• The Institute has placed #1 in ophthalmology among all non-academic institutes, and #2 in the same field among all institutes, globally.

SINGAPORE, Jan. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) has achieved a landmark milestone in December 2025 by securing first place among all non-academic institutes in ophthalmology, on the American scholarly analytics platform ScholarGPS, whilst also claiming second place overall among all institutes in the field globally. This is based on data from the last five years evaluated by the platform.

The achievement represents a significant breakthrough for the institute, which has steadily built its translational research capabilities and international eminence in ophthalmic research and biopharmaceuticals for nearly three decades. As the research arm of the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC), SERI’s rise to the summit of global ophthalmology research rankings since 1997 underscores Singapore’s growing prominence as a hub for medical research and innovation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Recognition validates SERI’s research impact and mission

ScholarGPS, a leading platform for tracking academic and research performance, evaluates institutions based on various metrics including research output, citation impact, and scholarly influence. SERI’s exceptional performance across these indicators reflects the institute’s commitment to advancing eye care through cutting-edge research and clinical excellence.

Among the consistent body of quality work that contributed to this achievement are research in diabetic retinopathy, ocular surface (dry eye disease), cornea, myopia and glaucoma. Newer areas of impact also include research in artificial intelligence, digital health, and imaging.

“This milestone is a testament to the dedication and expertise of our research teams, clinician-scientists, and support staff who have worked tirelessly to advance the frontiers of ophthalmology research,” said Professor Jodhbir Mehta, Executive Director at SERI. “Reaching the top of the ScholarGPS rankings validates our mission to translate innovative research into better outcomes for patients with eye diseases, and we look forward to building upon this remarkable achievement in 2026.”

SERI’s success in translational research over the years

SERI’s cutting-edge translational research is making a real difference for patients today. The areas of impact include new biopharmaceuticals, such as the development of Vabysmo (faricimab), which reduces the number of injections required for patients with diabetic eye diseases and age-related macular degeneration. Patients who previously needed monthly eye injections to maintain their vision can now go for injections every three to four months instead with this treatment. SERI also developed Myopine, a low-dose atropine eye drop for the treatment of childhood myopia. This treatment is now available to patients in multiple countries throughout Asia and the rest of the world.

The Institute has also been credited with several device inventions. One of them is the EndoGlide, the world’s first US Food and Drug Administration-approved device for advanced corneal endothelial transplant, which is commercially available worldwide. Another device is the Polarisation-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography which enables doctors to look at how tissues at the back of the eye affect light’s properties on a microscopic level without invasive procedures. This has resulted in the development of a biomarker to track myopia progression.

Since two decades ago, SERI had already been at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools with eye care. Most notably, it created the Singapore Eye Lesion Analyser (SELENA+), an AI software which automatically and accurately detects diabetes-related eye diseases that could lead to blindness if left undiagnosed. Today, SELENA+ is a screening tool used in the Singapore Integrated Diabetic Retinopathy Programme, and Singapore is one of a few countries in the world to have a fully deployed AI screening tool developed by SERI and SNEC.

About Singapore Eye Research Institute 

Established in 1997 as Singapore’s national research institute for ophthalmic and vision research, the Singapore Eye Research Institute’s (SERI) mission is to conduct high-impact eye research that prevents blindness, low vision and major eye diseases common to Singaporeans and Asians. Over the years, SERI has conducted landmark research projects that have led to tangible outcomes, patient benefits, and success stories. It has paved the way for significant improvements in how eye diseases are treated and prevented around the world. As the research institute of the Singapore National Eye Centre and the largest eye research institute in the Asia Pacific region, SERI collaborates with local clinical ophthalmic centres and biomedical research institutions, as well as major eye centres and research institutes globally. SERI has published an impressive array of 5,942 scientific papers and has secured external peer-reviewed competitive grants. As of December 2024, SERI’s faculty has been awarded with more than 1,425 national and international prizes and filed 188 patents.

Visit us at www.seri.com.sg.

About Singapore National Eye Centre

Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) was incorporated in 1989 and commenced operations in 1990. It is the designated national centre within Singapore’s public sector healthcare network, and spearheads and coordinates the provision of specialised ophthalmological services with emphasis on quality education and research. With 10 subspecialties in ophthalmology, SNEC has achieved rapid growth and currently manages an annual workload of 400,000 outpatient visits and over 30,000 major eye surgeries.

Visit us at www.snec.com.sg.

MANILA, Philippines, Jan. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — QBE Automotive Protection, an international business insurer, has initiated a significant collaboration in the Philippines, working with Malayan Insurance, through its local partner Paramount Life & General Insurance Corporation (Paramount) to enhance coverage for Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) Auto Loan Plus customers.

This partnership integrates QBE’s Extended Warranty directly into Malayan’s comprehensive motor insurance. This solution extends vehicle protection to a maximum of five years or 150,000 km, providing up to two additional years of coverage beyond the typical manufacturer’s three-year warranty.

While traditional motor insurance handles accidents and theft, the Extended Warranty is designed to safeguard the vehicle’s vital internal components. This offering bridges a critical gap by giving vehicle owners peace of mind against unexpected mechanical and electrical failures of major components (engine, transmission, air conditioning) after the original warranty ends.

RCBC Auto Loan Plus customers can now secure this essential protection with a minimal monthly top-up, enjoying high-quality repairs with genuine parts at authorised service centres.

This makes RCBC the first bank in the Philippines to offer an automotive protection product that is amortized throughout the loan term, setting a new industry standard.

“We are thrilled to offer our Extended Warranty solution and collaborate with these leading institutions,” stated Albert Chow, General Manager Automotive Protection, Asia.

“Integrating this seamlessly embedded protection directly into RCBC Auto Loan Plus can help customers enjoy a truly stress-free, protected car ownership experience from day one.”

ABOUT QBE

QBE helps businesses build resilience through risk management and insurance.

QBE European Operations is part of QBE Insurance Group, one of the world’s leading international insurers and reinsurers and Standard & Poor’s AA- rated. Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, QBE’s gross written premium for the year ended 31 December 2024 was US$22.4 billion. As a business insurance specialist, QBE European Operations offers a range of insurance products from the standard suite of property, casualty and motor to the specialist financial lines, marine and energy. All are tailored to the individual needs of our small, medium and large customer base.

HANOI, Vietnam, Jan. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sunhouse Group, a prestigious National home appliance brand in Vietnam, today officially announced a strategic partnership with Anchanto, a global leader in Omnichannel Commerce and Logistics SaaS technology. This project marks a monumental step in Sunhouse’s digital transformation journey, involving the deployment of a comprehensive Order Management System (OMS) across four countries and Warehouse Management System (WMS) at two key regional logistics hubs.

Sunhouse Group and Anchanto formalize their global partnership at the official signing ceremony in Hanoi

A Strategic Vision: From Manual Operations to Global Automation

As Sunhouse pursues its ambitious international expansion, E-commerce has been identified as a core strategic pillar. To achieve the goal of tripling its online business scale, Sunhouse recognized the need to overhaul its existing infrastructure to meet the demands of markets in Vietnam and high-standard regions including the USA, Mexico, and Canada.

Previously, Sunhouse faced significant operational hurdles:

• Fragmented Data: Manual processes on international marketplaces like Amazon led to significant data synchronization delays, resulting in inventory inaccuracies and ‘overselling’ risks.
• Manual Warehouse Workflows: Traditional warehouse management struggled with real-time tracking of batch numbers, expiry dates, and serial numbers. This created bottlenecks in order fulfillment speeds, particularly during peak sales periods.

To eliminate these barriers, Sunhouse has partnered with Anchanto to implement a dual-solution ecosystem:

Multi-Market Order Management (OMS): Deployed across Vietnam, USA, Mexico, and Canada, the system centralizes data from Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, and Sunhouse’s own websites into a single platform. This ensures 100% automation of order flows and inventory updates.

Digitalized Logistics Infrastructure (WMS): By implementing Anchanto’s Warehouse Management System at two major e-commerce warehouses in Northern and Southern Vietnam, Sunhouse will achieve precise control over product lifecycles, optimize packing speeds, and enhance Reverse Logistics capabilities.

Leadership Insights

Vaibhav Dabhade, Founder & CEO of Anchanto, stated at the signing ceremony:

“We are honored to partner with Sunhouse—an icon of Vietnamese industry—as they scale their footprint globally. By leveraging Anchanto’s world-class technology, Sunhouse will gain a ‘centralized brain’ for their operations, eliminating geographical barriers and multi-channel complexities. We are committed to ensuring Sunhouse not only manages better but grows faster in every market they enter.” 

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Loc, E-Commerce Director of Sunhouse Group, emphasized:

“Digital transformation is no longer an option; it is a prerequisite for Sunhouse to realize its goal of tripling our Sunhouse’s current scale. Implementing Anchanto’s solutions allows us to solve the puzzle of fragmented data and optimize our logistics capacity. This is the solid foundation Sunhouse needs to serve global customers with professional, lightning-fast service.” 

Future Outlook and Expectations

The new infrastructure is expected to reduce order processing time by 50%, eliminate inventory discrepancies, and provide the scalability required for Sunhouse to enter new global markets in the near future.

The synergy between Sunhouse’s market leadership and Anchanto’s technological prowess represents one of the most significant and sophisticated digital transformation projects in the retail and household appliance sector in 2026.

About Sunhouse Group: Sunhouse is a national household appliance brand in Vietnam, boasting a vast distribution network and modern manufacturing ecosystem. With a customer-centric philosophy, Sunhouse continues to innovate its technology to provide convenient solutions for modern homes worldwide.

About Anchanto: Anchanto is a global SaaS technology company empowering enterprises to sell, fulfill, and deliver, anywhere in the world. Headquartered in Singapore, Anchanto enables complex omnichannel and supply-chain operations through enterprise-grade intelligent platforms, deep ecosystem integrations, and local expertise across 13 countries.

Media Contact: marketing@anchanto.com

• Co-development of innovative financial services powered by advanced digital technologies such as AI, cloud, and data science
• Strategic cooperation on trade finance for large-scale GPU and NPU server imports aligned with the government’s Global Top 3 AI initiative

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — MegazoneCloud, a leading AI-native digital transformation company (CEO: Doug Yeum), today announced a strategic partnership with Hana Bank (CEO: Hosung Lee) to jointly explore and develop innovative digital financial services integrating advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and data science.

Max Lee, Chairman of the Board of MegazoneCloud, and Hosung Lee, CEO of Hana Bank, signed a Strategic Business Cooperation Agreement at Hana Bank’s headquarters in Euljiro, Jung-gu, Seoul. The agreement outlines collaboration in the AI cloud market and expanded support for financial services.

Under the agreement, the two companies will work together to:

• Provide import and export trade finance to support MegazoneCloud’s planned large-scale imports of GPU and NPU servers for the construction of AI data centers, in line with the Korean government’s Global Top 3 AI initiative.
• Identify and jointly develop converged business models that combine both companies’ technologies and services across finance, cloud, and AI.

In particular, Hana Bank plans to consider not only financial support for GPU and NPU server imports, but also direct and indirect equity investments as part of the partnership.

Through this collaboration, the companies aim to strengthen the technological competitiveness of MegazoneCloud—Asia’s largest cloud managed service provider (MSP)—while also supporting the growth of domestic big tech and semiconductor companies facing constraints in securing GPU supplies.

“Together with Hana Bank, we will combine MegazoneCloud’s strengths in multi-cloud and hybrid cloud operations and our AI-focused platforms with Hana Bank’s financial data to develop AI-driven financial solutions,” said Chris Hwang, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of MegazoneCloud. “We also aim to accelerate the deployment of AI data centers tailored to the financial sector.”

Headquartered in Seoul, Korea, MegazoneCloud has built a strong global presence through overseas subsidiaries and local branches across nine countries—including the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore. Each entity works closely with regional customers and partners to accelerate cloud adoption and AI-driven innovation, while expanding MegazoneCloud’s end-to-end delivery capabilities worldwide.

Guided by its vision, “Transform Tomorrow, Together,” MegazoneCloud is dedicated to helping customers build future-ready competitiveness powered by technology, data, and people, continuing to grow alongside its global partners and clients.

SINGAPORE, Jan. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — HeyMax, a leading loyalty and travel rewards platform headquartered in Singapore, today announced it has raised US$11 million in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners. The round also attracted strategic investor Betatron Venture Group, with continued support from existing backers January Capital and Tenity.

Additional investors include Rob Rosenstein, Co-founder and Chairman of Agoda, and David Lee, fintech advisor, independent bank director, and former President of Visa APAC.

Founded in 2023, HeyMax is a Singapore-based platform that accelerates and unifies loyalty and travel rewards, allowing consumers to earn and redeem value seamlessly across brands, cards, and airlines and hotels through its flagship currency, Max Miles. The new capital will accelerate HeyMax’s product capabilities focusing on AI-empowered rewards experience simplifying earning and redemption for consumers. Apart from Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, HeyMax will expand its presence into Japan, Taiwan region, and Australia by the end of 2026.

“Across Asia-Pacific, travel increasingly shapes how people spend and save, yet rewards remain fragmented across markets,” said Joe Lu, CEO and Cofounder of HeyMax. “HeyMax unifies earning and redemption across borders so frequent travellers can capture value more easily into one universal travel wallet allowing our customers to travel better and faster. This also gives our partners a stickier, higher-engagement way to reach travellers and tap into the growing flow of spending and loyalty tied to travel across the region. This funding helps us accelerate how consumers earn and redeem travel rewards, scale our platform, and deepen partnerships.”

This funding demonstrates confidence in the travel loyalty segment evidenced by record travel demand and a growing appetite among Asia’s consumers for more better value travel. Research and Markets projects that the Asia-Pacific loyalty market will almost double to US$60 billion by 2029, underscoring the region’s rapid shift toward digital and travel-linked rewards. At the same time, IATA data shows Asia-Pacific passenger traffic now exceeds 120% of 2019 levels, while over 75% of consumers are enrolled in at least one loyalty programme. Yet, billions of dollars in rewards go unredeemed each year.

In Asia’s fragmented loyalty landscape, consumers juggle multiple programmes with limited cross-border utility, making it difficult to build meaningful value from rewards. This also limits how merchants and travel partners engage both their local customers and inbound travellers. HeyMax addresses these pain points by unifying how consumers earn and redeem rewards across markets through its core currency, Max Miles.

Users can earn Max Miles when they shop with over 800 participating brands and merchants, such as Trip.com, Shopee, Starbucks, and foodpanda, and redeem them for flights, gift cards, or transfer them to more than 30 airline and hotel programmes, such as Cathay, ALL Accor, and Qatar Airways.

HeyMax‘s key functions include:

• Max Miles – HeyMax’s flagship rewards currency that connects multiple loyalty and merchant programmes within one platform, enabling users to redeem with greater flexibility.
• FlyAnywhere – HeyMax’s redemption feature that enables booking on nearly any airline at a fixed rate per mile.
• Card Maximiser – a tool that simplifies earning by automatically helping users choose the most rewarding Visa card, even without opening the app.

Together, these capabilities are designed to make reward systems more interoperable and to simplify and significantly accelerate how consumers earn and use travel rewards across markets.

“Loyalty programs were designed to influence consumer behaviour towards their favourite airlines, hotels, or retailers. But today, a majority of these programs suffer from low engagement and have merely become a tool to collect customer information, resulting in no real loyalty. HeyMax is leveraging technology and reward loops to increase engagement and consumption for the world’s best brands. More than 40% of the total card revenues, totalling over US$100 billion globally, is spent on loyalty and consumer rewards – this is HeyMax’s opportunity,” said Rohit Agarwal, Managing Director at Peak XV.

Founded by four former Meta engineers, HeyMax combines deep product expertise with a regional understanding of how consumers engage with rewards and travel across Asia. Since its US$2.7 million seed round in July 2024, the company has grown to over 150,000 users and has issued more than 500 million Max Miles annually.

In 2025, HeyMax achieved two major milestones: the acquisition of Hong Kong-based fintech krip and its entry into Hong Kong as the company’s first international market. Earlier last year, it reported fivefold Y-o-Y revenue growth and an annualised revenue run rate of US$6 million, underscoring regional demand for connected and rewarding travel experiences. HeyMax also targets strong triple-digit annual GMV growth over the next two years.

Media Kit

The media kit for this announcement can be found here.

About HeyMax

HeyMax is a leading loyalty and travel rewards platform that turns everyday spending into meaningful travel, headquartered in Singapore. HeyMax is on a mission to bring more joy and empathy to the world through travel. Our vision is to accelerate access to travel and make it more rewarding for everyone by turning the things you already do into free trips, year after year.

Users earn Max Miles from over 800 top merchants globally and redeem them directly for over 30 flights, hotels, and rewards programs, or use them for gift cards. Max Miles never expire, come with no fees, and offer unmatched flexibility for modern travelers.

HeyMax is backed by leading investors, including Peak XV Partners, January Capital, Betatron, and Tenity. For more information, please visit www.heymax.ai.  

About Peak XV

Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) is a leading venture capital firm investing across India, Southeast Asia and beyond. Over the last 19 years of operations in the region, Peak XV has grown to manage approximately USD 9 billion in capital across 13 funds and invested in over 400 companies. The portfolio has seen 33 IPOs and several successful M&As till date. To know more, please visit: www.peakxv.com.