The 12 biggest funding rounds in Southeast Asia this year

Photo credit: Ion Chiosea / 123RF.

When it comes to capital-raising in Asia, economic powerhouses China and India are leading the way.

But Southeast Asia is growing its share of the pie as investors look at emerging markets for growth. In the first half of 2016, tech investments in the region stood at US$799 million, a 69.3 percent jump from US$472 million in the same period of 2015, according to Tech in Asia data. Those numbers contradict talks of a cooling off in financing for startups.

Companies from Singapore and Indonesia, particularly those in the ecommerce, transportation, and logistics sectors, were some of the top funded. They also include some of the best known in the region such as Grab and Go-Jek.

Here are 12 of the largest funding rounds we saw in Southeast Asia this year.

Grab

Southeast Asia’s top ride-hailing app raised in September a whopping US$750 million in funding, led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. The round reportedly brought its cash position to US$1 billion and valued it at over US$3 billion. That makes it the second-biggest tech company in the region by valuation, next only to Garena.

Grab’s funding came a month after its investor Didi Chuxing acquired the China unit of Grab’s staunch rival Uber.

Go-Jek

The Indonesian ride-hailing stalwart ramped up its war against Uber and Grab with US$550 million in August. The investors in this huge round included KKR, Warburg Pincus, Farallon Capital, Capital Group Private Markets, as well as existing shareholders and other international investors.

Photo credit: Go-Jek.

Go-Jek started out with motorcycle-hailing, banding together thousands of Jakarta’s bike pilots in a manner similar to Uber. The company later expanded into on-demand services like parcel couriers, food delivery, cleaners, and massages. In April it challenged Uber and Grab head-on with the launch of Go-Car.

Garena

Garena became Southeast Asia’s most valuable startup after a US$170 million series D round that brought its valuation to US$3.75 billion. The funding was led by the strategic investment fund of the Malaysian government.

The Singapore-based company started off in 2009 by creating software that linked people up for multiplayer games. Then it ventured into game distribution. Garena now also owns payment network Airpay, mobile-centric online marketplace Shopee, and Garena+,  a platform for people to meet, chat, and play games with one another.

Tokopedia

The Indonesian C2C marketplace raised US$147 million in July, confirmed by multiple trusted sources to Tech in Asia. The round brought Tokopedia’s known funding to a total of US$247.7 million, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the terms of the deal were “strictly private.”

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