Asean Tech Digest #47
By: Victor Tenneroni
Tags: Southeast Asia, VC

Your curated summary of ongoing disruption in Southeast Asian tech. Subscribe here to receive it by email 💌

Hi technauts!

On the menu today:

Nanofilm’s IPO at US$1.25b valuation 💹, NUS spinoff Breathonix has developed a Covid-19 breath detection test 🌡, Grab on a partnership spree: Microsoft for tech upskill, Marriott for food delivery, Shinhan Financial for financial innovation 🤝, Eat Just & Proterra invest US$120m to build a protein factory in SG 🍜

…and many more awesome things 🎊

Brace yourselves for even more trees

Just funded 💸

🇸🇬 Regtech startup Silent Eight has raised a US$15m Series B from OTB Ventures, SC Ventures — Fintech News

🇻🇳 Travel startup Vntrip has raised a US$7m Series B from undisclosed investors — Tech in Asia

🇸🇬 Social E-Commerce startup Webuy has raised a US$6m Series A from Wavemaker, Centauri Fund, KB Financial Group, Global Founders Capital — The Business Times

🇸🇬 Electric motorbike startup SWAG EV has raised a US$5m financing round from EESL — Mercom India

🇸🇬 Advanced materials startup gush has raised a US$3.4m Pre-Series A from TNB Aura, Fidelium Group, RSP Architects, SEEDS Capital, TRIREC — e27

🇸🇬 Spacetech startup Zero Error Systems has raised a US$1.84m Seed from Airbus Ventures — Business Wire

🇸🇬 Proptech startup Propseller has raised a US$1.2m Seed from Iterative, Hustle Fund, XA Network, Rapzo Capital — TechCrunch

🇲🇾 Foodtech startup Secai Marche has raised a US$1m financing round from Beyond Next Ventures, Monex Ventures — e27

🇲🇾 Travel startup Tourplus has raised a US$1m Seed from Jin Hui Wong, SOSV , GT-MAX Sdn Bhd — Digital News Asia

Startups and downs 🚀

🇸🇬 NUS spinoff startup Breathonix has developed a Covid breath detection test, which it claims takes less than 1 minute to get the result with an accuracy >90% based on 180 clinical trials — ZDNet

🇹🇭 Real estate platform Dot Property has acquired property listing startup Hipflat for an undisclosed amount — e27

🇸🇬 Parkway Pantai will be the first clinic in Singapore to issue digital Covid-19 swab results to travelers, under its collaboration with blockchain startup Accredify — Accredify Blog

🇸🇬 NCS, the ICT arm of Singtel, has acquired digital services consultancy company 2359 — Tech in Asia

🇻🇳 How foodtech startup Lozi pivoted from advertising to delivery service leveraging hyperlocal capabilities, interview with GM Son Minh Tran — Lozi Blog

🇸🇬 Foodtech startup Eat Just (US) has announced a partnership with Proterra Investment Advisers to build a US$120m protein food factory in Singapore — Tech in Asia

🇮🇩 Bookkeeping app BukuWarung & microretail startup Warung Pintar have announced a partnership to design stock fulfillment solutions — e27

🌏 Algorand Asia Accelerator has selected 10 startups for its 12-week Finance 3.0 focused program, which includes a US$15,000 investment — e27

🇲🇾 Restaurant reservation and table management tools startup TABLEAPP has been acquired by reservation platform FunNow (Taiwan) — New Straits Times

🌏 Hospitality startup RedDoorz has launched SANS, its new trendy, economy lifestyle hotel brand — e27

🇸🇬 Online financial media Seedly has been acquired by CompareAsiaGroup (HK) — Seedly Blog

🇸🇬 Telehealth startup Doctor Anywhere has launched online mental health video consultation service — MobiHealth

🇮🇩 Startup Studio, an accelerator run by the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Informatics of Indonesia, has revealed its new batch of 20 startups — e27

🇸🇬 Electric motorcycle startup OMNi (Costa Rica) has partnered with Gogoro (Taiwan) & BlueSG to offer electric scooter sharing in Singapore, using swappable batteries — CNA

🇹🇭 Video SaaS company Paronym (Japan) has closed a US$6.5m Series B to expand to SEA starting with Thailand — e27

🇻🇳 VIISA (Vietnam Innovative Startups Accelerator) has revealed its 8th batch of 2 startups: Drobebox & Doctor Bear — DealStreetAsia

The Unicorn Belt 🦄

🇮🇩 E-commerce marketplace Tokopedia will reportedly receive US$350m in investment from Google & Temasek — The Business Times

🌏 Grab’s group revenue is reportedly back at 95% of Pre-Covid level, with over 50% made from it food unit — Reuters

🌏 Grab has partnered with hotel chain Marriott, for in-depth integration of Marriott’s 600 restaurants & bars in 6 countries to GrabFood — TechCrunch

🇮🇩 Transaction volumes for Traveloka are back at pre-Covid levels in Vietnam, Thailand; at 70% for hotels in Indonesia — Tech in Asia

🇮🇩 Gojek has launched its multimodal transportation feature, GoTransit, which includes public transit alerts, and first/last mile GoRide booking — Gojek Blog

🇻🇳 Grab has partnered with banking group Shinhan Financial (Korea) to accelerate the creation of new financial & digital services in Vietnam — Vietnam Investment Review

🇸🇬 Grab and Microsoft have partnered to train 5,000 drivers & delivery riders to digital jobs — Microsoft Blog

🌏 The story of Gojek in pictures: from the early days — Gojek Blog

🌏 Restaurant aggregator Zomato has shut down its premium service in Indonesia & the Philippines — Tech in Asia

Venture Capitalists 🎢

🌏 Tax & legal services firm Taxmantra (India) has launched ProfitBoard Ventures, a US$100m fund to invest in SEA & Indian startups — DealStreetAsia

🌏 Genesia Ventures has announced the final closing of its 2nd US$75m fund, with Mizuho Bank, Mizuho Capital, TFHD Open Innovation Program, and Mitsui Leasing as anchor investors — Tech in Asia

🇹🇭 Oil refinering & production company Thaioil has partnered with Plug and Play — Plug and Play blog

Corporates 👨‍💼

🇸🇬 Advanced materials company Nanofilm Technologies has filed for IPO at US$1.25b valuation — The Straits Times

🇸🇬 SP Group is building a 700ha/42,000 homes smart town called Tengah, powered by solar energy, leveraging EV charging, smart waste management and centralised cooling system — Bloomberg

🇹🇭 LINE & Kasikorn Bank have launched the first social banking app through their JV — KrASIA

🇸🇬 Sea and Capitaland have formed an alliance to explore digitization of offline retailers, starting with a gamification journey to increase offline sales at six malls on Singles day (11/11) — Singapore Business Review

🇸🇬 DBS is building a fiat-to-cryptocurrency exchange — The Block

🇻🇳 Apple is shifting production from China to Vietnam, and it’s creating boomtowns — Bloomberg

🇹🇭 Siam Commercial Bank has launched RobinHood, its food delivery platform — KrASIA

🇸🇬 SP Group & Sembcorp are building a marketplace to trade renewable energy certificates (RECs) and carbon credits — The Straits Times

🇸🇬 Connectivity service provider Epsilon has acquired development and design agency 7D Digital (UK). — Tech.eu

🇸🇬 Real estate agency ERA has partnered with Matterport to provide virtual tours, exciting — Singapore Business Review

🇸🇬 Impossible Foods’s (US) plant-based meat is now for sale at Fairprice and on RedMart — Today Online

🇸🇬 TikTok is hiring 3,000 engineers in EU, Canada, Singapore — Reuters

Smart Nations 🏛️

🇸🇬 The Singaporean gov’t will dedicate US$36m to research in hydrogen and carbon capture utilisation and storage — CNA

🇮🇩 Indonesia is drafting a regulation to details steps to block social media platforms — KrASIA

Food for thought 🍜

🌏 WhatsApp is Facebook’s super app, and an essential part of the stack of many businesses like Yalochat — East Meets West

🇸🇬 From 50 five years ago to 1,000 today: Singapore is the home of a fintech boom; and 80% are B2B — Nikkei Asian Review

🌏 AI could bring US$1tn in GDP by 2030 to ASEAN, EDBI & Kearney say — The Financial Times

🌏 Opportunities & challenges for a sustainable supply chain in the Covid era — Reefknot Investments

🌏 The upcoming release of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla shows Ubisoft is a key foundation of the Singaporean video gaming industry — The Business Times

🇸🇬 What are the determining factors for retail electricity prices in Singapore? — Howard Low

🇮🇩 The battle to digitize the 40,000 Jakarta streetside eateries — KrASIA

The Fountainhead ⛲

🇨🇳 Ant is targeting to raise US$34b for its IPO, the world’s biggest offering and it’s been oversubscribed 872 times — CNA

🇨🇳 TikTok is partnering with Shopify, globally, to help merchants roll out marketing videos for their products easily — TechCrunch

🇨🇳 Alibaba is going O2O with its US$3.6b purchase of China’s biggest hypermarket operator, Sun Art — SCMP

🇨🇳 Online tutoring startup Yuanfudao has raised US$2.2b in two rounds, one led by Tencent, the other by DST Global, with GIC & Temasek also joining — The Business Times

Also 🤫

🇹🇭 The Awakening — Foreign tourists are back in Thailand — Reuters

🇸🇬 Singapore will plant 170,000 more trees in industrial estates in the next 10 years — CNA

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