Southeast Asia’s tech startup sector kicked off 2024 with a bang, securing over US$439 million in venture funding across 31 rounds in January. From pioneering chiplet design to AI automation and neo-rural banking, this wave of investments highlights the region’s growing innovation and global potential.
Below are the top deals of January 2024:
Silicon Box (Singapore)
Funding: US$200 million
Round: Series B
Investors: BRV Capital, Event Horizon Capital, Maverick Capital, Prasedium Capital, Tata Electronics, TDK Ventures, UMC Capital
Bio: Silicon Box is an advanced semiconductor packaging company specialising in cutting-edge chiplet integration services. Founded in 2021 by semiconductor design and packaging industry titans Dr Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai and CEO Dr Byung Joon Han, Silicon Box aims to bring affordable, high-performance, power-optimised, scalable solutions that enable next-gen large language models (LLM), generative AI, automotive, data centres and mobile computing.
The startup enables chiplet architecture, allowing chip designers freedom from the constraints of a single, monolithic chip for processing. By leveraging multiple smaller chips interconnected in a single package, chip designers can create the equivalent of a “system-on-a-chip” (SoC) in a package.
Sygnum (Singapore)
Funding: US$40 million
Round: Strategic growth
Investors: Azimut Holding (lead)
Bio: Sygnum is a global digital asset banking group, founded on Swiss and Singapore heritage. It empowers professional and institutional investors, banks, corporate, and DLT foundations to invest in digital assets with complete trust.
In Switzerland, Sygnum holds a banking licence and has CMS and Major Payment Institution Licences in Singapore.
Be Group (Vietnam)
Funding: US$30 million
Round: Not specified
Investors: VPBank Securities
Be Group is the Vietnamese startup behind the multi-service consumer platform ‘Be’. Started around five years ago, Be Group has worked with over 300,000 drivers. In 2023 alone, the company facilitated over 120 million rides, maintaining a dominant 35 per cent market share in the ride-hailing sector across 40 cities and provinces in Vietnam.
The platform currently offers more than 15 services, including multimodal transportation, express delivery, food delivery, insurance, and telecommunications.
GDMC (Singapore)
Funding: US$21 million
Round: Series A
Investors: Celadon Partners, WI Harper Group, SEEDS Capital, NSG Ventures
Bio: Genetic Design and Manufacturing Corporation (GDMC) is a design and manufacturing organisation focusing on next-generation advanced genetic therapies. Established in 2021, GDMC focuses on manufacturing advanced therapy modalities, including customised mRNA, plasmid DNA, AAV and Lentiviral Vectors. It has developed a Partnership for Drug Manufacturing Organisation model, offering support to companies, including startups, from drug design to being the one-stop shop for innovators from design and manufacturing to quality assurance and regulatory support for eventual market entry.
Bluesheets (Singapore)
Funding: US$6.5 million
Round: Series A
Investors: Illuminate Financial, 1982 Ventures, Insignia Ventures Partners, Antler Elevate Fund
Bio: Bluesheets is an AI automation software company. It leverages financial data points to train AI models for process automation across various industries. It aims to help businesses process unstructured data in multiple formats, languages, currencies, and from both digital and physical sources.
The company has a client base across Asia Pacific, the US, and Europe, which includes Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group (MSIG), SCG, Teckwah, Gamuda Berhad, Leong Hup International and Commonwealth Capital.
Komunal (Indonesia)
Funding: US$5.5 million
Round: Series A+
Investors: Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Jafco Asia, Skystar Capital, Sovereign Capital, Gobi Partners
Bio: Komunal is a fintech company offering neo-rural bank services in Indonesia. Launched in 2019, Komunal digitises rural banks by combining funding access and hyperlocal lending to support economic growth in Indonesia. It provides financial services to the underbanked population through its unique partnership with the rural banks in Indonesia. The firm’s vision is to elevate rural banks and SMEs in the archipelago to serve their local community better.
It has so far partnered with 376 rural banks and channels productive loans to MSMEs predominantly based in tier 2 and 3 cities. Through its digital-based DepositoBPR offering, Indonesians can deposit funds in hundreds of rural banks, eliminating the conventional need for face-to-face processes. These deposits also offer higher interest rates than deposits offered by commercial banks.
Semaai (Indonesia)
Funding: US$4.7 million
Round: Equity and debt financing
Investors: CyberAgent Capital, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Ruvento, MyAsiaVC, Heracles Ventures, Peak XV’s Surge, Accion Venture Lab, Beenext
Bio: Semaai is a ‘farmer-first’ company building full-stack agritech solutions to help farmers and rural MSMEs such as toko tanis in Indonesia maximise their earning potential and access better financing, services and new markets.
Mesh Bio (Singapore)
Funding: US$3.5 million
Round: Series A
Investors: East Ventures, Elev8, Seed Capital
Bio: Mesh Bio is a chronic disease management startup. Founded in 2018 by Wu and Arsen Batagov (CTO), Mesh Bio delivers digital solutions to help healthcare providers with patient management. Its solutions offer patient data and predictive analytics that equip doctors with information and intelligence about their patients and the diseases they live with.
The company develops clinical decision support analytics and automation solutions for managing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease. Its DARA Health Intelligence Platform enables data-driven care delivery, which improves patient engagement and health outcomes. It has been used by more than 120 medical centres across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia for preventive health screening.
Meiro (Singapore)
Funding: US$3 million
Round: Pre-Series A
Investors: Wavemaker Partners, Angel Central, angels
Bio: Meiro is a customer data platform. Founded in 2018 by Pavel Bulowski, Jana Marlé-Zizková, and Vojtěch Kurka, Meiro’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) empowers brands to better understand customer preferences and behaviours across various touchpoints. Through Meiro, brands can use data to improve customer experience and marketing campaign performance, ultimately maximising customer satisfaction and business profitability.
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