The end of June also marked the end of a tumultuous first half of the year –and it has been a wild ride for the Southeast Asian tech startup ecosystem.

We were rocked by news of shutdowns and layoffs that involved even the bigger players in the ecosystem. This was an anxiety-inducing knowledge. But the good news is that, even during this dark time, there is still good news.

The most important of all is that the global health crisis did not seem to affect startup investment too greatly. Yes, as acknowledged in several episodes of the e27 Webinars series by our guest speakers, investors are becoming more careful in times of crisis. There is also the argument that funding rounds announced in the first and second quarters were likely to be closed before the pandemic hit the region hard.

But let us have a look at how the ecosystem fared based on the news coverage published on e27.

1. Series A rocks

Funding announcements in June were dominated by companies announcing their Series A rounds. We counted that there were at least eight Series A funding round announcements, many of them are in the million US dollar range.

Apart from Series A, there was also some noticeable seed funding round by companies such as Ula, which raised US$10.5 million. In addition to raising a massive amount of money, the company had just launched its platform in January.

Also Read: Report: COVID-19 might result in US$28B missing startup investment this year

Some popular names such as Indonesia’s Fabelio and Thailand’s SYNQA (formerly known as Omise Holdings) had also announced their Series C funding rounds in June.

2. Making quarantines more bearable

The lockdown and self-quarantine measures imposed in many countries had led to a surge of popularity for some verticals. Instinctively, people are doing more online shopping activities as movements were restricted. Entertainment platforms, such as gaming and video streaming, had also been predicted to become more popular as customers were looking to be entertained.

This was the case with Cinepoint and GoPlay; both companies announced funding rounds involving Ideosource Entertainment. The case of GoPlay was quite unique as many video streaming platforms in Southeast Asia were known to be struggling. This peaked with the acquisition of iflix by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Fintech also continued to remain popular, particularly for companies that implement blockchain in their platforms, such as Wallex Technologies, Sparrow, and SYNQA.

There were also announcements from other sectors such as legal tech (INTELLLEX) and construction (Hubble).

For countries such as Singapore, where the ecosystem is more prepared for the deep tech sector, we saw funding announcements by Horizon Quantum.

Also Read: Why angel investor Eddie Ler thinks startup investment is like The Lord of the Rings

3. gojek does it again

Indonesian ride-hailing giant gojek continued to make headlines. While the company had to close down several of its services due to the pandemic, it also announced a new investment by Facebook and PayPal in June.

This movement was remarkable as it marked Facebook’s first investment in Indonesia. It is also interesting to see the kind of partnership that we can expect from the investment: There is a possibility of having PayPal integrated into the gojek platform.

What is next?

Considering the likelihood for these funding rounds to be closed before the pandemic reached its peak in Southeast Asia, we do not think it is safe yet to say that the pandemic “does not affect startup investment in the region.” Because we definitely saw how the global health crisis impacted the startup ecosystem, and this is going to affect investors’ decisions as well.

The next six months will actually determine how exactly the pandemic is affecting startup investment. While the number of early stage investments may decrease, we predict that the startups might walk out with heavier pockets, especially if they are able to prove the strength of their team and products.

Another thing to note is that, while there are verticals that become more popular among investors, it does not mean that there will be no hope for startups working in other sectors. Popularity will eventually lead to saturation; besides, we will continue to need innovation in other sectors such as the law or construction. There is plenty of room for creativity, and this is where our challenge lies.

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Image Credit: Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

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