Data Vantage | Carousell’s funding, Klinify’s new owner and other updates
Edition #125, 9 Nov 2021
Dear reader,
Since our last newsletter on Thursday, several deals have transpired in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia, further propelling the region into its best year ever for private capital fundraising.
Singapore’s newly minted tech unicorn Carousell welcomed Temasek-backed Heliconia Capital as a shareholder on Friday following a $10 million investment in the online marketplace for pre-loved products.
Heliconia made its investment via Orchid 3 Investments VCC, which received 577,307 shares at $17.3 apiece. The share pricing remains the same as Carousell’s $100 million funding in September from South Korean private equity firm STIC Investments.
Top shareholders in Carousell
Source: DATA VANTAGE
Singapore-registered Tiki Global, a holding company for Vietnamese online marketplace Tiki, raised another $18 million on Monday from Taiwan-based Yuanta Financial Holdings to take its Series E total to $258 million.
Shares in Tiki’s latest round were allotted at $26.33 and the Singapore entity, which was established earlier this year, is now valued at $797 million. The Vietnamese company itself is valued at close to $1 billion, its founder and CEO said.
Meanwhile, Zuellig Pharma sold its entire stake in health tech startup Klinify to Hong Kong-based Heals Healthcare last week. The pharma company had acquired the startup, whose product is now used by more than 1400 doctors in Malaysia, in 2019.
Klinify had raised six rounds of funding from investors and its previous backers included JFDI.Asia, Jungle Ventures and SEEDS Capital.
The last few days have also been marked by secondary transactions.
Fintech lending firm AwanTunai, which focuses on Indonesia as its primary market, welcomed Singapore-headquartered private equity firm Tembusu Partners as a shareholder last week after the latter acquired shares from US-based Atlas Pacific Management.
UAE-based Al Libas International has acquired a 26% stake in Reflaunt, a technology company that connects fashion brands to online marketplaces for pre-loved products, from another fashion-focused tech company, UK-based Yellow Octopus.
A remarkable year
2021 has so far been a record-breaking year for venture-backed companies in Southeast Asia. Collectively, the region recorded 714 funding deals in the first nine months of this year that collected $17.8 billion in total proceeds. This compares to 479 deals and $6.9 billion in the same period of last year, shows our latest quarterly report.
Companies have also witnessed an increase in valuations as the region gradually recovers from a prolonged period of socio-economic restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dealmaking in Southeast Asia in the first nine months of 2021
Source: SE Asia Deal Review: Q3 2021
Based on the median value of venture investments in the first nine months, company valuations appear to have surpassed pre-pandemic levels across investment stages. The median value of seed investment rounds increased by 50% to $1.5 million relative to the same period in 2020 and 2019.
Series B round saw the biggest jump as median investment value reached $35.6 million, nearly three times the value in the same period of 2019. The median value for Series D reached $123.9 million, 128% higher year-on-year, partly driven by investments in newly minted unicorns such as Advance Intelligence Group, Nium and Carsome.
Fund managers that we spoke to believe that high expectations of a post-pandemic economic recovery across the region should trigger more dealmaking, but with more distributed allocations across different markets and sectors.
Other updates from DATA VANTAGE
Velox Digital Singapore, an entity of Indonesia’s ride-hailing company Gojek, received additional funding from its parent company last week, bringing its total capital infusion this year to $48 million. Gojek is looking to expand into food delivery and courier services in the city-state.
Jakarta-based Esensi Solusi Buana (ESB), a tech-enabled restaurant management company, has raised $7.6 million from a group of investors led by Alpha JWC Ventures. Existing investors such as AC Ventures, BEENEXT and Skystar Capital also joined the round.
Singapore-based crowdfunding platform Minterest has raised $2 million in fresh funding from property developer SingHaiyi’s Huaidan Chen. Her investment brings the total amount raised by Minterest since September 2021 to $39.9 million. New Horizon Global Limited, an entity owned by Chen, also picked up secondaries in the firm last week.
Singapore-based venture capital firm Altara Ventures has topped up its equity funding in Vietnam-focused edtech firm Clevai, bringing its total investment in the firm to $1.9 million. Clevai has raised $2.7 million in its latest funding round so far and has nearly doubled its share price since a previous round.
Wavemaker Partners on Monday invested $1.1 million in ecoSPIRITS, the world’s first low carbon and low waste spirits distribution technology provider. The company signed a licensed operator agreement last month with InnovativeDrinks for expansion in Germany, its fourth European market.
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