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In focus
- US funds are now in our VC tracker
- Vietnam’s logistics players are being squeezed out
- Nearly half of all new companies now are one-person businesses
Hello reader,
One story I worked on last year that’s stuck with me ever since was about Southeast Asian founders chasing the American dream.
One founder told me that building a company is extremely hard regardless of where you’re based. If you’re competent enough, why not build in the biggest market in the world? Same effort, bigger reward.
That conversation sparked the idea of expanding our VC funds tracker. From now on, we’ll cover not only funds targeting startups in Southeast Asia or India but the US too.
We added US funds because that’s where more and more of Asia’s founders are headed. Whether you’re building from the region or the US, I hope this tracker makes your fundraising a little easier.
We’re also seeing more founders from Southeast Asia gain serious traction stateside. For instance, Chinmay Chauhan, co-founder of Indonesian fintech firm Buku Warung, is now building Acceler8 in San Francisco and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Speedrun. Meanwhile, Lucas Ngoo, co-founder of unicorn Carousell, took his Cortex AI into Y Combinator.
Don’t be surprised if the next Southeast Asian success story is built in the US.
Back at home, Vietnam’s ecommerce market is becoming a Shopee-TikTok Shop duopoly, holding a combined 97% market share. My colleague Jamille Tran from The Business Times dug into the consequences for the logistics sector, where Ninja Van and Lazada’s former logistics arm in the country had to exit the market.
Duc Tran, data journalist
Top Stories
1️⃣ VC tracker: New funds across US, SEA, India
Image credit: Made by Tech in Asia with the help of AI
Southeast Asian and Indian founders are increasingly building in the US and landing investments from well-known VC firms in the country. We expanded our VC tracker so you can find your next investor wherever you are building.
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