🌟 January

As we welcomed the year, Zilingo also started a new chapter: liquidation. The fashion tech startup once worth $1B was in crisis mode for months because of alleged ‘financial irregularities”.

Internet company VNG listed on UPCoM, a local exchange where local firms test the waters (aka investor appetite) for listings in bigger exchanges. So far, VNG is set to list in the US when the market gets better. 

‍

💗 February

Who says you need to have a partner?

For the month of hearts, we loved seeing Wing Vasiksiri go solo (again). He launched the WV Fund II, a sector-agnostic solo GP fund based in SEA. 

Fintech Aspire also raised a $100M Series C to bat for profitability, which they did achieve later in the year.

‍

🚺 March

Are we marching on to a better well-being culture or what?

Intellect, a Singapore-based mental health startup, earned a nod (and some $$$) from IHH Healthcare, Asia’s largest private healthcare group.

Thai insurtech Roojai also raised $42M to expand in the Philippines and the rest of SEA. They later acquired the Singaporean insurance company, DIrectASia.

Finally, to commemorate Women’s Month, we also went in-depth on what it’s like to be a woman in business (specifically, a startup founder). 

‍

🌳 April

Coffee was big this year, but in April we didn’t know it yet.

We wrote about how the Philippines’ PickUp Coffee picked up at least $40M a Series A1 round. (We hear they were Tiger Global’s second Philippine investment!)

For Indonesia, it’s also the year that EVs picked up. The Indonesian government lowered the value-added tax on EV sales from 11% to 1%.

‍

🎶 May 

Yes, it’s coffee news again! 

In May, Flash Coffee raised a huge $50M Series B to bat for group level-profitability. Fate had other plans though. The coffee brand has since exited the Singaporean market after a public fuss with their baristas and their Thai franchise was acquired by Turn Capital. 

On the flip side, Singapore’s BandLab Technologies raised a $25M Series B1 to build new music tools. 

‍

💔 June

Remember when Sequoia Capital was still one entity?

That  VC firm’s split into three happened in June. Since then, we’ve met Peak XV Partners (Southeast Asia and India branch) and HongShan (China branch).

Revenge shopping is also back, with utu snagging $33M to acquire Cardspal and expand their tax-free shopping features. 

Amartha, an Indonesian fintech focused on serving unbanked women, also secured $100M in fresh funding.