This couple couldn’t find good Greek yoghurt in S’pore, so they built a factory from scratch
Most yoghurt consumed in Singapore has travelled thousands of kilometres before it reaches the fridge.
It typically starts at a dairy farm in Europe, Australia, or the United States, before being processed, packaged, shipped across oceans, and stocked on supermarket shelves weeks later.
Singaporean Haanee Tyebally and her American husband and co-founder, Braedan Tegenfeldt, both 36, wanted to change that. The result is Annie’s All Natural, which claims to be Singapore’s first commercial producer of Greek yoghurt and cultured creams, made in a 2,000 sq ft factory in Mandai.
We spoke with Haanee about how she and Braedan—both with backgrounds in international development and no prior experience in food science, dairy, or manufacturing—built the factory from the ground up and a supply chain that now serves some of the country’s most prestigious hotels.
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A family recipe
Braedan handled all of Annie’s operations in Myanmar by himself from his family’s garage./ Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
Annie’s story began not in Singapore, but in Yangon, Myanmar, where the couple grew up and built their lives together.
Braedan founded the business in 2014 after spotting a gap in the market. His mother had begun making Greek yoghurt at home after a holiday in Greece, recreating a staple of his American upbringing in Myanmar.
At the time, the country was seeing an influx of returning nationals and expatriates, but good-quality Greek yoghurt was virtually impossible to find. Seeing the opportunity, Braedan decided to turn the family recipe into a business.
Alongside his full-time job, Braedan started producing artisanal Greek yoghurt out of his parents’ garage, made in small batches and entirely by hand. Gradually, the business grew steadily from supplying small luxury hotels such as Belmond’s Governor’s Residence to being stocked at Myanmar’s largest grocery stores.
Haanee, who was working in Myanmar at the time for an NGO focused on family planning and women’s health, wasn’t involved in the business then. However, she later joined as his co-founder when the pair eventually moved to Singapore in 2020.
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Annie’s was available in Myanmar at supermarkets and farmers’ markets up until 2020./ Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
During the circuit breaker, the couple watched supermarket shelves empty as supply chains strained, and found nothing locally made that matched the quality of the Greek yoghurt they’d been eating and producing in Myanmar.
We didn’t really see anything that was comparable that was available in Singapore—something made either locally or within our region, something high quality, made of really good milk.
Haanee Tyebally
The same gap Braedan had spotted years earlier in Myanmar had emerged again, this time in Singapore. That convinced the couple to make a bold move: build a production facility from scratch and establish a new life in Singapore.
From July 2021 to early 2023, the couple spent nearly two years building the facility from the ground up. They commissioned custom machinery from Italy, installed cold rooms, fitted out a food-grade processing plant, and ran batch after batch through R&D until they were satisfied with the final product.
The investment came close to six figures—a scale that was far beyond anything they had undertaken in Yangon.
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But what makes Annie’s different?
Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
The answer lies in almost every step of its production process.
Firstly, it’s the brand’s flavours. Annie’s sources grass-fed, free-range milk from New Zealand, specifically from a dairy processor powered by geothermal energy—one of the few in the world to run on a renewable energy source.
According to Haanee, sourcing milk from Southeast Asia wasn’t a serious option because the region’s tropical climate isn’t well suited for dairy cows. She also believes grass-fed milk offers a better micronutrient profile while reflecting higher animal welfare standards.
The brand is equally intentional about its flavours. Rather than sticking to the usual fruit varieties, Annie’s offers six options: plain, vanilla bean, passionfruit, ginger, coffee, and its newest flavour, raspberry.
Haanee and Braedan visits Annie’s production facility daily./ Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
The biggest difference, however, is how the yoghurt is made.
While many products labelled “Greek yoghurt” achieve their thick texture through mechanised straining or added milk proteins and solids, Annie’s follows the traditional method. After the milk is cultured, the yoghurt is transferred into large cloth bags and left to strain naturally for 14 to 16 hours.
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According to Haanee, this slow process naturally concentrates the yoghurt’s proteins, fats, and flavour, creating a dense, creamy texture without thickeners, stabilisers, emulsifiers, or other unnecessary additives.
We really want consumers to have the experience of eating a super minimal product that’s made in a way that takes time, effort, intention, and care.
Haanee Tyebally
Building a client base from scratch
(Left): Besides yoghurt, Annie’s crème fraîche (S$9.98) is also available for sale directly to consumers; (Right): Annie’s is a familiar face at farmers’ markets./ Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
When Annie’s officially launched in Singapore in 2023, it had no distribution network, no established connections in Singapore’s F&B industry, and no existing retail relationships. What they had was yoghurt they believed in.
Their first strategy was to target the hospitality sector.
Hotels, they reasoned, consumed large volumes of yoghurt on breakfast buffets, had stringent food safety standards that played to their strengths, and had procurement teams who could evaluate products on merit. Getting through those doors required a lot of cold emails and door-knocking, but it eventually paid off.
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Today, Annie’s supplies an impressive roster of properties: Shangri-La on Orange Grove Road, Fullerton Hotel and Fullerton Bay Hotel, Sofitel City Centre, JW Marriott South Beach, W Hotel in Sentosa, and multiple Resorts World properties, including the newly opened Lis Hotel. Hotels and restaurants now account for the bulk of the company’s sales.
Beyond Greek yoghurt, Annie’s also produces sour cream, crème fraîche, and labneh—a lightly salted yoghurt cheese—with culturing times of between 24 and 40 hours to meet the needs of its hospitality and foodservice clients.
Annie’s is regularly stocked at Little Farms’ supermarkets, apart from RedMart./ Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
On the retail front, Annie’s has been stocked at Little Farms since shortly after launch, a partnership Haanee shared was built on shared values around clean ingredients and transparent sourcing. The brand has also expanded online through RedMart, with each 120g tub retailing for S$4.20.
For now, though, major supermarket chains still remain out of reach.
High listing fees, upfront production costs, and long payment cycles pose significant barriers for a small producer, though Haanee hopes Annie’s will eventually make its way onto mainstream supermarket shelves so more Singaporeans can access its products.
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A growing market
Image Credit: Annie’s All Natural
Today, Annie’s produces more than 4,000kg of Greek yoghurt each month, processing over 8,000 litres of milk.
Haanee attributes that growth to changing consumer habits. Once a niche product, Greek yoghurt has become increasingly mainstream as social media, greater nutrition awareness, and more well-travelled consumers drive demand for high-protein foods.
She also noted that Greek yoghurt’s naturally lower lactose content than regular yoghurt makes it well-suited to Asian consumers, many of whom are lactose intolerant.
To reach more customers, Annie’s has been doing pop-ups at various farmers’ markets like City Spouts, AIR restaurant at Dempsey and the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation over the years.
That said, the team remains small, comprising six full-time and part-time staff, with Haanee and Braedan still directly involved in daily production.
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Haanee shared that labour is one of the industry’s most persistent challenges. Finding people willing to do the physical, time-intensive work of food manufacturing in Singapore is increasingly difficult in the F&B sector.
The other running challenge is cost. Producing at a small, artisanal scale with premium ingredients in Singapore means that its price point cannot compete with multinational dairy brands that benefit from industrial-scale economics.
Annie’s yoghurt isn’t cheap, and Haanee doesn’t shy away from that, but she believes that her products provide good value for customers for a high-quality dairy producer.
To reduce costs, Annie’s encourages its corporate clients to participate in its very own glass jar recycling programme. It collects, sterilises, and reuses yoghurt jars for its next batch of production.
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In the past year alone, close to 40,000 jars have been recovered and reincorporated into the supply chain rather than going to waste.
In it for the long run
Annie’s currently offers six flavours./ Image Credit: Acapella Photography, Annie’s All Natural
Haanee is cautious about trend dependency.
Greek yoghurt is having a moment between viral social media content, growing protein consciousness, and a more nutritionally savvy consumer, but the goal at Annie’s isn’t to ride the wave. It’s to outlast it.
“I hope that our products build beyond trends and that people actually eat them—one, because they enjoy them, but two, because they are really good for you,” she said.
For a brand that spent close to six figures building a factory here before selling a single jar, that long-term thinking is baked into everything Annie’s does, from its values to the 14-hour strain. It’s a business built around doing things the hard way, because the founders believe the product speaks for itself.
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We want to make sure we are doing the best by our customers and making the best product we can and standing by every ingredient we use.
Oppo has unveiled the Enco Air5s, the brand’s first semi-in-ear earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation, placing them in direct competition with Apple’s AirPods 4 with ANC.
The open design that gives semi-in-ear earbuds their comfortable fit has traditionally been a poor fit for effective noise cancellation, since it leaves more room for ambient sound to leak through.
Oppo’s Real-time Adaptive Noise Cancellation addresses that limitation by adjusting noise reduction based on fit, ear canal shape and surrounding sound, all processed through an 800kHz sampling rate for faster response to changing conditions.
Alongside that adaptive system, the Enco Air 5s also include a Tailored Voice-Canceling System built to suppress vocal frequencies and reduce nearby conversations, a feature aimed at noisy environments such as crowded cafés.
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Each earbud weighs just 3.9 grams, a figure Oppo credits to its Excimer Craftsmanship finishing process, which combines a shimmering surface with a smooth touch while keeping the overall build ultra-lightweight. Complementing this is the Ergonomic Semi-in-Ear Fit, intended to conform more closely to natural ear contours and reduce friction during extended wear.
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Sound comes from a newly customised 12mm dynamic driver built around a Copper-Clad Aluminum Wire coil, paired with an Acoustic Cavity Design that Oppo says delivers crisp highs, impactful bass and clear vocals. An upgraded 10-band Custom EQ allows listeners to fine-tune low, mid and high frequencies, while Adaptive Sound Enhancement compensates for sound leakage in real time.
Image Credit (Oppo)
Connectivity is Bluetooth 6.0 alongside Oppo’s own Smart Bluetooth system, with Dual Connection Across Systems letting users switch between paired devices without manually reconnecting.
Beyond standard pairing, the earbuds introduce AI Translate, supporting face-to-face translation for situations such as ordering food or attending meetings abroad, alongside Slide Volume Control for hands-free adjustment without touching a connected phone.
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Battery life reaches up to 48 hours with the charging case, with Oppo stating the cells retain over 80 percent capacity after 1,000 charge cycles, a claim backed by TÜV Rheinland certification.
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The Enco Air 5s will launch in Lunar White, Midnight Black and Starlight Purple finishes, though Oppo has not confirmed pricing or release dates beyond noting that details will follow through official local market announcements.
This may say more about us than the current state of the telephone network, but unless your Grandma is still kicking, how many phone calls do you take that are actually worth picking up? Around here it’s one variety of scam or another, with the odd cold-calling salesperson to round it out.
So when we saw [Bolan Xu]’s texting-only TERMINUS cell phone project, it took but a minute to decide that, yeah, we wouldn’t miss the telephone part of the phone very much either.
The trade-offs are immense when compared to your smartphone; there’s no voice, no web browser, no social media, and no camera. But on the flip side there’s also no spyware and no annoying spam calls. Besides, he’s built a QWERTY keyboard onto this thing, and that does seem to be what most of us miss in this era of black rectangles.
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In terms of electronics, its rocking a tiny OLED display for you to read your messages on, driven by an ESP8266. When WiFi is available the plan was to bridge over the internet in an SMS version of VOIP, but [Bolan Xu] ended up installing a cellular modem in it anyway.
As you can tell from the skeletal case, this is very much a prototype, but it is a promising project. We’ve seen ESP-based phones before, but they tend to be a bit smarter, and run on ESP32 instead of the more modest ESP8266.
The competitive edge in enterprise AI is shifting to context: which platform can give an agent the right memory, the right retrieval and the right data at the moment of decision.
Couchbase on Tuesday announced its AI Data Plane, combining persistent agent memory, real-time context retrieval and an enterprise-managed MCP server in a single operational platform.
Couchbase’s roots are in caching and high-transaction databases — an architecture the company argues makes it better suited for agent memory than vendors that came to the problem from search or analytics. The AI Data Plane runs identically across cloud, on-premises and disconnected edge environments, extending agent memory and local vector search to devices with no network connection.
“How do you make sure that the intelligence that you get out of these models are the ones that databases specialize in?” Gopi Duddi, CTO at Couchbase, told VentureBeat. “How can you get that value out of storage systems, which are still going to be databases?”
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What the AI Data Plane delivers
The AI Data Plane packages three components designed to replace the fragmented stacks most enterprises are currently running.
Agent memory: A unified persistence layer for conversational context, structured operational data and vector embeddings. Couchbase says the guardrails are what distinguish it from standalone memory services: token constraints per session, time-to-live limits on stored memories and metering controls that cap compute consumption per agent session.
Enterprise MCP server: An enterprise-supported self-managed server for standardized model-context protocol integration, shipping as part of the platform rather than requiring a separate service.
Agent catalog: A function-level catalog of discoverable agent tooling built by Couchbase. Duddi distinguished it from metadata catalogs like Databricks Unity or AWS Glue — describing it, in his words, as closer to a glorified MCP that surfaces agent functions as callable tools within the platform.
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Memory-first architecture takes agent context to the disconnected edge
The lineage of Couchbase and its core architectural foundation is what Duddi says gives it an edge when it comes to context.
“We were a cache before we became a database,” Duddi said.
Writing to memory is 10x faster than writing to disk, Duddi said — a speed advantage he argues separates Couchbase from NoSQL databases that layer memory workloads on top of disk-based storage.
Couchbase isn’t the only data technology that has its roots in a caching layer. Redis similarly is rooted in cache and also recently announced an agentic AI context layer. Duddi argued that Couchbase is different in that it maintains an ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) compliant database which matters for transactional workloads. Couchbase also has a long history across multiple deployment modalities.
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That architecture extends to the edge through Couchbase Lite, the platform’s on-device runtime. It runs SQL, full-text search and vector search locally without a network connection, using a proprietary sync mechanism to replicate bidirectionally back to cloud or between edge nodes when connectivity returns. The target environments are retail floor operations, field service, industrial deployments and regulated settings where agent data cannot leave the device.
Duddi cited hotel reservations as an early example: multiple agents serving customers concurrently, each pulling local context and running vector search on-device, with shared session memory synchronizing centrally. The practical benefit is token efficiency. Rather than every agent independently retrieving and processing the same data, the platform caches shared context so concurrent sessions draw on it without burning tokens repeatedly.
VB Transform · July 14–15 · Menlo Park · Agentic context layers
Your agents are only as good as the data they can reach.
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Sessions at Transform cover the RAG architectures powering agentic systems at scale — including how enterprises are connecting agents to live genomics, clinical, and enterprise data.
Agora, a platform that helps developers embed real-time voice, video and conversational AI into enterprise applications, has run Couchbase in production since February 2024.
The initial use case was its Signaling product, managing channel setup and state synchronization for live calls. Expanding into conversational AI agents brought stricter requirements: memory-first architecture, full JSON support for storage and query, cross-datacenter replication for high availability and enterprise-grade vendor support.
“Couchbase was the best fit based on these criteria,” Patrick Ferriter, SVP of Product at Agora, told VentureBeat.
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Agora is now extending that relationship to support context retrieval for conversational AI agents.
“This will simplify the architecture and deliver enterprise grade RAG with predictable lower latency required for conversational AI use cases,” Ferriter said.
For data professionals trying to figure out the best approach to context, there is no one answer. On platform selection, Ferriter was direct.
“It depends on the preference and goals of the organization, including timing,” Ferriter said. “If they want something enterprise grade and optimal for immediate production and scale vs. having to optimize and maintain an open-source solution with community support. We wanted the former and that is why we looked at an expanded partnership with Couchbase.”
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Competitive context: following the right trend
The context layer has become a crowded space in 2025.
Oracle put a memory core in its database back in March providing a context layer. Redis added a context layer in May as did vector-native database vendor Pinecone.
“Couchbase is following this trend, not setting it, but it’s the right one to follow,” Devin Pratt, Research Director for AI, Automation, Data and Analytics at IDC, told VentureBeat. “Its real edge is reach, running the same platform from cloud to edge to mobile, which is how enterprises actually operate. The test now is to scale against bigger names.”
For teams navigating the vendor landscape, Pratt’s framing is direct. “Match the tool to the workload. Consolidate where it makes sense, use a specialized engine like a graph database where relationship-heavy reasoning earns it, and let governance drive the call rather than treating memory as plumbing,” Pratt said.
The US government has just handed scientists the largest map of human health ever assembled. It pairs more than half a million genomes with real medical records, and it arrives as the programme behind it faces deep budget cuts.
The database comes from All of Us, a research programme run by the National Institutes of Health. On June 30, 2026, the NIH released data from more than 747,000 participants. That makes All of Us the world’s largest integrated store of genomes and electronic health records. It links 535,000 whole genome sequences to nearly 482,000 medical records. No rival can match that depth and breadth.
The scale is the point. To tailor a treatment to one person, researchers first need patterns drawn from many. All of Us bundles genomes with doctors’ notes, diagnoses, and test results. It adds health surveys, wearable data from devices like Fitbits, and even local air quality. The trove now holds more than 1.3 billion genetic variants. The eventual goal is one million volunteers.
Built for the people usually left out
What sets All of Us apart is who is in it. More than 86 per cent of participants come from groups long overlooked in medical research. That includes racial and ethnic minorities, older adults, women, people with disabilities, and rural residents. Participants span all 50 states.
That matters because the current gold standard does not manage it. The UK Biobank, the field’s leading repository, holds records for about 500,000 people. Almost all are of white European ancestry. Findings from such data often fail to carry over to other groups. All of Us has already helped uncover gene variants that cut the risk of kidney disease in people of African ancestry. A narrower database would miss that kind of result.
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“One of the most exciting components is its sheer diversity,” said Alicia Martin. She is a statistical geneticist at the Broad Institute who uses the data to build risk-prediction tools. It offers a way, she said, to understand not just who is at risk of disease, but who will respond to which treatment.
The data layer for AI medicine
This is also raw material for artificial intelligence. Modern drug discovery and diagnosis lean on large, clean datasets. A genomic-plus-clinical trove at this scale is exactly what the new wave of AI research tools and science-specific models are hungry for. Claims that AI can already outperform doctors run well ahead of the evidence, but better data is what would narrow the gap. The release even opens what the programme calls its multiomics era, adding protein and RNA data for thousands of participants.
The payoff is already visible. All of Us data has fed more than 1,400 peer-reviewed papers from some 23,000 researchers. It helped build a genetic test that predicts inherited risk across eight cardiovascular conditions. It backed a low-cost prostate cancer model now in a trial of 5,000 veterans, and early work on catching disease before it starts, including Alzheimer’s. The programme has returned more than 733,000 personalised DNA results to participants. Access is free, so a researcher at a rural university gets the same data as one at a top institute.
A national treasure, and a target
The timing is bittersweet. The milestone arrives just as All of Us loses ground on funding. Its budget has been cut by 72 per cent since 2023. One of its main funding streams, the 21st Century Cures Act, is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year. More than 50 medical organisations have written to Congress warning that much of what has been built could be lost.
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NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya called the database “a national treasure” and a foundational platform for investigators at every career stage. Both things are true at once. The resource is more valuable than ever, and its future is less certain than ever. That tension is sharper still while other governments pour money into research and computing infrastructure.
The privacy question underneath
A store of half a million genomes tied to medical records is also one of the most sensitive datasets ever built. All of Us shares it only with registered researchers, through a controlled cloud workbench. It leans on the trust of the people who volunteered. That trust is the quiet foundation of the whole project, and it is worth as much as the genomes themselves. As AI makes it easier to draw conclusions from health data, guarding that trust will only get harder.
For now, the headline is simple. Scientists have never had a health map this large, or this representative of who people actually are. Whether the country keeps paying for it is the next question, and the answer will decide how much of the promise turns real.
The justices have agreed to hear Apple’s appeal against a lower-court ruling that found the company in contempt of a 2021 injunction from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Read Entire Article Source link
Acer’s 1,000Hz gaming monitor has moved from announcement to Amazon listing. The XV273U F5 is priced at $699.99, giving competitive players a real number to weigh before one of the fastest displays headed to North America actually ships.
Availability is still the problem. Amazon lists the monitor as temporarily out of stock, and Acer has previously pointed to a Q4 North America launch window instead of a firm release date.
The bigger question is whether the fastest mode deserves the attention. The XV273U F5 is a 27-inch QHD monitor first, and its most extreme refresh rate requires a serious cut in resolution.
Acer
How fast can it really go
The baseline spec is already aggressive, as Acer built the XV273U F5 around a 27-inch IPS panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution and a native 540Hz refresh rate.
The 1,000Hz mode is more specialized. To reach that speed, the monitor drops to 1280 x 720, making it a dual-mode esports display rather than a full-time 1,000Hz QHD panel.
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That split gives the XV273U F5 a clearer audience. If you’re playing ranked shooters and chasing every bit of responsiveness, the softer image may be acceptable. If you’re buying a premium 27-inch screen for sharpness, the tradeoff is harder to justify.
Why does 720p change the appeal
At 720p, Acer’s fastest mode narrows the use case. It’s built for games where motion clarity and input feel matter more than detail, not for players who want one display to make everything look its best.
Acer
There’s also a reason to wait for testing. A similar dual-mode Philips monitor was underwhelming in a hands-on coverage, so Acer’s tuning, overdrive behavior, and real response times still need proof.
Acer also lists FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync support, which should help keep gameplay smoother when frame rates fluctuate, so the safer draw is the 540Hz QHD mode.
When should buyers hold off
The XV273U F5 belongs on the shortlist for esports players who specifically want 540Hz at QHD and can justify a $699.99 monitor. That’s still a narrow group.
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For anyone mainly chasing the 1,000Hz number, patience is the smarter move. You’ll want independent reviews to show whether Acer’s 720p mode feels meaningfully faster, or whether the spec sheet is moving quicker than the experience.
Every year, more than $200 billion in employer-originated wages crosses international borders. The money moves through a patchwork of local banks, regional payroll vendors, and manual compliance processes. Anyone who managed international payments in 2005 would recognise the setup. The scale has changed. The plumbing has not.
This is not a minor inefficiency. It is a structural gap in how the global economy operates. Financial markets have exchanges. Trade has clearing houses. Cross-border payroll, despite its size and growth rate, has neither.
The problem nobody talks about at the fintech conferences
Much of the conversation around global hiring focuses on the front end: finding talent, signing contracts, setting up onboarding workflows. Those are real challenges. An entire category of employer of record (EOR) platforms has emerged to address them. Business Research Insights projects the global EOR market will reach $10.45 billion by 2035, up from $5.97 billion this year.
The back end has received far less attention. Moving money across jurisdictions, with local tax withholding, statutory deductions, and regulatory reporting correct in each country, is where the real complexity sits. Most companies stitch together three or four vendors. Each handles a slice. Nobody owns the full flow.
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The result is predictable. Delayed payments, compliance gaps, reconciliation headaches, and a structural advantage for large multinationals with dedicated treasury teams. Smaller companies drive most of the growth in cross-border hiring, which grew 25 per cent year-over-year since 2023. They navigate this fragmentation on their own.
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Multiplier’s bet: build the exchange, not just the product
Singapore-headquartered Multiplier has spent six years building what it calls the Global Exchange for Work. The concept is an infrastructure layer connecting companies, talent, and countries through owned legal entities, proprietary compliance engines, and integrated payments.
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The “exchange” framing is deliberate. A stock exchange provides the rails, rules, and settlement mechanisms for financial transactions. Multiplier is positioning itself as the equivalent for cross-border employment: contracts generated, payroll calculated, taxes withheld, wages delivered, all within a single system.
The company operates its own legal entities across more than 160 countries, rather than outsourcing to local partners. The distinction matters for compliance accountability. When something goes wrong with a tax filing in Germany or a benefits calculation in Brazil, Multiplier is the entity on the hook. Not a third-party intermediary three layers removed from the hiring company.
The missing piece was payments
In April 2026, Multiplier launched Global Payroll Payments, powered by London-based fintech Navro. The partnership fills the final gap in the infrastructure: moving money.
What makes the integration notable goes beyond payroll disbursements. Navro’s Statutory & Tax service fulfils all mandatory tax deductions, statutory payments, and regulatory reporting alongside payroll payouts in a single payment flow. The company says it covers 95 countries.
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Previously, companies using EOR platforms for hiring still needed separate payment rails for disbursement. Generate payroll in one system, initiate payments in another, reconcile manually. Multiplier argues that this separation creates the very gaps the EOR model set out to eliminate: delayed payments, mismatched deductions, compliance drift.
Sagar Khatri, Multiplier’s CEO, describes the launch as the piece that “completes the exchange.” Whether that framing holds up at scale remains to be seen. But the ambition is clear: one platform, one flow, from contract to payment.
Scale and scrutiny
The numbers suggest the infrastructure is gaining traction. Multiplier processes $2 billion in global wages annually, a figure doubling each year. More than 2,700 companies use the platform. The company earned IEC Leader status in EOR for 2026, ranking among the top three platforms globally.
The company has also invested in operational depth. In January, Multiplier appointed Kate Walsh, formerly of HubSpot and Klaviyo, as Chief Customer Officer. Amanda Frayne joined as Chief Legal & Compliance Officer. Both hires signal a focus on the operational maturity that enterprise buyers demand.
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This matters because the EOR sector faces its own credibility test. Adoption has accelerated: 41 per cent of distributed teams now use an EOR, with another 49 per cent planning to start. Questions about compliance quality, hidden fees, and vendor accountability have grown louder. Operating the payment and compliance infrastructure directly, rather than reselling, is one response.
The European angle
For European companies, the infrastructure gap in cross-border payroll is particularly acute. The EU’s single market makes it straightforward to sell across borders but not to employ across them. Each member state maintains its own employment law, tax regime, and social contribution system. A company in the Netherlands hiring a developer in Portugal and a sales lead in Poland faces three entirely different compliance landscapes.
Multiplier extended its payroll offering earlier this year with Non-Resident Employer (NRE) Payroll, designed for European cross-border employment. The NRE model lets companies pay employees in other EU countries without a local legal entity. They use their existing registration and Multiplier’s compliance infrastructure for local obligations.
Regulatory complexity keeps increasing. GDPR imposes strict requirements on how companies handle employee data across borders. The EU’s Pay Transparency Directive, taking effect in 2026, adds reporting obligations for multi-state employers. For companies using a patchwork of local vendors, each new regulation multiplies the compliance burden. For a unified infrastructure, it strengthens the case for consolidation.
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Infrastructure plays are boring until they are not
The “exchange” metaphor invites scepticism. Financial exchanges took decades and regulatory mandates to build. Employment is messier, more jurisdictionally fragmented, and more resistant to standardisation. Multiplier is not the only company building here, and the competitive dynamics between Deel, Remote, Papaya Global, and others will shape the category.
But the underlying thesis is hard to argue against. Cross-border employment needs purpose-built infrastructure rather than bolted-together point solutions. The $200 billion in annual cross-border wages is not shrinking. The regulatory complexity is not simplifying. And the companies doing the hiring keep getting smaller, with less capacity to manage fragmentation themselves.
Whether Multiplier’s version of the exchange wins is an open question. That some version of it is needed is increasingly not.
DOGE was always designed to provide flimsy pseudo-efficiency cover for wholesale corruption. It was designed to pretend that the government was “cutting waste and fraud” while a bunch of velour tracksuit wearing con men stripped the country for parts and sold what was left off the back loading dock.
As we’ve since explored, DOGE also burned through billions of dollars, exposed the sensitive data of untold Americans, killed untold millions of people worldwide, and generally distracted dim and misinformed Americans from the fact their government is too corrupt to function in the public interest and is no longer capable of consistently standing up to corporate power.
Enter Brendan Carr, who appears to be under fire for the FCC’s efforts to hide his agency’s correspondence with DOGE bros. Last year, journalist Nina Burleigh and advocacy group Frequency Forward sued the FCC, alleging that the agency violated the Freedom of Information Act by wrongfully withholding agency records.
In a new filing (via Ars Technica) in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Burleigh and Frequency Forward say Carr also hid his use of Signal as a communications tool, which they apparently believe he used to communicate with DOGE:
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“The evidence clearly demonstrates that the FCC has acted in bad faith by withholding documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request. The FCC acted in bad faith when it redefined the search criteria without notice to Plaintiffs or this Court. Further, the FCC acted in bad faith by concealing the fact that the Chairman Carr has a Signal account on a phone he uses to conduct government business.”
While Carr’s obnoxious censorship efforts get all the policy and media attention, he’s also been at work destroying the FCC’s consumer protection authority, eliminating media consolidation limits, and dismantling what little corporate oversight we had left at the agency. This was “cleverly” dubbed Carr’s “delete, delete, delete” agenda. Telecom monopolies and robocallers love the plan.
It’s not clear what a bunch of 20-something Elon Musk cult members could have contributed to Carr’s mindless demolition of public interest governance, but it sure would be nice to take a transparent look, given the vast financial conflicts of interest between Musk’s fake government agency and the multiple Musk-owned companies looking (and getting) giant financial favors from the FCC.
“The evidence strongly suggests that Musk bought his way into the White House and to obtain his position as the de-facto head of DOGE, and that he had used his government authority and access to information to earn huge profits for himself and his companies,” the plaintiffs wrote. “Plaintiffs’ FoIA request seeks documents that shed light on the relationship between the FCC, Musk as regulator and Musk and his companies as regulated entities.”
Meanwhile, I still think it’s embarrassing that the press, and some Dem politicians, initially treated DOGE as if it was a good faith effort they could work with. As opposed to what it clearly was all along: corruption and grift under the flimsy veneer of improved government efficiency.
Samsung has quietly expanded its mid-range lineup with the Galaxy M47. While it shares plenty with the recently launched Galaxy A27, there’s one upgrade that immediately stands out. It has a much larger 6000mAh battery.
The new handset has officially launched in India. It pairs that bigger battery with the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset and a 120Hz AMOLED display. Additionally, Samsung offers its promise of six years of Android and security updates. For buyers after a phone that prioritises longevity over flashy extras, the M47 looks like one of Samsung’s more compelling budget options.
The battery is arguably the headline feature. At 6000mAh, it’s larger than the Galaxy A27‘s cell and supports 45W wired charging. Samsung has also included bypass charging. This powers the phone directly from the charger instead of the battery when plugged in. It’s a feature that’s becoming increasingly common on gaming phones. It helps reduce heat during long gaming sessions while also limiting battery wear.
Elsewhere, the Galaxy M47 closely mirrors the Galaxy A27. It sports a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a Full HD+ resolution, a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection. A 12MP selfie camera sits inside the centred punch-hole cutout.
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Underneath, Samsung has paired Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 with either 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM. There is also 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. On the back, there’s a familiar triple-camera setup. This setup consists of a 50MP main camera, a 5MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro sensor.
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Software is another area where Samsung continues to stand out. The Galaxy M47 ships with One UI 8.5 based on Android 16. The company is committing to six generations of Android OS upgrades as well as six years of security patches. That’s a level of long-term support that still isn’t common at this price point.
The Galaxy M47 is available in Rogue Red and Blaze Blue. Pricing starts at INR 22,999 (roughly $243 / €214) for the 6GB RAM and 128GB storage model. Open sales begin on July 4 via Amazon India.
When you put yeast in a sugar solution, the results are rather straightforward. The yeast munches on the sugar in the absence of oxygen and employs enzymes to convert sucrose into basic sugars. Those are subsequently converted into ethanol and carbon dioxide. One common method is to combine table sugar and water to achieve a 20% concentration before adding around 2 grams of baker’s yeast per liter. Before you know it, bubbles appear as CO2 escapes from the airlock. After a week or two, the liquid contains approximately 10-15% ethanol. It turns out that approximately 54% of the sugar you started with is converted into ethanol, while the remainder is expelled as CO2.
However, the concentration levels are insufficient to keep an engine running reliably. To get it to separate from the water it is combined with, we must distill it. The brew is poured into an 8-liter pressure cooker, which resembles a large saucepan with a pipe coming out of it. We just heat it on an electric heating plate, but it does not boil. The main difference is that ethanol vapor rises before water because it boils at 78 degrees and water boils at 100 degrees. To condense it, we use a long copper conduit lined with mesh and allow it to run back around every now and again. Each time, the percentage of ethanol in the ascending vapor increases somewhat. The system’s final step cools the vapor into a liquid, resulting in a hydrometer reading of 93 to 95% ethanol, and a simple flame test reveals that it’s burning properly, with no residue.
We need to make a few tweaks before the engine will operate on this stuff. The engine used is a 212cc four-stroke with a carburetor, so we’ll need to increase the main jet size by around 20% to accommodate the more concentrated ethanol combination. The rubber seals and gasoline lines will need to be replaced with Teflon and metal ones that can withstand ethanol. Once everything has been replaced, the engine will start on the concentrated ethanol and happily spin the crank, however we may need to adjust the pilot circuit if it is not idling properly.
Hyperspace Pirate began by obtaining an old brushless motor that had originally come with an electric skateboard, which it then mounted onto the crankshaft using some adapters and a scrap of metal to secure it. As the crank turns, the motor starts spinning and produces a three-phase alternating current via electromagnetic induction. Next, a bridge rectifier is utilized to convert the AC to the DC required, which is 12-18 volts. Under normal load, the Hyperspace Pirates system generates 780-900 watts, which is quite astounding. If you add a capacitor to smooth out the voltage and an inverter to make it more like standard residential power, you’ll have 120 volts. [Source]
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