The investors powering SEA’s ecommerce firms

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Hello reader,

“My friends went there last week and haven’t come back. It’s not a good place.”

This is a summary of a review on Google Maps for Ikea’s sparkling new outpost in my city, Bengaluru. The post is now part of a legion of jokes surrounding the launch of the Swedish retailer’s biggest store in India, an event marked by an air show with over 500 drones.

Did the retailer get the response it wanted? Well, to get inside the store, it takes an average of three hours, and the memes on the hordes of people standing in queues continue to flow in, so you be the judge of that.

Pictures of the crowds have eased my FOMO, as has the fact that I write this sitting on sheets from Ikea and eating out of the Ikea bowls I bought online. Living in the age of ecommerce definitely has its perks: I’ve had these products long before Ikea even announced it was opening a brick-and-mortar store in my city.

Today’s edition of the newsletter salutes the investors who enable the magic of ecommerce.

Today we look at:

• Top investors backing Southeast Asia’s ecommerce startups.
• Updates on the hack on blockchain platform Harmony.
• Other newsy highlights such as Sky Mavis bringing its sidechain back online after a US$620 million hack and SG’s 2C2P bagging Ikea entity as a client.

Premium summary

Who’s funding Southeast Asia’s ecommerce startups?

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Despite the heated competition in Southeast Asia’s ecommerce industry, more competitors continue to stream in. TikTok is only the latest to dip its toes in the market with TikTok Shop. Even Amazon is amping up its game by training 10,000 Vietnamese businesses to start selling on its platform.

Southeast Asia’s ecommerce firms are going full steam ahead despite this competition thanks to the backing of the top 20 VCs on our list.

• The east in Southeast Asia : Sector-agnostic venture fund East Ventures, which has been named as the most active investor in Southeast Asia by data intelligence company Preqin, tops our list of investors backing the region’s ecommerce startups. The Indonesia-headquartered firm has made 29 ecommerce-related deals in the last 24 months. Sneaker marketplace Novelship is one of its most recent investments.

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