Ivan Teh Fusionex Malaysia

Fusionex in Malaysia: milestones

A year by year account of how Fusionex grew in and from Malaysia, drawn from agency announcements, analyst reports and news coverage.

2005 to 2011: building a software business

Ivan Teh founded Fusionex in 2005. Digital News Asia reported that he spent the first six months learning what customers needed and would pay for, while building the foundation of the technology platform himself. Former colleagues who wanted to join him were asked to wait, and he formed his core team about six months later from senior executives of established technology and consulting companies.

Malay Mail later reported that growth through this period came from customer revenue rather than outside investors, a point Teh has returned to when describing the company’s early discipline. The same report dated the company’s focus on big data to 2011.

2012 to 2014: partner recognition and a growing team

In 2012 Microsoft named Fusionex its top Business Intelligence partner, worldwide as well as in Asia Pacific, and the company won the Asian award again the following year. Teh told Digital News Asia that its visibility rose dramatically after the first win.

The same report described a team of about 400 working across 14 industry verticals, from agriculture to banking to telecommunications, and a hiring push for specialists in statistics and mathematics to work as data scientists and business intelligence analysts. In December 2014 Teh received the Technology Entrepreneur of the Year award at the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Malaysia gala.

2015 and 2016: national digital projects

Malaysia’s push to become a regional hub for big data analytics gave Fusionex a role at home. In January 2015 it signed a memorandum with MDEC to develop an industry driven Centre of Excellence within the National Big Data Analytics Innovation Network, one of three agreements announced that day. In September 2016 Bursa Malaysia chose Fusionex as preferred vendor for enterprise data analytics, with the exchange’s chief executive describing digitalisation as a transformative strategy.

2017 and 2018: analyst recognition

In 2017 IDC’s MarketScape for Asia Pacific big data and analytics platforms rated Fusionex a Major Player, the only company of ASEAN origin in the report, noting its grasp of the Southeast Asian market and of retail and manufacturing needs. In 2018 Gartner shortlisted the company’s data platform in its report on other vendors to consider for modern analytics and business intelligence, pointing to its streaming analytics and its natural language Smart Query feature.

By 2020: healthcare and talent

By early 2020, Fusionex and IMU had agreed that five medical and health sciences programmes would each pilot a big data analytics module running on the company’s own analytics software, and had exchanged an agreement on research in areas including cancer informatics and vaccine design. In April 2020 Ivan Teh was appointed to the Board of Studies for IMU’s Bachelor’s in Digital Health.

2022 and 2023: palm oil and trade

At a national palm oil seminar in December 2022, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board said it was working with Fusionex Group on a smart mill on ten hectares of MPOB land at Keratong in Pahang. Officials described a fully automated plant of up to 30 tonnes an hour, using sensors to judge fruit ripeness, with the goal of raising the oil extraction rate from about 19 or 20 per cent to 23 per cent and cutting labour needs by up to 30 per cent.

The plan was disclosed at POMREQ 2022, the national seminar on palm oil milling, refining, environment and quality, in a speech by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof, which was read on his behalf. He told the industry it had to be ready for new technology, citing IR4.0, artificial intelligence and the internet of things as tools for improving existing mills.

In 2023 MATRADE and Fusionex unveiled the MATRADE Digital Trade Platform, which MATRADE describes as an AI powered platform for helping Malaysian businesses find buyers abroad. MATRADE’s own directory also records Fusionex as an MDEC Global Acceleration and Innovation Network company and a recipient of an MSC Malaysia R&D Grant Scheme award.

Reading these milestones

Milestones describe what was announced at the time. Some, such as the smart mill, were plans with approvals still pending when reported. This page will be updated as further sources become available, and corrections are welcome through the contact page.

Sources for this page