Asia sees record high $23.4b in startup funding in Q2

Beijing at night. Photo credit: Travel Sensate

Asia’s tech firms saw US$23.4 billion in investments in the second quarter of 2016, according to Tech in Asia Database. This is the highest amount ever recorded in the Asian tech ecosystem in a single quarter. The investments are spread across 944 deals.

Funding rounds are getting larger

Quarterly investment growth from the past one year.

The US$23.4 billion tally is up 20 percent from the previous quarter, and up 70 percent from Q2 2015.

That largesse was seen in some of the huge rounds over the past three months. Alibaba spin-off Ant Financial received US$4.5 billion in a series B round while ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing raised US$6.1 billion in venture capital funding from investors including Apple. That doesn’t even count Didi’s US$2.5 billion syndicated loan from a major Chinese bank.

China dominates

China scored a total of US$20.7 billion worth of tech funding, with less than US$3 billion going into the rest of Asia. The top 10 deals in Asia were all claimed by Chinese companies.

Israel was second with US$1.1 billion, while India trailed with US$700 million.

Ride-hailing heats up

Ecommerce was finally dethroned by the logistics and transportation sector as the most funded tech industry in Asia, although ecommerce still has the edge in the number of deals. Startups and tech firms in the ride-hailing and logistics space consumed roughly one-third of the total funding amount in Asia.

China’s Didi warped the data with its monumental newest investment – money which it partially used to acquire Uber’s China unit a few days ago.

Fintech, another hot area, sneaked up to second place in Asia in Q2.

Hyperactive 500 Startups

With 21 deals in the second quarter, 500 Startups tops the pile of most active venture capitals in Asia. The US-based investor mainly invested in seed rounds (17 deals), most of which were in Southeast Asia. The firm also expanded to Japan with Spacee and Pocket Concierge receiving the first investments from its Japanese fund.

Exit activity

68 tech firms saw exits in the second quarter of 2016, with Alibaba acquiring Rocket Internet’s Lazada being the highlight in terms of deal size. Indonesia also saw its maiden IPO by a startup.

Full report

Interested in seeing full details of Asian investments in the second quarter of 2016? You can download our Asian Investment Report by filling out the simple form below, and we will send a note to provide you with the full report.