I think the best word to describe 2021, is whoa! Global investors started to pay attention to the region's tech ecosystems, but also began putting real money into them.
Southeast Asia-focused venture firms like Alpha JWC, AC Venture and Jungle Venture have raised their largest funds yet.
The third fund of Indonesian venture capital firm Alpha JWC has closed.
The Ken reported that American firms were setting up regional offices in Southeast Asia because of the Grab and Sea exits. A report from Golden Gate Ventures predicted a record number of exits due to an increase in B and C rounds.
There will be a record number of exits in Southeast Asia.
The region is so large and complex that I feel silly using the termSoutheast Asia. It is the easiest option when I am trying to be succinct, but Southeast Asia consists of 11 countries and there are huge differences between them.
There is a close look at Singapore's startup scene.
One could argue that Singapore's startup scene is a category of its own, as it is a global financial center. Indonesia is the fourth-largest economy in the world and the most populated Southeast Asian country with 273.5 million people. In the year 2021, both countries produced a fair amount of unicorns. Ninja Van, Carousell, Carro and Nium were among the Singapore startups that hit unicorn status.
Nium crosses $1 billion valuation with $200 million round.
Most of the ones I talked to had long-term plans for international expansion, even though Nium focuses on other Southeast Asian countries. Indonesia is a very large country with more than 17,000 islands and 6,000 inhabitants. Many e-commerce and fintech companies are looking at smaller cities, especially Bandung and Surabaya, because they tend to launch in the Greater Jakarta area.
Silicon Valley execs jump in as Southeast Asia starts to boom.
There are a few sectors that took off in the year 2021, and are worth keeping an eye on.
Investment apps.
A crop of investment apps, many aimed at young people and first-time investors, raised small early-stage rounds at the beginning of the year, and then quickly received larger follow-on funding. Indonesia-based Pintu is one of the examples.
Retail investment rates in Indonesia are still relatively low, but they are growing because of increased interest in financial planning during the Pandemic and the popularity of stock influencer.
Indonesian startups are digging into fintech.
According to government figures, there are 62 million small to medium-sized enterprises in Indonesia, but several founders told me this is likely an underestimate. Tech companies can make a lot of money if they use paper ledgers or excel spreadsheets to handle their accounting.
Two competing bookkeeping apps raised significant amounts of funding this year. The two startups are similar in that they are initially focused on helping small and medium-sized enterprises, but eventually will expand their product roster into financial services like working capital loans, using data users have already entered into their software to judge creditworthiness
Wagely and GajiGesa are two of the startups that target SMEs.
Social commerce.
People who live in Indonesia's largest cities have a large choice of e-commerce platforms to choose from, but the selection is less in more remote regions. It is costly and time-Consuming to receive goods due to a fragmented Logistics infrastructure, which is being worked on by SiCepat, Advoctics, Kargo and Waresix.
Super, Evermos, and KitaBeli are hoping to duplicate the success of Pinduoduo in China and Meesho in India. All focus on daily necessities like fast- moving consumer goods and food, and use the social commerce model to make the supply chain more efficient and affordable, since orders are made in batches by people who live in the same communities. They can also be described as being a part of the logistics industry.
Evermos lands a $30 million Series B.
Aggregators of e- commerce.
Funding for small e-commerce brands has been attracting a lot of funding in the United States and Europe for several years. It took e-commerce Aggregators a bit longer to reach Southeast Asia.
There were two e-commerce Aggregators that raised follow-on rounds a few months later. While many e-commerce companies focus on Amazon sellers, Una Brands refers to itself as a sector-agnostic. There is no dominant marketplace in the region, so it has developed a system to find brands across platforms. Rainforest focuses on Asia-based Amazon sellers, but is different from other Aggregators with its goal of becoming the online version of a consumer goods conglomerate. With so many e-commerce sellers based in Asia, expect both Rainforest and Una Brands to grow.
Predicting the next wave of tech giants.
