This week, Southeast Asia’s startup landscape witnessed a flurry of funding activity, with promising ventures across diverse sectors securing vital investments.
From innovative financial solutions and clean energy initiatives to groundbreaking pet nutrition and AI-driven data privacy advancements, these startups are poised to drive significant change in their respective industries.
Here’s a closer look at some of the standout companies that raised funds, reflecting the region’s dynamic entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to innovation.
Paywatch (Malaysia)
Paywatch is an earned-wage access (EWA) service provider. It offers a debt-free EWA solution, also known as on-demand pay, which allows workers to instantly access a part of their accumulated salary in real-time as it is earned and before the end of their payroll cycle.
Paywatch has partnered with leading enterprises across Asia, including Park Hyatt, DFI Retail Group (including Guardian), KFC, Pizza Hut (part of QSR Brands), Wilmar International, PayNet, CGV cinemas, Lotus’s, Jaya Grocer (an affiliate of Grab), major BPO centres and manufacturing companies to provide the solution.
The company claims to have processed over US$58 million in salaries through its system to date and increased its disbursements to nearly US$8 million per month, which is growing month-over-month by as much as 15 per cent.
Funding raised: US$30 million
Round: Series A
Investors: Third Prime, Vanderbilt University, the University of Illinois Foundation, Octagon Venture Partners, and Wooshin Venture Investment Corp.
Okapi Technologies (Malaysia)
Okapi Technologies is a solar financing startup. Its proprietary platform connects clean energy investors with solar dealers, installers and EPCs (engineering, procurement, and construction) companies nationwide via an embedded financing and project management solution.
With its instant credit decisioning engine, Okapi empowers solar stakeholders to offer cash flow-positive leasing plans of up to ten years to homeowners at the point of sale. According to the startup, this mechanism eliminates all logistical and psychological barriers for households to access lower utility costs, thereby “significantly” reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, while contributing to Malaysia’s Net Zero goal.
Since its launch, Okapi has established commercial partnerships with dozens of solar companies in Malaysia and targets to fund the installation of 100 residential solar energy systems per month by the first quarter of 2025.
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Round: Unspecified
Investors: The Radical Fund and Ninja Van co-founders Lai Chang Wen and Shaun Chong
Atome (Singapore)
Atome Financial is a buy-now-pay-later company targeting unbanked and underbanked consumers in Southeast Asia. Atome Financial runs Atome (an embedded financing platform and provider of digital financial services that include insurance, cards and lending) and Kredit Pintar (a lending platform).
It is part of the Advance Intelligence Group.
In FY2023, Atome claims to have nearly doubled its operating income to US$170 million from the year before. The company attributes this to the profitability of its BNPL business, driven by a 40 per cent y-o-y surge in GMV to US$1.5 billion and 130 per cent y-o-y revenue growth.
Funding raised: Up to US$100 million
Round: Debt facility
Investor: EvolutionX Debt Capital
Pawprints (Singapore)
Pawprints Group is a provider of allergy-friendly pet nutrition products. Formulated in accordance with AAFCO (the Association of American Feed Control Officials) standards, Pawprints harnesses the power of the superfood insect protein (black soldier fly) to offer quality hypoallergenic novel protein, along with essential amino acids and minerals crucial for the health of cats and dogs.
Following the launch of its signature Pawprints brand in June 2023, the group claims to have more than doubled its monthly revenue and sold over 120 tons of pet food. It has completed over 35,000 orders and is available in over 700 offline outlets.
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Round: Seed extension
Investors: Asia Fund X (lead), Creative Gorilla Capital, and Altrui Investments.
Opilot (Singapore)
Opilot is an AI startup focusing on data privacy and protection. Opilot seeks to create a win-win solution, with employees and companies benefiting from AI to improve overall productivity while maintaining airtight data privacy and protection.
The startup has launched a local, secure, and private AI copilot solution running fully on-device, which is particularly useful for industries or functions that demand the highest data protection and confidentiality standards.
With Opilot, all data is processed locally, with no inputs shared with cloud servers. This additional layer of data protection prevents data breaches encountered by companies using cloud-based services, such as ChatGPT.
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Round: Pre-seed
Investor: Iterative Capital.
Stride (Vietnam)
Stride is a solar energy solutions company incorporated in Singapore. It provides solar energy to households and small businesses in Vietnam.
Vietnam’s target of 50 per cent of residential homes and office buildings using self-produced rooftop solar power for self-consumption by 2030 aligns with Stride’s mission. The country has the potential to generate 380 gigawatts of capacity, significantly exceeding the government’s solar capacity goals.
The startup offers low upfront-cost financing, complementary insurance, independent quality assurance, and a streamlined online consumer onboarding process at the point of sale. The company has received increasing interest from residential and small business consumers who want to shift to lower-cost clean energy to reduce energy bills. Stride addresses this interest with a commercial solution that removes the barrier of high up-front costs.
Funding raised: US$3 million
Round: Debt financing
Investor: Trine.
k-ID (Singapore)
k-ID aims to simplify online safety and privacy management for game developers, parents, kids, and teens. Founded by Kieran Donovan, Timothy Ma, Julian Corbett, and Jeff Wu, k-ID is a cross-platform, instant sign-on solution for kids and teens. It has been built as an all-in-one answer for solving the complex issue of privacy and online safety for young players globally.
The company has also announced a partnership with the ESRB Privacy Certified programme. It has configured its parent/family and developer portals to reflect the programme’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA)-based requirements. This partnership offers game publishers a way to leverage k-ID technology to help obtain the ESRB Privacy Certified Kids Seal.
“Kids today make friends and countless memories inside games and virtual worlds, and parents need modern tools to keep them safe,” said Jonathan Lai, General Partner at a16z. “k-ID is serving this need and defining a new industry standard for digital youth safety.”
Funding raised: US$45 million
Round: Series A
Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Konvoy, TIRTA, Okta, and Z Venture Capital.
Tiger New Energy (Bangladesh)
Tiger New Energy is a clean energy startup. Founded by Nicole Mao and Yiwei Zhu, Tiger New Energy has introduced a network of stations, where rickshaw drivers can swap their depleted batteries for fully charged ones in less than one minute, compared to four hours previously.
The company said this dramatically reduces downtime and has been shown to amplify the earnings of rickshaw drivers by an impressive 60 per cent.
Its proprietary Offline Swapping and Reverse Charging features aim to ensure service continuity during power outages, while its infrastructure doubles as Decentralised Energy Storage Systems (DESS), contributing to grid stability. Advanced thermal management and data-driven optimisation algorithms further elevate the performance and lifespan of Tiger’s lithium-ion batteries over traditional alternatives.
Funding raised: US$3.5 million
Round: Seed funding
Investors: ADB Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, 500 TukTuks, Orvel Ventures, Humble, Penataran Management, and Brett Barna.
Orbillion Bio (US)
Orbillion Bio is a cultivated meat startup. Founded in 2020 by Patricia Bubner, Gabriel Levesque-Tremblay, and Samet Yildirim, Orbillion specialises in producing Wagyu beef cells. It has developed an algorithm for scaling up cultivated meat, making commercialising low-cost cultivated beef possible.
Currently valued at US$78 billion in the US alone, this market presents significant opportunities for Orbillion’s growth and expansion.
Orbillion has partnered with Luiten Food, a European leader in premium meats, to bring cell-cultured Wagyu beef to over 35 countries pending EU regulatory approval. This partnership will leverage Luiten Food’s network of 1,200 distribution channels, paving the way for Orbillion’s premium product to reach the market.
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Round: Strategic
Investors: Earth VC, The Venture Collective, At One Ventures, Y Combinator, and Metaplanet.
Samsara Eco (Australia)
Samsara Eco uses advanced, enzymatic recycling to end plastic pollution. Launched in 2020, Samsara Eco has developed a new way to break plastic down to its core molecules, which can then be used to recreate brand-new plastic again and again. Its patented process, EosEco, uses a combination of biophysics, chemistry, biology and computer science (such as AI) to create a family of plastic-eating enzymes. The enzymes break down plastic waste (like textiles made from nylon and polyester) into raw materials, which are then integrated into existing manufacturing processes to create new products.
Samsara Eco recycles all forms of plastics, which can be used within existing cross-sector supply chains like automotive, electronics, and consumer packaged goods.
Funding raised: US$65 million
Round: Unspecified
Investors: Temasek, Main Sequence, Wollemi Capital, lululemon, Hitachi Ventures, Titanium Ventures, and DCVC.
Hubble (Singapore)
Hubble aims to transform progress and payments in the built environment industry. Founded in 2016, Hubble digitises and automates site processes to track and expedite progress and enable on-demand liquidity through early payment solutions based on verifiable progress data. Its full-stack progress-to-payment platform synergises the progress data insights from Hubble.Build (its construction management division) with early payment solutions from the financial services division.
Since its inception in mid-2023, Hubble.Financial claims to have demonstrated 655 per cent growth to reach over US$20 million across its projects. This number is expected to more than double in 2024 and beyond.
Funding raised: US$5 million
Round: Unspecified
Investor: AlteriQ Global (lead)
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