Funding here, funding there, funding everywhere

T3 Chuxing, Halodoc, Vistaar Finance, 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} I think I’ve written before about how variety is the spice of life. That’s why my hobbies are somewhat diverse, and every couple of years I find something new to try. It’s not solely for recreational purposes. I don’t actively think about my hobbies in this way (because that would take all the fun out of them), but everything I do and see informs my writing. Everything provides a memory or an experience that I can come back to at some point in the future, allowing me to connect better with different audiences as I become able to use different analogies and so on. (And every so often, I can write semi-meta, reflective blurbs like the one you’re reading right now.) Similarly, this week’s funding deals run the gamut, both in terms of industry and market. Hopefully, these are signs that the global economy is starting to recover. 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 T3 Chuxing, a ride-hailing app from China, has raised a US$139.9 million series A from Hongtai Aplus. ID Halodoc is an Indonesian healthtech platform. It received [US$100 million in series D funding from Astra Digital International](. IN India-based fintech firm Vistaar Finance has bagged US$50 million in series E money from the US International Development Finance Corporation. KR Rapport Labs is a South Korean company which operates Queenit, a mobile fashion commerce app. It netted US$27.2 million in its series B2 round, with Altos Ventures, Atinum Investment, and Kakao Ventures participating. JP Acall, which is based in Japan, developed WorkstyleOS, an application that supports safe, secure, and comfortable ways to work. It closed a US$16.1 million series B funding round, with investors including the likes of Jafco Group Japan, Japan Finance Corporation, and Kobe University Capital. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [47 deals worth over US$550 million](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  M&As HK Vistra, a Hong Kong-based corporate service provider and fund administrator, has merged with business expansion specialist Tricor.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  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](. SG GetSpaces streamlines the property leasing process for businesses. It is based in Singapore. HK Based in Hong Kong, Omnichat is a B2B software-as-a-service firm focusing on omnichannel messenger marketing and commerce. MY Kohai Infiniti is a B2B esports mobile app from Malaysia. It aims to provide a comprehensive and user-friendly destination for everything related to esports. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  KILLER PITCH DECKS  1️⃣ This blockchain startup’s deck earned it US$450,000 in pre-seed money India-based Kandola offers real-time decentralized IoT protocols and Web3 solutions. Last year, it used [this pitch deck]( to raise pre-seed funding. The presentation is brief, contains details on the market trends in the IoT industry, and also states key pain points that Kandola’s proposed solutions can solve. 2️⃣ The pitch deck that helped a parenting app land US$2 million in seed funding Founded in 2013, US-based BabySparks aims to provide parents and caregivers with innovative and effective tools to guide babies and toddlers in critical areas of early development. The company used [this pitch deck]( at a 500 Startups demo day in 2019 to secure seed funding. The presentation starts by sharing how the founder’s own parenting struggles led him to establish BabySparks, and then elaborates on how the app will help parents address the specific needs of kids under the age of three. 3️⃣ 500 Startups invested in this firm after seeing its pitch deck Shippo is an ecommerce platform that provides retailers with tools to streamline their shipping process. In 2014, the California-based company used [this pitch deck]( to raise its seed round, which drew investors like 500 Startups. The presentation is simple and concise - fit for a startup that’s raising funds for the first time - and clearly illustrates key figures that underpin Shippo’s growth, including its run rate, profit margin, and number of packages delivered.  --------------------------------------------------------------- TECH IN ASIA CONFERENCE 2023 Everyone has someone they want to emulate. For some, it’s a celebrity or a superstar athlete. For those in the tech scene, I imagine that founders and successful industry executives would be on their list. If you’ve already got some names in mind, why not drop by this year’s Tech in Asia Conference? We’ve signed on the best industry voices to speak at the event, such as Byju’s co-founder Divya Gokulnath, 500 Global managing partner Khailee Ngl, and Altara Ventures general partner Gavin Teo. What’s more, we’ve released tickets at 50% off. Click [here]( to get them.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Putting some numbers to digital transformation We all know the necessity of digitalization by now, but it always helps to see some empirical evidence to strengthen the cause. In [this Harvard Business Review (HBR) article]( the performance of 80 banks was tracked over four years, allowing us to see exactly how their transformation efforts benefited them. 2️⃣ Do androids dream of human collaboration? AI is all the rage now, and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop anytime soon. We might as well figure out how to leverage it. [This Masters of Scale podcast]( talks about how PricewaterhouseCoopers is re-skilling its 65,000-strong workforce to do just that. 3️⃣ Leading big teams vs. leading small teams There’s a fair amount of talk about how to scale up your leadership as your team grows, but what about if it goes the other way? In [this piece on First Round Review]( find out what it takes to go from managing a team of 1,400 engineers to managing a team of… 12. 4️⃣ How to cut costs effectively Cost cutting is part and parcel of a bear market, but it shouldn’t involve indiscriminate reductions. [HBR explores]( how firms can cut costs in a way that makes them stronger both now and in the future. 5️⃣Selling AI is still difficult Generative AI might be hot as hotcakes right now, but it’s still hard to sell, especially on the global level. [This article on the Andreessen Horowitz website]( talks about the topic and offers a solution.  --------------------------------------------------------------- [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