This week has been a remarkable one for Southeast Asian startups, showcasing the region’s vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and innovative potential. Companies across various sectors have successfully secured significant funding to fuel their growth and expand their services.
Highlights include Indonesia’s Paper.id, Thailand’s Seaplane Asia, Singapore’s Octayne Green Fuels, Hong Kong’s Stanly, and Indonesia’s McEasy.
These startups, alongside others like Deemples, AgriG8, BayaniPay, Arches, and masturi, are driving forward with innovative solutions in fintech, logistics, green technology, and digital interactions.
The diverse array of industries represented and the substantial investments received underscore Southeast Asia’s dynamic startup ecosystem and its growing appeal to global investors.
Below are the details of the companies and the investments they raised:
Paper.id
Paper.id is an invoicing platform to help Indonesian businesses with receivables and payables. The company has been using AI and machine learning to improve B2B payments.
Currently, Paper.id caters to over 600,000 SMEs from various industries in Indonesia. The clients include logistics firm J&T Cargo, which uses Paper.id’s services to handle over 5,000 invoices a month.
Amount raised: Undisclosed
Round: Series B
Investors: Square Peg, SMBC Asia Rising Fund, Argor Capital.
Stanly
Stanly connects fans with artists through digital fan clubs and exclusive content. Founded in 2023 by Rebecca Leung, Popular Culture, and Liberty City Ventures, Stanly aims to encourage direct interactions between fans and artists. Since its launch, Stanly has attracted over 200,000 members. The number of fans on the platform has grown by 30x since February 2024. The platform hosts 50 fandoms, including those of Taylor Swift and BTS, with 300 more coming soon.
Amount raised: US$8 million
Round: Pre-Series A
Investors: C Capital, AppWorks, Goodwater, Palm Drive Capital.
Seaplane Asia
Seaplane Asia is a seaplane and lifestyle company in Thailand. Established in 2019, Seaplane Asia provides air charter and amphibious seaplane services to connect remote islands and coastal areas. Its services aim to enhance accessibility, reduce travel times, and minimise environmental impact.
Besides travel and tourism, Seaplane Asia’s seaplanes are equipped for medical evacuations, search and rescue operations, cargo and logistics, monitoring missions, and corporate charters. Its portfolio includes brands like Siam Seaplane and Siam Scenic in Thailand, Samra Seaplane in Cambodia, and the lifestyle brand Jetboard Asia, which exclusively distributes high-end electric-powered water sports and boats.
Amount raised: Undisclosed
Round: Unspecified
Investors: TK & Partners, A2D Ventures.
McEasy
McEasy is an Internet-of-Things (IoT) and SaaS startup focused on transportation and supply chain solutions in Indonesia. Founded in 2017 in Surabaya (East Java) by Hendrik Ekowaluyo and Raymond Sutjiono, McEasy aims to transform Indonesia’s transportation and supply chain ecosystem. The mission is to create an end-to-end digital ecosystem that integrates and streamlines logistics operations.
Its McEasy Platform (MEP) offers a suite of solutions to address challenges in the nation’s logistics ecosystem, including IoT mobility for fleet management, end-to-end logistics delivery solutions, and vehicle spare parts and maintenance solutions.
The startup claims it has partnered with 1,500 companies over the past 18 months.
Amount raised: US$11 million
Round: Series A
Investors: Granite Asia (formerly GGV Capital Asia), East Ventures
Deemples
Deemples is an online golf booking platform in Malaysia. Its core mission is to create the premier golfing experience empowered by tech to allow its community to play anytime, anywhere, with anyone. It claims to have logged over 50,000 games on the platform to date.
At present, the app is available for golf courses in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Deemples is available on iOS, Android, and Huawei App Gallery.
Amount raised: US$2 million
Round: Unspecified
Investor: V Ventures
Octayne
Octayne Green Fuels is a farm waste-to-energy startup in Singapore. It converts underutilised waste biomass into a low-cost and scalable drop-in replacement for coal. By prioritising Net Zero, it strives to eliminate coal dependency in Southeast Asia without affecting the region’s development ambitions and encouraging the adoption of alternative fuels into existing infrastructure.
To achieve this goal, the company will tap into the exceptionally large agricultural sector in the region, which currently generates over 400 million tons of post-harvest crop residue–to convert largely unutilised biowaste into a renewable and sustainable fuel source.
Amount raised: US$525,000
Round: Pre-seed
Investors: Wavemaker Impact.
AgriG8
AgriG8 is a Singapore-based startup that aims to decarbonise rice production. Co-founded by Chen and Joshua Tan, AgriG8 supports smallholder farmers in rice-growing Asian countries and helps them adopt practices that can reduce methane emissions.
Its digital platform allows access to finance and incentivises methane-reducing farming practices, while the gamified smartphone app CropPal helps them report emissions-reducing practices they have implemented.
Additionally, AgriG8 uses satellite images combined with machine learning to validate water management practices associated with methane reduction. Its water management system, called alternate wetting and drying (AWD), combined with other solutions can lead to a 55 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Amount raised: Undisclosed
Round:
Investors: Better Bite Ventures, The Trendlines Group of Israel.
BayaniPay
BayaniPay is a payments process automation company based in the US and the Philippines. It is a collaboration between Talino Venture Studios, The Asian Journal, East West Bank, and Wavemaker Partners. Its mobile-first service empowers global professionals working abroad to financially support their families and communities back home.
This month, BayaniPay will launch Bayani GlobalPay, an embedded banking service designed to enable businesses and major billing entities to reach their customers efficiently worldwide.
Bayani GlobalPay features two embedded banking solutions: GlobalPay, a white-label service that provides non-financial institutions with a custom payment platform, and GlobalPay Express, an all-in-one payment portal for payment management.
Amount raised: US$3 million
Round: Unspecified
Investors: Wavemaker Partners, PTGB, Talino Venture Studios
Arches
Arches is an expert knowledge-sharing platform based in Japan and Southeast Asia. A one-stop platform offering expert interviews, research, consulting, and talent placement, the platform connects decision-makers with vetted experts across Asia and beyond.
Clients gain discounted access to experts in exchange for contributing to the knowledge repository, democratising access to specialised information that was once the exclusive domain of a select few.
According to Arches, its ‘Expert Matching’ service has connected over 300 clients in over 20 countries with a network of over 100,000 vetted experts.
Amount raised: US$3 million
Round: Unspecified
Investors: KUSABI, Visional Inc., SMBC Venture Capital
masturi
masturi is the Japanese company behind StayX, a software solution that converts single-use rooms into multiple-use rooms.
It was established in August 2016 in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, by CEO Keita Yoshida.
StayX maximises the value of unused space. A single space can be flexibly transformed to accommodate a variety of uses.
For example, a rental property that could only be rented out for two years can be transformed into a facility that can be operated on a one-night or one-month short-term rental basis.
Its software covers various business aspects, such as attracting customers via the Internet, real-time inventory management, price adjustments, and AI-based janitorial management, enabling unmanned facility operations.
Amount raised: US$8.65
Round: Series D
Investor: Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.
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