A blockbuster hit and an ensemble of sizable feats

Shein, Byju’s, Bolttech, 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 Asia’s tech and startup community by [registering here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hello {NAME} Usually I write about some personal anecdote before I segue into some nugget or fun fact about the deals featured in the newsletter, but this week, let’s just lead with the biggest one. A massive US$2 billion round for ultra-fast fashion giant Shein. Is there anything else that needs to be said? This week actually has a bumper crop of big deals - easily the biggest numbers I’ve seen this year so far, and most come from China and India. But these companies just got dwarfed by Shein. Read on (and click the link!) to check out the rest of them. You can find all other important investment deals that happened over the last few days in our [weekly funding news wrap-up](. Let’s dive into the biggest deals and M&As that recently took place. -- Winston  --------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIGGEST DEALS BY COUNTRY  CN Shein is a fast-fashion ecommerce platform from China. In its latest funding round, it [raised US$2 billion]( from General Atlantic, Mubadala, and Sequoia Capital China. IN Byju’s, the Indian edtech company, secured US$250 million in a funding round from Davidson Kempner Capital Management. SG Singapore-based insurtech company Bolttech netted US$196 million in series B money from Khazanah Nasional Berhad, MetLife Next Gen Ventures, and Tokio Marine Holdings. JP Kyoto Fusioneering is a Japanese energy company. It [closed a US$79 million series C round]( and investors included the likes of Coral Capital, DBJ Capital, and Global Brain Corporation, among others. KR BlueSignum, a South Korean company that develops personalized digital therapeutics for mental health, bagged US$975,000 in pre-series A money from Korea Investment Partners and Springcamp. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [60 deals worth almost US$3 billion](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  M&As  IL Go Global Travel, a B2B hotel and technology provider from Israel, has been acquired by leisure platform Yanolja. The terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  STARTUPS THAT ARE RAISING FUNDS Fundraising is hard. To make things slightly easier, we’ve compiled this list of fundraising startups for our subscribers. Do you run a startup that’s raising at the moment or know someone who does? Sign your company up for listing [here](. PK Trips.pk is a Pakistani online travel agency providing flights, tour packages, and visa consultancy. VN LiveSpo is a Vietnamese firm that’s an R&D, manufacturing, and distribution brand of Spobiotics (probiotics in the spore form) for digestive and respiratory health. PK Dastak offers a unified API open banking platform that enables fintech founders to deliver contextualized and cheaper financial services to SMEs and underserved segments. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  KILLER PITCH DECKS 1️⃣ An Indian data analytics startup’s pitch deck got it US$1.5 million in pre-seed funding PredictiVu uses AI and machine learning to automate the analysis of large datasets. It used [this pitch deck]( to raise US$1.5 million in pre-seed money in 2021. With a straightforward design, the presentation is easy to read and understand. It also clearly highlights the problem businesses face in analyzing marketing data and explains how PredictiVu addresses the issue. 2️⃣ A Vietnamese fintech firm closed its third seed round of US$1.2 million with this deck Anfin enables users to buy and sell stocks listed on the country’s bourses. The company took home US$1.2 million after using [this deck]( to pitch to Goodwater Capital and Global Founders Capital, among other investors. The presentation has a clean, straightforward look that makes it easy to grasp Anfin’s key points. 3️⃣ An ex-BBC strategist’s news audio company raised US$9 million with this pitch deck Founded in 2016, Curio offers a curated library of audio journalism, giving listeners their daily fix of news and analyses. The UK-based startup used [this pitch deck]( for its series A round. The presentation is crisp since it mostly contains images and doesn’t include too many words. It begins by explaining why Curio was developed and introducing the company’s service.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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](  ---------------------------------------------------------------  THOUGHTFUL READS  1️⃣ Learning from others in enterprise firms Who better to learn from than founders who have successfully led their startups to achieve large growth-stage or even public status? [This article on the Andreessen Horowitz website]( is a treasure trove of advice on hiring, firing, scaling, and selling. 2️⃣ The other side of the micro coin You’ve probably heard of microaggressions, which are subtle acts of exclusion that can negatively affect staff and team members. But did you know that there are also microvalidations? [This piece from Harvard Business Review]( shows how you can help others with small, simple actions. 3️⃣ People-focused It’s always tough to see top performers leave your team. But there are lots of silver linings to this as well, and it just makes sense to lead with empathy and think about the bigger picture when these events arise. Read [this First Round Review article]( for some advice and tips. 4️⃣ Read what Lightspeed reads AI is everything, everywhere, all at once nowadays. The folks at Lightspeed Ventures have put out a list of content that they’ve been consuming on the topic - [check it out](. 5️⃣Buying low Thanks to lower prices (due to the current economic headwinds, perhaps), global M&A activity is doing fairly well. Have a look at [this Pitchbook article]( for the exact figures.  --------------------------------------------------------------- [ADVERTISE]( | [SUBSCRIBE]( | [HIRE]( | [FIND JOBS]( P.S. 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