As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the stories that captured the tech world’s attention. The startup ecosystem, especially in Southeast Asia, proved to be a hotbed of innovation, resilience, and growth, offering up a steady stream of fascinating news.
From groundbreaking funding announcements to industry-shifting partnerships, these stories not only defined the year but also hinted at the future of tech and entrepreneurship.
This feature spotlights the 20 most-read tech startup news articles of the year, a curated list that reflects the trends, challenges, and triumphs shaping the innovation landscape.
In this roundup, we celebrate the entrepreneurs, investors, and visionaries who pushed boundaries, weathered uncertainties, and redefined what’s possible in a world increasingly reliant on tech-driven solutions. These are the stories that sparked conversations, inspired action, and kept us all clicking, scrolling, and sharing.
So, let’s revisit the headlines that mattered most in 2024’s vibrant and dynamic startup scene.
measurable.energy raises funding for SEA expansion
UK-based measurable.energy, which designs and manufactures AI-powered plug sockets that reduce electricity costs, secured £4 million (US$5.2 million) in October.
Vertex Exploratory Fund, a fund under Vertex Holdings (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek), co-led the round along with existing investor and UK-based cleantech VC firm Clean Growth Fund.
The investment is used to accelerate the company’s growth in the UK and international markets ahead of its anticipated Series B fundraising in 2025.
Also Read: Cutting carbon at the socket: measurable.energy’s smart solution to plug power waste
Vertex Exploratory Fund will help measurable.energy expand its presence overseas, particularly in Southeast Asia.
Former Peak XV MD launches Kenro Capital
Piyush Gupta, the former managing director of Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital), launched Kenro Capital in November. The VC firm specialises in secondary transactions, facilitating the exchange of shares between investors without introducing new capital or issuing additional shares.
Kenro Capital aims to target growth companies in India and Southeast Asia. It plans to deploy US$20-30 million per investment, with flexibility for larger amounts through co-investment opportunities.
MediConCen bags US$6.85M
In February, Hong Kong-based MediConCen, a startup automating insurance claims using AI and blockchain, raised US$6.85 million in a Series A round. HSBC Asset Management led this round, with support from existing investors G&M Capital and ParticleX and new investor Wings Capital Ventures.
This brings MediConCen’s total raise to US$12.7 million.
The capital is being used to expand into the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Yoshiaki Murakami’s daughter launches Kadan Capital
In September, Rei Murakami Frenzel, the second daughter of Yoshiaki Murakami, founder of Japan’s Murakami Family Foundation, teamed up with Felix Frenzel (former Investment Manager at Antler) to launch Kadan Capital in Singapore.
Kadan, which means ‘decisive, determined’ in Japanese, seeks to invest in early-stage companies in Asia with sufficient evidence of product-market fit and significant rapid growth potential.
The target verticals are fintech, SaaS, and Artificial Intelligence across Southeast Asia (mainly Singapore and Indonesia), Japan, and the Middle East (primarily the UAE and Saudi Arabia).
The ticket size is US$500,000 to US$1 million.
Zora Health raises US$740K
In January, Zora Health launched its integrated fertility care and financing platform in Singapore, with S$1 million (US$740,000) in funding.
With initial backing from venture capital firm Antler, this funding round includes the participation of angel investors such as Cheryl Goh (Founding CMO of Grab), Prajit Nanu (CEO of Nium), Alan Jiang (CEO of Beam), and Lisa Enckell (Venture Partner, Antler), along with Asa Liden (former COO of Pitch.com).
Zora Health said that 55 per cent of its investor lineup consists of women.
Ai Palette nets US$5.8M funding
Ai Palette, a Singapore-incorporated startup enabling consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to create products using AI and machine learning technologies, bagged US$4 million in equity financing from Tin Men Capital in March.
This brought the capital raised by the AI startup in the Series A extension round to US$5.8 million.
With the fresh funds, Ai Palette is expanding further into the beauty & personal care and nutraceutical categories, which began development in November 2023. The injection is also being used for global expansion in North America, Europe and the APAC regions and supercharge its Generative AI capabilities.
Telkomsel Ventures leads Tictag’s Series A
In July, Singapore-based data and AI-as-a-service company Tictag completed its Series A round with undisclosed funding led by Telkomsel Ventures.
Existing investors M Venture Partners, East Ventures, and Investible participated. SBI Ven Capital, a subsidiary of Japan’s SBI Holdings, joined the round through its joint fund with South Korea’s Kyobo Securities and NTU Singapore’s NTUitive.
Operating in Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, the company will use the funds to engage more businesses and expand its presence in Indonesia and the rest of Asia.
Singapore surpasses US in AI investment: Study
A September survey revealed that Singapore’s Artificial intelligence (AI) investment rate has outpaced the US by 16 per cent per thousand $GDP.
This is despite the US being the largest investor in AI, with US$328,548 million spent in the last five years.
Although being placed tenth in the amount of money spent, Singapore invested an amount equivalent to 1.5 per cent of its GDP in 2022, according to the AI statistics report curated by AIPRM.
As of 2023, the AI market size was valued between US$136.55 billion and US$454.12 billion. The largest share is in North America, with an estimated value ranging from US$87.18 billion to US$167.3 billion, accounting for more than a third (36.84 per cent) of the global AI market share.
Pixelmon secures US$8M seed funding
In February, Pixelmon, a decentralised web3 gaming IP company, raised US$8 million from investors, including Animoca Brands, Delphi Ventures, Amber Group and Bing Ventures.
Bitscale Capital, Cypher Capital, Foresight Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Sfermion, Spartan Labs, and VistaLabs also participated.
The startup is using the funding to continue developing its differentiated portfolio of casual and mid-core games.
Mober raises US$2M seed financing
Mober, an electric vehicle (EV) logistics startup in the Philippines, received US$2 million in seed financing in February. The round was led by local family business RT Heptagon Holdings.
The company is using the funds to accelerate the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) into its fleet. Mober has already expanded its EV fleet to 60 vehicles.
Also Read: Securing bank financing for scaling our EV fleet is hard in Philippines: Mober CEO
Established in July 2015, Mober aims to drive the transition to green deliveries in the Philippines. The firm has developed a Transport Management System (TMS) to optimise delivery efficiency and track the CO2 savings achieved through EVs.
Xalts acquires Contour Network
Xalts, a Singapore-based fintech platform for financial institutions and businesses to build and manage digital finance applications, acquired Contour Network, which connects global banks with global businesses, in February.
The initial focus for Xalts is embedded solutions for trade and supply chain finance. These will enable banks, logistics companies and technology companies to offer integrated solutions to businesses using a single platform.
Contour was started in 2017 as a pilot by eight global banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered and BNP, focusing on digitising trade. Over 22 banks, including HSBC, BNP, Citi, DBS, and ING, and 100 international businesses like Tata Group and Rio Tinto, use Contour for digital trade finance solutions.
Xalts was founded in 2022 by Ashutosh Goel and Supreet Kaur, former senior executives at HSBC and Meta. Backed by Accel Partners and Citi Ventures, Xalts is used by institutions to build multi-party applications for digitisation and tokenisation.
Hubble nets US$5M funding
Hubble, a Singaporean startup that aims to transform progress and payments in the built environment industry, closed a US$5 million funding round in June. Asia-focused private credit financier AlteriQ Global led the round.
The funding is used to accelerate the expansion and growth of its financial services division Hubble.Financial into new industries and beyond Singapore.
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.
PopChill bags US$3.1M for Singapore expansion
PopChill, a luxury resale marketplace in Taiwan and Hong Kong, secured US$3.1 million in a pre-Series A extension funding round in May.
The investors included Top Taiwan Venture Capital, 500 Global, Acorn Pacific, ITIC, AVA Angels Fund, Acorn Pacific Ventures, and Darwin Ventures.
The startup is using the fresh capital to reach break-even in Taiwan by the end of this year and expedite growth in the Hong Kong market. It is also expanding into a new market, with Singapore as the primary target, within this year.
Vertex Growth leads Elice’s US$15M round
Elice, an AI-powered educational platform company based in South Korea, raised KRW 20B (approximately US$15 million) in a Series C funding round led by Vertex Growth in January.
The company is using the funds to expand into Asia Pacific, such as Singapore, the US, and Japan and strengthen its AI research capabilities by building a large-scale AI Data centre in Busan, leveraging its experience building PMDC (Portable Modular Data Centre). The centre aims to recruit technology talent with aspirations to hire a large-scale AI workforce in Busan.
Founded in 2015, Elice focuses on delivering an integrated B2B and B2G educational platform and content for institutional clients, specialising in technical skills upgrades to enhance organisational digital transformation. Elice leverages AI to offer specialised tech skill development and a customised learning experience across coding environments via personalised tutoring, live classes, testing/assessment, learning management systems and customer management systems.
Amazon to train 15K individuals in AI skills in Singapore
Global tech giant Amazon plans to develop innovative AI solutions and support Singapore’s Smart Nation and National AI Strategy 2.0 (NAIS 2.0) goals, it announced at the 10th AWS ASEAN Summit in the island nation on June 30.
Furthermore, the company’s cloud business unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), said it plans to invest an additional S$12 billion (US$9 billion) into its existing cloud infrastructure in Singapore from 2024 to 2028. AWS invested S$11.5 billion in the Asia Pacific (Singapore) region through 2023. With the new tranche, the total planned investment into its existing cloud infrastructure is set to double to more than S$23 billion by 2028.
For the AI initiative, Amazon has partnered with SEA-LION, GovTech Singapore’s Analytics.gov, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore’s Maritime AI-ML Digital Hub, the National Library Board’s StoryGen, and Synapxe for this initiative, named AWS AI Spring for Singapore.
Surge leads Brainfish’s US$2.5M seed round
In May, Brainfish, an AI-powered self-service customer support platform for businesses, raised US$2.5 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Peak XV’s Surge, with participation from Macdoch Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, existing angel Justus Hammer (CEO MadPaws), and new angels.
Brainfish is using the new funds to double down on product innovation and accelerate international expansion.
Growsari lands US$5M investment
Growsari, a B2B marketplace for sari-sari stores (neighbourhood stores) in the Philippines, closed a US$5 million investment round from global investor Oppenheimer Generations Asia in August.
The e-commerce startup is using the capital to support its three business lines and provide liquidity to employees and early-stage investors.
Also Read: Echelon X: Gullnaz Baig and Shiv Choudhury on Growsari’s approach to non-technical customers
Launched in 2016 by ER Rollan, Shiv Choudhury, Andrzej Ogonowski, and Siddhartha Kongara, Growsari provides growth tools to 100,000 sari-sari stores in 400 municipalities nationwide. Its three business lines are B2B e-commerce (SariMart), MSME financial services (SariPay), and last-mile logistics (Tranko).
Silence Laboratories raises US$4.1M
Silence Laboratories, a Singapore-based cybersecurity startup focusing on Web3 technologies, secured US$4.1 million in funding in February.
The round was led by Pi Ventures and Kira Studio, along with contributions from several prominent angel investors.
The fresh funds is being used to scale the company’s tech and business teams and enrich the company’s R&D pipeline.
Founded in 2021 by Dr Jay Prakash, Dr Andrei Bytes, and Dr Tony Quek, Silence Laboratories focuses on privacy-enhancing technologies through a fusion of cryptography and security engineering for enterprises. It aims to create a global infrastructure that enables privacy-compliant collaboration and exchange, eliminating single points of failure.
AgriG8 gets Better Bite Ventures’s backing
In June, AgriG8, a Singapore-based startup that aims to decarbonise rice production, secured an undisclosed investment from Better Bite Ventures, a local early-stage VC firm, and The Trendlines Group of Israel.
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.
MAVCAP invests in Vynn Capital’s mobility fund
Venture capital firm Malaysia Venture Capital Management Berhad (MAVCAP), with a portfolio nearing MYR5 (US$1.25) billion, invested as a limited partner in Vynn Capital’s latest Mobility and Supply Chain Fund.
The Mobility and Supply Chain Fund, with a targeted size of US$30 million, aims to innovate Southeast Asia’s technology landscape in the mobility and supply chain sector.
Malaysian venture capital firm Vynn Capital established a fund to tackle challenges and opportunities in Southeast Asia’s mobility and supply chain sectors. The fund is directed towards early-stage startups in the region raising Seed to Series A rounds.
The post The year in clicks: 2024’s top 20 startup headlines appeared first on e27.