A familiar name tops Asia’s fundraising charts this week

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Unless you haven’t been paying attention the last few months, you’ve probably already heard of Reliance Retail, the retail chain of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries. Since September, when US-based Silver Lake invested a cool US$1 billion into the business, the company has continued raising funds almost every other week.

With the latest US$1.3 billion injection from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Reliance Retail’s disclosed funding now totals US$4.8 billion, and that US$1.3 billion accounts for more than a third of what the whole startup scene raised this week.

But it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Reliance Retail is raising so much money. After all, it is going head-to-head against Amazon in India – and to take on the heavyweights, it’s going to need big bucks.

You can find all other important investment deals that happened in the last few days in our weekly funding news wrap-up.

Let’s dive into the biggest deals and M&As that recently took place.

BIGGEST DEALS BY COUNTRY

🇮🇳Reliance Retail: The retail chain of India’s Reliance Industries scored US$1.3 billion in investments from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

🇨🇳Pony.ai: This AI startup bagged a US$267 million series C round from ClearVue Partners, Eight Roads (Fidelity Ventures), Morningside Venture Capital, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

🇮🇩LinkAja: E-payment startup LinkAja raised US$100 million in a series B round from BRI Ventures, Grab, Mandiri Capital Indonesia, and Telkomsel.

🇸🇬Cellwize: The Singapore-based internet infrastructure startup bagged US$32 million in series B funding from Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung NEXT Tel Aviv, and Verizon Ventures.

US$3b in three quarters for Singapore startups

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