allowed me to learn and talk to founders from many other companies. Both contributed greatly to my growth and enabled me to think differently.”[9]

Seedly (2016 to current)

As of January 2021, Chew Tee Ming is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Seedly, a local startup where users can learn to handle their personal finances.[3] Due to his experience in computer science and software engineering, Tee Ming handles the backend work such as software development for their Seedly mobile application.[12][2]

Beginnings

Tee Ming met fellow NUS student and Seedly co-founder Kenneth Lou during his final year of university in 2016.[12] The duo experimented with different startup ideas before settling on Seedly, as they wanted to enable people to make more intelligent financial decisions.[9]

Before Seedly’s launch in 2016, they had managed to secure funding from venture capital firm East Ventures after a managing partner saw the potential in the duo’s startup.[2] While working in Silicon Valley, Chew Tee Ming also won a hackathon competition where he developed the first version of Seedly.[13]

 
Chew Tee Ming and Kenneth Lou, co-founders of Seedly.

Business growth

In May 2018, Seedly was acquired by cashback platform ShopBack.[2] According to a 2018 article by Tech In Asia, Seedly was garnering around 350,000 monthly visitors on its website.[2]

In a 2018 interview with the Economic Development Board (EDB), Chew Tee Ming said the following about ShopBack’s acquisition of Seedly:

“Both our teams believe in helping our users make smarter decisions in consumer spending and personal finance for digital consumers in the South-East Asia market. By joining forces, Seedly will gain access to international markets and resources to grow. Meanwhile, ShopBack gains Seedly’s expertise in developing the personal finance vertical.”[14]

In October 2020, it was announced that Seedly would be acquired by Hong Kong-based financial management platform CompareAsiaGroup, deepening its portfolio in Asia.[15][16] The acquisition would allow Seedly access to more funds for the optimisation of their products, as well as a possible expansion into other Asian markets.[12]

Future

In a 2021 interview with digital financial publication Dollars and Sense, Seedly co-founder and CEO Kenneth Lou was quoted as having said the following when asked about Seedly’s future:

“We aim for Seedly to become a self-sustaining and most importantly, a strongly bonded community with a clear mission that can outlive any of us. That would be really cool and something that we aspire to as a team.”[12]

Citations / References

  1. ↑ Seedly. Facebook. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/seedlysg/?ref=page_internal
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Tegos, Michael. “Seedly wants to simplify personal finance for millennials”. Tech In Asia. March 12, 2016. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 “Seedly”. Glints. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  4. ↑ “The Gen. T List”. Generation T. n.d. Accessed 19 January, 2021.
  5. ↑ Koh, Eng Beng. “Invest In Yourself During NS: Seedly Co-founders”. Ministry of Defence. April 20, 2020. Accessed 18 January, 2021.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Tee-Ming Chew. LinkedIn. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/in/teemingchew/?originalSubdomain=sg
  7. ↑ “Diploma in Information Technology”. Temasek Polytechnic. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  8. ↑ “Bachelor of Computing in Computer Science (with Honours*)”. National University of Singapore. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Laing, Callum. “Tee-Ming Chew, Co-Founder of Seedly”. Empirics Asia. January 25, 2018. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  10. ↑ “Project Modules”. NUS Computing. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  11. ↑ Sayeed, Awad. “Intern Spotlight: Tee Ming Chew”. Pixlee. n.d. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Ho, Timothy. “5 Questions With…Kenneth Lou, Co-Founder & CEO of Seedly”. DollarsandSense. January 10, 2021. Accessed 14 January, 2021.
  13. ↑ Sobri, Dayana. “Seedly plans to make finance management, breeze to millennials”. E27. August 12, 2016. Accessed 18 January, 2021.
  14. ↑ “Thriving at the heart of the world's growth engine”. Forbes Asia. December 17, 2018. Accessed 18 January, 2021. Retrieved from Economic Development Board.
  15. ↑ “CompareAsiaGroup Announces the Acquisition of Seedly”. FinTechnewsSG. October 28, 2020. Accessed 18 January, 2021.
  16. ↑ “Seedly Joins Forces with CompareAsiaGroup to Empower People to Build Healthier Financial Lives”. ACROFAN. October 30, 2020. Accessed 18 January, 2021.
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