SE Asia Deals Barometer Report: Startup funding surges in Dec as megadeals resurface

By Mars W. Mosqueda Jr.

January 13, 2025

At the fag end of a grim year, startups in Southeast Asia raked in big moolah from investors in December, ending 2024 on an optimistic note.

They raised $692.2 million, marking over a 300% jump from November, buoyed by the resurfacing of megadeals, according to proprietary data compiled by DealStreetAsia.

The last time the region saw transactions worth $100 million or more was in June 2024.

In terms of volume, as many as 31 transactions were clocked in December. In November, investors pumped $174 million across 28 startup deals.

Even as December’s fundraising was the highest for the year, it remained below the $1 billion mark. To be sure, the funding amount was not disclosed in 11 transactions.

On a year-on-year basis, last month’s figure was down roughly 43% from the $1.22 billion raised in December 2023, when Alibaba’s $634 million injection into Lazada boosted the region’s tally.

Rise in cheque sizes

In December 2024, the average deal size (based on transactions with disclosed funding amounts) stood at $34.6 million, recording a sharp rise from the average of $8.7 million invested in November.

The region saw three megadeals during the month, the biggest being the $250 million investment in Singapore-based digital banking group Tyme.

The funding round, anchored by Brazilian neobank Nubank, which injected $150 million, minted Tyme as the only Southeast Asian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2024.

The deal also marked the first investment from M&G’s impact strategy Catalyst, which chipped in $50 million. Tyme’s existing shareholders such as Tencent, Apis Partners, BII, and Blue Earth invested the rest of the capital.

Meanwhile, Mets Logistics, a cold-chain solutions provider headquartered in the Philippines, also made it to the megadeal chart after it secured around $121 million from Singapore-based private equity firm Growtheum Capital Partners.

The third megadeal in December was inked by Singapore-based insurtech unicorn bolttech, which raised over $100 million in a Series C funding round that valued the company at $2.1 billion.

The Series C funding was anchored by Dragon Fund of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and insurtech direct lender Liquidity Group. Baillie Gifford, Generali’s Lion River, and others also joined the round.

Megadeals of December 2024

NameHeadquartersAmount RaisedFunding StageLead Investor/sOther InvestorsVertical
Tyme GroupSingapore$250,000,000Series DNubankM&G’s impact strategy Catalys, Tencent, Apis Partners, BII, and Blue EarthFintech
Mets LogisticsPhilippines$121,000,000Private EquityGrowtheum Capital PartnersGrowtheum Capital PartnersLogistics & supply chain
bolttechSingapore$100,000,000Series CDragon FundBaillie Gifford, Dragon FundFintech

Singapore accounts for 80% of SE Asia’s funding

Startups in Singapore continued to account for the bulk of the region’s funding. In December, startups in the city-state raised $555.4 million across 22 deals, accounting for about 80% of the month’s total.

In November, Singapore also reinforced its status as a premier regional hub for startups and investment, capturing approximately 76% of the total funds raised across Southeast Asia.

The top transaction in Singapore in December was the $250 million funding raised by Tyme Group in its Series D round. Meanwhile, bolttech, the insurtech firm that secured $100 million in its Series C round in December, is also based in Singapore.

Separately, CarDekho SEA added to Singapore’s haul after it secured $60 million from Navis Capital Partners and Dragon Fund.

While the Philippines only saw one deal, the amount raised was big enough to make it to the megadeals table. Mets Logistics, which raised $121 million in the country, said it will use the fresh funds to expand in the cold-storage logistics sector in the country.

In other nations, Thailand closed a lone transaction for $8 million and Vietnam secured $7.8 million from a single deal. Meanwhile, Malaysia completed three deals and Indonesia saw two, but the funding amounts for those were not disclosed.

Last month’s overall fundraising only involved startups in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. Myanmar did not witness any deals.

Fintech remains investors’ choice

DealStreetAsia’s compilation showed that the financial technology (fintech) sector continued to evince significant investor interest in December, clocking as many as eight deals that raised a combined $387 million, or more than half of the total amount raised in the region.

Two of the three megadeals in the month – Tyme Group and bolttech – were in the fintech space.

Singapore-based fintech player Funding Societies, known as Modalku in Indonesia, also raised $25 million in equity investment from Cool Japan Fund, Japan’s sovereign wealth fund.

Fintech was followed by Software & IT and e-commerce, at four deals each, while agritech booked three. The remainder was spread across various industries, each seeing one deal.

Early-stage funding gains steam

Pre-seed and seed funding rounds were the dominant stages in Southeast Asia’s fundraising scene in December, with a combined 8 deals under these stages, DealStreetAsia’s compilations show.

The largest pre-seed funding last month went to Earos, a Singapore-based Web3 initiative that combines AI agent with blockchain. The startup raised $10 million from Lemon Capital.

Web3 startup DuckChain raised $5 million from a host of investors, including Dao5, Tandem by Offchain Labs, Kenetic Capital, DWF Ventures, and others, to become the largest deal in the Seed stage.

There were 4 Seed deals, 4 pre-seed, 3 private equity transactions, 2 Series B, 1 Series A, 1 Series C, 1 Series D, a secondary market transaction, and 1 corporate round. Thirteen transactions did not disclose their funding stages.

Notable debt rounds

There were also some notable debt deals in the region in December, which were not included in the above analysis. Indonesian fintech startup Awantunai, for instance, raised $60 million in a syndicated debt financing round led by US-based, impact-focussed investor Accial Capital.

The debt financing will help AwanTunai expedite its plans to scale up operations, expand its lending portfolio and increase loan disbursements and enhance access to financing for small businesses.

In another debt financing deal, Fairbanc, a Singapore- and Silicon Valley-based B2B embedded finance startup operating in Indonesia, also announced securing about $3 million from Indonesia’s state-owned venture capital Bahana Artha Ventura.

Fairbanc, which was piloted in Bangladesh with Unilever before it was rolled out in Indonesia in 2021, enables MSMEs to purchase inventory on BNPL credit in partnership with large consumer brands.

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