Singapore is still Southeast Asia’s startup hub, but neighbors are encroaching

The number of venture capital deals in Singapore has stagnated, according to Jason Lin, the head of business development at Tech in Asia‘s own Techlist, who spoke on stage today at our annual Singapore conference. While Singapore is often thought to be the leading country when it comes to tech startups in Southeast Asia – its 39 deals last quarter still outnumber the rest of the region by a wide margin – other countries are closing the gap fast.

Indonesia and Malaysia both roughly doubled the number of VC deals in the first quarter of this year to 24 and 13, respectively, according to Techlist data.

Ecommerce and marketplace startups dominate the list of Southeast Asia’s biggest funding rounds. Indonesia’s upcoming ecommerce giant MatahariMall was by far the largest at US$500 million, along with Elevenia taking the number three spot. Rocket Internet’s car marketplace Carmudi sits in second place. Singaporean startups make up six of the top 10.

Lin notes that there are no repeat lead investors among any in that list, proving the diversity of Southeast Asia’s venture capital scene. “Ecommerce still has a large window of opportunity for investors who are interested in this sector, growing from 11 to 22 deals last quarter,” Lin says.

Indonesia and Malaysia are leading that growth in ecommerce.

The average funding round in Southeast Asia is worth US$1.6 million, with the average valuation at US$6 million. Techlist data shows the region’s notorious series A crunch is coming to an end. The number of series A rounds more than doubled quarter on quarter, outnumbered only by the number of seed rounds.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Singapore 2015, our event running on May 6 and 7.