It's H2. Let's keep on keeping on

RoboSense, Caddi, eFishery, 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} Welcome to the second half of 2023. Have you accomplished what you set out to do at the start of the year? Or has it been such mad chaos that merely staying in the same spot has been tough enough? It’s been a little bit of both for me. I certainly feel like I’ve done and grown a lot, but there’s no doubt that this year has been a whirlwind of changes so far, and I feel way more fatigued now than I have at previous years’ halfway marks. I’ll just keep plugging at it, much like the firms featured in this newsletter. Despite the harsh macroeconomic climate, they’re still closing funding rounds. Hope springs eternal, even in the darkest times. Ganbattekudasai, friends. 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 RoboSense is a Chinese firm that provides autonomous driving solutions. It received US$167 million in late-stage funding from BYD, BAIC Group, and GAC Group, among others. JP Caddi, a Japanese SaaS company, has raised a US$82.6 million series C round. Investors include DCM, Global Brain Corporation, and Globis Capital Partners. ID Farming tech startup eFishery has [bagged an additional US$47.7 million for its series D round](. 500 Southeast Asia and Kumpulan Wang Persaraan were the participating investors. IN Leverage Edu is an Indian marketplace that provides student mentorship and guidance for college admissions. It scored a US$40 million series C from Blume Ventures, DSG Consumer Partners, ETS, and Kaizenvest. TH Thai fintech firm Bitkub has [gotten US$17.8 million]( in strategic funding from Asphere Innovations. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [80 deals worth over US$900 million](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  M&As  KR South Korean ecommerce firm Backpackr has merged with crowdfunding site Tumblbug, which has been the former’s subsidiary since 2020, for an undisclosed amount. TH Insurance firm Roojai has [acquired the Thai arm of FWD General Insurance]( from Singapore-based Bolttech for an undisclosed sum. ID Parenting app Diary Bunda has been [acquired by digital health platform Alodokter](. The financial details of the deal were not made publicly available. IN Indian edtech platform The Lex Guru has been acquired by career platform Toprankers for an undisclosed amount. IN KidzByte, an educational news app for children and teens, was acquired by JetSynthesys for an undisclosed sum.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  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](. HK Hong Kong-based TrailMe is a sports tech company offering a Bluetooth-based technology platform for outdoor events. BD Furnichaar is a Bangladeshi online marketplace for furniture and home decor. MY Kohai Infiniti is a Malaysia-based firm that aims to provide a comprehensive and user-friendly mobile app for everything related to esports. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  KILLER PITCH DECKS 1️⃣ A Malaysian firm planted the seeds with this deck Imago Engineering is a Malaysian company specializing in the construction of fully automated plants that produce protein, fat, and fertilizers from insects. In 2022, the firm used [this pitch deck]( to close its US$500,000 seed round. The presentation features an eye-catching first slide and clear and in-depth info on the startup’s market, business model, and roadmap. 2️⃣ A plant-based meat startup scored series A money via this deck Founded in 2019, YouKuai is the creator of a plant-based ground pork product called Zrou. The company used [this pitch deck]( to bag US$7.3 million series A money in 2021. The deck has a neat design, featuring a list that helps readers understand the flow of content. It also offers lots of details about YouKuai, but the amount of information isn’t overwhelming. 3️⃣ A healthtech firm’s pitch deck got the attention of a former PayPal executive Oscar is a direct-to-consumer health insurance platform that provides medical packages for individuals, families, and small groups. The US-based firm used [this pitch deck]( in 2014 to bank US$80 million in a series A round led by 8VC general partner Joe Lonsdale, who is also an ex-PayPal executive. The presentation was designed with a simple look that keeps viewers engaged and begins with a background of the health insurance industry before introducing Oscar and how it works.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Be responsible when using the new hotness Generative AI is everywhere nowadays, for better or worse. As a part of the tech ecosystem, you can bet that Tech in Asia has been experimenting with gen AI to produce better work, faster. But with great power comes great responsibility, as a famous arachnid-based superhero often espouses, so take a gander at [this Harvard Business Review (HBR) article]( on 13 principles for using AI responsibly. 2️⃣ This little piggy went to the market The go-to market strategy is a constant, big question on every founder’s mind at some point or another, if not all the time. [This First Round Review piece]( looks at the most common questions early-stage founders have on the topic. 3️⃣ Leadership lessons As you might have read in other newsletters, I’m relatively new to this management lark - it’s only been around nine months since I took on the managing editor role at Tech in Asia Studios. To me, articles like [this HBR one on the right kind of mindset]( to have as a leader are invaluable. Maybe it will help you out too. 4️⃣ (Don’t) forget about the price tag Great - you’ve done the hard part of building a product or solution that the market needs or wants. Next question: How do you decide how to price it? [This article]( on the Andreessen Horowitz website offers some tips specific to fintech firms. 5️⃣ Fight the power? On his blog, Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson makes the case for [“software that you can't shut down.”]( Spoiler alert: It’s about blockchain.  --------------------------------------------------------------- [ADVERTISE]( | [SUBSCRIBE]( | [HIRE]( | [FIND JOBS]( P.S. Don't miss out on the biggest tech news and analysis. Add newsletter@techinasia.com to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. Or simply move us into your inbox. Too many emails? Switch to a different frequency or get new content through our [preference center]( or [unsubscribe](. You can also break our hearts and remove yourself from all Tech in Asia emails over [here](  ---------------------------------------------------------------  Tech in Asia’s newsletters are handcrafted daily with love - and sometimes powered by good kopi. Today’s edition was written by Winston Zhang. It’s edited by Dhania Putri Sarahtika. Copyright © 2023 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 63 Robinson Road, Singapore 068894