Weekly roundup: Web3 security platform Immunefi bags $24m and other SE Asia deals

Weekly roundup: Web3 security platform Immunefi bags $24m and other SE Asia deals

Immunefi, a Singapore-based bug bounty and security services platform for Web3, has announced raising $24 million in a Series A funding round anchored by venture capital firm Framework Ventures.

A host of investors also participated in the funding round, including Electric Capital, Polygon Ventures, Samsung Next, P2P Capital, North Island Ventures, Third Prime Ventures, Lattice Capital, and Stratos DeFi, per the announcement.

Launched in December 2020, the startup, which claims to be the largest and most widely adopted bug bounty platform in Web3, guards over $60 billion in users’ funds across projects such as Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, and others.

Immunefi’s platform now supports more than 300 projects across multiple crypto sectors and collectively offers $136 million in bounties to white hat hackers.

The lead investor, Framework Ventures, is known for its early entry into decentralised finance (DeFi) and blockchain gaming (GameFi).

Malaysia’s StoreHub scores $13.5m in Pre-Series B

StoreHub, the retail tech startup based in Malaysia, has announced raising $13.5 million in its Pre-Series B funding round anchored by venture capital investor 500 Global and backed by existing investors Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India and OSK.

The startup, co-founded in 2013 by Malaysian Fong Wai Hong and Chinese national Congyu Li, offers a platform that enables restaurants and retailers to automate and grow their businesses. It started as an early pioneer of cloud-based SaaS Point-of-Sales system in the region.

The company said its platform is used by 15,000 businesses in Southeast Asia to date and has processed over 128 million transactions worth over $1.6 billion in gross transaction volume over the last 12 months.

StoreHub intends to use its latest funding to continue meeting demand and invest in innovation to deepen the value of customers.

In 2020, StoreHub raised $8.9 million in its Series A+ funding round led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India. 500 Global also joined the company’s first round in 2016 with a $150,000 cheque.

Headquarters bags $5m from Crypto.com Capital

Singapore-based Headquarters, which offers a finance dashboard for Web 3 teams and businesses to manage their financial operations and reporting, has bagged $5 million in a seed funding round co-led by Crypto.com Capital, Forge Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures. Crypto.com Capital is the venture arm of crypto exchange Crypto.com.

Other investors in the round include Saison Capital, Coinhako, Longhash Ventures, Ocular, Sky9 Capital and DWF Labs.

Singapore-based Headquarters plans to use the funds to accelerate its finance dashboard, it said.

“The Headquarters team is building an essential service for any web3 company. Say goodbye to the arduous task of manually transferring tokens and making payments. Instead, teams can now automate their treasury flow for day-to-day operations. It’s long overdue,” said Crypto.com Capital’s investment partner Jon Russell in the announcement. 

The news comes eight months after Singapore-headquartered Crypto.com Capital expanded the size of its maiden fund from $200 million to $500 million in January, targeting early-stage Web 3 firms that drive the industry development. So far, it has backed about 37 firms, including YGG SEA, the largest gaming guide in Southeast Asia, and hardware wallet Ledger.

Malaysia’s respond.io scores $7m in Series A

Malaysian commerce platform respond.io announced raising $7 million in a Series A funding round anchored by early-stage venture investor Headline.

The startup, which enables messages from any channel to be responded from one centralised dashboard, added that the funding round was also backed by AltaIR Capital, Smart Partnership Capital, Sterling Oak Group, and Calendula Ventures.

respond.io claims that more than 10,000 companies from 86 countries are now using its platform. The fresh funding will be used to continue its push into large enterprises and expand its presence in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

“We’ve built a platform that enables multi-national brands to deploy that highly innovative strategy at a scale of a million conversations per day across dozens of teams,” said respond.io CEO Gerardo Salandra.

The startup was launched in 2017 by Salandra, Hassan Ahmed, and Iaroslav Kudritskiy as an omnichannel messaging inbox.

SOUTHEAST ASIA DEAL MONITOR

DealStreetAsia has put together a table listing prominent venture capital transactions in Southeast Asia for the week starting September 19, 2022.

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