In with the old and in with the new

Reliance Retail, Ilectra Motor Group, Sirius, 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} Do you prefer sticking with an old reliable, or do you opt for something shiny and new? When it comes to shopping, I suppose I’m a mixture of the two. If I’m buying something I use every day like shower gel, yeah, I will keep going back to the products that I know can get the job done. But if I’m treating myself, perhaps to new football gloves, I’m more likely to take a risk and try out a brand I’ve never used before. As with all things in life, balance is important. If you never tried anything new, that would be boring. Equally, if you could never be certain that what you were buying was going to work out, that would be a stressful way to live. The companies that secured funding this week strike a pretty fine old-versus-new industry balance. They run the gamut from old reliable sectors like retail and industrial products, to relatively newfangled areas like electric vehicles and renewable energy. 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 that recently took place. -- Peter  --------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIGGEST DEALS BY COUNTRY  IN Reliance Retail is an Indian retail company and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. It has received US$1 billion in late-stage funding from the Qatar Investment Authority. CN Ouyeel Industrial Products developed a supply chain platform for industrial products. The Chinese firm has secured US$138.3 million in a strategic investment from Ansteel Group, China Baowu Steel Group, Hebei Logistic Industry Group, Hidden Hill Capital, Shanghai State-owned Capital Investment, TBEA, and Xinyu Iron & Steel. ID Ilectra Motor Group manufactures two-wheel electric vehicles. In its series B round, the Indonesian firm bagged US$50 million from Brama One Ventures, Foxconn Co-GP Fund, Horizons Ventures, and Indika Energy. VN Based in Vietnam, Copper Mountain Energy specializes in investing in and developing renewable energy projects. It has netted US$20 million in a debt financing round from responsAbility Ventures. SG Sirius, a Singapore-headquartered startup that built an enterprise architecture platform, scooped up US$18 million in its series A funding round. The investors were Cento Ventures, Integra Partners, and M Venture Partners. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [57 deals worth over US$1.4 billion](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  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 Quantgraph is a Singapore-based startup that is launching a platform to allow real-time buying and selling of quantum-ready encrypted AI computational resources. ID Kita Keluarga Indonesia provides a mobile app that aims to make family planning a more harmonious experience. ID Ujione is an Indonesian startup providing an online exam platform for schools. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  KILLER PITCH DECKS 1️⃣ This pitch deck helped a mobility app raise US$1.5 million in seed funding Phenikaa MaaS, founded by award-winning programmer Yee-Thanh Le, is the developer of Vietnamese public transit app BusMap. The startup used [this pitch deck]( to secure seed funding from Pheenika Group in 2021. The presentation provides comprehensive information about Phenika MaaS’ business, including its milestones. 2️⃣ InnoVen Capital partner breaks down Revolut’s US$2.3 million seed-stage pitch deck Revolut raised US$2.3 million in seed money in 2015. In [this video]( Ben Cheah from InnoVen Capital Southeast Asia breaks down the deck that the fintech unicorn used to secure that round. He also discusses what he thinks was good about the deck and what could have been better. 3️⃣ This firm’s pitch deck earned 500 Startups’ attention Purple Go is a sales platform that automates tasks like invoicing, payments, and order updates so that staff can work efficiently with customers. The company used [this pitch deck]( at a 500 Startups demo day to procure seed funding. The presentation begins by describing the platform being built and goes on to outline the problems that it hopes to solve.  --------------------------------------------------------------- TECH IN ASIA X CLEVERTAP Ignite your customer engagement efforts with hyper-personalization! Delve into insightful editorial discussions about the latest news and trends in Singapore led by our Tech in Asia duo COO Maria Li and tech editor Collin Furtado. Taking into account the interest of Bangalore-based entrepreneurs in Singapore's intricate startup ecosystem, we have crafted a fireside chat to dive deep into the city-state's evolving news landscape. Mark your calendar for August 25 and join us in the heart of Bangalore at Byg Brewski to connect, learn, and exchange ideas with fellow founders from the Tech in Asia community. Why navigate the startup journey alone when you can collaborate with others and break through barriers together? This event is happening soon, so act fast and secure your entry [here](. Tickets are now on sale at US$12.50 (around 1,029 rupees) each, inclusive of complimentary light bites and free-flowing beer and mocktails. Hurry, tickets are limited. Avoid FOMO and claim your spot today! Special thanks to our official event partners - AWS, CleverTap, Cooley, Sinarmas Land, Singapore Global Network (SGN), Quest Ventures, and Purple Quarter - and our community partners - WeWork, Gobi Partners, ConnectFarmer, Draper Startup House, Spicy Rocket, WeFounderCircle, and Founders Forum Group - for making this meetup possible.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Term sheet red flags You’ve just received an offer from a VC firm that wants to fund your startup, so it’s time to celebrate, right? Don’t pop the champagne just yet if you see one of these five [red flags]( in the term sheet, as they could end up hurting you in the long run. 2️⃣ An island boy you can’t trust The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX should be a cautionary tale for everyone, founders and VCs alike. How did Sam Bankman-Fried manage to secure billions in VC funding for such a dodgy company, all the while acting like a (in the voice of Logan Roy) not very serious person? Perhaps this [inside account]( from a former engineer at sister company Alameda Research can shed some light. It’s worth a click for the Bahamas anecdote alone. 3️⃣ The ironing is delicious In case you haven’t noticed, AI is somewhat in right now, so it’s not a shock that AI-themed stocks are soaring on the markets. Surprisingly, it seems that AI models don’t quite buy the hype about, well, themselves. This Wall Street Journal [piece]( looks at why AI-powered exchange-traded funds are lagging behind benchmark indexes. 4️⃣ Chip off the old block One company that has definitively cashed in on the AI mania is Nvidia. The chip maker is [coming for]( venture capital as well. This piece takes a quick look at the firm’s recent investments in private and public companies across a broad range of industries. With cash to burn and the cachet of the Nvidia name, these are some investments to watch. 5️⃣CT-what? What exactly does a chief technology officer (CTO) do? If you’re a VC reading this and you have a good answer, you’re one of the lucky few, at least according to this [article](. I think I first encountered the title when the TV show Mr Robot launched, so back then I probably thought being a CTO involved an awful lot of corporate subterfuge, computer hacking, and sexual power games (trust me, don’t Google “Tyrell Wellick bathroom scene”).  --------------------------------------------------------------- [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 Peter Cowan. It’s edited by Dhania Putri Sarahtika. Copyright © 2023 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 63 Robinson Road, Singapore 068894