After everything that has happened in 2020, naturally, we are kicking off the new year with fresh hope for a much brighter day. In the context of Southeast Asian (SEA) tech startup ecosystem, the fintech sector seemed to have the most reasons to be optimistic about.
In January, we published funding announcements from at least 15 companies in various locations in SEA. Of all these companies, one of the most notable funding rounds was secured by Philippine-based Mynt, which was closing into unicorn status with it.
Lending platforms also continued to become popular among investors with funding announcements by Lendela (US$2 million in pre-Series A), Pintek (US$21 million in debt financing), Alami (US$20 million in debt, equity), MicroLeap (US$3.3 million) as well as payments with Gpay (undisclosed Series A) and Momo (Series D).
In addition to these companies, we also saw movements in the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) segment with a seed funding round for Pace, the latest newcomer in the scene.
Among the unicorns of SEA, Grab’s fintech arm GFG also secured a US$300 million Series A funding round as part of its further expansion into the scene. The funding round came amidst reports of the company’s plan for a US IPO.
The popularity of fintech investment at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 might be directly related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which had encouraged digital transformation across many aspects of life. This is one of the trends that e27 believes will continue even after the pandemic has lessened, as it enables a new level of practicality and inclusion for the users.
Also Read: Eco-business raises funding from Tembusu Partners to grow its sustainability-focused news platform
What the rest did
Outside of the fintech scene, we also covered funding rounds by companies in the foodtech scene. But what makes January’s foodtech investment unique is the focus on improving the food production process, as opposed to the focus on finding the alternative to meat protein –which was a big theme in 2020.
For example, we had Advantir which builds capsule dessert machine Swirl.GO and Crown Tech which builds AI-powered robot baristas.
Every month, there are always some verticals that seem to stand out among the rest, that work in areas other than fintech or e-commerce. In January, those verticals included multimedia and content creation.
LottieFiles, a community platform for designers and developers, who create motion graphics using the Lottie file format, secured a US$9 million Series A.
Meanwhile, Podcast Network Asia secures a US$750,000 funding to support its expansion plan and live streaming platform GoStream announced that VinaCapital Ventures has invested a “seven-digit figure” into the company.
A different way to get funded
Following up the hype that had begun in 2020, in January, we also saw more reasons to be certain of the popularity of SPAC as an alternative route for tech companies to raise funds.
Joining the bandwagon is Catcha with its blank cheque company Catcha Investment. It has filed to raise up to US$250 million in an initial public offering and aimed to “focus on a target with operations or prospective operations in the technology, digital media, financial technology, or digital services sectors (new economy sectors) across Asia Pacific, particularly Southeast Asia and Australia.”
Before this, there was also Poema Global Holdings, a SPAC focusing on tech firms in Asia and Europe, with its US$300 million IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
e27 predicts that this trend will continue throughout 2021, especially as leading tech companies such as Tokopedia has even begun considering it as an alternative.
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