Singaporean Ventures — Issue #10
Hi technauts!
On the menu today: BukaGlobalization 🌏, h@xX0rs 👨💻, AR 📱, digital nomads 🌴, 2-wheeler ridehailing 🛵, waste management ♻️ and flying taxis 🚁
Startups and downs 🦄
○ Indonesian e-commerce giant Bukalapak is going BukaGlobal, starting with Singapore. And they partnered with cross-border logistics startup Janio for that.
○ Image recognition for retail startup Trax is finalizing a US$100m round at US$1.1bn pre-money valuation, thereby becoming Singapore’s 2nd unicorn (or is it Zilingo, by now?).
○ Affiliate marketing/cashback startup Shopback has reached 8m users, 2,000 merchants.
○ Rewards app Fave has acquired food startups CutQ & FoodTime.
○ Smart wearables/end-to-end IoT platform startup Kaha has raised a US$6.2m B round led by ICT Fund and a European strategic investor.
○ IoT OS builder Brazn has raised US$3.65m Seed from Tin Men Capital Partners.
○ Insurtech startup Singapore Life has raised US$7.3m from Ion Pacific.
○ Healthtech startup Biofourmis has raised a US$35m Series B from Sequoia India & MassMutual Ventures.
○ How PropertyGuru is using AR to help you identify buildings around you with flats available for sale.
○ Nomad coworking startup Outpost has raised a US$1.3m Seed round from EverHaus, Strypes Holdings, and Clarenberg Ventures.
○ Coworking startup GorillaSpace has raised a Seed round led by Mitsubishi Estates.
○ German flying taxi startup Volocopter will build a prototype station in Singapore this year.
○ ComfortDelGro has started testing an autonomous bus made by French company EasyMile in NUS.
○ Home services marketplace Ovvy has raised a US$0.4m Seed round from Rapzo Capital.
○ P2P rental marketplace MyRent has launched.
○ After Foodpanda, Telepod is now offering discounts to Lalamove drivers.
○ The 10 finalists of Food Future Asia are here.
○ Blockchain Wine is a company using blockchain to build traceability…for wine.
Grab & Go-Jek 🚘
○ Grab has added hotel booking to its app, going further into its partnership with Booking.com and Agoda.
○ Grab’s partnership with Ninjavan: what it means for logistics in Southeast Asia.
○ Grab has launched GrabBajay in Jakarta, a 3-wheeled transportation service, in collaboration with the Jakarta Transportation Agency.
○ Grab has partnered with the University of Indonesia for its startup development program.
○ 6 months after launching in Singapore, Go-Jek has hit the 10m-ride milestone.
○ Is Malaysia the next destination for Go-Jek?
○ H@xX0rs spotted!
Corporates 👨💼
○ Take a tour inside Razer’s office.
Venture Capitalists 🎢
○ EV Growth has hit the final close of its US$200m fund with backing from SoftBank, Pavilion Capital and Indies Capital, among others.
○ Qualgro is raising a US$100m fund to focus on Series B deals.
○ Chinese VC ZWC Ventures has raised a US$150m fund dedicated to Southeast Asia & China.
○ Genesis Alternative Ventures is looking at venture debt for its next US$70m fund.
The Smart Nation 🇸🇬
○ The Economic Development Board is looking for jedi masters to make Singapore become a global tech hub.
○ The 16-year waste time bomb problem. NTU and the National Environment Agency have launched a US$29m waste-to-energy research facility.
○ Big plans for the MRT.
Food for thought 🍜
○ How Google Maps built a 2-wheeler mode to reach its next 1 billion user base.
○ With the slowdown in China, startups are eyeing Southeast Asia for expansion. Here are the challenges they face.
Beyond Singapore 🌏
○ KaiOS, the mobile OS for emerging countries backed by Google, has raised a US$50m B round from Cathay Innovation.
Indonesia 🇮🇩
○ Coworking startup Greenhouse has raised a US$2.8m bridge led by 14 angels, with 7 new investors joining the round.
○ Who owns digital wallet Ovo?
○ Natali Ardianto, the founder of Tiket, acquired in 2017 by online mall Blibli, is launching a new venture in healthtech…Stay tuned.
○ Messaging app Line and e-commerce shopping aggregator iPriceGroup have launched LINE Shopping.
○ Kedai Sayur, a startup that connects vegetable suppliers with hawkers, has raised a US$1.3m Seed round led by East Ventures.
○ TaniGroup has raised a US$10m Series A led by OpenSpace Ventures, with Golden Gate Ventures, DFS Lab and Intudo Ventures also joining the round. The company offers micro loans and helps farmers connect with retailers via an online marketplace.
Malaysia 🇲🇾
○ YC-backed cloud kitchen startup Dahmakan has raised a US$5m Series A round from Partech Ventures & UpHonest Capital.
Myanmar 🇲🇲
○ Micro-credit loan provider Daung Capital has closed its Series A led by Majuven at US$12m valuation.
Vietnam 🇻🇳
○ Rental sharing startup Luxstay has raised a US$4.5m bridge led by GS Shop & Bon Angels.
○ And the winner of Startup World Cup 2019 is…Abivin, an AI-powered logistics optimization platform.
China 🇨🇳
○ 20m bike trips/day — It seems Alibaba’s Hello Transtech, is doing better than Mobike & Ofo combined.
○ JD.com’s plans to automate logistics, following its US$55m investment in Jiangsu Xinning Modern Logistics.
○ The Starbucks Empire strikes back with online coffee ordering. But Luckin Coffee is already onto something else: bakeries.
○ ByteDance is launching its own music app — Hello Spotify, Apple Music. And it’s also giving another try to social messaging with Feiliao/Flipchat. And it’s developing a smartphone with pre-installed apps for children.
○ Facebook can’t go past the Great Firewall, but can it go around?
○ Tencent/Riot Games has started developing a mobile version of LoL.
○ Pinduoduo’s 2019 results are here — and they’re good: total revenue reached US$677m (+228% YoY); net loss reached US$272m (+39%, ‘only’); 443m active buyers over the period (+50%).
○ $1.29bn — that’s the number of households with access to mobile Internet.
○ Travel platform Mafengwo has raised a US$250m Series E led by Tencent, with General Atlantic & Qiming Venture Partners also joining the round.
○ Meituan has expanded its ridehailing services to 15 new cities.
India 🇮🇳
○ A nice overview of the Indian Venture Capital scene.
○ Amazon has started selling flight tickets online.
○ Grocery delivery startup Grofers, BigBasket’s competitor, has raised a US$200m round led by Softbank.
○ Tiktok-like Vmate has received US$100m in funding from Alibaba. The app, launched in 2016, currently boasts 150m active users.
○ Nexus Venture Partners is approaching its US$450m target for its 5th fund, having closed US$355m last week.
Also 🤫
○ Facebook will launch its cryptocurrency, GlobalCoin, in a dozen countries, in Q1 2020.
○ So you can order food from Google Maps now…Here’s the story.
○ WePay & Alipay are now banned in Nepal…The use of these digital wallets by Chinese nationals labeled transactions as made in China, thereby avoiding taxes.
○ The world will soon welcome the 3rd genetically-edited baby.
○ A laptop with the world’s 6 most dangerous viruses — a true work of art — has been sold for US$1.345m.
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And see you in two weeks.
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