2 MAR, SINGAPORE: MISSION+, a strategic product builder, has hired Lavanya Kalyanakrishnan as General Counsel and Laura Crennan as Chief Financial Officer to introduce finance and compliance expertise to its expertise suite for startups and scaleups. 

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“Setting up technology products for market success takes more than engineering excellence alone. The recent market slowdown has shown just how critical it is for startups and scaleups to be built with the right operational foresight and enabling culture. Laura and Lavanya bring a career’s worth of experience across finance and law to MISSION+. Bringing these support services in-house, gives innovative companies the freedom to build while ensuring their technological products are legally compliant and financially sound,” said Nick Martin, CEO at MISSION+.

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With Laura and Lavanya’s support, MISSION+ will continue to support fintech, insurtech and ESG innovators to develop solutions that meet the technological and regulatory needs of legacy players. 

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Leaning into MISSION+’s expertise will give leadership teams support to accelerate their path to profitability amid challenging operating conditions for the macro technology sector. Startups and scaleups tapping on their expertise can expect guidance on how to operate in regulated environments, understand finance best practices and be introduced to hiring strategies.

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This expands on MISSION+’s current strategic product-building service which brings more than 100 designers, developers and solutions architects to startups, scale-ups and corporates to support their technology-building needs.

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MISSION+ has been behind the development of more than 30 technology solutions from Southeast Asia across eCommerce, logistics and shipping, web3, ESG and sustainability, fintech and insurtech. They have developed MVPs (minimum viable products) for startups and technology prototypes for corporates who have adopted new ventures as part of their growth strategy. The team does this by working closely with founders to identify the hurdles in their technology development and then finding the right internal or external talent with skillsets to approach the challenge. 

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“Rigour and discipline across any business’ financial planning and performance analysis is absolutely key to the achievement of development and deployment goals. To build resilient products with foundations strong enough to withstand agile pivots and iterative development, companies need the depth of insight and proven processes from experienced operators that have done this before – MISSION+ brings this to the table. By providing further support to innovators in the form of financial advice, we are supporting them to not just launch new products, but provide them with the path to grow sustainably,” said Laura Crennan, CFO at MISSION+.

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Laura brings a decade of experience across accountancy and financial services from Australian, British and Singaporean markets, having worked with major consultancy PwC and global retail brands Unilever and Kingfisher plc. Most recently, she led CFO Services at entrepreneurial support services platform, Sleek, enhancing her understanding of the particular conditions that startup founders are operating within.

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“Regulations and legal guardrails, whilst necessary, can prove complicated and sometimes a barrier, for innovators implementing new and unique technology solutions. By providing legal advice as part of a holistic product-building package, MISSION+ is able to support disruptive builders to focus on their expertise, while we smooth the way for their ideas to come to life,” said Lavanya Kalyanakrishnan, General Counsel at MISSION+.

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Lavanya was previously the Head of Legal at Singlife in 2019 (where she worked closely with Ned Lowe, MISSION+'s current CTO and their former CTO) to be part of Singlife's acquisition of Aviva Singapore in 2020. She brings a decade of legal experience across Singapore and India to MISSION+ to help companies navigate corporate and commercial regulatory hurdles; and operation blockers to uncover solutions.