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Hello readers,
Like many of my Gen Y peers – I can’t speak for anyone outside of this demographic – Singapore’s circuit breaker provided a reason to delve into new hobbies. Coaxing fluffy loaves of bread from yeast and little else, brewing pour-over coffee with my V60 set (an impulse purchase), settling into the strange routine of Houseparty calls with friends, and the highlight: making videos of my Shopee purchases on TikTok. While my interest in the short-video platform quickly waned, this hasn’t been the case for its millions of users. Clearly, short-video sharing apps are here to stay, and investors are betting big on them.
Today, we look at:
- Lomotif, a Singapore-based social media platform that’s scored a US$125m exit
- Cloud security unicorn Snyk’s fresh funds
- Other newsy highlights such as China’s Hello Inc filing for a US IPO, and an angel fund for Indonesian startups
PREMIUM SUMMARY
Singapore’s Lomotif just scored a US$125 million exit
Singapore is home to scores of tech startups, but social media firms? Not so much. So how did short-video sharing app Lomotif, a 7-year-old startup in the country, sell an 80% stake worth a reported US$125 million to US-based entertainment firm Zash Global Media and Entertainment Corporation?
- Hello, stranger: Despite the popularity of short-video apps like TikTok in Singapore, Lomotif isn’t a familiar name in the country. Its exit has also raised eyebrows, given its financial track record so far: Numbers from research firm VentureCap Insights reveal that in the 12 months ending Q2 2020, Lomotif booked a total of US$6,600 in revenue.
- Building a niche: Still, Lomotif CEO and founder Paul Yang knows what’s up. The startup has spent “almost zero dollars on marketing,” yet according to mobile app intelligence firm Apptopia, last year, it attracted an estimated 19 million app downloads and 7.4 million monthly active users worldwide, most of whom are interested in hip-hop culture. A bulk of the app’s users hail from Brazil (49%), followed by the US (12%) and Colombia (7%).
- Top dollar: Lomotif’s investor, Zash, is co-founded by former MoviePass chairman Ted Farnsworth, early Musical.ly (the app that became TikTok) investor Jaeson Ma, and former Triller board member Vincent Butta. Farnsworth has quite a colorful background himself, having run dozens of companies – though just a handful of them remain now – and been hit with a string of lawsuits over the years.
Read more: Lomotif, the $125m exit that Singapore’s VCs missed?
STARTUP SPOTLIGHT
Cloud security unicorn Snyk closes US$300 million
Snyk, a US-based cloud-native app security firm, has closed US$300 million in a series E round led by Accel and Tiger Global, and with participation from existing investors and new ones, with the latter including Temasek, Alkeon, Atlassian Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Geodesic Capital, and Sands Capital Ventures.
Did someone say scale?
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