Top 10 articles to understand Southeast Asia’s startup scene

As the name suggests, Tech in Asia covers innovation, tech, and startup news in the region, and primarily in Southeast Asia. We publish hundreds of articles every month, including many deep dives and premium stories to help you understand what matters.

Funding for tech startups in Southeast Asia has grown 50x from US$130 million in 2010 to US$7.7 billion in 2020, according to the SEA Startup Ecosystem 2.0 report. In the past year, the region raised a total of US$19.4 billion out its 827 funding rounds.

With the funding boom, Southeast Asia now counts over 15 unicorns – six of which joined the club just this year. A few of them have recently held IPOs, including internet giant Sea Group, which has a market cap of US$160 billion. Other players in the region are also set to go public very soon, including Indonesia’s ecommerce major Bukalapak, as well as Southeast Asian super app Grab.

All these names can be hard to remember, and the volume of news coming out of Southeast Asia can be overwhelming, especially when you’re new to the region. So we have selected our top 10 articles to help you get an overview of tech in Southeast Asia: who the companies are, what they are working on, how they differentiate themselves, who lends them money, and much more.

1️⃣ 50 rising startups in Southeast Asia

A good place to get started is looking into which companies are rising fast in Southeast Asia. This updated list of 50 startups will tell you who recently raised funds. Though it’s far from the whole story, fundraising can be used as a proxy to find out which sectors are receiving the attention of investors in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the rest of the region.

2️⃣ The leading Asian tech players eyeing an IPO in 2021 (Updated)

A few notable Asian companies have gone public in 2021 – either via an IPO or a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) listing – such as Indonesian ecommerce giant Bukalapak. But many more are about to follow in its footsteps. The list includes names you probably already know such as TikTok owner ByteDance and the GoTo group, but it also has many fintech and ecommerce startups you should pay attention to.

3️⃣ Unearthing Sea Group’s alumni network

As you may know, Sea Group is one of the region’s largest tech companies. But did you know that a lot of its employees went on to start other startups as well? For instance, one of its alumni created Vietnam’s second unicorn VNLife. Find out how this network of founders supports other ex-employees who go on to become entrepreneurs.