Asean Tech Digest #53
Your curated summary of ongoing disruption in Southeast Asian tech.
Hi technauts!
With US$562m raised over the past 2 weeks overall, January 2021 is a great vintage for fintech, with superapp Grab, e-wallets Momo and Mynt, digital exchanges iSTOX & Ajaib…just to name a few in the category
Just funded 💸
🌏 Grab Financial Group has raised a US$300m Series A from Hanwha Asset Management, K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures, Flourish Ventures - Grab
🇻🇳 E-wallet startup MoMo has raised a US$100m Series D from Warburg Pincus, Goodwater Capital, Kora Management, Affirma Capital Singapore PTE, Macquarie Capital, Tybourne Capital Management - Reuters
🇸🇬 Digital securities platform startup iSTOX has raised a US$50m Series A from JIC Venture Growth Investments, Development Bank of Japan, Juroku Bank, Mobile Internet Capital, SGX, Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings, Hanwha Asset Management - e27
🇮🇩 Fintech startup Ajaib has raised a US$25m Series A from Horizons Ventures, Alpha JWC Ventures, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Insignia Ventures Partners, Y Combinator - Tech in Asia
🇮🇩 Edtech startup Pintek has raised a US$21m debt financing round from Accial Capital - e27
🇮🇩 P2P lending startup Alami has raised a US$20m equity & debt financing round from AC Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures - e27
🇮🇩 Bookkeeping startup BukuKas has raised a US$10m Series A from Sequoia Capital India, Saison Capital, January Capital, Founderbank Capital, Cambium Grove, Endeavor Catalyst - TechCrunch
🇸🇬 Biotech startup Ligature Therapeutics has raised a US$6m Seed from Lightstone Ventures, SEEDS Capital - BioSpectrum
🇸🇬 Digital Asset Exchange startup Zipmex has raised a US$6m financing round from Jump Capital - The Business Times
🇮🇩 HRtech startup Sampingan has raised a US$5m Series A from Altara Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, Antler, Access Ventures, XA Network, iSeed SEA - Tech in Asia
🇻🇳 Trucking startup Ecotruck has raised a US$4.3m Series A from VNG - 36kr
🇸🇬 Expense management startup Volopay has raised a US$2.1m Seed from Justin Mateen, CP Ventures, Soma Capital, VentureSouq, Y Combinator - e27
🇸🇬 Edtech startup BlaBla EdTech has raised a US$1.54m Seed from Amino Capital, Daniel Shi, Starling Ventures, Wayra, Y Combinator - TechCrunch
🇸🇬 Blockchain transaction startup Biconomy has raised a US$1.5m Seed from Eden Block, Binance, Digital Asset Capital Management, Fenbushi Capital, James Simpson, Marwan Alzarouni, Meher Roy, MiH Ventures, Outlierz Ventures, Woodstock Fund, Zee Prime Capital - CoinDesk
🇸🇬 Digital Gold startup Bullion Asset Management has raised a US$1.3m Series A from Theta Gold Mines, Aura Group, Digital X - The Business Times
🇸🇬 HRtech startup Snaphunt has raised a US$1m Series A1 from Beenext - Tech in Asia
🇸🇬 Plant-based ice cream startup Kind Kones has raised a US$0.7539m Seed from DSG Consumer Partners, Sabre Ventures - Tech in Asia
🇻🇳 E-wallet startup Gpay has raised a US$0.02m Series A from KB Securities - e27
🇮🇩 E-commerce unicorn Bukalapak has raised a financing round from Standard Chartered - The Business Times
🇮🇩 Genomics startup Nusantics has raised a Series A from East Ventures - East Ventures Blog
🇸🇬 IoT Cybersecurity startup MicroSec has raised a Series A from MassMutual Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, SEEDS Capital - The Business Times
🇹🇭 Roboadvisor startup Robowealth has raised a Series A from Beacon Venture Capital - e27
🇸🇬 Foodtech startup Advantir has raised a Seed from Raging Bull Investments, she1K Global, Expara Asia Ventures, Azerus - Singapore Business Review
🇸🇬 Fintech startup Pace Enterprise has raised a Seed from Alpha JWC Ventures, Vertex Ventures Israel - e27
Startups and downs 🚀
🇸🇬 Here are Singapore's 75 fastest growing firms (over 2016-2019) - The Straits Times
🇮🇩 Interview with Giacomo Ficari, CEO of insurance marketplace LifePal & the model of D2C insurance, the US$4,000 GDP per capita inflection point - Insignia Business Review
🇸🇬 P2P carsharing startup Drive Lah has completed an asset transaction with Smove - Drive lah
🇮🇩 Digital Experience Analytics platform Content Square (France) is expanding to Indonesia, after Singapore in 2020 - LinkedIn
🌏 How Intellect is transforming mobile, mental healthcare - Insignia Business Review
🇮🇩 Huan Yang, former Head of Engineering at Grab Singapore, has become GudangAda's new CTO - e27
🇸🇬 Robot barista creator Crown Technologies has struck a deal with JR East (Japan) to deploy its robots in JR stations in Japan - KrASIA
🇮🇩 Xendit, Shipper and Payfazz have made it to the top 100 YC companies list - Y Combinator
🌏 Former Lazada CEO Pierre Poignant is working on a stealth startup - LinkedIn
🇮🇩 The founder of e-commerce startup GrabToko has been arrested by the police; the company had reportedly transacted 980 products, out of which only 9 had been delivered - Tech in Asia
🌏 Lightspeed Extreme Entrepreneurs has revealed the 4 SEA startups selected for its program: Bukugaji, BuzzBreak, Nano, Supermomos - e27
🇸🇬 The story of bikesharing startup SG Bike, how it reached 25,000 bicycles - Vulcan Post
🇮🇩 Former CEO of GoPay Aldi Haryopratomo has been appointed commissioner of agritech startup eFishery - KrASIA
🇲🇾 For MYR 1, students can get 1 to 1 revision help for Malaysia's SPM exam, powered by video-tutoring platform AskBee - Digital News Asia
🌏 E-commerce SaaS Anchanto has partnered with Panasonic for its APAC online expansion - Digital News Asia
🇲🇾 Buy Now Pay later firm Split reports US$2.48m revenue generated for merchants over the past months - Digital News Asia
The Unicorn Belt 🦄
🇮🇩 Who are the shareholders of Tokopedia? And why does it matter that some might be connected to SPAC Bridgetown Holdings Limited, registered in 2020 - The Low Down Momentum
🇮🇩 Bukalapak and Standard Chartered have formed a partnership on digital banking - The Business Times
🌏 Grab has partnered with health and beauty retailer AS Watson in six SEA markets, for last mile delivery of 2,000 Watson stores - Inside Retail
🌏 Grab is collaborating with Panasonic to improve air quality inside 5,500 cars, leveraging nanoe X generators - Grab
🇸🇬 Grab has tied up with Citi for in-app loans - Fintech News
🇲🇾 How Grab Supermarket works in Malaysia, and how it's different from GrabMart - SAYS
🌏 Uber's appeal against the finding that the 2018 Uber-Grab merger was anti-competitive has been dismissed, and the firm will have to pay US$5m for the cost of the appeal - The Business Times
Venture Capitalists 🎢
🇸🇬 With US$17.7bn in capital deployed in 2020, GIC was the world's most active state investor globally, according to Global SWF, while Temasek emerged as top tech investor, with US$2.3bn invested - Nikkei Asian Review
🌏 Vickers Vantage I, the Singapore VC Vickers Venture Partners' SPAC, has raised US$120m - NASDAQ
🌏 Tech investment firm Crescent Cove Advisors (US) is planning to raise a US$200m SPAC targeting SEA companies - DealStreetAsia
🌏 Softbank-backed SPAC SVF Investment has raised US$604m on the NASDAQ - PR Newswire
🌏 SEA PE fund Tower Capital has received US$250m for its first closing - The Business Times
🌏 Next Billion Ventures (US) has appointed Tiang Lim Foo from SeedPlus as Venture Partner - e27
🌏 Grow Impact accelerator, backed by Agfunder, has opened applications for its new batch of SEA sustainability foodtech startups - LinkedIn
Corporates 👨💼
🇵🇭 Fintech platform Mynt has raised US$175m from ASP Philippines; Mynt is a partnership between telco Globe Telecom, listed conglomerate Ayala Corporation, and Ant Financial - e27
🌏 How Shopee is overtaking Lazada to become SEA's top e-commerce platform - Vulcan Post
🇸🇬 Tencent's hub in Singapore: 100+ open positions for the expansion of its cloud computing business, and gaming activities - Vulcan Post
🌏 How Alibaba expanded to SEA, from its early investment in SingPost to US$4bn in Lazada, and Ant receiving its digital bank license - Vulcan Post
🌏 Breathe at 144fps - Razer has introduced its very own mask, reusable, made of recycled plastic, with smart lightning, and leveraging Razer's voicemap technology - YouTube
🇻🇳 Ridehailing group Be has launched digital banking services - KrASIA
🇸🇬 Changi Airport has inaugurated its vaccination center, with a capacity of 2,000/day - LinkedIn
🇸🇬 M1, Continental and JTC are collaborating on autonomous mobile robots powered by 5G - LinkedIn
🌏 Fujitsu is looking at the future of work: WFH 90% of the time and US$1,000 one-time allowances - Singapore Business Review
🇲🇲 French Utility EDF has launched an offgrid project to provide power to 1,200 people in Myanmar - LinkedIn
🇲🇾 Law firm Shang & Co has developed AskAILA, an AI legal assistant for labor law - Digital News Asia
Smart Nations 🏛️
🇸🇬 Singapore has attracted US$17.2bn fixed asset investments in 2020, a 12Y high - The Straits Times
🇸🇬 IMDA has announced a new US$30m fund for 5G applications - Singapore Business Review
🇸🇬 With Tesla entering Singapore, and ICE vehicles banned by 2040, Singapore is at the beginning of its transformation to generalize EVs - CNA
🇮🇩 Indonesia has launched its mass vaccination program, which poses challenges for delivery and temperature control - Seattle Pi
🇸🇬 Singapore has tightened restrictions on intra-corporate transferees - Lexology
Food for thought 🍜
🌏 6 key elements to company culture: experimentation, engineering processes, product simplicity, ownership, bottom-up mindset and the relation between hypergrowth and hiring - Insignia Business Review
🌏 From 59 in 2019 to 243 in 2020: the rise of SPACs also concerns APAC - Beacon Venture Capital
🇮🇩 How digital banking works in Indonesia, where acquiring companies is the only way to get a license - KrASIA
🇮🇩 Being one of the world's top producer of battery minerals, Indonesia is set to become an EV hub - KrASIA
The Fountainhead ⛲
🇮🇳 Short video app Moj has reached 100m downloads in 7 months - Inc 42
🇮🇳 B2B fintech Rapyd has raised a US$300m Series D led by Coatue - Pymnts.com
🇮🇳 Salesforce has made their first VC investment in India with HR startup Darwinbox's US$15m Series C - TechCrunch
🇮🇳 Overview of the D2C, social commerce and SaaS landscapes in India - True Grit
🇨🇳 Autonomous driving startup WeRide has raised US$310m Series B from bus manufacturer Yutong - Medium
🇨🇳 The Chinese gov't could force tech giants to share consumer loan data to increase control over excess borrowing and fraud - CNA
🇨🇳 China grew at 6.5% in Q4 2020 YoY - the Guardian
🇨🇳 The rise of AI & Blockchain in Chinese State Media - MacroPolo
🇨🇳 Jack Ma is alive - The Straits Times
Also 🤫
🌏 Mark Porter, former CTO of Grab, now CTO of MongoDB, is hosting an AMA on reddit - reddit