Yong Siang (Ivan) Tan · 8 min read The most connected VCs in Asia
September 2019
Introduction
Over the past decade, Tech in Asia has been actively tracking and reporting on funding news like these. In the process, we have amassed a huge database of investment data focused on Asia, so we know which startups that venture capital firms have invested in at different funding stages (seed as well as series A, B, and so on). Using the data, we would like to share some interesting insights with you.
VC firms are very important players in the startup ecosystem - they help nascent startups raise capital to turn ideas into products. Almost all of the largest startups in Asia today relied on venture capital when they began.
The evolution of Asia’s startup ecosystem
In the last 10 years, the region’s startup scene has grown tremendously with the rise of unicorns such as Grab, Gojek, Lazada, and Tokopedia in Southeast Asia as well as Toutiao and Didi Chuxing in China. Vertex Ventures, East Ventures and Sequoia Capital were among the early investors in these companies.
Why should we care ?
Asia’s share of the global economy has more than doubled over the past 40 years, and it’s expected to continue growing. And according to a study from Bain & Company, Southeast Asia’s investment ecosystem is entering a new phase of growth, producing at least 10 new unicorns by 2024.
Visualizing the data
To help readers dive into the Asian startup scene, we’ve created bite-sized content like infographics and listicles that are updated regularly. Conventional analysis techniques involve examining the total funding raised, checking the number of deals by country and/or verticals, among others. But we have always wondered, is there a more natural way to view the startup ecosystem?
Suppose we have a round of startup funding represented by a graph that looks like this, where each company represents a node and the investments made are the edges (also called vertices/links) in a network:
Simile Venture Partners and East Ventures invest in Tech in Asia’s Series A on Jan. 22, 2013 / Image: Tech in Asia
Connecting all the data points would give us:
A network visualization of Asia’s startup funding / Image: Tech in Asia
