I'm but a frog in a small well

Anhui Huasun Energy, Etaily, Bakingo, 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} In the latest example of me realizing “oh yeah, the Singapore market is really small,” I did a double take when I saw that one of the funding deals listed today was a US$16 million round for an India-based online bakery firm. I could never imagine local cake shops even thinking about needing that kind of money. Still, of course, we’re talking about magnitudes of difference when comparing the India and Singapore markets. It’s pretty cool that I get to learn stuff by writing this newsletter. In fact, “learning by doing” has been a big part of my life recently, especially in the past year. But that’s a story for another time. Read on to find out the other top deals that happened this past week. You can find all other important investment deals that happened in the last few days in our [weekly funding news wrap-up](. Let’s dive into the biggest deals that recently took place. -- Winston  --------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIGGEST DEALS BY COUNTRY  CN Anhui Huasun Energy specializes in the R&D and large-scale manufacturing of ultra-high-efficiency, N-type silicon heterojunction solar wafers, cells, and modules. The company received over US$276 million in its series C funding round, with investors including the likes of Guolian Jintou Zhiyuan, Bank of China, and China Xinxing Asset Management. SG Etaily, a Singapore-based firm that builds, manages, and grows ecommerce platforms for retailers, has closed a [series A funding round worth over US$17 million](. Participating investors include ICCP SBI Venture Partners, Kaya Founders, and SKS Capital. IN Bakingo, an online bakery firm based in India, took home US$16 million in bridge funding from Faering Capital. AE Dubai-based Wize, which offers subscription-based electric motorcycles, secured a [US$16 million pre-seed funding round]( which was co-led by a consortium of angel investors focused on the Middle East and North Africa region. KR Based in South Korean, CareDoc is an app that connects the elderly with caregivers nursing facilities. It netted US$11.9 million in series B funding from D3 Jubilee Partners, BNK Ventures, and SGC Partners, among others. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [43 deals worth over US$520 million](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  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]( ID Kuelap.id is an Indonesian digital lending platform that helps banks to offer lower-risk loans to MSMEs. KR Realry is a South Korean aggregator of global luxury and contemporary fashion sites. SG Singapore-based ClustAI aims to democratize access to graphics processing units (GPUs) by linking inactive GPU owners with AI startups and large language models. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  KILLER PITCH DECKS 1️⃣ This ex-Morgan Stanley executive got US$2 million seed money with this pitch deck Zoe Financial is a wealth management platform that curates a network of independent, commission-free fiduciary financial advisors and planners without any intermediaries. Founded by Andres Garcia-Amaya, a former Morgan Stanley employee, the startup used [this pitch deck]( to raise US$2 million in seed money in 2018. The deck introduces the company before moving on to information about the size of Zoe’s market, its competitors, business model, milestones, and roadmap for the future. 2️⃣ Kredivo’s investor presentation for its US$2.5 billion public listing FinAccel, the parent company of Indonesian buy now, pay later (BNPL) service Kredivo, has laid the groundwork for its US listing by merging with VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings II, a special purpose acquisition company. FinAccel used [this deck]( to showcase its business model and financial conditions. The deck outlines the potential of BNPL markets in Southeast Asia and illustrates how FinAccel can replicate the success of companies like Klarna and Afterpay. 3️⃣ This Vietnamese fintech firm’s pitch deck helped it secure US$10 million in debt funding F88 is a secured lending firm that aims to bring affordable and instant access to financial services for unbanked and underbanked individuals and MSMEs. It used [this pitch deck]( to obtain debt funding last year. The presentation first lays out the company’s key details. Then it goes through F88’s corporate culture, values, and mission, as well as the track record of its corporate development and product offerings.  --------------------------------------------------------------- TECH IN ASIA’S REGIONAL FOUNDERS MEETUP: SINGAPORE Join Tech in Asia's 11th and final meetup of 2023! Calling all Singapore-based founders! As 2023 comes to a close, we’re gearing up for our final Founders Meetup of the year in the Lion City, where it all began. By popular demand, Tech in Asia founder and CEO Willis Wee will talk about his startup journey, which has culminated in an M&A deal with SPH Media, in a fireside chat moderated by our COO Maria Li. Join us on December 5 at Mortar & Pestle to get a candid look at what goes on behind the scenes to pull off an M&A deal, and take home key insights that will help you best navigate and understand the M&A process if you choose to go down this route. Don’t miss this chance to learn, connect, and have fun with your fellow founders - including our own Willis - as we conclude this year’s Regional Founders Meetup event series with a bang! [Get your tickets now]( before they run out! A big thanks to our supporting partners - AppWorks, AWS, CleverTap, Cooley, Oracle, Sinarmas Land, Singapore Global Network (SGN), Quest Ventures, and Purple Quarter - for making this meetup possible. Note: This event is closed-door and strictly off the record - no media buzz, please! While Willis and Maria will share as much about the M&A deal as possible, confidential terms will not be disclosed.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 How to not get funding We’re well into the tech winter and almost every entrepreneur is finding it difficult to get funding. Make it (slightly) easier by not committing [these five mistakes]( when talking to potential investors. 2️⃣ An alternative - of sorts - to VC funding Apparently, there are investors who are raising funds to buy out startups that are unable to find VC funding. [According to the Financial Times]( these investment groups aim for majority ownership and operational control in an effort to turn things around for the startups. 3️⃣ We have purposely trained him wrong, as a joke “Your pandemic business takeaways are wrong” is the compelling title of [this Masters of Scale podcast episode](. Here, the authors of The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind talk about leadership when adapting to new information and how lockdowns may have miscalculated risk versus reward. 4️⃣ Examining SoftBank’s mixed investment results In the wake of WeWork’s bankruptcy filing and SoftBank’s US$6.2 billion Q3 loss, [this PitchBook article]( takes a look at the performance of SoftBank’s Vision Funds. It’s a real mixed bag, to say the least. 5️⃣ Did you think we would get through a newsletter without a genAI mention? Social listening is an important part of any marketer’s strategy - how would you sell to a customer if you didn’t know what they wanted? It turns out that generative AI can help brands to take the next step in understanding their customers - [this Harvard Business Review article]( tells us how.  --------------------------------------------------------------- [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