Prospective Raises US$6 Mln in Seed Funding

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (Bernama) -- Prospective, an interactive analytics and data visualisation tool for large and streaming datasets, announced it has raised US$6 million in Seed funding, with the round led by Point72 Ventures. (US$1=RM4.55)

According to Prospective in a statement, the round includes participation from Silicon Badia, Irregular Expressions, Essence Ventures, Giant Machines and REFASHIOND Ventures.

Traditionally, organisations have struggled to efficiently access and analyse the data necessary for their use cases due to limitations in readily accessible processing power and difficulty in publishing insights.

Recognising this pain point, Prospective has built an interactive tool to facilitate seamless data access, analysis and sharing.

With Prospective, users gain intuitive and efficient access to both large and streaming datasets, enabling them to unlock valuable insights in real-time, directly through a user-friendly web browser interface.

By streamlining the data retrieval and operationalisation processes, Prospective empowers builders, consumers and analysts to derive actionable insights that were previously inaccessible.

With the rise of Large Language Models, the gap between model outputs and human understanding is widening. Prospective helps bridge this gap by enabling customers to derive and convey insights in an intuitive way.

Founded by Andrew Stein and Eric Schmalzbauer, Prospective is the enterprise version of the popular open-source data and analytics project, Perspective. Parallel to announcing its Seed funding round, Prospective is also launching a private beta for a limited number of firms.

-- BERNAMA

ST KITTS AND NEVIS INTRODUCES MANDATORY INTERVIEWS TO CONFIRM ITS STATUS AS THE BEST REGULATED CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PROGRAMME IN THE CARIBBEAN

Basseterre, July 20 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- St Kitts and Nevis has yet again strengthened the administration of its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme, announcing that all main applicants are to partake in a mandatory interview as part of the application process to its investment migration programme.

The twin-island Federation becomes one of the first Caribbean nations to introduce the soon-to-be industry standard. Instituted by regulations published on July 19, 2023, the new policy applies to all applications, including those already received but not yet approved by the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU). The new regulations also provide that dependants may be asked to be interviewed.

This new step in St Kitts and Nevis’ CBI application process confirms that St Kitts and Nevis has now fully implemented the six principles agreed between the United States of America and governments of the five Caribbean nations with Citizenship by Investment Programmes in a roundtable meeting held on February 25, 2023. That meeting was convened to discuss and agree on common ways to deal with threats to international communities in the investment migration ecosystem.

The five Caribbean participating governments are Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia. Their Prime Ministers and other senior state officials met with a USA delegation led by Anna Morris, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the USA Department of Treasury.

The group collectively committed to six CBI principles proposed by the USA, several of which were already adopted by the five Caribbean participating governments of their own volition as part of their risk management framework to strengthen and safeguard the integrity of their CBI programmes.

The six principles agreed were:

1. Treatment of denials: Not to process applications from persons whose applications have been denied in another CBI jurisdiction, by proactively sharing information on denials.
2. Interviews: Conduct interviews with applicants, whether virtual or in-person.
3. Additional checks: Each jurisdiction will run checks on each application with the Financial Intelligence Unit of its respective country.
4. Audits: Audit the Programme annually or every two years in accordance with internationally accepted standards.
5. Retrieval of passports: Request law enforcement assistance to retrieve revoked/recalled passports.
6. Treatment of Russians and Belarusians: Suspend processing applications from Russians and Belarusians.

A delegation from St Kitts and Nevis, headed by the country’s Prime Minister, Terrance Drew, also attended this year’s annual European Union-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Summit (EU-CELAC) Summit in Brussels.

During the Summit, St Kitts and Nevis, along with the other Caribbean CBI islands, met with the European Commission and agreed to establish a joint task group to engage the stakeholders and keep both regions abreast of ongoing developments and find a common ground to work from.

“We are very happy about how the meeting went in Brussels. There is definitely a spirit of cooperation between ourselves and the European Commission, and we will continue to make our efforts in mitigating international security risk very clear so all our international partners are confident of the integrity of our programme,” noted Prime Minister Drew.

The third edition of EU-CELAC was held from July 17 to July 18, 2023, and aims to discuss key matters of interest that impact the Caribbean and the European Union and effective resolutions. 

From July 19, 2023, main applicants, 16 years and older, for St Kitts and Nevis’ CBI programme will be required to be interviewed – virtually or in person – as part of the application process.

Head of St Kitts and Nevis’ Citizenship by Investment Unit, Michael Martin, commented that “St Kitts and Nevis remains committed to cooperating with our international stakeholders and takes the safety and integrity of our Citizenship by Investment Programme extremely seriously.”

Due diligence and risk mitigation remain a very important aspect of how St Kitts and Nevis approaches its CBI programme.

The country has one of the best regulated programmes in the world. St Kitts and Nevis is the only country with a CBI Board of Governors responsible for providing general oversight of the operations their CBI Unit; developing and implementing policies and procedures; ensuring that application processing is completed within the timeframes advertised without compromising the integrity of the programme; and constantly monitoring the global investor immigration industry to ensure that the country’s CBI Regulations align with international market forces.

The country is the also the only one with a CBI Technical Committee charged with ensuring all due diligence background checks are comprehensive in keeping with the country’s multi-sectoral good governance transformation into a sustainable island-state.

Caribbean CBI nations remain at the pinnacle of due diligence excellence and St Kitts and Nevis continues as a trailblazer for many CBI nations across the world.

The due diligence for the St Kitts and Nevis CBI Programme is conducted by highly respected international due diligence agencies from the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom, and vetted by the CBI Unit, Financial Intelligence Unit and international policing authorities. These agencies work together to facilitate a multi-layer due diligence investigation online and on-the-ground.

St Kitts and Nevis boasts the oldest CBI programme in the Caribbean, established in 1984, and continues to be a firm favourite among international investors across the world.

Secretary of St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment
Government of St. Kitts and Nevis
001 (868) 467 1474
info@sknciu.com

SOURCE : Government of St. Kitts and Nevis

SINGAPORE PASSPORT MOST POWERFUL IN THE WORLD - HENLEY & PARTNERS

KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 (Bernama) -- Singapore is now officially the most powerful passport in the world, with its citizens able to visit 192 destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free, knocking Japan out of the top spot on the Henley Passport Index, conducted by Henley & Partners.

The index, based on exclusive and official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), showed that Japan has been knocked off the top spot for the first time in five years and bumped into third place, joining six other nations namely Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, South Korea and Sweden, with access to 189 destinations without a prior visa.

Germany, Italy and Spain all move up into second place with visa-free access to 190 destinations while the United Kingdom (UK) appears to have finally turned the corner after a six-year decline, jumping two places on the latest ranking to fourth place, a position it last held in 2017.

On the other hand, the United States (US) continues its now decade-long slide down the index, plummeting a further two places to eighth spot with access to just 184 destinations visa-free.

Henley & Partners Chairman, Dr Christian H. Kaelin says only eight countries worldwide have less visa-free access today than they did a decade ago, while others have been more successful in securing greater travel freedom for their citizens.

“The UAE has added an impressive 107 destinations to its visa-free score since 2013, resulting in a massive leap of 44 places in the ranking over the past 10 years from 56th to 12th position.

“Of the countries sitting in the Top 10, the US has seen the smallest increase in its score, securing just 12 additional destinations. Singapore, by comparison, has increased its score by 25, pushing it up five places over the past 10 years to number one,” he added in a statement.

The general trend over the history of the 18-year-old ranking has been towards greater travel freedom, with the average number of destinations travellers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 109 in 2023.

However, the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than it has ever been, with top-ranked Singapore able to access 165 more destinations visa-free than Afghanistan.

Henley & Partners has also conducted exclusive new research into the relationship between a country’s openness to foreigners, how many nations it allows to cross its borders visa-free, and its own citizens’ travel freedom.

The new Henley Openness Index ranks all 199 countries worldwide according to the number of nationalities they permit entry to without a prior visa, with the Top 20 ‘most open’ countries are all small island nations or African states, except for Cambodia.

-- BERNAMA

JAPAN MARITIME DAILY HOSTS MAIDEN GLOBAL SHIPPING SEMINAR IN SINGAPORE, SEPT 4

KUALA LUMPUR, July 13 (Bernama) -- Japan Maritime Daily (JMD), the maritime newspaper in Japan will host its first global seminar, Future of Shipping towards Net Zero, with the theme of 'Decarbonization for the Future of Shipping', in Singapore on Sept 4, 2023.

Co-organised with the Singapore Exchange (SGX), the seminar will show how to achieve shipping carbon neutrality through the initiatives of major shipping companies and panel discussions, according to a statement.

The keynote speaker will be Ocean Network Express (ONE) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jeremy Nixon who will explain ONE's efforts towards decarbonisation.

Following this, SGX Group's Director Kenneth Ng will speak about SGX's FFA (freight futures) product and other topics, while a team of analysts from the United Kingdom-based maritime consultants Maritime Strategies International (MSI) will discuss the impact of decarbonisation on shipping.

In addition, a panel discussion moderated by Tokyo Century Corporation's Ship Finance Division Joint General Manager, Jigo Hayashi will include Swire Bulk CEO, Peter Norborg; and Meadway Shipping Singapore Managing Director, Sung Yong Do on the challenges of decarbonisation, including new fuels.

-- BERNAMA