Asia Pacific’s startup economy is going through a “major transition” amid the increasing democratization of tech across the globe, a study from advisory and research firm Startup Genome and Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) suggests. According to the 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, access to the tech economy is at an all-time high, as seen in the
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In Indonesia, there are about 60 million “micromerchants,” typically small store owners who sell food and other staple items, and have close relationships with their customers. Many often extend informal lines of credit to shoppers, but much of their financial tracking is still done with pen and paper ledgers. Chinmay Chauhan and Abhinay Peddisetty, the co-founders of BukuWarung,
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Chinese entertainment titan Tencent said it has purchased Southeast Asian streaming service Iflix to extend the reach of its own streaming platform WeTV into the region. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. “Through the purchase, WeTV will further extend our presence in the video-streaming industry across Southeast Asia to reach a broader audience base within
SEE MOREDaiwa Capital Markets and Golden Gate Ventures published a co-authored report identifying four key ASEAN sectors to watch. Two themes emerge – first the growth in Chinese tech-titans expanding investment, innovation, and acquisition to Southeast Asia, and second, the shift of startups addressing “To C“(onsumer) to “To B”(usiness) models. This report coins the term “2G2T”
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Uber is shutting down its Asia-Pacific hub in Singapore as it winds down 45 offices globally and lays off 3,000 more employees in a business resizing exercise. “Over the next 12 months, we will begin the process of winding down our Singapore office and moving to a new APAC hub in a market where we
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Singapore’s Ninja Van has raised $279 million from backers including France’s GeoPost SA and ride-hailing giant Grab Holdings Inc., scoring one of Southeast Asia’s largest startup investments since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group and Monk’s Hill Ventures were among those that took part in the parcel delivery firm’s
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Indonesian accounting app for small enterprises BukuWarung has raised an undisclosed sum in its seed funding round led by East Ventures, per a statement. The round is joined by a host of other investors including AC Ventures (previously Agaeti Ventures & Convergence Ventures), Golden Gate Ventures and Tanglin Venture Partners. Indonesian tycoon Michael Sampoerna joined
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We’re all inside a giant pressure cooker. With everyone impacted by the global virus, and by measures to combat it, my Singapore-based venture capital firm hosted a virtual “cloud panel” of founders and CEOs powering the backbone of the online consumer economy, with companies active in areas from logistics to payments to global analytics.
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