February was another busy month for the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem with a total of 24 early stage funding rounds being announced.
Without further ado, the following are those we managed to cover in the month:
Mortgage Master
Funding: US$381,105 in seed funding
Investor(s): Bala Swaminathan, Andy Lim
Secured through crowdfunding platform FundedHere, the company managed to close theirs in eight days.
Hukumonline
Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF)
Hukumonline will use the funding to develop new products, improve existing products, and grow its subscriber base.
Moovby
Funding: US$500,000 in seed funding
Investor(s): Angel investors, strategic partners
The newly-raised capital will be used for expansion in existing markets in Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia and Indonesia.
Clear
Funding: US$3M in Series A
Investor(s): Eight Roads, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), and Singtel
Clear states that it will use the money to expand its team and telecoms operations. It will also explore possible integrations in other industries, including the financial services and energy sectors.
gudangada
Funding: “double-digit millions” in seed funding
Investor(s): Alpha JWC Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, Pavilion Capital
The money will be used to fuel the company’s continued business expansion, from expediting member onboarding, expanding service and solution offerings, to enhancing leadership and operational talents to accelerate growth.
Also Read: Starting off the new year with these early stage funding rounds of January
Forward School
Funding: US$500,000 in pre-seed funding
Investor(s): Chan Kee Siak, Chu Jenn Weng, Chiew Kok Hin, Ang Siak Keng, Brian Wong
With the new investment, Forward School plans to move into their new campus this quarter, an integrated co-learning and co-living space.
Circles.Life
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): Warburg Pincus
The funding round is reported to have put the company “closer to unicorn status.”
PeerPower
Funding: Undisclosed Pre-Series A
Investor(s): InVent, Business Online Public Company (BOL)
PeerPower will use the funds to invest in product development and broadening its digital financing services.
Greenly
Funding: Undisclosed seed funding
Investor(s): East Ventures, angel investors
The company plans to use the fresh funds for product innovation, technology development, and expand its network both locally and into other cities.
Printerous
Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): BAce Capital, AddVentures, GDP Venture, Gobi Agung, Sovereign’s Capital
The company said it will use the funding to deploy its technology infrastructure and expand its presence to 30 cities in Indonesia. It also plans to further grow the business in a sustainable way.
GrabWheels
Funding: US$30M in ongoing Series A
Inevstor(s): KYMCO
The funding is said to be the part of a strategic partnership to develop two-wheeler electric vehicle (EV) solutions to accelerate the adoption of EVs in Southeast Asia.
Also Read: That time of the year: A look back into the early stage funding rounds of December
CYFIRMA
Funding: Undisclosed Series A
Investor(s): Z3Partners
With the new funding, CYFIRMA plans to expand into markets across Asia, including India, and the US. The funds will also be used to support the development roadmap of CYFIRMA’s cyber-intelligence analytics platform.
BizApp
Funding: Undisclosed
Investor(s): CommerceAsia
With the investment, the startup will complement with Commerce.Asia’s ecosystem to better bridge the urban-rural entrepreneurial divide in Malaysia.
WhatsHalal
Funding: Undisclosed seed funding
Inevstor(s): FundedHere
The startup, which provides enterprises decisions and solutions to enter the halal market internationally, will use the fresh funds to continue regional expansion and further development of its technology.
Credify
Funding: US$1M
Investor(s): Deepcore, Beenext
The proceeds will be used to enhance its product, and further localising its software development operations in Southeast Asia.
TopDev
Funding: “seven digit” investment
Investor(s): SaraminHR
With this funding, TopDev aims to “continue to improve TopDev’s services quality and develop new values for our customers, while still continuing to enhance others goals besides the recruitment functions such as increasing the developers’ supply for the market through training, developing IT career programmes for young people, students, and freshers.”
ShopRunBack
Funding: US$900,000 in pre-Series A
Investor(s): OBOR Capital, Negocia Ventures
ShopRunBack is a reverse logistics company that was founded in 2014 with the aim to transform the returns experience for both customers and merchants, combining international logistics network with a new generation of plug & play software.
Also Read: Kinesys Group names Steven Vanada as managing partner, targets US$20M for early stage startups
SOCAR
Funding: US$18M in Series A
Investor(s): Eugene Private Equity, KH Energy
Based in South Korea, the startup aims to use the fresh funds to enhance its platform, grow within Malaysia, and expand into new countries by Q4 2020.
Waves
Funding: US$1.2M in seed funding
Investor(s): Insignia Ventures Partners, Hustle Fund, Skystar Capital
Waves founders Kevin Gao and Ben Minh Le have said that the startup “aims to become one of the leading platforms in Southeast Asia for podcast and audio content.”
QUEST
Funding: Undisclosed seed funding
Investor(s): REAPRA
The company’s CEO and Co-founder Kirk Pathumanun said that the funding will be used to develop real-time coding talent platform through a full-stack automated teaching curriculum tracked and identify skill sets.
Tonik Financial
Funding: US$6M
Investor(s): Insignia Ventures Partners, Credence Partners, family offices, angel investors
It will use the funding to support the launch of its digital bank in the Philippines after its subsidiary Tonik Digital Bank received approval the central bank of the Philippines to provide digital banking services.
Uncharted
Funding: US$5.8M in Series A
Investor(s): Founding investors
The funding followed the merger of its Shift Insurtech and Uncharted businesses, according to Nick Macey, Founder and CEO of Uncharted.
Visinema
Funding: US$3.25M in Series A
Investor(s): Intudo Ventures, GDP Venture, Ancora Capital
Visinema said it plans to use the funding to build capacity in animation production, enhance talent acquisition, and drive international expansion.
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