The money is out there

IM Motors, Svatantra, Hunch, 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} Have you ever opened up a data-sheet or work document and immediately did a double take upon seeing a surprising stat or figure? That happened to me in the process of writing today’s newsletter. The top deal is one for US$1.1 billion - that’s more than most weekly totals. (I totally squinted and counted the number of zeroes three times to make sure I had the right number.) Perhaps less surprising is that that deal comes from China - but don’t sleep on the runners-up. It’s a newsletter of big winners today. 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 Based in China, IM Motors (also known as Zhiji Motors locally) is an electric car brand. It received US$1.1 billion in series B money from Bank of China, Momenta, and Nongyin Investment, among others. IN India-based Svatantra, previously known as Micro Housing Finance Corporation, is an affordable housing finance company. It raised US$230 million in bridge funding from Advent International and Multiples Alternate Asset Management. AE Hunch is a social networking firm based in the United Arab Emirates. It closed a US$23 million series A round, with Alpha Wave Global and Hashed Emergent as the participating investors. ID Wagely helps employees collect their earned wages immediately after a day’s work, if they so choose. The Indonesian company secured [US$23 million in a series A round]( led by Capria Ventures. SA BRKZ is a construction tech startup based in Saudi Arabia. It closed a US$8 million series A round, with 9900 Capital, BECO Capital, and Knollwood Investment Advisory among the investors. Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: [49 deals worth over US$2 billion](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  M&As  IN India-based Amelio Early Education is a preschool and daycare operator. It was acquired by UK-based preschool chain Kido International for an undisclosed sum. IN Courseplay, an Indian learning experience platform, has had a 51% stake in it acquired by HR solutions provider CIEL Group for US$2 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.]( SG Bangladeshi firm Bimafy is an online insurance marketplace. VN Based in Vietnam, Alpha Asimov Robotics develops autonomous last-mile delivery robots for Asian markets. IN DriveCarma is an Indian startup that incentivizes responsible driving via a rewards ecosystem. You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia [over here](.  ---------------------------------------------------------------  BEHIND THE GLASSWALL Fundraising often involves reaching out to multiple contacts, many of whom founders might not have dealt with before. To provide some transparency to this process, we created Glasswall, a platform for founders to give feedback and recommendations on investors. Check out the full list [here](. - ✅︎ “The program is intense, and we were challenged (productively) week on week to validate our business idea. We can feel our ideas sharpening over the weeks, and it's been immensely helpful in clarifying what we're doing. After we passed the IC, the money came into our account very quickly.” - [Read more]( - ❌ “Handed us over to multiple partners; each handoff required a re-pitch; assoc reached out and demanded a re-pitch despite us having pitched to another partner a week earlier. We did the pitch anyway just to be polite. Messy internal process and systems, in the end it just petered out as no one knew what was going on.” - [Read more]( - ✅︎ “Extremely knowledgeable partners who have built and exited tech companies. They provide practical and actionable insights with frameworks for new founders to adopt, and illustrate these insights with their own experience building their own companies. The knowledge acquired from orientation/retreat and weekly office hours are not the typical "vanilla" topics like term sheets 101, what is product-market-fit, but rather, they are pragmatic and in-depth advice that is catered to each startup. Thumbs up through and through.” - [Read more](  --------------------------------------------------------------- SAIGON SUMMIT 2024: CHARTING VIETNAM’S TECH FUTURE Calling all startups - showcase your tech at our exhibition space! Are you an early-stage startup founder looking to tell the world about your latest innovations and connect with hundreds of tech professionals? By popular demand, we’re bringing our revamped signature trade show, Startup Showcase, to Saigon Summit. This is your chance to put your brand firmly on the map and get the eyeballs of potential investors and business partners! Along with a dedicated space to set up your product, Startup Showcase participants will receive two tickets to Saigon Summit as well as an exclusive promo code for additional ticket purchases. You’ll also get your company logos featured in the Participating Startups section of our event website and receive a lot more perks. [Apply to exhibit here]( before slots run out!  --------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Can the sustainability sector sustain its success? [This PitchBook article]( states that climate tech firms, vis-à -vis other verticals, attracted stronger VC interest and maintained their valuations better last year. These companies also outpaced their peers in expanding teams and filing patents. However, a myriad of challenges (and opportunities!) lie ahead for the sector in 2024. Click in to see what the new year could look like for climate tech. 2️⃣ Jack of all trades [This Masters of Scale episode]( delves into a few different newsy topics, including how AI is transforming the game of scale and the main driving forces behind the recent tech layoffs. (No entertaining spiel because I don’t think I have to sell the episode when the synopsis is that compelling.) 3️⃣ Change is inevitable - here’s how to make it work for you In the startup world, change happens all the time. But precisely because it’s so common, sometimes processes fall through the cracks and new initiatives’ objectives get lost in a cloud of uncertainty or insufficient action. [This piece from Harvard Business Review]( offers some tips to successfully execute change at the office. 4️⃣ Fit check More product-market fit tips; this time, it’s from Eddy Lu, the co-founder and CEO of Goat, a platform for sneakers and luxury apparel that houses more than 350 brands, a million sellers, and 50 million members across 170 countries. Impressive numbers. [Let’s see if his advice matches up](. 5️⃣ Give the people what they want You don’t have to be a visionary to be successful - you just have to know what the people really want and give it to them. That seems to be the gist of [this article]( - whose headline could land me in trouble with my CEO if he finds out I included it in this newsletter.  --------------------------------------------------------------- [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 © 2024 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 63 Robinson Road, Singapore 068894