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My colleague Winston likens mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to Megazords, giant fighting machines from the Power Rangers franchise that are usually formed by a combination of smaller machines called Zords.
His analogy makes perfect sense – the combination of Zords creates a single powerful Megazord capable of defeating the most evil of villains, just like how different businesses joined through M&As helps strengthen a company’s capabilities and allows it to stand up against competitors.
Indeed, M&As are a key part of any startup ecosystem – and Southeast Asia has certainly seen its fair share.
Today we look at,
- The M&As that have taken place in Southeast Asia
- What its newest round of funding will do for this Israeli fintech firm
- Other newsy highlights such as Autohome’s secondary listing in Hong Kong and ComfortDelGro’s new app in Singapore
PREMIUM SUMMARY
When companies join forces and become one
M&As are an important part of the Southeast Asian tech and startup landscape, with some notable deals being Alibaba’s US$1 billion acquisition of Lazada and Seek’s US$586 million purchase of JobStreet. But finding information on M&As beyond the blockbusters can be tricky, which is why Tech in Asia has tried to consolidate all that we know in one place.
- On the rise: The Covid-19 pandemic led to an uptick in M&As in 2020, which saw 51 deals in total. Prominent ones included the sale of TradeGecko to Intuit, as as well as Singlife’s merger with Aviva Singapore.
- Ka-ching: While Southeast Asia’s average deal size stands at US$74.7 million, its M&A check sizes are considered small, with a median of US$12.2 million. Although there has been an uptick on this number.
- The top acquirer: Gojek tops the list of startup acquirers in Southeast Asia, having made eight M&A deals so far – 2x more than the runners-up.
Read more: A cheat sheet of tech acquisitions in Southeast Asia
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