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Hello Demo,
You know the old Silicon Valley maxim, “Move fast and break things.” Yup, the one Facebook popularized. Everyone and their friends wanted to replicate Mark Zuckerberg’s magic, and so they experimented – a lot.
But if this week’s list is anything to go by, the latter half of that saying seems to be falling out of fashion.
Across the markets, money is going toward keeping things humming – from EVAS Intelligence scaling the chips needed to feed increasingly hungry AI workloads to Heidi giving stretched clinicians more capacity.
Things are still moving fast, but there’s a lot more focus on not breaking things along the way. It looks to me like the old startup gospel is losing some of its shine, as moving fast means increasingly little if everything falls apart once you get there.
I’d say it’s had a good run.
You can find all other important investment deals from the last few days in our weekly funding news wrap-up.
Let’s dive into the biggest deals that have recently taken place.
— Lilian
THE BIGGEST DEALS BY MARKET
🇮🇱 Cyera is a cybersecurity firm founded in Israel, which is located in West Asia. It has raised US$400 million in a series G extension round from Goldman Sachs Alternatives.
🇨🇳 Headquartered in China, EVAS Intelligence is an autonomous driving chip developer. It has bagged US$300 million in a strategic investment round from Bloomsky, CTC Capital, China Fortune-Tech Capital, Eastern Bell Capital, Hengxu Capital, Huatai Securities, Saiyi Investment, Shang Qi Capital, and Winreal Investment.
🇦🇺 Heidi is an Australia-based healthcare startup that provides AI-powered medical scribe services. It has secured US$240 million in debt financing from General Catalyst.
🇮🇳 Ultraviolette Automotive is a maker of electric two-wheelers from India. The firm has bagged US$85 million in series E money from TDK Ventures and Yali Capital.
🇸🇬 Dtcpay, a digital payments company headquartered in Singapore, has raised a total of US$25 million in series A funding. Participating investors included Genedant Capital, SBI Group, and Singaporean business leader Kwee Liong Tek.
Here’s the complete list of this week’s funding chart: 75 deals worth over US$1.4 billion.
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.
Here’s a preview of the startups:
🇹🇼 This Taiwan-based firm specializes in ultra-low-power edge AI computing for resource-constrained environments.
🇸🇬 This startup from Singapore builds AI-powered language learning games.
🇻🇳 Headquartered in Vietnam, this company aims to make stock and financial investing accessible to retail investors.
You can find the full list of fundraising startups in Asia over here.
BEHIND THE GLASSWALL
 Image credit: Timmy Loen Fundraising often involves reaching out to several 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.
- ✅︎ “Foxmont is very straightforward, and they don’t waste your time in the fundraising process. In moments they say no, they don’t ghost you, and they tell you where you can improve your business to get another opportunity down the road.” – Read more
- ❌ “Started very enthusiastically but then went dead silent. They had our deck and ended up investing in our competitor. That’s okay, but I prefer them to be upfront and honest. Harry and the team don’t seem to be an honest bunch.” – Read more
- ✅︎ “Jeremy and Murli from Tin Men Capital have been some of the most friendly founders and supportive investors that I have met. They are caring and stuck their neck out for us in the most critical and challenging times in recent years.” – Read more
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 Bank on it
Remember when fintech companies wanted to kill the banks? Now some of those firms want to become one – or buy one. Read this Semafor piece to find out why the disruptors are coming full circle.
2️⃣ Cheaper by the token
The AI race used to be about who had the smartest model. Economics may now be taking the front seat, making the conversation about who can make intelligence the cheapest. This Axios piece dives deeper into how falling model costs could drive the next wave of AI adoption.
3️⃣ Artificially intimate
Some of us treat AI like a diary, telling it things we might not even share with our closest friends. It may feel private, but MIT’s Sherry Turkle argues that calling that relationship “intimacy” may be a stretch. This Masters of Scale episode explores what we risk when companionship becomes artificial.
4️⃣ Show me the money
Companies have poured money into AI, but the returns haven’t always followed. And the problem may be where firms are aiming: Too many AI projects chase low-value use cases instead of outcomes customers will actually pay for. Learn more about this on Harvard Business Review.
5️⃣ School of thought
If AI is changing how we work, it should change how we learn, too. In this Andreessen Horowitz piece, the VC firm introduces a new academy built around projects, co-ops, and courses designed for the AI era.
Today’s edition was written by Lilian Tang. It’s edited by Mina Deocareza.
EVENTS HAPPENING
You can also check out our curated list of trending tech events and Tech in Asia's signature events.
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