Between May 01 and May 31 2024, Southeast Asian tech startups secured US$143 million in investments across 30 rounds, says a Tracxn report. This is a decline of almost 43.5 per cent from April 2024 and a plunge of 94.3 per cent from May 2023.
The rounds comprised 17 early-stage and 13 seed-stage deals.
With US$737 million raised, October 2023 was the highest funded month in the past 12 months, followed by July 2023 (607 million), June 2023 (US$497 million), and December 2023 (468 million).
Below is the list of the startups that raised the highest funding in May 2024.
Honest Bank (US$21.5 million)
Singapore-headquartered financial services startup Honest Bank secured a US$21.5 million investment in a Series B round of investment, led by Rakuten Ventures with participation from Jetha Global. This follows a US$19 million funding from Japanese firm Orico in 2023.
Based in Singapore, Honest Bank was established in 2019 with an emphasis on the Indonesian market. Its main offering is the Honest Card, a credit card available in physical and digital forms.
Osome (US$17 million)
Singapore-based online bookkeeping and accounting firm Osome closed its over US$17 million Series B funding round from new and existing investors, including Illuminate, Ratio, Constructor Capital, and AltaIR. With the new funding, Osome will enhance its product offerings for modern financial challenges, focusing on automation and AI components to better serve its customer base. The funds will also support marketing, customer service, and go-to-market efforts.
Founded in Singapore in 2017 by Victor Lysenko, Konstantin Lange, and Anton Roslo, Osome offers a full-fledged service that integrates software with the expertise of accountants, tax specialists, and corporate secretaries to handle financial administration. This way, it aims to disrupt the fragmented accounting and corporate services industry.
The company claims to have increased its 2023 revenues while reducing its burn rate, moving closer to profitability. Osome reports commercial growth, serving over 13,000 SME customers and employing more than 400 staff across Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Malaysia. In 2023 alone, it claims to have helped over 2,500 new businesses go to market.
Allozymes (US$15 million)
Allozymes, a Singapore-based innovator in enzyme discovery and engineering, concluded a US$15 million Series A funding round led by Seventure Partners of France and Xora Innovation.
The money will be used to accelerate its expansion into Europe and forge strategic partnerships within the food and chemical industries. Additionally, the funding will fuel the development of a data library for future enzyme discovery endeavours.
Allozymes is a fast-growing biotechnology company that applies its proprietary ultra-high-throughput platform technology to rapidly develop novel enzymes and unlock the bioeconomy across diverse sectors. Leveraging this ultra-high screening power, Allozymes aims to build the largest enzyme data library in the world to address the current and future needs of building robust biosolutions.
NSG BioLabs (US$14.5 million)
NSG BioLabs, a provider of biotech co-working laboratory and office space in Singapore, completed a US$14.5 million financing round led by Asian private equity firm Celadon Partners.
ClavystBio, a life science investor and venture builder set up by Temasek, also participated in the round.
With the new capital, NSG BioLabs intends to enhance its products and services and introduce additional facilities to meet the growing demands of biotech startups and multinational companies in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Started in 2019, NSG BioLabs develops solutions in the health, biomedical, agrifood, and industrial biotechnology sectors, working in precision medicine, nucleic acids, AI-enabled drug discovery, and synthetic biology. The co-working space firm provides biotech startups and multinational companies private and shared laboratory spaces, offices, equipment, privileged access to service providers and suppliers, and community engagement.
Rize (US$14 million)
Rize, an agritech platform aiming to make sustainable rice cultivation viable through innovative and data-driven practices, closed its US$14 million Series A funding round. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero, Temasek, and Wavemaker Impact co-led the round.
This round will enhance Rize’s technology stack, including its measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) technology.
Rize was formed through a joint venture between Temasek, Wavemaker Impact, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and GenZero to decarbonise rice cultivation in Asia. It is building a platform to identify and implement effective strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in rice cultivation and the right economic incentives across the value chain to drive the adoption of sustainable cultivation techniques.
Its technology stack captures vital agricultural data essential for implementing sustainable farming practices, making rice farmers more climate resilient, increasing their crop yields, lowering costs, and facilitating efficient access to finance. Rize aims to eliminate 100 metric tonnes of carbon emissions while improving farmer livelihoods.
Galaxis (US$10 million)
Singapore-based Web3 platform Galaxis raised US$10 million from Ethereum Name Services (ENS), Rarestone Capital, Taisu Ventures, and ENS co-founder Nick Johnson.
Incubated by CoinMarketCap, Galaxis allows individuals or brands with a community to create engagement and reward mechanisms for their communities through NFTs. It removes the need for third-party engagement tools with a built-in economy.
The platform has worked with celebrities, including DJ Steve Aoki, actor Val Kilmer and NBA personality LaMelo Ball. It claims to have sold over 225,000 NFTs over the last couple of years, generating over 32,000 ETH (US$100 million) in secondary sales of NFTs.
Rhea (US$1 million)
Singapore- and US-based reproductive health service startup Rhea secured US$10 million, led by existing investor Thiel Capital and with participation from LifeX Ventures, Blue Lion Global, and FJ Labs.
Rhea’s ecosystem is comprised of GenPrime, a global network of owned and partner clinics; Rhea Labs, an integrated technology platform that uses data to speed up time to market and incorporate quality product feedback to enhance patient outcomes; and a suite of fertility wellness partners, including Moom Health, Elix Healing and Madam Partum, to offer more comprehensive reproductive health services.
XSQUARE Technologies (US$7.8 million)
Singapore‐based intelligent warehousing automation company XSQUARE Technologies has bagged US$7.8 million in Series A funding.
Wavemaker Partners led the round, which also saw participation from SEEDS Capital and Goldbell Corporation.
Started in 2019, XSQUARE provides intelligent warehouse solutions designed to address critical gaps arising from recurring labour shortages and the urgent need to automate and optimise operations in brownfield and greenfield environments. Its suite of autonomous forklifts and intelligent warehouse orchestrator software simplifies warehouse operations without requiring extensive reconfiguration, thus saving time and costs. It serves clients in a diverse range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to manufacturing.
Chainstack (US$6 million)
Singapore-based Web3 infrastructure provider Chainstack has secured an undisclosed sum in strategic investment. According to Tracxn, the amount raised was US$6 million.
The investors are SBI Ven Capital, Sygnum, Azimut Group, Unicorn Factory Ventures, and Ventech Ventures.
Founded in 2018, Chainstack offers a suite of services connecting developers with Web3 infrastructure, powering applications in DeFi, NFT, gaming, and analytics. Chainstack enables companies (from startups to large enterprises) to cut down the time to market, costs and risks associated with creating and scaling decentralised applications.
Chainstack’s offerings encompass integrations with over 25 public blockchains, four consortium networks, four appchain protocols, and partnerships with all major cloud providers. It serves over 100,000 Web3 developers.
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