NetApp extends its collaboration to accelerate Ducati Corse’s digital transformation and deliver fast, reliable access to real-time data from anywhere in the world

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 16 November 2021 – NetApp^® (NASDAQ: NTAP), a global cloud-led, data-centric software company, announced the extension of its partnership with the Ducati Corse motorcycle racing team at the completion of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship race in Valencia, Spain. For the next two years, NetApp will continue to help advance Ducati’s performance in the MotoGP World Championship, the world’s most prestigious motorcycle racing competition.

The collaboration between Ducati (part of the Volkswagen Group), through its Ducati Corse division, and NetApp began in 2018 in a bid to maximise the use of data to improve performance within the world of racing. NetApp and Ducati are expanding their work together to accelerate digital transformation by:

• Optimising 3D product design in complex development projects by implementing a new virtual desktop environment, allowing engineers to collaborate efficiently all over the world. As part of this improvement, engineers and developers can securely leverage and archive any project data, using the rich functionalities of NetApp StorageGRID object storage.
• Automating the racing team’s data workflow before, during and after the race. Engineers can support their team’s success, both remotely and on-site to maximise the power of information for the win.
• Supporting the overall evolution of the information technology strategy through collaboration between Ducati and the Professional Services teams at NetApp.

“We are delighted to build on the collaboration with NetApp, which has developed well over the past four years,” said Luigi Dall’Igna, General Manager at Ducati Corse. “We look forward to working together to continue to optimise our performance with the limitless possibilities that the power of data can bring to the motorbike racing world.”

“Leading a winning team requires exploring new ways to succeed and finding any edge to beat the competition,” said Cesar Cernuda, President at NetApp. “Our partnership and momentum with Ducati Corse are thriving and the team secured three of the top five placements in world standings this year. We are proud to support the ongoing digital transformation of Ducati into a winning, data-driven company.”

About NetApp

NetApp is a global cloud-led, data-centric software company that empowers organisations to lead with data in the age of accelerated digital transformation. The company provides systems, software and cloud services that enable them to run their applications optimally from data center to cloud, whether they are developing in the cloud, moving to the cloud, or creating their own cloudlike experiences on premises. With solutions that perform across diverse environments, NetApp helps organisations build their own data fabric and securely deliver the right data, services and applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere. Learn more at www.netapp.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc.

#NetApp

About Ducati

Founded in 1926, since 1946 Ducati has been manufacturing sport-inspired motorcycles characterised by high-performance engines, innovative design and cutting-edge technology. Ducati factory is located in Bologna’s Borgo Panigale district. The model range covers several market segments with the following families: Diavel, XDiavel, Hypermotard, Monster, Multistrada, SuperSport, Panigale and Streetfighter. In 2015, Ducati presented the Ducati Scrambler: a new brand made of bikes, accessories and apparel that that stands out for its creativity and self-expression. In 2020 Ducati unveiled the Multistrada V4, the world’s first motorcycle equipped with front and rear radar, which with its technology marks a new milestone for the world of two wheels. Ducati iconic motorcycles, together with an extensive range of bike accessories and technical and lifestyle apparel, are distributed in 90 countries worldwide. In 2020 Ducati delivered 48,042 bikes to customers. Ducati competes in both MotoGP and Superbike World Championships. The Company has been racing in the MotoGP category since 2003 and has won the Constructors’ World Title in 2020 and 2021. Furthermore, Ducati was World Champion in the 2007 season, winning both Constructors’ and Riders’ Title. In Superbike, Ducati has won 17 Manufacturer’s Titles and 14 Rider’s Titles.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 16 November 2021 – Sleek, a leading platform providing incorporation and accounting services for SMEs and entrepreneurs, has announced a $14M in Series A funding led by White Star Capital and Jungle Ventures. This brings the total capital raised by the company to $24M. Sleek will use the fresh funds to bolster tech and product development, hiring, and expand presence in existing markets and enter new ones.

Entrepreneurs and SMEs often struggle to separately deal with several siloed functions such as company secretary, bookkeeping, banking, tax, payroll, employment services, insurance, and more.

Founded in 2017 by Julien Labruyere and Adrien Barthel in Singapore, Sleek is a back-end operating system for start-ups and SMEs, a simple, single platform to manage all back office operations in a seamless manner, and seek expert advisory from qualified professionals. The platform streamlines, automates and integrates company set-up, financial and regulatory reporting, book-keeping and banking services.

The company has also constantly been expanding its bouquet of services. It recently launched ‘Sleek Business Account‘ that simplifies opening bank accounts for SMEs. It enables entrepreneurs and small business owners to open a deposit account in just a day through the Sleek app, and start transacting, getting rid of the onerous paperwork requirements before opening an account. Additionally, the account details can be easily viewed on the Sleek dashboard along with the other company metrics to streamline bank reconciliation for accounting and book-keeping purposes. The company is also planning to release products addressing remittances and card issuance.

Sleek manages a growing portfolio of over 5,000 companies, who collectively generate about $700M of revenue and processed over 1.4M bookkeeping transactions in 2020. Since inception, Sleek has expanded offices beyond Singapore to Hong Kong, Australia, UK, and the Philippines.

Commenting on the announcement, Julien Labruyere, co-founder of Sleek said, “We are very excited to partner with White Star Capital and Jungle Ventures as we are expanding our services and entering two new markets – Australia and the United Kingdom. This will allow us to grow faster and improve our product further in order to become the go-to digital platform for all entrepreneurs.”

Adrien Barthel, co-founder of Sleek, added, “With the launch of Sleek Business Account, we have added a major brick in our product vision of building the Operating System for entrepreneurs. Gone are the days where you needed to navigate between your corporate secretary, accountant and banker – often sending documents hardcopies via courier. Now everyone can start a Singapore company and collect the first payments in a day, and from anywhere!”

Eric Martineau-Fortin, Founder and Managing Partner at White Star Capital said  “We are extremely pleased to be able to make our second South-East Asian investment out of our newly announced third fund, and believe we can be an excellent partner to Sleek and leverage our global footprint to help address a fundamental problem for all SMEs and supercharge their growth into Europe and Australia.” 

David Gowdey, Managing Partner of Jungle Ventures said “Sleek addresses the deeply underserved challenge of back office management for entrepreneurs and SMEs globally. Their growth across geographies, and rapid expansion is testament to the accelerated adoption of the platform and the value it brings to the ecosystem. It’s a fantastic business with a tremendous growth potential, and we are incredibly excited to partner with Adrien and Julien, and support their next stages of growth by leveraging our expertise and global network”

Sleek aims to use proceeds from the funding round to catalyse its global growth, particularly in Europe, where it has announced the acquisition of Ltd Companies, a market leader in UK incorporation management that has incorporated more than 450,000 companies since its foundation in 2005. Sleek will add its products and technology stack to the existing Fresh Startups offering to build a holistic SME operating system for UK-based entrepreneurs and businesses. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Sleek

Sleek was founded in Singapore in May 2017 by French entrepreneurs Julien Labruyere and Adrien Barthel, who grew frustrated at the pedestrian speed of traditional corporate secretaries and accounting firms and their paperwork. Through its paperless and digital platform led by a team of dedicated professionals, Sleek is a one-stop-shop for registering a business in Singapore or Hong Kong. This includes handling everything from incorporation, government, accounting and taxes, to visas and regulatory compliance. Today, Sleek helps more than 3,000 startups and companies from over 6 different continents and 115 countries onboard in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, UK, and the Philippines.

Find out more at www.sleek.com, or follow us on LinkedIn

#Sleek

About White Star Capital

White Star Capital is a global multi-stage technology investment platform that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs building ambitious, international businesses. Operating out of Guernsey, New York, Paris, London, Montreal, Toronto, Singapore, and Hong Kong, our presence, perspective, and people enable us to partner closely with our founders to help them scale internationally from Series A onwards.

Find out more about how we venture beyond at www.whitestarcapital.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

About Jungle Ventures

Jungle Ventures is a Singapore based venture capital firm focussed on early to growth-stage companies in Southeast Asia and India, with a focus on building long lasting businesses. Jungle partners with the region’s most exciting founders to build high growth, capital-efficient technology businesses, and supports their growth from seed to unicorn, and IPO stage. Our portfolio includes regional and global category leaders like Kredivo, Moglix, Pomelo, Livspace, Builder.ai, Sociolla and more.

Find out more at www.jungle.vc/, or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, or Instagram.

PANGKALAN KERINCI, INDONESIA – Media OutReach – 16 November 2021 – As part of RGE Founders Day 2021 celebrations to commemorate RGE’s 54^th anniversary, its companies located in Pangkalan Kerinci, namely Pelalawan Regency, PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) and PT Asia Pacific Rayon (APR), raised funds and provided food packages and free COVID-19 vaccinations to the Pelalawan community.

August 1973 marks the establishment of the RGE group of resources-based companies by Mr. Sukanto Tanoto. Today, RGE is headquartered in Singapore, employs more than 60,000 people and spans Indonesia, China, Brazil, Spain and Canada.

In celebration of its Founders Day, RGE extended its cheer to those who may be in need of a helping hand amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The company supported its employees’ fund raising efforts on a three-to-one basis, matching every dollar collected with three dollars. A total of 8,155 basic food packages, each containing 5 kg of rice, sugar and cooking oil, were distributed at 33 locations across five districts including Pelalawan, Siak, Meranti Islands, Kuantan Singingi and Kampar. An additional 521 packages of prenatal vitamins, 5,239 packages of toddler vitamins, and 206 food packages for tuberculosis patients were distributed at 28 locations. To support the local government’s target of mass immunity, 427 free doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccinations were administered to the Pangkalan Kerinci community on 9 November 2021.

Mr. H Zukri Misran, the Regent of Pelalawan expressed his appreciation at Kuala Terusan Village, Pangkalan Kerinci District, Pelalawan Regency. He said: “On behalf of the government, we would like to thank Pelalawan Regency, RAPP and APR, for their food and vaccine donations as well as their economic contributions in Pelalawan.”

Mr. Sukanto Tanoto, the founder and Chairman of RGE strongly believes that whatever the company does must be good for the Community, good for the Country, good for the Climate, good for the Customer – only then will it be good for the Company. He commented: “We concluded the RGE Founders Day 2021 celebrations with global fundraising across 10 regions to support more than 50 organisations and local communities, many of which had been hard hit by the pandemic.”

About RGE

RGE manages a group of resource-based manufacturing companies with global operations. Our work ranges from the upstream, comprising sustainable resource development and harvesting, to downstream, where our companies create diverse value-added products for the global market. Our commitment to sustainable development underpins our operations, as we strive towards what is good for the community, good for the country, good for climate, good for customer, and good for company.

RGE was founded in 1973. The assets held by RGE companies today exceed US$20 billion. With more than 60,000 employees, we have operations in Indonesia, China, Brazil, Spain and Canada and continue to expand to engage newer markets and communities.

www.rgei.com

#RGE