VSPO, FreshToHome, Involve Asia, and more raised funds this week. [Read from your browser]( FOMO Saturday Welcome to Tech in Asia's free Saturday VC newsletter! Get full access to our subscribers-only premium content and other insightful analysis on the big and messy topics of Asiaâs tech and startup community by [registering here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hello {NAME} Any fellow Teamfight Tactics enjoyers out there? Iâve been an avid player for about a year or two now, and one of my dreams is to be good enough to not just compete, but also make some money at it. Sadly, while thereâs a decently large player base in Singapore, there isnât any competitive scene or tournaments to participate in. As such, another possibility is to improve my skills and try streaming my gaming sessions, with the hope of eventually getting noticed by an esports organization. Itâs interesting because if you think about it, thatâs kind of how M&As tend to happen too - a young startup with lofty goals and big traction does well enough to draw the attention of major players in the sector, and then the company gets âsignedâ over to a much larger organization. And over the last week, many Indian startups seem to have reached this admirable goal. You can find all other important investment deals that happened in the last few days in our [weekly funding news wrap-up](. Letâs dive into the biggest deals and M&As that recently took place.
 --------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIGGEST DEALS BY COUNTRY
 CN VSPO, a Chinese esports event operator and service provider, secured US$265 million in strategic funding from Savvy Games Group. IN FreshToHome offers fresh, chemical-free seafood and meats. The India-based ecommerce firm got [US$104 million in series D money]( from Amazon Smbhav Venture Fund, Ascent Capital, E20 Investment, Investcorp, Investment Corporation of Dubai, and Iron Pillar. MY Involve Asia, a performance marketing and analytics platform from Malaysia, [raised US$10 million]( in bridge funding from 500 Global, Bintang Capital Partners, Monumental Productions, and Orbit Malaysia. SG Transcelestial Technologies is a Singapore-headquartered startup that offers wireless laser communication tech. It closed a [US$10 million series A round]( with investments from Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, Genesis Alternative Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Kickstart Ventures, Seeds Capital, and Wavemaker Partners. KR Guhada is a South Korean luxury ecommerce platform that bagged US$6.4 million in series B money from BM Ventures, Dt& Investment, Korea Investment Partners, and Woori Bank. Hereâs the complete list of this weekâs funding chart: [89 deals worth over US$570 million](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------
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M&As SG FoodRazor is a Singapore-based software-as-a-service platform for invoice management. Itâs been acquired by OrderEz for an undisclosed amount. IN Mera Cashier is an app for owners of small and microbusinesses in India to record and manage credit transactions. Internovo Ventures acquired it at an undisclosed price. IN India-based House of Blouse, an ecommerce store where women can design and shop for blouses, has been acquired by Shobitam. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. IN The Starter Labs is an Indian digital agency for direct-to-consumer brands. Itâs been acquired by Zoo Media, but the terms of the deal are not publicly available. IN Based in India, sumHR is a web-based HR management software startup thatâs been acquired by Jupiter for an undisclosed amount.  ---------------------------------------------------------------
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STARTUPS THAT ARE RAISING FUNDS Fundraising is hard. To make things slightly easier, weâve compiled this list of fundraising startups for our subscribers. Do you run a startup thatâs raising at the moment or know someone who does? Sign your company up for listing [here](. SG Staffroom is a Singapore-based online marketplace that helps schools hire teachers. ID Hunt is a recruitment service company based in Indonesia. ID Agroraya is an Indonesian agtech firm looking to build a more sustainable ecosystem within the sector. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------
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KILLER PITCH DECKS 1ï¸â£ A Singapore data center operator raised US$2 million with this pitch deck DC Alliance specializes in the development of co-location data center facilities. Using [this pitch deck]( it raised US$2 million of seed funding in 2020 from ESW Holdings and Singapore real estate developer Figtree. The presentation adopts consistent design, color palette, and font. It also clearly describes DC Allianceâs business objectives as well as unique selling and value proposition. 2ï¸â£ A real estate platform used this pitch deck to bank US$10 million Opendoor is a US-based digital platform that makes real estate-related transactions easier for home sellers and property buyers. It used [this pitch deck]( to land US$10 million in series A money from Y Combinator and Khosla Ventures. The presentation states upfront what the company does and then highlights its core teamâs expertise on the second slide. It also addresses pain points that Opendoor aims to resolve via a three-step digital solution. 3ï¸â£ An AI-powered cash prediction platform secured seed money with this pitch deck UK-based Predina uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent vehicle crashes based on road and environmental conditions. It presented [this pitch deck]( at a 500 Startups demo day and scored seed funding from the venture capital firm. The deck starts out by showing figures such as the number of road accident deaths and the huge financial impact on auto insurers every year. It also explains how adopting Predinaâs tech can help insurers prevent further losses. ---------------------------------------------------------------
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EVENTS HAPPENING You can also check out a curated list of trending tech events [over here](. - [Tech in Asiaâs Product Development Conference 2023]( from May 16 to May 17
Tech in Asiaâs Product Development Conference is back! This yearâs edition, which will be held in person in Jakarta, will feature over 20 industry leaders, experts, and innovators sharing the latest trends and strategies that can accelerate product development growth. [Register now]( and you can get 50% off. This early bird promo is available for a limited time only, though, so donât miss out! ---------------------------------------------------------------
 EXCLUSIVE LISTICLES Lists of most active investors in the region [China]( | [India]( | [Indonesia]( | [Japan]( | [Singapore]( | [Southeast Asia]( List of top-funded startups in Asia [China]( | [India]( | [Indonesia]( | [Israel]( | [Japan]( | [Hong Kong]( | [Singapore]( | [South Korea]( | [Vietnam](  ---------------------------------------------------------------
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THOUGHTFUL READS
 1ï¸â£ Teamwork applies to coaching too Itâs probably quite common for many companies to focus on training individuals rather than working on improving an entire team. The latter, however, could be a much better approach - if youâre a business leader, check out [this article]( on Harvard Business Review about team-based coaching. 2ï¸â£ MyFirstWarehouse With so much talk about digitalization going on, it can be easy to forget that many firms also have to deal with issues of a more⦠physical nature - like getting its first warehouse To get the best deal for your facility check out [this article]( on Andreessen Horowitz. 3ï¸â£ Weâre all in this together Workplace separation has been a common effect of the pandemic. Nonetheless, employees still highly value ease of collaboration. Microsoftâs recent survey found that workers are calling for more tools that can facilitate collaboration. Find out more about the surveyâs findings [here](. 4ï¸â£ A numbers game Everyone knows that VC funding has dropped like a rock, but itâs not just due to higher interest rates and a generally poor macroeconomic situation. There are more factors at play, [this blog post]( explains. 5ï¸â£ Theyâre coming for us Maybe not for search engines (yet). While thereâs been a veritable frenzy over ChatGPT, it looks like generative AI wonât significantly transform search engines yet, as they remain on top when it comes to scale, robustness, and reliability. [This article]( on Harvard Business Review breaks it down.
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Todayâs edition was written by Jonathan Chew. Itâs edited by Dhania Putri Sarahtika. Copyright © 2023 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved.
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