SE Asia Deals Barometer Report: VC funding rebounds in April, buoyed by one megadeal

Even as uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs looms large, venture capital funding for Southeast Asian startups rebounded sharply in April.

This was primarily driven by a $150 million Series D investment in Singapore that pushed regional deal value to $342.6 million across 31 transactions.

In terms of value, this was more than three times March’s $97.5 million and significantly higher than the same month last year, when startups garnered $160 million, according to DealStreetAsia’s proprietary data.

Yet the region remains well below the heights of mid-2024 – average monthly funding from April to December last year was around $380 million, peaking at $690 million in December as several late-stage rounds closed ahead of the holidays.

The figure also highlights the market’s reliance on sporadic large cheques: one deal accounted for 44% of the total money raised in the entire region.

Cross‑border payments platform Thunes topped the funding table, securing $150 million in Series D financing co‑led by Apis Partners and Vitruvian Partners.

The Singapore‑headquartered firm said the cash will bankroll an aggressive push into new markets, especially the United States, where it recently clinched money‑transmitter licences in all 50 states.

Meanwhile, the second-highest funding went to Singapore-based Device-as-a-Service (Daas) platform Cinch, which raised up to $28.8 million in a combination of debt and equity, in a round anchored by Southeast Asian venture capital firm Monk’s Hill Ventures.

SE Asia’s top equity funding deals of April 2025

Thunes’ megadeal raised the region’s average value, based on transactions with disclosed funding amounts, to $15.6 million. In March, the average deal size was $4.2 million.

Of the 31 equity deals publicly announced in April, as many as nine did not disclose their funding size. The tally includes venture capital, private equity (PE), and one angel round, while debt deals were excluded from the monthly scorecard.

Singapore leads

Singapore-based companies captured $292.2 million from 19 deals – accounting for 85% of April’s regional total – reinforcing the city-state’s dominance in Southeast Asia’s startup funding landscape. In contrast, March witnessed 20 deals in Singapore that, in total, raised just $64.2 million.

Six of the top 10 deals in April were secured by Singapore-based startups. In addition to Thunes and Cinch, other notable city-state deals that raised $20 million or more included SquareX, LionsBot, Manabie, and Surfin Meta Digital. Five Singapore deals did not disclose their funding amounts.

Interestingly, investment activity picked up in the Philippines as well, pushing the country into second place in the region for April. While still a distant runner-up, startups there raised $36.5 million across four rounds, buoyed by cloud-kitchen operator CloudEats’s $17.8 million Series B led by Jungle Ventures.

Indonesia recorded $13.3 million from four deals, headlined by agritech platform Eratani’s $6.2 million Series A anchored by Singapore’s Clay Capital. Eratani connects smallholder rice farmers to financing, inputs, and markets.

While startups in Vietnam raised a modest $675,000, Malaysia recorded two deals with undisclosed financial details.

Fintech still top

Fintech startups captured more than half of the venture capital invested in Southeast Asia last month, leaving most other sectors scrambling for single‑digit millions and some with no disclosed funding at all, DealStreetAsia data show.

Fintech firms raised $188.2 million from six deals in April, equal to about 55 % of the region’s $342.6 million total and dwarfing every other vertical.

The sector was propelled by Singapore-based payments firm Thunes’s $150 million Series D, the only megadeal publicly announced during the month.

In terms of other sectors, e-commerce, F&B, and healthtech/healthcare saw three transactions each that raised $28.8 million, $20.8 million, and $16.1 million, respectively. B2C commerce startup Cinch led the e-commerce vertical with $28.8 million in a combination of debt and equity.

Drone & Robotics signed two transactions that raised $21.3 million, while edtech’s lone deal secured $23 million in funding.

Overall, investors backed companies in 17 distinct verticals, but nine of those sectors disclosed less than US$5 million apiece, underlining selective risk appetite. Two transactions in the logistics & supply chain and data analytics / AI sectors did not disclose the amount raised.

Seed round drops

Early-stage activity softened in April, with only three seed and two pre-seed deals closing during the month versus 12 seed cheques in March.

The outsized Series D round of Thunes helped push later-stage fundraising to $215.7 million, dwarfing the $4.3 million seed-stage startups secured.

Startups raised $59.3 million across six Series A rounds, while Series B funding totaled $65.7 million. In the private equity (PE) space, two startups secured a combined $7 million, while 11 transactions did not disclose their funding stages.

Manabie, an edtech startup based in Singapore raised the largest Series B funding in April at around $23 million. The round was led by JIV Venture Growth Investments, the VC unit of sovereign wealth fund Japan Investment Corporation.

In the Seed stage, Singapore-based Eyeball Games topped the deals with a $3.3 million funding anchored by White Star Capital. Eyeball Games is founded by the creators of 8 Ball Pool, a smash hit title from Tencent-owned Miniclip.