Vietnam’s funding landscape flourishes in H2 2020; Despite the limited number of new investors entering Vietnam’s market in H1, H2 is witnessing a pickup in fundraising activities, keeping Vietnam ahead of Singapore; According to Do Ventures, 55% of investors preferred Vietnam as an investment destination for the next 12 months, followed by Indonesia (42%) and Singapore (14.6%). Tech Collective
Grab, BRI Ventures, Mandiri Capital join LinkAja’s US$100M Series B round; The strategic investment from Grab allows both parties to collaborate on areas of market access and technology and accelerate financial inclusion in Indonesia; LinkAja claims it currently has 58M+ users, of which 80% come from tier 2 and 3 cities. e27
Singapore’s Ascent Capital raises US$88M for debut Myanmar-focused fund; LPs include Temasek, ADB, JG Summit Holdings; The fund targets investment opportunities of at least US$5M in companies across consumer, education, healthcare, financial services, logistics, TMT. TechInAsia
Online travel is expected to bounce back to US$60B by 2025, says e-Conomy SEA Report; Funding for unicorns in mature sectors (e-commerce, transport & food, travel and media, etc.) decreased from US$5.1B in H1 2019 to US$3B in H1 2020; Platforms are now refocusing on their core business and established strengths in order to prioritise a path to profitability. e27
99 Group acquires SRX to expand market share in Singapore; SRX is a property platform and real-estate data provider that utilises AI to provide an instant and accurate estimate of a property’s value; Previously, 99.co has acquired Indonesia-based property tech startup UrbanIndo. e27
Singapore e-motorbike maker Scorpio Electric bags US$6.3M funding; It will invest in the completion of its HQs and its 3,600-sqm assembly plant, which is expected to produce up to 8K motorcycles annually; SEA has 200M+ motorcycles and 15M annual transactions; Scorpio is owned by SGX-listed luxury automobile distributor EuroSports Global. e27
Chinese language learning platform LingoAce raised US$6M Series A+; Investors include Sequoia India (lead) and Shunwei; The edutech plans to expand into Thailand and Indonesia; To date, it has delivered lessons to more than 100K students across 80 countries, and has 2K+ certified teachers. e27
Singapore’s B2B sales productivity startup Nektar.ai raises US$2.15M; Investors include Nexus Venture (lead) and Insignia; With over 40K B2B sales teams globally and over 15M sales professionals, the B2B sales market is valued at US$8B+; Nektar addresses this opportunity by connecting unstructured data from emails, calendars and Zoom to CRM systems. e27
How 73-year-old Thai Wah works with tech startups to break new ground in noodles production; Over the past four years, Thai Wah has collaborated with multiple partners within agtech, foodtech and supply chain spaces; It claims it produces 300K+ tonnes of tapioca and rice starch and glucose and noodles a year and has the largest market share in Thailand and in SEA. e27
The future VC will be a hybrid between accelerator and incubator. Here’s why; With the combined power of the capital, network and talented investment partners, accelerator-equivalent resources and the possible creation of shared services to be leveraged on, VCs will be positioned strongly to either give birth or find the home run they have been chasing relentlessly. e27
Report: Communications roadmap is key to successful startup fundraising in times of crisis; The channels through which investors are gaining access to potential investments are other VCs, investors, proprietary networks and pipeline companies; This indicates that recommendations still play a great role in helping the investors secure these deals. e27
How Malaysia is gearing up for 5G; The country will first need to lay a firm foundation for its networks; It aims to ramp up wireless broadband speeds from the current 25Mbps to 100 Mbps; It also plans to achieve 100% 4G coverage in populated areas; Strengthening the 4G foundation is important for Malaysia’s 5G rollout. Gov Insider
Will China lead the AI game by 2030?; China wants to introduce AI in almost all areas of society, from agri and medicine to manufacturing; It also plans to integrate AI into guided missiles, use it to track people in closed-circuit cameras, censor the internet, and even predict crimes. e27
Social accountability platform Hona secures funding from Draper University Ventures; Hona brings a fresh approach to goal-setting and habit tracking, using proven methods in behavioural science, group accountability and blockchain; In August, it won the first place at DU’s Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship programme. e27
How Cooklab seizes new opportunities during the pandemic to become Indonesia’s answer to Blue Apron; The foodtech startup offers ready-to-cook meal kits containing pre-measured ingredients and cooking guide for customers at home; Its recipe was designed to be as easy-to-follow as possible; it is also available on various e-commerce platforms in addition to its own dedicated mobile app. e27
Myanmar’s Karzo wins regional edition of Startup World Cup 2021; The logistics provider triumphed over 15 companies in SEA to win; It stands to win US$1M in grand finals in US in May 2021; With 5K drivers on its platform, Karzo connects corporate enterprises and SMEs to logistics suppliers across Myanmar. e27
Lessons from the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) boom; A survey says an estimated 1.1M people (38% respondents) in Singapore have used BNPL; Men (45%) are more likely to use BNPL than women (32%); While good for retailers, the survey also found 27% of the 1,000+ surveyed had taken a financial hit because of a BNPL service. e27
Study: PH firms says virtual collaboration will be top 5G use case; The appetite to invest in 5G is high, as nearly half (45%) of Filipino decision-makers are willing to spend up to 15% of their budget on 5G, compared to respondents in Indonesia (40%) but less than those in Japan (60%) and Singapore (51%), which were also surveyed. Newsbytes.PH
Five emerging fintech startups in Indonesia; With a population of 270M+ people, Indonesia is the largest economy in SEA and also the second-largest recipient of investments in the region; Firms such as Kredivo, Akulaku and Modalku are leading the way, but others are now emerging strongly behind them; They are Pluang, ALAMI, Halofina, SuperAtom, and BukuWarung. Tech Collective
Gobi-Core Philippine Fund (GCPF) discloses investment in live-streaming startup Kumu; It has earlier backed Edukasyon and MariaHealth; The fund plans to invest in a total of 7 local startups by end-2021; GCPF is a US$10M fund jointly formed by Gobi Partners and Core Capital in 2018. e27
Going green: What types of ethical investments can you partake in?; The concept has been gaining ground in recent years due to growing environmental and geopolitical concerns; Today, ethical investing is a lot more sophisticated and there are multiple asset classes that address a wide range of environmental and social concerns; You must ensure that your portfolio is curated to align with your personal values and beliefs. SingSaver blog
Are central bank digital currencies (CBCDs) a game-changer?; CBDCs hold a lot of promise: they could allow anyone to receive salary payments, invest in a private company in Switzerland, and automate their health insurance claim from a single app on their mobile phone; All these could be accomplished without having to log into multiple accounts, exchange local currency for Swiss francs, or file any additional forms. TechInAsia
How to use OKRs to avoid startup failures; One of the biggest benefits of using OKRs is the ‘surfacing up of problems’ early; The weekly reviews ensure the uncovering of problems as every team needs to report their progress as well as confidence level in achieving their key result; In the the case of early-stage startups, reviews can be done even twice a week or daily until they find the product/market fit. e27
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